Hi there! Before anything, I want to confirm that yes, as the name implies, this is indeed the chapter where Perfeneas and Isealia meet. It's one of my favorites so far and definitely the longest. But sorry for possible OOC-ness. And get ready for some fluff.
Review responses:
Dreadwing216: Wait no longer. You can see now!
Phineas A: Ah, well, you guessed right. And it never actually occurred to me that P&I is pi! Ya learn something new every day.
An extreme sense of anticipation filled the now-silent air. Spectators lined the bleacher-like seats in the designated building, each with bated breath. One of these spectators was Doctor Doofenshmirtz himself, and next to him sat the misfortuned Cansummace. In both their hearts they loved Perfeneas as family, and both dearly wanted the boy to win, yet both of them had gotten a strange feeling in the air that something was going to happen - something for which neither was prepared.
The rectangular room was slightly smaller than what might have been expected for a place of such importance. On the other side of one of the long walls was another, identical room, filled with the family and researchers behind Isealia. Standing just in front of this wall on both sides were the two successful experiments, readily watching their respective audiences and waiting for instruction.
On the American side of the building, Perfeneas began smiling. It was not a new occasion, as he did so often to improve the surrounding atmosphere. Watching the boy from a chamber above, inside the wall and separated by glass, were the two moderators of the test. "Povenmire," one of them called, "You ready?"
"You got it, Marsh."
The former then began pushing some buttons on the keyboard in front of him to start the first simulation. The people controlling Isealia's test did the same. If everything worked the way it was supposed to, the experiments would not see their viewers during the exam, courtesy of a one-way mirror-like glass wall between the stage and the viewing area. It could be toggled to activate or deactivate at any given time.
Isealia and Perfeneas, all ten years and seven months of them today, stood erect, moving only because the Earth on which they stood was. Every molecule in their respective bodies was exactly in the right place. Their feet, shoulder-width apart; their hands, resting stiffly but relaxed at their sides; their hearts beating in perfect unison to pump the gallons of much sought-after blood through their very human bodies. They were ready and they knew only one could come out with the title.
Irving and Graciela, now completely visible as the effect of the previous day's Invisinator blast had worn off, snuck into Isealia's room and met Ferb in the back. He, armed with his handheld invisibility pistol, took Graciela from her chauffeur to move on with their plan. An unexpected interference kept them from it, however, one that Graciela knew she should have seen coming.
"Ferb! Where are you going?" Irving implored, the hurt visible in his eyes, "Grace, I thought-I thought we were going to watch the test together..."
The MOWCA agent smiled sympathetically at her fellow nerd. "Irving, you should know. Secret agent can't just let their friends do something like this."
"Wha-You-What?" Irving stuttered, "You're a secret agent? And you know that I-"
"Oh, come on, Irving. It was so obvious. Just like everything about you." She took him by the shoulders. It did not really require much thought by now; Irving had always been so nice to her, and - barring Isealia - was the only one who she could really show her nerd side to without feeling judged. She was not sure how much further she was going to let herself take it, but she knew that Irving needed a thank-you; she stood upon her toes for a better reach and pecked him quickly on the cheek. "Now, go on and enjoy the show."
Irving flushed a deep red and sheepishly touched the place of impact. "O-Okay," he stammered, then grinned, then beamed.
Graciela turned tail with Ferb, waving back at him with a smile. It was the last he saw of her before the green-haired boy to her left returned the two to invisibility.
It was only seconds before the walls filled in on Isealia's side before the girl suddenly disappeared.
Hardly a minute later, a different crowd gasped in unison at the sudden lack of sight of Perfeneas.
Doofenshmirtz and Cansummace in particular were shocked and slightly enraged at the event. "Where'd he go!?" Cansummace yelled, standing up and holding a fist out. To her father, she turned and added, "I'm going to find him. I'll find him and I'll bust him for - whatever this is." Not heeding the scientist's demands, she pushed through the crowd, down the stairs, and collided head-on with another figure, pushing them both to the ground.
"Oh, sorry, I - oh, it's you."
"Cansummace!" Vanessa recognized.
The younger of the two scrambled off her friend and helped her up. Vanessa's high-heeled boots clinked against the cold ground. "What are you doing here?" The failed experiment inquired.
Vanessa exhaled. "I'm... Actually, I'm looking for Ferb. I'll explain why later."
"Ferb!" Cansummace knew that name. She also knew something else about him. "Doesn't he have a thing for you?"
Vanessa's eyes opened wide in recognition. She had considered it before, but it was such a crazy notion she dismissed it every time; now, however, she realized there could be no doubt: she was being crushed on.
She may have found it cute, if not for one little detail about their relationship, one only she knew. "Well, that's awkward in every sense of the word," she said in further process of this information. "Again, I can explain later. Hey, do you hear that?"
