Metal and lightning

Tatsuma had been away when he had caught wind of a particular mage that he was told he had to meet. She was in her twenties, but that didn't stop him from at least trying to see if she would be interested.  Besides that maybe she would be a good combatant and he could spar with her. Nevertheless his main focus was the former rather than the latter. He hadn't gotten any play since he had joined Fairy Tail... actually he hadn't exactly gotten a lot in the first place. Actually to date he was batting exactly one and that had mostly been a misunderstanding where he had wanted more than her.

Despite this he was charging through the halls just like he always did, black haori trailing behind him, black hakama pants swishing as he ran, and his eyes were narrowed as he bolted as fast as he could, even going so far as to bank corners by jumping and kicking off of the walls, and getting around people by jumping over them (which wasn't exactly winning him any favors).

When he burst into the guild hall, having taken as direct a route as he could from the front gate of the city to the main hall, then running all the way to the courtyard he finally stopped when he saw her. She was fairly petite, about 5'6" or 5'7". Her glasses sat on her face in a way that, while tomboyish, was still kind of cute in its own right, and she wore pretty normal clothing. All in all she made the list and he approached slowly, thinking about what to say before finally deciding to just wing it.

"Hi! So you must be the mechanic girl I've heard so much about. You're kinda cu- I mean.. I'm Tatsuma what's your name. Maybe you could show me around? " He had almost forgotten what he had been learning about social etiquette though remembered just in time to cut himself off and switch to a more formal introduction. Despite his bumbling though, he never blushed.

It was good to be back. It had been a long while since she was last at the guild hall or in Magnolia at all. Nessa had only lived there since the end of the war, but it had been long enough t get used to it. It was the place she called home now and it was always nice to come back to it at some point. That said, she hadn't been out on some kind of dangerous mission or anything. Actually, she had spent most of her time at grandpa's shop in Kunugi; or traveling between there and Oshibana town.

They had, as usual, been working on the trains. Installing and testing upgrades on the older models. It was life as usual really. And the gal got to spend plenty of time with her family, doing the things they all shared a passion for. Still, after a reminder of what the slow, small village life had to offer, Nessa was happy to find herself back in the ever-pleasantly chaotic Fairy Tail guild hall.

Chatting with some of the usual characters found at the hall, the girl hadn't paid much heed to the kid that suddenly approached her. She jumped in surprise actually, at the sudden realization that he was in fact, talking to her. Despite being undoubtedly taller than her, the guy's features clearly showed his age. Not to mention she'd missed half of what he said due to being so suddenly interrupted from her previous conversation.

"Wait what?" This Tatsuma guy, he'd shown up out of nowhere and suddenly words. Nessa first reaction was to look around the group of people she was with; a puzzled look on her face. That was when one of the guys pointed out the kid was new around these parts.

"OHH-!" The acknowledgement of the older man's explanation led directly into "...guess that explains the weird get up." This was a rather open statement, pointing out the boy's odd choice of clothing for the area.

"I'm Nessa by the way." The gal quickly added, realizing her comment was probably not the best first impression. "You been here long?"

He was taken aback at first. How the hell was hit get up weird? In addition he had been so focused on her after his trek he hadn't even noticed the group of people.
"No I almost literally just joined about a month ago... How is my 'get up' weird? I walk out of here seeing people in capes. How are capes weirder than my-... Nice to meet you." He said, switching between different levels of perplexity thanks to her comment. Still he was around these others too so he decided it would be best not to act too familiar.

"How long have you been here? I had only recently heard something about you, but wanted to meet you since you sounded strong and fun to be around." He added, watching her face for reaction and trying to keep his eyes from darting to her chest. It was pretty much a valley, but he hadn't ever complained about that before, still he thought it pertinent not to say anything about it, even though the reaction might be hilarious.

His mind left his less pure thoughts to wonder about something more practical. What was her magic. From the little he had heard about her he hadn't exactly gotten any information pertaining to what she specialized in. It didn't seem very tactful to just ask her what it was without learning more about her in the first place.

"Strong and fun eh?" The young lady echoed rhetorically. Surely there was something more than that. It wasn't like people went around talking about her in a way that made her sound like either of those things. At least not to anyone that wasn't in the demolition business; and this kid certainly didn't look the part.

"Yup, that's me. What can I say, I'm just so interesting." This had to be some kind of set up, but the gal decided to roll with it; at least for the time being. She had even gone as far as to adjust her glasses with a coy expression on her face. Then again, the boy did seem innocent enough; perhaps Nessa was looking for a conspiracy where there was none. For all she knew he was just having some difficulties with his car and her name had simply come up. Yes, that had to be it.

