APRIL
2017. 9. 22 – New York City
In the heart of Brooklyn, a god-sized dome of luminescent green energy erupts, stretching into the sky as high as the One World Trade Center and rapidly spreads across the rest of the city, enveloping everything in its path. Swallowing all of Brooklyn and Manhattan while sparing half of Staten Island, the outer fringes of Queens, and most of the Bronx, the blast left only an ocean-deep crater in its wake – the crater is now filled in by the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
In the ensuing fallout, the energy from the blast mutated a vast majority of the city's surviving population into lifeforms of various shapes, sizes, abilities, and species, creating a people dubbed "Mutants." The humans feared the mutants and the mutants wanted to reestablish society on their own accord, but the country's ruling government attempted to suppress their influence and take control of the area. Resistance from the mutants led to both sides becoming embroiled in conflict, resulting in a long drawn out event known as the "Mutant Apocalypse." Eventually, the conflict ceased after the government with its humans and the mutants of New York reached a compromise, allowing mutants to become autonomous citizens and intermingle with the human population at large. At the dawn of this new age of peace, a new city is built over the Atlantic waters to replace the derelict and ruined New York, which forever remains lost to the great destruction and the sea.
50 years after the Mutant Apocalypse – 2067 AD, New York Island
It was a warm, breezy, and noiseless night in an unkempt and dimly lit neighborhood down in Neo-Manhattan. At this hour, no vehicles or nor the saturation of pattering feet disturbed the empty street, save for a lone mutant in shabby clothes entering a dirty and graffiti-riddled townhouse-like stone building and going down a set of stairs that led to a basement.
As he soon as he reached the bottom, he went through a door that housed a dingy and shoddily decorated bar which currently had few patrons at the moment. The atmosphere was very quiet since it wasn't busy, save for a bulky male mutant trying to get his own lip-locking action with the other smaller female mutant sitting right next to him with his muscled arm wrapped around her shoulders. The other mutant patrons were just lounging around on their seats while one fiddled with a jukebox in the corner. On the TV screen monitor that hung overhead across from the bar counter, channels were being flipped by the mutant bartender who sat on a stool behind the counter, feeling rather bored and over-relaxed as he yawned. The TV blinked from a live singing performance to a wrestling match to a drink commercial and to a motorcycle documentary until finally settling on a news broadcast. A mutant anchorwoman's face was shown while footage was played next to her.
"Scores of mutant and human citizens who lost their jobs after the tax reports enacted by the Island-Comptroller-Bureau are rioting everywhere. The current New York Island Public Advocate had decided not to attend a mediatory meeting held by the Mayoral-Council and instead had instructed their organization to stage a general strike. As a result, it seems certain that the strike will begin as scheduled."
The mutant customer took a seat on one of the bar counter's stools and leaned forward on said counter, supporting himself with his forearms. The bartender came over and began prepping the spot as he asked, "What'll it be?"
"Blue Kraathas, three of 'em," was the customer's gravelly reply. His eyes briefly met the just-as-brief gaze of the black and short-haired teenage human girl who still messed around with the jukebox. Nothing else could be said of her besides the fact that she wore black attire with some patches of metallic grey in her ensemble. She went back to playing with the jukebox without saying another word.
Meanwhile, another person was rushing down the steps outside the bar. The front door was pounded open, startling the mutant customer who just ordered his drink to the point he spit out what he had already chugged. The one who came through the door was human – a black-haired teenage boy who also wore black was rapidly strutting towards the girl in front of the jukebox. Once he was right next to her, he leaned in until he was definitively within earshot of her.
"We got the Honey Badgers cornered near the overpass," he whispered to her. Without saying anything back to the boy, the girl pressed some buttons to reset the jukebox before turning around to leave with him.
"Hey, this isn't a dance hall, sport," the disgruntled bartender spoke up as he wiped the countertop where his customer just spat out his drink.
"You got a bad attitude, pops," was the boy's retort, "Lighten up before your arteries harden!" The boy then stopped for another brief moment to poke his head over the shoulder of the mutant who was trying to savor what was left of his drink. "Hey man, that stuff'll make your bones double-mutate!"
That got the bartender even more irritated. "How many times do I have to tell you, punk? You ain't a mutie and he's a paying customer, so shut it!"
The boy opened the door to allow the girl to go through and walk up the stairs first. He got ready to leave too, though not before giving the bartender one last smirk-laden comeback, "Fine, I won't tell him what's in it then!" With that said, he turned and yanked the door shut behind him.
In another alleyway just around the corner from where the bar was situated, a slim black-clad girl with long flowing black hair was watching another blonde teenage girl sitting on a motorcycle while examining its features. "Carbon-fibered spherical two-wheeler frame…" the blond girl commented as she looked over the control board. "Geez, the handles even have pressure-sensitive stabilizer-brake systems…"
"Did you know it can go up to 12,000 rpm's?" the black clad and long-haired girl interjected to her blond companion while leaning on another motorcycle behind her, her arms crossed over her chest.
"Really? That's crazy!" was the blond girl's amazed response as she looked up at her black clad compatriot.
"Is that you again, Renet?"
The loud call of the black and short-haired girl rang out in the alley, prompting the blonde-haired girl in blue known as Renet to turn around to face her caller. Renet saw the other girl walking towards her with the black-haired punkish boy in tow. One good look was what got Renet to get up and move herself off the seat of the motorcycle she was just sitting on and walk away from the vehicle, though not without letting a dismayed frown momentarily mark her features.
"Shini, I thought I asked you to watch the bikes, not let mine get touched," the black and short-haired girl jokingly chastised her longer-haired friend. She took a moment to look over the bike Renet was on to see if there were any marks left behind.
