"Looks like we've got competition," Aloyse Everhart Elizabeth Otto Wolfgang Hypatia Gunther Galen Gary Cooper von Roddenstein, also known as Rodney, watched Camp Nature with narrow eyes.
Heinz Doofenschmirtz, wearing a rally tee-shirt under his lab coat, swiped Rodney in the back of the head with his "DOWN WITH NATURE" sign. "Don't be so delusional, Rod. They're just kids."
"If you're not going to call me by my full name," Aloyse Everheart Elizabeth - well, you get the idea – said, turning to Doofenschmirtz and rubbing his head, "then at least have the decency to not shorten it even further."
"It's not my fault your name is longer than all get out." Doofenschmirtz retorted, in a cheery mood despite his nefarious intentions.
Perry watched the banter from underneath the shrubbery that provided the backdrop for L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.'s booth, assessing the situation. Under normal circumstances, he would have burst into the fray, perhaps landing on the table so tastefully decorated with recruitment propaganda and various used laboratory equipment.
Except that this was a holiday, and dozens of civilians littered the park, picnic baskets and sports equipment ready for a dawn 'til dusk party. What's more, opposite his nemesis a familiar redheaded teen arranged streamers around their Protect Nature booth. And while Perry had no particular qualms about doing battle while a crowd watched, if Candace should spot him his identity would be compromised and he would have to find another family. Left with two bad options, Perry did neither, choosing to monitor Doofenschmirtz's next moves.
The scientists lapsed into silence, avoiding eye contact with each other. How Doofenschmirtz, the obvious ringleader of this event, got the members of L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. to work together to further his scheme, no one may ever know. Even the other evil array of members kept casting sidelong glances at Doofenschmirtz, all trying to figure out why someone put him in charge.
Dr. D didn't notice the dirty looks. He kept looking suddenly at the bushes and throwing sharp glances behind him, jumping and twitching like a neurotic cricket.
"Expecting someone, Heinz?" Rodney taunted. Doofenschmirtz often bragged about his nemesis, hiding his own insecurities in the fact that OWCA assigned their top agent to him.
Doofenschmirtz wheeled around defensively. "No! I just...haven't monologued about my scheme yet. I can't get to the implementation phase of my scheme until the monologue phase is done." He wrung his hands restlessly. Already his scheme for Tri-State area domination hit a roadblock, all because some platypuses didn't have the proper regard for other people's schedules. The monologue impulse threatened to send him into a jabbering fit if he didn't let it out soon. He saw his associates watching him suspiciously. "Eh, you guys'll do," he said.
Every last scientist groaned, because while all of them enjoyed a good expository speech, no one enjoyed listening to one.
"You've already told us about it on the social network," Rodney almost whined.
"As you know," began Doofenschmirtz, "my brother the mayor is trying to pass a law that will protect the Tri-state area's wildlife nature preserves. Ugh, he's so self-righteous and upstanding, it makes me sick! He's destroying the Doofenschmirtz evil name! All that real-estate wasted on useless beauty! My first plan was to stop the town council from approving the law, but then I had to get like five thousand people to sign a petition, and submit it to a subcommittee for approval, and I'm like 'how does anything get done in a beurocracy?' and it occurred to me that instead of fighting the system, I should use its own weaknesses against it, and thereby, in a stroke of pure irony, take over the tri-state area!"
Rodney scowled. "Yes, yes, we know. You built a filibustinator to suspend the city's decision."
Dr. Bloodpudding rear-ended Heinz, who lost his balance and fell into the banner. He picked himself up and dusted himself off.
Doofenschmirtz frowned back at Rodney. "Really? You steal my monologue? What kind of evil genius does that?"
"What I don't understand," Rodney continued, "is why we're here at the park protesting the "Protect Nature" rally. Are the squirrels and pigeons suddenly going to vote?" he chuckled at his inane joke.
"It's a statement!" Doofenschmirtz passed around a handful of signs to the gathered men. "And a smokescreen. While we're here creating chaos, the filibustinator here," and he motioned to the elaborately decorated booth standing next to the "No More Nature" table, "will go to work to stall the creation of the new city park and we will buy the land and build our own temple of decay and crime! Two birds with one stone!" Doofenschmirtz launched into a maniacal laugh, attracting no fewer than ten families' attention.
One little boy stopped his family in the middle of a walk, staring at the spectacle with wide eyes. "Can we stop for the circus, daddy?" he asked eagerly. His father took one look at the spectacle and wordlessly pulled his son along without further ado.
