The creature behind the wall was a horrible mess of contraption of tool and wires and bolts, but the way it moved wasn't like a machine, instead, its giant body moved as it was flesh and blood. Its main body was gigantic, but somehow, it was being held up by at least eight skinny little legs that skuttled around as it moved. But the weirdest thing about this monster was its face... or faces. It looked like it had about a million human-like faces all over itself, it they all looked like decoration. Kipo couldn't see a face that looked like it could see or talk or hear.

There was also something on top of the monster, something that Kipo couldn't see because the monster was far, far taller than she was, but it seemed to be the thing making the music, and unlike the rest of its body, it seemed to actually move like a machine, spinning around slowly as music flowed from it, and into the surrounding area.

Suddenly, the creature froze, and Kipo startled, quickly leaning back and shoving the rest of her friends back behind the wall, too. The four of them froze, holding their breath, but the creature's music eventually started getting quieter and quieter, and eventually petered out. It left, Kipo realized with a sigh of relief.

Slowly, she turned to the rest of her friends, who were wearing matching looks of confusion that mirrored her own.

"It's gone," Kipo told them, as if they couldn't already tell. She made sure to keep her voice low, just in case. "We should get going, but we should probably keep and eye out for the pig and the dog. We don't want any more surprises here."

"Yeah..." Luz agreed, sounding like she was still thinking about the thing they had seen. Kipo couldn't blame her. "At least it'll be easy to watch out for whatever that was. If it just plays music all the time, then we just stay away from that. And maybe the other ones will be that easy, too!"

Well, that's hopeful, Kip thought. But she doubted it would be that easy. Based on pervious patterns, this was probably doomed to go as wrong as possible as well.

But they'd made it this far. They couldn't give up now, especially since there was nowhere to go back to, and the only place they could go was in front of them.

They definitely couldn't fail, Kipo reminded herself as she took a deep breath.

"Ok," she said, looking back up at the group. "Let's go. Luz, you and me will lead, so Kris, you cover our tracks. And Alice... uh..."

Kipo had to think for a second. "Er... keep an eye out."

Alice nodded happily, thankfully not seeming to notice Kipo's strange pause.

"A-Alright," Kipo said, hoping no one else noticed that. "Everyone good?"

Kris nodded, and Luz gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up, and then they were on their way.

Anne was mad at Dib now, apparently.

Well, not mad, Dib supposed, but certainly wasn't very happy with him right now because right now, she was sitting a far distance away from him, not even reading her book Fei Fei brought her to show him just how much she was ignoring him. Not that Dib noticed. He was far too busy watching Six do what looked like literally nothing to look over to Anne every five seconds and wishing he could read her book because HE was bored.

Definitely not that.

In any case, the silence allowed Dib a moment with his thoughts, and he used it to reflect on just how ridiculous Anne, and only Anne, was being. Seriously, all of this just because he wanted to use a codeword? Ridiculous. That whole conversation was ridiculous, but Dib couldn't get it out of his mind.

"You're too irresponsible," Dib had told her after the whole river debacle. "You haven't forgotten there's a MONSTER wandering around, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, your 'monster'," Anne had replied, seemingly like she was trying not to laugh. Dib blanched; she seemed to be taking it less seriously than usual... but Dib forgot all about that when Anne held up the book where Dib had first read of the monster. He brightened, and started talking before Anne could continue.

"You brought it? Perfect!" Dib said, snatching it away. But his good mood didn't last long. "Wait... you never should have done that! This is the only information we have about the monster, what if you lost it?!"

"Wha-dude, I'm not that irresponsible," Anne huffed, rolling her eyes. "Also, that's not why I brought it up. Look on the bottom of the first page."

Dib's brow furrowed, and he flipped to the picture of the Melon Man. "Uh..."

"No, no, not that one," Anne corrected, taking the book and flipping that page over. The one before it was blank, with a bunch of publication information in it... and something else.

