Prisoner of Metal and Flesh

Summary
This story takes place in the Second Dimension. It has been a year or so since the fall of Doofenschmirtz and the Tri-State area is still recovering. The Resistance is in charge, and things are gradually getting better for everyone; in fact the Tri-State Area may become part of the United States again. It is the day that the representitives from the United States and the Tri-State area are to discuss (re)annexation.

This story is about Perry the Platyborg. Ever since Doofenschmirtz fell from power he has been trying to live in the city that he helped to destroy. With reminders of who he was, and what he did all around him, will he ever be accepted into society? Will he ever learn to accept himself?

Told mainly from Perry's point of view, however it does switch to Phineas (typically at the beginning or end of a chapter).

Warning: There is voilence in this story, so if you're very sensitive to that kind of thing proceed with caution. There may be some language in here, but I tried to edit any out. If you see any, please edit it out, it was unintentional.

Part 1: A Troubled Savior
I felt happy. Seldom had I ever felt such joy since that day so long ago. The sun was beating down on me and I could feel its warmth consuming my entire being. I opened my eyes and gazed up at the sky, shining and blue. Not a single cloud could be seen in that deep azure for miles. I sat up, petting the cool, green grass that stretched on for what seemed like forever. My body felt lighter than it ever had, as if a great burden had been released from me. When I stood I felt like I could fly. I spun around in the field, arms extended and held aloft in the air like a child pretending to be a helicopter. Then I heard something whisper in my ear. I stopped turning and looked around for what had made the sound. “Perry?” a familiar voice now clearly called out. As I kept searching I saw the figure of a person standing on the horizon. Curious as to what this person wanted, and why he was here, I approached the unknown man. Just as I came close enough to see his face a flame burst into existence at my feet. I jolted back to avoid being burned by the fire as I watched the flame quickly scorch the grass all around it. I blinked in confusion as the entire landscape turned dry and shriveled while the sky turned an ugly shade of polluted brown. The flame quickly spread into wildfire that ate the entire field. I looked up in terror from the hell that surrounded me only to find him standing before me. “What’s wrong, Platyborg? Why won’t you to respond to me?” The man spoke to me in that thick german accent. I looked into the man’s ugly, smirking mug. Oh, how I wanted to punch that man. I wanted to grab him by the neck and make him pay for all that he did, but when I willed myself to move, my body didn’t give a single motion in response. I again tried to attack this man and again I found myself unable to follow through with my wish. When I glared down at myself to see what was wrong with me I found that my hands were missing, and replaced by mechanical ones. In shock, I stumbled backwards and became engulfed in the flames. Undoubtably, the fire was hot and raging, but I could no longer feel anything. Even as the fire swallowed me whole I felt nothing, not even fear. The red and orange lights blinded me as they fed themselves off of my dying body. Then everything fell to black. I regained some form of awareness as my eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. I could feel the cold, smooth ground beneath my broken body as I stood. I stared into the black void all around me. I couldn’t see anything in the distance but somehow there was enough light to see my own crippled, robotic body. Something behind me shifted mechanically. I slowly twisted around to look at what had made the metallic sound. From the darkness something moved in an almost predatory way. I immediately knew that whatever it was I did not want it to be anywhere near me. At first I tried to slowly back away, but I could feel its eyes bearing down on me, looking for the exact moment to strike. I came to the sudden realization of what it was and knew that I mustn't show any sign of weakness or fear, or it would strike. What appeared to be a lens glowed bright red from that thing in my direction. It was only then when I started to run. I could hear it behind me, running on all fours, like a wolf chasing after a rabbit, trying to get closer, biding its time, waiting for the instant that the rabbit failed, so it could go in for the kill. I knew that if I had stopped, even for a moment that it would catch me. Slowly, but surely the mechanised running behind me was gradually getting quieter and quieter, getting farther and farther away. I thought that maybe it had given up, that maybe I had gotten away, that maybe I was safe, but that was when the sounds of engines blared above me. It had taken to the sky. I was running at top speed, but it was catching up. I was beginning to tire, but it was still chasing me. I had to go faster or I would be caught, but that would be impossible. I considered that I could also take to the sky, and face it on even ground, but I knew that it would catch me as I tried to take off. “Perry the Platyborg,” his voice rang inside my head, “I’m in prison, I need you to break me out.” Just as he said that, bars erupted out of the ground and a cage appeared in front of me. I had to skid to a halt to keep from running into the metal rods. In front of me, stood him, Heinz Doofenschmirtz, studying my every move. “What are you waiting for? I need you to break me out of jail.” He ordered me, making me feel ill with every word he spoke. A loud clanking noise came from behind, and I knew that it had landed. I knew what it was, I knew it was there, I knew that any moment it would attack me, but I didn’t dare to look at it. I couldn’t look at it, and I knew that if I did, it would devour me. The world began to shake, the darkness slowly began to dissipate into light, the room began to shatter all around me, and I didn’t know why. “Perry? Wake up Perry,” a new, innocent, and worried voice echoed in the now bright room, “are you okay? Perry?” .