Chris Flame - Chapter 6
Updated: Feb 19
I had lost. I failed my friends. Grace waited for the siren to say she had won. But nothing happened. “UM, HELLO? I BEAT CHRIS FLAME. THE GUY WHO BEAT ELIOS. ARE YOU BROKEN?” Grace screamed. She sure didn’t have any grace.
“Chris Flame wins the battle!” The siren said.
“How?” She asked.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Unknown Secret
Secrets Revealed
Capture the Flag
Special?
Six?
Suspect
MORE COMING SOON!
Chapter 6: Suspect
I had lost. I failed my friends. Grace waited for the siren to say she had won. But nothing happened. “UM, HELLO? I BEAT CHRIS FLAME. THE GUY WHO BEAT ELIOS. ARE YOU BROKEN?” Grace screamed. She sure didn’t have any grace.
“Chris Flame wins the battle!” The siren said.
“How?” She asked.
“You know how. You heard the instructions. NO POWER-DRAINING ALLOWED!”
“NO! I STILL WIN!” Grace screamed.
“Chris is going to the next battle. If you keep on screaming, we will expel you.” Grace stopped screaming. She pushed past me and went to the losing side. I went to the winning side and sat next to a boy. Good thing he wasn’t a girl.
“Grace is bad-tempered.” The boy said.
“I agree. What’s your name?” I said.
“Rey Agrawal,” He replied.
“Right. You are the guy who beat the girl earlier,” I said.
“You are the boy who beat Elios,” Rey stared at me.
“Yeah, ” I said.
“Why would Grace do such a thing? She never breaks the rules,” Rey said.
“Are you in the Red House?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?” Rey said.
“Oh, nothing.” Then it hit me. Grace. Her voice sounded like one of the people talking out the door in the school. Could it be? Grace, one of the people? It sounded so much like the voice, the first voice who talked. Wasn’t what they said coordinates of San Francisco? San Francisco. Do we need to go there? I could ask permission to go there. I was going to focus on the battle and then think about that.
The next few battles were easy, and I got to the last championship. Of course, I won the game. I got a lot of money and a magic pendant that turned into a sword that talks. The power? Oh, I got time-slowing power. I told my friends and Rey about Grace and asked for us to go to San Francisco. My friends and I (including Rey, who was technically part of our group now. He seemed good, and I always got this feeling that he was … special too) went to Mr. Howgats's office.
“What brings you here?” Mr. Howgat asked.
“We need to go to San Francisco,” I replied. It took some time to tell him the story.
“Hmm, I don’t think you should, but why not,” Mr. Howgat said.
“Thank you, sir,” Rey said.
“Well, get packed up for the trip. Come and see me when you are done packing,” Mr. Howgat said.
“Thank you, sir,” I said. We went to our dormitory and started packing for the trip. I took my sword, which I named Hack.
“Wuss up! Where are we going today?” Hack asked.
“Oh, San Francisco,” I responded.
“WOW, is that the green stuff people use to pay for something?” Hack asked.
“Yes, it’s called money,” I said.
“That green stuff looks good,” Hack said.
“Money,” I said.
“Right,” Hack replied.
“I’m all done.”
“Why did you bring a cockroach?” Hack grimaced.
“What?” I looked down and saw a cockroach sitting near my feet. It turned into a dog. “How. Is. That. Possible.” I stared in disbelief at the dog.
“Arrrf,” it barked.
“Let’s just leave it here,” Hack said.
“Yeah, good idea,” I agreed. We all met up at the door of Mr. Howgats office. We went in, and Mr. Howgat gave us a ticket for us to give to the guards.
“Good luck and be safe,” Mr. Howgat said when we left. We all went to the gate of Howgat’s PowerSchool and gave the ticket to one of the guards. He let us pass, and we went out.
“Now what?” Sam said.
“We're going to San Francisco,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“How?” Rey asked.
“By plane, ” I said, trying to hold back the laughter. We already talked about it.
“Where do we get the money?” Veronica asked.
“From me.”
“Where is the nearest airplane station?”
“How do we get there?”
“When do we go?”
“What do we do when we are off the plane?” The questions came at me like a big blast of wind.
“OK! OK! Just follow my lead.” They all looked at each other and smiled. I hired a taxi to take us to the airport, and we waited until it was our turn in the long line.
“May I see your ID please?” The receptionist asked. We all looked back and forth, not knowing what to do.
“Here, ” a boy said, startling us. He gave the lady an ID, and she accepted. The boy looked in his 40s and winked at us.
“Five people?” The receptionist said. We all nodded our heads.
“That’ll be $1,029 for third class, $3,129 for second class, or $8,726 for first-class.”
“First class, ” I said. The receptionist looked surprised.
“Ok! Thanks, here are your tickets, ” She said, counting the money in her hands, “Wait! You gave me 10,000 dollars!”
“Keep the change, ” I replied to her. We left for the waiting area until departure.
“WHO ARE YOU?” Sam asked the boy.
“Jonah Ahuja, ” Jonah winked.
“Thank you, ” Rey said. Jonah nodded his head. We waited until the plane came.
