Agent P hammered on the self-destruct button with his fist. This time, however, the Inator didn't explode like usual. The button seemed to be jammed. He felt a shockwave of energy ripple through the air as Doofenshmirtz's device began to glow in an alien green light, fading and brightening in rapid pulses. Finally the machine exploded, but there was something off this time.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," commented Doofenshmirtz, who was standing not far behind on the balcony of his apartment.

The beam of green light the Status-Quo-Inator had been firing did not disappear, but was changing to orange. Whatever it had hit had affected the ray somehow, now erupting in an optic flare bordering on cosmic in scale.

BOOM!

Before anybody even knew what happened, all reality had been changed.

the zapdos Presents

A Kick It Up A Notch! Two-Part Special: Part Two

Episode 7: Opposite of Opposite

In the west, the sun rose on a brand new day in the Tri-State Area.

"Our climate is on the brink of massive change," the television program reported. "Worldwide, ocean-levels are shrinking, temperatures dropping, carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse gasses decreasing, the ozone expanding in massive overdrive. If we don't find answers to curb these disturbing trends soon, mother earth is going to be in serious trouble. While scientists are attempting to determine what the long term effects of this climate change will be, there have already been many unexpected incidents reported."

"Gosh, doesn't that sound terrible, Ferb?" Phineas and his step-brother were watching the TV set from their couch. "Somebody should really do something about that."

To his side, Phineas heard his brother nod with an unrealistic, creaking-windshield-wiper sound effect. Then they both settled deeper into the cushions.

Candace poked her head into the sitting room to check on her brothers. "As usual, I find you two lollygagging around, watching TV. It's summer! Don't you want to do anything with all this free time and beautiful weather? You only get this chance once a year!"

"Eh, TV right here," Phineas grunted.

Candace growled in disapproval. "You guys are so-o boring!"

"Now Vanessa, I want you to try and have some fun with your father for once. See a movie. Go out to lunch. Go for a bike ride—I don't care. But I don't want any phone calls from you while it's his turn to have you." Charlene paused to look at her daughter on the doorstep of her ex.

"Okay, Mom, I'll try," returned Vanessa half-heartedly.

"I mean it." Charlene rapped loudly on the door and let herself in. "Before we divorced, your father could be quite the charming man when he wanted to be. Try to see that side of him like I did, and you'll like him much better—Heinz? Are you home?" she called.

"Whatever, it's probably just gonna be the same old same old of him ignoring me while he works."

"Well, with an attitude like that, maybe. Just give it a try." Charlene purposefully walked through the apartment while Vanessa dumped her things on the couch. "Say, where's your father?"

The silhouette of a man with a long, pointy nose and jutting chin watched through an air vent overhead. An action theme picking up in the background, the shadow whipped out a fedora and set it on his head before moving through the chute. He slid down a vertical shaft, ultimately landing in the large red chair of a spacious room filled with gizmos and gadgets. The Major appeared on cue on the screen overhead while Doofenshmirtz dusted off the sleeves of his labcoat.

"Good morning, Doctor D. We've received word that your nemesis, the evil Perry the Platypus, has holed himself up in his fortress of eviltude. If he's up to his old tricks again, and we assume he is, it's up to you to bring a stop to his antics."

Dr. Doofenshmirtz spoke for the first time. "You know, Major, I've been tinkering on a few inventions of my own, lately, and I was thinking—."

"No!" came the immediate reply from his superior. "We've been over this before, Heinz. You remember the Truffle-Inator you built for Mother's fortieth birthday?"

Dr. D sighed. "Yes, Roger."

"It's just too risky. Keep to the tools that you are provided by the Agency, and stop Perry the Platypus! Remember, it is imperative your identity as a secret agent be kept secret, even from your ex-wife and daughter. Good luck, brother."

The secret agent saluted his superior in rank, inferior though Roger was in age, and the screen overhead went dark. Background singers, apparently over speakers in his lair, began singing the spy theme.

Doofy, Doofy, Doofy!
Doofy, Doofy, Doofy!
Doofy, Doofy, Doofy! (Bum! Bum!)

