Brandon’s chemistry teacher, Mr. Lawrence, gave instructions about the homework assignment. The bell rang and the class was over. Brandon spoke with Mr. Lawrence after class. Mr. Lawrence had been Brandon’s favorite teacher since his freshman year. On Brandon’s first day of high school, he struggled to find his classes. Mr. Lawrence helped him get to all of his classes during that week. Ever since then the two had been close. 

“Can I come to your lab Mr. Lawrence?” asked Brandon. 

“Yeah man”, responded Mr. Lawrence. “I’ll be home by 3:45”, he added. 

Brandon left the classroom. He walked through the exit of the school and walked towards his black car. Brandon Johnson was a senior at Mayfield High School. He was a lanky African-American guy with a short afro. His parents were doctors. Brandon lived in a suburban area right outside of Chicago. Brandon’s parents had told him earlier that day that they would be working overnight. Brandon started driving towards Mr. Lawrence’s house. Mr. Lawrence packed his things from his classroom and went to his house. Brandon’s car was parked on the side of the street. Mr. Lawrence pulled up into his driveway and unlocked the door. Brandon followed behind Mr. Lawrence to the basement of the lab. Derek Lawrence was a brown-haired white man with a beard in his early thirties. He bought the pale house a couple of years ago. He then bought some chemicals, equipment, and turned his basement into a laboratory. He pointed at a clear mixture in an open plastic water bottle on a wooden table. 

“I’ve been working on this one for a while, It’s a combination of a few acids”, said Mr. Lawrence. “It’s very toxic. It broke a few of my glass beakers”, added Mr. Lawrence. 

Brandon pulled out a bottle of water from his book bag. He drank some of it and placed the rest on the same table as the acid mixture. Mr. Lawrence went to the kitchen to make popcorn. While Mr. Lawrence was in the kitchen, Brandon unknowingly picked up the bottle of acid and drank it. He felt weak and everything looked blurry. Brandon managed to get to the wall. Suddenly, his knees buckled and he fell over. Mr. Lawrence rushed down the stairs. Brandon’s eyes were closed shut. He glanced at the table and saw the half-empty bottle of chemicals. Mr. Lawrence dialed 911 as Brandon began to cough out blood. After a few minutes, an ambulance arrived and took Brandon to a nearby hospital. Mr. Lawrence drove to the hospital and told Brandon’s parents what had happened over the phone. They headed to the hospital that Brandon was in. Meanwhile, Brandon was examined by two doctors. Brandon would need more blood to reduce the effect of the acids in his bloodstream. The doctors told Brandon’s parents and Mr. Lawrence about the situation Brandon was in. The doctors transferred blood to Brandon. Mr. Lawrence spent the night at the hospital as Brandon’s parents had to go back to work. Mr. Lawrence slept right next to Brandon’s hospital bed. The next morning, Brandon woke up.

 “So you finally decide to wake up, how do you feel?” Asked Mr. Lawrence. 

“I have a headache. But, other than that, I'm good”, replied Brandon. 

“I’ll call your parents and let them know you’re awake”, said Mr. Lawrence. 

Later that day, Brandon was discharged from the hospital. He stayed home for the rest of the week. One morning Brandon was drawing in a sketchbook. All of a sudden, the pencil that was in his hand caught on fire. Brandon immediately dropped the pencil and rushed to the kitchen for water. He managed to put the fire out. He began to wonder how the pencil caught on fire and why his hand wasn’t affected. Brandon called Mr. Lawrence and told him about the fire.

“I was planning on using those chemicals on myself”, said Mr. Lawrence.

“And why the heck would you want to do that?” asked Brandon.

“I created that lab to stop an old friend of mine”, replied Mr. Lawrence. “We stopped becoming friends when he decided that he wanted to use robots to reduce crime”, he added.

Brandon interrupted Mr. Lawrence saying, “What’s wrong with that?”

Mr. Lawrence sighed and said, “Those robots kill people Brandon, sometimes for petty crimes.” “I can’t sit by and allow a man to instantly decide whether another man lives or dies, that’s why we have a justice system”, he said in a decisive tone.

