Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood

“Want toast?”

When Zavier asked that, Aiden nodded and sat down on a chair. 

“When did you wake up?” Aiden asked, and Zavier looked at him as he put a slightly burned toast on a plate. 

“Two hours ago. I slept a lot in the last few days.” He passed on the toast, “Here.”

“Ah, thanks.”

“Sorry, I never really cooked before.”

“It’s perfectly fine.”

They didn’t talk for a while as Aiden chewed on the toast. It wasn’t the best toast he had eaten, but it wasn’t so bad that it was unbearable. 

It was just average. 

After a while, Zavier opened his mouth. 

“I wanted to say thanks.” Aiden looked up at him, still chewing the toast. “No one else came to meet me after the scandal, and only you did. It’s a big thing for me. I feel much better after letting out everything going on in my mind.”

Last night, Aiden had heard every bit of detail of Zavier and Florence’s marriage unwillingly. From how they had met to every single fight of theirs to even things that were better not said out loud. 

Zavier had even told him about him wanting to murder Florence in 100 different ways. Yes, he had actually talked about that. 

The only reason he hadn’t gone ahead with it was that he still had sanity left. 

At one point, Aiden was even scared of his thoughts and wanted to advise him to do a horror movie with the extraordinary imagination he had.

“It’s not a big deal. What are you going to do next?” Aiden raised an eyebrow and finished up the toast. 

“I’m going to hire the best divorce attorney in town and get custody of my kids. They don’t deserve to suffer with a filthy mother.”

“That’s a good plan.”

Aiden said. Watching the whole drama pan out in front of his eyes had made him remember once again why Hollywood marriages rarely worked. 

It was as rare as a normal movie beating a superhero movie at the box office. 

Children are left with broken homes, and parents are too busy in their professional life to give them time. It was sad, but that was the reality.

“Ah, all this is going to cost a lot. Lawyers take a lot these days.”

Zavier muttered as Aiden was thinking of relationships that were purely based in Hollywood. 

“Are you short on money?” He asked, and Zavier sighed. 

“Not exactly, but I have not worked in a long time. A lot of my savings went into getting that bitch her office.”

Aiden ignored the fact that Zavier was calling Florence as ‘Bitch’ and finally understood how she had gotten a great office without much accomplishments. 

“Are you going to get into directing again? Ads might get you money quickly.”

A lot of directors actually did ad shoots to get some short-term income as they were easier than movies and didn’t take a long time. 

“No, I want to direct a movie. I will go crazy if I don’t get to work straight away. I need something to distract my mind as I file the divorce case.”

“Your rom-com movie?”

Aiden still recalled Zavier talking about it on the premiere of [Sherlock of the Shadows]. 

“No, never in my entire life,” Zavier muttered. “I already tore that script. If I made a rom-com movie currently, it’s going to come out as a dark and disgusting movie that would be rated R.”

He frowned and continued.

“I was actually thinking that I should work on the sequel of one of my previous movies. It’s better to follow the same characters that I have created instead of making a whole new batch of them.”

“That means?”

“You talked about a sequel to [Black Saints] before, right? I think this is the right time to bring Kai back.”

Aiden widened his eyes hearing that. He hadn’t thought that he would get a chance to go back to Kai as all plans for the sequels that he knew of never became something more than an idea. 

Zavier had never been able to execute the ideas, so a script was never made, and he moved on.

“I thought you didn’t want it?”

“Things change. I feel like I’m in the right mindset to write a good enough story that would suit Kai.” Zavier said, then smiled, thinking about it. “A dark villain story that would make people gasp.”

***

The major thing that was the worry in something [Black Saints 2] was the fact that there were a couple of ways that the story could be taken forward. 

Whether Kai died or not at the end of the movie was something that was left to the viewers. So, was the sequel going to focus on that? Or, instead, was it going to be a back story of how he became that sort of a maniac? 

Prequels like that have rarely worked in the industry as they were mostly badly executed and it was hard for people to connect with them. One of the reasons was also that people were bored of origin stories.

But maybe the origin story of someone like Kai would work?

Both Zavier and Aiden didn’t know, but they discussed a few ideas. 

Zavier showed Aiden the various ideas he had written for Kai back when [Black Saints] emerged as a big hit. 

They were interesting, to say the least. 

There was even one idea that showed Kai as a middle-aged man with kids after he had gone underground. It was an idea that was discarded in a second, as that just didn’t suit Kai. 

Aiden felt like Kai would never be in a relationship simply because love for him was a weakness. He would kill the girl he would fall in love with. 

After all, Kai was the epitome of anarchy. 

In the end, it was not something that they could work on straight away. Just the scripting was going to take a couple of months, and then, they would need to start on the pre-production. 

Zavier asked Aiden whether he was able to help him out in fleshing out the ideas, and Aiden agreed without thinking for a second.

He was the one who was the most excited about Kai making a return. 

Even though Kai was a crazy guy, Aiden had a connection with him that was hard to emulate in any of his other characters. 

Maybe, it was just because he loved playing villains. 

At the same time, Aiden was very excited to finally be able to use the boost he had received on villain characters. After [Black Saints], he had never played any villains, so he wanted to see what would happen if he played one. With the boost, he was bound to max out the character affinity. 

***

In a room, a song was playing. His melodies danced around, creating a mesmerizing atmosphere. It was a ballad song with a voice that held a lot of melancholy, and the lyrics were as pure as they could be. 

An old man had his eyes closed as he listened to the music. 

A thin smile was on his face, reminiscing about the day he had first heard the song. Since that day, he had been playing it every single day, no matter what. 

It was his favorite song, and at the same time, it was linked to one of the most painful memories that haunted his mind. 

Suddenly, the song stopped, and the old man opened his eyes with a deep sigh. 

‘If only I have called you that night…’

The old man thought, and at that moment, a man entered the room. He was a young man with intricate features, and confidence was evident in the way he carried himself. Following him was a square-shaped face, a short man with a bit of a belly. 

“Grandpa, Mr. Price is here to meet you.”

The young man was actually Cameron, and the old man was Joseph Bryce, his grandfather, and a famous composer. 

“Come sit. You should have called me if you were coming to my place.”

Joseph said as the man named Mr. Price took his seat. 

“It was a bit urgent. I didn’t think a lot and just wanted to meet you.”

“About what?”

“Agnas.”

Joseph widened his eyes hearing that. He hadn’t expected the topic to come up so suddenly. 

Cameron just stood on the side hearing that, but even his expression was a bit more serious after hearing that name. 

A name that most people in America and most of the west would know of. 

“What about it?” Joseph asked. 

“We got into an agreement with the family members. They agreed for us to go on with the project, and they won’t interfere in it. They didn’t have any problem after we reimbursed them properly and told them that the world needs to get the story of what exactly went on.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, the project is on.”

Standing on the side, Cameron couldn’t help but smile hearing that. 

The full name of the short man was actually Theodore Price, and he was one of the producers from Zero International, one of the Big 6 studios in Hollywood. 

He was currently talking about a movie that had been in the works for years, and just when they had gotten a script ready, it had gotten into trouble. 

“If that’s the case, then we should start the production right away. It had already been delayed a lot.”

“I’m here to talk to you about it for that reason. More importantly, I want to talk about ‘Joker’.”