"Here!" Anne said, holding the book up triumphantly. "I was looking through this thing earlier, and I found this: 'Any resemblances to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental'. This book is fake, man! It's nonfictional... I think, I always get those two confused."

Dib glowered at her, once again snatching away the book. "The word is 'fiction', and also, you're wrong! Clearly, that's just put there to deter people like you, for the rest of us, we just know that means that the names have been changed for privacy and protection reasons!"

Anne looked amused. "Are you sure? Isn't there a saying that the simplest answer is the right answer?"

"That's stupid," Dib spat. "And also propaganda-."

Anne burst out laughing at that, but Dib ignored her, and continued: "-And not looking into suspicious thing is CLEARLY wrong, so from this point on, if you don't use the codeword, I'm not trusting you!"

Anne stopped laughing at that, and Dib stared at her, smug.

Anne clearly disgruntled, frowned at him. "What? Really? ...Well, if it's not something easy, I'm not going to remember, I'm warning you now."

"Well, if it's something easy, the Imposter will guess it!" Dib argued, admittedly enjoying this exchange. "It will be... scintilla."

Anne tilted her head. "Scintilla? Really? What does that even mean...?"

Dib honestly had no clue, he'd only heard in reference to some stars, but that didn't matter right now. Plus, Anne didn't seem to care that much either, she was scratching her head, frowning.

"No, I definitely won't remember that," Anne huffed.

"Well, you'll have to," Dib sneered. "Or, y'know, tell me something that only I'd know."

"This cliché, huh?" Anne sighed, but she looked like she was thinking anyway. "Um... I think black licorice sucks."

"..." Dib squinted at her for a minute. "You told me that here."

Anne tilted her head. "Yeah, so?"

"Well, any NUMBER of people could be hiding around here and listening in!" Dib yelled, waving to the forest behind them. "Try something else!"

Anne rolled her eyes. "Fine. My middle name is..." Anne dropped her voice dramatically. "Savisa."

"...What?"

"Oh, come on, dude, I told you this back at the town!" Anne cried, waving her arms in annoyance.

"Well I don't remember that, so you could be lying!" Dib argued. "Try something else! Try telling me something about me that I've only told you!"

"Tch, fine," Anne huffed. She poked Dib in the chest. "You're a huge jerk, and you're an idiot, too!"

"That doesn't work, either, cause it's not true!" Dib shot back. "If you really can't think of anything, then you're just going to have to remember the codeword!"

And, well, the next time Anne left and then came back, she forgot the password, and predictably, they got into an argument about it, and then Anne had turned away and huffed out that she was going to call someone else to come over to guard Dib.

And of course, it just HAD to be Mabel, the type of girl who got distracted easily and did her own thing all the time. Perfect.

So now they were both sulking.

Dib huffed, looking back down at Six, who was sleeping. She'd said that she needed to sleep off her blue crystal meal to let it cultivate inside of her, so now all Dib could do was wait. Which was boring. And his pride didn't even let him go get the book to study the imposter, because Anne had it right now.

Stupid.

"Wait!" Kipo and Luz, hissed at the same time, both holding out their hands to stop the two behind them. They had paused at a crossroad, with Luz looking down the left lane, and Kipo down the right. The two of them paused, startled by the other, and looked down the separate roads. On Luz's side: there was a large dog on all four playing with a porthole lid. On Kipo's side, there was a person with a pig's mask on, sleeping on a bench by two skeletons that Kipo really, really hoped were just for show.

And, in front of them, the road they needed to go one was blocked by... a spaceship on fire. What the heck was that about?

"Oh no," Luz whispered, looking on the three paths. They were all blocked, and so was the path behind them. The music thing had moved, and was playing softly behind them, far to close for comfort. Kipo could hear actual words from the music, even when she wasn't trying.

"So... what do we do now?" Luz whispered frantically. She already hadn't planned for detours, and this was just complete overkill. They were practically trapped.

Kipo hummed, pondering their options. "Well, we can't go back, and that dog will spot us immediately, so our only options are to try and sneak past the pig, or try and go through the spaceship. I think... the pig is the safer option. Luz, do you know how to get back on track after we go that way?"

