There have been many times in the span of Anastasia’s life in which she has come into contact with an unfriendly sort of people. In her line of business, she’s dealt with many unsavoury folks of different ages and of different walks of life, but by far, the worst of them were certainly a group of angered twelve-year-olds.
You would think the opposite, think that maybe a group of twelve-year-olds would be easiest to deal with but you would be very wrong. Ana could recall an instance in which she’d mistaken a group of short people for kids when they were, in fact, hostile dwarves and that unfortunate incident resulted in her and Elise being held at gun point… anyway, so maybe they weren’t twelve but they certainly looked twelve and that definitely was relevant to her point.
At twelve, children are a lot more risky, experimenting with the rules and typically taking out their anger on other people. They were approaching the oldest grade of their middle school, and were becoming arrogant with this knowledge. Especially the twelve-year-olds with high-school-aged sinlings, those ones tended to think they were the sh!t with their skateboards and vape pods… Twelve year olds in a city like Las Levendas? Well, let’s just say she wouldn’t be surprised if it were actually a bunch of kids behind the kidnappings. The motive, she wasn’t sure of, but man, they did have the means.
Who knew, maybe these twelve-year-olds had a gun on them. One thing was for sure, Anastasia wasn’t planning on being murdered by a group of kids, nope. Even though it was a perfectly respectable way to go down, Elise would surely be laughing at her funeral and she wasn’t looking for that sort of humiliation, no thanks.
However, when she requested the kind stranger’s assistance in escaping the gang of children, he told her that he didn’t have a car. Which, huh, who didn’t have a car?? Well, yeah, sure, she didn’t have a car, but that was because Elise usually just magicked up some sort of transportation vehicle whenever she needed to get to someplace too far to walk. Anyway, that was a massive letdown, but the man seemed to think that he could resolve this elsehow, which was encouraging because she really wasn’t looking to have to fight a gang of children and maybe the man if he had a conscience. Her eyebrows rose, her eyes flicking between him and the gang before giving him a brief nod.
Then, like a knight in shining armour, the man stood and approached the group. He appeared to ask them what they wanted to do, and they all chorused “Beat her face!” Well. That was very unideal. Her face was her moneymaker, she very much liked her face the way it was without being beaten up. One of her hands had withdrawn from its pocket, but it twitched at her side, and so she balled it into a fist to still the motion.
The kid spat at the kind man’s foot, and her brows knit together in annoyance. Kim (he needed a name in her mind so she gave him one) obviously was a nice guy, and it was rude of them to be acting like this towards him when their problem was towards her. Thinking that whatever method he was attempting was failing, and she was about to withdraw a small tranquillizer dart gun from her pocket when she caught sight of the man brandishing a police badge from his own pocket. Startled, her hand returned the gun to its discrete compartment within her pocket, then removed the hand from her jacket entirely, clutching her hands in front of her and trying her best to appear as damsel-in-distressy as possible.
Truth be told, the fact that Kim was a policeman was very disconcerting, and it did make her want to run off, but she was smart enough to know that running was perhaps the guiltiest thing that she could do. So she just rocked on her feet, a small but triumphant smile on her face as Kim’s negotiations with the gang seemed to go in her way.
That is, until Arthur peered back at her and suggested that she buy them a new ball. Her face remained carefully blank, even though her mind was screaming her dissent at him. Ana hesitated before smiling politely at them and nodding. “Yeah, I’ll buy you a new ball! Of course, that’s what I was planning to do this whole time!” The problem with this was that she had not brought any money, and even if she had resolved to shoplift, well, that became increasingly problematic with a whole cop right in front of her. A forceful exhale slipped through her lips, and she resisted the urge to rub her forehead. What to do, what to do… she could always dip now, leave him to the metaphorical wolves, but he had done her a favour in deescalating this, and it would be good to have an ally on the police force…
Wheels turning, she looked to the boy, the gracious smile still gracing her lips. “Let’s go, hm? If we head back to my shop, I’m sure my sister can give you a ball.” Elise would not be happy to magic up a ball for a random kid, and would be even less happy to have a cop AND a group of kids in their store, but she would simply have to see the long-term positivities and deal. “Just follow me, it’s not too far.” Ana was sure though that her sister would be giving her grief on this whole situation as soon as she was able to, but honestly, she couldn’t even blame her. Next time she came across a group of kids in the park, she was just going to leave them be. She liked kids (when they weren’t trying to kill her), but it was just not worth it if she was going to be threatened like this.
Before they started to her store though, she turned to Kim, a warm smile on her face despite his coppiness. “Kim, thank you for that, defending the peace and everything!” Was that too much? How was an innocent person supposed to behave around a policeman? “I thank you, I’m sure you’ve seen some nastiness involving twelve-year-olds in your dangerous line of work. I’m very glad that I didn’t end up becoming a statistic.” Her smile was easy, depicting that of a naive and innocent civillian, if not someone a little daft. “I was wondering though, if you wouldn’t mind going with me and the children to the store? Just because I think they’re scared of you and since it’s a family business, I don’t want them wreaking havoc there.” She wasn’t too worried about him saying no, as he was a cop and it was pretty much his job to make sure the women were protected, especially with the whole kidnapping situation that was going on. Maybe she should play with that actually. “And, you know, it’s always comforting to have a police escort in these times… with those kidnappings and everything.”
@sunflower.flow mwah 1200 and something
wow I started and finished in a few hours how impress