Rewind With A Superstar System-Chapter 84: Emote Upgrade

<🎧 Song Recommendation: abcdefu by GAYLE>

...

"Of course, Von. It’s your track. Talk to me." Arthur was very receptive, giving Von the confidence to continue.

"I respect the vision. But smashing Ferraris in a mansion... that’s playing Julian’s game. Masquerade isn’t about luxury. It’s about how fake this entire industry is. If we put me in a mansion with models, we’re just putting another mask on me."

A proud smile touched Emily’s lips as she watched him take control of the room.

"So what’s the alternative?" Arthur asked with intrigue.

"We take the budget you’d spend on the cars and the mansion, and we rent the biggest warehouse in Brooklyn. We buy the best lights and cameras our money can get. And instead of hiring fifty paid models who don’t care about the song... we invite two hundred of my actual fans."

Arthur’s eyebrows shot up behind his glasses.

"The internet just fought a war for me," Von explained. "I want to give them the victory..."

There was a moment of silence that stretched for a while, as Arthur crossed eyes with him and then Emily before conceding. "Alright, tell me more about your idea."

"So..."

***

The creative vision was locked. Now came the nightmare of logistics.

Emily was in charge of that. Although a $250,000 budget was a whole lot, she still has to be clinical to put it to great use.

Fifty grand for Arthur’s crew and the Arri Alexa camera packages. Thirty grand for the warehouse rental and city permits. Fifty grand for cinematic lighting rigs, strobes, and lasers. Thirty-five grand for post-production editing and color grading. Twenty grand for insurance. That left exactly sixty-five thousand dollars to handle the most volatile element of the entire production: five hundred human beings.

If they went through a traditional Hollywood casting agency, paying standard SAG-AFTRA background actor rates for a 200 people would instantly bankrupt the production. But Von didn’t want professional extras who would check their watches and fake their enthusiasm.

"...If we post an open casting call on your Photogram, a thousand people will show up and the NYPD will shut us down for inciting a riot," Emily explained on a Tuesday night. "It has to be a covert operation."

"So how do we get them?"

Von’s question led Emily to pull up SubVerse on her laptop.

Miles away, Sasha was studying for a college midterm when a direct message pinged in her inbox. It was from a verified account she had never seen before: Ely_Management.

[Ely_Management: Hello Sasha. This is Emily, Von Varley’s manager. I know you are the President of this community. We need to talk. Are you available for a phone call?]

Sasha stared at the screen for a full sixty seconds. She genuinely thought she was having a hallucination and with trembling fingers, she typed out her phone number.

Two minutes later, her phone rang. Through the secure line, Emily efficiently laid out the master plan without missing a beat.

She expressed gratitude on behalf of Von for the Vanguard campaign that had taken over the internet, and then officially enlisted Sasha to organize the recruitment of two hundred loyal, New York-local fans for the upcoming music video.

Emily stressed the absolute necessity for secrecy, warning that any leaks could invite sabotage from West World Records’. Sasha was tasked with creating a hidden, heavily vetted sign-up sheet exclusively within the trusted circles of the SubVerse community.

The incentives Emily detailed were massive. Von, wanting to properly reward the people who had fought a digital war for him, had insisted on a generous flat payout of $150 per person for their time, completely bypassing the standard, meager rates typically given to background extras.

On top of that, Vanguard Apparel was providing two hundred pieces of their highly anticipated, unreleased Nightshade collection for the fans to wear during the shoot, clothing that retailed for hundreds of dollars, which they would be allowed to keep once production wrapped.

Sasha executed the covert operation with ease. She bypassed the casual listeners and zeroed in directly on the die-hard V-Stans who had supported him since the establishment of the community.

The response on the encrypted forum was instantaneous and overwhelming. Hundreds more would have gladly taken the day off work or skipped their college classes just for the chance to be in the same room as Von, rendering the financial incentives and free luxury streetwear as mind-blowing bonuses rather than actual requirements for their participation.

By the end of the week, non-disclosure agreements were signed, and the two-hundred-person roster was firmly locked in without a single whisper reaching the mainstream media.

On the morning of the shoot, the recruited fans were directed to secure rendezvous points across the city and transported via chartered black buses to a massive industrial warehouse deep in Brooklyn.

Upon arrival, their phones were immediately confiscated by private security to enforce the strict media embargo. From there, Arthur Lincoln’s production crew and Vanguard’s styling team officially took over the logistics.