He had referred to her as the 'mechanic girl' just a moment ago anyway. Maybe he was just trying to establish some friendly conversation to get a good deal? Perhaps just trying to avoid being rude by asking for mech work without even introducing himself? If so, he clearly hadn't heard enough.

"Don't worry kid." The girl began, patting the boy on the shoulder as a sign of good faith. She couldn't possibly be wrong about something like this. "I normally do guildies for free."

"Don't worry I normally do guildies for free?" He honestly had no idea what a mechanic actually did. Based on the last thing she had said he could assume they worked out in the red light district. "Mechanic", he tried breaking down the words, mech usually implied that there were machines involved, he learned that when he had first started learning how to read and write, but he wasn't quite sure what they did.

After thinking it over for a bit he finally spoke up.
"How many guildies have you done?" He whispered, knowing full well it was usually considered rude to ask a working girl her percentage, but was too curious to care.
"And where would you do me? Do you have a room?" He asked in addition, not really wanting a working girl, "guildie" or not, to know exactly where he lived since he was never sure what was and wasn't legal. Then again if she didn't have a room or something he would be more than happy to go someplace romantic. Did working girls care about romance? His only experience with prostitution had been when passing through a town and for the most part those girls really hadn't been his type, they were unfamiliar and seemed pretty fragile. Thanks to that he had turned them down, but they would be experienced, and think of all he could learn from them!

With a mental nod, he was resolved now, but he wouldn't let her "do" him for free, he was going to pay for it like a normal customer.
"It's okay you don't have to treat me special, I can pay you! It's the least I could do." He said blushing slightly and bowing.

WRENCH TO THE FACE! No warning, no telltale signs, just pure iron. Such unnecessarily large tool looked as if it only had one purpose for existing and it never failed to deliver. Seemingly appearing from nowhere, the massive object planted itself deep into the boy's face at inhuman velocity and it burned with the flames of righteous female rage.

Nessa's scowl had grown deadlier with every word that left the kid's mouth, but he had apparently been too caught up in his little delusion to notice. The strike would cause his last sentence to be cut short with the secondary effect of making everyone who had been mildly paying attention to jump back in surprise; unable to hide the shock on their faces.

That wasn't quite enough though. The gal felt she needed to drive the point home, and what better way to do it than by stuffing the over-sized tool down the guy's throat. After a few moments of jamming it in as far as she could, the girl stormed away in the direction of the door. "This conversation's over."

He had been conversing with her one second and trying to sort out what exactly the specifics to her arrangement were when he was cut short by a wrench suddenly striking him in the face, what's more was that she was trying to shove it down his throat, and when she finished, he was left wondering what exactly in the hell just happened. Obviously he had said something wrong. Was it something he had been been saying in front of all the people?

After he recovered from the wrench incident he took off running after her, trying to get answers on exactly what her problem was... or at least what her job was.
"WAIT! WHAT DID I DO? WHAT DO YOU DO THEN!?!?!?" He shouted, picking up his pace and charging forward, ignoring her statement about the conversation being over. If a mechanic wasn't some kind of prostitute of some kind he wanted to know what it was at the very least. He considered using his magic to catch up with her, but the chase excited some primal part of him which he fed off of as he ran. It almost felt like he was on the trail of something in the forest, that aside she had him more interested now. She apparently had a violent streak and that made her even more interesting.

The kid was loud and recovered quickly. Even as she walked out of the building, Nessa could hear him coming after her. 'What a pain'. He was one of those guys. If she ever found out who sent him in her direction heads would roll. She came to a dead stop however, as he quickly closed the distance between them. There was no helping it, she would have to deal this guy first.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" The young gal began, a sigh of exasperation escaping her chest while she gathered her words. Suddenly, her demeanor changed and a 'proper' introduction was at hand. There was no longer anger, but a proud, self assured chuckle. Adjusting her glasses so that the sun would glint off them dramatically the girl began.

"I am the great Nessa Fylan! Fairy Tail's master engineer...!" As she spoke, the woman rose a wrench to the air with passionate form, before lowering it to point directly at the boy who had insulted her moments before. "The machines I cannot build are next to none!"

"As are the things you don't blow up." A fellow mage casually added as he walked by; rather unimpressed by the dynamic intro.

"Silence!" She countered with the same energy as before, throwing her signature tool at the man. Given no time to react, he was facewrenched with deadly accuracy... and a loud ding.

The girl got insulting fairly quickly, but just as fast as she had gotten angry her tone actually changed. So her name was Nessa Fylan? Master engineer? He wasn't entirely sure what that was. Was it the same thing as a mechanic? She built machines after all according to what she just said.

