Chapter Sixty-six: To Surrender All
For Plankton, Michiru let herself be powerless, carried in his icy hand. Might as well make up for destroying his Chum Bucket somehow.
How had she ended up in Plankton's dream? As she'd fought the Lemures, she thought of him and Haruka. In response, the world had darkened. Maybe her guilty conscience had overpowered her love for Haruka, making her pop into his dream instead of dream sweetly of Haruka.
Ironic that her guilt impelled her to help commit a crime.
In two steps, Plankton reached the Krusty Krab. Sneering, he stomped near its side. Fish scattered out of the Krusty Krab like cockroaches.
Plankton boomed out a laugh. "Finally, I have all the power, and no one can take it away from me."
He ripped off the roof, bending down, his giant eye blinking. More hollering fish scurried out of the restaurant.
"You're the same people who vomited when you tasted my chum. I will not have mercy on you." Plankton snatched several fish with his free hand. The fish screamed, and his grin broadened. Knew the powerlessness, the pain that torture brought but relished in the action when it benefited him.
With his lack of self-awareness and honesty, Michiru no longer pitied him.
She had to stop him. Climbing into Plankton's good graces wasn't as important as keeping her integrity.
Michiru jumped out of Plankton's hand, hovered before him.
"What are you doing?" Plankton spat. "I commanded you to assist me with stealing the secret formula."
"You have to stop, Plankton."
Plankton ground his stumpy teeth. "You have some nerve, trying to command me in my own kingdom. Especially after you pledged your allegiance to Sheldon J. Plankton. Unless you're too stupid to know who Sheldon J. Plankton is."
Michiru's eyes softened. "I know who you are."
"Then why do you oppose me?"
"You're hurting innocent people."
"They hurt me first." He clenched his free hand. "They deserve everything that's coming to them."
"If everyone got what they deserved, where would the world be?"
Plankton blanked. "Uh, huh?"
You just got real deep, real quick, hon, Haruka would say.
"I mean," Michiru pressed forward, "if we all got revenge on each other, none of us would be in a good place. The world would be burning right now."
"Let it burn. As long as I don't burn along with it."
How simply and selfishly his mind operated. If he truly cared about others, then he wouldn't be trying to steal the secret formula. He wouldn't be ruining when he knew the terror of having his own life ruined.
Michiru couldn't change him. She had to work with what she had, change the only person she could—herself.
Plankton reached inside the Krusty Krab. He grabbed and shook the cash register. Coins clinked on the wood, and dollars drifted down. A door to the left of the register slammed open, revealing Mr. Krabs.
"Do me ears deceive me? I hear, I hear…" Mr. Krabs' blanched at the falling money. "Me precious money." He rushed to the money, caught some in his arms, cradling it. Unaware of Plankton's looming shadow. He hadn't come out when the customers were screaming, when his restaurant's roof was torn off. Maybe Mr. Krabs' greediness was being amplified in Plankton's dream.
Plankton scowled. "I'm miles taller than you, but you still don't see me. Why am I always being ignored?"
"The fish below didn't ignore you. Look." Michiru gestured toward the fish cowering in bushes, gazing up at Plankton, eyes wide with fear.
Plankton's expression stretched into a smile. "Finally, they fear me. Soon, none of them will ignore me. They will all know who Sheldon J. Plankton is." He glowered at Mr. Krabs, his rival still scrambling for the money, to save it from the floor instead of focusing on the threat above. "Krabs will get to know me more than ever before." He snatched Mr. Krabs, and money popped out of the crab's arms.
"No." Mr. Krabs struggled in Plankton's teary eyes, he watched coins cling on the ground, dollar bills drift down.
"Do you see what's happening to you, Krabs?" Plankton held Mr. Krabs to his eye. "Do you see what I'm doing to you?"
Mr. Krabs kept reaching for his money.
"Look, Krabs. I'm keeping customers away from your restaurant. Keeping you from making more money."
Mr. Krabs' eyes sharpened at Plankton. "You fiend. I'll never forgive you for takin' away me valuable money." The word, "customers" never came out of his mouth. Showed where his heart lay.
"You care about your money more than your archnemesis?"
"You've never been a threat to me."
