Chapter Fifty-five: Parthian Shot
Sandy tightened her grip on her lasso, her heart leaping. Nothing like a bit of nervous excitement and adrenaline to get the heart pumping.
She hadn't seen any varmint as mountainous as the three charging feral snails since she and SpongeBob had fought the Alaskan Bull Worm.
Usually, the squirrel could tame beasts with her lasso, but VesVes was commanding the snail up front. Maybe Sandy could tame the other two. Anything to keep the Dead Moon Circus from hijacking anyone else's dreams.
The ranger stepped beside Sandy, holding the conch shell to the sky, pupils dilated, chanting, "Abbababbazeebadodah, abbababbazeebadodah…"
Minako slowly turned her head to look at the ranger. Chibi-Usa slowly raised an eyebrow. Ami's expression slowly blanked, as if trying, one more time, to figure out Bikini Bottom's idiosyncrasies.
Seemingly having not heard the ranger's chant, JunJun stared at her sister, eyebrows arched. Perhaps wondering if VesVes was after her instead of the Guardians, especially after turning her cloak like a thief in the night.
Whatever VesVes did depended on that creepy lady who lived in the sky and in another dimension simultaneously.
The ranger kept chanting, but the conch shell didn't glow, tremble, or tame the snails. Since the conch wasn't doing anything, Sandy rushed toward the snails.
VesVes cackled. "You think you'll be able to stand against my beasts?"
JunJun remained frozen, mouth parted. "VesVes, you…"
"Let me unconfuse you and show you that these people aren't our friends and never will be." Her voice darkened. "Remember what they did to our queen."
JunJun shut her eyes, the internal wrestling apparent. She opened them, but the distress remained, wrinkling her forehead. "We have to talk."
"We do. After we finish these bastards once and for all."
Sandy lassoed the leading snail's right eyestalk.
"Great Davy Jones' locker," Mr. Krabs called from near the three Stone Tikis. "Be careful, gal."
The squirrel hurled herself into the air, her body waving like a flag. Gripping the lasso with two paws, she pulled herself toward the snail.
Her heart beat faster, like it was trying to break free and run from PallaPalla's sister. If PallaPalla was capable of breaking Sandy, then so were they all.
Baring her fangs, trying to feel braver, she yanked, flopping toward and pulling the snail.
VesVes pounded her chest. "That's right. Come over here and let me show you a few things."
Sandy's heart dropped into her stomach. What was she going to show the squirrel?
She heaved in a breath and let it out. Whatever VesVes had to show Sandy didn't matter; Sandy's goal remained the same. "I've got a few things to show you, too." She landed on the snail's shell, where VesVes rode. The snail slid to a halt, but the rest of the snails kept rushing toward Sandy's friends. A jet of water and a trail of golden hearts slammed against the other snails, pushing them backward. Distractions from Sailors Mercury and Venus.
Sandy stood face-to-face with PallaPalla's sister. The beast tamer stepped inches away from Sandy. Thanks to the sloping shell, if Sandy stepped anywhere, then she'd fall. No choice but to face PallaPalla's sister.
VesVes' breath puffed on Sandy's helmet.
"Pheew-wee. I can smell your stinky breath through my helmet." Sandy fanned her nose. "Worse than mornin' breath." Must calm her hammering heart, her churning stomach.
VesVes' smirk twisted into a scowl. "You do realize that I have all the power, don't you?"
"So you think."
VesVes' arm blurred, and her hand lay atop Sandy's helmet. Sandy froze, and panic rose like bile. Had to move, had to, before VesVes pierced her dreams.
The world reddened, and Sandy's heartbeat quickened. Blood pumped throughout, heating her. She hissed, her fur raising like a porcupine's quills. VesVes' brow creased. Hesitant.
A moment's hesitation was all Sandy needed.
