A surprising encounter

Ieva put down her backpack and tilted her head left and right, joints in her neck snapping audibly. Both Hilda and Youngwoo shivered lightly, but said nothing as she quickly started moving towards the building.

"Training place is there. I'll join you in a minute." She pointed to her left, towards a large, barren place, at least 100 by 100 metres. Completely devoid of any plants or other obstacles, the deep-brown ground seemed freshly upturned.

As Ieva was moving away, Youngwoo looked at the training grounds. As him and Hilda made their way over to the border of it (also bringing her pack with them), they noticed that it had an array of small, wooden poles about 4 m tall and 30 wide, each roughly 3 metres away from each other, and they were connected with black, thin cables every 40 cm in height. Looking at his girlfriend, he saw how she shrugged, also unsure of their role. She'd never been in this place, either.

"Don't touch it." He heard Iris' voice as he wanted to grab a cable.

"Why?" He asked.

"Why what?" Hilda tilted her head, and Youngwoo immediately turned to her.

"...nothing. Just lost in thought." He shook his head hastily and turned away, hiding his hands in pockets of his pants.

"...I see." She nodded lightly, and turned in direction of the smithy.

Meanwhile, Youngwoo turned his head to Iris with asking expression. Just why wasn't he supposed to touch the cable?

"Che. Dense as usual." She scoffed at him. "A cable made in an orderly fashion like this is most definitely not for an arena. It's way too large."

"...?" He raised an eyebrow, as if asking 'so what does it do?'.

"Che." She bared her teeth momentarily, clearly annoyed, but shook her head a little and relaxed her facial expression. "It's most definitely connected to some kind of an outside system. It might be a shielding system or a way to ward off animals. I don't know everything. It might hurt or kill you is what I do know for sure."

He nodded lightly. Then, he looked towards the place behind the fence, without much focus, deciding to simply await Ieva's return. He was sure she'd be able to shed some light onto this mystery.

Meanwhile

Passing by the 4 blacksmiths under the shed and exchanging some greeting with them (mostly high fives, but one of them made a fist bump with her instead), Ieva waltz'd through the main door to the building. Immediately, she was greeted by a wave of heat that prompted her to get out of light jacket she wore.

"Jesus Christ, do you guys ever turn on AC in this place?" She asked rhetorically, seeing as 2 men that were inside turned their heads to her.

However, after a second or so of consternation, they both returned to what they were doing, one of them smashing a piece of metal on an anvil with a heavy hammer, and the other one quenching an already formed blade in water. Sound of rapid evaporation sounded in addition to steam combusting as he took the now colder piece of metal and put it carefully on the anvil. After he did that, he swiped his forehead and said:

"Hi Ieva." There was a small smirk on his dark face as he eyed her momentarily.

"Sup Raman." She said back. "Where's Holly?"

"At her station. Got some new stuff?" He asked, bringing out an electric whetstone.

"You know me." She shrugged. "Always something to tinker about."

"How're you doing, anyway?" He asked, the sword he almost finished still resting on the whetstone before he turned it on and started sharpening the blade.

"Just fine, actually. Hilda found herself a boyfriend, and he seems nice, so yeah, things are looking good for us now."

"Dragon Girl got a sidekick?" Raman laughed wholeheartedly for a moment. "Wait until the boys hear that!" He smiled widely. "Ay, Mark, you hear that?" Raman yelled towards the other man, who seemed to be completely consumed by his task of flattening the metal into an axe shape.

Suddenly, the clanging noise abated as the man put his hammer on the anvil, just next to the still red-hot metal he was forming, and looked at Raman with a little questioning look, his dirty green eyes gleaming with curiosity.

"Dragon Girl got herself a 'friend', ya get me?" He asked with a smile.

Mark seemed to take a moment to ponder on the meaning of what he just heard. Suddenly, he smiled as well, realizing what the implication was. He rose his left hand and started signing with it for a short while before he returned to his task.

"He says he's happy for her, and asks when you'll get one as well?" Raman asked in Mark's name to Ieva. Though, she was sure the second part was from Raman himself.

"I wouldn't stress about it if I were you. I got a shitload of time."

"Have it your way, princess." Raman shook his head, but his smile didn't vanish.

"You know I will." She replied with a cocky smile.

"Anyhow, we heard what happened. A horrible thing." The man's expression darkened quickly. "Are you alright there?"

She grimaced ever so much. 'When will he finally stop?' She thought, and decided to quickly end the talk:

"Don't worry about it. Anyway, I'll be going, I don't want to hold them down for too long. See ya later." She quickly walked away.

