A/N: Well, first episode with Vanessa in it, and yeah, Perry's interactions with her change a little bit with him being human and pretty close to her age. I don't think they change too much though.
Today, the Flynn-Fletcher siblings were supposed to spend the day at Clem's Carnival, so Mom dropped them off. Phineas and Ferb had wanted to ride ponies, but it wasn't nearly as exciting as they had hoped. Perry watched them from the yard, bored, while Candace stayed in the car for as long as possible, talking to Stacy on the phone.
"Smile, boys!" Mom said from the car as she took a picture. "Aw, you two look so cute!"
Phineas said to no one in particular, "She means well."
"I'll be back in a few hours," Mom stated. "Have fun!"
As Mom pulled forward with the car, Candace appeared and said, "Yeah, right. You better not pull any of your weird stunts, got it?"
Phineas drawled, "Don't fret none, school marm."
Candace didn't pay any attention to what Phineas called her as she hopped up on the fence and opened her phone, talking into it likely to Stacy, "So, he was like totally checking me out when little Miss Pants walks in front of me. Yeah, yeah! So I was like, 'Uh, hello?' and so she was like, 'Oh no, you di-in't!' and I was like 'Oh yes, I di-id!'"
Well, Perry was getting out of here; he did not need to hear one-sided teenage girl gossip. He ran to one of the buildings and quickly changed. His lair entrance today was supposed to be through water, so he put on a wet-suit for the occasion instead of his regular suit for now. He just hoped Monogram remembered to turn off the laser sharks, a defensive system in place to protect against intruders. As Perry walked back outside, he saw that Phineas and Ferb had gotten off of the ponies and found Isabella, who Phineas was talking to right now.
"We're riding ponies," Phineas explained to her. "But it makes a feller hanker for the real thing. You know, livin' out on the open range. Ridin', ropin', brandin'. Bustin' broncos and breakin' wind with your amigos under the western skies. Heck, we could even ford a stream! I don't even know what that means, but it sounds fun!" He then spit and said, "Oh, and spitting. Hey, where's Perry?"
Locating the trough right in front of the building, Perry took a deep breath and dived into it. Swimming down, he very quickly discovered that Monogram had indeed not turned off the laser shark as it tried shooting him, and while he dodged the lasers, they did hit a few underwater mines nearby. Narrowly, Perry reached the entrance of his lair and climbed up, grabbing his hat off of a rack and changing into dry clothes before heading to his monitor.
Major Monogram was already speaking when Perry pressed the button, but the sentence seemed to not be directed to him.
"-yeah, and she was like 'Oh no, you di-in't!' and–" by then Monogram finally noticed Perry. "Oh, there you are, Agent P."
"You left the laser sharks on again," Perry sighed.
"Oops, my bad," Monogram said. "Anyway, the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz is at it again. Not only does he have 3 books about insects overdue at the library, but he's cornered the market on aluminum siding. He's holed up on his water fortress on Lake Winimahatikihaha." Perry pulled out his notepad and wrote: 3 insect books overdue, bought up aluminum siding, on Lake Winimahatikihaha. Monogram then laughed, "Haha, I love saying that. You must find out what he's up to and put a stop to it. That is all."
Because Doofenshmirtz was at his water fortress, Perry decided to travel using his jet-ski through a pipe and onto the lake. His tracking device beeped and he saw that the fortress was right in front of him, so he rode the jet-ski up the ramp into the building, jumping off of it to pose on the floor. There stood Doofenshmirtz and some girl with him in all black clothing. She seemed vaguely familiar, but Perry was fairly certain he'd never seen her before.
"Ah, Perry the Platypus!" Doof exclaimed. "As usual, your timing is uncanny! And by uncanny, of course I mean: COMPLETELY CANNY!" He pressed a button and Perry found himself tied up in rope which lifted him slightly off the ground. "So, Perry the Platypus, let me introduce to you my assistant, Vanessa." Assistant? Since when was Doofenshmirtz that good at doing evil to have an assistant? And Perry had a feeling he'd heard the name Vanessa somewhere before, though he couldn't recall right now.