The squirrel grabbed VesVes' wrist with both paws. Heat pulsed through her tail. Tightening her grip on VesVes' wrist, Sandy slammed her heated tail into the circus member's abdomen. VesVes let out a throaty cry. She clawed for Sandy's helmet, trying to gain a grip, but her hands slipped off. Her feet slid off the shell. She fell on the ground before a charging snail.
VesVes would be crushed.
The snail that Sandy stood upon roared, its eyes blank. Without a master, it would run amok.
The lead snail moved once more toward the group near Kelp Cave. But the snail behind was moving just as quickly, and VesVes hadn't rebounded.
VesVes' eyes rolled about. She reached upward. "Why can't I touch the pretty stars?" Gone.
Sandy glanced at her friends. "Y'all can handle these varmints?"
"Yes," Minako yelled.
"I can." Chibi-Usa sounded more assertive than usual.
"Good." Sandy crouched, readying her lasso, aiming at VesVes. Water slammed into the side of the lead snail, and the snail lurched sideways.
"Don't help her," the ranger said from somewhere in the distance. The shell decided to start working now, to hinder Sandy? "She's using wildlife for evil. And the magic conch shell has commanded me to defeat these snails at all costs. Therefore, she must also be defeated."
The darn thing hadn't told the ranger to let VesVes die. No time to voice her thoughts. The snail was quickly approaching the dazed VesVes.
The bucking snail, with the water pushing it sideways… Sandy couldn't aim.
She leaped, spreading her arms, and aimed her lasso. The snail ran over VesVes' right arm. The one clutching the whip.
She lassoed VesVes' left arm and pulled. The beast tamer didn't budge. Sandy cracked her whip, propelling herself toward the snail.
The snail was too heavy. Her lasso pulled taut, and she began to fall.
The snail crushed VesVes' right leg. Her eyes cleared at once, and she hollered.
Sandy did not want to let go of her lasso, but she had to.
Propelling herself with her lasso one more time, she let go and flew toward the snail's underbelly. Slammed her heated tail against it. The snail reared back, kicking up its front end like a horse, spittle whipping from its mouth. VesVes was free.
Sandy landed on her feet and then scooped up VesVes. Slobber covered half of VesVes, was spreading to her other half. Sandy hurried toward the lead snail.
The other snail slammed back down. The ground quaked, felling Sandy, arms outstretched in front of her, a wide-eyed, staring VesVes within, like Sandy was the only one in the world. Sandy had rescued VesVes out of her own will. Because it was the right thing to do.
The snail slithered toward them. Now it was trying to crush them both.
VesVes rolled out of Sandy's arms. Staggered onto her feet. Stepped backward gingerly, as if testing her foot. Stepped back once more. She had a limp, but she could run. Run and leave Sandy.
VesVes glanced from the snail, to Sandy, and back. What was happening now paralleled what had happened between JunJun and Chibi-Usa.
Sandy couldn't wait on the girl. Had to save herself.
Tugging her lasso free from VesVes, Sandy turned and lassoed one of the snail's eyestalks. She pulled, and the snail swayed.
VesVes ran. So afraid of her masters that she didn't want to save her enemies, like her enemies had selflessly saved her. Then again, Sandy didn't have anyone to answer to.
"C'mon, let me help you." Sandy squeezed the snail's eyestalk with her lasso, the snail yelping. "I'll stop if you stop tryin' to hurt darn near everyone in the forest."
The snail jerked, whipped its head from left to right. It roared, slobber flying from its mouth, enough to water the kelp.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sandy watched JunJun bound back onto the lead snail, lashing the snail's eyestalk. The snail rushed toward Mr. Krabs, JunJun, and the rest upon the platform, near Kelp Cave. The snails behind Sandy rushed past.
If Sandy could conquer one…
"We'll get these folks outta your home together." Sandy ground her teeth, jostling from the snail's bucking. "Just let me help you."
The snail roared louder. The ranger's chanting permeated. A glow emanated from behind Sandy. She dared a glance over her shoulder. The ranger held the conch shell to the sky, a white light doming it, brightening nearly the entire forest. Mesmerized, the lead snail stared at the light.