"Take care." He responded, after which he turned on the whetstone and returned to his work. Sparks quickly started filling the area around him, but Raman seemed to be completely fine going about the work in only some leather shirt and shorts. Sure enough, there were black goggles on his eyes and thick leather gloves on his hands, but his elbows, legs from knees to ankles, entire neck and large part of his face were exposed to the sparks. However, he didn't seem bothered at all whenever they struck at him.

Deciding not to ponder too much, she walked through the room, finding her way between the two men and their furnaces, and then turning into a corridor. As she passed by a few doors (all leading to different rooms of blacksmiths as well), she stopped by the final one and looked around. No, it didn't seem like anyone was around. Carefully, she knocked a few times on the door.

"Come in." A voice she just barely heard prompted Ieva to press the handle and walk inside.

The room she entered seemed similar to her own work station, albeit much smaller. There were 2 tables right next to each other by wall to the left, nearly entirely filled with different things. However, the difference was, her own tables were cluttered with a load of parts that she could use to construct machines, generators and the likes, as well as occasional weapons she would be enchanting, whereas those here were nearly entirely filled with different types of weapons, cables, and already finished generators.

The other side of the room had a large computer on a desk, a bed, and another door (which Ieva knew connected to a small separate bathroom). There were also a few books laying around, and their topics were quite... unusual for a normal person. Almost all of them treated about physics, mechanics, electricity and some similar subjects.

Opposite of the door, there was a large window, obstructed by some nice looking curtains, black in color with red and blue ornaments all over them. The floor of the room had a red carpet (or was it a covering? Ieva couldn't tell the difference), and the walls had dark color, with random strikes of blue going through them, varying in length and width a lot. Some were as thin as a hair and short like a nail, others nearly as thick as Ieva's leg, and almost double her height. The entire room was about 4 by 5 metres, but it was quite possibly a little smaller.

By the tables, in a rotating chair, sat a young girl. She was wearing magnifying spectacles (made by layering a few focusing lenses), and was looking at a generator closely, fixing some cables to it slowly. As she had finished with the one she was holding, she took off her eye-wear and looked at Ieva with a little bit annoyed expression. However, noticing who her visitor was, she suddenly jumped from her seat and lunged towards her.

"Aunt Ieva!" She sounded ecstatic. Suddenly, a cascade of questions began. "Are you alright? I heard what happened! Did they hurt you? I wanted to go check on you, but dad said not to go! Who did that to you? What about aunt Hilda and uncle Idan? Iwassoworriedaboutyouall-" Speed of her speech became so fast that she suddenly had to stop speaking altogether, instead taking a few deep breaths. A tear or two flowed from her eyes as she hugged Ieva tightly.

"I am alright, Holly." Ieva replied, forcing herself to not push the girl away. 'Good to see she's fine, at least.' She thought. Holly was quite a bit emotional more often than not, and she expressed it... a little too much, if Ieva were to be completely honest. Still, she was a cute, nice kid, and Tinkerer didn't want her to change. "Just some unsatisfied customers. Took care of them, won't see them again."

"I know! Aunt Ieva rocks!" Holly jumped with excitement. Truly, this child was... quite energetic, wasn't she?

"Hey, hey, okay okay, now let me have a good look at you..." Ieva pushed Holly away a little. Taking her hint, the girl took a step back.

She was quite tall for being only 14. She seemed to be roughly 166 cm, which put her just about 10 cm taller than Ieva. She had a very slender body type (she looked anorectic to be honest, but Ieva knew it was because of how much she'd grown throughout her puberty). She had elbow-long hair of bright blue color, which she typically tied into twin tails with two red rubbers (always red rubbers for some reason the older one was unaware of). Her yellow eyes reflected her energetic nature, as they were constantly scanning all over Ieva to find anything out of place. A small nose guarded large lips, and her rather normal looking ears were standing out from her skull ever so much.

Holly wore a large tunic shirt of green color, and plated pants that covered her entire legs. Her large boots (reminiscent of rain boots) also had a somewhat metallic look to them.

"...you got taller." Ieva finished her thought, noticing how she had to stretch her neck upwards to look at the girl now. 'Seriously, jumped from eye-level to this in just a quarter of a year...'

"I know! I gained another 3 cm this month! Soon I'll be as tall as aunt Hilda!" Holly's voice was filled with anticipation.

"I look forward to that." Ieva smiled. Though, she had a thought. 'At this rate, by the time her puberty ends, she'll be as tall as Lee...' She shook her head a little. "Anyway, how's work these days?"

