Disclaimer: I do not own the DC heroes of Hawk and Dove, whom I loosely based my main characters on.

They decided that it would be better to have a more intimate meeting about their plans. The strange part was that everyone immediately started looking to Dan and Phil for orders. Dan didn't really consider them orders… more like suggestions that everyone followed no matter what. Even though they picked Dan and Phil to lead them, they knew they needed more opinions on their task at hand.

After Alfie asked what to do first, Phil suggested that everyone head back to their rooms in the meantime. There was no point to go to lessons or training block when they were going to change everything anyway. Carrie and Charlie volunteered to make sure everyone got back okay without trying anything funny. The last thing they needed were a bunch of preteens running away into the mountains. While that happened, Dan and Phil decided on who would help them out.

"Like a council?" Chris said, looking speculative.

Phil nodded. "Exactly. Like a cabinet of advisors to make sure Dan doesn't convince me to let him set everything on fire," he said.

Dan looked indignant. "I resent that, you twit."

The two of them seemed to agree on this without argument. Chris and PJ were their first choices, obviously. They went on to also pick Louise, Alfie, Zoe, Marcus, and Jenna. They were all ready to head back to Louise's office to discuss when Zoe piped up.

"Where's Jenna?"

Dan paused and looked around. Even amidst the dispersing crowd, Jenna couldn't be seen. She was tall and blonde; it wasn't easy to miss her. He wondered where she could have gone off to, but he was a bit worried considering how she reacted to the reveal. Frowning, Dan turned to Marcus. "Can you go see if you can find her, then meet us in the office?" he asked. Marcus nodded and hopped off the stage.

Phil inclined his head. "Right then, lets go," he said. Louise led the way up to her office. The door still had Dr. Hurley's plaque on it, and Dan ignored it as he walked into the room. Louise rolled the chair out from behind the desk and sat in between the two others that were previously left. Phil sat right on the desk and Dan decided to lean against it beside him, and the others found their own seats. And moments later they were all looking at Dan and Phil, and Dan realized he had no idea how to conduct a meeting.

"So," he started, a little awkwardly, "Who has ideas? Anyone?"

It was silent for a moment before Zoe cleared her throat. "I agree with your sentiment, Dan. I think we should take a more, well, aggressive approach to ending the mutant hunt," she said.

"I disagree, actually," stated Louise, "I think that would hurt our chances of getting our point across. They're afraid that we're dangerous, wouldn't attacking prove that sentiment?"

"But if we went in peacefully, they could just take us in if we don't fight," Alfie added.

"But fighting could start a war," Phil said, frowning.

"And I don't think a war of just us versus the British Armed Forces is going to be much of a fight," Chris agreed, shrugging his shoulders.

Dan sighed. "But this really isn't about us, is it? This is about people who are still out there being hunted down like criminals, and the people who have already been taken in could be getting cut open. It's already happened. Right, Louise?" He looked pointedly at her. She sunk down a bit and nodded. "See? She worked in the lab, guys. They needed mutant blood to fabricate the enzyme they're using to identify them now. We have to save them!"

There was silence for a few beats. "You're suggesting we become super heroes, Dan," Alfie said quietly.

Dan took a breath, sighing. Everyone had a good point; especially Phil. Going in fighting would look, to the general public, like they were dangerous monsters just as the prime minister told them. But without fighting, at least a bit, the captive mutants won't be released. Nor will the hunts stop. He felt like no one would want to hear what they have to say even if they did try getting a meeting with someone in power.

"Yes," said Dan, "That's exactly what I'm suggesting."

"I have an idea," Phil chirped.

"What's your idea?" Dan said, shifting his attention to his friend beside him.

Phil cleared his throat. "We seem to be split down the middle in our tactics here, so I think we should sort of… meet in the middle. We can try to talk it out, but aggressively, like Zoe said," he explained.

Everyone, especially Dan, looked a little skeptical. "How so?" PJ ventured.