Across the apparently metallic floor came the sounds of four pairs of feet scampering out of the room - yet no one could be seen. The door opened, as if by itself, and the invisible runaways fled. "Follow them!" Vanessa commanded, and Cansummace obliged.
In the front room of the building, Ferb and Graciela let go of Perfeneas and Isealia and sprinted behind a corner. The taller of the two retrieved his trusty invisibility pistol and, knowing somehow where his targets were, fired twice. "Wow, aim good," the girl next to him commented. In response, Ferb blew a puff of air boastingly over the -Inator's tip. They directed their attention back to the two children they had taken.
When Perfeneas opened his eyes (as he was recovering from a blink), he found himself suddenly looking into those of a peculiar stranger. When Isealia did the same, she discovered the eyes of the one person she needed to meet for a time that felt like years. They both simultaneously blinked again, unsure of what to make of this new development. Was this the first part of the test?
Without dropping the other's gaze, the two began circling each other, looking up and down their new acquaintance, evaluating them. Red hair. Blue highlights. Triangular, like the badges on her friends' sashes. Semicircular, like his sister. Straight teeth. Bright smile. White denim. Over-the-knee socks. Black shoes. Turtleneck dress. Fire, water, perfection.
Perfection!
They stopped walking when they returned to their original position. The conversation they had with their eyes was equivalent to the amount of devotion a child would give their first best friend. Trust quickly welded itself into the swords they were given to destroy each other.
The redhead was the first to lose his gaze, and Isealia returned with a questioning look. Perfeneas blinked once more, then responded:
To find the words to share my true thoughts, miss,
Is to attempt to dispel global shame.
Though not impossible, I can't dismiss
My ignorance of your beautiful name.
Isealia paused and returned:
I call myself Isealia, my good friend
But do not bother introducing me.
Asecret, I've admir'd you without end
Since from Ferb's picture your face I've first seen.
His answer was prompt: You flatter me, dear girl, but Ferb was wrong.
She replied tactfully. My sincerest apologies are yours.
I am Perfeneas, the kind and strong, he informed,
The one who, with all hope, will open doors.
Isealia stepped closer, realizing what she had done.
If you are perfect, then we are the same.
Perfeneas closed the distance and raised a hand. She mirrored him exactly.
Isealia, calm yourself; life's but a game.
From his hiding place, Ferb processed their every move and their every word. When he realised what exactly had transpired between the two, he nearly had to reach down to pick up his jaw. Graciela just stood there, hands over her mouth and tears threatening to spill from her sclera-less eyes. "Wow... That was beautiful... And he referenced the song..." She noted her friend's somewhat different than usual air of silence and whispered, "What?"
It took a while for Ferb to gather his thoughts. "The words... That was... The iambic pentameter... Oh, dear."
Graciela sent him an alarmed but inquiring look, aware that he could not see it.
Ferb explained, "That was a sonnet. The first words they spoke to each other were a sonnet. That was how Romeo and Juliet met."
As if in realization and recognition of the meaning of this, Graciela's eyes widened more and she clamped her mouth tighter. "Wait... What did happen to them?" She wondered, having never read Shakespeare herself, "...And what are a sonnet?"
Graciela heard a sound come from the boy next to her which sounded a lot like a hand slapping one's own forehead in disbelief. "Should us come out now?" She inquired instead.
The door back into the main room finally opened, and in front of it stood an angry-looking Vanessa and Cansummace. "We may have to," Ferb replied, dragging the girl to their friends and taking off with them. Without looking to see if they were being followed, the four fled the building completely. Led by Graciela and Ferb, Perfeneas and Isealia sprinted around the back wing and into a wide alley. The former two stopped to catch their breath while the others looked around again for either their prosecutors or their rescuers.
"Would whomever you are please show yourself?" Perfeneas asked the air in front of him. Hesitantly, Ferb turned Graciela and himself visible; no reaction appeared on either of the experiments' faces. "Why did you take us from the test?"
"It's a long story," Graciela tried to explain with succinctness. "The point is, there's a lot more going on in this world than you two are letted to know, and we think is only fair that we tell you. Important things. Besides, neither of you is more perfect than the other; is impossible. If you take the test, the only outcome is war! We can't have this!"
She and Ferb eyed each other. "So Ferb and I are going to make an offer. It is not really a choice, if you are to prevent disaster, but we have to let you have a say. You could go back home tonight to your little houses and be perfect while everyone you know is staking their lives to prove that you are better than the person next to you. Or..." She paused. "Or you could join us. You can have a whole new life, be whole new people. No more Perfeneas and Isealia. No more competition over who is better. No more lies, and no more secrets! Ferb talked to his parents, and they said they could house two more. Isealia, I have not spoke things about this yet, but mys parents move to your Tri-State Area at the end of this summer for work. You could live with me."
