Haibara Ai and Conan held their breath, waiting as the noise grew louder.
Their squished position was really quite uncomfortable, but neither dared move. The slightest noise could give them away, and then…then….
Then the footsteps approached, and Conan could swear they would be discovered from the sound of their hearts alone. The steps came nearer, nearer…climaxed, and then began to fade. Apparently, Lady Luck had decided to bless them for once.
They waited until all noise had faded, then oh so carefully opened the door the tiniest amount. Well, Ai did, as Conan was in no position to reach the knob. She peeked out and saw…a long hall of emptiness. This information was whispered down to Conan-nee-Shinichi, who promptly stood up. This dumped Ai off her perch on his back, and she fell, tumbling into a disheveled heap on the closet floor.
"Baka…we haven't got time to lie around! And we need to be quiet!" Conan sneakily sneaked his way out of the closet, while the former Sherry picked herself up and followed just as sneakily (if not more so), muttering about detective-bakas with heads five times larger than they ought to be.
In retrospect, sneaking into the Black Organization's headquarters was probably not the smartest idea, but then, they were desperate. An antidote was still far from being perfected, and if they had any hope of soon returning to their original forms, the original compound would have to be found and analyzed. And so, the two of them proceeded to follow the black Porsche, taking a convoluted route all through the city, only to end at…the local Build-A-Bear workshop? What a helluva place for a hideout. Maybe they just liked stuffed rabbits?
Regardless of their Evil Arch-Nemesis's odd fascinations, our two diminutive heroes managed to find themselves in a near-capture situation. As always. This is logically impossible, seeing as how they were following Gin, and still managed to get in front of him (somebody's been watching The Emperor's New Groove too much). In any case, by using super-ninja skills and handy 007-esque gadgets, they have just avoided being detected by the Evil People in multiple, highly-contrived situations anyone with an ounce of common sense would have easily avoided.
Trailing said Evil People down the hall was surprisingly easy, as all bad guys seem to have horrible perception in these matters. The aforementioned Evil pair led our vertically-challenged yet courageous pair down the hall before turning off into a room on the left. Our space-efficient friends sneaked even more sneakily then they'd previously sneakily sneaked, and ended up getting a prime spying position in which to spy on the events inside said room.
They were prepared for clandestine deals, drugs, murder, and/or a variety of other generally illicit but fun activities. However, what they saw shocked them beyond all imagining…
High Tea. Conan checked his watch; four o'clock. Tea time precisely. Arch-rivals, bloodthirsty killers, capable of backstabbing, betrayal, life-long grudges and generally going off on random innocent bystanders for no reason at all…having tea? Gin raised his cup, pinky daintily extended, and took a delicate sip. Vodka broke off a section of a biscuit that couldn't even be called miniscule, and nibbled it almost elegantly. Conan just blinked. Good thing this wasn't strange or anything.
"This is so odd." Conan said quietly to Haibara. If you asked her, she'd say he was just annoyed that he couldn't fathom what the hell would cause ruthless killers to sit down for a civilized tea-and-crumpet session. "It doesn't make sense." He looked back into the room. Gin gracefully daubed the corner of his mouth with a perfectly-folded triangular napkin. Conan turned back to Ai, shaking his head. "I just don't get it. It's a paradox."
Ai processed this for a moment, and then blinked. "I don't know; they look more like assassins to me."
Dinky, yes. I have no excuse, except perhaps to blame this on both my English teacher and Robert Heinlein. But when the plunnies bite, you gotta write!
I don't own Detective Conan or anything related!