A/N: Ah, hello all! Not too much to say, except happy Halloween and enjoy the Darkness!

Chapter 8: Whispers in the Freezer

"I'm fine for now," Clancy tossed an empty can of soda into the air, piercing it with one, two, and then three razor-sharp shards of ice before it landed in his lap and he absorbed the ice again.

"Aw, c'mon Clancy!" Sienna watched in amusement as Kelly gave Clancy her 'puppy face'. "Don'tcha want to see what I brought back from Danville? It's awesome!"

"Well, let's see," Clancy replied. "From what I heard, the only thing you brought back was that old guy from the OWCA. And he isn't exactly awesome."

Kelly laughed, "No, Clancy. It's not that Major guy. Where are the others? They were supposed to be here ten minutes ago!"

Sienna grinned humorously, "It seems they had more sense than us."

Kelly pouted, "That's not very nice, Sienna."

Sienna turned to look at her friend. "Well, we weren't exactly taught how to be nice, Kelly. We were too busy being taught how to kill."

The doors opened, and the rest of Alpha walked in. "That is, except for the Allmother," Lawr said to Sienna, who nodded sadly.

Clancy chimed in, "There are still some times that I wish she was here. I wonder what it'd be like if she wasn't dead."

Siegfried and Taylan entered the room as well. "I don't know, but it was obvious that the Director didn't exactly like the news of her death. He was certainly enraged by it, to say the least," Siegfried added.

Kelly nodded, remembering the day quite clearly. The Director had been so angry he had actually condemned nearly half his staff for the day, and sent the other half after them. He had called it "weeding out the unnecessary expenses", but Kelly had seen the way he'd watched the archived footage from his office. It had been her, Lisa, and her brother who had been in the Director's office at the time, and they had been extremely close. Well, about as close as someone could get to Lisa. Siegfried had still been in Germany at the time, Taylan had been in the Russian department of the Agency, and Sienna had been in the gym, trying her hardest to impress the Supervisor with her considerable gymnastic skill. Kelly had seen the near-sadistic glee her superior had expressed as he watched what he called "The Proscriptions" finish up. Kelly had never been one inclined to blood and gore -she tolerated it, as it was necessary for one with her job- but this had been overkill.

"You know, there were actually a few rumors that the Director killed her," Kelly told the others, but her brother shook his head.

"The Director may do many things others would consider unspeakable, but I don't believe he'd kill his own wife."

"It is rather plausible though, Lawr," Siegfried mused.

Sienna nodded, "If she betrayed him, I wouldn't put it past him. He's done worse to lesser 'traitors'."

Clancy nodded, "Anyway, you wanted to show us something, Kelly?"

Kelly visibly brightened, as did the lights in the room. "You mean you guys'll come and see? Really?" Kelly sounded like a little girl, but she gave herself some slack since she liked to act young when she could.

Her brother chuckled. "Of course, Kelly. I wouldn't figure we all really have anything better to do," Lawr replied.

Kelly grinned widely. "Great! I'll be right back with it!" she ran off to what she considered her room to get the object of her newfound interest. Of course, what she called a room, others would have called a storage closet. "Nonsense," she muttered to herself, "A closet would be less wide and would have shelves instead of just a bed and a small window. Now c'mere you." She picked up the object she was looking for and carried it into Alpha's "lounge" area, which consisted of a couple of sofas and chairs, along with a recently acquired TV.

Kelly stepped into the light, holding the object. "Ta-da!" she announced, and all the faces in the room turned to look at her even as the object in her arms made a noise like someone trying to start up a dying motor.

Taylan took one look at it and raised an eyebrow, "What is it?"

Siegfried replied before Kelly could, "It's a platypus, Taylan. Better question is why?"

Kelly grinned, "He used to be Phineas and Ferb's, but since they're otherwise occupied, I figured I'd take care of the little guy. Cause he's PERRY!" Kelly placed Lisa's discarded fedora on top of Perry's head, "PERRY THE PLATYPUS!"

