Disclaimer:

Aside for the usual 'Detective Conan doesn't belong to me' tag, I would also like to add that the movie 'Jack' doesn't belong to me either.

A/N:

So what does Jack have to do with Detective Conan? Read on and find out.

Thanks to M's review for giving me the idea for this chapter.

As usual, reviews are welcomed, even solicited!

This is me regretting that I took up Spanish instead of Jap as my foreign language elective…Not that I have anything against Span, it's just that Jap would really come in handy in my obsession with Detective Conan…

Bluedetective aka Crazy4U:

Sorry to drive you nuts…hehe. Still haven't decided on what to do with Ai for the moment, but thanks for the reassurance. Yes, yes, I am from the Philippines, which is why I can't make head or tails of the portrayal of half the characters in Detective Conan. But, that can't be helped, either I use the existing characters or create new ones. But I've been told that original characters are generally frowned upon… Ok, I'll stop babbling now…

M:

The Spy Girls got away with that one, but with a very good reason, as you will read from this chapter. You're right about Ai…so would you suggest: a) a rewrite b) an Ai POV that would explore the complexities of the miniature scientist (and would explain her turnabout, though I still have no idea how to get by that one); or c) an OOC warning? Thanks.

Kaitou Magician:

Thanks for the thought. Though it sent me into a very hyper panic mode, I now know the errors of my ways (wow, very Jedi master-ish). I'm trying to correct my mistake, but it's gonna take a while.

YunCyn:

I'll answer your question right now. Miyagi is both bad and good, and he is neither. =) I'm kidding, of course. Just continuing with the Star War-sy train of thought. Yes, you do have to wait until I reveal whose side he really is on (the only person who knows is my cousin/roommate who stole my outline, grr). Unfortunately, the Kazuha-Heiji part of my story isn't until later (in chapter 13 or 14), please have the patience to bear with me.

"Legolas:"

Dude-pare, why didn't you write your real name? I'm flattered that you took the time off to read my story. Sana lang you read all of it, not just chapter 1 and 10 (this isn't class you know). You won't get away with reading just the intro and the conclusion…I'm gonna quiz you…and where'd you get that thing about interpretation of characters? I didn't know you write fanfic, you don't seem the type (come to think of it, I didn't know you write at all) *insert evil grin* I appreciate it, pare. And I'm not even going to grace your scaring the guy comment with an answer. Hmp!

See you na lang ulit sa next gig.

Chapter 11:

One Truth,

One Pill;

One Thief,

Two Detectives,

Three Scientists,

Four Spies,

and a

Handful of Crooks

          "Mouri-san," the blond professor had stopped her student on her way out.

          Ran waited until all students were out before she smiled at her teacher. She liked her foreign teacher, even considering her to be one of her favorites. But Miyagi has his suspicions about her and try as she may to dispel it, there was something she doesn't like about the malicious way that her blue eyes sometimes gleam when the older woman thought nobody was looking…like it was doing right now. "Yes, sensei?"

          "You're suddenly doing better in class." She said.

          Ran beamed. "Thank you," she replied. "I have a friend who has been teaching me English," though Ran was smiling outside, but deep inside she was wary. She felt as if Miss Saintemillion was reading into her inner being.

          "And that would be your cool guy, right?"

          Ran almost snorted. Now I get it. Cool guy and cool kid. How much more dense can I be? Wait. It's just a coincidence. Miss Saintemillion doesn't know about Conan and Shinichi. She may be eccentric at times, but she is just an ordinary woman, right? Vermouth is not my English teacher. "Well, he seems to have disappeared, sensei." Ran said softly, sadly, tapping into the acting workshops she attended. She knew that she can never be Sonoko, but she knew enough to at least confuse this sharp woman. "Haven't heard from him for months now."

          "Oh," Miss Saintemillion frowned. "Well, I would like to congratulate you on a job well done, Mouri-san." She said. "However, your absences are beginning to worry me. You have the most in this class, just a few more than Suzuki-san,"

          "I'm sorry, sensei," Ran said apologetically.

