Annabelle Wolfe worked in the shadows. She moved behind the glow of the spotlight, and if she did her job right, nobody ever knew she was there. As such, bright lights had a tendency to make her feel out of place. Yet as she approached the Lancom Arcade, the flashing bulbs only served to fill her with excitement. She always felt at home here. It was strange really, considering the number of people, but she couldn't help but smile when she stepped through those doors. It was crowded and bright, the kind of place Anna  usually despised. But it was also full of machines. There were newer consoles lined up along the walls, usually surrounded by teenagers. Those were okay, she supposed. She'd taken apart and rebuilt every one of the systems lined up there (although not those specific ones of course, she was no vandal) and they had been quite interesting to look at. She'd watch the teenagers sometimes too. They were loud and passionate, reacting with great emotion to every small change in their situation. As for the games they played, however, they weren't nearly as interesting to Anna. There were some good ones of course, but she'd found that a lot of the newer games involved less strategy and more button-mashing.

The older arcade machines, the ones she truly loved, were further inside. It was for these that she risked pushing through the crowds despite her social anxiety. Not that she really had anything to worry about. Nobody noticed the slim girl in the black jacket as she slipped past them. This was Anna's superpower. If she didn't want to be seen, she wouldn't be. Actually, even if she did want to be seen, she probably wouldn't be. Her uncanny ability to blend into the crowd wasn't exactly something she could switch on and off. As she walked, she felt invisible. [i]Good[/i], she thought. [i]They don't see me[/i]. She kept walking, past the card players and several other gamers, too enraptured in their activities to observe anything in the world around them. As soon as she came to the arcade section, she let out a sigh of relief. It must have been a slow day. This area of the place was empty.

Anna scanned the rows of games, wondering which she should begin with. She'd mastered all of them at one point or another. Though she was not great at the newer games, these she knew well. The initials “AJW” Could be seen scrolling across the high score screens as the machines awaited their quarters. Anna reached into her pocket. How many did she have? Seven. She'd blow through them quickly if she wasn't careful, and she had an entire afternoon of time to kill. She paced up and down the isles for a couple of minutes, alone in her thoughts. As she passed by each console, she thought about patterns that came up during the different levels, about how much time she could spend before using another of her quarters, about how the insides of those machines must have looked... she'd never had the privilege of tearing one of those apart. As far as personal use went, they were WAY too expensive. Still, as she thought about disassembling them, her hand instinctively went to the pocket where she kept her knife.

She stopped, looking over the nearest console- StreetBrawler Delta 3. A fighting game. She's played this many times before, clearing the easier difficulties with all of the characters, and some of the harder ones with a select few. Yes, this one would do nicely. She could get lost in all of the different combinations of attacks, spending hours here on this one machine. And it wouldn't make her pay to keep playing unless she lost-which almost never happened. Besides, she liked fighting games. The distinct styles and precise movements reminded her of the choreographed sparring she'd found so fascinating in college. She approached the console. There were two sets of controls, as with most fighting games, but Annabelle could only choose one. She liked seeing the fight through different sides, and never picked the same one twice in a row. Last time she had chosen the place of player two, so this time she went with player one. Dropping her quarter in the machine, she set it to one of the higher difficulties, selected her favorite character, and began racking up KOs.