He'd finally gotten about a mile away from the house when he stopped dead in his tracks somewhere in the middle of a small street by an apartment complex and bent over to breathe.

Well, hadn't that been interesting.

A small child digging a football into a wall with a single kick. Now that had been impressive. Then again, hadn't he adjusted some device on his shoes before doing so? It was possible that those shoes had done something to power-up his feet; he'd seen many devices of that type before. In fact, he was pretty sure he'd actually seen those particular shoes before, something which confused him greatly. Hadn't he only just met that boy for the first time? Because he was very sure they'd cross paths again, somehow.

He hadn't expected the assailant at the last minute, he had to hand him that. Or her. His sister happened to be a rather confident shot herself. And in his line of work, one did underestimate the abilities of the opposite gender.

Did he have a sister? Now that didn't seem right... and what line of work was this again? Something that involved a gun, otherwise he wouldn't be carrying one around. Huh… strange.

The card that had dug itself into the wall next to him, however, screamed familiarity at him. He looked down at the small slash-like mark on his right glove. Maybe... like the shoes, somebody had already used it on him before?

Now that was just serving to confuse him even more!

Growling, he clutched his head and made his way through the alley… only to bump into two very tall, very intimidating humans. He glanced over the pair. They both wore dark clothes and hats, but that was the most he could tell from glancing their backs. They had been talking to one another, but not anymore.

The taller one, who seemed more of a leader, turned around, looked down and stared at him with a scrutinizing eye. His partner looked down after a second of confusion. The older one started talking in that completely unintelligible language of this place, followed by his accomplice. He watched the two of them intently, waiting for anything. Eventually the older reached down to shoe him off – and was met by a sharp fang digging into his hand. He wasn't ready to be batted aside just yet!

The man pulled his hand back, the other taking a communication device similar to the walkie-talkie earlier from the inside of his trench-coat. Was this the default reaction to something that confused this species? Calling somebody to talk all about it? If so, it was an awkward response. Most people would just draw back and observe from a distance where he came from.

He dialled in a number loudly and said something in a much different tone to the law-enforcement officer before. Meanwhile, the other one seemed to be-

Before the alien knew it, he was knocked out by a particularly heavy iron pipe.

MKMKMKMKMK

"So, kid, what's your name?" asked the blue creature, completely oblivious to the wreckage behind him.

Kaito just stared. "Shouldn't you be…" he dragged off in English that was a little worse than normal, pointing behind him. The thing turned back, eyes suddenly widening as he sped over in a brief gust of dirt to the yellow one bent over the side of the crashed plane. He placed his fingers to the animal's temple, then to its chest, and looked up with a big grin. It must have been okay. Then he moved on the red one Kaito vaguely recognised, moving a lot more carefully around it. Maybe this was due to a different gender? As far as Kaito could tell, the blue one was male, moved easily around one and not-so-easily around the other; probably the yellow one was female and the red one was male. It sounded likely when he remembered all his old cartoons. That and the fleshy appendages on the heads didn't appear to be anything to go by.

This second check proved positive as well, and finally the little guy looked back up, gesturing with his hand. The human stiffened.

"Hmm?" He tried again. "Come on, help me out here!" he asked. "I can't pick up these guys by myself, you know."

"A-ahh." Kaito walked over and, suddenly afraid to pick up the right one, looked towards both of them. The yellow one looked to have a smaller frame, and lighter than the red one, who was thick-limbed and particularly barrel-chested considering the build of the other two. He shrugged, picking up the red one underneath the arms to get a better look at him.

He nearly dropped him. It was the same one on that island during the heist!

The blue one, appropriating his hold on his yellow companion, looked up. "Oh, that's Knuckles. You've met him before," he said cheerfully. "Of course, then Eggman got to you… And that's when I came in!" Before Kaito could ask for an explanation, the alien then walked towards the house.

Kaito looked back at Knuckles. Yep, this was the same thing he'd seen on the Angel Island on the other side of the anomaly. It was the same size, shape… and, he guessed, weight. He was glad he'd chosen to pick up this one rather than the other one (a kitsune, maybe? It was some kind of fox monster); the blue one might not have been able to hold him up!

