le gasp I have reviewers! Erik be blessed! Thank you:
Araoina Dubois
duckster2
WanderingTeen
xxooEriklovesChristinexxoo
Wow, people actually review this excrement?
It may be excrement, but it's Phantom-related excrement! Revel in it!
How about no?
Killjoy. (sticks toungue out)
And now...
Chapter One: Introductions, Garage Sales, and a Revolution with No Apparent Purpose
"W--what's there, Ray?" asked Azzie tentatively, peering over her sister's shoulder. What she saw nearly made her faint.
"The M-DIAG!"
"The--?"
"Miazma Djian Idea Animation Generator. You point it at a person in a picture and it extracts the idea, putting it into human form. You could bring people back from the past with this--very, very advanced technology. I was working on it in college, before Mom and Dad...and I tried demonstrating it, but nobody would take me seriously, and then I got the news about the accident--"
"Wait a second," Rayla said quietly. "If my DVD was in the path of this thing you made," she continued, her face getting brighter, "then the Phantom characters...are in our living room! Oh my gosh, this is so--"
"But obviously," Azzie interrupted, "something is wrong with the device...they're all little kids, Ray."
Rayla's grin disappeared. "So...I guess we have to take care of them, huh?"
The four bawling little children on the rug seemed interested in their arrival. Tears turned to sniffles as the siblings cautiously stepped into the room, for fear of setting them off again.
"Looks like it," Azzie muttered, kneeling down next to a little blond-haired boy, whose nose was running. "Don't cry," she whispered, digging a tissue out of her pocket and putting it it front of his nose. "Blow."
The tot blew a raspberry.
A loud squeal from Rayla made both Azzie and the little boy turn around sharply. Ray was beaming, and in her grasp was an ebony-haired, masked three year old, squirming uncomfortably.
"You are the cutest thing ever!" screeched Rayla, holding the mini-Phantom even tighter.
"Aggh! I highly object to being hugged like this! Put me down, now, or a disaster beyond your imagination will occur! YOU'RE SCARING ME..." he screeched, kicking and wailing.
Azzie rolled her eyes. "Rayla, put him down."
"Do I have to?"
"Yes, you have to!" said both Azzie and the little Erik in unison.
Rayla grumbled about it, but soon Erik was safe on the floor.
A little brunette fairy of a girl in white lace stumbled over to Rayla. "Where are we, madame?" she asked timidly.
"This is my house, in the year 2005. I'm Rayla, and my sister over there is Azzie. What's your name?" said Ray kindly.
The fairy-like child's face split into a wide smile. "My name is Christine Daae and I'm this many and I like cake very much and my Papa's in heaven now but I don't know how he got there because Maman always said he was terrible at reading maps--"
"Okay, okay," Rayla said quickly, not wanting Christine to get carried away.
"Vere are ze trumpets?" a sharp-sounding voice said from behind the couch.
"Trumpets?" Azzie asked in utter confusion.
"Vere were zupozed to be trumpets...and an announcer...and a pony, a keeten, a puppeh--" the accented voice--which belonged to a ginger-haired little imp wearing a riduculously frilly pink dress--continued as she counted off each gift she was expecting on her little fingers.
"Whoa, whoa, hold the phone, little dipper," Azzie cut in. "We aren't here to give you anything. The only reason you're here at all is because of some weird accident my baby sis cau--AAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" She let out a wail of pain. Once little Carlotta realized that she wasn't at the Djian house to be spoiled beyond her wildest dreams, she had immediately plunged her sharp little teeth into Azzie's ankle.
"STOP IT, YOU LITTLE VAMPIRE!" she hollered, thrashing about on the floor.
"AZZIE!" Rayla dashed over to her sister's side to try and pull the future Prima Donna's teeth out of her sister's ankle. Christine, Erik, and Raoul(whose nose was still running) came up behind her to help. After a lot of whimpering and petroleum jelly, Azzie was finally out of her pain...at least, her physical pain. She carefully backed away as she made small sad noises like a wounded puppy.
