Part 8: Master and Servant

(A/N: Geh. Summer vacation makes maniac a lazy maniac~ In fact it made me so lazy that I couldn't finish writing this chapter till fall break! And editing wasn't done till spring break! Sorry about the huge (near) year long delay... everything has been kinda... Ugh... for me this past school year... So, since I don't want to delay you too much more up here, I hope you enjoy!)

I blinked at him. Was he seriously asking me to break him from this prison? I nearly had to play that moment in my memory bank again before I could bring myself to answer, it was just too unbelievable.

But no matter how unbelievable it was, the answer was clear.

I shook my head. No. I could not break him out of jail.

He stared at me for a moment, almost like he didn't understand. "What did you say?"

I shook my head again, reasserting my answer.

That man looked taken aback. He took a few seconds to blink before asking, "Are you defying me?"

I raised an eyebrow. I supposed if he put it that way... I nodded. Yes.

"Perry the Platyborg," he sighed, rising to his feet, "I don't think you quite understand your position."

It was my turn to look at him confused.

"I suppose, I was too lenient on you before... Allow me to remedy that." He cleared his throat, as if he was about to say something important. "You will break me out of here." His tone turned dark, and any hint of tenderness that could have existed in his voice before, had vanished with that single sentence.

I took a step back, fearing that he may lash out at me, and shook my head again.

"I didn't make you like this," he stated, glaring down at me with his single eye. "What could possibly have made you so defiant?"

I watched his eye as it flicked from me to the Flynn-Fletcher children.

"It's them isn't it? They made you so disobedient... so ..." he paused for a moment, searching for the right word. When he found it, a cruel grin etched its way across his face. "Weak. Yes, that's what they have made you. Weak."

I shook my head in defiance. He was wrong. They didn't make me weak.

"Oh? No? Well, then prove it."

I tilted my head to the side in question.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" His voice was filled with growing impatience. "If they haven't made you weak, go kill them. If you aren't weak, then it should be no problem for you."

I nearly tripped over myself in shock. Was he really telling me to...

"Didn't you hear me?" that man nearly shouted, "That was an order!"

Without any control or restraint on my part, my hands converted into blasters and aimed themselves at Phineas.

Upon the sound of my blasters charging, Candace looked up. I saw her face turn into an expression of concern, mixed with tones of both shock and foresight as she launched herself towards him. "Phineas!"

My arms fired and I watched in horror as the burning hot projectile headed straight for the red haired boy. Phineas looked from me to the projectile sailing through the air, directly at him.

Our eyes met for a brief moment. There was only one clear emotion within them. Disappointment.

His gaze was only broken by Candace whom just before the shot could reach them, wrapped her arms around Phineas and tackled him to the ground.

The munition harmlessly passed over the two, and instead slammed into the wall behind them, where it exploded, leaving a deep crater in the rock. I held my breath as the dust settled gently around the children. I only released it when I saw that my family appeared unharmed.

I heard Candace talking to the boys, asking if they were okay, but it was drowned out when that man spoke. "Now, doesn't that feel better?"

Turning my blasters back into hands, I looked up at him in disgust.

"Oh, what are you so mad about? I'd say they you're half way to breaking me out of here," he smirked, pointing to the crater in the wall.

I wanted to tell him how low he was for trying to make me kill a group of innocent children, but I could hear Candace and Phineas' begging voices asking each other and themselves what had happened. I couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt.

The steel door screeched open and a large group of people burst in.

"What happened!" I could hear Isabella shouting to Candace, but she fell silent when she looked towards us.

I was glared up at that man, hate blazing in my eyes. That man simply looked down at me in a cold gaze. We stayed that way for a few seconds, staring each other down in silence, waiting for the other to make their move.

"Well, what are they waiting for!" a familiar voice shouted out, breaking the silence.

We both looked across the room to where Benjamin Robins stood, slightly apart from the rest of the group.

My eyes opened wide in terror as that man's eyes narrowed, slyly.

"If it isn't our good friend, Benjamin Robins." A harsh grin stretched across his face.

"Doofenshmirtz...?!" Benjamin shouted, almost as if he didn't know that he would be in this room.

"I see you're doing well. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"What is it to you?" Benjamin spat, disgust evident on his face.

