The Phantom of the Opera versus the Scarlet Pimpernel!

Plot Outline: It's the ultimate musical match-up! Two murderous villains pining for an unrequited love! Two singers/actresses with lives like soap-opera characters! Two foppish aristocrats! And (almost) everybody's French! (Warning: Lots of copying/pasting of song lyrics. Deal with it.)

Today's round.....Christine vs. Marguerite!

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A studio audience filled to the brim with complete idiots was applauding wildly. Why? Because the monitors hanging above them told them so, that's why! And if they didn't obey the monitors, they would be killed! Or tortured! Or worse! (It's a sad fate, really, but in the end it benefits mankind. If they didn't obey the monitors, how on earth could they be expected to not question any and all authority brought before them? Really, it was for the best...)

"Why has the audience been applauding for the last half-hour?" A certain TenshinoFushigi asked impatiently as all experienced members of the TV studio got out of her way, fearing her wrath. The interns, however, young and naïve as they were, did nothing, not realizing that, if they happened to be in her path during her bout of fury, they would be eaten.

TnF's rage peaked when she found a certain group of stage techs playing a prank by using the monitor to command the audience to do silly things for their amusement. As the audience began the chicken dance, TnF also opened her mouth to begin to breathe flames and cause the apocalypse, but just then, one of the studio announcers screeched:

"Ten seconds to show-time!"

And with that, TnF was off to appear cheery for the audience. Can't disappoint the fans, can we? Plus, those techies would pay later. She has a Punjab lasso and a guillotine at her disposal.

TnF appeared onstage smiling happily and waving to the still-applauding audience. The audience, whose hands were becoming more bruised and bloody by the second, still continued their applauding. And they didn't stop. Not even after the monitors' screen went black. This would continue for the next several minutes.

TnF began the introduction. "Welcome, ladies and gents, to our first-ever episode of Musical Matchup! I'm your host, TenshinoFushigi, and today's match-up will be: 'The Phantom of the Opera' versus 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'!"

The audience continued to applaud wildly, despite never having seen 'The Phantom of the Opera' or 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'. Most were wondering what on earth a pimpernel was, and why it would be named after a character from 'Clue'.

TnF continued: "Before we get started, let's meet the six characters who will be joining us for the next several matchups! First, from the PotO camp: he's a French aristocrat who wanted to go to the North Pole for some deranged reason, Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagny!"

Raoul, in all his (snicker) glory, appeared, and the audience continued applauding. Raoul was applauding, too. Why? Because the monitors said so!

Meanwhile, every phangirl watching this on TV began to curse horrifically, screaming obscenities and throwing heavy objects at their TV sets. Unfortunately, this broke their TVs. As a result, TV viewership went from approx. 15,000 to about 5.

"Next: She's a Swedish prima donna who easily believes in the supernatural, Christine Daae!"

Christine entered, in her 'Hannibal' regalia, and sat next to Raoul, who was still applauding. However, upon seeing Christine, he stopped in order to feel her up and snap her bra-strap a few times. Christine, believing he was giving her a back massage, thought about how cute and charming her husband was.

"And last, but certainly not least: He's been lurking in the Opera House for years and is always watching you through your dressing room mirror, Erik, the Phantom of the Opera!"

Erik entered, accompanied by the PotO overture on the speaker system. The phangirls who were supposed to be watching paused, sensing Erik's presence, despite the fact that their TVs were still broken due to their reaction to Raoul. It was then that they swooned.

"Alright, now let's start announcing the Scarlet Pimpernel camp: he's a Frenchie with a passion for chopping off heads, Chauvelin!"

As Chauvelin was introduced, the phangirls watching (who had finally fixed their TVs) realized that, as the villain, Chauvelin would be competing against Erik at some point. It was then that they began to create their Chauvelin effigies.

"Next: she's a saucy French actress, who, as a result of her accent, is completely incomprehensible, Marguerite!"

Marguerite curtsied to the still-applauding audience, and sat down two seats from Chauvelin. However, when he began waving what looked like a pair of her own panties at her, she sat down in the chair next to him.

"And last, but not least: They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere, Sir Percy, the Scarlet Pimpernel!"

Percy waved to the audience, then turned to TnF, bowed, and kissed her hand. All of the other males in the room huffed slightly, muttering, "Skirt-chaser".

TnF, flattered, turned to the audience. "Well, now that we've introduced the necessary characters, it's time for the first round of our musical match-up! Today's round is: Christine Daae vs. Marguerite St. Just!"

