Part 3: Dreadful Joy, Wonderful Sorrow
(A/N: Whoohoo! I'm able to post today because of a snow day! I love my state!
Just thought I'd warn you that this starts from Phineas' point of view. Didn't want anyone confused by that. Also I really suck... SUCK at writing action sequences, so sorry if this chapter is rather lackluster.)
Perry unexpectedly bestirred himself. Just a minute ago he was drifting off to sleep. After all, it had been a long day for him, and he deserved some rest. Besides, we would be able to take care of everything until he woke up. He had just dozed off for a few minutes when he just thrust himself awake. He looked around as if lost and confused.
"Perry?" I whispered to him, as not to interrupt the meeting.
He turned to look at me. The glint in his eyes was alien. This wasn't our Perry. He examined me with an icy cold glare. It was as if I was just a sack of meat to him, a stranger. Then he turned to the rest of the group. A few seconds of scanning, and a brutal grin etched its way across his face. I couldn't help but notice his hand clutching itself into a fist.
Dr. Baljeet gave out an annoyed grunt and gave Perry a slight smack on the back of his head. "Perry, stay still!" he irritatedly grunted.
Perry turned, his face was set into a mask of wrath. Faster than I could comprehend, Perry smacked Baljeet across the room.
Baljeet only had a moment to scream before he was rendered unconscious, colliding with a bookshelf. The bookshelf toppled over, backwards from the impact.
The meeting came to an abrupt halt as everyone turned to Perry and the senseless Baljeet.
Perry twisted his head to the rest of us. The expression on his face was nonchalant, almost as if nothing important happened.
"Baljeet!" I shouted to him, knowing that he wouldn't respond. I turned to Perry. "What'd you do that for!"
Perry glanced at me for a brief moment. His glare was not human, it did not hold that glint of intelligence and emotion that was his. His usually warm, accepting, brown eyes were now dead and bitter. Then I remembered where I saw that expression before. This wasn't Perry. This was the Platyborg.
His eyes moved from me to Candace, and locked themselves onto her position.
"Perry... What's gotten into you?" I asked myself, hoping that he would hear me. I tried to get in front of him, right in between him and Candace. "Perry! What's happened to you? Tell me what's wrong!" I pleaded.
"Phineas!" Candace shouted.
As I turned to look at her, the Platyborg smacked me across the face, causing me to stumble back a few paces in shock. His expression as he did it was calm, and collected, almost happy. He only had one focus, and that was Candace.
Platyborg stared at her, like some sort of predator stalking its prey.
Candace stood up, readying herself for any attack. Only two words were said, "Bring it."
The Platyborg pounced, sending himself flying at Candace.
The second he got into range she pulled out her bo staff and knocked him out of the sky with it.
He rolled to a clean halt. Looking up, he smiled, his face amused. He was enjoying this.
"Gretchen!" Isabella ordered, "Take Phineas and Ferb and find somewhere safe to hide for the moment. Monogram! Protect the representatives, Holly and Milly will help you. Ginger! Go see if Baljeet's okay. Katie! Protect Melissa. Adyson! We're going to back Candace up. Got it?"
"Yes, ma'am!" half of the room shouted back, running to their positions.
Chaos ensued, children were giving orders, everything was a hectic mess, as the Firestorm Girls and Major Monogram ran to follow their orders.
"Phineas, Ferb!" Gretchen yelled, coming over to us. "It would be best if we got out of here right now! There's only one exit..."
"Wait, a minute," I interrupted her, thinking out loud for a moment, "if there's only one exit, won't we get crowded on the way out?"
"Well..." She started.
"And since there's only one exit can't Perry keep us from getting out by blocking it?" Ferb asked.
"I suppose..."
"And can't he hear everything we've just said?" I wondered, glimpsing over at the fight.
In response the Platyborg glanced at us and harshly grinned. Parrying one of Candace's blows, he stepped only a few paces backward to block the double doors, the only exit in the room.
Gretchen glared at us. "Good job, geniuses. Now nobody can get out."
We tried to back away as far from the fight as possible. We tried to get cover from behind the bookshelves.
Isabella, wielding a jump rope like a whip, and Adyson, pulling out a set of brass knuckles, jumped into the fray. Candace came from the front, Isabella from the left and Adyson to the right. Candace came at him first, swinging her staff from above, aimed directly at his head. He sidestepped, the staff completely missing him and smashing into the ground instead, leaving the carpet torn where it hit.
