Kipo stared at the man, feeling a horror that surprised her.

"They'll... No!" Kipo stood up suddenly, slamming her hands on the desk. "Why do they have to?! I can do it!"

"I just explained to you why!" the man snapped back. "Weren't you listening?!"

"I... I was..." Suddenly exhausted, Kipo fell back into her chair, burying her face in her hands. "I don't want anyone else to die... there has to be another way..."

"You can help them from here," the man told her irritably. "Let me explain, already."

Kipo sighed, and raised her face, just a little bit.

"Finally," the man huffed. From his desk, he produced a piece of paper, and handed it over to Kipo, who stared at it. "Address this to your friends, and add to it while I'm talking, because, first of all, you can't leave this... cabin, and second of all, it's better if you don't miss anything."

Kipo set the piece of paper in front of her, still confused. "So I'm talking notes?"

"...Sure, fine," the man said, passing Kipo a pen, too. "Just try and keep up."

"I'm good at taking notes," Kipo assured him, writing 'Dear everyone in the Community Hall' at the top of the page. She still didn't know what was happening... but she was relieved, anyway. This guy, whoever he was, he apparently knew what he was doing. And Kipo could help, and make sure everything was alright. She clicked her pen, ready. "Anyway. Start."

The man gave her a tired look, and then closed his eyes, sighing. "Alright, so this is how it'll go..."

Supper had been all but abandoned. With nowhere else to go, everyone in the Community Hall had gathered on the table, away from the water. But they couldn't stay like that for long, and every on of them knew it. The table had started rising on the water, floating like a boat, though far less stable. It took a lot of scrambling around for them to get evenly situated, though, once, they had almost lost Kai to the water, and THAT debacle nearly forced all of them into the water.

However, after they were all balanced on the table, their situation wasn't much better. Soon, their heads were scraping the top of the ceiling.

"This is bad..." Mabel said, as if they all couldn't tell. "What now?"

"Well, I would say we could look for an exit-," Tulip started.

"Oh! Like the window in the kitchen!" Anne suddenly remembered. "We can swim out through there!"

Tulip stared at her. "...Like I had been saying, we COULD look for an exit, but based on how we're already up here and the water hasn't been draining OUT from the exit yet... there's not a one. Or an open one, at least."

"Oh."

Atop of Luz, Six was muttering to herself, staring at the water. "This can't be how we die. It can't be. This is far too disappointing; it just can't be how we- THERE!"

Luz jumped, startled by the sudden shout right in her ear, and turned around. Then, her eyes widened, surprised.

"Oh! Another umbrella with a letter!" she cheered, and everyone else turned around, too, and they gaped at the new thing.

"Grab it!" Mira cried, when she was done. "Hurry! Before it gets away!"

Kris leapt forward, shaking the table violently, and despite the fact that they had all been so sure that they were stabilized, the table dipped, and dumped all of them into the water.

"Ugh, Kris!" Mira complained, when her head broke through the water again. Her nose burned from when the water went up it. "You didn't have to do THAT!"

A chorus of other, but similar complaints rose up, but Kris barely seemed to notice as they reached the umbrella, opening up the letter and reading it.

"Kris, you jerk!" Mira cried, swimming over. It wasn't graceful, and it was far slower than she probably could have been if she's actually been trying (or if she had powers. Not for the first time, Mira was missing been superpowered), but eventually, she managed to grab a hold of the umbrella and pulled herself closer.

"Give me that," Mira snapped, tearing the letter away from Kris' hands. "I'll read it. Everyone, over here!"

It took a while, but when everyone had gathered on the umbrella (somehow, it fit all of them, maybe it was getting bigger as they held onto it, but Mira couldn't really tell), Mira cleared her throat, accidently glancing at the rapidly lowering ceiling, before shaking her head. She focused on the letter in her hand.

"Dear Everyone in the Community Hall," Mira read. "It's Kipo writing this, by the way. I found someone to help us, but it's going to take all of us to do this, apparently. I'm sorry for the trouble, but this is the only way to stop the rain.

