Three things happened at once.

The monster in front of Kipo and Wirt struck, but Wirt didn't even notice until there was a sharp pain in his side and he knelt down, clutching his stomach.

"Wirt!" Kipo cried. "Are you-Hey!"

Wirt only felt Kipo's hands on his shoulder for the briefest moment before they were torn away. Wirt whirled around, taking in the sight of the creature, beheaded (when did that happen) before he finally found Kipo. She had stumbled a few feet away from him, with the boy that had previously been on the branch clutching her shirt and shaking her.

"Where are they? Why am I still here?" the boy was shouting. "Where's Beardy? What's going on?!"

Wirt watched as Kipo grabbed the boy's hand, tugging them off her shirt. "I don't-," Kipo was cut off as the boy started shaking her even harder. "I don't know what you're talking about! I don't even know who you are!"

Kipo quickly shoved the boy away from her, trying to get around him to Wirt. But the boy wasn't exactly going to let her do that, as he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

Apparently, Kipo was going to have to deal with this boy first. He was angry enough that this was going to turn to blows soon.

Kipo gave Wirt an apologetic look before turning back to the boy.

"What do you need to know?" Kipo asked quickly. "Wirt is hurt over there, can't you see?"

The boy barely spared a glance. And then another. He hesitated, and then finally seemed to calm down.

"F-Fine," the boy scowled at them. "Come with me. And hurry! We don't want to meet the friends of this thing."

Adam glared down at the beheaded creature before. Kipo gasped. She hadn't seen it yet. The boy rolled his eyes. "Come on!"

Kipo paused for a second, and then knelt down to Wirt. His eyes were squinting and his teeth were clenched. The hand that he was using to hold his side was as white as a sheet of paper. Kipo's side hurt just be looking at it.

"Wirt," Kipo called, and Wirt stopped squinting just enough to see her. Kipo offered her arm, and after staring at it for a minute, confused, Wirt took it, and sucked in a deep breath.

Kipo winced. "Sorry."

"I-I'm fine," Wirt huffed. "I'll probably be alright, it's... not that deep, I think..."

"Come on!" the boy shouted. Kipo and Wirt jumped. Wirt blinked at the boy as they started forward slowly. The boy looked impatient.

"I-Is that-?" Wirt started, but Kipo shook her head.

"I really doubt it," she said, but she raised her hand to her flower anyway. Even though the boy had a flower wrapped around his mouth as well (proving he at least knew about them) he didn't seem like he'd seen Wirt and Kipo before. "It looks like this is the first time he's seen us. But, hey, maybe he did. Who knows, maybe under all... that he's actually really nice and just doen't want us to know. I'm just going to assume that."

Wirt glanced at her. "You... really think so? He really looked like he hated you..."

"He might," Kipo hummed. "I'll ask him about it."

"You'll just ask?!" Wirt's surprised question was so loud, that even the boy leading them turned around. Kipo and Wirt gave him apologetic looks, and the boy turned around again, glaring at them.

"Of course I'll just ask," Kipo said to Wirt. "What else would I do?"

Wirt frowned, but all he did ways shrug.

The two of them followed the boy deeper throughout the forest. With each step, it grew darker, and the forest almost seemed to grow wilder. When Kipo looked around, she saw odd things, creatures she couldn't even describe. She wasn't even completely sure she hadn't imaged some of them.

It was a slow process, not only because of Wirt's wound, but Adam was incredibly cautious as they made their way through the trees, stopping every couple of seconds to close his eyes and listen. Kipo and Wirt tried to hold their breath when he did that, as to not disturb him, but twice Wirt had to stop, making his breathing even louder than it would have been otherwise. The boy seemed to grow more and more irritated each time. But he wasn't the only one getting angsty.

"Uh... I'm sorry, but how fair away are we?" Kipo called when the boy was finished with his rituals. She had been trying to be polite as possible, yet the boy turned to her with a seething glare, the worst one yet. Kipo blinked. Wirt was right, he really didn't seem to like her.

But then the boy's eyes turned to Wirt, and they seemed to soften.

"We're almost there," he muttered. He pointed a little bit ahead. "Just up there, in the tree."

