Chapter 17: Beginning the Investigation

Wolfheart

All the Heroes were on edge as the flight to Boston, Massachusetts. Momo was the first to point out something Marie hadn't considered. "This is a trap," the Creation Hero told everyone as soon as they were airborne. "How?" Marie immediately asked. "Think, Marie-chan," Momo told her, "The Brotherhood has never committed a kidnapping before. Murders, assaults, terrorism, all of these are deadly crimes, and yet kidnapping has never been part of their M.O. They've never targeted children; they don't spare them, but they do not target them particularly either, until now. And they deliberately claimed responsibility for the kidnappings of children.

"Many people would never wish harm to come to children, deliberately targeting them will make them unpopular with people who might have sympathized with them. This will have consequences. They have been too careful before now to make so many mistakes. Therefore, this must be a trap for us, the Heroes investigating them." Everyone let Momo's explanation sink in, and Marie asked her, "Then what can we do? We can't just abandon them. The Brotherhood won't just let them go; they'll try to force us to act." Momo nodded and everyone else agreed with Marie. "We'll do everything we can to save them. We'll just need to do our best to outthink them," Midoriya said, and soon the pilot announced that they were touching down.

They left the plane with an army of reporters and paparazzi watching and taking pictures of them. There were so many flashes going off that even though it was a dark night it was almost as bright as day. They ignored the cameras, the phones, and the microphones, all of them were focused on one thing, getting the kids back. They were escorted by police to two waiting vans, and the vans took them to the Boston Police Station. More reporters were waiting for them, but again the Heroes had to focus on their mission. Inside they were besieged a third time, this time by the parents of the missing children.

"You have to save Omar!"

"My Betty is Type One Diabetic; she needs her meds soon!"

"They just took them, shot the driver and took them!"

"You need to save her!"

"You need to save them!"

"HELP US HEROES!"

Thanks to Marie's enhanced senses, she had often had to save missing and kidnapped people, especially children, in Japan. She had never failed to find those she was sent to find, but sadly even she couldn't save everyone, three people she had been sent to find were already dead by the time they were found. Seeing the desperate parents all calling out to be helped, sent a familiar chill down Marie's spine. No, it was worse this time, and she had to not put a hand on her womb and think about the baby, maybe babies, growing inside her. She stopped and looked to the parents, all of them had animal Quirks like her, some had ears and tails, others looked like upright animals, or some variation thereof.

"I promise you!" Marie declared, "I've saved dozens of children, and I've never lost a single one. Once I'm on the trail, I always find the ones I'm looking for. We will all get your kids back; I swear it on the name of the Hero Wolfheart!" That got everyone's attention and seemed to assure the parents enough for them to calm down, a little bit. At least things calmed down enough for the Heroes to go to the Boston Police Commissioner's office with no further interruptions.

Inside they found the Police Commissioner, a white woman in her fifties with aquamarine colored hair and piercing glowing green eyes named Hillary Danvers. She was sitting at her desk, but quickly sat up and welcomed the Heroes individually with handshakes. "I'm glad you're here," Commissioner Danvers said, "We've done all we could to find the kids, but it's almost as if they vanished in thin air." Momo quickly spoke for the Heroes, "There's been no camera footage or video of them?" Commissioner Danvers shook her head, "None."

The Commissioner had seats brought in for the Heroes and then showed them her computer screen. She explained, "It happened seven hours ago at 2:47 pm. The missing children were on a field trip to sites important to the American Revolution; Boston Harbor, then the site of the Boston Massacre, and finally Bunker Hill, where the first battle of the Revolution happened. On the return trip home, three unknown assailants stormed their school bus, killed the driver, and took them hostage." The Commissioner's computer showed video of the children getting on the bus with their teacher, and then three people in black robes moved in. The sound of a gun went off and there was screaming, as the driver's body was thrown from the bus. The bus then took off, and the children were silent from then on; most likely fearful of being shot.

"That was the last they were seen," the Commissioner said, "There's been no camera footage since this video was taken. Cell phone signals have been jammed, their parents tried to use tracking apps to locate them, but there was no signal from any of them." Everyone took this information in, and Iida said, "It's clear they have access to advanced technology, jamming and cloaking devices are a possibility. We know so little about them; every member that we've captured has been completely silent, no interrogations have led us to new information. They were all gravely silent, their secrecy is their greatest weapon."

Midoriya then spoke up in Japanese, and Marie translated for him, "What about cameras from the surrounding area, do you have footage from them?" The Commissioner typed away and showed them a split screen of six different videos, the time stamps showing that they were taken mere minutes from when the children were taken. Everyone looked closely, and nothing was apparently there. Denki pointed and said, "Right there, I see it! The exhaust from the bus!" Everyone looked closer, and Iida was the first to say, "He's right! It's faint, but you can just see the exhaust from the bus before it disperses!" The Commissioner ran to her door and yelled, "Polanski! Ridgeman! Come here now!" Two officers immediately came over, they looked like regular Quirkless men with brown hair and eyes, only Ridgeman was slightly older and broader than Polanski.

"See this!" Commissioner Danvers pointed out the exhaust clouds from the bus, and then ordered the officers, "Find videos like this! This is our chance to find where those bastards took the kids!" "Yes Ma'am!" Officers Polanski and Ridgeman said, and immediately headed to their desks to dig up more footage. The Commissioner then raised her voice, "Everyone not acting on any other active cases, help Polanski and Ridgeman find the exhaust trails of the bus that the kids were on! This is our chance! We need to get ahead of this!" A dozen officers that heard her immediately came forward and were given their instructions on what to look for before they went to help Officers Ridgeman and Polanski.