          "And why—"

          Thankfully, Ran was spared from replying to a question she doesn't have an answer to by the ringing of her teacher's phone.

          "Excuse me," the blond turned around and grabbed her cell phone from her bag.

          Ran's eyes widened.

          "Ran, Miyagi's talking to Vermouth right now," Kazuha's voice whispered in her ear.

          Ran closed her eyes.

          "If my guess is correct and Vermouth is your English teacher, then she's going to talk to you tomorrow after class." Miyagi told Ran.

          "What makes you so sure that they're one and the same?" Ran challenged, refusing to believe that a teacher she admires very much could turn out to be their most dangerous enemy yet.

          "For one thing, the two arrived simultaneously here in Japan," Miyagi said. "And for another thing, we've searched your teacher's background was a bit questionable."

          "Meaning?"

          "Fake everything. Fake birth certificates, fake teaching licenses, you name it, she faked it," Miyagi said. "It was thorough and almost believable, but our experts believed otherwise. It would seem genuine to even the trained eye, but we have our ways of determining the real from the forgery."

          "But you said you were only guessing," Ran argued stubbornly.

          "I am. That's why we're going to confirm it tomorrow." Miyagi told her. "After class when she talks to you, I'm going to call Vermouth. If they're one and the same person, then your teacher would answer the phone. You would know what to do."

          "How do you know that she'd talk to me tomorrow?"

          "She's a sharp woman." Miyagi said. "I believe that she's starting to get suspicious of your and Sonoko's unexplained absences. Plus we just stole the Immortality Stone. And we've shown through live nationwide broadcast that the Immortality Stone is the much-coveted Pandora's Gem. Have you forgotten that the whole point behind that maneuver is to force the Black Organization to make a move? But they don't know us. They would leave no stone unturned, pun not intended."

          Ran rolled her eyes. "And I'm not even going to ask how on earth you got the number of a woman who's not supposed to exist!"

          Harden your heart, steel your nerves. Ran thought to herself. Isn't that how she survived the past few weeks? First Conan, then her teacher. How much more can she take? A lot more. You're tough. You can pull this off. And when it's over…

          "Mouri-san?" The teacher had finished her conversation. She was now regarding the spaced-off Ran weirdly.

          When Ran met the elder woman's gaze, she almost flinched. Gone was the warmth, the sincerity, the friendliness. Instead, it was replaced with coldness and emptiness.

          "The man on the other line told me that you have something to tell me," she said.

          Ran nodded. I'm a professional, I can do this. "We have the Pandora Gem. If you want it, you'll have to come on our terms."

          "And what makes you think that we can't simply take it away from you?"

          "You don't even know who we are," Ran told her smugly.

          "We have our sources."

          "So do we. We're not afraid of you."

          "We might not know who you are working for, Angel," Saintemillion, no, she was Vermouth now, said. "But I most definitely know who you are."

          Ran allowed herself to smirk. "Is that a threat?"

          "It most certainly is."

          "Good." Ran replied confidently. "I like a little excitement in my line of work. So if you'll please excuse me," with that, she confidently walked away though she was trembling terribly deep inside.

         

          "Professor!" Conan called out as he entered the professor's house.

          The professor met him at the living room, looking nervous and agitated. "Kudo-kun!" His eyes widened when he saw the younger man. "You're home early. I wasn't expecting you until later."

          Conan rolled his eyes. "I ditched the kids," he replied easily as he dropped his backpack on the couch. "I'm not up to playing mindless games with them today. I've got other things on my mind." Especially since Hattori informed me last night that Kazuha wasn't home on the pretext of sleeping over at a classmate's house. Hattori had taken the liberty of checking out his friend's alibi. Kazuha was nowhere to be found. And suddenly the whole spy thing didn't seem farfetched at all; especially since the cat burglar last night had disturbingly familiar hair…

          "Uh, would you like something to eat?"

