Battle Mage Chapter 10

A day in the life of Lucy.

Luke’s astral form lay hidden as he watched Lucy run around the house. It was the first time he had been outside his body for this long and fortunately for him, she clearly lacked the ability to sense his presence.

Her house looked like something from a Fifties magazine. It was two stories, the first story dedicated as a parking lot. Stairs opened the place for two entrances, both lead to the same house. He wondered if a long time ago it was two places and the wall got knocked down and it became one. Inside, the rooms were spacious and one lead to another. The main room, with a bunch of art materials, a television, nice screen, and a work out treadmill accompanied a giant window that lead to a terrace that seemed to overlook the city, he could see the downtown district.

To compare, Luke had a decent three bedroom house in a bad neighborhood.

She was listening to Jazz, some sax melody he never heard. It was playing loud. Perhaps it was designed to be calming, but he found the effect of the melody completely jarring to his ears and taste. She walked past his astral form, not noticing. He saw her lick her lips at the thought of some cheap ten cent ramen packet.

She started the microwave as she started to set up her daily coffee.

“Come on, get to the action already!” Luke yelled impatiently.

She couldn’t hear the impatient spirit in the room. She looked around as if she sensed something then went back to plugging in her numbers on the microwave.

“I want t*****s already! You know, ‘tah-tah’s!”

Luke was running late for work. Come on, the show clearly would be worth it. Right?

She left the room while the microwave was spinning the water and noodles. He started to follow, making silly faces at her, she could not see him and this made his cocky nature even more juvenile.

He turned the corner and she walked right through him. “No come back, your bedroom is this way!”

The phone rang. Luke instantly ran to the phone. Perhaps he could learn some good recon about this woman. She picked it up after several steps, “Hello?” There was a pause. The microwave beeped and she seemed to give it a second thought. “Actually I am just about to jump in the shower, I will have to call you back.

Success!

“T***y City!” Luke started to sing to himself out loud, “City of the T***y!”

She walked into what Luke could only guess was the bathroom. She closed the door. “The Tease,” he said as he got ready to go through the door.

What magic lay on the other side?

He felt a sharp pain as he touched the door. It was insane in intensity. A magic seal! Why now? Was there no justice?

The seal sent his soul instantly back in his body.

Luke fell face first into the horn in his car. Gosh d****t! He was so close! Now he was here, in his s**t car, with nothing to do and he felt himself too drained to try again. He looked across his car to her flat. “One day, we will dance to the music with two backs.”

Luke drove away.

 

Lovely lady Lucy was a recent college graduate. She had spent most of her time focusing on art in her days of normal school so when she realized at high school what she wanted to do, she set out and took up an art degree program with a full scholarship. While not top of her class, her creativity definitely made her the envy of those who knew the technical aspects but always felt short in execution. She was a marvel at it.

Her social life was adequate, taking on the weekend to go clubbing, meet with friends, and be the designated driver for those who needed it. Her friends were of the variety of “hit every joint in town.” This caused her to get into a lot of trouble over her college years and it also directly led her into the hands of a being who wished her death.

Then came her knight in shining armor and the rest is history. Since that night, she never went out much, and instead entertained guests at her apartment and focused on interning at different art companies until she graduated and went directly to NeoCreations.

Since working there, she had a steady paycheck and could afford a nice flat to call her own in a nice part of town. She has a decent car, a nice wardrobe and she can hit the movies are a night with her friends whenever she pleases.

Her day starts at seven in the morning with an alarm clock that plays country music. She doesn’t like country, but it’s that level of motivation to kill the radio that gets her out of bed. She follows it up with meditation in her “zen room”. It blasts euro dance music and she lets her mind wander as she sips her morning coffee.

Around eight she does a jog around the neighborhood and is back before nine. She gets ready for work and prepares the day to kick a*s at nine-thirty, work starts at ten.

Around noon she argues with Kevin for being inferior to her in every way.

Lucy’s day ends around six. From there she practices magic for an hour, talks to her friends, and watches the news. At ten she goes to sleep and enjoys her life of dreams.

“Don’t tear my heart, my achey breakey heart!” God damn square dancing music! If she wanted to dance to s**t in a barn she would have moved to Texas. She thought of flinging a spell or two at the radio but realized that if she did, the entire morning torture routine would be pointless.

