It was exhilarating.
Ami landed on the rooftop of a multistory building, alighting seamlessly into a dead sprint. The impracticality of parkour in heels did nothing to disturb her balance; her boots clacked across the ground beneath her like the keys of a typewriter. The chance that she might twist an ankle or trip felt as distant to her as her own mortality.
The transformation had enveloped her like an ocean wave, cold but invigorating, washing away her school uniform like grime. She'd emerged wearing a costume like a blue palette swap of Usagi's own: blue knee boots, blue ribbons, blue trim on her elbow gloves and a blue gem in her tiara, all the same blue as Ami's eyes and hair.
Usagi ran ahead of her, carrying Luna on her shoulder. Ami was to keep following them. They were headed for someplace secluded, Usagi had told her, where Ami could practice using her powers.
I have powers, Ami thought. The notion made her giddy.
Ami did a somersault as she leapt to the next rooftop, front-flipping off of an HVAC duct that cut across her path. She saw Usagi cast occasional glances behind her, making sure that Ami was keeping pace, and Ami marveled that Usagi could leap tall buildings without needing to see where she was going.
She still had so many questions: What were their powers? What were their responsibilities? Who, if anyone, would they fight? Did they need to keep their identities secret? From whom?
Are there others like me?
Usagi jumped and grabbed a mast antenna with both hands, her momentum swinging her hard right off the side of the building and into a fenced courtyard. Ami copied the motion, feeling her hair billow up and behind her as she fell. She hit the ground kneeling on one knee, one hand braced on the pavement in front of her.
She felt like a proper superhero.
Usagi had landed less flamboyantly, settling on both feet, cushioning the impact by bending her knees. Luna jumped off of Usagi's shoulder and scampered onto a bench a few yards away.
"Had fun, Sailor Mercury?" Usagi asked. Her smile was easy and genuine, compared to before.
Ami nodded, grinning. Her hair had settled back into its usual hairstyle, immaculate, looking exactly as hair wouldn't look after several minutes in a thirty-mile-an-hour wind. She wanted to shout, 'That was awesome!', but was afraid that was something that an annoying kid sidekick would say. She hadn't seen herself parkouring from the perspective of an onlooker, but she knew that she'd managed to look cool. She was determined not to spoil that image.
"Good," said Usagi. She looked around. They were in a small square courtyard, enclosed on two sides by two narrow office buildings and on the other two by high brick walls.
Ami perceived that it was dark, dark enough that a normal person would reach for their phone's flashlight, but found that she had no trouble seeing. It was late enough that there were no pedestrians about, and Ami had seen traffic ease to nearly nothing the further they'd traveled. Ami had only spotted one vehicle after crossing into this city block: A taxi driving on the right side of the road, as they do in Japan.
"This space should confine the effects of your powers, Ami," said Luna. "And you won't break anything, so you needn't fear property damage."
"That's a concern?" Ami asked. She worried that the question would make her look cavalier (a 'loose cannon', she thought, with a mental eye-roll), but decided that it was worth asking regardless.
"Not usually." Usagi said, then added, "I mean, within reason, we don't want to cause more damage than the youma we fight."
"But there are few consequences if you do, if any," added Luna. "Everyone knows that the police never do anything."
Ami nodded. This was common knowledge.
"We fight monsters?" Ami asked.
Usagi nodded. "We'll talk about that more later."
A chill breeze blew through the courtyard.
"There won't be much to cover. I hope you won't get mad that we brought you all the way out here," said Usagi, rubbing the nape of her neck. She spoke like a parent tamping down the expectations of a birthday child. She seemed to be worrying again.
"Oh, don't worry. I had fun just coming here," Ami said, smiling and oblivious. The humiliation of her induction was a distant memory.
Usagi nodded, still looking nervous.
Luna sat back on her haunches and cleared her throat. "There is much for you to learn about magic, both of you. More than you could comprehend, and much more than can be readily taught to you. You should think of tonight as a prelude to bigger and grander things."
"I understand," said Ami, still smiling dumbly. She had a real Mentor Mascot now, and it was a talking cat.
"Before we continue, we should establish the depth of your background knowledge. Expertise that you've obtained in your past civilian life is transferable to being a Sailor Scout, and will be of great value to you."
Ami nodded. She'd expected as much. The basic premise of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality was that Harry had grown up learning advanced science before being accepted into wizarding school, and several story arcs revolved around him applying Muggle scientific knowledge to the study of magic.
Ami thought back to cram school with trepidation. She'd been a star student, at times the number one student in all of Japan, but most of what she'd learned had no practical application to something like fighting magical monsters. Luna might ask something deeply esoteric, something beyond the scope of what Ami had studied, like advanced theoretical physics, and Ami feared admitting that she didn't know the answer.
"Have you read," Luna cocked her head, then said in low tones, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality?"
Ami blinked a few times. "Yes," she answered. "Several times."
"Do you remember what that Harry Potter fanfiction said about dangerous magic? About gates that you do not open and seals that you do not breach, until you have proven yourself by first surviving lesser perils of search and discovery?"
