Merry Late Christmas, everyone! Couldn't update yesterday because my family was doing stuff. Reviews!

Hikaze Chimizu: Phantom scared them? That's sad…I've been listening since I was six or seven. I was never scared.

MortRouge: Sorry. I guess I've just been writing him like I talk normally. I'll work on that. I don't know if I really want to see it, but I feel like I should. My obedient servant! I'll hold you to that. Heheh…

Phantomraver: They used two-sided tape to hold them mask to his face in the movie? Uh…okay. Well, I don't think Erik would agree to that.

Eat-drums: You have a Masquerade music box?! I'm dying for one of those, but I didn't know they actually existed. I got a Sarah Brightman CD, and she sings Music of the Night. It feels weird, like Christine is trying to seduce Erik with it or something…it's good, but I think that song should be confined to guys playing the Phantom.

Lazy.kender19: I don't know all of that song, only a few random lines. Oh, my friend (Tameranian Raven on here) got the full soundtrack from the movie. O.O I wouldn't mind having it for the extended overture, but I don't think I'd be able to listen to those vocals for long without being sick. Unless I sang over them…but no.

Pervy Elf-Fancier: Actually, Butler hadn't sung since he was twelve, and then only in pubs. My dear girl, there are more phangirls out here than you could count in a lifetime. There was a time when I too believed myself the only girl ever to love Erik. Then I came here.

PenelopeBlack13: Cameo, yup, yup. (writes it down) I don't know what a LiveJournal is, so I apparently don't have one.

ButterflyOfLothlorien: Don't worry, you'll be in it. I'm just putting people in basically in the order I got their requests, and yours was rather late.

And here we have a timesaver!

…………………………………….

Erik sat up the next morning. Today he actually had awakened before Aislin – he could see her head poking out from the covers where she remained curled up in a ball.

It wasn't all that early. It was already nine thirty, by the alarm clock on the table. Erik went to wash up for the day, staring disconsolately at his reflection in the mirror. After he was clean and dressed, he went to the drawer that his things were in to retrieve a mask. It was his last one – he'd only taken two extras. One had been shattered by Kat, and one had split in two on a ride. He figured he'd have to be extra careful with this one.

Aislin jerked awake. "Erik," she muttered blearily. "Are you ready?" He nodded. "Go down to room 135 on the fourth floor. Your next…thing is down there." She slumped back in the bed tiredly leaving Erik with no further instructions.

Obediently, and still a little sleepy, he headed downstairs first to get something to eat, and after a buttered croissant, dragged himself back up to the fourth floor, where he found room 135 and knocked.

The door was pulled open by a girl with long, extremely straight, dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and freckles. She grinned widely and bowed ridiculously low to welcome him in. "Hi Erik. I'm Stephanie."

"So you're my next date?" Erik stepped in and turned to face her, where she stood by the door.

"In a manner of speaking."

Erik looked confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well…I'm one of your next dates."

Erik stared in horror. "What do you mean, one of them?"

He whirled around to see no less than four other girls in the room. Stephanie strode over to them to introduce them.

"This is Phoenix, Gina, Mandy, and Jenna." She indicated a stunning blond, another brown-haired girl with shorter hair, another freckly brunette, and a pale, dark-haired girl in turn.

"Right, well," Erik fidgeted nervously. "Who do I have to take out first?"

"Oh, we're not going out," said Gina happily. "And we're not going individually."

"We're going to have a little party right here!" piped up Jenna. She pointed to one of the beds in the room, which was covered with snack foods, sodas, plates, and a CD player.

Phoenix dashed to the CD player and switched on a loud, horrible song that echoed strangely in the cramped room. The girls and Erik all screamed and clapped their hands to their ears.

"What is it?" shrieked Mandy.

"I don't know! I just turned it on to some station! I can't find the volume dial!"

"TURN IT OFF FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!" Stephanie finally ran up and gave the poor machine a good whack with the clock on the table. It sputtered and died. For a minute all the girls stared at it.

"We're gonna need another CD player," declared Jenna.

"I've got it!" called Gina. For a minute, only her feet were visible, waving in the air as she searched her backpack on the other side of the bed. She pulled herself back a second later, triumphantly holding another CD player high above her head. The girls cheered, and Erik slid limply into a chair in the corner.

