"That's not an excuse." Sarah pouted before her face suddenly lit up.
"I have a good idea. I can be your intern. Yeah, I need to intern for a gaming company before I can graduate."
"Why not be your intern so that I can help out with Windor's Siege and you can help me learn." Sarah said with increasing excitement.
"I don't know. I no longer have a gaming studio and barely survive as it is." Jack said as he gently shook his head.
"Once you start making money from the game it will hopefully work out. I can help out with the more basic functions. Or I can help out by creating the new plant cards." Sarah said, trying to make her case.
Ding!
Just as Jack and Sarah were about to continue their conversation, a Fiverr notification popped on Jack's computer.
"Speak of the devil, the artist and animator I hired just sent me the drafts designs. You want to take a look and give me your thoughts." Jack said, shifting the conversation.
He took the mouse and clicked on the notification.
"Yeah," Sarah said as she leaned back to give him room.
As Jack logged into his Fiverr account he was taken to a pdf. There were about five pages with basic black and white designs of a few of the beginner plants.
With, of course, a big watermark across each page and images.
"What do you think of the Furred Venus Fly Trap?" Jack asked as he zoomed on a big round furry plant that looked like the combination of the Pea Shooter, Chomper, and a furry three headed dog.
Its three heads were excitedly perked up as they drooled. Even as black and white image they could get a good feeling of how this Furred Venus Fly Trap would move in game.
"Awe!" Sarah said with sparkling eyes.
"I love it! But it doesn't look anything like the Furred Venus Fly Trap anymore." Sarah said as she bit her thumb.
"You're right. I can ask her to redesign it to have more resemblance to the plants it's based on." Jack said and was about to send a message before Sarah grabbed his arm.
"No, this one is perfect. Can't you…you know make it its own plant in game?" Sarah said as she blushed from embarrassment.
She knew how annoying it would be to add this plant as its own thing. It was one thing for it to be a skin, it was another to make it a whole separate plant.
He would need to create the card, background, recipe, and balance it with everything else so that the game didn't break.
It wasn't as simple as when Jack created the other plants.
"I can. It would only take a few minutes at most twenty if I'm having writer's block. But…are you gonna do this for the other twenty plants?" Jack asked with a lip twitch.
"...Probably." Sarah muttered softly and rubbed her nose.
"But it's worth it. Betty would definitely agree with me."
"I'll also give you more money to make up for it." Sarah said with determination.
"Don't sweat it. You don't need to pay me for my time. If you think it would look good then we'll keep it."
"Let's see the other four plants and see if you like them too." Jack said casually as he scrolled down to the next page.
"Floppy Lantern Corn?"
"We have to keep it. It's too cute."
"Dandelion Fruit Tree?"
"Keep it. Its eyes are speaking to me."
"Keep…and we need to keep this one too." Sarah said with sparkling ruby eyes.
The designs were simply too good for her to give them up. Unfortunately, they simply didn't look anything like how she imagined these plants would look like.
So Jack and her came to a dead-end.
"We will go with everything. After that we will decide on the direction of the monster art style. If they become cute too…then I'll order a second commission on redesigning the old plants properly." Jack said he came up with a temporary solution.
"Alright," Sarah said with excitement.
She couldn't wait to see these little plants wiggling around her base protecting her from the grotesque monsters. As she thought about how they would tear those ugly monsters apart she felt as if her heart was going to explode.
Seeing that they agreed, Jack pulled his direct messages with Golden_Pookie_Agent and gave her the go ahead. They loved the designs and wanted to proceed forward with the rest.
Golden_Pookie_Agent: That's great! Please send me half of the payment and get started. The rest of it will be paid after I send you everything.
"Sounds good. I sent the payment. Did you receive it?" Jack typed out after sending the payment through Fiverr.
He received a thumbs up emoji as confirmation and closed it.
"She seems nice. When is it going to be done?" Sarah asked with a smile.
"Her schedule says that she completes the order in a week unless the draft section goes long. Since we accepted the drafts right away it should be ready by next Saturday or Sunday." Jack said with a smile.
He felt that things were running smoothly.
"A week for all this! Isn't that too fast?" Sarah said with astonishment.
"That's what I thought but hey her reviews are excellent. So, she probably can keep her promise." Jack said with trust.
Sarah nodded her head in understanding as she felt an urge to play a round of Windor's Siege.
"Let's compete on who can get further in Windor's Siege. Loser has to buy lunch."
"Bet," Jack said with a smirk.
How could he, the creator, lose?
After three hours, Jack sat on the ground like a deflated balloon as he watched Sarah dancing right in front of him. Celebrating her victory with a hint of shame or remorse.
"Don't you feel ashamed for beating a handicapped man?" Jack said as he gritted his teeth.
"Nope!" Sarah said before laughing.
Her endless hours of playing had finally given her a leg up against Jack. Watching his base crumple from the Giant Zombies was incredibly satisfying.
"Just you wait, once my arms are fully healed I'll win with ease." Jack muttered as he stood up.
"Sure you can, old man." Sarah said as she rolled her eyes.
"I'm not old. You're only three months younger than me." Jack grumbled.
"Does it change the fact that I'm twenty and you're twenty one. You're old. Just admit it bro." Sarah said with a smug face.
"I can't wait for kids to start calling you old. It's going to make my day." Jack said as he rubbed his chin.
"Anyways, where do you want to eat? Mcdonalds?" Jack asked as he grabbed his leather jacket from the hook behind his door.