And yes, he was well aware that he was currently holding up and talking about an alien. To be honest, he was suppressing all of his internal shock. He'd probably faint later from all of it, but it wouldn't be the worst shock he'd ever had. Nope, that one had come a long time ago. He'd be ready for it when it came.

Dragging Knuckles inside, he found the blue one had already seated himself at the table, with his friend lying down on the table. The thing nodded its head.

"It's alright if I put Tails here, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes, it's completely fine," Kaito found himself saying. "By the way, what are you, anyway?"

He tipped his head. "Is this your normal speaking language?" he asked. "You look like the humans near where I live. They're a bit different from the other ones. They don't all speak English like the rest of them, and most of them like to abide to their own traditions."

Kaito smirked. "I always thought my English was good," he muttered.

"You said the word 'the' kinda funny," the creature responded. "Oh, and my name's Sonic. Sonic the hedgehog. Pleasure to meet you!"

Kaito frowned at that one. "You don't look like any hedgehog I've ever seen in my lifetime," he replied. "Hedgehogs are small spiny creatures that snuffle around and eat bugs. And none of them have blue fur."

The newly-recognised Sonic sighed. "So you really don't have any of us here, huh?" he muttered. "This really is a blast from the past. Let me explain it a bit better.

"I'm from the planet Mobius. About three-hundred years ago, a bunch of aliens from another planet called humans discovered the existence of our world a long distance from theirs. The weird thing about it was that both of our planets are surrounded by rifts in space, and if somebody flew into one of them they'd end up on the other side at the other world. Humans learned to use this to their advantage and travelled to our world where they discovered our species."

"Did the humans only find out about the hedgehogs?" Kaito asked, confused. The term species was slightly ambiguous, after all.

Sonic shook his head. "Nope. They found out about all of us. Hedgehogs are only a single breed. Tails and Knuckles next to us are different breeds, for example."

Kaito smirked. What very appropriate names. Then again, he mused, he should think about himself sometimes.

The 'hedgehog' gripped his knees, bowing his head slightly. "Don't ask me, it's all due to our freaky genetics."

He looked back up again. "Humans found us and tried gauging what we were for a long while. We were a quite primitive race back then. We didn't even have a language developed, so we couldn't communicate. The history books I have at home tell me more. Scientists did tests on a few of us to learn more about us. Sometimes we turned up on an autopsy table, although they tell me that was a stereotype they wanted to avoid. Something about old movies... Some of us even got enslaved and forced to work for them, but when we learned that they did it to their own species a very long time ago, we didn't really mind that so much. I mean, you treat your own people that way, it can't be all that bad, right?" Sonic winked at him.

"Eventually, though, they began teaching us everything we didn't already know. And we got to learn about different earth animals... a lot of which we decided we looked like. Different breeds decided to name themselves after other species. That's why I'm a hedgehog. Long limbs, spikes, ability to roll into a ball, pointy ears... Knuckles' species was named by the humans; he's an echidna, named for his breed's long existence, not to mention if you flip him on his face, his spines go into the right shape." He grinned cheekily. "And Tails is a fox because of the way his tail looks, his decent eyesight in the night-time and the shape of his ears and his muzzle is quite long for a Mobian, come to think of it."

"So what else is it you need to know?"

Kaito looked over at the wreckage outside, trying to think. "Why are you over here?"

"The jewel that I told you to snag the last time was a Chaos Emerald, remember?" Sonic tapped the table, eyes rolling upwards as he tried to think. "I assume you do; I mean, Knuckles did mention that you already knew what they were when you met him on Angel Island."

"I did; you did a mighty fine job of an exposition speech on the video I swiped from the military network," Kaito replied. "It's the whole reason I came there in the first place – to steal a Kaosu Emerald."

The hedgehog relaxed in his seat somewhat, then tensed as a groaning came from next to them. Knuckles was stirring.

