[Owen POV]
I met Sarah again after months had passed. She looked much healthier—her cheeks had filled out, and her skin was smoother.
It had been almost 5 months since she woke from her coma.
She had finally graduated from physical therapy and was cleared to do light exercise, though anything strenuous, like ballet, was still off-limits.
I met with her from time to time as David would bring her around, but this was the first time I ever hung out with her.
A few days ago, Djalu had examined her feet. The bones that once healed improperly, which ended her ballet prospects, were restored by his power.
With her body recovering, I wanted to see how far her voice had come. I wanted to know how much the demon had influenced her talents.
When we tested her singing, Sarah surprised me by cleanly hitting an A5 high note without even using chest voice—a feat in itself.
"You have excellent breath control," I told her. "You could be a singer."
She snorted. "Yeah, right. Maybe in Korea, not in America."
The remark wasn't just sarcasm. In the late 80s and early 90s, Japan had been painted as America's economic boogeyman, buying up skyscrapers and threatening whole industries.
Even though Japan's bubble had burst, the suspicion lingered, and Asian Americans—regardless of their own background—still carried some of that backlash.
Thanks to the Pride Incarnation president's policies, the U.S. economy was booming in 1996, and unlike in the real world, America still held strong in manufacturing.
That stability made the hostility less vicious than a decade earlier, but it didn't erase all prejudice.
Hollywood and the music industry remained closed off. For a non-white performer like Sarah, breaking into the mainstream was nearly impossible.
We recorded the demo for the song, and I asked, "If the movie is picked up, then, do you want to try out for the lead part of the story?"
"Sorry?" She widened her eyes in disbelief. "You want me to be an actor?"
"Yeah." I nodded casually. "You're really cute, and you have strong vocals. I didn't test your acting skills yet, but I guess that's gotten better too, right? So… why not?"
She was silent for a while before she snorted and giggled to herself, her face blushing slightly.
"What?" I asked, confused.
"You—You said I'm… Never mind. I'll try to audition, but I don't think the director will pick me. Maybe I can be a side character."
I smiled in amusement. David kept my secret well, and Sarah still didn't know that Jack Kennedy was also me.
I told her at the beginning that Jack Kennedy asked me to record a demo for his music, and I picked her as a partner since her dad recommended her.
So she still thought this Jack Kennedy guy was just the director. She had no idea he was the president of a distribution company and now the head of a movie studio.
"I think it will work out," I told her casually.
I wasn't going to act in this movie myself, so I could pair her up with a slightly taller dude since she was my height right now.
Bayani, the guy helping me in the recording studio, asked me something as we were leaving.
"How much do you think it would take to have a music studio of my own?"
"Depends if you're renting it or owning it outright. Do you want a studio of your own?"
He nodded slightly, and I thought about it for a bit.
His ability shined greatly in the studio. He was clumsy at first, but he adapted quickly and managed to recreate some of the songs I was thinking about into a 100% perfect copy.
And he went above and beyond, turning the copies into higher-quality renditions of the songs.
A decent mid-tier recording studio in L.A. or Pasadena rents for around $2,000–$3,000 a month. If buying, the property and gear together could run anywhere between $200,000 and half a million.
Bayani already had some money—almost $200,000 in compensation from the drug lord. But building a studio from scratch would take everything from him.
"I'll try to see if there's a studio around Pasadena available for sale. I'll buy it and rent it to you," I told him.
'Since he was going to work for me anyway, it was a good investment to buy a studio outright.'
His eyes widened slightly, and he nodded hurriedly.
Sarah asked something else as we were walking out.
"I've been thinking of using a stage name instead of my real name in the industry."
"That's good too. Did you pick anything yet?"
"How about… Britney?" She gasped, almost in awe of herself.
"Britney… like Britney Spears?"
"Huh? Who's that?" She was taken aback before slumping in disappointment. "Someone's already taken it, huh?"
She perked up again and did another reveal. "How about Zoey?"
"Zoey's quite nice. I like Zoey," I told her, not wanting to deflate her enthusiasm again.
She grinned and said, "I've decided! My stage name will be Zoey! Please call me Zoey from now on!"
