Chris Flame 2

Chapter 1

I woke up to the deafening sound of a scream, jolting me awake. My memory was clogged for a minute until I remembered what happened. A person was being dragged on the ground and a guard behind him was whipping him. I looked around my surroundings and realized I was in a cage. A jail cell. There was a double bed stacked on each other, a stinky smell, and an old toilet that probably hasn’t been cleaned for a while. The worst part was that I had a cellmate. He looked around his 40’s and had already grown a long beard, and a small mustache with dark eye circles as if he hadn't slept well for a long time. 

“Oi, you're finally awake. Took you long enough - that smell did knock you out for a long time did it, mate?” 

“Y-yeah. Do you by any chance know where we are? And what happened to that man?”

“Nah, they all put that smell and made us all drift to sleep so we don't know the exact location. There ain’t even no windows! That man did something bad, so they had to punish him.” He snorted.

“Alright, thanks though.” I shivered at the thought of the word ‘punish’.

“Hey, what about the introductions, mate?”

“Yeah, I suppose so. My name is Chris Flame.”

“Chris Flame? You mean the Chris Flame? Hoho! My mate is Chris Flame!” He laughed and giggled at the name.

“Is there a problem?” I side-eyed him and glared.

“Nah nah, we just heard rumors about you- slaying the dragon and endin’ Adamnor and stuff.”

“Alright, I guess rumors spread fast. Who are you again?” I asked him.

“Call me Jackson.” Jackson beamed proudly. 

“Jackson, huh?” I looked out of the cell and saw many other inmates staring at me, all in complete silence.

“What’s their problem?” I muttered to myself, making sure no one heard me.

 I then felt my neck, expecting Hack to be there, but sure enough, he wasn’t. Huh, they were smart enough to take Hack. I grabbed the bars and tried to take a peek besides just the cells and look if there was an exit. All I could see was endless cells and nothing else but darkness. 

“Trust me, mate. There is no escaping - been here for months!”

“I’ll find a way.” I clenched my eyebrows in determination. I opened my palm and tried to shoot a fireball at the bars, but nothing came out but a flicker of fire.

“They took all our powers away mate. Told ye there no more escaping this living hell!” Jackson laughed as if it was funny. It was not. I tried all my powers, even trying time stopping, which of course, did nothing but stop time for half a millisecond. All my powers were depleted and I had immense fatigue. The inmate in front of me saw what I was doing and said,

“Trust Jackson. None of us - heck- no one ever left this place since last century - was some fire guy or whatever.” I snorted and thought, must’ve been Emma. The only way that I could escape was by using Hack, but he was nowhere to be found. I sneered at the security camera and said a word that made everyone confused but knew what it did soon enough.

“Yazchetk.” It took a few seconds for Pyrantote to appear, destroying door after door to get to me. Jackson and the others stared in shock until Pyrantote appeared. He quickly formed into a giant knight with a lance and stood guard until he sighed and told me,

“Where’s the enemy again Chris?” 

“Do you not see what situation I am in right now?”

“Yeah yeah, but the problem is, if I break it, your doom would be much sooner than expected.”

“What do you mean by that?” I questioned the large knight.

“This is the Wackle Tournament of Power. They hold this event every year and find only the most powerful powerists of them all.”

“Oh, good, just a tournament. I thought they were making us stay in this jail forever as if I did something wrong!” I laughed. Everyone’s face and mood became gloomy.

“It’s not the friendly tournament in Paladin. It's a fight to the death. Thousands of contestants. One will survive.” My face tensed and looked around me. All these people I have to fight to the death with. Including Jackson, who looked at me and smiled kindly. We all have to die except for one. Unless, we all escape. 

“Break us out then!”

“I told you - you might survive if you stay in here and fight - but it's a certain death if I break you out. The security guards are not to mess with. They are probably watching the security cameras right now and not making a move unless I break you out.”

“What's so scary about the security guards? I’m sure with all of us we could beat them all!” I spread my arms.

“No. Even I can't even beat one. And most importantly, they are my same species, but a much higher league than me. Basically my brothers. It’s physically impossible. Just survive the tournament, I heard the first place gets ten powers (a great one at that)!” Pyrantote told me harshly. I sighed and thought. 