VesVes whipped the snail repeatedly. "You stupid thing. Move, damn it, move." More lashes, but the snail kept gazing at the light.
Must be some sort of hypnotization. The pure shell's light radiated warmth, lifting the forest's humidity.
Tearing her attention away from the shell, Sandy looked at the snail she fought against once more. Reared up, its shadow covering Sandy. It flew down. Threatening to crush her.
A green blur from her right. VesVes shouted, "What're you doing?" JunJun tackled Sandy, and the two tumbled on the ground. The snail jolted, but its weight kept the two from moving far. The lasso snapped, remaining wrapped around the snail's eyestalk, the snail wheeling in the air in an attempt to regain its balance.
No way to conquer the snails now.
VesVes pulled her hair. "Why do you keep helping them?"
JunJun rolled off Sandy. "I don't think they're our enemies."
She gawked. Worked her mouth, as if trying to form a response. Her face flushed.
"Don't believe JunJun," came Zirconia's voice from above. "They've brainwashed her. VesVes, it's up to you to stop her trance. And you can do that only by killing the Guardians, that fish and his stupid toy, and that squirrel."
VesVes finally found words to say the obvious. "I was gonna kill them anyway. What useless advice."
JunJun hadn't let Sandy perish. Hadn't injected Sandy with a nightmare since she'd joined the Guardians. If she was against them then, surely, she would know that Sandy was the most susceptible to being immobilized by a nightmare. Maybe she hadn't felt compelled like she had felt toward Chibi-Usa but, because Sandy was Chibi-Usa's friend, she'd protect the squirrel all the same.
Sandy had to defeat Zirconia, wherever the coward was hiding.
She didn't need her lasso. She was a karate-chopping squirrel from Texas. What were snails compared to her?
JunJun remained near Sandy. "I'm only helping you because Chibi-Usa's in danger, and we have to stop these snails somehow. Don't let my saving you get to your head."
"No reason for me to let it." Sandy's eyes softened. "You're a lot kinder than your sisters."
A blush spread up JunJun's neck, to her cheeks. "Th-thank you. I, I mean, damn, why am I blushing? Not like you're flirting with me. You're a squirrel, for crying out loud."
Sandy laughed. "You guys do have feelings. Your sisters had me convinced otherwise."
"Mm." JunJun faced the charging snails, the one that Sandy had tried to tame slithering straight toward them. "We have to hurry. How do we stop these things?"
Sandy snapped her fingers. "They eat plants and algae for the most part."
"What's the other part of 'the most part'?"
Sandy smiled sheepishly. "Fish."
JunJun gulped. "They could eat humans, too," she said softly, like if she said so louder, her fears would plant the idea inside the snails' heads to add humans to their diet. "Anything's possible down here."
"True." Sandy plucked up a fistful of kelp and weeds. She waved the bunch in front of the snail with the broken lasso squeezing its eyestalk. "C'mere. All this runnin' around has got to be makin' you hungry."
The snail quickened. Its red eyes glinted at Sandy and JunJun, not at the kelp.
JunJun blanched. "All you did was make it madder."
"Let's tame this thing the ol' fashioned way."
"Which is…?" Had JunJun's voice heightened out of fear?
"Showin' it who's boss, Texas style." She bounded toward the snail. JunJun muttered something about everyone down here being crazy. Footsteps crunching grass sounded behind her. The acrobat was coming to help.
Feet away from the charging snail, Sandy leaped. The snail opened its maw of a mouth, revealing its fangs. It stretched its short neck to eat Sandy. She threw the plants into the snail's mouth, and it gagged, choked.
"You should've let me feed you like a good little snail." Sandy slammed her foot into the side of the snail's mouth and then placed her other foot atop the snail's mouth. Pushed herself to the top of the snail's eyes. She slapped her hands onto the top, doing a handstand atop its eyes. "Woohoo!"
