The city of Danville was eerily silent for this time of day.
Phineas walked around to find one half of the citizens in utter shambles. What was left of the other half was found as nothing but a pile of ashes that were either left unattended or being blown away by the wind. They had suffered the same fate as his brother, his friends, and (according to what Candace had said) his parents. It was almost as if they had...died. Was that to be their final fate? To be rather callously killed off unceremoniously without a final word or action? The idea made him shudder, trying ever-so-vigorously to wipe it from his mind as he continued throughout the city.
Isabella followed not soon after, her expression matching up with the horror her crush shared. She had trouble coming to terms with the ensuing phenomenon as well, seeing as they both had the misfortune of witnessing it firsthand. Checking her house to find nothing but dust circling the floor and a boiling pot of water, it was safe to assume that her mother was one of the many victims of this strange happening. Of course, stranger things have happened; some evil force of the universe had completely wiped the rest of her Fireside Girls troop from existence but interestingly spared her, possibly to spite her. Tears threatened to flow from her eyes when a voice called out for her. Isabella...! Isabella...!
That voice did not belong to Phineas. She turned to find a familiar member of Lil' Sparks running towards her and looking on in horror as people continued to disintegrate before her very eyes, which were threatening to release tears of her own. And so, in spite of her own heartbreak, Isabella pushed it aside in favor curing Melissa of hers, fully aware that the girl a few years younger than her needed nothing short of comfort and consoling in a time such as this. As she ran over to pick her up for a warm hug, she secretly hoped that they both wouldn't become the next victims of the disintegration.
Meanwhile, Baljeet was a few feet away and blankly staring ahead as people went up in ashes, still recovering from the double whammy of his dearly beloved. He was already on edge when his mother was one of the victims, but his anxiety drastically increased when he learned that Ginger had vanished into thin air as well. Having just starting to accept his feelings for the Fireside Girl, he was stunned silent when Candace informed him of the losses they suffered, which ruefully included her as one of the many.
The city of Danville was eerily silent for this time of day.
That was five days ago...
Five days later, the remaining citizens moved into several evacuation centers and set up their temporary homes there. It was during this time that people came to terms with this mysterious and traumatizing phenomenon as they went on with their normal everyday lives with a hint of difficulty. Dr. Doofenshmirtz got in contact with Balthazar Cavendish and Orton Mahlson almost immediately, starting a search-and-rescue foundation for any missing survivors of the city. Monty Monogram and Lyla Lolliberry became partners on those missions as a means to make their deceased parental figures proud and vent their frustration on those whom they deemed unworthy of surviving the quote "snap". Tiana and Bob Webber became something of parental figures themselves towards young Melissa, who was still disturbed over witnessing what was essentially the deaths of many people before her very eyes.
As Isabella watched Tiana and Bob comfort Melissa from afar, her mind backtracked to where this little girl's heart shattered into pieces. Her religious upbringing began to seep through as a result, as she suspected that this mysterious force was equivalent to the Rapture, except that this event...whatever this was...didn't discriminate between who believed in God and who didn't. Her mind already having difficulties focusing on a singular subject, she spotted a 3rd Generation Glock 19 in the pile of gathered firearms and walked over to retrieve it, racking its slide repeatedly.
Meanwhile, in a distance were on-and-off frenemies Wendy Stinglehopper and Mishti Patel (ironically, two of Baljeet's former love interests). Both were dressed in matching uniforms with the standard color palette of a silver shirt, a dark-green beret on their heads, brown straps worn over their left shoulder that appear to store rolled-up strips of paper, brown pants, and black boots with matching fingerless gloves. Wendy's was sleeveless with diamond-shaped patches on the kneecaps; Mishti's had her shirt tucked in with brown pants. Both were jettisoning through another pile of melee weapons (genuine or improvised) so they could properly defend themselves.
"You think Isabella would let us wear these?" Wendy continuously clenched her fists to correctly fit her gloves.
"Which one?" Mishti rummaged through the pile before finding a grappling hook and an aluminum baseball bat. "Our Isabella or their Isabella?"
"... Both."
"Well... Keeping in mind that their dimension is different from our own, we have no idea how Isabella-2 might react."