“Could you at least inform my friends and the others about my location?”

“No- even I don't know it. Even if I did - I would have a death penalty for even saying it.”

“Do you know if Hack is in this building?”

“Yes, but I can't get him for you. You can use any weapons or accessories necessary for the tournament. Again, both you and I would die if I gave you Hack early. Trust me, just play the tournament and survive with an added ten powers.” Pyrantote quickly ended the conversation with that and he quickly left before he caused anymore trouble (not that he already did - breaking all the doors and the wall to get to me in the first place). 

“Hoho! What a companion! But I guess we still have to fight it out, eh? The match is starting really soon - you should eat.” Jackson rushed me towards a button which said, “Food”, though the ‘f’ and ‘d’ were a little faded out. I clicked it and suddenly, a blast of wind came across my cell and a man with a suit of gold walked in my cell. He threw me a piece of meat and bread, with milk, and to top it off, a cookie. I glared at him, looking for any openings, but he was all geared and I didnt have anything since my physical power wasn’t that great. I reluctantly took a bite of the meat, and instantly regretted it. It was basically raw and had no flavor, just a chunk of half raw meat with a suspicious taste to it. No seasonings too. Expected from a top security prison/tournament arena. The bread was fine, but extremely hard, and at that point, I didn't dare to try the cookie or the milk. 

“I heard them talking about you. Being the last contestant. You know, they took us in from eight months ago! I was here for a full seven months! You're lucky you only had to be here for a day - and the tournament is starting in twenty minutes! You lucky duck, you must still have lots of energy and power left in you.” Jackson told me with a starry look. We talked for the next twenty minutes, my nervousness finally kicked in when the immense sound of the speaker blared through the whole building. 

“All contestants that are still alive - at this point, leave your cell and walk to the arena, follow the arrow signs.” Not even a ‘please’. The cell door opened and the murmuring started to begin. Many people were giving hugs to the friends they made along the way of being in a jail cell for months and saying their goodbyes. My heart stopped when I heard the chilling voice of Zenpin. I tried my best not to scream since he scared the hell out of me. I did jolt my head behind me though. 

“Hey, Chris. I know you are in a difficult situation. Don't follow the arrows. And don't trust anyone-” He started to faintly disappear and slowly glitched his hologram form out. Jackson laughed and said,

“A Xaravic? You're a Xaravic?”

“Wait, how did you know?” I hushed him while I got ready to leave my cell.

“Secrets.”

“How did you hear him?”

“I’d tell you, but I couldn’t right now,” as Jackson's head pointed to the mass line of people following the arrow. If he heard what Zenpin said, I would most likely trust him, but Zenpin said to not trust anyone. He looked at me as if he knew what I was thinking. 

“It's up to you to trust me.” Jackson shrugged and started walking towards the arrows. Why is he walking with the arrows? Zenpin clearly said to not walk along the arrows, walk the other direction. He smiled at me and continued walking. I quickly ushered myself and dusted myself off and quickly ran the opposite way. The people stared at me, looking at my bravery and confidence of doing the opposite of what they say. A few people even joined me. Soon, that ‘few’ people turned into about a hundred or so. After running for about five minutes, we finally reached a steel door. The cells at this point were all empty, making us the last ones there. I clasped my knees, huffing in exhaust. I looked up and swept the sweat off my forehead and tried to open the door. Soon enough, with the help of everyone, it opened and we walked in. It was an armory with lockers of each contestant's name on it. We quickly found our lockers and it automatically opened for us. Inside was Hack, and a few other objects that sort of looked like a pill, but much more bulkier. Everyone else seemed happy and confused with what they got and looked at me. I silenced them before they could say anything and whispered to them all.

“We are getting out of here.”

“HECK YEAH!” Hack hollered and everyone looked at him in shock.

“Sorry, he’s a little hyper.” I muttered as I glared at Hack, who was taken aback. I gestured everyone to the opposite of the arrows and we continued running until we met up with the others. By the others, I mean the ones that didn't follow me and continued to follow the arrows. Jackson was in the front and smiled warmly at me again. I scrunch my eyebrows and realized we ran in a circle - so no matter what we would still meet up. 