Isabella swung the rope at the Platyborg, which wrapped its way around one of his hands. But, the Platyborg took the rope, Isabella still holding to the other end, wrapped it around his hand, gaining a firm grasp on it. He then swung it to the side, taking Isabella by surprise, and forcing her to go with the rope, straight into Adyson.
Candace, interpreting this as an opportunity to attack, swung her pole from the side, forcing the Platyborg to duck at the last minute, where Candace was readying a kick. Platyborg unraveled the rope from around his hand, and blocked Candace's kick with his tail. Holding both ends of the rope in one hand, he lashed out at Candace with it. It struck her left arm. Candace stumbled back a few paces, trying to swallow the pain as she held her right hand to where he hit. When she removed her hand there was a purple colored welt left. The Platyborg took this pause in action to tangle the rope around the doorknobs, trapping everyone inside.
Next to us we heard a groan. It was Dr. Baljeet, he was waking up.
"Baljeet! Are you okay?" Ginger cried.
Dr. Baljeet put two fingers over his lips and groaned, "don't shout, we don't want to draw attention to ourselves."
We all nodded.
"I think I may have a plan that can defeat Perry." He muttered in little more than a whisper.
We all glanced at the fight, where the Platyborg grabbed Adyson's fist, and was getting ready to throw her across the room, when Isabella, now using a baton, narrowly missed a blow to his body, but in exchange forced him let Adyson go. At this point they could use any help they could get.
"Well? What is it?" Gretchen asked.
Dr. Baljeet looked at me and beckoned me closer. I leaned in, and putting his lips to my ears he whispered, "Phineas, his back is still open. If you can land a single solid blow to it, you may just be able to cause him to temporarily shut down."
I looked at him, wide-eyed. "Why are you asking me to do this? Ask one of the Firestorm girls, or Ferb to do it."
He shook his head. "No, only you have the courage to stand up to him. You have to do this."
"And what happens if it doesn't work? What happens if he doesn't shut down?"
"It will work. I believe that you can do it. If it doesn't shut him down, it should at least stun him." Dr. Baljeet reached down and pulled out a considerably large wrench from one of his over sized pockets. "Here, use this. It's not much of a weapon, but it should do the job." He held it out to me.
Taking it, I nodded. "So, I just have to wait until he's distracted and shows his back to us?"
Baljeet nodded, and with that, he blacked out again.
Clutching the wrench tightly to my chest, we turned to watch the fight.
How was I supposed to get behind him. Just charging wouldn't work. Could I circle around to approach him from behind? There wasn't sufficient enough cover to go unnoticed. He was facing us, but how could we get him to turn around?
Isabella and Candace came at him from the right while Adyson came from the left. Isabella tried swinging her baton down, which he easily sidestepped, where Candace was waiting, to stab at him. The Platyborg turned another 90˚ to avoid the blow. Adyson tried to punch him mid-turn, but he was able to grab her wrists and fling her over his head, where Isabella caught her.
What luck! He was turned around. Now was my time to act. I ran into the fight, wrench clasped in both hands and held over my head. I screamed a battle cry as I readied myself to strike his back.
The Platyborg turned, surprise evident on his face. But, at the last second, he was able to turn far enough to grab one of my arms and sling me into the door.
"Phineas!" Candace exclaimed, "what do you think you're doing!"
I gasped for the breath that was knocked out of me. Once I had somewhat composed myself, I responded, "don't worry! I have a plan."
She sighed. "Okay, but it better work. I couldn't live with myself if you got badly injured like this."
I tried standing, but that blow had taken the strength out of my legs. As I tried to balance myself I noticed that the Platyborg had started to aggressively protect his back. He must've caught on to what his biggest weakness was, but so did Candace, Isabella, and Adyson.
After a few minutes, I regained the strength to fight. Candace took notice, and the three made their formation. Candace took his left, Isabella his front and Adyson his right. All three charged at once, weapons ready to strike.
He caught Candace's bo staff in one hand, Adyson's fist in the other, while he hopped over Isabella's sweeping baton. I attacked from behind, cutting the wrench through the air as I aimed at his back. Perfect! He couldn't block or dodge, there was no way he could avoid my strike! As that thought sprung into my head, something got in my way. His tail. No... I had forgotten about that.
