Chapter Sixty-five: Residue
As the only Guardian without her Super form, Makoto felt some type of way.
Here she was, launching lightning bolt upon lightning bolt on the Lemures, only for dozens more to take their place as quickly as she killed them. No wonder she, SpongeBob, Mamoru, and Usagi couldn't get a hold over them.
Without her Super form, Sailor Jupiter was a load, even in the dream world, where SpongeBob allegedly held control. The sponge was struggling as much as the Sailor Team. Either he didn't wield as much control as he thought, or he didn't control anything. If he did have control, he would've winked the Lemures and Dead Moon into a corner of the world where they couldn't harm anyone.
Of course things weren't that easy.
To a Guardian, every victory came the hard way. Makoto's powers complicated everything. Sometimes, Sailor Jupiter accidentally destroyed buildings while fighting. Then she had to figure out how to rebuild the building while piecing together the lives she'd shattered.
An arduous process, to say the least.
Killing the Lemures was arduous by itself, so Michiru had been smart enough to try and stop the Lemures at their source. She'd flown behind a block of them. Leaving her friends to fend for themselves.
Michiru's fear kept her from using her godliness to bend the dream world to her will, changing everything for the better. In a way, not trying was worse than trying and failing.
Somehow, for the world's sake, Makoto had to disentangle herself from the relentless Lemures and encourage her senior.
Grinding her teeth, Makoto lashed lightning at a group of Lemures before her, bursting a chunk of them. The remaining hole was large enough to pass through. She flew.
SpongeBob paused in mid-blow of his bubble wand, a missile moving through the wand as slowly as a blimp. Mesmerized by the green comet.
Lemures latched onto SpongeBob's head. Yelping, he grabbed the sides of the Lemure helmet and pulled. Makoto shouldn't blame herself for SpongeBob's short attention span but did.
SpongeBob needed her help more than Michiru did. Mamoru and Usagi were ensnared with the Lemures, both launching beam after beam, their sickness having no hold over them. Invigorated, the couple attacked with their full power which, alarmingly, wasn't enough to staunch the onslaught. Even though SpongeBob also fought them, more attacked Mamoru, Usagi, and Makoto. Plankton and Gary huddled behind the pineapple, vulnerable, yet the Lemures ignored them.
If Makoto electrocuted the Lemures cocooning on SpongeBob's head, then she'd electrocute SpongeBob, too. She flew toward SpongeBob. With brute force, she'd pry the Lemures off, no matter what nightmares overwhelmed her.
Reaching SpongeBob, she gripped the Lemure hat by the sides, above SpongeBob's toothpick-like, four-fingered hands. The sponge proclaimed that he exercised once a month, lifting negative one-pound dumbbells, but his vigorous workout routine did no good against the Lemures.
Makoto pulled, slipping the Lemures slightly off SpongeBob's head. Images assailed her of the flowers in her flower shop graying and dying; suitors rejecting her once they discovered she was a Guardian. She'd be cursed with never having a family, a knowing she'd had deep in her heart since becoming a Guardian but didn't dared face. At least her parents weren't around, so she wouldn't disappoint their want for grandchildren. Safe in the afterlife, they could never be targets for the Guardians' enemies. Every time their enemies attacked her friends' family members, Makoto thanked every god under the sun for taking her parents early. A twisted reason to be glad that her parents had perished in the plane crash.
Ignoring the images, Makoto focused on SpongeBob, pulling harder. SpongeBob flailed and screamed that he couldn't see.
"Stay still, and I can help you," Makoto ground out. How could these baseball-sized Lemures be so strong, sucking atop SpongeBob's head as tightly as leeches?
Better that SpongeBob couldn't see than him seeing nightmares. Out of all the sea creatures, SpongeBob's happy-go-lucky but sensitive personality rendered him the most susceptible. Thank goodness the same fate that had befell Sandy wasn't befalling SpongeBob, perhaps because SpongeBob actually did wield some control over the dream world.
Plankton hollered, and Makoto's grip faltered. Had the Lemures gotten him?
Before helping him, she had to help SpongeBob. Makoto hooked her hands under the growing hat and pulled. Veins bulged on her arms, and the helmet popped off, only for the Lemures to snake up her arms. She swatted at the creatures. The Lemures swelled, making her arms resemble black branches, to the point where her hands looked like great black maces, weapons to strike instead of heal.
With her tiara, she struck the Lemures with lightning. Some fell off her arms. Others remained.
No time to figure out the difference between the ones that stayed and the ones that fell. She kept striking the Lemures with lightning, but they kept coming.
Panic rose in Makoto's throat, threatening to explode in a yell or bile. If she couldn't save herself, then she couldn't save Michiru.
