Chapter Sixty-two: Psychotic Break
Now I lay me down to sleep.
The nursery rhyme comforted Usagi as she lay beside Mamoru inside the "sacred" rock enclosure, in the open air between the Chum Bucket and the Krusty Krab. A bit of familiarity in an unfamiliar world. Like she was at home, in bed. An innocent fourteen-year-old instead of the fifteen-year-old princess who was burdened with too much responsibility. Before, her biggest worries were the horrors her mama would unleash when Mama saw her flunked English test. About squeezing in studying between manga reading. About Shingo mocking her lack of book smarts.
She'd worried about nothing.
Now she knew what problems were. How was she to keep a kingdom afloat, yet alone the universe? Based on her decisions, the universe would either flourish or perish.
The worries burrowed into her core, permeating her dreams. When had she last slept through the night?
Every day, more worries piled onto her first, the one she'd thought of when she learned that she was a Guardian: "What will happen to my friends?" As she'd found out that night at Naru's mother's jewelry shop, her friends were in danger through association with her.
Anyone allied with Sailor Moon could be killed.
Hopefully, her enemies never found out who her friends were. If they touched Naru, Umino, even her evil teacher…
Now, Usagi was cursed. Mamoru was cursed. Their friends could start coughing blood because of the two. They couldn't stay far from their friends because the darn enclosure was five diameters wide and tall.
Usagi, Mamoru, Makoto, SpongeBob, and Michiru were jammed against one another, the rocks encircling them. Hardly enough room for one, let alone five, with Plankton plopped on top of SpongeBob's tie.
SpongeBob had told the group to get in close, like brothers and sisters. Before Usagi could protest, Makoto raised a hand and said, "Don't worry, Usagi-chan. We'll find out how to stop the curse." She'd lay down next to Usagi, with Mamoru on the outside of the group, refusing to let anyone but Usagi near him.
"Close your eyes and dream sweet dreams." SpongeBob closed his eyes, smiling. To him, all was eternally well. If only Usagi was carefree again.
For a time, Usagi watched SpongeBob rise and fall steadily. Craved the ability to fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Exhaustion always crushed her because she hardly slept, but she couldn't drop dead like SpongeBob did.
At home, as soon as Usagi closed her eyes, sometimes before, the images started swarming. Of the Moon Kingdom burning from an attack that Usagi had been too careless to detect, Chibi-Usa and Mamoru drowning in the flames. Naru seeking refuge within the Moon Kingdom, only for their enemies to capture her as bait. Usagi would find Naru just to watch her be tortured and then executed by beheading.
Would Bikini Bottom give Usagi a merciful night's rest?
Makoto opened an eye, her frown deepening. Wondering if her friend was okay. Usagi gave her a small smile. More for herself, since Makoto could see through fakeness. Closed her eyes before seeing Makoto's pity.
The heaviness of fatigue fell over Usagi. Images that were indicative of being on the cusp of the sleep filled Usagi's mind. For once, they were pleasant. In some, she was nestled in Mamoru's arms, her body fitting perfectly within his. Others were of her as a girl, dashing up and down the castle's stairs in the Moon Kingdom under her mother's, Queen Serenity's, watchful gaze. Letting her be a girl instead of a princess. Playing tag with her fellow Guardians, her protectors playing not out of their duty to her, but because they were sisters, unrelated by blood only. The childhood she wished she could've lived in forever.
Usagi's breath deepened, as did Mamoru's and Makoto's beside her. They were falling asleep at the same time. The magic of Bikini Bottom.
According to SpongeBob, the sacred enclosure of rocks would shield the group from enemies. Bikini Bottom had done greater, weirder things.
The images faded, only for another, brighter one to appear. Her world expanded into a different one.
Suddenly, Usagi felt alert. Stirring, she opened her eyes.
Dream bubbles depicting Mr. Krabs, Squidward, Sandy, and Patrick floated above. She and her friends were domed by orange walls patterned with palm trees and unrecognizable primitive drawings. She stood on sand, like she was on Conch Street, where SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward lived. The group had awakened in front of the pineapple. Patrick's rock, Squidward's tiki, Sandy's treedome, and the Krusty Krab were erect below their bubbled owners yards away, bottomless pits separating each building.
The group and the buildings stood on floating islands. Rotating boxes, spiked on several sides, hovered before them, leading to a middle island. Thank goodness Usagi and her fellow Guardians could fly.
Someone cleared his throat. Usagi looked over her shoulder.
Out of a doggy door in SpongeBob's pineapple slithered Gary. "Meow."
SpongeBob's eyes lit up. "Gary. It feels like it's been ages since I've seen you." He ran to his pet and hugged the snail. Gary purred.
SpongeBob stroked the snail's shell. "We're surrounded by dream bubbles. What does that mean?"
Plankton barked out, "What do you think it means?" He stayed feet away from Michiru, as far as he could without risking the Guardians grabbing him, lest he escape.
