All right! Here's chapter 20. This is a chapter for revelation, a chapter for holding your breath until the end, or biting your fingernails, or whatever people do when they read something dramatic. This chapter will fix everything, but it will be intense. Readers that are faint of heart probably shouldn't read, but if you're brave, *takes deep breath* here it is *releases breath.*

Chapter 20: Live to Die Another Day

After the trip in the OMEGA ship, Phineas, Ferb, Candace, Perry, and Penelope were put in a makeshift prison cell below city hall. The Enigma had told Penelope that "the public demonstration" was going to involve her in the purifying process at dawn. She stared at him with venom in her eyes, but he just laughed.

Waiting for dawn was a dreary affair. Penelope had taken out a small bouncy ball from her sniper suit to bounce around; Candace was lying down facing the wall; Phineas was hugging his knees on the floor next to his sister; Ferb was doing the same near Candace's feet; and Perry was pacing angrily near the cell door. Penelope was staring at the mirror above the sink that was attached to the wall. Everyone else saw their own reflection, but Penelope saw her evil side grooming in the mirror. Penelope loathed her evil side.

"Just think, Penelope, you are facing death tomorrow when you could be standing where I am standing," said her evil side, still grooming herself.

"I'd rather be dead than perform incest," Penelope replied to her opposite reflection.

Her opposite laughed, "I am a queen, I own the whole world by marriage."

Penelope quit bouncing her ball and stood up abruptly, "You own hell, Epolenep!"

"Who is she talking to?" asked Phineas. Perry growled in frustration as a response. He never liked listening to his wife when she was having one of her "experiences."

"As if being in prison wasn't bad enough, now we're in prison with a crazy platypus!" Candace moaned.

"On the contrary, Penelope," said Penelope's opposite, Epolenep after a pause, "I own paradise."

"No world like your world is my idea of paradise."

Epolenep laughed, "Everyone bows before me and obeys my every command."

"On punishment of death?"

"Of course... you're not seeing the big picture here. If you say yes to the Enigma, you have a better chance of living. If you still say no tomorrow, those chances greatly decrease. You are aware of what the purifying process does to expecting mothers aren't you?"

"I am fully aware, yes, and I am fully ready to accept it."

"Whoa, I said your chances of survival greatly decrease. I didn't say you couldn't survive at all."

"What you are suggesting is murder."

"Come on, Penelope. If you want to be with Perry-pus so badly, then live. You can always have more children, but you can never give him another you."

Penelope opened her eyes in realization. She went closer to the mirror. "I still feel as though you are suggesting murder."

"I am suggesting survival, Penelope."

Penelope's eyes darted around, examining the figure before her. She didn't say a word. She then looked Epolenep straight in the eyes. "I am not like you."

"At least tell me you'll think about it." Penelope brought up a fist and smashed the mirror. The many images of the evil world still reflecting before her. Many red eyes looking at the destruction. "I'll take that as a no then?" Penelope began smashing the mirror more until all the glass fell out. Phineas went to stop her, but Perry held him back.

Penelope stood there breathing heavily, her hands riddled with glass and blood flowing out like water down a window on a rainy day. She looked down at the reflective shards on the floor. "I am not like you."

A sing-song voice echoed in her head, "Where there is death, death must be. You cannot avoid it."

"Shut up, I want you out of my head." Penelope held her bloody hands to her ears and got on her knees. She began crying, from pain of the body, mind, and spirit.

Perry went over to her and kneeled by her side. "It's over, it's okay, it's over." He rubbed her shoulder. "Come here, let's get you fixed up." He took off his fedora and took out a first-aid kit. He took alcohol to a pair of tweezers and began removing the shards. "Do you want me to remove your ring? It might be more comfortable if I did."

"No, no, it wouldn't. My hand is gonna have to heal with this ring on my finger."

Perry nodded and continued removing glass. "What did you see this time?"

It had become a common occurrence for him to ask her that. He had been skeptical at first, but when she had a dream of the Enigma kidnapping them three nights before it actually happened, he was more inclined to believe her now. Penelope sniffed, trying to stop the flow of tears. "Epolenep is taunting me again. She showed me a future in which I gave in to the Enigma and became his queen. It was a nightmare. I had two abominations for children, the people were suffering, and you were part of the furniture."

Perry grimaced, "I wasn't a blanket, was I?"

Penelope laughed, "No, you were a footstool."

"That's comforting... anything else?"

"No, not really... she just showed me my options for tomorrow."

Perry nodded. He knew that she didn't want to talk about it, so he didn't want to press her. He felt he had to know though. "What is the purifying process?"

Penelope shuddered. "It is an old ritual that goes back to our roots in Australia. Whenever a woman was made pregnant when she was doing wrong or had wrong done to her, she was punished by either banishment up the river or undergoing the purifying process. Basically with the purifying process, the woman is injected with a serum. She can choose to succumb to the serum so that the children can live and she will die or she can fight it, but it will kill the children. No woman who has undergone the purifying process has let their children die. I feel inclined toward that as well, but I'm not sure. Dawn shall reveal whether I have courage or cowardice."