"Hmm," Wendy agreed as she tied her brunette hair into a high ponytail, "Even so, I think I look cute and feel pretty. Concur?"
"I do."
Baljeet had been working on receiving signals from any remaining survivors so he could report back to his temporary superiors. Still devastated by the death of his closest friends and family, he buried himself into domestic drudgery and tried to deny that any of this was a dream, a hallucination, or something of a beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Denial had settled on the first day, followed by anger on the second, bargaining on the third, and depression on the fourth. Acceptance was a little harder on the fifth, but he had finally wallowed in the misery of his personal losses...with the help of gamma radiation as his prescription drug.
Running a support group for survivors coping with their PTSD, Phineas was doing a little better because of his unwavering optimism and having learned from his previous incident on the island. Despite it being almost a week since the happening, the redheaded inventor wasn't going to let this deter him from two things: 1) providing emotional support to the people who were in dire need of it and 2) finding a way to rectify the situation at hand...if there even was a way.
He was currently seated in a circle comprised of people of varying ages with him among the youngest. Tiana and Bob Webber were seated across from him with Melissa a chair away from him. Johnny and Dana were seated beside him on his left, while the French Fireside Girls (Brigitte, Collette, and Josette) were seated to her right. Dr. Hirano was seated between the two groups (specifically between Tiana and Dana) with her head hung, no doubt hit hard by the losses of both of her daughters on the same day.
"So..." Phineas turned to her now, "What about you, Dr. Hirano?"
"Well..." She rubbed the back of her head and heavily sighed, "There isn't that much to say except...my daughters are gone. I don't know how or why... I just know that they're gone...and I can't do anything about it."
"I know how you feel. Everyone here does. I lost my stepbrother, my parents, and most of my friends as a result of this event. As I want to say move on... I can't. We can't give up hope. Hope for the future. Whatever it brings."
Suddenly, the front door of the center burst open and caught the attention of the occupants; in speedwalked a girl in her early teens. She had an olive skin tone, dark brown eyes with visible eyelashes, shoulder-length wavy burgundy hair with perfectly even bangs that covered her eyebrows; she wore a bright pink jacket with magenta-striped lining on the thick collar above a white crop top, a pair of magenta pants with a darker colored belt and a pink belt buckle, pink flats with darker soles, deep pink lipstick and light pink spherical earrings alongside a magenta headband. She was evidently frazzled from a very long walk from one section of Danville to another, but with good reason.
"Where's Phineas Flynn?"
The majority turned toward the inventor in question himself, who stood up and began walking towards her.
"Who's asking?"
"Me. You may not remember me or even know me. I'm Amanda Lopez, I was turned into a Pistachion before being turned back; my friend Bradley's right arm is still part-plant."
"Yeah, I know you. Milo told me about you."
"Oh. He did?"
"He said that you were a friend of his. How is he?"
"He's...been better. Most of his family were victims as well as Melissa and Zack. You?"
"To name a few... Ferb, my parents, Buford, Django, the Fireside Girls, and Irving." Phineas stopped himself from bursting into tears on the spot by hastily changing to the main subject. "What are you doing here, Amanda?"
"I...received a message from a group of survivors."
This caught the attention of many an occupant again and ignited a small fire of hope within them. Baljeet leaped over and joined the conversation soon after.
"From a part of Danville?"
"No, but from Royal Woods. A group of survivors claim that they may have a way of reversing the deaths, and may is the keyword."
Citizens began to murmur amongst themselves, that fire of hope slowly growing. Royal Woods? Phineas rubbed his chin as he softly gasped. That's Lincoln's hometown!
"Well, we have to get over there now!"
"Phineas, what are the chances of all of us traveling a thousand miles to meet up with this group?"
"Not all of us, of course. I mean... A select few people like me, you, Isabella..."
"And us too?"
Everybody turned toward Wendy and Mishti now, who continuously leaped over sleeping bags and brown boxes to jump into the conversation.
"You have to take us with you."
"We want in on the action!"
Scanning their makeshift uniforms in realization, Baljeet blinked. Aren't those the same uniforms worn by...
"Mishti? Wendy?"
"Yes?"
"Where do you get those?"
