Phineas turned around to the German-accented voice and found a tall man with messy brown hair standing not to far behind him. He wore a lab coat and a black turtleneck sweater with gray pants and had a long pointy nose to go with his shadowed eyes. Little did he realize at the moment that this was Heinz Doofenshmirtz. The mad scientist his own pet platypus, Perry, was sent to thwart by a secret agency on a daily basis as he often tried to take over the Tri-State Area.

"Sorry to suddenly come in on your one-sided conversation. Couldn't help but over hear.", the man simply shrugged.

"Oh no that's cool. Are you entering the competition too?", Phineas asked, earning an eye-roll from the stranger.

"Well I WAS until the judges said that a robot didn't count as an assistant.", he groaned. "I mean come on! I programmed his database to be as humanoid as possible. He's a robotic man for crying out loud! I didn't engineer the squirrel that keeps him going or anything."

Phineas stared, amazed at this possibility. Obviously here was a man who knew engineering and of all odds, he didn't even have a partner! In the midst of his rant, he noticed a small hand reached up at him and looked down at the curious young boy who's eyes were bright with hope.

"Phineas Flynn! A young inventor who'd like to be your partner!", he smiled.

After looking at the hand for a moment, Heinz smiled and shook it.

"Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Glad to meet you.", he replied.

"Is it cool if I just call you Dr. D?", Phineas asked.

"Sure. I hear it often enough.", the man shrugged.

"Awesome then! Let's sign up!", the boy said excitedly.

After signing in and getting a table, the two began to pull up plans. Doofenshmirtz laid out a blueprint and offered it to Phineas.

"So I was thinking why not we build a 'Backfire-inator'?", he suggested as Phineas typed away on the computer. "That way we could zap all the other contestants and all their inventions will backfire on them and we'll just HAVE to win by default!"

"Uh... Isn't that kinda like cheating?", Phineas asked curiously.

"Well DUH.", Doofenshmirtz chuckled to himself. "How else could we win?"

"Well I was thinking we could make an emotion-detecting music player.", Phineas suggested, turning the laptop so as to show the idea. "It plays all different kinds of music and sounds in correspondence to your moods. So when you feel happy, you can listen to everything that makes you smile and when you're upset, it'll match accordingly and women and emos would be able to enjoy their kinds of music for as long as they wish to stay in that current mood. Also nothing helps express feelings more than music."

Doofenshmirtz looked over the plan, somewhat surprise by the idea. It all looked like it would fit so perfectly together. Like some sorta big puzzle. And he knew better than anyone else how much he loved to wallow in his depression with music.

"...Is this your first time inventing?", he asked curiously.

"No. Not at all!", Phineas smiled. "My brother and friends normally help me build stuff but I mean we've built a roller coaster through down town. Traveled through time twice. Went around the whole world in less than 2 days. Built a shrinking submarine. Built a molecular separator-"

"Okay. There is no way you did all that.", Heinz scoffed.

"Yeah we did. Look!", he pulled up other blueprints and Doofenshmirtz scanned through them. More and more amazed with each print.

"...And you did all this?", he asked.

"Well some. We haven't finished them all but yeah.", Phineas smiled.

Doofenshmirtz stared down at the boy in shock. How could one little boy who thought all this up to a tee, need a partner? Especially someone who always failed like himself.

"..So a music player that detects moods, huh?", he asked, pulling it back up and handing the laptop back over.

"Yup! This is gonna be so awesome!", Phineas smiled excitedly.

"I'll say! With your plans and my talent with tools, maybe we'll come in second!", Heinz smiled as he pulled up sheet metal to start working.

"'Second'? Don't you mean 'First'?", Phineas asked curiously.

"Well see I tend to have the misfortune of failing at just about everything.", Dr. D. sighed as the memories came rolling by. "Inators. Tests. Relationships. I could make a long list about it."

Phineas smiled faded as he tried to imagine that thought. Never being able to win? Not even a small prize?

"That's... That's awful.", Phineas said, as the thought swept over him.

"Eh.", he shrugged. "You get used to it. Like an odd girlfriend who, though stabs you with a fork, still gives you something of company... Which...didn't really work out all that well in the end either."

Phineas stared at the man for a moment longer, just unable to wrap his mind around that concept. He was only 10 years old and he's done a lot of great stuff but here was a man who was possibly in his 40's and he failed at everything. As he turned to his toolbox to start on the project, he felt a determination in his mind that said no matter what, this was gonna be a great day for Heinz too.

As they began to work, of course, trouble soon came around the corner. And by "trouble", as Phineas would define it, it was meant that Thaddeus and Thor came by to stick their noses into the competition's business. Of course though, being the optimist that he is, Phineas tried to keep it good-natured.

"Well I see you're just NOW getting started.", Thaddeus commented as he came strolling by.

"Yup.", Phineas simply said as he worked on the circuit board.

"What kind of lame-o junk are ya making now?", he snickered as he looked about.

"We're making an emotion-sensing music player.", Phineas smiled as he moved on to working out a few details on the prints with a pencil.

"Ha! Shyeah right! Isn't that impossible?"

Phineas' pencil broke, hearing the word "impossible" though his smile remained. Doofenshmirtz looked up from forming all the metal, curious of what the boys were talking about. It was obvious that something was bothering Phineas but he decided to keep quiet and see how it turned out on its own.

"...Well you know Thad, the only thing that's actually impossible, is impossibility.", Phineas replied, turning around to face the somewhat stunned boy with a smirk.

Thaddeus was quiet for a moment before stammering in slight frustration.

"Th- Ah. Pfft! Well then let's see what you have to say after you come in last!", he snapped before storming off. "Come on Thor, let's beat it!"

The other boy simply stood there for a moment before finally realizing his brother had left and quickly ran off to catch up.

"Pfft. Zurückgeblieben.", Heinz muttered to himself.

Small note: "Zurückgeblieben" is German for "retarded". XP Raise hands if you agree with Heinz's opinion of Thor! *Raises hand.*