“Well, they’ll be easier to take out now.” Smoke thought as one of the sentries came his direction. As the uniform-clad man approached his hiding place, he swung the flashlight’s beam behind the armor and saw thick, gray smoke. But when he rubbed his eyes and looked again he saw nothing there.
“I must of just imagined it,” the guard said in a confused voice. When he turned away to go check some other place, Smoke stabbed him with one of his special daggers, ending his life. Then the villain waited patiently for all the guards to gather together before he faded into smoke and flew above the guards, listening to their reports.
“The only thing I found was some dust and a couple of cobwebs,” one man said, causing the others around him to chuckle. Smoke saw that the other guards had reports similar to the first, all in a favorable mood.
“Well that’s about to change, isn’t it,” Smoke thought as he flew to a shaded spot several yards away from the group. The men in the group were about to go their separate ways again until one night guard asked, “Where’s Bill?”
“Well, well, well. Look who finally figured it out,” a shaded figure mocked. “I was beginning to wonder if you ever would,” it said, this time from the opposite side of the group. The guards pulled pistols from their belt and pointed them in the direction of the voice.
“Who are you?” one of the guards asked in a forced voice.
“Well, that depends,” the individual said as he started walking around them, “Some people call me a menace, some say I am not even human.” Stopping, the thing said, “But my favorite name is…Smoke.” This last word was spoken as Smoke appeared in front of them, startling them into action. The man in front of whom he had appeared started shooting his gun at him, but the bullets flew harmlessly through his ethereal body. Smoke let out a maniacal laugh, amused at the attempts to take his life.
“You think you can kill me?!” Smoke said in a booming voice. “Well, I guess I’ll try to kill you then; and I won’t fail.”
The battle then ensued with Smoke zipping around in an intangible form, stabbing the guards with his daggers, taking them out one by one until they were all dead.
“Well that was fun,” Smoke quipped as he wiped his daggers off on one of the guards’ uniforms, “but it is time get what I came for.” At that, he turned and started towards the room where The Jewel was kept.
Little did he know, a camera hidden in the medieval helmet he had been hiding behind had captured everything that had transpired, transporting the feed to the security room at the top of the museum. Little did he know, the guard in the security room was making a very important phone call. Little did he know, multiple superheroes had just left Legend Tower and were heading towards the museum at that very moment.
As Smoke entered the next room, he was met by a door of solid steel with four locks made of steel as well. No cracks were visible on the massive, metal door.
“That’s too bad, I guess I’ll just have to use the bombs,” he said to the door, taking the explosives out of his pocket with a smile on his sinister face. Just as he was about to place them on the door, the bombs slipped through his hands, clattering against the tile floor. He looked down with surprise etched upon his face and saw his hands phasing between smoke and flesh. Then everything went black.
A young man was walking in a gigantic building, looking at all the interesting things around him until he stopped at an open metal door. A big metal door.
“This door is huge!!” the man exclaimed as he stared at the entrance to the vault.
“I know, right? This is the heaviest door in the whole city. Its locks are the state of the art and the metal is two feet thick!” said his partner who had just walked up, a man that looked like he had just entered his twenties, but was a tad younger.
“Always like you to focus on the schematics,” he said to his friend with a sigh.
“Hey man. I know you’re struggling right now, but I am here for you whenever you need me,” he said, patting his downcast partner on the back.
“Thanks John,” he said, lifting his head up and looking into his friend’s eyes, a look of appreciation reflected in his eyes.
“Anytime Mark,” John said as they started walking towards open entryway. They slowly faded out of sight as the world dissolved into nothingness.
Smoke opened his eyes and fell to the ground, breathing hard. “Not again!” he thought, his mind and body tense, still overcoming the shock of what had happened. “Why is this happening? Why me?” he whispered, almost on the verge of a breakdown. As he kneeled on the ground, Smoke heard something that sounded like piece of cloth flying in the wind.
“The only other time I’ve heard that sound is… Captain Legend,” Smoke thought jumping to his feet just as the superheroes crashed through the large windows that bathed the museum in moonlight. Glass shattered all around him as he covered his face with his arms, protecting it from the hurtling pieces. After all the glass had fallen, Smoke slowly uncovered his face to confront the superheroes he knew were there.
“Well hello there. You guys made quite an entrance didn’t you?” Smoke said in smooth voice, trying to prevent the fear inside him from showing. “Personally, I would have gone through the…”
“Silence!” said the centermost figure in the circle of supers, a man with a cape that had an interlacing C and L logo on it.