The "assistant" Vanessa seemed to finally get a good proper look of Perry and said nonchalantly, "You didn't tell me he was gonna be handsome."
"What?" Doof looked at his "assistant" incredulously. "He's like 21 or something, which is way too old for you, Vanessa!" Actually, Perry was probably fairly close in age to this Vanessa, but ever since he'd started fighting Doofenshmirtz at age 14, the doctor just assumed he was at least 18 already at the time, and Perry hadn't felt inclined to correct him. Anyway, it wasn't like Perry was very much interested in what girls his age thought of his looks, much less girls who were working with his nemesis.
"Whatever," Vanessa sighed, putting on headphones and blocking out the rest of the conversation.
Doof nervously laughed, "She's new. Anyway, at this very moment–" Doofenshmirtz then placed a green helmet with an antenna on his head, "-termites all over the Tri-State Area will be controlled by me, using my Termite Controlling Helmet! See? See?" He pulled up a jar and a magnifying glass, showing Perry all of the termites within. Well, that explained the 3 insect books overdue at the library. "They have cute little helmets just like me. I don't want to tell you how long it took to put them all on. So, watch this!" He opened the lid of the jar and held a lump of wood in his other hand, pouring the termites onto the wood. They sculptured a wooden replica of Doof's head before returning to their jar. Perry's rope seemed to keep raising slowly above the ground, as the several monitors lining the walls flashed on with an image of Danville's downtown. "Soon I will have them devour all the wood in the entire Tri-State Area. Then everyone will have to buy aluminum siding from me!" And that explained cornering the market on aluminum siding.
"Doofenshmirtz Aluminum Siding!" a jingle sounded as Doofenshmirtz and Vanessa walked away.
"You're through, Perry the Platypus. Through!" Doofenshmirtz pulled out a remote and pressed the button, opening up the floor to reveal lava, and he laughed. "Now it is time for platypus flambé!"
Perry widened his eyes in surprise as the rope lowered him closer to the bubbling lava. If it was just this little slit of the floor that was open, he could easily swing over to one side or the other if he grabbed something to cut the rope. Still, the sudden heat wave almost overwhelmed his senses. Knowing that if he breathed in too much of the lava filled air it would be detrimental to his lung health, Perry took one last deep breath while he was still fairly high up in the air before trying his best to hold his breath.
Muffled through the door, he could hear Doofenshmirtz say, "Vanessa, did you bring the little wooden head the termites made?"
Unfortunately, the lava was not just limited to a little slit of the floor, as gradually the whole floor opened up as a lava pit. Perry glanced around, trying to find a good place to swing to. He'd have to do it quickly, as to avoid the bursting bubbles from the magma, he had to hold himself completely parallel with the lava. He calculated that there was still barely enough room for his leg if he pulled himself upright, but if he wasn't careful he could get badly burnt. He knew accuracy was key, but he also had to act quickly, as he had no idea if the rope would lower more or possibly catch on fire, dropping him straight into the lava and giving him a most painful, swift death. All his clothes were strongly fireproof reinforced, as was OWCA-standard, but that didn't mean the rope or his hair and skin were.
The monitors lit up again, and Doofenshmirtz and his assistant appeared once again on it as Doof taunted, "Any last words, Perry the Platypus? Ooh, what about that chirping silly noise that you make?"
Perry chattered, making his "chirping silly noise," though it came out as more of a growl. The chatter was something Perry did on occasion when he wanted to express that he had something to say without words. In protection of his cover identity, Perry didn't like to speak a lot on his missions as his natural accent was very unique in the Tri-State Area, and combined with the teal hair, anybody who didn't have face blindness would definitively put two and two together.
"That's the one!"
As the rope lowered even more, Perry knew he had to act fast. As he had searched, he noticed a few buttons that looked promising, and a nice lever to land on. Pulling himself upright, Perry swung with all his might, barely missing the lava with his foot, and landed safely on top of the controls. Behind him, the rope burst into flames and released him. Seeing a magenta button with a "CAUTION!" underneath it, Perry figured nothing was worse than being burned alive by lava, like he had almost gone through, and went to touch it.