"Oh, these?" Wendy twirled around on her tippy-toes to display for all to see. "I grabbed a few from that portal over there. I figured that if you're gonna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform."
"Portal? What portal?"
The duo pointed to an upstairs area, prompting Phineas, Isabella, Baljeet, and even Melissa to make their way up to investigate, followed by Amanda soon after. Indeed, a portal was there in midair, opening a passage to another universe. However, there was a discernible difference between the portal usually used to travel to the 2nd Dimension and this one. The portal they used was green, this one was bright orange...and constructed out of fire sparks.
"Hmm. Far different from the portal we utilized," Baljeet observed the gateway.
"It's almost magical-like," Isabella mimicked his actions, followed by Phineas soon after.
"Maybe..."
"...but we don't know that for sure," Baljeet refuted. Following the disintegration of 50% of all living things on Earth, people had chalked up to one explanation: a mysterious force, perhaps otherworldly, was responsible. As a firm believer in all things science and logic, this excuse kinda ticked the child prodigy off. He had no patience or tolerance for anything beyond his comfort zone, dismissing them as nothing more than fantastical hokum, supernatural nonsense, and otherworldly rubbish...despite his continuous, unfortunate encounters with it.
"Well, what other explanation is there?"
Baljeet shot a frown at Phineas, who in turn gave a sheepish smile and shrug combo at his friend. Phineas then turned to Amanda now.
"How did you receive the message?"
"With this," Amanda displayed the communicator for him to examine. Taking it from her to examine it further, not a moment passed before he pressed the call button.
Meanwhile, Margo skated towards the organized crowd of citizens where they were getting ready for what she presumed was war. But why? Why was she among them? She was only a teenager who had no prior battle experience, not counting the one time where Lynn provoked a rival team so hard for picking on a fellow teammate that she instigated a five-hour melee brawl. A lot of bones were broken and a lot of referrals were handed out that day, but Lynn still believed it was all worth it in the end. She never admit it outright, but she was grateful to have her...the most stubborn and headstrong of the Loud Family...as a friend.
Watching the citizens arm themselves with guns, knives, and miscellaneous blunt objects, Margo decided to follow suit. Skating towards the pile and choosing from a plethora of various close quarters weapons, she initially settled on an pair of aluminum baseball bats and brass knuckles but her eyes noticed the twin machetes sheathed and hanging nearby. Taking them up and unsheathing them at once, she gazed at herself reflected in the two blades. Well, one blade anyway; in the other blade, she saw her deceased best friend in the other, looking as despondent as she was.
"Oh, Lynn..." Margo softly lamented under her breath.
Suddenly, the communicator beeped, catching her attention but dare not getting her hopes up. Not yet... Margo answered the call.
. . .
"Hello?"
. . .
"Phineas? Hey."
. . .
"You did? Well, that's great."
. . .
"Really?"
. . .
"Yes, of course. I'll tell them right away."
. . .
"Alright, we'll see you soon. Bye, Phineas."
. . .
…before hanging up as she finished.
"Were those survivors?"
"GAH!"
Leaping in fright, Margo turned around to find one of Lincoln's sisters standing behind her. Was it Lydia or was it Lulu?
"Oh...Lucy. I didn't see you standing there."
"No one ever does..."
Feeling a twinge of sympathy for her if only for a brief moment, Margo answered her question next.
"And yes, those were survivors from Danville. A fair few will be arriving here in two days at the most."
"Finally, some actual good news."
Margo and Lucy turned to Principal Huggins and Rita arriving with slung firearms.
"Danville, you say?" The latter inquired curiously.
"Yes, an old friend of mine resides there," The former rubbed his chin, "but I doubt he was one of the survivors. We need to get ready for their arrival."
"Principal Huggins, what about Lincoln? We can't just call off the search."
"I'm fully aware of that, Miss Roberts. That's why we're not; we're merely passing the search off to more capable hands."
As the group walked off to join the others, Lucy's eyes glowed bright blue...reverting to normal only after blinking.
What in the hell is happening?
A/N: For a question posed by A Two Sided Figure, the answer is Yes. I will continue with Drive, but I will make some rewrites to make it more in line with my usual style. It would be a shame to leave quite possibly my most popular story on the website on an undeserved cliffhanger.
