"The kid's name is Mac," Taiyang informed his daughter as they made the hike from their little home in the woods of Patch to Signal Academy. The trip brought back memories of better times, when Yang had been a student there just a couple years ago. When Yang still had her arms and her sister. "That's it?" she responded, curious. "Just Mac? No last name?" Her dad nodded back at her. "Yeah. It's not my story to tell, though. Try not to bring it up. It... it's not happy." Yang grunted an affirmative. She knew all about not wanting to talk about things. She'd tried to talk to people and they'd just hurt her in reply. She'd gotten sick of it, and she could see someone else feeling the same way. Mac wouldn't have to worry about telling his story so long as he didn't badger Yang about the Vytal festival.

The rest of the hike passed in comfortable silence, the winter air feeling nice against Yang's skin. She didn't need a jacket like her dad; her Semblance kept her warm inside and out, like always. It'd been an adventure when she'd first discovered it, trying to regulate her own temperature. That's why she started wearing all those revealing clothes; it hadn't been about looking good, at first. She needed to keep cool. Now, she probably could go back to dressing conservatively, but it just felt too good turning all the guys' heads walking down the street. The thought brought a grin to her face; at least those guys were too busy looking at her chest to bug her about her arm.

The pair of blondes walked through the doors of Signal. It was Saturday, but they'd arranged to meet Mac in the gym here. The kid was dedicated, if the sound of fists against sandbags was anything to judge by. The impacts echoed down the hall as they approached the appointed room, and Tai had opened the door and strode inside without hesitation.

Yang's first thought was that this kid was short. Like, he was a tiny bit shorter than Ruby. He had the muscle definition of someone who'd been boxing for a little while. Not completely untrained, or at least, not completely inexperienced. Still, he looked self-taught. His stance was sloppy, his punches had a lot of excess motion, and he wasn't throwing his weight behind the hits, using just the strength of his arms. Yang was jolted out of her observation by her dad's cry of "Hey! Mac! I have someone for you to meet!"

The kid stopped assaulting the sandbag to turn, and Yang finally stopped looking at his stance and arms to notice something else; his hoodie was neon pink. It seemed completely incongruous, and it reminded her of Ren and his mysterious pink hair streak. She had to fight a chuckle as the kid walked over, trying his hardest to look her in the eye despite his head being right at her chest level. The kid's distraction amused her, but his dedication to not openly staring at her chest impressed her a little. More mature than most people his age, then. "Yo. Name's Mac. Are you..." The kid trailed off, unsure of where to go. He didn't want to say that he knew her from TV; the Vytal festival had been a fiasco in multiple ways. He didn't want to bring up the arm, either. Thankfully, the blonde girl saved him from the looming silence with a "Yep. I'm Yang Xiao Long."

For her part, Yang waited for the questions. The "what happened at the festival?" The "Are you OK?" The "What happened to your arm?" Even "Can you even fight?" Not a single one of those came. Mac just nodded and held out his hand. His left hand. The one she could actually shake. He didn't comment on the gesture, make a show of it, or anything stupid like that. Just a simple greeting. Thank Oum. She took the kid's hand and shook, a grin on her face. "So, Mac, Dad told me you wanted to learn how to punch monsters in the face." The kid shuffled his feet and blushed a bit. "Yeah. It's... something I've wanted to do for a while. I know most people use weapons but it's just this idea I can't get out of my head, like this is the way that I would fight. Mr. Xaio-Long said that was important, that self-expression was part of what Hunters were all about, since we fight with our souls." The teacher in question shot back a thumbs-up from where he was checking the floor and back wall of the arena, foreseeing an imminent need for that particular section of the gym. Yang snorted at her father and laughed. "Yeah. That sounds like Dad. Grew up hearing the same thing. It's true, though. Aura and Semblance are you, on the deepest level. Everything you are and will be, versus the monsters hiding in the woods. So yeah, fighting the way that feels right to you is important. C'mon."

The girl led Mac over to the Arena, which Tai had deemed fit for use apparently as he stood in the corner. Yang pulled out her scroll, setting it on a bench and synching it to the Aura monitors before putting it back in her pocket. Using the damn thing with one hand was infuriating; Mac was finished a solid five seconds before her, obviously putting two and two together and, perhaps more impressively, keeping any concerns about Yang fighting one-handed to himself. "Hey, Mac, you got a weapon?" Yang called over to him, Ember Celica engaged on her left hand. The other gauntlet was collapsed and lying in the drawer by her bed. She couldn't bring herself to get rid of it. The kid shook his head. "Didn't think I'd need it today."