Below came JunJun's cries of, "Freaking insane."
The lead snail had reached Mr. Krabs and the others. Sailors Mercury and Venus flew, and the ranger raised his toy. Enough of them were there to handle themselves. But the third snail was moving toward Mr. Krabs and the others, too. Could they handle both?
JunJun stared at Chibi-Usa.
"I'm okay," Chibi-Usa called. "Help Sandy. We have plenty of help over here."
"Yes, Your—" JunJun winced. "Right." She faced the snail that Sandy did a handstand on. The snail whipped its head in all directions, trying to shake Sandy off. Sandy pinched the sides of its round eye. The snail roared, quickened its shaking, the world blurring.
"What the hell are you doing?" VesVes said to JunJun. "We're supposed to be obeying the queen, not some squirt."
"Hey! I'm 902 years old here."
What in the name of all that is holy? First Sandy had heard of a little girl being centuries old. Chibi-Usa looked good for her age.
Grabbing the broken lasso, Sandy pulled, tightening it. Had to make the snail feel like she was going to snap its eyestalk in half.
JunJun moved slowly below. Must seem slow because Sandy was being tossed about more vigorously than a bull released from its pen.
White orbs pelted the snail's underside, and the snail reared up. "Ouch."
A wild snail, speaking when domesticated ones couldn't. Yet another one of Bikini Bottom's mysteries that may or may not be able to be solved.
"You dolts, I've tried to be civil so far, but you've pushed me over the edge. I am too smart to be ridden like an animal."
Now might not be the best time to point out the obvious.
"If you can talk, then you gotta know that these pesky humans are trying to tame you." Sandy flipped onto the snail's shell.
"You've got it wrong, my ignorant dear. We're working together. They need our intelligence. We need their bullheadedness."
"You need someone like VesVes?" JunJun said below.
"I can crush you anytime," VesVes said. "You keep forgetting, and when you do again, I'll kill you so badly, you won't be able to talk again."
'
"That's…what killing does, VesVes."
"I know that."
A golden chain wrapped around the snail VesVes rode upon. JunJun bit her lip at Chibi-Usa, who raised her Kaleidoscope and pulsed out hearts onto the lead snail's underbelly, that snail rearing up.
"JunJun, over there." Sandy pointed to the lone snail behind them. "Get ahold o' that one."
JunJun peered up at the snail. "Okay." She leaped toward the snail.
Gritting her teeth, Sandy locked her legs over the talking snail's shell.
"You leave me no choice." The snail's shell quaked. Smoke emanated from the sides of the shell.
Sandy's pupils contracted. "What in tarnation?"
The shell rocketed toward the sky, revealing a square black machine upon the snail's back.
The snails were, indeed, cyborgs.
JunJun had been running toward the snail that Sandy pointed to when the shell had shot up, revealing the machine with funnels at its side. She faltered. Bikini Bottom was growing weirder by the second.
"I forgot to mention that you humans and the robots blessed us with weapons to defend ourselves and our forest," the snail said. "Where do you think we were all that time you were here?" The robots must have a laboratory somewhere in Kelp Forest.
VesVes sneered. "You thought you had us all figured out."
On the flying shell, Sandy was standing like she was riding a wave. She held her nose and jumped down, toward the machine.
These snails were impossible to tame. They were fully with the robots. JunJun didn't blame the snails; the robots had given them new toys.
Her best bet was to go after VesVes. If she stopped the leader, then the rest of the snails might stop, too.
JunJun sprinted toward the lead snail, toward her sister. Had to convince her sister of the truth. With VesVes' stubbornness, convincing the beast tamer was a tall order.
JunJun leaped onto the lead snail's shell, saddling behind VesVes, the snail chomping at the Guardians—at Chibi-Usa—and Mr. Krabs, the crab crouching behind one of the Stone Tikis, covering his head.
The ranger raised the conch shell. "I command you all, under the authority of this magic conch shell, obey the shell's commands. We are under her protection; therefore, we must obey her."