Her name discussion made me remember something important.
'The Britney Spears era hasn't arrived yet. Could I cast her in the movie?'
I called Claire and asked her to get me some information on Britney Spears and gather a list of singing talents I might recognize.
She found something—the lineup from The Mickey Mouse Club. The roster was stacked with names that, for now, were just ordinary kids but would later become household stars.
Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez (NSYNC), Ryan Gosling, and Keri Russell had all come out of that same generation of the show.
Britney in particular caught my eye. She wasn't famous yet—in fact, she was back home in Kentwood, Louisiana, performing locally and sending out demo tapes while trying to land a record deal in New York.
She had the talent, but she hadn't broken into the mainstream. Right now, she was just another ambitious teenager waiting for her shot.
But I knew in just a few short years, it would later be known in history as the 'Britney Era'.
"If I get her earlier… then…"
…
The next day, my snakes finally woke up from their deep sleep.
Both of them had broken through to the spirit level. They weren't just beasts anymore—they had become spirit beasts, true guardian creatures.
"Shiryu. Show me what you can do now," I said.
The white snake lifted his head proudly. His body shifted—his head widening into a cobra's hood.
Bone-like spikes pushed through his scales, sharp and layered like natural armor. A pair of horns curved out from his skull, almost like antlers. His white scales shimmered faintly, giving him a noble, dangerous look.
He wrapped his slim body around me, and something else happened.
As he reached my hand, he turned into a sharp, spikey blade.
"This is amazing." I smiled in satisfaction as I swung the blade around.
I knew of a few spirit beast turned weapons in my previous life, but it was very rare for them to achieve a weapon state while still at the spirit level.
"Obsidian. Your turn."
The black ring buzzed before it transformed into a black snake.
Obsidian grew much larger than before, her body swelling until her head alone was as big as me. Her scales deepened to pure black, shining like polished stone.
Slowly, she opened her jaws and swallowed an entire potted plant whole.
But instead of bulging out her body, the plant simply vanished. Her form rippled with strange energy, and then she shrank back down—curling around my finger like a ring.
Then she changed back and spat the potted plant out into the courtyard, still intact though doused in her saliva.
The plant had been stored inside her like a pocket dimension. The size limit wasn't huge—maybe the volume of a duffel bag—but it was still incredible.
"What kind of beast did you two eat," I muttered, both amazed and uneasy, "to end up with powers like this?"
My thoughts drifted back to that dog with the skull for a head and the finger I had found at Sarah M. Gellar's house.
I gathered some of the dog's poison and mixed it with its blood to create several new toxins for battle.
Not only had the snakes advanced, but Elena had broken through to level 5 of the foundation realm, and Michael had reached level 4.
My sect was growing stronger, but we were still an upstart here in this universe.
I had also awakened two more espers in the sect: a seventeen-year-old Argentinian boy and an eighteen-year-old Myanmar girl.
The Argentinian boy—Agustín—awakened a level-1 esper power, much to his disappointment.
"Calculation?" I asked, curious. "Like data calculation? Or just numbers?"
"Numbers…" Agustín replied with a slight accent.
Elena tried to cheer him up. "Well, after you raise it, maybe it can transform into something else."
I added, "Agus, there's no weak skill—only people who lack creativity. Stock trading, weapons design, coding—those all need advanced calculation."
"You might not be a front-line fighter, but I don't think anyone else has developed a fighter-type skill, except Michael. Even he's limited."
Agustín was quiet for a moment before he accepted it. "That's true, I guess."
He had wanted more destructive powers after reading too many X-Men comics—elemental control, bioenergy, weather manipulation.
A calculator ability felt disappointing compared to all others, even though he has a supercomputer in his brain.
"Maybe I can grow it into something like Forge in the comics," he tried to cheer himself up.
"If you do that, you'll probably be the richest of us," I said, a little jealous at the thought.
Agustín was particularly down because the girl had awakened a level-3 esper ability—the strongest so far.
"Time bomb?" Elena muttered in shock.
The girl could turn anything into a bomb and set a timer before it detonated.
