User blog comment:Deathfire2001/Welp Theory and Prediction Time (Spoilers)/@comment-45189517-20200613033903

death mantis has only one goal, and that goal is to erase goose out of existance, for trying to make a cure for him. he even said that anyone who tries to assist goose will suffer the same way.

goose is technically a character the group needs as of right now, because of the koopalings, and it may be down to both him or pink. in my opinion, it might be pink, because it was HER and branden who made scavenger groups to help goose against death mantis.

as for the alternate world, it may be possible that the x virus was never stopped from volume 3, and the remaining survivors must have been killed, so volumes 7-11 must have not existed in that timeline.

but, we still don't fully know who he's going to kill next. either goose, pink, or ricky. eventually goose will have to die, but i'm betting pink.