"Squidward's head looks a lot shinier here. I wonder what that means."
Plankton sighed. "The sooner we can get out of here, the better."
"This circle thing must've worked." Usagi looked at her hands, but they looked the same. Expected them to have morphed into miniature Godzillas, her imagination creeping into the dream world. "We're dreaming."
"Lucid dreaming." Michiru's voice no longer reverberated. Either the effects of the dream world, or Michiru was learning to control her powers.
She clenched and unclenched her hands, as though trying to make sure that she truly could control herself. Her lips were pursed. How serious she looked. Knew how much power she wielded. Like Usagi did. Usagi wasn't sure she understood the depths of her power, discovering new ones in crises, like Moon Gorgeous Meditation, an attack powerful enough to destroy a city.
Michiru was in charge of a small world. Usagi reigned over the universe.
Plankton rubbed his hands. "If we're lucid dreaming, then we can do whatever we please."
SpongeBob grinned. "Like dreaming myself up a mustache." He closed his eyes, breaking into sweat, grunting. Whiskers etched under Usagi's nose, thickened and puffed into a mustache. Usagi's face fell. She placed a hand on the hair under her nose. Snatched her hand away, at the thickness, the hairiness, the grossness. How did guys handle having wads of hair glued on their faces?
A razor, she needed a razor. Now.
She whipped her head toward Mamoru. He protected her from everything. He'd protect her from a mustache.
The color drained from her. The monster had taken over his face, too.
Worse, it was curly.
Mamoru looked at her. The mustache darn near covered his lips. She would never kiss his mouth if it meant kissing that creature, too.
His lips quirked into a smile, making one side of that animal quirk, too, like it was smirking. The thing knew that it was terrifying her. "I must not look very good with a mustache."
She'd dream about that mustache eating her face when she kissed him next. Guaranteed.
"You're not even trying to smile. I'm glad, because I wouldn't believe your smile, anyhow." His eyebrows arched. "You look like you don't want to kiss me anymore."
"W-well, that is…"
"You don't have to blubber around to make me feel good." His smile broadened. "You look nice with a mustache, though."
Usagi grew paler. "D-do I?" She didn't know whether to feel horrified or happy that she'd been…complimented? "Do I look better or worse with a mustache?"
Mamoru flinched. Dangerous territory for a man. A landmine of a question that would explode no matter how he answered.
For a moment, Usagi regretted that she asked. Just for a moment.
"You look nice."
"That doesn't answer my question."
Mamoru's expression soured like he had eaten a lemon, making the mustache look like it was taking over his face with the passing seconds.
A mustache-free SpongeBob floated over, stroking Mamoru's mustache. He growled in admiration. "Ooh, rugged. I love a rugged man."
Mamoru looked goofy with a mustache. People wouldn't expect Mamoru to have baby smooth skin, but he did. Usagi appreciated the bareness of his face. Now moreso.
Usagi turned to her friends. Makoto, smiling, amused and horrified, leaning more strongly toward being horrified, poked her brown mustache.
Her smile turned downward. "What is this thing?"
Michiru remained stone-faced, although her frown was deeper than before. Her turquoise mustache curled downward, a reflection of her frown. She stood very still.
Plankton had conjured up a hand mirror, scratching under his chin. "Oh, yeah, the man in the mirror looks better than usual." He winked at himself, as much as he could with one eye.
They looked pretty nice with mustaches.
"Uh, SpongeBob." Makoto ran a finger through her mustache and then looked at it, expecting to see the mustache's version of a booger upon it. "You gave everyone but yourself a mustache."
"Hmm." He peeled himself off Mamoru. "My dream powers must be going wonky."
Usagi's heart sunk. "Oh, no. Not now." Not when they were banking on SpongeBob's dream powers. She turned to Mamoru once more. "You have to have a razor. Please. The mustache is making things worse." No way was she returning to Japan, much less or family or classmates, with a mustache. Heck, the mustache could become permanent if she woke up without shaving it off. She'd be doomed to a lifetime of shaving her mustache, if the monster could be shaved. Her civilians in the Moon Kingdom, they'd know her as the princess with a mustache instead of simply the Moon Princess.
She shuddered. A fate she wouldn't wish upon her worst enemy.
Some of the most horrible words that Usagi had heard, came out of Mamoru's mouth. "I don't have a razor."
"Please, dream one up."
Mamoru stared at Usagi.
"Hurry."
Mamoru looked to the sky, as if expecting a razor to fall. Ran a finger through the thing on his face. Hopefully, he didn't like the mustache. Usagi wouldn't stand to have a husband with a mustache. Especially one she was confined to for close to eternity.
"I-I'll do it." No reason why Usagi couldn't dream a razor herself. Shutting her eyes, she imagined a razor.
"Hey, a dream bubble's popped up over your head, Usagi," SpongeBob said.
Prayerfully, a giant razor would be within the bubble, one that would end the demon infesting her face.
