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While the Holiday is all about giving, you've just witnessed someone taking. In the middle of a crowded shopping mall, you just saw someone blatantly pickpocket someone else--or maybe, they tried to pickpocket you? You've got a few options--turn a blind eye, inform the victim, chase the thief--anything you feel is right. But still, you've got to do something.
Rebecca had been at the shopping mall for hours, just trying to force her way through the crowds into stores that she hoped might have just the right gift for her mom. She still was not sure what exactly it was that she was looking for, of course, but she had high hopes that she would know the right gift from the very moment she saw it. And if that was a bit of a lack of planning that she was coming to greatly regret, then well she would just have to take it as a life lesson to be more prepared in the future.
She was murmuring apologies as she slipped through a particularly busy entryway and back into the mall proper when she saw it. A girl near her age bumping into an older man. At a glance there was nothing wrong with it, and if she had seen it from any other angle maybe she would have thought nothing of it. But from this angle it was entirely too clear what had just happened. That man had just been pick-pocketed, and he'd taken that girl at face value when she'd apologized and darted off into the crowd.
Becca frowned, picking up the pace to a clearer space and then breaking into a run. "Hey!" Her lessons had drilled it into her head that this was her city to protect now, and she'd always had a strong sense of justice to begin with. There was no way she could ever allow someone this, especially not during Christmas, not when that man probably needed that money for his children or his family. Had she considered that, this thief? That she was ruining someone else's family Christmas? Evidently she had not, and Becca hated her for it on principle.
"Stop that girl! The one in orange!" People were only stopping and staring as she burst through them, not helping at all even though the criminal had broken into a run of her own. "Thief!" She ducked under outstretched arms that weren't pulled back quite in time and nearly stumbled, but she was too determined now to fail here. She had the speed and the endurance and the right of the situation, and that girl was going down if she had any say in it. She'd just have to do it all on her own, because no one was being any help at all.
The two of them ran all throughout the mall, growing nearer and nearer the larger exit doors. If it went on any further, she knew, she was going to lose her target once the chase was taken outside. She had to stop her right now. Putiing on a burst of speed that brought her into full sprint, and praying no one stepped in front of her, she reached out and snagged the end of the girl's striped scarf. "I. Said. STOP!" As the scarf unraveled, the thief threw the wallet back at her.
And then she was gone. Still angry despite the success of recovering the wallet, Becca reached down to pick it up. Could she even find the man after all of that? With a disgruntled sigh, she turned on her heel and marched back into the mall.
