Author's Note: apologies for the fairly long chapter this time. It feels too long to be one chapter but two short to split into two, so here it is: all 2000 words of it lol
...
S'Winter
"I'm melting into the ground," Mavis groaned, lying spread-eagled on the grass. "I'm literally melting into the ground."
"I feel like my hair is on fire," said Apollo, lying next to her in the same position. "I think the sun set my hair on fire."
"What are you two doing?" came the familiar chatter.
"Melting," replied Mavis.
Perry folded his arms. "Come on. There's a mission waiting for us."
"Fine."
Mavis reluctantly got to her feet. She was wearing only a tank top and shorts-and a pair of flip-flop sandals-but she still felt like she wanted to peel her skin off. Apollo, on the other hand, was wearing his normal lab coat over a t-shirt and shorts, which was a fairly odd ensemble. But he disliked having to take his lab coat off, so clearly this outfit was here to stay.
Once they had taken an elevator down to Perry's lair, the agents found that there was now an extra chair in front of the monitor, making three altogether: one small chair for Perry and two larger ones, presumably for both Mavis and Apollo, the latter of whom nearly choked up when he saw it.
Perry grinned and gave Apollo a nudge. "Looks like you're a proper member of the team now, doc."
"Monoteam for the win!" Mavis crowed.
"Are we really going to let Doof name our team?"
"You have to admit, it's a cool and clever name."
Perry shrugged, sliding into his chair. "Sure."
"I hope you guys will remember one day that I don't understand what Perry's saying," Apollo said, sitting down in the chair on the edge of the group. "I don't speak platypus...ese."
"That's not a real thing."
"Sorry, I'll have to remember to be an interpreter," Mavis snickered.
Just then, the monitor flickered to life, Major Monogram's face filling the screen as it always did. "Good morning, agents."
"Morning, sir," chorused Mavis and Apollo.
"I'll get right to it. This time, we're worried about Doofenshmirtz buying laser pointers. I mean, 2 or 3 of them would be fine, but he just put in an order for 18,000 of them."
Apollo's eyebrows rose. "What could he possibly want with so many?!"
"We don't know, but only a crazed, evil, and diabolical mind would do that. You know what to do by now, agents. Monogram out."
As the screen went black, the three agents hopped up. "What are we taking this time?" Apollo asked, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. "Hovercar? Jetpacks? Scooter?"
"Jetpacks," Mavis said, backed up by Perry's nod. "Do you know how to use these?"
"I did a course as part of my training to become a field medic," Apollo said. "So yeah, I do."
"Good. Buckle up."
…
"Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!"
"La la la, la la la, la la la LAAAAA," sang Mavis in time with the jingle, exchanging a smirk with Apollo.
"Look down there," Apollo said suddenly, pointing at a platypus-sized door in the side of the building. It had a large arrow pointing at it that said Doofenshmirtz Secret Hideout on it, and another on the other side that said DO NOT ENTER.
"That's the most obvious trap I've ever seen in my life," snorted Mavis. "Where should we go, Perry?"
"There's a door round the back. I don't think it'll be trapped, so we should use that."
"Lead the way."
So the platypus did. They landed in front of a scruffy-looking back door and, after ditching their jetpacks, entered the building. A woman who looked like some kind of maid gave them a wave as they went through to the main room, where they found Doofenshmirtz laughing maniacally at a large piano suspended by a rope over the inside of the doorway that the agents had seen earlier.
"It's genius!" He grinned and turned to the agents without properly registering their presence. "Am I right?"
At Perry's shrug, he did a double-take. "Oh, come on! I told Nancy to keep the back door locked!" He sighed, then held up a tape recorder and spoke into it: "Note to self. My evil deed for tomorrow: fire the maid." He sighed again and put the recorder away, then registered all three agents staring at him. "What are you looking at?"
"The weirdest person to ever live on this planet," Mavis replied simply.
Doofenshmirtz shrugged. "Whatever. I'm just gonna go ahead and trap you."
He pulled a lever, causing Perry to be doused in a brown, sweet-smelling liquid, which quickly hardened and froze him in place. Before either of the teens could move, a pull of the lever next to the first one caused metallic arms to come out of the ground and grab them around the waist, lifting them a few feet in the air.
"Hey!" complained Mavis. "Why don't we get the same trap as Perry? Am I not as much of a threat to you?"
"Well, I…" Doofenshmirtz hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. "Remember that whole Slave-inator thing a few days ago?"
"Yeah…?"
"Well, I reviewed the footage later that day to see how you two escaped and I heard you say something. You said you were merin...meritho…meri-something."
"Merinthophobic," corrected Mavis.
"Yeah, that. The fear of being restrained. Well, I decided that from then on, all the traps I made for you would be less restrictive. I don't want you to faint in the middle of the scheme, or something. I may be an evil scientist but I'm not cruel."
"Oh…" Mavis blinked, a lump starting to form in her throat. "That… That's really nice of you…"
Doofenshmirtz cleared his throat. "Yeah… I mean, plus, Perry the Platypus is smaller and more slippery so I had to design traps for him that would be harder to escape from. Not that he won't escape from that, anyway."
"Yeah, what IS that?" Mavis asked, gesturing towards the still-frozen platypus.
"Oh, that? It's my special recipe for quick-hardening chocolate. It actually relates really well to my scheme today, because... well… Between you and me, my popularity has plummeted to an all-time low." He pulled down a chart and showed the agents a graph, apparently depicting his low popularity. "But everybody loves chocolate! What if I could recreate chocolate in my own image? Behold!" He pressed a button, causing a large device to rise from the floor. It looked like some kind of laser, with a magnifying glass on the end. "The Melt-inator 6500! Powered by thousands of laser pointers! It has a melting capacity...of SEVEN!"