"Uh," Luz looked sheepish. "No."

Kipo hummed. "Well, I think I do, so follow me." Kipo turned back to the rest of them. "What do you all think?"

Kris and Alice pointed right, and Kipo nodded. "Okay. We're in agreement, then. Let's go."

The others agreed silently, and the four of them snuck out, past the dog and to the left, towards the pig. What was his name again? Kipo's brow furrowed, trying to think. It was Napoleon, wasn't it? What an odd name for a pig, Kipo had been thinking, it just didn't make sense at all-

Clack!

Kipo froze, and slowly turned back around. At first, she had thought that one of them had accidently kicked something on the ground, but she realized that wasn't the case when she watched the porthole cover the dog had been playing with roll past her. Kipo winced, and looked back to find the dog staring right at them, panting heavily.

Then, it started barking.

"Oh no," Luz groaned, and Kipo grabbed her, pulling her away. Alice and Kris were already running, but at this point, it was too late. Napoleon was starting to wake up, and his beady little eyes were fix on them. He looked ready to jump up, and he was already reaching out.

"HELL-OOOOOOOOO!" a voice called out from the trees, and Dib jumped. Then he was furiously looking around, hoping Anne didn't notice, but her attention was focused firmly on Mable, skipping out from the trees. However, Six, who was just walking up, smirked at him, and he glared at her.

"Finally," Anne huffed under her breath, and Dib couldn't agree enough. But Anne quickly wiped her annoyance off her face, and gave Mabel a big hug, but not as big a hug as Mabel gave her. Dib thought her heard Anne's spine pop, and he was standing a good distance away from them. He couldn't help but wince on Anne's behalf. "Ack! Uh, yeah, nice to see you, Mabel. It'd be nice to chat, but uh... I need to leave immediately."

"Huh? Oh, ok," Mabel said, and before Dib could decide whether or not she was off-put by Anne's attitude, she immediately moved onto him.

"Hey, you're my brother's friend, right?" Mabel asked him. "So that means you're probably a dork, too, right?"

Dib stared at her, unimpressed. Anne didn't react, as she had already slipped away, and was gone.

Dib decided to ignore what Mabel said, for the time being.

"We need a codeword," Dib told her flatly, and Mabel instantly looked excited.

"Ooh, ooh, let me pick it!" Mabel cheered, and before Dib could even say anything, she was already continuing. "How about supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?"

"..." Dib was starting to understand how Anne felt, but he wasn't like her, so... "Fine."

"Perfect!" Mabel cheered, and she immediately belting out some sort of weird song. Dib tuned her out. Luckily, he immediately found a new distraction.

"Hey, you're awake," he told Six, who looked at him with a look that said: 'obviously'. Dib ignored that. "Are you ready to call Kipo?"

Six yawned, and shook out her head. "I suppose. Yes, go ahead."

Now, both Napoleon AND the dog, Chief, Kipo remembered, were chasing them, and unfortunately, while the four of them were getting tired, the two monsters behind them didn't let up. They were slowly catching up on them.

Kipo looked around frantically. Where could they go? The monsters were right behind them, so they couldn't lose them, they couldn't hide... eventually, they might have to try and fight them off. And while Kipo knew that at least three of them were strong, they just didn't know what they were up against. They had no clue what was behind them, or if it was even something they could fight, so if possible, it'd probably be better to avoid that, but just because it'd be better, doesn't mean it was going to happen. They'd need a miracle to escape this.

Suddenly, a blue light began blinking in the corner of her eye. Without thinking, Kipo reached into her pocket, and grasped the little crystal in her pocket. Almost immediately, the world around her went pure white, and Kipo realized her mistake, just before she tripped on something invisible.

"Oh no... oh no!" Kipo quickly got to her feet, looking around frantically. A wide-eyed Dib watched her carefully. "No, this can't be happening! I need to get out of here!"