Phineas and Ferb: A Stitch in Time

Chapter Ten: Family Feud

Isabella's POV

Despite all my protests, they still transported him. I had no desire to see my Phineas with battle scars. It took awhile for it to register in his mind, but after awhile Flynn began to remember us. He gazed on at us with a look of pure shock, much like the one's some of us had been wearing. Then his eyes came across me and froze. It was like he'd seen a ghost, and everybody noticed this. It made me shudder to think what must have happened to him to make this way. I caught a glimpse of older Ferb as he entered the room, and then he did something none of us expect. He charged up and jumped on Phineas, and it wasn't friendly. We all froze not knowing what to do. It was clear who had the upper hand as Phineas came around on top of an already bloody Ferb, continuing to beat him mercilessly with hate in his eyes. I took a look over at Phineas and Ferb who now watched, jaws dropped as they watched their older selves fight. It wasn't until Adrian had the nerve to stop them that we finally found the strength to stop.

Captain Flynn's POV

Being taken from my family and thrown into a room full of strange kids aside, Ferb had no right to jump on me. He had instigated a fight with a marine. I was on autopilot, countering and deflecting each of his blows. The rest of the world disappeared as a caught Ferb with a good left hook. I could have let it end there and a part of me wanted to. But I was filled with so much rage; I continued to beat him, my knuckle growing raw with each thunderous blow. Blood now gushed from Ferb's body and he tried holding his hand up in defense. Then a small child jumped in front of Ferb, a stupid but brave thing to do.

"Hey, this isn't helping anything!" the black haired boy said. There was something familiar about this kid, maybe I had seen him before. My anger cooled off, and I felt the inner flame begin to die down. I nodded, and several of the kids scrambled to get my brother to medical attention. The more, I calmed down, the more I remembered. I was surrounded by the friends of my youth, even some that weren't still amongst the living. I looked down upon the black haired kid who had the same sparkle in his eyes as everybody else. But inside, I saw something deeper… I saw a hero. I've seen enough heroes in my day to know this kid had the potential for greatness. I sat with my usual expression as he explained to me what had happened. Considering all the things I used to do it didn't seem as farfetched as others might have considered it. I asked little questions, it felt like any other briefing. I felt a little pathetic though, being briefed by a ten year old. I'd been briefed by many people in my life, and few people could get the point across like this kid.

"The only problem is-"Adrian tried to explain but was cut off as Fletcher fresh out of the aid station with a few fireside girls smiling triumphantly behind him.

"Their time machine runs on Polaryon Crystals." Fletcher finished. At first I felt compelled to hit him again, but since he was dedicated to peace I was too.

"Well, that won't do. I can knock a few heads around in Corps headquarters, see if I can get anything." I offered, several kids looked up cheerfully, but Fletcher had the same cold look on his face.

"No, we don't have room for mindless brutes on this team." Fletcher replied through gritted teeth. I could sense the added tension, and everyone had to have noticed it. Things were getting a bit uncomfortable as I felt my control begin to slip. He's still sore about what happened to Vanessa.

"Ferb, that was an accident-"I began to explain but he cut me off, "Like hell it was." It was my first covert ops mission in the Corps; I was only eighteen still naïve in the ways of war. They were clearing out a small village which had been massacred, women and children lay decaying in the streets. We were following up on reports of two Doofensmirtz in the area. We secured the town and building with little difficulty and then I had the most difficult decision anyone could make, thrust on me. Behind each of two doors, was a member of the Doofensmirtz Imperial Family. My commanding officer told me to pick one and he'd take the other. A simple decision, I choose the right, kicked down the door and sprayed anything in the room. It was until afterwards that I had realized what I had done. I shot and killed Vanessa, the love of Ferb's life. Ferb had never forgiven him, never even gave him a chance to explain.

"Listen, Ferb-" he tried to cut me off again and I got angry and threw him into a wall, "NO! Listen, I was eighteen and I was following orders. We marched through that god forsaken town, the bodies of women and children lay dead in the street. All that blood on Doofensmirtz's hands."

"Vanessa never supported her father, she-" Ferb tried to replied but I cut him off this time.

"Than why was she there? Why was she at the scene of the crime Ferb?" I asked with hate in my voice.

"Her father forced her to, if you hadn't shot her we would have been together!" he screamed.

"Did you love her Ferb, I mean truly love her?" I asked through gritted teeth. He stared back at me with just as much hate in his eyes.

"Of course I did" he whispered with hate, and I threw him down on ground.

"Then why didn't you make her stay? Why I didn't you protect her?" I spoke as Ferb's expression changed from anger to a state of shock, "Why did you let the girl of your dreams march to her death?" I walked away not hearing him mutter, "Like you did a better job…" I wasn't in the mood to deal with this crap. I marched out into the mess hall and sat in silence. None of the children dared to come close to me, all of them afraid of me. And they should be, I am a monster. After awhile though, Ferb walked up to me, much to my dismay, and apologized. Not for blaming me but for blowing it out of proportion. I just stared at him.

"I can never forgive you for what you did, but if we do this, maybe we can both forget….everything." He spoke, his eyes glued to the ground. I turned towards him, it little irritated by his ignorance. However, this was overshadowed by my curiosity.

"What?" I asked, quizzically. Fletcher drew in a huge breath.

