Okay! I've finally got chapter eight up! I'm sorry it took so long, but I've been a wee bit over stressed and depressed lately, and it's rather difficult to write a romantic comedy when one is busy chewing the heads off of anyone foolish enough to bother them... but, on a lighter and happier not, I'm done being a crab, now:blows annoying party horn thingy and throws confetti:

Oh yeah, when I was re-reading chapter six, I realized that I accidently called Ava "Georgia". I'm an idiot, but I meant Ava, not Georgia... Georgia was another name I was considering for Ava's character, which is why I accidentally typed it in. Nobody said anything about it in the reviews, though, so you can't have been too confused, but I just thought I'd clear that up, just in case someone was thinking she was a new character or something.

Sapphiragirl: What? Camping song? Barney? Dancing Kirby?... oh wait! I see it now! Aww... It's cute:grins evilly: Come on! You know you wanna see Erik (particularly the Gerik variety)in purple, vinyl pants and a matching suit coat with nothing but a tacky gold medallion beneath said suit coat!.. Oh yeah, and the weird little cane thing... can't forget the cane..

Moon Avenger: YES! You should give him back! It's not nice to steal... And how can you tell me to feed him better while you feed him MacDonald:mutters: It's gross... and greasy... except for the french fries. I have a weakness for fries, but everything else is nasty... anyways, yes, I will feed him better (just wait until a few chapters from now, I tell you! Just wait!) But you did give me an Erik for president pin and a happy plushie, so perhaps you can borrow him. You should have him make you some ramen noodles :grins evilly:. He's rather good at that...

RebbeccaTurner01: AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! RUN AWAY! NOT THE SPORK! ANYTHING BUT THE SPOOOOOOOOORK!

i R A loser: Well, usually, there's a decent space of time between all of your classes, but by lunch break, I meant a space of time where Carmen had no class, not an hour of two reserved for eating lunch, and I assure you, girls of ALL ages giggle, particularly ones that a flirty enough to slap the butts of random men at the mall.

Angeloftheoperahouse: Oui! I so agree! The ass-slapper must DIE!... But I'm too lazy to give her a name, personality, and write up a scene in which Erik gets his sweet revenge, so we'll just assume that the moment Erik and Carmen left, the mall was suddenly overrun with voracious cows that devoured our flirty little fiend with a happy little "moo!"

Nota Lone: Of course some of the shirts would have thrown him off a bit... but he doesn't have to notice those now does he:drums fingertips like a plotting psychopath: Actually, he probably wouldn't pick up on a lot the hidden meanings and such, as he's still rather new to this whole twenty-first century thing. The more blatant ones probably would have scared the crap out of him, though... We'll have to keep him to the tame ones, then...

Lorraine: Aww... thanks! Don't worry, I'm not going to abandon this story!

Songwind: Thank you! I was hoping someone would make the connection that, no, Erik is not used to seeing mini-skirts and tube tops, and yes, women's underwear did cover more than most twenty-first century skirts in Erik's time! I had so much fun writing that last bit with the arse-slapping, really I did...

Lobo Diablo: I want a rat so bad, but my blasted parents are allergic to EVERYTHING, so I can't have one... As for laughing too hard and getting in trouble :takes a bow: I can't tell you how often that happens to me, so I know how you feel. And alas, my muse SHALL return, just as soon as Moon Avenger is done borrowing him... In the meantime, I shall simply have to... sing myself a sad, lonely song.

TheGreatSporkWeilder: Eep! You aren't in cahoots with RebbeccaTurner01, are you:hides while Laur tries, yet again, to gouge her eyes out with sporks in a feeble attempt to speed my updates, and yes, I just couldn't imagine Erik going anywhere near Abercrombie... it's really not his type of store. And boo shah for yummy guyfriends!

