Disclaimer: Fan fiction - n. A type of written work about, containing characters from, or taking place in the setting of another piece of work created by a recognized professional, written by a fanatical person with strong emotions for the creation. (That's dictionary for: 'I don't own DBZ or Phantom of the Opera').

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Author's note: Yeah, it's been a while, but at least it's here! Anyway, forgive me if the spacing is messed up . . . ff.net doesn't seem to want me to have separate scenes. Oh yeah, and I know that Puar is a guy in the manga, but in the dubbed version, Puar is a girl. I like it this way, so deal.

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Stranger Than You Dreamt It and More Frightening Still

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Fear can turn to love,

You'll learn to see, to find

The man behind

The monster, this . . .

Repulsive carcass

Who seems a beast

But secretly dreams of beauty

Secretly . . .

Secretly . . .

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There was a pause, and as Bulma held the mask in her hand, her heart in her throat, she barely had any more courage left to look. But look she did.

For that brief pause where time seemed to stand still, she was able to take in all of his features. His dark, uncovered eyes burned beneath black brows in shock and anger; his sharp, pointed nose held itself up high between; his frowning lips were open in surprise, though they still managed to scowl. Had Bulma the time, she would have been stunned to find that instead of a monster beneath the mask, she had found a handsome man. But she had neither the time nor the mindset when she realized that the face she saw was familiar.

'Dark and brooding . . . his face set in a permanent scowl . . .'

Her mind raced as she tried to place that image. Who was that? Where had she seen that? She looked for answers in those hard, dark eyes, and saw nothing returned to her but years of death and pain.

'Robotically going through the motions of annihilation . . .'

She remembered now. That photograph, those men from the Kold Mafia, the torn version of the newspaper she had found in the cavern . . . but by now her time was up and he had recovered from the initial surprise. She jumped backwards as he stalked forward, his mouth moving from the shape of outraged shock to simple, elemental rage; though his eyes closed off any actual feeling she might see.

'. . . not putting any thought or emotion into it whatsoever.'

And the only coherent thought of her own that she could create was: Murderer.

"I-I'm sorry," she stuttered dumbly, the mask trembling in her hand as she continued to back away. He refused to speak, still proceeding steadily toward her, each footfall sounding to her like the drums of a funeral dirge. His energy began to flair about him, though not his normal blue, but a deep, blood red.

*Murderer . . .*

She stopped abruptly when she found her back against the ladder that led out, the door atop still shut from the day before. She gasped suddenly when a gloved hand lashed out and gripped her own that clutched the mask. His eyes burned black fire before her so intensely that it took her a moment to register the fact that her hand was blazing with pain.

"I'm sorry," she could only manage a pained whisper. "I only . . . I just wanted . . ."

"You wanted to see me, did you?" he finally spoke in a grinding, deadly low voice.

Bulma swallowed nervously.

He growled vociferously. "Look!" he shouted, his other hand indicating his face. "You want to see! See!" His hand on hers tightened. "Feast you eyes, glut your soul on my cursed face!" his voice rumbled the entire cavern.

"You were not content to hear me, eh?" his voice dropped down again into that deadly calm whisper that could be more frightening than his shouts. "You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women are so inquisitive!" his volume grew again. "Well, are you satisfied?!"

Tears began to form in Bulma's eyes as the pain in her hand and the terrifying burning of his eyes continued. She turned her head away quickly, mercifully for her, so as not to see, not to feel his demonic fury.

"I frighten you, do I?!" his voice hissed and he drew her face to him, brutally twisting his painfully strong fingers into her hair. The bleak black flames of his eyes forced her own to him and he went on.

"Perhaps you think that I have another mask? And that this . . . this . . . my head is a mask? Well," he roared, his snarling grimace morphing into a feral smile, "tear it off as you did the other! Come! Come on now! I insist! Your hands! Give me your hands!"

And he seized her free hand dug it into his face. He dragged her long fingernails into his flesh, tearing and scraping the skin until a thin stream of blood began to flow from the clawed scratches. He continued to tear his flesh with her nails, the freshly dead top layer of tissue gathering up in her nails along with the blood. She cried out for him to stop, but he continued to smile his mad, maddening smile.

"So you know who I am now, don't you?" he bared his teeth at her.

She nodded, her tears finally falling. *Murderer.*

"Who am I, then?"