"I was watching them," Shini replied, holding her arms up with her elbows down in mock defensiveness. "Renet simply wanted to join me. It's not my fault she asked nicely." Renet didn't turn her head once even though she heard what the other two girls said. When she saw the black-haired punk boy from the corner of her eye, she pranced lightly to his side.
"Hey Casey," she said to him, "You know I was just looking at Karai's bike, that I wasn't really messing around with it, do you?" The punkish boy whose name was Casey looked at Renet for a moment, his hand hesitantly reaching behind his head to scratch at it. His eyes flit back and forth between Renet's face and Karai's, even though Karai was still facing and talking to Shini at the moment.
"Well," Casey began, "I mean…you know how Karai is if she's not the one sitting in it, right?" He immediately caught Renet's face deflating with a hint of dismay a second after he stopped speaking, so he hurried to find another sentence quick, "But!" That got Renet looking up at him with renewed attention again. "I kinda wondered too about how her bike's the best out of ours." He leaned in to whisper into her ear, "One time, I turned on the ignition to get a listen on how good the motor was, and Karai almost scared me with her 'snake face' when she caught me." Renet's eyes briefly swiveled in Karai's direction, feeling slightly frightened by what Casey had described.
By that point, Karai and Shini had just finished talking and were now walking towards their own bikes. As Renet passed by Karai's bike, Karai was getting mounted on it, all while reminding Renet, "This bike's designed just for me because I custom-built it myself. It's too much for you."
Shini decided to give her reassurance. "An intense bike for an intense rider, Renet. I don't mean to put you down, but that bike would probably buck you off."
"I could ride it," Renet could only give a feeble protesting remark in return.
"Yeah, sure," Karai said as she got ready to turn her motorcycle on, "maybe I'll believe it after you down your first Honey Badger."
Everyone was activating their own bikes after mounting them. Revving up the motor engines as they warmed them up, with the wheels on Karai's bike giving off some sparks of electricity, all four bikers skidded out of the alley and into the empty street, taking off into the brightly lit and noise-filled heart of Neo-Manhattan's downtown itself.
Neo-Manhattan's downtown area was simply the latest stage in evolution for the concrete jungle. Mutant residents aside, roads were interconnected in an angular web of lines and bridges. Towers, skyscrapers, and other tall buildings jutted upward into the sky like a mountain range. Everywhere in one's immediate field of vision, skyscrapers so tall made up the horizon to the point that one had to look up 90 degrees to even get a glimpse of the night sky. Multicolored lights painted the cityscapes in the forms of beams from moving floodlights, neon strobe-light signs, holographic billboards and other advertising displays, building windows, and even the headlights of moving cars and other assorted vehicles. It if weren't for the fact that almost every building in New York Island was made up of a uniform drab grey concrete, one could have took one look at the multiple lights of assorted colors and assumed the city itself was dressed in a rainbow-like oily sheen.
One light hanging over a traffic intersection signaled green, allowing a line of cars that were once stopped waiting to move into the crossroad and turn towards their next path. One car turned right while another car behind it moved in a left turn, only to suddenly screech to a halt in the middle of the intersection upon spotting a gaggle of motorists streaking across from the car's left. All the riders were of the Honey Badger species, the kind that was in the same family as the common skunk. They were decorated like the typical biker gang: they rode on noisy motorbikes, had flags billowing behind their bumpers, and they carried a distinct assortment of deadly weapons. One riding Honey Badger lifted his own weapon to bludgeon the windshield of the car in the middle of the intersection he passed by, shattering the glass and making the poor driver in the car shield himself with his arms, flinching. Another riding Honey Badger whacked the hood of the car, causing the lid of said hood to get jostled open. It was when the third Honey Badger threw a grenade into the open hood that the driver scrambled out of the car and ran onto the street, narrowly avoiding getting caught in the fiery explosion that followed.
Soon after, Casey zoomed onto the scene, swerving his motorbike and turning into one of the lanes that had a Honey Badger speeding down it. Readying a metal hockey stick, letting it skid across the pavement for a second, Casey rode up right beside one of the Honey Badgers and made a hurrah as he gave the gangster a solid whack, "GOONGALA!" Right after the curved stick connected with the mutant mammal's face, said mutant was sent tumbling onto the rough road.
In another block of Neo-Manhattan's downtown, Shini was chasing her own Honey Badger. Focusing on her target, Shini revved up her bike as hard as she could and sped right past the Badger, only to then slow down to watch him gradually catch up to her. The Honey Badger growled and bared his pointed teeth, getting ready to ram her, when he noticed her raising some kind of golden bead chain held in her right hand. There was a large bead with a gem dangling at the bottom of the chain which swung back and forth, entrancing him into seeing a field of bliss in front of him. Unfortunately for him, he noticed the illusion a second too late as Shini then swung her chain like a whip and flung it at his head, coiling around his neck.
While that was happening, a mutant was lounging at a table near a wall-sized window in a fancy restaurant, apparently on a dinner date with his mutant girlfriend sitting next to him. He didn't flinch when his girlfriend peeked out of the window upon hearing some interrupting ruckus.
"Hey, are we getting street racers out here too?" she asked.
"Eh, what do you expect from teenagers nowadays?" was her boyfriend's aloof response, his tone indicating that he just did not care in the slightest what the 'street racers' were doing. He didn't heed any mind that their waiter arrived at the table to place a cup of coffee down on it. But before the waiter could open his hand to release the cup, he took a brief peek at the window showing the outside and gave out a shocked yelp, stumbling backward and spilling the coffee as he turned around to run. The sound of a cup clanging on the table and coffee spilling was what forced the mutant boyfriend out of his ennui, prompting him to call out to the one who knocked over the cup. "Hey, waiter! Y-*CRASH!*-AAH!" He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence as he was suddenly struck from behind by a runaway Honey Badger motorcyclist flying through a shattering window, knocking the table over. Both him and the cyclist had fallen flat on their faces, the cyclist instantly in a daze.