          Conan frowned. There was something weird about the way the professor was acting that afternoon. "What's going on?" He demanded suddenly.

          "Nothing!" Came the quick reply. "Nothing, Conan-kun."

          Which made Conan more suspicious. "Where's Haibara?" She had once again skipped classes. Not that she would get in trouble or anything. She is, after all, a university graduate and a scientific genius at that.

          The professor paled.

          Conan's eyes narrowed as he suddenly got up and ran towards the laboratory where he knew Haibara spent most of her time in. When he neared the laboratory door, he heard something that made his heart stop. He debated whether or not to go in, but the conversation floating from the inside had caught his attention. Knowing that they would stop once they know he arrived, he opted to stay outside.

          "The problem with your research, Ai-chan, is that you have a one-track mind. You're so bent on finding the cure." A male voice said.

          "Isn't that the whole point of our reunion?" Came Ai's cool but scathing reply.

           "Relax, I'm not wasting your time, I promise you." The man laughed. "Have you watched the movie, 'Jack,' the one with Robin Williams?"

          "I have no time for this." Ai told him. "No wonder you were called the perpetual goofball back in the old lab."

          "Well, Jack was this kid who was stuck with a disease that made his growth accelerate four times faster that normal. By the time he was ten, his body was physically in his forties." The man mused slowly.

          Conan had no doubt in his mind that Ai was starting a slow burn.

          "His condition in the movie was fictional, but doesn't it make you think?"

          "Come out with it," Ai commanded coldly.

          "Maybe the APTX 4869 has no cure." The man said slowly.

"Do you have an attention span disorder or something?" Ai had snapped, irritated at the way her companion erratically shifts from topic to topic. "So are you basically telling me that there's no point in our being here?"

          "No," the man replied. "All I'm saying is that the reason you're stuck with only a temporary cure is because you're looking at the problem the wrong way,"

          "What?"

          "He means to say that maybe searching for a cure isn't the way to go."

          Two pairs of eyes had swung around to look at the newcomer who just entered the door and joined in their conversation.

          "Kudo-kun," Haibara gasped.

          But the man, Conan recognized him now as the man who called Ran 'Sweetie' a few days back, beamed at the newcomer.

          "He's right," the man affirmed. "We might be searching for something that doesn't exist."

          "So, what are we still doing here?" Ai demanded, irritated that she was being tag-teamed by two men who never even met each other before, but none of her irritation showed in her face.

          "We won't look for the cure anymore. Instead, we'll look for something to help the growth rate accelerate." Conan told her.

          Introductions and half an hour later, the two scientists, one small and one tall, both geniuses, were bent on their work. First, they had researched all that they can about Progeria, Werner's Syndrome, and Agrogeria (different aging disorders). Not a lot was known about them, but Yoshke claimed that they now had enough information to spurn their experiments on.

          They had decided to stop searching for a cure but start working on something that would stimulate the growth hormones.

          "The tricky bit will be to tell the hormones exactly when to stop their aging process." Yoske had said. "After all, Sweetie wouldn't want a grandfather for a friend,"

          Conan had itched to ask Yoske about the Sweetie business, and how on earth did their paths cross. He thinks he knows the answer to that one, but he wanted to confirm his conjectures.

          Suddenly, something inside Yoshke's pocket beeped. "That's Sweetie," he said, always smiling. "She's come to take me home."

          "Can she wait for just ten more minutes?" Ai asked distractedly. "I think we're on the verge of something here,"

          "I'll go tell her," Conan bounded out the room before Yoshke could object.

          True enough, Ran was outside the door when he opened it.

          "Ran," Conan breathed.

          "Conan-kun," it was apparent that she was surprised at his appearance. "They told me that you're not to arrive until later."

          Conan shrugged. "I didn't feel like going to class." He stepped aside for Ran to go in.

          "I just came to pick up—" her voice trailed off.

          "Ran, we need to talk," Conan told her as he took her hands in his small ones as he led her inside. He didn't bother with the honorific. They both knew.

