Dear Readers: I have had a request for some explanations, so instead of replying to the reviews I am going to inflict a lengthy author's note on you. If you are a PFNer however, you don't need to read it, unless you want to, in which case you are a masochist and are probably named Erik. Anyway.

To start with, PFN is phantomfans (dot) net, where people go to make fun of the movie and swoon over the Eriks and things like that. It's a nice place, you should check it out. So far I think I've pointed seven people there, and we always like new members to talk to and/or make fun of.

Next point: the Writers. It started off quite simply, when I (I think) asked if people wanted a mention, since I was going to put some Phic-Writers in. I think I started with maybe ten... I now have almost forty, and despite enjoying it thoroughly am slowly being driven insane. But! I am perfectly happy to put anyone in, because as one reviewer pointed out, sanity is overrated. You may notice a few of the Writers have more well-developed personalities— these are the ones I have talked to more, and got more of a feel for their character— and believe me, they are characters. A lot of the stuff that goes on between them is an extension of conversations on the soap opera that is PFN, so once again if you check that out it will help you get the in-jokes more. Also I have to admit to stealing a few lines from people off there— (sheepish shrug). So if you want in the phic, all you have to do is ask.

And finally, someone asked about the significance of the muffins— truthfully, the muffins are used as a metaphor for life, with the lemon poppyseed-ness of them a counterpoint to the ickiness that Leroux Erik was musing on in the first chapter. Also the fact that they are lemon poppyseed points to my general dissatisfaction with and disappointment in life, because really I much prefer blueberry.

No. The muffins are manifestations of the spirits of stage-Phantoms that have passed beyond

No. The muffins are a metaphor for sex.

No! The muffins are made by my mother, and she burnt them when I was a child, leaving me forever scarred and muffin-phobic, or muffin-aholic, whichever is funnier—

No. The muffins are breakfast. And, occasionally, lunch.

Please don't worry about the muffins— my insanity only affects myself.

Cheers, dear readers—

A/A/N: The title of this chapter came from someone on PFN. I would love to give them credit but I don't remember who it was. I hope you guys don't mind the ending of this one. Heck, I hope you like it, I hope you cheer for it and squee for it and glomp it and marry it. Not likely, but— I'll go ahead and tell you that its only temporary, but complain if you like.


Chapter Nine

Pink Haze Phantom bustled purposefully around the lair, handing out muffins. The issue of the lair should be dealt with— it has been brought to my attention that it was not actually large enough to hold all the people that are supposedly in it at the moment.

To these objections I have the following things to say:

1: How do you know?

2: Have you ever tried it?

3: Who's writing this story here, me or you?

and finally 4: Its fiction, you imbeciles.

Now that this pressing issue has been taken care of, we will return to the action— namely, muffin-eating. It was the perfect time for the Writers to take notice of the various Phantom's table manners, for possible inclusion in their phics— unfortunately most of them were concentrating on their own table manners, or lack of them, and couldn't be bothered.

There arose a bit of a ruckus when Slina knocked her tea into Phantress's lap, and Phantress retaliated by stuffing her muffin down Slina's shirt, and then Mademoiselle Phantom and THELadyRedDeath got into the action as well, hair-pulling was employed, screaming happened, and Hoshi and Adison didn't make things better by finding all this incredibly funny and laughing their heads off. But it was all in good fun and after a few eyes were blackened everyone returned to their muffins and tea.

EmmyChristine, having recovered from her faint and promptly forgotten that Patrick Raoul had been there, as he was still ensconced in the bedroom with the slowly-recovering Maiden Amorisa, and of course I don't use the word "ensconced" in a deviant manner at all, offered Stalker Erik a muffin. He shook his head and pushed the plate away.

"No thank you."

"Eat it," said Emmy Christine, pushing it back at him.

"No, I don't want to."

"Eat it!"

"I don't eat."

"The fact that you are alive," said Kay Erik from behind him, "would seem to suggest otherwise."