Doofenshmirtz screamed, "Don't touch that button! No, no, the other one." Confused, Perry looked to his left and saw another button that read CAUTION! that was yellow and black striped, so he hovered his hand over it. "Yes, that one! That's the one you should not touch!"
Perry confidently pressed the button with his finger.
"Self-destruct sequence initiated," a computer voice said. Of course.
"Now you've gone and done it!" Doofenshmirtz yelled at him.
"You put a self-destruct button in a death chamber?" Vanessa asked. "I'm so out of here. This is the worst 'bring-your-daughter-to-work-day' ever." Ahh, so that's where Perry remembered hearing Vanessa's name and why she looked vaguely familiar. Even though he hadn't personally met her before, she was in Doofenshmirtz's file which Perry had read a while ago, and she probably had some sort of genetic resemblance to Doof himself.
"Tell your mother you had fun though!" Doof said.
"Oh, by the way, I'm taking the last escape pod," Vanessa informed him.
"It's okay, I'll just take the jet pack," Doof told her as she stepped into the pod and left. Perry spotted the jetpack in the chamber with him as Doof asked himself, "Now where did I put– Oh, what was I thinking? I put a jetpack in there too? I might as well have given him an escape hatch! I mean–"
A bell rang, and an escape hatch opened up. Perry immediately activated the jetpack and flew through the hatch, not taking any chances. He never wanted to be hanging helplessly over lava ever again.
As he got up into the air, however, he could still barely hear Doofenshmirtz screaming, "HEEELP MEEE! HELP!" Rolling his eyes, Perry flew back down to the fortress, locating Doof and catching him with the jetpack so that he was on top of it. "Wait, go back!" Doof screamed, but Perry didn't listen to him. "I forgot my little wooden head!" The fortress exploded right as soon as they got out. "Yes, yes, we are safe!"
"You may think that I am defeated, Perry the Platypus. But I still have my termite controlling helmet!" Doof laughed, but just then the jetpack sputtered and stopped until they started falling. "Save us, Perry the Platypus!" Perry pulled out his parachute, slowing his fall, and Doof desperately gripped on his feet until they reached the top of Clem's Carnival's rollercoaster.
"Woah, oh, I survived!" Doof laughed.
Still floating in the air with his parachute, Perry flipped the helmet's switch on the back to reverse, and it beeped.
"Wait, what was that? Did-did you just hit the reverse switch? Oh, why did I put that on there? I can't even reach it! What is wrong with me, anyway?"
As he softly landed on the ground, Perry watched as Doof ran for his life down the rollercoaster track away from the termites. "Aah! Wait! Go away! Aah! Stop! Perry! Help me! Aaah! Stop it! Aah! Help me! Heeelp mee!"
On the other side of the rollercoaster, Perry noticed a herd of cows heading his way and behind it Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella on ponies. While he slightly hid behind one of the poles, he watched as the boards from the track fell around the cows and then part of the metal track fell on top of the boards, trapping the cows. Well, he might have caused the rollercoaster to be partially destroyed, but he also helped get the cows back into a corral, so he didn't see it as a total loss.
"Waah! Curse you, Perry the Platypus!" Doof screamed one last time before running away out of sight. Putting away his hat and stripping his work outfit down to his civilian clothes, Perry walked back to where Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella were getting off of their ponies.
"Huh," Perry heard Phineas say as he got closer. "That was so awesome."
"Woo-hoo!" Isabella agreed. Just then, Mom pulled up in the car to pick them all up again.
Getting out of the car, Mom said, "Hey kids. Did you guys have fun?"
"Yee-haw!" was Phineas's answer.
"Yo, doggie!" Isabella added.
"Oh, good," Mom seemed relieved.
Candace came trudging up looking very much rougher-for-the-wear. She growled as she walked past them.
"Candace?" Mom exclaimed upon seeing her. "Are you okay, sweetie?"
"I so don't want to talk about it," Candace explained crabbily. Well, at least if Perry didn't look his best with being so close to lava, nobody would really notice compared to how she looked.
"All right. Get in the car, snappy pants," Mom told Candace before turning back to the other kids. "What was that about?"
Ferb took his hat off of his helmet and enlightened them, saying, "I reckon herding cattle ain't for city folk."