Sorry this ones kinda short!

"Sorry," the youngest of their captors smiles at them, a little sheepish. He's still older than them by a few years, but his face is soft and his eyes are not hard and cold the way his partners are. His hands, too, are soft as he dabs the blood away from Shinso's brow and placed a butterfly bandage on top of it. "I don't want you kids involved in this but…"

"But we make good bait," Yaoyarozu finishes for him. Her glare could light fires. The man winces.

"Yeah."

"Ray!" The other captor snaps, "stop coddling them. They're prisoners, not patients."

Ray frowns at her. "They're hurt, they need treatment. And they're just kids."

"Is this going to be how it is when River shows up?" She demands, spinning towards him so fast the bottom of her veil lifts and reveals a jagged scar that pulls out of the top of her shirt and races up her chin. Ray frowns, the softness fading from him.

"No," he says simply. "No. River has to die."

Why? He wanted to ask, wanted to scream. But he couldn't. If they knew he was awake, they would put him right back to sleep.

Why, why, would they want River dead? Shinso scowls at him anyways and sits back amongst the others. Two girls and two boy's from Class 1-A, a boy that he doesn't recognize, and a cat. He draws the cat into his lap and eyes the people in front of him. They're all dressed in various white outfits that look like uniforms. The boy that had seemed so concerned in the cut above his eyes from where he'd been slammed face first in a wall was the most simply dressed. Just white jeans and white hoodie that covered his curly brown hair.

Along with him are two girls. One in all camouflage of white and grey that was contrasted heavily by her burning red hair. Another, in a blonde girl in a long white shawl. All around them were identical white dressed grunts, at least twenty. Maybe thirty. They all wore the same white body suits, it was impossible to tell how man there were when they weren't standing still.

Shouto keeps his eyes closed and his breathing carefully even, feigning sleep. They had taken him from the hospital, held a gun to his mother's head and escorted him outside and into a van outside. When he'd begun to resist, smoke curling from his hand, he'd been hit hard in the back of his neck and he hadn't woken up until a few minutes ago.

Out of everyone that he could hear, he was the only one with any real combat ability. Yaoyarozu could make weapons, but tied up as they all were and under the watch of at least two different people, maybe more, he doubted she would be doing much just yet. She knew to bide her time. Yaoyarozu was clever.

Maybe they could use her to make insulation while Kaminari zapped everyone. Shouto wanted to growl in frustration. How could he plan if he didn't even know who all was here? They couldn't have all of their classmates, or that would be too much to manage. He knew that he was there. He knew that Yaoyarozu and Uraraka were there.

Momo was trying to come up with her own plan, but there was a problem.

They had stuck a bracelet on her, and she couldn't make anything. The little red gem on it glowed everytime she tried to use her quirk, and she could see an identical one on each of her fellow captives. Todoroki and the strange boy she didn't quite recognize were both unconscious, but she, Kaminari, Ochaco and Shinso were awake and watching the people around them.

Finally, the girl with the red hair looked at Uraraka.

"We need to make sure she know's we're serious," she said in a way that implied nothing good for the captives in front of them. Momo stiffened and tried to move in front of her at the same time the boy called Ray did.

"I think kidnapping qualifies as being serious," he said.

The girl shot him a look. "You know the girl. She needs proof that we're not just holding a few captives. Move. "

"Gorgon, no," he said again, more firmly.

She glared at him. "Move. Now."

He tried to argue, but as his mouth opened her eyes glowed a sudden green and before her very eyes Momo saw 'Ray' stiffen, darken, and turn to stone. Gorgon looked at Uraraka and pulled out a pair of rose sheers.

"Why are you telling me this?" River asks as they walk down the streets. "Shouto wasn't at the mall, and besides that I didn't know he was your brother." Not for sure, at least.

"Mom's hospital was attacked too. Shouto was taken by them. You're his friend."

"That still doesn't explain why you're even telling me he's your brother," River points out, "We're not that close. I could, I dunno, use that against you?"

"You won't," he said with the utmost confidence. "I've bet everything on you before, and it hasn't been a mistake yet."

River sucks in a sharp breath. True, she knows, but betting on a fight was different from trusting people with secrets.

"Besides. If you try to use this against me, I'll just tell everyone that Sentinel goes to illegal fighting pits instead of holding down a real job," he adds, throwing her a smile that shows more teeth than it should, for someone like him. It makes her light with familiarity, even in this dark time.

They walk together in the streets again, until they are climbing the steps to River's apartment.

"How d'you know it wasn't the League of Villain that took him? Tomura Shigaraki went to the mall to see Izuku today."

"How'd you know that?" Dabi asks, but all she does is wink at him. He rolls his eyes. "Right, right. No, it wasn't him. He disappeared too."

River picks up the package on her way into her apartment. The door was broken, halfway off of it's hinges, and Tarmac was nowhere to be found. Had they come to target her as well? If they did, they were in for a terrible surprise.

She wasn't too worried about her cat. He could take care of himself, if he needed to.

Rive pushed the door back in place and sat on the air. She motioned for Dabi to do the same. He shot her a weird look but when he planted his hands on the air and lifted himself up, onto a platform. He looks a little unsure, but he trusts her.

He trusts her.

Her, with the scorpion eyes.

"So who do you think did it? Took all of them, at once? And what do you think they want?" River asks.

Dabi shakes his head. "I have no idea. It can't be someone targeting my father, or they would have left your friends out of it. It couldn't have been someone targeting UA either, if they took that punk, Tomura."

"He's tougher than you are," River chides, lightly.

"Excuse me?" he narrows his burning blue eyes at her and River smiles cheekily.

"He didn't even cry when he was shot eight times. You've got a glass jaw, hotshot."

"You don't think I've taken some pain?" he challenged, pointing to his stapled cheeks. River kicked him with her scarred feet. Perhaps it was someone who wanted to get at All For One, and they just so happened to grab the UA students? No. A different party. After AFO and UA?

"Oh hush," she says. She uses her power to cut the tape on the box easily. She hasn't ordered anything recently, but she'd ordered things on line and forgotten about them before. And Jin liked to leave weird shit on her doorstep sometimes. He'd left her a cat shaped candle once.

She pulled box open. Inside was another box, a smaller one, and a little white scrap of paper.

All it had on it was an address, 'Come Alone' and it was signed 'The Damned'. Heart filled with dread, River opened the smaller box. Inside was a severed finger, with a little pink pad set across the tip.

They hadn't taken them to get to Endeavor. Or All Might. Or All For One.

They were after her.