Back in the park, Candace had searched everywhere with both Coltrane and Stacey's help and was now curled up, under a tree, sobbing miserably to herself. Not her Two-Year-Old whine either. Literal tears streamed down her face continuously as she cried and cried. Not even so much as worried about what her mom had to say so much as worried about what her happened to her brother.
"Candace, it's okay.", Stacey was saying again and again, trying to think of something to calm her friend down.
"No Stacey it's all over!", Candace sobbed, "I'm a horrible big sister! I didn't even really say good-bye! Why didn't I just help him with his project? Why didn't I stay with him?"
"Candace, you can't go beating yourself down.", Stacey said, feeling rather heartbroken at Candace's sight. "Come on, there's gotta be someway for us to find him. It's not like he was the only person who was here!"
"That's right.", Coltrane said. "There's must have been dozens of people here. There should be at least ONE who saw what happened to him."
Candace sniffled for a moment as she tried to clear her thoughts. It was hard, considering the fact that image after image of Phineas being hurt or mistreated or possibly even dead flooded her mind. She had been left in charge of her little brother and now she lost him and hadn't a single clue of where he could be.
'The same little brother I always try to bust day in and day...', she thought miserably to herself. 'Busting my little...brothers...', a thought began to cross her mind. 'Busting.. Phineas and Ferb and... Tried not to... Mandy. Mandy stopped herself from busting Thaddeus and Thor. Thaddeus and Thor! They build stuff too!'
"Coltrane that's it!", Candace exclaimed, hopping up onto her feet. "Mandy Weaver! Her brothers, Thaddeus and Thor, always love to compete in building things! They were here! I still have her number too! Maybe they know what happened!"
She quickly pulled up her phone and speed-dialed her friend. Meanwhile in a house on the other side of town, Thaddeus glared up at his trophy case as Thor mindlessly played games next to him. His scowl deepened as he stared longer at an empty spot where he planned to place the trophy from earlier.
"Thaddeus! Thor!", Mandy cried as she came in with her hand over her cellphone's receiver. "Was Phineas Flynn at the contest today?"
"Tch. Yeah. So?", Thaddeus said, looking back at her, his expression only worsening under hearing Phineas' name.
"Uh.. Do you know who his partner was?", Mandy continued to ask.
Thaddeus only shrugged and turned to face her, "Heck if I know. Some weird, creepy old man with a coat."
Mandy's eyes widened, hearing the description, unable to help but find a disturbing idea of what the man looked like, unknowing of how off she was from the real deal.
"...A creepy old man?", she asked again. "How old, would you say?"
"Uh... I dunno. 40's? 50's?", Thaddeus thought for a moment. "The darn jerks won the trophy instead of me."
Mandy gulped hearing the description, knowing how Candace would react to it. After taking a small deep breath she quickly retold it over the phone and hung up, not wanting to wait for Candace's response. Meanwhile back with our familiar extraterrestrial friends, Mitch looked around again as he laid across the floor, caught in a strangle hold by Meap.
"Okay seriously, where is that coming from?", he asked, hearing Candace's scream yet again. "It sounds like nails on a chalkboard."
"Meap!", his little enemy simply said.
"Oh really? You REALLY think that? Well I'll have you know that you're nothing but a great big-"
"Candace, calm down!", Stacey said calmly, trying to help her friend's hyperventilation. "It's probably not what you're thinking."
"Stacey are you nuts? Do you know how many freaks there are in the world? This is even worse! What if the guy was a molester?"
"Candace, I'm pretty sure that's just a wild accusation!", Stacey said, really not wanting to think further on the word.
"Stacey's right, Candace.", Coltrane said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Phineas is smart. I'm pretty sure he would know how to tell who's bad to be with and who's not."
"But-! But-! But-!", Candace stammered.
"Come on, Candace.", Stacey said, helping her walk to the car. "Let's try the police station. I'm sure they could help us out."
As they walked into the car and drove off, Candace stared out her window in fear and worry. She could only pray that her little brother was okay. Back at the DEI, Perry toyed with a small deck of cards he had brought along while Heinz and Phineas chatted as they worked.
"So you've actually met my mom before?", Phineas asked.
"So you've actually pulled together PFT?", Heinz retorted with a chuckle. "Yeah, I knew Linda back in high school and after that, I only met her ONE other time but it was... It was a pretty embarrassing back story."
'Embarrassing? HIM?', Perry thought. 'This from the same guy who openly lives with being an idiot who roller skated into the toilet. How could ONE back story be noted as embarrassing for HIM? He's gonna have to tell me this one sometime.'
"Embarrassing?", Phineas repeated. "How?"
"It's...not really one I should tell you at this age.", Heinz said. "I mean I could think of ONE person I'd tell it to but until you're older.. I don't really think so. Sorry, Phineas."
"Nah it's okay. I hear a lot of stuff like that actually.", Phineas shrugged. "But, not quite put like that. It's normally asking me if I'm too young to be doing what I'm obviously doing at my young age."
"Well trust me Phineas, I KNOW you'd be WAY too young to hear that back story. Maybe ask your mother, but I doubt she'd wanna talk about it either."
"Weird.", Phineas simply said, trying to imagine what could possibly have been so embarrassing that even his mother wouldn't wanna talk about it.
Finally, they had finished their invention and were ready to test it out. It looked like a small white ray gun with a dish on one end and a small screen with a couple of buttons right above the trigger.
"Cool! That didn't take long at all!", Phineas said as he inspected the machine.
"Well of course not with your brilliant ideas for compacting!", Heinz complimented. "A lot of my inventions are really big and bulky but this, this has really been a learning experience on my part."
