A/N: What, so no one's thought about two white-dressed thieves with cards as their most famous form of defense meeting each other?

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thieves's cards

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Phantom I

Phantom was pretty sure this was all a dream. For one thing, he had been sitting on the deck of the Lumiere and there was no way he'd have teleported to . . . to wherever he was. Wherever they had a weird plain of nothing except waist-length plants that looked an awful lot like wheat dyed a sickly purple.

But if this really was reality instead of some twisted dream his PTSD brain had come up with, if this was Luminous trying to get at him for flirting with Mercedes, Phantom swore the hero magician was going to be sleeping with the fishes when he got back.

"Where am I?"

Excellent question, that was, and one that also haunted his mind; only, it was not his voice giving voice to that inquiry.

Phantom turned around and was met with the peculiar sight of a boy. Seventeen years old, maybe, with black hair and indigo eyes, the youth was dressed in a white suit, his shoulders covered with a white mantle. A monocle with a charm dangling on a cord was placed over one eye and a top hat on his head made him appear taller than he really was. The only splash of bright colour happened to be his blue button-up shirt and blood-red tie, both colours that should have clashed terribly with each other but only ended up looking sophisticated and tasteful in total.

His conclusion? The boy evidently had good taste.

"Hello there," he said, voice courteous and polite.

The boy looked at him. "Hello. Would you happen to know what this place is?"

"Afraid not," Phantom replied. "One moment I'm on my ship looking at the moon and the next thing I know I find myself here. Ah, but I'm being rude. My name is Phantom."

"Phantom?" the boy asked, curiosity in his voice. "Is that like a nickname or something?"

"Of a sort," he answered, because while that was what everyone called him, it hadn't been his birth name. "You see, I'm a thief."

The boy didn't react harshly like most would have; he only nodded. "Well, I'm the Kaitou KID."

"Is that like a nickname or something?" Phantom asked the same question the boy had asked him.

"More like a title," he said. "It's based on the International Criminal number – but that's a long story."

"International Criminal?" Phantom kept his voice light, but his grip on his staff tightened. Having recently awakened from his hundred-year curse thing, he still had much to catch up on in the Maple World. While he hadn't heard anything about a 'Kaitou KID', this boy was telling him that he was an international criminal. With his casualness, Phantom guessed that he thought himself capable of taking anything on.

"Mm," the boy flashed him a smile full of mischief, one that startled Phantom – though he didn't show it – with its familiarity.

And of course it was familiar to his eyes. After all, he saw the same smile on his own face every time he looked into a mirror after a successful heist of his. "You see," the Kaitou KID said. "I'm a thief, too."