“Hoho. I guess this is called inevitable fate!” Jackson snickered but no one else laughed. If we ran in a circle, that meant that we couldn't escape - unless we broke the walls. Everyone’s mind was running about how to leave except one. Jackson laughed and took out two daggers from his pockets. He twirled it around and smiled mischievously at all of us. We were in shock that it took us a few seconds to grab ahold of ourselves and fight back. Jackson aimed towards me first and his green and black dagger gleamed in the dark area and he threw one at me but Hack popped out and blocked it. 

“Hey! That’s not nice!” Hack taunted him as everyone tackled Jackson to the ground. Before he was fully submerged in the pill of human bodies, he looked at me and said something that was inaudible. I lip read it and it said something like: this is a tournament. It’s kill or be killed. Or that's what I thought he said as his head was fully submerged and people tackled him. 

“Man! That was something. I thought we were all on the same side!” A girl's voice came from the pile, as people started to get off of Jackson. He was unconscious and laid flat on the ground. The girl looked at me and said, 

“I assume you're Chris Flame. Well then I guess we already have an appointed leader!” Everyone started to nod and agreed with what she said.

“Wait Lily, how do you know he is Chris?” A voice came from the crowd. 

“Show them.” She gestured at me, and I assumed that I needed to show them my main power - the fireball. I turned my palm and tried to make a fireball, and it surprisingly worked. I guess the guards or whoever the owner of the tournament let us use it now. Everyone gasped as I turned it into a blue fireball, then a purple one. 

“Guess we have our evidence now…” People started to say.

“First of all, does anyone know why the guards are not here yet? Shouldn’t they be here to fight us, since we are all trying to escape?” I questioned. No one answered as they all didn’t know why too. 

“I heard there is only one guard in the whole tournament.” A man said from the large amassed crowd. That’s weird, Pyrantote specifically said brothers - plural. 

“And I’m that guard,” Jackson said as he aroused from the ground. We jumped back and looked at him. His eyes were lit up and he took another dagger out. “Since you guys are disobeying the rules of the tournament, I’m afraid that you all will die, unless you raise your hand to participate in the tournament.” A few people raised their hands and Jackson looked at me disappointed. “Sorry, cellmate. You’ll be the first to go.” A few people including Lily tried to stop him, but he dashed through and somehow jumped on top of a guy and twirled straight at my head. Hack appeared again and slashed at him, but this time, the dagger cut his blade. 

“OWIE!” Hack screamed in pain, and turned into a pure white blade. At that point, my only option was to stop time, since he was a few feet from cutting me in half. I stopped time for a few seconds, but I immediately felt immense fatigue, since that power costs lots of strength to use. I un-stopped time and Jackson fell and cut the ground with a clean slice - making a large cut through the ceramic. I gulped as I looked at the strength of the dagger. Everyone took a step back, no one daring to interfere with my fight. I used a move I haven’t used in a while and duplicated myself nine times, making there be ten of me. 

“I don’t fall through such tricks.” Jackson said and rushed at me again, this time getting stopped by Hack. His new white blade hit the dagger and still broke, but it did give me a few seconds to step back and think about my next move. I thought a bit and wanted Hack to turn into his invisible blade form. Hack seamlessly turned into the invisible blade and matched Jackson’s dagger’s power and precision. At this point, Jackson was mad. Furious. He lunged towards me, ignoring Hack and threw his dagger at me before Hack could stop him. I laughed and stopped time, grabbing the dagger and unstopped time. Jackson was getting beat up by Hack, yet his body was not getting sliced, but still Hack did enough damage and made him bleed. He had armor and glared at me before grabbing a crystal out of his pocket, threw it on the ground and a portal appeared. Hack stopped his attacks, knowing it won't be much of a use since he had armor made of something ridiculously strong and we looked as Jackson ran off into the portal, as it quickly closed behind him. I grabbed my hair and muttered, 

“Monsters, powers, and now there’s portals?” I suddenly felt a surge of power and pain at the same time. I clenched my fists and screamed. Blood gushed out of my nose, and people started to help me, wondering what happened, when suddenly I jolted forward and a gold light flashed out of me, then consecutively nine more times, each with different colors - gold, purple, green, blue, pink, red, silver, teal, orange, and yellow. I fell to my knees and coughed up blood. Zenpin appeared and looked at me.

