The six weeks between Marcus's audition-turned-gladiatorial-combat and the first official table read of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" passed in a fever dream of activity that his still-amnesiac brain could barely process.
He had an apartment now, apparently. A modest one-bedroom in Burbank that he had no memory of renting but which contained clothes that fit him, a refrigerator stocked with food he apparently liked, and a bathroom mirror that reflected a face he was slowly learning to recognize as his own. The system had been suspiciously quiet about how all of this had been arranged, responding to his questions with the digital equivalent of a shrug and vague references to "background synchronization protocols."
Marcus had learned not to ask too many questions about the background synchronization protocols.
He had also learned, over the course of those six weeks, that the Acting System was far more extensive than its initial presentation had suggested. What had appeared as a simple blue interface on that first day had expanded into an elaborate mental architecture of skill trees, experience points, character profiles, and something ominously labeled "NARRATIVE DESTINY TRACKER" that he absolutely refused to examine too closely.
The Jack Sparrow skill tree alone was a thing of terrifying beauty:
[JACK SPARROW MASTERY: LEVEL 3]
Method Embodiment (ACTIVE) - UnlockedPirate Swagger (PASSIVE) - UnlockedRum Appreciation (PASSIVE) - UnlockedCompass Intuition (LOCKED) - Requires Level 5Kraken Awareness (LOCKED) - Requires Level 10 and Specific Plot EventJar of Dirt Proficiency (LOCKED) - Requires Sequel Confirmation
But it was the newest addition to his skill portfolio that had Marcus genuinely concerned as he drove his mysteriously-acquired 1997 Honda Civic toward the Disney studios on this particular Tuesday morning.
[NEW SKILL TREE DETECTED]
[DOWNLOADING: PIRATE KNOWLEDGE EXPANSION PACK]
[SOURCE: ONE PIECE (ANIME/MANGA)]
[WARNING: CROSS-FRANCHISE CONTAMINATION POSSIBLE]
[INSTALLATION COMPLETE]
"What do you mean, cross-franchise contamination?" Marcus had demanded three days ago, staring at the notification hovering in his peripheral vision while trying to eat breakfast cereal that he didn't remember buying.
[THE SYSTEM HAS DETERMINED THAT HOST'S UNDERSTANDING OF 'PIRATE PHILOSOPHY' IS INSUFFICIENT FOR OPTIMAL CHARACTER EMBODIMENT. ADDITIONAL REFERENCE MATERIAL HAS BEEN INTEGRATED.]
"I'm playing Jack Sparrow, not... whoever is in One Piece!"
[MONKEY D. LUFFY. CAPTAIN OF THE STRAW HAT PIRATES. FUTURE KING OF THE PIRATES. HIS PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM, LOYALTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF DREAMS WILL ENHANCE HOST'S PERFORMANCE BY APPROXIMATELY 47.3%.]
"That's a very specific percentage."
[THE SYSTEM IS VERY SPECIFIC.]
Marcus had given up arguing with the system after approximately the fifteenth attempt. It was like trying to debate with a particularly stubborn fortune cookie—technically possible, but ultimately futile and slightly concerning for his mental health.
Now, as he pulled into the studio parking lot, he could feel the new knowledge sitting in his brain like an uninvited houseguest who had rearranged all the furniture. Speeches about dreams and freedom and the will of D (whatever THAT was) bubbled just beneath the surface of his consciousness, waiting for the slightest provocation to come spilling out.
"Please," he muttered, stepping out of the car, "please let me get through this table read without quoting Japanese media at the Disney executives. Please. I am begging you."
[THE SYSTEM MAKES NO PROMISES.]
"That's not reassuring!"
[IT WASN'T MEANT TO BE.]
The walk from the parking lot to the main studio building was approximately three hundred yards, which gave Marcus just enough time to practice his breathing exercises, remind himself that he was a professional actor now (technically), and notice that his body had started moving in Jack Sparrow's distinctive swagger without his conscious permission.
