"Well, I'd say that was a very successful afternoon!" Phineas declared as the stream of gift baskets finally petered off. "We did a good thing for the Brocktonclan, had a fun musical number, and made a new friend!" He smiled cheerfully at Taylor, who blinked back with bafflement.
"Wait, what? We're friends now?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, you kind of did come into our backyard and help us with a project, seems like friend material to me." Phineas turned to Ferb, who nodded in agreement. "See, even Ferb thinks so."
"Huh." Taylor stared down at the kids. "I... guess we are friends now, then. Um... nice to meet you, I guess...?"
"And it's good to meet you too, Taylor!" Phineas declared brightly. "Hey, if you stick around you can meet the rest of my family!"
"...they'd be okay with the random girl who wandered into the backyard?"
"Sure. That's how we met a lot of our friends." Phineas pointed up. "Look, here comes a new one now!"
"Uh, Phineas?" Isabella stepped back warily. "That... kinda looks more like a flying soldier than a friend--"
"Oh no, it's okay," Taylor reassured her. "That's Dauntless, one of Brockton Bay's heroes."
"That I am," said the man as he landed in the backyard, a smile visible under his greecian helmet. "Hello, kids!"
"Hey, mister Dauntless!" Phineas greeted cheerfully. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, my boss noticed a swarm of objects spreading out across the city and sent me to investigate. When I realized they were gift baskets, I decided to track them down to their source."
"Oh yeah, we made those."
Dauntless looked down at the boys. "Did you now?"
"Yep! I'm Phineas, and this is my brother Ferb. And when we heard the broadcast about the new city being merged with Danville, we decided we had to do something to welcome them all. So we built that," he gestured at the machine, "to make all the gift baskets."
"Impressive," Dauntless praised.
"Yeah, it's up there," Isabella agreed. "I mean, I wouldn't put it in the top fifty of their inventions, but it was fun to work on."
Dauntless turned to her. "They, ah... do this often?"
"Build things? Yeah, pretty much once an afternoon. Granted, citywide projects like this usually only happen twice a month or so. I'd have to double-check my records to be sure."
"Oh wow, you keep records?" Phineas asked, impressed.
"I'm the head of a Fireside Girl troop, Phineas, of course I keep records. How else will I confirm how many patches everyone has earned?"
Dauntless cleared his throat. "Well, I'm fairly certain Armsmaster would love to have a look at those records sometime, if you're willing to drop by the PRT headquarters one day. And I'm positive he'd like to have a look at that machine."
"Oh cool!" Phineas said. "Who's Armsmaster?"
"He's the head of the local Protectorate," Taylor explained. "Basically the leader of a superhero team. His power lets him build incredible technology."
"That's right," Dauntless agreed. "Do you mind if he looks this thing over?"
"You can take it with you if you want. Ferb?"
At Phineas's unspoken question, Ferb pressed a single button on the side of the faux-playground. Dauntless and Taylor watched, flabbergasted, as the machine folded up into something no larger than a book, which Ferb handed to Dauntless casually.
The hero stared at the object in his hand, as though it defied explanation.
"...and I just press that button again to make it expand?" he finally asked.
"Yep," Phineas said. "Make sure it's facing this side up, though."
"I'll remember that. Well, I believe I should be making my way back to headquarters."
"Watch out for random musical numbers," Taylor said quickly. "They apparently happen here all the time."
"Oh, thanks for the tip, miss..."
"Hebert. Taylor Hebert."
"Taylor's from Brockton Bay too," Phineas explained brightly. "She helped us figure out what to put in the gift baskets and avoid... a certain cultural faux pas."
"Well, that was very kind of you, miss Hebert," Dauntless said. "I'm glad somebody as quick-thinking as you found these two before anybody else did."
"Oh. Wow. Uh. Thanks, I... thanks."
"In any case, I really should get back. Farewell, citizens!"
With his boots glowing, Dauntless launched up into the air and flew away just as the back door to the building slid open.
"...and I'm telling you that every time my mom comes home their invention is... gone," the redheaded girl finished, deadpan. "Alright, what was it this time, Phineas? Random explosion? Mysterious ray from the sky?"
"A superhero wanted to take our invention to his boss so he could look it over," Phineas explained.
"...well at least that isn't as bad as the animation studio that literally danced away."
"Wow, Candace, you really weren't lying," said the blonde girl. "I'll admit I doubted you, but what do you know, the machine is actually gone." She shook her head. "Sorry, I'm being ruded. Lisa Willbourne, Brockton native. I bumped into your sister at the mall. You must be Phineas and Ferb, right?"
"That's us!" Phineas agreed. "And that's Isabella, our neighbor from across the street."
"Pleased to meet you," Isabella chirped.
"Oh, and this is Taylor," Phineas added. "She came over to help us plan out the baskets."
"Honestly, I was just kind of walking by when I heard their plans and... I kinda... had to stop them from doing something really foolish," Taylor admitted.
"Ugh, thanks," the redhead groaned. "Brothers, am I right?"
"I wouldn't know, I'm an only child."
"Lucky you," the girl deadpanned. "Oh, sorry, right. I'm Candace Flynn, the older sister of these two. And this is my friend Stacy."
