What would happen if the Phantom found himself wandering into the world of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and decided to stir things up a bit?

I'm co-writing this with my sister, Fallen Scarlet Rose (our brother came up with the title). Don't be fooled by the opening scene; our Erik is not really based on the movie (we just needed to use that part for story purposes). Also, we're basing Hunchback on the Disney movie, not the book. But since this fic is under the "Phantom" section of this site, we're writing it so that people who don't know anything about the world of Hunchie (as we like to call him) can still understand what's going on.

Another note: we know these stories don't occupy the same time period. But for the purposes of our story, they do. Let's just say it takes place sometime before airplanes, televisions, and such were invented.

Disclaimer: Phantom belongs to Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the like. Hunchback belongs to Victor Hugo and the Walt Disney company. We are none of these people (cries), we're just borrowing their stories for awhile.

Now, let's get things started!

Chapter 1

It's over now, the music of the night!

The Phantom violently struck the mirror. The candlestick shook in his hands as he hit another. Pulling back the tapestry, he plunged the candlestick into the center of the last mirror, shattering the once-solid glass. The tunnel that lay ahead of him seemed darker than ever.

Where was he to go now? Was there even any point in going on? He'd lost Christine forever. He'd had her for a few brief, overwhelming moments, but he knew in his heart he couldn't keep her. She'd only chosen him to keep Raoul from dying, nothing more. He wasn't delusional enough to think that a woman would actually want to be with him, that she'd actually choose a hideous corpse over a handsome vicomte. No, it wasn't what she really wanted. So he'd let her go. And she'd given him such a precious gift—how could he not give her what she wanted? Tears dripped down his cheeks as he remembered her lips on his—he could almost still feel them there. In all his thirty-five years, it was the first time he'd been kissed. Even his own mother had refused to grant him that luxury. But Christine, that beautiful child—she was in fact the one who was the angel—had kissed him. It made him experience a strange emotion. Maybe it's what others called happiness. He wasn't sure; it was so unfamiliar to him.

Track down this murderer

He must be found

Who is this monster?

Hunt out this animal

Who runs to the ground

Revenge for Piangi!

Revenge for Buquet!

Too long he's preyed on us

But now we know

The Phantom of the Opera is there

Deep down below

They were so close now. He had to get away. Burying his urge to drown himself in the lake because he had to go on without Christine, he grabbed an extra mask, put it on, and stepped through the mirror.

He had no idea where he was.

He'd been wandering around underground Paris for several hours now. He'd helped build the Opera Populaire, and he'd always kept that tunnel that led from his mirror in the back of his mind as a possible extra passage out of his home in case it became necessary to escape without using his normal route. But now that he was actually using it, he couldn't for the life of him remember where it led. It'd been so many years ago, and he'd never needed to use it before. He silently berated himself for his foolish forgetfulness. He didn't even know where he was headed! Well, it was either plunge forward into uncertainty or go back to face the police forces and the angry mob of the opera house. So it seemed that he was doomed to keep trudging along in these tunnels.

Which had by now turned into a sewer. The smell was really starting to get to him. The 20,000 francs a month he'd gotten from the managers at the Opera Populaire had afforded him expensive clothes to wear, but by now his boots and pants were worthless. But even the thought of continuing in these conditions gave him no desire to return to the opera house. It was there where he'd fallen in love with Christine only to have his heart trampled on. It was there where she'd rejected him for a shallow buffoon—but he was a handsome shallow buffoon and that made all the difference.

He clenched his fists angrily. He felt the black fabric of his gloves moving with his fingers, and he was reminded again of what a hideous monster he really was, having to wear something to shield himself against the attacks of those who only see with their eyes. Well, he was through with Christine. He didn't need her. What had he been thinking, opening himself up to that kind of vulnerability? What a rebellious heart he had, still trying to seek approval and companionship even after it'd seen so many times how that only led to misery. He was going to beat his heart into submission even if it killed him. He was a solitary creature of darkness; that's how it always was, and that's how it always would be.

But wait. What was that?

His keen eyesight saw that his surroundings had slowly changed as he moved down the tunnel. Now on either side of the stream of sewage were mountains of skulls. Erik was startled. Had he been walking so long that he actually wandered back into the catacombs under the opera house? Looking ahead, something caught his eye. It almost looked like one of the skulls was looking at him! Where the heck was he! Feeling uneasy (and wondering if he'd gone insane again), he reached for the lasso at his side.

Just as he got a grip on it, some of the skulls leaped up and attacked him. But these weren't just skulls, they were full-on skeletons. No, they were people dressed in costumes, looking like skeletons. How ironic, Erik thought as his Punjab swung around the neck of one of his ambushers. A rough hand on his arm, though, interrupted his kill. The odd sensation of being touched (even if it was through the layers of his clothing) startled him just long enough for the skeleton belonging to the hand to shove him to the side, where another skeleton was ready with ropes. His momentary loss of focus dissolved into anger—at the one who'd dared to touch him—and determination not to be at the mercy of them. The man whose neck was in the Punjab had slipped himself out of it in his distraction, so Erik went to try again. But just as he was about to swing it at the man who'd touched him, several hands from behind latched onto his arms and pulled him back. They began cackling a horrible laugh as he felt them trying to put a rope around his wrists.

