"But why can't we come, Candace?" Phineas asked as his sister ushered him into bed. "Isabella gets to go! Why won't you let us?" The teen frowned, and tried to keep his eyes open against the fatigue slowly creeping up on him.

"Because," Candace said simply. Phineas gave her a glare. "It's a top secret mission and I don't want you to get hurt," she added quickly.

"That's always your excuse!" Phineas said. "We're fully-fledged Resistance members now-it's not like we're trying to be safe! Right, Ferb?" Phineas looked over at his brother, but Ferb was already fast asleep, his arm resting gently on top of Platyborg. "Well, I'm sure he'd agree with me."

"My answer is no, Phineas," Candace said. "I've worked hard to make sure that you two aren't associated with the Resistance. I don't want you hurt or recognized. That might out you, Mom, and Dad in danger, along with the entire Resistance."

"Everyone knows that you're in the Resistance, sis, and it's not as though anyone's come after us!" Phineas said, his tone accusing.

"Everyone knows that I'm in the Resistance because Mayor Roger has my name everywhere, making me a 'public hero'." She grimaced, "The Resistance is supposed to be a secret organization. Its leader shouldn't be featured in TV ads!" She crossed her arms and stayed silent for a second. Phineas stifled a yawn, and looked at her, his expression obviously urging her on. Candace sighed and spoke again, "Not only is the publicity annoying, but there's something odd about Mayor Roger. During the election, he seemed like such a nice guy. Even I voted for him! But once he actually because mayor, he started acting like his brother had as dictator. I mean, it's not like there are giant robot armies flying through the skies, but it's the little things. Criminals being sentenced to life in prison-or death-without a trial, innocent citizens being arrested..." Candace trailed off.

"So, the Resistance is going to investigate what's going on," Phineas said, wide awake with this new information going through his head.

Candace nodded her head in agreement, then froze mid-shake. "Wait, a minute...You got me to tell you my mission, you little-"

Phineas laughed and hid underneath the covers. Candace glared and began poking him rapidly in the general area she assumed was his mid-section. "I give in, I give in! I'll go to sleep!' he shrieked. He slid out from under the blanket again, and gave her a smile. "You're secret's safe with me, sis. I won't tell anyone about the mission."

"I know you won't," Candace said with a hint of a threat. She moved across the room, and leaned in the doorway. She flicked the light switch and smiled into the darkness. "Goodnight, Phineas."

"G'Night, Candace," came the reply.

The door closed softly, and Phineas lay in the complete black for a few minutes. As silently as he could, he reached under his pillow and pulled out a slender green rod. Shaking it vigorously, he looked over at Ferb in the faint green glow the rod was now giving off. "You ready?" he whispered.

Ferb sat up instantly, pulled out his own glow stick, and grinned. "Let's go."

The hallway was dark, as Candace had turned out the lights before leaving. All was silent, except for some soft snoring coming from behind the closed door that led to Mr. and Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher's room. Phineas crept along the hallway, Ferb following silently. As they passed their parents room, a wrongly placed footstep made the floor creak and Phineas inhale sharply. The snoring faltered then began again, louder than before, but no one woke up. He breathed out again in relief, and kept moving, carefully planning his footsteps this time as to avoid any more close calls.

Suddenly, Ferb stopped and put a hand on Phineas' shoulder. "There's something behind us," he hissed.

Phineas froze mid-step. "OK," he whispered, "OK. Let's just…turn around and look. On three." Ferb nodded. "One…two…" Phineas steeled his nerves, "Three!" The two boys turned to see a small figure standing silhouetted in the middle of the hallway. Ferb clapped a hand over Phineas' mouth to muffle his small shriek of surprise.

"Shhh, it's just Platyborg," Ferb whispered. The figure stepped into the dim light given off by the glow sticks and gave them a nervous wave.

"Perry!" Phineas said after removing Ferb's hand from his mouth. "Don't scare us like that!" Platyborg put up his hands in a helpless gesture. He noticed the gear they had on and gave them a look.

