Thank you to all those who already followed this story! Like 5 or 6 people already! I would love some more reviews from you guys, and I think I made this chapter a bit longer, I'll work on that. Anyway, onto the story.
Chapter 2: Heartless
Phineas watched in horror as Isabella flung herself forward, intercepting the beam before it could reach it's intended target. The kids gasped, as Isabella was caught in the green light and lifted into the air. She caught Phineas' eye one last time, and in that look, Phineas made a promise to her that he would find a way to reverse whatever this machine did. Isabella's eyes fluttered shut and her features went slack and gray. Suddenly she began to hurtle towards the ground, and Phineas shouted in shock and terror from her sudden descent. Buford lunged forward, instinctively shouting, "BUFORD VAN STOOOOM!" And the burly boy collided with Isabella's body before it slammed into the ground. Everyone stood stunned for a minute, trying to process what had just happened. It was utterly silent besides the heavy breathing of all the shaken kids.
Mr. Random spoke up, "well," he said indifferently, "that wasn't supposed to happen." At the jolt of hearing his words everyone jumped into action. Candace rushed to release Klimpaloon from his bonds while Buford gently, yes gently, picked up Isabella's limp form and rested it comfortably on the table Klimpaloon had just vacated. Phineas rushed forward accompanied by Ferb and Baljeet. "Baljeet quick!" Phineas ordered, "I need the status on her condition and breathing rate! Ferb, assess the damage and try to find some help!" As Ferb ran off Baljeet approached the table and took a few seconds to make sure that everything was functioning properly.
Phineas gazed down at Isabella's gray face. She was still Isabella, but there was something different. Her body seemed shrunken and shriveled, her skin turned pale gray, and her hair had no shine, no appeal, no joy at all. This was not Isabella, not anymore. This was just a shell of the bubbly and spunky girl inside. "Well," Baljeet said finally, "The good news is she is alive and her body seems to be in perfect working condition." Phineas breathed a sigh of relief. "The bad news-" Baljeet added, and Phineas felt himself shrink, "is that, well... She has no heartbeat."
Outside, Ferb was trying desperately to reach anybody. He knew his cellphone was useless, but he had thrown together a satellite dish out of parts found around the fortress in hopes of receiving a radio signal. It was no use, when he tried to use it the wires had already been frozen into icicles. He put his face into his hands and leaned back against the cold fortress walls. 'Not Isabella,' he thought, 'She's the sweetest person alive and was the least deserving of that blast.' 'Well,' his mind replied, 'Isn't that just it? She would have jumped in front of that ray even if it had been her worst enemy it was meant for.' Ferb sighed, he was right. The girl was to kind for her own good. He understand clear as day what had happened to Isabella, Mr. Random had said it himself. Isabella had her life sucked out of her body. The very core of her person and been forcefully taken from her own self. But what made up Isabella? He wondered, 'what was the base of her personality? The foundation of her very being?' And then it hit him like a ton of bricks. What had Phineas said that day in space? "Your cuteness goes right to your core." Ferb's eyes widened as he remembered another thing told to him on the day of that space adventure. Absolute cuteness corrupts absolutely. Ferb pushed himself off the wall and bolted inside to find the others. And hopefully get to the machine that had ripped apart his friend before anyone else realized what it held.
Mr. Random smiled half heartedly to himself as he watched the desperate kids try to understand what had just happened. In the rush to help their friend, he had merely faded into the background and watched bemusedly as the situation got more and more dire. He had been disappointed at first at losing the chance to extract what he needed from Klimpaloon, but Mr. Random had decided that one life-force was as good as the next. Meaning no, he had no plans of returning the girl to herself. He stood with his arms folded, leaning coolly against a back wall listening to a rather loud conversation about a heartbeat, when he noticed an incredibly bright and lively pink emanating from his machine. Not only did this color intrigue him, but he felt drawn to it, almost as if he was being slowly sucked into whatever was in his invention. As the shouting from the kids escalated, he snuck around the mess and to the back of his machine where he was blocked from view. His hands became warm and he suddenly felt elated inside when he began to remove the back paneling of his weapon to get to the marvelous mystery inside. As he finally pried the cover away, his eyes widened at what floated inside the canister made to contain Klimpaloon's life force. This was no ordinary girl, and that was no ordinary life force.
"NO HEARTBEAT?!" Shouted Phineas, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO HEARTBEAT?!" Candace ran to Phineas and pulled him back to her, trying calm the alarmed 13 year old. Baljeet sighed and tried to slow his rapidly beating heart. This was going to be hard enough to explain to Phineas, let alone Buford. The brainiac knew that Isabella was in no immediate danger, but that didn't stop his stomach from churning every time he looked down at Isabella's empty form. Yes, it was true, he did once have a slight crush the girl, but he gave up pretty immediately after he realized that winning Isabella's affections was a lost cause. Not when they so firmly belonged to a boy who didn't even know it. Yes, now they were only friends, and quite close actually. Isabella was easy to talk to, not to mention that she knew Ginger pretty well (wink wink). "Phineas, calm down, please." Baljeet said, "Isabella, or rather Isabella's BODY is fine. She is still breathing and everything inside is still functioning as it should-" "But how?!" Phineas scratched his head, slightly more calm, "How can she be ok if she has no heartbeat?" "Well, the answer to that is quite simple, she has no life-force. You heard Mr. Random, it was taken from her, what we see here is merely a shell of Isabella. Her actual self, meaning whatever made up her core being, is no longer pumping this heart because it is not even there. Exactly as he said, she has no LIFE FORCE." Phineas looked a bit puzzled but seemed to be able to understand basically what Baljeet was saying. "That still leaves us with a few problems," Phineas concluded. "First, how do we get Isabella back into herself? Second, where has she gone? And third, how long will her body maintain this self induced coma?" "Well," Baljeet replied simply, "logically we have AT MOST three days to return the life to the body before it shuts down. And I suspect that her life force has now been captured into the machine Mr. Random-" "Hey where is that guy anyway?" Phineas interrupted. Before anyone could answer him, a frazzled and sweaty Ferb burst into the room. "Ferb?" Phineas asked, "what's happened?" "Phineas! Think," Ferb exclaimed, to the surprise of everyone in the room. "What did you say to Isabella the day that we fought Mitch after he drank the Cutonium?" "Umm, it's a scientific fact?" Phineas replied unsteadily. "That what?" Ferb prompted. Phineas' eyes widened in realization, "that... Her cuteness goes right to her core! Do you mean?" "That machine is probably filled with the purest and most powerful Cutonium ever seen." Ferb finished.
Next time on, "The Isabella Ultimatum."
Chapter 3: Return of the Mitch
