After Joan ran from Thales, a familiar figure strolling down the streets caught her eye.
"Isaac!" she called out. She hadn't seen the leader of the Immortals for a while.
Isaac's head snapped up from his phone. His eyes landed on Joan, and a friendly grin spread across his face. His initially hostile demeanor eased away. After receiving Joan's help, he'd labeled her as a trustworthy person. Ever since she'd lent him the money, she'd never explicitly asked for anything in return, but Isaac didn't want to feel indebted to Rem, so he vowed to help her in whatever way he could until he could scrape up enough money to pay her back.
"Rem," he nodded as he stuffed his phone back into his back pocket. "What's up?"
Joan froze at his question. Why had she called out to him? Ordinarily, she would've walked past him, not caring about the people around her.
Joan quickly came up with a believable excuse. "I don't know how I'm supposed to unite the four gangs."
Isaac was the only one who knew about her mission. After all, having the leader of the Immortals on her side would be a great deal of help to her in her mission.
Suddenly, a familiar voice rang from behind her. "Rem, where are you? Rem!" His voice sent chills down Joan's spine as she subconsciously shrunk, desperately trying to avoid his gaze.
Isaac seemed to have noticed Thales's voice as well. "Thales?" Isaac frowned, wondering what Thales would be doing here.
"Let's move somewhere else." Joan held Isaac's wrist and dragged him away.
"Huh?" Isaac said in shock. There wasn't much he could do besides obediently follow the girl in front of him.
The two entered a crowded stationery store, and with Joan's average stature, she easily blended into the crowd. Thales, on the other hand, towered over the girls crowded around cute highlighters and sticky notes.
His height attracted multiple gazes from girls. Although he wasn't particularly attractive, his tall stature and build made up for it.
The two turned to browse the shelves as they chatted casually.
"You're still trying to unite the gangs?"
"Yeah," Joan nodded. "But I don't know where to start," she confessed. She never would've imagined she'd be openly admitting her weaknesses. King had always instructed her not to, and it had been drilled into her head for years. And yet, she found herself spilling her concerns to Isaac.
Isaac rubbed the back of his neck. "Rem, I support you. But… it's complicated."
"I know," Joan nodded. If it were up to her, she wouldn't be giving two shits about high school 'gangs', but the mission from PK was putting her in an awkward spot.
If she wanted to survive, she'd have to complete the mission. She didn't doubt PK's capabilities. If it wanted to, it'd easily be able to kill her.
Isaac hesitated as he flipped through the pages of a pastel pink notebook. "Do you know why the gangs were created?"
Joan cocked her head to the side. She didn't want to admit it, but she had no clue. Was it to feed the shallow egos of teenagers? "No."
Isaac snapped the notebook shut and put it back. "They were formed in response to the Eagles." Isaac noticed the furrow of Joan's brows from the corner of his eye and sighed. "The Eagles were and have always been a violent group."
"Isn't that all of the gangs?"
"It was the Eagles first. They… They've been involved in drugs and arms since day one. And, around her, no one gives a shit about what kids do." Isaac helplessly shook his head at the thought of the useless adults. "Everyone's got their own problems. So without anyone stopping them, the Eagles grew disproportionately, and they started picking on whoever they felt like it." Isaac gritted his teeth as he hesitantly said, "It was violent."
Nightmarish memories of his old friends' mutilated faces flashed before his eyes, and he cringed at the horrible imagery.
Joan could begin to see where this was going. "So students formed packs."
"Yeah. Stronger in number, right?" Isaac humorlessly chuckled. "It doesn't solve the issue, but it keeps the Eagles in check."
This was more complicated than Joan thought. Not only would she have to unite the gangs, but she'd also have to find a way to fix the root of the problem—drug and arms trafficking.
"Don't get me wrong, Rem. I'll try to help you. But…it'll be a fucking miracle if you can pull it off."
Joan nodded. She was used to pulling off miracles. After all, her mere existence as a superhuman was a miracle in itself—something so unprecedented that it caught the rest of the world completely off guard.
Ever since she'd come back to the past, things had become so chaotic that Joan had nearly forgotten why she'd go back in the first place: to kill Navier. The thought stirred something in Joan, a sense of undeniable discomfort, but Joan shoved it to the back of her head. She couldn't let her pity for a seemingly harmless boy get in the way of her mission.
Joan suddenly thought about what the boy who'd come looking for Amarya had told her: "We're both in the Eagles."
Although Joan didn't believe him, she had to check if Amarya was apart of the Eagles. And if she was, Joan could use that as a gateway into the exclusive gang.
"Bye," Joan said as she spun on her heels and quickly strode out of the stationery shop.
"Huh?" Isaac looked at her retreating figure incredulously. No matter how much time he spent around the girl, he couldn't get used to not being able to read her expressionless face. It was hard to predict what she was going to do next.
Isaac shrugged it off. There was no stopping Rem, and although he'd expressed his support of her goal, he wasn't particularly interested in actively helping her. Unless she asked him to do something, he had no reason to make the first move and endanger his gang, especially when the Eagles had their hands on something so dangerous such as the electron gun.
"Oh, this is pretty nifty," Isaac muttered to himself as he examined rabbit-shaped sticky notes.