The snail snarled. "Obey a mere toy?"
The ranger's face reddened like a ripening tomato.
"We've been putting up with you and your shenanigans, your supposedly magic shell, for far too long. I have grown quite tired of obeying a supposedly magic to—" Pink hearts flew into the snail's open mouth, and the snail choked, gagged. "What is this?" Its eyes fluttered. "My heart, it grows as warm as the sunset on a summer day." Its dilating eyes darted around the forest. "Ah, how beautiful, these little humans. What a lovely magic shell."
"I was trying to shut him up," Chibi-Usa said, "but I made him start talking more."
A vein protruded from VesVes' forehead. "Not this kindness crap again. Kill. Now." She lashed the side of the snail's eye.
"How lovely. Do it again. Please?"
VesVes howled in frustration. "How do I get the hearts out?"
"You'd better figure it out." Chibi-Usa crossed her arms and pointing her chin to the air. What a woman.
VesVes' face deepened into crimson. "I will."
"This is no toy." The ranger chanted once more, and wind whipped about, nearly jostling JunJun off. JunJun grabbed her sister, partly to balance herself, partly to keep her sister from taming the snail.
"Stop helping them." VesVes jerked, trying to free herself from JunJun, but JunJun held fast.
The snail's eyestalks darted about. "Beautiful ugly, molting crab. Beautiful chain that marks my underside with gorgeous black and blue bruises…" Its eyestalks faced VesVes and JunJun. Its pupils were pink hearts. "Hello, lovely ladies. How are you?"
"Kill them with kindness," VesVes barked. "Like those other stupid fish tried to."
"Killing isn't very nice."
VesVes' face colored more than JunJun thought was possible. Her expression contorted, and she let out a wordless noise. She gripped the snail's eyestalks and banged them together, the snail ringing, its eyes whirling about, but the hearts still within.
"VesVes, listen to me." JunJun gripped VesVes' shoulders tightly, but the beast tamer threw off her sister, nearly bowling JunJun to the ground. VesVes was in no condition to listen.
Bounding sideways, Chibi-Moon aimed her Kaleidoscope at the snail that Sandy had landed upon. "Pink Sugar Heart Attack!" A train of pink hearts shot from her weapon. Sandy karate-kicked the snail's eyestalk. The snail roared. The hearts shot into its mouth, and it gulped them, its pupils dilating and then becoming hearts. It fluttered its eyes.
Leaving the last snail.
The snail reared back, glancing at its brethren. Yowling, VesVes vaulted from the lead snail, arms outstretched toward Chibi-Usa, like she was going to rake Chibi-Usa into ribbons. JunJun jumped after her sister, reaching. VesVes tackled Chibi-Usa, and then JunJun tackled VesVes, entangling them in limbs. They shot off the platform, bounced off a vine's leaf, propelling them over Kelp Cave. They rolled onto another vine.
They slid like they were sliding down a playground slide, the vine wrapping over itself, leading somewhere below, to another tangle of vines.
Tightening her grip on her sister, the beast tamer still holding Chibi-Usa, JunJun swerved them in the direction of the winding vine.
VesVes slipped her hands from Chibi-Usa, and Chibi-Usa tumbled off the vine.
JunJun let go of VesVes and jumped after Chibi-Usa. A glow surrounded the Guardian, and she hovered. Forgot she could fly.
Chibi-Usa swiveled toward JunJun and held out her hands. JunJun had jumped to save the Guardian, but Chibi-Usa was going to save JunJun instead.
JunJun crashed into Chibi-Usa's arms. Grunting, the Guardian plummeted toward the vines below.
The world darkened. JunJun looked up in time to see a wrinkly hand lashing to them, scooping them up and whisking them into the sky. They faced Zirconia's prune-like, glowering face.
Zirconia twisted her mouth into a grin. "The queen will be thrilled to see you." She snapped her fingers, and they disappeared from the forest.