Kipo's eyes lit up and Wirt breathed a sigh of relief. They hurried the rest of the way to the tree, as much as they could while not upsetting Wirt's injury.

Once they got to the tree, the boy led them around to the back, to a fairly well disguised hole in the bark. The boy waved in Kipo and Wirt first (other point in the 'he's actually really kind box!) but then he neglected to tell them that in the hole was a slide (he probably just forgot). When the boy followed them down the slide, he barely glanced at their dishevelled states, instead going over to the back of the room.

Bipo hadn't followed them in, however, and despite her worry, Kipo was a little glad for that. She had no idea how the boy would react when faced with them, and she wasn't to keen on finding out until she knew a little more about him. Bipo would probably be fine, they don't seem like the type to go randomly running off and getting hurt.

Ignoring the aches the surprise slide gave her, Kipo sat up, looking around the room. It was... Kipo blinked. This really wasn't what she expected.

"A bar?" she asked, surprised. The boy glanced at her, and then ignored her, going back to whatever he was ruffling around in.

The room they were in had a relatively low roof, and it was all one, circular room. There were tables scattered around the room, with a lot of clutter, like rocks, leaves and what looked like the armour from the other creature on it.

Down at the opposite side of the room was where the long table, where Kipo assumed drinks were usually served at, was, with rows and rows of cabinets behind it. Kipo wondered if they had anything in them. Well, if the tables were any indication, they were probably full to the brim.

The place was fairly well lit, if a little dim, and when Kipo looked up, she was surprised to see lanterns hanging from the ceiling. She'd have to be careful; they were low enough and she was tall enough to probably bonk her head into them when she stood up. For a second, Kipo wondered how smart keeping fire in a tree was, and then she shrugged. The boy looked like he's been here for a while, so it's probably fine.

"Here," the boy said, and Kipo realized that he'd gotten what he'd wanted and had walked over to Wirt, kneeling down. Kipo shuffled closer. He'd gotten... green bandages... no, they were some sort of grass. Well, they'd probably work just as well. Kipo trusted the boy.

"Raise your hand," the boy snapped, though he wasn't quite as irritable as he had been earlier. When Wirt raised his hand, Kipo sucked in an empathetic breath. There wasn't a lot of blood, but it still looked painful.

The boy frowned. "I can't help you if your shirts in the way."

Wirt went red. "You want me to take my shirt off?!"

"Don't flatter yourself," the boy sighed. "It's just a little wound. Just raise it a little bit."

Far from reassuring Wirt, he now seemed even more embarrassed. Nevertheless, he did as the boy asked, and the boy set to work carefully wrapping around Wirt's wound.

Kipo was getting a little sick of calling him 'the boy'.

"I'm Kipo," she said. "And that's Wirt."

The boy didn't respond, only tightening the bandages around Wirt. Wirt and Kipo shared a look.

"What's your name?" Kipo prompted him. Finally, the boy answered.

"Adam," he told them. "It's Adam."

Kipo resisted the urge to do a fist bump, but she couldn't hold back the excitement in her voice.

"That's great!" she cried. "And you've got friends here, too, right?"

Adam immediately went on the defense. "How do you know that?!"

"Er..." Kipo tried to real back her enthusiasm. "Well, you were shouting a lot of things to me before... and that kind of stood out."

Thankfully, Adam backed down. "Oh. Right." After tying the bandages together so they wouldn't loosen, Adam stood up. Kipo did, too, and Wirt tried as well, but the pain in his side made him sigh and sit back.

"Kai and Mira," Adam muttered. "They were in the Hollow with me as well, but I don't know if they're still here. And I suppose you don't know anything about them?"

Kipo and Wirt looked to each other. "The only person other than you that've I've seen is Wirt," Kipo replied. "But we can help you look for your friends! We're already looking for Wirt's brother."

"I don't need any help!" Adam snapped, but before he could say anything else...

"W-What's the Hollow?" Wirt asked. He flinched as Adam turned to him. "I-I mean, I thought we were in the Unknown! I've... never heard of the Hollow before."

Adam thought about that. "I've never heard of the Unknown before..." he said, slowly. "What is it? Don't tell me it's another video game..."

Now Kipo and Wirt were sharing a 'this guy is kind of odd...' look behind Adam.

