Out of the Blue-Prologue
4 years ago…
"Mom! C'mon! We're going to be late!" A voice called out excitedly as a beautiful teenage girl looped her arm through her mother's and sped up slightly. Her mom went along with her, laughing the entire way. "Where's Dad going to meet up with us?"
"All right, Raegan! Calm down!" her mother shook her head. "We'll make it on time! Your dad will understand if we are a bit late…I had a lot of work to do. He said he'll see us at his shop…he's been pretty busy today, so he's closing later than usual." Raegan nodded to her, humming a song she had heard on the radio earlier that day in her bright mood. They walked for another three blocks before they saw the bright lights from the televisions in her father's electronics shop. She let go of her mother, breaking into a run when she saw her father standing there in the doorway of his shop, waving goodbye to a customer carrying away a stereo.
"Dad!" she exclaimed happily. He turned around right in time to catch her in his arms, and he smiled as his daughter hugged him.
"Rae! How was school?" he asked with a wide grin.
"Meh, it was school. Chemistry was awesome though! We had a substitute today and learned how certain chemicals can cause mutation, like nitrous acid and deaminating agents and stuff!" She didn't notice how her father froze in complete fear, his eyes glancing around them nervously.
"Raegan, what was the name of your sub?" he demanded.
"Uhm…I think Mr. Sako or Saki…I dunno, he was Japanese or something…he asked us if we knew what mute…uhm…darn it…oh oh! Mutagen! Yeah…he asked if we knew what it was…I told him what you told me last year when I was reading that book! He seemed to like my answer…he kept calling on me in class, and he held me back after class, told me I should consider an internship with some company…I forgot the name, but he gave me the card. It's in my pocket!" she shrugged and kept blabbering on about her day in Chemistry. As her mother walked up, her father pulled her aside and began to whisper in urgent, hushed tones. Raegan tried to listen to them, only catching a few words like "mutants" and "Shredder" and "hide." She frowned in frustration, her ears straining until her mother walked back over to her and placed a dollar in her hand.
"Sweetie, why don't you go grab a snack from Mr. Byron's market across the street? I'll be right here watching you," the older woman suggested. The young blonde took the money with a raised brow and made her way carefully across the street. A glint of metal caught her eye, and she stopped to take a look. It had come from the hole in the ground where the sewers were. She waited for a few moments and then saw it. It was a streak of green moving quickly on the other side of the slit in the ground. With a tilt of her head, she gasped and jumped back when something big struck the bars there. A car horn let her know that she was about to get run over, so she leapt out of the way just in time; however, in doing so, she tripped over her feet and fell to the ground, her money slipping out of her hand. Her eyes followed it as it weaved in the wind and fell in between the bars of the sewer.
"Aww no!" Raegan huffed. Glancing back at her mother, she could see that she was in a heated discussion with her father, both of them looking quite scared. With a dejected sigh, she turned back around, only to find the dollar sitting there, safe and sound. She inched closer, hearing something that sounded like a grunt and an "Oof!" before kneeling on the ground and taking the dollar. She peeked inside the bars and could have sworn she saw a set of striking baby blue eyes staring back at her. She watched them stare at her for a few tense moments before the eyes disappeared, and she blinked in absolute confusion before it hit her.
"He's back…" she muttered to herself, raking a hand through her hair as she stood up. Since she was a little girl, she would visit her father's shop and listen to the newest music on the radio and dance around with her friends on the street. There were a few times she thought that she saw something in the sewers, such as a flash of green, loud noises and sometimes voices, and those blue eyes that seemed to smile back at her. When she was younger, no one thought that she was insane, just a girl with an overactive imagination and imaginary friends. It had been adorable back then.
But as she grew up and got to be a teenager, whenever she told her mother that she saw those eyes again, she would be told to stop imagining things, to grow up, or that she had to keep those kinds of comments to herself if she didn't want to go to the mental ward in a straightjacket. Okay, so maybe her best friend warned her about the straightjacket thing, but her mother was concerned for her mental health, so she stopped bringing up the subject of the "Sewer Friends." She had begun to think that there was a few screws loose in her mind after all, until she saw them again just a few moments ago.