With that, the men were ushered out as Christine and Marguerite moved downstage. TnF turned to them, holding out her microphone. "So, how's it feel to be here?"

Marguerite smiled coyly. "Eet eez great to be here vis all zese vonderful people."

The audience applauded at this. But, then again, they applauded at everything. The monitors made them.

Christine then took the mike. "I'd just like to thank my wonderful husband, Raoul, for making this all possible for me. Without him, I'd have never made it this far."

TnF tried to cover her grimace with a smile, but failed utterly. "Is there anyone else you'd like to thank? You know, for helping you harness your talent and reach your full potential?"

"Raoul?"

"No, no. I mean, say, someone who helped you out at the Opera House with your singing."

Christine responded with a blank stare.

"You know, someone who maybe gave you singing lessons?"

Another blank stare.

"You know? Through your mirror? Who took you on a boat ride? Who had an exact likeness of you wearing a wedding dress in his home underneath the Paris Opera House?"

Christine blinked a few times.

TnF sighed. "Never mind....." And with that, Christine and Marguerite went off to get ready for the competition while TnF explained the show's rules to the audience.

"Alright, now let me explain how this show is gonna work. Each week, we match up a character, song, or scene from Phantom of the Opera and the Scarlet Pimpernel. There will either be one or three rounds for each category, depending on the match-up. These match-ups will be judged by three judged: myself, and two guest judges that will change from week to week. That being said, let's introduce our two guest judges!"

TnF began reading off of a notecard. "They're a couple from the manga series 'Paradise Kiss' who both work for a fashion designer: she's a sweet, pink haired innocent who speaks in third person, and he's a rough and tough rock-n-roller with a sarcastic streak, give it up for Miwako and Arashi!"

A short, cute girl with pink hair and a tall, gangly guy with green hair and more piercings than you can imagine walked onstage together. The girl waved enthusiastically, while the guy looked like he was staring at his feet, mumbling angrily.

TnF greeted them happily. "So, Miwako, how's it feel to be here?"

"Miwako has butter-wutterflies, being on a big stage like this!"

"And what about you, Arashi? How's it feel, now that Paradise Kiss has been canceled after only five volumes?"

"Shut yer ugly mouth."

"Moving on, then! Let's begin with the competition: Round One, the musical-within-a-musical segment, where Christine and Marguerite sing songs from plays that were performed within the actual plot of their respective musicals. First up, Marguerite, with her rendition of 'Storybook'!"

(A/N: For the sake of saving you all from boredom, each song that is sung or performed in this story has been cut down to only a few verses.)

A spotlight appeared in one of the aisles of the orchestra seats, and Marguerite appeared in her full-out flirting garb. It was then that the men in the audience stopped clapping, fearing that the applause would prevent a single syllable she spoke from reaching their ears.

"Listen to me I have beautiful dreams I can spin you,
Dreams to linger within you.
Close your eyes and we'll ride my carousel."

It was then that 'ride my carousel' was added to the audience's ever-growing list of double entendres.

"I'll sing you stories of lovers whose love used to fill me,
and the lovers who will be,
for you see, love is one thing I do well."

Marguerite began moving through the audience, stopping to smile at, stroke, or playfully tweak the chin of the men in the audience. The women secretly began to create voodoo dolls of Marguerite out of the tampons they had in their purses. By the end of the night, there would be hundreds of tampons burning in the dumpster behind the studio.

"Come let's believe love can be just as sweet as it seems.
Let's live on dreams..."

At this point, all of the same men who had called Percy a skirt-chaser were now infatuated with Marguerite. As she sang and stroked an octogenarian's chin, all of the men secretly turned her into a subject of their nighttime fantasies. All of the women in the audience seethed.

"Come and wake me! Come be the love I can hold now.
Storybook love leaves me cold now.
Show me the way to stop dreaming!
There is only one perfect storybook ending.
That is the end of pretending.
That is the moment I say: 'Love me now!'"

It was at about this point that Marguerite launched into the part of the song where she begins to ramble in French, and the audience's attention waned. However, the damage she had done was irreversible. By this point, the men in the audience had added 'ride my carousel', 'fill me', 'wake me', 'come be the love I can hold now', and 'show me the way to stop dreaming' to their lists of double entendres, and the men secretly thought of Marguerite singing: "If you know how to feel love, show me how...."

