Race. [TMNT 2012]

2. Enemy of My Home; Raphael

We arrive safely at April's house. Well, mostly safe; my leg feels like it's been soaked in acid. Though Michelangelo and Leonardo practically carried me, it still hurts every time my left foot touches the ground.

I try to hide it, but I am grateful when I can rest. I push away from my brothers and take it upon myself to make it the few remaining steps to the couch, however painful it is. I lay down and prop my injured leg on the arm of the sofa. My head sinks into a throw pillow as I relax.

Now that I don't have smoke in my eyes, I seize the opportunity to find out what my burn looks like. It's in the form of an oval, stretching from my ankle and up to the middle of my leg. Tiny blisters decorate the middle of the light green scald. It doesn't look that bad, really, but the stinging sensation leaking from it is still enough to make me suspect otherwise.

Donatello's shadow casts over me. "Let me examine your wound," he says. When I don't argue, he leans close to it, his brown gaze darting up and down my burn.

"You're lucky," Donatello finally concludes. "It's only a second-degree burn. If you had gotten any closer to the fire, it would have torn your leg up, straight to the bone."

"Good to know," I grunt ungratefully. The look of the injury is already disgusting enough; I don't need to picture how much more worse it could have been.

"Here you go, Donnie." April appear into the room with a bucket of water. Elizabeth's follows her with an icepack in her hands.

"Thank you," Donatello replies with a grin at her. "Raph, soak your injury in this for about twenty minutes." He places the bucket gently at the foot of the couch. "It will make it stop stinging."

"And use this," Elizabetta adds as she lays the ice on my forehead. "You look like you're coming down with a fever, so don't take this off until Donnie says so."

"You can stop babying me now," I mutter as I sit up, holding the icepack in place. "I could have got this stuff myself."

"Yeah, while limping?" Donatello sighs sarcastically.

"I'm just saying that I don't want everyone treating me like I can't do anything," I snap irritably. I lower my leg down into the water. "Ow, ow, ow!" I groan in agony as the cold liquid covers my burn. The pain increases tenfold, then it slowly dissipates into a soothing sensation. I relaxes into the sofa again, glad most of the pain is over with.

I glance at Elizabetta as she exits the room. It's been a while since her memory was wiped, but it still amazes me how it almost didn't work. The moment she woke back up and remembered Leo, we thought we were all done for. We figured the demonic spirit inside of her memories couldn't be deterred.

We were wrong, however. Donatello's invention completely removed every memory of us from her mind. All except Leonardo, who she can remember in flashes for some reason. Her other possessed half is gone, though, and that's all we care about. Now we just have to make amends to our old friendships- not that she was ever much a friend to me anyway.

As I lay back, I hear Leonardo's voice drifting through the house. It slowly gets louder as he approaches the living room, and I hear Casey as well. They are discussing the fire.

"I just don't know who would have randomly lit an abandoned pizza shop on fire," Leonardo says thoughtfully. I can practically see him tapping his chin, even though my eyes are closed.

"It might have been some teenagers playing a prank," Casey suggests.

"And how might you know that?" Donatello steps into the conversation, dislike edging his voice. He and Casey rarely get along, even though they're on the same side.