[X] Meet up with Ren and Nora at a fast food restaurant, in a small shopping district.
Yang muttered to herself as she wrote her essay for the school assignment, flicking back and forth between an email from Two containing a link to a report that had been prepared regarding Pacts based on the Undine and the girl, and her own little essay using it, and some others, as the basis.
She had a lot of information from that one journal article that had been published, but Yang needed more sources, so she ended up using very little of the information in it. Rather, she used the basic framework that had been reported, and then had to cross reference with other studies on souls to explain the process.
It was a surprisingly simple concept, at least in execution, though the mechanics behind it that explained why made Yang's head spin a bit. A Pact was formed when a human and a non-human fused their souls together, which required both parties to accept the Pact in order to properly ensure the souls are fused. The process causes the two of them to form together to form a single soul, which somehow existed in two bodies at once...
...Somehow...
...And the process of creating the Pact had the side effect of restoring both parties to perfect health in the process. Apparently, the Undine had formed its Pact with the girl while she was injured and the girl was starving, or something. The exact details, Two hadn't shared, and Yang hadn't asked. She... Preferred not to think about it too hard.
Maybe Yang could cut down on how much animababble she'd need to do if she took into account why the process was so rare. She'd looked into non-humans a bit more recently to determine why they were so much rarer, and found a lot of interesting information there.
It was on record that they did exist, sometimes in numbers. It's just that most non-humans were territorial or otherwise unable to co-exist with humanity in numbers, so either they lived in hiding somewhere that would be too dangerous to get to, like the bottom of a deep sea chasm, or the areas they live are outside the reach of humanity.
There were ones encountered now and then, rarely. The Cerberus' near Atlas, and Wyverns occasionally passed a Kingdom while migrating, but were usually high up enough that they either go unseen or were mistaken for some form of Grimm.
So she could totally include a section in her essay about why Pacts were so rare, and what kind of circumstances would be needed to create the circumstances where a Pact was made.
Considering how poorly known the concept was, the odds of someone running off to find a monster to make a Pact with was practically zero, especially considering they'd need to know where to look, and need to find a creature that knew how a Pact was formed. And then the Pact Beast needed to have a motive for creating the Pact in the first place, which required it to be injured or dying or something.
And then there was the cost. The human party in the Pact did get something out of it, some sort of magic power, but had something taken from them. Which was apparently relating to something in the process that the report compared to Soul Crippling, the process in which the soul is permanently damaged in a manner that caused the body to fail in some way.
Yang should try and look around for some more comparisons. Was it because the fusion of the souls required breaking part of the human soul to properly give the non-human soul space to integrate itself for the fusion, or was it because part of the soul was re-purposed to keep up a link with the non-human entity?
...She better get a good mark on this essay, she was getting a headache just thinking about putting in hard work.
She looked out the window to see the sun shining in the sky, and took a moment to contemplate what a great day it was outside.
...Forget it, she wasn't going to sit inside right now. Even if she'd been trying to keep her Aura higher in case Four wanted her to drop by and help with anything, she still needed to drop by the gym or something now and again so she could work on that.
Maybe she should see if Ren and Nora were doing anything, actually. She hadn't talked with them in a while, and never anything for too long. It might be fun to run by and get a pizza with them. And then maybe spar with them for a bit or something.
Quickly texting her dad and Ruby to let them know she was going out for a bit, Yang waited until she got confirmation from both, and then called Ren's number.
Standing in the pizza place, Yang looked across the road towards the weapons shop for a moment, noting for a moment how this place had basically everything. Pizza shop, sweets shop, weapon shop, beauty parlour...
Well, she was glad the place was out of the way a bit, because she got to enjoy it without having to walk through swarms of people. There were very few people, actually. There was a youngish Lion Faunus looking at the beauty parlour in contemplation, but apart from that, everyone was very obviously either heading towards a store or just walking though the street.