          "I'm sorry, Conan-kun," Ran choked out. "I-I can't." A sob got caught in her throat as she dropped to the couch. "Not today." She covered her face, yet Conan knew that she was crying. "Just not today,"

          The desire to tell the truth and in reciprocity, hear it, was raging inside of him. Wasn't he the one who always say that there is only one truth?

          And yet, his heart wrenched for her. He knew he was partly, if not the only one responsible for her pain today, whatever it was. And for one more day, he would pretend that all was well, and the things that happened in the span of a few days didn't come to pass. For one more day, he would deny the truth, and put on his mask once more. For her.

          "What's wrong, Ran-neechan?" He chirped innocently as his tiny hands rubbed her back awkwardly.

          Conan could only work out two words from Ran's sobs.

          Saintemillion and Vermouth.

          "Ran-neechan," Conan was reminded of another time, in another case when another teacher, Miss Yonehara, had seemingly broken Ran's heart. He was as helpless to comfort her then as he was now.

          But this time, Ran didn't pull him in her arms. She didn't call out for Shinichi. Today, it was enough that it was Conan-kun who was sitting beside her, comforting her. After a while, Ran had ceased her sobs. She smiled weakly at him. "Thank you, Conan-kun."

          "Is it true that Saintemillion and Vermouth are one and the same?" Conan asked quietly.

          Ran lowered her lashes.

          A crash was heard.

          "Ai-chan, what's wrong?" Yoshke asked in confusions as his companion had dropped the glasses she was holding. The two of them decided that the four of them would drink lemonade before he and Ran leaves (actually, he thought of it, he just bugged Ai to comply).

          Ran looked at the seemingly adorable little girl. "Don't worry. As long as you stay in here, they couldn't touch you. We've set up surveillance and we have people outside." She said, wiping a little at the tears on her face.

          Ai nodded slowly.

          "Conan-kun, you have my permission to sleep over here tonight." Ran faced the serious boy beside her. "You will not go home under any circumstance."

          "What?" Conan gasped.

          "We checked our house a while back. It was ransacked." Ran told him calmly.

          "B-but—" Conan started to argue. He wanted to help, not be under house-arrest, if only…

          "I can finish the new antidote tonight," Ai told him, as if reading his mind. "Even without Yoshke-kun,"

          "What happened to Uncle Kogoro?" Conan suddenly asked. He might not like him very much, but he is Ran's father.

          "I'm not sure yet." Ran sighed. She was awake the whole night, first the heist, then delivering Yoshke, then the planning. She went home only to learn that yes, someone did ransack their house and her father wasn't there. "Yoshke-kun, let's go,"

          "If it's so safe here, why can't he stay the night?" Ai asked the taller girl.

          "We need him tonight," was Ran's simple answer. With that, the two normal teenagers left, leaving behind the two not so normal kids.

          "Hello?"

          "Akai-san," a feminine voice on the phone said.

          "It's Miyagi Ken now," he growled, impatient that his scheming for the day was disrupted.

          "Really?" The voice drawled.

          "Who's this?"

          "You should know by now."

          Miyagi gulped. "Sorry!" He gasped. "I'm so sorry."

          "Hmm." The voice hedged. "Did you do what I asked of you?"

          "Yes," Miyagi said. "It's clean. The girls didn't suspect a thing."

          "Where is he, then?"

          "In the headquarters. He's heavily guarded. There's no chance of escape."

          "Escape!" The woman snorted. "I don't think he's smart enough for that."

          "No, ma'am," Miyagi murmured, but only because he thought it to be appropriate.

          "Good work, Miyagi-san," the woman said just before she hung up.

          "The enemies of my enemy are my friends, right?"

          "Kid!" Sonoko screeched. "What are you doing here?" She asked excitedly.

          The elusive Phantom Thief had magically (literally in a puff of smoke) appeared on the hood of the convertible that the girls were in. They were parked outside a fortress. It might as well be called a fortress as it was very high walls and barbed wires surrounded a large building.

