Out in the city, in the park, Phineas and Doofenshmirtz continued to walk and chat as Heinz held up a small slip of paper.
"Heh, I still can't believe I've got the phone number of one of my ex-girlfriends.", Heinz chuckled. "Who, coincidentally enough, IS something of a psychopath."
"Yeah, but at least she likes your new look.", Phineas joked. "But speaking of the recolor ray, since it's such a success, I wonder if there's anything else we could build before the day's out."
"Hm...", Heinz scratched his head. "I'm sure there's something we could do before you go back home, but the question is, what? What do we build?"
Phineas kicked his feet slightly, hoping to think of something. Suddenly a delicious smell caught his attention and he looked up to where it was coming from to find a hot dog stand somewhat nearby. Phineas stared at it for a moment, feeling the brink of inspiration just about to come across him. You know, in that annoying way where you have a great idea but you're not entirely sure of what it was just yet when suddenly he had it.
"Dr. D! I know what we can build today!", Phineas exclaimed. "How about the world's biggest, highest quality, and most delicious coffee franchise!"
"..Aren't you a little young to be drinking coffee anyway?"
"Yes. Yes I am. But that's why I stick to decaff.", Phineas shrugged.
"Mm.. I dunno. A franchise might be a bit slow going if you wanna make it world-wide.", Heinz shrugged.
"Oh... Yeah I guess you got a point.", Phineas shrugged.
Heinz stared at the hot dog stand. Not necessarily looking straight at it, but in the general direction when he finally got a great idea himself.
"Or... We could... Ooh! What if we built a mirror that, instead of showing light reflecting off of you, it was your mental reflection? Like, it showed how you really see yourself or anyone else who's in the mirror?"
"Hm.. Well I already messed around with mirrors to make one look like this kid named, Irving suddenly disappears. And we already messed with how color is received with the recolor ray.", Phineas smiled. "That would actually be pretty cool to see exactly how you view yourself and other people!"
Heinz pulled out a notebook and began to scribble down the idea.
"Could we still do the whole coffee thing though? Maybe not a franchise but, the world's best Joe, at least?", Phineas asked.
"Yeah, no, I was already writing that down.", Heinz smiled. "And how about gloves that kinda make you look pyrokinetic? You're not, actually pyrokinetic, but the gloves make things suddenly catch on fire."
"Ooh yeah! And gloves for other variations and we could have a kinetic-war!", Phineas went on, being more and more inspired. "Or we could make a room that holographically alters it appearance and our clothes and we could re-enact our most favorite movies with a fake cast and everything!"
"Oh brilliant!", Heinz agreed, writing it down fast. "Well the store's not too far from here. Let's go ahead and pick up some of the supplies before we head back?"
Phineas agreed and they got up and began to walk out of the park. As they walked, Heinz suddenly noticed Roger a little ahead, not noticing them, and quickly pulled Phineas onto a different path.
"UH.. Why not we go THIS way instead? It's uh.. faster.", Doof quickly lied.
"Huh? Uh.. Okay?", Phineas shrugged.
'Is it National "Annoy Your Brother" day?', Dr D. thought to himself. 'The last thing I need is for Roger to come in and spoil my good attitude, right now.'
After picking up the supplies and getting back to the DEI, Doof and Phineas colored themselves back to normal and began to work on their projects while Norm made some snacks in the kitchen. It wasn't long before they had the holographic movie set sat-up in the room. Phineas suddenly jumped to one side as the red light-saber nearly missed him and backed up while Doof Vader came up, heavily breathing under the mask.
"I'll never give in! You killed my father!", Phineas quoted, fighting off with his own light-saber when suddenly kicked and almost falling over the edge of the walkway into a bottomless pit below until he grabbed the edge and looked up.
"No Phineas. I AM your father.", Doof quoted but then couldn't help but laugh. "Ha ha ha! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I can't help it! It's just too funny sounding with the helmet on! Ha ha ha ha!"
"Ha ha! Alright, alright. Cut!", Phineas laughed as the room was back to normal and Phineas was safely on the ground. "Ha ha! It DOES look kinda weird, considering your voice being so high-pitched and stuff."
"I know!", Doof laughed, taking off the helmet and then twirling the saber in his hand a bit. "Hey cool work on these light-sabers too! I mean every fan-geek in the world would die to have something like th- Oops!"
It slipped from his fingers and went flying through the air right as Norm was coming out into the room with a tray in his hands.
"Who wants-", Norm began to say before the light-saber suddenly landed in the wall next to him, narrowly missing his head.
Norm paused for a moment before walking backwards into the kitchen again and closing the door to prevent any further near-death accidents. Heinz and Phineas only laughed as Doof walked over to pull the saber out.
"Sorry Norm!", Phineas apologized.
"Oh man, that was the funniest thing yet!", Doof laughed. "What say next time, I actually HIT him instead?"
"Ha ha! Come on, I thought you said no evil today!", Phineas chuckled.
"Well that's what you get for crossing paths with..", Doof began to say before placing the helmet back on and causing Phineas to laugh as he spoke. "Doof Vader!"
