Momo Yoshida didn’t look, or feel, like she belonged in the line to enter the theater. She stood rigidly straight and still, staring straight ahead, in a posture that would fit more at boot camp than among chatty teenagers. When she noticed the looks she was getting, she tried to relax a little. The magical girl was a bit irritated, really; she didn’t want to be here, when there was training or monster fighting to do. But the higher ups were getting grumblings about working the girls too hard, especially while they were figuring out where Yuri disappeared to - (magical girls vanished for short periods all the time; usually they turned up among a villain’s minions and had to be smacked back to sense), and some mandatory time off had been issued; one of the other girls on her team, who was using the vacation time to visit her family elsewhere in the country, had insisted that Momo take her ticket to this show so it didn’t go to waste.
And being that she had no plans at all anyway, she agreed. Might as well at least pretend to be a civilian for a bit. She navigated her way down the aisles and to her seat, right up front with a bunch of other teenage girls. Internally, she scoffed at them; girls their age at a magic show? ...Sure, so was she, but she had been hassled into it by friends, rather than getting the ticket herself, so it was different. Momo took her seat and tried to avoid the small talk and hopefully recognition. Thankfully she didn’t have to avoid them for long: the magician was punctual, it would seem, as the lights of the theater dimmed and the stage lit up. Fog machines started billowing smoke, and with a crash of thunder and light a box appeared on the stage.
The front of the box swung open and a man in a well tailored tuxedo a dapper top hat, and an eye-covering mask, along with a diamond-capped cane, stepped jauntily outwards and took a bow. The quintessential stage magician, Momo thought while rolling her eyes. “Welcome, welcome!” he said to the crowd, who clapped loudly for him. “A pleasure to be here tonight, truly. Sorry for the entrance, I’d had a far more dramatic one planned, but I had to magically transport myself from the other side of town to make it in time.”
There was a polite laugh and applause again, and he continued. “Now, I, the Grand Magician, assure you as I do all my guests that whatever magic you see is quite real; do not try to reproduce my spells without a corresponding talent of your own, or else you might not be able to sew your assistant back together!” Another laugh. “Now, for this show, I will need an assistant; those of you in the front row, of course, know that as you paid well for your tickets to be entered into the raffle.” He snapped his fingers and, inexplicably, a bowl appeared in his hands. Momo raised an eyebrow; she did actual magic, so stage magic (or even the odd minor magic user) didn’t really do much for her, but that was interesting. A gloved hand slid into the bowl and rummaged around, before drawing a number. “Seat 18! Seat 18, please stand and bow!”
Momo looked at the others in the front row. Left, right, then left again. Nobody was standing. She looked at the numbers. On her right 17, and on her left 19. Of course it was her. Why wouldn’t it be her. She couldn’t not go now could she? She stood, and got some polite applause. “And let’s have some applause for our lovely assistant, 18!” Just her number, Momo wondered? For privacy concerns they must be sticking to her seat number unless she says her name herself. Well, she didn’t plan to.
She politely bowed to the crowd, and turned to the Grand Magician. “I’ve never done something like this, so I do apologize in advance.” she said politely. The man laughed jovially.
“None of that now, 18! It’s quite simple. All you do is what I tell you to, and you’ll be fine.” He extended his cane to her, diamond-tip first, as if offering a handshake. Shrugging, she shook it. There was a little zap, like static electricity, before he turned back to the crowd. “Let’s get this started, shall we?”
As Momo helped out with the tricks, she began to suspect that the Grand Magician was the second type of stage magician; the minor practitioner, who has a few of those minor spells that can push the show above what would be possible with just sleight of hand. She focused on him, wondering why he seemed familiar, as the show progressed. The standard ‘saw a lady in half’ trick had been tried, and she had felt quite strange as the boxes split, and after they were back together and she stood up again the Grand Magician seemed taller. Then, there was the one where they had her in a 3-layered box, and moved her bust and head, torso, and legs around. That also felt strange, like he was actually moving her around. She didn’t notice the playboy bunny outfit she’d walked out of it in. 18 dutifully stepped into the appropriate box for the vanishing trick - the man seemed quite fond of his box tricks.
And when he opened it again, she was nowhere to be found. She was somewhere else. 18 looked around, surprised by what had gone on, and she saw what looked like the Grand Magician himself. “You’re quite a wonderful assistant, miss 18. How do you feel about a permanent position?” he asked with a grin. Well, that seemed pretty interesting to 18; she had a job already, but maybe she could balance- she stopped in her mental tracks, realizing what she was thinking. Her magical girl training had kicked in to let her recognize she was under a spell. He was turning her into nothing but his empty headed-
The mask slammed onto her face before she could react; and before she could think, wonder how he’d done it so fast and how she hadn’t seen him move, the magic was on her. With how it had already started on her, from the time she touched the cane, even her normally resilient mind couldn’t resist for any time at all. The blank mask shocked the thoughts from her head, every attempt to rally and resist blasted into disarray before it could fully form, until her mind totally emptied, her dazed, drooling expression hidden by the silvery mirror sheen. “And that’s enough of that, 18.” the Grand Magician said, a blonde wig and attached bunny ears appearing in his hand. He pushed them onto her head, forcing the mask further in at the same time.
The magic worked it’s way through her empty head, the mask sealing itself over her face, the wig replacing her short brown hair down to the roots with plastic-looking fake blonde hair and hiding the seam where her new blank face merged to the rest of her head. It wasn’t a mask anymore; it was the drone’s face. The Grand Magician snapped his fingers, and the new bunnygirl drone snapped to attention. 18 didn’t have any thoughts on it’s new situation, how it could see without eyes or how it’s plasticy wig was also real hair. It didn’t have thoughts on anything, for that matter, except for what it’s master might order next. “Good drone. Now, time to pull the rabbit out of my hat.”
Barely twenty seconds had passed outside, as the Grand Magician rummaged through his hat. “Ah, I think I’ve found her!” he said, showing he’d gripped a pair of rabbit ears. With a mighty tug, he hauled a woman out of the had, dressed in a playboy bunny outfit and with obviously fake hair and surprisingly real looking ears, and a silver mask covering her face. But the crowd didn’t notice anything different. “Say hello to 18 again!” he said, and the bunny drone bowed, before whirling around to shake it’s ass at the audience. There was laughter and applause, and the show continued.
After the show, the Grand Magician called in the rest of the drones to help clean up. Another dozen fell out of the hat, and 18 swiftly joined them in their task. Soon, they were impossible to distinguish from the rest, and the Grand Magician didn’t care to try and remember which was which either. It was only a matter of time before the magical girl agency found his scheme, and until then he planned to amass as many drones as he could.