I didn't think this was really gonna happen, but then I woke up this morning with 2k words of Phineas and Ferb fanfiction already on my hard drive.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, or when I'm gonna have time to add to it. But the idea just wouldn't leave me alone. A big draw is the fundamental difference in tone between P&F and Ender's Game; this story will attempt to mix the two. The kids will be in serious and dark situations, but the optimism (and occasionally the silliness) of their own universe will hopefully shine through. If you're gonna write dramatic fanfiction of a children's cartoon, you might as well go the whole hog.

Prior knowledge of the Ender 'verse should not be needed. In fact, I've only read the first book. Anything that contradicts Ender canon you can assume I either changed on purpose or don't particularly care about. You can bet the ending's gonna be different, because other than being young geniuses of incredible ability, Ender and Phineas are extremely different people. I wanted to play with that. You can come if you want to.

Will probably include Phinbella and Bujeet, so turn back now if it matters to you and your ships are sinking.

"Taking the recruitment rounds, are ya, sir?"

"Shore leave is shore leave, Karl. I could use it."

"We all could. Say…any chance for me to–"

"No, Karl. Heaven help us, but you're the one who's gonna keep this place running while I'm gone."

"Ugh. Fine. But you know I don't like dealing with the kids' drama."

"Liar. I had you on Monitor duty for a reason."

"Hmph. Yeah, 'cause you don't wanna do more work than you have to."

"What was that?"

"Nothing, sir. Hey…is it time yet?"

"You're going to have to be more specific."

"You know what I – the Flynn boy. Is he old enough?"

"Are they ever really old enough, Karl?"

"…Fair point, sir."

x

Once upon a time, there was a princess. She had a room with twelve windows, and in each she could see a world. From the top of a high tower, she directed the affairs of her star-strewn kingdom, governing the mice and the moon. And in that way she was happy; she carried herself like a guardian angel and dared, eyes glinting, any challenge to her stronghold.

Isabella has always wanted to be a princess, but the stories make it seem so lonely.

She is three years old when they put the heavy, bulky Monitor on the back of her neck; she is six when they take it off again. "Exemplary," the tall man with the funny mustache tells her mother. "Highly advanced. Her potential for intellectual development is off the charts, and the decisions she's made in the past three years prove that she'll have an extrasolar command in no time."

"All this from the mind of a toddler," her mother says, tight-lipped.

He asks Isabella, "Would you like to protect your family?"

She watches him with polite interest, drags a little circle on the carpet with her toe. Her hands clasp together behind her back, thumbs brushing against cool fabric. Her aunt in Jerusalem sent this dress just last week. Her mother has been thinking of moving them both out to be with her, seeing as the discontent in Mexico doesn't seem to be smoothing out and it won't do to be mistaken for the wrong people if the Hegemon decides to crack down. No one told Isabella this, of course, but no one has to.

"Do I get to come home?" she asks.

"Of course," the man says, gruffly. "The war won't last forever."

Her mother bursts into tears.

In the end, she decides to go. Battle School is even higher than an enchanted tower, so far in the sky the oxygen disappears and she can be close to the stars. This is what she tells herself to be brave, even though she understands on an intellectual level that the small trek past the moon doesn't come close to covering the distance to the monstrous burning balls of light that mean so much in her fairy books.

But the princess has to be alone up there, at least for a little while. She has a kingdom to protect.

x

"We only take the best," the Major assures him. "We'll smooth out all the rough edges when we get up there."

It's summer, and Hyderabad is obviously more humid than the visitor is used to. Mr. Tjinder takes some pleasure in that.

"My son is delicate. Yes, you are correct in your assessment of his genius. In that way he is qualified. But as a soldier? A commander? Perhaps a research position within the fleet–"

"Like I said." The visitor mops his forehead, sweat catching unpleasantly in his prominent eyebrow. He leans forward in the plush parlor chair. "We'll work on it. You can rest assured that the school is fully equipped to turn your boy into a hero."

"Why are you talking to me, then? It's Baljeet you need to ask." Not that I believe you'd take no for an answer, he wants to add.