"While they're doing that," Momo spoke up then, "We'll go to the scene of the crime. Have the parents of the missing children gather the dirty laundry of the children, the sweatier the better. Wolfheart can track their scent, I'm sure of it." Commissioner Danvers agreed to this and went to talk to the parents that were waiting. She told them what she needed, and Marie then stepped forward and explained her heightened sense of smell and how she could find their children if she had their scents. Half of the parents headed back to their homes, leaving their spouses behind to watch for any news of their kids.

While this was going on, Momo had everyone gather in a conference room to discuss their strategy. "We cannot split up too much," she started with, "There is safety and strength in numbers. The Brotherhood knows that, so they'll try to split us up. There are eleven of us, that's enough for three groups of three and one group of two. We'll need to divide ourselves up to cover our weaknesses and enhance our strengths."

Midoriya spoke up then, "I think I know how to divide our groups." He stepped up and pulled out a Tablet and started pressing its screen, and everyone received messages. "We'll need people who can track the missing children, provide recon and take provide cover and help their teammates who are less durable than they are. I think this is a good approximation of groups between us who can work together and achieve these goals." Many of the foreign Heroes were investigating other parts of the United States for clues, Marie's group included herself and her American friends, Denki, and their former Japanese classmates plus Mirio-senpai.

The teams were as follows: a two-person team composed of herself; Wolfheart, and Deku designated as A-Team. The first three-person team composed of Denki, Slither, and Frankenstein's Daughter, B-Team. C-Team was Lemillion, Creati, and Headless Rider. D-Team was Willow Wisp, Shoto, and Uravity. Everyone was made up of teams that had at least one member who could scout ahead or use heightened senses to search for the children and powerful members to provide support for if the fighting became serious. This was the best that they could do with what they had, and everyone went into their assigned teams to make sure they would be ready in case the Police had any news for them.

A few minutes after their teams were assigned, an officer entered the room, "Wolfheart, the parents have returned, and they have clothes for you." Marie said, "Got it. Sammy, you should come too, maybe your snake senses can use the scent as well." "Right," the Lamia Hero agreed, and the two of them headed out to the waiting parents. One, a woman who looked like a humanoid lioness, walked over to Marie and said, "Can you really find them with these? The Police tried with their dogs and didn't find anything." Marie took a whiff of the air around the lioness woman, and explained, "I'm better trained than a bloodhound, plus I'm pretty sure I'm smarter than one too. I know that you haven't eaten since your child was taken, almost twenty-four hours judging by your breath." The lioness woman stared at Marie and Marie put her hand on the woman's shoulder, "I'm going to bring them all back, no matter what. You should make sure to take care of yourself too."

The children's clothes were in bags, they were all dirty clothes; underwear, socks, sports team uniforms for soccer, baseball, and basketball, shirts, and even one small training bra. Marie saw how small of the children's clothes were, and she had to resist the urge to put a hand over her womb, where her own child or children were forming. Marie gritted her teeth and took big smells of all the clothes, making sure to take in the scents of all the children. It was an even number of boys and girls, all of them so young; judging by their scents she guessed three of the girls and one boy was truly experiencing puberty now. When Marie was done smelling them, Sammy slithered up and tasted the air around the clothes, then turned to the parents, "I need to taste your scents. My snake senses can track almost as well as Wolfheart's nose can." The parents agreed and lined up, those that were couples held their spouses' hands as Sammy slithered by them and tasted their individual scents so he could get a better sense of who he would be looking for.

Marie saw how worried they all were and said, "We have the best Heroes from Japan here to help, I'm sure you all have heard about Deku, but we also have the Number Two Hero, Lemillion, as well here to help. Nothing short of God Himself is going to stop us." The assorted parents looked at Marie, and most of their eyes started to look more hopeful after hearing her words. Everyone had heard of Deku, the Hero who defeated All For One and saved the World. Even Lemillion was well known in America thanks to a World Tour charity even he had done last year where he went around the world and sponsored Hero Wrestling Events for children's charities.

An officer walked over to Marie and Sammy and said, "We think we've got a clearer picture of where the kids were taken." Marie led the officer to the conference room and told her friends the news. The officer turned on the TV in the conference room and pulled out an iPad and tapped on it. On the TV images appeared that at first seemed to show nothing, and then the officer pointed out the exhaust from the camouflaged bus, and Marie translated in Japanese the Police's findings. The officer continued, "We've tracked the missing children's bus trail through hours of footage and the last image we have of them from public security cameras is this here."

The officer pointed to the image on the lower left corner. "The bus's exhaust trail was last seen here, on the corner of Attucks and Franklin Drive in South Boston. We haven't seen any images of the exhaust since then. This is the best place to start looking for the kids," the officer explained. "Alright people," Momo declared, "Let's go!" The Heroes all left the conference room and marched out of the Police Station. Once they were outside, Deku immediately used his Black Whip Quirk to wrap everyone up and then used his Float Quirk to take to the air and started flying. Marie smelled the air and told Deku how to get to South Boston, following the scents of the kidnapped children. As they flew, Marie told herself, I'm going to bring them all back, no matter who gets in my way!