"Me too!", Phineas smiled "So let's test it out!"
Perry crouched up from his hiding spot to look over at Phineas and Heinz, curious if the machine worked as well as they were making it sound.
"What kinda colors do you want, Dr. D?", Phineas asked, pressing a button, causing a small chart of body parts and color graphs to appear in a holographic display in front of him. "I'm gonna my hair a sky blue, my eyes a dandelion yellow, and have green skin."
Heinz thought for a moment before shrugging and answering, "I don't think I'd really go for something quite so...extreme. Uhm... I've always been curious of what I'd look like with black hair and green eyes though."
"Aw come on, Dr. D, live a little!", Phineas urged.
"Mm...", Heinz scratched his head, not really used to the whole idea. "Alright... How about... neon green eyes and reddish-black hair? Like.. Like how most people make black with a blue shine on silly cartoons? It's black with a red one instead."
"There we go!", Phineas smiled as he began to punch in buttons and mess around with the charts, aiming the machine at a mirror to hit himself with.
"Hey Phineas, are you sure this stuff isn't gonna stain us permanently or anything?", Heinz asked as the ray began to warm up.
"Actually I've thought over the prints as we built it, and that IS a very likely possibility.", Phineas said, happy all the same but only causing strife in Heinz.
"WHAT?", he asked a little too late as the ray fired a beam and it bounced off a mirror and zapped Phineas.
Instantly the young boy's hair was blue, his irises had changed to yellow and the skin was a deep, nature green. He looked over himself in the mirror as Heinz and Perry gaped at the odd sight. Unable to help touch his skin a bit as a reminder it WAS skin, he began to laugh at himself and spun around just for the silliness of it.
"This is so cool! All my favorite colors!", he laughed before turning to Doof and holding up his thumbs. "Check it out! Green thumbs!"
Heinz forced a weak chuckle before gesturing that he wanted the machine, "Yeah yeah. Nice. Can we see if it's stained or not now?"
"Oh Mr. Heinz, you gotta relax a bit! I'm sure I'm just fine. Let's do you now!"
"I need to relax? Look at you, with your proper titling. I'm not a senior or anything ya know. Most kids your age just call me 'Doofus' or 'Schnitzle' or.. 'Creepy old man', even.", he shrugged. "All I'm worried about is you going home and your mother flipping out at me!"
"Oh I'm pretty sure Mom would be fine with it. Candace is really the one to get over excited.", Phineas chuckled. "Seriously, there's no harm in it. Try it out!"
Heinz only sighed, and shook his head. He began to rant about how Phineas seemed to just be so uncaring of any consequences and how someday he was sure they would bite the young boy hard. But as he continued to ramble, Phineas simply began to press button on the machine and zapped the older male.
"I mean seriously, who rai-", he stopped in mid-sentence as he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror and saw what had happened.
His eyes grew as wide as Phineas' smile as he took a step closer, wondering if it really was him for a moment. Sure enough it was and surely enough, nothing seemed to be chemically wrong wit his body.
"You were saying?", Phineas simply said as Heinz turned around to face him.
Heinz was silent for a moment, not really sure how to react. He had just been involuntarily experimented on and the kid was just smiling about it. He thought for a moment about being mad at Phineas for doing such, but again, it's not like either one was sprouting horns or falling ill. He looked back at his reflection again and then couldn't help but kinda smile.
"Well I don't seem to be growing any horns or anything...", he kinda half-joked to himself.
"Yeah. Too bad we can't grow wings though. Now THAT would be cool!", Phineas said, excited by the thought.
"Yeah.. But you gotta admit, I DO look pretty good with black hair, right?", he asked, earning an eager nod. "Ha ha! Okay okay. Sorry for being such a worry-wart. I'm just nervous about new things, kay?"
"Hey it's cool, Doofus!", Phineas said. "The thing to remember is that if you only tried one thing, Life would easily get boring."
Doof couldn't help but chuckle in agreement, "There's some truth in that. ...Hey! did you just call me 'Doofus'?"
Phineas laughed and replied, "Well YOU said I could do that!"
"Yeah but I think you know not to ACTUALLY call me a doofus!", Heinz chuckled, rolling his eyes.
"Alright alright, Heinz.", Phineas chuckled. "Sorry. Couldn't resist."
"Yes. Yes you could've.", Heinz joked, folding his arms across his chest. "It's not like you would've died."
"Sorry.", Phineas shrugged apologetically. "Hey! Let's go show everyone!"
"Out in public?", Heinz asked.
"No. In a small cubicle. Yeah out in public!", Phineas nodded. "We could like, start a fashion trend or something!"
"Uh, heh heh.. Uh NO.", Heinz was firm in his decision. "Why on Earth would we wanna parade around like freak shows?"
"Cause it's awesome! I mean what's the point of making anything, if you don't show off a bit?", Phineas asked. "Come on, it'd be great!"
Heinz sighed, knowing that if he argued, he'd not only be arguing with a 10 year-old, but also he'd lose the argument anyway.
"Alright. I'll go out. But YOU gotta take off the green skin AT LEAST.", Heinz bargained, causing Phineas to look at him quizzically. "I mean first of all, it really just doesn't look right and secondly, people are either gonna think you're some freaky alien-kid or INCREDIBLY sick and scientists will rush you off for experiments and such and I mean really, Phineas. Living large is one thing but I'm pretty sure even YOU have your limits."
Phineas simply chuckled and began to play with the machine saying, "Okay. That's a fair deal."
After changing his skin and going back to normal they sat out for the town. Meanwhile, Perry snuck out of his hiding space and quickly dashed through the DEI, not really concerned of Phineas, but instead more concerned about finding a bathroom soon.