Marguerite, meanwhile, was under the impression that she was providing clean, wholesome entertainment suitable for the whole family.

When Marguerite finished singing, TnF began to applaud lightly. However, for the first time in a long while, the audience did not clap. This had nothing to do with Marguerite's performance, however. It simply had to do with the fact that, by this point, their hands were so broken and bloody from applauding that they were simply unable to. Even though the monitors commanded them to.

TnF then began speaking into the microphone as Marguerite hustled backstage. "A wonderful performance by Marguerite St. Just! And now, a performance by Ms. Christine Daae! Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for 'Think of Me'!"

Christine appeared onstage, still in her 'Hannibal' regalia. She stood center stage and began singing without moving at all. Not a hand, not a finger, not even a twitch of the head. This was because Christine was attempting to be like Emmy Rossum in 'The Phantom of the Opera' movie. And what did Emmy Rossum do onstage during 'Think of Me'? Ab. Sol. Ute. Ly. Noth. Ing.

"Think of me, think of me fondly

When we've said goodbye

Remember me, once in a while

Please promise me you'll try."

The male audience, hoping for something similar to Marguerite's performance, immediately fell asleep. The women, who were originally on Christine's side for the simple reason that she was not Marguerite, soon fell asleep as well. By the time Christine got to 'we never said our love was evergreen', the audience's snoring drowned out all other sounds.

"Think of me, think of me waking

Silent and resigned"

That line alone would have sent the men into wild fantasies of Christine in bed, but their boredom was so severe that they had entered REM sleep, where they dreamed of Marguerite fucking Pamela Anderson.

"We never said our love was evergreen

Or as unchanging as the sea

But please promise me that sometime

You will think...

A-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-AH!
Ah-ah-ahahahaHA!
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa....

O-O-OF ME!"

And with that dramatic finish Christine noticed the dazed slumber of the audience. Never one to think for herself, she followed the flock and took a nap onstage.

It wasn't until four hours later that TnF awoke. "Huh? Wha? Huzza wha?"

She looked around to see that everyone else in the room was unconscious. And yet, somehow, the cameras were still functioning, recording every snore, drool, or mumbled phrase that occurred in their restless dreams. TnF, deciding that desperate times called for desperate measures, awoke everyone else the only way she knew how.

"LOOK! IT'S PARIS HILTON!"

And with that, everyone awoke with a start. Upon realizing that there was no Paris Hilton, and that they were still within the television studio, the audience began to applaud again. TnF felt a migraine begin.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen! It's time for the judges to decide who wins Round 1 of Christine vs. Marguerite! Arashi, what do you think?"

Arashi, annoyed that he had to be woken up when he was having a nice dream of Marguerite, adjusted the paper clip hanging out of his lip and answered in a rather annoyed tone. "I thought Marguerite was better."

"How come?"

"Well, she was a lot more interestin' than Christine."

And with that, the men in the audience began to chant 'woot, woot, woot'. The women in the audience smacked them with their purses.

"Alright then. What about you, Miwako?"

"Miwako thought that Christine was much cuter-wuter than Marguerite-Barguerite. Miwako also caught Arashi drooling over Marguerite-Barguerite, so Miwako thinks that Marguerite is a little whory-dory."

TnF paused for a minute, trying to translate that sentence. When she thought she had gotten it, she sat down in the judge's chair for her own analysis. "Well, as a judge of this competition, I know I'm supposed to be fair and impartial. But since I am also the authoress, who owns you all and everything you do, I have the right to be as prejudiced as I wanna be. So I'll say it now: Christine, I despise you."

The audience gasped. This was not so much out of shock, but because the monitors had the words 'gasp out loud' written on them.

Christine looked hurt. "B-b-but why? WHY?"

"Well, I mean, HELLO! If I read Gaston Leroux's 'Phantom of the Opera' correctly, and I do believe I have, then the only real reason that you ever decided to leave Erik for Raoul was because you're so FUCKING SHALLOW that you can't live with a man who has Erik's face!!! You were okay over the fact that he was a MURDERER, that he LIED to you, that he BROUGHT YOU INTO HIS UNDERGROUND HOME under FALSE PRETENCES, that he PRETENDED TO BE A HEAVENLY BEING, but his face?!!!!! THAT'S what broke the deal???? And ANOTHER thing...."

TnF continued to rant in this manner. Somewhere, Erik was grimacing.

