Raiden looked out the sliding glass doors in Johnny's kitchen, silently taking in the view of the city bathed in sunlight. However, he himself was careful to sit out of the light's range, preferring the low-lit shade of Johnny's island counter. He could hear the TV playing in the other room, far away enough from earshot not to interfere with his thoughts.
Raiden had not been in an amicable mood ever since his conversation with Sonya. He looked dejected, having sunk his head into his arms as he stared emptily out to the horizon. He had had no luck in deciphering Fujin's cryptic message.
Johnny came in, the towel he had used to soak up the sweat from Sonya's hellish workout routine still resting on his shoulders. He noticed Raiden sitting at the table. True, Johnny had tried to give him some alone time when he had seen Raiden sitting there the first time around, but it had been thirty minutes and it didn't look like Raiden had moved. It didn't strike Johnny as healthy.
"Ay!" he shouted in his trademark boisterous manner. All he earned was a slow shift in Raiden's gaze to where he was standing.
Johnny moved over to the island counter, looking unsure. He drummed his fingers pensively as Raiden looked at him in a way that lethargically demanded why he needed his attention so badly.
Inspiration came to Johnny in a flash. He pulled over the blender and began searching for something to toss in.
"You, my friend," Johnny stated, still looking around for something that could ostensibly be put into a smoothie, "need the Cage special."
Again by Raiden's hollow stare Johnny knew he wanted an explanation, but the actor continued on his merry way. Within five minutes a few bananas had been chopped up and thrown into the blender, along with some mangoes and a spare pear that had been lying around.
Johnny twiddled an invisible mustache.
"Bon' appétit!" he exclaimed before dramatically sweeping his hand in the air and pressing the "blend" feature (which, knowing Johnny, on this particular model probably read "decimate"). Anticlimactically, the room was filled with silence. The butchered fruit rested unblended in the device's basin.
Raiden was still staring at Johnny. Uncomfortable, the latter tried pressing the button again, wondering if it had gotten stuck. There was still no response from the blender.
Johnny checked the outlet. It was plugged in, so he didn't see what the problem was. Suddenly it clicked; this particular outlet was only functional when the proper switch at the entrance to the kitchen was flipped on.
"Oh!" Johnny said, slapping the countertop and rushing over to the switch plate. Raiden, suddenly curious as to why his friend had to leave so quickly, reached over and pulled the cord above the counter. He noticed a break in the cord's insulation; wires of various colors were exposed, and one thin little blue filament was severed. Raiden tapped it out of boredom and tried to see if it was possible to unite the two strands together.
Johnny, having moved out of Raiden's view, was inspecting the plate of light switches, trying to remember which one operated the circuit he needed. He flipped on the one that turned on the kitchen light so he could see better. Picking the one second to the right, he casually flipped the switch, expecting to hear the whir of the blender coming back to life.
He did not expect an alarming shout from the kitchen right before everything in the house blew out.
The kitchen lights went dead, the TV blacked out, and the low drone of the A/C cut off abruptly. Panicking, Johnny dashed around the corner to check on his friend.
"…Rai-!"
He cut himself off as soon as he caught sight of Raiden at the table. Miraculously unharmed, his friend stared in amazement at the phenomenon that was happening right in front of his eyes, which had now left Johnny speechless, as well.
Familiar blue static danced across Raiden's fingers, creeping up to his elbows at their farthest stretch. He was so struck (no pun intended) by what was occurring that he had gotten up out of his seat and was standing without help for the first time. He turned his hands over and inspected them, secretly ecstatic upon feeling the familiar course of electricity running through his veins.
Johnny, too, was dumbfounded. Both were too absorbed in watching what was happening that they ignored the sound of Sonya's footsteps dashing in from upstairs.
"What the hell just happened?" she demanded, bringing herself to a halt next to Johnny, looking around to investigate the source of the disturbance. Johnny didn't even bother to explain the situation to her or gesture for her to be silent; the sight was enough explanation in itself.
Nobody said a word for another few seconds. For the first time (Sonya realized ever), a hint of a grin tugged at the edge of Raiden's lips as the electricity lapped around his elbows. The sight of him looking almost happy for the first time in ages came to both her and Johnny as nearly more of a shock (possible pun intended) than what was happening with the static.
Suddenly, feeling for whatever reason enough had been enough, Raiden grabbed the exposed section of the cord again. Within an instant, the electricity in the house whirred back to life; the TV blared, the A/C was back on at full blast, the lights surged back more powerfully and brightly than before, and the blender, which had been left without a top to cover the interior, came alive and briefly spewed banana-mango-pear residue into the air, which splattered onto Raiden, who ducked instinctively. It took another moment for everything to die down and return to equilibrium. The three, however, stood motionless in the kitchen, not saying a word.
Sonya didn't realize that she had clinched on to Johnny's elbow in panic; releasing her grip, she let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding and stepped forward tentatively. A now-dripping Raiden wiped a fruit chunk off of his cheek slowly, still looking in amazement at the cord that had given him a taste of his old self for a short (but sweet) second.
"Are you okay?" Sonya asked, reaching out slightly to her friend, who was still staring at the blender. Her touch stirred him out of his stupor, if only slightly.
"Uh," he quietly stammered before quickly bringing himself back down to earth. "Yes. Yes, I'm fine," he responded, swiping more proto-smoothie from his sleeve.
"Well, good," Sonya said, glancing back at Johnny, who was clinging to the edge of the wall, looking like a startled animal.
"I guess," Sonya began to try to explain, gathering her thoughts as she observed Raiden attempting to get out ground fruit from the tendrils of his hair that hung in his face, out of his ponytail. "I guess you might have lost the ability to create lightning, but somehow you can still…"
She paused, only continuing when Raiden looked at her expecting her to finish.
"…Manipulate it."
There was another uneasy pause.
"…Which is good," she tacked on, for no discernible reason. The next stillness was punctuated by the drip of smoothie from the edge of the counter, which prompted Johnny to come out and offer Raiden his towel to get rid of the last of the sickly-colored substance.
"Well, hey," Johnny said, stepping back to observe the situation. The television continued to resonate softly from the other room, going on as if nothing of significance had just occurred. "We could use some good news around here, lately."
He slapped Raiden encouragingly on the back, to which Raiden surprisingly reciprocated with a small grin right before he wiped his chin with the edge of the towel.
"I suppose so," Raiden responded softly.
Sonya looked at the mess that was now left on the counter. She didn't feel like asking what concoction Johnny had suddenly had the urge to brew, so she just supportively placed a hand on Raiden's shoulder. Now that he was standing up straight, it was obvious that even in his shrunken state, he easily stood over her and even Johnny by an inch or so.
Johnny walked over to the other side of the counter and inspected the fruit-splattered battlefield that the counter now resembled. He fished around for the blender top in the greenish glop and looked inside of the glass basin.
"I think I can still save some of it," he commented, placing the top back on correctly this time and pressing the "blend" option again. Thankfully (in Johnny's eyes, at least), the blender worked as intended.
Sonya, however, wasn't too much for sticking around and just directed Raiden and herself out of the kitchen in the hopes that Johnny would take it upon himself to clean things up.