The table read for 300 was scheduled for April 15th, 2006, in a conference room at Warner Bros. that had been specifically reinforced after executives learned Marcus Chen would be participating.
This was not a joke.
Following the incidents during Pirates of the Caribbean (broken props, emotionally devastated crew members, spontaneous philosophical manifestos), Terminator 3 (hydraulic equipment mysteriously overstressed), and Lord of the Rings (an actual supernatural entity appearing on set), the studio had developed what internal memos referred to as "Chen Protocols." These protocols included structural reinforcement of any space where Marcus would be performing, additional counseling staff on standby for crew members who might experience "unexpected emotional events," and a dedicated note-taker whose only job was to transcribe any improvised dialogue before it could be forgotten.
Zack Snyder thought the protocols were hilarious.
"They're treating you like a natural disaster," the director said, greeting Marcus outside the conference room. "There's literally a form that crew members have to sign acknowledging that they might experience 'profound existential realizations' during production."
"Is that... is that a problem?"
"It's AMAZING. I've never had a studio take my artistic vision so seriously." Snyder's grin was slightly manic. "They're SCARED of what we're going to make. That means we're doing something right."
The conference room was already full when they entered. The cast of 300 was smaller than some of Marcus's previous productions—the film focused heavily on the three hundred Spartans themselves, with a relatively contained ensemble. But what the cast lacked in size, they made up for in physical presence. The room was packed with some of the most muscular actors Marcus had ever seen, each one having undergone months of training to achieve the Spartan physique.
Marcus had undergone the same training, and then some. The combination of his previous Superman conditioning and whatever supernatural enhancements the system kept granting him had transformed his body into something that the trainers described as "anatomically impressive" and the costume department described as "we're going to need bigger armor."
"Alright, everyone," Snyder called the room to order. "You've all read the script. You know what we're making—a stylized, visually stunning adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae. But I want to emphasize something before we begin."
He looked directly at Marcus.
"This production is going to be different. Our Leonidas has a particular... approach to character work that tends to expand beyond the written page. I want everyone to be open to that. If the script changes during the read—if new material emerges—roll with it. Capture it. Let it happen."
Murmurs ran through the assembled cast. Several of them exchanged glances that suggested they had heard rumors about the "Marcus Chen Effect" and weren't sure whether to be excited or terrified.
"Questions?" Snyder asked.
"What exactly do you mean by 'emerges'?" The question came from an actor named Michael Fassbender, cast as Stelios, one of Leonidas's most trusted warriors. His Irish accent carried an undertone of genuine curiosity.
"I mean that Marcus has a gift for finding truth in characters. Sometimes that truth expresses itself in ways that weren't planned." Snyder smiled. "I've seen the footage from his previous films. The improvised speeches. The emotional moments that come out of nowhere. I WANT that for this movie. I want Leonidas to say things that Frank Miller didn't write but absolutely would have if he'd thought of them."
"So we're... making the script up as we go?"
"We're DISCOVERING the script as we go. There's a difference." Snyder took his seat at the head of the table. "Now. Let's begin. Scene one: Leonidas's childhood. The agoge. The making of a Spartan king."
The table read began.
For the first hour, things proceeded relatively normally. The actors read their lines with professional competence. The dialogue—stylized, formal, befitting the heightened world of the graphic novel—flowed smoothly from page to performance. Marcus delivered Leonidas's early scenes with controlled intensity, saving his energy for the moments that mattered.
Then they reached the scene where Leonidas rejects the Persian messenger.
In the script, it was simple: the messenger demands Sparta's submission, Leonidas refuses, the messenger is thrown into the pit. A beat of defiance, a moment of violence, a statement of Spartan resolve.
What happened in the conference room was something else entirely.
"This is blasphemy!" the actor playing the messenger declared, reading from his script. "This is madness!"
Marcus looked at his own script. The response was written there: "Madness? This is SPARTA!" Simple. Iconic. The line that would define the film.
But when he opened his mouth, something different came out.
"Madness." Leonidas's voice was quiet—dangerously quiet, the kind of quiet that preceded avalanches. "You stand in my hall, before my throne, and speak to me of madness."