Slowly, Stalker Erik turned round to behold the three Main Phantoms standing there, staring at him regally, Gerry Phantom still masticating a mouthful of muffin.

There was a bit of a silence while the Main Eriks took Stalker Erik in, and then the sound of chewing became evident to everyone. Kay Erik swung a distasteful look at Gerry Phantom.

"Must you do that?"

"What do you suggest I do?" mumbled Gerry Phantom, taking another humongous mouthful. "Swallow without chewing? I'd choke to death."

"The point of your objection, monsieur?" said Kay Erik. Gerry Phantom glared at him, and Kay Erik turned back to Stalker Erik with a sigh.

"They say you are the one called Stalker Erik."

"Um," said Stalker Erik, his mouth suddenly dry, "yes?"

Kay Erik folded his arms behind his back. "Are you asking me?"

"Well, they do call me that, yes."

"Aha." Kay Erik gave the stalker a slow once-over with a frown. "Who gave you permission to be called Erik?"

"Er— my mother."

Kay Erik withdrew his hands from behind his back and spread them, calling out to the room at large. "You, Writers! Are there any others who think their name is Erik out there? What are your names?"

There was a pause, and then small and forlorn female voices filled it from all over the room.

"THELadyRedDeath."

"Padfootz-luvr."

"Longblacksatinlace."

"IChooseTheScorpion."

"xxXGoddessXofXdeadXloveXxx."

"pOtOgurl417."

"VegaOfTheLyre."

"Killthefop," said Killthefop, causing Gerry Phantom to turn a brief and approving glance on her. She blushed pleasurably and wriggled her shoulders under his gaze.

There were many other names called out, but the only point to writing them all out would be to gratify the vanity of the owners of them, and so we will skip to the point, some ten minutes later, when Kay Erik said, in disgusted disbelief, "You expect me to believe that these are your names? These are the names you were— christened? I cannot credit it, mademoiselles."

The Writers shrugged.

"They're the names we write under," said EmailyGirl. "That's kind of important, to us."

Kay Erik shook his head, hooked his hands behind his back again, gave Stalker Erik another hard glare, and then strode off to find some lemon for his tea. Crawford Phantom stood behind, capturing the attention of the Writers again.

"Don't be put off by Kay Erik's rough exterior," he said kindly. "We may all be cold-hearted, maniacal-laughing murderers, but we really do have hearts of gold." With a benign smile, he walked off in the general direction of Sarah Crawford, who had her pen and paper out and was writing as fast as she could.

"Crap," muttered Celtic Heart furiously, "they're getting phictionalized again! What do we do?"

Hoshi thought about this. "Try and stay on their good side?" she suggested.

"Supposing they don't have a good side?"

There was more thought.

"If they're getting phictionalized," said Mandy the O slowly, "does that mean that if we write them how we want them to be—"

About ten light bulbs went on at the same time, over various Writer's heads.

Simultaneously, they all went, "Oooooh!"

"It was my idea first!" cried Sarah Crawford, eluding, for the moment, Crawford Phantom's reaching hands and running to her fellow Writers. "You can't all just steal it!"

"Why not?"asked Sydney the Poet innocently. "You can have Crawford Phantom, no one else wants him."

"Fine, then," said Sarah Crawford, mollified, and walked back to Crawford Phantom, who was waiting for her.

The Writers plied their trade busily, occasionally squabbling over which Erik belonged to whom, finally agreeing to separate into groups and work it out according to the various versions. ChristineX started running around frantically calling, "I don't have any paper! I don't have any paper!" Stalker Erik watched them with his hands in his pockets.

"What's the matter?" called Johanna Gen to him.

He shrugged. "Eh— what would I do with a Phantom? I'll leave them to you ladies."

"Get yourself a Christine, why don't you," advised Celtic Heart over her shoulder.

Stalker Erik laughed outright. He had no use for Christines, and went on to say so, loudly, repeatedly, and averting his eyes from Emmy Christine, who, still in Mother mode, was standing patiently before him, breathing hard and holding a muffin, waiting for him to open his mouth wide enough for her to shove it in. He stopped talking, finally, and turned a peeved glare on her.

