Perry entered his lair and sat down in his seat, staring at the huge screen that sat over the desk. He waited patiently for Monogram to notice him.

"I don't know, Carl." Monogram was saying. "I just think the salad bar's too pricey these days."

"Not half as pricey as the Mexican Food station." Carl responded.

"Yeah, well, that's because tacos are way better than salads. But I couldn't even get lunch yesterday. I used up all my cash on shipments of flea shampoo and brushes. I hate flea season. I keep telling the agents to stay away from each other during flea season so they don't catch anything, but do they listen? NO."

"Why don't you just recruit the fleas instead of getting rid of them?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Carl. We don't have hats small enough for them." Monogram thought a moment. "Hm. But maybe… Oh! Agent P! Sorry, didn't see you there…"

Perry scratched his arm.

"That's not a flea, is it?"

Perry shook his head.

"Okay. Good. All right, your mission: We'll need you to deliver a research piece to the agency's laboratory. It's about an hour away, and it is IMPERATIVE that you don't allow this piece to fall into enemy hands. It's a strange sort of device we found around Danville Forest, and we haven't been able to figure out how it works or what it does. Carl will be coming into your lair momentarily to give you it, along with the directions to the agency's lab."

Carl banged on the door. "Agent P? I think you locked it."
Perry scowled. He stood up, walked over to the door, and unlocked it.

"Thank you." Carl said. He handed Perry a sheet of paper and a small device that looked like a raygun of some sort.

Perry stared at it. He felt like he was supposed to know what it did.

"Good luck, Agent P!" Carl saluted him.

Perry returned to the backyard to find Phineas and Ferb standing on a ladder, building a huge statue. Isabella, Baljeet, and Buford were watching with interest.

Phineas held a chisel against part of the rock and started banging it with a hammer. "Oh, there you are, Perry." He called down.

Perry gave him a nod. "I'm gonna drop off a couple things. Then I have to go meet Poppy about something that's going on with Palmer."

"Okay. See you when you get back." Phineas said.

"What was that?" Baljeet asked. "You just talked to your platypus."

"Do you speak platypus or somethin'?" Buford asked.

"Nah, I'm just pretending he said stuff." Phineas said. "It's a game Ferb and I started a couple of days ago."

Perry crawled through the pet flap and stuffed the raygun and directions underneath the mattress of his pet bed. Then he slunk out again.

"Where's the waiter?" Perry asked.

"Maybe they all got fired." Poppy said.

"Or they're sitting in the back room, mocking us, as they eat their endless supply of pizza, having no intention of serving some to us."

"And then they all got fired for slacking off."
"Yeah. So, what did you need to see me about?"

Poppy played with the straw in her waterglass. "Can we wait until we order… before I tell you?"

"My hearing may be more intact if you tell me within this decade."

"It's not that busy in here." Poppy said. "They should be serving us pretty soon…"
"It's worth the wait. This place has the world's best pizza." Perry said. He took a sip of water.

"Well, food always DOES taste great when you're starving."

"Oh dear. You figured out their secret to making the world's best pizza. Make a normal pizza, and then starve your customers before giving it to them."

A waiter came over. "May I take your order?"

"Go mow my lawn." Perry said. "That's an order."

Poppy pointed at a picture of a cheese pizza on the menu.

"Cheese for both of you?" The waiter asked. He wrote it down. "I'll be back."

He left.

"All right, you may as well tell me now." Perry said. "Did Palmer explode the oven again?"

Poppy took a deep breath. "Palmer's… in a little bit of trouble with the law."

"Only a matter of time. Did he break something? Or draw on someone's wall?"

Poppy shook her head. "No… well… sort of. He broke into a police van and drove it into a wall."

Perry sucked in his breath. "Is he okay?"
"He's fine. The car isn't." Poppy said.

"Why? Why would he do that?"
"I don't know. Anyway, we have to pay for the damages… and I promise you, I'll earn enough in time to pay you back…"

"You need money." Perry said. "Look, you don't have to go making everything all dramatic. Just tell me you need me to lend you some."

"It's the first time he's ever done anything like this…"

"Well, yes and no."

"You're not going to be happy with the price tag."
"Try me."

Poppy reached into her fur pocket and pulled out a bill. She handed it to Perry.

"Wow. That's allowed to be a number?" Perry said. "Let's dare someone to count to that. No worries. I can pay it."

"You actually have that much money?"

"Well… no. But I can borrow some."

"That kind of makes the whole thing redundant, borrowing money so that I can borrow your money."

"You don't like borrowing borrowed money?" Perry asked innocently.

"I can pay two-hundred of that."

"Okay, so you're lending me two-hundred… that makes a tiny dent. Then I'm probably going to get a little extra today from that raygun job they assigned me to… I get my bonus next Thursday… yeah, that will do it. I just won't have anything left until they pay me again. Problem solved. When Pal's old enough to have allowance, he's paying."