"Way to go, Doofy," Rodney hit him in the back of the head with his sign. "Now anyone who was listening will know exactly what your plan is."
"And who's going to stop me?" Heinz stroked his machine-child fondly, reveling in the impregnability of his scheme. "And this baby doesn't come with a self-destruct button, or an unstable mix of chemicals, or a two-meter wide exhaust port that would allow a direct hit to blow it up!"" Heinz faced down Rodney with hands on hips and arrogance written across his angular face. "Speaking of nicknames…"
"Oh, you're going back to that now?"
"Yes, yes I am!"
In the depth of the bushes, Perry the Platypus contemplated his options, watching the Protect Nature tables and a certain in-the-know friend of Candace.
"Ok, so we'll have ten mortars lined up along the Freight Emergency Harbor, and three dozen more ready along the skyline. Isabella, how are those shells coming along?" Phineas commanded the gang of kids from the top of a nearby building. Using his clipboard and a pen, he guided the helicopter carrying a load of launching materials to the "X" marked on the roof. Ferb stood next to him with the remote control to the chopper.
Isabella touched her in-ear com unit, activating a line to Phineas. "We're a little short on powder and coloring chemicals," she said, also busy directing her troop in an assembly line of packing.
"I'm on it!" Phineas said cheerfully. "Ferb, take that launch pad over about six inches. Ok, let it down slowly. Perfect! Baljeet," he said over the com, "have the speakers been wired to the control board?"
A pile of wires shifted from where they lay draped across a three tiered, ten yard long control board. Baljeet appeared through the tangle to solder a wire to another connector. "I am afraid the process is taking more time than anticipated. This is a very complicated system. I am still not sure why we needed to build this from scratch, when there are many perfectly acceptable models on the market."
Phineas paused in mid-direction, considering the question. The thought had never really occurred to him to buy anything pre-made. The blueprints from the ice-cream sundae machine were pre-made, but they had fabricated the invention themselves. "Well, I guess we wanted to make this all our own endeavor," he said thoughtfully. "You know, our very own."
The hovering helicopter spluttered and dropped a foot. Ferb looked down at the readout on the controller. A short ret bar hovered dangerously near "empty". He began to bring the chopper down.
"Uh, Ferb, what are you doing?" Phineas asked.
Ferb showed him the control array and the dropping fuel gauge.
"Oh," Phineas said. "Well, we'll just get some more. Along with gunpowder and chemicals."
His cell phone rang. "Talk to me, Carl. Uh huh…yeah…I see." His smile dropped a few millimeters. "We'll work with that. Nah, it's ok," he said as he ended the call.
Ferb watched the exchange. His expression, unfathomable by most, asked a question he knew his brother would understand.
"The OWCA acrobats had to re-choreograph their show, and the rigging will have to be rebuilt," said Phineas. The phone rang again. "Hello? Stan, my man! What's shakin'?" Phineas paused. "Oh, right. Send them over when you can." He hung up. "The eagles have been backordered." He snapped at this the last straw. "Aw, c'mon! How hard can coordinating a city-wide celebration packed full of events? It's not like we haven't built a roller coaster, travelled around the world in one day, or carved Candace's face into a mountain!"
"I believe we'll visit Mt. Rushmore later this summer." Ferb corrected.
Radio static filled the silence following Ferb's statement.
"Boy, talk about breaking the fourth wall," Buford muttered.
"Wait a minute," said Isabella. "Candace and Jeremy have been together since the longest day of summer, right? In June. So how come on her birthday, which isn't until later in July, they were obviously not dating?"
"Aw man!" Buford rolled his eyes and growled. "now you wanna talk about continuance issues? Why don't we just count the number of days of summer we've had, divide by the number of inventions, subtract the number of days travelling to Africa, England, and a road trip, and run the whole gamut?"
"Guys, can we focus here?" Phineas brought the conversation back to the present. "We have some serious work to do. The parade is five minutes behind, which means the fly-by is early, the farmer's market is overrun by turkeys in stovepipe hats, and Mayor Doofenschmirtz is wrestling the pink gorilla. Oh, and there's a war going on at Danville City Park."
A piece of rigging crashed to the ground, narrowly missing the boys. "Y'know Ferb, we may have bitten off more than we can chew," Phineas had to admit.
Ferb laid an encouraging hand on his brother and best friend's shoulder.
"What we need," Phineas said, pensively rubbing his chin, "is..."
Three fire trucks whizzed by, followed by the parade running at full-tilt towards the town park.