He tried to walk normally.
His hips refused to cooperate.
"Fine," he muttered, surrendering to the pirate gait. "Fine. We'll do it your way."
The table read was scheduled for Stage 7, a massive soundstage that had been converted into a conference space for the occasion. As Marcus approached the entrance, he could see other cast members arriving—some he recognized from research he'd done over the past weeks, others who were completely unfamiliar.
There was Geoffrey Rush, looking distinguished and slightly terrifying in a way that suggested he was already half-thinking about Barbossa. There was Keira Knightley, impossibly young and impossibly poised, laughing at something her assistant had said. There was Orlando Bloom, whose cheekbones could probably cut glass and whose earnest expression suggested he took this whole acting thing very seriously indeed.
And there, standing by the door like a welcoming committee of exactly one, was Gore Verbinski.
"Marcus!" The director's face lit up with genuine pleasure. "Our man of the hour! How are you feeling?"
"Nervous," Marcus admitted, because lying to the director of his first major film seemed like a poor career strategy. "Very nervous. Extremely nervous. Is it possible to be so nervous that you circle back around to calm? Because I think I might be approaching that."
Gore laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. "That's exactly how you should feel. Channel it. Jack Sparrow runs on nervous energy—he's always one step ahead of disaster because disaster is always right behind him."
"That's... actually really helpful advice."
"I'm a director. Occasionally I direct." Gore steered him toward the entrance. "Come on, let me introduce you to your fellow pirates. And your enemies. And—" he lowered his voice conspiratorially, "—the Disney executives who will be watching from the back of the room and judging our every creative decision."
"Oh good. More pressure. That's exactly what I needed."
The interior of Stage 7 had been transformed into something resembling a very fancy classroom. A massive rectangular arrangement of tables dominated the center of the space, covered with scripts, water bottles, and the peculiar assortment of good-luck charms and personal totems that actors seemed to collect like magpies. Name placards indicated seating assignments, and Marcus felt his stomach perform a small acrobatic routine when he spotted his own name—MARCUS CHEN - JACK SPARROW—positioned at what could only be described as the head of the table.
The protagonist's seat. The lead's position. The place where everyone would be looking at him.
"Deep breaths," he whispered to himself. "Deep breaths and don't quote anime. That's all you have to do. Breathe and don't quote anime."
[SYSTEM SUGGESTION: PERHAPS QUOTE ANIME A LITTLE?]
"NO."
"No what?" Keira Knightley had materialized at his elbow, looking up at him with curious brown eyes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but you seemed to be having quite an intense conversation with yourself."
Marcus felt his face heat up approximately several thousand degrees. "I was just... running lines. In my head. Which I was then responding to. Out loud. As one does. Completely normal actor behavior."
Keira's lips twitched. "Of course. Completely normal." She extended a hand. "Keira Knightley. I'm playing Elizabeth."
"Marcus Chen. I'm playing the pirate who will probably kidnap you at some point."
"Looking forward to it." Her handshake was firm and confident. "I've heard interesting things about your audition."
"Oh god. What have you heard?"
"That you improvised a five-minute monologue about doors being metaphors, got into a fistfight with another actor, and ended up standing on the conference table threatening people with a stapler." Keira's smile widened. "Gore's been telling everyone. He's very excited about you."
"I'm very excited to hide under this table and never emerge."
"Please don't. It would make the table read rather awkward." Keira patted his arm in what was probably meant to be a reassuring gesture. "You'll be fine. Probably. I mean, how badly can a table read go?"
This, Marcus would later reflect, was what writers called "foreshadowing."
The table read began at precisely 10:00 AM, because Disney ran on a schedule that would make Swiss watchmakers weep with envy.
Gore stood at the head of the room, making introductory remarks that Marcus barely heard over the sound of his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. He caught fragments—"revolutionary approach to the pirate genre"—"supernatural elements grounded in character"—"want you all to feel free to explore and experiment"—but the words seemed to float past him like clouds in a hurricane.