The fans were ushered into massive, heated catering tents erected in the adjacent parking lot, where they swapped their everyday brightly colored winter coats for the heavy, studded black denim, dark tactical cargo pants, and thick combat boots of the Nightshade collection.

Finally, each fan was handed a featureless, pristine white masquerade mask, completing their transformation into a cohesive underground army.

Inside the cavernous main warehouse floor, massive Arri Alexa cinema cameras hung from mechanical cranes, sweeping over the concrete floor.

The fans were introduced to the production’s stunt and crowd coordinator, a burly, heavily tattooed veteran of the industry who quickly gathered them for a mandatory safety briefing.

Their part in the video wasn’t overly complicated, but it required absolute discipline.

The coordinator walked them through the sequence: initially, they were to stand completely motionless under the dim lighting, acting as brainwashed, faceless corporate drones.

They couldn’t sway, fidget, or react to the cameras. The critical moment of the shoot would come when Von, wearing a golden mask, entered the room and threw his mask to the concrete floor.

At that exact second, the heavy trap beat would drop through the massive concert subwoofers, and the fans were instructed to violently rip off their white masks and explode into a chaotic, high-energy mosh pit.

Safety was paramount, so the coordinator spent the next hour drilling them on how to jump, push, and thrash aggressively for the lenses without actually throwing elbows or injuring the person next to them.

While the fans were being drilled on the ground floor of the Brooklyn set, Von was isolated in a sparse hotel room a few miles away, meticulously practicing his own role.

He paced the length of the carpet, rehearsing the heavy, burdened walk of a man breaking under the manufactured weight of the music industry.

He practiced clawing at his face, simulating the desperate struggle of trying to rip off a metaphorical mask that was slowly suffocating him.

But physical practice could only take him so far. Von needed his performance to be undeniably authentic. It had to translate through the cameras and permanently burn itself into the memory of everyone watching. To guarantee that level of impact, Von summoned his translucent blue interface.

He had already drained a significant portion of his reserves pushing his Charm stat to a B-, but he knew the visual component of this music video required more than just a sharper jawline and a magnetic physical appeal.

He navigated to the skill tab and focused on the psychological tool he had largely neglected since navigating the toxic politics of his reality TV days.

With a few focused mental commands, he poured his hard-earned points into upgrading his emotional projection.

[Skill: Emote (Rank B)]

● Description: The emotions you wish to convey become undeniably real, capable of convincing anyone as far as their willpower allows. Your own body genuinely believes these projected emotions, automatically adapting your expressions to convey them with perfection.

● Cost: 20 EXP per minute.

● Warning: Prolonged projection of emotions may have adverse effects.

Von stared at the translucent blue text, a mix of genuine excitement and bitter disappointment swirling in his chest.

The sheer manipulative power of the upgrade was incredible, exactly what he needed for the video shoot. But the fact that it had mutated from a passive enhancement into an active drain was a massive blow to his already depleted reserves.

He mentally summoned his status panel, wincing at the number staring back at him.

[EXP: 220]

"Well," Von sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Let’s test this out and hope it’s worth it."

He stepped close to the full-length mirror in the hotel room and activated the skill, channeling a deep, crushing sense of sorrow.

Immediately, faint, dust-like motes of light began flickering in the air around his shoulders. Von blinked, hoping that the visual effect was something only he could see through the System interface.

The physical shift, however, was instantaneous. His throat tightened painfully. His chest heaved, and without any conscious effort, tears welled up in his violet eyes and spilled down his cheeks.

The despair felt so incredibly real that it actually fooled his own brain for a second; he felt a profound, aching grief settle into his soul.

Impressed but needing a second opinion, Von turned away from the mirror and dropped to his knees in front of Loki, who was curled up on the hotel armchair.

Tears still streaming down his face, Von let out a perfectly crafted, heartbreaking sob, looking at the Void Lynx with devastation.

Loki slowly blinked her glowing violet eyes. She stared at his tear-streaked face for three seconds before letting out an uninterested yawn, completely ignoring his performance.

Von instantly dropped the skill, his fake sorrow immediately replaced by a flush of embarrassment.

"It’s legit, good to know," Von muttered, quickly deactivating the skill to save his remaining two hundred EXP.

Regardless, the test had proven one thing: if the skill could make his own body believe the lie, the cameras wouldn’t stand a chance.

Just as he grabbed his heavy Vanguard jacket from the back of a chair and slipped his arms through the sleeves, his phone buzzed loudly on the nightstand.

He picked it up. It was a brief text message from Arthur Lincoln.

[The fans are in position and fully briefed. We’re ready for you.]