Right behind the broken window just outside the restaurant, Shini briefly pulled over to look at what just happened. Her bead chain weapon was tucked back into her belt. For a moment, she looked at the site with a feeling of satisfaction – her trick never failed to be the ace up her sleeve. Her attention was immediately drawn back to the telecommunications device attached at the base of her bike's windshield crackling out the sound of Karai's voice: "They escaped into the alleyway, Renet and Mira in hot pursuit! Follow me!"
Down said alleyway, one Honey Badger was furiously riding down it on his bike, trying to escape two of his pursuers while weaving through an obstacle course of discarded trash and other waste. Renet was driving her bike at full speed, trying to catch up to the Honey Badger currently getting away. The Honey Badger plowed through a wooden fence on the other end of the alley that had a pile of filled garbage bags in front of it, sending debris flying out onto the neighboring road. He made a sharp swerving turn to get onto the road and speed away. Renet tried to follow suit by doing that same move, but she ended up losing control of her slide and slipped of her bike, scraping herself on the asphalt. The biker behind her, Mira, a meerkat mutant who was almost a head shorter than the blond, zoomed by and successfully made the swerve that Renet had just blundered. "Renet!" Mira called out to the fallen blond while still in motion, "Quit messing up your turns!" She then turned to take off after the runaway Honey Badger.
Renet scrambled back onto her feet and forcefully yanked her bike upright. She pushed it along, hoping to get some momentum as she got it started again. "Come on," she grunted, her pushing given more force as she briefly ran, jumping back onto the seat of her bike as it got going again. She made sure to put the pedal to the metal so that she could catch up to Mira and the others.
On another major highway, there were three Honey Badgers cruising down the road like they owned it. Two Honey Badgers looked on ahead. They looked like the rest of their fellow gangsters, but it was the third, the one between them just a few inches behind, who was the main event. He was slightly bigger than both of his entourages, had mechanical augmentations on his right arm, and had red camera-like optics where his left eye was. He sat leisurely on his speeding bike, his arms crossed on his chest. He was the leader of the Honey Badgers, or Honey Badger Ravagers, as his gang's proper name was indicated as printed on the hull of his motorcycle.
Right behind him, three more motorcyclists burst out from the foliage to the right and onto the highway, landing right next to his two guards and immediately began ramming into them to knock them off course. One of the three motorists, a grey cat with green eyes, lifted a foot to kick the neighboring Honey Badger's bike, causing the Honey Badger to swerve out of control and crash down onto the asphalt. The Honey Badger leader kept moving on without flinching once. The feline looked to see her two fellows take out the other Honey Badger guard before moving in front of the leader, inching closer to him on the sidecar-motorcycle they were riding together. "Need a hand?" she called to the two.
"You sit tight, Akemi!" was the response of the tan-furred and black-eyed cat standing on the sidecar, holding a long blunt weapon in her hands. "He's mine!"
She waited for an opening as her compatriot continued pulling in closer to the leader of the Honey Badger Ravagers. With a brief crouch, she leapt from the sidecar and onto the top front of the Honey Badger leader's bike. Not a second later, she began taking swings at him. She managed to hit him a few times, with the Honey Badger moving his head to duck and dodge every strike while blocking a few others with his mechanical arm. With another hard swing, the cat mutant thrusted her weapon down in a chopping motion to land directly on the Honey Badger's right shoulder. To her surprise, the leader used his neck to lodge the blunt weapon in his shoulder, keeping it stuck for a moment long enough for him to grab the cat by the shoulders and give her a headbutt. Knocked backwards, the little cat mutant tumbled right off and slammed onto the road, briefly rolling away until she stopped, laying on her side.
"Chizu!" the driver of the sidecar-motorcycle cried out, slamming hard on the brakes and shoving the handlebars to the left in an attempt to turn her bike around as fast as possible. She didn't heed any mind to the smugness on the Honey Badger leader's face, only speeding back the way she came in order to reach her injured friend.
The leader of the Honey Badger Ravagers couldn't keep his satisfied state for long, as he looked dead ahead to find another motorcyclist speeding straight for him head-on. It was Karai, and she kept her focus on her opponent without a single instance of distraction, pushing harder on the pedals so that her bike went faster and faster. "Your ride ends here, Verminator Rex!" she exclaimed at him under her breath, not caring if he could hear her or not. The feeling was mutual with the Honey Badger Ravager leader "Verminator Rex," as he began picking up speed while zooming straight for Karai as well.
They both went faster and faster, their faces in clenched expressions from being exposed to the air streaking past them. Once they got to a certain point, Verminator Rex raised his mechanical weaponized arm to take a strike at her just as both motorists were about to pass by each other. In that same split-second moment, Karai whipped her own arm and it immediately extended into a pale tendril resembling a snake. Her hand became a fanged and eyeless snake's head which lashed out at the Honey Badger with a bite that was quick and painful enough that the Honey Badger leader was instantly knocked off his bike. While he tumbled onto the road, Karai changed her arm back to normal as she hit the brakes, turning and sliding her bike horizontally across the road's dividing line with her foot on the pavement until it came to a skidding halt.
Watching Verminator Rex scrambling to get back on his feet, Karai watched him, feeling a bit of satisfaction at having taken down the notorious gang leader when she heard him muttering "What's that?" while looking at the other end of the road.
Karai turned her head in his direction to spot a police car speeding towards where she and the others stood. One of the two mutant officers in the police car was speaking into a communicator, calling for backup from other patrolling cars. "This is Unit 375 reporting gang war between bikers near Intersection 12 of Expressway 14 – request emergency backup – Unit 375 proceeding. Force authorized."