"Anyway.

"We have a plan. Somehow, we've made some sort of god angry, and now we need to make a shrine to the god so it stops. According to this guy, it's like a bouquet, of flowers, but we don't have any of the supplies. They're far away, and in order to make the bouquet in time so the god doesn't kill us, you'll need to split up into four groups. Here are the locations:

"Under the magical sea. (East)

"A place in the forest. (West)

"Behind the town under the volcano. (North)

"And in the underground caverns. (South)

"I wish you all didn't have to do this, but we have no choice. Don't worry, though, I can help you in the cabin. I'm not sure how, yet, he explained it in a confusing way, but I'll make sure to keep you safe. Good luck.

"Sincerely, Kipo.

"P.S, Keep a hold of the umbrella. It'll take you out of the storm when you finish reading this letter... what?"

Mira trailed off, and before she could puzzle out what that meant, the umbrella suddenly jerked forward, moving across the water quickly. Mira yelped, but the umbrella moved way too fast for her to comprehend, and the umbrella slipped out of her fingers.

"Hey!" Mira cried, nearly spinning away, but Kris reached back and grabbed a hold of her wrist just in time. Mira blinked at them as the umbrella cut through the water. "Oh, thanks."

The rest of them learned from Mira's mistake, and tightened their grip on the umbrella, even as it ducked under the water, under a doorway, and into a familiar room. There was food floating all over the place, and Mira winced as something awful slid across her leg. She did like the food... but maybe not when it was swirling all around her. Mira made sure to keep her mouth closed.

However, she needn't have worried, because they didn't stay in the kitchen for long. Soon, before any of them could figure out what was happening, the umbrella was moving towards the window... and then smashing through it like it was paper.

"Woah!" Mira cried, unable to help herself. Apparently, the umbrella didn't need water to move, as now it was sailing through the air, flying, almost. It would be magical, if not for the awful storm happening around them. Mira would love to look around, put since the rain seemed intent on getting in her eyes, she stayed looking down, shielding herself from the rain. After all, the umbrella certainly wasn't helping with that.

Despite what Mira would have thought, though, they didn't stay like that for long. After maybe a couple minutes at most, the rain lessened, and completely stopped. Mira looked up, and a much gentler wind hit her face as the umbrella took them over a field of green, swaying gently. A moonless sky peered down at them, and after a second, the umbrella slowed down, declining towards a crossroads between two dirt roads. Kris set Mira down first, before the umbrella set the rest of them down, too. After that, the umbrella itself fell down onto the side of the road, motionless. The group stared at it, and even when Mabel poked at it, it didn't move. Whatever magic was helping it before seemed to be gone now.

Mira glanced back at the way the came. Curiously, none of the roads in the crossroads went to it, and overheard, there was dark and terrible clouds covering what looked like a pinprick in the distance.

Strangely, beside them was a roadside sign, with arrows pointed down each of the different roads, labelled north, south, west or east. Convenient. Perhaps too convenient.

"Huh," Anne said. "I guess that worked."

"I suppose so..." Tulip hummed, still staring at the umbrella. She shook her head. "Anyway, Kipo's letter sounded urgent. We should probably get going now."

"Right," Mira agreed. Somehow, she still had the letter in her other hand, and she peered at it. It was dry, she realized with a bit of surprised, in fact, they all were dry. The wind probably helped with that... of the magic. Mira shook her head. "Well, there's four locations, so we should probably split up into groups of two, with one group of three."

"Me and Kris can be a team," Mabel said, and Mira blinked. She honestly wouldn't have thought that those would be friends. Though Kris didn't seem mad about it, so Mira shrugged.

"You, Kai and I can be another team," Tulip suggested. "We can be the group of three."

"Oka-," Mira started, but Anne stepped forward.

"Wait, you're the group of three?" she asked, tilting her head. Mira frowned, confused, before she saw Anne glancing at both Fei Fei and Luz uncertainly. Right, Anne and Fei Fei had gotten quite close over the time they knew each other, and Anne somehow seemed to know Luz from before. Mira winced, a little guilty, but eventually, Luz spoke up.