"Are you serious? Why would I waste this opportunity on McDonalds? I'm hungry for something fancy." Sarah said with an eye roll.
"Fancy, huh. I guess I can go for some Red Robin. Alright let's go." Jack said as he left the room.
Sarah's face twitched as she covered her face with her hand.
"Fine, I'm coming." Sarah sighed and grabbed her crossbody bag and followed Jack out.
"The closest Red Robin is a fifteen minute walk or we can take the bus which is coming in five minutes." Jack said calmly as he looked at his phone.
"How long is the bus going to take?"
"Five minutes but it's a five minute walk after."
"Then why would we take the bus? Let's take the City Scooter. I always wanted to ride one." Sarah said as she pointed to a few lime green electric scooters in their charging stands.
She skipped over to one of them and tapped her phone waiting for a ding to tell her that it was unlocked.
"That sounds fun." Jack said as he looked at these scooters.
Throughout his two lives he had never used one of these things. They were more popular in larger cities like Los Angeles than in Timber Woods City.
"That Scooter Savant skill is finally going to come in handy." Jack thought to himself as he felt the urge to punch the System.
This skill was truly not useful these past five years. He hadn't once gotten on a scooter even though he had paid to upgrade it to grade C.
As Jack went over to unlock his own scooter Sarah stopped him and gestured to him to get on her scooter.
"We don't need to buy two. Hop on mine and I'll hold on to your waist." Sarah said as she pushed the scooter to him.
"My waist? You know my waist is sensitive." Jack said as he protected his waist.
Sarah blinked and rolled her eyes.
"Then I'll grab your belt."
"What if you pull my belt down and expose me to the world?"
"What about I hold on to your shoulders?"
"Aren't you too short?"
"I'm not short. Then I'll just hug your chest. Are you happy with that?" Sarah said with determination.
Jack thoughtfully stroked his chin. He didn't really have a reason to refuse.
"Do you really want me to be your taxi? My driving history isn't very good. Remember how I crashed that one time." Jack said with curiosity
A confused look flashed across Sarah's face, "Crash? When did you crash?"
"Oh, nevermind. I was talking about a driving simulator I played." Jack said quickly.
His green eyes twitched as he realized immediately that he had confused his two lives. He had gotten into a car crash after graduating college and got a stern talking to from the cops.
It was definitely not a fun time.
"Oh okay. Then you have experience that the person paying should be driving. Come on, it's going to be fun. If we crash, your body will protect me." Sarah said with sparkling eyes.
Her ruby eyes looked Jack up and down as she nodded her head.
"Yeah, you are definitely a much better body bag. I probably won't even get scratched if we fall over."
"Are you calling me fat? Whatever, since I'm driving I'll pick the speed so hang on tight." Jack said with a smile while ignoring how he was being treated as a shield.
He jumped on the lime scooter and grabbed it from Sarah who jumped on behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest.
"You ready?" Jack asked as he tightly gripped the handle.
His muscles were twitching as if they were rapidly remembering something he had practiced thousands of times before.
"Yeah," Sarah tried to say before she suddenly felt them lurch forward.
The cool wind whipped against her cheeks, sending her hair streaming back as the city lights blurred around them. She moved herself closer to Jack to use him as a shield from the wind before breathing a sigh of relief.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that they were zooming down the bike lane. Going at probably 20 miles per hour.
"Wooo!" Sarah screamed with excitement.
"Faster, go faster!" Sarah urged.
"I can't, it's maxed out." Jack said as he was revving the scooter lever as far as he could.
It was maxed out.
Jack breathed in the cold wind blowing across his face, while easily moving past a biker, then a second one, and another person riding a lime scooter.
Weaving and turning didn't slow him down at all. Even when he was forced to go on the sidewalk to take a turn to reach the Red Robin he weaved through the crowd of people with ease.
"I didn't know my Scooter Savant skills were this good. Maybe it's my improved intelligence and physical stats at play." Jack thought to himself as they came to a stop right in front of the Red Robin.
Which also coincidentally had the lime scooter charging station they could park in.
"Round 2?" Jack asked Sarah who nodded her head.
"We got an hour with this thing. It's only been a few minutes." Sarah said with a wide grin.
She pulled out her phone with her hand that was slightly trembling. Even though the ride was remarkably smooth with how fast they were going she nearly had a heart attack several times when Jack was moving through crowds of people and cars.
"Let's go somewhere far, what about going to South Bridge?" Sarah asked after checking how long it would take them to get there.
"South Bridge?" Jack pondered for a second.
South Bridge was crossed over a river and was the second largest bridge in the city. The sight was beautiful and schools usually scheduled field trips there to let kids experience it.
"The last time we went to South Bridge was three years ago, right?" Jack asked as he combed through Hester's memories.
"Yeah, it was during a school field trip to visit the nearby Museum of Science and Industry but every teacher made sure to schedule some time to visit the bridge." Sarah said as she remembered that memory fondly.
"Then let's go. We can get some food while we are there and check out the Museum of Science and Industry. I want to see what new technology they are showing there." Jack said with some expectation.
This world's technology was a bit more advanced than his previous life's so Jack was excited to see what was different with his own eyes.
With their destination decided, Sarah hopped back on the scooter and made sure to get a good grip this time. Just as soon as she got a grip, she felt the powerful inertia pushing her back as she and Jack zoomed away.