A/N: I still don't have a solid idea as to where I want to take this story, so bear with me. I'm probably going to have to rewatch the movie and read some of the book to get a more comprehensive understanding of my ideas. Until then, I'll just kinda developing characters and relationships.

Also, the site says that I have a review for my fic, but whenever I go to view it, it won't show up. I've disabled moderating guest reviews, so I don't really know what the issue is. If you've reviewed me and I'm not seeing it, I thank you all the same! :)

Chapter Five

Unbeknownst to those below, The Phantom had been hovering above them for hours.

He watched the insufferable cretins with a tilt to his brow and a sneer to his lips; his hands tightened about the rope (a rope which served as both noose and balustrade to the contemptible idiots who stumbled about backstage), causing his fingers to tremble with flourishing scorn. He'd been watching them since the first lights of dawn. Of course, this was nothing new: whenever his schedule (and patience) allowed it, he'd scale the corridors and flies of the theater, always watching, always waiting. Never seen. It had become almost like a hobby to him. And, candidly, most of the performances put on by the staff backstage were far more entertaining than the excuses they served to the public.

With a flick of his cape, he came upon the left wing of the stage; his eyes focused on the center leg, the heavy drapery billowing to and fro as he watched the gossipers in question. At the particular hour, the stage was at a lull, save for the clump of tittering ballet girls that had summoned a bit of pluck and were huddled between a pair of curtain legs.

The Phantom had listened with attuned ears every dreg of their conversation: the secrets that lurked beneath the stage, or the lascivious rumors that had been spread like wildfire about this dancer or that stagehand. At some point, however, the conversation took an entirely different route, a topic that served him much interest.

Himself.

The tallest (and the ugliest) of the group waved her hands in a fever, her eyes wide and red hair flying. He recognized her face, and had heard her name floating around the stage for some time. She was a seasoned performer (though this necessarily didn't make her good at her craft), and thusly considered herself superlative above the other dancers. "...and I've heard these rumors, you see—don't go on telling Madame Giry that I've been telling you about them—but there's word that the Phantom—" at this, her echoing voice plummeted to a nasally whisper, her eyes darting about in excitement and fear. She ducked lower, whispering, "the Phantom has taken Christine Daae!"

A scrawny girl lurched forward, clasping the burly redhead at the arm. "Oh, but where?"

"Who knows? No one has seen her since last night, where she retired in her dressing room." The redhead cast her gleaming, narrow eyes about the group, a lewd smirk coming to curl at her thin lips. "Except, of course, for the Vicomte de Chagny." When she spoke the horrid name, a disgusted curdle traced the length of the Phantom's spine. He tensed.

At the girl's remark, the girls erupted into a fit of squeals and squawks, grating sounds that coupled together to reach the Phantom's acute ears. He winced, hissing at the abhorrent noise. His hands itched closer to a rope, taut and swaying, at his right. A sandbag.

"Eloise, who told you this?" another asked.

Eloise grew silent for a moment, the vicious grin leaking to the edges of her cheekbones. "Joseph Buquet."

"You can't believe a word he says," a flaxen-haired girl retorted, her face tart. "Especially not the things he claims about this infamous Ghost—a specter, I might add, which I have never seen in all the years I've performed at this theater."

"You're such a cynic, Pauline," Eloise spat. "Can't you have one bit of fun?"

"If I had your sort of fun, Eloise, I'd be with child and out of the company," Pauline retorted, earning her the stifled giggles of those around her.

Their jeering remarks did little to entertain him—he'd heard these biting conversations before, and their set of people did little to change. The Phantom paused, for out of the corner of his eye came Meg Giry; she hovered at the fringe of the group, having materialized from a swath of shadow. She was looking upon them, dazed and perhaps a bit wildeyed. Her peers looked up in unison (dear God, did they not do anything with individual thought?) and beckoned her close.

"You're close with Christine," the nasally wretch sneered to Meg, her hands to her blocky hips. "Tell us what has become of her."

"If I knew where she was, I would tell you," Meg whispered, clasping her hands demurely in front of her.

"What a lie!" Pauline cried out. "I bet you had something to do with her disappearance."

"And what's the harm in that? I say, 'good riddance!'" Eloise crowed. "Christine Daae is nothing more than a little tramp who has the voice of an amatuer. I bet she got her part by spreading her legs to the Vicomte..."

The Phantom's muscles clenched beneath his cloak as an insatiable rage ignited his senses; his fingers flew to the rope beside him as he began to loosen the knot. He held the sandbag aloft, his grip beginning to unfurl when something stopped him.

"Don't talk of Christine in that way," Meg said, her hands coiling to fists at her side. "She's better than the lot of you!"

"Christine experienced a stroke of good luck last night, nothing more." Eloise reared forward, her hands colliding with Meg's shoulders. She gave the smaller girl a push; with a swirl of white tulle and yellow hair, she fell back, gasping, amid a pile of props. Her assailant released a brassy laugh. "What grace! And to think that you're the instructor's daughter!" Eloise thrust her face close to Meg's, biting out, "You're just like Christine—clumsy and weak." She straightened and took a step back. "No matter how many times you may come to her rescue, Christine Daae will always be nothing!"

The Phantom's hand uncurled from the rope in a quick and snapping gesture; he watched, aplomb and smirking, as the sandbag whistled in a downward descent toward the titan she-devil. Her scream shattered the laughter of the wings; she darted back, falling into a tangled heap amid the curtains as she clutched at her slipper, her head thrashing and body reeling.

And thus ended the dancing career of Eloise Travere.

He resisted a bellowing chuckle as the remaining ballet girls tripped away in a shrieking wave, save for Meg, who began to rise from her spot upon the floor. She paused for a moment, watching Eloise's plight with open-mouthed awe. A shaft of light broke through and rippled across Meg's hair as she tilted her head back, her hands curled round her brow as she peered above.

The Phantom pivoted around, his heart lurching in shock as he picked his way through in silence, careful to keep his trek just along upstage. He chanced a glance back; Meg Giry had vanished. A feeling of tightening unease settled in his chest, spurning his legs to double speed so that he was a mere echo of shadow upon the wall.

The journey back was never always quite the same for him, for he'd devised dozens of clandestine ways in which to arrive; and as the Phantom chose the shortest route he knew, all the time in the world could not have prepared him for what he came upon.

He broke through to the dripping cavern by means of a door hidden beneath the rock—it was a door he had replicated tenfold throughout the caves, yet was accessible through his eyes alone—and slipped up the shore, breezing past the waning candles and the silent organ. A chill broke across his exposed cheek as he ran. Faster than a beast, he tore down the steps and closed the space between him and the bedchamber. He paused in the doorway, his breath staccato, his heart crashing against his chest. His eyes widened.

The sheets were empty.

A/N: A short chapter, but this was more of a character-building chapter; I wanted to play with the idea of the Ghost being rather nefarious, violent, and intent on protecting Christine. I also liked the concept of him being a prankster (specifically doing pranks that result in injury of the irritating, haha).