So this morning I woke up, started to write an original story of mine that I've been working on, and suddenly, out of nowhere, it hit me.
"Did I seriously not publish that new Phineas and Ferb chapter I've had written?"
So I looked in the file, and sure enough, there it was, sitting all patient, waiting for me to grow a brain.
Sorry about that. I hope the content makes up for the lateness, though! And special thanks to all my reviewers, as always.

Chapter Eight

"Dr. Roddenstein, you might want to take a look at this, sir."

The wrinkly scientist squinted as he ran his eyes over the security operatives of L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N., trying to distinguish which of them had spoken, though they all looked nearly identical in their lab coats, so it took him a good thirty seconds and several wrong choices before he finally made it to young Dr. Chichiham's chair.

The young woman leaned out of his way so that he could see the screen clearly past his pointed nose. When the evil leader spotted eleven figures dangling out of the bottom of the blimp, his reaction was immediate.

"Dr. Bloboodlesten! Get the chainsaw!"

"Not that I don't trust you as far as I can throw you, Perry the Platypus, but are you really sure this is safe?"

As was his typical response to such inquiries from his worrisome nemesis, Perry's only reply was to roll his eyes as he gripped the rope with both of his small, furry hands once he made sure Kim the Cat had slid down far enough to avoid. Actually, if one was to be accurate, it wasn't a rope at all which he was clutching, but several thousand napkins from the new L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.'s dining hall aboard the blimp, all braided together to form a very white, very long, and very papery rope which stretched all the way from the bottom of the blimp to the azure sea below.

"I mean," continued the German scientist as he moved out of the way for Herman the Hedgehog to continue after Perry, his chestnut locks blowing around his narrow head like some wild aura in the high-altitude wind, "I would expect it to hold you and all the animal agents—that Alex the Alligator is way better at braiding than he looks; who would've thought?—but I think I weigh considerably more than you, you know. I'm not sure if this is such a good idea for me." (1)

Perry halted and peered around Harry's small body, eying Doofenshmirtz with one brow raised.

The scientist, who had always been exceptionally good at reading the aquatic mammal (but had never let himself dwell on that so he wouldn't have to face how truly weird such a talent was), shot Perry a scornful look in reply, crossing his wiry arms over his chest in a puerile gesture of defiance.

"No, Perry the Platypus; just for that look, I'm not going at all. What do you think about that, Mr. Let's-just-risk-Heinz's-life-whenever-we-please? I don't have any sense of duty here; none whatsoever. I can just hang out here until it all blows over one way or another and it won't bother me the slightest bit that I didn't help you defeat the bad guys. Nope; not a bit."

He'd scarcely gotten the last word out before there was a mechanical roar from behind him, and the animal agents still close enough to the top of the napkin-rope to hear it froze, their hats being the only things wavering in the wind, as a dark form suddenly appeared behind Doofenshmirtz, wielding a large, boisterous object above his head.

Doofenshmirtz barely had time to move before the chainsaw was plunging down upon the spot where he had been standing a mere second before.

"Hey!" he exclaimed indignantly from where he lay on his stomach a few feet away. "What was that for?"

Bloboodlesten did not give him a word of answer, though whether it was because he could not or because he didn't think it was worth it, we may never know.

Instead, the evil, obese L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. affiliate turned back toward the opened hatch, where all ten of the animal agents were still dangling on the swinging napkin-rope, all watching helplessly as he lowered the alive chainsaw down to the very top of the paper chain and grinned menacingly, his left eye narrowing with despicable glee behind his tiny monocle.

Perry tensed, his every instinct screaming at him to move, but his brain telling him that he would not be quick enough...the blade was too close...they were all going to plummet to their deaths...

Just as he was closing his eyes in readiness, a cry erupted over the sound of the rushing wind.

"Oh, no you don't, you big jerk!"

Immediately, Bloboodlesten was being yanked backwards, his plump face falling in shock as he disappeared inside the blimp. Perry started as he heard the chainsaw hit something solid, and then a hoarse, all-too-familiar sounding scream filled his ears. Without stopping to think, he flipped upward, over Harry the Hedgehog, and through the hatch, all the while silently pleading in platypus that that scream did not mean what he thought it did; if it did, Bloboodlesten was going to have to handle a vengeful Agent P for what he'd done.

And there was no reasoning with Perry the Platypus when he was truly angry.

When he landed, however, he was unprepared for the sight which met him. Somehow, Doofenshmirtz had managed to bash Bloboodlesten on the head with a piece of metal which had been lying around the place, and the large villain was now lying in a heap on the cold floor like lab-coat wearing blob. That was not the sight which startled Perry most, however, but it was that the chainsaw, still on full-blast, was slicing through what appeared to be a large motor.

A large, very important motor, it seemed.

"Run, Perry the Platypus! She's going to blow!"

Perry scarcely had time to feel relieved that he recognized the overexcited voice before Doofenshmirtz, now apparently not the slightest bit worried about the strength of the napkin-rope, had scooped him up under his arm and dove out the hatch, nearly knocking off a duly surprised Harry the Hedgehog as he grasped the napkin chain with one hand and held tightly to Perry with the other.