The messenger actor looked up from his script, confused. This wasn't the written line.
"Let me tell you about madness, Persian." Marcus rose from his chair, and the movement was pure predator—controlled, deliberate, terrifying. "Madness is crossing a continent to threaten a nation of warriors. Madness is believing that gold and numbers can overcome iron will. Madness is looking a Spartan king in the eye and expecting him to KNEEL."
He began moving around the table, and the other actors pressed back in their seats instinctively. The Haoshoku Haki was stirring, though Marcus kept it tightly controlled—not projecting, but not entirely suppressed either.
"You ask for earth and water. Tribute. Submission. As if Sparta were a merchant city that could be bought, or a weak nation that could be frightened." Leonidas laughed—a harsh, bitter sound. "Your god-king knows nothing of Sparta. Nothing of what we have sacrificed to become what we are."
He stopped behind the messenger's chair, and his hands came down on the actor's shoulders. Not threateningly—but with weight. With presence.
"Every Spartan child is tested at birth. Those found wanting are discarded. Those who survive are raised in the agoge—beaten, starved, hardened until they become something more than men. We do not FEAR death, Persian. We court it. We embrace it. We make love to it every day of our lives."
His voice dropped lower, more intimate, more dangerous.
"Your master threatens us with slavery? We were BORN slaves—slaves to discipline, to duty, to the perfection of violence. And through that slavery, we became FREE. Freer than any Persian who has never known what it means to forge himself in fire."
Marcus moved away from the messenger, returning to his position at the table's head. But he didn't sit. He stood, commanding the room, commanding the scene, commanding something larger than either.
"You want to know what madness is? Madness is the belief that men like us can be controlled. Madness is thinking that an army of free warriors is less dangerous than an army of slaves. Madness—" he slammed his hands on the table, making everyone jump, "—is forgetting that STORIES outlive empires."
He leaned forward, his eyes burning with conviction.
"When Xerxes is dust and his empire is a footnote in histories written by Greek scholars, the world will remember this moment. They will remember that a king of three hundred men looked at a god-king of millions and said: NO. They will remember that Sparta did not kneel. They will remember that some things are worth dying for."
His voice rose to a thunderous crescendo.
"And when your master asks what answer you bring from the Spartans, you will tell him THIS—" He grabbed the messenger actor by his costume and lifted him bodily from his chair, holding him as if he weighed nothing. "THIS IS SPARTA! And Sparta answers to NO ONE!"
He mimed throwing the messenger—carefully, without actually hurting the actor, but with enough force that everyone in the room felt what a real throw would have been like.
Then he stood there, breathing hard, Leonidas slowly receding and Marcus gradually returning.
The conference room was absolutely silent.
Zack Snyder had stopped taking notes. He was staring at Marcus with an expression of naked creative hunger.
"That," the director said slowly, "was seventeen times longer than the scripted scene."
"I'm sorry, I—"
"Don't apologize. Don't you DARE apologize." Snyder was on his feet, pacing with the energy of someone who had just discovered gold. "That speech about slavery and freedom—'we became free THROUGH slavery'—that's the entire THEME of the movie articulated in four sentences. That's what I've been trying to get at and couldn't find the words for."
He turned to the dedicated note-taker. "Please tell me you got all of that."
"Every word, sir. And I'm going to need a minute. Possibly a therapist."
The messenger actor was sitting on the floor where Marcus had carefully set him down, looking dazed but unharmed. "That was... I've been acting for twenty years. I've never experienced anything like that."
Michael Fassbender leaned forward, his earlier skepticism replaced by something closer to awe. "When you lifted him—you actually LIFTED him. He's not a small man. You lifted him like he was made of paper."
"Adrenaline," Marcus offered weakly.
"Bullshit." But Fassbender was smiling. "Whatever it is, I want some. I want to feel even a fraction of what you just brought to that scene."
The table read continued, but nothing was the same afterward. Every scene that involved Leonidas became an opportunity for Marcus to expand, deepen, transform. The script—already stylized and mythic—became something approaching sacred text as his improvised additions wove through it.