He's a six-foot two inch pharmacist of action. (The song's subject gave an irritated, "Do I even need to say it? I'm not a pharmacist!")
And while he's normally evil, for now he's on the good team! ("I thought the fedora would be a dead giveaway…")
His head's not screwed on right, ("Hey!")
He wears a lab coat to every fight! (Inspecting himself, Doofenshmirtz admitted, "I guess that is true.")
And his nemesis is a duckbilled monotreme— (Perry's outline could be seen as a dark shadow, his focused eyes and pearly white teeth the only discernible aspects of his face as he gave his signature chatter.)
Grdrdrdrdrdrdrdrd!
He's Doofy! Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz! ("That's right, I have a degree!")
Doofy! ("See, look! It's right here, it says—")
Doc! Tor! Dee!

There was a bang! upstairs.

"Candace?" Linda called, wiping down a plate in the kitchen while keeping an eye on Phineas and Ferb, who were still watching TV. "Was that you?"

"Sorry! My dresser fell," came the explanation from through the ceiling above. Shortly thereafter, the teenager came down dressed in her usual red tank-top and white skirt. "Mom, I'm gonna go hang out with some friends, okay?"

"Okay, sweetie. Dinner's at five."

"Later!" Candace paused at the door, looking at her brothers. "Are you guys just gonna sit there all day, watching television?"

"Is that against the law?" Phineas didn't even look up from the screen.

"Suit yourselves," said the bossy sister, and she opened the door and left.

Once the coast was clear, Phineas gave Ferb a knowing smirk. "If she is hanging out with boys, she is gonna be so busted!" he whispered. The two silently snuck out to follow her.

Phineas paused just before reaching the door.

"Hey, where's Perry?"

Perry's theme was played by organ in a slow tempo and underscored with a clap of ominous thunder, giving it a menacing tone and providing, for a brief moment, striking clarity through the doom to his grandiose medieval castle, in all its muted-color glory. This was his regular place of residence when not mingling with the humans undercover as a mindless pet.

"There you are, Perry the Platypus." Doofenshmirtz could see his nemesis' red outline through the solid stone wall, thanks to his OWCA-certified infrared binoculars. Lifting the high-tech equipment from his face to better see the tall wooden door heading the lowered drawbridge, he added, "Now I just need to find a way to break in. How to do, how to do…." His hand massaged his chin in thought.

From a perspective just adjacent to the drawbridge, the figure of Dr. D could be seen and heard rushing the gate with a battering ram that, as it turned out, was actually a great big water balloon. It flopped back and forth with every step as he charged and braced for impact—and was spewed gushing backward across the bridge in a huge splash. The doors lumbered over him, hardly affected at all.

"Well, that didn't work," Doofenshmirtz said, picking back up his soggy wet self.

Moments later, he was again rushing the gate, this time with an enormous spring held out as a lance. He charged at full speed, lunging at the doors, and the spring compressed and rebounded two-fold, again sending the Doctor flying.

Picking himself back up for the second time, Doofenshmirtz paused when his cell phone rang from his pocket.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Heinz, this is Charlene. Did you forget that it's your turn with Vanessa this week?"

Looking at his watch, the secret agent grimaced. "I got caught up with work, I'm afraid. Can't be helped."

"You know, if you want to be a good father, you should really try to be more proactive in your daughter's life."

"I know, Charlene. Tell Honeybuns that I'll be home soon, and we can talk later." He hung up, not feeling too sorry about being rude.

"I'll find the weak chink in your castle, Perry the Platypus," he swore, "if it's the last thing I do!"

His next attempt to smash through the solid door flying with his standard OWCA-issued jet pack—rather like the way all secret agents do in cartoons, creating a hole shaped like their silhouette—merely left him squashed like a bug on a windshield.

"Ferb, binoculars, please." Phineas held out a hand, and was granted the item requested.

"Oh, it looks like Candace is going to Mr. Slushy Dawg's. What is she up to?" Through the peep-hole, he watched as his older sister stepped through the glass doors of the restaurant nonchalantly. "Come, Ferb! We need to get closer!"

A scene wipe later, at one of the booths inside the fast-food joint, a large newspaper was held up just so that it was impossible to see the face of the supposedly interested reader. Ferb poked out four little holes, and four eyeballs watched Candace approach the counter.

A blonde-haired boy Candace's age shouted, "Next!" Candace stepped up. "Hey, Candace," he said, coolly.

"Hehe, uh, hi, Jeremy," the redhead nervously replied.