Then the scripts were opened, and they began.
The first hour went smoother than Marcus had dared to hope. His lines came naturally, filtered through the Jack Sparrow embodiment skill that had become almost second nature over the past weeks. He found himself slipping in and out of the character with an ease that surprised him, his voice adjusting automatically to Jack's particular cadence, his hands moving in those distinctive gestural patterns even while seated.
Geoffrey Rush, he discovered, was absolutely terrifying as Barbossa. The older actor brought a gleeful malevolence to the role that made Marcus genuinely uncomfortable in the best possible way. Their scenes together crackled with an energy that made the Disney executives in the back of the room sit up and take notice.
Orlando Bloom played Will Turner with an earnestness that was almost painfully endearing. Keira matched him beat for beat as Elizabeth, finding the steel beneath the society-girl surface. The supporting cast filled in around them like pieces of a puzzle clicking into place.
It was, by all metrics, going extremely well.
Which meant, of course, that the universe was about to intervene.
They were approximately two hours into the read, approaching a scene where Jack Sparrow attempts to convince Will Turner to help him steal a ship, when Marcus felt something shift in his consciousness.
It started as a warmth in his chest—not unpleasant, but unfamiliar. The warmth spread upward through his throat, behind his eyes, into that space where the system interface usually resided.
[WARNING: PIRATE PHILOSOPHY INTEGRATION REACHING CRITICAL THRESHOLD]
[EMOTIONAL RESONANCE DETECTED WITH CURRENT SCENE CONTENT]
[RECOMMEND HOST ALLOW EXPRESSION TO PREVENT PSYCHOLOGICAL BUILDUP]
"What does that mean?" Marcus thought frantically, even as his mouth continued speaking Jack Sparrow's lines about the Black Pearl being freedom.
[IT MEANS THE PIRATE FEELINGS NEED TO COME OUT.]
"THE PIRATE FEELINGS?"
[YES. THE PIRATE FEELINGS.]
Before Marcus could formulate a response to this absolutely unhinged notification, his mouth kept moving past the scripted dialogue and directly into territory that would have made Eiichiro Oda very confused about international copyright law.
"The Black Pearl isn't just a ship, mate," Marcus heard himself saying, Jack Sparrow's voice taking on an intensity that wasn't in the script. "She's not even just freedom. She's a PROMISE. A promise that there's more to this world than what they've told us. Than what they've ALLOWED us to see."
Gore was looking at him with an expression caught between fascination and concern. The other actors had stopped reading, their scripts lowering as they watched Marcus with varying degrees of confusion.
But Marcus couldn't stop. The words were pouring out of him now, the One Piece knowledge merging with Jack Sparrow's philosophy in a way that felt simultaneously wrong and absolutely RIGHT.
"You want to know what a pirate is, William Turner?" He stood up from the table, unable to remain seated, and the Jack Sparrow swagger carried him in a slow circle around his chair. "A pirate is someone who looked at the rules—all the rules, every rule, rules about property and propriety and proper behavior—and asked a very simple question: WHY?"
"Marcus—" Gore started.
"Why do we bow to kings? Why do we serve the Navy? Why do we accept the boundaries that others have drawn around our lives?" Marcus's voice was rising now, filled with a passion that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than acting. "The sea doesn't care about your birth or your station or your blessed East India Trading Company! The sea only cares about one thing: whether you have the WILL to chase the horizon!"
He was definitely not reading from the script anymore. He was, in fact, pretty sure he was about to quote One Piece directly, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.
"Do you know what they call that, mate? That will to be free? That refusal to accept the world as it is?" He spun to face the room, and for a moment—just a moment—he could have sworn he saw a straw hat flickering at the edge of his vision. "They call it the Will of the Pirates! And it's passed down from generation to generation, from captain to captain, from one impossible dreamer to the next!"