Mavis and Apollo exchanged a glance. "Seven…?" echoed the latter.
"Hey, that's on a scale of 1-5, so that's a big number. Here, watch this."
He activated the laser, causing the entirety of the nearest chocolate shop to melt. The liquid chocolate then started to flow into the drains. "Collect my harvest through the city streets, where it will be processed with my secret ingredients to produce the most irresistible confection in the Tri-State Area. Now do you understand what you are up against? Perry the Platypus, did you understand all that?"
Surprisingly, Perry didn't respond.
"Come on, you didn't get any of that?" Doofenshmirtz sighed heavily. "Okay, I will start again."
"Do you have to?" groaned Mavis.
Doofenshmirtz ignored her. "First of all, my popularity is an all-time low. You got that, right? Okay. Then-"
While the evil scientist was talking, Apollo turned to Mavis and whispered, "I didn't know you have merinthophobia."
"I don't really talk about it," the agent whispered back. "It's been strangely dormant so far, apart from the time Doof mentioned. That really wasn't fun."
"Well, I'm really hoping I don't end up bumping into one of my greatest fears this summer. I'm both pyrophobic and nyctophobic."
"Fire and…?"
"The dark." Apollo chuckled quietly. "I've lost sleep over those fears many times."
As Mavis was looking for something to say in reassurance, Doofenshmirtz's voice filtered back in. "-with my Melt-inator 6500. There. Did you get it that time?"
"He can't get much, idiot," Mavis snapped. "He's frozen in chocolate."
"Well, whatever. I'm not going over it again. It's finally time to get started." He turned to the monitor, which displayed a video of a truck driving along a road, carrying a massive chocolate bar. "At this very moment, the world's largest chocolate bar is passing through town on the way to The Smithsonian, but it will never arrive! I will activate my machine in five...four...three…" He paused briefly. "Two… two and a half… two and a quarter…"
"What are you waiting for?" demanded Mavis.
"Is that it?" Doofenshmirtz shot Mavis a look, then gave Perry the same look. "Is that…? You're not going to do anything? You're all just going to stand there like a dead fish?"
Mavis shrugged. She was hoping that Perry had a plan, otherwise Doofenshmirtz would get away with his scheme and she would have just let it happen. Her nerves were beginning to mount, but she held her ground.
"I'm giving you a chance to do something here!" Doofenshmirtz complained. "Oh, this used to be more fun."
"Mavis…?" muttered Apollo. "What are we doing…?"
"Perry has a plan," Mavis said quietly back. "I know he does."
"One and a half...one and a quarter…" Doofenshmirtz threw his hands up. "You know, in some cultures, it's considered rude not to particip-"
He broke off as Perry swung in from nowhere and kicked him to the ground, before pulling the lever which released Mavis and Apollo.
"Perry the Platypus?" the evil scientist yelped. "How did you-?" He gasped as he spotted the hole in the back of the chocolate Perry, which was still standing exactly where it was. "You ate your own heinie?! I must aim it, quickly!"
He rushed over to the machine and rotated the mechanism, causing the laser to swing round and aim at the giant chocolate bar. When Perry rushed at him, he kicked the platypus away.
Red hot anger filled Mavis's entire body. She grabbed a wrench lying nearby and began to attack the machine with it. Doofenshmirtz yelled at her to stop, but she continued hitting it until it sparked and exploded, sending her flying backwards. She only remembered her previous arm injury when she hit the same arm on landing and felt pain explode through her entire left side. She grabbed her arm with her right hand, unable to even sit up through the pain.
Apollo yelled her name as he rushed to her side, dropping to his knees next to her. He felt her arm gingerly, touching in certain spots to see where it hurt. When Mavis hissed in pain and gritted her teeth, he discovered the exact place. "Alright, I don't think it's broken or even fractured. You should be fine in a week or so, as long as you don't strain it too much."
"Th-Thanks, Apollo."
He helped her sit up, and that was when she noticed Perry standing on Doofenshmirtz's back, pinning the evil scientist to the ground. The agent was twisting Doofenshmirtz's arm behind him, clearly keeping him controlled.
"Hey, come on!" the evil scientist was complaining. "I didn't cause that; she was the one who attacked MY machine!"
"It's okay, Perry," Mavis called weakly to him. "I'm okay."
After a moment, Perry released Doofenshmirtz and let him stand up. The scientist dusted himself down and shot the platypus a look. "Feel free to let yourselves out."
…
Perry brought two ice creams over to the hot teenagers sitting on the kerb outside Apollo's house. The doctor took his but Mavis, who was staring at the ground, didn't. Apollo gave Perry a grateful smile, which Perry took as his cue to leave.
"Mavis, you okay?" Apollo asked after a moment.
"I'm a bit...scared, Apollo," Mavis admitted. "When I saw Doof kick Perry like that, something just...snapped inside me. I wanted to destroy things. I had to force myself to hit the machine with the wrench, rather than Doof."
"It's okay, Mavis," Apollo assured her, giving her a sideways hug. "I'll always be here to keep an eye on you, okay?"
"And patch me up when I hurt myself."
"Yeah, of course." Apollo smiled, letting Mavis rest her head on his shoulder. "You can't be perfect every day, Mavis. Remember that."
Mavis cleared her throat. "I will. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