"Yes." Ami's mind registered that a magical talking cat was questioning her about her knowledge of Harry Potter fanfiction. She looked at Usagi, who had an air of confused helplessness about her.
Usagi shrugged. "Luna had me read it, too, after she told me that I was Sailor Moon."
"Oh, cool," said Ami. "Uh, did you like it?"
"Yeah, it was alright, I guess," said Usagi, looking unsure of herself.
"There is important wisdom in that Harry Potter fanfiction, Sailor Mercury," Luna said. She spoke robotically, as if doing a bad line reading. "That in particular. Understand that what you learn tonight is a tiny fraction of a greater whole, a blade of grass waving in a vast prairie. There will be more than this, but terrible things will befall you and those you love, if you seek those secrets before you are truly ready."
"I understand," said Ami. That was exciting. So she'd eventually learn terrible dread powers that would rive the Earth asunder, but only after she proved herself worthy, whatever that entailed.
"Good. Now, it is time for you to learn your first attack. It is called," Luna paused, "Bubble Spray."
Ami blinked. That didn't sound very exciting. "Okay. Uh, what does it do?"
"You should have an instinctive knowledge of how to cast that spell. Try it."
Ami thought for a moment. She did already know how to cast it, she realized, on the same unconscious level as muscle memory.
"Is there anything here that I should aim for? Like, should I aim away from you and Usagi?"
"Away from myself and Sailor Moon," Luna corrected. "And no, it doesn't matter."
Ami blinked rapidly. "Are– Are you sure? Would you be in any danger?"
"No," said Luna.
"Usa– Sailor Moon, are you okay with this?"
Usagi nodded tightly. "Go for it, Ami-chan!" she said, with forced cheer.
Ami turned around, deciding to aim at the side of one of the office buildings. That seemed like the safer course of action, given that she would be performing a magical attack that she didn't understand for the very first time. 'Aim away from what you don't want dead' was good as a general rule for those cases.
Ami cupped her hands together, and the gap between them swelled with a ball of blue light. Ami gasped. She felt light on her feet, and a tingling euphoria. She'd never taken drugs before, but she imagined that being high would feel something like this.
She separated her hands. The light drifted away from her. She crossed her arms, and the ball of light grew larger and brighter.
"Mercury Bubble Blast!" she felt herself shout, as she flung her arms away from her torso.
The ball erupted into a coruscating stream of bubbles that surged toward the far wall like the spray of a firehose. The brickwork vanished behind a white cloud that spread to fill the courtyard. Ami felt cool, moist air rush over her bare skin.
Ami glanced back to see Usagi and Luna's reactions, but found that she couldn't see them. The courtyard was now filled with a dense fog.
"Okay," said Ami. "Did I do it right?"
"Yes. That was marvelous, Sailor Mercury," said Luna's voice, flatly.
"Great job, Am– Sailor Mercury!" said Usagi.
"Okay," said Ami. Then, "I can't see either of you through this fog."
"You are attuned to water, Sailor Mercury. You should be able to sense us through the fog's moisture."
Ami concentrated. She felt the contours of the space around her, the shape of the bench and the ground they stood upon. She knew, a sixth sense told her, that there were two living beings in the fog besides herself, right where she remembered Usagi and Luna to be standing.
"I'm going to walk around now, Ami," said Luna.
Ami sensed the smaller being hop down a short distance, then move several yards to her right.
"Okay, I can sense you. You're over-" Ami realized that Luna wouldn't be able to see her pointing. She turned toward where Luna was standing and said, loudly, "There. You're over there."
"Good," said Luna.
There was silence.
"Luna, can Usagi sense where you and I are?"
A pause. "No," said Usagi's voice. "I can't see anything."
More silence.
"Do I have any other attacks?"
"No," said Luna.
"It's useful outside of battle," Usagi said. "Like, imagine if it's really hot outside. You can use it to cool off."
Ami said nothing, staring at her shoes. She saw a pebble near her left foot, and kicked it.
"The only attack that I have is throwing my tiara," Usagi offered.
"But it's a magical tiara, right? It'll hurt monsters more than a dense fog."
Usagi hesitated. Ami sighed.
They had parkoured to a halfway point between Ami and Usagi's house, where they would each rest before returning home. They'd settled on a bench outside a closed supermarket, having transformed back into civilian clothes, with Luna curling up in Usagi's lap, apparently to sleep. A poster behind them advertised the store's wares. Like every supermarket in Japan, it sold three products: instant ramen, sushi rice, and the Nintendo Wii.
The parkour had done little to lift Ami's spirits. She had moved in a daze, hardly noticing the wind around her or the rooftop rushing beneath her feet.
She and Usagi did have 'scouters', Luna had explained, which were retractable goggles that they could each deploy by tapping a stud earring on their right ear. A magical brain-computer interface would tap into Ami's sixth sense and relay people's positions to Usagi's scouter, which would superimpose those data onto Usagi's field of view. Ami could see the utility of it, but she still couldn't shake the sense that the universe was playing a joke on her, again. She had become a superhero, and her only power was 'bubble spray'.