          Yoshke had claimed that it was one of the Black Organization's Secret Laboratories.

          "Mouri-san, Toyama-san, Suzuki-san," the thief said as he pointed to the girls one by one.

          "He catches on pretty fast," Kazuha grinned.

          "You took me by surprise the last time we've met," the Kid said.

          "Sweetie," Yoshke slid closer to the love of his life. "Who's he?" He whispered.

          "He's Kid, the Phantom Kid," Ran whispered back.

          "So, you're here to get the Immortality Stone back?" Sonoko challenged him.

          "The stone you have," the Thief said. "Is a fake. That's the reason I let you get away last night. It's all staged to draw certain people out. Like me, for instance."

          Kazuha's grin widened. "You're good," she allowed.

          "I know," came the confident reply. "Had you have the real Pandora Gem, I wouldn't have let you get away."

          "So why are you here if not to take back the stone?" Ran asked.

          "You've said it yourself. The enemies of my enemy are my friends." The Kid said. "The short time we've parted, my ladies, I have not thought of anyone but you." As he said his litany, a shower of roses swept in the car.

          "Ooh!" Sonoko breathed.

          "I'm not even going to ask how he did that," Kazuha mumbled.

 I've done my homework. I know who you are," the thief continued. "And I think I don't want to get left behind in whatever you're planning."

          "Yes," Kazuha nodded. "That and the fact that you want to find out how we learned your identity and whether or not we'll keep it."

          "Ah," the Thief said. "That too."

          "So did you find anything?" Conan demanded as Hattori rambled in Professor Agasa's home.

          Hattori shook his head. "Neechan's house was a mess, but no evidence was left." His face turned grim. "There was no trace of Ran's dad."

          Conan had called Hattori the moment Ran was gone to tell him of his discoveries.

          The Western Detective insisted on coming right over and checking things for himself.

          Conan wanted to join his colleague, yet he opted to stay in the laboratory, in case Ai finished the new pill.

          "Where are they now?" Hattori demanded.

          "I have no idea," Conan replied truthfully.

          Hattori was about to say something smart when someone knocked on the door. "I'll get it," he grumbled. "You!" He exclaimed when he found out who was the man outside. It was Ran's date when he saw them in the coffee shop in Osaka.

          "Good afternoon to you too." He smiled cheerfully. "You must be the Other Great Detective."

          "And who are you?" Hattori growled.

          "Miyagi Ken, at your service," he said with a bow. "Can I come in, then?" He asked as he straightened up.

          "Let him in," came a childish voice from inside. "We need him."

          Miyagi nodded. "I brought the chemicals Yoshke said he and the tiny scientist needed." He said, indicating to a small bag he was carrying.

          Hattori stepped aside reluctantly.

          "So, where are they?" Hattori demanded after Miyagi had delivered the goods and plopped down the sofa.

          "Who?" Miyago asked innocently.

          "I wouldn't bait him if I were you," Conan told the man innocently. "He's brought his katana all the way from Osaka."

          "Oh," Miyagi grinned maliciously. "Well, Mouri-kun is safe as safe can be."

          "He's with you?" Conan frowned. "How did you convince him to stay put?" He asked. He knew that the elder Mouri didn't like being out of the action. Especially now that Ran was part of the equation, he would no doubt insist on bringing it on.

          "We have our ways." Miyagi said. "And the girls are all together, on assignment."

          "Where?" Hattori demanded.

          "Oh, somewhere,"

          "How did they come to work for you?" Conan had asked, distracting Hattori from lunging at Miyagi.

          "It's a long story."

          "Better start telling it then,"

          But they were interrupted by Professor Agasa's loud calls. "It's finished! It's finished! We've got the cure! Shinichi!"

-tbc

P.S.

Hey, I just learned that when I clicked on Spy Girls, the page only displays until chapter 4 and in order to get the latter chapters, I had to alter the whatchamacalit, address bar, I think. How can I remedy that? Thanks.