Chapter Text
Taylor chewed her lip as she walked down the street, carefully not meeting the eyes of any of the people wandering around in confusion. Some of them she recognized, vaguely, as neighbors and other citizens of Brockton Bay. Others she didn't recognize at all. Listening through her swarm had given her some insight into the whole situation, with multiple people talking about a broadcast that had gone out less than an hour ago... on the network native to this reality. The idea that Brockton Bay could just be transported to another world, though, was mind-boggling. Nobody could just hear something that strange and just say 'that's cool, so what are we going to do today?'
"Huh, an entire city from another world was just transported to Danville! That's cool. So what are we going to do today?"
Taylor did not jerk around in shocked disbelief, mostly because the ants in the nearby lawn were doing it for her. She carefully wandered past, focusing her swarm through the house and yard as she glanced over the fence.
"You've got a point, Ferb," said a boy with a large nose--large enough to make his head look like a triangle. "This entire situation would be very disruptive and upsetting for the Brocktonians. Or is it Brocktonites? Brocktonese...?"
The other boy, who had a strangely cubical nose and green hair, gave him a flat look.
"We should do something for them!" the triangle boy declared. "Make a welcoming package for everybody who got sent here. But what would we put in it? And how many packages should we make?"
Taylor smiled wryly to herself as she walked on, passing a darkhaired girl in a pink dress who made a beeline for the backyard gate. Okay, so innocent and naive kids could maybe just accept the new paradigm without any real concern. The inside of their house seemed pretty normal, aside from... all the hidden tunnels and pipes... leading to an underground garage...?
"Hey Phineas! Wat'cha dooooin?"
"Oh hey Isabella! We're planning on making a welcoming package to give to everyone in Brockton Bay!"
Taylor cautiously approached what seemed to be an auxillary entrance to the underground base. She lifted the trash can lid. The can itself seemed quite empty, but she was able to work some bugs in and out of various cracks near the bottom.
"One big welcoming package or thirty-five hundred thousand individual ones?"
"Hmm. What do you think, Ferb?"
Dead silence came through the swarm for a few seconds. Taylor rolled her eyes and put the lid back on the trash can, turning around to head back home.
"Yeah, good point. I guess we'd need to know more about them before we made a big production. A few hundred thousand gift baskets it is!"
"We should put in the essentials. You know, a few hundred bolts, a set of basic tools--"
"And a few food items!" Isabella suggested. "Nonperishable goods. Oh, and some cakes and cookies. You think the Brocktonborn like jewish food?"
Taylor jerked to a stop.
"We could scale up some Lekach recepies, maybe make some strudel to throw in."
"That's a great idea!" the triangle-headed boy proclaimed. "Heck, let's throw in stuff from all our cultures! Mexican artwork, Indian poetry, British tea!"
"I'm sure everyone from Brockton Bay will love our multicultural greeting baskets!"
Taylor looked over the fence, taking in the smiling little girl in a pink dress and bow. A horrifically unbidden image rose in her head, of that little girl cheerfully holding a basket and knocking on a door, only to come face to face with the snarling metal visage of Hookwolf. She banished it from her mind, but it was swiftly replaced with the vague idea of the drug-addicted Merchants inviting her in for a party, or the draconic visage of Lung looking the girl over and snatching her up--
She hung her head with a long, resigned sigh.
Then she headed for the backyard gate, knocking on it carefully. "Uh... excuse me?"
"Oh hi!" The triangle-headed boy waved. "I'm Phineas Flynn and this is my brother Ferb Fletcher. And our neighbor, Isabella Garcia-Shapriro."
"Hi!" the girl waved.
"Hello. I'm... my name is Taylor Hebert."
"Nice to meet you, Taylor!" Phineas greeted happily. Ferb cleared his throat, flicking his eyes significantly. "Oh! Hey, are you a Brocktonary?" Phineas added curiously.
"...I'm from Brockton Bay, if that's what you're asking."
"That's perfect! We could really use your advice on something. Come on in!"
Taylor pushed the fence gate open, surprised that it was unlocked. Then she glanced at the glass sliding doors and winced. "Yeah... you really could use my advice..."
"So," Phineas began as she walked over, "what exactly do you think the average citizen of Brockton Bay would appreciate in a greeting gift basket?"
"It's not the average citizen you need to worry about," Taylor informed him, sitting down warily. "It's... the capes."
"The what?"
"The parahumans." She took in the confused expressions. "The, uh, people with super powers?"
"You guys have superheroes?" Isabella gasped eagerly. "Real live superheroes?"
Taylor nodded. "And supervillains."
"Oh." Isabella deflated a little. "At least the superheroes outnumber them, right?"
"....nnno. No they don't."
"Well then, we just won't deliver any gift baskets to the supervillains," Phineas decided. "All we have to do is avoid their evil lairs."
"They, uh, don't have lairs," Taylor explained. "At least, I don't think they do. Maybe they have hideouts? But the capes in charge of the gangs probably have ordinary homes they go to when they're not fighting."
"Gangs?"
Taylor took a breath. "Okay, so from the top...."
"...and that summarizes all I know. Which isn't a lot, I know, I only really started looking into things a few months ago."
"I am highly offended that the largest criminal element in your city is a group of neonazi wannabes who regularly mangle mythology for their racist ideology," Isabella stated flatly. "I'm tempted to load the gift baskets with multicultural foodstuffs just to spite them."
Taylor cringed. "That... might not be the wisest idea."
"Oh I know, I'm not stupid. Just mildly vengeful."
"Good. So... it might be best if you avoided going around and knocking on people's doors," Taylor repeated. "I don't want you to endanger yourself while trying to help."
"Well, it's a good thing we weren't planning on delivering the gift baskets in person anyway," Phineas decided. "I mean, thirty five hundred thousand people? That would be wildly ineffecient."
"Better to rely on the mail," Taylor agreed.
"Or on this automatic self-motivated gift basket production machine," Phineas stated, gesturing to the machine that now took up half the backyard.
Taylor's lips twitched. "Or that," she jokingly conceded, looking at the very fancy piece of playground equipment Ferb had put together while she was explaining things. "I'm sure it's a wonderful... uh..."
A basket with food, supplies, and a well-written welcoming note on fancy stationary glided out of the object. It scanned all four of them with some sort of light thing, beeped when it hit Taylor, and hovered toward her. She took the handle with some shock.
"It works!" Phineas declared happily. "Now we just have to keep the system topped off until we send out enough baskets for everyone!"
"Um," Taylor said intelligently.
Isabella gave her a smug grin. "Yeah, they do that."
Ferb looked around the yard. "Hmmm. Hey, where's Candace?"