Stolen Bikes? [Solo/Leon]

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"Stop that! Give me my bike back!!"

"No way! Whatcha' gonna do about it, huh?! Cry?!"

"N-No! You better give it back or I'm gonna tell my Dad!"

Somewhere in Neutral Grounds was a playground for children, and on this playground were various different kids, but the two involved in this situation seemed far more emotionally charged than the rest. One girl was wearing loosely fitting denim overalls, wore her chestnut hair in pretty pigtails, and her wrist was adorned with friendship bracelets. Meanwhile, her tormented was a boy who seemed similar in age, but had obviously had some sort of a growth spurt and was easily several inches taller than the girl. He had spiky blonde hair and tan skin and wore a white teeshirt with camouflage shorts. With him, he had a pretty pink bicycle which had clearly belonged to the little girl, and he showed no interest in returning it.

"Cry to Daddy! Daddy's girl! Pfffthahaha—?!!" Suddenly a shadow loomed over the girl, like a tall, immense stormcloud. From one perspective, it looked like she was gathering all of her dark, powerful energy in order to swallow up the boy whole. The boy, contrarily, looked so ashen and frightful that it looked like he had just seen the Devil incarnate right before him, and he acted like it too. "M-Monster! Ahhh!!" shouted the boy, dropping the bar and scurrying away like a panicked mouse. The little girl looked surprised for a moment before she stuck out her tongue, puffed out her chest, and nodded with a triumphant look on her face. It took her a moment to realize that someone was standing behind her, and when she turned around, a big smile appeared with a couple of teeth missing.

"Oh hey, Leon! What are you doing here?" she leaned up to him, grinning. It was none other than Leon, wearing his all-grey delivery uniform and a grey baseball cap that hid his face pretty well. His face was... uncomfortable to look at for long periods of time. Not only was is scarred, but his eyes were intense and tigerlike, and his neutral expression looked perpetually murderous. He had what is sometimes called a 'resting bitchface', and he scared off a lot of kids because of it. Hell, he scared off a lot of fully grown men and women sometimes.

"Hey, Lia..." Leon replied, staring at the boy who was running away from him. He was only arriving at the tail-end of their encounter, but he was probably a bully. That was Lia's bike, after all, and he could hear her screaming from the other side of the street. No doubt he ran off because of his scary looks and massive stature, but Lia seemed pretty convinced that it was her doing.

"Oh, that guy? Just some meanie who likes to pick on me, but I showed him who's boss just now! Me, baby! Lia one, Junior zero!" Lia beat her just twice as she marched over to her bike and stepped onto it, "But it's not just Junior who keeps on taking people's bikes. My Mom calls it an... epidermic?"

"Epidemic?" Leon confidently suggested a correction.

"Yeah!! Epidemic! A bike-taking epidemic! A buncha bullies like Junior picks on us littler kids, but some gangsters totally steal suuuuper expensive bikes and give them to other bad guys! There're even guys who'll do push-and-pedals and will just take people's bikes in the middle of the road! It's craaazy!"

"Yeah, that sounds pretty bad... here, this is for your Mom," Leon chimed, nodding his head as he leaned down and handed Lia a small box. He was an employee of a delivery company that delivered products from small private businesses, and Lia's family just happened to be customers who he delivered to on a regular basis. Strangely enough, Lia seemed phased by his intimidating appearance and was also comfortable talking to him.

"She says the cops are too busy to deal with it, so they put out a job for someone to take to fix it! You should do it, Leon! Look, there's a flyer right over there!" Lia accepted the small package before immediately pointing at a dingy little flyer taped to a brick wall of a building. It was unreadable from this distance, but the jewel reward stuck out like a sore thumb. Leon's eyes narrowed a little when he saw that. He definitely needed the money, because the jobs he was working alone only barely covered his expensive rent in Neutral Grounds. Frankly, he probably wouldn't have been in this situation if he had simply decided to live out of town or done jobs like this to get more income, but this was the only city where he felt some semblance of normalcy. He didn't want to get involved with the problems that littered the communities of Fiore, especially since he still believed that he'd soon be summoned back home to Bellum. It was pointless, is what he told himself. There was no point in getting too attached or comfortable...

"Maybe. It was nice seeing you, Lia." Leon attempted a tough smile, tipped his baseball cap, and began to turn away before he felt a little hand stuffing something into his back pocket. It was the flyer from on the wall.

"Just in case you forget. You can totally save everyone's bike, Leon! You're so big and strong! Bye-bye!"

The problems of children seemed so trivial at face value, but Leon could only imagine how tormenting it all might've been. He was no stranger to bullying, so he knew what it felt like to be picked on for no other reason than because you could, but still, stealing bikes? Maybe some people were just born bad. Obviously, that wasn't usually the case, but sometimes it was senseless scumminess that could make you wonder. Well, at least for children. Most people were fixer-uppers and it'd be harder to find someone who had their shit together than to find someone who didn't but pursued relationships anyway.

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