[CROSS-FRANCHISE CONTAMINATION AT 73%]
"There will come a day—" Marcus was building to something now, he could feel it, a crescendo of pirate philosophy that had no business being in a Disney movie but was coming anyway, "—when someone asks you what you're willing to fight for. What you're willing to DIE for. And on that day, you won't remember the money you saved or the rules you followed or the proper respectable life you were SUPPOSED to live!"
He grabbed his water bottle from the table and thrust it into the air like a flag being planted on conquered territory.
"On that day, you'll remember the DREAMS! The adventures! The impossible things you chased even though everyone told you they couldn't be caught!" His voice cracked with emotion that felt startlingly genuine. "THAT'S what a pirate is, William Turner! A pirate is someone who would rather die free on the sea than live forever in a cage made of gold!"
He slammed the water bottle down on the table with a dramatic THUNK.
"So I'll ask you one more time, boy: do you want to be a blacksmith your whole life, hammering out horseshoes for men who'll never remember your name? Or do you want to sail to the ends of the earth, fight the devil himself, and BECOME SOMEONE WORTH REMEMBERING?"
Silence.
Complete, absolute, deafening silence.
Marcus stood there, breathing hard, water bottle dented from its encounter with the table, slowly coming back to himself as the pirate feelings—the PIRATE FEELINGS, what even WAS his life—receded to manageable levels.
Everyone was staring at him.
The Disney executives in the back looked like they had just witnessed either a religious experience or a complete mental breakdown and couldn't decide which.
Orlando Bloom's mouth was hanging open.
Keira Knightley had her hand pressed over her heart.
Geoffrey Rush was nodding slowly, a grim smile spreading across his features.
And Gore Verbinski—
Gore Verbinski was laughing.
Not the polite, professional laugh of a director humoring his lead actor. A genuine, delighted, slightly unhinged laugh that shook his entire body and brought tears to his eyes.
"That—" Gore gasped, trying to catch his breath. "That was NOT in the script!"
"I know," Marcus said weakly. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me. There was this feeling, and then words happened, and I think I just quoted at least three different pieces of Japanese media without meaning to—"
"It was MAGNIFICENT!" Gore crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed Marcus by the shoulders. "Where did that COME from? 'The Will of the Pirates'? 'Die free on the sea than live forever in a cage made of gold'? That's EXACTLY the philosophy we've been trying to articulate for this character!"
"It... is?"
"Jack Sparrow isn't just a funny drunk pirate, he's a SYMBOL!" Gore's eyes were shining with creative fervor. "He represents everything that the British Empire, the East India Company, the forces of ORDER are trying to suppress! He's CHAOS! He's FREEDOM! He's—" the director paused, frowning slightly, "—wait, what's the Will of D?"
"I have absolutely no idea," Marcus lied through his teeth.
[TECHNICALLY ACCURATE. HOST'S UNDERSTANDING OF THE WILL OF D IS INCOMPLETE EVEN WITH SYSTEM INTEGRATION.]
"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" Gore was already turning to the writers' table, where three increasingly alarmed-looking screenwriters were furiously taking notes. "I want versions of that speech! Not the whole thing—we can't fit all of that in—but the ESSENCE! The 'die free on the sea' line, definitely. Something about dreams and impossible things. Can we work that in?"
"To... which scene?" one of the writers asked hesitantly.
"ANY scene! ALL the scenes! I don't care, just find a place for it!"
Marcus slowly sank back into his chair, feeling like he had just survived a natural disaster. Across the table, Orlando Bloom caught his eye and mouthed "what the fuck?" with an expression of genuine bewilderment.
Marcus could only shrug helplessly.
Keira leaned over and whispered, "That was either the most brilliant piece of acting I've ever seen, or you actually ARE a pirate who's been accidentally reincarnated in modern Los Angeles."
"Would you believe me if I said I'm not entirely sure which?"