The thunder clapped loudly as Candace slept sound in her bed. The storm continued to rage on outside as the door to her bedroom slowly creaked open. She turned around in her sleep before a hand reached out and gently shook her awake.
"Nngh.. Hmm?", Candace mumbled, opening her eyes to find her little brother, Phineas. "Phineas? What do you want? It's... not even morning yet."
"Candace.. Could I sleep with you?", her small 4 year-old brother asked. "I can't sleep..."
Candace sighed and lifted the blankets to let her brother in. After settling down the two found themselves comfortable in each other's arms and Candace hugged Phineas close, smiling to herself as she nuzzled his hair a bit, before finally falling back asleep as the rain continued to pour outside.
In the present, Candace was found on the same bed with her brother's pillow instead of he, himself, caught in her arms. She cherished the memory dearly and continued to let the stream of tears to pour out as the rain did, all those years back. Stacey soon walked into the room with Jeremy, who had helped her, Coltrane, and Candace, post up fliers around the town.
"Hey Girl. How's it going?", Stacey asked.
"I'm just hurting...", Candace said, almost silently.
Jeremy came more into the room and sat down next to her, gently brushing aside some of her hair, "You wanna talk about it?"
Candace just shook her head with a, "No... Thanks Jeremy.. I just hope we get a call is all."
"I'm sure we'll get something.", Jeremy reassured and bent down to gently kiss her cheek. "Try not to worry so much, 'kay?"
Candace nodded and gave a shaky sigh. Jeremy and Stacey exchanged glances and Jeremy stood up and walked out of the room.
"I'm gonna go put on some tea.", he said.
"That's a good idea.", Stacey nodded.
After putting away the extra gear at the DEI, Phineas and Doofenshmirtz began to work on other projects as they had planned. It wasn't long till after the world's best pot of coffee was being brewed and the duo began to split up the work on the next project.
"You wanna work on the metal structure of the Mental Mirror or the glass?", Heinz asked.
"Well, I really actually like working with chemicals a bit more than welding. If you don't mind, I'd rather do the glass.", Phineas shrugged.
"Oh sure no problem!", Heinz smiled. "In fact if your gonna be working on that, hang on a sec and you can borrow a lab coat."
Doof walked over to a closet and pulled out a lab coat from inside.
"Wow! Really?", Phineas asked.
"Yeah sure. I got tons of these. Sorry for the scorch mark but it's a little stained like that.", Heinz shrugged and helped him put it on.
The lab coat was a little large on Phineas considering how a little of it dragged behind him and the sleeves reached past his hands. After laughing about the matter and rolling up the sleeves the two sat to work. While Phineas was working on the glass and after a while of welding, Dr. D lifted up the mask to take a breather. He reached out and took a sip from a normal cup of coffee he had when Phineas also sat up from the beakers and leaned back in his chair.
Phineas gave a stretch and lifted up his work-glasses before saying, "Y'know, I'm gonna go get something to munch on. Any suggestions? Dr. D?"
"Eh I don't really have a lot of snacking food but uh, I got some slimjims if you want.", Doof suggested.
"Cool. Want some?"
"Nah. My coffee's plenty.", he smiled and took another sip.
"Kay."
After Phineas had left the room Perry, finding this a good opportunity, finally came out to confront his nemesis. Doof smiled down at the platypus as he sat down the coffee.
"Ah! Perry the Platypus! As usual, you're just on time. And by on time I mean, COMPLETELY LATE!", he said with a slight frown before quickly pulling out a remote and pressing a button, springing a cage trap on him. "Seriously Perry the Platypus, what's up? You're usually much earlier than this! How rude of you!"
Perry only rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest, 'Yeah well what can I do? Expose myself to my owner?'
"Well either way, I might as well fill you in on what I'm doing today. You see I met this kid down at the inventor's competition and we hit it off so great that now we're building all sorts of contraptions here at my place. We're not really doing anything evil though. I promised Vanessa we wouldn't. But surprisingly enough, I'm actually having fun doing this. The recolor ray was cool. That coffee better be good. We had plenty of backfires on that.", Doofenshmirtz stuck out his toungue in disgust memory. "But now we're working on a mental mirror. I kinda wish we were also working on an animal translating machine. It'd be kinda interesting to get your opinion on it after it's finished. And I know what you're thinking. 'Doofenshmirtz, how on earth could you allow yourself such inexperienced help on such complicated matters?' But you gotta see this kid! It's like he's... Like he's Albert Einstein in am American 10 year-old's body! It's crazy! All these ideas are mostly his anyway!"
Perry couldn't help but smile, 'Dude. I knew that a LOOONG time ago. Kid's a flippin' genius.'
Coincidentally, Phineas came back in at that moment, happily chewing on a slimjim.
"Hey Dr. D.", he said when he finished the bite. "What's up?"
"Oh hey Phineas! I just caught my neme-", Heinz turned around to face Perry but found the cage completely empty. "Hey! Where'd he go? I had JUST caught my nemesis and he's already out! I didn't even tell him the evil scheme I wasn't gonna do!"
