Chapter Two

"Erik!" Christine groaned in frustration and four Erik's simultaneously appeared from behind clothes racks.

"Yes Christine?" they asked in unison, all except Cherik, who was scribbling frantically onto his chalk board.

"Why yes Christine?"

Christine sighed; she was shopping for a new dress for the next ball and was hoping to find something not so low cut that everyone could see the various objects she was hiding between her boobs. When she voiced this thought to Gerik he seemed a little...put out. But she couldn't tell whether it was over the fact she was forcing him to come shopping with her at the nearest department store or just the fact she wanted a dress that didn't show off her entire cleavage.

But something told her that most of the Erik's did not go out very often, always bossing about Madame Giry to go grocery shopping and whatnot. Because it seemed most of them had followed her and Gerik about the mall, eating ice cream, scaring children, smoking with Emo teens and sneaking up on any male with long hair.

So far she had spotted Cherik chatting up a pretty blonde girl standing outside Donut King ("So, how do you feel about deformities...?"), Lerik cackling as he spread petrol across the floor through the supermarket ("Turn the grasshopper why don't you?") but this plan to sacrifice shoppers and their irritating children came to an end when Lerik failed to operate the lighter correctly. Also Merik kept stopping to reprimand young people on smoking, swearing and general uncouth behaviour. Christine had giggled at this and pretended not to be with the masked singer, but it proved useless as there seemed to be countless similarly dressed men following her through the shop arcades.

"No, I was talking to Gerik" she said irritably; these men she hardly knew weren't even invited along. The one with the rats was particularly creepy; she attempted to keep her distance.

"Well why didn't you say so Missy?" Merik folded his arms and turned back to the rack of polo shirts in the menswear "Lerik?" and the man, twitching as he tried to figure out the lighter.

"Yessssss?" he asked, grinning from ear to ear behind his mask and Merik held up a mint green polo shirt to his chest.

"What do you think? Or is this shade of green a bit effeminate?" he asked and Lerik snickered.

"The fact that you're asking that question is more than a bit effeminate" he cackled, wandering off into the shoe department, exclaiming upon the sight "Ooh! Snakeskin boots..."

Growling angrily, Merik shoved the shirt back into the rack, folding his arms menacingly and glaring about the shop.

"Anyway" Christine muttered, turning to Gerik "What do you think?" she held up a long black dress in the style of Audrey Hepburn's in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and Gerik made a face.

"Um" he said, eying the high neckline and Christine raised one eyebrow.

"Never mind the high neckline-just do you like it?" she asked once more and Gerik frowned stubbornly.

"You wore skimpy things all last year! Why stop now?"

But all he received was a slap across the face and Christine stormed off to the change rooms, grabbing some other dresses on her way.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey Lerik" rasped Deriko, holding a rat in his hands and Lerik turned to him, frowning.

"Yeah what?" he asked flatly and Deriko giggled, wandering off.

"Nothing..."

"Oi Petrie!" called out Christine and Lerik turned to eye her suspiciously, his hands running through his wildly messy blonde hair, in an attempt to ruffle it up sexily.

"Yes Madame?" he asked regally, his mood ever changing and Christine smiled, knowing she would make Gerik jealous.

"Would you like to come look in the lingerie section with me? I know you have such good taste and know what looks good on me" she asked sweetly and Gerik turned sharply around to glare at Petrie.

"And I don't?" he snapped and Christine smiled.

"No, after all those years spying on me you don't care what underwear I wear and prefer that I don't use them at all" she replied, her voice falsely sweet and Gerik blushed at the truth of her words, then suddenly realised the insult.

"Excuse you young lady! Spy? Spy!" he exclaimed "I am not some...pervert"

"Hey, you couldn't stop groping me all last year and I still have no clue where my stockings went that night" Christine laughed, taking Petrie and leaving for the lingerie section.

"Where the hell has Destler gotten to?" muttered Merik and Cherik fell to the floor, scribbling across his blackboard.

"Probably with some whore; he's such a manslut"

Merik nodded in agreement as Erik Destler, Rerik, entered from the department store's lift, hand in hand with a girl wearing a badly made curly brown wig, big false eyelashes, a white lace dressing gown and a post-it note labelled upon her top 'I am Christine'.

"Well Cherik, not only are you a legend but a psychic" Merik laughed and Rerik turned to glare at them.

"Just cause I'm not a virgin" he sneered and Merik laughed.

"Only cause you pay them" he turned to Cherik who nodded "You now pay hookers to follow you around dressed as various Christine's because you scared off yours"

"And where are your Christine's may I ask?" replied Rerik simply and Merik blushed, looking about for a witty comment to throw back at him; but there were none.

So, in desperation, he poked his tongue out childishly.

Cherik clapped sarcastically;

"Oh snap Rerik...Merik decided to show his age and intellect by poking out his tongue-what a genius we have here"

And simply, Merik grabbed Cherik's chalk, threw it on the marble floor of the department store, and stepped on it, crushing the chalk to fine powder.

Smiling, Merik watched as Cherik silently screamed profanities at him, and soon growing bored of Chaney's silent antics, he pulled out his black iPod and began to listen to some Chopin, ignoring Cherik who was inches from his face, giving him what is colloquially known as 'the finger'.

Meanwhile, Christine was desperately trying to explain to Petrie that she wasn't in fact going to try on lingerie for him, that it was only something she said to annoy Gerik. Unfortunately, the professor was having a hard time understanding.

"But, wait a minute, you said you were going to try on lingerie, that I had good taste" Petrie said, utterly perplexed and Christine groaned in frustration, putting her head in her hands.

"No, I said that to Gerik to make him jealous and piss him off. I have no intention of trying on lingerie in front of anyone" Christine said slowly and Petrie shook his head.

