EDIT: Made some changes due to some suggestions by WolfDaughter. However, the word 'jemmy' is the correct word; it means 'to force something open with a jemmy', which is a small crowbar. Hairpin makes a good switch at the moment.
The sound of ticking awoke the thief. Annoyed, he attempted to push himself up from the floor, trying to identify its source.
It was then that he discovered that he wasn't lying on a floor. He was bound to a wall by metallic bands around his upper arms. And his head was practically naked, no top hat, no monocle.
Of course, Kaito knew that as the KID he had plenty of psychotic fans out there. Hey, when you freefell for a living, dressed up like a white version of Tuxedo Kamen and turned jewellery into roses for the fun of it, that was the only kind of person you were ever going to get worshipping you. And worship these people did, until you did something that was not to their expectations. They were particularly vicious people if you didn't aim to please them every second of your performance. And let's not forget the police either, and the way they treated him when they saw him. Still, sticking to the subject, Kaito also knew that many people, fan or no, would do something completely stupid and illegal in order to get their hands on him. World-famous criminal and all that. The only person that had ever gone close to this far to get him, however, hadn't been a fan, hadn't captured KID, and definitely had not been nice about it.
Hence the panic that he was now feeling. That other person had only tied him up with rope to a post. This guy (whoever he was) had gone all out. He was just waiting for the laser slicing him up the middle and the guy in the spinning office chair stroking the fluffy cat to show up. Then this show would be complete.
He took deep breaths. Calm down, think back... now, what had happened? He'd just landed on a floating island, had a run-in with a red alien creature, grabbed an extremely powerful gemstone-
He panicked. Where the heck was the gemstone!?
He bit his bottom lip and looked around. The room was dark, so he couldn't see much due to the lack of light, but from what he could tell he was in a semicircular glass cell of some kind. The ground underneath his feet was a steel floor, very strong and most likely very well reinforced. Looking up he noticed some strange piece of machinery, like a headpiece, hovering above. Not hovering like the island, no; just most likely hanging from the ceiling by wires or something. He leaned his head back and hummed a tune to calm down.
He stayed like that for a good number of minutes. Then he remembered that there had been a camera in his pocket at some point. He vaguely wondered if it was still there (and for that matter, if it did actually record sound), before shaking his head.
"Are you there, tantei-san?" he muttered. God knew what would happen if the kidnapper overheard him. "I'm up now... a little freaked out. But I'll be fine. Just wait a while and then make sure you hide in your den. Wouldn't want the farmers coming after the wrong fox, would we?"
"Indeed we wouldn't," said a male voice in English, and Kaito's head snapped up. He could just catch the oddly-shaped silhouette in front of him. The person would only be a few inches taller than him, and they were most likely a lot older judging from tone, but other than that he had practically nothing except spindly legs and a round torso to tell him who it was. And that was a bit difficult, considering that he'd never thought that was a plausible shape for a human being.
"Who are you?" he asked, his proud mask hiding any fear he didn't want evident. "And would you kindly turn the lights on for me to see your face, jii-chan?"
"Why, certainly!"
The lights flickered on, and Kaito examined his surroundings better. He was in some kind of mechanics garage, although the monitors and keyboards made it look somewhat more like a laboratory. The floor outside of his glass prison cell looked like concrete and carpet in contrast to the world he had experienced after coming through the anomaly. The walls were painted metal, with hundreds of pipes and thick wires sticking out, several of these leading to his cell. The room looked dirty and dusty, and the machinery scattered across the floor cluttered things a bit. On one of the panels he could see seven slots, of which one was filled with the red stone that he had been holding before he had lost consciousness.
The man who stood before him was, to his honest surprise, a human being. But that seemed a bit of a stretch. He had a strange figure with long, stringy arms and legs, curving feet and an egg-like body with a round head set on top. From underneath a large pink nose there extended a bushy ginger moustache to rival the best. Covering the man's eyes were small sunglass-like spectacles, and on top of his head were a set of goggles. His costume consisted of a red zip-locked coat with four golden studs upon either side of said zip, white gloves, black leggings and a pair of the single coolest boots that Kaito had ever seen in his life.
The man studied the boy with some interest. "I have to admit, it's a bit strange seeing a human come onto that Angel Island without any kind of robot to help him. But what interests me more is the intent of your visit." He gestured to the Emerald in the panel. "While it's not hard to trick Knuckles into giving you the Chaos Emeralds, it's certainly odd for somebody to only go for one of them."
Kaito smirked. "What can I say, jii-chan? I only took one because I hardly have room in my pockets for any more at the moment."
"You're from the other side of the portal that opened up some time ago in the south sky, aren't you?" the man noted.
"Ahh, we have an intelligent person here," Kaito mused. "You're the reason that 'Nakkurusu' creature you mentioned wasn't surprised at my species, then, I suppose?"
The man nodded. "Of course, he's met plenty of humans before. This planet happens to play host to many human colonies, after all." He bowed. "I haven't introduced myself, have I? My name is Doctor Eggman. And what's the name of the rat in my cage?"
