The two landed in a small clearing a few yards from where Shego's jet had crashed. It was midday and the sun was beating down on them. Ron was in a hurry to get to shade.

The green skinned woman rolled her eyes as she watched him fumble with his things, having already made it to the shade.

"Move it Stoppable. You're already slowing me down."

"I know, I know, Kim just usually helps me ok?" he said sheepishly. Finally he made it to the shade, but Shego had already started moving.

"Can't you wait a second for me to catch up?" he asked in a huff, stumbling through the foliage in his rush.

She rolled her eyes, "We aren't that far from my jet. I figured we should at least have a good starting point."

Ron grumbled but followed. After stumbling for a few more seconds he ran into something.

"Owwww," he groaned.

"Watch where you're going," Shego snarled.

He inched back slightly.

The villain took a few cautious steps towards the jet and opened the hatch. Nothing seemed to be wrong since she'd disappeared. She frowned slightly as she dug through the inside compartments. She disliked seeing her ride so beat up, but there was no way they could get it out of there at the moment.

At last she found what she was after, the first aid kit. She strapped it onto her pack and said, "Alright, let's get going."

"How do we know which direction to go?"

"We go the direction that Kimmie would go."

"What direction is that?"

"The way I originally went."

"Wait… what?"

Shego rolled her eyes again, "Listen closely to the sounds in the forest. There's a river not too far from here. Now come on." She grabbed his arm and started pulling him. "I'm not going to have you falling behind, so you better keep up with me. I don't want to be here longer than necessarily. We have a few more hours of daylight. I want to get a good distance before we look for shelter for the night. That…. THING tends to come out when it's dark more often than during the light. It's best to have ourselves situated in a strategic position for when it comes."

The blonde boy gulped as he righted himself and worked to keep up with her.

As they went through the forest, Ron kept getting tangled up in the vines. He couldn't seem to pull himself away from the wildlife. Getting aggravated, he went to cut the greenery, but Shego stopped him.

"Don't be stupid. There are things in forests you don't want to mess with. Untangle yourself without cutting anything."

"But that'll slow us down," he whined.

"I don't give a fuck. I'd rather slow down than…." She grew quite.

"Wh-What?" he stammered, now gingerly untangling himself.

"Nothing. Just don't cut them," she muttered. She'd gone pale. She was not liking this forest anymore than the first time. But this time she was a little ready.

"O-ok."

It took them ten minutes to make it from the crash site to the river, and there the two stopped.

"Just a short break ok? Take a good drink and then we're going to follow it upstream. There's a cave about two hours upstream just a little off the path. We'll make camp there for the night."

He nodded before dunking his head into the water.

Shego sat down on the edge of the bank. There was a bad feeling in her gut, like something was wrong, but she couldn't remember what it was. When she'd headed upstream when she'd crashed, it was morning. There shouldn't have been a reason to need shelter so early. Why? Why had she left the river?

She shook herself out of her thoughts. It'd be best to stay away of her surroundings and be prepared, but dwelling on it wouldn't help. She took a glance at her current 'partner' and pulled his head out of the water.

"What was that for?" he grumbled. "The water was so soothing!"

She rolled her eyes and pulled something off his face.

"OW OW OW! What was that?!" he yelped.

She held up a small wriggling thing, "A leech. Now hold still, you have another on your forehead." She tossed the one in her hands back into the water before pulling at the one above his left eyebrow.

He whimpered when she ripped it off and tossed it back into the water.

"Don't be such a wimp. They didn't hurt that much when I had them."

"You had them too?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"Yes, but not on my face. I was filling up a few water bottles and one latched onto me. I would never stick my face into a river when I don't know what sort of fish and such will be in it. It's not always easy to open my eyes underwater, so a view from above isn't a bad idea."

"Oh," he muttered in embarrassment. It was true. He had trouble opening his eyes under water, so the whole time he'd had them closed.

Shego pulled herself to her feet and said, "Come on Stoppable. I want to get to the cave quickly. Something is off about this place."

"What do you mean?" he asked, looking around warily as he stood.

"I don't know. I can't remember what it was, but I feel like something happened near the river."

He gulped.

"Don't worry, just keep your eyes open as you should."

He nodded.

They trekked up the side of the river in silence. Both were deep in thought. Ron was the first to break the silence.

"Do you think Kim and Mo are ok?" He fidgeted as he waited for her answer.

"Those two… I think they could survive at least a week. But most people would only survive a day of what I went through. If it takes much longer though, I don't know if they'd still be alive," she said in a low voice. She didn't like admitting it either, but it was true.

"How will we find them?" he asked, slightly trembling.

She glanced back at his worried expression and sighed softly, "I don't know yet. I plan to think about it tonight. For now, we need to get to the shelter. While you slept on the ride here, I called that nerd friend of yours. He gave me the last known coordinates of the Kimmunicator. I marked them down on a map and plan to study it tonight."

"You can read a map?" he asked in surprise.

"I have to deal with stealing things from deserts and jungles and shit for Drakken. Do you honestly think he has a sense of direction? And don't you say that he could just have a GPS or something. The last time we tried that, we ended up in the wrong country because the asshole was using it wrong. I gave up on those things."

"Oh," he grew silent. She seemed confident enough. He just hoped they really could find his friends.

They walked for an hour in silence. Ron was still thinking about his friends, while Shego was staying alert. She doubted that the buffoon would be paying attention to his surroundings like she'd told him too, so she was more alert than normal.

They were about thirty minutes from the cave at the pace they were going. And that was when things got tricky.

There was a rustling noise from all around. Whatever was there, they were surrounded.