"Sup," Stacy said. "Love your hoodie, by the way, very chique."
"...thanks...? It's storebought..."
"Oh, I know, I've had to buy soooo many ribbons, you have no idea."
"Well I'm glad to have another friend that'll help me look after my brothers," Candace declared. "They can be quite a handful."
"So I've gathered," Taylor deadpanned. "There was a whole musical number and everything."
"Oh god, that happened here too?" Lisa groaned, though there was an amused glint in her eyes. "I swear, I nearly jumped when Candace broke out into song."
"Hey, my singing isn't that bad!" Candace objected.
"Oh it definitely isn't, but Brockton Bay isn't used to random musical numbers."
"That's sad," Phineas mused. "Random musical numbers are a great way to bring the town together."
"They take a lot of prep though... or maybe they don't for you guys..."
The conversation wandered and meandered from there till at last the visitors, one by one, decided to go their seperate ways. Taylor was surprisingly the last to depart, and she walked home with a gift basket in her hands, humming the tune she'd only heard that day quietly to herself.
"Hmmhmm something fun, the boys'll get it done, hmmhmmhmhm soon, just wait an afternoon, hmmhmhmmmhm hmmhmm hmmmm hm hmmmm..."
She rolled her shoulders as she entered her house, locking the door and dropping the basket off on the table.
"Impossible's a word hmmmhmmhmmhmm absurd, hmmhmhmhmmhm hmmmhm hm hmmmhmm, hmmhmhmm you have no idea what's in stoooooore..."
And for the first time in a long time, she fell asleep with a smile on her face.
Thomas Calvert was an organized and orderly man. His end goal was to rule Brockton Bay completely and totally, with both a legitimate position and a stranglehold on the criminal world, and that took careful, measured planning. He lived his life in a strictly and personally regimented manner, lining up his goals and his means perfectly with every action he took. He knew full well the dangers of risk-taking, since he alone could take risks without those dangers ever truly affecting him. Even the chaos of the city was taken into account when he scheduled his daily routine.
Which meant that unexpected developments were some of the most frustrating things in his life.
Oh, he didn't fall into a murderous rage, like his colleague in Boston would have, but he did tense when that flash of greenish-white blinded him in both his timelines--and forcibly shutting the one outside his base down. He barely had time to process that before his computer abruptly shut off, followed by the lights flickering ominously. It could have been a malfunction... or it could have been an attack. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the radio communications didn't seem to be working...
He split the timeline, heading for the security office in one reality while he tried to reboot his computer in the other. Opening the door was a bit of a struggle, but he managed it and stalked into the hallway of his underground base.
"Report," he demanded as soon as he arrived at his destination.
"Sudden disconnect from the power grid, sir. I've got men looking into it, we should be good to go as soon as they figure out what went wrong."
"Any sign of outside involvement?"
"Besides that green-white flash? Unclear."
Calvert rubbed his chin. The flash that had happened in both realities... was it targeting him specifically, or had it affected the whole city?
"Try to get in contact with our assets outside as soon as possible," he ordered, storming back out of the command center and toward the garage. As soon as he found out what was going on, there would be hell to pay.
In his other timeline, he'd finally booted up his computer, and was running through the network checks. Everything inside the base was still connected, even if some of it was unpowered. But switching the computer over to internet mode revealed that he couldn't connect to anything outside the base; it was almost as if everything was gone. Frustration building, he slumped in his seat, forcing himself to focus on the timeline where he was driving out of the secret garage. Maybe getting a view of things with his own eyes would provide him with some sort of clue.
The car trundled out the hidden entry and up the ramp, emerging on an unfamiliar road with unfamiliar buildings. Calvert had just enough time to gape incredulously before an enormous cheese wheel, of all things, crushed his engine.
He dropped the timeline immediately, leaning back in his seat in shock. That had been entirely... that was... a cheese wheel?
Why a cheese wheel?
Shaking it off, he split the timeline again, this time trying to access the external cameras. He could see the cheese wheel rolling down the road, cars swerving to avoid it, being chased by a teenager in a sweater vest of all things. There was something odd about the kid, but it didn't really matter at the moment--no, what mattered most was getting a read on the situation around his base. He examined the screens carefully, noting how some of the buildings were exactly as they should be and some were very, very different. So it was a citywide effect, after all.
In his other timeline, he was already marching back up to the secret garage. The cheese wheel was rolling away, so it'd be safe for him to get out and drive home. He could likely find some actual information there, if his computer was still connected to the internet...
The car trundled out the hidden entry and up the ramp. Calvert turned right, just in time for a ballistic llama to go through his windshield.
He opted to drop that timeline, doublechecking the recordings from the external cameras in his office. Yes, that was a god-damned llama running down the street. Wearing a tutu, of all things. Why was a llama wearing a tutu? Why was a llama there at all?
Calvert decided against driving out of his base a third time. Once was happenstance. Twice was coincidence. Three times was not worth risking.
He could wait until the connection to the external network was fixed. His apparent absence might lead to uncomfortable questions but, if his slowly growing hunch was correct, those questions would be overshadowed by whatever had just happened to the rest of the city...
