"Hey, Ferb, I know what we're going to do today!"
Perry smiled to himself, looking out the window to the backyard where Phineas and Ferb were sitting under the tree. Ducking down from the windowsill, he lifted up Phineas' bed and jumped onto the pneumatic tube underneath. Everything was lining up to be another perfectly normal day, judging from the way he heard Candace shouting as he slid past the first floor and down to his lair.
The last thing he was expecting to see when he dropped to his chair in front of the screen was a human girl. She was wearing the regulation fedora that marked her as an O.W.C.A agent, but she was entirely human.
"Hi," she said with a grin, sticking out a hand. "I'm Mabel Pines, but you can call me Agent M."
Perry shook her hand and tipped his hat.
"Do you like my sweater?" she asked, doing a quick twirl. "I made it myself." It was the same brown as her standard-issue fedora and had a picture of a pig on it.
In front of them, Major Monogram cleared his throat. "Hello, Agent P," he said. "As you know, we've recently introduced a few human agents to the Agency and – " He frowned as Perry shook his head. "What? Carl, why didn't he know?"
"Sorry, sir," Carl said. "It was a last minute – "
"Well anyway," the major continued, cutting off the end of Carl's sentence, "we've decided to assign Agent M here to you for training. She's new, from the California division. Now, get out there and see what Doofenshmirtz is up to!"
Saluting, Perry motioned Mabel to the hovercar. It was a little too small for her, but she folded her knees against her chest and tucked her pink purse under the seat. "This is amazing," she said as Perry started the engine and a panel slid open in the ceiling. "What kind of contractors did you get to build this place?"
"So where are we headed?" Mabel asked Perry as he steered towards the D.E.I building. "Are we putting anyone in jail? Are we qualified to make arrests? Does that even matter?"
Looping around the building to land on the balcony, Perry put a finger to his bill. Mabel fell silent as they landed and Perry felt around for traps. There were none on the balcony so, waving a hand for Mabel to follow him, he flattened himself against the wall and began to edge inside.
Snap! Handcuffs shot out of the wall, immobilizing Perry. Standing in the centre of the room, Dr. Doofenshmirtz stuck a remote back inside his lab coat. "Oh, hello, Perry the Platypus," he said. "How very unexpected of you, and, by unexpected, of course I mean completely expected."
Perry chattered in surprise at the fact that Heinz hadn't mentioned his partner yet. Looking around, he was surprised to see that Mabel was nowhere in sight.
Heinz frowned. "Are you looking for someone, Perry the Platypus? Well, it doesn't matter. Do you want to know why?" He took a step to the side, revealing his latest invention. "Behold, the Imitator-Inator!"
From above Perry, there was a low whistle and a few flakes of glitter drifted down to land in front of him. Looking up, he saw Mabel laying on one of the exposed metal beams. Returning her smile, he gave her a quick thumbs-up before returning his attention to the monologuing scientist.
"You remember my brother Roger, right?" Heinz asked rhetorically, gesturing to a slideshow against the far wall that was playing familiar images of his childhood backstory. "Well, I came up with a plan to finally get my revenge on him!"
Seeing movement above him, Perry chattered to Mabel to stay still until the backstory and monologue was finished. The message must have translated because she stopped moving.
"What are you looking at, Perry the Platypus?" Heinz asked in confusion. "Is there something up there?" He craned his neck for a moment. "I don't see anything," he mumbled after a moment. "Anyway, the Imitator-Inator will make me look like just like Roger and then I'll walk into City Hall and they'll give the city to me because they'll think I'm him. I'll take over his life and then he'll know what it's like to be the unwanted sibling! Isn't it a great plan? So much evil potential!"
Hearing a soft clang of metal on metal, Perry looked up to where Mabel was now standing on the beam. Jumping, she sailed through the air in a perfect parabolic arch, her feet making contact with the exact centre of Heinz's chest. There was a click and Perry's handcuffs released.
"Grappling hook!" Mabel shouted, dropping to the floor. "Best tool ever!"
"Who's this?" Heinz asked, still lying on the floor. "Perry the Platypus, do you have a partner again?"
Perry nodded, pointing to her fedora. Mabel stuck her grappling hook back in her purse, frowning at Heinz. "We have to talk about your plan," she said. "Mabel Pines, at your service."
Standing up, Heinz crossed his arms. "There's nothing to talk about," he insisted it. "It's the perfect way for me to get revenge on my brother. From there, it's just a small step to taking over the Tri-State Area." Looking at Perry, he raised an eyebrow. "Perry the Platypus, didn't you tell her the rules?"
Perry shrugged. It wasn't his job to brief the new recruits, and as long as she didn't pull a Peter the Panda, he didn't see a reason to stop her.