"Raegan?" her mother called out to her, and she returned to her mother without having bought anything. "Where's your snack?"
"My dollar fell on the ground in the mud," she half-lied, biting the inside of her lip.
"Well, your father has to go grab one more thing in his shop, and then he's closing down for the night," Mrs. Pike explained, tucking a hair behind her daughter's ear.
"And then to the show?" Raegan smiled.
"Uhm, no darling…we have a change of plans, actually…we can't go to the show tonight…"
"What? Why not, Mom?" Raegan asked with a distressed pout, searching for a legitimate reason. "I've been wanting to see it for months!"
"We can't talk about it right now," her mother answered brusquely, cutting off any further arguments. "But we have to leave." As she said this, Mr. Pike came rushing out of the store, his eyes furtive as they stole glances around him. He was in the process of locking the doors when a van came squealing around the corner. Gunshots started to ring out, and the crowd on the streets immediately sprang into chaotic motion. Raegan screamed as a bullet whizzed past her ear, and her mother pushed her to the ground to save her. Raegan's wrist connected full force with the pavement, and she cried out.
"Arlene! It's the Foot! Get Rae out of here, NOW!" Her father was shouting at them as bullets rained down into the crowd. Raegan forced herself to her hands and knees and began to crawl, her head whipping around in every direction to figure out where to go. Innocent people were falling to the ground left and right, blocking her way. Her eyes were wide as she witnessed the gruesome scene around her. Foot Clan soldiers were killing mercilessly, and she screamed as Mr. Byron was gunned down right in front of his shop for trying to fight them off. This wasn't happening…it couldn't be happening…she didn't want to die.
"You!" she froze when a gun was pointed in her face, and she shook her head with a hysterical sob. "Get up. You're coming with us." A hand grabbed her arm tight, cutting off her circulation, and she instinctively kicked out and fought back. He picked her up by yanking her head, and she yelped in pain.
"No! Rae!" her mother slammed her elbow into a man in black who was starting to grab for her as well, and she ran towards her daughter. She watched with a horrified feeling in her gut as a hulking man in all black, who was wearing a mask, held up a gun and pulled the trigger at her mother.
"MOM! NO!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as her mother fell limp and lifeless to the ground, thrashing around in the man's arms behind her, even though it was useless. He was much stronger than she was. And then, just as suddenly as she was in the man's grasp, she was on the ground, unable to breath. Her father had shot the man, so she had been thrown to the ground just as another bullet grazed her upper right arm. The masked man turned and started moving towards her father, who stood there with the gun in his hand. Raegan sat up shakily, feeling quite faint but not wanting to stay where she was. When she could stand again, she caught her father's gaze. It was a look that said, "Run." Moments later, he rushed the masked man, who turned the gun's aim towards Rae.
She began to back away, closing her tear-filled eyes, and then a flash of green struck her hard. She screamed as she felt arms wrapping around her, and together she and her savior soared a good ten feet away from the bullets that had been meant for her. Just as she thought that she would hit the pavement and become roadkill, the movement through the air stopped, and she only felt a slight jolt. She felt the muscles of the body that held her tightly and shook, unable to stop the utter fear from overtaking her.
"Hey, hey! You're safe, Rae," a gentle voice soothed her, the arms loosening but not releasing her yet. It took a moment for the shaking to subside, and once it did, the hold on her was gone. She shivered once, her body now devoid of that warmth, and opened her eyes to stare right into those piercing blue eyes. They were full of concern and a strange fury.
"Oh my God…" she breathed, her lip quivering. "It's…it's…you…you saved my life…" She didn't look into his eyes for long, though, as she heard the screeching of car tires and looked up to see the van leaving. Standing, she turned to look around for her father and saw that he had been pulled unconscious into the van with the rest of the Foot soldiers. Feeling the terror bubble up into her throat, she started to run towards the moving vehicle but stumbled and fell to her knees. The door shut as the car rounded the corner, and she cried out when she saw her mother laying there. Her parents were gone. Both of them. She spun back around weakly with a sob to thank her protector, but he was gone, disappearing into the night like a forgotten shadow.