Lucy got up and the doorbell rang. Time to get dressed? No, she decided to suck up her messy hair do and unkempt lack of makeup face. She stepped hard on the wood floor past her bedroom. She felt her feet wanting to go numb from the cold but she soldiered on. The ringing was incessant. She didn’t know what was worse the doorbell or the music she had to listen to to greet her to the morning.

Luke smiled as she opened the door. She just stared.

“Good morning ma’am.”

“Luke? What are you doing here?”

“I normally get up an hour earlier and do a jog around these parts and wanted to know if you wanted to maybe go out for dinner tonight?”

“No, I have plans but thank you for considering me.”

Luke’s face contorted for a moment, she knew that look. Inside she wished his failure well and got ready to close the door. Luke not used to being off his charming game called after her, “Another time then?”

Door was successfully closed.

It was fifteen minutes later that she looked at herself in the mirror. “These looks aren’t going to perfect themselves,” she told herself.

She was never really a fan of vanity or anything of the like. She was blessed with having a strange set of everything nicely placed. When she got older she realized how it was a curse but figured that she needed to project her internal confidence to that matching her exterior. Going through the university, she realized that if she looked she commanded authority and respect, people would give it.

In reality she had only one thing on her mind as she looked down the winding road that was her usual jog spot. She blocked it out for a second. No use filling the entire day with something she had no control in the moment for. On the contrary a voice told her mind, this is exactly what this jog was for, fine tuning a well-oiled machine in hopes…

She bolted as if a gun went off.

Her heart was pounding too early. She needed to cut back on the pace, but an encouraging voice was telling her more, faster, harder. Her breath was beginning to hurt soon. The sucking in of oxygen was just cruel. Finally she told that encouraging voice in her head to listen to reason, so she began to slow down and let her breathing and pulse catch up.

Damn, today is the day. She looked on at the wind in the road, it was becoming an obstacle. She tried to overcompensate with confidence in her endurance. This was a jog, not G.I. Jane training. Her office though; today was the day they were going to finalize concept designs on the Monster module.

The studio that got NeoCreations into contract wanted five working designs and was set to greenlight them into the CG phase. The creature, codenamed “Enigma 1” to keep the public from knowing of its existence started off as three stark different designs. However through this idea the boss, Joseph, had called “Cooperation,” they spliced details of a Lizard, a dinosaur, and a squid together to create the unholy sin against Walt Disney that now made up Enigma 1.

The final designs were going to be approved today and the creature was missing a whole spine! She had several ideas in her head but everything she thought it would match for would be undone by the size of the creature, changes in skin tone and texture, as lighting.

She paced herself well. Her thoughts weren’t hard to harness. She just knew she needed to just keep her mind and focus together. Enigma 1 needed something that would define it’s existence among the great creations along King Kong, Cthulhu and Godzilla. The spine was their last chance at showing what her department and team could do and ensure future contracts with the studio. In her mind, her whole life was riding on this.

She hit the pace of perfection and went to the rest of her day.

Coffee was a bit of a waste. The people working the coffee shop forgot her order, just perfect. She thanked them for the coffee regardless and wished them well with a genuine smile. She needed good karma today.

The drive downtown was punctuated by traffic and the same music she heard every day when she would change the station because she didn’t like it the first five times she listened to it. The lyrics were laughably bad.

“Welcome to NeoCreations. Lucy!” The receptionist stood up and welcomed her.

Lucy took out a box of donuts, “I know you have a long day ahead of you. Here’s snackage and coffee.” The two held a warm smile. Deborah the receptionist thanked her then asked, “So today’s hell day?”

“Kevin is going to die by my hand, yes.”

“Am I allowed to see your work?”

“Come in around 1. I am sure I can get us a little cheap wine if you need a refresher for the rest of the day.”

“I’ll tell the boss I am taking a break then.”

Lucy and Deborah always got along. They had similar views of the men they worked with, and while there were often women in the building, Deborah was the only girl Lucy trusted with her art and ideas. It was nice having that edge of a second opinion that wasn’t her assistant.

She walked through the door that opened up to the two story building. The conference room was on the second floor. She closed her eyes as she pressed the number two, a very redundant elevator. Two floors it’s obvious which floor one wants when entering it.