Kaito looked around. His hat and monocle sat on a table outside of his cell. And come to think of it, there wasn't a lot of weight in his pocket, either. "What happened to the camera in my pocket?" he asked.
"I took it and disabled it just in case it was still transmitting," said the doctor, tapping the table next to him. "The widely-available technology on your side is extremely undeveloped, despite the fact that I know better technology exists there. I may have to study your world further."
Something clicked. "How would you know that better technology exists in my world than that camera, 'Egguman-jii-chan'?" He paused for a breath second. "'Egguman'... Eggman. There."
The man burst out laughing. Kaito wished he could cover his ears to block out the substandard villainous laugh.
"Why, my dear boy, you're about to be subject to that it!" Eggman struck a few buttons on a nearby keyboard, and the headpiece dropped onto his head. Kaito could only wince as needles dug into his skull. There was also something scratching at the base of his head.
He froze.
The cable plunged itself into his spinal column.
And all this seemed dreadfully familiar. Think about it: kidnapped, bound, fitted to a creepy helmet... it was ringing bells, but he couldn't hear the melody properly. Like there was a note that was missing.
"What did you steal, then, 'Eggman-jii-chan'?" he asked, never screaming from the pain in the back of his neck, always with a smirk on his face.
"There was a little robotics laboratory that I discovered on the coastline of your land," narrated the strange doctor. "And what should I find inside that robotics laboratory but a device designed to upload a large amount of information data directly from the human brain into the memory banks, treating the mind as a computer." He tapped the edge of the keyboard proudly with his sausage-like fingers. "It was only a matter of removing the external robotics port, adjusting the programming and making a few tweaks here and there to suit this machine to my new plans."
Kaito mulled it over for a short while. "Removing the robotics port," he muttered (in his native tongue; after all, one didn't think in foreign languages), "and adjusting the programming of a machine that copies data." Copied data – left the original data behind. Now how did that sound familiar?
The robotics port. It was the missing piece of the puzzle. The memories were uploaded to a robot. It was that machine. This strange egg person had pilfered from the abandoned laboratory of a crazy robotics professor who had kidnapped him off the street and created a robot in his likeness to go to his school, confess to Aoko and steal his life. Only, that guy hadn't bet on that robot having the memory of Kaitou KID. The artificial KID was forced to steal priceless gems as part of the mad professor's adapted grand plan to become rich.
Then the robot had gained the power of conscious thought. And it had all gone downhill from there. Kaito still grew sick from the memory of watching his own mirror image shooting himself in the head.
He bit his lip. Time to give up, he supposed. "I don't understand – what have you made the machine do?" he asked.
"You'll be finding out soon enough!" Eggman cackled, and pressed the big red button. Kaito closed his eyes in expectation.
The first that he felt of it was a slight jolt of electricity in his head as some other wires inside the helmet attached themselves to his scalp. Then there was the sensation he had been horrified to feel once before – the sense that some kind of snake had burrowed itself into his brain and was now slithering around inside his head. Except, there were three of them this time around. He closed his eyes, wincing as he felt them navigate directly into the centre, going straight after the core.
And there they stopped. He hesitated. What were they going to do to him now!?
The second sensation started. Now the snakes were taking bites into his core and then... pulling back. It was the only way he could describe it. It was an odd feeling, definitely, and hard to really understand unless you went through it yourself. And he hoped that nobody did; well, that nobody was kidnapped by a strange otherworldly madman, hooked up to a weird machine and having their memories stolen away.
But that core was still complete. It was just like before – obviously, Eggman's edit hadn't worked properly, and the machine was still just copying his memories.
He opened one eye a crack to watch Eggman; he was paying attention to a monitor beside him, not observing how he was doing. How unscientific of him. The data would stay in the computer's memory, but unless he had a camera on, he'd miss the more important reaction.
The Eggman turned a few dials. "Interesting..." he mumbled, striking some keys. "The data you previously had is fascinating. Full moon, eh?"
That did it. Now this maniac was finding out about Pandora! He didn't need another guy coming after that thing, not with the black coats already coming after him. Kaito was going to get out no matter what happened.
A piece of the wall blew out, smashing the glass and striking the edge of one of the metal cuffs holding him under the shoulders, taking it out of the wall.
"Hey, Eggman! What's your crazy scheme this time?"
He looked up. There was a strange shadow in the hole with an abnormally large head and thin limbs, a bit similar to that Knuckles creature but with different head tumours. The mad doctor wheeled around, shock etched onto his face as he quite clearly took his eyes away from his memory-stealing project to face the awkward alien intruder.
At once the man grabbed for a remote control on the table, knocking the monocle to the floor, while Kaito set to work. He tore his arm out of the binding and reached into the back of his shirt, drawing out a hairpin. It was just enough to jemmy the lock open after a few seconds. Then he set to work ripping the headpiece off. The three wires came loose in a fit of pain. And finally, the cable in his spinal column.
His vision went entirely white for a second.