“Oh my. I didn’t realize the ten powers you got had to come in one at the same time. That’s very dangerous, killing most people. Hmm, take this,” Zenpin rustled through his long, black, sleek cloak and found something in one of his pockets. He threw it at me and I caught it. It was a capsule with a golden herb in it. He gestured for me to eat it, and I did so quickly. The pain subsided and I layed on the floor, all exhausted. Many people looked in shock at how a golden capsule appeared out of thin air, since they couldn't see Zenpin or hear him.

“Does that mean the tournament is over?” A person asked.

“No, the tournament is never over until one is left,” Lily said, knowingly. 

“Then how did Chris get the ten powers?” A person complained.

“Maybe it was a glitch?” Some people agreed. Zenpin heard this and told me,

“Hah. It wasn’t a glitch. But the Lily girl is correct - it's not over until one is left. You can't escape unless there is one left.”

“Then how do we get out?” I whispered so only Zenpin could hear me.

“That’s for you to figure out. Also, I’m surprised you got a gold power - that’s a legendary power. I'm sure you know that the color of the light depends on how powerful the power is. Yellow is the weakest, and cosmic is the most powerful. No one has gotten the cosmic power yet - I heard the light that erupts from you can destroy a whole universe! Haha, anyway, your gold one is pretty decently good! Go check out your new powers, I’ll fill you in with more information when I find out more,” Zenpin nodded in agreement. I sighed and wiped the blood out of my mouth. I stood up and took Hack back into pendant form and silently thanked him. 

“What do we do now?” People started to ask me.

“Use all your powers to try to break the wall,” I pointed to a cell nearest to the armory, “For those who haven't gotten their belongings, get them now.” Most people rushed to get their belongings and the rest tried to break a massive cell. Soon, the cell got crowded and I decided to go to the arena, where we were all supposed to fight. The size shocked me as it was about the size of Paladin itself. We all looked around for any openings, since it was pure sky on the top, the people with flying powers took off in the sky, but soon enough, they all fell down from some barrier. The person who made the barriers must be very strong, since the size of the barrier alone would be triple the size of Paladin. Jackson couldn’t have done this, since he was not really powerful, only relying on his speed and his dagger. Thus, this means that there are guards in this group of people, pretending to be an ally. I glared at everyone, making most people confused. I sighed and closed my eyes. I could ‘see’ my powers if I closed them. I looked at my new list of powers. I couldn’t explain it, so I opened my eyes and tried them out one by one. The legendary power made me excited and I closed my palm, made a fist and aimed it at an area of sand. The second it closed, the area was lit up with blue fire. I turned it into normal fire and then purple. I smiled as I unlocked a new Quheni power that Emma told me. I then swiped my hand across the air, and thought of a bird. It appeared above my purple fire and I used telekinesis to put it down in the fire. It instantly burnt up and died. I nodded, as now I can import animals or people from another place. I then thought about Lily and I suddenly switched places with her. I smiled at this power, knowing it would be useful. I then looked in the sky and made it rain, with lightning. I immediately stopped it since the cold rain made me shiver. I then turned invisible and teleported to a seat in the stadium. I made myself visible again and tried out the next power. I touched the chair and it came to life. I made it an ally and it jumped. I turned it into an enemy and it attacked me. It did nothing but bump me and then I made it turn back into a non-living thing. I then dashed at sonic speeds and swiftly jumped down the chairs and landed next to the area of fire. Sand blew behind me, making it blast in my face. I then spawned a poisonous monster and intentionally let it bite me, making my arm turn green. I used my new power to detoxify the poison. Then I shot a fireball at it, making it crumble to ashes. My last power I was excited to use. I turned on something in my eyes and I could see if someone was an enemy or ally, their age, stats, and health. I instantly detected around fifty guards in our group, all highlighted red. I took note of them and dashed back to the group. At this point, everyone was in shock. Even some of the guards were twirling their fingers, as if thinking about fighting me now. I also unlocked a new skill, making me able to sacrifice some powers for me to upgrade another one. If I put a rare power in another power, it could transcend the boundaries. I looked through my list of powers, and thought of the ones I needed and didn’t. I ended up sacrificing control of the weather - common, making non-existence to existing - rare, summoning a living creature - very rare. I sacrificed these three powers for my fire Quheni, making me instantly acquire the next level of my fire, which was green. I nodded at the sacrifice and thought about sacrificing one more for my dash ability, since it is very useful. I decided on: swap with other organisms - very rare. The dash ability now lets me dash for longer distances, up to ten seconds, which is about fifty miles. I scrunch my eyebrows, thinking if I should sacrifice one more power, and ultimately decided to give up teleportation - very rare and an old power that I had - shield barrier - uncommon to upgrade the dash ability. My max time for dashing is now twenty seconds and in that twenty seconds, I can dash about two hundred miles! I nodded and told myself for the last upgrade, I give up invisibility - very rare for character profile - rare. Now, I can see people’s memories, thoughts, and ideas. These three new powers were good enough for me. Detoxification - very rare, dash lv.3 - epic, character profile lv.2 - rare. I gave up teleportation because once dash gets level 10, it would be even faster than teleportation, plus there would almost be no limit unlike teleportation. I looked up at the sky - starting to turn gray and seemed about to rain. Some groups of people gathered in clumps and started analyzing their next move. I could hear most of them, talking about how to break out. I used my character profile power and saw most of the guards talking together. This was the time I needed to make a move. I quickly dashed behind them and placed my hands on two guards' shoulders. The others jumped back in shock to how fast I was. 