Sienna laughed, "That's cute, Kelly. But how do you plan on keeping him? The Director's sure to forbid you from doing so."

Kelly shrugged, "He hasn't said anything so far. Lisa said he could be our team pet, but then she also said something about how the Director might not like it, because of something called 'Rule 42'."

Lawr raised an eyebrow, "Rule 42? What are the other forty-one?"

Sienna thought for a second, "You know, I remember Lisa talking about something called the 'Evil Overlord List'. Maybe that was it?"

Kelly's eyes widened, "You mean this?" She pulled out a few sheets of paper stapled together, "Lisa gave this to me to read."

Lawr took the packet from her and looked at it, "Rule One: My legions of terror will have clear Plexiglas visors, not face-concealing ones."

Siegfried listened intently. "You know, this might actually be smart," he noted.

"Rule Two," Lawr continued, "My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through."

Taylan snorted, "So this is basically the common sense list for an overlord?"

Clancy replied, "I think Vastile called it 'genre savviness'."

Sienna sighed, rubbing her eyes, which Kelly noticed. "What's wrong, Sienna?" she asked, plopping down on the sofa beside her friend, the fedora-adorned platypus still in her arms.

Sienna frowned. "Is it really that obvious?" she asked.

Lawr and the others now were all staring intently at Sienna. Siegfried decided to break the silence, "Sienna, we aren't exactly very good at hiding emotions, what with having hardly any outside contact. Lisa's actually the only one who can really mask her emotions, and that's because she's the one who needs to the most."

Sienna looked up, "What's that supposed to mean? Lisa's everyone's favorite now?"

Lawr chuckled, "If she wasn't insubordinate all the time, she would've been the Alpha, not me. Besides, Vastile, Kelly, and I have been here the longest. The Director's been trying to mold us since the ages of five or six, or in Kelly's case, four."

Kelly nodded, "I'm actually surprised Lawr and I aren't really any worse for wear. Lisa's the one who just decided to shut everything out around seven, a few weeks or so before Clancy, Siegfried, and Taylan got here. You came in about a year later, Sienna, and by then-"

Lawr finished his sister's sentence, "-by then, Lisa cut herself off from everything and everyone. She started to prefer the Director's company to ours. There was even one point where a younger child went after her with a knife, and Lisa disarmed him before knocking him out. But she didn't stop there. She began to let her powers run rampant and give the kid the worst nightmare of his entire life. Of course, her powers weren't fully developed, and the nightmare went to everyone within the common room. By the time she was subdued, ten kids died. The nightmare had been so bad that it had stopped their hearts."

Clancy nodded, "I remember that... it was like nothing I've ever seen."

Sienna leaned forward intently, "Could the Director have arranged it to separate the weak from the strong?"

Taylan inclined his head forward, "It's possible. I wouldn't put it past him to test Vastile. She was one of his favorites, so it isn't much of a stretch to assume he incited Vastile to thin the herd a bit."

Sienna decided to move to a different subject, "What actually happened? In the nightmare, I mean."

Lawr shook his head, "None of us want to relive that experience, Sienna. But the point is that no matter how much of an ass Lisa can be to anyone, she's more loyal to us than to anyone else, except maybe the Director. She was testing Phineas back there, I could tell. She'd have stopped his heart before he got the chance to kill you."

Sienna maintained a healthy amount of skepticism. This was the same girl who'd actually renounced any kind of trust between the two of them, the same one who'd felt fine bartering with a 'friend's life. "Are you certain, Lawr? She said herself that there wasn't any kind of trust between us now. And now you're telling me that she'd lay down her life for me?"

Lawr nodded, and Sienna frowned. But before either could say a word, Kelly interrupted them, "Lisa's not the greatest with trust, Sienna. It took her a few years to actually trust me enough to room with me when she was forced to find a roommate here. She might have trouble saying that she trusts you, but if you know her well enough and are able to consider yourself her friend, then she really does trust you. I mean, how did you guys get along at school?"

