Chapter Text
Gealming through the window of a bedroom, the Moon hovered over the wide horizon of smoky purple buildings that spanned the landscape that was once called Danville.
Presently, it was just a field of machinery and metal. Nowhere felt safe. Then again, the children of the Tri-State Area never grew up comprehending what the word "safe" even meant for they grew up knowing this nightmare inside and out so anything different would be more of a shock to them than robots patrolling every corner of every street that ran through their beloved town 24/7. Sports centres and parks had been closed because Doofenshmirtz believed that "You're all having too much fun, I'm evil for me's sake!" leading to many who enjoyed such activities to hide them from plain sight as to not get caught by the Norm-bots and be captured and imprisoned in a best case scenario. Not even the notion of school existed any more. In its place every day except from Saturday, which was purposed to be "Mayor Doofenshmirtz Appreciation day" he implimented a "Leadership Education Programme" to brainwash all the children into becoming loyal factory workers just like their parents and obey authority at all times. It also functioned as a way to prevent anyone from getting any bright ideas about joining a certain resistance group by painting them as insolent agitators who cause nothing but trouble. Despite any and all of those facts having the potential to shake any young child to their core, none compared to the one question that plagued this specific pair of young boys' every waking moments for the past three years to the day.
Carefully considering each step as to not frighten his brother, Phineas entered the bedroom he shared with his brother Ferb, who was sat in the middle of the floor directly facing the window where the smog-dusted Sun shone through the glass. Pieces of paper with purple ink scribbled across that Phineas theorised came from the notebook that the green haired boy clutched in his hand as well as a pen and furiously clicking the top.
In front of his brother, laid a locket that was laying open to reveal a picture. One of simpler times. It was of the first day he came home with the Flynn-Fletchers. The brother were exuberantly holding the then new addition to their family, their father leaning into the frame and waving at the camera, their mother sitting on the grass in their back yard and Candace is just out of frame with the exception of her eye being that she was the photographer. Doofenshmirtz may have still been incharge but they had each other and that was all they needed until he was gone.
The platypus may have disappeared once every day or so, but he always came home. Every single time with one exception.
As Phineas took a closer look at the pages upon pages of theories, hypotheses, probable outcomes or reasons to why their beloved Platypus hadn’t returned, he came to realise that they were all either scribbled or crossed out. “Caught in a funk again, huh?” he asked softly.
“I just don’t understand. It makes no sense.” Tears sprouted from his eyes that were still fixed on the notepad. "We've checked every news story over the past twenty-four months, we've tracked down every lead from foot prints to look alikes in the street to even tapping into the city's security system in the street lamps and I can't find any reason where he-why he would..."
An arm slung itself over his shoulder firmly but also gentle. “It’s ok, Ferb,” his red-haired brother sighed. “Do you remember the song?” a blue grin slid itself onto Phineas’ mouth.
“Are the windows shut?”
“Every one locked and the key is in my pocket.”
“And the doors?”
“Shut and secure so we don’t wake the others,” he assured before Ferb took a silent breath and together, they began to sing at an almost whispering volume but was still loud enough for their sister’s ears to just about catch.
“Perry, you know you are a boy’s best friend. You’re more than just a passing trend. You’re like a treat from the Doofen-store, oh~ Perry. We love you more than Doofen-cakes, we love you more than bugs and snakes, we love you than all things mentioned before, oh~ Perry. You’re extraordinary, you’re kind of short and hairy, the colour of a Doof-berry," Phineas held the photo of them all together while still having his arm looped around Ferb and the brothers held each other closer. "Yes Perry. So come home Perry, come home Perry. Come home.”
“We’ll find him. He'll come home soon, I know it. He has too,” The red-haired boy pleaded to the universe as he held the shoulder of his brother as they embraced each other under the light of the rising spherical satelite.
Candace’s respective tear ducts had long since closed up shop ever since she took charge in leading the resistance; she couldn’t let something as juvenile as sentimentality prevent her from upholding her primary mission. For she knew exactly where Perry was and she knew where his loyalties now lied. She engaged in combat with him more times than she could count and had the scars to prove it no matter how much her heart shattered every second they would.
She’d never forget the first time she led a mission and saw Perry for the first time in over two years. She tried to force her way through to the depths of his subconscious and remind him of who he was, but that childish mistake had almost costed her life and taken many others.
She knew the dictator had heavily altered some part of the soothing, warm-hearted pet they all once knew and reshaped him into a cold soldier averse to all versions of empathy or emotion. Perhaps that’s just another side effect of the reality of war. You can’t afford to show any weakness less you risk the lives of your community, your people and your family. Before her eyes could gloss themselves with those infernal drops, she placed her shades back on and grabbed her baton.
She headed downstairs and opened the door to the basement and marched silently down the staircase as to not wake or alert her parents and brothers. Once she reached the bottom she took a left and moved a box of objects that must have been from before Doofenshmirtz was in charge. Dolls and racecars and robots that weren't meant to act as propaganda for the regime. Rollercoaster sets, a computer with a face on itand even thoys that looked like ride that would slowly go up and down if you tossed a cent into the slot. One of her favourite ones was the unicorn so she could make her dolls ride it. Howver she quickly placed the box on the floor because she knew she was getting distracted. Behind the box was a lever, which when pulled caused the wall to open up into a one person wide tunnel that lead down another set of stair with a lever on the inside. Carefully, Candace returned the box to its original spot and walked into the tunnel. Just as she grabbed the lever to close the opening and before she faced all of the horrors that had become her regular, she begged to whatever piece of himself Perry still held onto, to vow to himself and to Candace to never come home again. Phineas and Ferb may have still had his locket, but Candace was passed down a mission from their dearest platypus even if he never said it: protect the Flynn-Fletchers at all costs. And after everything she had seen over the past five years, she was willing to give everything she had remaining to keep her brothers safe.
She pulled the lever. The wall closed up behind her and treaded deeper under the ground and toward their headquarters to plan their next move and prepared herself for another encounter with the General of the Norm-bot army.