~. I literally jumped awake, right onto a young, red haired, sickly pale boy. My heavy metallic body pinned the poor child against the floor, nearly crushing him. “Perry...” my owner, Phineas, addressed to me as he gasped for air from underneath, “did you have another bad dream about Doofenschmirtz?” I hastily got off of him and helped him up. He eyed me curiously, patiently waiting for an answer. I nodded with much dismay. Phineas was worried about me. I knew that he cared deeply for me, but it all just felt out of place. While I knew that I was free, and I was truly grateful to Phineas’ family for letting me stay, while knowing what I am and what I have done, I couldn’t help but feel that I didn’t belong. How could I still belong in their family? I simply couldn’t, at least not anymore. Even after all that Phineas and Ferb have done for me I still felt like property of that man. Phineas looked at me with concerned eyes. “Perry, you need to tell me what’s wrong,” he told me in his nieve tone, “we’re family again, so if you have any problems you should just tell us.” I nodded to reassure the boy, but something on my face must have told him otherwise. “Perry, you’re safe. He can’t get you here. Doofenschmirtz is in jail, and the remains of the OWCA have joined with the resistance to keep him closely monitored. They both agree that you can stay with us without our memories being wiped or anything like that since the leader of the resistance lives here. If you ever short circuit or breakdown Dr. Baljeet will be able to fix you back up. We will do anything to keep you safe.” Phineas spoke, trying to bring up my spirits. A grin somehow forced its way across my face. It was bittersweet. A lump had formed in my throat making it hard to swallow. I really was thankful to him for the attempt, but he just didn’t understand. How could he understand? I did atrocities under that man. Some of them, people still find unspeakable. I used to watch people slowly suffer, just because I could. Sad thing is that I would enjoy it. But still, the most terrifying thing above all was that I was never programed to be cruel, or hate filled, I was only programmed to obey that man as a slave, without question or remorse. No matter how much I would try to dismiss such sadism as part of my wiring, as a virus in my system that had been destroyed after I was electrocuted, I could not help but wonder if a part of me actually did enjoy such things. Thinking about it always made me feel sick. “Perry.” Phineas pronounced, reverting my attention to him. “I need you to promise me that you will tell me whenever something’s wrong.” He held out his pinky finger to me and waited. I looked at him in confusion for a few moments before my brain processed that he wanted me to make a ‘pinky promise.’ I timidly held out my hand, pinky finger extended and hooked his with mine. Phineas grinned at me. Sympathy was apparent in his eyes. Once Phineas had felt satisfied with the contract we made he let my finger go. Phineas turned to leave the room saying, “we have a busy day today. We’re going to try and make amends with the United States of America. If today works out well we’ll be part of America again!” The moment he left I couldn’t help but feel heavy with dread. At all times as condition for staying with the boys I had to be either at the house, or be within viewing distance of a member of the Flynn-Fletcher family. I didn’t particularly want to be fenced in, alone at home (the adults of the household would be out all day helping to rebuild the community and probably wouldn’t want me there), and even if I did the boys would drag me along anyway. Still, I hardly wanted normal people to see me, and I especially didn’t want to see any politicians, particularly since the last one I met left with both of his legs broken. I sighed and stood onto my hind legs, since my machinery didn’t agree with me crawling on all fours anymore. I knew that I would have to face them sooner or later, so today was as good as any. I knew that today was not going to be easy, but I just hoped that Mr. Robins wouldn’t be among the representatives as I walked downstairs. Once I went into the kitchen, the air in the room became tense. Linda eyed me nervously from her place at the counter, fear evident in her eyes while Lawrence stared intently at his morning rations of food. Candace on the other hand glared at me from the table, analyzing my every move. I walked over to the pantry and pulled out a very old bag of Platypus food. As I poured today’s cut of food into my dusty food bowl that hadn’t been moved in years, Ferb spoke up in the silence. “Perry, you can eat with us today.” He looked at me innocently from above a pair of dark sunglasses. I shook my head in refusal. Though I may live here I wasn’t really family, at least not anymore. Besides there shouldn’t be any animals at the table, it’s common