Perry did not have the presence of mind to feel bemeaned by the treatment, for Doofenshmirtz was shouting down the rope to the other animals (and to Ellie the Eagle and Ollie the Owl, who were hovering nearby),

"Go! Climb down! Hurry! It's going to EXPLODE!"

"DOOFENSHMIRTZ!"

Rodney had barely choked out the enraged cry before the screen quivered and blackened entirely. He slapped it once as hard as he could manage (while envisioning his German adversary's pointy face, of course), and it was not until the computer monitor tumbled to the floor with a resounding crash that he realized the room was already filling with smoke.

"Come on, Dr. Roddenstein!"

Inkillydon yanked on his arm violently and led him through the masses of people and newts to the exit, while the walls of the Doofenshmirtz Evil Inc. blimp began to shudder and collapse around them.

From where they were all piled into the small emergency air crafts, all mashed together so that various faces and other body parts were pressed against the glass windows unattractively, all the members of L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. who had been on the blimp (and the faction of newts which had been doing said members' work for them) could see the eleven small dots sliding down the napkin-rope hanging from the bottom of the quickly-collapsing craft.

Rodney squinted behind his glasses until he caught sight of the white lab coat flapping like disfigured wings, and he moved his tiny plane (which was careening from side to side in the air due to the overwhelming weight of himself and his many minions) close enough in to see the teal-furred agent in the German's arms, whose golden-orange bill was angled in an expression of pure alarm as he held his fedora on his head with one thick-fingered hand and gripped Doofenshmirtz's sleeve with the other.

It did not go unnoticed by the exceedingly evil scientist that Doofy was gripping the aquatic mammal tightly to his side in an almost-protective hold as he and the other animal agents dropped down in a desperate race for the ocean below.

Though it was an established fact that he and his fellow L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. members had, in fact, turned against Doofenshmirtz, he could not help but think it as he watched the blimp crash into a power station on the western side of the Bendita Isla.

Traitor.

"Remind me again what we're doing?"

Contrary to its usual harsh derision, Buford's rumbling tone held only honest curiosity as he leaned over Rob's shoulder to get a better view of Phineas and Ferb's undertaking.

Phineas did not look up from where he was knelt on one knee, watching as Ferb pressed various tools into the wire workings of a flat-screen television which had, up until the last few moments, been mounted impressively on a colorful wall in one of the deluxe suites at the Tortuga Resort.

"That guy Roddenstein is trying to use the power and technology of Bendita Isla to create a super-weapon of some sort," explained the young man patiently. "If we can use some of the stuff around to destroy all the places he's taking power from, maybe we can stop him."

"Or at least slow him down," added Ferb, barely glancing up before resuming his skillful work on the rigged television.

"Brilliant," Rob said, though whether he was being serious or skeptical, nobody knew or cared.

The Fireside Girls hummed in simultaneous agreement, and Isabella was just opening her mouth to voice her own strong concurrence, when there was a sudden rumble from some distance away, and the roof of the high-class resort on which they stood began to shudder beneath their feet.

"What was that?" Sarah said, though she was expecting it when no one answered.

Ferb did not react to the odd disturbance, but he and Phineas continued to work ever-more quickly on the television so that they might toss it onto the pile of altered electronics and move on to destroying the next location. The rest of the large group, however—most of whom had been helping in the demolition by dumping handfuls of electrical objects onto the cement ground—moved to the edge of the roof and looked out over the shiny buildings dotted with bending palm trees in between.

"Whoa," Baljeet whistled at the sight which met them, "what in the world is happening out there?"

Phineas, unable to contain his curiosity at that, rose and moved to peer over Isabella's shoulder.

"What?"

He did not need an answer, and none came, for the weird way the lights of the village in the distance flickered on then off again in the daylight like some powerful tsunami of energy coming straight for them was answer enough.

Irving snapped a picture with his yellow camera.

It took Phineas all of two seconds to realize what was happening, and his boyishly handsome face fell to pure, unadulterated terror, whipping around in a sudden motion and crying out in a voice saturated with panic,

"Ferb! Get away from the—!"

It was too late, however, and just as his the green-haired engineer raised his head at his brother's tone, every bulb in the inoperable resort suddenly burst to life in an explosion of blinding light and the not-yet disassembled stereo near them roared with ear-splitting volume some catchy Hawaiian theme. Phineas cried out with the bone-jarring impact of it all striking his senses at once, and he collapsed to his knees, pressing his left hand against his ear instinctively and reaching blindly for Isabella with his right.

In the next second, it was over, the room once again dimming and all noise cutting off as instantaneously as it had begun as the shock of energy continued on its way through the rest of the island.

Head still ringing, Phineas leapt to his feet, swaying slightly before righting himself.

"Ferb!" he called out over the noise of his companions' groaning as they, too, struggled to stand upright.

The blurriness of his vision cleared, and for what may have been the first time of his life, he was rendered speechless with horror.

To be continued

(1) I'm aware Doof probably isn't heavier than an alligator, but this is Phineas and Ferb's world, after all, so I'm just gonna go with it.