"Well, okay, maybe 'talking aggressively' was the wrong way to word it. Out of everyone here the resistance members have been trained the most, right? And we have a pretty good number, so maybe some of us can break in and try to find whomever they're keeping at the MI5 labs. And another team can keep the big wigs talking. Maybe try to make them see sense," Phil concluded, and at the end he grinned proudly.

Dan glanced around at the others. They seemed to agree. "Phil, that's brilliant," he said.

His cheeks colored but his smile remained intact. "Thanks," he said.

"Then that's the plan," Alfie said just as the door opened. It was Marcus, and he was alone.

Dan tilted his head. "Where's Jenna?" he questioned.

Marcus frowned and shook his head. "I don't know. I followed the crowd and she wasn't there. I went to her room, and her office down the hall, and she wasn't in those places either," he said.

"You mean she's gone?" Zoe asked, her eyebrows nearly at her hairline.

"I guess so," he replied and leaned against the wall beside the door, "So. Have we made a plan in my absence?"

Phil filled him on the idea. Marcus seemed to be on Dan's side, so if they weren't going to go with Phil's idea and take it up to a vote, Dan's way would have won. It didn't matter to him at all, because the less extreme form of fighting was a better decision anyway. And now Dan was quite worried where Jenna could have gone off to.

"Do you know what else we can do, besides try to free people from the experiments?" PJ suggested, "Take the enzyme research. So they can't make more of it in our meantime of stopping the hunt."

"I like it," Dan nodded.

"Right, so there's a few things we have to do before we can execute this plan," Louise said. She got up and went over to the corner, pulling open her secret door in the wall. There wasn't a lot of time to react before she was back with a small whiteboard. Of course she had a whiteboard in there. She placed it on the desk beside Phil and motioned for everyone else to crowd around. "First, we need to decide who's going to go. How many of us will be doing the talking, how many will be breaking into the labs. Second, we need to find a way to get in, for both teams. The team doing the talking needs a reason to be there. The team breaking in needs to get into the research lab without getting caught or tripping any alarms. I think I'll be able to handle any counterfeit documents," she said, writing all her points in purple marker on the board, "Oh, we also need transportation."

"We have that!" PJ said, brightening, "The bus. We can drive it into London."

Louise grinned and erased the first three letters she wrote of the word transportation. "Perfect. So now we just have the other things to worry about," she concluded.

Dan and Phil exchanged a quick look. Phil nodded. "Right, okay, Zoe," he said, looking over at her, "We think you should lead the mission of talking to… well, whoever it is we get an audience with. Marcus should go too, because he has the advantage of knowing what that person will want to hear," he said.

Marcus and Zoe nodded, then high-fived. Dan grinned and then looked back down at the whiteboard. "As for the break-in team, I think Phil and I should do that. I kind of want to know personally what we're up against," he said.

"There's strength in numbers, Dan," Zoe said worriedly.

"We'll see what happens," he said decidedly.

There were more nods all around. Phil looked at Louise. "How long will it take you to get those counterfeit documents and an audience with an official?" he asked.

Louise pursed her lips as she thought. "It could be weeks. I need to create identities for Zoe and Marcus, and a reason for them to be there, not to mention make the documents look real. Badges and IDs and whatnot," she said.

"That's a lot of down time to let this go on," Alfie said, his expression hard.

Louise opened her mouth to retort but Dan got there first. "It's our only option. And it won't be complete downtime," he said.

"You want to train people?" Chris said, looking excited, "Just in case we do need to fight?"

Dan nodded, a grin growing on his lips. Phil's fingers grazed his for just a moment on the desk. "Exactly."

From then on things started to come together. PJ made the announcement over the PA system that they were going to start training everyone "harder, faster, and more often" (Dan's words). Louise and Zoe also came up with a ranking system; Dan and Phil were at the top, followed by resistance members, and then everyone else. This was merely for the purposes of making sure everyone who actually needed to learn to control their powers got that attention, which was not happening before. Every other thing they were learning, which all turned out to be rubbish anyway, became unneeded.