"Oh well," Heinz said, waving his hand. "Back to my plan." Grabbing the –Inator, he swiveled it around to face his nemesis. Perry crouched into a fighting stance and jumped at the invention, knocking it backwards onto the balcony. With a shout of protest, Heinz started to run after it, only to be stopped by a cloud of glitter.
"Awesome, it still works!" Mabel cheered. Pulling out her grappling hook, she fired it around Heinz, wrapping it around him until he was securely tied.
Perry gave her thumbs-up and pushed the –Inator to the edge of the balcony, pressing the self-destruct button as he tipped it over the edge. It exploded as it fell, firing a single beam of green light over the horizon.
"Thanks, Agent P," Mabel said. She looked between the immobilized scientist and Perry. "Now what do we do?"
Perry pointed to the hovercar still parked on the balcony.
"We're just going to leave?" Mabel frowned. "That doesn't seem right."
Heinz rolled his eyes. "You ruined my evil scheme and unfortunately I don't have anything else planned for today," he said, his voice slightly muffled. "Today just isn't a two-scheme day."
Mabel pulled up her sleeve, checking her bedazzled watch. "It's only eleven o'clock," she mused. "Agent P, what time do we have to be done here?"
Perry shrugged. Schemes didn't have any set time, even if most of them did take less than twenty minutes to foil. He frowned at the look Mabel got in her eyes at his answer.
"Okay, then." Retracting her grappling hook she unwrapped Heinz, spinning him around several times in the process. With the hand that wasn't holding the grappling hook, she grabbed the sleeve of his lab coat. "Careful," she said, still looking at Perry. "How's your schedule, Agent P?"
Frowning curiously, Perry pointed at his own watch. They had all the time they needed, although Major Monogram would start asking questions if he stayed overnight again and that wasn't something he needed.
Letting go of Heinz's sleeve, Mabel rubbed her hands together in a gesture that didn't seem, from Perry's limited experience of her, very Mabel-like. "Perfect!" Looking around, she pointed to Heinz's living room area. "It's time to talk it out."
"Talk what out?" Heinz asked, in unison with Perry. "I don't need to talk anything out."
Looking at the slideshow that was looping for the third time, Mabel raised an eyebrow. "I come from a family that practically makes an art out of lying about their emotions, and let me tell you, that was awful."
Crossing his arms and raising his chin, Heinz looked away and directly at Perry. "She's crazy, Perry the Platypus. You're my nemesis, you know I don't have anything to talk about."
Perry looked between the two humans before chattering in defeat. Grabbing Heinz's hand, he led him over to the living room area. He knew when he was beat, and hopefully this would be a less painful experience than Dr. Feelbetter.
Sitting on the couch beside Heinz, he watched as Mabel sat down across from them, pulling yarn and knitting needles out of her purse. "Now," she said, looping teal yarn over her needles, "I'm not your usual nemesis, Dr. D and I would love to hear your backstory for myself."
"Well, it all started when both my parents failed to show up for my birth," Heinz explained, launching into his exhaustive backstory. Mabel listened to it all calmly, the knitted creation she was making growing steadily, and when he was done she folded her hands in her lap.
"I think I know what you need to do," she said with a small smile.
"What?" Heinz asked. "Do you know what's going on?" he asked Perry.
Perry shook his head. Looking at Mabel, he raised an eyebrow to ask if she knew what she was doing. The scheme had already been foiled, and while he wasn't exactly the best example of properly executed agent-nemesis boundaries he wondered if this was crossing a line.
His train of thought was disrupted when Mabel threw a sweater at Heinz. "Oh, and this is yours. It looks chilly outside and we're going for a bit of a walk."
"What is this?"
Perry chattered in agreement, taking in the sweater. It was a black sweater with a picture of him on it, fedora and all. While it wasn't the worst rendition of himself he had ever seen, especially in yarn, it wasn't something he'd expect his nemesis to wear.
Mabel shrugged, smiling. "You two have a vibe, I can feel it. Sweaters help people bond." Slinging her purse back over her shoulder she started walking to the door, her steps bouncy.
Getting up, Perry started following his partner. An expression he had heard Lawrence use a couple of days ago ran through his mind and he thought it was oddly fitting to the situation at hand. In for a penny, in for a pound.
"Where are we going?" Heinz asked, his words muffled. Perry looked back over his shoulder and raised both eyebrows, chattering in surprise. "What?" the scientist asked defensively, adjusting the hem of his new sweater. "She's right, you know. It's probably cold out there."
Shaking his head, Perry trailed after his nemesis as the two of them followed Mabel out the door and down the street. He had no idea where this new agent had come from, but the Agency could probably stand to hire a few more like her in his opinion. She was rather effective, even if her methods were unconventional.