The great Danville Egg Hunt
The Easter weekend had crept up on Danville without anyone knowing. Unlike Christmas, Valentine's Day and other holidays with fixed dates, Easter Sunday always fell on the Sunday after the first full moon of Spring. This year, it was earlier than usual, occurring only two weeks after the first day of Spring. This put Phineas and Ferb off balance. Usually, they had advance warning of an upcoming holiday, and would spend the first week or two brainstorming ideas. Now, they felt like Buford when he blew his homework until the night before, not that Phineas and Ferb ever did that.
"Alright, Ferb, what really says 'Easter'? Aside from chocolate eggs and bunnies, I don't really know" Phineas mused. Just then, Candace walked out into the yard.
"Mum's gone out to oversee a charity event at the pet store where they're having a special on bunnies, and Dad's at the antique store, which means I'm in charge. What's on your agenda today?" Candace asked.
"Well, we're trying to come up with an idea of what to do for Easter, but we're drawing blanks" Phineas answered.
"What about an egg hunt? They're relatively simplistic and don't require much planning" Candace suggested.
"Great idea, Candace. We could whip up a machine to scatter the eggs across Danville. Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today" Phineas declared in his usual way. Isabella suddenly walked into the yard, Buford and Baljeet in tow.
"Hey guys, whatcha doin'?" Isabella inquired, as she always did, trying in vain to get Phineas' attention.
"Ferb, Candace and I are planning an Easter egg hunt across Danville. We're just waiting on parts to build the egg scattering machine" Phineas answered.
"I personally never get the 'chocolate egg' part. What's the use of eggs you can't hard boil?" Buford inquired.
"As long as you refrain from doing what you did last Easter, we will be fine" Baljeet reminded. Last Easter, Buford overdid it on the chocolate eggs, after pinching them from innocent egg hunters, and ended up with food poisoning for a week.
"Speaking of finding things that are missing, where's Perry?" Candace asked. Unbeknownst to everyone in the yard, Perry had entered his secret agent lair, via the tree trunk entrance. Once he arrived, Major Monogram appeared on screen, like he always did.
"Good morning, Agent P. Sorry you have to work on the Easter weekend, but we're in a crisis right now" Major Monogram began.
"Should we purge the paper copies as well, sir?" asked Carl, in a panicked tone.
"No, Carl, if we did that we would have to reprint all those documents, and our carbon footprint is big enough as it is" Monogram half answered, half belittled.
"Understood" Carl acknowledged.
"Anyway, our former operative, Dennis the rogue rabbit, recently escaped his incarceration, hacked into the prison database, and downloaded the information of all of O.W.C.A's agents and their host families onto a flash drive. It is vitally important that you retrieve this flash drive before he sells it to any of our enemies. Needless to say, if you fail, you will have to be re-assigned to a new host family. Get out there and stop him, Agent P" Monogram finished briefing, and Perry left to find Dennis, disturbed at the thought of having to leave Phineas and Ferb if he failed. As he left for Dennis' last known location in his rocket car, he saw Phineas and Ferb building another of their inventions.
"We call it the Egg Scattering Device" Phineas presented. "This handy machine will take the eggs and put them in hidden locations across Danville. To give the hunt an added edge, in roughly 2 hours, the device will take any eggs we haven't found and tagged, and gather them back here" Phineas added. He then gave everyone a tagging device to register their found eggs onto the device's mainframe and a device he called an egg locator to help find the eggs for tagging.
"We'll split into three teams to hunt eggs. Remember, once an egg is tagged, it's the team's property. Whoever gets the most, wins. Ready, teams?" Phineas finalised. For the hunt, Phineas teamed up with Ferb, Isabella with Candace and Buford with Baljeet. Everyone said they were ready, and Phineas started the hunt. In the interest of fairness, Phineas had each team report to a designated starting position. Once there, Phineas remotely start the machine, and the time limit of two hours was now in effect. Phineas and Ferb went east, Buford and Baljeet headed north, and Candace and Isabella proceeded west.
About half an hour into the hunt, Candace and Isabella already found a fair few eggs, hidden in small park bushes, up some trees and even in little cubby holes. In a quiet moment, Isabella took this chance to ask Candace something that had been nagging at her since the hunt started.
