Kipo slowly raised a hand up, and shakily felt along the cold rock. It was slightly bumpy and uneven, but more importantly, it wasn't a portal.

"Oh no." Kipo lowered her hand, raising it to her mouth instead. Distantly, as if they were a million miles away, she noticed that the other two had gotten up, but she was too wrapped up in her thoughts to really care. Just what had she done...?

"Kipo?" Kipo startled at the hand on her shoulder, and she turned around to find Luz looking at her sympathetically.

"Luz..." Kipo shook out her head, trying to form a coherent thought. "I'm sorry... I shouldn't have... I just..."

"Hey, hey, it's alright!" Luz said, reassuring in her tone but not at all gently. She pointed through the tunnel, at the castle. "You said that there's a person here, right? Well, then it's a GOOD thing we came here. I wasn't even going to check."

Kipo blinked. That was true but... "But what about the portal? We shouldn't have..."

"No, I shouldn't have closed it before checking," Luz sighed. "But that just means we're even, right? I shouldn't have closed it, and you shouldn't have gotten trapped! Though I have to admit... my wrong is probably worse than your wrong. Better to be here with that person then that person trapped here all alone. Also..."

As Luz rambled on, Kipo thought about what she was saying. She was... right, of course. Obviously, she was. It was better to be in here, where they would be with that girl, than never seeing her at all. Kipo was being a little ridiculous. It was weird... like she couldn't trust her own thoughts anymore.

She quickly stopped that train of thought. No, that was a worry for another time. For now...

"...Actually, speaking of which, where even are we?" Luz asked, voicing Kipo's inner questions. As if on cue, the three of them looked around at their surroundings: a big black tunnel that probably wouldn't fit Kipo's mega jaguar if she'd happen to transform, though it still looked pretty tall. Kipo couldn't say for sure though, as it was almost too dark to see, even with her night vision.

Wait... no... that wasn't right. Kipo squinted; it wasn't her vision that was the problem, it was just at this tunnel was completely painted black. It was confusing her.

Beside her, Luz was frowning to herself. She was also squinting, Kipo noticed. "Hm... I didn't even think to ask Six where the portal led... and I'm really getting no context clues from here, except for that moon..."

"What's so important about the moon?" Kipo asked, and Luz glanced at her.

"You hadn't noticed? This world, at least where we were, it didn't have a moon."

Kipo was taken aback. "What?!"

"When I was traveling, I was always sleeping in some kind of tent, but I was also under the stars," Luz explained. "I didn't really chart all my progress, but I'm certain I've been here for months. But no matter how long I was here, the moon just never showed up in the sky."

"Really?" Kipo tilted her head. Now that she thought about it, she'd never seen it either... But the scientist in her still couldn't believe this. She turned to Kris. "Um, Kris, have you...?"

Kris shook their head, and Kipo froze.

That... no, that just didn't... how???

"That doesn't make any sense," Kipo said aloud, and she saw Luz shrug.

"Yeah, it is really weird," Luz said. "When I asked, Six just said that it's been missing for a while... but no longer! We've found it!"

Luz was excitedly motioning through the tunnel again.

"We found the moon!" she cheered. "We're so cool!"

'I didn't even notice the moon was missing and then I helped find it...' Kipo thought. 'Well, if that isn't a bright side, I don't know what is.'

Chuckling quietly to herself, Kipo turned to Luz with a grateful smile, momentarily forgetting that she probably couldn't see it in the dark.

"Thanks, Luz... that... that really helped," Kipo told her. She saw Luz beam in the dark, and give her a thumbs up. It seemed Luz had also forgotten they were all in the dark.

"No problem! It's my greatest strength," Luz replied cheerfully. "Hey... I can't see anything in here, maybe we should try moving out of the tunnel."

Kipo nodded in agreement. "You're right. We need to find that blue haired girl, so we should probably go to the castle first."

"And we've got a plan!" Luz cheered, already moving. "Let's go, let's go!"