"Why, that's Jeremy Johnson!" Phineas whispered. "What are you up to, Candace?"

After a moment of awkward silence on the girl's part, Jeremy asked, "So, can I, um, get you anything?"

"Oh, right!" exclaimed Candace. "Let's see, do you have anything that isn't fried, frozen, fizzy, or fileted?"

"We've got vegie-wraps," he suggested.

"I'll have one of those, please."

"Coming right up." After hitting a few strokes into the cash register, Jeremy said, "You know, Candace, I hit my break in 15 minutes; if you want to stick around, we can hang out."

"Yipee! I mean—I-I didn't know it was your break…" Candace blushed, now absentmindedly twirling a finger in her hair.

"Cool. See you in fifteen minutes."

Phineas nudged Ferb. "Duck!" As their sister walked by, hands holding her receipt close to her heart, they failed not to notice the dreamy gaze she was fixated with. Which gaze possibly explained how she managed to fail to notice them hiding under the booth table.

"This is getting very interesting, dear brother of mine," Phineas whispered once they were in the clear again. "Very interesting, indeed."

Doof, Secret Agent, Incorporated!

"I came in like a wrecking ball!" Doofenshmirtz screamed, riding an actual wrecking ball as it swung toward the solid stone bulwark of Perry's castle. It collided and was thoroughly walled by the durable fortress, leaving the Doctor again crushed against the side by his own momentum. He slid down with a painful squeaking noise to a slump back at the entrance. The door opened, and Carl, dressed as a butler, said, "Oh, for Pete's sake! It wasn't even locked! Master Perry has been waiting for you! Didn't you see he left the drawbridge down for you, and everything?"

The man in the lab coat groaned in decrepit reply.

Phineas and Ferb had crept behind the trash bin to get a closer view of the situation. They weren't expecting it, however, when a female worker came up to them from behind. "Excuse me, are you boys planning on buying anything?" she asked. "Because only paying customers are allowed to remain on these premises." She pointed at a sign that read, 'No Loitering.'

"Um," Phineas stalled, checking his pockets. He looked sideways at Ferb for help.

Ferb glanced at the floor, bent over to pick something up, and handed that something—which turned out to be a penny—to the manager. "Heh, we don't get our allowance until Friday," Phineas explained sheepishly. The woman did not look amused.

"Out!"

A minute later, Phineas and Ferb had their noses pressed against the window as Jeremy took a seat at Candace's table. They watched him say something and both teenagers immediately laughed.

Phineas peeled his face away to look at his brother. "What do you say, Ferb-o? Should we get Mom yet?"

Silence.

"Yeah, I agree. We need more evidence." The step-brothers slunk away, conceding the battle, but not giving up on the war.

"You'll find Master Perry awaiting you inside his study," Carl the Butler pointed. "May I take your coat, sir?"

Doofenshmirtz held up a hand. "Never touch the lab coat."

Suddenly, Secret Agent Doofenshmirtz landed in an action pose and took up a fighting stance. "Aha! So, we meet again, Perry the Platypus! Or should I say, Perry the Evil-pus!" The room was large, and not very well lit. While it had a large empty space in the middle, one of the side walls displayed various torture devices. Opposite that was a wide shelf full of books. The side of the room Dr. Doofenshmirtz was facing had broad golden steps leading up to a platform, upon which his waiting nemesis stood alongside whatever his latest diabolical creation was. "This time, you're going down! Down, down, down!"

Perry walked out of the shadows into full view of the limited light availed of the high stone windows. Dr. Doofenshmirtz was used to his appearance by now. He wore a bionic exoskeleton like a suit of armor. It came complete with a spiked tip at the end of his beaver-tail, a retractable mace, and an eyepiece on his left eye, giving him on ominous presence indeed.

None of this seemed to bother Dr. Doofenshmirtz. "I know I'm always saying this during our little tête-à-têtes, but seriously, you're way overusing the black. Have you ever tried white lab coats? Nothing says 'evil' like a lab coat. Not that I'd know, since I'm the good guy here—I'm just saying."

Being too busy talking, the secret agent reacted too slowly when Perry the Platyborg pulled a lever to his side. A historical relic from medieval times known as the wooden stockade cartoonishly wrapped itself around the Doctor, trapping him by the neck and wrists. "A set of stocks?" Doofenshmirtz cried in disbelief. "This belongs in a museum!"