"Candace, normally, you're all about busting the boys, not participating in our activities. If I may ask, what's changed?" Isabella inquired. Candace shouldn't be surprised at Isabella's question. She was always very observant, it got her a good many patches.
"Well, a few months back, I had this really strange dream after a failed bust attempt. You ever read A Christmas Carol?" Candace answered.
"I've seen various movie adaptations, but in my mind, nothing beats the original written works. In fact, that book earned me the 'Classic Literature Appreciation' patch" Isabella replied.
"They have a patch for everything, don't they?" Candace quizzed.
"Everything except patch naming. That is left to the really high ups" Isabella responded.
"Well, I had the same experience Scrooge had, visions of past, present and future. It opened my eyes to some hard hitting truths, such as Phineas' need to invent and plan these activities to maintain some stability in his life, and a future where my own family disowned me if I continued as I was" Candace explained. This piqued Isabella's curiosity.
"What, exactly, did you see?" Isabella probed, not sure if she really should, or if she would like the answer.
"The future was nice enough. I was in a successful law career and had everything I could need or want, except a family to share it with. Jeremy had moved on, with Stacy of all people, and my parents and brothers had all but cast me aside. Even their kids hadn't heard of me. Oh, by the way, Phineas married you, and you two had three kids. The spirit told me your union was a given in any timeline" Candace recollected. In her mind, Isabella was celebrating, hard. When she mentally composed herself, Isabella pressed on.
"You said Phineas needed to invent to maintain stability. I always thought he did it for fun" Isabella recalled.
"He used to, then the war happened. After Bill, Phineas was so traumatised he needed therapy, and it took some coaxing from mum to get him inventing again, after the nightmares stopped. Don't tell him I told you, I think it's still a sensitive subject for him" Candace clarified.
"That explains it. A few weeks ago, we were due to start trigonometry lessons at school, and Phineas had a panic attack. I had never seen him like that before. He never told me he was seeing a therapist for his Bill fears" Isabella added.
"I don't think he told anyone. Remember when Bill tried to kill him the first time? He wouldn't leave the house for weeks afterwards, and the first time he did, Bill used me to try and kill him again. It's a wonder he's doing this at all" Candace said.
"No wonder he's scared stiff of Bill. Anyone would be. I still can't get those Cipher statues out of my head" Isabella reasoned.
"You think that is bad? I never expected or wanted to fight in a war, or have the weight of the world on my shoulders. Those nightmare soldiers still give me the creeps" came a voice not too far off. It was Baljeet. He and Buford were hunting in the same area as Candace and Isabella, and had overheard their conversation.
"For the record, Dinner Bell never told us about therapy either" added Buford.
"If my stint at psychology camp has taught me anything, it is that Phineas is using these inventions and activities as a means of running away. He has hidden his fear of Bill, even from himself. He would rather distract himself with these antics, rather than come to terms with what happened" Baljeet analysed. Candace thought about what was just said, and came up with a solution.
"I think I have an idea on how to help Phineas, but it will need all of us" Candace said.
"We're in" Isabella chimed in immediately, and the group started planning.
Whilst the boys, Candace and Isabella were busy with their latest caper, Perry was busy searching for Dennis the rabbit and the flash drive with all of O.W.C.A's sensitive information on it. He would ask Doofenshmirtz for help, but communication was an issue seeing as Perry couldn't talk. He did, however, have an idea. While he and O.W.C.A knew that Doofenshmirtz had reformed, Dennis did not. It was Perry's theory that Dennis would seek Doofenshmirtz out and offer him the flash drive, at a price. It may have only been a theory, but it was all he had. He headed to Doofenshmirtz's apartment, and sure enough, Dennis was there, trying to tempt the formerly evil scientist.
"For the last time, no! I don't do that anymore" Doofenshmirtz flat out refused, and at that point, Perry flew onto the balcony and parked his rocket car. "Perry the platypus. I swear, I'm not doing anything evil" Doofenshmirtz was quick to add, and Dennis immediately ran away, flash drive in hand. Since he was a bunny, he was naturally very fast. Perry made off after him, but Doofenshmirtz stopped him, offering to help. Perry accepted, reluctantly, and the two sped off in Perry's rocket car. The chase took them to the pet store, where Linda Flynn-Fletcher was hosting her charity event. Not wanting his secret revealed, Perry swapped back into mindless animal mode.