She shook her head softly, refusing to answer him.

"Who am I!!" he thundered. His grip tightened around the hand the grasped the mask, but let the other go, and it fell limply to her side. "You tell me who I am, if you know so well!!"

She sobbed and choked out, "Murderer."

"You fear it, don't you, little Woman?" he began applying the pressure to her hand for emphasis on his words, and was rewarded a fresh sob for each. "You know and fear the fact that I have killed and know that I can kill again! Then know," he shouted while his throat throbbed and panted like a furnace, "know that I am built up of death from head to foot and that it is a corpse that instructs you and teaches you and commands your very soul!!"

Her weeping made her too weak to even stand and her weight dropped; the only thing supporting her now was his vice-like grip on her mask-clutching hand. His last word resonated in the cavern as he pulled her up by her arm to eyelevel with him. "Woman . . ." his voice grated, causing her to look up at him.

'All she sees is that demon's eyes gazing deeply into hers . . .'

". . . once a person has seen me, their very life belongs to me," he nearly crushed her hand on the last syllable.

'. . . all she feels is his hand grasping her own . . .'

"I alone decide whether they shall live or die." His voice grew quiet as he allowed Bulma to comprehend her predicament. "And you," his face came closer to hers, "I've decided, will have one more minute to live." She could feel the air rush out at that last sentence.

'. . . all she knows is his warm breath caressing her skin.'

*Wrong!* her mind screamed. *Wrong! It's all wrong!*

"I believe I'm being quite generous, though," his lips were tauntingly close to her face, "since you are the only person I have allowed time to escape." With that he released her hand and slammed his own into the wall, pressing the outcropping that opened the door atop the ladder.

The mask fell to the ground.

Bulma's eyes refused to move from confusion and fear, her hand throbbing but her mind focused only on his eyes as he pulled his face back to glare at her coldly. Bulma could not move.

"Fifty-nine."

She blinked, her breath coming back to her suddenly. She tried to back up more, stretching her hand out behind her, but it met with only the cold metal of the ladder.

"Fifty-eight," he growled, his frown creasing deeper. "Woman, this is your last chance. Get. Out. Now."

That was all she needed.

In a rush, she scrambled up the ladder, leaving the last lingering echoes of "fifty-seven" behind her as she rose up into the labyrinth of mirrors. Her heart leapt up in her throat again when she realized she had not the faintest idea of how to escape.

*Fifty-six,* her mind chastised with its internal timer. *Fifty-five . . . quick, just choose a direction, Bulma . . . fifty-four . . .* Taking a deep breath she plunged into the reflective darkness of the maze, no longer caring where she went exactly, as long as she could just get away. She ran as fast as she could, though the only thing she received for her efforts were end after end after dead end. Panic swelled up inside her.

*Thirty-eight . . . thirty-seven . . . thirty-six . . .*

There was no use. Defeated, Bulma collapsed to the ground, wiping away a stray tear and unwittingly flicking it onto the pristine surface of a mirror. *He's going to kill me, and I can't do anything . . . there's no way I can find the way out of this place in under thirty-"

There was a faint 'beep' that penetrated her thoughts of surrender.

Raising her head up swiftly, Bulma tried to locate the sound. *That beeping . . . it could only come from something electronic . . . but what . . . the portal!* Bulma rushed to her feet, desperately rushing toward where she believed the sound was originating from. Turning corners quickly and rushing down long passageways, she was only vaguely aware of the time she had left.

*Fifteen . . . fourteen . . . thirteen . . .*

She could see a faint glow being reflected by the mirrors now, surely a sign of the exit. Her heart pounded in her ears as she skidded around the bends and curves of the maze. Breathing fast, her speeding footsteps counted down.

*Seven . . . six . . . five . . .*

*Just a little farther . . .* her mind willed as she flew down another long passage. There was no sign of the portal out yet, but she knew that she was headed in the right direction. She had to be, or else . . .

*Two . . . one.*

"TIME IS UP!" came a roar from below the labyrinth.