“Well I don’t think we should get involved and even if we did we probably wouldn’t be able to stop him”, replied Brandon.

“Brandon you had a less than one percent chance of surviving what those chemicals did to you, it’s your destiny to stop that man”, declared Mr. Lawrence. “You can literally shoot fire out of your hands”, he said as he tried to inspire Brandon.

“I’ll think about it man”, replied Brandon.

“Take your time and talk to your parents about it”, said Mr. Lawrence.

Brandon ended the conversation. He laid down on his bed and stared at the ceiling of his blue bedroom. Later that evening, Brandon talked to his parents about his powers and the conversation he had with Mr. Lawrence. Brandon’s parents urged him to finish high school first, but they also told him that they would support his decision, regardless of what he decided to do.

Brandon went on to graduate high school. He continued to contemplate using his powers to stop the inventor. On one summer afternoon, Brandon went to the mall to buy a pair of slides. As he began to pay, he saw a man dart out of the mall with a watch. The alarm immediately went off. Brandon watched the guy sprint to a car parked in front of the mall. Before the man could start his car, a red robot had begun to run towards him. The metallic robot was built like a human. It was about six feet tall and had circular brake lights for eyes. The robot tore off the door on the passenger side and dragged the man out of the car. Before the man could even scream for help, the robot had choked him to death.    

Brandon left the mall and told Mr. Lawrence what he saw over a phone call. Brandon decided that he would try to defeat the inventor. He started training in an empty old warehouse near Mr. Lawrence’s house. Mr. Lawrence set up targets in the warehouse to improve Brandon’s aim with blasting out fire. He also bought fire extinguishers, as Brandon struggled to put out fires that he created. Mr. Lawrence was also an expert in kickboxing. He helped Brandon improve his fighting. Within a few weeks, Brandon’s skills had improved tremendously. Mr. Lawrence developed a radar system to track every robot in the city and right outside of it. Mr. Lawrence also created a titanium suit that could withstand extremely hot temperatures. The black suit had a blue flame across the chest, night vision goggles on the mask, a small mic to communicate with Mr. Lawrence, and it increased Brandon’s strength to that of the robots. On that day, the Flame was born.

Flame used his car to get to the robots. He would then use his fire to melt the robots and drop the criminals off at a police station. The inventor noticed that his robots were melted. He made them resistant to the heat so Flame couldn’t just melt them anymore. Mr. Lawrence created a model to show Flame how to disable the robots. All he had to do was tear the head of the robot off and remove the red wires. This would result in the robots immediately shutting down. 

After Brandon finished taking down robots, he drove to his house. It was raining heavily. Drops of rain splashed across the windshield of the car. As Brandon parked the car, lightning flashed across the car. He brought the key out to unlock the front door. To his surprise, the door was open. He walked to the kitchen and saw the bodies of his parents next to the fridge in pools of blood. He fell to his knees.

“Mom, Dad!!!!!”, Brandon shouted as he rushed towards the blood-soaked bodies of his bodies. “I swear I’m gonna kill whoever did this”, Brandon said with his voice trembling as tears streamed down his face. 

He saw deep cuts around their neck. It was apparent that they had bled to death. Brandon still could not believe what his eyes were seeing. His body was filled with rage. Brandon saw a note on the kitchen counter and picked it up. 

The note read, “I got tired of you messing with my family so I decided to mess with yours, my address and floor number are at the end of the note in case you're looking for me, signed by Mr. Robot.”

He balled up the note and burned it. Brandon stormed out of the house and started driving towards the address. He called Mr. Lawrence and told him about his dead parents. 

“I’m sorry about what happened to your parents”, stammered Mr. Lawrence.

Mr. Lawrence was in the warehouse checking the robot radar while he spoke to Brandon.

“I’m sure he sent some robots to your house, but I didn’t see any on the radar, he probably found a way to disguise them," he added.

“I’m going to your friend’s place right now, you probably helped him kill my parents”, barked Brandon.

“I had nothing to do with that,'' said Mr. Lawrence calmly.