"Hey, I used to date her" Doofenshmirtz recognized Linda from that one date at the drive-in movie theatre. "I take it she's a member of your host family?" he asked, and Perry nodded in reply. Doofenshmirtz took his cue to start looking through the warrens for Dennis, but since every bunny here looked exactly like Dennis, it was like finding a needle in a haystack.
"We'll never find him in this. If only we had a bunny searching machine that could find which one we wanted" Doofenshmirtz mused, which got Perry thinking about Phineas' egg scattering machine. What if he and Doofenshmirtz could reprogram the device to find bunnies instead of eggs, and make it so the device found a specific bunny. Perry took Doofenshmirtz to his ride, and they set off for the Flynn-Fletcher house. Once there, they went to the back yard, and somehow, the device was still there.
"Who built this thing? Whoever it was, certainly knew what they were doing. You're thinking we should reprogram this to find Dennis? That could work, it shouldn't take too long" Doofenshmirtz said, and he and Perry successfully reprogrammed the scattering device to find Dennis, and sure enough, it found Dennis amongst the warrens in the pet store, and used a high-powered tractor beam to reel Dennis in, where Perry was able to subdue him and retrieve the flash drive. Out of courtesy, Doofenshmirtz set the device back to its original settings, and Perry slinked away back to his agency, but not before giving Doofenshmirtz a small thank you salute. After Doofenshmirtz left the back yard, Perry arrived at the O.W.C.A. with Dennis in tow, and handed the flash drive to Major Monogram.
"Great work as always, Agent P. We saw you enlisted Doofenshmirtz's help, and also you used another of your host family boys' inventions. Funny how those two paths seem to intersect all the time" Major Monogram congratulated.
"It's called a formula, sir" Carl pointed out.
"What did I say about breaking the forth wall, Carl?" Monogram reprimanded.
"Sorry, sir" Carl said, remorsefully.
"Anyway, due to your heroic efforts, our secrets are safe, and you can continue living with your host family. Well done" Monogram finished, and Perry returned home. When Perry was gone, Carl came back with a chocolate egg.
"I hope you have a sweet tooth, sir" Carl pined.
"Carl, you know most of our operatives can't eat chocolate" Monogram reminded.
"I do, this and the other egg I got is for us" Carl informed.
"Really? In that case, let's dig in" Monogram said, and they ate their eggs in peace, once the re-incarceration efforts for Dennis were arranged.
Candace, Isabella, Buford and Baljeet arrived at the Flynn-Fletcher house with their eggs, but instead of eating them, they proceeded into the kitchen.
"All know what to do?" Candace asked.
"I am not sure about this. I want to help Phineas as much as you all do, but is this not too much?" Baljeet second-guessed.
"Trust me, he needs this. He can't keep running forever" Candace rationalised, mostly to herself. In her heart, she knew Baljeet had a point. Too much too soon can potentially ruin all of Phineas' progress, and she would no-one but herself to blame. But sometimes, progress needed a big shove in the right direction, and she and the others proceeded with their plan.
Phineas and Ferb were egg hunting in the old Danville market, when Phineas got a notification on his device saying that the two hours were up and all the remaining unfound eggs had been tractored back home. Phineas and Ferb headed back to the Flynn-Fletcher home, and once there, Phineas had noticed the egg scattering device was still there.
"That's odd. Usually something happens that would make this disappear. Is it a blue moon tonight?" Phineas asked rhetorically, as he knew a blue moon was scientifically impossible. He and Ferb considered trying to make it happen, for a laugh, but then they figured that NASA would have a fit of panic, and decided against it. Once Phineas made his way inside, he was greeted by a sight he didn't expect, or want, to see again. It appears Candace and the others took their chocolate eggs, and combined them to make a chocolate effigy of Bill Cipher.
"Would you mind explaining why you've made an ironically sweet version of the monster who tried to kill me on multiple occasions?" Phineas inquired, his tone shifting from fun-loving, to serious and in need of answers, almost like a parent disciplining their naughty kid.
