It was an average midday for downtown Steelwood, Maryland. People were driving back and forth from work, others dined for lunch at the local restaurants and the local bank was having one of its annual robberies. This is a world of superheroes. And though there are countless extraordinary people or teams that can deal with this bank heist, the two heroes you’re about to meet are very special…
Withinside the bank, the alarm was blaring, weapons were fired at the ceiling, and four armed masked men were herding the frightened civilians together as part of their heist. These men had special, scientific energy blasters that could shoot lasers, causing mild explosions. Did they make them? Buy them? Steal them? It didn’t matter. What matters is that these crooks were using these blasters to commit heinous crimes- albeit in a oddly age-appropriate manner.
“Alright, people!” Cried one of the masked men. “Nobody here has to get hurt. Just stay still, shut up, and don’t bother playing a hero, or else…” He fired at the ceiling some more with his energy blaster and laughed as the hostages whimpered in fear.
“You!” Shouted another robber to the bank teller at the desk. “For all of our sakes, you better give us access to the main vault!”
The bank teller tried to keep calm despite her heart feeling like it was trying to jump out of her chest. “I-I’m sorry, sir. But only the manager can open the vault, and he’s not here today.”
The robber groaned and leaped over the desk, approaching the teller intimidatingly. “Listen, lady, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way.” He growled.
“How about we do this MY way?” Chimed in an unfamiliar voice that echoed throughout the spacious building.
Everybody, including the hostages, turned to the source of the sound. Everyone saw a four-and-a-half-foot boy, in a blue, black, and white superhero costume, standing there confidently with his fist on his hips.
It was the De-Crime Duo! Or at least one half of it… It’s Super-Duper! Though only ten years old, this adolescent superhero has strength equal to that of hundreds of men and is more indomitable than a lion made of platinum.
Before anybody can start laughing, Super-Duper takes one of the crooks and easily flings him at another, knocking both out with the sheer strength and speed of the throw. The third robber cowardly tries blasting at him, but the super boy simply shields himself with his trusty cape, which completely absorbs the lasers. Super-Duper swiftly grabs the blaster from the robber and uses it to hit him with a mean uppercut, sending him flying a couple of feet and landing squarely on his back, laying him out instantly. The robber with the bank teller knew he was next and had to think quickly.
“Hey!” Shouted the robber. Super-Duper turned to see the man using the woman as a human shield, pointing the blaster to the back of her head “One more step, and this lady gets it!”
The caped lad slowly raises his hands out in de-escalation. He faces his attention toward the female hostage. “It’s gonna be ok, ma’am. He ain’t gonna hurt you.” Says Super-Duper, reassuringly.
The frightened woman looks at this boy with uncertainty and says, “How-how do you know for sure?”
“Yeah!” Chimed in the robber, “Don’t be so certain…”.
Before he could finish his sentence, a black and white figure came falling from the ceiling and landed directly on the crook. Its claws dug themselves deep into the man’s shoulders and back, slamming his face down to the floor in the blink of an eye. The robber was knocked unconscious, and the woman was free.
It was the second half of the De-Crime Duo, Whisper-Whiskers! A 5-foot-tall, anthropomorphic man-cat (not cat-man) with fluffy white fur under a sleek leather outfit. This fantastical feline has all the best traits of all the cat species times, the strength of a tiger, the speed of a cheetah, the roar of a lion, and more. Along with this stealthy kitty’s hyperintelligence, Whisper has no problem dealing with most physical and mental predicaments.
“The De-Crime Duo are always one step above you, punk.” Says Whisper-Whiskers.
Since he’s a cat, he can’t communicate and must rely on a special collar that translates his thoughts, which also gives him the voice of a 1940s Hollywood star, ala Humphry Bogart.
With the criminals taken care of and the citizens safe, the two super pals exited the bank expecting praise from the newly arrived bank manager.
“No need to thank us, mister bank manager. It was all just part of the job.” Said Super-Duper, who greatly anticipated being thanked by everyone.
“Thank you? What for?!” asked the bank manager. “The main vault has been breached. Most of everything inside it is gone!”
“Huh?!” exclaimed the De-Crime Duo.
“But I thought we got all the bad guys!” Said Super-Duper, confused.
“Strange, there must have been something we missed…” Declared Whisper-Whiskers, perplexed. “Let us check the security cameras for anything out of the ordinary. I have a hunch that this heist was not all that it seemed.”
When they entered the surveillance room and watched the recordings, Whisper’s suspicions were proven correct. As shown by the cameras inside the main vault, something strange was going on from within the sealed chamber. Black smoke was seeping into the room from the ventilation system and grabbing multiple wads of cash. At least $60,000 was taken from the vault by the smoke and sucked back into the vents.
“Do you know what this means?” Asked Whisper-Whiskers. “We’re dealing with some sort of elusive supervillain.”
“Heck yeah!” Cheered Super-Duper. “I mean, uh… Let’s get this evildoer.”
SCREEEEEK, went the heavy door of the bank vault. With dubious permission from the bank manager, the De-Crime Duo entered the freshly empty vault to investigate the strange disappearance of its contents.
“Well, at least not ALL the money has been stolen…” Said Super-Duper, optimistically. “Just 9/10ths of it.”
Whisper-Whiskers investigated the vent where the black smoke came from. He noticed some black soot left over from the smoke’s visit and rubbed it against his paw pads.
“Very peculiar… It’s unlike smoke to be interested in money, especially not enough to steal it directly from the bank.” Said Whisper. He quickly stands up. “Who-or-whatever took this money must have left similar soot marks on one of the outside vents, if they intended on leaving that is.”