Carl the Butler approached carrying a drink perched on a silver tray. "Care for a cool glass of grape juice, Monsieur Doofenshmirtz?"

"Oh, thank you." Dr. Doofenshmirtz took a sip from the straw protruding from the cup, and Carl retreated to a back room. Looking back at his nemesis, Doofenshmirtz inserted, "Although the juice doesn't change anything—I'm still sending you the bill from my chiropractor after this. Now, let's get on with it. What evil scheme have you concocted this time, and how do you plan to use it to take over the Tri-State Area today?"

Perry pulled on another lever stationed beside the one he had just used. A curtain was pulled skyward, revealing a monstrous looking machine. A barrel the size of a boxcar was mounted to the floor, its turret angled slightly up. "Ooh, that does look pretty evil," commented Doofenshmirtz. "It looks like it's a—Public-Speech-Inator, maybe? Although it is kind of giving off a Sleep-Inator vibe. Or maybe it's a Mirage-Inator? No, wait! I bet it's an Ice-Age-Inator! Is that it? Is it?"

To each of these suggestions, Perry shook his head 'no.'

"You know," suggested Doofenshmirtz, "it occurs to me that your evil monolog-making needs work, too. I mean, what kind of evil scientist doesn't monologue? I know that you are a platypus, and therefore can't speak, but there's gotta be a better way you can present your evil plan, like a slideshow, or something."

Shooting his nemesis a fierce look, Perry pulled another lever. A cage descended via a cable from the ceiling. Inside the cage, Francis Monogram crouched, helpless to escape. "Dr. Doofenshmirtz, thank goodness you are here! You have to help me!"

"Francis?! You kidnapped Francis Monogram?" Doofenshmirtz accused Perry.

"We go through this exact same cycle every day," Monogram pointed out. "Don't act too surprised."

Now the cage dangled directly in front of Perry's device. The Platyborg hit a button, and the machine enveloped Monogram in a red beam of light. Before their eyes, the man was transformed into a platypus—teal fur, tangerine beak, beaver tail, and all. The process complete, Perry shut off the ray.

"Great googley moogley!" Monogram uttered, looking himself over. "I've been platypus-ified!"

"Oh!" Doofenshmirtz gasped in realization. "It's a Turns-You-Into-A-Platypus-Inator! Why didn't you just say so?" Taking a moment to think about it, he added, "But still, what kind of an evil plan is turning Francis Monogram into a platypus? Sure, I guess that's kind of evil, since he won't be able to, I don't know, wear shoes, o-or reach anything on the top shelf, or, um, use the toilet anymore, I guess. But how do you benefit from this? I hope you don't mind me saying this, but you aren't very good at being evil."

Wearing a smug look showing he was only too happy to prove the secret agent-scientist wrong, Perry twisted a knob on the machine controls, one that Doofenshmirtz hadn't noticed before. The dial changed from 'Francis Monogram' to 'The Entire Tri-State Area.'

Doofenshmirtz stared in bewilderment. "Okay," he squeaked. "That's evil."

A satellite dish-shaped device poked out over the top of a bush, homing in on Candace and Jeremy as they walked down the street side-by-side. Phineas and Ferb shared the headphones that were plugged into the hearing-amplifier, each boy pressing one cup to an ear.

"The weather sure is nice, isn't it?" Candace asked.

"Sure is," Jeremy replied.

"They're talking about the weather now," Phineas whispered. "That means they're starting to get pretty serious."

Meanwhile, a troop of Fireside Girls led by a Mexican-Jewish girl with jet black hair were hidden in the top of an overhanging tree, watching the boys through binoculars. "Which one is the one?" Addyson asked.

"The cute one with the triangle-shaped head," Isabella whispered.

"That's the one?! But—look at his nose!"

"I know!" Isabella removed her binoculars so she could cast a dreamy look into space. "It crinkles in just the cutest way when he laughs…"

The rest of the girls turned and gave her suspicious looks. Isabella, upon noticing this, commanded, "Get back to reconnaissance, ladies."

Little did they suspect that, in a room full of computer screens not far away, they were being watched by a bespectacled boy themselves. "All these spy cameras are coming in quite handy," Irving snickered, cracking his knuckles in a catlike stretch. Then he hunched back over his keyboard. "This is way better than when I used to spy on my boring neighbors!"

