What's With the Word Obsession?

Originally written a few years ago, as a present to my little sister. Enjoy.

-Chapter One-

Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher, stepbrothers, walked through marginally attractive downtown Danville (or, I dunno, it might have been New York? Or maybe Seattle?), brainstorming. It was summer, and the boys tried to do a big, special activity every day (except for one day when they just sat under a tree and did nothing, but that actually counted as something special because they only did it once).

Phineas glanced at his watch. "Good grief, Ferb!" he exclaimed, "It's 9:45 already, and we've had NO ideas on what to do today!" Ferb had some ideas of his own, he would only suggest them as a last resort, as Phineas liked to take the lead.

As the boys looked around for ideas, Phineas commented "You know Ferb, we never told our friends where we were going. I hope they don't worry. Ah, well I'm sure-" Phineas paused, then pointed. "Hey, what's that?" Ferb looked. Phineas was pointing at an interesting-looking building. A big sign in front of it said "The Electric Diner". "Cool," said Phineas. He and Ferb loved anything electrical or mechanical.

"Let's check it out, Ferb. Maybe they'll have tea." Ferb, being originally British, loved tea.

As the boys walked inside, they glanced around. The restaurant didn't appear to be very busy, except for one table where four teenagers sat talking. There was a tall, athletic-looking boy sitting next to a slightly shorter girl who looked so similar to him that Phineas guessed that they were brother and sister. Opposite them sat a blonde, colorfully dressed girl and another, shorter boy. Phineas, friendly and outgoing as always, approached them.

"Hi! I'm Phineas and this is my brother Ferb. We've never been here before. Do you guys have any recommendations on what to order?"

The four teenagers stared at them for a minute. The shorter boy whispered "That kid has a triangular head." "Be nice!" whispered the blonde girl.

"Oh, my head!" Phineas laughed. "Yeah, sometimes people say it's weird, but I don't mind." The taller boy stood up. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Phineas and Ferb. I'm Hector Ruiz, and this is my little sister Jessica. These other guys are Lisa Heffenbacher and Keith Watson. Together we call ourselves The Electric Company." The others smiled and nodded. Hector continued "There's a menu-board right over there, so just order whatever. There's lots of choices." After looking over the menu, Phineas ordered a smoothie and Ferb ordered some unsweetened tea, and they sat down at a table beside the Electric Company.

"So," said Phineas, "why do you call yourselves the Electric Company?" The others looked at each other. Hector said "We have certain… skills."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Jessica started, "we can throw wordballs. Those are, like, magical spheres that make words appear wherever, whenever." "Really?" said Phineas. Lisa put in "And also, we each have a unique skill. Like, I can unscramble any anagrams -those are words that have their letters rearranged to make different words." "Cool!" exclaimed Phineas.

Hector said "And I can replay any image I see." He raised his hand, and a screen appeared in the air. It showed Phineas and Ferb walking up to the table after they had just come in. "Awesome!" said Phineas. Jessica added "I can do that too, only instead of images, I can replay sound, like this." Another screen appeared in the air, only it was blank, and suddenly they all heard a recording of Phineas telling the cook what he and Ferb wanted. "Wicked!" Phineas cried.

"I loved that play," muttered Lisa, but nobody heard her.

Finally, Keith said "I can show any image I can imagine." A small image of a monster truck appeared in the air in front of Keith. Phineas said "Wow! Kind of like a hologram straight from your mind!"

"The Electric Company… awesome!" Phineas looked around at the various members. Suddenly, inspiration struck him. "Ferb! I FINALLY know what we're gonna do today! We're gonna build a machine to give us powers like these guys have!"

The members of the Electric Company looked at each other and chuckled. Young kids always had such great imaginations! Hector asked "Aren't you two a little young to be building a machine like that?" Phineas smiled when he heard that. His day was finally going back on track! "Yes. Yes we are."

As the boys began to draw the blueprints for the machine on the table, between slurps of his smoothie, Phineas asked "So, what were you guys talking about when we walked in here? You looked kind of concerned." Jessica answered "Well, there's this gang called the Pranksters, and some of them have skills like us, but they usually do bad things or try to get the better of us. We were just talking about how we haven't seen any of them around recently. We think they might be up to something really bad."