Finally, when TnF was done, she took a deep breath, plastered a smile on her face, and stated calmly. "So, in any event, I cast my vote for Marguerite. On to Round Two!"

She stood up and began to resume her duties as MC. "So, here's how Round Two is gonna work: I'm gonna ask the audience to pick a category, and our two lovely ladies will compete over who dominates in that category. Any suggestions?"

Many audience members began calling out, and TnF began to regret participating in this event, since the suggestion seemed to follow a similar pattern:

"Biggest Cup Size!"

"Least Whory!"

"Best in Bed!"

"Most Decent When Performing Onstage!"

"Person Who's Given Head More Often!"

As the suggestions continued, TnF clutched her head, hoping that the show would be canceled right in the middle of taping.

Finally, one person shouted, "Best Stripper Name!"

TnF seized upon this. "Alright, the category is Best NICKname! Alright, ladies, give us your nickname, how you got it, and us judges will decide the winner!"

Christine shot TnF an innocent smile, hoping to win her over. "Well, my nickname is Little Lotte. It's a name my daddy used to call me, and he would always sing me lullabies about Little Lotte and how she would one day be visited by the Angel of Music." With that, Christine sighed, not out of fondness for this nostalgia, but because the Angel of Music reminded her of Raoul, since the two of them had both tried to kill each other. (Sigh) Such wonderful memories!

Marguerite, shot a smile out to the audience, and several men threw slips of paper with their phone numbers written on them in her general direction. "Vell, mah nickname ees Leontine. It vas a name zat I used ven I hid een France to try and rescue mah brother, Armand, ven mah ex-lover Chauvelin....." Marguerite paused, remembering that Chauvelin was still in possession of her panties, and she probably shouldn't speak ill of him under such circumstances.

"....vell, I'll save zat story for another tahm."

TnF nodded. "Alright, then, it's time for the judging! Arashi, what do you think?"

Arashi responded while playing with the chain running from his lip piercing to his ear piercing. "Well, I think Marguerite wins. 'Leontine' just has more appeal than a cutesy nickname like 'Little Lotte'."

"You're not just saying that because you think Marguerite's hot, right?"

"Erm......"

"Never mind. Miwako?"

The short girl played with a lock of her curly pink hair as she answered. "Miwako thinks that 'Little Lotte' is the better nickname."

"You're not just saying that because Arashi thinks Marguerite is hot, right?"

"Um......."

"Never mind, it's my turn to judge."

TnF sat in her judge's seat, crossing her legs while playing with Arashi's chain AND Miwako's hair. "Well, unfortunately, I've got to go with Christine on this one."

Marguerite looked slightly offended, while Christine was happy. Yay! TnF liked her! Sorta!

"Vell, vhy do you say zat?"

"Well, Leontine wasn't really your NICKNAME, it was more like your ALIAS. Therefore, it doesn't really count."

TnF stood up, clutching her microphone and transforming into MC mode. "Well, that means it's time for Round Three! SUDDEN DEATH!"

And with that, the sound of thunder booming was played on the loudspeakers. The audience, however, could not hear this, because they were still applauding. (This is getting old, isn't it?)

TnF turned to Christine and Marguerite. "Alright you guys, THIS round determines the victor for today's episode!" Flames shot up behind her, creating an eerie effect. Marguerite and Christine shook.

Christine gathered the courage to speak, as TnF began to cackle wildly. "W-w-what do we have to do?"

"You have to engage in the most primitive, animal, debasing form of competition EVER! One that dates back to the earliest days of brawling, slaughter, and violence! One that is a time-honored method of restoring and destroying dignity and honor!

....CATFIGHT!!!!"

And with that, the brawl began. The audience, horrified, squeezed their eyes shut and winced. However, they learned every detail of the brawl from TnF's commentary:

"Ooh, Marguerite's attacking with the stiletto heel, but Christine's still got her in a headlock....Ooh, that's painful! Marguerite's biting Christine's ankle, Christine's thwacking Marguerite with her purse, Christine's got her in a chokehold......OOH! That's gotta hurt! Christine flips Marguerite, Marguerite tackles Christine, Christine's struggling........Marguerite's tickling Christine, Christine is becoming weaker.......weaker.......MARGUERITE WINS!"

And with that, the audience opened their eyes to see two divas onstage, lying on their backs and trying to recover their breath. TnF continued to commentate.

"Well, that's all for today, folks! Join us again tomorrow for episode 2: Raoul vs. Percy! G'night!"