“If you say so”, replied Brandon sarcastically. “Oh and I don’t need your help, I can do this by myself”, said Brandon.

“Be reasonable here, he’s expecting you, and you don’t even who you’re up against” responded Mr. Lawrence.

After that statement, Flame ended the call abruptly. He arrived at the gloomy dark skyscraper. The thunder rumbled angrily nearby. Flame walked through the door of the slender 1,000-foot tall building. He took the elevator to the highest floor. When Flame arrived in the room, it was pitch black. His night vision goggles were still blurry and wet from the rain. Brandon heard a deep voice from a corner in the room.

“So you decided to show up”, said Mr. Robot. “I still can’t believe that it was a little kid that kept dismantling my robots, either way, you gone die today '', he added.

“Show your face you b*stard”, yelled Flame.

“I’m sure your parents loved you bro, but you kept getting in my way so I did what I did had to do”, replied Mr. Robot as he gave a sly grin.

Mr. Robot turned on a flashlight and placed it under his chin. Flame glared at the short bald black man with broad shoulders in the black suit.  

He charged towards Mr.Robot screaming, “this is for my mom and dad!!!”, as he attempted to get close enough for a fire blast. 

The man that Flame is running towards is Andre Howard. Before he became Mr.Robot, Andre Howard had gotten two masters, one in computer programming and the other in software engineering. He then studied robotics after college. After his unarmed younger brother was shot and killed by a white policeman for possession of marijuana, Howard felt that robots would be better at regulating crime than the police. He then started creating robots, linked them with his brain, and used them to murder criminals. This would cause his friendship with Derek to end as Mr. Lawrence did not support Andre’s idea of killing the criminals.

Before Flame could reach Mr.Robot, the biggest robot he had ever seen picked him up. He tried to get to set the robot on fire but it was heat resistant. He then tried to take the head off but it wouldn’t budge. Flame frantically kicked his legs in the air while the robot squeezed the life out of him. Flame could hardly make out words at this point.

“Throw him away”, said Mr, Robot as he wheezed from laughter.

The robot threw Flame out of the window. Flame’s body shattered the glass. His body slowly fell towards the ground for what felt like hours. He was dizzy and heard the loud noises of cars. As soon as he saw the sidewalk, he regained consciousness. He shot enough fire from his palms towards the sidewalk to propel him upwards and reduce the impact of his fall. It was at this moment that Flame realized that he could fly. He hit the sidewalk and laid there for a few minutes. He stumbled towards his car and drove home.

Brandon’s parents were buried in a graveyard not too far from their house. After the burial, Brandon struggled to get out of his bed and eat for several weeks. He stopped training and fighting robots. Mr. Lawrence had been trying to reach him through phone calls, but Brandon did not answer him. He even came to his house several times, and Brandon refused to open the door. Mr. Lawrence sent Brandon a text on a Saturday morning.

The text read “Bro if you don’t want to talk to me at least have a conversation with someone else.”

 Following the text message was the address to a therapist. Brandon dragged himself out of bed and went to the address. He walked through the wooden door of the brown brick building. Brandon sat on one of the deep blue couches and observed everything in the office from the pink wall to the bookshelf. In front of him was Katherine Garcia. She was a fifty-year-old dark-haired Latina woman and wore red rectangular glasses to match her sweater. 

“I have spoken with Mr. Lawrence already and he told me all about you”, said Garcia soothingly.

Brandon instantly thought to himself, “Does she know about my powers?”

He then redirected his attention to her, “Yeah I came to get help.”

“Well you’re at the right place”, she replied.

“Let’s start with your relationship with your parents, talk to me about that”, she inquired.

Brandon took a deep breath and responded, “I was very close to my parents, I enjoyed spending time with them, we talked about everything from sports to my plans for the future”.

Mrs. Garcia took some notes on her yellow notepad and asked him, “So please describe exactly how you felt when you lost your parents?”

“I felt a lot of things at the same time; I was hurt, sad, angry, I blamed myself for not being there”, replied Brandon with his eyes looking towards the ground.

Garcia followed up with another question, “So how do you think your parents would feel if they saw you feeling like this?”

