Benny was my best friend since preschool, but none of that mattered as I sat next to his hospital bed watching him cling to life.  It’s almost hard to comprehend what has happened to us.  It’s hard to remember the good old days when we thought the legendary five was invincible.  Now, as I contemplated what might have been if we had stuck together, I realized that only three of us were left.  Jonathan had died a few years ago at the age of 20, and Benny was on the brink of death now at age 23.  Not to mention that I almost had a life sentence placed on me.
It was a terrible feeling, knowing that the most successful member of our little group was about to die; however, I had comfort in the fact that I was going to personally kill the person who put a bullet in his head.
I sat there for hours watching that machine that showed his heart rate.  I never did know what it was called, and I guess I never cared to know.  It started beeping faster and faster, and I knew it couldn’t have been good.  I watched the world go dark around me as I fell to the floor in shock that my pal was about to lose his life.
The next few days went by in a flash.  Next thing I knew I was on the funeral home stage, giving a speech.  I had struggled to write it in the past few days.  “Say what’s in your heart,” Tommy and Danny told me over those tough days.
It was time for me to start speaking.  The room quieted down as 57 pairs of mournful eyes laid rest upon me.  The walls of the room were a dark shade of brown with obvious wear and tear.  The seats had ripped patches of leather, the floors were creaky, and the stage beneath my feet did not give me any satisfactory comfort of stability.  Sadness must have a brutal effect on a room, no matter how durable it is.  My time for procrastination was over.
“I know that not everyone here knew the legendary five, but the one thing everyone should know about us is that we were truly amazing in our hay day,”  I started out strong and confident, “First, there was me, just trying to survive the treachery that was preschool when I met Benny,” Tears started to fill my eyes, “we were the best of friends.  Then Daniel came along.  It was then that we realized we were something special.  Daniel, or the Elfman, as we knew him, brought Tommy into the group.  They were best friends since the dawn of time.  Our group, however, would not be complete without Jonathan.” I started to cry, “Oh, Jonathan,”  I said through the tears, “we wouldn’t have been… we wouldn’t have been the same without Jonathan.”  Then, as I started hysterically crying, I fell off the funeral home stage. 
No one cared that the local failure who got away with murder had fallen off the stage.  Someone even came up and started kicking me.  However, they did care when gunshots rang out.  We all ran outside the funeral home.  Within our sights was a homeless man in the parking lot loading his handgun, shooting aimlessly.  Daniel was prone to anger.  I didn’t want another member of the legendary five gone, so I held him back.  In the middle of the aimless shooting, the homeless man looked straight into the crowd and shot Daniel in the leg.
The homeless man was arrested as soon as Daniel was rushed to the hospital.  I made sure to ask him plenty of questions before he departed.  It was clear that someone had put him up to it.  The only question now was who.  I already knew the answer to that.
It was clear by now that whoever was conducting these murders was targeting the legendary five, and I was not going to be persuaded that we were safe.  Not even by the detective who replaced me when I had to turn in my badge, my brother.  I received a phone call from his office saying that I had a mandatory meeting.  I would never want to obey his command, but I did want to make sure we were on the same page.
“This case is so obvious; I cannot believe that you don’t see the simple solution,” I said with fake disbelief. “If Mr. Taysac didn’t commit this murder, then who did?”  Mack was casually strolling around his desk in a manner which I was sickened by.  He opened his mouth and I waited what seemed like an eternity for him to form the words he wanted to say.  He was a big thinker, but he needed to be a good talker to gain my respect.  He finally let the words reach the end of his tongue, “I’m all about looking for motive, and Mr. Taysac just doesn’t have any.”