Bulma barely had time to release her next breath when a blinding flash of light engulfed the passage she was in, and all others, forcing her to stop and cry out in pain. Crumpling to the ground, she rubbed her eyes furiously, tears streaming forth. No longer able to see, she judged that the light had been issued from one of Vegeta's sudden bursts of power and had been reflected and magnified by the mirrors. She crawled a little before she found herself able to stand. She leaned her arm against one side of the wall of mirrors, feeling for her way out and still listening for her mechanical saviour over the howling of Vegeta's pursuit. Frantically, she tried to run while temporarily blinded, her clumsy footfalls sounding erratically until . . .

"Beep . . . beep . . . beep . . ."

Bulma summoned all her strength to run to that sound, clambering to the silvery passage and forcing her hand into it. As before, the doorway responded with an electrical charge that singed her hand. With a sharp hiss, she pulled her hand back and started searching for the keypad she knew would be on the wall. Recklessly she began jabbing at the numbered buttons, none of them working. She could hear the screaming of Vegeta's energy approaching ever closer, ever nearer to her with death in its voice.

*I don't want to die . . . this is wrong . . . it's all wrong!* She began pounding upon the panel with increasing intensity, each beating matching the frenzied series of thoughts that pounded in her mind. She hammered on the door, almost able to feel the rush of wind as Vegeta advanced upon her . . .

"THERE WILL BE NO PITY UPON THOSE WHO HAVE SEEN ME! THERE WILL ONLY BE DEATH!!"

Her eyes squeezed shut as she heard his words and knew he was only a few feet behind her. Her pounding became more insistent until she realized its futility.

*"There's no possible way you can win with tactics like that. You are incapable of making a good offensive fighter; therefore you must rely on defence. Because you are pitifully weak, you can't rely on any strength or speed of your own. You must use your opponent's abilities against him, guiding his strengths toward his weaknesses. You must also study his techniques and deduce the vulnerabilities therein. Think on that for a while."*

"Find the weaknesses . . ." she muttered and as her fingers blindly skimmed over the keypad. Her brows suddenly lifted when she found a small crack in the seam, most likely from pounding on it so much. Still making sure of its location with her left hand, she drew her right back and dealt it a swift and painful blow.

It stopped beeping.

The barrier between her and the outside world now down, Bulma exited fleet a foot, leaving only the sparking form of the portal behind and a mountain of regret.

Vegeta stopped when he reached the exit, simply watching Bulma's scrambling, disappearing form leave him, possibly forever. His unveiled features frowned as he looked, though he dared not out step his realm with his face exposed to the world. That would be past the point of no return.

As his hand raised up to place the mask back upon him, he closed his eyes and turned away.

"Damn you, Woman."

-

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"Concentrate, Videl," Master Roshi instructed, a shine travelling across his dark sunglasses as he lowered his head in a frown of scrutiny.

"I *am* concentrating, Old Man," she ground out from her clenched teeth. Her brows furrowed into a dark scowl even though her eyes were clamped shut. "I'm concentrating, but I don't 'sense' anything." Her tone was becoming quite irked.

"Don't focus your energy on being angry at me," Roshi struck his staff on the ground for emphasis, "focus it on spreading it out and picking up mine."

Videl grumbled a little. "I don't see how this makes those other guys any better fighters than I-wait! There you are! I can sense you!"

"Great," his white beard and moustache twitched to a smile. "Now, try to extend it to sense the others in the next room."

"Right," Videl nodded curtly, still frowning with intensity. She felt her energy slowly expand around her, then mould into the direction of her choosing, through the wall and into the next room. It spread through the entire area, surrounding and detecting the individual presences in the room. She could sense and feel each similar, yet incredibly personal auras of each person: the tough yet caring nature of Piccolo, Chichi's whatever- is-best-for-my-family attitude, Goku's cheering outlook, and Gohan . . . Gohan . . .

Videl's face flushed slightly, though whether from the exertion or from something else could not be determined. She let out a quick, "I can sense them, Master Roshi."

Roshi quirked a knowing brow at the title of 'Master' and her flushed face, but proceeded with the lesson. "All right, Videl," he set down his staff and rolled his head to crack the tense joints, "I'm going to move around this hall like any other fighter you may be put up against would during a battle. I want to you to try and sense me, even though I'm going to be moving very quickly, got it?"

She clenched her fists tightly in preparation. "Ready."

"All right, here I-"

His sentence was interrupted abruptly as a stumbling Bulma rushed through the hall, her speed frighteningly quick for someone who appeared unable to see. Her closed eyes shed tears as she used an arm out in front to guide her to the quickest exit possible. She was gone as quickly as she had entered, and her footsteps echoed irregularly in the corridor.