There was also an option for others to show their prowess with their abilities, in hopes of getting out of the more basic training that was being run by Alfie and Charlie. If one was good enough, they got to train more rigorously for actual missions besides the likes of Caspar or Carrie. But, considering a lot of the residents of the facility were children, they didn't know how to control let alone use their powers. But, the week after their initial planning meeting, they did get someone quite promising.

Dan and Phil were helping with the training of those with natural powers, making sure no walls were blown through or the building uprooted, when Chris came to find them. "Hey, someone wants to try and move up," he said. He had one of PJ's tablets tucked under his arm.

"Who?" Phil asked.

Chris looked at the tablet. "Dodie Clark, her name is. Apparently she's been here longer than any of us, but knew exactly what she was doing before she came," he said.

Dan furrowed his eyebrows. "How do you know that?" he wondered.

"I asked her why she thought she needed to join us. The team, so to speak," Chris replied and started to walk away. Dan and Phil exchanged a look and moved to follow.

"The team?" Dan said.

"Yeah," Chris replied, handing the tablet to Phil, "The proper team, the resistance members. The not-trainees. You suggested looking at us like superheroes. Well, every great group of superheroes had a cool team name. So I'm trying to come up with one that's not stupid like all of Louise's names."

Dan supposed it was a good idea. It was initially his to call them superheroes after all. A team name would make it easier for them to identify themselves, especially if they did stop all the prejudice from the government. "Have any thoughts?" he asked Chris.

He had led them to one of the smaller classrooms, apparently empty. Dan supposed this Dodie Clark didn't have very offensive powers. "Nope. I'll let you know," Chris replied and nodded to the door before walking away. So Dan and Phil went into the room alone, and there was a girl sitting on one of the desks. Her hair was long, nearly down to her waist, and her fringe hung in her eyes. She didn't say anything, but she definitely saw the two boys walk in.

"Hello," said Phil warmly, "Can we help you?"

The girl, Dodie, hopped off the desk. She cleared her throat. "Yes! I'd like to show you what I could do, so I can join the team properly," she said, kind of flat toned as if she had rehearsed.

Dan nodded. "I suppose the team idea is spreading," he said, waving her on, "Go on." He hoped he and Phil weren't intimidating. This had a very audition-like feel to it, and he had been through enough of those to know that they were terrifying.

Dodie nodded and closed her eyes. Dan and Phil didn't look away, and good thing too, because in an instant it appeared as if Dodie was gone. Dan panicked for a moment, then he supposed she could be invisible, but then she was back the next moment. Phil gasped.

"You shrink?" Phil said.

So that's where she went. Dodie nodded quickly. "I'm in complete control of it! I can only shrink to about the size of an ant, and I have tried to make myself a bit bigger or a bit smaller, but it just doesn't work. I have full range of motion when I'm small, and I can move and climb really fast," she explained.

"How old are you?" Phil asked her.

Dodie pursed her lips. "Fifteen."

Phil raised his eyebrows, looking impressed. He looked at Dan and shrugged one shoulder. That had come to be the universal sign of it being Dan's decision. He turned to Dodie and held out his hand. "Welcome to the team, Dodie," he said with a smile. She brightened instantly and shook Dan's hand, thanking them profusely.

"All the way on the other side of the facility there's a small back stairwell. All the way at the bottom you'll find the rest of the team. Tell them we sent you in," Phil said. Dodie nodded and headed out of the room- well, more like skipped out of the room.

Dan and Phil soon followed. "Well, that was fun," Dan said, "I hope more people have control like that. We'll need the highest numbers we can get."

"And the spectrum of power people can have is indefinite. We could find all sorts of powers out there," Phil said, grinning excitedly. They turned a corner as Dan was about to reply, but Louise appeared down at the opposite end of the hallway. She gasped and hurried over when she spotted them.

"Thank goodness I found you two! PJ and I have something to show you," she said and waved for them to follow her. She led them to Louise's office and through the hidden door to her computer control room. On the far corner there was a table, but the thing that sat on it seemed a little peculiar and even out of place; a sewing machine and mountains of fabric. PJ sat in a chair beside the table, tapping away on the tablet in his lap.