Frigidhart: I know, I know. I'm being a slow moron, but seriously, if I would have tried to post anything while I was being all stupid and mad at everything and everyone, it would have been really bad... or at least really angsty, so it's probably best that I waited until I'd sorted things out a bit and went back to my normal, smart-ass, relatively cheery self before I tried to wrote more in a humor fic. After this, I should be back to weekly updates, though (but I'm not making any promises until summer comes)

Misty Breyer: :joins in drooling: Mmmmm... Don Juan...yummmm- :slaps self: Ah bad Lenis! Bad! Must... answer... reviews...! Yes, I guess the gap is a rather foppish store, but it's better than abercrombie, right? I wanted to put him in Armani, but it would have defeated the purpose if, in a attempt to make Erik look relatively "normal", we dressed him up like Donald Trump (sans the weird swirly hair... he gets the cool hair/wig of sexiness instead). I'm glad you like Carmen. I was planning on revealing more of her personality much earlier in the fic, but it kept getting pushed back, but not anymore (insert jaws theme here)!

Marianne Brandon: Nope. No punjab. She got eaten by cows... or was it a black hole:checks earlier review responses: Nope, it was the cows... so much for poetic justice, but a rather effective way of punishing her. Hmm... Scary waiting room man think Erik gay? I should have added that... (spazzy authoress think in complete sentences?) Oh! I want to read Kay's novel so bad, but I can't find it anywhere...:sobs: Well, actually, I should probably just order it online... as my not-so-handy-dandy public library doesn't have it... And if it's any consolation, I wasn't a huge fan of No One Would Listen, either (except that Erik's still traipsing about in the Don Juan pants) I sort of liked the song, but it would've been really bad in the movie... It was sort of like a "What have we learned today with Erik?" type of thing... I don't know. It was just weird.

I am so insane right now, but who cares? I've finally updated:does the hustle: Okay, so this chapter isn't all that humor-filled, but you'll notice that this fic is a romance/humor, meaning that yes, at some point there will be romance, and it's about time I got that ball-a-rollin'... particularly since romance is actually the primary genre...

Chapter Eight: The D-Bomb

"Checkmate." said Erik rather smugly.

"Damn."

"Someday, I will take the initiative to count the number of times a day you use that word."

"You do that, Erik... I've got to go." Carmen grabbed her bag. Their 'quick little rematch' had ended up lasting for nearly an hour, and if she didn't hurry, she'd be late for Voice!

The professor was just closing the door as Carmen arrived. He glared at her, but let her in anyways. She uttered some brief apologies for her lateness, and took a seat next to Ava.

"Way to make a second impression..." Ava hissed sarcastically.

Carmen responded with a long groan. She knew she was going to look really irresponsible, but honestly, was that impression all that far from the truth? After all, she'd gotten through high school on wit alone... while secretly laughing at all the poor folk who actually had to do work to do well... Now, she was feeling the repercussions of such foolish undertakings, one such repercussion being the horrible twang of guilt she suffered when the professor handed back their essays on vibrato... the essay Erik had written for her. Sure, she'd gotten the points, but she felt positively dreadful. Not only that, but her professor would likely expect all of her other assignments to be up to par with Erik's work. She groaned again, this time from regret of her own irresponsibility.

"Do you need an asprin or something, Carmen?" asked Ava, "You keep groaning... It's kind of annoying."

"No. I'm fine."

"How's the rat-hater?"

"Bored."

Ava shuddered. "That's not good. He doesn't seem like the type that should be allowed to be bored... He might do something stupid to amuse himself."

Carmen was really tired... "Like drugs?" She had a fleeting mental image of Erik smoking a joint... something she never wanted to imagine again!

Ava slapped her forehead. "For someone who's clinically genius, you really are a total moron!"

"Have I ever denied that?"

"Yes."

"Oh... You're right. I have." Carmen shrugged. Lately, she hadn't felt all that genius, not with Erik and his blasted superior intellect. It was a bit odd really, having someone smarter than her around 24/7... She'd gotten so used to being able to outwit everyone around her, and Erik was quite the check on her power.

