“Estelle, no! It’s not what you think!” The handsome man cries out to the busty nurse. He reaches for her as she quickly heads out the door. She’s carrying a small box of personal effects and a potted plant in her arms.
“You can’t stop me this time, Teddy! I know what I saw!” If she’s trying to put distance between herself and the physician/illusionist, she was doing a poor job of it. He catches up almost immediately.
He grabs her shoulder and spins her around. She turns to face him, eyes almost wanting to believe him. He speaks, hands clasped in front of him.
“Estelle, I would never hurt you. Clara threw herself at me, but I rejected her! Won’t you believe me?” He pleads, desperate to not lose the woman he loves.
“I want to. I really do. But you know better than anyone that an illusion is nothing more than a lie we want to believe.” She starts to turn, when he places a hand on her shoulder again.
The scene is focused on his face as a quick hand reaches out from Estelle and slaps Doctor Magician. He looks stunned as the scene cuts to Estelle, arms still full of her things.
“Don’t follow me, Teddy. Not this time.” She turns to walk away as Doctor Magician is left clueless on how she did that.
The TV played behind me as I sat at the gaming table at Marq’s shop. I was listening to it more than I’d been paying attention to the game in front of me.
Across the table, Wheeler pulled out another set of small figurines.
“…And these are my Interstellar Ninjas! It took me the better part of a year to save for them, along with kit them out in my colors…”
Wheeler continued, talking about his Wargaming army. It’s not like it was boring or anything. Hell, I’d had a passing interest in the game, but the complexity and investment always put me off. But I hadn’t really planned to play with him today. I had just arrived at the comic shop when he called me over. I forgot about the vague promise to let him teach me to play.
His enthusiasm was fun to see though. The few times he showed up to the shop, he kept to himself. Not enough foot traffic to play a mission with someone. Now that he had someone else who was “interested” in the game, he wasn’t going to let me go so easily.
I felt bad. Any other day, I’d be down to try and might even buy a starter army just to try it. However, the fear that Tobias might walk in any moment had me on edge.
The shop had been through something of a remodel. Okay, not really, it’d only been a few days, but Marq had started putting tape and sticky notes on things he felt could use with some work. Wheeler mentioned that he overheard a conversation between Marq and Tobias about putting together more events, like Wargame days, to encourage more foot traffic. While not a bad idea, the table space for playing with these miniatures would need to expand a little.
“So what do you think?!” Wheeler asks, sounding like he just won the lottery.
I dig through what the half-conscious version of my brain heard.
“I like it! Fun story with the battling warlords. What army would be the simplest for me to understand?”
I should have been honest about my lack of attention, but Wheeler was like an excited younger brother. I didn’t want to let him down.
He wasn’t dressed all too differently from me. Nerdy shirt, cargo shorts, sensible sneakers. His brown hair was a bit unkempt, and often got in his eyes. He was also about a foot shorter than me, adding to the little brother vibe.
“Oh, the galactic shogunate would be perfect. They’re basically made for beginners! I can get you a starter set!”
“Whoa there! I don’t want to put you out. Besides, I got the tournament to focus on right now, but we’ll definitely play more after it’s done!” Good save, Jules.
“Right, right. But just for today, you can use one of my armies!” He lays out the figures on my side of the table so they tactically cover specific points on the maps.
Marq comes over and pulls up a chair.
“Man, it has been extra dead today. How’s the game?”
“About to start,” I say, trying to convey my sense of dread through my eyes. It doesn’t seem to work.
“Cool, cool. Once I get some better tables in here, I’ll be sure to designate some for this game.” He turns his attention to Wheeler. “I’ve seen shops with terrain built right onto the table, so maybe we can pick some of your favorite scenarios and I’ll make the tables to match.”
Wheeler’s eyes light up.
“That would be so cool! I usually play on terrain, but they’re often generic. Tailoring it to my scenarios would be amazing!”
“Custom gaming tables? Tobias really fronting you that much money?” I ask, nervous about how deep in business they were getting, but also trying to steer the topic toward my completely hate-able rival. For information gathering. And nothing else.
Marq gives a bit of a chuckle.
“I mean, kinda. It’s enough that he wants this place to succeed, but not enough for me to throw around hiring someone else to make a table. I’m gonna make it!” he proudly declares.
“Whoa, you can build tables?” Wheeler asks.
“Ha! I’ve never done it before, but I got the bi-audacity that says I can!” He holds up his arm, and braces his bicep like Rosie the Riveter. “I’m just a little more willing to take a risk building it, knowing I’m not spending my own money on it.”
He quickly pulls out his phone and starts scrolling, bringing up building plans he bought from some online shop. He holds it up to show us and slowly scrolls through it.
“See! It doesn’t look too difficult. And I got an ex who volunteers at a community workspace, with tools you can borrow! He said this would be the perfect project to try!”
Marq seemed very excited about building the table, but I’d seen that manic look in his eye too often to be naive. He was really excited about how much cheaper this would be than buying one that someone else built.
“Just try to keep the quality in mind,” I say, a little less firm than I planned in my head. “I mean, this might turn out great, but aren’t there professionals who do this for a reason?”
Marq gives me a dirty look, the first time he’s actually ever done that.
That’ll teach me to question the bi-audacity.
“Pfft, I can do this as good as any professional! Once I get a little practice at it, anyway.” There was no talking him down. “You just focus on winning that tournament.”
“Oh, right! What’s the next step of the Fantastik art contest?” Wheeler was surprisingly very on top of modern comics, in addition to all the time he spent on his Wargame hobby. I assumed he worked, or went to school, so I honestly didn’t know how he had the time in the day for it all.
I sigh, before speaking.
“I don’t know. I’m supposed to hear something by this weekend. But isn’t it just going to be a standard tournament bracket from here on out? I don’t know what more I have to do other than sit around and maybe make comments online to promote my entry.”
“It’s rarely that simple.” Tobias’ cool voice came from behind me.
He seemed to have surprised Wheeler and Marq as well, as they both gave a little start when they heard him speak.
I turned to face him, unsure what awaited me. He had a wry smile, like I didn’t ditch him in the middle of the night just a few nights ago.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, swiping through apps quickly to show us something. He presented an email to us, one from Fantasik Comics.
Round 1: Battle Art!I quickly reached into my pocket to see if I got a similar email. Sadly, my inbox was empty.
Tobias gives a haughty laugh.
“You barely made it into the tournament, but you weren’t the bottom seed. Though I’m betting you are next, probably as soon as next week.”
Ugh, more waiting.
“Okay, so what’s the competition? They going to make us draw in the boxing ring?” I ask, more annoyed at Tobias than I had been lately. It felt right. The world made sense when he was annoying and I hated him.
“Nothing so crude. According to the email, it’ll be a live speed illustration, with judges and an audience determining the winner.”
Live? Speed? What in the hell is he talking about?
“You still don’t get it? It’s Battle Art. Active sketching valuing speed and showmanship, in addition to the aesthetic quality of the art itself. You really didn’t know that’s what we’d be doing?”
Showmanship? Active?!
….No seriously, WHAT IN THE HELL IS HE TALKING ABOUT?