In fact, the Pranksters were up to something bad, in another part of town, but not even they knew just what was in store…

-Chapter Two-

"Come on, you slowpokes!" Francine Carruthers impatiently looked back at her fellow Pranksters, lagging behind on the sidewalk. Manny Spamboni, Annie Scrambler, and Danny Rebus were all following her, pulling wagons full of things that looked like candy bars. Manny called "You'd be going as slow as us if you were pulling a wagon too!" Francine rolled her eyes and stood still, waiting for them to catch up.

This is one of my best ideas yet, she congratulated herself. Who else would have thought of finding candy bar wrappers in the trash, wrapping them around pieces of plastic- also from the trash- and selling them all over the city as real candy bars, telling people that they were a special recipe that never melted. That way they could make lots of money without spending a cent. It was brilliant!

Francine was distracted from her self-congratulation when the rest of the Pranksters came huffing and puffing up behind her. "Are we almost done? My arms hurt," Danny wheezed. Francine snapped "Oh, stop whining. We'll do this last building and then quit for today." She pointed to an apartment building in front of them. It was an odd-looking building, purple with the very top shaped almost like the profile of an Easter Island head.

As the others went inside, Annie looked up at the sign at the top of the building that read "Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc.". She stomped her foot, and the letters switched around to read "Nice Live Foondztrimsh.". Annie smirked. She loved her word-scrambling skill. She then hurriedly followed the others into the building.

The Pranksters quickly made their way through the first few floors, selling and moving as fast as possible before any of the tenants realized that they'd been conned. Heading toward the elevator, they ran into a man who said he was the landlord. After explaining that they were selling candy bars as innocently as possible, Francine asked "So you're Mr. Doofenshmirtz?" the landlord shook his head "No, Dr. Doofenshmirtz owns the top floors of the building, he remodeled it to look that way. I'm not sure what kind of doctor he is, but I think he's a pharmacist. Well, you kids have good luck selling your candy."

As the landlord walked away, Francine said to the other Pranksters "Whatever kind of doctor he is, he probably has lots of money. He probably can afford to buy a whole heap of candy bars! Let's go up to the top, sell him some, then get out of here!" The others agreed, and they rode the elevator to the top floor.

When they got to the top, Francine eagerly rang the doorbell.

They heard a heavily accented voice on the other side say "Perry the Platypus? You're early, and you never ring the- oh, you're not Perry the Platypus." The door opened to reveal a middle-aged man with a slouch wearing a lab coat. On the inside, Francine laughed at how ugly he was, but reminded herself that not everyone could look as much like a model as her.

On the outside, Francine gave a winning smile and said "Hello sir. Would you like to buy some of our non-melting candy bars?" The man hesitated. "Well, I'm really supposed to be watching my weight… but what the heck. Come on in." He opened the door wider and led them inside. The Pranksters looked around the huge room in amazement. Just like the outside of the building, it was colored purple and green, and it was filled with strange looking machines. On one table was what looked like a model of the city.

The man said "Where are my manners? My name is Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz. (Bum bum bum!) So, how much are these candy bars?" Francine cheerfully told him. "Only $1.10 a bar!" Doofenshmirtz replied "Well, they look like pretty big bars, so that seems like a good deal. I'll take fi- ah, heck, I'll take ten. Let me get the money." Doofenshmirtz pulled out his wallet and counted out some money.

As Doofenshmirtz handed Francine the money, he said "Sorry for being so abrupt, but I have to build an inator before my nemesis gets- wait a minute!" Doofenshmirtz ran over and tapped a small machine in the corner. "My Candy-Detectinator isn't blinking!" He tore open a bar, exposing the plastic inside. "There's no candy in these at all!"

"Run, guys!" Francine yelled as she and the other Pranksters dashed for the door, but Doofenshmirtz pulled out a remote. "Try to trick me, will you!?" He pushed a button.

