26

This attack made the man freeze immediately, and then Liam proceeded to send a flurry of sword strikes at the guard. Of course, the attacks came in chain spectral forms, and when the attacks ended, the guard blew up into small pieces, frozen in ice.

There were no blood spills anywhere, and one could sense the cold atmosphere. An eerie silence hung in the air. Liam proceeded to break the lock on the huge metal door that led inside. After the loud thud, the door opened, and there he saw multiple young men and women, all of whom looked at him with fear in their eyes.

Liam took a good look at them and even found the guy he had been looking for: Thomas Gallaghar. But he also knew that he couldn't take these children out, at least not at that moment. The horrific scenes outside would be very bad and would traumatize them more than they were already.

"Stay here. Someone will come to take you away soon," Liam said in a hoarse tone and then proceeded to shut the door again. He wasn't doing this to gain recognition, anyway, so he didn't need their approval. The younglings were confused and, thus, didn't react at all.

Liam then proceeded to call Tony.

"Hello."

"You have the nerve to call me? You call Pepper multiple times a day, and then you call me once a week?" Tony shouted over the phone.

"It's because Pepper is now the CEO," Liam defended himself. "And we can have this tantrum later. I just uncovered a bunch of trafficked younglings. Use your connections in the police department and free them. I'll send you some pictures to get the search warrant."

Tony wanted to continue with his drama but stopped when he started seeing the pictures and videos Liam sent. His mood had already been sour for the past few days, and seeing this angered him.

"JARVIS, contact the Stark Foundation and tell them to use all means necessary to deal with whoever's responsible for this."

"I will get to it, Sir."

-----

4 a.m.

"Jesus Christ, who even works this late at night?"

"I was having dreams of being on a beach in Hawaii. Now this case will destroy all of my plans for the next month or so."

"Oh yeah, you were supposed to be on vacation next week. Get ready for divorce."

"Ugh... don't remind me. Where's Dexter? Why isn't that guy here yet?"

"I'm here... I'm here. I had to get an Uber. Sorry." A 6-foot-tall man with a well-built body, blonde hair, and a beard came running in. He looked a bit disheveled and slightly out of breath. He was carrying a secured steel box at his side, which seemed to hold all the equipment necessary for the investigation.

But once he stepped in, he was beyond dumbfounded. When he was called for an emergency, he thought there had been a homicide or maybe multiple homicides. But this was beyond what he had expected as he stepped onto the ship.

Bodies lay left and right. Some had their heads separated, some were stabbed right through their hearts, and some had their skulls riddled with holes from arrows lodged in the steel ground. This was brutality to the max.

Dexter was a forensic analyst specializing in blood spatter pattern analysis, and he was the only one who specialized in that field. Thus, he had to be called in for this situation, which the detectives were trying to make sense of. What really angered the detectives was that the SWAT team was here before they could arrive.

The Stark Foundation had called a judge, assembled a huge SWAT team, and raided the location. Their raid had already contaminated the whole scene, and by the time the detectives arrived, it was too late.

But the detectives couldn't say a word since it was the Stark Foundation, a foundation built by Tony himself and known for using its money to fund the police, hospitals, and other institutions. Thus, they couldn't just object when everything had already taken place.

Dexter surveyed all the victims, and it took almost an hour to get a rough overview. The more he saw, the less sense it made to him. He had always prided himself on being able to discern the mind of a perpetrator, but this time he couldn't discern the body of the perp.

"Lay it on me, Dexter."

"We have a Captain America on the run, and he's carrying a sword and a bow," Dexter replied.

"A what now?" one of the detectives asked, trying to process what he had just heard.

"You see the dismembered bodies here? It takes an immense amount of force to separate limbs from a body. Maybe a person with considerable strength could do it once or twice, but this guy—assuming he is a man—was able to do this to multiple targets. Not only that, but his bow must be very well-built, too, since each arrow was able to penetrate the skull, which is standard for any good bow. However, these arrows went beyond and struck 4 inches deep, which shows how powerful this person's bow was. And someone to even wield one would need massive amounts of strength. I haven't yet calculated the strength necessary, but you'll have the metrics soon."

"Great, now you have a super individual on the run," one of the detectives said.

"Are you seriously believing this? I know you're a fan of Captain America, but do you seriously think he ever existed? There must be another explanation for this. Dexter, get on the case. I want a thorough analysis of the victims," the other detective said, clearly furious with the detectives of Hell's Kitchen.

He had always found them fishy, and there was no way he could believe such an operation was going on here without their knowledge. But thankfully, the Director of the NY Police Department had taken an interest in this case and had sent their best detectives.

When he saw the young children being taken out by emergency services, blindfolded with cloth, he felt nothing but blood boiling.