Here, finally, is the 2nd chapter of Across the First Dimension! Sorry if this took a while to get up, I'm a slow writer and actually had to hurry to get this up by now. Please, please, please, PLEASE review!

Perry's POV

Perry slid down the entrance tube like a bullet, dramatic music playing somewhere in the background. He felt himself being pinned to the sides of the tube when he rounded each corner. As he came around the last one, he saw the giant TV screen that dominated his lair coming into view ahead, and readied himself to jump off.

When he reached the end, he attempted to gracefully launch himself out of the tube and land in his chair. "Attempted" meaning, in this case, that he instead hit a bump at the end of the tube, fell out, rolled over a few times, and slammed into his chair.

He tried to stand up, but his head throbbed painfully and felt like it was spinning. Or it might have been that everything else was spinning around it. He couldn't really tell.

"Are you alright?" Major Monogram asked. Perry tried to make his growling noise in response, but ended up falling over onto his chair. He did manage to look up and nod.

"Well, if you say so," Monogram replied skeptically, and loudly cleared his throat. Perry's mind started racing (which, when combined with the spinning, gave him a terrible headache). He'd been called here for an Alpha-2 emergency briefing; the second highest in the O.W.C.A. What could possibly be important enough to justify it? Had Doofenshmirtz become intelligent? Was he allying with aliens? Had the O.W.C.A. supercomputer accidentally taken down the world power grid (again)?

A chilling thought crossed his mind, one that had been haunting him for the last four years. When the boys were just ten, they'd traveled to another dimension, where they'd learned his secret identity and fought an alternate, and far more competent, version of Dr. Doofenshmirtz. They'd had their memories erased at the end of the debacle, but he still had nightmares about it.

"Well, Agent P, it looks like your regular visit to Doofenshmirtz is going to have to wait. Do you remember those Second Dimension debacles we've been going through over the years?"

Perry leaned forward expectantly. So it did have something to do with the Second Dimension.

"Well, it seems that those troubles have come back to haunt us once again. We've detected a dimensional anomaly in Danville, which means that some form of cross-dimensional travel was recently used. The dimensional signature doesn't match that of a NormBot, but we can't tell much more than that, since our detector equipment was hit hard by budget cuts. This traveller may be connected to the Resistance, but approach them with caution, especially since they know of your secret identity."

Perry saluted and jumped into his rocket car. Major Monogram called out "Good luck, Agent P!" as he flew up through the roof of his lair.

Doofenshmirtz's POV

Doofenshmirtz scanned the horizon with a pair of cheap binoculars. Perry didn't appear. He looked down at his watch. He was twenty minutes late already.

"Where is he?" he muttered. "I'm always on time for his scheme-ruining. Is it too much to ask for him to do the same?"

"Perhaps he has grown tired of your constant failures as an evil scientist, and has asked to be transferred to a more successful one." That line came from Norm, and got Doofenshmirtz to remove his binoculars long enough to glare at him.

"Don't be ridiculous, Norm," he replied, once he was looking for Perry again. "Me and Perry, we've got a good thing going. He wouldn't leave me for another nemesis. I did that once... You remember Peter the Panda?"

"That implausibly small panda bear who was briefly your nemesis instead of Perry?"

"Yeah, him. I left Perry for him, and I felt terrible afterwards. I feel terrible whenever one of us has to do something besides fight each other. Like that time Perry didn't show up that summer four years ago. Of course, in that case, the feeling terrible was probably more due to being beaten up and having my lab destroyed by a potted plant, but it's the same principle."

"And what is that principle?"

Doofenshmirtz opened his mouth, like he was about to say something but suddenly forgot what.

After a few seconds of appearing to consider Norm's question, he replied "It's not important what the principle is, it's just that there is one. No, he wouldn't have left me for another nemesis. It must be something else. But what?"

"Perhaps he's sick, sir."

"No, that platypus is dedicated. He once came down with smallpox and came in anyways. I was disinfecting the lab for weeks afterwards, but it's the thought that counts."

He seemed to think about the issue for a moment (of course, it's always hard to tell with him) and eventually decided, "There must be something going on in his agency. And it must be something really big for them to pull Perry away from me."

He was silent for a moment, and then appeared to rethink his decision.

"Of course, he could have called ahead and told me he wasn't coming."

"But if the situation is bad enough that they need to send Perry somewhere else, then wouldn't it probably be urgent enough that he wouldn't have time to talk to you? Also, isn't Perry the Platypus incapable of speaking English?"

"Don't try to inject logic into my angry rant, Norm! No, he's obviously just being inconsiderate. Well, I'll show him. If he can forget all about his nemesis, then I can too!"

Behind Doofenshmirtz, just inside the building, was a large object under a tarp. He walked purposefully towards it and reached out to yank off the tarp. His hand stopped just short of it.

"Something's missing..." he mused.

"Someone to listen to your evil monologue?" Norm asked.

"That's it! Norm, listen to my evil monologue."

If Norm's eyes hadn't been painted on, a tear would have sprung to them.

"At last, my father is engaging in semi-parental activities with me!"

And if there had been a tear in Norm's eye, the glare Doofenshmirtz sent his way would have boiled it, and probably burned off most of Norm's paint as well.

"For the last time, Norm, I am your creator, not your father! I built you out of scrap metal, a squirrel cage, and old dryer parts!"

Norm was silent. Since his face was painted on, his emotions couldn't really be read from it, but he somehow managed to make a despondent expression. Doofenshmirtz nodded in approval and reached out to pull the tarp off the object again.

"That's better. Now, this... Is the-"

"What does it do?"

Doofenshmirtz sent another glare his way. While the previous one would have burned paint off of Norm, this one would have melted him into a pile of red-hot slag.

"You're not supposed to talk while I'm monologuing! Perry the Platypus never interrupted me during my monologues."

"But Perry the Platypus can't speak Eng-"

"Silence! Now, where was I... Ah, that's right. Behold, my-"

"Also, didn't you just disavow Perry the Platypus?"

"Norm! BE SILENT!"

Norm was silent again.

"Now, I was going to explain my evil scheme to you, but thanks to your constant interrupting, I seem to have run out of space, and all two people following this story will have to wait for that."

Doofenshmirtz reached out to finally pull off the tarp, and then the chapter ended.

This seems like a good place to address both of my reviewers (yeah, that's right, I've got a whole TWO REVIEWS!).

Maximum3000: Well, I don't really have anything concrete planned, but I have an Invader Zim fanfic that I started two years ago and never came back to that I hope to work on sometime.

14AmyChan: Thanks! It's nice to get some feedback, especially positive. Feel free to come back and review this story some more!

And to recap: PLEEEEEASE review!

Also, I'm very bad at coming up with chapter titles, so if you have any ideas, or just recommendations for anything about my story, feel free to leave your ideas in the reviews.