"I can go with Coraline," Luz offered eventually, and Mira noticed Six, still asleep on her shoulder. Mira couldn't even be made at the creature for that, actually, it was more impressive than anything else.

Coraline started sighing, before pausing, looking around, and, after weighing her options, seemed almost happy that she was going with Luz. She almost seemed relieved. She shrugged, and Mira took that as agreement.

"Okay!" Mira said, wincing at how upbeat she sounded for such an awkward situation. She glanced at Anne, and tried again. "Er, if that's alright?"

Anne rubbed at the back of her head awkwardly. "Ah, no, it's fine. Uh, we can hang out when all this is over, Luz. Anyway, uh, me and you are a team, Fei Fei!"

Fei Fei gave her a thumbs up and a smile, though she was glancing at Luz, too.

No one spoke for a while, but Mira couldn't handle the awkwardness for long, so she clapped her hands.

"Uh, okay!" she said. "Coraline and Luz will go to the sea-."

"Perfect!" Luz pumped her fist in the air. "I can put my pirate skills to GOOD USE!"

Mira decided to unpack that another time. "Fei Fei and Anne can go to the forest."

"That... sounds boring," Fei Fei sighed, disappointed.

"You heard the part about the battlefield, right...?" Anne asked her.

"Kris and Mabel can go into the town, and my group can go underground," Mira finished quickly, so there would be no more interruptions. "Everyone good with that?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Anne agreed, and the others nodded. "We should probably hurry, though. Kipo said that we had to hurry, right? Plus, now we got a god chasing us, I guess."

"Yeah..." Mira said, but still none of them moved for a long time. For the first time, the fact of what they were really doing sunk into them, and it held them down, no one really willing to step forward first into this strange new situation they were forced in.

Well, most of them, anyway. After they realized no one else was going to move first, Kris stepped forward, moving down their assigned path.

That finally seemed to snap everyone else out of whatever funk they were in. Mabel moved next, running after Kris.

"Hey, Kris, wait!" she called, reaching out after them. As Mabel ran, she turned around to wave at the rest of the group. "See you all later!"

The rest of them hesitantly waved back, and Coraline sighed, also stepping forward.

"Come on, Luz," she muttered, and Luz glanced at her.

"Oh, right," she realized. Luz followed after her quickly, grinning and waving back at the rest of the group. "The sooner we finish the sooner we can hang out, right? Bye till then!"

The two groups went their separate ways, slowly growing smaller and smaller in the distance. Now, only have of them were left, but Mira knew it wouldn't stay that way for long. Tulip, Kai and Fei Fei were already moving, and so would Anne and Mira, but Mira knew she needed to do something first.

"Hey, Anne..." Mira stated, and Anne glanced back at her. "Uh, sorry you didn't get to go with Luz. I know you wanted to."

"Huh? Oh, that's fine," Anne replied. She looked like she had already shrugged it off. "Like she said, we can all hang out later, right? I mean, I HOPE so. We better get a break after all this."

"Right..." Mira said, but something was still bothering her in the back of her mind. "Uh, did you know Luz before? You two seem to know each other."

"We met once," Anne replied easily. "When I was stuck in Amphibia and she was in The Boiling Isle, she made a portal, and we met through there."

"A... a portal?" Mira asked, taken aback.

"Yeah!" Anne nodded, looking wistful. "We became friends, but we didn't get a lot of time together. We promised to meet up after... but I didn't realize the place we would meet up would be here. I... I thought she could have gone home."

"...Right," Mira said. She felt a sharp pain in her heart, like she did whenever home was mentioned. But she knew that thought was a long depressing spiral, so she shook herself out of it quickly. "I get it."

"Yeah..." Anne trailed off. She seemed to be getting lost in her thoughts, too, before she turned to Fei Fei. "You seriously don't have to worry about it, Mira. We'll all hang out later, right?"

Mira hummed, and then nodded. "Right. You're right. Goodbye for now?"

Anne grinned at her. "Yep! See you later, Mira!"