Kipo ducked behind the desk, though she wasn't certain if Gale was even looking of not. Better safe than sorry.

She didn't waste any time. Kipo quickly took the pocket knife out and then squinted at the other drawers, looking for somewhere to use it. Unfortunately, though the doors were locked there were no locks that Kipo could try and force open.

Well, Kipo thought, no visible locks at least. Kipo used the knife to feel around the cracks of the drawer on the left-hand side. Maybe she could use it as a lever, to force it open... or maybe she could cut it open, it did look like a woodcutting knife, so maybe...

Before Kipo could ponder it any further, something clicked, and the drawer jumped open. Kipo winced as a Gale's eyes turned to look at her.

"What are you doing back there?" he called. "What's taking so long?"

"I'm NOT!" Kipo called back. "You're just impatient."

Kipo paused, and then just because she was polite, she also called: "I'll be back soon!"

Gale grumbled, but didn't say anything else. With the new threat hanging over her head, Kipo worked faster, pulling open the drawer and peeking inside. What she saw made her eyes widen.

There was... a lot in there.

At random, Kipo picked up a block of wood.

As if on cue, Gale turned around. "I don't remember putting that back there."

Kipo froze. "Well... you did. I can keep it, right?"

Gale rolled his eyes. "Fine, go ahead. Just don't forget the paper, too."

"Okay."

With one last sorrowful glance at the drawer (maybe she should have grabbed something else?), Kipo silently closed it, and moved over to the correct drawer. As promised, a stack of paper was inside, and a stack on envelops. Kipo grabbed them, and then frowned.

"There's only four envelops," she noted, and Gale sighed.

"You'd be saying that if there were six envelopes, or twelve, or whatever," Gale grumbled. "Just stop complaining and get over here."

Kipo glared at him. "I'm not complaining. This is life or death for my friends."

Gale gave Kipo an annoyed look as she sat down. "Better use them wisely, then. You're smart, aren't you?"

Now it was Kipo's turn to roll her eyes.

"Now, take out a piece of paper," Gale explained, and out of the darkness, he tossed her a pen. Kipo caught it, and then looked at it in surprise. "It's important to be... thorough, this time."

Kipo opened her mouth to say that it was mostly Gale's fault, and then closed it. It's not like she actually tried to press him, so she supposed that she was kind of at fault, too.

"Right," Kipo said as she started by writing a greeting to Fei Fei and Anne at the top. She put her pen on her paper, but as she tried to describe the flower, her mind went blank. The screen didn't really give her a good look at it, after all. "What does it look like again? The flower."

"Red," Gale answered immediately, but then he seemed to pause, thinking. "Completely red, even the leaves and the stem. The stem is long and thin, and the petals open out of a red middle, and they're long and thin, so you can see the veins in them. There are a lot of petals around the stem, all crowded around."

"Huh," Kipo said as she wrote the information down. Gale was speaking rather quickly, so all she managed was short notes, but as he finished, she also tried to sketch it out as what Gale was describing, and what she saw on the screen.

"Like this?" she asked when she was done, turning the paper around to Gale. He peered at it.

"No..." Gale said, tilting his head. "The petal's can't hold themselves up. They droop a little bit, towards the ground."

"Ah." Kipo turned the paper back around, and fixed the petals. But as she worked, she found herself slowing down, staring at the flower and frowning. "Hang on, I've seen this before. In the other world in the mirror maze."

Gale glanced at her, but it took a couple minutes before he answered. There was a look in his eyes that Kipo couldn't decipher.

"They're not uncommon."

"But I've only ever seen one."

"They're not common, either," Gale replied shortly, before peering over to glance at her work. "Yes, that's about right."

"Okay..." Kipo said, still wondering about the flower she'd seen before, but she quickly shook out her head. There were more important things she should be worrying about. "Where would the bugs hide the flowers?"

"They aren't hidden, exactly," Gale said. "They're in all sorts of places."

Kipo frowned. "Again, I didn't see any."

