Practice for the play beginneth! And The Phantom Thief Dark of the Opera probably isn't going to be much like The Phantom of the Opera. But I bet you already knew that.

Oh, BTDubs, I think you should all play Nanaca Crash online. It's really addicting. The music is catchy, too. It's just a really addicting game. For cereals.

Satoshi woke up. It was dark outside and the moon shone down. Satoshi was incredibly confused. After all, you would be too if you just had awoken from a much-needed sleep only to find that you were in a burger costume and a cat was running off with one of your tennis shoes. And oh my gosh, your hair was blue! Oh, wait, thought Satoshi, my hair is always blue.

Satoshi tossed aside the sign he had been holding and tore off the burger suit. He wasn't sure how long he had slept for, but he felt quite refreshed.

"I feel so refreshed!" Satoshi said. "I should really do this 'sleep' thing more often!"

"Satoshi!"

Satoshi whipped around. Riku was talking to him.

"Riku!" Satoshi said. "I had the strangest dream that you were a judge!"

"And I had a dream that you had normal-colored hair. Wouldn't life be better if those would switch?" Riku muttered.

"Um, maybe." Satoshi looked around. "What time is it?"

"Seven-ish," Riku said after glancing down at her Bakugan wrist watch. "Why? Got art you need to steal or something, Satoshi? Or shall I call you Krad?"

"Not so loud!" Satoshi whispered. "If anyone hears you, I could get into trouble!"

"Why should I care about that?" Riku snapped.

Satoshi dug into his pocket for any reason why she should care about that.

"Um," Satoshi mumbled, looking at some pocket change, "Well, I have this really shiny Canadian penny-"

Riku snatched it away. "Don't suppose it matters much, though," she said with a shrug, "seeing as Daisuke already knows."

"Oh. Can I have it back, then?" said Satoshi, who'd kind of liked it.

"If you let me keep it, I'll give you a ride home."

Satoshi blinked. "What? But your bike-"

"I'm renting one from this kid down the block, but she needs it back by Tuesday. Hop on," Riku said, mounting the bike that was a little more than slightly too small for her.

Satoshi looked the bike up and down. "Where do I sit?"

Riku rolled her eyes. "No duh. Basket."

Satoshi drew back. "That's unsafe!"

"You wanna get home or what?"

"…"

"These sure are a lot of lines!" Daisuke growled, looking at his script. "I can't believe Riku wants this whole thing done by next week! Ridiculous!"

'Oh, this is easy stuff,' Dark said. 'I can memorize these all, no problem.'

"Really? Fine. Whatever. At least I get a date out of all of this." Daisuke flopped onto his bed. "I feel bad for the rest of the cast, actually. All the people who are trees aren't allowed to brush their teeth until the play so they look more like wood. Risa even told the stage crew they couldn't go home till their fingers bled!"

'Ooh, she's hot and cold!' Dark said with a grin. 'Just how I like them!'

Daisuke rubbed the back of his neck. "She's actually kinda starting to scare me…"

Dark rolled his eyes. 'And then there's people like you, who like them in the pot nine days old. Boring and bland. You put the 'u' in 'dull', Daisuke.'

"I'm not dull!" Daisuke yelled in defense.

'You were until I came along. And you can forget about that date with Risa, anyway; I'm just going to transform into you as soon as you go on the date. So you can tell her that for me.'

Daisuke was angry!

'Hey, who are you calling?'

"Two can play at this game, Dark!" Daisuke said maliciously, grabbing the phone and Daisuke's Home Town phone directory.

"Riku Harada, whassup?" Riku said into her phone, over the noises of Satoshi screaming, "BOTH HANDS ON THE HANDLEBARS! BOTH HANDS!… OR AT LEAST ONE HAND! WE JUST BARELY MISSED THAT TREE! YOU'RE VEERING TOWARDS OFF THE SIDE WALK AGAIN! AGH! WATCH OUT FOR THAT PLOT HOLE! WHO KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU FALL IN?!"

After slapping Satoshi upside the head with more force than necessary, she said, "Sorry, didn't quite hear that."

"It's Daisuke."

"Daisuke? You sound like you're plotting something. Do tell," Riku said eagerly.

"Oh, I'm not plotting. Just wondered if maybe you'd like to go on a date with me two Fridays from now."

Riku almost fell into the plot hole, which caused Satoshi to whimper unmasculinely.

"A date?! Don't tell me that when I'm on my bike, Daisuke! I might do something ridiculous!"

"I mean like a friend date!"

"Don't scare me like that!" Riku let out a sigh of relief. She wasn't sure what kind of mental breakdown Daisuke would go into if she had to let him down. It might go past just him crying or something.

"I'll tell you more about Dark and we can get smoothies or whatever. Oh, and if I for some reason don't show up, it's Dark's fault and I give you permission to destroy him."

"Okay, talking, Dark, destroying, awesome. Bye." Riku hung up.

"Um, I heard everything you said-"

"If you follow us, I'll beat you up so badly that you'll have normal-colored hair. Capisce?"

Satoshi nodded fearfully, mentally deleting that information and then began to shout nervously the rest of the way to Takeshi's house.

Meanwhile, Wendy was jumping on Takeshi. Takeshi had several broken limbs from being kicked down the stairs and was missing quite a few teeth.

"W-Wendy… stop it, Wendy," Takeshi muttered.

"Read me a story!" Wendy shouted.

"You're four now, aren't you? Teach yourself how to read, you little Smurf!" Takeshi yelled.

Wendy bounced in between words. "I'M! NOT! FOUR! I'M! NINE!" On the last word, she pulled in her knees and slammed into her brother's stomach.

"Ow!" Takeshi cried. Satoshi had almost made it upstairs, but alas, Takeshi caught him. "Satoshi! Help me! Wendy's trying to kill me again!"

"Wendy, stop," Satoshi attempted feebly. He was liking the elementary scholar more every day. Then he climbed the rest of the way upstairs, ignoring Takeshi's cries of pain.

'Daisuke, how could you?!'

"How could you?! You know I've loved Risa for the longest time!" Daisuke growled. "I hate you, Dark. We're never speaking again!"

'Hmph! What good is a guy who's ten inches shorter than me anyway?'

"AT LEAST I'M NOT A JERK!"

"Aw, Gran-dude, isn't it cute? My little slice of peach cobbler is fighting with Dark!" Daisuke's mom cooed.

"Hmm, I guess," Gran-dude said. "In the mean time, I'm going to go play online backgammon in the tub like I typically do on Thursday nights. Goodbye."

A few moments later, Gran-dude came back up to Daisuke's mom.

"Hey, Daisuke's mom," said Gran-dude. "There's a humongous hairball down the drain. Get it out for me while I stand around and be useless."

"Okay!" Mrs. Niwa skipped upstairs and looked down the bathtub drain. "Oh, my, that is rather humongous! Well, don't worry, the Niwas have built things to deal with situations like this!" Mrs. Niwa got out her plastic fork that had 'De-Cloggifier' written on it in magic marker and proceeded to stab at the white lump until it came lose.

And low and behold, it was Wiz.

A very soggy Wiz.

A very disgusting Wiz.

A very dead Wiz.

Oh no! Wiz? Dead? Could it be? You'll have to find out in the next chapter!