What could have happened? The flash, the change in buildings, the lack of any serious damage to the infrastructure... It was entirely out of his experience, even living in a world of parahumans. There should have been some sort of city-wide warning, an a-class or s-class alert. A fresh trigger, maybe, could have flown under the radar, but the number of triggers that could immediately pump out this amount of power... it wasn't nearly as high as the public believed. And as terrible as Brockton Bay was, the relative trauma of a trigger had no bearing on its power.
He split the timeline again, experimentally calling Cauldron... only to find that even on this unique phone, he had no signal. That... was impossible, wasn't it? They were everywhere...
Collapsing the timeline again, he took a glance at the cameras again--and leaned back in shock when he saw a woman in some sort of victorian outfit ride up to the hidden entry on a scooter, with ramparts of all things on the back of the vehicle. It at least fit with the theme, going by the knight's helmet she was wearing. She looked at the door, then at her tablet, then knocked with a shrug.
After a moment, Calvert flipped on the intercom. "Captain," he said, splitting the timeline, "we have an... unexpected guest at the garage entrance."
In one timeline, he folded his fingers. "I want you to go out there and politely ask what she wants."
In the other, he turned to the screens. "Bring her in for interrogation."
His mercenaries obeyed swiftly in both timelines. In the first, the captain moved alone, swiftly arriving at the garage gate and opening the door. His words, and hers, transmitted clearly through the comm.
"Excuse me, ma'am, this is private property--"
"Oh, did Doctor Bloodpudding hire you?"
"I'm... unfamiliar with the individual in question."
"You know, the evil scientist that works in the underground lair," the woman said as though it was perfectly normal. "I mean, usually there's a slot for me to slide his pizza in, but it looks like you've done some renovating... you sure this isn't his place?"
"I'm quite certain," the captain said sternly. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
"This doesn't make sense, I was sure I followed the right road..." The woman pulled out what was most likely a phone. "Let me check... oh. OH! Oh, well, that explains things... quick check, you're from Brockton Bay, right?"
"...yes. This is Brockton Bay."
"Ah, yes and no." The woman flipped her phone around, showing some sort of news article. "Apparently your entire city got teleported from your world to ours. Which means Brockton Bay and Danville kind of got all jumbled up together."
"I... see. You understand I'll have to confirm that myself."
"Sure, sure, I get it. Anyway, I've got to get this pizza to Doctor Bloodpudding--Ye Olde Pizza promises to deliver in one one thousandth of a fortnight, after all!" The woman got back on her scooter and pulled out a business card, handing it to the captian. "Sorry for the mixup, and remember us when you get hungry!"
"Let her go," Calvert ordered the captain when he started to move after her.
The man paused. "Confirm, no capture?"
Calvert watched through the cameras in the other timeline as the woman acrobatically dispatched the mercenaries with a prop sword--obviously a prop, since none of them were being cut open. But she was still taking on experienced mercs and winning.
"Confirm," he said, dropping that timeline. "She's just a pizza delivery girl."
It was clear he needed to reevaluate his position.
Missy Biron was always the first up in her home, and that was by choice and design. Sure, most kids her age would ordinarily wake up at seven, maybe seven thirty, and get ready for school. But she had powers, and responsibilities because of them. Being available early could be the difference between a successful villain capture or a dead civilian. So Missy had gotten into the habit of waking up at six-thirty, having breakfast while reading updates from the PRT on her phone, then brushing her teeth and taking a very thorough shower before getting dressed for the day.
That this routine let her avoid her parents as much as possible was an entirely unintentional bonus. Er, side effect. That she would never bring up with the Youth Guard. Ever. And if she got tired during the day, well, soldiers caught catnaps all the time. It wasn't adorable, it was professional. No matter how much some idiots on the internet would say otherwise.
And all that meant that Missy was the only one awake on the morning after the weird city-wide event that she was sure was going to get a case file. Which of course meant that when somebody knocked on her door, she was the one to answer it.
Miss Militia looked down at the girl, still in her pajamas, and smiled gently. "May I come in?"
"...I should ask you for today's Master Stranger code, but my phone's still not connected to the network."
"Last year, when Assault did that whole Secret Santa thing, Challenger used you as a proxy to figure out what to get me as a gift."
Missy rolled her eyes, stepping aside. "Had to check. Come on in. Can I get you anything? Cereal, toast, coffee?"
"No, that's fine..." Militia paused, looking at her. "You know how to make coffee?"
"Yep. Don't drink it, but it does smooth out tempers in this house." She moved her half-eaten bowl of cereal to the counter, then sat down as professionally as possible while still wearing pajamas. "So, what's with the early-morning meeting?"
Militia quirked a brow, but took a seat across from her, mimicking the standard position they would take in briefing rooms at the PRT headquarters. "We're still cataloging the fallout of everything that happened yesterday, which has put a large strain on our general operations. However, there is one event in particular that has caught the Director's attention."
She gestured toward the counter, where three gift baskets were partially emptied. Missy glanced at them, turning back to Militia with professional curiosity. "I can see why a swarm of flying gift baskets would catch the PRT's attention, especially after everything else that happened yesterday."