Annie and Danny cried out as two small cages immediately fell from the ceiling and trapped them. Francine shrieked in anger as a net came flying out of nowhere and pinned her to the wall. Manny was too fat- er, big-boned to be pinned down by the cage that fell on him, so he was the only one who made it close to the door. "Stop him, Norm!" yelled Dr. Doofenshmirtz.

"Right away, Sir," said a mechanical voice. A tall figure appeared and blocked the doorway from Manny. It was a nine-foot-tall robot painted to look like a man in a suit. Manny gazed up at it in astonishment. He'd built quite a few robots in his time, but never one as big as this!

All the Pranksters were now trapped. From the net, Francine yelled "I don't get it! Why would a pharmacist need all these traps and devices?" "AUGGH!" Doofenshmirtz cried out in frustration. "Why does everyone call me a pharmacist!? I'm an EEEEVIL SCIENTIST!"

The Pranksters looked at each other. From inside the cage, Danny said "Well, that would explain it."

Ignoring him, Doofenshmirtz mused "Now, what to do with you pesky kids? I suppose the right thing to do would be to call your parents and let them handle it, but I try to avoid doing the right thing unless I have to. Maybe I'll-" Doofenshmirtz suddenly did a double-take out the window he was standing next to. "Hey!" He ran and peered out of it. "Hey, what's up with my sign? It says… nice live foondez-trimish…? What is that?"

Annie sheepishly said "I did that," from inside her cage. Doofenshmirtz whirled around to face her. "You?"

"Um…yeah."

"How?"

"It's just a guess, Sir, but she probably has the unique ability to change words around however she wants by, say, stomping her foot."

Everyone stared at Norm. After a moment, Doofenshmirtz said "Wow, Norm, that was really…" "Observant?" Norm asked hopefully.

"Know-it-all-ish. Shut up." Doofenshmirtz finished harshly. "Aww…" lamented Norm.

Doofenshmirtz turned back to Annie. "Is all that true?" he asked. Annie nodded. Doofenshmirtz looked around at the other Pranksters. "Can you all do that?"

Francine said "Well, I can make these balls that make words appear anywhere called- well, I forget what their called, but that's my skill. And Danny over there, he can make any sentence into a Rubes- no, a Rubik- ugh, what's that kind of puzzle with the pictures and the letters…?" Danny looked at her, unbelievingly, and said "Seriously? My LAST NAME is Rebus! And I am WOUNDED that you would forget it!"

Francine resumed "Right, a Resub puzzle, and Manny- well, he's… okay with gadgets." "Hey!" Manny shouted "I'm GREAT with gadgets!" "Anyway," Francine continued, getting her iconic 'I-Have-all-This-and-You-Don't' tone, "Together we call ourselves the Pranksters. Mostly what we do is try to get the best of these do-gooders called the Electric Company who always get in our way."

Doofenshmirtz thought for a moment, then said "So, this 'Electric Company', they're your nemesis…es? No, wait, your neme…si? Sorry, I don't know the plural for 'nemesis'." "Yeah," said Manny. Doofenshmirtz looked puzzled. "But if you have these weird powers, how can they fight you?" "Well," said Annie, "they kinda have powers similar to ours, like throwing wordballs-"

"What's with the word obsession?"

Annie frowned "Huh?"

Doofenshmirtz repeated "I said, 'What's with the word obsession?' All your powers are, like, word and letter themed. Why?"

Annie frowned. Nobody had ever asked them that before. And to be honest, none of them really knew. They all shrugged, except for Francine who said "I have a theory… but I don't think anybody else is smart enough to understand it."

Everyone else rolled their eyes.

Suddenly, Doofenshmirtz began to realize what he had just found, and an evil plan began to form in his mind. He smiled and said "I'm feeling TINGLY. Hee hee hee! Mwah ha ha ha!"

After a moment, Manny began to laugh maniacally along with Doofenshmirtz. The others looked at them like they were crazy.

-Chapter Three-

Back at the Electric Diner, Phineas and Ferb had finished drawing the blueprints for the Skill-Giving-Machine, and they had begun to work on it in the vacant lot behind the diner. Shock, the short-order cook that worked at the diner, had generously agreed to let them take whatever they needed from the piles of scrap metal behind the diner. When they had laid out everything they needed, Phineas thought for a moment. "I don't know, Ferb, something's missing. Oh!"