Kipo couldn't help but to laugh. But nevertheless, she followed along, right at Luz's heels. When she looked back, she was relieved to find Kris was following them. Should she try and include Kris in more of their conversations...? It didn't really seem like they had a lot to say anyway, but maybe she should just try. It felt mean to just completely ignore them.

"Hey, Kris..." Kipo struggled with what to say for a second. "What do you think... of all this...?"

Kris seemed surprised for a moment (maybe. They had a really good poker face) but they seemed to get over it quickly. They lifted up their hand, pointing at something. When Kipo followed their finger, she was surprised to see writing scrawled on the wall at the end of the tunnel, lit up by the light of the moon outside.

"Oh," Kipo said, taken aback. "Wow. Good eye, Kris."

Well, either that, or Kris had been bored of their conversation and had let their gaze wonder... Kipo had a strong inkling that it was the latter.

At this point, Luz had noticed the writing as well, so when they reached it, all three of them paused in front of it. The writing was in a clear, blocky font, and there was a lot of it.

"...Once upon a time, there was a beautiful and peaceful castle in the middle of a large, prosperous town," Kipo eventually started reading the words, it'd probably be better on her eyes than Kris or Luz's. "In this town, all sorts of people and creatures lived in harmony, with fairies, dragons, unicorns and humans. Everything was fair, and even little boy and girl was a prince or princess. But one day, an evil force took the castle by force, and though the knights fought valiantly, they were no match for Ekubelle, an evil, greedy witch from far away, who locked the royal family in the castle, and filled the town around it with her evil guards, and nefarious tarps and defenses. Without the royal family to guide them, the town around the castle fell into ruin, and eventually... all the land fell into despair. Now, everyone waits for a new hero to arrive, the Hero of the New Age, to take back their homes, and to save the royal family."

Finally done, Kipo stepped back, staring at the mountain of text before her. Was that supposed to be some kind of explanations? If the monsters here were protecting the witch, why did they leave at night? Why were they at that town? She was more confused than when she started.

And she wasn't alone, apparently. Behind her, Luz tilted her head.

"Well, we're going into a town... maybe" she said, sounding puzzled. "This is some suspiciously convenient information; I don't trust it. I bet some wizard is trying to lead us into a trap."

Kipo frowned, she didn't know how to respond to that. "A... wizard?"

"Yeah, I was tricked before, but I'm not falling for it again!" Luz explained, her voice raising in volume as she got to the end of her sentence. "Although technically that was in the Boiling Isles... but I'm not letting my guard down! You two as well, keep your eyes open!

"..." Kipo really, really wanted to unpack that, but she didn't really think they had the time. "Okay."

Luz's ferocious face turned into a cheerful one. "Good! We could probably defeat them if we got caught, but it'd probably be annoying."

"...Right." Before Kipo could think of what else to say, she noticed Kris kneeling down, studying something she hadn't seen before.

"More words?" Kipo asked, surprised, and a little embarrassed that she missed it. She knelt down beside Kris. This time, there were only six, and they had been written in something dark... paint, probably.

They blended into the dark walls, and Kipo had to really squint to make them out. Kris really DID have a good eye.

"Two keys," she read. "To enter the castle."

Well... that was a lot more helpful. Kipo glanced back at her friends, and found them looking out at the castle. Following their lead, Kipo looked over as well. Two keys... there must be two keys hiding in the town around it.

Eventually, Luz turned back to the two of them, smiling. "Well, that's probably the easy part, right? We just need to find the keys."

"Well, we also have to look out for traps and enemies," Kipo pointed out.

"Right, easy!" Luz said confidently, and Kipo winced. Right, Luz hadn't seen those monsters...

"Come on," Luz told them, starting towards the entrance. They were only a few feet away now. "We should probably go quickly, to find that girl."

Kipo hummed an agreement, but she couldn't help but think that Luz was being awfully pushy about this... it seems both her and Kris were bored of this place. Kipo sighed, and forced herself forward. She watched Luz grin.

"Let's go," she said, giving Luz a verbal confirmation this time, and the three of them started forward. For a while, they walked in silence. Well, not a while, more like twenty seconds.

