Chapter Text
"Come to live a tale to tell"
Flames Pond once again found himself trapped and enclosed. It was dark and hot and his wrists hurt from being bound, but even worse, it was almost dinner time. This wasn't the first time he has found himself in a situation such as this, and it certainly wasn't the last time either. The boy looked around steadily for a way out of the room he found himself in. There had to be a way out, besides, it's not like Owatonna was particularly known for fortified structure anyways.
He tried his best to mess with the rope that bound his hands together as he thought back on the events that led up to this predicament he found himself in. His mission today was to collect The Bracelet of The Ancients, an artifact said to possibly bring the dinosaurs back to life, and Flames really wanted to meet these dinosaurs. Sure, he'd seen Jurassic Park, but that didn't particularly mean it had to go down like that. The last thing he remembered was running away from one of the guards with the bracelet before running smack into something. "Guess that would explain the headache", he thought to himself. He groaned when he realized that he no longer had the bracelet as he felt the ropes that bound him come loose.
"AHA!" Flames finally freed himself and jumped up to investigate the walls that surrounded him. Unfortunately it was wood everywhere he looked. "Aw, come on, seriously? How'd they even get me in here?" It was at that moment when he looked down and realized that there was a trapdoor beneath him. "Oh." He opened the door and climbed the rope ladder down.
Adam jumped down from the ladder and fell flat into the cool summer grass beneath him. It was certainly a lot more comfortable than being on the hardwood floor of the treehouse and bound by rope. He ran his hand through the grass before getting up and looking around. He had to get home for dinner soon, but home was across town and that was a 30 minute walk at best. Not that he was saying that it would be slightly quicker if he could find his skateboard, but it would definitely be slightly quicker. After a few minutes of looking around, he realized that his skateboard was gone. He sighed tiredly at the thought of having to stop at Tony and Andy's to pick it up since they undoubtedly had it. He decided on just picking it up tomorrow morning, that would give him time to ask them how they even got him up into the treehouse in the first place.
He set off on his trek across town, hopefully his parents would understand his lateness to dinner. This wasn't the first time this summer he's been late and most definitely wouldn't be the last. All summer long it's been adventure after adventure with Tony and Andy. They were going to create a movie called 'The Adventures of Flames Pond'. Andy had gotten a camcorder for Christmas and they waited all school year long for summer to use it. It was going to be a cinematic masterpiece and Adam was going to be the star of the film. The boys had all sorts of ideas for the plot, from becoming astronauts riding rockets through the clouds to taking oaths to fight dragons in the magic woods of Owatonna. Tony thought the last one stupid considering there was nothing magical about Owatonna, but Adam disagreed. Sure, he had really only known Owatonna all his life, but he never found any reason to leave a wonderful little place. There was magic everywhere if you looked hard enough.
But nonetheless, that idea was thrown away and they decided on a story about secret agents. Adam was so excited at the thought of becoming James Bond, but Andy reminded him that the movie had to be original. "Okay fine," he had told them. "I'll be Flames Pond then, the greatest superhero to ever live!" Just like that, their summer was set, filming The Adventures of Flames Pond on Andy's brand new camcorder. They had all their lives to figure out who they were going to be, but right now, it was just this summer to be anyone else.