"You probably did, you just didn't notice them," Gale said tiredly, before he seemed to hesitate. "Hm... I suppose there's one thing I can tell you."

What'd that mean? Kipo looked over to Gale expectantly.

"They're... usually found where dead bodies are," Gale told her. Kipo's brows furrowed in thought.

"Like fungi?"

"No- Well, sure, something like that," Gale replied and Kipo wrote it down. But as she continued writing, Gale gave her an odd look. "What are you doing? What else do you need to tell them."

"Since you didn't explain anything last time, I didn't get to warn Luz and Coraline," Kipo answered. "I don't want to catch anyone unaware again, so I'm going to tell them how this works in advance. Plus, they don't know what they're walking into. I should probably tell the other groups about the flowers as well..."

"You only have four envelopes," Gale told her. "Remember to use them wisely. It all worked out last time, so you don't want to waste an envelope if it will again. Eventually, your enemy WILL catch on to what you're doing."

"But these are all happening simultaneously," Kipo pointed out. Still, she didn't reach for another page. "How would he catch on?"

"He sees all and is all," Gale answered. "Of course he'll catch on."

"...Fine," Kipo agreed. She blew on the wet ink before neatly folding it, tucking it into the envelope. "Now what?"

"You've already got their names on it, so just throw it out the mail slot in the door."

Kipo was way past questioning anything at this point, so she just did as Gale asked.

"If we fail this..." Anne trailed off as she realized she had no clue what would happen. Yeah, their town would be destroyed, and that'd suck, but they wouldn't be hurt if they weren't in the town. "Well, something bad would probably happen."

"We'll have to make a decision soon," Fei Fei said firmly. "We can't just stand around talking about this forever."

"Right, right," Anne agreed, but after she stopped talking, the silence grew. The two looked awkwardly at each other. No one offered up a decision, and it almost turned into a staring contest before something fell from the sky, startling both of them.

"Oh, hey," Anne said, somewhat relieved. She scooped up the thing, a little white letter, she realized, and opened it up. "It's from Kipo!"

"Yes... just like the first one," Fei Fei pointed out, and Anne grimaced. Yeah, actually, that was pretty obvious, but Anne had forgotten about the first letter. Oops.

"Right..." Anne replied awkwardly. She looked up, but she couldn't even see the sky from the treetops. "Where'd it even come from?"

Fei Fei looked up, too. "I don't know. Bird, maybe?"

"Huh," Anne said, even though Fei Fei didn't seem like she believed her guess either. "That, or Kipo's a god now."

"It could be anything," Fei Fei sighed. "Read it, please."

"Right," Anne realized. She held up the letter and read it out loud to Fei Fei, who listened closely until the end.

"Hmm," she said, deep in thought.

"No easy answer, huh?" Anne sighed.

"Hmm."

"Say, why would a god want a bunch a dead people flowers anyway?" Anne continued.

"Hmm."

Anne opened her mouth, ready to ask more questions, before closing it, looking over to Fei Fei. Right now, Anne's friend looked less 'deep in thought' and more 'waiting for someone else to ask her what she's thinking'. "What's up, Fei Fei?"

Fei Fei took a couple seconds to get her thoughts in order. "We'll have to answer those when we're all together again. For now, we'll have to find these... 'grave flowers'. It doesn't sound like it'll be hard, at least not in this place."

"Oh, yeah..." Anne said, and with that, the reality of their situation seemed to catch up to them. As they looked around, the trees seemed to press into them. It was just as suffocating as if they were at the bottom of the ocean, and it was difficult to see through the intense pink fog. As the wind moved through the trees, and the branches shook, it seemed to cast terrifying creatures around them, on the trees. Here, both Anne and Fei Fei felt very small.

Eventually, Fei Fei clenched her hand into a fist, and she took a determined step forward. "Let's go."

Anne agreed, more easily than either of them were expecting, and the two started into the woods. In the letter, Kipo had described things like a market place, or a civilization between the bugs. Even a school! She had said that it was dangerous, too, but Fei Fei and Anne were still stuck on the first part. For the life of her, Fei Fei couldn't imagine what a 'bug school' was, even though Kipo had described it in vivid detail. Anne, however, was wondering is this adventure would be anything like the ones in Amphibia.