"Muffin?" she said.

"No, thank you, I said."

"Muffin?"

"Can't you leave me be?"

"Muffin."

"Gerry Phantom is making out with Genn again," said Stalker Erik cunningly and, as it turned out, truthfully. Emmy Christine dropped the muffin and opened her mouth wide in shock. Stalker Erik bent, picked up the muffin, inserted it carefully between her lips, then smiled in deep, inner satisfaction and dusted his hands off.

"Run along now," he said, patting her kindly on the shoulder.

She did, silently, unable to speak because she couldn't figure out how to un-wedge the muffin from her mouth and it was too much to chew at once. Stalker Erik rubbed his hands together.

"Well— my work here is finished," he announced. "I have made Emmy Christine forever silent." Nobody was paying him any attention. "Hey! Ladies!" They ignored him still, and Stalker Erik lapsed into a sulk.

Presently a thought struck him and an evil glint came to his eyes. He delved into his pocket and retrieved a small notebook along with two tissues, a glue stick, a pencil stub, a nickle, and a fluff-covered mint. With the notebook in his right hand and the pencil in his left, he began to write— his handwriting was neater that most left-handers but he had to concentrate in order to make it that way.

As he wrote he chuckled fiendishly to himself.

"And—then— a fop— exploded—"

Nothing happened.

Stalker Erik frowned to himself and shook the notebook as though it were a recalcitrant TV remote.

Nothing continued to happen.

Then he decided to add punctuation to the end of the sentence.

The second the period was in place, there was, a ways off in the distance, a tremendous boom, cries of alarm, a wet sort of thud, and then wails of grief. Everyone looked up, confused, from their tasks of writing, eating, drinking, etc— they didn't notice Stalker Erik grinning widely and rocking himself back and forth on his heels, and they didn't know what had gone on until Leroux Erik, closely followed by Real Christine, rushed into the main room of the lair, his eyes wide.

"The fop—" he announced. Everyone held their breath. "—has blown up!"

There was a tremendous cheer from the Eriks and a slightly ragged one from the Writers. Stalker Erik threw a triumphant fist in the air and shouted, "Whoo-hoo!"

The Writers swivelled to look at him.

"Did you do that?" said Willow Rose.

"Of course! When granted tremendous power, why would I deny myself the satisfaction of using it?" asked Stalker Erik reasonably.

Most of the Writers agreed with this sentiment, especially as it turned out that it was Leroux Raoul who had exploded, and nobody much liked him, but sparklyscorpion, as the official Raoul Protector, went up to Stalker Erik and punched him on the shoulder.

"You no-good, lousy, low-down, gaunt, bent, thick-headed, poetry-scribbling, ambidextrous, chronically-headachey little man!"

"Hey!" objected Stalker Erik, rubbing his shoulder. "I am not little!"

"Why would you do that?"

"I thought I already explained my reasons! Look, no one with the ability to kill a fop would simply not kill a fop— would they?" he appealed to the rest of the Writers. Most of them nodded in agreement, some of them in rapture at the very idea, and a few of them, who had inexplicably been reviewing and begging me not to kill of Patrick Raoul on the grounds that he had a cute butt (coughMaidenAmorisacough) frowned and scuffed their feet and looked away. "Oh, come on, people! Look, am I right, guys?" He opened his appeal to the room at large and got a better reaction from the Eriks, except for the Slash versions, who were in love with Raoul and had to be kept penned up in a corner where they couldn't do harm to anyone but themselves.

When he looked back, grinning, he found that Leroux Erik and Real Christine had advanced on him. Real Christine stood forward.

"Did you truly kill Raoul?" she said, faltering.

"Er— yes—" said Stalker Erik, wondering how wise it was to say anything.