Yang shook her head and disengaged her weapon, the shotgun gauntlet returning to the form of a simple gold bracelet. "Always bring your weapon with you. You're a hand to hand fighter, so you're always armed to some degree, but once you get to the point where you're used to fighting with your weapon, you'll mess yourself up trying to correct for the lighter weight on your arm. Try to get it to mechashift into a bracer or something, so you don't have to use it whenever you need to punch someone to have the weight there." She took her normal stance, the hole in the right side of her guard something that couldn't be helped, given her current state. "Show me what'cha got, Little Mac."

Yang could give the kid this; he was a fast one. He'd crossed the distance quicker than she could've, but all the problems he'd had with the sandbag were still there. His punches were sloppy, his stance was weak, and he wasn't throwing anywhere near as much force as he was capable of into his hits. She bobbed out of the way of anything he sent at the perceived weakness in her defense, blocking hits targeted at her left side with ease. Kid had talent, sure, but she was three years or so of training ahead of him, one of those years interspersed with bits of actual combat experience. "Alright, Mac. Lesson one; stance is everything. Your feet are moving, and that's good, but they need to stop when you use your arms." She demonstrated for him, making a point of keeping on the move until the second she needed to block something, then rooting herself like a tree and sending the force through her arm and torso down into her legs and the ground, siphoning some of it off with every strike to feed to the fire in her soul. "We're responsible for fighting monsters that are bigger and stronger than we are. We need to use our heads to make up the difference. It doesn't matter how much force you're using if it all goes into the ground." Yang smirked as realization dawned on the kid's face. People thought she was dumb and violent, the downsides of being a hand-to-hand fighter and a blonde, but she had studied and practiced her style for a while, and she was really quite intelligent when it came to the physics of punching an Ursa into another Ursa.

Without warning, Yang began her counteroffensive, testing Mac's defense with some light jabs. "You're fast, but you need more than that. You need accuracy and power, too. Can't just have one or two of these things, not when you have to fight the Grimm. You need to hit fast, hit hard, and do it exactly right. Mess up in a spar, you sprain your wrist and have to go to the nurse, but mess up in real life and that sprained wrist will get you eaten." The kid didn't reply; he was concentrating on defense, now. With one arm, Yang had to push herself to maintain an appropriate attacking speed, but the fact that she wasn't committing to any one blow made it easier. They were probes, testing the kid's defense. It was really dodge-heavy compared to how Yang liked to work; he didn't try to block much at all. "The good news is, you get to be a total badass once you get it down. Like this." Mac's eyes widened as Yang maneuvered him into blocking a torso shot and put her Aura, her Semblance, and all of her weight into it, sending the kid skidding across the floor and pushing his aura down 20% in that one solid connection, her eyes flashing red and her hair a wave of fire cascading behind her before she relaxed the effort and deactivated her Semblance.

Yang held up her hand to call the spar, then pulled Mac from the ground. "Wow," the kid said. "You're gonna teach me how to throw a punch like that?" Yang smiled sadly. "Nah. I think you're gonna end up punching things better than that. My weight distribution's off, not to mention I'm way lighter now and I can't follow any of the real solid hits up any more." Mac's eyes flickered to the tied-off sleeve of Yang's shirt. "Yeah," Yang patted him on the head, making him stumble back and blush. "That's why, kid. I'll eventually correct for it, but I won't ever be as good as I was, not even with one of those Atlas prosthetics. I wouldn't be able to use my Semblance on it like I did at the end there." She shrugged. "It's a thing. It sucks, but I'll live."

Mac nodded, unsure of what to say. Taiyang came to the rescue, breaking the silence. "Well, that was entertaining. What do you guys say we go grab lunch and set up you two's training schedule?" Yang and Mac looked over to Taiyang and both nodded; Mac because he was hungry and Yang because just standing around here was going to get frustrating real fast. The three exited Signal in search of hot dogs, discussing what times worked best for Mac and Yang, and what exactly they needed to work on. Yang felt a little better while they were doing it. Not really good, but definitely not as depressed as she'd been yesterday. Sitting around and moping in bed didn't solve anything. Now, she'd actually be able to do something.