The Major shrugs. "We, er…we have a…fairly intimate understanding of each child's psych at this point. Brain monitor and all." He looks uncomfortable, and Mr. Tjinder grants him a humanity point for that. "We happen to know that Baljeet would be more likely to believe in the worth of this career path if you were the one to speak to him about it."

Mr. Tjinder sighs heavily, scrolling through the news screen on the table. It's good to have something to do with his hands. "You expect me to deliver my son into your hands."

"We expect you to remind him about the threat looming over humanity's collective. Er. Head. At your earliest possible convenience."

"Oh, then the Fleet knows when the Buggers are coming back? Finally going to make that announcement?" he snaps. Perhaps an unwise action, but the Major doesn't seem to take offense.

"I'm not authorized to divulge that information," he replies, pulling out an honest-to-god kerchief to rub across his brow. "But believe me when I say that it is urgent. We need your son. He's scored better in most of the pure intelligence tests than anyone who's gone into the program, and we know he has the makings of someone important. We only take the best."

"So you've said," Baljeet's father sneers, and closes out the news screen.

x

The next recruit won't even let the Major speak to his parents. He's the one who answers the door of their little house on a choppy stretch of French seaside, and the first words out of his mouth are, "Finally. Lemme at some Buggers."

"Er…Buford, is it?"

"Yeah, that's right. There a problem or are we ready to blow this rock?" Curiously, he has almost entirely lost the accent that emphasizes that silly French insistence on teaching its own language to children before they learn Common. Perhaps he has purposefully shaken it off in order to seem like less of a Separatist. Reports on this child emphasized willfully-hidden intelligence and ability to adapt to the most unpredictable circumstances.

"I just have to…to report that you've accepted, and then once you've packed–"

He hooks a thumb behind him, crooked grin showing off his prominent snaggletooth. "I've been packed ever since they took the Monitor off, bozo. I knew they wouldn't turn me down."

What an abnormally intimidating child, the Major thinks.

x

The reaction in the Flynn-Fletcher household is decidedly mixed.

Ferb's father pesters Major Monogram with questions over tea and scones, disarmingly charming and obviously distraught. Mother sits quietly, for the most part, though she occasionally intervenes with some doubt or subtly cutting remark.

Underneath it all, Ferb can sense resignation. Out of the whole family, he knows he is the best at watching. He can detect motion in people's heads when they haven't moved their hands yet, and he knows from observing the space at his mother's hairline that she suspected this day would come. His father blinks a lot and keeps his hands wrapped around his teacup. He knew too. They're devastated, of course. But they knew.

His mother touches his hand under the table. Covers it with her palm.

The Major is answering his father's questions, but he keeps looking at Ferb's brother. Phineas is sitting at Ferb's left, munching on a scone.

"But there isn't a…I don't know, a limit on this kind of thing?" Mum asks, her voice surprisingly clear. "Two at the same time, and after Candace, too. You can understand if I think it's a bit…it's too much."

"Ma'am, I'm sorry to have to ask this of you, but it's a time of war. And, if you remember, you accepted this possibility when the government allowed you the chance to remarry, despite the union putting you over the two-child limit." Ferb can see the way he probes her with a glance, searching for a sign that she regrets the shame of having three children to cart around. He finds nothing there, of course.

"My daughter has already left." She gives the cool stare right back. "I think we've already satisfied the terms."

One good thing about their arrangement: the brothers are approximately the same age, and their parents decline to publicize which is the younger. There is no outcast "third." The stigma was strong at first, but they split it between themselves equally so no one boy had to bear it. Then Candace left. There are only two of them now, but Lawrence and Linda haven't just let the world forget. They are so proud of their children.

"I suppose you have," Monogram says, looking at Phineas again. Ferb wonders if this is the moment, but Phineas just continues to chew. "But we still need your boys. Desperately. And they'll be with their sister again." Ferb senses the implication, placed with surprising finesse: Your daughter is alone. She hasn't been home in years and we cannot let you contact her. Let her be less alone.