The echidna pushed himself up from the table, dizzy from the crash, and immediately glared at Kaito. "You. Give me back the Chaos Emerald you stole!" he growled in what was meant to be a menacing tone. It didn't help that he was small, considerably lithe compared to Kaito and large-headed. Of course, then Kaito remembered how he'd ploughed through the ground the previous day, and decided not to infuriate him.

"Knuckles, calm down," Sonic replied, although a bit of a scowl was leaking through his smirk. "I'm trying to explain everything to him so he can explain everything to me so we can get the Chaos Emerald back so we can get out of here faster, if that's what you so want. Understand?"

Knuckles huffed. "We'd do it even faster if he just surrendered the Emerald to us right now!" He dropped down from the table carefully and took some menacing steps towards the young thief, who stood up and backed off.

Sonic sighed at him, and looked up at their host. "I'm sorry about this, kid," he said. "Oh, by the way, what's your name? I forgot to ask."

Kaito fell into a brief silence, before bowing forward to both of them. "My name is Kuroba Kaito," he said. "And I still require that Kaosu Emerald."

"WHAT!?" screamed Knuckles, flinging a fist at the boy. Kaito dodged quickly, only to have his attacker run into a wall once more... except this wasn't as much a wall as it was a washing machine. Thankfully, only his head collided with it and he fell over backwards, missing any opportunity to deal excessive damage to the kitchen appliance. There was still a small dent, but that was explainable.

And then Kaito suddenly remembered about the absolutely massive 'dent' in the garden outside. "What am I going to tell my mother?" he asked aloud. There was no way he was going to be able to make up an excuse for a bloody aeroplane in... how long did he have?

Sonic rested his chin in his right hand, leaning against the table. "...I'd tell her the truth, considering that without a plane, we'll need somewhere to stop while Tails fixes it up," he said, nodding. "Plus, if we were to do that, you can take care of what you wanted to take care of with the Chaos Emerald and then we can go back home. Hey, do you think she'll take it well?"

"Knowing my mother," Kaito replied, "if it hurts her, she'll never tell me."

MKMKMKMKMK

The streets outside were packed to the brim, and for Mouri Ran it was no easy task trying to get around looking for Conan. He was an incredibly small boy, and Beika was on the edge of the Kanto and Haido regions, meaning a lot of people were on the roads and the footpaths in the middle of the day. Not crowded, but there were definitely enough that it was going to be hard to find him, even if he stood still wearing bright yellow. It was even worse that he was moving, too, because while Conan did not have completely excessive energy like his friends, he still ran much faster than most. If he did things right and conserved his energy, Ran would never catch up to him.

She'd finally gotten the police on the phone (it seemed her father wasn't starting a citywide search like Ms Kobayashi had been made to believe) and waited at the zebra crossing, phone pressed hard to her ear as she tried to hear the other end above all else. Forget all those health classes telling her that mobile phone radiation shrunk cells; this was important contact with the police in a time of need.

Of course, the entire experience was unsettling. Conan had never run away from anything before. Not when exposed to several dead bodies in the course of a week. Not when people pulled out guns. Not even when buildings burned down around him – Conan was the kind of superhero who ran into fires to save people. Compared to all that, school was a tiny blip on the radar. He may have been bored in class according to Ms Kobayashi at the last parent-teacher conference, but that was only due to his intelligence.

One of the things that Ms Kobayashi had suggested, however, was that Conan be tested by a child psychologist. A few of Conan's personality traits were in line with some mental disorders. He was extremely intelligent but not entirely social, spent classes in which his boredom took over doing something else to keep his interest, he did have a sort of OCD in which some things had to go in the correct order (books, videos, nothing too excessive, although a line of coloured pencils out of spectrum order did cause a small sound out of his throat). Coupled with some of the things Ran experienced with him – the boy never really said what he was thinking, complete inability with music and had that amazing sense of self around mutilated corpses – that was enough to put him the Aspergic category.

Of course, he did have his differences. Conan was good with humour, good with people and talented at sports. But that was about it. The major problem with this was that he might be being bullied at school for his differences. Maybe he'd chosen to run away to get away from them? It was distinctly possible.

