Chapter 2

'thoughts'

"Japanese words"

": People speaking Japanese around English speaking people:"

Joe's POV

I stared out the window of the taxi as we pulled up in front to the Blackstone Lodge. Though to be honest Blackstone Castle would probably be a better name for it. The place was a huge Victorian manor with towers, actual towers.

"Looks like we're no the only ones here," commented Frank from his seat next to me.

I looked lower than the towers and saw a small group of people standing outside the front of the lodge (*cough castle cough*). As we pulled up I got a good look at them.

"I don't believe it," I muttered as we excited the car.

They all turned to look at me. "Ah, Joe-kun, Frank-san," gasped Ran Mouri. We'd met Ran and her friends on a case about three month ago while looking for her missing boyfriend, Shinichi Kudo. What we'd found was much more sinister, though Frank was unaware of most of it.

I could recognize most of the people standing with to her. To her right was Heiji Hattori, Shinichi's best friend and fellow detective. To her left was Saguru Hakuba, a detective whom we met briefly. Standing around her feet were five kids I recognized them as Conan Edogawa and his friends, which reminded me of a crazy though I had just as we were leaving Japan…

"Wow, when they said 'from around the world' they really meant it." said a voice behind me.

I turned to see a girl with curly black hair and purple streaks in her bangs exiting a cab behind me. I knew her as Cho Hiraita. We'd also met her briefly in Japan. As her cab drove off a few more came into view.

She walked up to us giggling, "From the looks of thing the only person missing is KID."

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Inside the lodge a maid that had just started her first day at work sneezed.

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"Oh," she said noticing Conan's friends, who had begun pestering him to translate what was being said for them. She bent down to make eye contact and said in almost flawless Japanese, ": Hello, My name's Hiraita Cho. What are your names?:"

"Yoshida Ayumi," squeaked the girl with the head scarf

"Tsuburaya Mitsuhiko," said the boy with freckles.

"Kojima Genta," said the large boy.

"Haibara Ai," muttered the brown-haired girl

": We're the Shonen Tantei,:" shouted the first three proudly showing off some fancy looking badges. On the other hand Conan looked like a cross between amused and annoyed, while the other girl, Ai looked bored.

": Ne, Conan-kun, how do you know Cho-neechan?:" asked Ayumi.

Conan told them about the KID heist as we entered the lodge. A cute maid told us that we were supposed to wait for the rest of the guests in the dinning room. Apparently we were the first ones there. But I'd seen more taxis pulling up as we came in so I knew it wouldn't be for long. Sure enough more people about our age or younger began to trickle in.

"Frank, and Joe Hardy I should have known you'd be here," said a new but familiar voice. As expected when I looked up I saw Nancy Drew, guess I should have expected her to be here too.

"Hi Nancy," said Frank, "nice to see you again."

"But don't think we're going easy on you, this is a competition after all," I said with a grin.

She grinned back, "Like wise. So I'm guessing that you know those other people too." She nodded towards the Japanese detectives, "I saw you talking with them as I drove up. Are they with ATAC too? Are you on assignment?"

The past few times we've run into Nancy we've always been on an ATAC (American Teens Against Crime) mission, and she's always managed to weasel her way into our investigation, much to Frank's annoyance.

"Not this time," said Frank truthfully. "We just got an invitation in the mail asking us to come. We thought that it sounded like fun."

"And as for those guys, no they're not from ATAC. They're some people we met on a mission in Japan a few months ago. The only ones we're really familiar with are the teenage girl, and the kid wearing glasses. The others are just acquaintances."

She didn't look entirely convinced. I don't really blame her, in the past we lied to keep her out of our investigation. But before she could ask any more questions the cute maid came in and asked for everyone to be seated.

Me and Frank sat where cards with our names on the said to. Then suddenly the whole room went dark and some of the younger kids screamed.

"Welcome and thank you for coming." Came a voice out of nowhere.

End Chapter 2

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A/N next chapter will get to introductions on all the other characters, but they're only a minor role.