Their attentions were jerked back up to the front of the room when their Professor (who was called Dravdin) started to speak again. Today, he was lecturing on the mechanics of sound, a subject that Carmen had throughly understood for years... She really hoped they would get past the reviews soon. Perhaps when they were covering new material, she would not feel the need to procrastinate solely to give herself a challenge. She had nothing due that day that she hadn't already finished, however, so Carmen was left with nothing better to do than to actually listen to her teacher...

The lecture seemed to last forever, and forever was a loooong time! Well, long enough for Carmen to fill her notebook with three pages of doodles of little round fuzz balls with giant, furry, hobbit feet... and some notes here and there, too...

Ava and Carmen hurried out of the building as soon as class was over. It had been an uneventful day thus far, but that would all come to an end shortly after they separated, Ava to go to her advanced composition class, and Carmen to her advanced calculus class (which she had to take as a graduation requirement, even though it had absolutely nothing to do with her major).

As Carmen cut through part of the city of Cincinnati, taking a short cut to the math department, she was a bit jumpy. She could have sworn that every time the city noise dimmed, she could hear footsteps behind her. She spun around at least twice a block, but never saw anyone... and still, every time the noise dimmed... there were those footsteps, and they sounded as though they were getting closer.

"Who's there?" she shouted finally. There was no reply, save for the sound of those footsteps. Two rats were fighting near a heaping dumpster that was rusting in the alleyway Carmen found herself standing in front of. She could still hear the footsteps... Was it just her imagination, or was there someone breathing down her neck... standing right behind her... She didn't want to know. Honestly, if she'd been cowardly enough to simply run, she would have done so and never blinked an eye, but Carmen Lenoir was no coward! "What do you want?" she snapped, "I haven't got any money-" As she turned to face her stalker, she couldn't help but scream. When she turned around, the man's greasy, pallid face was less than an inch from hers. He'd been inhaling deeply a moment ago, and for a moment, Carmen was confused... Until she noticed that he'd been holding her hair up to his face...

When she turned, the established nut case seemed to fall back into reality. He reacted too fast, grabbing her by the throat in the blink of an eye.

"Where is he?" snarled the man. He had the look of a demonic, forty-year-old teenager who hadn't washed his hair in a good year and a half. "He's not in your dorm, so where the hell are you hiding him?"

Carmen knew immediately that the man was referring to Erik... he had to be with that Stella girl- Wait! Why wasn't Erik in her dorm? Where had he gotten off to now?

"Did you check my sock drawer?" she gasped, desperate to make him as angry as possible.

"Shut up!" he snapped, "Where is Erik?"

"But you told me to shut up..."

His response was to hit Carmen. He backhanded her so hard that she when flying into the side of the dumpster, causing the rats to scatter. "What do you want with him anyways?"

"He will serve several vital purposes, all of which are for me to know and for you not to find out."

Carmen did not like the way the man had said the words "vital purposes". He made it sound as though Erik was going to become some sort of human sacrifice... Well, that was all the more reason for her to stall... "You made me bleed..."

Once again, Carmen received a violent answer, this time in the form of a strong kick to the stomach, made worse by the boots the man wore.

"Stop wasting my time, and tell me where he's hiding!"

"What if I told you I didn't know?"

"Then I'd say you were lying. I've been watching you, Carmen Lenoir. I've seen the way you look at him... or for him, rather. You're always glancing up at the dorm buildings... And the mall, oh yes! I saw you there with him. I wanted to hit you, you looked so goddamn smug! No... I think you're far too taken with your new roommate to lose track of him. However, I don't necessarily need Erik for everything I want to do... You'd make a fine offering if I do say so myself."

Carmen gasped. They really did want a human sacrifice! In what must have been a cross between a thrash and a well-calculated twist, she almost managed to free herself, but the pallid greaseball that held her managed to regain his grasp and throw her back against the dumpster. "You little viper! You almost got away!"

The last thing Carmen could clearly remember was someone's knee colliding with her head. After that, she stayed awake for a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, but she couldn't see anything. The last thing she heard before she passed out was someone yelling in disgust, and then yelling again in anger.

