When Writers Go Bad: Chapter One
The day had actually started out quite nice. Citoyen Armand Chauvelin had compiled enough evidence to have the Duke de Lyon arrested, and so he was whistling in a rather cheerful way. Twirling the key to his flat on one finger, he mounted the steps, when something rather odd happened.
The sky was rent asunder, and from it came down a massive gold dragon, a girl and two lumps riding on it's neck.
Well, to be perfectly honest, the sky hadn't exactly been "rent asunder." It kind of just opened up with absolutely no ceremony, so the author of this fic tossed in some ominous thunder, and a chorus of voices to make the moment a bit more dramatic.
If Citoyen Chauvelin had not been completely terrified out of his mind at that moment, he might have thought "Well, that is extremely odd." But, being terrified, he thought nothing, and stood there rather stupidly.
The gold dragon finally landed in the street a bit awkwardly, for she was a very big dragon, and it was a little street, and the girl slid off her neck. Flipping her hair back, she grabbed a bag she had on the dragon, and pulled out some rope and a rather large rock.
"Are you Chauvelin?" she asked, smiling. Chauvelin made an odd squeak noise and nodded. "Terribly sorry about this," she apologized, and chucked the rock at his head, which hit with a rather nasty sounding "Crack!" and knocked him out instantaneously. The girl then proceeded to tie her hostage up, and heave up onto the dragon's neck next to the other two lumps.
These two lumps were Sir Percy Blakeney and Lady Marguerite Blakeney, and Chauvelin would have undoubtedly had some horror at being rather rudely tossed next to his arch nemesis, but he was unconscious, so his opinion didn't matter.
The girl, Lita, then smoothly climbed back up the dragon's neck and patted it affectionately. "Up, Pridenth, m'love," she called lovingly, and the dragon rose into the air, and back into the sky.
...
"Look, I just need to- hey!"
Shadow was avoiding a book tossed at her head.
"Out, Satin!" the old man shouted, his eyes wild. "Heaven, help me! I have tried to be a good Christian man."
Not in the mood to dodge books, and now candelabras thrown at her, Shadow placed her hand on her hips and said, a bit sarcastically, "Yes, you've done a very nice job of it, too. Now, for the last time, I'm not Satin, my name is Shadow, and I just need you to be a good old man and get in the swirling vortex." Here, Shadow motioned to a rather frightening looking vortex-y thingy floating in mid air.
"So you can drag my soul to Hell? I think not! Oh, mercy, Lord, I did not know the Angel of Death was this terrifying!"
"If I'm an angel, wouldn't I be taking you to Heaven?" she tempted.
"Satin's still an angel, even if he is a fallen one!" the old man shouted, picking up a chair. Now Shadow's eyes widened.
"Aren't you supposed to be the insanely strong one?"
The old man didn't answer her question. Instead, he tried to bring the chair down on her head, but missed, colliding with her shoulder.
"Damn!" the girl shouted, pulling back and jumping on top of a bookshelf. "You must be." She now nursed her wound, glaring at the old man, who had collapsed into a chair by the fire place and was clutching at his heart. "No dying!" she ordered. "Shadow13 will kill me if you die."
Both heads turned as they heard the words "Papa, Papa, what's wrong?" In burst a young woman and a man only a few years older than she, holding hands, tears streaming down the girl's cheek. "What is the matter?"
Both were then taken aback at the sight of Shadow, sitting on a book shelf, and a rather odd grey swirling vortex in the air.
"Um.....hi?"
The girl then let out a terrified shriek, which took Shadow completely by surprise, knocking her off the book shelf, and onto the same wounded shoulder. "Damn!" she shouted again, muttering a string of curse words and clutching her arm.
The couple rushed over to the old man's side, and Shadow decided she'd had enough of this. "Look, I've been more than polite. I'm going to ask nicely once more; get into the swirling vortex, or suffer my wrath."
"Out, foul demon!" the old man shouted once more.
"Okay, buster, that did it." With that, Shadow jumped up and grabbed the vortex by a corner, she then dragged it over to the three and covered them with it as though it were a blanket, and they all instantly disappeared. She then hopped in herself, grumbling.
...
Crying, Christine dropped the plain gold ring into Erik's casket, his final resting place, his Don Juan Triumphant clutched in his dead fingers. Raoul comforted her as best he could. Naturally, it was a solemn moment full of tears.
That's what made it all the more awkward of a moment for Ellen to show up.
"Hi!" she called rather sweetly, tugging at the string of her own swirling grey vortex. "Hi Mr. Viscomte guy! Hi Ms. Singing lady! Hi Mr. Phantom! Oh....." she added. "He doesn't look too healthy.
Christine looked up at the odd girl "What on earth?"
Raoul pulled Christine back and glared pointedly at the dead Angel of Music. "This is another one of his tricks, isn't it?"
"If it is," said Christine, clinging to Raoul, "It's one I've never seen."
With a grunt, Ellen set her large burlap bag down and carefully selected a rock. "No fair," she muttered. "Lita gets her dragon, and Shadow doesn't have to carry rocks, so I'm stuck with everything!" she then stuck her tongue out and closed one eye, aiming at Christine's head. "This'll only hurt for a second," she promised, and lobbed it at the opera singer.
Raoul, in a rather stupidly heroic way, dived in front of Christine, so the rock hit him instead, knocking him out.
"Hey, no need to be greedy!" Ellen called as Christine shrieked, her love falling to the floor with a rather painful thud. "I've got enough rocks for everybody." To prove this point, she pulled out the rock she had planned on using on Raoul, and lobbed it at Christine's head. She fell to the floor silently, and Ellen carefully dragged the pair into the vortex.
"Now, what to do with you?" she wondered aloud, looking down at the dead Phantom of the Opera. Finally, she shrugged, and grunting, pushed the body into the vortex as well, sliding in after it.