Pete Fitzgerald

On the surface Pete is cheery and likeable, with an air of ease around him. His clothes, too, are neat and tidy, and are of a very high quality even if there's nothing particularly eye-catching about them.
But really, it's all a ruse. After all, whenever something goes missing, everyone's eyes gravitate towards the skulking misfit that's always hiding in the shadows, or the surly ragamuffin kid. Who would suspect the man who easily fits into a group, befriending people eagerly? Surely whoever's responsible for the recent string of thieveries would hardly want to attract attention! And why would a man who's already very well-off want to lower himself to thievery?

After an incident when he was thirteen years old, Pete lost his soul and was left with nothing but an aching emptiness inside of him- something which still haunts him to this day, even if he has slowly learnt to live with it.
But because of this, he is unable to feel any emotion at all, even if he is able to mimic them perfectly and has learnt to respond to situations like anyone else.
Consequently, he has no sympathy or conscience to hold him back from doing what he does best: stealing.

His career as a thief started off at the early age of thirteen, when he first discovered a way to trespass onto other worlds. Although his first endeavour was disastrous and he was lucky to walk out of it alive, albeit without his soul, nowadays it is a well-known fact on various worlds (and criminal underworlds) that if something needs to be stolen, Gazza is the best one to hire on, even if no one knows who this Gazza fellow is or even what he/she looks like.

Any thief worth his lockpicks knows that even the best tools won't get you anywhere if you can't do a simple burglary by yourself without any equipment. Even though many years have passed since his beginnings as a self-taught street thief, he still is not above picking a pocket or the like to keep his skills as just as sharp as they were before he progressed to the more complicated jobs. He has still never once been caught or suspected.
One of the youngest people in the trade, Pete hasn't risen up the ranks to be the best out of sheer luck or the simple fact that he doesn't have any remorse to hold him back. He is meticulous in planning, and not even the most insignificant detail will pass him by on a job.

But perhaps one of the strangest but most useful skills he has- if you can call it one- is his ability to sense the emotions around him, or what he calls Static. Although it is another sense, separate to sight or smell or the others, he often associates an emotion with a medley of other sensory-based words, like how surprise is a peppery yellow or satisfaction is a purple velvet treacle that smells like fresh ink on paper. (In his defence, there are no adjectives for this sense of his- once there is, he'll switch over instead of muddling all the senses together). And because it's a separate sense, he isn't reliant on having to see or hear to to know when other people are around him by sensing their feelings, making it extraordinarily difficult to sneak up on him. If he knows someone well, he can also identify them by their Static just like how it's possible to tell who someone is by the sound of their footsteps.
Although it is handy in that way, it was inarguably vital for him in learning how to interact socially since he himself is incapable of emotion and empathy. It was watching other peoples' Static around him that made him able to mimic their emotions and responses to situations. Additionally, this proved to be invaluable as a confidence artist as he can easily 'read' someone and gain their trust by their instant reaction and then reacting appropriately. It is this that lets him mingle amongst his victims before and even long after the theft, sympathising and comforting the very people he has stolen from without rousing even the slightest flicker of suspicion. Even after he leaves, he is generally never considered anything more than a sympathetic man who happened to be among them at the most distressing and unfortunate time.