"Enough of this nonsense," Plankton said. "I have a world to take over here. Now, if you excuse— Grrack!"
"You really think we'll let you go just like that?" Makoto said.
Usagi opened her eyes, sweating. Had to be a razor somewhere. She'd be damned if she was going through the dream world, possibly the rest of her life, with a mustache.
A tree-sized razor hovered above her head.
It began to fall.
Mamoru tackled her out of the way, and they tumbled. The razor fell in the sand, buried inside.
Makoto gripped Plankton by the antenna. "Burying the…razor."
Usagi groaned, and Michiru rolled her eyes.
"Sorry, couldn't help it. Even I knew it was terrible this time."
Gary sighed.
"Are you petrified by what I said, too, Gary?"
"Meow. Meow, meow."
"I speak fluent snail." SpongeBob cleared his throat. "He's telling us to focus, first of all. Yes, the mustaches make you all look terrifying, but you have a job to do here."
Usagi glared at Mamoru, at her anger at not being able to shave the mustache yet. "You said I look nice."
Mamoru raised his hands, opening his mouth to retaliate. Yet another mistake he was about to make.
"Meow."
" 'Concentrate,' he said."
A snail. The most focused out of them all.
"He said that the robots have taken over the dream world. They'll wreck havoc on everyone's dreams if we don't get rid of them. Therefore, we must defeat them all."
"Same as we've been doing everywhere else," Mamoru said.
"How did they infiltrate the dream realm?" Michiru said.
Usagi had an inkling but said nothing. Wanted to hear Gary's perspective.
Never thought she'd want to hear a snail's perspective on anything. How far had she gone?
"Meow, meow, meow."
SpongeBob gasped. "They came down here because of the dastardly Dead Moon Circus?" He shook a fist. "Those fiends, taking over people's precious dreams. I'll never forgive them, even though they've done the exact same thing I do sometimes. But never for being evil. Just to be nosy."
"Is that why you annoy Squidward so much?" Michiru said.
He waved a hand dismissively. "Pssh. I don't annoy Squidward. He has different ways of showing his affection." Either an insightful observation or a very wrong one.
"In any case, Dead Moon should be around here somewhere." Mamoru faced the other dream bubbles. "Everyone else can't be sleeping right now, so I wonder how their dreams are existing while they're awake."
"Dead Moon might be behind that, too." Michiru glared at the sky. "Our mission remains the same."
They were lucid dreaming in the same place. They should've dreamed separately, but the sacred rock enclosure had combined their consciousnesses. Perhaps they could control some aspects of the dream world, allowing them to materialize anything they wanted in their fight against Dead Moon.
Neither Usagi nor Mamoru had coughed blood since they'd arrived in the dream world. Perhaps their symptoms were quelled for now.
Only robots roamed. Slicks, with oil bubbles surrounding them, wheeled about, shining their bubble wands with handkerchiefs. Chomp-Bots snapped at the oil bubbles, and the Slicks batted them away, off the ledges. The Chomp-Bots spun into the abyss of the dream world, never to be seen again. A fate that, hopefully, Usagi and her friends escaped.
Michiru took to the air. "I'll scout the area." Her gaze pierced through them. Usagi's breath hitched at the older Guardian's glow.
Makoto stepped forward, Plankton squiggling in her grip. "Michiru-san, wait. This is how we get separated every time."
"I have the power to keep us from being separated." She muttered, "I don't want to hurt you all."
"Is that what this is about?"
Michiru twitched. Her tongue had run away from her.
Usagi's heart softened. She had been afraid that she'd hurt her friends, too, thanks to the curse. Michiru felt the same way.
Michiru was too hard on herself.
So was Usagi.
"We should stay together, no matter what," Usagi said. "Being separated has spelled nothing but trouble for us. Let's stay as close together as we can."
Michiru stared at her friends, her face a rock.
Usagi smiled. Felt like a long time since she'd smiled genuinely. "You won't hurt us, Michiru-san. You're too kind."
Michiru smiled, too, and her glow softened, deepened into the color of the unsearchable sea.
She looked at the dream bubbles floating above their respective homes. "We don't know what's ahead. That's part of the reason why I offered to go first."
"We've been in this situation before," Mamoru said. "How many times have we known exactly what's ahead? We always go anyhow."
"We do," she said, barely audible. She turned toward her friends. "Let's go together."
Usagi's eyes brightened. Together, they went.
Lemures descended from the sky. Of course.
"Stay in your own dreams." CereCere? The Lemures flooded the area, as thick as smoke. She was nowhere to be seen.
The hypocrisy of what CereCere had said.
Usagi looked up at Michiru. The goddess worked her mouth, looking between the Lemures, around for CereCere, to her friends.
"I don't want to hurt you all." She wouldn't use her powers out of fear.
Usagi aimed her Kaleidoscope. She couldn't act out of fear, or her friends would be hurt.
She attacked. Unlike Michiru, she did not hold back.