My first true crossover fanfic. I'm actually kinda proud of it.
The Mask (c) Dark Horse Comics
Phineas and Ferb (c) Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh
This story (c) ME!
Phineas and Ferb presents...
Big-Head in Little Danville!
"Why is it every time Dad gets narcoleptic for history, he drags us to a museum?" Candace Flynn griped as she, her brothers and their pet platypus Perry followed their father Lawrence through the Danville Museum of Norwegian History. "And just when I finally had those two right where I wanted them."
Phinnas, meanwhile, had other things on his mind. "How's our status for the world's largest pizza coming, Ferb?" Ferb brought out a calculator, did some number-crunching, and handed it to Phineas. "I see," he replied. "If these calculations are right, the dough should be done rising by the time we get back. I only hope the guys are okay holding the fort down while we're gone."
Back at the Flynn house, Isabella had just arrived for her daily visit. "Hey, boys," she greeted. "Wha'cha doin'?"
"Can't talk!" Baljeet screamed as he and Buford strained themselves against the door of what appeared to be a very large oven as it shook and rumbled ominously. "Must keep rising dough within giant oven."
"Put'cha back into it!" Buford grunted. "She won't hold much longer!"
"I'm giving her all I've got, Captain!" Baljeet replied. Getting the hint, Isabella shoved against the oven door with them.
"Yes, Mom, a giant oven!" Candace reported over her cell phone. "Look, just take fifteen minutes off your Pilates appointment and run home. You can't miss it... What? You can't risk losing your spot?" Seeing that she wasn't going to be doing any preemptive brother-busting, she relented with a loud groan. "Alright, fine, but first thing when you're done. Call you back." Candace hung up and growled. "Alright, twerps. For now you're lucky, but once Mom gets home and sees that oven, you're in for the bust of your all-too-short lives."
Oblivious to his step-daughter's rage, Lawrence flipped through the museum guidebook as he led his young charges through an exhibit of ornamental masks. "According to Norwegian Mythology, the realm of Valhalla was ruled over by the chief god Odin and consisted of powerful deities such as Thor, Sif, Bauder, and Loki," he read. "Many Norwegian mortals made effigies of these gods in their honor and placed them on various shields, helmets and masks. Some believed that by wearing the mask of a god, they could be granted the powers of one." The slightly-absentminded father chuckled. "Oh, those Norse and their silly legends."
"Wow, these are some awesome masks," Phineas replied in awe as he glanced over the many ornate masks of gold, silver, and brass, "except that one." He pointed at a lone wooden mask sitting at the far end, looking somewhat pathetic compared to its bretheren. "That one looks so... plain. So sad."
"Like it's seen into the collective soul of humanity as we know it," Ferb simply said.
Lawrence called out to the kids. "C'mon, you three. The history film's starting."
Not thinking much else on it, the brothers walked away after their dad. Candace, however, paused. For some reason, the wooden mask seemed to be... looking at her. Enticing her. Calling to her. "Yeah, go ahead and lay on the guilt trip, ya piece of wood," Candace inexplicibly snapped. "You think you've seen it all, don't you? Well, I've got news for you, frowny... You have no idea!" As she walked away, the mask shimmered eerily, almost as if it heard her.
"Who would've thought that Vikings were so cool?" Phineas excitedly exclaimed. "Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today." Ferb glared at Phineas. "I mean tomorrow. Today mega-pizza," he quickly added. And of course, it was around this time that Phineas noticed something else. "Hey, where's Perry?"
Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bah, doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bah...
Over at the gift shop, Perry had already put on his fedora and had bought a shoebox. Tossing the shoes aside, Perry wrote an address on the lid, then put himself in the box and closed it up. On cue, a mailman passing by saw the addressed box and took it outside, where he promptly put it in the mailbox.
Down in his headquarters, the shoebox landed on the floor and out stepped Perry, who immediately ran for the TV monitor and waited for the mission briefing to start. After a few seconds, the image of Major Monogram appeared, standing in a tall, proud salute.
"You can't move, sir! Not if I'm ever gonna finish this!"
Major Monogram winced. "My foot's asleep, and I'm dying to itch my nose." He then noticed that he was live on the video-feed. "Ah, Agent P. Sorry about this. Carl needs me to pose for his art project," he explained. "Anyway, local museums have reported the theft of their old, dusty exhibits, and we've got positive confirmation that it's Dr. Doofenshmertz's antics."