Well, that, plus superpowered parkour. And a 'pocket supercomputer' that Luna had said was made of 'weapons-grade Nintendium', but which didn't seem any more powerful than her smartphone. Ami felt that she was being ungrateful, but her expectations had been dashed too many times, and she couldn't will herself into a better mood. She'd sleep on it and hopefully feel less aggrieved in the morning.
That was the other thing. Becoming a Sailor Scout largely obviated your need to sleep, though Luna had encouraged her to follow a normal sleep schedule as much as possible. Ami didn't think she would. She expected that she would be using the time to think.
"I am sorry about earlier," said Usagi. "I did just want to show you that I was Sailor Moon, without dragging things out."
"Why didn't you?" said Ami.
Usagi glanced down. Luna shifted in her lap, using one of her paws as a pillow. "Luna could explain this better than I could, but you wouldn't have awoken as Sailor Mercury if we had. Your Sailor Crystal – I'm not sure exactly what that is, but it's the source of your powers – it only activates when its bearer grows as a person. Humiliating you and then making you admit that you were wrong about something was our simplest idea, the easiest thing that the Sailor Crystal might have recognized as growth. It wouldn't have worked if we'd told you that was what we were doing."
"That was the simplest idea?" Ami turned to face Usagi. "What would you have tried next, if that hadn't worked?"
"We would have lured you into being attacked by a monster," said Usagi. "In hopes that you would panic, and ask me to rescue you."
"That's quite an escalation." Ami let out a slow breath. She couldn't picture what a monster attack looked like, since she'd never seen one, but she could assume that it was terrifying. She felt grateful that she'd managed to lose to Usagi and Luna. She didn't know how she'd react to meeting a monster as Sailor Mercury, but it must be easier than doing so as a helpless civilian. "That's why you were so nervous, because you were afraid that that's what you would have to do?"
Usagi nodded. "It seemed really cruel. That's why I was so glad that the first thing worked. Part of the reason, anyway."
"Part of the reason?"
"The other reason is just what you'd expect. I get scared when I fight youma." Usagi stared across the street, seeming to be looking at nothing in particular. "I was scared that I'd have to go through that again, while dragging in a friend who I knew wouldn't be able to protect herself."
Again, Ami felt the twinge of humiliation, that sense of smallness. "You've already fought youma before you recruited me?"
Usagi nodded, her lips pressed into a thin line. Ami waited for her to elaborate, but no further answer was forthcoming.
"I guess that's what Luna meant when she said that I'd have to prove myself before I could learn more powerful magic. Growing as a person," Ami said. "I guess that means that I have to learn to be okay with being kind of useless."
"You're being really hard on yourself, Ami," Usagi chided. "You can make a smokescreen that we can see through, but monsters can't." Usagi tapped her earlobe.
"I know. It's just," Ami sighed. "I don't feel like a real magical girl when I'm basically just a glorified smoke machine. Nanoha has her Intelligent Device, Yuki Yuna has her gauntlets, Mami Tomoe has her muskets." Ami stopped. "I wonder if I could just carry guns around, like Homura Akemi."
"We're not in America, Ami," said Usagi, with a sad smile.
A pause.
"All my life, I've had people tell me that I was special," Ami said.
"The girl genius of Juban," Usagi said, with light irony. "Top-ranked student in all of Japan."
Ami smiled wanly. "The world just feels so empty. So lifeless and so pointless, like nothing happens for any reason, like the answer to 'why' is always 'just because'. I spend every day studying things that I don't think I'll ever use, so that I can get a job someone else can do just as well. Then this comes along," Ami waved a hand, "and I think, here's something that counts. Here's something that I can do that other people can't. I'm a magical girl. I can fight to save lives and protect the innocent. And the only power I get, at least until I study more, is 'bubble spray'." Ami let her head thud back against the store window, staring up at the moon. "I feel like the universe is telling me something, and it's telling me that I don't matter. That nothing matters."
"What if you're right?" Usagi asked, her expression concerned. "What if it is all pointless, and everything is just a bad imitation of an original that no longer exists? Would you still fight for it?"
Ami thought. She felt indifferent, and that confused her. "I don't know," she said, as Usagi frowned. "I don't know. I think that being a hero is what excites me, and if that turns out to be lame, then the answer is that I don't really care what happens?" Now Ami was frowning too. "Something might be wrong with me."
"Ami, I really think that you're fixating too much on the negatives here," said Usagi. "You're a superhero. You have magic. We're going to work together to fight youma and keep innocent people safe. So what if you're not the one who gets to land the killing blow?"
Ami watched a jet pass overhead, white contrails tracing its path across the sky. "But right now, I can't be that person, even if I want to be. You're that person, and I'm just in the background playing happy helper."
"Does it really mean that much to you?" Usagi asked, with a note of pleading.
Ami sighed. "It does. I don't know why, because it shouldn't, but it does."
The moon shone bright in the night sky.