Sienna responded cautiously, "We got along pretty well. She and I seemed to be pretty good friends. Why?"

Kelly smiled, "Don't you worry, Sienna. She trusts you."

Lisa was picking through the redhead's mind when her headset crackled to life again, bringing her out of a trance-like state for a moment.

"What is it?" she asked, annoyed, "I was just getting to the good part!"

"Hello Vastile," the Director's voice sounded like a blade being rubbed against stone in her ear.

"What do you need? I'm kind of busy at the moment," Lisa replied impatiently, ready to get back to work. She couldn't give Flynn's brain too much of a respite, or else he'd break through the illusion.

The Director's chuckle sent a shudder along Lisa's spine, something she'd never experienced before. "Lisa Lisa Lisa," the Director spoke, his voice reminding her of someone who smoked three packs a day. But she knew he didn't smoke. "I've been looking over your logs for the past two years, and found a surprising amount of humanity in them. It seems if I want the perfect agent you were supposed to be, I'll have to finally strip that pesky personality of yours down into something cold and calculating."

Lisa started to panic slightly, "But I've been both of those ever since I dropped my cover! You don't need to do anything!"

She could just imagine the look on the Director's face. A sadistic grin was probably set on it by now, but his eyes would have flashed with both obvious and hidden danger. "Lisa, how long will it take you to realize that the real problem with you is that you're too unorthodox whenever you're not on a mission of any kind? If you stuck to the rules, you would've been the leader of Alpha, not second in command."

Lisa's eyes actually began to tear up, which they hadn't done in a while, "I don't want to lose my entire personality! Let me do this, and then we can figure something else out!"

The Director merely replied, "Don't you worry, Lisa. I'll make sure to erase your memories so that you don't remember what you used to be. It'll actually be better this way, for all of us."

Lisa struggled to remain in control of herself, "What about the others? Like Lawr and Kelly? Certainly they had some say in this."

The Director's surprise was nearly palpable. "What would ever give you that idea? Besides, it seems you've rubbed off on all of Alpha. They may not be as far gone as you are, but they're too far. I'll be killing most of them shortly, so you'd best say goodbye to them in here, because by the time you're out, you won't remember them and they won't be here to be remembered. You've doomed them all."

Lisa struggled against the restraints in the chair, "No! Damn you, stop this! Don't do this!"

The Director's laugh echoed in her mind, "Don't worry, this will hurt. A lot."

Lisa could only scream as she felt a mental probe smash through her defenses and rip into her mind.

Phineas woke up on an ice-cold floor, a chill running down his spine as he stood up, trying to take in his surroundings. He was in some kind of dark room, with no windows or doors as far as he could see, but then again, that wasn't exactly too far with no lights on. He got up and tried to locate the light switch with his mind and telekinetically flip it on, but he found the lack of power disturbing. He felt his way over to what he believed was a doorway and was able to turn the handle, which crackled loudly from accumulated ice. It was only then that Phineas noticed he was in a freezer of some type, and that it was absolutely freezing. And the fact that he had no jacket, only what he would have considered his 'summer clothing'.

"Where am I?" Phineas muttered to himself as the door crackled open, its hinges also caked with ice. At least it's somewhere with light, Phineas thought as he noticed the flickering light further down the hall. This room hall was a bit warmer, but not by much, and Phineas continued to shiver. He finally reached the light, which gave him a view of a large storage area, lights leading towards what Phineas assumed was the exit.