“Hey! How’s it going over here?” I said to the group of twelve or so guards. 

“G-great! Why do you ask?” One said.

“Well, because I’ll be wiping all of you out - one by one.” This caught them off guard and I lit the area with purple fire, dashed back, and shot a green fireball at them. I was shocked by how powerful the green fireball was - exponentially stronger than the purple. It blasted back ten and the other two died on the spot. The ones lucky enough to survive were getting burnt by the fire on the ground and the green fire on their clothes. Five more of them died from the heat and two more were severely injured, making them not able to move. The other three managed to escape from the fire, running towards the other groups of guards to help. I dashed in front of them.

“Going anywhere?” I raised my eyebrow and blasted a blue fireball at them. They were already so injured that they also died on the spot. The two that were severely injured had already died from the fire. Everyone looked at me, knowing they were enemies or that I just hated them. 

“Enemies,” I told them and dashed to the next group. At this point, most of the guards knew what happened and rushed to help the group I was heading for. I dashed quickly and intercepted the guards, using Hack as a sword to slice them. The group I dashed behind looked back in shock to see my speed. A large group of 30 or so guards ran up towards me, soon to be melted in my fire. Some made it out alive, but soon enough, Hack diced them all up. 

“Now we can focus on escaping!” Hack grinned as he turned back into pendant form. I used my character profile to check the mass amount again, just to make sure. No more guards here, therefore Hack was correct. Now we can really focus on escaping this place. We were all a little hungry, so we went into the cafeteria. It looked deserted with no one there to cook, but a few people from the horde helped us cook a five star gourmet meal. We each ate steak and some onions and bread - with some Fanta (that was the only thing they had). After we filled up, I talked to the remaining people. 

“We need to escape. Anyone have any ideas?”

“What about that knight you talked to? Didn’t he say all the guards are strong? Now that you defeated them, shouldn't he be able to help us?”

“That's right. Thanks,” I acknowledged him, “Yazchetk.” A few seconds passed by then a golden dragon appeared.

“This again?” Pyrantote sighed.

“Woah, your a dragon!” I said, astonished.

“Yeah yeah, I’m just trying a new form. Anyway, I still sense a powerful guard here.” 

“But I killed them all,” I raised my eyebrow.

“I still sense it. Immense power from there,” Pyrantote pointed his dragon head to the place where I fought Jackson. 

“Oh. He must’ve ran away and is alive.” A noise came from the direction where I fought him. Suddenly, a blue and purple portal appeared and Jackson and an army emerged.

“Yeah. And I've brought reinforcements to kill you, Chris Flame. By Chris Shao