Karai was met by Shini, Casey, and Renet braking right behind her, having caught up to where she was just in time to notice the police car as well.
"Karai, it's the cops!" Shini told her leader loud enough that Karai was definitely affirmed of what was happening right now.
"Ugh! Just when my coil's reaching the green line," Karai growled, expressing dismay that the authorities just had to interrupt her operation to take back the streets from the thugs. She turned to spot Verminator Rex getting back on his bike and speeding away, his two lackeys right behind him having gotten back up and following his lead. Karai revved up her own bike to continue the chase. "Okay, let's ride!" She then took off.
"Hey, wait up!" Renet called out as she got going as well, only right behind Shini.
"Come on, they're getting away!" Shini yelled out to Renet behind her.
"Let's go, people!" Casey yelled to the other four mutant companions who were revving up to go after helping Chizu back onto the sidecar attached to her friend's motorbike. Akemi and Mira sped off into the distance, following closely behind Casey.
"You just take it easy and hold on tight," the last cat-biker said to Chizu, who was still nestled comfortably in the sidecar next to her. "Ready?"
"When you are, Tomoe," Chizu spunkily replied with a weary smile despite that she was still wincing from the pain of her fall. "Step on it!"
Tomoe smiled back and nodded, putting her pedal to the metal and zooming into the direction of everyone else to catch up with Karai and the rest of her friends.
Meanwhile, down in the borough of Staten Harbor, a man was stumbling through the streets' urban areas, his eyesight scattered and hazy. He was human, which was not a shocking sight but was otherwise uncommon in the mutant-dominant New York Island. With one hand, he clutched his side beneath his coat while his face was stuck in an expression of suppressed pain obscured under his hat. With his other hand, he was holding the hand of a boy who obviously looked much younger than him, around the age of the average teenager. His features were obscured by the heavy jacket and cap that he wore. The man continued to struggle to keep his footing steady, constantly yanking the hand of the boy behind him which made him stagger as well since he apparently wasn't as fast of a runner. Rounding every corner and passing numerous shop windows displaying stacked walls of TV monitors, the man didn't bother paying attention to the fact that he was leaving a dripping trail of blood behind him. The boy whose hand he was tugging, on the other hand, was watching the trail every step of the way, worried about who would be following it right about now. The TV monitors were displaying a current news report:
"Protest rallies are being held by student groups. Small scuffles are reported occurring between riot police and motorcycle gangs."
The news channel automatically flipped over to a commercial for dog food, an animated cartoony dog barking in the display. The boy being pulled by the man took a brief glance to see what was on the TVs. At the same time, four-legged mutant beasts were roaring and slobbering, running faster than their keeper could keep up with them. The man continued to stagger and stumble as he pulled the boy with him while trying to run away, but the bloody trail he left behind him was working to his disadvantage, as the two beasts chasing them both were following exactly that. Pouncing ahead of their keeper, the two feral trackers rounded a corner, startling a couple hobos sitting against the wall of one building and then past the shop window of TV screens, startling a boyfriend and girlfriend who were walking together.
The man and boy quickly got off the sidewalk and into the spaces between the cars and other vehicles that stood idle as a traffic jam was in session, with beeping and honking horns along with drivers sticking their heads out of their windows to yell and gesture at each other filling the atmosphere. The wounded man hoped all of the noise and ambience would mask his presence from his pursuers. But the feeling of safety didn't last for long as he looked behind to find the same pursuing mutant beasts coming his way. The man truly did not have time for this. Taking his hand off his wounded side, he drew out a pistol and fired at the beasts as they lunged for him and the boy, blinking streams of purple energy piercing the beasts in their skulls. The gunfire was what made a scene and drew many of the arguing drivers away from the squabbles, looking upon the shooter with wide eyes. But the man didn't have time for their gawking. Upon hearing the sounds of police sirens, he continued his way down the congested road unimpeded.
The man and the boy he was holding by the hand finally cleared the traffic-jammed area, gradually making their way through another street that was laden with the empty and overturn wreckages of other cars, no doubt destroyed from the ongoing riots. The two eventually got clear of the quiet and smoldering scene until they finally walked into a network of empty streets. They looked down to the end of the road to their left to see a crowd of protesters marching by in the distance, holding their signs and yelling out their chants of outrage against the government. But all of a sudden, the two were suddenly overtaken by a spotlight instantly flashing on them both, startling them.
"This entire area is closed!" A task-force member was sounding off towards the man and boy through a device that magnified the volume of his speech. "It's off-limits! Get back behind the barriers!"
Other task-force members were supervising the packed crowd of mutant and human people that stood behind the movable dividers that the task-force had set up to cut off the public from the areas currently affected by the protests. One other member who was watching the protests in the distance with a visor was distracted by what he thought he spotted regarding the two civilians caught in the spotlight. "Hey, I got something here!" he called out to his fellow teammates.
Meanwhile, someone was pushing through the crowd behind the dividers, trying to get to the front. "Please, I have to get through!" the person yelled apologetically, even when a civilian next to him was telling him to stop pushing. The person who had finally forced his way to the front so that he could see out onto the clear road was a mutant. Particularly, he was a bipedal turtle, green-skinned and a darker-shaded hexagonal-patterned shell. He was wearing strips of blue cloth wrapped around his arms and legs, with an additional blue cloth with eyeholes acting as a mask tied over his eyes and around his head. He looked out to see the man in the spotlight, clutching his side as he continued to bleed. The same civilian who had told off the turtle earlier was now gasping in shock, whispering to others around him about the wounded man's bleeding state. The blue turtle clenched his teeth at the sight and turned around to walk back into the crowd. "Please, let me through," he resumed his apologetic speaking, back to pushing his way through the standing civilians who left little room for free movement.
