"Don't cry, Agent P. It's all right. I promise you."
Perry jerked away from Monogram and continued to sob. How did he know it was okay? It wasn't. It never would be. He would never be the same again. And it was all the sidewalk's fault.
"Here." Monogram said gently. He scooped Perry up into his lap and bandaged his hands. "I know it hurts, but you're all right. You just scraped your hands. It will feel better in a few days."
Perry sniffed and looked at his hands. They kind of felt better.
"They'll go back to normal soon. I promise."
Perry felt himself growing. Monogram grew, too. Older and older, until his hair and mustache were completely white.
He was guiding Perry down a hall. Perry was trying hard to keep himself together. All he could think of was how he had almost had something wonderful. It had been snatched from him before he had even had time to enjoy it.
"It's all right, Agent P." Monogram said. "It's just gone back to normal now, that's all. Back to normal. Back in the first dimension, back with your family, back to keeping your identity a secret."
Monogram faded away.
Perry was driving the stolen silver van. People were screaming as they were dragged away by aliens.
Perry had to swerve to avoid a large paper top hat.
He looked around desperately. But he was alone.
No one was there.
No one told him that everything would be all right.
No one told him that everything was going to go back to normal.
Perry woke feeling like he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. His throat and head felt funny.
Paisley was asleep, stretched out in the middle of the bed. Remy was sleeping soundly on the floor. She had dragged her blanket down from her room upstairs.
Perry got out of bed without waking Paisley and made his way down the hall into the kitchen.
"I made breakfast." Pamela announced. She was melting blueberries on a pan.
"Good." Perry said wearily. He picked Pamela up and placed her in a chair at the breakfast table. He switched off the stove.
"They have to cook for at least five hours." Pamela informed him.
"They're done enough." Perry said. "Do you want pancakes?"
Pamela nodded.
Peppily hopped into the kitchen, dragging a teddy bear along with him. "Daddiwy, thewe awe pictuwes of you on da wawl!"
"Yeah, Prince already furnished the place." Perry said.
"No." Remy said, coming into the kitchen. "This place was already furnished. Those pictures aren't of you. Just some platypus that looks like you."
"Are you all right?" Perry asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. My armor protected me. Where is it, by the way? What happened?"
"Probably still in Danville." Perry said, cracking an egg into a bowl. "You sure you're okay? You were pretty out of it last night."
"Yeah, I think my head's just bruised." Remy said.
"Come see, daddiwy!" Peppily said, pulling Perry away from the bowl.
He dragged Perry to the carpeted stairs at the front of the house and pointed.
There was a large portrait of a female platypus and a male platypus with a very serious look on his face. Between them was their child, a platypus with hazel eyes.
"Weird." Perry said. "I feel like I've seen that pup before."
"It is you wiwf goldenwy eyes." Peppily said.
"It's not me. It just looks like me." Perry said. "It looks like someone else, too… who is that…"
He suddenly realized he had left Pamela alone with pancake batter and ran back into the kitchen. Pamela was dumping her cooked blueberries into the batter.
"Blueberry pancakes!" Pamela said happily.
"Okay then." Perry said.
...
The tall, black-haired man sitting next to Phineas was totally Ferb.
There was no doubt about it. He so wasn't Ferb that he was Ferb.
Phineas was proud that he was able to figure it out.
"You know, Ferb." He said sleepily. "I still don't know why we got captured and brought into this room. What did we do?"
The room he and Not Ferb were in was a crystally blue color. It didn't look like there were any doors, and the room's walls and floors appeared to be moving like a liquid.
"Our play didn't even get to finish." Phineas said sadly. "And Perry didn't get to walk us home."
Not Ferb sighed. "I was busy tossing a tennis ball on the ceiling. They took me away before I got the chance to see it stick to the roof."
The real Ferb walked over to Phineas and sat down next to him.
"Ferb, I was just talking to you." Phineas said.
Ferb blinked.
"We were talking about how it was so unfair that we all got dragged away by those aliens. We can't let them take over, Ferb. What if they get rid of summer?"
"Summer." Not Ferb said.
Phineas picked up a magic wand he found on the floor. "We'll attack them with this sword!"
He was fully aware that the magic wand was not a sword, but he somehow also fully believed it was a sword.
"We'll overthrow those aliens!" Phineas shouted, standing up. "They're not the boss of us! We'll defeat them!"
"YEAH!" Shouted Isabella, brandishing a rolling pin.
"YEAH!" Yelled Doofenshmirtz, holding up two Ducky Momo dolls dressed in little raincoats.
"YEAH!" Shouted all the humans.
"AND AS SOON AS WE FIND THE DOOR, WE'LL BEGIN!" Phineas said.
"YEAH!"
...
"Poor Lowe." Devon said.