"Man, that is one huge nerd," Buford said, lying prone in a dumpster outside while watching Irving through his window, which was open. "I'm totally gonna be wallopping on him when school starts."

An unmarked surveillance van was parked just around the corner, two FBI agents inside monitoring the bully's every move. "Keep talking, son; you're just digging yourself a deeper hole," one of the agents muttered.

Unaware that they were being watched at all, Candace and Jeremy walked all the way home together. Phineas and Ferb made sure to beat them there.

"It's not that it's a bad plan," Doofenshmirtz was rambling, "it's just that it's a tad cliché. There's movies about a lizard-person trying turn everyone into lizard-people, an ape-person turning everyone into ape-people, an alien turning everyone into aliens—I could go on and on. I give you points for ambition, but I'd say it's a fail on creativity. See, now taking over the Tri-State Area with a Zig-Zag-Inator, that's creative. That's the paradigm of creativity, there—."

His rant was cut short as Perry pressed a strip of tape against his mouth to halt the flow of words. He groaned through the gag while Perry the Platyborg pulled a lever, and the ceiling retracted while the Turns-You-Into-A-Platypus-Inator rose high into the air. Dr. Doofenshmirtz tried in vain to escape his stocks and stop his nemesis. Totally unresisted, Perry activated his device, and a surge of energy rippled through the air.

Phineas and Ferb burst through the front door. "Mom! You've got to come see what Candace is doing!"

Linda emerged from her sewing room. "Hi, boys," she warmly greeted. "Check this out; I knitted a sweater with a kitten on it! Look at how cute it is!"

The boys barely even noticed. "Yeah, that's great, Mom. Now hurry up; if you look outside, you'll see Candace is hanging out with Jeremy Johnson again!" Phineas took her by the hands and pulled; Ferb got behind and shoved. Linda cried out in surprise as she was driven out the front door.

"See?" Phineas said, without bothering to check over his shoulder whether Candace and Jeremy were, in fact, coming down the sidewalk. "Look, just like I told you!"

At that moment, a flash of red light swept over the neighborhood, and Linda and her two sons were instantly metamorphosed into platypuses. Looking at herself and the boys, Linda said, "At the moment, Phineas, I'm more concerned with the fact that we all just underwent a sudden and drastic change in species."

"Woah, that is weird," Phineas said, inspecting Ferb's and his new bodies. "I wonder if this is one of those unanticipated side-effects of climate change."

There was now a platypus nestled in the medieval stockade. Dr. Doofenshmirtz the Secret Agent Platypus realized that his body was much smaller now, and he wiggled his head out of the middle hole without much effort. Finally free, he tore off the tape smeared across his mandible and resettled his fedora lower on his forehead. "All right, Perry the Platypus, now that I have escaped your trap, you're in for a world of trouble, mister—oof!" Doofenshmirtz was cut off by a platypunch to the face. "Hey, no fair! I wasn't ready!"

Perry didn't waste any time. He grabbed his nemesis and tossed him across the room into a pile of cardboard boxes. It took a second for Doofenshmirtz to pick himself back up. "I wasn't ready for that one, either! That's it, you know what? I demand that you give me a free shot, to make things even!"

The Platyborg rolled his eyes, then turned sideways and pointed at his own cheek: a clear indication that Doofenshmirtz was granted his request.

"Hold on, I just need to get warmed up," said the good guy. "I don't want to pull anything." This was followed by a series of breathing exercises and karate-like motions. "Hoo-ah! Hi-yee! Ho!" Then Doofenshmirtz made to attack Perry, but tripped on the same piece of cardboard. "Ow! I'm okay! Just getting used to the new body!"

"It's also weird that we can talk," Phineas said. "You'd think that we wouldn't have human vocal chords if we were a platypus. We should only be able to make Perry's little noise thing, like this: Gllllllllllllllll…"

"Gududududud…" Ferb tried.

"Gweeleeleeleelee," chirped in their mother.

"Gllllllllllllllll…"

"Gududududud…"

Gweeleeleeleelee…"

"Gllllllllllllllll…"

"Gududududud…"

"Gweeleeleelee…"

"What are you doing?" Candace asked, stepping into the frame.

"Practicing our platypus sounds," Phineas answered.

"Why?"

