A group of five girls and one cat headed for the house across from the Hikawa Shrine. Rei and Ami were upset that Usagi's identity had been blown. After Luna had related the battle to them, they realized it wasn't really Usagi's fault. Somehow, Mai was able to see through the disguise field. Luna was nervous about the situation. Naru and Usagi were chatting away, although it was obvious that Naru wanted to Ask Usagi about being Sailor Moon.
"Makoto, you're still have to decide if Usagi should remain leader or not," Rei whispered to Makoto.
Makoto shook her head. "She went to make sure Naru was okay. She wasn't shirking her responsibilities as a Sailor Senshi. She was trying to help a friend."
Rei bit her lip and accepted that Makoto would still back Usagi. Reluctantly, she agreed with what Makoto had said. Usagi took her friendships seriously.
"What about this Mai girl?" Rei asked.
"I really don't know," Makoto replied.
Ami had pulled the Mercury Computer out of subspace and had set it to scan the Tsurugino's home. She saw the high levels of magical and spiritual energy the occupants had.
"Quite impressive readings. If I was able to get a scan of that battle, I'd be able to tell how they compare to our Senshi abilities," Ami muttered.
Just as they reached the door, Mai opened it and waved them inside. "Come in. Come in. I had Doro-san come down here to help explain things."
"Doro-san?" Usagi asked.
A blue skinned, green haired man with pointed ears smiled at the group. "That would be. I am Spirit Police Detective Doro. I am also the Makendo's boss."
"A Youma!" the girls shouted and started to reach for their transformation items.
Mai shook her head and held up her hand. "Stop. He is not a Youma. He's a yokai or spirit. He's not an enemy."
Doro floated up three feet and then towards the girls. "I should be offended, but I understand your concerns. I recruited Mai, her sister, her cousin, and her dog to keep the more impulsive elements of the Spirit World from harassing the Human World."
The untransformed Sailor Senshi relaxed a bit, but not completely from the revelation.
"How did you see through the disguise field," Ami asked, a bit curious.
"I didn't really see through it, but it is related to why I can see Doro and other spirits. It's part of my inherent power," Mai replied. "After the Change Ghost and the return of the Doppelganger, I trained myself to tell people's auras apart by the way they feel. Hikari, Saya, and Sabi have also been taught the skill. We use it to make sure that we are dealing with the right people. It was that sense that got through the field. It does tend to work with my vision and allows me to see things that are invisible."
"Change Ghost? Doppelganger?" Usagi asked.
"The Change Ghost is a spirit that can take the form of any person it has met. After transforming, it can use any attack that that person has. The only problem it has is the transformed form has some chromatic differences," Saya answered.
"Huh?" Usagi said.
Saya replied, "When it took Mai's form, the skirt on the Makendo outfit was green and the chest-plate yellow as well as having red hair."
The Sailor Senshi flinched at the thought of something like that.
"What about the Doppelganger?" Usagi asked.
Mai flinched a bit and looked out a window. "It's a painful subject for me. It looks just like me and has a lot of my abilities."
"Clone?" Ami asked.
Mai sighed, as her eyes lost focus. "Something like that, but not quite. It was created about a day after I first became a Makendo. My enemies at the time had acquired a strand of my hair and started growing the Doppelganger. However, they made some changes to the DNA. The carbon was replaced by titanium and that caused some other changes through it. After the body was complete, they made some adjustments to the mind of it and some alterations to its powers."
Rei frowned. "What sort of changes. Why do keep referring to this clone as an it?"
"It's not really a clone and it is more like a robot than anything else. The mind of it has several standard responses. It's not self aware, it just is. It creeps me out at how well it fights, but then I recall fighting games and realize it's using the same sort of cheat tactic that some fighting game AI's use."
"Cheat tactics?" Usagi asked.