The waiter brought them their pizza and left again. Perry peeled away a slice and took a bite. "Yum. Best pizza in the world. You eat pizza with a knife and fork? What are you, the queen of manners?"

Poppy glared at him. "Just the first slice. It cools it down."
"It is alarmed by your delicate manner with which you choose to eat it, and it goes cold."

"Fine." Poppy picked the slice up and bit into it.

Perry finished his and took another. "You know, the guy who invented pizza is probably rolling in cash right about now. We could ask HIM to lend us some money. 'Hey, pizza guy, we are your best customers. Now lend us some cash.' Hey, you're taking all the big slices. Pig."

"Who ate half of the pizza, hog?"

"Have you ever wondered why baby pigs are called piglets and not hoglets?"

"Because baby pigs leave enough pizza for their…" Poppy looked at him.

"Friends?"

"…Yeah." Poppy huffed. "Friends."

"Oooo-kay." Perry shrugged. "You looked at me like you wanted me to finish the sentence there."

"I did."

"And I did. So… we're good."

Poppy didn't meet his gaze. "I don't get it. Why can't you at least call me your girlfriend every once in a while?"

Perry nearly spit out his pizza. "Wha…?"

"I mean, we get along great, we had two platypups…"

"Puggles."

"It's platypups. But you insist that I'm just another friend to you!"

"You are, Pops."

Poppy gave him a hurt look. "I… want to be more. I think of you as…"
"I'm sorry. I'm not interested, that's all." Perry said. "We don't know each other very well. All I know about you is that you have my sense of humor and lack driving skills. And that you tend to get angry when I teach Palmer songs before he goes to sleep."

"Can't you at least try to get to know me?"

"I don't want to grow attached to anyone." Perry said, looking down at his plate. "I promised myself I wouldn't get attached anymore. Not after I grew too close to a friend of mine and he was…"

Perry didn't finish his sentence.

Poppy looked sad. "I'm sorry."

Perry's phone buzzed. He pulled it out and answered it. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"That's exactly what we're asking this random animal that just showed up!" Phineas said. "Ferb says it's saying 'Where is it? Where are you hiding it?' but I don't know if that's really what it's saying. It's hard to trust a translator that's been rigged up in five seconds."

"Wait, what does he want?"

"I'm telling you, I don't KNOW! But Ferb says he's threatening to beat us up if we don't give it to him."

Perry got a sick feeling in his stomach. "Phineas… the animal… is it a bunny?"

"Um… yeah. A white one with big blue eyes."

"Tell him I'm coming over and that if he hurts you, I'm going to punch him so hard that his head will sink into his body." Perry hung up. "Pops, I gotta go… I'm sorry."

"Dennis?" Poppy said. "Do you need help?"

"Nah, I'm fine." Perry scribbled on a check and thrust it into Poppy's hand. "That's for Palmer. Eat the rest of the pizza." He ran out the door.

Phineas and Ferb were sitting on the couch when Perry got home. Dennis was sitting patiently next to them.

"How did you get him to…" Perry asked.

"When he heard you were coming, he just sat down on the sofa and waited." Phineas said.

Dennis hopped down. "All right. Let's get this over with. Where is it?"

"You need to be more specific with your requests, Dennis." Perry snapped. "What IS it?"

"You know what I want." Dennis said. "I can't properly destroy the rogue hideout if I don't have it. Because what if I destroy the hideout before I have it? Then I will have lost all record of how to make it."
"What do you WANT?"

"You really don't know?" Dennis asked. "You aren't AWARE? Don't you remember a little while back, when I zapped your sister with it?"

Perry suddenly realized what Dennis wanted. He wanted the raygun Carl had given him. It was the raygun that caused animals to become ten times as strong and as fast as they had been before.

"Why should I give it to you?"

Dennis shrugged. "I need it. My adopted daughter Denise is strong, but she's not half as strong as I would like her to be. I lost it back in Danville forest in a fight with some ferret. My friend Fir told me you had it."

"Well, maybe Fir is malfunctioning. Because I don't have it."

"But you do." Dennis kicked over Perry's pet bed, causing the raygun to fall onto the floor. He picked it up. "A miracle. Fir told me exactly where it was. I just wanted to see how cooperative you would be. But since you don't seem to have any desire to help me…"

"Don't you dare hurt him!" Phineas shouted.

Dennis gave him an unimpressed look. "My my my, aren't we brave?"

"Phineas, stay out of this." Perry said.

Dennis turned and blasted out through the pet flap with amazing speed.

Perry started after him.

"Can we help?" Phineas asked.

Perry looked back at him. Those two boys had helped him in the last rogue fight. And in the battle for the tri-state area.

But they had no equipment now. And it was so last minute, against Dennis. Perry never wanted the boys to get hurt.

"No. Stay here. I'll be back." Perry squeezed through the pet flap and ran after Dennis.