Well, except Yang. She was also just waiting out the front of the pizza place, standing around for Ren and Nora to arrive. They said they were free, and Nora needed to pick something out from the weapon shop anyway or something, so they would be dropping by already.
Yang looked around for a moment, before looking around and just watching the people walking back and forth.
There was a trio of three girls in black, white and grey walking down the street, heading for the weapon shop with purses at their side. Walking the other way, leaving the area apparently, was a tall man who looked towards the sweets shop but seemed to consider otherwise. A woman in a cloak made of feathers headed towards a clothes store nearby, and a girl with green hair exited that same building alongside a woman wearing red, looking uncomfortable in the fancy clothes she was wearing.
Yang turned her head to the left to keep watching people, and suddenly a paleish blue eye filled her vision.
"Gah!" Yang cried out, taking a step back as Nora suddenly grabbed her arm.
"Yang!" She declared. "It's been too long! I haven't seen you in, like, one million years!"
"More like one million seconds." Ren replied, pulling Nora away.
Nora looked at him. "You counted?"
"No."
Nora looked shocked. "Ren! You can't just lie like that! A pure, innocent, naive but beautiful maiden such as I could be mislead by your lying words, you snake!"
Ren nodded, and stopped paying attention. "Yang, nice to see you."
"Good to see you two too." Yang replied. "Up for some pizza?"
"Sure." Ren replied. "What do you like?"
"Pineapple!" Declared Nora.
Yang nodded in agreement, and Ren took a moment to look at the two and sighed, reflecting that, while his opinions on pineapple pizza were wrong and stupid, he was smart enough to shut up about it.
"Mushroom?" Ren asked.
"I'm fine with that." Yang agreed.
Nora took a moment to consider. "...No capsicum. Not a fan."
"Nora I." Yang replied.
"No, I'm Nor..." The orange haired woman trailed off. "...Was that meant to be a pun?"
"Yep."
"Aha!" Nora declared. "D'you see that, Ren? I identified the pun this time! I'm improving."
"Good for you." Ren confirmed. "Shall we order, then?"
Yang nodded." Let's go get pizza."
She pushed the door open, and the three of them walked in, heading straight to the blonde boy standing at the cashier.
He stared straight ahead, his eyes dead, as he spoke in a monotone.
"Welcome to The Coire Ansic." The boy said. "May I take your order?"
Nora leaned over. "Ren, I think they're using zombies to feed us pizzas."
"Do you really care who gives you food?" Ren asked, speaking normally.
Nora kept whispering. "No. But zombies."
"I assure you I'm not a zombie." The blonde boy said.
"Oh yeah?" Nora asked. "What's your name then, not zombie!"
"Jau-"
He paused, turned back to a door marked staff only, and sighed. "Can I take your order please?"
"Three pizza's." Yang requested.
"Four!" Nora insisted.
"The Ultimate Supreme Experience with no capsicum, extra pineapple on two, none on one, and extra meat on everything." Ren requested.
The blonde boy wrote this down on a notepad quickly. "Order taken. That'll be thirty dollars."
Yang swiped her scroll and paid for the pizza.
"Thank you for your service." The boy said. "Please take a seat, your food will be ready shortly."
Yang nodded, and went out to pick a seat. She sat on one side of a table, and Ren and Nora sat on the other.
"So, how have you to been?" Yang asked. "Are you out of the denial stage yet?"
"Denial?" Nora asked.
Ren whispered something in her ear, and Nora went bright red.
"I-I'm not in denial!" She insisted." There's no romance here! Only friendship. Not every relationship between a boy and a girl has to feature romantic attraction!"
"Not every one." Yang nodded. "But you two-"
"-Are one of the ones with no romance!" Nora insisted." We've covered this Yang. Try to keep up."
Yang nodded. "Uh huh. Sure."
Nora sputtered, and Ren decided he had gotten enough entertainment to change the subject.
"There was an event recently, in case you didn't know." Ren said. "A few of the Beacon teachers were willing to give people an idea of what kind of performance you need to get into Beacon without going through the school system, and we did that for a bit."