Mum frowns and starts to say something else, but Dad cuts her off: "I suppose when it comes down to it, we're going to have to ask the boys what they want to do."

"They're not old enough to know," Mum says, and for a second she looks angry at Ferb, but he knows that isn't true, that there isn't anywhere she can put her eyes to convey what she's really mad at.

Then, without any real cue, everyone goes silent and looks to Phineas.

He swallows his scone.

"If we come with you," he says, and Ferb recognizes the voice he's using from the planning stages of a billion impractical, exhilarating inventions in the backyard. The blueprint voice. This is the moment, then. Just like that, Ferb knows it's been decided, and he'll be going along. "If we come with you, what do we get to do?"

Monogram smiles. Ferb thinks he looks relieved, and he tucks that piece of information away next to the fact that it's always Phineas he's watching. The Major clears his throat impressively before saying, "We're going to teach you a game."

"I like games," Phineas says. His voice is casual. Then he shifts to lean forward in his chair, head turned so that his ride side is prominent (a tic Ferb has noticed) and adds, "What else?"

Mum has stopped looking angry, but she's directing a queasy sort of look towards the Major. Dad sips his tea, face set.

"We will challenge your intellects as they have never been challenged before, boys," Monogram says proudly. "We will grow you as individuals, we will school you in leadership, and we will let you work with the highest tech humanity has to offer. Your classes will finally meet your pace. Your new friends will be your intellectual equals. Life revolves around a challenge, in fact: every student is placed in an army, and that army plays against the others for points in a simulated–"

"You make it sound like summer camp," Phineas says. He's cheerful, despite the fact that there's no way he doesn't know what comes after Battle School. What they're really training for.

Honestly, though, Ferb is excited too. He doesn't know what that says about him.

Phineas glances at his parents, a worried look finally passing over his features. Now they seem to be carefully trying not to sway him one way or the other. Of course they want their children at home, but "survival of humanity" may factor into their treatment of the situation. And (Ferb knows this the way Ferb knows things that he shouldn't: instinctively, and without judgment) they are aware that their children are incredible. When they think about it rationally, they don't want that to go to waste.

Phineas looks back to the Major: "Okay, listen. If we're gonna even think about coming with you" – they're already sold – "we need information. I need to know everything, and you're gonna tell me." He spreads his hands on the edge of the kitchen table. Ferb finds himself nodding along.

So he tells them. About the armies, lead by star students who have worked their way up. About the zero-G chamber they use for battling, and the clever ways they simulate real combat scenarios and real injuries. The way everybody who makes it past the first year at the School ends up with a command. How the Third Invasion is inevitable, and they have to be prepared – the Buggers are ruthless and without conscience, and they will not hesitate to destroy humankind. The great Perry can't single-handedly save Earth civilization like he did last time. They need someone new.

Phineas asks question after question, and Ferb knows Phineas doesn't want to leave home forever and he's sure their parents realize it too, but sometimes Phineas gets in his Project Space and he becomes single-minded and difficult for mere mortals to contact.

At the end of it, they agree. It's hard not to, when you can do anything you can set your mind to and somebody important says you have to save the world.

At the end of it, Dad might be crying just a little – it's silent, but Ferb notices anyway. His eyes aren't quite dry when they hug goodbye the next day, either. His mother kneels down and whispers, "Please tell Candace we love her," into his hair. He grabs onto them both very tightly and tries to convey what he can't possibly put into words. It's overwhelming, and it hurts. But it feels like the right thing to do.

Phineas smiles tentatively when Ferb clambers into the backseat of the car next to him. He's dry-eyed, but his arms seem shaky when he tries to prop them on his lap. Like for a moment he can't hold himself up.

"To the airport," Monogram says, sounding very official.

The two of them wave out the back window until they round the corner. Houses they have seen all their lives blur into abstract shapes as Ferb finds it harder to focus. They will probably fly to either New York or Amsterdam, two of the airports capable of space launch. They will not be permitted to come home for a long time.

Phineas touches his arm. They merge onto the highway, and the suburbs dwindle into a point of color a long road away.