Maximum Efficiency Magic (OC Dronification)

Chihaya, brainwashed by some unknown villain, starts reforming the MGA to ensure that peace is kept. How? By making Magical Girls into Magical Girl Units (drones). Hikari's mom Yoko discovers the first stages of this and ends up converted into Magical Girl Unit Zero.

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Yoko Himura wasn’t one to worry, really. When she was younger, she and all her friends pretty much constantly threw themselves into danger; if she’d worried about them all the time, she’d have gone grey in her late teens. Nowadays her daughter and her daughters friends were much the same, and still she kept her calm. If she worried about her daughter whenever she went off to danger, she’d have already had a heart attack and died.

But Chihaya wasn’t someone who lived a dangerous life. There was no reason that her close friend shouldn’t be picking up her calls; she was often busy, yes. Being the head of an organization as important as the Magical Girl Association would do that. But she made time for her friends usually - and they hadn’t spoken since meeting for dinner last week.

On its own, fine. Maybe there was some big villain stuff Yoko didn’t know about; things had been hectic over in the MGA with recent incidents. But Chihaya hadn’t called ahead, and would not pick up the phone. Her secretary claimed not to know where she was, besides that she’d greeted her coming in the previous morning and hadn’t seen her leave. This was not normal.

She’d retired from the Magical Girl business years ago, but Yoko was pretty much the same person she had been then. And considering how the power of friendship crap is so important to Magical Girls, she didn’t think twice about sneaking into the MGA to find her friend.

The building was probably more secure than your average head of state’s home. Being the foremost leaders in magical technology and spellcasting research would do that for you, covering the place in wards, barriers, magic alarms, defense constructs, and so on. The problem was that those magical defenses only really worked if you weren’t meant to be there. Yoko was a frequent enough guest that the wards had been made to recognize her; she simply walked in the back door.

She tried to keep quiet when she walked inside. The magical defenses didn’t consider her an intruder, but the more mundane ones could well question why someone who wasn’t technically a staff member was inside so late at night.

She paused at the main stairwell and elevator bank, frowning. Where was she planning to go, even? Her only lead was that some people had seen her enter the building, and nobody had seen her leave it.

“Well… probably not her office, or her secretary would have seen her. Maybe…” she muttered. The elevators would be too noisy, so she took the stairs instead; going down, instead of up.

The basement levels contained live-fire training facilities for the Magical Girls (literally live-fire, in some cases), the holding cells for long-term prisoners, and some vaults for hazardous materials and artifacts confiscated from villains. She wasn’t sure what exactly might bring Chihaya down there, but if she hadn’t left the building and wasn’t anywhere upstairs, then it was the only area that made sense.

Yoko was beginning to wonder if she was just wasting time as she walked through one training room (her daughter had been there sometime recently, she could tell; nobody else left that much debris and rubble), when she heard something further ahead. Moving swiftly and near silently, she crept towards the sound.

They were in the antechamber that came before the vault proper; usually, it would be staffed with guards, a couple lower ranking magical girls along with a few mundane officers. There was none of that to be seen that day. But Yoko seemed to have found Chihaya.

The woman seemed almost normal at a glance. Same brown hair in a tight, professional ponytail, The same fancy business suit as always. If appearance was all Yoko had to go on, she might have thought Chihaya was normal and had just gotten wrapped up in her work after all.

Two things put that notion down. The first was the wand she was holding, crackling with pink lightning as magic filled it. Yoko recognized it; it was an item confiscated from a villain recently, one that Hikari had taken down. The light lit her face from below in a sinister fashion, not helped by the slightly disconcerting grin she wore.

The second and perhaps more blatant thing was the people she was surrounded with. Three young women, off duty magical girls if Yoko guessed right. They were in a daze, swaying on their feet with glassy eyes and vacant expressions. They each bore some kind of pink collar around their necks.

As Yoko watched, Chihaya was speaking to one. “Low performers like yourselves need to be rehabilitated,” she said. “I’ve been a very patient woman. I’ve given you all the chances you could ask for, and yet you fail again and again and again. Girls like you are why I’m going to be making a few changes around here.”

The girls nodded dumbly, accepting the abuse without a complaint.

Yoko ducked behind the doorway. That didn’t seem right. Chihaya was a bit intimidating, but while she certainly looked like a textbook business bitch, she was really a caring woman underneath and went out of her way to help her Magical Girls; this wasn’t like her. Yoko didn’t need to hear more of this ‘rousing speech’ to glean that her friend wasn’t herself at the moment, and likely had little control of her own actions.

The retired Magical Girl paused, trying to think what she could do; she had no powers of her own anymore, but perhaps if she could get at the woman’s staff, she could force her back to her senses. Alternatively, she could run off to get help from Hikari, Akemi, and other magical girls, but risk letting Chihaya build up a force of mind-controlled magical girls.

The choice was soon made for her. When she peeked out again, all of the girls were looking her way; of course, their magically enhanced senses would have detected her. “Do we have a rat peeking in?” Chihaya said. “Come out; I’ve already remotely locked the entrance, so you may as well give up.”

Yoko swore under her breath. She let the girls get closer, including Chihaya, crouching and readying herself.

When they got to the doorway, she went off like a shot, bolting forward. The Magical Girls, in their docile state, didn’t react fast enough to interfere. Chihaya shot a bolt of magic towards Yoko, but she ducked under the blast and followed through into a tackle.