"Oh, yeah, and Kipo, by the way..." Luz started, breaking the silence. "Are you a catgirl?"

Kipo had to think about that for a second. "A what?"

"A catgirl," Luz repeated. "Cause of the eyes... and the skin... and the everything."

Well, Kipo had never been described like that before, but... "Um... something like that, I think."

Luz looked delighted. "Cool. So you have cool anime powers?"

Kipo had a sudden a vivid flashback to when Anne asked the exact. Same. Thing. And then had to explain it. But even though she (kind of) understood some of it now, she answered that exact same thing.

"Uh, I dunno."

"Oh."

They didn't say anything for a while after that. Even Luz, surprisingly, had run out of things to talk about, and even if she hadn't, the sudden blanket of eeriness that had fell over them kept her quiet all the same.

The moonlight slid over the three of them as they walked forward, their footsteps echoing along the cement walls of the tunnel as it fell away, slowly revealing the strange land they had ended up in. It was not a town, as they had been expecting, but rather... some sort of junkyard, spread out before them like a field. As Kipo's eyes slid over it, she shuddered. Mechanical parts... just like those monsters... Was this...?

The rhythmic sounds of footsteps suddenly fell away, and Kipo realized that they all had stopped, staring out at the wreckage. They surveyed it in silence, and when she studied it closely, Kipo could pick out individual body parts. There, a mechanical leg. There, the right arm of a mannequin. And over there... a robot eye.

Kipo shuddered. There were monsters in every shadow and cervice, not moving, but simply watching-

A sharp tug drew Kipo's attention away from the scrapyard and over to Luz, who pointed to a place beyond the field, a... a building, cast in shadow.

Kipo nodded, showing she understood, and Kris stepped forward, showing they did, too. Their sword was drawn, Kipo noticed.

Slowly, they picked their way through the field, following the path laid out from them. There was a tight feeling in Kipo's throat, one that grew tighter and tighter, and her breathing became more and more laboured. Something was going to jump out of them, something was going to attack-

Suddenly, something thrust out at her through the darkness. All Kipo got was a quick flash of legs and a glowing red eye before she screamed, swatting it away. It bounced along the ground, but its body moved quickly, convoluting and twisting until it was upright again, staring back at the three of them. Or was it staring? There was a strange mix of sentience and... something else in its eye and it watched them.

Kipo stared back at it, too afraid to move, but her attention was soon drawn away as something wet dripped down her palm. When Kipo raised it, her breath caught at the sight of the wide cut that ran from one side to the other, dripping red.

"Oh no..." Luz gasped, and as if on cue, the field around them started morphing, withering and convoluting as more figures began to rise. Kipo saw more humanoid things, like the dog, but far too many of them were too strange to even describe. A loud symphony of screeching filled the air around them, like screaming.

Kipo backed away, suddenly overwhelmed, but Luz quickly grabbed her hand, yelling something that Kipo couldn't hear over the sounds, and urged her forward, yanking Kipo's arm as Luz forced her to follow. Kipo could do nothing but that, stumbling along. Out of the corner of her eye, Kipo watched as Kris followed, too, not bothering to fight with the monsters. They were racing the monsters, hurtling for the mysterious building.

Luz continued to pull Kipo along, glancing around them at the arms stretching out towards them. The building was still so far away, would they make it? Kipo could feel could fingers starting to brush against her skin. They were completely surrounded... well, someone clearly needed to get them off their back...

"Run fast," Kipo said weakly. Luz probably didn't even hear her, but Kipo couldn't dwell on that. Quickly twisting her hand out of Luz's grasp, Kipo through herself backwards a few paces, and then transformed.

Her next few actions were a blur, and all Kipo was really aware of was Kris and Luz in one of her paws as she sped over to the building. The door, thankfully (or not) was open, so Kipo jumped up, transforming once again in midair... and her and her companions sailed through the door, landing painfully on the other side.

Behind them, the door clicked shut, and Kipo only got a quick glance of a familiar face before everything went dark.