Randall woke up in the morning first and saw Leo asleep on his brother's bed. He got up from the cot. His footing was a little wobbly at first, with the drug still a little in his system. He went over to see Mikey waking up.
"Mike?" Randall said.
"Ran…dall?" Mikey moaned.
"You alright?"
"A little."
Randall smiled. Then he walked to the other side of the bed and with his fingers, he nudged Leo awake.
"Hmm?" Leo moaned.
"He's awake." Randall said.
Leo snapped awake at that. And as he saw Randall up on his feet, it was clear he was going to be just fine.
"Mikey! You're awake!" Leo said happily. He took Mikey's left hand in his. "You gave us quite a scare little brother."
Then the others came in. "How is he?" Raph asked.
"He just woke up." Leo replied.
"That is good." Splinter said.
"How are your hands this morning?" Don asked Randall.
Randall felt his hands burning and throbbing. He bared his teeth. "They hurt."
"I can give you some pain pills." Don said.
Randall was given some ibuprofen and he washed it down with some water. His fingers weren't damaged too bad. It had been mostly his palms that were burned. But his lower right wrist really hurt.
"How are you feeling, Mikey?" Leo asked.
"Is it time for breakfast?"
This made them all smile. He was hurt and he still had an appetite. This was the typical Mikey.
When he was helped to sit up, Klunk got off the bed. His left side hurt, but he could move. There was a small bandage strapped down by tape over the wound.
"How bad was the damage, Don?" Mikey asked.
"Some tissue was damaged and your intestine was just barely missed. So your organs are fine." Don said. "You are out of training for the next week."
Mikey liked the sound of that. Sometimes he didn't like training anyway. He could be doted on. And he wouldn't be alone. He would have Randall for company too, considering his three hurt hands. Randall would have limited use of lifting with only one good hand.
Don estimated it could take a week to ten days for the burns to heal, or slightly longer. He would change the bandages daily. But it could take the wrist up to a month anyway to heal, or longer, depending on how good a monster's ability to heal from a broken bone was.
The others all knew what Mikey was like when he was sick or injured. He could often act like a big baby. Raph often was the most annoyed by it. But they had yet to see how Randall acted while he was injured.
…
Mikey got to dominate the living room for the next week. Randall was by his side. The two of them did lounge around. But Mikey was more the annoying one, always asking to be doted on like he couldn't do anything for himself.
Even Randall got annoyed with him. If he got too annoying, Randall left him alone to go do something else. He would often go talk to one of the others. He still did help Don too, with his one good hand, he would hand him tools.
Despite his injured hands, Randall protected his hands from touch, but he didn't act like a little baby like his friend was. He took it all seriously.
The others liked that Randall wasn't whining about his injuries. But they had to help him out with a lot of things. If he so much as touched something he would try to lift himself, it would set off major pain in the burns.
A week later, Mikey's stitches came out of his side, but there was still a burning feeling inside Mikey's abdomen from the injury itself. But he was allowed to start light training again. There would be no sparring with his brothers for another two weeks at least.
Don looked at Randall's hands and they were doing well. The burns needed another week. Then he looked at the broken wrist and it still needed more time.
Another week later, Randall's burns were healed enough that he could finally use his upper hands again to lift things.
One night, Randall felt like he needed to get out of the lair. He wanted to talk to someone, but someone different. He said he was going to April's. The family was fine with that.
Randall had learned the route to her place from the sewers and went up a ladder close to her place, making sure he wasn't seen. He was still in no condition for fighting and his broken wrist would give him away if he tried to vanish.
Don had phoned ahead that Randall was coming to April's and she was expecting him.
She had been proud of him when she had heard what he had done for Mikey.
He knocked on her door and she let him in. Upstairs, she made them some hot chocolate.
Randall had one sip and just looked at the cup.
April saw that something was wrong. "Randall?"
"Hmm?"
"You look like there's something wrong." She said.
"There is. It's the one thing that I haven't told the turtles and Splinter about yet. I didn't want anyone to know about it. But it's eating away at my mind. I'm not proud of who I used to be." Randall said.
"Who you used to be?" She asked.
"Just like those ninjas and the humans that the turtles fight all the time, I had a bad side to me once, April. I'm not proud of it, but I was also manipulated into almost doing something bad."
Now April could understand why Randall wasn't wanting to talk about it. But she wanted to know. "What did you almost do?"