"..to go where the action is! That way we'll be on site for any more disaster." Bounding back from disappointment remarkably quickly, Phineas jumped on his bike. "Grab the maps and the pickles Ferb, we're moving to the park!"
"Save our parks! Save our parks!"
"Down with nature! Down with nature!"
The two chants vied for attention, the proclaimers of each trying to outdo their rivals across the way.
Jenny led her people from atop a box, a megaphone raised above the crowd. "Save our parks! Nature is a gift that we all must protect! Beauty and wildlife forever!" she shouted passionately.
Candace waved her sign in challenge of the anti-nature's camp. Her comrades-in-arms' voices rang through her ears, blocking everything but the thought of busting the anti-nature-ist's front lines. Next to her, Stacy looked ready to mow down any competition with her picket sign.
Onlookers, supposed to be new recruits, stayed far away from the center waiting to see what would happen.
The tension grew to ferocious levels, threatening the imminent degradation of the demonstrations into an all-out Battle of the Booths.
Things disintegrated faster than a sandcastle at high tide. One minute hostilities limited themselves to mild name calling, next, neon water balloons sailed through the air fast and thick. If you ask the witnesses of the battle today, no one can give a positive account of who fired that first missile, or how everyone found themselves armed with hundreds of water bombs.
Perry watched from his new hiding place in some reeds along the small pond, behind Camp Nature's lines. Things were progressing exactly as he had hoped. It was, in fact, he who hid the balloons strategically and thrown the first shot.
There he kept a careful eye on the water fight, waiting for the moment when a mindless pet could avoid the melee of tramping feet and reach the one person he could ask to help him. One among the preservationists' lines knew his secret and could help save the Tri-State Area.
Just as the suburban warriors refilled their ammunition and turned back to take aim and fire, Perry saw his chance. One fighter rushed to the refill station later than the rest, and Perry threw a balloon at her feet.
Stacy cried out and dropped her armload in shock. Cold water oozed around her toes, turning the grass into a soft sponge. Arming herself quickly from the bucket of balloons, she scanned the bushes for the attacker, arm back in throwing position ready to fire.
A familiar chatter brought Stacy's gaze to the low-growing cattails that edged the pond
"Perry!" Stacy glanced around to see if anyone was watching the strange interaction. As expected, everyone else had eyes on the melee, either dodging, aiming, or cheering.
Quickly kneeling, Stacy hid herself in the reeds. Soft mud squished around her knees and turned the hem of her dress a greenish brown. Once, not so very long ago, Stacy witnessed Perry battling Doofenschmirtz in her very own living room. Normally a breach of security at that level meant relocation for an agent. But as Stacy pointed out, she wasn't a member of Perry's host family and the relocation clause couldn't apply. And so Stacy knew what her best friend didn't – Perry battled evil.
Perry had his hat on, a sign Stacy knew meant that he was "on-duty", so to speak. Pointing to the rather cleverly disguised "inator"-booth, Perry chattered again, trusting his primitive sign language would get his point across.
Following the direction of his hand – or paw, she couldn't decide what to call them – Stacy squinted through the chaos, then looked back at Perry. "You're pointing at…a puddle. What does that mean?"
Perry shook his head, pointing with more emphasis a little higher and miming throwing something.
Once again, Stacy traced the line of Perry's limb. "You want me to throw that piñata?" she asked, taking it that Perry meant the paper-mâché squirrel hanging in the tree above Love Muffin's base.
Perry shook his head, again making a throwing motion and adjusting his finger to where he hoped Stacy would follow it from her height to the right place.
"You want me to throw that picnic basket? No? That little kid? Why would I throw a kid?"
Perry's arms ached from emphasizing his meaning that Stacy should hit Doofenschmirtz's -inator with water to short the machine out.
Stacy kept guessing. "Throw a fit. Throw the towel in. Throw the baby out with the bathwater."
Done with the abstract charades, Perry picked up a water balloon, placed it in Stacy's hands, climbed up to her shoulder, and pointed again, making sure his arm was aligned with her line of vision.
Stacy had a sudden surge of understanding. "Oh, you want me to throw the water balloon at their booth? But why there? What would that do?"
Perry acted out a laser beam, pretended to be a festival booth, curled himself into a water balloon shape, and played all the parts of the city council.
Against all odds, Stacy made nods of understanding, "Oh!" she exclaimed, saying all in a hurry, "Dr. Doofenschmirtz made a filibustinator and disguised it as their booth, then came down here to distract everyone so he can use it to take over City Hall and the tri-state area! Why didn't you just say so before?"
Perry rolled his eyes.