"Honestly? At this point? Yes."
The table read continued, though the energy in the room had shifted palpably. Everyone was more engaged, more willing to experiment, as if Marcus's impromptu philosophy lecture had given them permission to push beyond the written words on the page.
By the time they reached the final scenes—Will and Elizabeth's reunion, Jack's narrow escape, the open-ended promise of future adventures—the script had been marked up with approximately seventeen thousand notes and suggested additions, many of which seemed to stem directly from Marcus's outburst.
"Alright, everyone!" Gore called out as the last line was read. "That was exceptional. EXCEPTIONAL! Take a two-hour lunch, and then I want the principals back here for movement work. Marcus, a word?"
Marcus approached the director with the wariness of a man approaching a bomb that might or might not be defused.
"That thing you did," Gore said, his voice lower now, meant only for Marcus's ears. "That speech. Where did it really come from?"
"I honestly don't know." This, at least, was mostly true. He knew it came from the system's One Piece integration, but he certainly couldn't EXPLAIN that.
"You know what? I believe you." Gore studied his face with an intensity that made Marcus want to squirm. "Some actors access things they can't explain. Deep wells of emotion and philosophy that seem to come from somewhere beyond conscious thought. I think you might be one of those actors, Marcus."
"Is that... good?"
"It's TERRIFYING. And also incredibly valuable." The director smiled. "Just try not to do it during actual filming unless we're rolling. The cinematographer hates unscheduled genius."
"I'll do my best."
"That's all I ask." Gore's smile widened. "Now, I believe you have a lunch break, and then sword training. Bob Anderson is very excited to meet you."
"Bob Anderson?"
"The sword master. He's trained everyone from Errol Flynn to the Lord of the Rings cast. He's been doing this for—" Gore paused, calculating, "—about fifty years, I think. Maybe longer. The man is a legend."
Marcus felt a familiar nervous flutter in his stomach. "And he's going to train ME?"
"He's going to TRY." Gore's expression shifted to something that might have been concern. "Fair warning: Bob is very particular about his students. He's already sent back two potential fight doubles for not meeting his standards. Try not to stab yourself during the first lesson. It creates paperwork."
The sword training facility was located in a separate building on the studio lot—a converted warehouse that had been transformed into what could only be described as a combat choreography paradise. Mirrors lined three of the four walls, the floor was covered in specialized mats, and racks upon racks of practice weapons gleamed under industrial lighting.
Standing in the center of the space, examining a rapier with the critical eye of a jeweler assessing a diamond, was a man who appeared to be somewhere between seventy and immortal.
Bob Anderson was not a large man. He stood perhaps five-foot-eight, with a lean build that suggested decades of disciplined training rather than gym-built muscle. His hair was silver-white, his face lined with the marks of a life spent in motion, and his eyes—
His eyes were the problem.
They were the eyes of a man who had spent half a century teaching Hollywood's elite how to pretend to kill each other with swords, and who could tell within approximately three seconds whether a new student was worth his time.
They were currently fixed on Marcus with an expression of polite skepticism.
"You're the new Jack Sparrow," Bob said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes, sir." Marcus's voice came out embarrassingly squeaky.
"Gore tells me you have 'unusual movement instincts.'" The sword master made air quotes around the phrase with the hand not holding the rapier. "He tells me your audition involved improvised fight choreography. He tells me you might be 'a natural.'"
"I'm not sure I'd say—"
"Neither would I." Bob set down the rapier and picked up two practice swords—blunted lengths of steel that nevertheless looked perfectly capable of causing significant bruising. "I've been doing this since 1953. I trained Christopher Lee. I trained Viggo Mortensen. I trained Mark Hamill, back when he could barely hold a lightsaber without pointing it at his own face. Do you know what they all had in common?"
"They were... talented?"
"They were HUMBLE." Bob tossed one of the practice swords to Marcus, who caught it out of pure reflex. "They came into this room knowing they knew nothing, and they let me teach them. Can you do that, Mr. Chen?"