"When could we see our families again?" Perfeneas asked, thinking as always about others before himself.
"That's the thing," Ferb took over, "In your case, live with me, and you will live with your family."
"How is that so?" Isealia wondered.
"Simple; I am your brother."
The redheaded experiment reacted just as one would expect. "You're my what in the who now!?"
It was not Perfeneas who said this, however; it was her sister. Cansummace stood at the mouth of the alley, next to Vanessa. The latter started leading her companion closer to the children. "Perfeneas. Cansummace. You don't remember Linda, do you?" She asked, strangely calm despite the ruckus of the angered spectators just outside the opening, looking for their competitors.
"I do," Cansummace shouted eagerly. Perfeneas declined.
"Well, for those who are not familiar, that was the name of your mother," Vanessa explained, "Then, she went and married Ferb's father, so technically, you are all siblings." She hesitated. "And... There's something else I have to tell you three."
"And what's that?" Another voice asked from the beginning of the now crowded alley. With a sternness only parents know how to pull off, Dr. Doofenshmirtz joined the rest of the group. "Hah! That was unexpected, right? I've been working on my entrances."
"D-Doctor!" Vanessa cried in alarm, "What are you doing? I thought you were inside."
"Well, duh, I'm looking for my daughter," Doofenshmirtz replied.
Vanessa cringed visibly. She was just going to say something that would be exponentially more awkward now that he was there, but there was no going back now. This was as good a time as any to say it. "I think it's pronounced..." She coughed sheepishly. "...Daughters."
"I'm sorry, what?" Doofenshmirtz cocked an eyebrow. "No, it's daughter. Unless they changed English in the past fifteen seconds or something…"
"No, I - what I'm saying is..." Vanessa sighed. "Do you remember Charlene?"
"Who?" Graciela inquired, trying to keep up with the conversation.
"...My ex-assistant, yeah," Doofenshmirtz explained. "You see, back when I was testing for Cansummace, I was paired up with another scientist named Charlene. She was a nice person, I guess, but one day I figured out she was sabotaging me. Man, I was mad! We never saw each other again. I knew she had taken some of the DNA I was working with, but I never did figure out what she'd done with it."
"Well," Vanessa started, a hand coming to the back of her neck, "Care to take a guess?"
Doofenshmirtz thought. "She used it to create a baseball team made entirely out of cloned snakes?"
"No, it was me!" Vanessa's arms flung out towards him in hysteria. "That DNA was yours, and she combined it with her own to design me! She never told me why, but... I-I'm your biological daughter."
The scientist blinked. "That was my second guess."
Doofenshmirtz fainted!
"He'll be fine," Vanessa quipped.
"Wait a minute..." Cansummace demanded, "If you're his daughter, and I'm his daughter, then that means..." She played with her fingers, as if counting numbers in a math problem. "...Yes! I have a sister!" She wrapped Vanessa in a tight bear hug. "I've always wanted a sister."
"Get off me," Vanessa commanded, single-handedly pushing her away. "We're half-sisters."
"Sorry, I'm just excited. You know, it's not every day you get two new siblings, right?"
"That's right." The voice was not Vanessa's, however. It was much more British.
"Ferb," the black-clad teen started, leaving Cansummace's side and bending down to his eye level. She put her hands on his shoulders. "Uh... You know, this is really kind of awkward, but Cansummace just told me something. And I think it's finally time I'm able to say, I love you, too, Ferb. As the best half-step-brother ever."
Ferb looked away and nodded. His eyes closed, crestfallen, as the implications of this development had set into the air. Speaking of Shakespeare... He thought. He would go nuts.
A friendly squeeze to his shoulder and a sympathetic grin were all the comforting Ferb was going to get at that moment; there was a job that needed to be done. "Alright, now back to you two." Vanessa stood up and gestured to Perfeneas and Isealia. "You've had time. What's the decision?"
"Wait, you'm in on our plan, too?" Graciela asked.
"'You'm'? Now you're just making up words!" Cansummace laughed.
"I heard you talking about it before. The Flynn-Fletcher's said they could house two more, right? Perfeneas and Cansummace could live there with Ferb. And don't worry, I'll keep Dad company. I'm sure Mom would freak if she knew what was going on now." She crossed her arms.
Perfeneas and Isealia looked to each other. They were not completely sure what was in store for them if they moved. But if it meant Perfeneas, Cansummace, Ferb, and Vanessa being with their family (not to mention being able to continue to see each other) what was the worst that could happen? Nothing they could not handle together, they were sure; they were perfect.
The two reached for each other's hands. "We'll do it," they decided.
~End of Part One~