"Keep them busy. I have to get something." whispered Rayla.
"Are you sure that it isn't 'I bet I can escape if Azzie keeps them busy?'"
"Positive...Just give me a bit of money, so I can better equip us."
Azzie sighed and dug a brown leather wallet out of her pocket.
"Thanks. Be back soon!" Rayla sprinted over to the front hall and down the street. The rain had stopped, and there was someone sitting outside across the street, with a cardboard sign that said 'Garage Sale'...
"Okay...now what would everyone like to do?"
Azzie stood in front of the group of toddlers with a bandaged ankle and a desperate, please-oh-please-don't-kill-me smile. Her hands were clasped together, as she had seen her preschool teacher do twenty years ago.
"Can I punjab him?" asked Erik, pointing at Raoul.
"No," Azzie muttered.
"Do you 'ave an Amahrican Express cahrd?" Carlotta snapped, pulling at the fibres in the rug.
"No, and if we did, I wouldn't trust you with it."
"CAN I USE THE WASHROOM?" Raoul burst out urgently.
Azzie sighed. "Third door on the left."
The little Vicomte darted from the room, and the slamming of a door could be heard.
"Vait a minute..." muttered Carlotta as a scowl furrowed her little brow. ""Ow come she zaid yeas to 'im..."
"...and not to us?" Erik finished. A diabolical grin spread across his face. "I say we revolt!"
"ZE REVOHLOOZION!"
"ALL FOR...all for...hmm..."
"You DO know vat ve are rehvolting against...am Ah right?"
Erik sighed. "We're going to have to work on that..."
"Indeed...ooh, Ah know!"
"What?" asked Erik, leaning forward, looking fascinated.
"Weh shall rehvolt against...HER!" Carlotta's face lit up as she thrust one finger at Azzie.
"I have a better idea," said Azzie, still trying to keep up her peppy, cheerful attitude. "Let's play a game!"
"What kind of game?" asked Christine suspiciously, squirming to the front.
"It's called the Be-Quiet-While-Azzie-Tries-To-Fix-The-M-DIAG-game! You all have to stay as quiet as you can, and whoever goes the longest without making any noise wins! Doesn't that sound like fun, boys and girls?" Mrs. Crumblehuume would be proud.
The four little ones exchanged skeptical looks. They seemed to be debating the pros and cons of Azzie's suggestion.
Erik looked up and sighed. "Nah. I like my revolution idea better."
The others murmured their agreement.
"PERPENDICULAR!" cried Christine for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
With that one little mathematical term, all hell broke loose. The curtains came crashing down, Azzie could hear screams from Raoul as Erik chased him with a toddler-size punjab, and she was pretty sure the fridge just toppled over. With fear in her heart, Azzie rushed to the bathroom, where she hoped to hide until the revolution ended.
An earsplitting scream could be heard from the next block...
"RAOUL DE CHAGNY! WHAT IN THE NAME OF DOUGLAS ADAMS HAVE YOU BEEN DOING IN THIS BATHROOM?"
"Absolutely not! I refuse..."
Rayla stood in front of a small card table, laden with bags. Her face was twisted into a scowl as she glared at the girl behind the table, a blonde who looked about 17 or 18. The girl was wearing a leotard under a pair of track pants and a windbreaker. Her flaxen hair was twisted into a bun that made the back of her head look like a rabbit's rear.
"...to pay fifty dollars for all this junk! That's daylight robbery!"
"For your information," snapped the girl in the leotard(a/n: I'm just gonna call her Ballet Girl, ok?) "the jewelery, books, and stuffed animals you are purchasing are of the highest quality vintage..."
"Oh, put a sock in it," Ray growled. "The jewelery is plastic, I've seen a commercial for the bear on TV, and by the look of pages twenty-three, forty-seven, eighty-one, and one hundred fifty-two, somebody puked all over this! I can hardly read it!"