Videl, her eyes open now from the mysterious passage of the intruder, blinked in slight confusion. "Roshi," she said as she retracted her awareness back to her, "I couldn't sense her."

The old master frowned behind his sunglasses, his mind deep in thought. There was a moment before he answered, "Neither could I."

"But if you couldn't sense her, what does that me-" she cut her statement off as she blinked abruptly, her eyes going slightly out of focus. "There are more people coming . . . Eighteen, that one pretty boy idiot you put on our team, and someone I don't know."

Roshi neglected to compliment her on her skills as he pondered her first statement.

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He could see her blue eyes closing slowly as her lips parted, making room for his. He could envision his own brushing hers softly, then continuing across her cheek, then down her jaw to her neck and back again. He could imagine his hands: one holding her blue-haired head closer, the other trailing down her back. He could just see her inhale sharply and grasp him to her in pleasurable ecstasy. He could just see her, his Bulma, with another, unseen ghost of a man.

Yamcha held his head in his hands and raked his fingers through his cropped, black hair. How long had it been since he had last seen her? Two, maybe three days? No longer could he tell. Without Her, days and nights blurred together, only separated by the few and in-between interrupting reminders that life progressed around him.

Puar was mostly responsible for that, with her sad, yet hopeful dark, kitten eyes that pleaded 'drink this, it'll make you fell better' or 'why don't you go to sleep, I'm sure everything will work out' continuously, despite his lack of reaction to them. What life was there without Bulma?

Of course, Puar constantly reminded him that he had gotten by just fine for five years without her, but Yamcha adamantly responded with a that-was-then- this-is-now attitude. Sure, he had gotten by without Bulma before, but the means by which they parted had been entirely different. Back then, she had cried for him to remember her, with glistening eyes that promised the same for him. Now, oh now, she had disappeared chasing after some other man, some ghost, some figment of the collective populous' imagination, without even looking back to him with regret.

"He must have done something to her," Yamcha pounded his fist on the table before him, making the cup of tea Puar had served him (which was growing colder by the minute) rattle in its saucer. "Some kind of hypnosis, some mind control . . . I know she wouldn't purposely do that to me . . ." the lingering doubt in his tone added an unsaid, 'would she?'

"Bulma would never do that," Puar flew over to perch on his right shoulder, clinging comfortingly to it. "She loves you, Yamcha."

"You really think so?" Yamcha turned his sad fact to his best and oldest friend.

"I know so," Puar smiled at luring out of his lull and getting him to speak to her. "I'm sure she-"

The phone rang.

"Hello?" Yamcha picked up the receiver. His eyes widened in shock as the person on the other end said something. "What do you mean-what?! What the- who is this? Hello? Hello?!"

Puar's fur bristled with anxiety. "What is it, Yamcha?"

He hung the telephone up woodenly, his eyes looking at the floor. "Bulma's back from wherever she was. They saw her at the stadium."

"Could you find out who called?"

"No," Yamcha frowned. "It was some woman, and her voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't really place it. It wasn't Chichi and it definitely wasn't Bulma." He paused, straightening up with a hint of resolve. "I have to go back to the stadium."

Puar nodded, but her face dampened slightly at the idea of yet another separation. "I understand," she said.

Yamcha walked to the door and got as far as turning the knob and opening it a crack before he turned around to the little blue cat. "Are you sure she still feels the same way about me, Puar?"

Puar managed a little smile. "Of course she does. I told you she loves you."

Yamcha gave a more heartened smile and stepped out the door.

"She loves you," Puar repeated to the empty room, "just like me."

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'For exercises 16-29, identify the coordinates of the vertex and focus, the equations of the axis of symmetry and directrix, and the direction of opening of the parabola with the given equation. Then find the length of the latus rectum and graph the parabola.'

Gohan's pencil scratched in his workbook as he solved and sketched each answer. He nibbled on the end of the eraser in thought as he tried to make the side 'x' in to a perfect square. Chichi had luckily remembered to bring his spare book, so even though he had made it out of the house, he was still progressing in his education. Gohan did not really mind, however.

"I don't trust it though, Chichi. We've seen things happen . . . weird things."

"But this is our chance to get ahead. We need this stadium, Goku."