I watched Candace's eyes grow wide in surprise, but she didn't give up. Wrenching her staff out of his hand, Candace stuck it between his tail and back. She held the pole tightly with her right hand and used her left to force the tip into the Platyborg's back.
Electricity sparked out and I fell back, so that I wouldn't be shocked. The Platyborg fell to the ground, winded. Candace, Isabella and Adyson pulled back to see what would happen. The Platyborg was stunned for a few seconds, before getting back on his feet. He took a step forward, then collapsed, fainting.
We all took a relieved breath, the fight was over, at least for a few minutes, but we couldn't relax just yet. We still had to figure out what happened to Perry to make him attack us, and try to find a cure.
It was Milly who asked what we all were thinking. "Well, now what?"
I looked around. The doors were tied shut, we had six representatives to take care of, the former general of Doofenschmirtz's army was knocked out, in the middle of the room, the doctor was unconscious, three girls were possibly injured, an none of us knew what to do.
"Perhaps, we could try getting the doors open, since I assume no one wants to jump down a story to get out." Katie suggested.
"I'll see if I can wake Baljeet up," Ginger called, "maybe if we wake him up, he can find out what's wrong with Perry."
We were all about to agree when a voice said, "You'll see what's wrong with Perry? What are you? Insane?" It was Mr. Robins. "Did you just see that, or are you just stupid! That thing attacked us! What are you doing, being concerned about that thing? Just kill it!"
"Mr. Robins! Be more considerate towards the children. They just saved our lives. Let them handle it," the woman that Mr. Robins earlier called Beatrix tried to resolve.
"It's none of your business!" Mr. Robins shouted, but he was interrupted before he could start ranting on again.
"And it's none of yours either, Benjamin." Mr. Adina shut the man up before turning to me turned to me. "I'm sorry, Phineas, but I don't think some of us are up to speed on what is going on."
"Yeah! Like what's the general of Doofenschmirtz's army doing, helping you kids?" one man in the group blurted out.
"And why did he just attack us now? I thought he was on our side!" a woman testified.
We all looked at each other, wondering what to do.
Candace stepped forward. "Fine, we'll tell you, but the following conversation never happened. We are about to tell you some top secret information, as well as a story you may not believe. Wether you think we are lying or not is up to you, but this is the true story of what happened."
The group of representatives blinked at us in confusion.
"The story really starts about six years ago, when we got our pet platypus, Perry..."
We told them everything. About how Perry was a secret agent, before loosing himself to Doofenschmirtz, becoming his slave, about how alternate versions of ourselves came from another dimension, about how different the other Tri-State area was, about the rescue, the fight, and about the downfall of Doofenschmirtz. In the time it took to tell, we were able to coax Baljeet awake, and get him back to fixing Perry. Once our story was done the representatives looked more confused than ever.
"So, what happened after that?" one man asked.
"We took control of the Tri-State area. We have been trying to rebuild the community from what Doofenschmirtz left us. As for the other dimension, we got a note from their Perry a few days after the event saying that everyone got their memories erased, to keep the agency from being discovered, and that O.W.C.A. members couldn't interfere with events in our dimension. Everything is apparently going well in their dimension, though their Doofenschmirtz can't seem to find his toy train from when he was a child." Candace finished explaining.
"Do you know why the Platy... I mean Perry attacked us?" a woman asked.
"No, but something might have happened at the top of the building where he found Melissa," Dr. Baljeet suggested, "perhaps a virus or something got into his system, or whatever makes Perry follow Doofenschmirtz's orders got reactivated."
We all sat in silence as minutes slowly ticked by. Everyone's mind was trying to understand what was just said, and the ones who understood, just couldn't bring themselves to speak.
After a while we heard the mechanical whirr of gears rotating. We turned to see Perry siting up. He put a hand to his temple as if he had a headache.
"Perry?" I asked, clutching the wench tightly hand, ready to defend myself if he attacked.
He looked up at me for a few seconds as if he was trying to identify my face. Slowly, horror etched itself onto his face. As he looked around, his face looked more and more terrified at everything he saw.
Before anyone could say a word, he broke for a window, wings spread. Smashing through the glass as if it had no more resilience than paper, he leaped out of the building, and soared into the sky.
