…chat with my folks laugh at them jokes
I'm hard to the core and she bad to the bone…
Peter and Lyla sit in awkward silence in the car as the song played on the radio. They were well out of Seattle now, and on the highway. Peter just sat in the shotgun seat, staring silently at his Canadian female companion, waiting for an explanation while thoughts raced through his head.
Thoughts about the name he overheard in the coffee shop.
Delyla Doofenshmirtz. That last name was extremely familiar, bringing forth rather confusing memories of a certain evil scientist with a similar name. Now that he really thought about it, Peter realised that Lyla did bear some amount of resemblance to his ex-nemesis. The dark blue eyes, the slightly messy brown hair, the lanky stature, the over-abundance of energy… perhaps she and Heinz were cousins?
Sometimes I think about the past
Seems like the time is flying past
Jump high my presence of this last
The future's always going bad
La la la la la la la la la
Back to the future like-
Suddenly, Lyla switched off the radio, slightly startling the panda beside her. He looked at her expectantly, and noticed a firm, steely glare in the eyes fixed upon the road ahead. Peter decided that something needed to be done in order to break the tension, and so did something he rarely ever did.
He made a noise.
Lyla jumped and swerved slightly at the small confused growl that lest the panda's throat, and looked at him, her eyes softening before they returned to the road.
"…sorry, Pete. I know, I know, I promised an explanation, it's just… it's… these are some pretty painful memories, Ay? But, you're being dragged into this, so you deserve to know."
Peter waited patiently for a moment while his colleague gathered her thoughts, before she sighed and shook her head in a very un-Lyla like way.
"…God, I always feel so much like my dad whenever I do this… Okay, so I guess I should start at the beginning. Or, wait, I should probably clarify some things first, or else this'll all just be extremely confusing. Okay, fact number one. I'm not Canadian. Or, well, I guess I am NOW, but I wasn't a few months ago. I was REALLY born and raised in the Tri-state area - Danville, to be precise. Fact number two. I'm not from here. And when I say here, I don't mean like, I'm not from this state, I mean, I'm not from this time… I know, that sounds crazy, but… okay, so there was this time machine, and… I fixed everything, but then it didn't work, and now I'm trapped, and…" Lyla briefly closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. When her eyes opened, they were on Peter.
"…Basically, I'm from the future."
Peter cocked his head in curiosity, his face blank as always.
"I know, it sounds crazy, Ay? You probably don't want to…"
Peter placed a paw on her shoulder and shook his head. She smiled, her eyes radiating gratitude.
"…thanks, Pete." She turned back to look at the road, her stature much more relaxed now that the craziest part of the story was out in the open.
"Okay, so: fact number three. I'm not technically 100% human, which is why I was allowed to work for the OWCA. You see, technically, I'm half-human, half… well, you remember P, right?" The panda nodded, used to her nickname for his semi-aquatic colleague, Agent P- unarguably the best agent in the entirety of OWCA.
"Well, he's my dad. Or, well, not yet, but… where I come from, he helped raise me. He was my papa."
This wasn't all that surprising to Peter - Lyla was a good agent, the second best in OWCA and THE best in COWCA. It made sense that Perry had a hand in that. But, there was still the question of the name in the coffee shop. Delyla Doofenshmirtz… wait…
"… And, as i'm sure you've guessed, my other parent was - or will be, maybe, I don't know - Heinz Doofenshmirtz."
Silence once again filled the car as the two let that sink in. Lyla awkwardly avoided eye contact, and Peter placed a paw on his chin in thought, studying the girl in the driver's seat.
Oddly enough, it made sense. She had Doof's height, eyes, hair, energy, optimism, inventiveness, and lord knew she was just as talkitive as he was - but she also had Perry's courtesy, agility, strength, courage, and defensiveness. Plus, now that he thought about it, that braid DID look a bit like Perry's tail… There were even hints of resemblance in her face - while the color was of Heinz Doofenshmirtz, the slightly narrowed oval shape reminded him of Perry's, and her nose was long like Doof's, but with a rounded tip that reminded him of Perry's bill, and though her long hair hid it slightly, she had a very high forehead, with a pronounced, though more rounded, chin, and if she didn't have so much hair her head would probably have a rounded squarish triangular shape. Even her choice in clothing showed echoes from her parentage - her teal-ish blue skintight clothing reminded him of Perry's teal green fur, and her favorite black jacket reminded him of Heinz's lab coat.