"Oh, nothing really, I'm just wondering how those legs of yours are doing."

Benjamin clutched the handle of his cane tightly. "Better, no thanks to you."

"I see... Well, Platyborg, Do you really think you've changed?" He tuned to better face me.

I didn't move.

"Well, now is your time to prove it!"

I braced myself for what he was going to say next.

"My next order is for you to cripple our dear friend, Benjamin Robins."

Even though I had already braced myself, I was still taken by surprise by how my arm moved to aim the next projectile at him. But just before they fired, I forced them to stop. However, I quickly found I couldn't move my arm down, that they were still trying to follow through with that man's orders. They fought against me, trying to coax me into acting, but I refused.

"What are you waiting for!" That man scolded. "Fire already!"

"Wait! No! Don't fire!" Benjamin pleaded.

"Go on Platyborg! Show us who is your master!"

"No, Perry!" I heard Phineas shout to me. "You aren't anyone's servant! Resist him!"

"Don't listen to him! He's just a boy! Shoot him!"

"Perry, I will not be able to accept you in our family if you shoot the ambassador under these circumstances," Candace threatened, "no matter how much he deserves it."

Before long, the entire cell was filled with the sound of voices trying to encourage me not to shoot. But they couldn't understand how powerful, how loudly that man's words rung in my head. Half of me wanted to shoot, to get it over with and go back to the way things were under his command, while the other refused to fire, and just wanted to be at peace, at home, with my family. All that these voices really did was give me a headache. Both voices were equally loud in my head. They both were relentlessly fighting for dominance, only getting louder and louder. I clutched my non-weapon arm to my head, trying to quiet the voices. I just wanted silence, time to think it through. I just wanted to shut down and forget about it all... Shut down... that was it. That program, old and forgotten could be the answer. An unbiased test to see which side would win. I closed my remaining eye, remembering the codes for activating it. Hoping that it would still work, I entered the code into my system. It activated. I could feel myself fall as all went silent and black.

.~.~.~.~.~.

Perry looked like he was struggling... but why? It was obvious what the right choice was, and it was not like him to kill an innocent bystandard. It must've been Doofenshmirtz. Perhaps he had done something... had recently entered a program that forced Perry to follow all of his orders... After all... Why would he try to kill me? Perry clutched a hand to his head. His face was contorted into an expression of pain. But then he just... stopped.

He fell forward and appeared to black out. His arm blaster disarmed itself and shut down. His organic eye closed as the blue light on the other dimmed until it was off.

"Perry!" I shouted, running to his side. I scooped up his head in one hand, and lay it over one of my thighs. "Perry? What's wrong?" I asked.

There was no response.

I shook him.

Again, no response.

"Why...?" I whispered more to myself than to him.

It was then I noticed Doofenshmirtz looming over me, examining Perry with an unsympathetic eye.

"You..." I muttered under my breath.

"What was that? You'll have to speak up boy," Doofenshmirtz mocked.

"What did you do to him!" I lashed out at him.

He took a step back in surprise, but quickly regained his posture. "That's what I'm trying to figure out," he said, outstretching an arm to Perry.

I immediately pulled him away from the man. "What do you think you're doing now?"

"Well, if you want me to figure out what's wrong with him, I need to examine him."

"And why should we let you do that?"

Doofenshmirtz didn't respond.

"I think I can help," Dr. Baljeet said, stepping forward.

"Dr. Baljeet?" I asked. "You think you can find the problem?"

"I'm not certain, but I should at least be able to get a general idea of what's happening."

.~.~.~.~.~.

I realised that I was once again in that pitch black room. Shaking my head, I sat up, examining the area around me. There was nothing. And other than of the sound of my gears turning it was completely silent.

Where am I?

"Haven't you figured that out yet?" I could hear a familiar voice say.

Where are you?

"Where I always am," the voice mused coming from all sides.

And where is that?

"In the recesses of your mind." In the darkness before me a red light flickered on, but whatever it was attached to was masked by the darkness.

I hesitated before stepping closer to the entity with the red light. Who are you?

"I thought I told you before," the voice answered in an amused tone. "Doofenshmirtz."

No... I know you... but you aren't him.

