The sun was almost blinding as Crispy wandered towards her Arabic 101 class. She was majoring in music, but she was also endeavoring to take every language class her college offered. By far this had been her favorite and she hadn't missed a class yet.

"Crispy! I finally found you..." Brandon ran up to her panting.

"What's going on?" she stopped walking and looked concerned as Brandon started coughing heavily. She held out a bottle of water which he downed completely before continuing.

"We got her."

"We got her? You mean..."

"Yeah. Come on!" Brandon started racing back in the direction he came from. Crispy debated the matter for a moment, then followed after him.

Brandon shut off the lights in the small unused workroom that he had set up shop in. Crispy stared at the empty band room on the screen. Suddenly the T.V. seemed to blur over, like someone was breathing on it. A shadow, unmistakably the phantom moved accross the screen towards the wall. In large letters she started writing a new message on the wall.

"What's she writing?" Crispy demanded. "Why is everything all fuzzy?"

"I don't know." Brandon said quietly.

"Can you enhance the picture?"

"Could take a day or two."

"A day or two? That's too long!"

"I'm sure it will be fine." There was a silence as they watched the phantom retreat. The camera remained fuzzy, then went black. The band room was empty again. "Something about this footage doesn't make any sense, though," Brandon mused.

"What's that?"

"If she wrote something on the wall, which it's obvious that she did, why wasn't it there this morning?"

Crispy furrowed her brow. That was true. There had been nothing on the wall that morning during class.

"If only I had been there. I didn't go for one night, and it's the one night she shows up. Figures. I won't spend another night out of that band room until I catch her," Crispy said resolutely.

"But, you can't..." Brandon stopped short. What was he doing?

"I can't?"

"I... don't think you should."

"Why not?"

"I worry about you when you're in there." Brandon stepped closer to Crispy. "It's not safe like it used to be." Crispy looked struck for a moment.

"Brandon?..."

Brandon took Crispy's hand in his own and looked at her in a way that Crispy hadn't seen before. "I don't want to see you hurt."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm..." Brandon started. He let go of Crispy and turned away. "I don't know. Nothing. What are you talking about? I gotta go...late for... something..." Crispy watched him open the door and walk outside.

"Brandon, wait!" she shouted after him as he closed the door. He

looked back. Crispy saw in his eyes an unbelievable sadness. "It's alright. Don't go."

"It's alright?" The words semed to confuse him. He walked back into the room and closed the door. They were both immersed in darkness again.

"It's alright," Crispy repeated. She came closer to him and kissed his cheek. "However, I'm late for class."

She left him there in the dark room. He wondered if he would be able to protect her from he danger he created.

"...Crispy..." Brandon started hesitantly a few days later. Crispy was eating her lunch slowly and admiring the rain outside the cafeteria.

"Hm?" She looked away from the raging torrents. Brandon held out to her a plain yellow envelope. Noticing his nervous expression she asked, "Is something wrong?"

"Well, no... just look." Crispy lifted out of the envelope and handful of pictures. They were the pictures she had been waiting for, but she saw immediately why Brandon looked nervous.

"She looks like me..."

"She sounds like you too." Brandon added quietly.

"What? How do you know?" demanded Crispy. "You said he cameras don't record sound."

"I kinda bumped into her the other day..."

Crispy waited for Brandon to continue, but he didn't. "Well?"

Brandon looked out at the rain despairingly. "Could we go somewhere private?

Thirty minutes later, Crispy was staring at her floor wondering why Brandon hadn't told her any of this before. She told him she wanted to be alone, but now that she was, she felt almost angry that he hadn't told her that he had to decide between her and... the other her... The words on the wall read "Crispy's war shall end, one way or the other." She just hoped it went her way, not the phantom's. She pushed the anger away to contemplate another quandry. Why did the phantom look so much like her? The only noticable difference had been her blood red eyes. If she used those pictures to free Mr. Gaylord, she would be arrested in his place. Then who would catch the phantom?