In our high school days, we all had the same favorite teacher, and he continued to be our favorite teacher after we graduated.  That was until Jonathan died.  Mr. Taysac was his name and conspiracy was his game.  Mr. Taysac had motive, and I think he had more motive than anyone in the world at the moment.   Jonathan had finally gotten what he wanted as a kid.  He got to go on an archeology trip to Africa; I still remember saying goodbye as he took of on a rickety plane.  He said he would be back in two months time, but that was not true.  I never saw Jonathan again.  The news reporters told us that he died along with the village he was in because of some deadly disease that they warned us was going to spread, but I didn’t care at the time.  One of my closest friends was dead.  Mr. Taysac had a different theory.  He shamed Jonathan’s name by writing an article with fake quotes and fake facts.  I can still recite part of the article by heart. “Jonathan Ocksteel was a good student turned murderer as he killed the African village that he supposedly died in.  We talked to one of the locals.  They said, ‘Mr. Ocksteel came into town with a gun and a test tube with a disease inside it.  Soon after he got there, the crazy maniac held our leader hostage and made him drink the disease.  He then made the king spit in everyone’s food until we all had it.  He then said, ‘Have a good death,’ and he took off in his airplane.’ There you have it folks, Jonathan Ocksteel is a murder that’s still on the prowl.” The four members of the legendary five that were left launched a war against Mr. Taysac.  We also had help from our extended legendary five that were left.  The extended legendary five were our siblings that were close enough to our age that we were all friends.  Jonathan’s sister, Julia, was forced to go into hiding due to the backlash.  I hear she’s in the Caribbean fighting the natives for food.  The legendary four and our four siblings went to work trying to land Mr. Taysac in jail.  We were not successful. 
Mack continued, “If I were you I would listen to Mr. Taysac. He has a point.”  I threw a vase at him, screaming whatever came to mind.  That’s when his security came to throw me out.  As I was being dragged across the room, I noticed by brother’s secretary, Daniel’s sister.  Jill was always a team player when we went against Mr. Taysac, even if she was a little distracted at times.  Even though the eight of us were together and strong a few years ago, that all changed when I had my murder trial.  Mack and Benny were the ones who brought in new evidence, convincing the judge that it wasn’t me, but the sad part is that the judge was wrong.
It was a November evening.  I was 21, and our group had just failed trying to get Mr. Taysac fired from his job.  Just a year ago I had become the star detective in the town, but going against Mr. Taysac lost some respect for me among town locals.  The night was chilly, but it wasn’t too cold.  I saw a man in the street with a gun up to an innocent man’s head.  I used my instincts at that moment, so I shot the man.  The problem was that my aim was off.  I shot the innocent man and killed him.  The man with the gun ran away without a scratch.  I went to court.
The jury said that there was so much evidence against me that there was no way I could get out of jail anytime soon.  That’s when Benny and Mack came in and saved the day.  I never thought my best friend and my brother would be trying to team up to save my life.  They showed a bunch of evidence that I couldn’t quite comprehend.  The jury said I was innocent.
“How did you two manage to free me?!”  I said in disbelief.  Benny looked at me, “I took  a fingerprint sample that wasn’t yours and put them on the gun.” He looked at the ground, “they happen to be Istie’s fingerprints.” He glanced at Mack, who was facing the other direction.  “What!?!”  I screamed. Istie was Tommy’s sister.  We had all gotten very close during the legendary five vs. Mr. Taysac case.  She was just the tender age of 17, and she was the same age as Jill.  The image that still haunts my dreams is seeing Jill and Istie cheering me on in the stands during the court case, and the security guards hauling Istie away to her life sentence.
Tommy never forgave Mack for that.  We made them explain themselves further after the incident.  Benny thought the fingerprint was from a dead relative of our’s, and the reason he thought that was because Mack lied about it.  He knew it was last minute, so he took the first fingerprint he could find, Isties.
No one in the town believed that the young high schooler was guilty, so they all shunned me.  I was in my office with Tommy, Daniel, and Benny when the fire alarms went off.  I had turned the local library into my detective office after I bought it.  We barely made it out with our lives.  Luckily, I had an escape window in the back.  It burned to the ground.  Mack built his detective office on the same ground with the donations of everyone in the town. 
The legendary five was in shambles.  Jonathan and Benny were dead, Julia was in hiding, Istie was in jail, Mack had a detective office set against us, and Jill worked for him.  Benny’s brother Kyle had not been in town.  His family had moved out of town when Benny graduated.  He did come back to visit and help us out during the Legendary Five vs. Mr. Taysac, but he had a very small role.  I knew he must have graduated by now, so I decided to call him up.  The result was shocking.  Benny’s family had not come down for the funeral because Kyle had gone missing, but they just found his dead body.  It was a murder case, and everyone was a suspect.