Perry had broken out of the cage and was back in his hiding place, trying to calm himself down again from the close encounter.
'Okay that was WAY too close!', Perry thought in his mind. 'Of course, I should've known I wouldn't have had the chance to fight the idiot with Phineas around. I'm probably never gonna get to unless Phineas is finally picked up by Candace. I only hope things don't change till then.'
"Well who knows? Maybe he decided not to fight.", Phineas shrugged. "Anyway, why not we get back at it?"
"Yeah... I guess. Sorry it's just.. I have this weird pattern with my nemesis where he would come over, I'd trap him, we'd chat, I try to do my thing and then he does his and escapes the trap. We fight and then he'd beat me and I'd be left cursing him and whenever I don't do that pattern.. I dunno. I get a little anxious feeling. Like when you get slapped on your back a lot so when someone touches you there again, it feels really weird cause you're just WAITING for that pain to strike. You know what I mean?"
"Eh.. I guess so. I mean I'm so used to hearing 'Whatcha doin'?' from Isabella. If I went for a day without hearing it, it'd probably be kinda weird.", Phineas nodded thoughtfully.
"Yeah well it's kinda like that with my and my nemesis. I'm waiting for the pummeling and it's not normal for him to just up and leave like that. If he DOES leave during our routine, it's normally because of some silly thing his boss wants him to do.", Heinz explained before going back to work. "It's just.. It's kinda weird he wouldn't this time."
"Hm... Well I'm sure he has his reasons.", Phineas smiled.
Doof gave a shrug and they got back to work. But as they did, a curious question settled onto Phineas.
"Hey Dr. D?", he began. "What is your nemesis like, exactly?"
"Perry the Platypus? Well... He's a platypus for starters.", he shrugged.
"Your nemesis is a platypus?", Phineas asked, looking up from the set for a moment.
"Well he's not like a lot of normal platypuses. He's a secret agent for one. For another, he's actually kinda anthropomorphic."
"Weird.. Especially since I have a pet platypus at home named Perry.", Phineas chuckled, causing Perry to hold his breath in fear. "But at least I know mine isn't a secret agent. He's just a nice, smart, normal platypus."
Perry sighed with relief as Doof chuckled somewhat sarcastically, "Lucky you. MY Perry the Platypus is a real pain in the side. I mean... Well I'll be honest. I'm kinda ambivalent about him. I mean of course I hate him. He's my nemesis! But there are sometimes we get along. Kinda like friends. It's a frenemy sorta thing."
"Heh. Funny. I have a friend kinda like that. His name's Buford. He's the bully on the block but we're kinda like friends.", Phineas chuckled.
"Well.. Just between you and me, I've kinda always felt like Perry the Platypus and I always had something... Well it's kinda like a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship or.. Or like one of those old married couple relationships but instead of love, it's hate. We hate each other SO much that if act like we love each other, it'd be the same as a lovey-dovey couple hating each other.", Heinz shrugged. " "I mean of course I don't LOVE Perry the Platypus. I appreciate him. I appreciate him being there for me and all, but I don't LOVE him. If he blew up, I'd miss him but at least my nemesis is finally done for."
"Hm... Weird. It's not really that strong with Buford and the gang. It's just more like, 'Yeah you give us wedgies, but at least we can all laugh about it and still do fun stuff together.' not mentioning the fact that Ferb can get back at Buford just the same."
"Just Ferb?", Heinz asked.
"Well Baljeet and I aren't really much of fighters and Isabella would but that'd be a little harsh.", Phineas giggled.
"Ooh ouch!", Heinz laughed. "Oh man, I know how that is."
"Ha ha! Yeah! I know, right?", Phineas laughed. "Well the glass is ready to pour. Is the frame done?"
"Oh yeah just about.", Heinz said, putting on a few finishing touches.
After finishing up, Heinz finally sat it up on the table and they carefully poured out the hot liquid into it. Phineas finally took off the glasses and labcoat and sat them aside.
"Alright. All we have to do is wait for the glass to dry which could take... Some few hours actually.", he shrugged with a slightly faded smile.
"Hm... I wonder if there's a fast way..", Heinz pondered.
A moment later they were drying off the surface with the light-sabers they had made earlier. As the heat radiated off the beams and the duo were slowly moving them back and forth, Phineas heaved a heavy sigh. They kept at it and as they did, Phineas began to grow more and more impatient. Like it would NEVER finish if their lives depended on it. Like the day would end before on the surface there was even a thin layer caked over.
Phineas finally couldn't take it anymore and stood up angrily, saying as he did so, "Oh this is taking forever! I'm sorry Dr. D, but if this keeps up, I might just blow a freakin' gasket! There's gotta be a faster way than this junk!"
He tossed the saber aside right as Norm was coming back out of the kitchen, thinking the room was finally safe. The saber suddenly landed even closer to his head on the other side of the doorway. Norm looked back at the saber and then back at Phineas before simply going back in and waiting some more.