It also made sense because … because he was attracted to her. In the past, Peter had dated both Perry and Doofenshmirtz, though his time with Perry was much briefer than his time with Heinz. He had found Heinz's figure and talkative mannerisms intriguing from the moment he had first met him (though his obsessiveness and self-absorption did confuse and bore the secret agent), and had grown to admire Perry's determination and capability in times of crisis during a rescue mission to save Heinz involving some aliens and a sentient balloon. Lyla, however…
"I was a bit of an accident. A happy accident. You see, dad had this -inator, the heir-inator - not hair as in the stuff on your head, but heir as in a child to pass down your knowledge and property to. You see, this was back when he was still into taking over the Tri-state area and all that, but he was getting kinda old, so he figured he should have someone to pass down his knowledge to before he, ya know, kicked the bucket. But then papa's hair got stuck in the machine, and their DNA got all mixed up before the heir-inator shot dad and impregnated him. You know, it's funny - for the longest time, I honestly had no clue that men usually don't get pregnant. It wasn't until first grade that I read a biology textbook from the library and found out, and then I took it home and demanded answers from dad - I was pretty assertive as a kid. And… I'm sorry, i'm rambling here, aren't I? Anyway, when I was about sixteen, papa decided to retire. But when his boss looked over his files, including all past missions, he found that papa had broken international laws a year before I was even born, by apprehending a criminal while outside of his jurisdiction. So, papa had to serve time… but then a year later, LOVEMUFFIN attacked OWCA, and because papa was behind bars, he couldn't do anything, even if he knew there was something that needed to be done. And then, well… they… papa… let's just say it didn't end well. Dad was absolutely devastated - he went into a kind of manic frenzy, making calculations and -inators and talking to himself as though papa were still there, before he finally came up with a solution. A time-inator, to go back and make sure that none of this ever happened. Uncle Monogram was completely onboard with the idea, except there wasn't anyone that they could send back. All the agents were gone - dad volunteered, but uncle Carl said it was a bad idea to send back anyone who already existed in that time period - especially since the -inator only had enough juice in it for one trip. So, I volunteered - I hadn't been born yet, and papa had been teaching me some things about secret agent work. It took some convincing, but eventually everyone agreed that I would be the best person to send back. So, for three years, they trained me for the mission - I had a lot to learn. After all, it was a one-way trip - I needed to create an amazing alliby, and learn how to lie really, REALLY well in order to be able to pass off as a COWCA agent from the year 2010. So, eventually, after years of training and preparation, I put on a high-tech dissolving time suit that dad invented to protect me from the time vortex, installed this radio chip into my motorcycle that would automatically sent a prerecorded message to younger uncle Monogram and uncle Carl, explaining the situation and providing my official OWCA acceptance files, said goodbye to dad, and then they turned on the -inator and suddenly, I was at the Canadian border. Then I saw papa chasing after the henchmen, and I drove my bike as fast as I could to make sure he didn't get them. First, I pulled up beside him and showed him my COWCA badge, warning him he was out of his jurisdiction - then I pretended to try and stop the crooks instead, but then purposefully let them get away. I didn't have my Canadian files confirmed yet, and I didn't want to end up repeating the whole thing over again. It was around that time that the time suit dissolved, leaving me in my normal clothes. I tried distracting P by pretending that I messed up, and apologised to him - luckily, it worked, and it distracted him for long enough so that Monogram could contact him and keep him from going after the henchmen. Unfortunately, it left him with a bad first impression of me, and it wasn't until two months later that I got to make it up to him. Fortunately, Monogram was willing to help me out, and I did get to meet you, so I guess it wasn't all bad."
Lyla smiled sadly at the panda next to her. Peter smiled back - though the only way one could tell was from the slight upwards squint in the tiny white dots of his pitch-black eyes. This caused Lyla to giggle, which made Peter smile even more. It was the real kind of giggle, accented with a small snort - in a way, her laugh kind of reminded Peter of Perry's rare chattery platypus giggles, but it was still a wonderfully sweet, unique sound that reminded Peter of thick honey. Plus, the fact that he made her happy made him happy. He was intrigued by this strange, tragic tale, but it only made her more amazing in his eyes. The determination it must have taken, to spend three solid years training to leave everything familiar, just save her father, when he wouldn't even remember her… it was amazing.