With the stereo finally playing someone's Phantom soundtrack correctly, they all started to serve themselves from the slightly crushed food on the bed. Phoenix walked up to Erik.

"Want a cookie?"

He looked at the plate of chocolate cookies she was holding out to him. "No, that's okay." Before he could push away the plate, though, Stephanie came pushing her out of the way.

"Cake?"

A little bewildered, he stared at the whole cake she'd pushed under his nose. He had no time to reply, however, as Gina arrived next, with a large bowl of chips. No sooner had she opened her mouth to offer her food, when Jenna stepped up with two fizzing cups of soda. Mandy stood impatiently behind them all with he hands full of candy.

Erik didn't dare open his mouth as the five girls swarmed around him, for fear that one of them might try to force something into it. Only when he had accepted something from each of them did they smile, satisfied, and fall back to the bed. He made sure to sniff the food before eating it.

Twenty minutes later, Phoenix stood over him and his nearly empty plate, looking insulted.

"You didn't eat your cookies."

He glanced at the four uneaten chocolate cookies lying alone on his plate. "I don't like cookies."

"How do you not like cookies?!"

"Do you know what's in those things? Basically butter and sugar. If I want to remain a corpse-like Opera Ghost I can't get myself addicted to pure sugar."

"But they're cookies!" Phoenix picked one up and waved in tantalizingly in his face.

"I don't want to eat the – mmph!" She shoved the cookie into his mouth.

He was both disgusted by it and enjoying it. After all, it was made of chocolate. But that didn't help the fact that he was now choking on it. All the other girls turned to look as Erik coughed up the cookie remains, doubled up on the floor. Stephanie and Mandy cried out and ran to help him. The pounding on his back really didn't help matters, though.

"Stop!" He coughed. "Go away!" Cough again. "Leave me alone!" The girls scuttled back to the bed. Erik stood up, his yellow eyes glowing with anger. Although he was at the pinnacle of Opera Ghost intimidation, and they really did look a bit frightened, Gina couldn't help but applaud, impressed.

Disgusted, Erik made for the door. Jenna, however, ran to block the exit.

"Out of my way, you fool," growled Erik.

Jenna held her arms wide and shook her head. It was the phangirls' turn to be intimidating. "We're not letting you leave." She began to close in, and the other girls joined ranks. Before long, Erik was cornered at the back of the room, Track Down This Murderer playing ominously in the background.

Erik, however, was not in a good mood today, and was willing to fight. He pulled out his Punjab lasso. Stephanie let out a little squeal of delight at the sight of it. Erik tightened it threateningly around his wrist. "Try me."

All five girls, as one, lifted their hands to the level of their eyes.

So much for that plan.

"GLOMP HIM!" cried Mandy and Gina together. The girls piled on top of a struggling, screaming Erik. He desperately looked for the end of the date, but he'd lost track of time and the clock, after its rough encounter with the CD player was now blinking twelve o'clock. How long had he been here?

It was time for desperate measures. Jenna was closest to him. He lashed out with the Punjab, and managed to get her round the neck. She cried out, and he gripped the rope firmly.

"I swear to you all, I will do it."

The girls glanced nervously at each other. They all knew enough about the Phantom of the Opera to be assured that he would indeed do it. They were saved the problem of figuring it out, though, when Aislin pulled open the door, looking much more awake now, and extremely angry, her eyes flaming.

"I figured you'd be at about this stage now," she said angrily. "Out." Phoenix, Stephanie, Gina, and Mandy all trooped sadly from the room. Aislin stalked inside and pulled the lasso off of Jenna, who waved happily and ran out. She'd have a cool story to tell her friends now.

Aislin stopped the CD player, which was just reaching the last depressing lines of the finale. Erik quailed beneath her gaze, and meekly followed her back to their own room, lasso dangling innocently by his side.

In their room, she rounded on him.

"You do not try to kill contestants!"

Erik hung his head. "Sorry."

Aislin sighed and hugged him, much to his surprise. "That's okay. That's why we all love you. At least no one actually died. I think they actually enjoyed it."

…………………………….

There you go, a nice long chapter. It's my Christmas present to you all. Merry Christmas again!

Your obedient friend,

A. S. ;)