Phineas walked for close to a half hour before he could see an exit of some kind in sight. Except there was some kind of stone statue in the way, dressed like any other stone angel, but its wings seemed to have been broken off. The face was still recognizable, but Phineas couldn't place it. He shrugged and stepped by it, running his hands along the edges of a bay door in front of him, when he heard a grinding noise behind him. He spun around, fists raised, but the only thing behind him was the angel. Though Phineas could have sworn that it was further away before. And its hands had been covering its entire face, and now they covered everything except the forehead. Phineas shrugged. As of now, it didn't really matter. He was too busy trying to find a way out that he had made a few mistakes remembering a meaningless statue. He set to work at opening the bay doors, pulling the chain at the side down, slowly opening the door. It was then that he heard more grinding, and he turned around again, once again seeing the stone angel. But this time, he stepped back cautiously, not really looking at it.

"H-Hello?" he called, peering cautiously around the corner, taking refuge behind the angel. He was given no response, so he cautiously inched around the angel, his back against its own. "Let me know if there's anyone in front of you, okay?" he grinned.

He took another step forward away from the statue, and heard the sound again. He spun around, his eyes scanning the area, before he saw some writing on the bay door. He didn't even notice that the angel was staring at him, its hands by its sides.

He walked up to the bay door, and looked at the writing on it. "The Weeping Angels," he mused, rubbing his chin. "Wonder what that means?" he was answered by another grinding noise, and he spun around this time, and froze in shock.

The statue was only a few feet away from him, its hands reaching out towards him, its mouth wide open, dagger-like teeth having turned to stone. Phineas slowly backed away from the suddenly-demonic statue. "What the-?" he slipped and fell, and hit his head on the bay door, rattling his vision. When it focused again, the Angel stood over him, its face contorted into a smug sneer. Phineas saw something behind it, a message of sorts. Don't even blink. Phineas looked back at the Angel, and then rolled under the bay door before closing it quickly.

He rose and searched for a light switch and found one, flipping it on to see an odd sight- he was in his own garage. But it was freezing still in here, and he could see bunches of meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, though there was no meat to be seen. Phineas, curious, opened the door to find it led into where it was supposed to: his home. He stepped inside, shivering against the cold that seemed to permeate the entirety of his home. Once again, he saw meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, but no meat. He continued through his house, even as he could hear the screeching of tearing metal. The Angel was demolishing his garage door, somehow. But Phineas wasn't too worried about that. He was more worried about the two Angels standing in his living room. They hadn't noticed him, he thought, so he slowly moved towards the stairs, keeping careful watch of both of them.

He must have blinked, because one moment the two Angels were there, the next they were at the foot of the stairs, teeth bared, arms stretching out towards him. Phineas cried out in alarm and scrambled up the stairs, trying to keep them in his sight before he ran into his room and locked the door behind him.

His room was quite nice, and he sat down on his bed, trying to relax. He glanced out his window, but when he saw the view, he stared. The sky was red, and pulsating like something out of a horror movie, but for now, it seemed to be rather calm. Phineas sat down at what looked like his desk, and spotted a document sitting on top of a stack of pictures. He picked up the document, which was title The study of the Angels.

"Hm... Could this be notes on the Angels downstairs?" Phineas mused out loud. He turned the first page and began to read.

The Weeping Angels may be as old as time itself, but no one really knows for sure. It is, however, known that they move silently and quickly, while the oldest ones makes slight grinding noises, as has been observed by Doctor Smith when he recently survived an encounter with such menaces.

Phineas thought back to the Angel he saw outside his garage. It had looked rather mottled and scarred, now that he thought about it. It made sense that those that were older would seem more damaged by comparison.

The Angels are a unique breed of creature, learning how to stalk their prey effortlessly throughout the eons they've been alive. That being said, they have also evolved to the point where they are nearly impossible to defeat, let alone kill. While an Angel can move silently and quickly when it is not being observed by anyone, it will automatically quantum-lock itself when it feels someone is observing it and become an indestructible statue.

Phineas frowned, looking through the rest of the document. "There's no way I can stop them?"