A vein protruded from Plankton's forehead. "Maybe I'm the secret ingredient that keeps your customers away from your restaurant. Just like your secret formula keeps customers away from mine."
"They love my food because your recipe is terrible. When I tasted it, I was sick as a dog for a week."
Plankton stiffened. "So that's why customers weren't coming. You slandered my formula, my name. You dragged them both through the mud to bring up your own sales." He squeezed Michiru. "I have two people who have ruined my life. Now I can ruin yours. I'm going to start by stealing your secret formula. With you watching, Krabs, because I've watched plenty of idiots flock to your restaurant while ignoring mine. Even though mine is more beautifully designed."
"Ain't much beauty in a bucket," Mr. Krabs shot back.
Plankton tightened his grip on Michiru, like she was the one who had insulted his restaurant's "beauty." "None of you see the genius in what I do. I knew that I was always the only genius around here, but I never knew how dumb the rest of you were. I'll never pander to your idiotic levels."
Plankton crouched to Mr. Krabs' profits. Mr. Krabs began to salivate and struggle in Plankton's grip, but his enemy's grip was fast. Putting his mouth near the money, Plankton blew. The money scattered in the wind, into the sky.
The scream that came from Mr. Krabs nearly shattered Michiru's eardrums, even though she was being held yards away from the crab.
Mr. Krabs tried to wrench himself out of Plankton's grip, pushing, pulling, biting Plankton's hand, but Plankton's grip remained steadfast. The crab wailed. Muscles bulged from his arm as he punched and flailed to no avail.
His money disappeared into the sky, twinkling on their way into money heaven.
Pointing Mr. Krabs toward the money, Plankton said, "That, Krabs, is how you make me feel every day, with your better business plan—which was, none at all—when I drew up a robust plan that included making everyone into minions and making them addicted to my chum so they'd keep coming back to my restaurant, and then the power would come."
Unlike Mr. Krabs, Plankton saw money as something that would come if he gained power. Power was more valuable to him, while money was an afterthought.
"Each time I saw customers running over to your restaurant, I saw lost opportunity to turn these cretins into geniuses. To shape Bikini Bottom into something better, have this wretched city reach its full potential instead of being dragged down by idiots all day, every day. I only corrupted that starfish. I couldn't even get SpongeBob, as gullible as he is. At least the starfish is stupid and gullible. He'll even let me vaporize him as a sign of his loyalty and love for his master."
Sweating, Mr. Krabs kept reaching for his money.
"Even now, when I hold power, you don't listen to me. Which means that something else has power over me." He rubbed his chin with Mr. Krabs in his hand. The crab gazed into the sky, oblivious to being scraped on rough skin. "I must take away the power of whatever is over everyone else. I must be the only one left with the power, so they can't rely on anything but me."
One of the most diabolical plans Michiru had heard. Take away what others trusted in—perhaps their loved ones—so that Plankton was the only one left.
"That's not true power, Plankton," Michiru said. "They'll only be obeying you because you're the only choice."
Plankton regarded her like she was no more than an ant. "That's the point. If I take away what holds power over them, then I'll gain power. That's true power."
"True power is becoming important to people, having them follow you out of their own free will."
"I don't care how they come to obey me, as long as they do. I will reign supreme forever."
Overconfident bastard.
Fish peered at Plankton through bushes, cowered behind boulders. They feared him. Plankton would say that others fearing you is also true power.
How wrong he was. Fear would get him power, but it would not earn respect.
"Now, Krabs, you're going to get me the secret formula," Plankton growled into Mr. Krabs' face, Mr. Krabs continuing to look toward the sky, like the money would fly down any moment. "Rather, you're going to watch me steal the secret formula."
Mr. Krabs salivated at the sky. Still not listening.
"Where's that safe?" Plankton tore open the door to Mr. Krabs' office, showing a desk with a chair behind it, bookshelves lining the area, an anchor at the back of the office. He lifted the desk. A safe stood under it. Grinning, Plankton snatched the safe.
While Michiru hadn't helped Plankton find the secret formula, she hadn't tried to stop him, either. Talking to him was not trying to stop him, in her book. Fighting him would be. But she couldn't bring herself to raise any hands against Plankton.
Letting others do what they wanted, regardless of the consequences. Was that what a god did?
