Disclaimer: I don't own 'Stargate Atlantis' or any related concepts or characters; you know the drill by now. Also, the basic details of the plot were inspired by 'The Phantom of the Opera', although I have naturally put my own spin on things; hope it meets with your approval

Feedback: Always appreciated, trust me

AN: OK, just to clarify, any scenes that don't appear here- like the scenes with Teyla, Beckett and Ford in the 'gateship' or McKay, Elizabeth and Kolya at the grounding stations, happen essentially the same as they did in the show with only minor variations in dialogue; the only significant difference is that Sumner and two other soldiers were brought along with Kolya's 'group' when the grounding station was repaired, as Kolya wanted to keep an eye on the colonel himself to ensure he didn't try anything in the control room and needed extra guards to keep an eye on a trained soldier like Sumner (He was confident enough that he'd be able to handle Elizabeth and McKay himself if he tried anything in the show, hence why he didn't bother with back-up there)

The Phantom of Atlantis

As the Phantom charged grimly deeper into the heart of his city, his gun raised as he stared resolutely at his LSD- he really didn't like that acronym- for any signs of the Genii, he forced his mind to block out the pain that felt like it was trying to tear his heart out of his chest.

He'd promised himself long ago that he would protect this city to repay Doctor Elizabeth Weir for what she had done for him so long ago; he might have failed to save her, but he'd let himself become food for a Wraith Queen before he let the Genii gain access to the city that she had come so far to save.

Glancing at the Life Signs Detector in his hand- he might not be able to come up with anything else to call it, but at least the full name didn't have the implications of the acronym-, he smiled resolutely as he saw a small group of 'dots' running towards his current location (He was grateful that he'd taken the precaution long ago of encoding the city's internal sensors not to register his own life signs; it might have seemed like paranoia at the time, but at least this way it ensured that he couldn't be tracked by anyone who might have attempted to take over the city and use it against him). They might know approximately where he was based on the idea of him travelling from the grounding station towards the control room, but he was the only one who would actually know where they were; that gave him a significant advantage.

Glancing at his weapon once again, he quickly shifted it to 'kill' mode- he wanted to make this quick and simple; he'd take out two of the men coming his way and then question the third before dealing with him- and then continued to hurry down the corridors towards his destination; there was a decent-sized room a few metres down the corridor from his current location- he was fairly sure that it was the location of one of the storage tanks for the city's water filtration supply, but he wouldn't like to swear to it; his knowledge of Ancient tech tended to be limited to what would help him in a fight, with his theories about what the rest of the stuff here did being only theories- that would make the perfect place for an ambush.

As he led his small strike force through the corridors of the city of the Ancestors, Larim forced himself to ignore the nagging voice in the back of his head that told him that their current actions would result in nothing more than bad luck for the Genii people. For all the doubts that he might possess about Commander Kolya shooting the two soldiers when they had arrived in the base, the fact remained that he had been correct when he denounced the blasphemous pretender to the Phantom's title as what he was; it was not the Phantom they faced, but merely a member of this expedition attempting to intimidate the Genii into surrender.

For that crime alone, this man deserved to suffer; the Phantom's name was not a tool that could be used to frighten the Genii into surrender like they were mere children, and he would never side with those who denied the Genii their rightful control of this city.

As he and his men advanced further into the city that would soon serve as the stronghold from which the Genii would wage a new war against the Wraith, Larim constantly kept his ears alert for any sign that the figure was near to them. Laden had done what he could to direct them to the route that the impostor was likely to take if he truly sought to deprive the Genii of the city, but at the same time it was solely based on guesswork due to the apparent inability of the sensors to detect his presence.

As he led the other two soldiers in his small group through the door to another room, he allowed himself a brief moment of anxiety as he took in the smoke before him- had something been damaged in this part of the city?-, but then he saw a small canister in the middle of the room and realised that the smoke was nothing than a distraction-

His brain froze as the implications of that word hit him.

A distraction…

In which case, there was something inside this currently-darkened room- whether it was this dark due to the storm or due to the Phantom impostor having apparently disconnected the city's main power supply, Larim didn't know- for them to be distracted from…

Before he could communicate this revelation to his colleagues, there was a strange crackling sound that sounded like a combination of a musical note and an electric shock, sending both of his men falling to the ground as a tall figure in a long dark cloak fell from the ceiling, swinging around to glare in his direction with an ease that would have made even the most well-trained of Genii soldiers envious.

Even with the darkened room making it hard to see clearly, Larim knew who he was now facing; the silver mask that covered the figure's face was instantly recognisable even in the dim lights of the city around them. Pictures of the man before him had been circulated amongst the Genii ever since he had saved them from a culling only a few short years ago, only to leave them after they had asked for his assistance in defending them from the Wraith on a more permanent basis.