“So… are you coming?” Veronica asked. She hasn’t talked after getting in the taxi.
“You bet!” Jonah replied happily. I didn’t think a person in their 40s could be that happy. I didn’t even know if we should tell him that we had powers.
“I need to use the restroom, ” Jonah said. He went to the boys' bathroom and came out one minute later, looking like a kid.
“Wait-what!?” I said in awe.
“Ah, a little secret of mine,” Jonah smiled.
“So … how old are you exactly?” I questioned him. I got that feeling about Jonah just like I felt about Rey.
“11 years old,” Jonah replied, in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Airplane S-18 is ready to take off for San Francisco!” a man with a megaphone exclaimed.
“That’s us, ” Rey nodded, looking down at his ticket. We walked to the entrance of the gating area to depart for San Francisco. We walked to the plane and sat in our seats, sitting across from each other. There was nobody besides us in first class, which meant we could talk to each other anytime we wanted.
“Can I come out yet?” Hack whispered.
“You can talk in pendant form?” I whispered back, a little more loudly than necessary.
“Don't answer a question with another question, and yes, I can talk in pendant form. You can’t judge me because I am a sword that talks,” Hack huffed back.
“O-k. Sure. But no, you can’t come out yet.”
“Aw, man!” Hack whined, “At least give me some green stuff later.”
“You can do nothing with it.”
“I can slice it so ants can have it.”
“I am not going to do that.”
“Just one? Please?”
“Fine, but if you promise you won’t say ‘Green stuff’ anymore.”
“Ok, but just give me the green- no-no-no, the what again? Money, right.”
“Here you go,” I gave Hack a 20-dollar bill by putting it inside my shirt so Hack could have it.
“This green stuff is making me want more green stuff. By the way, do you have any more green stuff? I need some more green stuff. The green stuff looks so good!”
“Hack!”
******
We landed after two hours or so, and we gazed at the huge airport.
“Uh, got any ideas, Chris?” Veronica questioned me.
“I know that part. I’m figuring out the other.”
“Do we just go in and find the exit door?” Sam asked.
“It's not that easy, ” Jonah disagreed.
“Let’s just ask an employee at the airport,” Rey offered. We marched off to find an employee, but all we did was confuse some of the passengers and get them annoyed. I turned my head and saw the same dog as earlier.
“It’s you again, ” I muttered.
“Arrrrrrrrfff! Aeorf! Aorffffff!” the dog barked.
“What should I call you?” I questioned myself.
“Arrrrrffff!” the dog whined.
“You seriously think I am going to call you ‘Arrf’ ?” I laughed.
“Arf, ” the dog pouted.
“How about Mutate?” I am not sure if a dog can smile, but I am pretty sure it just did.
“Ok, ok, thank you. Sure. We are coming now,” Sam said on the phone, “Follow me!” He marched off and we followed. We met some bored-looking customers sitting on some chairs, waiting for their plane. There were coffee shops that looked abandoned and some Chick-fil-A which smelled good. We walked down the hall to a massive door with a ‘Staff Only’ sign. Sam touched the door and a camera popped out from the doorknob.
“Hello, Sam, right?” The camera asked. Sam nodded, and the door opened. We walked inside to see a small room with a man waiting for us. The room was old-fashioned, with books on old, rusty shelves. Some fancy, blue, and red chairs, and of course, a metal fireplace.
“Hello, Sam … or should I call you Grace? Nice meeting you. Again,” The man said dryly.
“Yes, your majesty,” Sam/Grace bowed. We looked at each other(Not including Sam/Grace and the man).
“Wait, is Sam Grace?” Rey asked, confused.
“It’s a trap,” Jonah said cautiously.
“Brilliant of you, Jonah Ahuja. It took long enough for you to realize,” the man sneered. I brought out Hack and the others brought their weapons. I tried the door, but it was locked. “Now, now, there, no weapons needed for this type of place, right, Augrusiance?” A huge shiny dog appeared from a shade in the back.
“The last thing we need is a huge, shiny, lame, dog,” I whispered. The dog charged, it barked like crazy while we tried to stab it in the eye. Of course, Sam was of no use. He just stared at the man. The dog looked at everyone and sniffed. Unfortunately, he sniffed at me. This is why I should always take a shower for one hour or so because if not, you will smell like dog food, which is not a good thing to be. Now, I used to love dogs, they are so cuddly, but not when it comes to shiny, metal dogs. Yeah, I will probably change my mind about dogs now. I dodged out of the way when the dog tried to bite me. I slashed Hack at him, but it was no use.
“Bro! You are too weak! Let me do it,” Hack bragged. He (somehow) got out of my hand and slashed so hard at the dog that I thought Hack might break, but the thing that broke was the dog. Mostly.
“Ow,” Hack whimpered. He did good damage to the dog. The spot where Hack slashed, was a big dent. The dog whirred with mechanics making weird noises. That got me to remember a time when I was little. Dad used to make super cool machines. He gave one to me before, I can’t remember it, but I can remember it was a computerized calculator or something. The machine made noises like this … dog. The dog/Augrusiance turned his head towards me and lunged.