Blood dripping from his head and neck, he stood up, brushed himself off... and then gaped. That little remote in the man's white-gloved hand (everybody here wore gloves; he felt so accepted!) had called forth a fifteen-foot-tall red-yellow-and-black humanoid machine to face the small mammal-like creature. If that other mad professor had been a genius at robotics, then what on Earth was this Eggman?
And – what was even creepier – the little guy was currently winning. A three-foot-tall alien versus a giant mecha... with rocket launchers, large heavy feet that could squash you in an instant and an automatic aiming function, and it was winning!
Blinking, Kaito put on his monocle and grabbed his hat, ripping some of the fabric from it to pad down the neck wound a bit. Thankfully no veins or arteries had been involved, so there was very little blood coming out, but still enough to slow him down. He then threw it down on the floor, but not before he had securely attached the spiny tracker onto the blue ribbon. If he ever needed it, he could always track it down with the earring telephone he had on the back of his tie. It seemed that Eggman had only checked his pockets. Truly a pathetic attempt at a body search, in Kaito's humble opinion.
Now, the heist... ah, over there! He flitted over to the console as quickly as possible, taking the red gem. Eggman seemed tied up in fighting the little guy.
The little guy, unfortunately, noticed him where his foe did not. "Hey, guy, what are you doing with that Chaos Emerald?" he yelled. Eggman looked at Kaito, who grinned anxiously, and pressed another button on his remote. Several odd-looking robots designed after their creator, what with their egg-shaped bodies, beady eyes and stumbling gait, emerged from small doors in the walls and surrounded him.
Kaito was a thief. He was not built for combat. Sure, he was sure that he could throw a decent punch and knew a bit of self-defence, but with his ahimsa pact he'd stopped himself from learning any real fighting styles. Which lead to a slight dilemma in how the hell he was going to get out of this one.
Luckily, the idiot who had ruined his sneak-thievery realised this. "Think of somewhere and yell, 'Chaos Control'!" he cried, flying at his own boss fight so quickly it was like a gust of wind.
"Nani!?" Kaito replied, jumping over the top of a robot as it charged him. His cape caught under its foot, however, and he was sent earthwards. He landed on the floor, the gem rolling out of his grasp and into a four-fingered, felt-gloved hand.
A purple alien with separate eyes, a pink nose and cowboy hat looked down at him. "Thanks, mate. I been lookin' for that," he said, winking.
Growling – he wasn't about to lose his prize now! – he pulled out his card gun and shot at the thing's hand. He dropped the Emerald, it tumbling back into Kaito's outstretched hand. Maybe that guy had an idea after all...
He concentrated on Ekoda – Aoko's house, the Blue Parrot, the police station, anywhere was good right now – and shouted at the top of his breath, "Kaosu Control!"
MKMKMKMKMK
Conan shot out of bed, grasping his heart in fright.
"Shi... Shin'ichi-nii-chan..." he muttered. Blinking, he looked around, then pushed himself up out from under the covers and walked over to the window, opening the curtains and scanning the night sky.
He crossed his arms and leaned on the ledge, closing his eyes. He sighed. What a bad dream...
"Are you alright, Shin'ichi-nii-chan?" he asked quietly.
Yeah... I think so. What was that?
"Kaitou KID's heist was tonight," Conan said, "and it was to do with the anomaly. Remember?"
MKMKMKMKMK
Hakuba was watching the anomaly carefully when, all of a sudden, the light glowed brightly. He put his arm up to shield his eyes, but it faded almost as quickly.
Nakamori 's breath hitched. "What the fuck was that!?" he snarled, scanning around the edges of the thing.
"I think..." Hakuba reached up and grabbed something out of the air, holding it out in front of him. It was his camera, damaged, but with the recordings intact. "I think that was KID."
MKMKMKMKMK
"See?" He pointed at the white flash in the sky. "That's him coming out right now. KID's heist was inside the anomaly. Maybe it caused an energy spike of some kind?"
The shadow of the detective stood behind him, trailing from his feet along the floor and across the bed. So you've worked out why we're like this, then, Conan-kun? He asked. The energy from the anomaly must have been forcing the split. The problem is, what kind of energy creates a mental split between a secret identity and a cover story?
"I don't want to know," Conan admitted, "but I'm talking to you while we're awake, and I'm the one using the vocal cords. I don't think the energy knows which of us is the made-up one."
This is getting bad. No doubt about it, Shin'ichi muttered to himself, but this is getting bad.
MKMKMKMKMK
Kaito tumbled onto the plush carpet roughly, rolling over twice. He stopped, and lay on his face for several minutes. His mind was blank, all of his thinking power spent on willing himself home. He wondered if it had been like this for Dorothy in her first moments of waking up.
Maybe it was all a dream.
Then it struck him that maybe pushing himself up might allow him to look around and work out where he was. So he did.
He was in his bedroom.
What. The. Crap?
He collapsed for the second time.
A/N: Even if Kaito can speak perfect English, he's still a bit fiddly, isn't he?