"I—"
[SKILL UNLOCKING: ADVANCED SWORDSMANSHIP]
[SOURCES: JACK SPARROW COMBAT DATABASE, ONE PIECE SWORD TECHNIQUES, HISTORICAL FENCING ANALYSIS]
[WARNING: SKILL LEVEL MAY EXCEED HOST'S CONSCIOUS EXPECTATIONS]
Oh no.
"I can try," Marcus said weakly, even as he felt the new knowledge settling into his muscles, his bones, his very posture. His grip on the practice sword was shifting without his input, finding a position that felt—
That felt PERFECT.
"Good enough." Bob raised his own sword in a classic en garde position. "Show me your basic stance."
Marcus tried to assume something neutral, something appropriately amateur-looking, something that wouldn't immediately reveal that his brain had just been uploaded with approximately seven hundred years of combined sword-fighting knowledge.
His body had other ideas.
The stance it chose was a modified Spanish style, adapted for the curved cutlass that Jack Sparrow would eventually wield, but with undertones of what Marcus's new internal database identified as "Ittoryu" techniques—single-sword style from the One Piece universe, which had absolutely no business being in a Disney pirate movie but which his muscles seemed to have adopted anyway.
His weight distributed perfectly across both feet. His sword arm relaxed but ready, the blade held at precisely the angle that would allow for fastest response to any attack. His off-hand floated at his side, prepared to gesture theatrically or assist with balance as the situation required.
Bob Anderson's eyes widened.
"Where," the sword master said slowly, "did you learn that stance?"
"I don't... I'm not sure." Marcus's mouth was dry. "It just felt right?"
"That's not a beginner's stance. That's not even an intermediate's stance." Bob circled around him, examining the position from multiple angles like a sculptor assessing a particularly surprising block of marble. "That's a COMPETITION stance. Modified, theatrical, but the fundamentals are..."
He trailed off, shaking his head.
"Attack me," Bob said.
"What?"
"Attack me. Don't think about it. Just move."
Marcus's body moved.
It moved without his permission, without his conscious input, flowing from the stance into a series of attacks that felt like water finding its way downhill—natural, inevitable, CORRECT.
The practice sword whistled through the air in a diagonal cut that would have taken Bob's arm off at the shoulder if it had been real and if Bob hadn't moved. Which he did, of course, because he was Bob Anderson and he had been teaching sword fighting since before Marcus's mysterious past life had presumably been born.
But he had to WORK at it.
Marcus saw the surprise flash across the older man's face as their blades met, as Bob was forced to actually engage rather than simply observe. The parry led to a riposte, the riposte to a counter, and suddenly they were FIGHTING—a rapid exchange of attacks and defenses that rang through the warehouse like bells tolling.
The One Piece techniques were bleeding through now. Marcus could feel them: the precise geometry of Roronoa Zoro's sword style, adapted from three blades to one; the fluid creativity of Brook's fencing, all flourishes and unexpected angles; the raw power of Mihawk's strikes, scaled down but present in the weight behind each blow.
He executed a move that his new database identified as "Thirty-Six Pound Phoenix"—obviously without the actual supernatural force behind it, but the MOTION was there, a circular upward cut that seemed to gather momentum from the very air around it.
Bob's parry came an instant too slow.
The practice sword touched his shoulder—gently, barely a tap, but THERE. A touch that in a real fight would have meant blood.
The warehouse went silent except for the sound of two men breathing hard.
Bob Anderson stared at Marcus with an expression that seemed to be cycling through disbelief, suspicion, wonder, and something that might have been the beginning of professional joy.
"Fifty years," he said finally. "FIFTY YEARS I have been doing this. Do you know how many times a completely untrained actor has touched me in their first lesson?"
Marcus shook his head, not trusting his voice.