"Actually, sir, we're only guessing," Carl piped in from off-screen
"Well, it's not like it's ever anybody else!" the Major snapped, briefly breaking out of his pose.
"I said don't move, sir!"
With a grunt, the Major resumed his salute. "Anyway, Agent P, get in, get cracking, and get out." Perry saluted back as he ran for the express elevator in the corner and shot out of view.
"Annnd... done!" The Major sighed in relief as Carl came up to him, holding a painting. "Well, sir, whaddya think?" The Major furrowed his prominent brow as he looked at the painting. What Carl painted was best described as a Technicolor Picasso. That is, very eye-burningly colorful and seriously off-model.
"You call this art?" he simply said.
"It's my artistic vision of you," Carl proudly replied.
"Well, I think you need to get your artistic vision checked."
The intern sighed. "You're too cruel, sir."
"Loki, the Norse God of Mischief. He was feared by many a mortal for his sinister, often deadly pranks. It is said that his activities became so destructive, Odin banished Loki into a relic designed to contain his wicked powers," the narrator droned. "Interestingly, this story contains some parallels with another myth popular among native Africans, where shamans are said to have imbued a tribal mask with the power of a god. It may be possible that the sea-faring Vikings had shared their story with the Africans, or vice versa. Regardless, this is considered a shining example of early interaction between the Norsemen and the many cultures of the world."
As the historical film rolled, despicting many accounts of Vikings and Norse Gods and other Norwegian tales of fascination, Candace sat in absolute boredom. Next to her, Lawrence had fallen asleep. And next to him...
"Excuse me... Phineas Flynn?" an usher quietly prodded Phineas as he sat there transfixed by the film. "Mr. Flynn?"
"Huh, what?"
"There's a call for you out in the lobby. Someone named Bald Jet is rambling something about exploding pizza dough."
The brothers looked at each other fearfully. "Tell him we'll be there immediately," Phineas ordered as he and Ferb left the theater.
"We came over as soon as we heard!" Phineas called out as he and Ferb barged into the backyard. "So, did the dough come out all right?"
"Yes. It came out all right and all left and all over us," Baljeet reported as he and Isabella dusted flour off of their clothes. "But it's ready." Behind him, a giant wad of pizza dough sat on an equally-large pizza tray.
"Wow, we're already ahead of schedule! That super-yeast must be more powerful than we thought," Phineas exclaimed, getting a thumbs-up from Ferb. "Alright, so long as we're here, you all can help us spread it out and then we'll-" Phineas paused to notice Buford sitting against the tree, groaning and holding his stomach. "Buford, you okay?"
"I had to eat my way out of the dough," Buford sickly admitted.
"Well, that can't be healthy." Phineas shook his head. "You take your time and recover, Buford. Everybody else... let's MOONBOUNCE!" Everybody cheered as they took off their shoes and began jumping on the dough like it was a trampoline, flipping and posing as they gained incredible air. Even Buford managed to get some bouncing in after his stomach-ache passed. Slowly, the dough was spread out to the edges of the pan. "This is AWE-SO-O-O-OME!" Phineas shouted amidst the antics. "Too bad Candace isn't here for this."
Back at the museum...
"Hey Ferb. Pass the popcorn, please?" Candace asked. After a few seconds without getting a response, Candace looked over her father's sleeping body. "I said- huh?" The popcorn tub was sitting in an empty seat, and her brothers were nowhere in sight.
Taking the popcorn tub, Candace saw a note hastily scribbled on the side. 'Candace... Emergengy situation with the mega-pizza! Had to run home! We'll save you a slice. PnF.'
"Those little... happy-go-lucky... TWERPS!" Candace roared. "They think they can just get away with leaving me in the clutch? Well, we'll see about that!" Drawing her cell phone, Candace hit speed-dial. "Mom, it's me! Listen, I-"
A flashlight shined in her face, interrupting her. "Hey, no cell phones in the theater," an usher snapped.
"Oops, sorry." Smiling innocently, Candace silently left the theater and stepped into the lobby before trying again. "Mom, it's me! Listen, I absolutely NEED you to come home right now!" Mom's response wasn't comforting. "No, no, no! I don't care what you're doing! I'm dragging you home for this no matter what!"