Larim's blood ran cold.

It was the Phantom…

"Good evening," the man- the Phantom- said, his expression grim as he glared at the only Genii still standing in the room before him. "I will make this simple. Tell me what I want to know, and your death will be quick; attempt to refuse, and I will just have to torture you until you do tell me."

Larim blinked in shock.

Had the Phantom just threatened to kill a human?

"But… but you cannot do that!" he protested, staring in shock at the man before him. "You are-"

A brutal punch to Larim's face left him lying on the floor, blinking in pain and shock at the sudden coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Looking up as he clutched at his now-aching jaw, Larim was unable to repress a slight shiver as he saw the Phantom clearly glaring at him under the mask that had become a symbol of hope for the humans of this galaxy and had so suddenly become a symbol of fear for him.

"Do not seek to tell me what I am; your commander already attempted to define my actions according to what he feels I should do, and he has evidently ignored my efforts to make him see that he is incorrect if he feels the need to send you and your associates after me," the Phantom countered, before he raised his weapon- a strange one, the design of which Larim had never seen before- and aimed it at him. "As I have already told you, you have a choice between making this quick or making this unpleasant; tell me where Kolya is, and it will be quick, I promise you."

"B-but… you are the Phantom!" Larim protested. "You are meant to protect-"

His sentence was cut off by a loud scream as the Phantom raised his weapon and fired it at Larim's left arm; Larim barely had time to register the sudden strange sense of pressure on the limb before his entire arm below the elbow vanished, the wound seemingly instantly cauterised by whatever had caused the injury even as it left the pain from the attack

"You and your people have forsaken any right to my protection by your cowardly actions against those whom I have granted the right to remain in this city," the masked man said coldly as he glared at Larim, his tone making it clear that he would tolerate no further attempts to contradict him. "I will ask you one more time, and then, if you still refuse it shall be your leg; where. Is. Kolya?"

"H-he… he has taken… the hostages to… to repair the… the grounding station!" Larim gasped; the pain in his arm making it briefly hard for him to focus on what he was saying, but the prospect of further damage to his leg gave him a compelling reason to continue.

"Which leaves how many people in the control room specifically and in Atlantis overall?" his captor asked, slightly squeezing the damaged wrist as he glared at his prisoner.

"Eight; Com… Commander Kolya took two others… with him to… to keep an eye… on the prisoners…" Larim said, desperate to halt any further injuries; if he was honest with the Phantom about the division of their resources- and he had little doubt that the Phantom could determine when he was lying- he might at least have some rest in his last moments. Even though he knew he was unlikely to survive this confrontation- the Phantom's tone made it clear that he would show the Genii no mercy for their actions here today, a prospect that terrified Larim more than he would admit even to himself-, no sense of loyalty to his commander could drive him to lie to the spirit of the Ancestors themselves, particularly with the amount of pain he was now in.

"Thank you," the Phantom said simply, before raising his gun and pointing it at Larim's face. "I would ask you to apologise to Eliza- Doctor Weir for me, but after what you've done…"

He swallowed slightly, as though trying to control himself- evidently what he was discussing was something that had a profound emotional effect on him-, before he spoke once again. "After what you and your people have done today, you're not going anywhere near where she's gone."

As the Genii fell to the ground with a sizable portion of his head now missing, the man who had so recently been interrogating him turned around and began to run towards the control room, trying not to think too much about the bloody mess he'd just left behind him.

If the thought of doing what he had just done had crossed his mind merely an hour ago, he would have been disgusted at it; even when fighting the Wraith, he had always tried to make their deaths quick, perceiving it as a matter of necessity for the survival of the Pegasus Galaxy's innocent human inhabitants, and had never taken any actual pleasure in it. As much as he hated the Wraith, he acknowledged that, in a sense, they were fundamentally animals trying to survive; they fed out of necessity rather than for pleasure.

But this wasn't the Wraith he was dealing with here.

The Genii hadn't come to Atlantis because it was the only way they could survive; they had come simply because they wanted its technology for themselves.

Kolya had killed Elizabeth solely because he wanted to cause pain to his enemy rather than out of a need to feed for the sake of his survival (He might not like the fact that the Wraith did that, but at least most of them regarded feeding as something that was necessary rather than something they actively enjoyed doing).

Even if it meant that he would never see her again in whatever awaited them after this life- what he'd discovered about the Ancients' research on Ascension suggested that they'd felt that there might be other means of existing after death, but there was nothing concrete either way-, he was going to make sure that the Genii commander paid for what he had done.