"San—that's really cool," I told her.
"Sandra. Call me Sandra from now on," she said with a confident smirk. "I feel a little relieved too. At least I can't turn organic things into bombs, otherwise I'd just… explode some dicks."
She was referring to the men who had trafficked her for the cartel. Sandra still held a deep grudge against those customers, but she trusted us—she knew we weren't that kind of people.
She'd even started dating Agustín, and they were planning to marry as soon as he turned eighteen.
"I don't know what to do with this power. Can you like, plan my future for me?" Agustín asked me.
"Hmmm…" I thought about it for a bit before saying, "I'll get you some computer lessons. If you really don't know what to do with it, I would love it if you can build up some software for me to use."
"On it boss!" Agustín smiled brightly and agreed with my suggestions.
Back in 1996, digital animation was still clunky. Studios had CAPS, Toonz, or Animo—programs where you scanned drawings, colored them digitally, and composited.
It saved some time compared to painting cels, but you still needed stacks of paper and endless cleanup. Computers weren't built for artists; they were just expensive calculators with a mouse.
What I wanted was closer to how artists in the future would work. A digital canvas. A tablet and pen where you could draw directly on the screen—no scanning, no piles of paper.
Layers you could toggle on and off. Instant undo with a single tap. Brushes that actually felt like ink or pencil instead of jagged pixel lines.
I imagined a software that combined drawing, painting, and animation in one place—something like Procreate or Toon Boom Harmony, years before it would even exist.
A workspace where you could sketch a scene, clean it up, color it, and then push it straight into motion without leaving the program.
That's the sort of tool studios would someday use for shows like Arcane—hand-drawn finesse blended with digital flexibility.
It might take him a few years to make it, and if I could still live by then, I wanted to be able to use it.
…
The movie set.
Today I had a scene with Sarah M Gellar at a coffee shop where I was venting at her about the hardship of living in the car after my house burned down.
Sitting in a coffee shop, my character, Luke, said with a visibly annoyed expression, "When I woke up this morning, I thought I was going to die from the cold."
"Why don't you come and sleep with me?-- I mean, in my room. As long as you snuck in at night and out early in the morning, you won't have to deal with that."
I sighed and then said, "Yeah. But I'm afraid of letting my dad sleep alone in the car. One way or another, that car will end up on the road."
"Cut!" The director said. "That's a good script-reading take. We're going to go again, and this time, you can improvise for the scene."
"Alright. I just need a few seconds with Sarah to discuss it." I told him.
Sarah was quite nervous at the improvisation routine. So I whispered something to her and asked the director if I could add something extra.
"We're rolling!" the director said after we made some preparations.
The camera panned from the couple next to us, who acts lovey dovey and has a cream mustache turned romantic kiss scene between them.
Sarah looked at them with longing before purposely creating a cream moustache of her own, looking at me with expectation.
"You're so messy." I said, mimicking the other couple. She was elated, however I pinched her lower lip and used that as a tissue to wipe the cream from her lip.
"Pfft–" The director and the cameraman accidentally burst into laughter. Even Sarah was taken aback and covered her face in shock.
"What the hell was that?" Sarah laughed out loud, slapping my arm lightly.
"Improv." I replied casually, with a smirk, which made Sarah burst out laughing even more.
Steve Carell, who was here even though there wasn't any scene he needed to do today, laughed out loud too. He wanted to see the improv lines to make sure to mimic the same energy in the other scenes.
"We're rolling again!" Payne held back his laughter and continued the scene. We started up from the car line again.
"It was so cold in the car last night." I told her with a depressed tone. "You shouldn't sleep in that junk car! You guys should at least sleep in a motel!"
"Yeah, I get that. But we have no money." I told her. "I'll give you 50 dollars." She added.
"Rather than money, I need a blanket more." I said simply.
"It was so cold so I turned to grab something to cover up. My hand touched..; ugh…something fuzzy."
"No–"
"So I instinctively went there, nuzzling my head in it."
"Is it a racoon?" She asked, acting slightly surprised. "Did you spoon with a raccoon?"