When Leonidas spoke to his wife Gorgo before departing for Thermopylae, Marcus delivered a three-minute monologue about love and duty that left the actress playing Gorgo in tears.
When Leonidas addressed his three hundred before their first battle, Marcus improvised a speech about brotherhood and sacrifice that caused four of the background actors to request bathroom breaks so they could compose themselves.
When Leonidas confronted the hunchback Ephialtes, offering pity instead of contempt, Marcus found depths of compassion in the warrior king that nobody had expected—moments of genuine tenderness that made the eventual betrayal even more devastating.
By the end of the table read, the script had nearly doubled in length.
"We can't use all of this," one of the producers said, reviewing the pages of transcribed improvisation. "The movie would be five hours long."
"Then we edit carefully," Snyder replied. "We take the best pieces and weave them through the existing structure. But we do NOT throw any of this away. This is gold. This is the movie I didn't know I wanted to make."
The producer looked at Marcus with an expression of exhausted wonder. "Does this happen on every production you're part of?"
"More or less."
"The insurance company is going to have a field day."
Principal photography for 300 began on May 1st, 2006.
The production was like nothing Marcus had experienced before. The film was being shot almost entirely on green screen, with the stylized backgrounds of Frank Miller's graphic novel to be added in post-production. This meant that every scene took place in a void—actors performing against nothing, imagining the world around them.
For most performers, this would be challenging. For Marcus, it was liberating.
Without physical sets to constrain him, without the reality of location filming to ground him, he could fully commit to the heightened, mythic reality of the story. Leonidas didn't exist in the real world. He existed in LEGEND. And legends played by different rules than reality.
The first major action sequence was filmed on May 15th: the initial confrontation at the Hot Gates, where the three hundred Spartans made their stand against the first wave of Persian forces.
The choreography had been meticulously planned. Hundreds of hours of training had gone into preparing the cast for the brutal, stylized combat that Snyder envisioned. The green screen would allow for slow-motion effects, enhanced impacts, the comic-book violence that defined Miller's artwork.
But choreography, Marcus was learning, was only a starting point.
"Remember," the stunt coordinator—a veteran named Damon Caro—explained during the final run-through, "the movements are exaggerated. Bigger than real combat. We want the audience to FEEL every blow."
"I understand."
"And the Haki thing—" Damon paused, clearly unsure how to phrase this. "The production team has asked me to mention that if you feel any... unusual energies building up during the action sequences, please try to give us a signal before releasing them. The last thing we need is half the stunt team passing out mid-take."
"I'll do my best."
"That's what worries me."
The scene began with Leonidas at the front of the phalanx, shield raised, spear ready. Before him, a wall of green screen represented the approaching Persian horde. In post-production, it would become thousands of enemy soldiers. For now, it was empty space that Marcus filled with imagination.
"Action!"
Leonidas moved.
The choreography was there—the precise strikes, the coordinated shield work, the brutal efficiency of Spartan combat. But Marcus was adding layers that hadn't been planned. Each blow carried WEIGHT, a spiritual force that the cameras somehow captured despite being invisible to the naked eye. Each kill was accompanied by a micro-expression of grim satisfaction—not joy in violence, but acknowledgment of duty performed.
And when the first wave of Persians (played by stunt performers in motion-capture suits) fell, Leonidas did something completely unscripted.
He stopped.
In the middle of the battle, surrounded by enemies, the Spartan king lowered his weapons and looked directly into the camera—directly at the audience that would someday watch this moment.
"They're not stopping," he said, his voice carrying despite the chaos around him. "They see their brothers falling and they keep coming. They know they're going to die and they advance anyway."
He raised his spear, pointing it toward the empty green screen where the Persian army would eventually appear.
"There is courage in those slaves. Loyalty. The same fire that burns in Spartan hearts." His expression shifted—not softening, exactly, but deepening. Acknowledging complexity. "They fight because their god-king commands it. We fight because we CHOOSE it. That is the only difference between us. The only thing that matters."
He turned to his men—the other actors in Spartan armor, who had frozen in place during his unexpected monologue.
