Disclaimer: I own only the scenario, not those involved.

I'm having far too much fun with this. Or at least, the plotbunnies are.

This works nicely either as a oneshot or fitting in somewhere after Chapter 2 of Phantoms and Shadows.

As per usual, anonymous reviews get answered in my profile.

(Edited 5/06)

"All units to sector 42! We've got him this time!" Inspector Nakamori yelled excitedly into his radio as he dashed toward the last sighting of the phantom thief, the rest of his squad trailing behind him.

"Roger, we can see him," a response crackled back.

"We're closing in on his right!"

"We've cordoned off all exits on the other side, he's heading for a dead end."

Nakamori was practically dancing a jig while he ran, a feat made even more impressive if you noticed that he was still outdistancing his officers. "We've got him on the ground, he can't fly, and now we've got him cornered! I've been waiting for this moment for years!"

His subordinates were almost a block behind him by the time he arrived at the site, shoving his way through the throng of police officers milling around. "Move it, out of the way! I'm going to be the one to arrest him!"

Upon reaching the front of the crowd, however, the excited Inspector stopped short.

There was no sign of the Kaitou Kid in the dead-end alley.

There were, however, four enormous blue-ribboned white top hats with question marks on them floating in a row about a foot off the ground. Beyond them was nothing but the twenty-foot-high concrete wall blocking the end of the alley.

Nakamori rounded on the other officers after surreptitiously checking for feet under the floating hats but finding nothing but air. "What's going on here? What the #$&! is this? Where's Kid?"

"Uh, w-we're not sure," the unfortunate officer closest to the irate Inspector stammered. "We were chasing him, and he ran all the way up to the wall…"

"And?" There was a dangerous tone in Nakamori's question.

"Uh, w-well, he stopped and turned toward us, and he, um, grinned, you know, the way he does when…"

"When?"

"Well, uh, the way he does right before he does something like when he pulled that trapdoor that dumped three squads into a garbage chute…" The officer noticed the Inspector's reddening complexion and prudently decided to stop reminding him of the incident. Especially after suddenly remembering that Nakamori had been leading one of those squads.

"Er. Well, anyway, then he, um, crossed his arms, a-and this big white top hat appeared out of nowhere…"

Nakamori opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again.

"A-and the hat came down and covered him, and then it split into four hats, and we weren't sure which one he was under, and we didn't want to mess with them if you weren't…"

The hapless officer noticed a vein starting to throb in the Inspector's temple and wisely shut up.

Nakamori scowled; in all the years he'd been chasing Kid, he'd never seen anything like this, and considering the kaitou in question that was saying a lot. The phantom thief either escaped outright, or vanished, or sent them off chasing a decoy. He'd never hidden, or left something without a clear reason, even if the reason only became clear after it had done something embarrassing to you. And he'd never done anything with such a large, involved apparatus before. Not a visible one, anyway.

With the Kaitou Kid, a change in tactics was never a good thing.

Nakamori ignored the traitorous whisper in the back of his mind that questioned how the strange display had been set up. The hats themselves were probably well within the Kid's ability to make, given his known abilities, but he couldn't think of any explanation for how they had been made to appear to split…or how they were hovering without any means of support. He'd checked, there weren't any wires holding them up.

The Inspector shook off his thoughts irritably. It wasn't his problem to figure out how the blasted thief had created yet another one of his tricks; it was probably an illusion of some kind anyway, maybe another projector. There was no such thing as magic, just a far-too-clever criminal. Nakamori nodded firmly. And he was not about to let a little apprehension make him look like a coward in front of his men – or stop him from finally being the one to capture the Kaitou Kid! Turning, he marched over to the farthest hat. Glaring it up and down, he reached out a hand to grab hold of it, only for it to melt into thin air and a flight of doves at his touch.

Letting out an inaudible breath of relief and giving his subordinates a contemptuous look, he moved on to the next hat, which popped like a soap bubble.

Growing bolder, he went to the hat at the other end and attempted to seize it.

And that triggered the bomb.

Laughing, the Kid shot out of the top of the last hat, which vanished as he landed neatly on top of the wall. Grinning, he gave a cheerful parting salute before taking off.

Nakamori, trapped along with every other officer present in an enormous sticky tangle of what looked, felt, and smelled suspiciously like bubble gum, could only watch him go with powerless fury. And voice what was on all of their minds, though perhaps with a bit more profanity.

Or maybe a lot more profanity.

It wasn't until the Inspector had exhausted a good portion of his extensive vocabulary that he wound down with the furious query, "And where the #$! did he learn to do that?"

Somewhere far elsewhere, the Dark Magician sneezed.

Magical Hats, Kid style! (grins)
Kaito's apparently doing well in his lessons...

Comments treasured. Criticism desperately needed.