As the two walked, lost in their own thoughts, they wondered how long it would be until they found something. Unknown to them, it wouldn't be them who found something, but something that found them.

Anne heard it first. But she only managed to turn around and form the word 'what' before she felt a pressure in her chest, and she was hurled off her feet. It was only after she landed that she'd even realized that she'd been hit.

"...OW!" she cried, even though it was far after the fact.

"Anne!" Fei Fei cried. Anne heard the tell-tale thwick of her arrows being shot.

"'M fine! I'm fine!" Anne wheezed. Fei Fei winced, she certainly didn't sound fine, but Fei Fei had to focus. Her brow knit together as she tried to focus. Her target was large, but also very quick, so quick that Fei Fei couldn't even see it, it was only a green blur that was flying and buzzing around. It was maneuvering around quickly, and even when Fei Fei was certain that she had a clear shot off, she somehow missed.

All Fei Fei was doing right now was wasting arrows, but if she stopped, she was certain that the creature would descend for the kill.

"Hah!" Anne cried, startling Fei Fei. In one second, Anne was behind her and down, and in the next, she was in the air above the creature, leaping down from a branch, and her sword above her head. The creature paused, only for a split second, and a couple thoughts flashed through her mind: A dragonfly? A person? Both? Before the dragonfly moved, and Anne completely missed, and when Fei Fei unleashed a surprise bullet, it dodged that, too.

"Wow," Anne said, getting up from the floor. Pain shot through her body, but she ignored that. "This thing... whatever it is... it's pretty good, huh?"

"It'll find us before us it," Fei Fei grumbled, annoyance leaking into her tone. She aimed with her wristbow again, but without much hope. "Do you-?"

"Nah, that was the only idea I had," Anne admitted.

"Then we should-?"

"Yeah. Let's go!"

Anne and Fei Fei have met many monsters in this world, because before they set out to look for people in their same situation to bring back to the town, they were monster hunters. They've met many strong, horrible things, some of which (most of which), they found unbeatable. The first thing they ever learned was one thing:

How to run away, and how to run away well.

First rule was to always have cover, and to never run in a straight line. Luckily, the forest provided plenty of cover as Fei Fei and Anne ducked under exposed roots and leftover decaying branches. Unfortunately, unlike the big lurching monsters that chased them before, the one behind them zipped through the trees as easily as they did.

In fact, probably better.

Fei Fei huffed, and the next time she turned around was aiming up. She hit the branch dead center, right where it connected to the tree, and let out a cheer when it fell. But the monster evaded that just as easily as everything else.

Fei Fei swore under her breath and Anne glanced back.

"What are you doing, just run!" Anne cried at her.

"I know!" Fei Fei cried back, but when she turned back around her eyes lit up. "Anne, cliff!"

"Perfect!"

They'd done this before (without success, but whatever), so they knew exactly what to do. Anne leapt off the cliff first, taking out her sword and digging it into the dirt wall. The sword slid down a couple inches, and Anne's eyes widened, but thankfully it held.

Fei Fei was next, and without wasting a second, Anne reached out to grab her outheld hand. Again, the sword slid down another couple inches.

Fei Fei raised her wristbow, taking aim. The monster didn't know what they'd down, and how could it? But it wouldn't take long for it to figure it out. Fei Fei had to get it, and as soon as she saw the monster, she shot.

It hit the monster straight through the chest, and finally, the thing stopped moving. Fei Fei just barely got a glimpse of a horrible face, a human's, but completely off, like there was a human face but a different creatures skull underneath the skin and bulging out of the face. The eyes were the most horrible, though. They looked like hers. Human. Asian, and before they disappeared, Fei Fei watched the life leave its eyes.

Then the sword slipped out of the soft dirt, and Anne and Fei Fei were screaming, hurtling towards the ground below.