"ZERO." Bob's face slowly broke into a grin that transformed him from intimidating master to delighted teacher. "Zero times, until today. What ARE you, Mr. Chen?"
"I wish I knew," Marcus said, and meant it with every fiber of his being.
"That move—the circular cut at the end. I've never seen anything like it. It looked almost like a kata, but from a style I don't recognize." Bob was pacing now, sword forgotten in his hand, mind clearly racing. "The footwork was Spanish, the blade work was Japanese, but the PHILOSOPHY behind it..."
"The philosophy?"
"Every sword style has a philosophy. A belief about what combat IS, at its core." Bob stopped pacing and fixed Marcus with those evaluating eyes again. "Most Western styles believe combat is a conversation—attack, response, counter-response. Most Eastern styles believe combat is a meditation—finding the perfect moment for the perfect action. But what you just showed me..."
He shook his head slowly.
"What you just showed me looked like combat as EXPRESSION. Like you were using the sword to say something that couldn't be said with words."
Marcus thought about Luffy's declaration of war against the World Government. He thought about Zoro's vow to never lose again. He thought about all the moments in One Piece where fighting wasn't just violence but COMMUNICATION—the physical manifestation of will and dream and unbreakable determination.
"Maybe I was," he said quietly.
Bob was silent for a long moment. Then he laughed—a genuine, joyful laugh that seemed to take years off his weathered face.
"Gore was right. You ARE unusual." He raised his practice sword again. "Again. And this time, don't hold back."
The training session lasted three hours.
By the end of it, Marcus had learned more about sword fighting than he had thought possible to learn in a single afternoon—not just the choreography that Jack Sparrow would need for the film, but the HISTORY of it, the evolution of styles across centuries, the way that combat had been staged for screen since the days of silent films.
He had also, to his quiet horror, demonstrated techniques that Bob Anderson had never seen before and couldn't quite explain. The sword master had stopped trying to teach and started taking NOTES somewhere around the two-hour mark, filling a small notebook with sketches and observations like a scientist documenting a new species.
"The things you're doing," Bob said as they finally put the practice swords away, "shouldn't be possible. Not for someone who claims to have no formal training. Not for someone who just started six weeks ago."
"I know." Marcus toweled sweat from his face, avoiding the older man's searching gaze. "I can't explain it. I wish I could."
"I've seen prodigies before. I've trained child stars who took to the sword like they were born with it in their hands. But you're different." Bob's voice was thoughtful, almost reverent. "It's like... like the sword KNOWS you. Like you've wielded it before, in another life."
[SYSTEM NOTE: THAT'S... SURPRISINGLY ACCURATE, ACTUALLY.]
Marcus managed not to react to the notification, which he was becoming increasingly skilled at as the days went on.
"Will I be ready for filming?" he asked, changing the subject as smoothly as he could.
"Ready?" Bob laughed again. "You're ready NOW. But we're going to keep training anyway, because I have never had a student like you and I'll be damned if I let this opportunity pass." He clapped Marcus on the shoulder with surprising strength for a man of his age. "Same time tomorrow?"
"Same time tomorrow."
It was nearly sunset by the time Marcus finally left the studio lot, his body pleasantly exhausted from the sword training and his mind still reeling from the events of the day.
The table read. The speech. The PIRATE FEELINGS. The sword fighting that shouldn't have been possible.
He sat in his mysteriously-acquired Honda Civic, watching the orange light paint the Los Angeles skyline, and tried to process what his life had become.
Six weeks ago—or was it six weeks plus however long his missing memories encompassed?—he had woken up in a plastic chair with nothing but his name and a system that made no sense. Now he was the lead in what would apparently become one of the most successful film franchises in history, he had just delivered an improvised speech that the director wanted to incorporate into the actual movie, and a sword master with fifty years of experience had declared him some kind of prodigy.
"What am I?" he asked the empty car.
[YOU ARE THE HOST OF THE ACTING SYSTEM.]