"Hey! Stop pushing!" another voice yelled, only this one was louder and a little more irritated. It emanated from another turtle just like the one in blue. He was stockier and slightly shorter and the strips of cloth around his limbs and mask over his eyes were red instead of blue. He practically stomped his way through the crowd, ignoring some of the more irate voices of the other civilians who were exclaiming in pain at being shoved and asking him what he thought he was doing.
Just as the red turtle was making his way to the dividers further right of the crowd, the blue turtle was following him from close behind. "I'm sorry! Let me pass!" he said to the surrounding people again. He finally made it to the dividers where his red turtle compatriot was, coming to the sight of him seething with an angry expression on his face.
"Hey! He's running away!" the voice of a random civilian shouted out, prompting the two turtles to look at the man trying to sprint out of the spotlight back into the darkness, pulling the boy with him. When the spotlight quickly followed his movements and shone back onto him, he instantly drew out his gun again and fired at the light's source, shattering the bulbs and disabling the light.
"Watch out! He's got a gun!" the task-force's leading member noted to his compatriots. Two other task-force members on a vehicle immediately turned on another spotlight to get their sights back on the man again while other spotlights redirected their luminescent beams onto the same target. The running man tried to use his gun again to get rid of the remaining spotlights, but before he got a chance, the task-force members immediately began firing their guns at him. Wasting no time, he turned to shield the boy from the live fire before said shots knocked them both to the ground.
"No!" the blue turtle exclaimed as he saw the man being shot. He would have jumped over the barrier but he was restrained from behind by the red turtle next to him. "Hey, let go!"
"It's too dangerous!" the red turtle grunted as he held his arms tightly around the blue turtle. "If you get in their way, you'll end up like him too!" Seeing that his red-masked compatriot wasn't letting go any time soon and that there was effectively no time left to even try and help, the blue-masked turtle had no choice but to relax himself and stay behind the barrier, once again forced to watch.
"Hey! Hold your fire!" the task-force leader barked, running to the front of the line of team members holding their just-fired guns and pushed against them to block them from shooting further. "There's a kid with him!"
The man lied on the ground on his side, his body leaking from holes in his back from where laser shots had pierced it. He was struggling to get up while the boy whom he protected was getting back on his feet just fine. The boy knelt down again, his eyes widened in fear and shock over the man, his protector's, severely injured state. He vainly had his hands on the fallen man's shoulders in an attempt to help him up, but the man had no intention of letting the boy waste his precious time doing that.
"Go…run…" the man wheezed, trying to tell the boy clearly and quietly the best he could, even as he bled into the pavement. The boy, unsure of what to do, got on his feet to do what the man told him to do, which was to run away. As he began moving again, more members of the task force moved in closer, their guns held up at the ready. The boy backed away until he was out of the light and into the cover of the darkness, his gaze not once leaving the wounded man. "Don't let them catch you," the man told the boy further, his tone of voice sounding more strained. "I'm sorry…Raphael, Leonardo…" The armed soldiers were already closing in on the man with only several feet separating him and them, but the boy was too petrified to take another step. "What are you waiting for?" the man spurted, having reached dangerously close to his limit. But the boy continued to stay where he was, agonizing over the fact he still felt unwilling to leave his guardian behind. The man, already sensing that the armed soldiers were already way too close, pushed himself up with his remaining strength and despite coughing up blood, lifted his own gun again to point it at the aggressors.
Not even a second after doing that, the soldiers immediately fired away at the injured human, rapidly shooting round after round of laser blasts into the man's body until he flopped over dead and motionless.
"KURTZMAN!" the blue-masked turtle yelled in shock, an arm outstretched in a vain attempt to reach the dead man.
Unfortunately, the boy was still present, having just witnessed the carnage only a few feet in front of him. His eyes widened, his whimpers becoming little gasps, his gasps escalating into cries of anguish, his cries of anguish suddenly erupting into a piercing and reverberating scream of horror.
For a moment, the task force members present noticed the kid at the side screaming and did not know how to react. But they did not need to react to him, as the colorful lights comprising billboards and establishment signage suddenly shattered in an explosive manner, catching everyone off guard. Windows from nearby buildings shattered as well, raining shards of glass onto the crowded street. A giant display piece on top of another building representing an establishment tumbled down from a crumbled foundation, falling down onto the street like a slow moving meteor. Every civilian and soldier was running away from the scene, taking off to leave for safety while yelling and screaming without being able to help it. Everyone ran…except for two. The red-masked turtle was about to run along with the crowd when turned back to notice his blue-masked comrade having not done the same. He immediately ran back.
"Leo!" he yelled through the chaotic destruction and commotion as he called out to the other turtle through the clouds of dust and debris. But the blue-masked turtle, Leo, didn't respond. Even as the street began to crack up and break apart, he just stood while looking awestruck at the scene before him. The red-masked turtle managed to make it to Leo's side, feeling a combination of fear, worry, anger, and confusion as he took in Leo's seemingly unresponsive look. "What are you waiting for?" he called out with a tone resembling a growling yell, "Hurry!" But Leo continued to look ahead at where the boy stood. The red-masked turtle noticed this and turned to look the same direction, noticing something unusual occurring right at that moment. The boy suddenly began to fade away, turning transparent before he was completely absent from the collapsing urban backdrop as though he were a ghost.
The sight of this sudden bizarre phenomenon made both turtles gasp in shock and awe. "He vanished," Leo said, unable to react to anything else but what he had just witnessed. The street continued to collapse from the destruction.
