Apart from touching base with Seifer and Anne when they all set out, Brigitte didn't really know the rest of the group. But she knew the agents didn't trust very many people here; knew that she had wound up on that list herself. So this was a chance to saddle up and march out because she wanted to, because there were friends to be rescued, because she could do some good by someone's side as their shield-arm. Not because she'd been told to, or teleported against her will.

And as if the Observers themselves knew it was coming, she'd woken up that morning to a box containing her mace. Her own, actual mace from back home, her initials scratched at the bottom of the handle. She'd picked it up with gratitude, but a prickling unease between her shoulderblades, wondering why.

Here, then, was the reason.

With her shorter legs, she's having to speedwalk beside Maine in order to keep up -- but it balances out whenever he goes barging off through the bushes in the wrong direction, loses the trail, then has to circle back while she's still crouched against the ground, squinting at faint footprints.

"Maine," she calls out, surprisingly stern. (It's the same voice she'd used when ordering Reinhardt around, firm and no-nonsense despite being half the size of these men.) "Stop going too far ahead. You'll ruin the trail."