"These kids, the ones you don't recognize from all this, come from a time unscathed by all this. A magical, wonderful time where we work for the better of all of mankind," I listened on as rambled on about the fairy tale land. Most of the time if it sounded too good to be true it probably was. But it explained everything, including the family resemblance between him and Adrian. It soon dawned on me that Julia was my daughter, and she had broken down at seeing her father turn into a killing machine. I excused myself for awhile and Ferb immediately understood. It was a stitch in time; something had been altered after their trip around the world, something that had completely set the universe on a collision course. It had ruined our lives. I came across that little seven year old still holding on to her bear, her innocence. I apologized, and explained what had happened, sparing some of the more gruesome details. She smiled and threw herself into my arms and for the first time, in a long time, I felt something other than sadness and pain. As I held that ignorant little seven year old girl, I felt hope.

Adrian's POV

I was a little twitchy watching that man go near my sister, but upon seeing her smile I realized everything was fine. That no matter what timeline they were it, he was still her father and that was enough at least in Julia's eyes. So, Flynn accepted our offer to bring him on bored. Half of him was probably eager for another war to fight. There was still one problem; Fletcher couldn't fix the time machine. Flynn asked around and everyone he talked to confirmed that there was not a single Polaryon Crystal in existence, it was hopeless. We fell into a mild state of depression, just staring at each other for hours on end. Despite all the amazing things accomplished, by everyone in the room, we could do a single thing. I had failed myself, I had failed my family, but most important of all, I had failed my father. We sat, for hours that lasted years until Flynn finally broke the silence.

"Wait a minute, hey Baljeet, come here a second." Flynn ordered as he signaled Baljeet to walk over to the monitor. We all gathered around to see what he was doing.

"You think you could handle digging through some military files? I'm not so good with computers anymore." he asked and Baljeet quickly hopped over, eager to help.

"All right, use my marine authorization code; it should get around most of the firewalls. The strong ones any way." He spoke and Baljeet typed hastily as Flynn rambled on the numbers of his code. We watched as Baljeet shifted through files at a hundred miles per hour. I flashed my sister a wow, what a nerd look and she gave me her usual respect your elders look. So we gazed on as the tiny Indian boy raced through high classified files.

"What are we looking for?" I finally asked, a little fed up at how long this was taking. Flynn glanced at me, and then brought his eyes back to the screen.

"I think I might know of another time machine we could use… but we gotta find it" he replied hastily. We all looked at each with our hopes finally looking up. It was good thing we didn't listen to Isabella otherwise we'd be dead in the water.

"But, Phineas, even if we do, odds are the Polaryon Crystals are burned out, they don't have long life spans." Fletcher added. I noticed both Phineas and Flynn looked up at him at the call of their names, it must be really confusing to hear you name without being the one called.

"Yes, but Ferb, not all time machine's are made of Polaryon Crystals," Flynn continued with Fletcher's face lighting up as he came to the same conclusions," The museum!" they both spoke together. It was like they were brothers again.

"But the time machine was destroyed by that Russian missile strike." Fletcher added, his hope dimmed for awhile before Flynn added, "But it used some extremely rare African crystals and if I remember right, there's a D.U.I. around there." He replied.

"What's a D.U.I.?" Fletcher muttered a confused look on his face. Driving While Intoxicated, Duh!

"It what we marines call a Doofensmirtz Universal Installation, very few have been built. They serve as hubs for the Doofensmirtz Empire." Flynn explained. I could see Fletcher flinch a little at the name "Doofensmirtz" but he quickly shook it off. Flynn found the page, it turned out that Doofensmirtz was mining the rare ore and was researching ways to weaponize it. They failed, which resulted in the execution of all the teams and the placement of the skeleton crew to protect the "worthless" diamonds. The marines had been looking for an excuse to capture it but due to pressure on the Russian front and the fact it was so far behind enemy lines they had called it off. We all spent time arguing about it. It was a dangerous mission, and Flynn and Fletcher both agreed it was the only option. After hours of deliberation, we finally agreed that this was our one shot. It was now or never, since it was probably that USMC artillery barrage would soon demolish the area.

"All right, if we're gonna do this, I'm gonna need to get us some heavy support." Flynn commented as he began to walk away, one of the fireside girls foolishly asked. Flynn took one long look at her and said, "No, Marines!"

"Wait, it's already late!" I yelled as I looked at the clock. Everyone else's head turned at the same time. Their eyes widen at the sight of the time. We all agreed that we would do it in the morning. Then Flynn gathered me, my sisters, Phineas, and Isabella to a secluded portion of the base.

"I bet you guys are wondering how I got this way." He said dryly. None of us had the heart to ask, or the heart to turn him down. I myself wanted to know, but I knew that Isabella really didn't want to spend too much time with this other Phineas. We just slowly nodded.

"All right, you'll come with me, and I'll tell you the story, afterwards we'll go and see if we can get some marines on our side." He replied to our silence. I felt a little knob in the back of my throat.

"But first, I'm gonna have to stop by Candace's, and I want you to stay out of sight. There are some things I'll need to collect. Don't tell anyone, this is a family matter." He whispered to us in the most serious tone imaginable. But Ferb peaked over a corner.

"Could I come to?" the young, green haired british kid asked with sincerity in his voice.

"Sure you can Ferb. Even though I haven't thought of you as brother, I guess you always will be." Flynn answered, patting Ferb on back. With that he sent us to bed, but none of us would sleep though, because tomorrow we would find out what changed Phineas from a happy- go lucky ten year old with everything he wanted, to a steel-hearted, suicidal marine.

Author's Note

Depending on how long I decide to make this, I will probably release one chapter every two days during the school week, and release probably around two chapters per day on the weekends. I hope you've enjoyed it so far, and hope you'll keep reading. Read and Review, please. Thanks!