Unnatural Disasters

Mysterious Fires

After Angel showed them the case that piqued their interest, she sent them home with something to think about. The next day they all came back to meet up again and discuss the case. Diego was the first through the door, after pushing Kyle out of the way.
"That was completely unnecessary." Kyle fumed and adjusted his book bag, what was with him anyways?
"Sorry pretty boy, next time don't read and walk." Diego drawled out teasingly, he then narrowed his eyes and looked around. "Looks like Angel did some, rennovations." The two looked around, surprised. There has been some old antique looking furniture in the center of the room which was two couches and a coffee table. Angel's laptop was sitting on the table along with a cup of the darkest coffee either of them had ever seen. "How does she even drink that?" Diego scoffed.
"No idea." Kyle was hardly paying attention to Diego, the previously empty bookshelves that lined the walls were occupied with quite a few books. Diego rolled his eyes at Kyle, and went to open the door when he heard a knock.
"Charles is here." Diego called out to Kyle, who he assumed was knee deep in Angel's books by now. He stepped out of the way for Charles.
"Good afternoon. Did you guys get started already?" Charles asked politely and walked inside.
"Actually, don't know where Angel is, or Hajime." Diego shrugged and took an apple out of the fruit bowl.
"Diego that's-" Charles would begin but Diego already took a massive bite out of the apple. "..fake." Diego spit it out.
"Fuck, who puts fake fruit in a bowl?" Diego scowled and drank Angel's coffee, visibly blanching. "Actually it's a mixture of real and fake food, I wanted to see who would fall for it first. I had my bets on you or Hajime." Angel walked in the door behind Charles, pulling a clear whiteboard inside. Kyle was snickering at Diego's misfortune.
"Dumbass." Kyle shook his head and put one of Angel's books back.
"Watch it twig, I will break you." Diego huffed and flopped on the couch. "I thought we were supposed to be meeting for the case thing? Not for you to feed us fake fruit."
"Why can't I do both?" Angel pulled a projector out of a box and put it on the coffee table next to her laptop. "Oh, and we're waiting on Haj- Speak of the devil." Angel had a small grin on her face.
"You're the devil, and it's too early." Hajime growled as he walked in and sat next to Diego, who moved his legs out of the way for him.
"It's 1:17 pm." Charles glanced at the disheveled Hajime, he really looked like death.
"Yeah well-" Hajime clenched his fists and thought really hard for a few moments. "I got nothin."
"How surprising." Angel rolled her eyes and turned on the projector. "So, as you know the information I showed you was off a media website, there was a few mysterious fires happening around the city. Local investigators are puzzled." She could see their 'get to the point' faces. "So I called in a few favors and I got more info." She clicked the remote a few times and some pictures of the crime scene flashed across the projector screen.
"What are these photos going to tell us?" Diego yawned, starting to get bored. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea afterall.
"I think it's safe enough to label Diego as the group idiot." Kyle spat and pointed to the last picture, which was a picture of one of the walls at the power plant. "There is graffiti on the wall, which makes sense, these types of places are spray painted all over all the time. This makes it the perfect place to hide a message. At all four crime scenes the same red peace symbols are found."
"Ding ding ding." Angel applauded Kyle.
"Historically peace symbols meant nuclear disarmament, they were the symbols at anti-nuclear protests. These are all nuclear power plants, so maybe that reflects on the idealogy of the arsonist." Charles offered.
"Damn okay, you're all getting smart on me." Diego grumbled. Hajime yawned and was looking at some of the papers Angel had printed out.
"Forensics found evidence of different chemicals at each scene but they could be traced back to the power plant. As well as the fact that there's a number of different ways to cause fires, like I could write a whole 7 books and 8 movies about the number of- anyways. The most common chemicals I'm seeing are nitrates, chlorates, and perchlorates." Hajime rubbed his eyes and tossed the papers back on the table.
"Fireworks." Kyle said, seeing as Hajime wasn't going to simplify what those specific chemicals were in.
"Okay, but you guys are missing the obvious, these are nuclear power plants, the devastation that could happen if they burnt down the wrong part of the plant. Whoever is doing this is targetting specific areas that won't cause a nuclear melt down. So they're sophisticated, they can control their fire, and they do it relatively quickly, before authorities can arrive. This is clearly a group." Diego shot a glare pointedly at Kyle.
"Okay but why? There are far more obvious ways to protest against nuclear energy or bombs." Angel looked at them.
"Nuclear disarmament treaties happened in the late 80s to early 90s, so why would the Arsonists be spreading anti-nuclear propaganda if the nukes are kept under control?" Charles asked. 
"Alright they must have some other agenda then." Angel began. "Me and Hajime can go to one of the burnt down power plants. Kyle, Diego, and Charles, hit the books. Kyle and Charles, focus more on the symbolic meaning, the peace symbol could have more than one interpretation. Diego, I want you to find correlating cases, you were a law major, so you must have connections." And with that, Angel grabbed Hajime and dragged him out the door. Diego stared after them, then turned to Kyle.
"Well, have fun nerds." Diego patted them on the head and walked towards the door.
"Wait, aren't you going to-" Charles began before Diego cut him off.
"Don't worry, I'm going to the station, some of my old buddies are working their shift. You and pretty ricky have a great time, doing whatever it is you two do." Diego clicked his tongue twice and shut the door behind him.
"Pretty ricky?" Kyle would ask Charles. Charles shrugged in confusion.