"Honestly Christine, my Christine was always so lovely and pure, not so riddled with deceit and lies as you are. Obviously it's what a modern audience wants, no one cares for the art of characterisation anymore, it's all sex and swearing and-" Petrie muttered in warning to the increasingly frustrated girl.

"Oh! Look!" she pointed over his shoulder, her eyes wide and she gasped "Wow! It appears to be Heather Sears in a bikini!"

"What? Where!" Petrie exclaimed, turning around and looking around "Christine! Heather! Where did you go!"

And Christine quickly darted away to the elevator, pressing any buttons, just trying to get away from Petrie as he ran through the department store screaming "Heather darling!" fervently.

Sighing with relief, Christine felt the lift lurch and stop, the doors opening onto the third level of the shopping centre. Stepping out, she looked about, wondering if she could escape the other Eriks; they were really getting on her nerves, making her appreciate Gerik a whole lot more.

Spotting a masked man, Christine paused, realising several things about this certain masked man. Firstly, he was sitting in the coin operated pony ride machine for the toddlers, with a maniacal grin upon his face. Secondly, it was Lerik, who scared her nearly as much as that rat obsessed Erik.

But before Christine could move out of his sight, Lerik had spotted her.

"Mademoiselle Daaé! How kind of you to join Erik upon level three!" he cried out wildly and the children in line for the machine looked at him fearfully.

"Mister," said one slightly brave child, a blonde little four year old boy "Why are you on the kids ride? You're too big for it"

"Erik likes the pony ride! The pony ride is better than explosions, or trips through the Bois or certain insects carved in bronze! The pony ride reminds Erik of Caesar! Go Caesar go!" Lerik cackled evilly and the child backed away, taking his mother's hand and led away to the ice cream store.

"Lerik!" Christine marched over to the pony ride and took his hand, pulling him from the ride as he whinged "How dare you go on the children's ride-these kids want a go and here you are, raving about explosions, grasshoppers and trips to the Bois!" she scolded him and Lerik hung his head in shame.

"Erik is sorry" he said and Christine smiled.

"That's good, now let's go find the others." She took him by the hand and began to drag him through the shopping centre.

"Oooh groceries! Christine let us buy some cheese! Swiss cheese! Oooh yes Swiss cheese! A big piece of Swiss cheese! Erik likes Swiss cheese! Want to know why? Huh? Huh? Cause it's holy!!!" and Lerik burst into fits of laughter, while Christine shook her head; she was shopping with a psychopath.

"Lerik, don't worry about the cheese-" she began but he cut her off as they entered a newsagents, Christine having in mind to buy a magazine for the trip home.

"Ooh newspapers! Did you know Erik eats newspapers for breakfast after reading them backwards and upside down! Erik is very clever" Lerik gabbled, nodding as he picked up a newspaper, attempting to chew off the corners.

"Lerik! Don't do that!" Christine smacked Lerik across the face and accidentally knocked off his mask.

The entire store went quiet at the appearance of Lerik's face, and considering that whoever is reading this is probably a Phan who knows exactly how the original Leroux Erik should look like, I don't think there is any need for a description.

"You knocked off Erik's mask..." Lerik said coldly and Christine bit her lip, paralysed in fear, knowing what would follow.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered, frozen to the spot as Lerik advanced upon her, everyone in the store staring at him, a baby now crying.

"Look! You want to see! See! Feast your eyes; glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a very good-looking fellow, eh?...When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me forever. I am a kind of Don Juan, you know! Look at me! I am Don Juan Triumphant!" Lerik screamed furiously, grabbing Christine and throwing her to the ground, leering over her in rage as she stared at him blankly.

"You idiot, I didn't mean to take your mask off, it was an accident and I apologise generously" she said nonchalantly and Lerik's expression softened.

"Oh...well" he said, picking up the mask and fixing it to his face once more "I suppose that's okay then" and he helped Christine up, picked up a copy of Vogue magazine, went to the counter, paid for it and the two left.

A handful of Erik's stood outside the store, staring at Lerik accusingly. Christine frowned and turned to Lerik, who shrugged calmly.

"Umm, what's the matter?" she asked tentatively and Cherik held up his blackboard angrily, glaring at Lerik all the while.

"Did you take off Lerik's mask? Foolish thing to do missy"

"I accidentally knocked the mask off and Lerik went nuts at me, but we talked it over and everything is fine" Christine said quickly and Merik frowned "How did you all know I removed his mask?"

"We know because we could hear Lerik's shouts all across the shopping centre; who else is going to be screaming for someone to 'glut their soul'?" Merik said and glanced at Lerik warily "What did you mean by 'talked it over'?"

"I explained that it was an accident and that I was deeply sorry" Christine shrugged "After that he just calmed down and bought me a Vogue"

The Erik's all stared at her in confusion.

"What? He just accepted your apology?" Gerik asked in confusion and Christine nodded.

"Yeah, much nicer than you, yelling and screaming, throwing me across the room then guilt tripping me" she said blankly and Gerik bit his lip in embarrassment.

"Sorry bout that" he muttered and she raised one eyebrow.

"Yeah, it's odd that the psycho Erik was more considerate and understanding than you" she shot at him and turned to the others "I'm going home, you guys are awful to shop with, I'll go shopping with Raoul tomorrow"

"What!" Gerik spat at the mention of his hated rival and Christine nodded "But! You came back!"

"Yes, it's only shopping" Christine shrugged and Gerik glared at her.

"I'm not leaving you alone with that fop!" he exclaimed.

"He isn't a fop!" Christine shouted angrily and all the Erik's began to laugh "and don't bring up his hair!"

"Fine, but tomorrow I'm coming with you, we can leave these guys in the caves, but I'm coming" Gerik said coldly and Christine eyed him warily "I'll be good, no punjabbing"

"Better not"