"Whichever you choose, I will support it. If you die, I'll take care of the kids, if they die... it means I'll have another day with you. It's like you say, it's your choice." Perry finished removing glass from Penelope's hands and bandaged them up. It was another moment gone before dawn.

When dawn came, the five prisoners were put in chains and walked to a platform in front of city hall. Penelope was taken to a wooden beam that was connected to a wooden beam over their heads. She was put in chains six feet above the ground. The whole city had been forced to gather to see this "public demonstration." Drums began playing, a beat similar to one that would have been played at a hanging back in the day.

The Enigma took a microphone and said into it, "Penelope Rose Australis-Flynn, you have been charged with defying my will, how do you plead?" He pointed the mike in her direction.

"I did it, and I'd do it again if I got the chance," she replied, her voice translated over the microphone.

"Then by the law of your people and mine, so shall you be judged. As there is no river nearby enough to suit my needs, you shall undergo the purifying process and I have no doubt you shall die. Do you have any last words, anything you'd like to leave the world with?"

Penelope looked at him and, as she gazed into his eyes, gained realization. "Be sure this day that every dark corner will tremble at the light. There is a war coming... and I have made the decision to ride in the saddle of the horse at the forefront. Mark that on your calendar." She spit at the Enigma and it landed square between his eyes. He groaned and wiped the spit off roughly with all of his fingers.

"So be it. Penelope, for defying my will, I will subject you to the purifying process. I am not a woman, but every ritual I've seen, it looked rather painful." He climbed a stepladder until he was looking her eye to eye. "I hope it's painful." He laughed before putting a needle of orange liquid into her neck. He jumped down and pushed the stepladder away. He took a chair and began eating some popcorn. The drums stopped playing. It was the quietest day in Penelope's memory.

Penelope looked at the crowd and began thinking. I feel like Mr. Carraway looking in and out at the same time. I see myself as they see me. Children's eyes are being covered by mothers. I wonder who else is watching this. I wonder how long before this stuff finally kicks- "Ah!" Penelope was broken from her thoughts by spasms of pain. It was like tiny creatures with claws were making a playground of her bones. She began coughing and noticed, much to her chagrin, that it was blood coming out. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. I'm collapsing from the inside.

Onlookers watched as multiple glowing orange lines appeared where her veins would be. She began breathing hard. Soon, she was gasping, struggling for air. She hung there limply for a moment. No one knew if she was dead or alive.

"We are at the point in the purifying process where the mother must choose between herself and the children. Just think, Penelope, you could free yourself of all of this," said the Enigma.

Penelope lifted her head and opened her eyes. They were now glowing orange. It was time. An observant watcher would have noticed blood beginning to come from her nostrils. She had made her choice. She used her last bit of strength to flip a foot into her mouth. She shoved it toward her throat and was instantly puking bile and blood. She was breathing heavily now as she hung there. Her body lost its glowing hue and she went back to normal. The serum had reversed the growth of her children when she rejected it. She assumed that they were lying among the blood and bile. This thought caused her to puke again.

Just then, an O.W.C.A. ship flew overhead. O.W.C.A. agents got Perry, Candace, Phineas, and Ferb into the ship. Penelope was taken down and brought into the ship as well. The Enigma shot out of his chair, outraged that this was happening. "Shoot them! Shoot them down!" Despite the Enigma's orders, they were too little too late. The doors were already closed and the ship flew off.

On the ship, Perry held a weak Penelope in his arms. Penelope put her left hand to Perry's right cheek. "Well, that was something else," she said.

Perry laughed, "I was so worried about you."

"You didn't need to be. Everything always works out in the end. We're past the bad part. Just let me rest. Now, hopefully, I will get to die in your arms. Not now though, like, way down the road when we're both 20. Indeed, how many women have gone through the purifying process and can say that they will be able to live to die another day?"

Phew! Am I right? Don't throw stuff at me! Everything worked out, and the next chapter is going to be even better. This chapter title was based off of Die Another Day. In the next chapter I will reveal what Penelope realized while looking at the Enigma from her perch. I'm sorry I killed the kids, but like I said, it's going to get better in the next chapter. Hey! Who liked Penelope's revenge against the Enigma? I'm gonna spit in your face! *Spit* Another thing, for those of you who didn't understand the whole "Penelope Rose Australis-Flynn" thing, Rose is her middle name and Australis is her maiden name. Also, did anyone catch the allusion to The Great Gatsby? It's a pretty good book, for those of you who haven't read it, but it is also... not my thing. I'll just say that the ending to that book bugged me. Okay, sorry for another long author's note, but what can I say? I like to talk. Please keep reading and reviewing, thanks :)