View source for Crescit Eundo (Makoto Kino)

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2016/06/23
|Location=UMBRA Labs
|Synopsis=You can only hold lightning caged for so long.
|Cast of Characters=42
}}
Two weeks.

For two weeks, the drumming of fists pounding against the inside of one of the containment cells has become part of the background noise of UMBRA labs. For two weeks, it has come to nothing. The cells were designed to hold worse than one girl without even any magic to call on--

But the pounding continues, on and off at intervals, like thunder from distant clouds.

They'll come, Makoto knows this with unquestioning faith. Sooner or later, by one method or another, her friends will work out what's happened and where she is. But that will take time, and it's not in Makoto's nature to sit idle.

For two weeks, the cell has held. But it is weakening.

---

''WHAM.'' Impact shudders through her shoulder; Makoto rebounds a step back, rolling the abused shoulder methodically. A chorus of aches comes with the motion, but the joint's still solid. 

From the orb that's ceaselessly shown her everything her copy has been doing for the past two weeks comes a voice she has both longed and dreaded to hear: "''Hey honey.''"

She grits her teeth and lunges again.

''WHAM.''

Again.

---

Usagi's voice, desperately earnest through the orb. "''If Mako-chan wanted to leave--''"

One moment the hallway is quiet. The next it's filled with a cacophony of rending metal, a sound like a thunderclap as the cell door rips out of its frame and clangs to the floor.

Makoto steps through the gaping doorway, massaging her shoulder.

Time to leave.

---

Nothing's ever that simple, of course. A minute and a half later she's running for all she's worth, footsteps drumming behind her; the halls all look alike and she has no idea where to find the exit or even what floor she's on. Putting on a burst of speed, she ducks around a corner at full tilt and nearly plows headfirst into another security team.

She doesn't break stride. "Out of the way!" 

---

A sharp wrench of motion sends one of the guards flying over her shoulder to slam into the others, toppling them like bowling pins in a tangle of bodies and flailing limbs. Makoto shears off to the side before they can recover, hitting the first door she comes to and bursting through into the office beyond - or is it a lab? Hard to tell in this place, and it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter, except--

--lying on a desk, right there in plain sight, is a bright green pen with a golden star on the cap. Her transformation pen.

"You asshole," Makoto hisses under her breath as she moves to snatch the pen off of the desk. At least this time Agera's insufferable arrogance has worked in her favor.

"Jupiter Star Power - ''Make Up.''"

---

The broken half of the Eclipse security drone is still sparking as Sailor Jupiter tosses it aside. The halls all still look alike; she's given up on finding an exit, all she needs is a window. There's nothing for it but to keep checking doors, one at a time.

She leaves one behind, opens another--

--feels a rush of ice water through her veins.

Blank grey eyes stare lifelessly back at her, dozens upon dozens of smooth, expressionless faces. Dozens upon dozens of featureless human bodies. Like department store mannequins... except that as Jupiter watches, one of them twitches a little.

They're like the copy he made of her, she thinks sickly. All lined up, waiting to be given energy and form. But for there to be so ''many'' of them--

"What are you planning?" Sailor Jupiter whispers, but there is no answer. Not so much as a sound of breathing.

Whatever they're for, she can't very well leave them here for Agera and Eclipse to make use of. Lips pressing into a grim line, Jupiter closes her fists at her sides and gathers her power until it sparks over her fingers.

---

She fills the room with lightning, burns it down to bare, blackened, smoking walls. A parting gift.