He was seething. How dare they.

He fought back furiously while more and more of them kept appearing. But even though he managed to get in a few good shots here and there, in the end they simply outnumbered him. They tied him up and danced around him, howling that hideous laugh of theirs again.

He would kill them all as soon as he got the chance.

It was then that he got his first good look at the men in street clothes who'd come to the aid of the original skeletons. Their style of dress stirred something within his memory that he didn't particularly like, but he couldn't quite place what it was. Then suddenly his brain clicked and his eyes widened in horror.

Gypsies!

All the memories came flooding back into his mind. How they'd paraded him as a sideshow freak. How they'd treated him worse than an animal, whipping him in a cage while people mocked and spit on his face. He wanted to scream. These . . . humans would never do that to him again. He would die before he let them.

They started taunting him, led by a skinny man with black hair that hung out of his hat:

Maybe you've heard of a terrible place

Where the scoundrels of Paris collect in a lair

Maybe you've heard of that mythical place

Called the Court of Miracles—hello, you're there!

The Court of Miracles! If there'd been any doubt that these were gypsies that he'd run into, it was now dispelled. The group of gypsies he was with when he was younger often talked about this place when their travels brought them near the Paris area. It was the hideout for gypsies to be safe from people interfering with their business. He couldn't help struggling again against his captors, even though he knew they overpowered him at the moment (as much as it enraged him to think it). They won't have me for long, he thought. The gypsies started dragging him somewhere, while they continued their song:

Where the lame can walk

And the blind can see

But the dead don't talk

So you won't be around to reveal what you found

We have a method for spies and intruders

Rather like hornets protecting their hive

Here in the Court of Miracles

Where it's a miracle if you get out alive!

And there it was.

In front of him was an immense hall full of gypsies. It was a spacious area loaded with tents. A sense of fear ran through his veins as he was dragged toward the crowd. A wooden scaffold at the front of the place seemed to taunt him as he was pulled closer and closer to it. The people realized what was going on and temporarily abandoned whatever they were doing and gathered around the scaffold. Some started pointing and laughing.

"What's behind the mask?" shouted an olive-skinned man in dark red clothing who had a good view.

This outburst caused those around him to erupt into more cackles. The men were now hoisting him onto the plank, while the skinny, dark-haired man from the catacombs (he seemed to be their leader) jumped onto the scaffold like it was a stage. No one noticed that Erik was starting to loosen the ropes around his wrists, while the man strutted around, basking in the attention he commanded. "Look what we have here!" he exclaimed. "A cowardly masked spy!"

The crowd cheered and shrieked until Erik was sure his eardrums would voluntarily burst in protest. His fury was so palpable, he was sure it must be seeping through his skin.

"An intruder who dared to enter our hideout! We must teach him a lesson on how we view his kind!" The man grabbed onto a rope tied in a circular knot. "There's good 'noose' tonight!" he exclaimed.

Erik tried to tune out the frenzied noise of the gypsies' glee. Almost there . . . , he thought.

A young woman with hair the color of midnight slipped silently through the hoard of people, trying to figure out what all the commotion was about. They had no time for this interruption; the Feast of Fools was the next day and they still had a lot of preparation to do. She glanced behind her a few times, making sure her goat was right behind her. Not that it was necessary to do so, since Djali was always at her side. But this was a big, compact crowd, and she couldn't bear the thought of losing the best friend she'd had since she was a child, and so she checked anyway.

"But first, we must discover the face behind the mask!" she heard Clopin, the leader of the gypsies, say. She couldn't quite see him through the crowd yet, but she could imagine him dancing around the platform like normal. He loved to be the center of attention. She had to inch her way towards the scaffold a few more times before it was actually in sight. A strange man was in the center. He was tall, with his entire build being concealed behind a long, black cloak. On his head was a black fedora. Even his extremities were hidden behind boots and gloves, both black. The only interruption in the darkness of the man was a prominent full-face skeleton-white mask, which a few of her companions were reaching for.

Suddenly, the man sprang alive. Hands that she thought were tied behind his back now reached forward to grab the men that were coming at him. The men were caught off-guard for a second before attempting to retaliate. They struggled back and forth for a little bit. Seeing that they were losing, one of the men went to punch this strange figure. But the cloaked man had turned his head slightly to get a better shot at another man. Therefore, the fist connected with the side of the mask where it met the skin. Before anyone knew what had happened, the mask had fallen off.

The woman gasped. That face! His skin was a sickly yellow, like the color taken on by corpses left to rot. Where everyone else had a nose, there was just a gap. But his most startling feature was his eyes . . . black holes sunken into his skull, as if trying to hide from the light. Her own emerald eyes widened in recognition. I know that face . . . .

"ERIK!"

As you can tell, we decided to make the world of Hunchback more adult, rather than Disney-fy Phantom. The original Hunchback book is pretty adult, but since we're going by the Disney movie I thought I'd specify that.

Anyway, please review!