"I'm from another world, April. Like another dimension rather. It's one where my kind are dependent on screams from young humans for energy. We never harmed the kids, just scared them. If you've ever heard about kids talking about monsters coming from their closets to scare them, they're right." Randall explained.
"You scared kids?"
"Yes. But it was a job. It brought energy to our world. But like I said, we never harmed the kids. It might have just given them a bad case of nightmares. And we were also taught from our side from young ages that we thought human kids were toxic to touch us. Of course a few of us found out that was a lie."
"But as I said, I was also manipulated and forced to do a different job too. It was to try to stop having scarers and have a machine that would power the world with only one child's screams to supply them every once in a while. I was forced to make such a machine and I had to try it on a young kid. I never got the chance to try it out because the plans were ruined by another monster. Him and another one who were my rivals, banished me here." Randall finished.
"But I swear, I've learned from my mistakes. I see now that human kids are no different than monster kids, in some ways."
"I can see why you didn't want to tell them. That wasn't right, Randall. What about monster kids? Couldn't they have done it for you?"
"No. Human kid screams just had more power to them."
"How long have you really been gone from your world?" April asked.
"Almost two years now. I have no family to go back to, and I didn't have any respect compared to what I get here." Randall said.
"And you would have tried to scare my kids, if I had any?"
"Some monster would find out. And maybe. But not now."
"If I ever have kids, Randall, you better not try to harm them." April was becoming stern now.
"I won't, I promise." Randall said, holding out his hands in surrender. "Please, believe me."
April saw that Randall had a concerned look in his eyes. He hoped this wouldn't count as a betrayal.
"What would happen if you went back to your world?"
"I could be thrown in jail. Or banished to another place. Something really bad. Please, can we just keep this between the two of us? You've always had the best intentions with the turtles. I need someone I can trust with this." Randall said.
Randall hugged his upper arms across his chest.
April hadn't liked what she had heard, but she agreed. "Alright. We can keep this between the two of us. I can see why you didn't want to reveal it. But is this your biggest secret?"
"Before I was banished, I did nearly kill my rivals. And that too was an order and also desperation to try to get my plans to work, but as I said, they never did. And I was nearly killed the same day when I was thrown into a house where a woman beat me in the head with a shovel."
"So you tried, but you didn't succeed in killing them?"
"No, I didn't."
So Randall had been a fighter, and nearly killed, but he hadn't killed. This was nearly on the innocent list, with no official killing on his hands, at least with humans.
"Did you kill any ninjas in the fight to save Mikey?"
"I don't think so. Just knocked them out. If my actions to them did worse, I don't know. Mike was my first priority to care for."
April knew that some enemies had to die just to get rid of them, but she was just clarifying to see if Randall was a heartless killer. But due to his explanation, it didn't sound like he was.
She saw that his body language was not that of a killer and he felt guilty for his actions so long ago. If he had been human, just for assault, he would be sent to jail, or be put to death if he had killed someone. But now that the Foot had seen him, more than likely, they would also be after him too as well as the turtles.
But, after having lived here and his demeanor was like that of a good person now, he had a clean slate. And he had never killed, other than animals for food down in the swamp. But she would understand if he ever killed in the heat of battle with the Foot clan. They were nothing but a menace.
"I promise I won't tell the turtles and Splinter about it. But the thing to remember is, Randall, that all life matters. Though when it comes to scum like the Purple Dragons or the Foot clan, you may have to take your chances to defend yourself and the turtles from them. Even if it means killing them in battle." April said. "They are all they have as a family."
"I promise to look out for the turtles. I saved Michelangelo."
"Yes, and we are grateful for that." April said. "Just don't ever think you have to cross that line to be forced to ever again just by sheer mocking. You only do it in self defense."
Randall was glad she was so understanding. "It wasn't easy to say no when I was having my paycheck being cut off or being threatened if I didn't build the machine. I swear. It was my boss that made me do it."
"I know what it feels like to be threatened by your boss. The night I first met the turtles, my ex-boss, Dr. Stockman, he turned the robotic Mousers on me. I helped to make them too. So I know what it's like to make killer machines. He was using them to rob banks and even to try to kill me. Lucky the turtles found me and destroyed the Mousers. He had also destroyed the lair that the turtles grew up in for 15 years." April explained.
"They never told me that." Randall realized how much they had in common then, at least about making machines that could be deadly on others.
April shared the story further. How they brought Stockman down and they created their new team.
To hear this gave Randall a better peace of mind. Now he felt more closer to April. For a human. She promised to keep his secret, but he felt better that he had told someone about it.