Plankton ripped off the door to the safe and peered inside. His eye lit up. He reached in, seized the bottle holding the rolled-up paper. "My prize."
Mr. Krabs snarled at Plankton. "Me money…" Thunder rumbled overhead.
Plankton scowled at the crab. "How dare you take over my dream?"
"But that's me money." Another rumble of thunder. Fish below startled, some running into the distance, to safety. Clouds gathered above Plankton, Michiru, and Mr. Krabs, darkening the world.
Money rained from the sky. Pennies, dimes, quarters pelted Michiru. Plankton gripped her so her hands were trapped at her sides, keeping her from shielding herself.
"What's going on?" Plankton shut his eye. "C'mon, c'mon. Why aren't the clouds disappearing? This is my dream." Lines etched across his forehead. The stress, the desperation of trying to maintain control over his world was wrecking internal havoc on him. If he couldn't control his real life, what made him think he could control his dream one?
Michiru had messed up his real life. Mr. Krabs was going to mess up Plankton's dream life.
Unless Michiru stopped him.
Whatever Michiru did here to help Plankton, perhaps the consequences wouldn't leak into the real world.
Part of Michiru didn't want to take that chance. The bigger part of her wanted to make things up to Plankton, if only in his dreams.
Plankton reached toward the raining money with the hand filled with Mr. Krabs. "I command to you be gone."
Mr. Krabs ground his teeth. The money halted and then kept raining. Sweat broke from Plankton, and the money halted once more. Mr. Krabs' eyes bulged, and the money kept moving. Plankton made a noise that was a cross between a whining dog and a cow's moo, and the money halted, suspended in the air. The conscious fish oohed and aahed. The stopped money was like a magic trick, the coins and dollars hovering like stars.
Mr. Krabs howled like a wolf. The money kept raining. Plankton roared like a tiger. An instinct inside of Michiru shuddered, sought an escape route.
An elephant's trunk grew from Mr. Krabs' nose, and the crab honked out an elephant's bellow. The weird situation was growing weirder.
Michiru needed Plankton's trust. Besides, the dream version of Mr. Krabs wouldn't leak into the real version, hopefully, so the real Mr. Krabs would never know what transpired in the dream world.
Michiru visualized his hand prying apart from her. Finger by finger, his grip popped free from her, and Michiru flew.
Plankton opened his mouth and made a sound like a donkey protesting a 400-pound gorilla sitting on it.
Michiru launched a wave toward the money. The wave engulfed and disintegrated the cash. A shadow covered Mr. Krabs' expression. He made a sound like a dying horse.
She glanced at a smiling Plankton. He still held the secret formula. Mr. Krabs was losing money. To Plankton, all was well.
Destroying someone else's life to enrich another's.
Never the right thing to do.
Why had Michiru gotten hung up on another person's opinion of her? She'd never cared before. Even dared to kill a girl for the greater good, not caring about the effect on the innocent girl herself. She'd never gone to such lengths to make things up to Hotaru. She had taken Hotaru in, but would she hurt others to get in Hotaru's good graces?
Michiru didn't know, nor did she want to find out.
Mr. Krabs' eyes rolled back. His head hung forward. He had fainted.
Until he jerked. The crab was too headstrong to let someone end his money without consequence. He pushed against Plankton's grip.
Plankton's hand blurred and, suddenly, Michiru was trapped in his hand.
"Plankton, let me go," Michiru said.
"After all you've done to me?"
"After I helped stop Mr. Krabs getting his hands on more money, for you."
Plankton blinked. "True." He stared at Michiru. If she could see the inside of his brain, she'd see the grinding gears, processing her, her actions, her true allegiance.
His head became transparent, perhaps as part of her godly powers. Indeed, gears turned within, complete with hamsters running on wheels to keep the gears going. Water bottles for the hamsters descended from the ceiling.
She had always been aligned with Plankton but hadn't expressed her alignment correctly. Just because she wanted the best for him didn't mean that she approved his actions. Michiru was selfishly trying to make things up to Plankton. So she could prove that she knew how to control with her newfound powers, not just destroy.
She acted for her own benefit. She was hurting someone else, even if that someone else was a dream version, to puff herself up.
