Chapter One

Pale grey clouds blocked out the sun on the crisp December afternoon. The rays of light that managed to force their way through the barrier played beautifully off the sun. On a rock in Danville Park, Django Brown painted the scene, his brush strokes careful and deliberate. Downtown, a man in a white pharmacist's jacket decorated the exterior of his skyscraper with festive lights. Even though he hated the holidays, tradition, and an ordinance from his brother, kept him trimming his beautiful purple tower in red and green lights. Inside the building, Buford asked each tenant what holiday they celebrated, giving a menorah to those who answered Hanukah, a Christmas tree or angel to those who responded Christmas, and a snowflake to those who celebrated both or neither. Winter had rolled in to Danville in typical fashion.

Of course, Isabella Garcia-Shapiro would probably have to disagree with the typical fashion. While everyone else in Danville was buying gifts for husbands and wives and family that they'd had for years, this year she had a boyfriend to buy a gift for. Not just any boyfriend either, Phineas Flynn. She had always dreamed of dating Phineas, even marrying him. Unfortunately, she never thought of anything but the romance and family life. Buying him gifts seemed impossible. One, Phineas was still almost always content , knowing what he actually wanted was almost impossible. Two, the boy could make anything and everything. Since she could remember, Phineas had created technologies that didn't even exist yet. He had built the tallest building in the world before entering high school! Too make matters worse, everyone around her was successfully getting gifts for their significant other. Candace had called her to talk about the new effects pedal she had just gotten for Jeremy. Emily showed her a golden pocket watch she had bought Ferb. She was the only one without a gift.

Phineas only made matters worse with his idea of hand making gifts for each other. He made it seem easy, and for him this was true. It would have been easy for her too if she didn't have to live up to the high standards of Phineas. If it were any other boy, she could have made him a jacket with her initials embroidered on the inside and his on the outside pocket or something cheese like that. No with Phineas. He built two planes that could travel around the world in a single day. He constructed a tree house in the middle of a state park that put even the most modern houses to shame. He had even made the tallest building in the world inside his own backyard! Sure, she had helped with the last one but he still planned out everything. How could she compete with the boy who was getting a master's degree in engineering in his junior year of college? And so, Isabella continued her walk through Downtown Danville, trying to get some gift ideas.

. . .

Isabella was going holiday shopping that day, maybe for her mother. That meant that Phineas had the entire day create the best snowball fight ever with Ferb, Balijeet, and Buford, and he intended on making this the most epic battle Danville had ever seen. At the moment, Phineas and Ferb were still in their room, a divider running down the middle so that neither could see what the other was constructing. From over the gap, Ferb could see the blue light of a welding torch illuminating Phineas's side of the room. The insane amount of privacy was Phineas's idea.

Phineas had set the rules for the snowball fight earlier that morning, calling Balijeet and Buford to inform them as well. The first was that it was a free for all, no teams whatsoever, although temporary alliances were allowed. Second was that weapons, tools, and armor were all permitted. The weapons just needed to be specifically for launching snowballs, much to Buford's dismay. Third: no one was to share their strategy with their opponents, explaining the barrier that ran the entire width and most of the height of the boys' room. The final rule was the players were given a set number of points, points were lost when the player got hit and gained when the player hit another. Points would be evenly redistributed when a player was out to ensure that the match would at least have an end. The match was to begin at twelve noon at Danville Park, which was in ten minutes according to Ferb's watch. Ferb put down his screw driver after making that last few adjustments to his creation, placed it in his backpack, and approached the barrier. Ferb knocked on the cool metal to signal he was ready to leave, and the blue light instantly faded. The divider folded into the wall, revealing a smiling Phineas on the other side. "You ready to go?" The young redhead asked and Ferb responded with a thumbs up as they walked out of the room and began their journey to the park.