For a moment Real Christine stood still, her face going through an amazing range of emotions— from fear to anger to joy to sadness to anger again to tears to a dim ray of hope to anger again to joy— Stalker Erik thought dazedly to himself that it was like watching the Wheel Of Fortune.

Finally she stopped on joy.

"Oh— thank you!" she cried, and flung her arms up, reaching for him. Stalker Erik did a quick and nimble side-step to avoid her, but she got him anyway, Christines being the most accomplished clutchers in the known universe. He set about trying to free her arms from around his neck but his gaze caught that of Leroux Erik—

Who did not look happy.

"Hoo boy," said ElfLover quietly.

Leroux Erik stood still as a stone, his burning eyes fixed on his love and the struggling man she had clutched in her grasp. His body tensed, his knees and elbows crooked, and with the black cloak swirling sinuously around his skeletal frame, for a moment he looked like a giant spider. Then he strode forward. Stalker Erik struggled harder, but Real Christine was more persistent than Super-Glue and soldering.

Leroux Erik walked painfully slowly until he reached the swaying couple, then lifted the punjab he held clenched in his hand, held it forward, and draped it lightly over Real Christine's neck, yanking it tight and then hauling on it till she passed out from lack of air and collapsed on the ground. Stalker Erik, who was panting from fear as though he'd just run a race, looked up into his namesake's eyes.

Slowly, Leroux Erik gave the tiniest resigned shrug.

There came from the crowd the sound of insane cackling, and as though in slow motion, everyone turned around to face it. The crowd parted to reveal a small form crouched over a notebook, a black pen in her ink-stained fingers, scribbling madly and occasionally flinging her long hair out of a pair of malicious dark eyes.

She wrote on for a minute more and then looked up with a cheerful grin.

"I've always wanted to make him do that. Don't worry, he didn't kill her— just knocked her out a bit. She should have a lovely headache when she wakes up."

"But—" breathed VegaOfTheLyre. "You killed yourself in the first chapter—"

"Its only fiction, after all, not reality, which is good because if it were reality I would be having a real hard time not flinging myself at Gerard Butler over there, lookin' all hot in his cape, or for that matter any of the Eriks because as we know its personality that counts, not looks, though looks help, and anyway I brought myself back to life," said Random Battlecry, simply.


Okay, a few review replies down here where they won't bug everyone:

Thanks to EmailyGirl and Hoshi for the carrot cake...

VegaOfTheLyre: I had a complicated comedic education. Lots of British humour, which is where I get most of my madness from. Most of it. A bit is entirely original.

Christine Persephone: I forgot about the horse! Shall have to address that issue.

ElfLover: Leroux Erik'll be in more later... I miss him too... about CLE. It was meant to be a one-shot, and I forgot to say that. I may write more of it when this is over, but no guarantees.

The Singing Fox Demon: I am inspired, lately, by the ridiculous conversations I've been having with the PFNers. Insanity, much like chicken soup, is good for the soul.

Willow Rose: The fop killing comes later... please be patient...

Songwind: I'm going to use your Plot Moderator thing, kind of, so I'll give you credit when it shows up. Thanks!

Celtic Heart: I'm sure Stalker Erik loves to hear that he has fans... LOL... ya hear that, Erik? "Can I be any funnier?" What is that, a request:)

Dimac99: I'm going to steal some of your chapter titles. Seriously. I'll give you credit when the time comes.

Musique et Amour: I'll let you know when its going to end... not for a while, hopefully. unless my Well of Insanity dries up... (rattles the chain meaningfully)

Mademoiselle Phantom: Best line? BEST LINE? YAY! Thank you!

Starbrow: Nah, that line was my own. Glad it sounded Leroux-ish, though— writing half of JJC Beowulf's "Folie a Deux" trained me to writing like Leroux, and I enjoyed it.

Johanna Gen: I spelled Hugh's name wrong? Oops— well, I didn't have any idea who he was even, till I asked on PFN, and I think someone there spelt it that way— so— (shrug) So that makes it NOT my fault! Ha ha! And I'll put you in anyway.