"Perry!" I shouted after him, running to the shattered window. I looked down at the ground from the broken opening, there was no way I was going to jump down that far to chase after him. "Gretchen, help Katie and me open the doors. I have to go after him!" I frantically ordered her.
"You can't order me..." Gretchen started.
"Just do it," Candace commanded. With that Gretchen didn't say another word.
"What's the point! Can't you see that he abandoned you? He going to crawl back to Doofenschmirtz, and condemn you all!" Mr. Robins claimed. "This is what you get for helping that..."
He was silenced by a punch to the face. "You just do not get it," Ferb spoke to the surprise of everyone, "couldn't you see his face? He was not scared of us, he was scared of himself! He didn't fear that he had been captured, he was afraid of what he had done to us! Can't you see? He hates himself! He is forced to do things that would make other people go insane, and he can't escape it! Everything around him reminds him of it, and he can't run away even if he tried! He thinks that he is a monster, and all he wants is for the people he wronged to forgive him." Tears welled in his eyes. "Every night he has nightmares. He remembers every single detail of what he has done. I can tell that he thinks that the world would be a better place if he were dead. But that's not true... That's not true... We love him... And we would be lost without him."
"Ferb..." Isabella came up behind him.
Ferb turned to her, tears still leaking from his eyes. He readied himself to accept punishment for speaking out against a representative, against orders from his sister.
"Good job, soldier. He deserved it. Now, let's help them get those doors open," Isabella told Ferb, motioning to us, taking his hand.
Ferb smiled and blushed, he didn't get praise that often. The two came to help us with the door.
Mr. Robins was stunned. He was just lectured by a little boy. Candace came up to the corpulent man, disgust evident on her face.
"The letter from the other Perry also said something else." Candace told him, "He wrote, 'I know that the situation in your area is now difficult, but please take care of the me in your dimension. If I was in his position, I would be ashamed of my failure. I would hate myself for ever being used as anyone's puppet. Tell him that, who he was, is not who he is, that what he could have been is not who he has become, and that no matter what, to not give up. Since he is me I know that he is a good person, and that the solution will come to him in time. It always does.'" Candace paused. "No matter what happens we can't just leave Perry. He may look a little different than when we first got him, but he's the Perry we love. He's a part of our family, and nothing, not even Doofenschmirtz, can change that fact. Of course how could you ever understand that?"
"Sir! We got the doors open!" Isabella informed her.
"Good job, solider. Let's go find Perry."
With that we all left the library.
~.~.~.~.~.
What have I done? What happened? I attacked Baljeet, I attacked Phineas and then to top it off, I fought against Candace, even assaulted Isabella and Adyson in the process. I attacked Phineas... I felt sick with myself. If they had given me the chance I would have killed them. Not only did I put them in jeopardy, but I put the negations at risk as well. I had to get away. I couldn't keep putting them in danger, but where was I supposed to go? I looked down at the city below. People ran away as they saw me in the sky.
I noticed that something felt wrong with my wings. While it didn't interfere with my flying at the moment, it could cause problems if I kept going for too long. Maybe it would be better if I crashed into the ground, but then again I could accidentally hurt someone while falling. Besides, my programming would never allow me to do that.
Where was I supposed to go? I wanted to go somewhere dark, and quiet. Somewhere secret, where I could be safe from myself. Then again, I was bound by law to go home.
Something went off in my head, almost making me fall out of the sky, but I caught myself. There was such a place that I knew. I wondered if it was still there. I steered myself towards Maple Drive. I was going back to my base.
(A/N: I hate how I can't write action. Hope that it didn't confuse you too much. Then again I didn't expect for it to be that long...
Quite the speech Ferb gave wasn't it? Does that qualify as Ferb X Isabella subtext? XD Hey, I tried! This isn't supposed to be romantic.
I think I'm starting to sense a pattern in this fanfic... Perry wakes up, Perry angst's, Perry fights, Perry gets knocked out, repeat! XD Well in the next chapter Perry won't be knocked out per say~ Now a question for you! First, what do you think happened to Pinky? Second, how do you think Perry would react if he saw Doofenschmirtz again?
Coming up next! Perry goes to his lair and remembers some very unfortunate things!
Please read, review, and critique! I want to hear what you have to say! One more review and I'll have the most I've had for something on this site!)