She began to hum her own elevator music. The door opened.

Terry, her assistant jumped out, “I heard you were on your way.”

“Yes, tell me what you got.”

“The meeting is in an hour, we got Kevin cracking the whip but we really are gearing on the final designs. I would like to sit down with you and make sure you have what you need. The rest of the team is in a panic.”

“It’s the pressure, boss has us working too hard. Tell them to relax, I will sit down, and I will have our angle up for the boss’s consideration.”

Terry stopped her, “It’s not the boss, it is that in the coming weeks our contract will come under review, we might have to drastically downsize after we upgraded our office so much.”

A loud obnoxious voice boomed, “Where is my coffee Carol!” It was Kevin. He was a man who liked to think himself a perfectionist, thinking it was a compliment and sign of genius. He was also a man who needed hot coffee or his flow would be off for the entire day. Carolyn was the poor woman who was his assistant.

Carolyn was a nice enough girl. Too nice, she came to work thinking that being kind was not a weakness, but she was a doormat, and has remained so since the day she was hired. Instead of bouncing ideas off her, and using her to her full potential, she was his go to coffee lady and no respect was found in him for her.

Pulling her Sun Tzu (Author of Art of War) Lucy one day got Carolyn drunk in her office and began to enjoy seeing a more human side of her that was not built of cloth and fabric. It made Lucy cringe since that day of talking about boys, movies, and just how art had inspired both of them, to hear Kevin treat her so cruelly.

Kevin was about to eat his perverbial cake on the way to the execution grounds. Lucy was caffeinated, motivated, felt a creative bug in her head, and was set to go to her office.

“Terry, I want to be left alone for fifteen minutes. Tell the team it will be alright, here is ten dollars, get some cheap snacks and say they are from me. When that fifteen minutes is up, I want to sit down, bounce my final designs down, and we will take this project to the boss.”

Terry nodded and took the money and ran off.  

She closed the door to her sanctuary, her own personal office. It was quiet, dead and deserted except for her presence. Lucy turned on the computer in the center of the long desk that took up a good portion of the left wall. It instantly turned to where she left it last. It was a simple scroll and a click and she brought up the group files, selecting “Enigma 1 Beta Phase.”

She walked to a projector and reflected the image onto it.

Enigma 1 had grown over time. The concept of backstory was that it was an ancient creature whose job it was to represent the deity of Earth manifesting its will. She read parts of the script for the movie, the movie being incomplete as the director and the writer were hanging onto the finished design of the initial product.

The picture as a still had lighting, storms, ice chill near the face and fog representing levels of distance. The feet were a tough sell due to the scale and positioning and, she sucked at drawing feet. That was one of Kevin’s better qualities. One of the few times she deferred to any level of judgment he made, “I don’t care, do what you want with them as long as its quality.”

Lucy pulled a piece of tracing paper over and clicked elements away from the final concept until it was looking bare bones. She began sketching rough outlines until she figured she had three relatively strong ideas.

After she had created the third final segment for what would be the monster’s spine, Terry walked in.

“Good time.”

“How are we?”

“I am going to pitch some ideas, and your job is to be as critical of a b*****d as you can be. We are going to hit with fast broad strokes because we don’t have time to add in detail until later today. This means the picture we show won’t look as complete to the boss but if he just gives us a simple okay, we can then go into the nooks, crannies and cracks.”

Terry nodded, “Sounds like a plan, we have all afternoon after all.”

“That we do.”

The collaborative effort was going smoothly when they looked at the time. Lucy had very little vanity in her bone, but she was a sucker for pride in her art. “I think we got it. It is time to earn our bucks.”

She left the room and the rest of the team was already en route to the business room on the north corner of the building.

“Welcome to work gentlemen. Today is the day, as I am sure you know, that we are presenting our images and ideas for a finalized product to Millennium Comics Studios. We are at this point showing them that we can ‘bring it’ and shake off the notion that we are just some indie firm going from paycheck to small bank ideas. Enigma 1 as we are calling him…” The boss said before he was interrupted.

“Her.” Corrected Kevin.