He walked over to Shock who, since it was his break, had been watching with a curious expression. Phineas handed Shock a piece of paper and said "Could you please beatbox to these musical notes? We do our best work with musical accompaniment." Shock looked at the notes, shrugged and started to beatbox. It went something like this:

Shoo-dee-Up-doo-dee-Up-diddle-diddle-dee-DAH

Shoo-dee-Up-doo-dee-Up-diddle-diddle-dee-DAH

(etc.)

One montage sequence later…

"There! We're finally done!" Phineas stepped back in satisfaction as Ferb finished painting "Skill-Giving-Machine" on the side. It was a bit crudely put together, but that was ok considering the materials they had had to work with. Phineas poked his head inside the diner and said "Okay, guys, you can come out and see it now."

The Electric Company followed Phineas out the back door, then stopped and stared in astonishment at the machine. Jessica stuttered "Wow, guys, this is… incredible!" "Thank you," said Phineas. "Ferb did most of the actual building. He's naturally handy with tools." Ferb briefly nodded his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. Keith said "Er… he doesn't talk much, does he?"

"Nah. He's more of an action kind of guy. Now, let's get this baby warmed up!" Phineas flipped a switch on the machine, and it started to make a humming sound.

The Electric Company stared. Finally, Hector said "How did you guys build this?" Phineas cheerfully replied "With imagination, ingenuity and a little elbow grease. We're always doing stuff like this. Gotta make the most out of those all-too-short summer days, right?"

The Electric Company was truly impressed. Jessica said "Wow, boys. This is just… incredible!" Phineas and Ferb blushed. They were about to thank her, when they all heard a cute, feminine voice.

"There you guys are! What'cha doing?"

Phineas, Ferb, and the Electric Company turned to see four kids walking up to them from the street. A little girl in a pink dress and with a huge hair-bow, a short, Asian-looking boy in blue overalls, a beefy, tough-looking boy with a scowl on his face, and a scrawny boy with glasses and a rather unnerving giant grin.

The kids walked up to them, and the girl said "We've been looking all over for you two! What are you doing here?" Phineas replied "Hi, guys. Our new friends here had just given us an idea on what to do today. You're just in time to partake in the fun." He turned to the Electric Company. "Electric Company, these are our friends. The girl is Isabella, the one in the overalls is Baljeet, the big one is Buford, and the other one is Irving. Guys, this is the Electric Company. They have special powers with words, and this machine will give us powers like them."

Everyone said a friendly "Hi," except for Buford, who just stood there with his arms crossed looking very intimidating. When they were all finished, Phineas said "Well, now that everyone's introduced, let's start the fun! Hey, where's Perry?" "He stayed home," Isabella replied. "Oh," said Phineas. "Too bad. He might've enjoyed this."

However, Perry, the boys' pet platypus, wasn't at home…

Instead, he was flying in a hover-jet across the city. As Perry flew through the clouds, he worriedly reflected on his mission.

"Agent P.," Major Monogram had told him in the secret lair beneath the Flynn-Fletcher house, "Earlier today, our security cameras picked up several teens with wagons full of candy bars entering Doofenshmirtz's apartment, and so far they haven't come out. Heaven knows what Doofenshmirtz may be doing to those poor, defenseless youngsters. Get over there, free them, and stop whatever Doofenshmirtz is up to on the double! No, on the TRIPLE!"

On the horizon, Perry saw Doofenshmirtz's building approaching. He braced himself, and prepared to jump off the hover-jet.

-Chapter Four-

"Okay, so here is the completed plan." Doofenshmirtz gestured at a chalkboard covered in complicated-looking diagrams. "Hey! Pay attention!" he told the now-freed Pranksters, who were all sitting in desks and looked rather bored.

He continued "Now, according to you, this 'Electric Company' hangs out at a place called the 'Electric Diner'. This will be a focal point in our scheme. A while back, I invented a machine called the 'Coolinator'. It ran on espresso and was designed to suck all the cool out of a certain hip coffee shop and put it into me, making me so cool and 'with-it' that the youth of the Tri-State Area would have no choice but to follow me blindly! Mwa ha ha!"

