*personally this is very post-s2-ish imho, and a bunch of events probably have happened

"NO HONKING WAY AGAIN, YOU DUMBASS!" Yelled Howard in distraught and frustration as he ran toward his ninja aka his best friend, "Why the honk will you sacrifice yourself this honking hard just to beat the crap outta that irredeemable monster?!"

Randy could only lay recumbent painfully on the ground and let Howard forcibly unmask him. Fortunately no other civilian was around. But there was definitely this obscured view of the monster's carcass.

Ever since the fried pickle of a sorcerer had made peace with its other half, it turned out the current ninja wasn't cut out for the bigger threats yet.

Yes, he beat this one, but at what cost?

No way he could continue beating 7-8 more villains the Nomicon had been warning him about if he would never recover from this.

And he sometimes wished he wasn't dating so early at his age. Or maybe, it would word better with "he wished he wasn't the first ninja to fall in love", or "he wished the sorcerer was the only threat".

He didn't sign up for this, neither was Howard, and absolutely not her.

She would definitely bawl her eyes till they run dry.

"Fowler open up!" Howard was both relentlessly and desperately knocking on the Fowler household's door.

Despite knowing that this would indubitably piss the girl's parents off, once again there were no more viable options for him.

First thing first, no way he would seek Debbie Kang for help. Let alone his own self-absorbed attention hogging older sister.

But more crucially, he never thought things would escalate this difficult. More unexpected than video game boss fights. Things legit peaked from an underground fried pickle to undetermined levels of difficulties of obstacles that had already swarmed at him and his dude without warning. Like this honking crazy whatsoever monster.

And he really wished Fowler didn't get signed up for this either.

"Howard! It's this late already!" Theresa was displeased with Howard being disruptive in the middle of the night. He could have earned both him and herself a bad scolding from her parents.

Until she realized that Howard meant grim serious business with that distressed look on his face. Especially with a terribly battered Randy in his arms.

She just couldn't help but show mercy, even though usually she and Howard would sometimes be at odds with their own viewpoints of how to treat Randy.

"Co-come in…I'll try to trick my thermometer to convince my parents so that I could pretend to be sick for a few days… just hide under my bed first…"

She really wished she didn't get signed up for this "honking found out who the heck the ninja is".

If she wasn't at the weakest moment that a major menace was actually going to slaughter her alive and that her baton wasn't always that flimsy and snapped into halves at the worst timing… then she wouldn't have to know that he and the ninja had always been the same person that she had been smitten of.

Sure, knowing this big secret that he finally frankly divulged to her and that she had promised to be tight-lipped about it had drawn them closer…but at what expense?

She didn't even want to remember how she got rescued at that time. Let alone the times she had hurt him as something gruesome -as Howard described- a honking plant-like monster.

She disapproved more of how Howard tended to harshly berate the ninja, but now watching the tiny guy vulnerably sobbing like a baby, she began to understand his perspective.

Randy would rather be a shoob in front of everyone at school than burdening her with this kind of gruesome ordeal.

All this guy wanted was to protect her smile every day.

Maybe this was why he never wanted her to know.

Because all he wanted was to be normal like a simple person like her when they are together.

She gently tucked the badly exhausted and bruised Randy into her bed to let him recover, before she kneeled onto the floor with tears rolling onto her cheeks reddened by self-guilt.

She knew Randy would probably brush off his own plight as if nothing happened once he starts getting well, but…No way could she help poor Howard in her own despondent state.

Because neither was she signed up for this.