“Her as we are calling him. I mean as we are calling her, is going to be one of three main features in their work Battle of the Gods. This is a potentially multimillion contract that we can extend for years in a constant partnership and pairing with the company and this will open the doors for many more. I am aware that more ideas is better so, for the team, and for my approval as well, we are going to be showcasing what we have and deciding on the final touches and direction before submitting our complete work. Lucy and Kevin, both of you have shown a lot of enthusiasm in this and I am well aware that you have been working together to collaborate on a mutual idea. I will let you pitch your final ideas now.”

By mutual, he no doubt meant the unholy seeding of Mickey Mouse meets Todd McFarlane’s Spawn.

“Thanks. We have so far come up with a neutral perspective on everything but the most important feature. The spine. What do we do with the creature’s back? General consensus is that we take the distinctive features, like those found in Godzilla and make them appear more… sophisticated.”

A picture of Enigma 1 appeared and it had green scales on its back, sure enough looking pointed in a smooth pattern, but seeming wear and tear on them.

“As you can see, this creature has been in a few scraps over the course of its god-like immortality. We have chunks missing, slight bits showing where it can regenerate its health, and we have one missing all together. I think we will find that this adds a lot of personality to the monster so it is not generic monster number 1 as initially spoken of in the script. Also notice the colors…”

Oh great, the color speech! Lucy stopped paying attention. It was a false advertisement really. As nothing was set in stone, he tried to focus on contrasting backgrounds, which while a valid point, he usually added was the real point. A fictitious movie background to enforce the strength of a hypothetical situation. Godzilla really? She loved the green monster as much as any monster lover but originality sometimes has to be shown in initiative if you want to showcase talent.

“That is all very well,” Lucy began knowing he had finally stopped talking about how great his plan was. “I began with a different approach. As this creature comes from the sea, I initially started with an eel like back, it moves and flaps with gravity and the wind. However, while I am sure we can run some really cool color spectrum designs from this, I figure that would diminish the nature of Enigma 1. So I came up with this!”

Enigma 1 has been redesigned for a good portion, selective colors are missing and other areas are more vague. What was once a strictly sea themed monster had giant boulder spikes sparingly placed on the back. The rock like element bled into the monster element making it look like the monster was made of rock, but had an organic body formed from it. The electricity from the lightning had been retouched to actually move from spike to spike, as if a conductor of sorts. The creature’s eyes glowed a dark divine blue. The tip of the fingers also turned to rock like nails and tips with bits of the element reaching out of the shoulder blades.

“What did you do?” Kevin asked accusingly.

“We were given an ‘earth themed giant’ that was ‘designed by the gods’ and ‘came from the sea’. When we think of ‘Earth’ it is natural to think of ‘life’. However ‘earth’ as a word can be synonymous with ‘rock’ as an element.”

“I mean it’s pretty but that’s not the assignment.” Kevin said bluntly.

“The creature born from the elements, the rock in its spines can harness electricity, its entire skeletal structure… It is not so much a sea monster as it is a Giant Golem. The aura in its eyes betrays its otherworldly nature. Enigma 1 is, can be, a pure bad a*s made from earth comes from the depths and is as immortal as the stone that provides its foundation.”

“But that’s not the assignment,” Kevin said again bluntly. She could tell he was hoping to outright make her question the design.

“Boss, I would like to state for the record, ‘I would see this movie’.” She pointed to the monster. “It is a tyrant among anything we can comprehend. Its mastery of the elements as a whole, its ability to absorb and manipulate electricity could give both our company and the studio some creative leeway for it.”

“You essentially redesigned the entire monster from the ground up, ignoring all we have built for this one moment.” Kevin was getting angry.

“On edge there Kev?” The boss asked.

“I haven’t had my coffee yet.” Kevin looked sad.

“I adapted the design to fit the newest addition. We have had so many movies dedicated to monsters of the sea as sea creatures, but this is our chance to do something different.”

The boss stood up, “I want you to go back to your areas, find your heads, and before lights out, we will have a complete monster. Lucy, I see you have some room left of fixing up to do.”

“I put this together in thirty minutes boss.”

“Spend the afternoon on it then. If we are going to pitch this idea right to the film studios as our final product, we need to look professional.”

Lucy smiled, “Yes Sir!”