Lowe was spread out on the floor, weak and pale. The flower on his head was in full bloom.
The room spun slowly around. It was in the center of some alien research facility, and the animals were all separated from the aliens by glass.
"They look human." Manfred Freeny the mink said. "But they aren't."
He peered through the glass at the aliens discussing things down below.
"Kyle isn't doing too well either." Peter said, dragging Kyle the kangaroo next to Lowe.
Kyle flopped down, revealing a shimmering flower blooming on his back.
"It's those flowers." Pinky said. "The aliens must have attached them. It's draining their energy."
Peter touched Lowe's flower lightly and jerked back as a small bud grew on his paw.
"Don't touch it." Pinky said, a little late.
Peter whimpered.
"Stupid aliens." Devon grumbled. "They bust into our planet, take us prisoner, and then weaken us so that we can't fight back?"
"We SHOULD fight back." Pinky said. "If we all join together, maybe we can beat them."
"Where's Perry?" Peter asked. "Did he get away all right? I don't see him here."
"We can't worry about Agent Perry now." Ernest the eagle said, coming up to them. He looked down at the weakened Lowe with little concern. "Agent Pinky is right. We must attack, and attack soon, before this flower spreads to all of us."
He glared at Peter, who had carelessly placed his flowered paw on Ernest's wing, causing a tiny bud to grow there.
"AGENTS, WILL WE FIGHT?" Pinky shouted.
"YES!" The agents all shouted.
"YES!" The mindless animals that were trapped along with them echoed.
"It's been too long, Juniper!" Agreed an elderly platypus named Pepper.
"No…" Kyle said weakly.
"EVERYONE EXCEPT KYLE AND LOWE, WILL WE FIGHT?" Pinky corrected.
"YES!"
"LET'S TAKE THEM DOWN!"
"YES!"
"WE JUST GOTTA FIND A WAY OUT OF HERE FIRST!"
...
"Staying hidden was a good choice." Malice the dog said, bolting up the door. "I just surveyed the streets, and they're completely empty. Aliens must've taken everyone in."
Finicky the cat yawned.
"Then my mother's been kidnapped." Crusher the platypus said. "We'd better go find her."
"Are you crazy?" Tesla the skunk said. "There are aliens out there-"
Crusher's pupils narrowed into reptilian slits. Tesla stopped speaking.
"I'm not going out there." Malice said.
"Come on." Crusher said. "They aren't gonna leave us alone. They'll find us eventually. Doesn't Royal Guard fight against unfair society?"
"There's no unfair society left to fight against." Finicky said. "The aliens captured everyone."
"The ALIENS are the unfair society, dimwit." Crusher said. "I don't care what you guys do. I'm rebelling. My mom would do the same for me. And she'd do the same for you, too, Malice."
Malice sighed. "Fine. I guess we might as well go to war against the aliens."
...
"Look, guys!" Daly said. "I figured out how to put a television screen in Gluum! Now we can check up on the people in the living world!"
The ghosts all cheered.
"Where should we check first?" Daly asked.
All the ghosts began to shout at once.
"Hang on." Daly said. "Let's let Bucky pick first. He is my right-hand man, after all."
A clanking dog skeleton trotted faithfully up to the moldy dirt stage that Daly was standing on.
"He got picked first because he's the same species." Muttered a skinny human ghost.
Bucky clattered his bones together.
"Danville. Right. Let's have a look." Daly said.
He switched on the television.
An empty street flashed onto the screen.
Bucky gave a sad clank.
"That's odd." Said Terrence, a turkey ghost. "It looks as though it's been…"
"Attacked." Daly finished. "Who could attack an entire city?"
Bucky clattered in anger.
"I'll change the view." Daly fiddled with the television's antennae. The picture changed to a bunch of humans trapped together in one room. They appeared to be starting a riot, arming themselves with plush toys and sports equipment.
"Yes, yes… trapped humans. This doesn't look good." Daly changed the scene again.
This time, the television screen showed animals.
"Peter." Terrence said. "Peter the panda. And Pinky the Chihuahua."
"My son!" Shouted a fennec fox in the back. He had only come to Gluum a few weeks before. "He needs help!"
"You know them?" Daly said.
"Yeah… it looks like they're stuck somewhere. We have to help them." Terrence said anxiously.
"Eh, might as well. Did anyone else have any other plans?" Daly asked.
The ghosts all shook their heads.
"Great, then. Let's go save Terrence's friends." Daly rubbed his paws together and tossed a blue flame on the ground. "Remember. Your Earth form is not half as powerful as your Gluum form. You can't physically harm people unless you possess another life form. Come along, ghosts! We have a town to save!"
One by one, all of the ghosts hopped into the flame.
Bucky stood guard, waiting faithfully for them to return.