Disclaimer: I don't own POTO.

Tian Sirki: No need apologize, my dear. I didn't update for months, so I hardly deserve an apology. I understand that while Fan Fiction is a wonderful thing, in the grand scheme of life it must give way to many other realities. Furthermore, there is no need to apologize for being in the Land Down Under!

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ON EDGE

The house on Lake Averne was on a constant Level 5 terror alert. Erik was not permitted to leave the premises. He objected strongly to being placed under house arrest, but Anna and Brooke weren't taking any chances, not with a Mary Sue on the loose. Each cousin was delegated specific tasks: Anna guarded HQ and the Phantom while Brooke patrolled the opera house, keeping an eye and an ear open to any developments.

Whilst on one such patrol, Brooke—dressed as the Spirit—stumbled across the Sue, journaling in the chapel. Great, sparkling teardrops dripped from her lashes (NEVER from her perfectly, up-turned nose) and strategically smudged the writing on the sacred parchment pages.

A journal: ideal inspiration for blackmail, humiliation, and mischief of all kinds, Brooke reasoned. She followed the Sue—at a safe distance to avoid the Sue's theatre haunt radar—and easily procured the journal from beneath the loose floorboard beside the Sue's dormitory bed. Delighted with her successful raid, the Spirit made up her mind to report back to HQ with her findings. She was well on her merry way when she spied the dreaded Sue wandering straight toward the Patron's Office.

Brooke's blood chilled at the thought of the Sue floating across Raoul's path. It was a possibility she hadn't considered. The outcome of such an encounter was uncertain. There was a slight chance that the Sue would be attracted to the Vicomte. It was more likely that Raoul would be attracted to her. Brooke snarled.

Just then the door to the office opened and out waltzed the young Vicomte. Brooke went rigid, frozen in terror, watching helplessly as her fiancé and the Sue drifted closer and closer and closer…until…

"Oh, hello, are you lost? You must be the new understudy. I'm the Vicomte…I say, are you all right?"

The Sue had gone pale-er. She staggered back, eyes wide with terror, a dainty porcelain hand pressed to her cherry-red lips.

"No. NO! I thought I was safe here!" she rasped.

Raoul was profoundly confused. "Um, well, you are safe here…I can get you some water if you'd like." He reached out to steady her. She recoiled from his hand as though it were a snake.

"DON'T TOUCH ME! NEVER AGAIN!" she shrieked. With that, the Sue fled down the hall; sobbing and staggering all the way back to the chapel.

Raoul was profoundly confused…again. Brooke made her move, edging out of a secret door nearby.

"Raoul!"

The Vicomte jumped. "AH! Oh, it's only you, darling. I just had the most random encounter—"

"With a terrible monster. I saw the whole thing. Now let's go!" She reached out to grab him.

"Wha—ACK!"

By the time the managers emerged from the office, the Vicomte was nowhere to seen.

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Back at the batcave…

"I still don't understand why you're raising hell and high water over this girl!"

"She's dangerous, Erik!"

"You keep saying that, but you never say why. That creature hardly looks dangerous. Any of the ballet rats could knock her out with a single punch...on second thought, a ballet rat could kill her with a watered-down description of their sexual escapades."

"That's not it."

Erik loomed over the red-headed time traveler. "Then EXPLAIN IT!"

Not to be intimidated, Anna jumped up on to the sitting room sofa, grabbed Erik's lapels, and jerked him close. "She's a vicious, phantom-eating monster who will steal your virginity, rob you of your insanity, and turn your life into mush sappier than a Nicholas Sparks book!"

"What did Nicholas Sparks write?"

"The Notebook."

"Oh, no."

"Yes and another thing, that Mary Sue may look all innocence and purity, but once she gets you in bed, in the gondola, or wherever she'll turn into this crazy, kinky sex machine! All her pristine virtues go down the toilet with the goldfish once she surrenders to the burning passion that's been smoldering between you for weeks…maybe months if she's got extra horrifying emotional scars to get over."

Anna finally paused for breath, her face as red and harried as her hair. Suddenly, a look of comprehension crossed Erik's face. His marred mouth twisted into a gleeful smile.

"I understand it now."

"Good."

"You're jealous!"

Anna's eyes widened in shock, "What?"

"You're jealous of Mary Sue…because of me!" The last words Erik's lips with a note of ecstatic triumph and hope.

Anna shoved him away. "I am not jealous."

Erik leaned in, "Then why won't you let me leave the house?"

"Why do you look so happy at the thought that I might be jealous?"

Erik's sunken blues eyes glittered and he leaned in further, forcing Anna to hold on tighter to avoid falling over the back of the sofa. "I asked you first."

"Ladies first! Therefore, my question gets answered first."

"I thought progressive thinking meant that a woman has every right to voice her opinions and wishes as a man, even if that means admitting things first."

"Progressive thinking hasn't been invented yet."

All at once the door to Lake Averne flew open and Raoul and Brooke breezed inside. Erik and Anna sprang apart. The motion was so sudden that Anna would have toppled over if the Phantom hadn't caught her and set her back on her feet.

Before the smug-looking Brooke could say a single, scandalous word, Erik zeroed in on the Vicomte.

"What is he doing here?"

"Relax, Erik, you're not rivals anymore," said Brooke. "I invited him over for dinner."

"Since when do we invite people over for dinner?"

"Since I got engaged."

Erik was silenced for the time being. Anna sulked in her favorite chair until Brooke made the following announcement from the top of the massive oak table:

"Hear ye, hear ye, I have procured from the lair of the dreaded Mary Sue an object of much mystery and terror: the Sue's diary!"

Brooke held the leather-bound book aloft. In a flash, Anna was beside her, begging to know the book's contents. Both girls flew to the sofa and settled in for a story which promised to out-do any movie (romance or horror: take your pick) they had ever seen.

"I feel like we should have popcorn and flashlights," Anna said with a giggle.

Meanwhile, Raoul leaned toward Erik and whispered, "Who is Mary Sue?"

"A monstrously melodramatic, sex-crazed female masquerading as a fragile, virtuous ingénue," replied the Phantom.

"Oh…she wouldn't happen to be Christine's new understudy, would she?"

"The very same." Erik then shot his former nemesis a dark look. "How do you know?"

"She's the only seemingly virtuous woman in the Opera House's employ."

Erik conceded the point with a nod and offered Raoul a chair before taking one for himself. By then Brooke had begun to read aloud from the diary…