As Candace hung up, her attention drifted back to the same wooden mask from earlier. It almost seemed to be mocking her. "Shaddup!" she tersely snapped as she ran out of the museum.
Doofenshmirtz Evil Incor-por-a-tedddd...
Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz was busy in his rooftop laboratory, innocently doing this and that, when a loud smashing sound drew his attention behind him. Shards of window glass surrounding him, Perry stood to face his nemesis.
"Ah, Perry the Platypus! How nice of you to... drop in. And by drop in, I mean drop through this trap door!" Doofenshmirtz grabbed a remote and pushed the button, resulting in... nothing. "What the-" Doofenshmirtz pressed the button a few more times to no effect. "That's funny. I could've sworn it was working when I was testing it and- Oh, that's right!" he proclaimed as he popped the battery cover open. "I removed the batteries so that they wouldn't drain overnight. Wait." He began rummaging through his lab coat, looking somewhat embarrassed as he realized that he had no batteries on his person. "Uh, you don't happen to have a spare pair of double-As, do you?" Perry reached under his hat and tossed Doofenshmirtz a two-pack. "Ah, thanks." After inserting the batteries and closing the cover, Doofenshmirtz pressed the button again, causing the floor to drop out from below Perry and send him falling into a small plexiglass tank that quickly closed shut over him.
Laughing madly, Doofenshmirtz walked down the stairwell to the floor below. "Personally, that's a very fitting place for you," he taunted. "Anyway, you're probably wondering why I'm stealing all the musty old artifacts from the museums?" Not surprisingly, Perry was silent. "You see, I was walking through the museum the other day and I was reading through all those articles of great and powerful heroes throughout history. I got to wondering 'Hey, why should the heroes get all the museum exhibits? Why not make a museum for history's greatest villains?'" Doofenshmirtz stopped to rub his chin in thought. "Or would the proper term be 'worst villains'?"
"Anyway, I went to the City Council to propose my idea, and there was so much bureaucratic red tape with zoning permits and construction fees and gift shop-to-exhibit ratios that I decided it would be simpler to steal away everything in the existing museums and replace it all with new villain exhibits dedicated to the greatest criminal mind of the Tri-State Area... ME!" He gestured towards the lab's outside balcony, where an assortment of old Inators and a well-designed statue of himself sat underneath a banner proclaiming 'HEINZ DOOFENSHMIRTZ: A RETROSPECTIVE'. "I'll admit the statue was expensive to have made, but the exorbitant ticket prices I'll be charging will make up for it." Doofenshmirtz looked over the statue in thought as a bird suddenly smacked into it. "You don't think it's too obstentatious, do you?" Perry just glared.
"Anyway, it's time for my favorite part... BEHOLD! The... uh..." Doofenshmirtz looked around, seeing that whatever it was he was going to show off, it wasn't there. "Just a sec." Doofenshmirtz ran back upstairs to the lab above. A second later, the sound of metal being shoved across a linoleum floor echoed from above, intermittently sparsed in with heavy grunting and panting. Then came the sound of a buzzer as the elevator's weight-limit alarm went off. Finally, the elevator doors opened, and Doofenshmirtz came through, shoving a large mechanical weapon across the floor towards the open windows.
Finally, the weapon was in place. "Y'know, in retrospect, I probably should've built this on the same floor as the cage," Doofenshmirtz admitted as he wiped his brow. "BEHOLD! The Museum-Exhibit-Vacuum-Inator! Not only does it allow me to vacuum up everything out of whatever building I point it at, but it also makes spring-cleaning a breeze. And by breeze, I mean gale-force winds!" Doofenshmirtz adjusted the weapon's aim. "Today, we're shooting for the Danville Museum of Norwegian History. Gonna give those Vikings some real wind in their sails!" With a cackle, he activated the device and launched a powerful vortex of wind towards the museum.
At the museum, the vortex smashed through the roof and began sucking up everything within range. From horned helmets to ornamental shields, it all got pulled into the vortex and was sucked up into the office building. People and museum staff fled every which way to avoid the onslaught... everybody except Lawrence, who still slept soundly and obliviously in the theater.