“They wouldn’t want to see me like this”, replied Brandon.

“They would want me to pick my head up and keep moving forward with my life”, he added.

“And that’s exactly what you should do”, she responded.

“You have to put this behind you, the love you have for your parents will never fade, but you need to be honest with yourself and realize that your mom and dad would want you to keep going”, said Garcia.

“I will and thank you, I really appreciate it”, replied Brandon.

“No problem and feel free to reach out to me anytime”, reassured Mrs. Garcia as she extended her card.

After he left the therapist, Brandon went to Mr. Lawrence’s house. Over the next couple of weeks, Brandon restarted his training and started learning how to fly using his fire ability. The two then came up with a plan to defeat Mr. Robot.

Around midnight Flame and Mr. Lawrence went to Mr. Robot’s fortress. Earlier that day Mr. Lawrence hacked into Mr.Robot's database and disabled several of the robots in the fortress. He also created a liquid with xenon gas that would erase the part of Mr. Robot’s memory that allowed him to control his robots. 

Flame blasted from the ground to the top of the skyscraper with Mr. Lawrence on his back. The huge bursts of flames coming from his hands could’ve been seen from several miles away. Flame and Mr. Lawrence broke the windows and landed right into Mr. Robot’s office. Flame could see everything in the spacious office this time. There were a few monitors on a black desk that showed every inch of the building. Mr. Robot sat in an office chair and had several robots behind him. Across Mr. Robot were clear pods of robots that weren’t activated.

“So we meet again and you came with my homie”, said Mr. Robot as he smirked.

“Man shut up”, replied Mr. Lawrence.

“It's been a while since I’ve seen you, Derek, How you doing man?” asked Mr. Robot.

“This isn’t you Andre”, said Mr. Lawrence.

“It is but I’ll make sure both of you die tonight”, replied Mr. Robot

“And I saw that you disabled a lot of my robots, but the ones behind me are all I need”, he added.

Mr. Robot pointed at Flame and Mr. Lawrence and yelled “Kill them!!!”, at the top of his lungs.

The robots ran forward and started attacking them. Flame was only able to melt one of the robots. The rest of them were not affected by the heat. Mr. Lawrence managed to get away from them and started fighting Mr. Robot. Mr. Lawrence kicked Mr. Robot in the head.

“Man I know that one hurt” said Mr. Lawrence as he sent him flying to the ground. 

Before he could land another blow a robot came to Mr. Robot’s aid, and picked up Mr. Lawrence, and threw him at the door.  

“Let me handle this Mr. Lawrence”, said Flame.

Flame took advantage of Mr. Lawrence’s misfortune and ripped off the head of the robot that attacked Mr. Lawrence. The three robots left were as big as the one that tossed Flame out of the window the first time he tried to defeat Mr. Robot. He knew that he couldn't overpower them. He also knew that the kick Mr. Robot had received to the head would make it harder for him to control his robots. Flame rushed towards the largest robot. He tried to land a kick, but the robot grabbed his leg and gave him an uppercut that sent him sprawling to the ground. The rest of the robots walked towards Flame. He quickly scrambled to his feet and jumped out of the window. The robots ran after him and jumped also. 

“Noooo what are you doing??”, bellowed Mr. Robot.

Without the ability to fly, the robots crashed to the ground and fell apart. The sound of the crash shook the road. Flame flew back up to Mr. Robot’s office. Mr. Lawrence slowly got back up and tossed the syringe to Flame. Flame walked towards Mr. Robot who was still on the floor. 

“Relax bro”, said Mr. Robot as he noticed the syringe in Flame’s hand.

“It’s over”,  replied Flame. 

Flame pinned down Mr. Robot and injected him with the liquid to erase the memories that helped him command the robots. Mr. Robot passed out. Flame and Mr. Lawrence left the skyscraper. By the time Mr. Robot woke up he realized that he no longer knew how to control robots. He sold his office and the rest of his technology. Brandon put his superhero past behind him and enrolled in college. A few years later, the three ended up coming together and started an organization that raised awareness for police brutality towards minorities.