As he hurried away from the fallen bodies of his opponents, heading for the nearest teleporter that would take him towards the central tower- right now his best chance seemed to be to weaken their numbers by forcing them to split up; he might be good but he wasn't going to go up against eight trained professionals unless he had no other choice-, he activated the Genii radio he'd taken from the first soldier he'd taken out and quickly turned it on, taking care to minimise the noise at his end. Right now he could use any tactical advantage he could get if he was going to defeat these… people… and avenge Elizabeth's death; Sumner and McKay were still Kolya's hostages and under guard, which made it vital for him to have all the information he could if the expedition was going to get out of here with any of its senior staff alive (As much as Sumner and McKay might get on his nerves- Sumner for trying to capture him and McKay for his arrogance-, he had to admit that they were good at their jobs).

"Commander?" a voice said over the radio, prompting him to stop as he listened to the conversation.

"Yes, Sora?" Kolya replied (He filed the name away for future reference; 'Sora', if he recalled what he'd gathered from listening in on mission briefings correctly, was the Genii woman whose father had died during the attempt to infiltrate the hive ship).

"Laden has been leading three of our men on a reconnaissance mission," Sora continued, frustration mingled with regret in her voice. "It seems that the Phan- the blasphemer- has killed three more of our strike team."

He didn't even feel any guilt at the reminder that he had done more than just kill his opponents; right now, he was more intrigued at her initial reference to him as the Phantom before she 'corrected' herself.

If there was 'dissent' among the ranks of the Genii regarding their current actions, that might just make his attempts to take the city back easier…

"Tell everyone to fall back to the control room," Kolya's voice said, its tone clearly reflecting his barely-controlled hostility

"Right away, sir," Sora replied briskly; evidently she was grateful to have a reason to limit any further deaths that might take place.

After a brief pause, as though both sides of the conversation were contemplating their next decision, Kolya spoke again.

"Radio Chief Cowen," the Genii commander said grimly, in a tone that made it clear he had made his mind up regarding his next course of action. "Tell them to send reinforcements; a full company."

With that, the radio conversation ended- this time for definite; the sound of the connection being terminated was unmistakable, leaving the Phantom with a grim smirk on his face as he took in what he had just learned.

Back-up's coming, hmmm? he thought to himself, his grip tightening on his gun as he turned his direction towards the gateroom. Well, if they've come so far, it's only fair that I arrange the… proper reception… for them.

Once again, the plan that he had just come up with would once have horrified him; he had long ago promised himself that, if he had to kill humans, he would only kill those who had actively done or had sought to do him harm, and not simply kill people just because they were working for somebody who had acted against him.

As it was, however, he only considered it just punishment; no matter how many Genii soldiers might be killed when they came through the Stargate, it couldn't cause them even a fraction of the pain that he had felt at the loss of Elizabeth.

Just remember, Kolya, he thought grimly as he turned his steps towards the control room, a plan already forming in his mind. You brought this on yourself; I gave you the chance to leave this city peacefully, and you went and killed her.

For that alone, you deserve everything that is going to happen to you…

For the moment, his plans for personal revenge against the Genii commander would have to wait; right now, his more immediate priority was to give the invading Genii forces even more power problems to worry about than just powering the shield. Even without the ZPM, the naquadah generators the expedition had set up to help limit the depletion rate of the ZPM- with only fifteen percent of its full power capacity remaining, the possibility of a Wraith attack hovering over them constantly and no way to recharge the module in question, using the generators to power what they could and cut back on the power the ZPM had to use only made sense- were providing the city with enough power to operate the essential systems, which meant that the Genii still had control of most of the city's systems.

With the possibility of the remaining jumper coming back to Atlantis at any time- assuming they'd even received his original message; he freely acknowledged that he had no way of knowing why they'd had to remain behind in the first place and they could just not be able to come and help out no matter how long he waited for them-, he had to give the Genii even more to worry about that just his continued presence inside the city; his own presence might not set off the city's internal sensors, but if the jumper returned while the Genii still had access to full power than the crew would be captured almost instantly.

Quickly shifting direction, he turned and hurried towards the nearest generator- the one responsible for powering the main tower, if he recalled the schematics correctly; he'd needed to re-learn a few of his old routes though the tunnels after these things had been installed to ensure he didn't accidentally disrupt anything during his wanderings-, reaching it only a few minutes after he started.

Turning his Genii radio on once again- if he was going to cause problems for the Genii, he'd like confirmation that he was causing the right kind of problems-, he smiled grimly as he reached out to remove the central power core from the heart of the generator, grinning as he pocketed the core as the lights went down.

It might be darker than before, but he'd spent so long inside this city that he practically knew his way around with his eyes closed; the Genii, by contrast, would not have that advantage.

"Commander!" Sora's voice said over the radio. "The… blasphemer… has cut power to the control room!"

"How?" Kolya responded curtly; evidently his much-vaunted sense of superiority was taking some serious knocks as the situation grew increasingly out of control.

