It was just an ordinary night. Sirens screaming, policemen shouting, one inspector in particular swearing colorfully, alarms blaring to anyone around, fans cheering, and a thief in white flying a short distance away to perch on a tree in a forest.
Oh, and the sound of a Very Evil Organization marching after the Heroic Thief that's trying to Save the World but has No One understanding his Unfortunate Situation, Damn It All.
Just an ordinary night. For one Magician under the Moonlight, that was.
A seriously pissed Snake ran over into the clearing – deliberately chosen to make things easier for the night's entertainment – and did his usual yelling, swearing, and brandishing his un-silenced gun. "Hand over the jewel, Kid!"
Yeah, he was totally going to do that. Kaitou Kid, Phantom Thief Extraordinaire and Fantastic Magician, held up the object of his heist – the Sandman's Treasure – and examined it through moonlight. "It's not what you want," he announced, and would have sworn on the lives of his mother and best friend Aoko that all of the trench-coated bad guys sighed in the exasperated defeat of someone who had been expecting this, but knew they had to do the job – no matter how tiring – and get the same results again.
Only Snake didn't; but then again, Snake was Snake, and Snake would always be Snake no matter what Snake did. Or Kid did. "I'll decide that for myself," he snarled. "Now hand over the rock, or you get a few extra holes in your body!" he waved around his gun for extra emphasis.
Kaitou Kid shrugged, and tossed the large yellow-tinted topaz to the killer, who caught it easily. He, too, held it up the lights of the moon for examination, and scowled. "It's not Pandora," he announced.
The reaction of disappointment was less this time; they knew by now that when Kid said it wasn't Pandora, it really wasn't Pandora. Still, they were too smart to show that to the trigger-happy Snake.
"I'd return it, if I were you," Kid said in a conversational tone, as if he wasn't talking to the murderers of his father. Of course not, because this Kid and the Kid from years ago before the hiatus of eight years was supposed to be the same. Poker Face. "It has a tracker in the setting."
Snake tossed it to the ground like it wasn't worth millions. Which, Kid supposed, it wasn't, not really, considering the fact that it was rumored to be cursed and cut in all the wrong ways, decreasing its value to the point where all that was interesting about it was its sheer size.
And maybe its possibility of being Pandora, but he had just disproved that theory. Faster than Snake. Ha.
"This is boring," Kid whined, leaning back on the tree that was his shield from any snipers or shooters. "I mean, seriously, we're competing by searching for a gem that probably doesn't exist. Are we lame or what?"
He tugged in his white, conspicuous cloak when a bullet struck the trunk of his tree. "Shut it, Kid!"
"Tsk tsk, Snake, I mean nothing offensive. All I'm saying is that there's no way Pandora works. Not the way you think, anyways."
A round of bullets began to bounce off the spot where he was hidden. Or, where he was supposed to be hidden. Kid decided that he'd just let them waste their bullets. Brats should not have access to dangerous toys. Like that one small detective. . . .
"I mean," he had to raise his voice. Rather rude of them to continue shooting when someone wanted to speak, but he could work with it. "The oldest written record is about five thousand years old, and it's pretty primitive. How do we even know that there's a comet once every ten thousand years? It's not like they had telescopes, or computers, or calculators, or barbecue grills, or television, or the Internet. . . ."
Snake was near his breaking point. "Shut up!"
"Not to mention, immortality from a stone's tears. Mm-hm, yeah, that makes sense, right?" he was sounding like his favorite detective when the kid wanted to act his apparent age, and it was annoying them.
Kid flashed his trademark smirk. He was beginning to hear mutters, and they sounded unsure. Ah, sweet chaos.
A few smoke bombs – scented, filling the area where the (un)fortunate targets stood with the odor of rotten eggs and years-old garbage – and they began hacking like they had pneumonia.
Did people hack when they had pneumonia? Kid didn't know. He was a healthy young man who had never suffered that disease.
"So long, gents!" he chirped into his mike as his dummy flew away in the direction ninety degrees east to the way he was supposed to go. There was only so many times they'd fall for the 'go-the-opposite-way' trick, and he had to give them new things to work with, or it would get boring. "See you next time! I'll be the one with the unicorn!"