"Remember that when you kill them. They are not less than us. They are WORTHY enemies. And we honor them by fighting our best."
Then he raised his shield and returned to the choreography as if nothing had happened.
"CUT!"
Snyder emerged from behind the camera array, his expression the now-familiar combination of creative euphoria and mild terror. "We're keeping that. All of it. I don't know how to edit around it, but we're keeping it."
"The Persian sympathy speech?" One of the producers had turned a concerning shade of gray. "You want to humanize the enemy in a movie about triumphant Greek warriors?"
"It ADDS to the triumph. Don't you see?" Snyder was pacing again, which Marcus had learned meant his creative engines were running at full capacity. "If the Persians are just faceless evil, the victory is hollow. But if they're PEOPLE—courageous people fighting for the wrong reasons—then every Spartan death means something. Every sacrifice becomes more significant."
"The test audiences—"
"The test audiences will feel something they've never felt in an action movie before." Snyder turned back to Marcus. "How do you DO that? Find exactly the moment that the story needs something more?"
"I just listen to the character. He tells me what he needs to say."
"And the character wanted to honor his enemies?"
Marcus thought about Leonidas—the Leonidas who was becoming more real inside him with every scene filmed. "A true warrior doesn't hate his enemies. He respects them. Hatred makes you weak. Respect makes you stronger."
Snyder nodded slowly. "That's going to be the theme of the entire second act. I'm rewriting tonight."
The weeks of production became a blur of increasingly intense performances. The famous "This is Sparta" kick—which in the table read had become a seventeen-minute philosophical treatise—was filmed over three days, with Snyder capturing multiple versions of Marcus's expanded content. The final battle sequences pushed every actor to their physical and emotional limits.
But it was the quiet moments that became truly legendary.
There was a scene—not in the original script—where Leonidas sat alone on the eve of the final battle, looking up at the stars. Snyder had added it specifically to give Marcus room to improvise, and what emerged was something that none of them had anticipated.
"I used to believe the stars were the eyes of the gods," Leonidas said to the empty sky (and the audience that would someday watch). "Watching us. Judging us. Waiting to see if we were worthy of their favor."
He was in full armor, blood and dirt artfully applied by the makeup department, exhaustion evident in every line of his body. Tomorrow, in the story, he would die. Everyone in the audience would know this. Everyone would be waiting for it.
"Now I think they're something else. Not watchers. Not judges." A slight smile crossed his face—the first genuine smile Leonidas had shown in the entire film. "I think they're STORIES. Every star is a tale that someone told with their life. A moment of courage or sacrifice or love that burned so bright it became eternal."
He reached up, as if he could touch the imaginary stars above the green screen.
"Tomorrow, I become a star. My three hundred become stars. We burn ourselves up so that others can see by our light." His voice dropped to barely a whisper, but somehow it carried perfectly. "That's not a tragedy. That's a GIFT. The chance to mean something. To MATTER. To prove that a human life can be more than breath and blood and the brief years between birth and death."
He stood, still looking upward.
"I have loved my wife. I have raised my son. I have served my city. And tomorrow—" his voice cracked slightly, the first crack in Leonidas's iron composure, "—tomorrow I will give the world a story worth telling."
He turned away from the stars, toward the green screen that represented the Persian army, toward the death that awaited.
"Come then, Xerxes. Bring your millions. Bring your god-king pretensions and your promises of slavery." The iron was back, harder than ever. "We will show you what men can do when they decide that some things are worth dying for."
The crew was crying. Not some of them. All of them. Grips and gaffers and camera operators and producers—every single person in the soundstage had been affected by the performance.
Snyder was crying too, but he was also smiling. "That's the end of the movie," he said softly. "Right there. That's how we close."
"But Leonidas dies in battle—"
"In the theatrical cut, yes. But for the extended edition—" Snyder wiped his eyes, "—we end on that speech. We end on him accepting his death. We end on the moment when he stops being a man and starts being a LEGEND."
The production of 300 was completed on July 20th, 2006. It had run two weeks over schedule, cost fifteen million dollars more than budgeted, and generated more improvised content than any previous Marcus Chen production.