Phineas and Ferb walked to the park since the walk only took about six or seven minutes and they wanted appreciate the decorations outside of houses, the light up snowflakes and candy canes strung up on the street lights. Buford and Balijeet were already at the park when the two arrived. Buford was dressed in dark tan snow pants and a thick, black winter coat. Balijeet dawned a puffy, brown suit that covered him from head to toe making him resemble an Eskimo. "So guys," Phineas began, "did you bring your weapons?"

"Sure did!" Buford announced as he pulled a slingshot and a piece of fabric with what appeared to pocket at the end.

"I brought mine as well." Balijeet said as he pulled out an Airzooka .

Ferb simply pulled a string on his backpack, causing the object he had placed in it earlier to unfold. As it did black metal covered his arms and legs. A chest plate began to form as it folded over his torso. Finally, a yellow face mask shielded Ferb's eyes.

"A modified version of The Beak costume? Very nice." Phineas conceded.

It was then that Balijeet noticed that Phineas was his normal tan shorts and orange striped golf shirt. "Phineas, how can you be wearing such clothing in this weather? You will surely freeze very shortly." He questioned.

"Because, Balijeet, I'm wearing a new type of temperature controlling clothing. This is just the prototype so it's currently just capable of producing heat when the temperatures are cold via environmental sensory chips dispersed throughout the clothing. Of course these have a few features that the finished products won't have." Phineas explained. He then turned the lowest button on his shirt and two shotgun like weapons sprouted from his arm. The barrels were attached to container that was currently empty by a wide, rubber tube.

Buford and Balijeet looked at their weapons and then at Phineas and Ferb. Suddenly they didn't feel so well prepared for their fight. An alarm went off on Buford's watch, twelve o'clock had arrived. The time was then replaced by the number one hundred. The same thing happened to both Balijeet and Phineas's watches. Ferb's points appeared in the upper right hand corner of the HUD in his suits visor followed by each the other contender's scores. Buford and Balijeet ran in separate directions, each wanting to get as far away from the step brothers as possible. Ferb took to the skies to get a bird's eye view of the park. Phineas simply stood still and turned the button above the one he had turned earlier causing him to hover slightly over the snow, he had turned his shoes into air skates. He then turned the third and final button which made him vanish from sight. The battle had begun.

Buford only needed to worry about two things; avoiding Ferb and that suit of his, and tracking down Balijeet. He knew that if he could let Phineas and his guns take on Ferb he might be able to take out Balijeet in peace and heighten his chances of winning the match. He ran for about a hundred feet and jumped, landing in a ditch that he had seen little kids building the day before. Backing into the tunnel that they had dug out, probably leading to some kind of room or fort, he hid his body and waited. A brown hood entered his field of vision, the person in it frantically looking left and right as if on the run from a predator. Quietly, Buford shuffled out of the tunnel and into the ditch, making sure to land on the powdery snow so that he could hide the sound. He reached above the ditch and made a snowball out of the firmer snow outside. Putting it in his sling, Buford began to spin his wrist causing the sling to twirl in a circle. Once he reached a satisfactory speed, he stopped spinning his wrist and flung it forward launching the projectile at his prey causing it to fall. Buford's watch glowed green as he gained ten points . Seeing his opportunity, Buford pulled his slingshot from his pocket. Buford then made ten miniature snowballs and launched them from his slingshot, all but one making contact with their intended target, the other exploded oddly in mid air. His watch blinked green repeatedly as his points racked up. In just minutes he had gone from one hundred to two hundred ten points. Seeing that his job was done, Buford ran back to the tunnel, back to safety. Once back he noticed that his points had reset back to one hundred, signifying the beginning of the next round.