Mai nodded. "Let's take Street Fighter II. If the computer is controlling Guile, he can pull off jumping flash kicks and quick counters do what a player is doing. Part of that is the computer's AI is receiving instructions from the player's controller as well and is using the preprogrammed response to counter the move. It makes the game seem like it is fighting intelligently, but it's not. The Doppelganger has something like that. From a distance, it can feel the nerve impulses going through a person's body and use pre-programmed moves to counter them. Hikari had to face it and she left the inert form of it just lie on the ground. It always felt like a vacuum cleaner being pointed at me"
"You still haven't told us why you keep referring to the Doppelganger as an it," Naru said.
"If someone made something like that of you, would you want to call it a her?" Mai countered.
Naru grimaced, as she thought about it. "Well, no."
Mai changed the subject. "So, let's hear how you all became Sailor Senshi and we'll tell you how we became Makendo."
The girls sat down and exchanged stories. As Naru listened, she felt a bit left out and idly traced a pattern on the floor. Seeing her pensive mood, Usagi looked at her friend with some concern.
"Naru, what's wrong?"
"All of you have this magical girl thing in common. I'm just feeling left out," Naru said morosely.
"Doro-san?" Hikari asked.
Doro shook his head. "She has a lot of power in her, but it's not Makendo power and it's not Sailor Senshi power. I'll have to see if there is anything else that she might be able to use."
Ami frowned, as she looked up at the hovering Doro. "How were you able to tell that?"
"That? Magical signatures. A Makendo's magical signature is quite different than a Sailor Senshi. Come on, I'm a detective spirit."
Naru looked at Mai. "I wish I was like you. You are so confident in battle and dealing with stuff like this. You were able to heal me and fight."
Mai shrugged. "Just practice with my Makendo abilities. I'm surprised that the Sailor Senshi can't do more. They have a much bigger pool of magic than I have."
Luna frowned at what Mai had said.
"That raises a very good point," Luna said. "The Sailor Senshi can be stronger, but they don't know how."
"Don't look at us for training. The Makendo power is a combination of ki and magic, but tends to rely on the ki more," Saya said. "Your power seems to be more tilted to the magic side of things. Martial Arts will only help so far with that."
"If Martial Arts only helps so far with magic, what does help?" Ami asked, with a brow furrowed in thought.
"Imagination and belief," Hikari replied. "Knowledge helps and pushes magic along, but without imagination backing it up, it doesn't help all that much. You just have to practice hard with imagination."
"Practice with imagination?" Rei asked in disbelief. "That's silly."
"It's a lot harder than it sounds," Mai said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Part of it is getting a lot of different sources of inspiration. You also have to maintain a sense of wonder in the world. Hikari and myself have some trouble with it. Saya has the strongest magic of the three of us, since she does a lot of doujinshi drawing. You can't keep using the same old daydreams, you have to keep coming up with new ones."
"At first glance, schoolwork doesn't seem to help, but it does provide a lot of different source of inspiration," Saya added.
"What about belief?" Naru asked.
"Can you read English?" Mai asked.
Naru nodded and Mai handed her a bookmark. The bookmark had a picture of a unicorn standing in front of a forest.
"Some things need to be believed before they can be seen," Naru said, as she read the English words on the bookmark.
Mai took the bookmark back and tapped Naru on the nose with it. "You want to be a magical girl, so you can help out. Just believe in it strong enough and it will happen. That's magic: imagination, belief, and a sense of wonder."
The Sailor Senshi thought in silence about what they had just heard. After a bit, Mai steered the topic back to the various adventures each group of magical girls had.
Naru finally asked a question. "Mai, have you ever met Sailor V?"
"No, and I really don't want to," Mai said.
"Why not?" Usagi asked, a bit shocked.
"Hmm. Good question. It was a comment in a paper about police not being able to do their jobs properly and had to rely on her. Considering that I am a police officer of sorts..." Mai's voice trailed off.
"Oh."
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(Posted Sun, 30 Apr 2006 23:57)
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