"We were just…going for a walk," Phineas muttered, trying to avoid his pet's gaze. Perry exchanged his hand for a mace. Phineas swallowed hard. "A-alright! Ferb, tell him, quick!"

"We're going on a Resistance mission, if you must know," Ferb said. "Could you put away the weapon now?" Perry frowned and looked down at his arm, as though noticing its transformation for the first tie. He retracted the mace, and slowly changed his frown back into a neutral expression. Just like Candace, Perry accepted the boy's involvement in the Resistance, bit didn't like it. Ever since being reunited with them, Perry had become just as protective as Candace.

"Sorry boy, but we have to! Candace says that there might be something weird going on with Mayor Doofenshmirtz—" Perry let out a growl. "-Roger Doofenshmirtz. She, Isabella, and the Firestorm Girls are going to investigate. But if Candace's premonitions are right, she may be in danger. She needs help!" Phineas help his breath. Anyone who knew Candace would detect the lie right away; Candace never needed nor accepted help. But Phineas hoped that Perry wouldn't know that.

Slowly, Platyborg nodded his assent. He was almost as protective of Candace as he was of the boys, but he knew that they could take care of themselves and protect each other.

Phineas grinned. "Thanks, boy! Can you make sure that Mom and Dad don't wake up? All this sneaking around is going to take forever." He glanced down the hall. "We've barely gotten ten feet away from our room."

Perry saluted his owners and walked to the door of Mr. and Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher's room. He stood at attention and winked in Phineas and Ferb's direction. Phineas waved cheerily back and moved on, Ferb trailing behind him. With Perry disguising any noise they made, it didn't take long for Phineas and Ferb to emerge into the street. Despite half a decade of freedom, five years of strolls through town without a Normbot in sight, Phineas cringed slightly as they stepped across the threshold of the front door. The street was shrouded in darkness, as almost no lights were on in the houses. Many families were asleep by 2:30 in the afternoon, obeying Doofenshmirtz's old curfew out of habit. Phineas had found it silly even when it was enforced, but going to sleep in mid-afternoon when you didn't need to made absolutely no sense, especially to someone who's main goal in life was to 'seize the day'. The few houses with lights still on provided just enough light for the boys to see where they were going. Isabella's large home was just across the street from the Flynn-Fletchers, so the boys reached it quickly.

"Come on," Phineas whispered, skirting around the edge of the trapdoor position in the driveway at the gate. Gently, once on ground that wouldn't collapse under him, he and Ferb slowly and quietly pushed the trapdoor open. "Drat," he muttered, staring down the hole. "I was hoping we could crawl down it. But it's completely vertical." Phineas squinted downwards again. "It levels out a tin bit about fifteen feet down, but if we tried to jump, we'd probably hurt ourselves."

"Not to mention the noise we'd make." Feb lightly tapped the side of the chute, and they heard a soft metallic echo. "Is there another way down?"

Phineas pondered this for a second, then he grinned and his eyes grew bright. "I brought Resistance gear," he said as he pulled off his backpack. "We can use this stuff to get down there quietly.

"Brilliant, Phineas!" Ferb reached a hand inside the backpack and pulled out a small watch.

"Teleporter," Phineas supplied. "And a communicator."

"That'll work nicely." Ferb groped around in the bag a bit more and found a second watch, which he handed to his brother. Glancing back down into the hole, he calculated the latitude and longitude of the bottom of the chute, and told them to Phineas, who altered his a bit so that they didn't rematerialize in the exact same place. Both boys put on their watches, and with a quick, breathy prayer that he had gotten the calculations right, Ferb pressed the button on the side of the watch.

The sensation wasn't very pleasant. Phineas felt as though the atoms of his body were being ripped apart, and he could feel every one of them pull away with painful clarity. He wanted to scream, but hurricane force winds had him gasping for breath. Suddenly, he could breath again, and his hands were in contact with solid ground, something cold and smooth. Lookig around, he realized that he was sitting in the bottom of the trapdoor shaft, Ferb just a few inches behind him.

"Not the best method of travel," Ferb said, looking a bit nauseous.

