The dark shadows of the trees did nothing to help visibility. None of them could tell how long they'd been walking. When they'd first broken through the doors and out into the world, the sun had been high in the sky. Now, the moon took the place where the sun one hovered. Fatigue was beginning to set in; everyone's steps were becoming more sluggish.

Wally was the first to crash.

"C'mon, guys! We should just bed down here, under the stars…" he yawned, stretching his arms and settling on a nearby tree as if the matter had already been decided. Apparently, though, it had, since Wally's declaration seemed to send everyone else into fits of yawns. Dick conceded, and found a spot to lounge on a rock a short distance away. Kaldur sat against another tree trunk. Artemis lay flat on her back on the grass, crossing her hands behind her head. M'gann took a similar approach, but curled up in a ball on the flat ground instead of lying straight. Conner leaned against the sloping terrain of a small ridge.

Artemis slowly woke up when the daylight became strong enough to rouse her from her slumber. She sat up, rubbing her eyes against the harsh light. For a brief moment, there was panic. Where was she? This wasn't the usual concrete walls that greeted her upon waking. However, the previous day's activities swam into her consciousness, reminding her as to her location and the company she was with. Speaking of company, it seemed that she wasn't the only one awake.

Sitting on the ground a short distance away were Dick and Wally. Her still sleep-fogged brain had a hard time processing exactly what was different about them, but she knew there was something. It clicked when she realized that they weren't wearing the same gray uniforms that everyone else had been. The plastic bags surrounding them were another clue.

"Where'd you get those clothes?" Artemis asked skeptically. Wally opened his mouth to say something, then decided better of it and unscrewed the cap to his water bottle, taking a swig so he wouldn't have to answer her question. That drew her attention to the interesting smorgasbord of food in front of them.

"Where'd you get that food?" she asked, though the answer had already dawned on her. Dick turned to her and raised an eyebrow.

She sighed. "You stole it, didn't you?"

Dick shrugged. "It was our best option. Besides, the city's not too far away."

By this point, the other three had awoken. Kaldur joined in the discussion; "I'd think our best option would be to go to the-"

"Go to the authorities?" Dick completed Kaldur's sentence. "Sure. We'll just go waltzing up in our prison uniforms,"

"They're not prison uniforms," Artemis said.

"They might as well be," Dick replied, "Anyway, we'd just go walking up to the police station, or something, and tell them that we'd just escaped some bizarre research lab, where we were kept in cells and cut off from the world?"

"It's not like we don't have proof," Artemis answered.

"Oh, of course we have proof. We have a girl with green skin. We have a guy with snake tattoos and gills."

"Wait," Conner spoke for the first time that morning, "When did we establish that they're gills?"

"They look like gills," Wally put down the sandwich he was eating. "Dick's right. Right now, we have two priorities: survival, because that's pretty important in general; and blending in. We don't want the psycho-scientists catching us again. It'll be easier for us if we just blend in."

"Again," Dick said, "We have the whole issue about appearances. Sure, Kal's gills can be covered up, but how are we supposed to go around if one of us has green…" he trailed off. "Uh, M'gann?"

The other four turned to see what had caught Dick's attention. Artemis gasped. A change had overcome the other girl. Her green skin was changing in places, morphing from green to a more human tone. Everyone watched, aghast, as the change slowly took her entire body. When it was over, it was hard to tell that the girl before them had ever looked alien; her peachy tone seemed just as natural as the green one.

M'gann was looking at her skin in wonder. Clearly, she hadn't expected the change, either. Everyone else was frozen in shock, until Dick finally shook his head and held his hands up in surrender. Wally shrugged, going back to his sandwich.

"You know, after everything that's already happened, I can't say I'm all that surprised."

"Right through here-watch your head, Kal, you're taller than the rest of us-and voila!" Wally led the others through the woods and outskirts of the city to the inner districts through back alleys and cut-throughs. Each person was now wearing some odd combination of clothes that the boys had managed to swipe. Before them stood a mass of buildings, varying in size, and an equally large mass of people. Each of the six cringed at the thought of having to interact with the strangers. Even Dick and Wally, who had already made this trip once, seemed uncomfortable.

"Well," Dick started, "There weren't this many people here earlier." Wally nodded in agreement and crossed his arms self-consciously over his chest. M'gann tugged on the edge of her pink sweatshirt, a nervous movement that made Conner take a step closer to her. The idea of being around so many people bothered her; she wasn't sure if she could keep her abilities under control. Her hands fisted in her new pink jacket, she shrugged her shoulders forward in an attempt to hide inside herself. Her red hair fell in front of her face.

"What are we doing here, anyway?" Artemis groaned, leaning onto the wall of one of the buildings.

"We need to re-familiarize ourselves with society. Y'know, blend in." Dick said.

"Are you sure we should just jump into it like this, though?" Artemis replied, cringing as she was bumped by a rude passerby.

Dick shrugged. "We don't have time to waste."

"So, what' our first move? We can't just run around on this wide goose chase. We don't even have a goose to chase." Wally mumbled through a mouthful of chips.

"We must find out who we are." Kaldur spoke from the head of the group. "That is our first priority. We have our information, now we must know how to utilize it."

"Who we are, where we're from… Guys, what about our families? Assuming we have them…" Artemis said, shuffling her feet.

"D'you… do you think they could be, well, like us?" Wally said. Everyone fell silent, the idea weighing on their minds as they slowly made their way through the city streets.

Suddenly, Conner stopped. He noticed a difference in the group around him. Somebody was missing from his side…

"Uh, guys?" he spoke up, stopping everyone. "Where's M'gann?"

A/N: Plot hole: fixed! It's beautiful, isn't it?

Sorry for the delay, the school musical is on Thursday. I haven't had time to write, what with how I'm so slammed with rehearsals. I've gotten a combined sum of 10 hours of sleep the past three nights.

I'm going to try to be more punctual with chapters from now on…

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