In another part of the city, in the dim lit and gadget-laden interior of an aerial transport vessel, a mutant sat on a mobile chair that seemed to hover off the floor. The mutant was a turtle, albeit one with a slightly thin physique and had a purple shawl draped over his shoulders, chest, and top half of his shell. For a moment, his eyes were closed in a concentrated state, but he opened them before then turning to the human man in a pin-striped dress suit sitting next to him on his right. "This chapter's finished," the turtle spoke to the man.
The man turned to look at the turtle, giving a nod in affirmation. "Very well," he responded in kind, "it is time to move out." He gave the all-clear to the pilot in the cockpit to start up. Shortly after, the aerial transport vessel's engines whirred to life and lifted off into the air. Retracting its landing gear, the transport went higher and higher and then turned to fly towards the Staten Harbor borough. Another vessel followed behind shortly after in accompaniment.
Right at the outer border of Staten Harbor, a couple Honey Badger Ravagers were streaking away on their motorcycles towards the entrance of one of the upcoming express tunnels, knocking over a few dividing pylons and road construction markers along the way. Karai and the rest of her fellow bikers zipped after them as both parties were zooming into the express tunnels, which also happened to lead towards the city limits. As they were speeding, one Honey Badger took out a metallic and electronic-looking hand grenade and threw it behind him. The bomb clanged on the asphalt for a second before exploding, displaying a fiery billow of pink and purple sparks which then settled into the normal orange flames and black smoke. Karai just barely managed to stop her bike right after the flames slightly died down. A fire and smoke alarm blared within the tunnel, reverberating off the walls which prompted sprinkler systems to go off, spraying streams of water onto the fire where the grenade had blown up. Karai, having seen that such an intense display of damage, was about to call her comrades and tell them she was calling off the chase when she noticed one biker was speeding through the dying fire and pouring sprinkler water. A longer and closer look told Karai that that biker was Renet. She was shielding her face from the water as she focused on the Honey Badgers still getting away.
"Renet!" Karai called out to the blonde girl, but Renet wasn't listening. She was so caught up in the chase, along with not having heard Karai over the noise of everything else and she was already so far away.
Meanwhile on the streets of other areas in New York Island, pillars of smoke billowed and shouts of throngs of people filled the air. Protesting and rebellious civilians were toppling larger military-grade vehicles onto their sides as one was waving a tailor-made flag; some of those toppled vehicles had already begun bursting into flames, though a good number of those fires were immediately extinguished by other task force teams who had high-pressure hoses attached to their own vehicles at their disposal. Other armored soldiers were lining up to create more formations, their clubs and riot shields at the ready. Some protesters were already unlucky enough to be at the receiving end of those sprayed jets of water, already in the process of being swept away. Other protesters were sprinting down the wrecked roads like Olympians with their flags and emblems in tow. Smoke bombs were already bouncing across the asphalt, releasing more bulbous curtains of smoke to obscure everyone's vision.
Amidst the smoke, Leo the blue-marked turtle was trying to make his way through while he could barely see or breathe. "Raph!" he coughed as he tried to call out to his red-marked compatriot through the cacophony of protests, footsteps, and explosions. "Raph, where are you?"
Protesters continued to spread their rabble, even as they were being pinned down by the riot police and handcuffed, some even beaten.
Raph was already wrestling his way through the running crowd, going the opposite direction of wherever they were headed while shielding his eyes from the smoke. "Leo!" he called back in turn. Leo turned his head at hearing the sound of Raph's voice, but before he could make his own presence known, he quickly jumped into the smoke to avoid being spotted by the riot police that was storming in his direction.
One riot police officer spotted one protester holding a pipe staggering out of the smoke. Without further thought, he turned to fire a fresh smoke bomb from his rifle right into the protestor's abdomen. "Scumbag," he sneered at the fallen mutant citizen. The smoke continued to spread down the streets, the clouds getting bigger and bigger to where they enveloped low-level buildings.
Renet continued to driver her motorcycle as fast as it allowed, chasing the two Honey Badgers out from the other end of the express tunnel, following the bridged concrete highway. The moving lights of the New York Island cosmopolitan cityscapes continued to shine in the night air and reflect on the surface of the Atlantic waters. Without really paying attention, Renet was unknowingly pursuing the two Honey Badgers outside the city and into the abandoned ruins of another older one. The three streaked past a rusted sign of chipped green and white paint that was printed: Staten Island.
The concrete road continued to stretch on and on ahead across the ruins, given that it still essentially functioned as an expressway in the past, long after falling into disuse. Renet chased the Honey Badgers as all three were zooming along the curves of the road that weaved left and right within the derelict concrete jungle. The two Honey Badgers were speeding as fast as they could until one of them decided to veer into and down a nearby exit ramp.
"Not that way!" yelled the other Honey Badger still on the main highway, but his exclamation was promptly answered by an explosive crash down below, his partner apparently crashing into debris at the bottom. "Aw no," the remaining Honey Badger groaned, making a brief facepalm. He went back to focusing on making his getaway.
He went further and further until the beams of his headlights instantly revealed two giant chunks of broken signage with an opening between them that was way too narrow for high speed movement. The Honey Badger instantly knew he was in trouble, but his speeding bike already sealed his fate. The moment he passed in between the debris with a sandwiched crunch after failing to brake, he practically flew off his bike, both bike and rider smacking and rolling on the pavement.
Renet was much luckier though, being smaller and all. She zipped around and between the broken signage with hardly a scratch and flipped out her pipe to hold it at the ready. With careful aim and timing, she swung her pipe and conked the Honey Badger unconscious right as she passed by him. As she looked back to get a brief look at the downed mutant, she felt herself having never been more proud at finally getting her first Honey Badger. Finally, she could see a future where she could ride Karai's bike without being told to stay off it. Unable to contain herself, she let out a whoop. "Haha, yeah! How about that?"