Feeling a bit queasy himself, Phineas shushed his brother. He looked through the grate covering the exit, and strained to hear something from inside the room. "I think they're in the conference room—the door's closed, so we won't be seen."

"How will we be able to hear them, though?" Ferb asked, only to be silenced by Phineas again.

"I have a plan, but we have to get closer." Ferb nodded and urged him forward. Phineas took a breath and pushed on the grate. Surprisingly, it didn't make a sound as it slowly swung open. He let out a sigh of relief, and they both jumped just as soundlessly the few feet to the floor below. As Phineas had expected, no Resistance members were in sight, but muffled voices could be heard from behind the garage door that concealed the meeting hall. As they made their way over, Phineas took off his backpack and pulled out a small laser. With a wink at Ferb, he aimed it at the metal door and traced out a circle. The metal glowed red-orange, then regained its normal coloring and began to smoke. Blowing on the hot circle, Phineas wedged it out of the door, leaving a hole large enough to let light and sound through. Ferb nodded, impressed. Quietly, they leaned towards the hole to listen in on the Resistance.

"I'm telling you, there's something way off with Mayor Roger! We need to find out what—we don't want another dictator!" Candace slammed her fist on the conference table.

"Don't worry, sir." Isabella eyed the Firestorm girls. "We all agree with you."

"I do not," Baljeet said from his position at the large computer system that served as his desk and office. "I see nothing wrong with the mayor-he is a nice man. Bad men don't allow a group called the Resistance to exist, and especially not for five years." He frowned at Candace. "Even you cannot argue with that."

"You only back the mayor because he gave you all of those 'honors' and made you an official city scientist with a fancy title!" she snapped.

"Candace is right, Baljeet," Isabella said. "You know just as well as we do that there's something slightly wrong."

"It's Professor! Professor Baljeet! Why must all of you refuse to use my title?"

Gretchen gave him a wry smile. "Because it's not a real title." She pushed her chair backwards towards her own tiny computer station. As the others gave her questioning looks, she pressed a few buttons and pulled up a picture of a small certificate.

"Hey, that is from my own files!" Baljeet protested.

"Mmhm," Gretchen mumbled, and zoomed in on the corner of the certificate. "'Made in the Tri-State Area'. I'm pretty sure that the other scientists' certifications are administered by the national government or something."

"What?!" Baljeet ran over to the screen and took a look for himself. "How can it be fake?!"

"It's obvious," Ginger muttered from over by the table. "You're a sixteen-year-old kid with connections to the Resistance. He wouldn't actually make you a professor."

"B-But…" Baljeet looked so distressed that Candace gave him one of her rare smiles.

"It's alright, Baljeet. You've always been a Resistance man, anyways. You are still working with us, right?"

"Of course!" Baljeet's expression hardened. "You know, I was not going to mention it, but there was something odd about the mayor when I met him."

"I knew it!" Candace said. "Baljeet, could you start researching? Anything that has to do with the mayor. Maybe other people have noticed something different about him."

"Of course. I am know what I am doing, people," Baljeet muttered, but he was in high spirits again. He sat back down in front of his own computer and started opening up various programs. "How about hacking into the mayor's own private computer? Will that yield decent enough information for you?"

"Yes, yes it would," Candace said curtly. "You get on that. Isabella! You and the Firestorm girls should start getting the equipment ready and loaded into the mine carts. As soon as Baljeet gets a lead, we're moving out. Got that?"

"Yes sir!"

"What about Phineas? And Ferb? Are they coming as well?" Baljeet asked.

"No! I'm not putting them in danger—they're just kids!" Candace said.

Isabella paused en route to the weapons closet. "No offence, sir, but excluding you, all of us are kids."

"And we were even younger kids when we defeated Doofenshmirtz," Baljeet said. "With your brothers' help, I might add."

"My brothers are in bed, asleep. They are not coming on this mission, and that's final!" Candace shouted. "Get back to work, soldiers." With a sad glance at each other, Isabella and Baljeet turned back around and continued with their tasks.