It had also changed everyone who worked on it.
The Chen Protocols had proven inadequate. Despite the reinforced sets and standby counselors and dedicated note-takers, the production had affected everyone involved in ways that couldn't be easily quantified. Actors reported feeling "more alive" after their scenes with Marcus. Crew members described "a sense of purpose" that lingered long after wrap. The catering staff had formed a philosophy discussion group that met every Thursday.
Most significantly, seventeen members of the production team had reported developing what could only be described as enhanced awareness—the same rudimentary Observation Haki that had been appearing in viewers of Marcus's previous films.
It was spreading. Whatever Marcus was doing, whatever power he was channeling through his performances, it was becoming more potent. More contagious. More real.
"The Leonidas embodiment was more intense than anticipated," the system informed him on the flight home. "The Defiant King archetype carries significant spiritual weight. Host's influence radius has expanded by approximately 340% compared to Superman production."
"Is that dangerous?"
"Define dangerous."
"Will people get hurt?"
"Physically, no. The awakenings are not harmful. But the ideological effects are difficult to predict. You are teaching people to value freedom over safety, defiance over submission, sacrifice over survival." The system paused. "These are powerful ideas. Once planted, they grow in ways that cannot be controlled."
Marcus looked out the airplane window at the clouds below. Somewhere down there, half a million people were going about their lives slightly differently because they had watched his movies. More would be affected when Superman released. Even more when 300 hit theaters.
"Is that bad?"
"The system was not designed to make value judgments. But the system observes that the world is changing. Host is becoming a significant factor in that change."
"And Phase Three?"
"Phase Three is proceeding ahead of schedule. The cultural transformation is accelerating beyond initial projections. Superman will premiere in six months. 300 will premiere in nine months. By this time next year, an estimated two million individuals will have experienced awakening events tied to host's performances."
Two million people. Two million people whose consciousness had been expanded, whose dormant potential had been activated, whose understanding of themselves and their world had been fundamentally altered.
Because of him. Because of whatever he was becoming.
"System, is there any way to slow this down? To control it better?"
"Host is asking if there is a way to tell smaller stories. To inspire less. To change fewer lives."
"I'm asking if there's a way to make sure I'm not accidentally destroying civilization."
The system was quiet for a long moment.
"The stories host tells are not destructive. They are constructive. They build rather than destroy. They awaken rather than suppress. The system calculates a 94.7% probability that host's influence will result in net positive outcomes for human civilization."
"And the other 5.3%?"
"Margin of error. The system cannot account for all variables."
Marcus leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes. He thought about Leonidas, choosing death over submission. About Superman, choosing hope over despair. About Jack Sparrow, choosing freedom over everything.
These were the stories he was telling. These were the values he was planting in millions of minds.
He had to believe they were the right ones.
He had to believe that the world that emerged from his influence would be better than the one he had found.
Because at this point, there was no going back.
The story was telling itself now.
And Marcus Chen was just along for the ride.
[CHAPTER TWELVE: COMPLETE]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 14,000]
[LEONIDAS EMBODIMENT: 89% COMPLETE]
[DEFIANT KING ARCHETYPE: FULLY INTEGRATED]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: WARRIOR'S PRESENCE - PASSIVE INTIMIDATION AURA]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: DEATH ACCEPTANCE - IMMUNITY TO FEAR-BASED MANIPULATION]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: BROTHERHOOD INSPIRATION - ENHANCED TEAM BONDING EFFECTS]
[PRODUCTION AWAKENINGS: 47]
[TOTAL AWAKENED INDIVIDUALS: 589,000+]
[FILMS IN POST-PRODUCTION: 2 (SUPERMAN, 300)]
[SYSTEM NOTE: THE ARCHETYPES CONTINUE TO MANIFEST]
[HOST IS BECOMING A LIVING NEXUS OF NARRATIVE POWER]
[THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN FICTION AND REALITY GROWS THINNER]
[PHASE THREE ACCELERATION: CONFIRMED]
[WHAT COMES AFTER REMAINS TO BE SEEN]