She turned her head back forward to focus on the road, but instantly spotted a sudden and unusual sight right ahead. It looked as though it were a young boy, one who looked rather lost and confused…and Renet was speeding right at him. Letting out a cry of surprise, Renet hit hard on the brakes of her bike, but yet knew that she wasn't going to stop in time. The boy raised his arms in front of his face in an attempt to shield himself from what was right about to happen. Renet's bike sped right at the boy until both were inches apart…and then it exploded. The explosive impact from the bike was enough to become visible from at least a couple blocks away.
Karai and the rest of her gang, having pursued Renet a significant distance away, were able to catch up to the scene of the first crash by the Honey Badger at the bottom of the exit ramp. On the express bridge above the crash site, Casey, Shini, and Akemi were looking down from the concrete dividing rail observing the wreckage. "Hey, what happened?" Akemi called to her fellow mates down below.
At the crash site, Chizu and Tomoe were pulling the unconscious Honey Badger away from the burning remains of his bike. Mira was also with them, but since she wasn't pulling, she was there to answer Akemi. "It's okay," she called back, "it's not Renet."
Getting that answer was the only affirmation Karai needed, so she signaled to the rest of her gang that it was time to move on. "Okay, let's ride!" She hit the gas and began speeding further down the express road at the same time her other members were getting on their bikes and riding forward too, a few letting out their gang's signature battle cry.
Back at where Renet crashed, the boy was backing away fearfully, his hands trembling at what had just happened, fearful that he may have caused another person to get hurt. Renet laid on her back, heavily disoriented from the crash she had just survived. Being in a dazed state, she couldn't remember to roll onto her front to get up. Instead, she arched her back bent her head backwards to get a glimpse at the boy she had just encountered. Unable to utter any complex question, she could only make out a short sentence directed to the boy, wrestling to maintain what coherence that wasn't lost to her fall, "Who…are…you?"
The boy stammered, unsure if he should answer Renet's question, but his attention was redirected towards the sounds of motorcycles arriving at the scene, having just gone around the fiery wreckage of Renet's bike and braking next to where Renet lay on the pavement. After stopping, Karai jumped off her bike to rush to Renet, with Shini, Casey, and Akemi stopping their bikes right behind hers. Karai got on her knees to get a good look at her downed friend. "Renet," she spoke, trying to get her friend's attention, "can you hear me?" Renet tried to answer, but was unable to talk further from her injuries. Instead, she tried to point backwards with a shaking hand. "What? What is it?" Karai responded, trying to make sense of what Renet was trying to do.
As Karai tried to look in the direction of where Renet was pointing, Shini had just knelt down beside them both. "Oh my goodness," she gasped as she looked Renet over, "this isn't good, not good." The rest of the gang ran to the three and surrounded them, but Karai was busy looking ahead down the road to where Renet pointed.
She managed to spot the same boy Renet had seen earlier trying to walk away from the scene as quietly as he could. "Hey you!" Karai yelled out to the boy who flinched from the suddenness of her loud voice. "Hold it right there!" The boy was somehow sensing the intimidating and commandeering aura coming from Karai's voice, prompting him to turn around and face her to see what she looked like.
That was the moment, despite the other bikers speaking such as Mira exclaiming "We have to get her to a hospital", Chizu saying "Call an ambulance", and Tomoe interjecting "You're not supposed to move her", when Karai widened her eyes, having faced the most surreal-looking human boy she had ever seen. The boy appeared to be a teenager in a recognizable human shape and had brown hair, but his entire body was covered in green translucent skin to the point that his internal organs could be faintly and blurrily seen. It was as though it were simply a green blob with intact internal organs shaped as a human.
Karai continued to stand while staring at the boy, only wondering what such an oddity was doing out in the ruins of the old city for Renet to just come across him like that. But whatever thoughts she was having at the moment were interrupted as she noticed coned beams of light appearing behind the boy, moving left and right across the ground until they landed and converged on the boy himself and Karai's group. A few members had just noticed the light too, with remarks such as "Hey, what's that?" and "What the heck's going on?" But there was no time to react to the light further as it was instantly followed up by the roar of aircraft engines and rotors, the suddenness and loudness of it all taking the gang by surprise, making everyone exclaim in question even more. The gang was even pushed forward by the winds displaced by another aircraft descending from behind them. They looked above and around to see that several aircraft units were hovering around the area where they stood, surrounding them with their searchlights pointed down at the cement road.
The boy was looking up at the aircraft above directly in front of him, and with only a second of hesitation, turned to try and run past Karai and her friends. He managed to sprint a few steps when he suddenly froze at hearing the sound of another voice, one resounding in his head so audibly that not even the noise of the aircrafts could drown it out, that it seemed he was the only one who could hear it right now:
"You can't run away."
The boy swung around to find a mutant slowly descending from one of the aircrafts. This mutant was a thin bipedal turtle, one who wore a purple-colored shawl draped around his shoulders and sat on a floating chair that he was apparently lowering himself to the ground on. The chair stopped short of the actual surface, being a floating chair and all, but its occupant looked on directly at the ooze-skinned boy in the eye. "I came to get you," the turtle said in a straightforward matter-of-fact tone and manner.
The boy raised his hands halfway in a posture that suggested he was going to try and reason with the other, but the moment he tried to say something, every sound he made came out as a wordless stammer. He already seemed to fumble over his speech in an attempt to explain, even justify, why he ran so far from the city, but the longer he looked into the turtle's eyes, the more he felt that making such an argument was going to be a futile effort. He made quiet groan as he relaxed his arms once again.
The chair-bound turtle's face softened into an expression that was almost a mix of pity and sympathy, even a bit of understanding. "You know we aren't meant to be in the outside world," he told the boy standing across from him in a gentle tone. Lifting a hand and holding it outstretched, he beckoned, "Come on, let's go home." Immediately, the aircraft from which he descended from landed on the concrete behind him, the roaring rotors and displaced winds not distracting him in the slightest.