"A video game?" Kipo repeated. She didn't think that was right; she'd never played a video game in her life. She could never find any.

"You mean we're... in a video game?" Wirt asked. Adam huffed.

"Of course we're in a video game, what else would make sense?" Adam huffed. He pointed to Kipo. "How exactly do you explain her?"

"What?" Wirt asked.

"What?!" Kipo asked. "What's wrong with me?!"

Adam blinked. "Nothing...? But you're not real, you're an npc."

"What's an npc?" Wirt and Kipo asked together. Adam ignored Kipo, and gave Wirt an odd look.

"Did you lose your memories?" he asked. "that happened in the Hollow, with me. And apparently it happened again, because I have no idea how I got here!"

That sounded familiar to Kipo. "You woke up here, all, you know, kind of beaten up?"

Adam frowned at her, then he shrugged. "Yeah, something like that," he motioned down to his outfit, a red cape over a white shirt with some shoulder and elbow amour. He did look pretty cool, Kipo thought, much more put together than in either Kipo or Wirt's ratty old clothing. She wondered how long he'd been here. "I had to change out of my clothes, and I found these clothes around the bar."

Kipo and Wirt exchanged another look. "That's like what happened to me and Wirt, when we first got here."

Adam's eyes snapped to her. "When you got here?"

"Yeah!" Kipo said. "I'm not from this world either! Me and Wirt had been thinking it was a parallel dimension, but I suppose we could be in a video game."

"This, uh.. doesn't really look like a video game, though," Wirt spoke up. "Er... at least it doesn't to me."

Kipo looked around. She wouldn't really know. "Why do you think I'm an npc?" she asked Adam.

Wirt nodded, and Adam gave him a strange look.

"Really?" he asked. "She has pink skin."

Kipo blinked, and rubbed her arms. Right, that wasn't really that common around most people, was it? Not many people pointed it out.

Wirt looked from Kipo to Adam and then back. "Well... I guess she does," he eventually mumbled.

"Are you saying you've never noticed before?" Adam asked.

"I-I did!" Wirt argued. Then he looked embarrassed. "But I, er, didn't know how to bring it up, and then I just... well, forgot."

Adam gave Wirt a confused look, and then shook his head. "Well, it doesn't matter! What human has pink skin? That's... that's just not a thing."

"I am human," Kipo argued, then she backtracked. "Well, mostly. I'm half, half mute. Oh, please don't tell me either of you have a problem with mutes..."

Both Wirt and Adam looked confused as they stared at her.

"I'm... okay with people who are mute," Wirt eventually mumbled. "Though I don't know sign language..."

"How can you be half mute?!" Adam demanded. "You talk just fine!"

"I-what?" Kipo stared at them both. They stared back. Everyone in the bar was equally confused. "I... can talk fine. I can also turn into a mega jaguar."

"What?!"

Kipo shrugged. "My parents changed my DNA before I was born and made me half mute, so I have mega jaguar genes in me. But I haven't been in the best place recently, so I've made sure not to transform, just in case."

Adam and Wirt seemed even more confused than before.

"Mega... jaguar?" Wirt repeated. It looked like he was having difficulty wrapping his head around Kipo's explanation.

Adam shook his head. "I'm going to go out on a limb here," he said. "And I'm going to assume that to you, the word 'mute' doesn't mean someone who can't talk."

"What?" Kipo blinked, and then realization dawned on her. "No! I meant, like... the mutated animals, like the timbercats and the humming bombers."

There was another very long, very awkward silence. Wirt broke it by coughing into his head.

"I-uh, guess we didn't realize how different the worlds we came from were," Wirt muttered. "Back where I'm from, we didn't have any... animals like that."

Kipo blinked. "Huh. What animals did you have?"

"Normal animals," Adam spoke up. "Like normal cats, and, uh, humming birds... animals like that."

Kipo's eyes widened, but before she could say anything, there was a loud crash from the bottom of the slide. The three occupants of the bar looked over, and their expressions of confusion turned to ones of surprise when they saw who it was.

Kipo cried out cheerfully, Wirt froze up, his eyes wide, and Adam leapt back with a yell.

Bipo had joined the party again, looking just asbored and grace as ever, despite the chaos around them.