DISCAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE CHARACTERS OF THE SECOND DIMENSION. THE STORY LINE YES, THEIR PERSONALITIES MAYBE, BUT THE CHARACTERS ARE FULLY AND 100% UNDER THE OWNERSHIP OF DISNEY.

"I-I just wanted to hold something, pretend everything was normal again" She clutched the rabbit closer to her and stared up at the boy, finally able to make out some of his features despite the minimal light in the shop. He had glasses. That much she could tell, maybe some freckles…so maybe he was close to her age? A little? But he had been taller than her and the other girl and strong enough to carry the readhead… "Sorry…I don't like animals much…they scare me" Stacy wasn't sure, but she could have sworn his voice rose in pitch a little, maybe he really was scared of animals…even something as small as a rabbit. "Bad experience?" "Yeah…" "I'm sorry, I didn't know" Giving the rabbit one last hug, she carefully put it back in its cage and turned back to the boy nervously, who to her surprise seemed just as nervous. "Sorry I snapped at you, I…have a lot of stuff on my mind lately and with things going crazy today…" he gave her a small smile. "Sorry for talking your ear off, you'd probably like to be situated with your friend right?" His smile faltered "Do you want to follow me or hold my-" She didn't wait for him to finish his question, and just grabbed his hand. She wanted normalcy, comfort. She didn't know who he was but he'd helped them, and he was nice. And could maybe watch out for them. Like a brother. "That sounds like a plan…are we going to stay here for a while?" Oddly his expression froze, but it was probably from stress or something from how crazy everything had become today. "J-Just for the night. Then you and her can move on" Stacy tightened her grip "but what about you?" The teen didn't respond, just stared ahead, before sighing and giving her a wide smile. "You said you wanted normalcy right?" she gave him a small nod. "Well, when people first meet each other they introduce themselves right? And we haven't done that yet have we?" She could feel herself starting to smile again as she nodded again. "Well, my name's Carl. What's your name?"

It was already twenty-three hundred. She was supposed to have met him an hour ago. This was the right warehouse, she hadn't entered the wrong one had she? Was this him psyching her out? Doing one of his little mind games he'd become infamous for? If he was, it was working. Or maybe it was the feeling of dread doing that to her.

Tightness of the chest, nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other, holding the handles of her swords and ready to draw them out at a moment's notice. She may have volunteered for this, but she didn't really want to die. But if she was going down, she'd make sure to take him with her or at the very least leave him with a few wounds to remember her by.

Hearing the sound of approaching footsteps behind her, Stacy spun on her heel as she pulled her blades out and crossed them across his neck. This may have been an arranged meeting, but she wasn't going to give him a smidge of a chance to turn things in his favor too early. For all purposes, she had to put up the illusion that she was the one and only head of the Resistance. Candace wouldn't go down without a fight.

"Woah Woah Woah! Stace! It's me!"

"Some assassin or whatever you call yourself if you can't sneak up on…Albert?!" Angerily she lowered her swords and glared at him "What are you doing here? I nearly cut off your head!"

Albert gave her a sheepish smile "I didn't want you to do this alone?"

"Albert! That was the whole point! I'd be the one doing this alone because I don't have family!"

Right before he could respond, a small object dropped between them. For a brief second, they both stared at the small metallic ball before backing as far away from it that they could. Quickly sheathing her swords, Stacy jumped up onto one of the nearby boxes, Albert close behind as they made their way up to the beams crisscrossing under the domed ceiling. Below them, they could hear the hissing of a special kind of gas escape the ball.

Over the years, the resistance learned quite a bit about those balls and the gas that came out of it from the various demises of other resistances. The gas itself was interesting. No one really knew what it's affects would be on the unfortunate soul who encountered it. Some stories said it caused a person to burst into flames upon contact, others said it drove a person to set themselves on fire. Or that it killed instantly when breathed in. The tales were never consistent in what exactly the gas did to a person only that it ended in death. The only thing that was known about the gas was that it only rose a certain height, so the only way to escape it was to get up to a high surface and wait for it to dissipate.

As soon as they were safe, Stacy leaned against one of the vertical beams as she sighed in relief.

"So confident that you feel you can take a breather already? My, aren't you a force to be reckoned with Miss Hirano."

She froze. He was here. Of course he was here, he'd been the one to drop the ball in the first place. And had he been here the whole time? Hiding above her? Watching her? Straining her gaze, she looked back to where she had first been standing and raised it to the beams. She almost missed him, his dark trench coat helping him to blend in. If it hadn't been for the light reflecting off his glasses, she would have passed him by.

