Mako runs past Azazel in the crowded streets, swiping his wallet and headed straight for the aquarium. Her white, matted, dirty hair makes her stick out in the crowd but she's small enough that most people don't even notice. She even knows to follow a family with kids her age into the aquarium before immediately splitting off and going towards the tanks where you can pet the sea life
'Let's get this over with.'
On today's job : Take out a specific mutant target in the middle of a busy street.
While it wasn't an unusual request, it didn't change the fact that he has always felt uncomfortable walking in crowds. Apart from the obvious reason, it came with its fair share of issues : Too many unfamiliar faces popping in at once then disappearing out of his field of vision. Too many different noises and voice pitches condensing into one incoherent gibberish. Too many smells of various degrees, from strong to mild, from nauseating to plain weird, making it the most confusing scent cocktail. None of these, however, were really the reason why he wanted to get this job done as quickly as possible and move on to some better place.
No, the main reason, and objectively worst part of it all, was that this had to be in Florida. The fabled trickster God's playground. The land where the press hunts for crimes that will inevitably become famous out of state.
If he was going to do this right, there could be no mistakes, and everything had to pass under the press' radars as the most mundane event of the day.
According to his investigation, his target at this time of the day was far ahead of the street he was striding through. He would do it swiftly, then switch his target's wallet with the 'fake' one in his back pocket to hide who truly 'unexpectedly passed away' today. It was an ordinary wallet with all things considered : It had an ID, emergency contact details, a medical insurance card, bills and change totaling 100$, ... The only notable detail about it is that it couldn't possibly be his own.
He made himself as unassuming as humanly possible in the crowd while some bystanders walked closeby, some skipped behind him, some just ran past like it wasn't 97°F, ... Children never seemed phased by this kind of weather until it was too late.
'If I'm not careful enough, I might accidentally step on a kid if most wander off from their parents like this one...'
Strangely enough, he felt... Lighter. Reflexively, he patted over the inside pocket of his jacket before moving to his pants'...
And realizing the fake wallet was gone.
He abruptly stopped on his tracks, causing an old lady to dump into him and nearly fall over if he hadn't caught her at the last second and brought her back to her feet. "Oh my! Thank you, Dear. But don't worry about little old me and go follow your daughter before she gets lost. She looked so excited to go to the aquarium ! She tripped a few times to catch up with you but always got up like a champ ! "
His mind momentarily found itself stuck on the daughter part of her sentence before suddenly understanding what actually went down a few seconds ago.
Being pickpocketed by a child should have been the least surprising thing to happen to him in Florida, yet here he was. Absolutely dumbfounded by the absurdity of the situation.
He found himself simply nodding to the old lady then left without a word. He reached the Florida Aquarium in less than 5 minutes after finally getting out of the busy street.
Seeing no trace of the strange white-haired girl, he walked past the big Devil Ray statue, got to the counter and paid the entrance fee with the money from his wallet. He went in and started looking around for the little thief.
'She hasn't been there for long so she couldn't have wandered off that far. Now, where would a small child go in such a big-...'
As if to answer, a map of the place suddenly faced him.
'... Of course.'
When he reached the aquarium's Petting Zoo, he took a quick look around, trying to spot any usual white hair among the young visitors until...
'There she is... At the corner of the tank with the most rays.'
She didn't seem to notice him when he finally approached her. "No use running, Missy. You don't look like some vicious hellion so I won't involve any kind of institution into this : From experience, these make a mountain out of a molehill and don't even get at the bottom of the issue at the end of the day." He said matter-of-factly. "I just want my wallet back."
