It's here . . . the phic you've all been waiting for! XD

Disclaimer: I don't own PotO or anything referenced or the phangirls, for that matter. I don't even own the lighter used in chappie three! However, I lay full claim to the Siren. I got the idea from Erik's insisting she was real in Leroux's book, but the character is all mine.

Weird musings: I was reading an X-Men: Evolution fic about Magneto reviewing all his Acolytes, and I thought: What if I carried this basic concept over to PotO, but the managers fired everyone instead? And so, I began writing this before I realized that it could look like I'd gotten the idea from Erik and Garnier's conversation in Kay's book. Because I didn't. Really.

Anyway! On with da phic!

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Erik leaned out from where he was standing at the end of a long ling of people, all of whom were waiting to see the managers, then looked down at the card he'd received in the mail not more than twenty-four hours earlier. He'd been so ecstatic to get this; it was his first piece of mail ever!

Pity it was also his pink slip.

He glanced at it again. Funny . . . they had told him to be here at eight o'clock and it was now nine-thirty.

Erik knew, because he had an excellent internal clock. How else was he supposed to keep track of time in his underground home, where he obviously couldn't use a sundial? There were watches, sure, but they tended to act weird after awhile. He could only manage a guess that that had something to do with being closer to the Earth's core, and something with magnetism. He wasn't sure.

Remy, Moncharmin and Richard's secretary (and secretly known as the mutant Gambit), stepped out of his little secretary's office and looked at the line of people, who all stared back at him hopefully.

"Erik the Opera Ghost?" he called. The last two words had a tremendous effect on the people there, for when they were spoken, everyone else in the line twittered in sudden fear as Erik stepped away from them and walked towards Remy.

"In there, monsieur," said Remy, pointing into the office, and Erik entered it.

Moncharmin, wearing a baseball cap, played with a yo-yo in a corner of the room, while Richard sat at the desk working on a pile of paperwork.

Erik silently sat down in one of the expensive chairs and waited patiently.

Richard soon finished up his forms and set them aside. Then he looked up at Erik's masked face calmly.

"You've been with this Opera since it was constructed, correct?" asked Richard.

Moncharmin popped a piece of gum into his mouth.

Erik nodded. "I also helped to build it."

Richard nodded as well. "Very good." He marked something down on a sheet of paper.

Erik leaned forward to try and read it, wondering what it was.

Richard put his arm around the paper, blocking any chance Erik might have had of seeing what it said. "We have received some . . . complaints, lately," he went on.

Moncharmin blew a bubble.

"Stop that!" commanded Richard. Moncharmin glared, popped it, and threw the gum away. He resumed playing with his yo-yo.

Richard consulted a different sheet of paper and continued, "from a Vicomte by the name of de Chagny."

Erik stood up indignantly and was about to give his rather rude reply when Richard motioned for him to sit down.

He did so very reluctantly.

"He claims that you have 'kidnapped' Christine Daae on numerous occasions."

Erik fought to keep his voice level. "No . . . she came with me willingly each time. Well . . . except for that last incident . . . "

Richard looked at Erik imploringly. "We understand you wanting to have company now and then, but we mustn't have our patrons getting upset about it. It does things to the money supply."

He set that paper aside and picked up a different one.

"Now, by the complaints listed here by our other employees, or, shall I say, 'lack of complaints', you have been slacking off in your duties. You have only caused a small bit of tension among the ballet girls, we have had almost no eerie music during performances, you've only wrecked one chandelier this year, and worst of all, people are beginning to demand Box Five again!" Richard again looked up at Erik. "Is this on account of that Daae girl?"

Erik was forced to nod. "Yes," he whispered.

Richard sighed. "Erik, we pay you an enormous wage for the work you do here, plus we pay your bills, and generously keep most everyone out of the basements for you. You cannot let yourself get sidetracked so easily. When was the last time you've used your ventriloquism?"

"Carlotta's croaking," he answered.

"And also, there have been no reports of strange men in the hallways, no eerie footsteps, and no one has faked their death since Joseph Buquet!"

Buquet had in fact conspired with Erik to feign his own death so as to begin anew in Australia as an accountant. I know; it makes no sense.

"I've been . . . busy lately," lied Erik.

Richard marked something else down on his paper, then looked back up. He ignored Erik's answer. "The thing is, Erik, we're losing money. People are beginning to think there's no Ghost here after all. We're losing publicity because you haven't been up to par lately. Erik . . ."

Erik knew what Richard was about to say.

"You're fired. We're very sorry," Richard finished apologetically.

Moncharmin pulled out a dart gun and shot at the wall. The dart went right through the plaster of various walls until it came to a bathroom, where it landed in a toilet.

"No, we're not," Moncharmin said truthfully. "We're going to get a new Phantom. You've got twenty-four hours to move out of your house."

Erik leapt out of his chair angrily. "I've given the best years of my life to the Opera and this is how you repay me!" He chucked the chair at Richard, who ducked, and it went soaring out the window, landing on Raoul's empty carriage.

He and Christine stared at it in surprise, then looked up the building at the broken window.

"I should just kill you both now!" screamed Erik. Richard, who had been expecting something like this, pressed a button on his intercom (hey, it's theoretically possible that they had these in the 1880's) and Police Commissary Mifroid and three of his officers strolled in.

"Good-bye, Erik," said Richard, waving his hand dismissively. Mifroid, who had his hand trained on his gun, nodded encouragingly.

Erik stormed out of the office and past the long line of people. When he got to the end of the hallway, he seemingly disappeared.

The entire way back down towards his house, he was raging. How could they just FIRE him? He, the Opera Ghost, whose will went unchallenged!

Because it had always been challenged, the rational side of Erik argued, the managers paid him for all his stunts, after all, and granted him his privacy. They just pretended to not be in control so the Opera Board of Directors wouldn't realize the entire thing was just a publicity stunt.

But it was still unfair! the angry side of Erik argued, and the rational side of Erik agreed. He had been keeping up with his duties, they were just half-heartedly done.

But still, Erik knew that they thought they were doing the right thing.

That didn't mean he couldn't continue to be angry, however.

He strode into his house, where Ayesha was waiting. He picked her up and petted her as he looked around at his things. He was sure he was going to need help getting all this out of here. Fortunately, that help came a moment later, when the bell went off.

Nadir had arrived.