Eyes shining, he smirked. "Well Miss Hirano, here we are. Never thought you'd be the leader of the resistance. Especially one so well-oiled." His gaze flickered to Albert for a second before returning to her. "Mostly well-oiled anyway."

Slowly, she placed a hand around one of her swords handles. "He's…new."

His smirk became a grin. "I can tell. Now that we've gotten our pleasantries out of the way, let's move on to tonight's business; your death."

From there, everything seemed to happen in rush, incapable of stopping or changing direction.

Even before Albert had a chance to throw his nun-chucks at him, Karl had his blaster out and shot them out of his hand, grinning at the blonde's hiss of pain from the blast burning the side of his hand. Using the small amount of time Karl was distracted, Stacy ran and leaped across the beams between him and her. If she could take him down, then it would be one step closer to taking Doofensmirtz down, and that she hadn't been sleep deprived when she volunteered for this.

His moment of distraction had passed and he turned his attention to her, and started shooting at her. As she worked to dodge the blasts, she noticed something, nearly half of his shots were nowhere close to where she was…almost as if he was aiming behind her…a startled shout caused her to look back and she could practically feel her heart jump into her throat. Albert was struggling to stay on a beam that was starting to fall into the gas…it was already too far down for him to jump to another beam safely.

"Seems you have a tough choice to make Miss Hirano. Continue coming towards me in a futile attempt to kill or maim me, or go back and save your teammate." He smirked, "Quite a tough choice, but you are surely used to making decisions like these, correct?"

She bit her lip. She wasn't actually. Candace usually made the decisions, she was more focused and a better leader in that way. Stacy mainly backed up her decisions and made sure they were followed through. But…

She turned around and ran towards to the collapsing beam. Even if she managed to beat Karl, then she would never forgive herself for having Albert pay the price for that victory. It felt like she had reached the beam in a second as she carefully leaned down on a more stable piece and outstretched her hand to him.

"Stacy!"

"Grab my hand, I'll pull you up!"

He didn't need to be told twice as he quickly grabbed her hand and helped her pull him up by climbing up the falling beam best he could before it fell entirely. But at least now he was close enough to a secure beam to grab onto and pull himself up the rest of the way to safety.

"Thanks Stace. Did you manage to get a hit on Karl or anything?"

Stacy sighed as she gazed back to where she'd seen him stand last. It was void of anyone standing there. Where had he gone? "No, I didn't even get to swing my swords at him."

"That stinks"

Just as she was about to reply, she felt herself being roughly pulled away from him and shoved against one of the vertical beams as Karl moved in front of her and kicked Albert off the beam. He just barely managed to grab the beam with one hand before falling completely off the beam.

Karl turned slightly to give her a smug look. "Wrong choice Miss Hirano, what a shame."

Turning his attention back to Albert, he sneered as he stepped on the blonde's fingers. "Do try not to hurt yourself too badly during your fall, I would feel absolutely terrible."

Stacy watched in horror as Albert lost his grip on the beam and fell into the gas. "Albert!"

"I almost forgot about you Miss Hirano, thank you so very much about reminding me I still haven't gotten around to dealing with you."

Before she could even move to grab her swords or even kick at him, she felt him pull her forward a little before slamming her hard against the beam behind her. Her vision blurred as he did it again, harder. She felt lightheaded, dazed. And as her vision began to fade into blackness, she felt weightless, almost like she was falling…

.

.

.

Tiredly, he leaned against the beam that he had just slammed Miss Hirano's head against as he watched the supposed leader fall into the gas, more than likely landing on her boyfriend. He expected both of them to live through this little encounter, bruised of course, but still alive. They needed to be alive, he wasn't done playing with them yet. A small smile spread across his face, pain, heartbreak, hate, the eventual breakdown of the resistance from within. He could hardly wait, but he was patient, so very very patient. And the wait would just make it all that much sweeter when it happened.

But for now, he would have to wait for the gas to disperse before leaving the warehouse. Maybe even a little longer if he wanted to catch a glimpse of the real resistance leader. He smiled to himself. What a brilliant move by Miss Flynn, having her second in command take her place to throw him off. She even had the sense to transfer those nanites. Brilliant, brilliant plan.

He could play along with this for a little while. Pretend that he actually believed that Miss Hirano was the only leader…it would make things easier later. It wasn't like Doofensmirtz knew who was in what resistance. That was all part of his job.

But for now, he would wait. And prepare for the next part to his brilliant and unbeatable plan…