The voice laughed. "Then who am I?"

.~.~.~.~.~.

Dr. Baljeet looked up from Perry to me. "Well, his vitals appear to be okay. His pulse is regular, his blood pressure is not too high or low for him, he is breathing at a normal rate. However, I do not know what's happening with his machinery. As far as I can tell, it has just... stopped working. Perhaps if we open him up..."

"Do it," I ordered Baljeet.

Without a word, he turned Perry over to examine his back, but the moment he tried to remove the first screw, a surge of electricity came at Baljeet, forcing him to pull away.

"What just happened?" I asked.

"What does it look like he did! He just electrocuted me!" Baljeet shouted, caressing his hurt hand, examining for any major burns.

"Do you have any idea why?" I asked over his shouting.

"I don't know, there could be a short, something could have been poorly rewired, a cable could not be well insulated, he could be overloading, I don't know!"

"Are you calling me a bad mechanic!" Doofenshmirtz shouted, offended.

"Well, if it wasn't your crappy workmanship, then what was it? A form a defense...? Wait... Could it have been to defend himself...?"

We both turned to Doofenshmirtz as he uttered to himself, "He didn't..."

"He didn't what?" I asked, only to be pushed aside.

Doofenshmirtz bent over him and closed his eyes.

"What are you..." I started, but Doofenshmirtz held up a hand, shushing me.

I looked to Baljeet who just shrugged.

Doofenshmirtz opened his eyes and muttered to himself, "He did..."

"He did what?!" I barked at him. "I think we deserve to know what you did to him."

"Not what I did to him. What he did to himself."

"And what did he do?"

Doofenshmirtz looked down to Perry and chuckled to himself. "Even after all I did, he pulls this on me?"

"Answer my question, Doofenshmirtz! Before I force you to!"

He sighed, turning to me with a rather lame look in his eye. "Boy, there are a lot of things that you don't know about your pet, and this is just another one of them."

"And what is that."

"What do you think would've happened if I had ruled over Danville for so long that I died?"

"I don't know. We, the people, would probably make a new..."

"Wrong. I would have a successor take over for me. Now the Platyborg over here was programmed such that he would only obey me... Unless..." Doofenshmirtz paused.

"Unless what?" I asked.

"Unless he activated a certain program. A program that was designed to be utilised by my successor in order to inherit this area's most important general. A program that only the Platyborg could activate."

"But what's going to happen to Perry!"

"Don't worry. Your 'Perry' here is fine. In fact all we have to do it say the magic words... the magical thirteen letter combination and he will awaken, his programming completely rewired to follow whoever said the password."

"Then why don't you do it already!?"

"Sheesh! Calm down already. I would just prefer you not to hear what I say." Doofenshmirtz kneeled down, putting his mouth next to Perry's ear and whispered.

Nothing happened.

Doofenshmirtz stared for a moment in confusion. "Platyborg?" The former evil dictator took Perry by the shoulders and shook him.

He did not stir.

Doofenshmirtz blinked. "Here, Platyborg."

Again, nothing.

"Here, Platyborg. Awaken. Come here to my side."

"What's wrong with him?" I asked, trying to hide the desperation in my voice.

"I... I don't know... I know I said the right password... the program should still be working, I made sure of it, he should boot right back up... but he isn't..." Doofenshmirtz paused as a sudden realisation washed over him.

"Then what is it?" I demanded from him.

Doofenshmirtz looked back to Perry. In barely more than a whisper he uttered. "That sly little... He... He changed the password."

(A/N: Aaaaaand THAT seems like a good place to stop. Dun dun DUN! Oooooooh a cliffhanger! You have NO idea how long I procrastinated on this chapter. You have NO idea how glad I am that I have finally gotten to this point in the fanfiction. I have had this moment more or less planned out since the beginning.

To explain my recent absence, it was because I completely slacked off all of my summer vacation, you know, having a social life for once and actually trying to clean the disaster zone that I call my room. I got obsessed with various different shows such as Transformers, Romantically Apocalyptic, and most recently, Adventure Time, and kept procrastinating. And before I knew it it was almost spring! However, worry not! I have been trying to write in this time, so you people should get some new material... soonish!

As always reviews and whatnot are greatly appreciated!)