"How'd it go?" Yang asked.
"They broke my baby!" Nora cried, grabbing Yang by the collar. "My precious Magnhild! I hit the twitchy small hamster teacher and it broke on his face!"
"Ah." Yang winced. "My... Condolences?"
"She's been like this all week." Ren noted. "She'll be really sad for five minutes, then its back to normal."
"I had to give my Magnhild to the people at the weapon shop." Nora weeped. "A-And they said they needed to have a look to work out the mechanics of it before they repaired it. My poor baby, in the hands of those cruel, uncaring weaponsmiths, no emotion or passion put into the craft as they tear her apart to see how she works..."
"There there." Ren said, patting her on the back.
Yang looked over to the weapon shop. "That one there?"
Nora nodded. "Yeah. That one. With all the suspicious masked people inside."
Yang looked over to the kitchen of the pizzeria. "When are they going to-"
She paused, and looked back towards the weapon shop, looking inside to see the girl in a mask in the window, holding a sword of some sort openly.
"...There's a robbery over there, isn't there?" Nora asked, also watching.
Yang didn't wait for an answer as she suddenly stood, heading for the door. Ember Celica unfolded around her hands as she ran out the door, heading towards the weapon shop.
As she crossed the street, she saw a glint of light reflecting off steel out of the corner of her eyes, and jumped to the side as the two balls attached over a chain caught around on of her legs and wrapped around it. One of the balls wrapped around and struck her other leg, hitting at her Aura , before the two balls suddenly unfolded and returned to the source.
Walking towards Yang was a teenage boy with a lion's mane, a Grimm-like mask covering his face.
White Fang.
"Stay out of this." The boy said. "Nobody needs to be hurt if you just-"
Yang shot him in the face, and he threw the chain-and-ball weapon, the Bolas, once again. Yang caught the weapon in the air, spun around to let it keep its momentum, and fired back as she threw it forward. The weapon wrapped around the boy, who gestured towards them to have the two stop before they could wrap around him.
It was still enough time for Yang to reach melee range, and slam the lion Faunus' head into the ground while firing Ember Celica to knock him down faster. He cried out as his Aura strained, and Yang held him down for a moment.
"Didja get started without me?" Nora asked from behind Yang. "...Oh, I don't have Magnhild. Hey, can I keep this one busy at least?"
"Sure." Yang replied, and Nora stepped forward to pin down the lion Faunus.
Ren and Yang looked at each other for a moment, as Ren got out his guns.
"You first?" He asked.
"Stay back here." Yang replied. "Shoot if it looks like someone' getting away, or if I'm in trouble."
Before Ren could reply, Yang rushed forward again, stepping into the store.
There were four people in the shop, all teenager girls. Two of them were in the back, looking through different dust supplies, while the other two stood near the shopkeeper, the old man sitting without any reaction to the gun and sword pointed at him.
The door alarm chirped as Yang walked through, and everyone turned to her.
The girl with the red sword, and cat ears on her head, reacted first.
"You have one warning." She said, turning her head so that Yang could see the burn scars covering the right side of her face. "Leave."
"Or what?" Yang asked.
The girl lowered the sword from the shopkeepers neck, and walked towards Yang.
"Or we'll reach an ending neither of us wants."
Yang looked into the eyes of the mask, and the White Fang girl looked back.
There was no way she was backing out. She'd faced down worse than four girls her age, and she needed to be stronger anyway, so a test of her abilities wouldn't be a bad thing.
Looking at the terrorist, Yang took a moment to consider her next move.
[X] All out assault, immediately. Try to take down as many people as soon as possible. Fight them all. Win. It's not like it'd be too hard.
[X] ...She's not going to be able to talk them down, but maybe she could try distracting them by asking why they joined the White Fang.
[X] Pretend to leave, then jump through the window to ambush them. Which they might suspect, but if she tells Ren to shoot at them first...