"I wish it was an animal." I said, clearly shaken. "But no. My dad cannot sleep with his shirt on. So–"
"NO!" Sarah widened her eyes, not expecting that.
"It was his body hair. And I kept rubbing my face in it all night long."
"Stop!" She almost broke character and laughed slightly. I added, "It was warm, like hugging your Mr Sprinkles Teddy Bear."
"Do not bring my teddy into this!" She still managed to hold on.
I said with a deadpan expression, "When I realize it and opened my eyes, there's like some hair in my mouth–"
"NO! EW!" Sarah broke down before she covered her face, laughing madly. The crew laughed again.
We were wasting some tapes as it kept rolling, but that would be a nice scene for a blooper reel in case it didn't get into the final cut.
We improvised a couple more scenes, trying to change the script's vibe into a more natural conversation.
It was a way to shoot a comedy film, and multiple movies used this type of technique.
Like Anchorman, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, etc.
The advent of improvisational comedy movies started with advancements in editing programs, which allowed editors to backtrack video on the computer and insert something new into the scene.
"We should not use that and put that scene into the movie. Like the sleeping together moment," Chbosky said.
I widened my eyes slightly. Sarah guffawed out loud and said, "You dug your own grave on this one."
"I really did, didn't I?" I looked at the writer and director with disbelief as they discussed adding the scene in.
Well, I didn't really care if it was funny.
In the movie, Sarah and I were childhood friends who began dating, and we still hadn't had sex, let alone our first kiss.
I would act in an ambiguous manner a couple of times, misleading her into thinking she would finally get it, only to turn it around with a punchline later on.
"Nice job, man! You should do stand-up sometime." Steve high-fived me as I got out of the scene.
I returned his high-five and said, "No. I'm busy enough already. By the way, I didn't catch your show last night."
"Really? Shouldn't you at least lie about it?" Steve was cracking up at my deadpan delivery.
"I'd rather not. If you ask me about it, then I'll be caught with my pants down, and that will be even more embarrassing."
Steve said, "Oh, don't worry about it. I'm going to get you to come to this club—me and my friends usually hang out there, throwing ideas for jokes at each other. You should come sometime."
Sarah suddenly interjected, joking slightly, "You might want to give up early on that. I've invited him to some parties and hangouts, but he never came. He's always busy."
"Really? What are you working on besides this?" Steve asked.
"A book. I just got a contract, so it's going to be released soon," I told them casually.
Sarah and Steve were taken aback. "A book? You wrote a book? About what?" Sarah asked.
"About a team of assassins. You can read it when it comes out. I'm not going to explain the plot now and lose 20 dollars of potential sales," I joked.
Sarah inhaled deeply, impressed by my cockiness, and then said, "You know what? I'll read your book. And I'll JUDGE your book."
"Do what you want—" I stopped suddenly as I sensed something sinister approaching the set area.
…
[General POV]
"Please! My niece is starving… She won't open her eyes! Someone, please help me!" An African American man rushed through the streets, people scattering away from him like he carried the plague.
His shirt was torn and filthy, leaves tangled in his long braided hair. Sweat dripped down his face. He wanted to stop, but a tiger's growl echoed behind him, forcing him to keep running.
"Someone please help!" he screamed desperately, clutching the baby in his arms. "The tiger wants to eat my niece!"
People stared at him like he was insane, keeping their distance.
He looked down at the baby's still, sleeping face and sobbed softly, "Please… help."
On the corner, an older white woman planted her fists on her wide hips, whispering to her friend.
"Another lunatic on the street. Probably a junkie if he thinks that's a real baby."
Everyone else saw only a straw doll in his arms, a crude talisman pinned to its head.
Trailing him was a black van. Inside, two middle-aged white men sat in the front seats, the letters SRU (Supernatural Response Unit) stitched on their jackets.
"I feel bad for the guy," said the one in glasses, adjusting them nervously.
"Forget him. We're here to see if Michael Alvarez can actually perceive the supernatural—and if he's got the ability to fight it."
"And if he does?" the glasses-wearing agent asked.
"Then we take him in." The muscular man grinned. "Who knows, if it's not him, we can find other potential recruits."