"Yes, but the problem is that it wouldn't catch just our attention," Militia replied. "A gift basket went out to every citizen of Brockton Bay, without discrimination."
"...meaning the gangs are now aware of a potential new Tinker to recruit," Missy realized. "Great. Do we have any leads?"
"Fortunately enough, we do. Dauntless was able to track down the source of the baskets and even speak to the boys who made it." Militia pulled out her own phone, bringing an image on screen. "Meet Phineas and Ferb."
Missy looked over the image and winced. "Wow, that poor kid--I mean, his head is literally a triangle. And... is that other boy's hair green?"
"Missy."
"Right, sorry, I'm good now. Just... a little surprised they're so, ah, distinctive." Missy shook her head, focusing again. "So, these two are responsible for making all those baskets?"
"Not quite. These two made the machine that made all those baskets."
"Wow. Mass production."
"Mmmhmm. The machine managed to make roughly three hundred and fifty thousand baskets within two and a half hours. That is a little over twenty-three hundred baskets a minute."
Missy blinked. "What? You're sh--you're kidding me," she corrected at Militia's stern look.
"Armsmaster calculated it himself."
"Wow. Uh. How big was this machine?"
"Fully deployed, it's about as big on the outside as a PRT van."
"...on the outside," Missy repeated.
"Yes."
"Fully deployed," Missy repeated again.
"Yes. Phineas and Ferb willingly gave it to Dauntless for Armsmaster to examine, after pressing a button that made it the size of a book."
"...Okay, I know the Youth Guard will kill me if they ever hear I said this, but that is bullshit."
"It absolutely is," Militia agreed. "What's more, one of the girls there outright stated the boys build similar things on a daily basis."
"A daily--?!" Missy shook her head in disbelief. "You're telling me that these two kids can create machines that do incredible things while being impossibly compact every single afternoon?"
"You can see why the PRT is so interested in them."
Missy slumped in her chair, rubbing her temples. "Okay. Okay. So we've got the planet's youngest pair of super tinkers, who have just helpfully announced their presence to every gang in the city, while we're undergoing the turmoil and chaos of being dumped into a new world. Obviously we want to get a read on them, but... we probably can't just ask them to come in, because the PRT doesn't have any actual authority here. So you're coming to me, because I'm about their age."
"Give or take a couple years," Militia agreed. "It'd be easy enough for you to ingratiate yourself into their friend group. Just say you were curious about this whole new world and you decided to meet the boys who made the baskets."
"Right, because that wouldn't be creepy at all," Missy muttered. "Alright, I'll do it. Let me guess, you want me to be there in my civvies?"
"It would... not be all that suspicious for a hero to show an interest, admittedly, but Armsmaster felt it was best to see how Phineas and Ferb behaved normally before deciding whether to leverage the Protectorate's resources and reputation." Militia reached into a pocket and produced a small disk on a string. "He did provide a discrete tinkertech body camera for you to wear."
"Because every girl wants a necklace that can spy on people." Missy yawned, shaking her head. "Okay, obviously I'm not going to be able to finish my breakfast, let me shower and get dressed and I'll be out in... fifteen minutes?"
"We have a van waiting for you outside. And I have a few spare energy bars."
"Thanks, that'll be really useful. Do you mind handling my parents while I get ready?" she asked as she walked toward the stairs.
"I can do that."
"Great. Thanks."
Missy yawned again, rolling her shoulders. She'd take a nap in the van. Because she was a professional.
"You know, this whole city fusion thing sure is confusing," Buford noted.
"I knoooow!" Baljeet agreed. "I was in the library when it happened, and it took me three hours to find my house again!"
"Yeah, I know. I was with you, remember?"
"Oh yes, I could not forget," Baljeet said flatly.
"Speaking of which, are you sure we're heading the right way? Phineas and Ferb's house might have been shifted around with all that."
"Not to worry, Buford. After I got home yesterday, I triangulated the relative position of their house from the paths of multiple flying gift baskets. We should be in the right neighborhood."
"Assuming the baskets flew in a straight line."
"Yes, assuming--"
"Which doesn't strike me as the most efficient distribution method Phineas and Ferb could have chosen if they were trying to cover the whole city."
Baljeet stopped in his tracks. "...no," he admitted, "that... would likely be a spiral of some sort, wouldn't it." He frowned, pulling out a notepad and quickly sketching out a few calculations. "...Okay, the good news is, we are probably in the right neighborhood--"
"We're lost, aren't we."
"We are not lost!" Baljeet insisted. "We are just going to have to more actively observe our surroundings in order to locate our objective, that's all."
"So we're lost."
Baljeet sighed, his shoulders slumping. "Okay, maybe we are a little bit lost."
"Well, that's a problem," Buford stated bluntly. "What are we going to do now? It's not like somebody who knows where Phineas and Ferb's house got moved is just going to drive up."
At that very moment, a black van with a purple stripe and the letters PRT stenciled on the side drove up to the curb across the street. When it drove off, an ordinary-looking blonde girl around their age was standing on the sidewalk, intensely looking at the phone in her hand. "Okay, so I go north five blocks, then east three, and I should be at 2308 Maple Drive..."