'The reflective surface in a flashlight has a parabolic cross section that can be modelled by y = ½x², where x and y are in centimetres. How far from the vertex should the filament of the light bulb be located?'

.75 cm, his pencil scribbles on the blank provided as the adults talked on, oblivious to his eavesdropping. He did not mind doing so much homework. Whenever his mother made him do homework, she always seemed to think he could not hear anything she said. Gohan smiled inwardly. It was almost like he was a secret agent, picking up information and piecing together another party's motives and activities.

"How far ahead to you expect to get if your own son gets taken out by a falling stadium light?" Piccolo's gruff voice came from the other side of the arena.

"That was just a freak accident. Besides, we can't afford to get out of owning this place. We've invested too much money in it," Chichi insisted.

"Who cares about money if we're putting our lives and the lives of others at risk?" commented Goku.

'When a ball is thrown or kicked, the path it travels is shaped like a parabola. Suppose a football is kicked from ground level, reaches a maximum height of 25 feet, and hits the ground 100 feet from where it was kicked. Assuming that the ball was kicked at the origin, write an equation of the parabola that models the flight of the ball.'

Gohan's pencil scratched more figures in his notebook, each of them looking more complicated and making less sense than the other. His eyes stared at the markings, seemingly analyzing them, while his mind drifted elsewhere.

"We're not putting lives at risk, Goku. You of all people should know that this place is perfectly safe with a former champion of the world tournament here to protect it. And you too Piccolo. I'm surprised that two of the strongest fighters in existence are afraid of a little poltergeist."

"But mom, Dad's not afraid of anything, and Piccolo too," Gohan could not stop himself from saying.

"Gohan," Chichi turned to her son, "what are you doing interrupting your studies eavesdropping on us?"

Gohan dropped his head and started writing faster.

Chichi sighed and rolled her eyes. "Gohan, why don't you just go do your work in the managers' office?"

"But mom," he looked up with a childish plea in his eyes. "I want to work out here . . ."

"Piccolo can join you in there," Chichi bargained, giving a pointed look to the Namek. "You know how I don't like Gohan going off alone . . ."

The tall green man grunted in annoyance, but general acceptance. "Come on, kid."

"Aww, man . . ." Gohan muttered as he picked up his book and followed his mentor's trailing white mantle out of the arena to the office on the other side.

Chichi waited until Gohan and his teacher removed themselves from earshot before she began. "Like I said, if there *is* a Tournament Ghost, and I'm not saying there is, I'm sure he'll be no match for you."

"But Chichi, you don't know that. We haven't even seen him, let alone know how strong he is." He ran a concerned hand through his unruly bangs. "We don't even know what kind of person this Ghost is . . . what his motives are. First the light incident, now Bulma disappearing . . ."

"Goku, we can't do anything about it," Chichi argued, exasperated. "There's no way we can get out of owning this stadium, so why worry about something we can't fix?"

"But what's next? *Who's* next?" he pressed. "Who else will the Ghost take? What has he already done with the person he's taken? I doubt she's just on vacation. We have no way of knowing where she is or what that thing's do-"

The door to the arena swung open, revealing the white-bearded Master Roshi, the pouting Videl, the newly arrived Krillin, Eighteen, and a man with a turned up nose and too-long blonde hair.

"Bulma's back," Roshi said.

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Author's Note: Okay, there's chapter nine. Sorry it was so short, but hey, if I wrote any more, I'd be stepping on chapter ten's lines (God forbid). For those of you who have actually read the novel by Gaston Leroux, you'll notice that nearly all of Vegeta's lines at the mask scene were taken from the chapter 'Apollo's Lyre' in there. I love the book just about as much as I love the musical, and those lines always have a profound effect on me, so I just *had* to use them ^_^. So then, my review counter for the story says I only got ninety-eight reviews, but when I log in, it says I have one hundred, so I'll take the second one. Congratulations to Mrs Baron for being my hundredth reviewer! Nothing much going on here, just that nagging feeling about the AP tests and SATs and ACETs coming up. Ah well . . . can't do anything about that. I shall try to write the next chapter hopefully as quickly as I wrote this one, but it will probably take longer because there's more stuff to squeeze in there. Don't want to give any more away, so I'll keep this relatively short.

Read ZippyDragon*43's 'Romance Idiots with High Ki'