"That's not an answer."
[IT'S THE ONLY ANSWER CURRENTLY AVAILABLE.]
"What about my memories? Will I ever get those back?"
The system was silent for a long moment—long enough that Marcus thought perhaps it wasn't going to respond at all.
[MEMORY RESTORATION IS... POSSIBLE. BUT IT IS TIED TO YOUR PROGRESS WITHIN THE SYSTEM. AS YOU LEVEL UP YOUR ACTING SKILLS, AS YOU EMBODY MORE CHARACTERS, AS YOU ACHIEVE NARRATIVE MILESTONES... FRAGMENTS WILL RETURN.]
"So I have to become a better actor to remember who I was?"
[IN ESSENCE, YES.]
Marcus slumped back in the driver's seat, staring at the ceiling of the car as if it might hold answers. "That's the most convoluted personal development program I've ever heard of."
[THE SYSTEM AIMS FOR UNIQUE USER EXPERIENCES.]
"Was that a joke?"
[THE SYSTEM DOES NOT MAKE JOKES.]
"That was definitely a joke."
[...THE SYSTEM OCCASIONALLY MAKES JOKES.]
Despite everything—despite the amnesia, the confusion, the cosmic absurdity of his situation—Marcus found himself laughing. It started small, a chuckle, but built into something larger, something that might have had tears mixed in if anyone had been watching closely enough to notice.
"Alright," he said finally, wiping his eyes. "Alright. I'm an amnesiac with a mysterious system in his head, playing a pirate in what will apparently be a blockbuster movie, and I might have accidentally introduced One Piece philosophy to Disney executives. That's my life now."
[A CONCISE SUMMARY.]
"And tomorrow I'm going to go back to the studio, swing swords around with a seventy-year-old legend, and try not to spontaneously quote any more anime."
[THAT SEEMS WISE.]
"And eventually, if I do this right, I'll remember who I was before."
[THAT IS THE PROMISE.]
Marcus started the car, the engine turning over with a reassuringly mundane rumble. The sunset had faded to purple twilight, and the city lights were beginning to flicker on around him like stars coming out across an urban sky.
"You know what, system?"
[YES, HOST?]
"That speech I gave today—about dreams and freedom and being worth remembering—it wasn't just Jack Sparrow. And it wasn't just Luffy or whoever else you've got stored in there."
He pulled out of the parking lot, heading toward an apartment that felt a little more like home each day.
"Some of that was ME. Whoever I am underneath all this. There's a part of me that really believes those things."
The system was quiet for several blocks. Then:
[THE SYSTEM KNOWS. THAT IS WHY YOU WERE CHOSEN.]
Marcus drove on into the gathering night, a pirate without a ship, an actor without a past, a man who was slowly—one impossible day at a time—figuring out how to become someone worth remembering.
In his mind, faintly, he could almost hear the creak of rigging and the call of distant gulls.
And over it all, two voices echoing together across the boundaries of fiction and reality:
The horizon's out there, mate. Go find out what's beyond it.
I'm going to become King of the Pirates!
Marcus smiled, turned up the radio, and let the music carry him home.
Tomorrow, there would be more training, more challenges, more opportunities to completely embarrass himself in front of industry professionals.
But tonight, just for a moment, he felt like he might actually be able to pull this off.
[CHAPTER TWO: COMPLETE]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 2,500]
[JACK SPARROW MASTERY: LEVEL 4]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: INSPIRATIONAL SPEECHES (CROSS-FRANCHISE)]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: ADVANCED SWORDSMANSHIP]
[HIDDEN ACHIEVEMENT: "MADE BOB ANDERSON TAKE NOTES" - LEGENDARY TIER]
[NEXT CHAPTER PREVIEW: FILMING BEGINS, AND MARCUS DISCOVERS THAT EMBODYING JACK SPARROW 24/7 MIGHT HAVE SOME... UNEXPECTED SIDE EFFECTS.]