Disclaimer: I do not own rights to Leroux's Phantom of the Opera. I am going to borrow heavily from it from now on. Please don't sue or complain or whatever. I also don't own rights to the X-men, Star Wars, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or the Animorphs.

CHAPTER 14: In which Erik returns.

"Where the heck are we? This isn't the place we were aiming for."

"Shh! Someone might hear you!"

"Good idea. Let's ask someone for help."

"What's that noise?"

A thundering noise of furiously padding feet, rustling cloth, and squeaks of terror reached the X-men where they stood.

"Take cover!" Arik shrieked as the sounds of stampede approached. The four of them hit the wall just behind a narrowing in the hallway, hoping desperately that it would save them from the oncoming tide. In the frantic scrabblings that followed, Krista felt something in the wall give. At first she thought she had broken the decorative carving that ran at shoulder height down the length of the hall, but she had instead activated a strange trap door, which opened before them.

"Down there!" she yelled.

"What?" Scott yelped, his hand going to his combat glasses. "I'd rather take my chances out here!"

"Into the garbage chute, flyboy!" Krista shouted, shoving him through the opening. The others followed. The door closed behind them, which was more than a little unnerving, but they could see what was going on outside through a semi-transparent panel made of some kind of mesh.

Outside in the hallway they had just vacated, a horde of girls in floufy tutus charged past and failed to make a sharp turn; instead, they skidded along the hall floor, scrabbling madly with their soft ballet shoes for purchase, and forming a huge pileup outside a door marked "Loge- La Sorelli" in black script.

This door was opened by a taller ballerina, who was instantly bowled over as the hysterically laughing and screaming girls rushed inside. "C'est la fantôme!" an especially pale girl cried, and the door was shut and locked, leaving the passage bare once more.

"Well! That was interesting," Jazzy said.

"We seem to be in a French-speaking country," Krista added helpfully. "How many of you can speak French?"

Jazzy half-raised her hand, and then lowered it again. "I can read it and understand spoken French, but I'm no good with conversation."

No one else volunteered anything.

"Right, then, we need some kind of translation device," Krista said reasonably. "Got anything, Scott?"

"I've got my combat glasses and my normal shades," Scott said. "That's it. No high-tech translation gadgets, I'm afraid."

"I've got a backpack with ten Twix bars and an empty book," Jazzy added helpfully.

"Well, I've got Audrey with me, so if you'll just hold this, Arik?" Krista shoved a coathanger covered with annoying plastic at him. It was her swim outfit, which she had still been holding when she rushed to grab Erik before they made the jump. Then she fiddled with a charm bracelet, where Audrey, the magical mill, had been attached. Maidenhair had lent it to her earlier for a personal project.

"Hey, Audrey, I'd like four Babel fish."

Fishes, Audrey insisted primly.

"Fine, have it your way. Just give them to me, please!" Four yellow somethings flopped into her hand. "Hey, Arik, hold still," she said, lunging at him and clapping one of the somethings to his ear. She did the same for Scott before he could react.

"Auugh! It's eating my brains! It's a Yeeeeerk!" Scott howled.

"Hey, I didn't know you read Animorphs."

"It was a phase. AAAAH! Get it out!"

"Silence, you fools!" a new voice thundered in French. "Or the purple-haired one dies!"

Turning, they saw a skeleton with glowing yellow eyes slip a noose over Arik's neck.

The message was clear, even to Scott, whose Babel fish had not yet started translating for him. Everybody froze. Outside, they could hear the ballet girls once more.

"Is there anyone behind the door?" someone said clearly from within the dressing room. The sounds of a scuffle and some shrieking about not opening the door followed; the door opened anyway, and the tall ballerina took a look outside, holding a pretty sweet dagger before her. She glanced down both ends of the (rather poorly-lit) hall and then slammed the door again.

"Now," the skeleton whispered through his teeth, "You will follow me as quietly as you can to a safer place. If anyone makes a noise and gives away the location of my secret tunnels, you will all perish."

They had no choice but to comply. As the nightmarish shape prodded them before him down a reasonably-sized but dim passage, Jazzy brought her hands together and started making an image between them. If only she could pass Arik a reference picture of the mansion back home, they could get out of there. Scott saw what she was doing and held her elbow to steady her as she sank deeper into concentration. He would normally supply her with a little light to weave into her picture, but he didn't know how the stranger would react. The gas lamps would have to suffice.

Krista couldn't do much at this point, but she did clap a Babel fish to her own ear, and she leaned forward to give one to Jazzy, too. After a rather unpleasant squirming sensation, the Babel fish settled into place, ready to translate whatever input it received.

Arik was more or less miserable. He had dropped Krista's coathanger and was now trying vainly to undo the noose, which was not getting any looser. At least it wasn't getting any tighter, either. Looking out one of the transparent panels, he saw a farmhouse. That was a rather strange thing to see underground. Perhaps he was hallucinating. His captor motioned for silence again as they moved past the farmhouse; a person was outside, standing next to what looked uncomfortably like a dead body. "It was just after the ballet; and leaders and dancing-girls lost no time in taking their precautions against the evil eye," this personage said as they passed within a few feet of his boots.

Then they were suddenly shoved forward, and they fell from quite a height. A door shut above them, and all sound from above was cut off. Realizing that they were in a soundproof prison, Krista shouted into the surrounding darkness, "Erik! Don't you remember us?"

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ooh cliffhanger. EvilTwin2 is going nuts over my shoulder about it. I know things look grim, but this is necessary plot in order to get everyone down to the lair in the first place, and once this cliffy is resolved humor and happy things will return!