Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*
Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks
Additionally, Phantom of the Opera belongs to… er, Gaston Leroux I believe, and the musical belongs to Andrew Lloyd Webber, the book Phantom belongs to Susan Kay and Angel of the Opera = horrible book along with ‘Night Magic’. So I only used – er, I’m only using Leroux and Musical versions right now.
Chapter 5
NO.
“You cannot defeat me.”
No!
Ashline couldn’t have fallen for a… monster…
That ought to teach him a lesson… Lance smirked as he faded away into the shadows and made his way swiftly back to the lair where Ashline waited…
Beautiful…
“Are you ready?” He whispered.
She nodded and held out her arms as he kissed her. After that, everything was breathtakingly simple, and he slipped the ring on her finger with nary a whisper...
“As long as you wear this ring, I shall be your dearest friend, Ashline, but if you ever lose it… I shall have my revenge…”
But in the ecstasy of the moment, would she listen?
It didn’t matter.
I’ve won. Right?
Right…
Unfortunately, even paradise cannot last forever…
Ashline knew it was her fault, as she sat in her dressing room in the aftermath of the shock, but that didn’t change anything!
Oh god, she’d touched him, and kissed him, and…!
It was horrible! Horrible…
“Know, that I am built up of death from head to foot and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you! … Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying, crying for you Ashline, who have torn off my mask and who therefore can never leave me again! … As long as you thought me handsome, you could have come back, I know you would have come back… but, now that you know my hideousness, you would run away for good… So I shall keep you here! Why did you want to see me! When my own father never saw me and when my mother, so as not to see me, presented me with my first mask!”
Horrible…
Master…
Lance’s fingers washed over the organ angrily, as one hand played, the other danced, blood-red ink writing in notes on a great stave of paper, red as blood, or was the ink itself blood? Who knew? The chords of fury and despair continued to ring as he continued to play, madly…
Don Juan Triumphant…
It was finished, nearly, nearly finished, and who knew? When he died, he would take it away with him into his coffin and never wake up again, and…
And if she had not taken off his mask she would still be here.
Golden eyes blazed hellfire beneath the mask. “Damn her… damn you…”
He needed more…
He dipped his quill in spilled crimson and continued to play on…
“Damn you, you little prying Pandora, you little viper! Is this what you wanted to see? Curse you, you little lying Delilah, you little demon! Now you cannot ever be free…”
Ashline covered her ears with her hands, but his voice was in her head and it just wouldn’t stop!
I let him… I let him touch me… I let him…
And now his voice won’t leave me…
Six months, six months of wonderful lessons, two months of heaven, suddenly bathed in the reddish light of hell… oh, what a change, what a game, what a horrible, horrible game now that the masquerade had ended!
What was behind the green door then?
And if her Angel was the Opera Ghost… the Phantom… the man who had murdered Joseph Buquet…
“Oh god…”
She had… she had… she had committed a horrible sin! No, more than one! What was she to do now?
“Brock!”
“What is it?” Brock looked Ashline over. She looked ill, there were dark shadows under her eyes, and if he didn’t know better, he’d swear that she was…
Was she injured?
“Oh Brock, I’m so sorry!”
“Sorry for what?”
“For everything!” She burst into tears. “There are no such things as angels Brock… there is no Angel of Music…”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’ll… I’m sorry, I know it doesn’t mean anything, but I’ll tell you everything, I’ll… come with me… he won’t hear us, he’s too busy working now…”
Who was this ‘he’?
They climbed up, dizzying flights of stairs until at last, they were on the roof, the sun was setting, painting the sky in a canopy of velvet lavender and gold and orange…
Ashline shivered slightly, and Brock handed her his coat, wondering what she had dragged him up here for. Surely it was something important… and she said she was going to apologize!
Perhaps she had finally… had a change of heart?
One could hope, right?
And didn’t… she hadn’t exactly been cold to him, he’d been too rude, overstepped his bounds, but now the offenses were past and he would never hurt her again… never ever again…
“Brock… I’m so sorry… I thought,” A hesitating pause, “You see, it’s all too fresh, and it hurts so, but…”
“Don’t worry, Ashline, just tell me the story from the beginning.” He reassured her. Had some man…?
“All right.” The singer closed her eyes. “It all started about six months ago… you know, my father had just died, and on his deathbed, he said that when he was in Heaven, he would send me the Angel of Music…”
Brock nodded.
“Do you remember when you heard the man’s voice in my dressing-room?”
“Yes…”
“That… he was the Angel of Music.”
Brock twitched.
“At least I thought he was,” Ashline hastily explained, “But as it turned out, I was wrong… so wrong…”
Completed 7/29/05
Several lines are blatantly stolen from Gaston Leroux, who sure writes a hell lot better than me, but he’s dead, and this is fanfic, so it’s all right, plus I’m disclaiming it here… other lines stolen from the Phantom of the Opera Musical and belong to Andrew Lloyd Webber. All I have is the CD, the piano books, and the script…