"Huh." Baljeet looked at his notepad. "She's right, I think, that's the way to Phineas and Ferb's place."
Buford crossed his arms. "So we're going to follow the girl to our friend's house?"
"Apparently, yes." Baljeet pocketed his notepad, jogging after the girl. "Excuse me! We seem to be headed to the same place, do you mind if we walk with you?"
The girl looked up from her phone, a little startled. "Uh... who are you?"
"Oh, my name is Baljeet Tjinder. And this is Buford Van Stomm," he added, gesturing to the other boy.
"Sup."
"We were headed to our friends' house, but the whole thing with the cities fusing have left the roads rather confused," Baljeet continued. "You seem to have the location of Phineas and Ferb's house, though, so if you do not mind..."
The girl blinked for a bit, before tilting her head. "...Sssssssssure. Sure, you can walk with me."
"Excellent! Hopefully I will also be able to gauge how accurate my triangulations were," Baljeet added happily as they walked along. "Oh, did you triangulate their approximate locations from the gift basket flights as well?"
"No, I--uh..." The girl hesitated, before sighing. "Yeah, it was my uncle who did all the math. The swarm of gift baskets kind of put him on edge--that just doesn't happen in Brockton Bay, you know?"
"Oh, you're from Brockton Bay?"
"Yep. I kinda got curious about who was sending the baskets out, so I... took a look at my uncle's calculations and, well, here I am!"
"Was that van your uncle's too?" Buford asked.
"N-no. It... belongs to my aunt, actually. They're not married," she clarified quickly, "different, you know, branches of the family. She just gave me a ride. In her work van. Don't tell anybody, she might get in trouble for that."
"...yeah okay." "Sounds normal to me!"
Taylor wasn't sure what brought her back to the Flynn-Fletcher house...
Okay, that was a lie. Curiosity. It was a burning curiosity. And the lack of anything better to do until Winslow decided to start up again.
What she wasn't sure about was why she decided to come the very next morning. And she definitely wasn't sure why Candace had, upon seeing her, decided to drag her up to her bedroom for 'girl talk.'
"...so I'm just not sure whether I should wear my normal casual outfit on my date with Jeremy or if I should wear my fancy pink dress or my fancy purple dress or maybe something else. What do you think?"
Taylor stared at her, her mind wandering to the partially completed spidersilk skinsuit hidden in the old coal chute.
"I have... basically no eye for fashion," she finally admitted.
"...but your name is literally Taylor," Candace pointed out.
"And your name is Candace. What does that mean?"
"I... don't know," Candace admitted awkwardly. "I guess I'll have to look it up later. But seriously, you've got to have some fashion sense, I mean just look at you!"
Taylor glanced down at her basic black slacks and hoodie, before giving Candace a confused look. "I just threw these on this morning."
"Yeah, but... I mean..."
Candace stared at her for a moment.
Then her face fell into a flat scowl. "You're just one of those people that looks good in anything, aren't you."
Taylor shook her head. "I'm pretty sure I'm not--"
"Well, there's only one way to test that out," Candace declared, leaning in with an ominous expression. "We're going to have to go... ON A SHOPPING SPREE!"
"What."
"Oh this is going to be so much fun, I'll call Stacy and Jenny--no wait, Jenny's at another protest. Oh! Maybe Lisa will want to come!"
"You really don't have to do this," Taylor said. "I mean, it's not like I can buy new clothes."
"I'll buy them for you."
"I don't want you to waste money on me--"
"Pssh, it's not wasting money! It's clearly for science! Besides, I'm pretty sure my family's upper middle class or something." Candace was already packing her purse. "I mean, how else could Phineas and Ferb afford all the materials they need to build their inventions and contraptions and roller coasters and weird, strange, devices that constantly make my life crazy even though MOM never sees them--"
She spun around with a grin that aborted Taylor's attempt to crawl out the window halfway. "Anyway, the point is it'll be fun. And you'll get to see what the Googolplex Mall's like!"
After a moment, Taylor sighed, crawling back into the room. "Fine... but I reserve the right to not get anything."
"Sure, sure. Come on, let's go!" Candace grabbed her wrist and dragged her out. "The bus'll be leaving any moment!"
"...so while predetermination of the basic scenario can lead to continued stagnation, it can also lead to interesting iteration and evolution upon examination of various introduced variables. And that is why fanfiction continues to propagate, despite or sometimes because of the dislike for the source material."
"Well," Baljeet said as he entered the backyard, "it sounds like we just missed a fascinating conversation."
Phineas turned to him with a smile. "Just a little scholarly discussion of internet sociology."
"Careful with that, Dinnerbell," Buford warned. "Tryin' to make sense of the internet can be one of the most dangerous things in the world."
"I'll keep that in mind. Oh, hello!" the boy added, greeting the blonde girl. "I don't think we've met before."
The girl shrugged. "My name's Missy Biron."
"Well, I'm Phineas Flynn, and this is my brother Ferb Fletcher."
"Yeah, it's... nice to meet you. Uh, quick check," Missy glanced around, "you are the ones that sent those gift baskets out to everyone yesterday, right?"
"Yes, yes we are," Phineas confirmed with a smile. "Did you like yours?"
