A/N: Ok, yeah, sorry this is really short, but I just wanted to put it up on the sight, because I haven't had much of a chance to write lately. School and crao. yeah, I know, excuses, excuses. Oh well, here's the chapter, hopefully another soon to follow. And no, the end of the chapter's not exactly supposed to be some big mystery.

Chapter 10

Abigail sat surrounded by scattered parts of what used to be her brand-new hovercraft. The only thing that had survived the crash with her was her tube of lipstick, which had rolled under the seat during the test run earlier that day. She sat on a stump and stared at the tube in her hand, twirling it slowly between the fingers of her right hand. Her left arm hung uselessly next to her. Figures, she scoffed. I don't even have a mirror. She stopped fiddling with the tube of lipstick, and in a sudden burst of anger threw it as hard as she could into the brush. Bad idea. A few seconds after the lipstick hit something with an odd sound, there was a rustling in the bushes.

"Oh great, what now," Abigail rolled her eyes. She turned to look in the direction where the lipstick had gone, and was rewarded by seeing the sight of a bright green and yellow snake gliding across the ground towards her. Abigail decided that it looked harmless enough, even...well, pretty. She crouched down. "Hey, snakey, snakey..." she crooned. She had always liked reptiles. She reached out a hand to touch it when it suddenly lunged for her, and she yelled in surprise and fell backwards onto the ground. "Hey, what was that for?!" she screamed. She had been sitting in the same place for three hours, her fury building. Now, she finally had an outlet to take it out on. Standing up, she towered above the snake. "Stupid..." with one fluid movement, she slid her foot under the creature and flipped her foot, sending the snake flying across the clearing. It hit a large tree with a sickening crunch, slid down the trunk, and laid still on the partially exposed roots.

She walked over to the crumpled body of the snake to survey the damage she had done to it. Shame, she thought, it was really nice-looking. Looking down at the snake, her stomach growled, and she realized for the first time in the hours she had ben sitting lost in thought, that she was hungry. It was a strange feeling. At her grandfather's base, she was never hungry. She ate whenever she felt like it, which was often, and there was always food on hand. At the moment, she didn't see a mini bar nearby, but... She picked up the snake and looked it over. Sometimes one must improvise.

"Hey, Steel, Martinez! Look, there's smoke over there!"

"How can you see anything?"

"Well, she's not wearing fogged up glasses, Bro. I never got why you don't switch to contacts."

"He looks cute with glasses."

Both male agents turned to her. "WHAT?!"

"Um...look! There it is again! It's coming from the right! Let's go!" Kat quickly ran ahead towards where she had supposedly seen the smoke.

Max looked at Berto. "Did she just say what I think she said?"

"Forget you're psychiatric evaluation, hermano, I think we should turn Kat in."

They both laughed, and then ran after Kat, trying not to let her get out of sight, which was difficult, her having more experience in the environment than they did, and Max not wanting to go too fast and lose Berto.

A few minutes later, the two younger members of Team Steel were still talking as they ran after Kat. Watching the ground to make sure they didn't trip over anything, they ran right into Kat, and all three of them went sprawling into a clearing. Kat was right, the smoke hadn't been just a cover-up for her little slip. There had been smoke coming from that direction. If they hadn't expected Kat to have seen what max didn't, they definitely hadn't expected to see what they discovered in the middle of the clearing.