"It looks like, in the absence of the 'Zero Point Module' that he extracted earlier, Atlantis is being powered by five small Generators, each responsible for a separate area of the city," a third, as-yet-unknown voice replied, his tone sounding professional as he relayed the situation to his commander; if he hadn't been working with the people who'd killed Elizabeth, the Genii's unknown listener had the impression that he might have actually liked the guy, who at least struck him as slightly less arrogant than his colleagues. "This… impostor… has apparently disabled the one generator that powers Stargate operations and this tower. We still have most primary operations…"

He paused, evidently consulting something, before he sighed in frustration. "We have definitely lost all secondary systems."

As their unknown 'eavesdropper'- a childish term, but here he was listening in on other people's conversations; it was pretty much trademark eavesdropping when you got down to it- turned to hurry towards the nearest teleporter and begin the next phase of his plan.

If he was going to… persuade… the Genii to abandon Atlantis, they had to be convinced that staying behind wouldn't accomplish anything but getting themselves killed, which meant that the power supply for the grounding station where Kolya had taken McKay and Sumner would have to be his next target…

"If you are telling the truth and we have been unable to track him using the city's sensors so far, why has he done this?" Kolya's voice asked over his stolen radio as the listener headed towards the teleporter. "Does the Stargate still work?"

"It's one of the primary systems; we can still dial out if we have to," the unknown voice replied; for a brief moment, the listener hoped that he would suggest they depart, but he simply fell silent after relaying the relevant information.

"Is the control room secure?" Kolya asked as their adversary reached the teleporter, stepping inside it and selecting the necessary location on the displayed 'map' of Atlantis.

"Yes, Commander," Sora replied. "I suggest we send some men to guard the remaining generators."

"No; he's trying to divide us into manageable numbers," Kolya replied, as their silent eavesdropper activated the teleporter and then began to hurry towards the second naquadah generator; he could never quite understand how the teleporters could do that without any discernable transition time, but he definitely loved it. "Just close Stargate operations until the reinforcements arrive."

"Understood," Sora replied briefly- her voice sounded almost dejected; could it be that she was beginning to realise that she was in way over her head?-, before the conversation ended once again.

He spared no further thought for the Genii beyond keeping an eye on his Life Signs Detector to confirm the absence of any of his enemies in his immediate vicinity; for the moment, his goal was simply to shut down the naquadah generator powering the remaining grounding station. He was certain that Kolya wouldn't have Sumner or McKay killed so long as there was a chance of gaining control of the city- with Elizabeth… gone… only Sumner had the necessary command codes to grant Kolya full access to Atlantis, and McKay was the only man alive who understood enough about the Ancient technology in the city to get that shield up-, which meant that he was free to take that generator out of the picture for the moment.

As soon as he had reached and removed the power core from the second naquadah generator- rendering the grounding station control useless while still allowing the station itself to funnel lightning through-, he only had to wait a couple of seconds before he heard the unknown voice speaking over the radio again.

"Commander," the voice said, "the intruder has just disabled another generator."

"Yes Laden," Kolya replied- simultaneously providing the listener with the name of the unknown Genii-, "we're aware of that; he's cut the power to grounding station three!"

And I'll do more than that before this is over… the 'intruder'- and what right did these people have calling him the intruder; even if he'd been a member of the expedition, he'd still have been here before them- mused, as he turned around and began to head back towards the teleporter, his ear to the radio before it finally activated once again.

"Commander," Sora's voice said after a few moments of walking, her tone now urgent, rushed, and almost panicked, "the storm has not slowed its pace; we have little time to get the shields activated- we should re-evaluate our goal, perhaps?"

"We still have more than enough time to complete our objectives," Kolya replied, evidently still unwilling to give up his attempt to control the city; their opponent was starting to wonder if Kolya was even unable to accept the possibility of failure as well as the possibility that he was wrong about something.

"Then I must strongly advise that we send men down to repair the deactivated generators and to guard the remaining active ones," Sora continued, her voice keenly reflecting her fear at the current situation; he wondered how many more problems she could take before she finally decided to accept defeat.

"Agreed," Kolya replied promptly to Sora's suggestion. "Teams of two, but I want you and Laden to watch over the control room; as soon as the reinforcements arrive, have them take the blasphemer with overwhelming force."

If it hadn't been for the fact that it would give away the fact that he'd been listening, the Phantom would have laughed.

Just what he'd wanted; with only two people remaining in the control room, it would be child's play for him to accomplish his main goal.

All he had to do was get to the main tower, hide in his usual observation point above the control room, wait for the Genii reinforcements to arrive, and then…

He allowed himself a brief chuckle as he turned the radio off.

It still wouldn't make Kolya feel all of the pain he'd felt when he'd heard that Elizabeth was dead, but it would come damn close…

Plus, of course, if he timed it right, it could also be very demoralising…