Phineas was shocked that Ferb had reconstructed the Beak but couldn't be more pleased. After all, the suit had been their first and, up until now, only battle capable device. Luckily, Phineas was at a pretty decent advantage because he knew the suits capabilities. It had the ability to shot lasers, or snowballs in the instance, it could fly, it could survive extreme conditions, it could even dance! In fact the only weakness it had was, while it improved speed, strength, and all the senses, it didn't take eyesight outside the normal color spectrum. This meant that Phineas couldn't be tracked by Ferb because his was invisible, and covering his tracks by hovering. Phineas skated his way through the park when he came across a knocked over Balijeet. Phineas looked around. Seeing nobody around he figured that the young Indian must have tripped over his own two feet. Phineas was about to pull the trigger on his weapon when he noticed the light on Balijeet's watch go back to normal, meaning that Balijeet had been eliminated. Then, a red flashing caught his eye he had been hit. Phineas looked around again and still saw nothing. Nothing, except a small, hardly noticeable white spot on his shirt where it should have been see through. He had been hit. Luckily, the hit was almost inconsequential because his watch reset. A new round had begun.

Ferb patrolled the skies, wanting to avoid the fighting because he knew that Buford would start by hunting Balijeet. His hypothesis was correct, except he hadn't expected to see Phineas lose any points that early. The HUD in his helmet showed that Phineas had been hit one time before the watch communication system had time to end the round. Unfortunately the round ended before Buford, or Ferb had a chance to capitalize. And if Buford hadn't capitalized at least a little bit, it meant that Phineas must be camouflaged somehow. This made things a little more interesting for Ferb. Ferb started getting closer to ground level, making sure that he could get a straight shot if he found anyone. He cruised towards the center of the park, attracting a lot of attention from below as people started at the spectacle above, when he felt something hit him from above. No, not hit but drop on him from above. Then he saw his points drop as his brother's went up. Ferb launched below in hopes of hitting someone below, wasting precious ammo. Another hit from the left this time. Phineas was somewhere below him. But where? There was no sign of him, no tracks and no sight. To make matters worse the sun was blocked off making it impossible for Ferb to see shadows on the ground from this height. Two shots hit Ferb from directly below. Only six shots left until he was out if he didn't do something soon.

Phineas was having the time of his life. Sure, Ferb had a brilliant idea in resurrecting the past, but a superhero/survival suit is not made for snowball fights. He had already hit his mark on four shots. Both snow containers were roughly half full at the moment and so Phineas took three more shots, one with his left and two with his right. All of them found their target. Unfortunately, Ferb finally found Phineas, inadvertently since Ferb was now shooting just to stay alive. Suddenly another snowball shot over Phineas's head and made direct contact with Ferb. Knowing that Buford must be nearby, Phineas took another three shots at his brother, this time only connecting two times. Luckily for Phineas, it didn't matter, Ferb was already out. Unlucky for the young redhead, he didn't notice that they powder from Buford's shot had exposed him by not landing. Even worse was the fact that he had no clue where Buford was. Phineas turned around, seeing a ditch behind him he decided to make a break for it before the next round began so that he could clean off and hide from Buford. What Phineas wasn't prepared for was a patiently waiting Buford at the bottom of the ditch, slingshot loaded with ten small snowballs. Before the round could end, Buford released the slingshot, showering Phineas with snowballs. The battle was over, Buford had pulled an upset.

. . .

Isabella walked past the park on her way home from shopping. She hadn't gotten much at all. Just a few gifts for her friends at school, some for small trinkets for the former Fireside Girls, and some cooking utensils for her mom as a birthday gift. As she passed the entrance gate, she saw Phineas and the rest of the usual gang walking out of the park. Unbeknownst to them, Irving was hiding behind a car parked outside the park. As the flash of the stalker's camera went off, a light bulb went off in Isabella's head. She now knew what she was going to get Phineas for Christmas.

A/N: This chapter took way longer than I thought it would, probably because it's decently long and set in a difficult season. I hope all those who read Times Change like this one as well. I'd also like to take the time to thank all those who read Times Change, well over thousand hits in November so far, which more than topped October's total. Thanks to all who favorited me and added me to your alerts list too. I really appreciate it. Read and review. All criticism gladly accepted because I really want to improve this story and know what people think about the winter setting. Thanks for reading.