As predicted, when the De-Crime Duo exited the bank, they found the same kind of soot from the vent in the back of the building. Super-Duper noticed and pointed to similar black markings on another vent in a different building. They both spotted another vent with soot farther away, and another, and another, and another. The duo nodded at each other and began following the dirty vent trail all around the city. They went up and over multiple buildings, sometimes even going through them, not stopping until they reached the source, which they did.
The De-Crime Duo tracks the vent trail to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city.
‘No doubt this is where the smoky culprit is hiding, ’ they both thought.
They made their way to the warehouse roof and planned to flank whoever was inside from both sides… except Super-Duper accidentally stepped on one of the roof windows, smashed through it, and fell into the center of the depot. Fortunately, Duper could finally spot the one responsible for all the stolen cash.
It was a young man, possibly a few years older than Super-Duper. He wore a black mask under a black cloak, over a gray jumpsuit. He looked at the boy who fell through the roof in shock, which slowly turned to amusement when he realized he was facing a superhero. Super-Duper got up and faced the menacing tween, while Whisper-Whiskers dropped down behind said tween, flanking him.
“So, you must be the weird smoke that stole all that money!” Said the young hero. “Who are you, exactly?”
The young villain crackled. “I’m Smokestack! And I don’t care what your guys’ names are. I’ll be long gone before you get the chance to track me down again.”
The De-Crime Duo lunged at Smokestack to tackle him but ended up smashing into each other while a cloud of smoke rose above them. This smoke reforms back into Smokestack who laughs at their attempts. Super-Duper then rushes towards Smokestack to throw some wild haymakers. But instead of his fists contacting solid tissue, they flew through the villain’s body, contacting smoke.
Whisper-Whiskers was successful enough to sneak behind Smokestack and give him a lion hug in an attempt to subdue him (It’s like a bear hug but with a cat). But this success was fruitless as the evil cloaked boy blows concentrated smoke into the super cat’s face, releasing him and causing Whisper to hack violently.
Entertained enough, Smokestack grabs the moneybag from the bank and begins to fly away with his ghost form, but not before Super-Duper was able to grab the bag. He may not have smoke powers, but he has strength! And he uses this to fling the smoky villain away and secure the money. The De-Crime Duo signaled the police to return the money to the bank, for the two superheroes weren’t done with their mission yet. The stolen goods were safe, but their bad guy was now at large. They looked around the warehouse for any clues regarding Smokestack, hoping to find some sort of weakness in his power they can exploit. Whisper-Whiskers rubbed the soot off his face from when the villain blasted him with smoke and thought back to all the vents they followed to find him that were covered with the same material.
“Hmm…” The yarn in Whisper’s mind began to ball up as he formed an interesting hypothesis. “This soot appears only when Smokestack’s smoke comes into contact with any solid object. And by the look of the vents he supposedly traversed through, it appears as if his gaseous form was getting sucked and blown out.”
“So, this guy sucks. What else is new?” Super-Duper partially understood what his partner was talking about, but still wanted to make a joke.
“No, vents suck.” Whisper-Whiskers retorted. “And if we get a vent, or a similar air manipulating device, and make it powerful enough, we might be able to constrain our bad guy.”
Super-Duper nodded. “That’s cool and all… But what about the part where our bad guy escaped?”
Whisper walked outside the warehouse and gazed out towards the Steelwood industrial zone over yonder. “If I were a harmful carbon-based gas, where would I feel most at-home?”
Later, Whisper-Whiskers traverses through the dense and mazelike wilderness of the industrial zone alone. Running, climbing, and carefully observing for any sign of the elusive Smokestack. The loud banging of machinery and nauseating smell of smoke would’ve made Whisper disoriented if he wasn’t so driven on enacting justice.
After ten minutes or so, Whisper-Whisker’s nose sensed a more ‘condensed’ amount of carbon in the air and knew he was on the right track. He followed the smell down a narrow alley, through an even narrower vent, into an old-abandoned chemical plant. It was here in this plant that Whisper found Smokestack’s secret lair. Just then, Smokestack walked in and was immediately confronted by the masked cat.
“You know, it’s dangerous laying around with all these old chemicals, son. You may get sick.” Whisper-Whisker said to the still-shocked villain.
Smokestack sighed. “Oh, I’m definitely sick. Sick of seeing your face!”
He then shot multiple black smoky tendrils out at Whisper-Whiskers, which he was easily able to dodge. Smokestack kept shooting more and more smoke at Whisper and ended up chasing him in his smoke form, just barely missing him. Smokestack ended up destroying most of his own stuff in his dwelling, making him even angrier. With all the smokey power within him, Smokestack was finally successful at wrapping Whisper-Whiskers around one of his smoke limbs.
“I finally caught you, you sneaky annoying fleabag!” Said Smokestack triumphantly, with a hint of frustration.
Suddenly, Smokestack got the feeling that something was not quite right. Whisper-Whiskers looked down, attempting to hide his joyous expression.
“Hey, where’s the other guy?” Demanded Smokestack to Whisper.
Whisper cocked his head back up in confidence and said “Well, we were hoping to keep it a surprise. But since you’re so eager to receive your gift, I suppose we’ll just give it to you, in three… two…”.
BOOOOOM!!
Through the solid wall, crashed in Super-Duper! With him, he was carrying a large vacuum-like gadget. With a cocky smile and the flick of the on switch, the vacuum lit up with power and started sucking up Smokestack. The sucking force was too strong for Smokestack to escape in his smoke form, and he ended up whirlpooling into the vacuum.
Now trapped in a little glass container, The De-Crime Duo dropped Smokestack to the police station and went home after another successful day of crime fighting.
The End.