However, should two Angels look at each other at the exact same time, they will be frozen forever in time and eventually use up their remaining energy. As their energy fades, the Angels begin to become less and less like angels and more and more like broken stone statues. This was noted by Miss Sharp after she was able to perform tests on a quantum-locked Angel, simulating centuries of energy use, disproving Doctor Smith's theory of older ones being more scarred. It seems to be that most of the Angels have been alive since near the beginning of the universe, and their lives are much longer than anything else known to exist, as they are capable for taking millennia to die even when they have no energy and are in a permanent quantum-lock.

Phineas put the paper down, rubbing his temples, and looking out at the red sky again. "What cause that?" he thought aloud, "How did I even get here in the first place? What happened to Ferb, Isabella, Buford, Candace, and everyone else?" Now that he could sit and think, a stream of questions came to his mind, but he picked up the document and continued. First he had to get out of here before he could do anything else.

The Angels feed off all types of energy. They have no preference, be it electrical or life energy. While most Angels are simply satisfied with sending someone they touch back in time before their birth and feeding of the residual potential energy, it seems more and more have found that the residual energy left after killing someone is greater, and therefore will help them more. As a result, more and more people are simply found dead by an Angel rather than disappearing into the time stream.

Phineas frowned. If that was true, then the Angels could take out his lights and that would be the end of it. Nevertheless, he continued reading, the sky seeming to pulsate slightly faster.

The Angels, while possessing the reflex of quantum locking, also possess immense strength. As Professor Croomy reported, a single Angel was able to break through a three-inch-thick steel blast door in under a minute and through a six-inch-thick blast door in around a minute and a half. There is also a quote from an ancient manuscript about the Angels stating "that which hold the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel." There has not been time to understand what exactly this means, but all of the members of this project fear it could be something terribly dangerous.

Phineas flipped through the rest of the document, finding nothing else except descriptions of encounters with the Angels. His studying was interrupted by the sky, which was beginning to heave and glow a deeper red. Suddenly, there was an ear-shattering scream and the sky burned brightly as a wave of what could only be called psychic force ripped into the landscape, shattering the window to Phineas' room. When Phineas opened his eyes again, he saw the stack of pictures that had been beside the document were scattered now. They were all pictures of various Angels. And they were all staring at him.

"Oh hell," Phineas muttered, and for some reason he was wondering how the Angels got into his house, his sanctuary. This shouldn't be happening, it shouldn't. He must have blinked, because in an instant, there were eight grainy images nearly surrounding him, each one an image of an Angel. Phineas didn't know how, but he knew that if he stayed here, those images would become real. And then the whispering could be heard.

One, two, they're all coming for you.

Phineas leapt up and sprinted out of his room, closing the door behind him and sliding down the railing, past the two Angels who were climbing the stairs, and turned the corner into yet another freezer. Why is my house a freezer? he wondered, but decided to ignore it. It was his house, and it didn't matter what it looked like.

Three, four, better lock that door.

Phineas feverishly slammed the door shut and locked it, hearing clangs on the outside as the Angels began to try and smash through the door. He looked around and found himself in what seemed to be a meat locker, large slabs of meat swinging from their hooks, some freshly sliced, others looked like they'd been there for a while. He stumbled into the racks as he heard the twisted shriek of metal, and the whispering, which seemed to be carried by the wind, got louder.

Five, six, grab a crucifix.

Phineas tripped and fell to the ground, his hand wrapping around a piece of metal as he struggled to get back up. The Angels were still nearby, and when he looked to one side, he could see one frozen about thirty feet away with its back turned. He glanced down and realized that the piece of metal he was holding actually was a crucifix. When he looked back up, the Angel was ten feet away and wearing a smug smile. Phineas let out a shout of surprise and fear and scrambled away, narrowly missing another Angel who he hadn't seen until he noticed stone feet beside him. Phineas got up and ran through another door, slamming it shut behind him as well and pressing his back against it before standing up all the way and realizing that the whispering was getting louder as he went further into the freezer, shivering as he went.

