"What the-" yelped Phineas as he pulled his foot away. Fortunately, the tree's wood was slightly damp and did not catch fire, though a smouldering hole was left behind.

"Hey, what was that all about?" yelled Phineas angrily as he turned towards the direction from which the laser was fired. His eyes suddenly widened with excitement. "Ferb! That's so cool! Did you make these?"

Two large dogs were blocking the entrance to their backyard. However, unlike normal hounds, they appeared to be made up of a silverish metal which glinted brightly in the sun. One of them was nosing the ground, probably trying to sniff out a particular scent, while the other merely sat on its haunches and guardedly watched them, unmoving. Both of them had dark, ominous-looking violet-coloured eyes that were not unlike amethyst.

The redhead cautiously took a small step forward. "Hello there, I'm… "

The hound automatically raised a paw and fired a laser, almost hitting Phineas. He froze, and said slowly, "Okay…"

"Don't move," it growled, and then turned towards its companion. After looking at each other for about ten seconds, the robotic canine faced the two again and beckoned. "You shall come with us."

"Nah, no thanks. It's burger night tonight."

The dog raised its paw, threateningly aiming with the laser gun attached to its lower limb.

Phineas gulped. "On second thought, we'll just do as you say." Ferb raised an eyebrow at him, and the latter shrugged.

The two walked over to follow the robots, but not before an object fell out of the sky and onto one of the robots. It started bashing it up with its fists, denting its plating. Ferb noticed, with much interest, that the mentioned object was teal coloured, had a bill and a tail, and had a brown fedora atop its head.

"Perry?" Phineas exclaimed.

Perry, after pulling out a bunch of wires from the robotic hound's exposed control panel and thus deactivating it, looked up apologetically and waved his hand, signalling for them to get away.

The other robot pulled out yet another gun from its limb. "OWCA Agent. Capture."

A bolt of adrenaline rushed through Perry's bloodstream as he immediately jumped, avoiding the imminent lasers heading his way, and landed on the remaining robot, desperately attempting to punch through weak points. However, the dog shook itself violently, and Perry was flung off it into the tree into the backyard.

The robot slowly advanced upon the dazed platypus and the huddling boys, with slight gear noises with every step it took.

Then it stopped, and collapsed to the ground with a resounding crash of metal, deactivated. Behind it, a blue-haired boy stood, a handful of wires in his hand.

Animal instincts overriding his sense of thought, Perry leapt out to face this new intruder, and dealt out blows towards him at a speed that made them impossible to be properly discerned.

And yet, by some miracle or skill, the boy managed to prevent any from landing on him, using several types of defensive manoeuvres.

"Perry! What is going on?"

The platypus froze at his owner's voice, breathing hard from his onslaught, and stared at the stranger. The latter put up his hands in the air in surrender and backed off slowly, then turned around and ran off into the street.

Perry made as if he was going after the boy, but felt a hand rest gently but firmly on his shoulder. He looked up to see a frown on the redhead's face, and gulped. And here it goes again…

"What's the meaning of all this?" Phineas demanded.

Chattering meekly, Perry gestured using sign language that they should follow him. He never used it with Monogram, seeing that his boss already understood him through his expressions, but this apparently was an emergency.

"Okay, but you have a lot of explaining to do later." Thank goodness Phineas had the knack of reading sign-language.

Going over to the bush in which he had entered this morning, he tapped the ground again with his foot and the hole revealed itself.

Ferb's eyebrows were raised, and Phineas involuntarily let out a gasp. "So that's where you go to every morning…"

The platypus motioned for them to jump in.

"Into that dark gaping hole? You must be kidding me."

Perry desperately signed, Trust me.

The inventor huffed. "After all that has happened, I don't think I should." But his never-ending curiosity got the better of him, and he did so anyway. He was closely followed by Ferb - which still had a look of unbelief on his face - then Perry.

The trio landed on Perry's small chair in an uncomfortable pile with a few 'Oof's and grunts. Ignoring his owners, Perry got up and dusted himself off, then pressed one small button out of the multitudes on the colourful console.

Monogram appeared on screen. "Agent P, how did…" He stopped when he saw the other two boys in Perry's lair. "Oh."

The platypus rolled his eyes and shrugged helplessly.

"Well, I guess that couldn't be helped. I would have been surprised if you could dispatch those two robots without revealing your identity, when they had already seen the mentioned robots." Monogram sighed. "We'll just have to follow protocol."

Perry's eyes widened, and waved his hands as a sign of objection.

Phineas was getting tired of all this conversing as if they didn't exist, so he cleared his throat and asked, "Excuse me, sir… What protocol? And what's this about 'Agent P'?"

The newly-promoted colonel glanced at him. "Well, if your pet here has revealed his identity of being a secret agent to you… "

"Secret agent?" Now Phineas was glaring at Perry. "So Ferb and I, our entire family, was just some sort of cover for you?"

"I haven't finished." Monogram cut him off sternly. The redhead stopped ranting, but the furious glare on his face was still present.

"As I was saying, since he has revealed himself to you, he must now be immediately transported to another host family."

Phineas' angry face was immediately transformed into one of surprise and revelation. "Oh, so that's why you didn't want to tell us?"

The agent nodded.

"I'm so sorry, Perry… For not trusting you."

Perry merely smiled, his way of saying, It's all right. Ferb gently patted his head.

"So now that you all have reconciled with each other, I guess it's Agent P's time to go."

"No, wait." Phineas was grasping at straws. "Sir, have we ever found out Perry's identity before?"

Monogram frowned. "Well, yes, actually. When you accidentally found out about Doofenshmirtz and entered the second dimension…"

"Doofenshmirtz… Sounds familiar," Phineas muttered to himself. Then he spoke loudly, "Well, then how is Perry still with us?"

"We erased your memory with a machine, but I suspect we can't do this again, since robots are more than likely to attack your family repeatedly. I'm sorry, but he really has to go. Rules are rules."

As he had run out of ideas, Phineas closed his eyes, got down and hugged his pet as tight as he could. Ferb did the same. One could say they were a picture of sorrowful adorableness.

"We're so going to miss you, Perry," the redhead choked.

Monogram passed his hand over his face and sighed. "Fine, I have another option for you boys, but I don't think you'll like it."

Phineas immediately perked up. "What is it?"

"You and your brother can help us. But only temporarily. This way, you'll be protected and you still get to keep Perry. When the matter's finished, then we'll wipe your minds of everything that has happened."


A/N : You guys see the big blue button? Down there? Well, if you click it, you get a big giant cyber-cookie. :3

And by 'blows', I don't mean air currents... I mean powerful strokes or hits. Eesh, you know what I mean. XD