He surveyed the room. "Hey! What did I say about paying attention when the teacher is talking?" He glared Annie and Francine, who were passing notes to each other, and Manny, who was gazing intently at Norm. They all begrudgingly turned their attention back to him. Doofenshmirtz then said "Now, the last time I tried this, Perry the Platypus thwarted me, but this time, you four will act as my bodyguards to stop him. So, just to recap: we will go to the Electric Diner, suck all the cool out of it, put it into me, and I will lead the conquest of the Tri-State Area, with you four keeping Perry the Platypus away from me. Now, any questions?

Manny raised his hand. "Will you make snacks, or will we eat at the diner, or what? 'Cause it's almost lunchtime." Doofenshmirtz thought. "Hmm, if we had lunch at the diner, I'd probably have to pay for it, so we'll just pack some sandwiches with the stuff in my fridge. Annie, you wanna be in charge of that?" Annie shrugged. "Whatever."

Doofenshmirtz nodded. "Alright, then. Annie's getting lunch together, so what else do we need to… ah! The rest of you, take those pairs of binoculars off that shelf. They're high-powered, so they can see anywhere in the city! I made them myself. You use those to find the Electric Diner and give me directions from my building to it. While you're doing that, I will finish putting together the Coolinator."

The Pranksters got up to start their assigned tasks, when they all heard a crashing sound. Suddenly, a blue creature with a duckbill, a beaver-tale, and a fedora landed on the floor in a fighting stance.

"It's Perry the Platypus! Get him!" cried Doofenshmirtz. All the Pranksters ran toward Perry.

Perry looked around in bewilderment. A bunch of teenagers were attacking him! The agency had made a horrible mistake! But Perry, realizing that he had to act fast, didn't stop to dwell on it. He leaped into the air, over the head of the large boy that had lunged forward to grab him.

He landed on the ground, once again in a fighting stance, and looked around. Two boys and two girls were all running toward him. Not wanting to hurt any of them, Perry dodged their punches and attempts to grab him. "Come on, you guys! It's just a duck-beaver-whatchamacallit! We can conquer it!" shouted one of the girls.

He saw that he was nearing a window, and was about to jump out of it and parachute to the ground, where he would call for reinforcements, when he backed into something cold and hard. Looking up, he saw Norm towering over him. He tried to run away, but the others had him surrounded by then. Trapped, Perry was helpless as Norm picked him up and locked him inside a cage.

Doofenshmirtz laughed. "Ha! Not expecting THIS, were you Perry the Platypus? Score one for Team Doofenshmirtz!"

Everyone looked at him.

Doofenshmirtz sighed and rolled his eyes. "Okay, they call themselves the Pranksters. There's Manny, Annie, Danny, and Francine. Hey! I just noticed that they all rhyme! Well, Francine doesn't, but if we shortened it to Franny-" "Don't even think about it," growled Francine. Doofenshmirtz held up his hands. "Okay okay, back off! Sheesh. Anyway, Perry the Platypus, we're on our way to a place called the Electric Diner to complete my master plan, and there's nothing you can do about it!" He laughed maniacally. "Hee hee hee! Just let me connect these wires together-" He went over to a large machine that looked like and old-fashioned arcade game and grabbed a couple of wires sticking out. After connecting them, the machine started to hum.

"There!" he said. "And this Coolinator runs on electricity and not espresso, so it won't take forever to use like last time. Hey, Francine, have you found the Electric Diner from my building yet?" Francine, still looking through the binoculars with the others, said "Yeah, I see it, it's only a couple blocks down- Hey! What's going on? There are bunch kids gathered around a machine behind the diner. How do you zoom these things in?" "Push the green button on the side," said Doofenshmirtz.

Francine zoomed in. "Huh? The machine says 'Skill-Giving-Machine'. I think it's a machine that gives you skills like the Electric Company's! Let's get it!" Doofenshmirtz shook his head. "No, no, I already built the Coolinator. We have to stick to the original plan."