Karai and the gang were still trying to make sense of all the aircrafts flying around them. Akemi was the first one to figure it out. "It's the army!" she yelled out to the others, "Flying military transports!" As she yelled that, the transport vessel descending behind the chair-bound turtle touched down. A panel opened and lowered as a ramp. At the top of the ramp stood the pin-striped dress suited man whom the purple-dressed turtle had communed with earlier, his short black hair slightly dancing in the breeze and his eyes in a hardened gaze at what stood below. He remained standing where he was as armored soldiers rapidly made their way down the ramp and outside the transport. The soldiers were rapidly closing in on everyone, hurriedly forming a circled line to surround the youths while one was apparently kind enough to avoid stepping on Renet as she continued to lay where she was, injured. They all held up their weapons, pointing them directly at Karai and her friends.
"Down on the ground and spread 'em!" barked one soldier towards the gang.
One of the girls, Mira, had already lifted up her hands when she saw the guns pointed at her and her friends, but said friends hadn't exactly gotten the message immediately. "Uh, hold on," Karai spoke up in some attempt to make an alibi despite knowing she was talking to armed militia and not police officers, "we were just, uh, we were…"
"I said down on the ground and spread 'em!" was the response, sounding louder and more impatient and aggressive. Now that everyone knew that the soldiers were getting testy. Mira continued to hold her arms up in the air, flexing them a bit as a way of repeating her compliant gesture. With no other way out, Karai and the rest of the gang got down on their knees, laid on their front, and placed their heads face down with both hands on top. The armed soldiers then walked over and got behind them. One by one, the soldiers put aside their guns and grabbed the downed teens' hands to put behind their backs before securing their wrists with cuffs. Casey let out a grunt of pain as he was cuffed. Karai tried to look over to him, hearing him, but had her head shoved back down onto the pavement by the soldier standing over her. Karai wasn't having any of that – she forcibly tried to lift her head up again, wrestling with the soldier's hand pressing down on her scalp. She managed to catch a glimpse of the man in a dress suit walking down the transport ramp.
"Sergeant," the man called out in an even tone of voice.
"Yes sir!" the sergeant responded to his superior's call, running up to him and giving a salute.
"What is all this?" the man asked, gesturing to the fiery scene and detained teenagers a few meters away before him.
"Just a bunch of biker punks, sir!" was the sergeant's report.
Hearing that was just enough to satisfy the suited man. He walked off while his sergeant kept saluting and made his way towards the chair-bound turtle and green translucent-skinned human boy who both stood at the side of the road together. The turtle moved aside to let the man walk by him while the man approached the other boy. When the man stopped, he was silently standing and looking down at the other. The shorter green-skinned boy only stood, his head lowered like he had been busted for some kind of misbehavior. For a little while, the man watched him, and then spoke again in a commanding but rather disciplinary tone, "We're going home."
At the same time, Karai and the gang were being forced to their feet. The soldiers holding them didn't pay any mind to how they were doing that, merely yanking them by their cuffed wrists to stand up whether they were moving along with the pulling or not.
"Ow! Hey, that hurts!" Shini cried out in protest.
"How'd you like to try that on me, fish face?" Karai angrily yelled at the other soldiers behind her.
"Get the wounded on the transport now!" the sergeant yelled out the order to the other soldiers. One soldier had begun dragging Renet away by her hand, even though she was still lying on her back.
The rest of the teens were frozen in surprise as they saw Renet being taken away, with Karai, Shini, and Casey being especially concerned. Karai was quick to try and get back on her feet. "Renet!" she called out, "Where are you taking her – " *THWACK!* She was instantly cut off with the air knocked out of her by the butt of a rifle slammed into her gut by a nearby soldier. Reeling from the pain now residing in her abdomen, Karai teetered on her feet and crumpled down onto Casey who was close enough to break her fall.
That in turn got Shini upset as well. "Hey, don't hit a lady!" she tried to berate the soldier who hit Karai. "We didn't even get in your way!"
"Hey, get off me!" Casey squeaked from under Karai who was still on top of him, already feeling strained from the weight. By the time Karai was able to oblige, everyone could see the transport vessels powering up again and beginning to take off once more. They all flinched as the wind dispersed by the aircrafts blew directly in their faces.
The pin-striped suited man sat stoically on his passenger seat as the transport he was on flew higher above the Staten Island ruins, the crystalline radiance of the night-lit cityscapes of New York Island shining on the distant horizon of the Atlantic waters. Further at the back of the transport, the green slime-skinned boy sat on another chair, having been silent and wordless the entire trip while staring off into nowhere. The turtle, who sat on his own floating chair, stayed just across from the other boy, his eyes closed.
The fleet of transport vessels howled through the air as they all made the trip back to New York Island. Flying high over the Atlantic Ocean, the curvature of the crater that crushed the original New York City could still be seen through the darkness of the night, its raised edges visible above the outer areas of the old city ruins that were not covered by water. Everything else was just an expanse of ocean – a reminder of the event 50 years ago that nearly wiped the original New York off the map of the world.
In another transport vessel, both Renet and the fallen Honey Badger lied on emergency cots, fastened down to them via buckled straps. Renet's eyes were closed as she remained unconscious, though her facial expressions constantly changed with little rapid twitches as she appeared to be having some kind of dream.
The transport fleet flew further into New York Island's interior, passing over a massive construction site. That site held the shape and appearance of a towering stadium, one that encircled a field in the making. Just outside the stadium stood a sign attached to the outer fence of the construction area, informing passersby of the stadium being built for the upcoming 2068 New York Island-Olympics, arranged to be held at the Madison-Barclays Arena.