"Oh, it was great! Very nice to receive in the middle of a very, VERY confusing day. It's just... kind of amazing that you made all of those in one afternoon. And that they could fly. And scan people."
"Oh, it was nothing," Phineas assured her. "We build more complex things all the time."
"Really? Like what?"
"Well--"
"Heeeeey Phineas," Isabella drawled as she entered the backyard. "Waaacha doooin'?"
"Talking with one of our new Brockton neighbors. Missy, this is Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, our neighbor from across the street. Isabella, this is Missy Biron, who just showed up to ask us questions about the gift baskets yesterday."
"Huh, neat."
"I mean, it--it's not just the gift baskets," Missy protested awkwardly. "It's more the whole... conceit behind... the gift baskets. Like, you do something like that every day?"
"Well, not exactly like that," Phineas allowed. "We like to mix it up a little. Sometimes we'll join a musical performance, sometimes we'll go to space, and sometimes we'll help the Fireside Girls."
"Speaking of which," Isabella interjected, "I was kind of hoping you'd be available to help us out with something. The Fireside Girls had planned a charity sale of homemade dolls today. We spent a few days making a lot of them, and we put them all in a warehouse for safekeeping, but..." She glanced at Missy awkwardly. "...well, Gretchen checked there today and all the dolls were stolen."
"Oh no!" Phineas gasped. "Who would do such a thing?"
"Yo Squealer! Happy Valentine's day or something!"
"Skiddy, what the heck?! What am I supposed to do with all these dolls, do I look like a girl to you?"
"Well you sure don't look like no hag!"
"I don't know and I don't really want to find out," Isabella admitted. "But the charity sale's scheduled for this afternoon, and we don't have anything to sell." She sighed dramatically. "All those poor kids and parents of kids and kids at heart, coming in to get a genuine Fireside Girl doll... I would really, really hate to disappoint them."
"And I would hate for them to be disappointed." Phineas turned to his brother. "Ferb, I know what we're going to do today!"
"Wait, wait wait," Missy held up a finger, "you're going to spend the afternoon making dolls?"
"Sure."
"You've gone to space before," Missy stressed, "and you're going to settle for making dolls?"
"I don't see it as settling for anything, honestly," Phineas replied. "I mean, space will be there for the next few billion years, but the charity sale is happening this afternoon."
"That... I mean... I guess I can see why you'd make it a priority, I'm just surprised," Missy admitted. "I would have thought you'd... do something more your speed."
"We like to go with the flow. Heck, one day we thought Perry had laid an egg, so we made a giant robotic platypus butt to help incubate it."
"Perry?"
"Yeah, Perry, our pet platypus. Uh, hmm." Phineas looked around. "Hey, where is he, anyway?"
"Good morning, Agent P," Major Monogrom began without preamble. "As you are no doubt fully aware, the unexpected merger of Danville and Brockton Bay is causing numerous logistical problems for all sorts of governmental organizations, including the OWCA. We've had to scramble agents to reassess the current location of various buildings, map out the new roads, frankly it's been a madhouse. This means our intel for today is less, well, informative than it would normally be."
An image appeared beside him, showing a familiar evil scientist entering the Googolplex Mall.
"Some of our analysts have suggested that Doctor Doofenshmirtz deliberately committed this act in a deliberate attempt to mess with our operations, thereby granting him the ability to act with impunity during our period of confusion. Personally, I don't have nearly as much confidence in his competence, but we're still not sure what he's up to. He could be trying to commit evil at the local mall. He might be shopping for components for his next nefarious scheme. Or maybe he's just buying a gift for his daughter. Still, you know the drill--look into the situation and make sure he doesn't make a mess of things."
Major Monogram scowled out of the large screen. "This is more critical than ever, Agent P. What information we have about our new neighbors suggests we may be entering an unprecedented period of criminal activity, villainous deeds, and malicious intent. We're talking more general naughtiness than the Coal Christmas of 1865."
Perry the platypus gaped in unabashed shock. He'd had an inkling of the situation--more than an inkling, given how he'd been present for the events causing it--but for things to be that bad... well, he'd have to keep an eye on the entire tri-state area.
"Your mission mandate is no longer merely stopping Doofenshmirtz from committing evil," Monogram continued sternly. "You must also ensure he does not purposefully or even accidentally contribute to the criminal element that is even now preparing to establish itself in our fair city. We'll try to have dossiers for them as soon as possible, once we can make contact with our Brockton counterparts. But for now, we need you to make absolutely certain that Doofenshmirtz is still doing... what he usually does. So you can stop him from doing anything worse." The major straightened up firmly. "Good luck, Agent P."
Perry saluted, put on his jetpack, and rocketed out of his secret underground base.
There was something genuinely worrying about being transported to another world...
Well, okay, there were a lot of things worrying about being transported to another world. Even before the whole kerfluffle with Earth Aleph, history and fiction were rife with the dangers of leaving one's homeworld behind. And now everyone's phone was down, the streets were wrong, there were stores nobody recognized and strangers for neighbors... it was pretty stressful. So of course it was totally logical for Vicky to go out for some retail therapy. Heck, there was even a new mall to explore!