"I SAID LET'S GET IT!" Francine shouted so loud the building shook. Everyone covered their ears. Doofenshmirtz said "Okay, okay! We can get it!" he turned to Norm. "Norm, use the rockets in your feet to fly over there and get that machine."

"Right away, Sir," said Norm. Rockets sprouted out of his robotic feet, and he took off toward the diner- by making a big hole in the wall to get out. Doofenshmirtz sighed. "He could have at least waited until I opened the roof. He gets that from you, Perry the Platypus."

-Chapter Five-

A few minutes earlier…

"Everybody ready?" asked Phineas. They were all lined up to use the machine, except for Buford, who looked bored. "What's the matter, Buford?" asked Phineas, "Don't you want to get cool word powers?" Buford shook his head. "I don't need words! I can say whatever I need to say with my fists." Phineas shrugged. "Okay, suit yourself."

Phineas was first. The machine scanned him with a blue light. After it was done, his fingers tingled. He waved them. A few feet away, a man was reading a paper with a headline that said "Unusually Dreary Weather in Kreuger County". As everyone watched, the headline changed to "Lots of Refreshing Rainwater in Kreuger County." The man reading the paper started. He exclaimed "Suddenly, I feel better and more positive! Life is worth living!" He ran off, giddily laughing.

"Cool!" said Phineas. "I can replace any word or phrase with a more positive one! Ferb, you're next!"

As everyone got scanned by the machine, they discovered that Ferb's skill was to duplicate a word or phrase and paste it anywhere, Isabella's was to change letters' color and size, Baljeet's was to replace any word with a synonym like a thesaurus, and Irving's was apparently to replace any name with "Phineas" or "Ferb", which he seemed thrilled about.

As the others tried out their powers, Lisa, trying to be friendly, approached Buford. She said "You seem to be kind of lonely over here by yourself. You know what I think would do you good?" "What?" asked Buford warily. Lisa smiled. "A hug from a new friend!" She wrapped her arms around Buford, who immediately said "You have two seconds to stop that before I hurl you all the way to Colorado." Lisa quickly withdrew.

When all of them were finished practicing their new skills, Phineas said "Now that we're all familiar with our new powers, how about we-" he was interrupted by a loud crashing sound. Everyone whirled around.

A giant robot painted to look like a man in a suit had just landed by the machine. He said, in a mechanical voice, "Hello, children. I hope you don't mind if I take this machine off your hands." He picked up the Skill-Giving-Machine and blasted off into the sky with it.

Everyone looked at each other. After a minute, Keith said "Well, that was… weird." Phineas scratched his chin. "Ferb, did that robot look familiar to you?" Ferb shrugged. Irving looked outraged. "I don't get it! Why would that hunk of metal DARE to take one of Phineas and Ferbs's masterpieces?"

"Maybe they were in love," Isabella suggested. Everyone thought about that for a moment. Phineas said "Well, me and Ferb have occasionally built machines that started to think for themselves. Maybe Isabella's right."

Ferb said, in a surprisingly deep British accent, "Well, if they are in love, there're together now, so it's ended happily." Everyone agreed. Hector said "Say, Phineas, will you guys have those skills forever?" Phineas replied "Nah. We programmed it so that they'll wear off by the end of the day, so me and Ferb can do something completely new tomorrow, like we do every day. Not that it wouldn't be cool to be part of the Electric Company, but it seems like you guys have everything under control."

Phineas looked at his watch. "Well what do you know, it's time for us to start back home for lunch. Time sure flies when you're having fun. Well, it was great meeting you guys." Hector said "It was great meeting you guys too." Everyone said goodbye, and Phineas, Ferb, and their friends started to walk back home.

The Electric Company watched them go. Afterwards, Jessica said "you know, those were some really talented boys. I hope we can see them again sometime."

All the other members of the Electric Company agreed.

-THE END-

...wait, am I forgetting something?

Oh, yeah! Perry, Doofenshmirtz, and the Pranksters! Sorry!