"Because we're all platypuses now."

"Oh." There was a brief moment of silence. "Wait, we're all platypuses now?" Candace first looked each of the others over in turn, then lastly herself, taking in this startling revelation. "Mom? Phineas? Ferb? ACH! How did this happen?" Her hands flew to her face to feel her beak.

"Beats me," intoned Phineas. "But look at it this way—now we can play with Perry! How totally cool is that?"

"I am tired of playing with you, Perry!" Doofenshmirtz crowed in frustration. He threw a video game controller at Perry, who spliced the projectile with the whip of his tail. Doofenshmirtz's defenses lowered, Perry landed a karate chop on the lab-coat sporting platypus, then activated his rocket-foot and blasted off. Doofenshmirtz was just able to grab hold of Perry by his other ankle and was taken along for the ride into the skyline of Danville.

The Platyborg looked down to see Doofenshmirtz dangling from his webbed foot and tried to shake him off. After a few swings of his leg, Doofenshmirtz's grip slipped, and he fell with a crash through the roof of the tallest purple skyscraper in the city.

"Dad?"

"Oh, hi Vanessa," Doofenshmirtz said, standing up from the pile of rubble he caused in his living room. Vanessa, even in platypus form, still had her distinct air of impudence for all things conformitive. "I see the ray affected you too."

"What ray? Was it yours?"

"No, not mine."

"You mean a ray caused this?" She gestured at her new body. "Now how do I tell my new boyfriend I'm a platypus?" Vanessa bit her tongue when she realized her mistake.

"You have a new boyfriend?"

"N-no," Vanessa revised, thinking fast. "I meant, um, my new boyf rend. 'Boyfs' are the latest fashion style, and mine has a rend. Which means, I, um, can't wear it now, now that I'm a platypus."

Her father seemed to buy it. "Don't worry, Pumpkin, I have been working on a new invention for just such a situation as this, and you'll soon be able to wear all the boyf rends you desire." He put his arm around her shoulders to walk her to his lab around the corner. "Behold! The Super-Mega-Deluxe-Jumbo-Supreme-Ultra-Superlative-Plus-Inator!"

"Whoa," Vanessa said, having to lean her head back to see all of it due to how big it was. "What does it do?"

"Weren't you listening to the name?" Doofenshmirtz replied. "You see, when I was a boy back in Gimmelstump, I entered a science fair with my very first Inator. I wasn't very clever with names then, it was just, 'Inator.' This is the new and improved version! When I fire this, it might do nothing, OR—and this is a very big or, note how it's capitalized—if it can cause a long and convoluted enough chain reaction, it's got a shot of turning everything back to the way things are supposed to be."

"Are you sure?" asked Vanessa.

"I give it a one-in-four to the power of six hundred nine billion, two hundred twenty-seven million, eight hundred eleven thousand, five hundred ninety-two chance," said the Doctor. "Oh, and it takes so much power, we only get one shot."

Vanessa ran the calculation through her head. "That's not a very good chance," she said.

"Like I said, it would take a very long and convoluted chain of events, but eh, I've seen movies with worse odds." Doofenshmirtz took the plug that lay at his feet and inserted it into the wall outlet nearby. The Superlative-Inator charged up and fired its only shot.

"It's all up to fate now," Doofenshmirtz said, like a final prayer.

The pale blue light of the Inator's laser streaked through the sky, and the Mysterious Force began to exert its influence: improbability lost all meaning. The was an imbalance in the universe, and it needed to be restored. First, the beam struck a satellite in orbit, reflecting it back to earth. It narrowly missed the wing of an airplane ("And if you'll look to your right, you'll see a dangerous laser beam passing by," the stewardess' voice was heard on the intercom,) on its way through an open bedroom window, where it bounced off a mirror and back outside through the same window. Through the city it shot onward, reflecting off the window panes of skyscrapers many times before rushing off in a new direction.

It shot across the Statue of Liberty and bounced off the reflector of a tandem bicycle a young couple was riding.

It shot across the White Cliffs of Dover and bounced off the reflective glass of a lighthouse.

It shot across the pyramids of Machu Picchu and bounced off the mirror a tourist was using to apply her make up.

It shot across the Great Wall of China and bounced off an elderly man's bald head.