...a new mall, it turned out, that didn't take Earth Bet money.
"Sorry, miss, the card didn't read," the cashier said apologetically.
"Wonderful. And you're sure you can't take the dollar coins?"
"I don't think my boss would let me."
Vicky sighed, rubbing her temples. "This is going to be a big problem, I can tell..." Everyone from Brockton Bay was going to find that their money was worthless, and that would lead to a lot of desperation and poor choices. She could practically see the jump in robberies now. And of course, the heroes would try to keep things under control, which would pull their attention from the villains, and...
She sighed again. "Do you mind if I speak to your manager about this? Actually, no, I'm probably going to have to speak to the mall director first, this is bigger than a single store." Her eyes drifted to the bag of clothes, a mournful expression on her face. "Guess I'm not buying anything today."
"I can get those for you," said a new voice, as a brown-haired girl stepped up to the counter. "You'll take my card, right?"
"If the system works," the cashier agreed, watching her slide it through. "Aaaaaand... there you go, purchase paid for."
Vicky sighed with relief. "Thank you so much. I'll pay you back, I swear."
The girl shook her head with a laugh. "Don't worry about it, my mom's loaded. Vanessa Doofenshmirtz."
"Victoria Dallon, but my friends call me Vicky." The blonde grinned as she picked up her bag. "Hey, you're a local, right? You know the best places to shop around here?"
"I've got a good handle on the scene, yeah."
"Maybe you can show me around after I talk with the mall director."
Vanessa rolled her eyes. "Are you really going to talk with the mall director about your declined card?"
"My declined card? No. The potential declined cards of everyone from Brockton Bay? Yeah, that's going to cause issues." Vicky walked for the exit. "I mean, sure, we could stick to Brockton stores, but with the roads being the mess they are the mall's probably more convenient for some people. If they can't buy things here with their own money, they might... you know... resort to desperate measures."
"...What? Like... stealing, or something?"
"Or something," Vicky agreed dryly.
Vanessa shrugged. "I'm sure the police will be up to it."
"And what if they aren't?"
Vanessa smirked. "Well... let's just say Danville has its own collection of surprises."
"Right, lady," growled the man as he waved his switchblade, "give me whatever's in your purse!"
Professor Poofenplotz looked at him for a long moment, before shrugging. "You asked for it." She pulled her GoAwayIficator out of her purse, pointed it at the man, and zapped him into another dimension.
"...oooookaaaaay..." Vicky gave the girl a weird look. "….you gonna explain that?"
"If I did, it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?" Vanessa replied cunningly.
"That," Vicky began, before realizing she didn't know how to argue with that. "Whatever, where's the mall director's office?"
"Second floor, east wing, across from the liquid massage store."
"...you just know that?"
Vanessa sighed. "Let's just say my dad is... a character."
"Hello, excuse me!" Doofenshmirtz waved down a shop employee. "Do you know where the surgical bed are sold?"
"...Sir, this is a furniture shop. If you want hospital equipment, you're probably not going to find it here."
"What, why not? It's a bed! How hard can it be to find a bed?"
"An ordinary bed is designed to hold an intact body horizontal and keep it comfortable while it is unconscious, which is ultimately a very simple thing. A surgical bed is designed to hold a damaged body in place while experts carefully try to make sure said body does not die under their care. That is something that requires much more specialized equipment."
"...Huh." Doofenshmirtz rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You know, I never thought of it that way."
"If you really want a surgical bed, you should probably be looking at specialist shops, not the public mall."
"Thanks for the tip! You don't mind if I look for an ordinary bed while I'm here, do you? I just took in a little girl and, well, I want to make sure she feels safe, you know?"
The store employee quirked an eyebrow. "Of course, sir. Although..." He paused. "Why exactly did you ask for a surgical bed in the first place?"
"She wants to perform surgery," Doofenshimrtz explained.
"...she wants to be a surgeon?"
"That's one way of repeating what I just said, yes."
"And... you wanted to get a surgical bed for her," the store employee clarified.
Doofenshmirtz frowned. "What, are you saying I shouldn't support my soon-to-be-adopted girl's interests?"
"I'm just saying that it... seems a little unusual to be getting a surgical table for... how old did you say this girl was again?"
"Oh, around twelve or thereabouts. Her previous, uh, foster family didn't exactly keep track." Doofenshmirtz shook his head. "Frankly I don't think they really cared for her as a person."
"Aaaah." The employee nodded. "I see. Well, in that case, I can point you toward a few good children's beds. And, if I may..." He leaned in conspiratorially. "We have a selection of particularly large plushies. Almost human-sized. Good way to practice surgical stitching without, you know, needing an actual person."
"Oh. Oh! Oooooooooh." Doofenshmirtz grinned, steepling his fingers evilly. "I'm picking up what you're putting down. Let's get moving!"
The employee smiled, leading him through the store and entirely missing the fedora-wearing platypus peering out of a ceiling tile
"Alright," Candace said, "now try this one on."
Taylor sighed, taking the dress and shutting the door again. "I've tried on a dozen outfits already, Candace."
"Yeah, so?"
"So why do I keep trying on more if we're not going to buy them?"