Chapter Six

Soon, Norm was back with the Skill-Giving-Machine. He set it down in front of Doofenshmirtz and the Pranksters. Francine said "At last! We have a surefire way to get skills like the Electric Company! Now we can beat them at their own game!" All the Pranksters cheered. Doofenshmirtz said "Does this mean I can get cool word powers too? Sweet! Now, since it was my robot that got it for us, I get to go first. Norm, point that thing towards me and turn it on!"

Norm attempted to turn it toward Doofenshmirtz, but in the process accidentally pulled the lever on the side, with the scanner aimed toward Perry. "Nooooooo!" Doofenshmirtz cried.

Immediately after the machine scanned Perry, he felt a tingling in his paws. He flicked his wrist, and a letter "O" appeared in it. Perry threw the "O" like a throwing star, and it sliced right through the lock in the cage! Perry jumped out and flicked his wrist again. An uppercase "I" appeared. Perry pointed it at Doofenshmirtz. "So, you wanna do this the hard way, Perry the Platypus? Well, two can play at that game!" He leaped away from Perry and toward the machine.

He pulled the lever on the side and was scanned. He flicked his wrist like Perry had, and several punctuation marks like commas, periods and dashes appeared in his hands. As the excited Pranksters watched, he started to throw them at Perry. They exploded when they landed, like grenades.

Perry tried to run away, but a well-thrown asterisk knocked the "I" out of his paws and knocked him to the ground. Doofenshmirtz ran up to him and pinned an exclamation mark to his throat like a sword. He laughed triumphantly. "Ha ha! Now, Perry the Platypus, prepare to meet your doom!" Perry closed his eyes, and then-

BAM!

Just as it seemed that all was lost for our monotreme hero, a miracle came crashing through the ceiling in the form of a robotic blue dog. Everyone stared in confusion at it, except for Manny, who exclaimed "ANOTHER cool robot!?"

The dog said "I'm special agent Jack Bowser. The OWCA sent me." Doofenshmirtz only had time to say "What the-?" before Jack Bowser tackled him. "Now!" he called to Perry. Perry made an uppercase "A" and jammed the tip into the machine, which started to sputter and shake. Jack Bowser jumped off of Doofenshmirtz, who started to get up right before the machine, which was starting to make a sizzling sound, fell on top of him and pinned him down again.

Jack Bowser exclaimed "I'm special agent Jack Bowser. This place is about to explode, and I can't crack the code to get out!" from under the machine, Doofenshmirtz yelled "Number One: you already said that. Number Two: thank you, Captain Obvious! Number Three: WHAT CODE!?"

Bowser looked around, then said sheepishly "Oh. I-I guess there isn't a code, is there?" Perry shook his head. Doofenshmirtz yelled "Pranksters! Get me out from under here!" the Pranksters looked at each other. Francine said "That thing is going to explode!? Well, it was nice plotting with you, Dr. D. See you around." She and the other Pranksters ran out the door.

After the Pranksters ran out, Perry and Bowser each ran toward a window, jumped out of them, and opened their parachutes right before the top of the building exploded. Floating downwards, Jack Bowser said to Perry "Well, looks like everything's secure here. I'll be on my way." They saluted each other.

Back at the exploded building, a very sooty Dr. Doofenshmrtz shouted "Curse you, Perry the Platypus and… weird blue-robotic-dog-thing!"

Meanwhile, at the Flynn-Fletcher household, the boys were being interrogated by their big sister, Candace. "Where have you two been!?" she shouted. Phineas replied "Well, me and Ferb met some new friends with special powers, and we built a machine that gave us special powers too, but a robot came and took it away." Candace sighed. Well, whether she had been able to find her brothers or not, the machine would have disappeared before their mom could see it anyway.

As the family sat down to lunch, Phineas noticed a familiar teal monotreme under the table.

"Oh, there you are, Perry."

-Epilogue-

Francine and the other Pranksters ran out into the lobby, hearts pounding. They had just managed to get off the top floor before it blew up. They collapsed to the ground, panting. Francine, realizing that they had all made it, stood up and started to say "Ha! Stupid machine! You should've known better than to try and blow up Francine Carruthers!"

But the words died in her throat, however, when she looked around and realized that they were surrounded by angry residents of the hotel who'd realized that they'd been duped into buying fake candy bars.