"Are you suggesting," Ballet Girl hissed, "that my merchandise is not of the greatest calibre?"
"I'm not suggesting, I'm proclaiming, get it! THIS STUFF IS CRAP, AND I REFUSE TO PAY FIFTY DOLLARS FOR IT. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A GARAGE SALE, FOR PHANTOM'S SAKE!"
She gasped. "THEN BRING IT ON, SISTER!" Ballet Girl suddenly drew a sword out of nowhere and held it up menacingly. Rayla was caught off guard, but managed to grab a metrestick from the counter.
Metal crashed against plastic in a storm of clashing on clacking. Ballet Girl's sword drew sparks from the frame of a chair. Ray managed to whack her adversary on the arm with the metrestick, leaving a stinging pain in Ballet Girl's arm.
One off-white ballet slipper stuck out in front of Ray sending her tumbling to the ground. The dainty foot contained in it pinned the preteen to the ground while the pointed blade carved something in the denim covering Rayla's backside. The girl's leering face bent down next to her opponent's as she whispered, "That'll be 49.99, please."
"You win this time," she muttered, pulling out Azzie's wallet and dumping two crumpled twenties and a ten into Ballet Girl's waiting hand.
Rayla got to her feet indigantly, glaring at the smirking blonde as she whispered with oily condescendcion:
"Have a nice day."
Azzie could hardly hear her sister over the chaos inside. She swung the door open to find her sister, covered in wet gravel and bearing several bags. Rayla stared at the twenty-three-year-old with broken glasses, peanut butter in her hair, and toilet paper wound around one leg.
"What happened to you?" they asked in chorus. And then again, in unison; "Never mind...I don't want to know."
"I got some stuff for the toddlers," the younger Djian said as she rested the bags on the now slightly damp couch.
"Vor us?" asked Carlotta from behind the couch. The little diva, darling that she was, had been pulling all of the pink fibres out of the living room carpet and shoving them in the pockets of her dress.
"Yes, presents. For all of you."
"PRESENTS!"
Suddenly Rayla was mobbed by all four of the toddlers squealing excitedly.
Azzie emptied the contents of the bags on the couch while they watched in anticipation. A variety of items fell onto the cushions.
"For Carlotta..." Rayla said as she pulled out a tiara and string of pearls from the pile, which were snatched from her hands almost immediately as Carlotta admired her reflection in a small hand mirror.
"Erik, I thought you'd like these..."
A plush monkey in Persian robes with a cymbal in each hand fell into the future Opera Ghost's waiting palms. Rayla placed a small child's keyboard in front of him and soon what sounded like a funeral march was drifting through the air.
"Christine..."
The little brunette gasped in delight as Rayla opened the box of a beautifully made doll, with chocolate brown eyes and a mass of dark curls. The body was a ragdoll in a neatly made pink gown, but the face was pale china and the eyes were glass.
"And for the fo--I mean Raoul--oh, shiznit."
She stared at a sickeningly cute white teddy bear with gigantic blue eyes. A gold tiara was perched on its head, and a glittery pink bow was tied around its neck. Ray shuddered and said as kindly as she could to Raoul, "I'm afraid there's been a bit of a mistake--"
He shook his head, his sandy blond tresses waving from side to side. "No, this is fine!"
She was slightly freaked out by this, but she handed over the bear and watched, with one eyebrow raised, as he hugged it.
Rayla stood up, with her back to the toddlers, and faced her sister. "Well, it looks like everyone's happy n--"
There was a storm of giggles behind her. Azzie bit her lip in an attempt not to laugh.
"What is...?" The twenty-three year old snickered and pointed to Ray's rear. Black underwear with a rose-and-mask pattern could be glimpsed through the letter "M" carved into the seat of her skirt.
Blushing madly, Rayla darted up the stairs to change.
Please review!
I remain,
Your humble and obiedient authoress--
Don't you mean egotistical and empty-headed?
Shaddup!
C.F. & Co.