Seven, eight, they're beneath the floor grate.

Phineas was startled by a loud clang and spun around, seeing the hands of an Angel reaching up out of the floor. He slowly backed away before noticing that the lights were flickering above him. "Oh, just great," Phineas growled, remembering that the Angels could also feed off electrical sources. And if they took out the lights, then he wouldn't be able to see them, meaning he'd be dead in less than a second. Phineas backed against a wall, and he began to feel for a doorknob of some sort, hoping that the lights would last long enough for him to escape. The lights suddenly flicked on then off, and the Angel was now halfway out of the hole it had created. Phineas turned his back from his assailant and searched the wall feverishly, finally finding a door labeled Inner Sanctum. The rest of the sign was hidden, but that didn't matter at the moment, as Phineas wrenched open the door and pulled himself inside yet another meat locker. He could hear the screeching of the other door he had closed as the Angels tore it apart, and hoped that at least some of them would be frozen by each other's stares.

He found the light switch, and was relieved when he saw no Angels had been in here before. He turned and looked at the door, seeing the same writing printed on it, but some parts were worn away so the sign said Inner Sanctum Of P in as Fly n's M nd. Phineas slowly backed away, trying to comprehend what this meant. He knew from the times he'd played competitive video games with Ferb that the inner sanctum of anything was the one place that was supposed to be able to hold against invaders. If it were to fall, then everything else would too.

"If I'm right, and this is the inner sanctum of what I think it is," Phineas mused, "then my life and sanity depends on this."

The door instantaneously formed a sizable dent as he finished his sentence, startling the teenager out of his thoughts. Phineas tried to see if his powers were working, but nothing happened. He couldn't do a thing. He was left weaponless against indestructible forces of... whatever they were.

A loud screech could be heard behind him as a gash was opened up in the wall behind him. Phineas stared at it and then peeked through the meat, hoping to see another door, but there wasn't. It was actually quite weird, now that Phineas thought about it. The meats in the other rooms had been identifiable, but with this stuff, there was no telling what it was. Nearly as soon as the thought passed through his mind, the whispering came back, louder than ever, and Phineas leapt back, scared badly.

Nine, ten, you'd better run again.

Phineas backed up into the other rack of meat, horrified. The meat had just spoken to him. His frightened eyes scanned over the meat, and then he realized what it was. Humans, skinned and left to freeze to death, hung upside-down for all their blood to be collected for some heinous act. For some reason, Phineas knew it wasn't the Angels that had done this, but something else.

"Phineaaaaassssss," one of the things hissed, "You doomed usss aaall. Why?"

"What? No!" Phineas cried out, backing away before tripping over his own feet and falling onto his back, his eyes never leaving the meat. The shrieking of metal could be heard, and Phineas looked at the meat who had spoken. He was suddenly horrified as he realized who it was. "I-I-Isabella?"

One of the other meats bared its teeth, though if it had lips, it probably would have been smiling, "Not just her, brother."

Phineas' head whipped around, "Ferb?"

The torturous scream of metal being torn continued until he could hear the clang of door being ripped off its hinges. Phineas grasped his head, "Get out of my head."

The Angels advanced, and one of the meats, which looked like Buford, began to laugh, "Say goodbye, Dinna Bell."

Phineas curled up into a ball, "Get out of my head!"

He opened his eyes, tears steadily streaming out of them, even as an Angel stood before him, Candace's face carved into stone. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Phineas screamed. Then he felt the Angel snap his neck and there was nothing.

A/N: The Angels are obviously not mine. They belong to Stephen Moffat (who's awesome) and all the other people who work on Doctor Who at the BBC. Big shoutout to them here. The rhyme might've been replaced with "Tick tock goes the clock", but I think this one works better.

Now how many of you can say Mind Rape, hm?

See you guys next month with MOAR DARKNESS.

-Terra