Even though Plankton, SpongeBob, Usagi, and Mamoru were in trouble, she cared only about Michiru, her mentor, the one who was most capable of taking care of herself. The want to rescue Michiru rose only out of Makoto's desire to prove herself.
Maybe Michiru would be more impressed if she saved the most helpless first.
Even saving her friends wouldn't be from a selfless heart.
The Lemures latched onto her face, and she staggered backward. She tried to rake off the Lemures, but her hands bumped against them. Were these things made of concrete?
The images assaulted her, movie clips that she could see all at once. With her bare hands, she ripped through the images of her desolate flower shop; her husband, slapping her every chance he got, yelling that she was a failure because her flower shop was a failure; her daughter ignoring her, embarrassed because of her failed business. Makoto tore them to shreds.
She flew. Didn't know where she was going, but stopping would spell the end.
She grabbed something squishy.
"Don't worry, Makoto. I got you." SpongeBob.
An explosion boomed in her ear. Makoto flinched, and the images burst alongside the explosion, revealing the dream world once more. SpongeBob stood before her, bubble wand raised. Must've launched another bubble missile.
Lightning and brute strength couldn't stop the Lemures, but a bubble could.
SpongeBob's voice deepened into a heroic one, his tie blowing sideways. "I shall protect you, Makoto."
Makoto grinned. Hair tickled her upper lip. She still donned the mustache.
She was fighting with a mustache. She wanted to see her mentor with a mustache. Even if Michiru still had a mustache, she'd look beautiful and elegant.
Haruka would look good with a mustache. Maybe Michiru would liken Makoto to her.
Makoto was being selfish and vain. Even worse.
"Yes, SpongeBob, I do need your protection." He may not be able to lift a fly, but his magical powers were beyond reproach. She picked him up. "We're going to save our friends."
SpongeBob raised his bubble wand over Makoto's head. "Which one?"
He had a point.
Even though they shot beam after beam, Mamoru and Usagi were no closer to ending the outpouring of Lemures. Gary and Plankton were defenseless. Time passed slowly when fighting so, even though Plankton had hollered maybe only a minute ago, much could've happened. Like being killed.
She swiveled toward the pineapple and flew.
Behind the pineapple, Gary poked his eyestalks out of a bush. Plankton was nowhere to be seen.
"Gary, where's Plankton?" Makoto said.
"Meow."
SpongeBob gasped. " 'With the enemy,' you say?"
"There are so many of our enemies around," Makoto said. "Where exactly did he go?"
Gary pointed an eyestalk toward a cluster of Lemures in the corner of the dream world. Where Plankton hollered from.
"Thanks, Gary. SpongeBob, let's go." She took off toward the cluster. Didn't dare launch any lightning or cyclones, lest she strike Plankton.
The Lemures couldn't attack except by latching onto her. As long as she kept them from touching her and SpongeBob, they'd be fine.
SpongeBob blew bubbles, encasing Lemures that neared them. She reached the cluster of Lemures, but Plankton had fallen silent.
She had to touch the Lemures.
Grabbed a handful of them, threw them aside in the vain hope that the opening would reveal Plankton. As soon as she touched them, the images started. One of her, barely ten, watching the plane with her parents inside crash into the sea, burst into flames. Another of her time living alone, huddled in a corner of her parents' apartment, enveloped in darkness. Doing her best to hide from adults who wanted to condemn her to foster care. No one could replace her real parents. She would not have another set who tried to imitate her old parents, who disciplined her when they knew nothing about her.
You're so much like Haruka.
No. Despite her tough attitude, she was tender. So she wouldn't scare anyone away from her, so she wouldn't be lonely. Even though she'd separated herself from others so she wouldn't be torn from the only home she had ever known, she was not tough. She clung to those who showed interest in her because not many dared to.
Thank goodness for Usagi.
Usagi had opened the floodgates of love and friendship, shown Makoto what unconditional acceptance looked like. Makoto always tried to return that acceptance to her friends. Treasured her friends because she knew that loneliness felt like an inescapable pit.
The Outer Guardians didn't accept the younger Guardians unconditionally. Even Setsuna was sometimes cold. Perhaps because she had seen human behavior, the physical and emotional destruction that humans were capable of unleashing.
Haruka and Michiru were cold on a different level, to the point where they'd wanted nothing to do with the younger Guardians when they'd met.
Makoto admired them.
Haruka was tough. A real toughness, mettle from experience that Makoto lacked. Michiru was elegant, polite. Traits that Makoto pined for.
Now, in the thresh of battle, she was striving to be like them when she should be focusing on saving Plankton.
Lemures latched onto her, withstanding her brick-like punches. They drowned out the dream world.
If only Makoto was stronger. If only she tough. If only she was refined.
As the world bled into nothingness, she called for her parents.