The mask exhibit was spared as the glass cases protected the old masks from the wind. However, one of the horned helmets lurched out of control and smashed into the case holding the odd wooden mask, and the both of them were drawn into the vortex.
As Doofenshmirtz laughed over his handiwork, Perry quietly took a small cutting laser from his hat and cut his way through the one place not covered by plexiglass: the floor that the trap was mounted on. Slipping into the floorboards, Perry scampered through and cut a second hole back out next to the Museum-Exhibit-Vacuum-Inator, after which he leapt out and landed in front of Doofenshmirtz.
"Move! You're throwing off my aim!" As Doofenshmirtz shooed Perry off the controls, he accidently jerked the controls too hard, causing the vortex to begin twisting uncontrollably. As it did, debris from its suction began flying into the building lab, and the both of them were suddenly finding themselves diving and dodging every which way to avoid getting hit by all the Viking-based objects.
As he dodged a horned helmet, Doofenshmirtz was suddenly hit in the face with a wooden mask. Reaching up to grab it, Doofenshmirtz found that, for some reason, it wasn't coming off. In fact, it seemed to be adhering to his face. "Curse you, funny wooden mask!" he growled in an odd, distorted version of his normal, screechy voice. Lightning began flashing for no apparent reason as Doofenshmirtz's body began to vanish into a small tornado, bouncing every which way and demolishing much of the room.
Finally, the mayhem stopped, and Doofenshmirtz stood over Perry with an insane glint in his eyes. The doctor was no longer wearing his usual lab coat, but a sinister purple-with-gold trim general's uniform. Even more frightening was Doofenshmirtz's face: it was now a deep green with HUGE teeth. Slicked-back hair and a new goatee completed the evil ensemble.
Throughout all this, Perry couldn't help but stare in awe. "What are you looking at?" Doofenshmirtz demanded, his voice now deeper and with a hint of an otherworldly echo. "Is it something on my face?" Perry took a hand mirror from Doofenshmirtz's workbench and gave it to him.
The doctor looked at his face curiously. "Look at my head!" he exclaimed. "It's so... BIG! And green!" Perry glared at Doofenshmirtz. "No, I didn't mean to insult you, Perry the Platypus. I have nothing against green... just you!" Without warning, Doofenshmirtz pulled out a HUGE bazooka from behind his back, completely defying all logic as he did so. "What the- Where'd this come from?" he questioned. "Did I just... pull this out from behind my back? That completely defies all logic!" Doofenshmirtz shrugged. "Eh, life gives you lemons."
Doofenshmirtz pulled the trigger, launching a large heat-seeking missile at Perry. With no place left to run, Perry pressed the trap-door remote and opened up the trap-door above his head. With a single leap, he escaped to the floor above, making the missile miss him and loop around back to its only remaining target: Dr. Doofenshmirtz. "Aw, phooey."
BOOM! The force of the blast splattered Doofenshmirtz all over the wall, taking the Museum-Exhibit-Vacuum-Inator out with it. However, while the device was wrecked beyond repair, Doofenshmirtz wobbled to his feet feeling... fine? "Hm, that's odd..." he observed. "Normally a blast like that puts me out for the rest of the day, but I didn't even feel it." Doofenshmirtz rubbed his exaggerated and hairy chin in thought. "Pulling weapons out of thin air... Immune to pain... Stylish goatee..."
On a hunch, Doofenshmirtz reached for his face and pulled off the green coating, restoring him to his normal self as he held the wooden mask. Putting two and two together, Doofenshmirtz smiled evilly. He held up the mask in triumph. "Funny wooden mask, you and I are going places! And by going places, I mean... well... places. To go to..." He put the mask back on with a sinister grin.
Giddy-yup, giddy-yup, giddy-dee-doo-dee-daa...
Back in the Flynn's backyard, Phineas and Ferb were still hard at work preparing the mega-pizza. "Good thing we still have a few giant paint-rollers left from when we were painting that desert," Phineas exclaimed as he navigated his helicopter across the dough, spreading pizza sauce with a giant paint-roller. Across from him, Ferb passed by with his own helicopter-slash-roller, flashing a thumbs-up.