Erik's little game of follow-the-Carmen had been amusing at first, an excellent way to stay in touch with his phantomness while affording himself some decent entertainment, until she had taken an unexpected turn into the city and he'd lost sight of her.

Now that he'd finally caught up with her, he was horrified to see that someone was bothering one of the few people that he'd even come close to regarding as a friend... no, not bothering her She was being attacked!

There was little Erik could do to help her from his vantage point, two stories above the scene on a fire escape ladder. He had no way of getting down to her without jumping to the ground, two stories below, a fall which was sure to turn the Phantom of the Opera into a nasty little grease splotch on the already filthy pavement... unless he were to jump into that large box filled with who-knows-what... but there was always the chance that it could be full of things that would be far more lethal than the concrete, things like nails or scrapped metal, or something equally unpleasant, but, Erik decided, it was a risk worth taking!

He was readying himself for the fall, when it occurred to him that he would be spotted and captured even as he was getting himself out of the metal box... he needed a distraction that would give him enough time to ready himself...

While Erik was thinking of a distraction, Carmen had made an admirable attempt at an escape. When her attacker kicked her head against the side of the metal box, Erik knew the situation had just grown from bad to worse. Clearly this man, whoever he was, was serious about whatever he was doing, and Carmen could be badly hurt!

Just then, a sudden gust of wind brought Erik to the perfect distraction. On the fire escape where he was perched sat a bag, a bag he had not noticed before. It was obviously someone's old garbage that had been carelessly tossed here, and for whatever reason, it's stench was positively repugnant!

Upon opening the bag, Erik quickly saw the source of the smell. Inside, he found at least twenty little off-while bundles, each sealed with tape and marked with the word "huggies".

Now, Erik had no idea what the word "huggies" stood for, but he imagined it would mean something along the lines of "remove detonator and fire" He untaped the bundle and fired upon his target. His first mark was a direct hit! The bomb landed squarely upon the head of Carmen's attacker, causing him to scream in pain as a yellowy-brown gloop enveloped his head.

Erik plunged into the dumpster like a WWII paratrooper on D-Day and prepared for action, arming himself with the same chair leg that he'd landed on in the dumpster, the garishly ornate designs of which would be adorning his leg in the form of bruises for months to come.

The poor idiot never saw it coming. Erik's "bomb" was barely off of his head (and definitely not out of his hair) when Erik brought the chair leg down on him, delivering a blow hard enough at least to give him a severe concussion, or perhaps even kill him.

Giving no thought to the stranger lying on the ground, he rushed to Carmen's aid. This was worse than the first day they'd met... much worse. "Carmen," he whispered, "Wake up!"

There was a terrible siren-like noise, a trisomy of dissonant notes that made Erik's finely-tuned ears ring with agony. Three cars came to a screeching halt in front of the alleyway where Erik knelt between two unconscious college students, one covered in blood and bruises, the other in baby feces. The flashing blue and red lights blinded Erik's already light-sensitive eyes so that he did not see the three men step out of the cars, armed with billy sticks, and handguns.

The next moment, Erik found himself standing against the front of one of the obnoxious, flashing vehicles (why they were using such bright lights in broad daylight was beyond him) while one man locked his hand together behind his back and another man babbled about how he had "the right to remain silent". Only one part of this man's speech had interested Erik, and that had been the first thing he'd said: "You are under arrest"

Okay, a nice little cliffhanger for you all! So, Erik's under arrest and the scary stalker man has experienced firsthand exactly why you do NOT mess with the Phantom of the Opera. Hehe... he'll pelt you with dirt diapers (hence the name D-Bomb)! So, tell me what you think! Are you sad? Overjoyed? Outraged? Dead? Or are you saving everything you can get from those babysitting jobs (just in case)?

Wait, funny story for you all! I am a total idiot! You know how I said, In the beginning of the chapter, that I messed up and called Ava "Georgia", well I did it again, only this time ,with every mention of her in the whole blasted chappie (which really isn't that bad, but It's really late and i wanna go to bed)... Okay, that really wasn't that funny, but like I said, it's late and I am sooo tired.