Plankton bit his lip. The only obvious sign of discomfort that he dared show. He had been living under a mask of arrogance and invulnerability for so long that he didn't know how to show others that he was distressed. He had showed a bit of his vulnerability when Michiru had destroyed his Chum Bucket, but the sliver had been covered over layers of bravado and anger.
He was vulnerable. Very. But he didn't want others to see. Instead, he tried to compensate for his size, for his lack of what he defined as success—taking over the world, or Bikini Bottom, at the least; having his Chum Bucket become the most popular restaurant, dethroning the Krusty Krab and, more importantly, Mr. Krabs from holding power.
Under Plankton's bravado was fear. Fear of being exposed for who he was. Fear of being ignored more.
Michiru looked at Plankton, and her heart broke for him.
Plankton flinched. He couldn't wear the mask forever. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I see you."
Plankton scowled, but the slight lax in his grip said that he realized what she was talking about. "Of course you see me. You have eyes. Everyone sees me. Even the idiots who claim that they don't. They think that, just because I'm small, they can pretend they don't see me. That they can do whatever they want to me. No more."
His fear was changing the subject. "Plankton, let me go."
"If it'll shut your trap, fine." On the other hand, Mr. Krabs was coming dangerously close to prying Plankton's hand open, making Plankton lose his control over the crab.
He couldn't control the world, so he controlled himself as best he could.
All traits that Plankton might not see in himself. Or he did realize how he deceived himself, trying to exude power, but didn't want to face the freeing truth.
Plankton feared Mr. Krabs regaining the power over Bikini Bottom through the Krusty Krab. His best bet was trusting Michiru.
He opened his hand, letting Michiru go.
She flew to Mr. Krabs. Punched a pressure point in the crab's abdomen. The crab's eyes blanked, and he slumped.
Michiru floated before Mr. Krabs. Plankton stared more at Michiru than his nemesis.
"What do you want me to do now?" Submitting to him to solidify that she stood with him, no matter how much she disagreed with his actions.
Plankton blinked. Wind blew from his gawping mouth, like a wind screaming through a canyon, full of desolateness. Like no one was home in Plankton's brain.
Partly out of curiosity, partly to liven up the situation a bit, Michiru peered through Plankton's brain. The gears had been replaced by hamsters running upside-down and moonwalking on the ceiling, miniature Planktons dumping file cabinets full of papers onto the ground and then burning them, other miniature Planktons dousing the fire with fire extinguishers, some restarting the fires with tree branches.
Plankton's brain was a mass of confusion.
Michiru closed the window to his brain. Enough fun. For now.
He looked from Mr. Krabs, to Michiru, to the secret formula, intact in its bottled glory on the floor, and back.
"So we're clear," Michiru said, "I don't like what you're doing. Stealing anything is wrong. But I did want to show you that I have your best interest at heart."
Plankton's lips began to quiver, and his eyes became glassy. He tried to scowl but he blew a raspberry, trying to suppress the impending cry. "Who's a ruler who cries in front of his people?" He swiped angry fists on his eyes, forceful swipes that could bruise.
"Human." Even though he wasn't human, her words affected him in the way they would on anyone with a heart. Plankton let himself cry.
His people looked at him. Not with pity. Some curiously. Some kindly. Some came to him and embraced his legs.
"But I was so mean to you all."
"You're crying," one blonde fish said. "I hug people who cry."
They didn't know what he was crying about. Nor did they care.
"From the beginning, if I had just…" His voice cracked, but he managed to keep talking. "If I had given you all a chance. If I hadn't thought of myself as better. If I hadn't started off by trying to take over the place." He wept.
Michiru smiled. She wiped her eyes, and away came a tear.
Plankton peered down at the secret formula. "Do I have to take it at all?" He looked at the kingdom he had finally gotten. "Do I need all of this?" He shook his head. "I do want to say goodbye to her." He closed his eyes, shrinking himself into his true size, letting Michiru float to the ground. He smiled up at her. "Th-th-thank…" He growled, flicked Michiru away. "Just give us privacy, all right?" He marched inside his Chum Bucket. The doors swung shut.
Seemed like there was still a little of that one-percent evil that Rei had alluded to, dwelling in him.
Finally, a good deed that she had done. And it hadn't involved her newfound powers, but only letting herself shine.