Over by the tree, Isabella and several of her Fireside Girls were taking large chunks of mozzarella cheese and feeding them to wood-chippers, which shredded up the cheese and fired it onto the sauced-up pizza. Baljeet and Buford, meanwhile, had obtained a giant log of pepperoni and a lumberjack saw and were cutting slices off as they pulled back and forth. The slices were then tossed frisbee-style onto the cheese.
Soon, the pizza was fully topped and ready for cooking. "So far so good, guys," Phineas reported as he looked over the pizza. "Now, all that's left is the baking. Ferb, release the winches." Both helicopters each dropped a pair of hook-cables towards the ground. The Fireside Girls quickly attached the hooks to the ends of the pan, allowing Phineas and Ferb to airlift the pizza tray and its cargo into the waiting (and fully-repaired) oven.
As the boys landed their vehicles, Baljeet did some calculations on paper and shook his head. "You know, if we cook this pizza at 350 degrees per square inch," he explained, "it will take eleven years to cook it completely."
Phineas smiled. "That's why we're gonna deep-fry." A loud truck-horn sounded from the front yard. "And there's the oil now!" he announced as a pair of truckers walked into the backyard lugging a large nozzle.
"Okay, here's your order of non-hydrogenated canola oil," the lead trucker announced. Upon seeing Phineas, he paused. "Aren't you a little... young to be playing with oil like this?"
"Yes. Yes I am," Phineas replied nonchalantly. "Trust me, you won't be the last guy to ask that."
"Eh, okay." Shrugging, the trucker attached the nozzle to a fuel-port on the side of the oven and began pumping the oil.
"Anyway, by using this oil, we'll be able to achieve hotter temperatures to reduce cooking time," Phineas explained. "It'll be done in less than two hours tops."
"Doesn't that sound a little unhealthy?" Isabella pointed out. "Oily foods are bad for the complexion, you know."
"We're not actually cooking the pizza in the oil," came Phineas's reassured reply. "We're using it to fuel the nitro-burners in the oven."
"Oh." Isabella smiled. "Well, that's okay then."
The trucker removed the nozzle and closed the port. "Alright, folks. Let's cook this pie!" Phineas pulled a lever on the side, starting the oven with a loud roar of flames. The roar echoed throughout the entire Tri-State Area, making everybody jump in surprise... except Lawrence, who was still asleep at the museum.
The only other person who didn't jump at the sound was, not surprisingly, Candace, who was too busy rambling on her cell phone. "Whatever that was, it's my brothers for sure," she ranted as she marched to the gym. "Oooo, I'm gonna bust them but GOOD this time!"
"Come on, Candace. By all means, you should be giving up by now," her friend Stacy Hirano exclaimed over the cell phone. "You know those boys are gonna get away with it somehow."
"I don't care!" she swore. "I am the oldest sibling. Therefore, I should be the one who gets to do whatever I want and not get in trouble over it, not them. To me, it's the principle that matters."
"Whatever." Stacy hung up, but Candace paid it no mind as she entered the gym and made an immediate beeline for the aerobics area, just in time to see her mother Linda gathering her things.
Candace ran over to Linda. "Mom, Mom, Mom! Phineas and Ferb have made this giant pizza oven in the backyard!" she panicked in her trademark franticism.
"Oh, for the love of-" Linda groaned, as she often did when her daughter got like this (which was daily). "Candace, can't this wait for another half-hour at least?"
"C'mon, Linda, the sauna's open," called out a black-haired woman with obvious motherly qualities. "We need to get moving if we're gonna get good spots."
"But MOOOOOM!"
Linda gritted her teeth, but forced a smile. "Fine, I'll see what the fuss is about... again." She turned to her friend. "Save my spot, okay, Charlene? This won't take long."
As Candace dragged her mother away by the wrist, Charlene shook her head. "I swear, that girl's worse than Vanessa. Speaking of whom..." Charlene took out her cell phone and began dialing.
"Hello, you've reached Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Leave a message." BEEP! "Hi, Heinz, it's Charlene. You know, your ex-wife? I'm just reminding you that it's your weekend with Vanessa, and I expect a nice, quiet two days. Let's not have a repeat of the noodle incident, 'kay? Bye."
Doofenshmirtz was currently unavailable to respond, for he was upstairs tiptoeing throughout his laboratory wearing some kind of hunter's outfit and clutching a large blunderbuss. "Be vewy, vewy quiet," he said with an evil grin. "I'm hunting platypuses... platypi... platypeople." Doofenshmirtz shrugged. "Well, you know what I mean."