"Oh, it's nice. These generators you made are amazing!" Replied Holly, stepping aside and letting Ieva have a look at her work station. "Power grid is fluctuating no more!" Her smile widened. "We asked mister Mach Spear to test our barriers, and he couldn't even leave a scratch!" She looked like she was about to jump with joy. Again, at it.

"Good to hear. Now, come with me, I'll give you a new one." She said. "Aunt Hilda is also with me."

"Oh?! She came around too?!" Once again, pure excitement showed itself in Holly's voice. "Where's she?"

"I told her to go and wait by the testing area. But-"

"GreatIllgoandseeherberightbackauntie!!!" Holly seemed to squeeze out 10 words in a single second, and she suddenly was running through the corridor, excited look not disappearing from her face for one moment as she barged through the main door and ran into distance.

"...aaaaand there she goes." Ieva smacked her lips in a bit of dismay. That girl hadn't changed one bit, and that was good.

The blonde woman made her way after the girl leisurely. Noticing Raman's questioning gaze, she shrugged lightly, and went out.

Meanwhile

Youngwoo was standing about 10 metres away from the fence, Hilda next to him, both of them looking at the smithy in silence. Iris, as per usual, was floating above them both, not a word from her either. However, in a single moment, it changed.

He was the first to notice movement of the door, and something running outside. The thing that rushed right between the 4 blacksmiths was blueish in color, and after going in one direction for half a second or so, it changed its direction straight at them. Feeling some cold sweat move on his back, he took a step forward, a hand on his sword's hilt. However, he hesitated, noticing how the thing that was rushing at them looked human. No... it actually was a human? How could a human move so fast?!

"...Holly?" He heard Hilda's voice. Did she know the person that was going at them?

"Aaaaaaunt Hildaaaaa!" The girl that rushed at them screamed on top of her lungs. Within seconds, the distance of 50 metres was closed in, and she lunged at Hilda, almost knocking her over with sheer speed.

"Holly!" Hilda hugged the girl tightly.

For a few seconds, silence was beset upon them. Youngwoo looked at the two, and then at the smithy, where he saw Ieva emerge from the main door. Just how quickly did that girl, Holly was she, get to them? Was it 10 seconds? Or maybe 15? Scanning the distance, he noticed how it was at least 200 metres. It meant... did that girl just set a new record for speed on foot?

And what was the other thing? Did she call Hilda 'aunt'? Did it mean Ieva had a kid this large? '...no way.' Youngwoo dismissed the thought instantly. Ieva was only 20 this year, and that girl looked to be about 15. There must've been some meaning to the 'aunt Hilda' thing. Well, he was sure he'll get his answers. For now, he needed to simply listen and stay by side. He was only a guest, after all.

"I was so worried! Why didn't you call, auntie?!!!" Holly spaced herself from Hilda and asked loudly. "I really thought you might be hurt!!!" Youngwoo wasn't certain whether the girl was angry or worried. Probably both. "Uncle Idan-" She turned to him, and suddenly, she... stopped talking.

The two eyed each other for a few seconds, but it seemed to last for hours to Youngwoo. He took in her details, and the girl seemed to do the same. Suddenly, she jumped backwards, just barely not hitting Hilda.

"Ah!" She yelped, either in surprise or fear. Or, maybe it was embarrassment? Hell if he knew.

"...Hilda?" He looked at his girlfriend, and noticed how she was grabbing Holly's arm gently.

"Don't worry. He's fine." She said in a soothing tone, stroking girl's arm gently, almost like a mother soothing her child. Actually, considering what Youngwoo knew of her past with Ieva, right now Hilda WAS a mother soothing a child. "This is Youngwoo. He's with us."

"...?" Holly's stare turned to Hilda, and there seemed to be a million questions she wanted to ask at that moment. However, she was visibly struggling to to ask a single one. She seemed unsure of the situation.

"...hello..." He waved his hand ever so much, not exactly sure what he should do.

"..." The blue-haired girl stared at him with wariness in her eyes. Still, her gaze softened when she felt Hilda's hand again.

"Don't be bashful. He's a friend." Hilda smiled a little. "Go ahead, introduce yourself." She pushed her ever so little.

"..." Slowly, the girl took a step forward, and bowed her head a little. "H-Hello. I'm H-Holly. Holly Leifsson, a-an Electromancer."

[A/N: 500 likes? Are you guys insane? I didn't expect to even reach 200. I have no words. It's a milestone, and I'll cherish it.]