"It's an intervention. You can't keep running away from your fear" Candace answered, reinforcing the fact that it was her idea. Phineas was flabbergasted by what he heard.
"That's ridiculous! I'm not running from anything. I'm fine, I assure you" Phineas tried to convince Candace and the others that they were exaggerating.
"Please, Phineas. Has anyone ever told you you're a terrible liar?" Ferb quizzed his brother, using his designated one line of the day.
"As a matter of fact, someone did tell me that. But it's nothing, really" Phineas continued in vain to assure his friends and family that he was of sound mind and judgement.
"The panic attack at school, the inventions and activities to pre-occupy your mind. Do not try and feed me that line. Remember, I attended psychology camp" Baljeet countered.
"Also, what's this about you seeing a shrink? News to us" Buford added.
"The point is, it's normal to fear Bill. In fact, we all do" Ferb assured his brother, being unusually chatty in this instance.
"Yeah, you think we want to be in the same room as this thing? We did this for you, you're welcome, by the way" Buford said. Isabella made her way to Phineas' side.
"What happened was terrible, and I don't know if any of us can truly come to terms with it, but you can't let your fear control your actions. We're all with you. I'm with you" Isabella calmed a tense Phineas, and she did something she would normally fear doing. She held Phineas' hand. Phineas himself, suddenly felt a lot calmer. It was true that he was trying to mask his fear of Bill and hide the trauma of the Cipher War, not to mention try and maintain an image of normalcy, despite the attempts on his life, in a vain attempt to show his friends that he was back to his normal self. But he should've known better, after all, his friends and family knew him better than anyone else.
"Thanks, you guys. I did need this" Phineas concluded, appreciatively, and with Isabella's hand entwined with his own, Phineas walked up to the chocolate Cipher, and spoke to it.
"I have no idea if you're gone for good, or if you're biding your time, planning a comeback. But one thing I do know is this. I will not let my fear dictate my actions, nor will I run away from what happened. Should you come back in force, my friends and I will be waiting, ready to stop you again, if needed. Whatever's next, I'm ready for it" Phineas recited his bravery speech to the chocolate Cipher statue, grabbed the hand that Bill would use to make deals with, snapped it off the effigy, and began to eat it, in a show of solidarity.
"Come on, you all made this. Grab a chunk and dig in" Phineas gestured, and everyone did just that. Buford took his eye out, Isabella made for the bow ties, Baljeet took the other hand, and Candace and Ferb took some limbs. It tasted great, and everyone had a good laugh. Just then, Linda came home.
"Hi, boys and girls. What did you get up to today?" Linda inquired.
"Just a traditional egg hunt, with some of my usual twists" Phineas answered.
"Well, I hope you saved room for these eggs I got you" Linda replied, and produced one egg for each of them. While Candace, Ferb, Buford and Baljeet made for them instinctively, Isabella pulled Phineas back for a one-to-one.
"I'm proud of you, Phineas. That took guts" Isabella praised, and she pulled Phineas into a hug, which sent her heart racing more than the chocolate did. Phineas himself did not know what to make of this. Sure, he regarded Isabella as a friend, but with the hand holding and now this, he couldn't help but wonder if there was anything more. He never liked to assume, but he asked himself at this point, did Isabella like him as more than a friend? As they broke apart, he put this thought out of his head for the time being. After all, there was a chocolate egg with his name on it waiting in the next room.
Author's note: Happy Easter everyone. I hope you don't gorge yourself too much on chocolate. It seems the universe has a funny way of scheduling Easter this year, because Easter Sunday is now also April Fool's Day. I would write a fic set on the day like I usually do for holidays, but this particular day, I'm not a big fan of. Not because I don't have a sense of humour, but because I never got the appeal of pulling practical jokes on people. I'm sure others get a big laugh out of it, or maybe those prank channel on YouTube spoilt it for me, but I just don't get it. Also, if anyone made me a chocolate Bill Cipher, I would love them forever. The usual disclaimers, I own nothing. Dan and Swampy own Phineas and Ferb, Alex Hirsch owns Gravity Falls, and Disney owns both. Enjoy.