Creeping around a corner, Doofenshmirtz suddenly opened fire. "Peekaboo!" he shouted as he looked over the smoldering spot he had shot. Much to his disappointment, he had only shot at a throw pillow, leaving feathers flying everywhere. Under the soft, downy cover, Perry suddenly leaped out and aimed his foot right for Doofenshmirtz's overgrown teeth... which suddenly launched out of his mouth and clamped onto Perry's foot.
"Hah! Phooled you!" Doofenshmirtz cackled as new teeth grew back into his mouth. "Oh, don't look so disgusted, Perry the Platypus. I brush my teeth after every meal." Perry simply scowled as he tried to pry the teeth off his foot. His prey helpless, Doofenshmirtz drew his blunderbuss and aimed it point-blank at Perry's head. It looked like the end of Agent P for sure.
As Doofenshmirtz put his finger on the trigger, Perry suddenly swung his foot at him, causing the denture-clamp to fly off his foot and chomp right into Doofenshmirtz's face. With him distracted, Perry dashed off for cover behind a console.
"Aw, hey! I call foul!" Removing the teeth, Doofenshmirtz pulled out a roast chicken... stuffed with dynamite. "Perry the Platypus! I've got a tasty treat for you! It's finger-lickin' good!" The masked madman stuffed the loaded bird into his blunderbuss and fired it at Perry's hiding spot, blowing it to pieces and leaving Perry holding his head for cover. "Don't go! What are you, chicken?" Doofenshmirtz continued to fire more of the potent poultry, blowing huge craters all over his lab. The poor platypus was utterly overpowered against Doofenshmirtz's onslaught.
As the smell of simmering chicken flowed through the lab, a thought crossed Perry's mind, and he suddenly dashed forward towards Doofenshmirtz. Though he tried to fend off the platypus with a few more chicken-shots, Doofenshmirtz was unable to dodge as Perry rammed him in the gut. The force of the blow caused them to fall back down the still-open trap door and land hard on the ground below.
Meanwhile...
"Is it ready yet?" Buford impatiently asked as he, Baljeet, and Isabella sat around the tree, watching the oven intently.
"Just a few more minutes, everybody," Phineas reassured as he and Ferb maintained watch on the oven. "When it's done, we will have set a new record for world's largest pizza pie."
"And then we can eat it, right?" Buford pressed again. "'Cause I really want the pie."
As he recovered from his fall, Doofenshmirtz felt his face... and realized that the mask was gone! "Aw, no! And just when I was starting to get the hang of it." He quickly sat up and began searching around the room."Where did it-"
A loud platypus growl made Doofenshmirtz turn his head, and that's when he saw exactly where the mask went... onto Perry's face. He didn't look much different from normal: the green of his face was only barely brighter than that of his fur, though the head and teeth still looked rather large. His fedora was a bright yellow, complete with a feather in its brim.
"HAH! Now you've got the big head! Yes you do, yes you do!" Doofenshmirtz taunted. Not a good idea, for Perry suddenly leapt up and bit Doofenshmirtz in his arm. "OUCH! That was uncalled for!" he yelled as he threw Perry off. "Seriously, Perry the Platypus, where are your manners?"
Perry pulled out a baseball bat from behind his back and swung it hard, knocking Doofenshmirtz back down to the floor. Sputtering angrily, the mad doctor staggered to his feet. "Oh, now you're fighting dirty? Well, it's on now!" he swore as he drew a handgun-like device from his coat and pulled the trigger, firing... nothing. "Aw, great! I left the batteries in too long!"
Perry growled loudly, making the lab slightly vibrate from the echo as he pounced on Doofenshmirtz and began beating him up mercilessly. "Ow, stop that! Get off! Get off!" But Perry continued his relentless pounding, kicking up obscuring amounts of dust.
"Gimme that!" Doofenshmirtz suddenly yanked the mask off Perry and put it back on, allowing him to turn the tables on his nemesis as the brawl continued. After a few seconds, Perry took the mask back, and so this exchange went on for a while. One second, the mask was on Doofenshmirtz as he swung an anvil at Perry, the next it was on Perry as he threw bear traps at Doofenshmirtz. Back and forth the mask went between the two wearers, and the weapons got more and more ridiculous. Lobsters, lawn chairs, cups of really hot coffee, and even giant floating baby heads!