knowledge. “Yeah, Perry, Ferb’s right you should eat with us. After all, you’ve earned it.” Phineas agreed, sitting next to Ferb. I was about to disagree again when Linda spoke. “It’s okay... P... Perry. You can sit at the table, it’s fine.” She didn’t make eye contact, and she shook as she said it, but she actually talked to me. When I first came back she had a panic attack, and ran to hide in the basement where Phineas, Ferb, and Candace explained everything that had happened. For a while she was too scared to even be in the same room as me. It wasn’t until recently that was she able to stand being in my presence. Still, she hadn’t spoken a single word to me until now. Truth be told, I was proud of her for overcoming her fear of me. After all she had been though because of me, she still dared to speak up. There was no way I could refuse now. I moved my food dish to an empty spot at the table and pulled up a chair for myself. We had breakfast together, and for the first time in a very long time I felt like I was home. Candace was going over the edict involved when talking to people of higher status than you since we were going to talk to a representative of the United States at today’s meeting. Linda and Lawrence were talking to each other in a hused tone, but I could tell that they were talking mainly about which part of Danville they would be fixing up today, and how proud they were of their kids for all they were going to accomplish. By the time breakfast had ended, things felt almost normal, but the moment I stepped outside I was reminded of my position. Though that man was no longer in control, most buildings still reminded us of his oppression. While his building was torn down as if it were the Berlin Wall to the Tri-state area many of his statues still stood around the town, covered in vandalism. Maroon clouds still hung, ominously in the sky and it felt as if hardly anything had really changed. “Come on, Perry, we don’t want to be late!” Phineas urged, seeing that I was falling a bit behind. “We need to be at the library by nine.” I sped up a little to catch up with them, but I doubted we would be late at this kind of pace, unless something unexpected happened. Quite literally, just as I thought that, I heard someone scream, “Help!” at the top of their lungs. Almost automatically, I sprung into action. Wings slid out of my back, and I soared into the sky towards the voice. Below, I could vaguely see Phineas, Ferb, and Candace chase after me from the ground. They knew that my senses were vastly improved ever since I became a cyborg, and they knew that I only took advantage of that fact when it was necessary. Off in the distance I could see a young girl on top of a building being attacked by some... thing. I say ‘something’ because from that distance I had a difficult time locking onto the target, and for some reason, even though I could see the girl clearly, to the extent that I could watch a drop of sweat flow down her face, I couldn’t verify who or what this attacker was. I landed infront of the attacker just as it was about to punch the child, taking on the full blow. A normal person would have been knocked unconscious by such a hit, but I was able to completely halt the attack. Now that it was directly in front of me I discovered why I couldn’t confirm who the attacker was, it was a Normbot. I couldn’t get a lock on it because my programming refused to see it as a threat or as a feasible target. I could sense the child slowly backing away from us, and closer to the edge of the roof. The Normbot tried to move to the side to grab the child, obviously it didn’t see me as a threat either. I grabbed its arm and pulled off a loose piece of its armor, revealing the network of wires underneath. With one hand I pulled out a series of cords, and the other receded into my wrist. I put the wires into the hole where my hand would usually be, and attempted to make a link with the robot. Once the link was made I tried to take over the system so that it wouldn’t attack the child. Access denied. That was unusual. I tried to shut the machine down. Access denied. That shouldn’t happen. I ordered it to stop. Access denied. I tried to rewrite the system. Access denied. I tried to get into the weapons system. Access denied. I tried to change its orders. Access denied. I tried getting into its memory. Access denied. I tried a technical scan of the entire robot. Access denied. I tried to get back out of its system. Access denied. I started to panic, not for the child, but for myself. I knew that as long as I was connected the Normbot, it couldn’t move, but neither could I. I was trapped inside this robot’s hardrive. I tried and retried everything I could possibly think of to get in or out of its system, every time, ‘Access denied,’ chimed in my head and flashed before my eyes. Then I felt something downloading itself into my system. I forced it to stop and I was actually booted out of the system. This particular robot was obviously no regular grunt, someone had programmed it for a specific purpose, that not even I could interfere with. Truthfully, it made me feel a bit offended. I was the general of that man’s army, so I was always allowed to get into pretty much anything I wanted, and I was never booted by anyone except for... that man. Could he have possibly? No. He couldn’t have. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind Well, it was no more Mr. Nice Platyborg. Hacking into your system to shut you down just wouldn’t be enough anymore. I replaced my sunken hand with a sharp dagger-like blade and I lunged at the hunk of metal. Every kind of pop up you could possibly imagine saying anything and everything to the effect of, ‘Warning, stop, don’t kill this robot’ flashed into my head at that single moment. My ears blared with warnings as more notices flashed before my eyes, giving me a headache. Every circuit in my programming told me to not smash the Normbot to smithereens as they made every single movement and action harder to do. Lucky for me I knew these robots. Now I was fairly grateful that I was forced to do maintenance on these piles of junk every single day while under that man, because it made me learn every strength, weakness, and flaw, every pattern of movement and attack, and every important circuit and how to access them easiest. I rolled and jumped, stabbing my blade into every weak spot I could reach. Before too long I knew that it was at its end. Sparks were flying, wires were cut, movement was stiff and uncalculated, and the robot was falling apart. Just as I was about to deal the final blow a shrill cry sounded behind me. It was the girl. I had completely forgotten about her, and now she was falling. During the fight we must’ve been inching our way closer and closer to the girl, who in turn backed away from us and closer to the edge of the building. My wings rushed out of my back, and I bounded off of the building after the girl. I grabbed the girl and tried to lift us in the air, but I came to the horrible realization that there was not enough space between us and the ground to launch ourselves into the sky. As a last minute effort, I adjusted my weight and turned so that I would fall first. I tightly held the girl in my arms, hoping that at least she would be safe. ~.~.~.~.~. All we saw was Perry plummeting to the ground. We didn’t know what had happened, just that Perry flew off somewhere. As his owners we couldn’t just let him go, and fly off to who knows where. We had to follow him. When we finally caught up with him he had just jumped off the top of a 20 story building to grab a girl. “Perry!” I shouted, running to his side when the dust of his impact had cleared. The girl in his arms was screaming, “Help me! It hurts! Please, help!” Perry had a hard time controlling his strength since he became mostly metal. He must’ve been crushing her without realizing it. Where Perry lay the cement was cracked and broken from the impact of his fall. We all worked together to pry the girl from Perry’s arms. His grip was mechanical and unyielding, but we were eventually able to remove the girl. “Perry?” I asked once we had moved the girl to safety. He lay there motionless. No response. “Perry?” I asked again with increased urgency. Again he didn’t move. “Perry!” I started to shout and shake his body. “Please, Perry wake up! We can’t loose you again!” “Phineas.” Candace’s voice spoke out, putting her hand on my shoulder. “We’ll call Dr. Baljeet. He’ll know what to do, but first you need to calm down.” She used her other hand to point at Perry’s body. “Look. He’s still breathing. We can take him to the library and have Dr. Baljeet fix him up. We still have the meeting with the ambassador to attend.” I looked up at my big sister with awe. It was just like her to come up with the best solution for everyone, especially us, her little brothers. “Okay,” I answered and took deep breaths to calm myself down. Yes, of course Dr. Baljeet would know what to do, he always knew what to do when Perry was involved after all he loved the prospect of fixing a cyborg platypus up. Ferb and I both had to work together to pick Perry up and carry him. He was a lot heavier then he looked. We slowly started to drag Perry to our destination. “Um, excuse me,” a small voice started. We turned to see the girl that Perry had saved. She was probably about half our age, and a lifetime less experienced. She hesitated looking at the each of us in turn, but not Perry before asking, “I don’t want to be a bother, but could I come along?” Candace examined her intensely. “Why do you want to do that?” “It’s just that he... he saved me. I.. I just want to... I want to thank him.” The girl was shy and obviously scared, but the determination in her eyes was apparent. Candace looked her over one more time. “Okay, fine, just don’t get in the way at negotiations.” The girl’s eyes lit up in joy, but she didn’t say a word. For some unknown reason at that moment I wondered if she really knew who her savior was.

Part 2: Diplomatic Breakdown
Coming Soon!

Part 1:
I wrote this story because, while looking through the Phineas and Ferb fanfiction archives at fanfiction.net I didn't quite like how people portrayed the Second DImension post movie and I decided to write one of my own. It was initally supposed to be a one-shot about Perry the Platyborg and his troubles after the movie, but I soon realized that I was having too much fun with it, and I had typed six pages of text. I had to split it into two parts, and before I knew it I had five parts! And even these can be split into parts, if I tried to! Just wondering, is there a form of reviews on this website? Because if there is, then I'd like to know about it, and do some myself! If there is, then please review? The best thing you can do for a witer is to tell them how they can improve.

(Dis)Claimers
Phineas and Ferb © Disney Channel, Dan Povenmire, and Jeff 'Swamy' Marsh. This is the work of a fan and the characters and setting do not belong to her.

Story was written by Maniac-fangirl, you can read more of her stuff on fanfiction.net including this story.