Megure was suddenly introduced to the phone. "Yes, keibu?" she asked, surprised. She didn't want to believe in the worst, but... "Where's Conan-kun? Have you seen him anywhere?"

"About twenty minutes ago, actually, before he suddenly ran off," the man replied. "Takagi-kun told me he ran in the direction of Shin'ichi-kun's house. He might be headed for Agasa-hakase's, though there is the problem that..."

"That what!?" Ran found herself yelling down the phone, causing some stares from the rest of the people on the street.

"Well, Conan-kun was running after the gunman that shot Takagi-kun in the hand, although Takagi-kun swears it was actually a giant purple rat, as do many of the witnesses who saw him get shot. Apparently he ran down that way..."

Ran cancelled the call and closed the mobile, wheeling around in the middle of the street. Please don't be... Conan!

The boy, she had figured out long ago, was a bit of a danger magnet. That's what he was. Wherever Conan went, something bad happened. Usually there was a murder or something similar. Death chased him around like a stalker with a crush. Though originally, the original consensus had been that it was her father's incredible bad luck (or good look; he did get paid with each solved case) that caused all the misfortune in Beika, Ran had decided it was Conan with much deliberation. After all, murders happened around him when he was with anybody, not specifically Kogorou. It worked the other way around, too; murder was a big reason for him to get up and move. If there was a mystery around, he was naturally attracted to it.

The behaviour really reminded her of Shin'ichi some days. That teenager's mere presence seemed to cause the fire to burn brightly in most killers' souls. Maybe it was merely his luck as a detective or something. But mystery just happened to be his passion. It wasn't a normal way to act; then again, Shin'ichi had mentioned several things a long time ago about a story in the Sherlock Holmes canon where the only cure for Holmes' sickness during the tale was a murder in Reigate. And Holmes had also been Shin'ichi's passion, the stories being the only consistent subject he ever talked about.

Conan appeared to take after Shin'ichi a lot. Maybe it was just the incredible resemblance between him and Shin'ichi at age six (Conan's growth was significantly stunted for no particular reason) that had caused it, but they acted identical. Running after the murderer right now, for example, was something Shin'ichi would have done just as quickly as Conan had done. There was also his speech pattern when he thought that Ran couldn't hear him; it was the same brash tone as Shin'ichi's. She reckoned that he probably copied it off the many phone calls that he told them he received from him when he'd lived at his original house, before his parents had ended up in that car accident and landed in hospital.

That had been rather strange, considering that Shin'ichi had never called Conan in front of her, or mentioned the kid at all. Shin'ichi only phoned nowadays to talk to her, not Conan. And the frequency at which they apparently spoke to each other didn't match with the frequency at which windows of opportunity – being days when Sonoko had called her out for a shopping date or a movie or something that Conan wasn't allowed to go to – cropped up.

She'd caught Conan reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes the other day. When she'd asked the origin of the book, the boy had looked up at her with a look of faint surprise. Shin'ichi had sent it him through the mail, he'd said. He'd left no return address.

Convenient, much?

Ran's feet managed to carry her to Niichoume, and she finally slowed down a few doors away from Agasa and Shin'ichi's houses. The gate to Shin'ichi's was hanging open, the door opened just a crack. Her breath caught in her throat. Why...?

Shaking her head – he was going to be alright – she walked over and knocked on Agasa's front door. It opened, revealing a very timid-looking Conan who seemed to have expected her coming. He was alright...

He was alright! "Conan," she said, collapsing on her knees and wrapping her arms around him, "don't you ever do that again!"

A/N: Asperger's Syndrome is a mental disorder on the edge of the autistic spectrum. It is characterised by a lot of disabilities concerning communication and social interaction, as well as ritualistic behaviour and a minor case of OCD. Whereas Shin'ichi wouldn't be Aspergic, this Conan could be seen as such. This is mainly because I actually suffer from the same disorder.

The Reigate Squire also happens to be my favourite story in the canon, as shown before in 'What If?'.