It raced back to Danville and bounced off the wing of Perry the Platyborg, who was still flying over the city, ricocheting into a carnival and through the entrance of a hall of mirrors. Back and forth the beam of light rebounded, until finally it shot back outside and hit, of all things, Francis Monogram the Platypus, who was still trapped inside his dangling cage.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Apparently due to the effects of the beam, the cylindrical cage was released and hit the ground at a roll. Out the room, out of the castle, across the drawbridge and over the moat Monogram rolled in his cage until he crashed into an apple tree. The cage door popped open, and Monogram dizzily clambered out. "I've got—such a migraine—right now..." An apple clopped him on the head. "Ope, and it's gone."

Isaac Newton's inspiration rolled down a gentle incline to a stop a short distance away from the tree. By sheer coincidence, at that exact moment, a groundhog poked its furry head out of the ground directly beneath the apple, which balanced perfectly on the creature's head like William Tell's assistant.

"Hey, little guy," Monogram slurred, still obviously doozy. "Are you an agent?"

Finally, a worm stuck its head out from a hole in the apple, signaling the climactic culmination of a most unlikely series of coincidences: Francis Monogram, the talking platypus, asking a groundhog with an apple balanced on its head if it was an agent, followed by a worm hole opening up. As if the strange and unusual nature of this event wasn't enough, a Giant Floating Baby Head wandered into view to release a giggling, gurgling burp. From the mouth of the Baby Head—the greatest, most inexplicable, and most powerful expression of the Mysterious Force—a freak wormhole tore open space and time, and into the wormhole the groundhog and apple were sucked.

All existence amended itself back into its equilibrated state in the brief moment the apple and groundhog spent inside the wormhole. In defiance of all logic or probability, normality was restored.

Here are the apple's thoughts during the consecutive moments of its existence following its reemergence back through the the wormhole: "..."

The groundhog, on the other hand, merely thought, 'Oh no, not again.' Because the groundhog realized it had materialized in this new universe at an elevated point, and was now falling, it grappled onto the apple to cushion its landing.

Agent P hammered on the self-destruct button with his fist. This time, however, the Inator didn't explode like usual. The button seemed to be jammed. He felt a shockwave of energy ripple through the air as Doofenshmirtz's device began to glow in an alien green light, fading and brightening in rapid pulses.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," commented Doofenshmirtz, who was standing not far behind on the balcony of his apartment.

The groundhog-apple combination, now moved upon by the Mysterious Force, hit the Status-Quo-Inator's self-destruct button at high velocity. The jammed button was depressed the final fractions of an inch, initiating the self-destruct cycle properly. Unceremoniously, the Inator blew up, covering Doofenshmirtz alone in a thick layer of soot.

"Curse you, Perry the Platypus," he coughed, while the groundhog landed unharmed on the top of his head. Agent P departed on his hang glider, the logo of his face plastered across the orange background.

Candace pulled Linda the last few feet out the door and gestured to what she hoped was Phineas' and Ferb's creation immediately behind her, although she was more focused on her mother seeing it than double-checking that it was, in fact, still there.

"The boys have totally ruined the back yard, leaving this ugly mess in its place!"

The backyard, of course, was empty, save for the kids standing in a group by the tree. Linda waved at her children. "Hi, boys!"

"Hi Mom!" Phineas cheerfully responded.

Candace stared at the scene before her in utter bewilderment.

"Oh! Is this what you were hoping I would do, Candace?" Linda smirked. "You two are so busted!" She pointed at her sons and winked.

"And, because it's Opposite Day, that means they're not busted," Candace groaned.

"Do you guys want to come in for some snacks?" Linda asked the gang.

"Is x² the integral of 2x?" Phineas answered in question form.

"Plus C," Baljeet muttered under his breath, although he quickly jumped in line with the rest of them.

Perry was there to lead the way inside. "Oh, there you are, Perry," Ferb said conclusively. As a fitting final touch, the sun was smoothly setting across the western horizon.

"And so everything goes on, the same as always," Candace drawled. "What a surprise. It's impossible to change the status quo around here."

Thanks for reading! A big thanks also for The WGPM, who is now my songwriting-beta! If you liked this, be sure to go check out her Waiting To Be Told, another fanfiction for one-shot original episodes like this. It's really good. And don't forget to review/follow/favorite; lest the ire of the Mysterious Force come upon you!