All of a sudden, the mask flew out of the dust cloud, causing Doofenshmirtz and Perry to pause right where they stood (Perry, anyway, for he was pinning Doofenshmirtz to the floor) as the relic just sat there, unmoving. The duo suddenly leapt forward in a mad grab for the mask, clamboring and clawing each other for every inch of ground. They both eventually managed to grab the mask simultaneously, and the inevitable tug-of-war began. "My mask! MINE!" Doofenshmirtz shouted amidst his pulling. Perry simply growled in defiance as he pulled back with every ounce of strength he had.
As Doofenshmirtz slowly stepped backwards, he failed to notice the wiring running through the lab, and he predictably tripped and fell over on his behind. In doing so, he lost his grip on the mask, causing Perry to tumble back and smack into the wall, losing the mask as well and causing it to fly out an open window. Perry and Doofenshmirtz could only watch as the mask vanished out of sight.
As the mask spun over Danville, it caught a sudden updraft of wind and continued its flight, spinning all the way back to the Danville Museum of Norwegian History. It fell through the hole made by Doofenshmirtz earlier, rebounded off some cases, and ricocheted into the theater, where it hit the still-sleeping Lawrence in the back of his head before flipping up and into his lap.
Lawrence began to stir. "Huh? What?" Waking up, he noticed that everybody had already left the theater. "Guess Candace took the boys home," he simply said. Lawrence then looked down. "Well, what's this?" he exclaimed as he saw the mask in his lap. "How nice. The ushers gave out souveniers."
Sensing the awkward silence, Doofenshmirtz turned to Perry and forced a smile. "I... uh... I don't suppose we can call this one a draw, do you?" Perry responded in the only way he knew of: he tail-slapped Doofenshmirtz with enough force to send him flying out onto the balcony.
"Guess not. Curse you, Perry the Platypuuuusssssss!" he managed to yell out before he crashed into his giant self-statue, which toppled over and crushed all the Inators save for one: his plant-covered Shrink-Inator, which immediately warmed up for a shot. Doofenshmirtz shook his head in exasperation. "I really should start unplugging these things when I'm not using them," he said with a pained sigh as the antiquitated device fired.
By the act of that funny lady called Fate, the shrink-blast struck Phineas and Ferb's finished mega-pizza, oven and all, just as the timer dinged. "Well, it's ready," Phineas proclaimed as he looked towards the no-longer-giant oven and raised an eyebrow. "Hm, guess we won't need the helicopters anymore," he said with a shrug. "Ferb, grab some oven mitts."
As the boys took out the pizza, Candace shoved Linda into the backyard. "See, Mom, I told you they had a giant pizza cooking!" she announced in triumph.
Linda gasped. "I... see it."
YES! YES! Whooping in victory, Candace turned around towards the backyard to see her results... and felt her mood quickly vanish when she saw that the pizza was now a more conventional-sized pie.
Linda took a cheesy slice and bit into it. "Mmmm... this is delicious!" she moaned. "You boys really need to share the recipe. The taste is simply enormous." Everybody nodded as they grabbed a slice and eagerly ate it.
Defeated once more, Candace bowed her head. "And Ferb says..."
"Apparently, our recipe didn't take shrinkage into account."
"Annnnd..."
Perry waddled into view. "Oh, there you are, Perry," Phineas replied. A low growl was Perry's simple greeting.
"Well, my day's done," Candace mumbled. "If anybody needs me, I'll be in my room complaining about the general unfairness of life." Pausing only to take a slice of pizza for herself and pull off the cheese, Candace started the slow trudge upstairs.
As she moped away, her father came into the kitchen. "Ah, good, you all made it home," he exclaimed. "Here, Candace." Lawrence held out a gift bag filled with assorted knick-knacks. "I brought you some souveniers."
"Thanks," she groaned as she took the bag without even looking up. She had enough humiliation for one day. As she lazily pawed through the cheap-and-tacky items, her hand came across the feeling of wood. Candace pulled it out to see the mask. "Heh... cute, Dad," she unemotionally grunted as she entered her room and slammed the door shut.
END OF PART 1