As she finished her speech a passing mage muttered something about her blowing things up, it was at that very moment that he knew the poor guy was probably going to get hit with the wrench, and she didn't disappoint. This time it went flying at the guy and Tatsu winced for he knew the wrath of that wrench. Shaking his head he moved just a little bit closer.
"Soooo engineer isn't a job I'm familiar with. You build machines? What kinds of machines? I honestly haven't learned everything that society has to offer since I haven't been living in towns and stuff. I've been reading the dictionary though!" He said with a fairly wide grin, almost as if he had forgotten about the wrench incident earlier, though the fact he was keeping a bit of a distance from her indicated that he actually hadn't.

He had no idea why she was using a wrench to assault people, but surely there was something illegal about it, not that it mattered since he had absolutely no room to speak about things being illegal or not.
"Can you build mechanical girls that look, act, and feel like real girls?!?" He asked excitedly.

Face-palm. 'This guy...' So from his story he sounded like some kind of feral kid. Someone who, by all means and purposes had lived under and been raised by a rock.

"Why...?" She grimaced to herself with the dictionary comment. Before she could even comment on that though, he'd gone and done it again. Lucky for him, the massive wrench he'd left inside the building would once more find its way to the back of his head. One could call it divine punishment, others would even dare call it 'irony' and chuckle a bit. But whatever it was, it was for great justice.

"Pervert..." Nessa countered the boy's final question with a clear scowl on her face. "The machines I build are made to do great things and be helpful to society. They're not made for some weirdo's fantasies." Collecting her 'deadly weapons' as she spoke, the gal pointed one of her tools accusingly at the young man.

Tatsuma rubbed the back of his head tenderly as another wrench hit him once again. He was going to end up with brain damage if this kept up.
"It was a joke. You said the machines you couldn't build were next to none and I challenged that. And I read the dictionary so I can learn about all the things I don't know about, but I'm taking it one day at a time. Plus I have my own skills even though they don't include wrenches! Speaking of which, where are you getting those from?" He said to her. He was beginning to wonder why anyone spoke so highly of her. Thus far she was just some violent flat chested girl with no control of her temper. Actually the last part reminded him a bit of himself.

"Sooo where exactly do you work. I was only told a little bit about you and no one said anything about random violent outbursts. I'm guessing there's more to you than just randomly hitting people." He said, inhaling through his knows and smelling her bioelectricity. It was metallic, almost copper like.
" and if I keep talking to you are you going to keep hitting me with that? because it's getting old." He stated flatly.

"You silly, little man..." The young lady mocked as if unfazed by the boy's words. In fact, the small amount of glare reflecting from her glasses gave her a glint of loveable malice.
"I don't randomly hit people. It's all very deliberate and selective." Regardless, the kid was right. There was, in fact, more to our lovely heroine than simply delivering righteous female rage whenever it was required. After all, her family did have a long standing tradition of being engineers for the local railway.

"As for me, I work all over. But if I'm not here, I'm usually at gramps' shop." The vagueness wasn't particularly purposeful, but Nessa was just so used to everyone in the guild being familiar with her travels that it never occurred to her that she was describing her work to someone completely new. Of course, that meant she would never pay enough attention to correct this fault before proceeding to ask a question of her own.

"How about you?" A few of the boy's comments had struck as odd and perhaps piqued her interest at some point. "You don't look like an old hermit, how come you've been living under a rock all this time?"

Tatsu looked at the girl quizzically, shaking his head. She was clearly a few marbles short of a circle. That was fine though, he was a fan of crazy. Still she wasn't making any sense and that made talking with her pointless. Besides that, what she was talking about with her grandfather's shop (which he knew absolutely nothing about) was still something of a mystery, and one he wasn't about to spend time deciphering. It was actually a relief when she asked about him because he was just getting more and more lost.
"Actually my mom was a dragon, she raised me pretty far from any civilization and when we traveled she either carried me or I walked. When she left I was in the mountains and forests and small towns for just little bits of time, but I was learning how to read and write when I was there so I haven't had much use for machines." He explained.

Now that he said it out loud, the weight of what exactly had happened to him began to sink in. He needed to be alone, needed to think, and figure out what exactly it was that he was going to do about the situation. The two wrenches that he had caught to the face had taken away the excitement he had from meeting her. Given all of that he figured it was time to excuse himself.
"I'm sorry it's difficult to talk about, and I apparently have much more left to learn. Until next time lady." He said with a wave as he took off for the forest. At least there he would be able to clear his head, and most of the guild members didn't know about his attachment to it.


[Exit]