“Sorry about this!” Yoko shouted, as the two women toppled over. They struggled with each other on the ground for several seconds, before Yoko wrenched away the wand and scrambled to her feet. “Alright, that’s taken care of, now go back to normal-” Yoko started.

“Return that.” Chihaya commanded. Yoko was going to refuse, but instead, she found herself walking towards her, and then handing it back.

“What…?” Yoko said, frowning with confusion, before putting a hand to her neck and realizing what had happened. While they’d struggled, Chihaya had managed to push one of the collars onto her neck.

“We have many wondrous toys down here,” Chihaya said with a smug smirk, “Villains just don’t know how to use them properly.” She spun the wand in her hand a bit. “I’m so glad you came, Yoko! I could use an experienced lady like you to help me rework the MGA.”

Yoko tried to pull off the collar, but it was no use. It wasn’t so much that it was particularly secure, as that when she reached for it and tugged, all the strength left her hands; she couldn’t will herself to remove it. “What got into you, Chihaya? Which villain’s got you wrapped around their finger?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing so dramatic. I simply had a pleasant chat with a concerned citizen, who brought up some concerns about the inefficiency of the MGA.” Chihaya said. “I’m rectifying that.”

Yoko rolled her eyes. “They got you on the walk home then, verbal mind control… probably had a bit too much to drink, if your guard was down that much.”

Chihaya scoffed. “It doesn’t matter what you think. Soon you won’t be doing much of that at all; I’ve found that letting the girls think for themselves, while nice for PR, is atrocious for getting the job done.”

Yoko kept trying to struggle out of the collar, as Chihaya raised the wand. “Your daughter helped with this, you know. A villain she defeated lately attempted to absorb her power, but found it too much to handle.” she said. “She overloaded herself, but when we took her in, her wand was still quite intact - and filled with Hikari’s magic. I’d heard of her doing certain things by accident with impressive results. So why not try it on purpose?”

The restrained woman frankly had no idea what she was on about; Hikari was incredibly powerful, but she was hardly a spellcaster with much in the way of finesse. What could she be meaning to do with Hikari’s power besides blow a hole in a wall?

That didn’t seem to be a problem to the brainwashed Chihaya, however. She raised the wand and leveled it at Yoko, before letting the power loose.

Yoko winced, preparing to be blown away by the blast, but something else happened instead. This wasn’t the blast of pure magic and property damage that Hikari favored, but more of a wave of pink light washing over Yoko’s body.

The woman’s clothes shifted and changed. She normally wore casual stuff, the kind of things that one could easily move in and wouldn’t get in the way. That changed as the magic hit her, white tank-top gaining some red shading as it shifted to a bright flowery pink color, and started to shift in material. Simple fabrics became fancy silks, as the tank top expanded both to gain (very puffy and frilled) shoulders and sleeves, and to gain ruffles and frills all along the hem and neckline.

The next step was her pants. The simple blue jeans seemed to fuse, the legs becoming one as the lower garment turned from pants to a skirt. Yoko felt a bit of a chill as her new skirt rose up to barely cover her thighs, even as they turned to the same fancy material as her new blouse.

The new skirt was accompanied by high stockings - these at least, were white, rather than pink - and a shift of her sneakers into high heels. White gloves formed on her hands, riding up to her elbows.

Of course, the changes didn’t end at the physical level. Yoko felt another change. She felt power. Magical power, filling her body in a way she hadn’t felt since she was a magical girl herself - in fact, maybe even a bit better than that. She had an urge to go out and fight evil in the name of justice. That second part wasn’t really a change, admittedly, she’d never really grown out of the hero complex. But she realized she couldn’t think of what justice was anymore, good or evil, beyond what Chihaya declared it to be.

The light faded, and Chihaya smirked at what was left remaining. It was Yoko still, of course, but now she was wearing a pink and frilly magical girl outfit - the very image of a Magical Girl, if a bit older and sexier than most of them! “How’s it feel to have power again~? Turns out, your daughter has so much, she can share it around~”

“It feels… weird… I don’t think...” Yoko muttered. She should take that chance and blast Chihaya unconscious and figure out how to fix her. But the very idea sickened her, and she couldn’t even begin to contemplate it.

“I’m not quite as naturally talented at these things as your daughter evidently is… don’t worry, Yoko. You won’t have to think anymore. You just have to fight evil and let your caring Mistress do all the thinking for you.” Chihaya said. One of the collared girls provided Chihaya with a blank-faced mask, with the numbers 00 stenciled on it.

Yoko found herself unable to move as Chihaya approached, and as the mask slid over her face. Yoko gasped, a shock running through her mind.

She didn’t need to think. Mistress would do that for her. Mistress didn’t simply know what good was, what justice was. Mistress was justice. And she was her tool to carry it out. She didn’t need to have a name, or an identity. She didn’t need to remember anything. She just had to be a heroine of justice for Mistress.

Chihaya withdrew with a smile. “Magical Girl Unit 00, are you done resisting?” she asked.

“I would never resist Mistress!” The drone said. Her voice was altered by the mask, made light and cutesy, more like a real Magical Girl’s. She had ceased to be Yoko Himura - she was now Magical Girl Unit 00, a loyal, efficient, and productive subordinate.

“Excellent. Now, why don’t you help me get your juniors into proper uniforms? You all must be perfect when I unveil our new developments~”

“Yes, Mistress!”