The meeting ended and Lucy ran right into her office. As she ran she heard a loud moaning yell, “Where is my fresh cup of hot coffee.”

“It’s right here.” Poor Carolyn.

“I can’t think with this cold s**t!”

Victory, as she closed the door behind her.

Minutes passed when she heard a knock on the door. She had finished coloring in the blend of the rock melding with the organic tissue of the body when Kevin walked in.

“So, I been talking about it with the team, and we are deciding on going with my idea. I already presented our final sketch to the boss and he signed off on it.” Lucy’s world came to an end.

Terry walked in and knocked. Lucy politely told him, “Come in and sit down, Kevin here was just telling me something.”

“It is just fact of the matter is, Millennium Comics Studios is looking for specific details and if we risk throwing out your idea, they might think our studio is not in line with their ideas and it could harm us. I am saving both our asses doing this.”

“I thank you for your input Kevin as well as your judgment if you feel so strongly about this.” She knew it was too late to rescind the order once made by the boss. He would also take this as a breakdown in communication and leadership of the team and that would be hard for her. She had lost this battle. Another loss of many. She was not one to give up.

“Glad you understand.” Kevin left the room and closed the door.

Lucy yelled at the top of her lungs, “Kevin can eat a dick!”

He manipulated her and he manipulated his advantages with the boss. This time he crossed the line one too many.

Lucy’s phone rang, it was Deborah, “You have a guest.”

“I do? Can you take a message?” Lucy asked.

“He says it’s personal. He’s really cute too.”

“I’m on my way.” She rolled her eyes.

She got up, Terry stopped her. “What about the sketch?”

“They may not use it, but I can’t stand work that is not completed. I will keep working on it later and add it to my portfolio when I have the chance.”

She left the room and took a left.  

Kevin was gone, but Carolyn smiled at Lucy as she put down a cup of steaming fresh coffee for her slave driver. Lucy waited till Carolyn left and placed her hand over the cup. She felt the elements inside the cup and willed the spaced out liquid atoms to condense and become solid, like that of ice.

She let go for a moment, her damage had been done. She walked towards the door when she heard a voice, “F*****g finally it’s done.” A pause, “God d****t I said I wanted hot coffee not this cold s**t!” She heard Kevin throw the glass against a wall. Lucy smiled.

Downstairs she was greeted by the sight of Luke with flowers in hand and a grin on his face. She walked up to him as he started talking. She didn’t pay attention to the words, but she grabbed the flowers none the less and thanked him. The receptionist was clearly giddy at the scene believing it to be of a romantic film variety.

“I will see you at our thing Friday. Goodbye Luke,” she said simply with an emphasis on “goodbye”.

She then turned around while Luke was still talking and went back in the elevator. Was it classy? No. Did she care? No. She wasn’t the type to be rude, and she didn’t dislike Luke, she just wished he’d take the hint already.

For the rest of the afternoon her cell phone was going off. Clearly Luke was trying to find another method of attack. She was used to batting guys off with a literal bat, but her energy was just too sapped to give him the time of day.

After finally finishing the drawing with all its detail and fixtures, Terry wonderfully said, “I would have paid to see that in 3-D on the big screen.”

“Me too. Let’s give it a name,” Lucy said trying to sound chipper.

“Okay, what’s on Te’cy! It’s a combination of Terry and Lucy.”

“I don’t think we should be having kids together.” She giggled.

“What do you think?”

“Carolyn 2, in honor of the s**t Carolyn 1 has to put up with and Audrey 2 from Little Shop.”

“I don’t think she would like that. Being compared to an ugly monster.” Terry corrected.

“Ella, Goddess of Elements.”

Her phone rang again. She rolled her eyes, something she had done a lot of this day.

 

The day had ended and at home she found herself staring down at the city, in the calm quiet nature that surrounded her. Sure the city was no doubt noisy with this or that, but from this view, all was in peace.

A knock on her door.

Lucy opened the door, “Look Luke, I am sure…”

It was not Luke.

Jessica looked like she wanted to cry. She grabbed Lucy’s hand and arm hard.

“It is Jules.”

Everything stopped.

“I tried getting ahold of you all evening. He is in the hospital.”

In that moment, Lucy cared about nothing else in the world. 

Author's Note

Enjoy. And feel free to give criticism.