"To figure out what you're comfortable in!" Candace replied. "What good is an outfit you only wear once? You should wear every article of clothing you have on a biannual basis at least."
"...then isn't this all a colossal waste of time?"
"I don't think so."
"But I'm not going to be wearing this dress that often."
Candace blinked. "Why not? You look good in it."
"You've said that about everything I've worn so far," Taylor pointed out.
"And you've looked good in everything," Candace replied, nonplussed. "Well, okay, except the carrot outfit."
"I still don't know how you convinced me to try that on. Or why it was being sold in a clothing store..."
Candace gave her a strange look as she stepped out of the dressing room. "Why wouldn't clothes be sold at a clothing store?"
"It's--it's not clothes, it's a costume," Taylor pointed out.
Candace stared at her, trying to process the words.
"...Costumes," she explained very carefully, "are a type of clothes."
"That is technically correct, but most people don't have a costume in their closet."
"I'm pretty sure all my friends do. I know I have," Candace did some quick mental calculations, "at least ten closets in my costume. Wait, no, ten costumes in my closet."
"Ten?"
"Probably more, if I'm honest. There's the princess dress from when Phineas and Ferb helped make a movie, the outfit from my brief stint as a supermodel, the hot-dog outfit that has a complicated backstory, my Mom suit--"
"Your what now?"
"My Mom suit," Candace repeated. "It's a platypus costume."
Taylor took a moment to adjust her glasses. "...Is this another Danville thing? Like the music?"
"I mean, I guess it could be? I just always thought it was normal. What, don't they sell costumes in your world?"
"Not anymore."
"What? Why not?! Halloween alone would probably--"
"One word, Candace: Parahumans." Taylor gestured out the door. "Once people got powers and started dressing up, looking ridiculous became a way of broadcasting you were 'special'. After the first few dozen incidents where heroes and villains mistook trick or treaters as people that could shoot lasers from their eyes, the whole 'costumes for fun' thing really fell by the wayside."
"...that makes a weird amount of sense, actually," Candace conceded. "Still not going to get rid of any of my costumes. The Dangeraffe may once more rise if she is needed."
Taylor blinked. "Wait... do you have superpowers?"
"Technically no, but trying to bust Phineas and Ferb requires a metric ton of skills," Candace explained. "I need to be athletic enough to keep up with whatever they've made, smart enough to identify their latest project, and observant enough to figure out where they are at any given moment."
"I... see."
"Yeah, it's a full-time job. But relaxing is crucial too, you know, because otherwise I'd just go mad from stress. Which is one of the reasons why I go clothes shopping a lot! " Candace looked her over. "And you do look good in that dress, by the way, very elegant."
Taylor bit her lip, carefully not mentioning the large cart of equipment she could see Phineas and Ferb pushing down the corridor just outside the shop. "Uh... thanks, I guess."
"Girl, I'm just spitting facts! Now come on, this hat is TOTALLY you."
"Gretchen, how are we for cloth?"
"We've got twelve bolts of felt from the craft store and various other fabrics as well."
"Great! Holly?"
"Paint for the doll faces secured, ma'am!"
"Wonderful! Katie?"
"Couldn't get the usual plastic, the city fusion apparently shut down the ordinary delivery lines, but I did buy a lot of hand soap!"
Isabella frowned at the massive collection of bottles Katie pushed in on a trolly. "That's... hm. We're going to need to inject the color in somehow, and that means we'll need air filter masks...
"Not to worry," Phineas declared as he entered, "we've got just the machine to melt down that plastic and turn it into doll hands!"
"And what do we do with the soap in the bottles?" Buford groused. "I mean, that's a lot of soap!"
"Hmmm..."
Ferb tapped his brother's shoulder and pointed out the door.
"Oh, that's a great idea!" Phineas declared. "I mean, sure, we'll have to add a bubble-making machine to our final production, but that should only take... fifteen minutes, I think."
Missy stared at the increasingly complicated contrivances being assembled by children in the currently empty mall store. "Why do you need all this equipment to make dolls?"
"Well, over there we have the pattern press, there we have the plastic press, that's the cotton stuffing machine, that's the love and good vibes imbument device--"
"No no no, I'm not asking what they do," Missy clarified. "I'm asking why you need these machines for something like making dolls."
Phineas stared at her. "I'm... not sure I understand the question--"
"You could, hypothetically, sew the dolls together by hand," Missy explained. "Heck, it'd probably be cheaper. I mean, look at this, you've somehow managed to construct a miniature factory in the mall! A factory! For handmade dolls!"
"...I'm pretty sure my family's upper middle class or something," Phineas mused. "I mean, how else could Candace afford all those fancy dresses and concert tickets?"
Missy rubbed her temples tiredly. "It's not the expense that's the issue here," she groused. "I mean, yes, that's kind of the issue, but it's more a symptom of... the issue. I just... why? Why did you do this thing in this way?"
"Why did we come up with an overly complicated solution to a very simple problem?"
"...Yes. Yes, that's the question."
"Hmmm." Phineas tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I believe it would only be appropos to answer that question in a manner that exemplifies our reasoning for doing things the way we do them." He turned around with an authoritative clap. "Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for a musical number!"