Dan looked at Louise. "What is all this?"

"We've been developing these for you, and it's time to try out the prototypes," she replied and walked over to the table. She produced a black garment that looked a lot like a scuba suit.

Phil regarded it with speculation. "You made us swimsuits?" he asked, practically reading Dan's thoughts.

Louise gave them both a deadpan look. "No, they're combat suits. They're designed with your particular powers in mind using fabric developed by PJ and myself. So you can go on the mission and use your powers without sacrificing any of your clothing," she explained.

"Do they work?" Dan wondered, studying the suit closely.

"That's why you're here, to try them out. Besides fabricating those documents for Zoe and Marcus, I've been making these for the past week and half," she said, looking at the combat suit as if it was her own child.

"Is everyone going to have one?" Phil asked, walking over to run the fabric of the suit between two of his fingers.

"That's the plan," PJ piped up, "But we have to make sure they work first."

Louise pulled the suit away from Phil and thrust it at Dan. "So go change and meet us by the main gym," she instructed, "And I apologize if they're a little too big or small. I guessed on your measurements."

Soon Dan was standing in the center of the main gym wearing the combat suit. Louise had given him a little communication device to wedge in his ear so they could talk while he was in there. He was alone, all the equipment moved out so he could test this suit properly. Louise, PJ, and Phil were all standing in front of the windows looking down at Dan in the gym.

"Can you hear me?" said Louise's voice in his ear.

He knew it was there, but it still made him jump. "Yep," he replied.

"Okay," she continued. She was talking into a microphone in her hand. "So what do you think?"

Dan looked down at himself. The black material felt a little like a basketball, but it wasn't entirely uncomfortable. However, it was a little loose on his body, and the sleeves fell over half his hands. "It's a little too big," he replied.

"I can fix that. Do you feel like you'll overheat wearing it?" Louise said.

Dan supposed he didn't. He often got that feeling with heavy coats and other thermal clothing. The heat always needed somewhere to go, which he was better at knowing now. "No," he replied.

"Brilliant," Louise said, sounding pleased, "Alright, Dan. Light it up and see if the fabric chars or melts in your flames."

Dan closed his eyes and took a breath. Then another. Heat started to pool in his palms, making the air around them shimmer, and he could smell smoke. That was his breath. He opened his eyes and his palms caught fire, and soon it swallowed up both his hands. With more coaxing, the fire licked up his wrists and climbed quickly up his arms. He was so mesmerized by how beautiful and powerful he looked Louise had to shout in his ear. "The fabric, Dan!"

Dan studied his arms beneath the flames. The fabric was not charring, melting, or curling away from the heat. It just sat there as if it weren't on fire at all. "It's fine!" he said brightly. That greatly excited him, and that must have upped his temperature, because the flames on his hands started to flicker blue and white. He could hear Louise's voice in his head again, but he wasn't paying attention. He was so excited. He had never been so free to use his abilities before, and it felt liberating and amazing and he wanted to keep doing it. This made him feel like a hero.

And then it was over. A high-pitched alarm sounded over his head before he was doused in water, promptly putting out the flames. Dan caught some water in his palms, as it was probably better to cool off and looked up, squinting. They had a sprinkler system? "Oi!" he shouted.

The sprinklers stopped after a minute, but Dan was still soaked. "Sorry," Louise said, "You weren't listening and it was getting much too hot in there."

Dan stared at up her in the window, hands on his hips. Or he was trying, but his hair was falling into his eyes. PJ took the mic from Louise. "Well done, Dan, that was really cool. And your suit looks completely untouched," he said.

"It is," Dan said, "Looks and feels fine. Aside from being sopping wet."

Louise leaned over to the microphone. "Just come back up and get dried off. It's Phil's turn anyway," she said. Dan sighed and walked over to the door, but once they couldn't see his face anymore he broke into a grin. No matter how much he hated being in the facility at first, he supposed it really did help him learn to control it. He remembered when he would give anything to be someone else, someone "normal", but now he couldn't be happier with being himself.