Samuel tried to answer the questions as best as he could, although it was more out of a sense of self-preservation than obedience.
The room was silent save for the rhythmic whop of the ceiling fan and the scratching of pencils. The past few days had seemed like a bad dream, but now more than ever a strange sense of unreality sat in his mind. He gazed at his sloppy signature at the bottom of the form, and then found himself doodling a tiny, smiling shooting star on the end of it.
He blinked, baffled by his own actions.
"What the fuck..." he murmured under his breath. What the hell was wrong with him?
Not noticing the strange, faint buzz that was beginning to fill the room, he rubbed his temples and watched as the other inmates finished their questionnaires. Was there really no way out of this godforsaken hellhole? It made him sick to imagine what the prison had in store for him. No more freedom, no more friends, no more fun...no more Warriors. A new life as a freaky, brainwashed little girl with no independence or dignity. Christ, and they thought -he- was the bad guy?
"Right, then!" declared Mirror Mira, snapping him out of his ruminations. "Now that you're all done, let's move on to the next item on our schedule!"
In her tiny hand she brandished all the inmate's questionnaires. Samuel's face went deep red: she had snatched his form while he was lost in thought! He hadn't gotten a chance to erase that fucking stupid little shooting star!
Mirror Mira paced up to the whiteboard and used her staff to roll down a projector screen from up top. "We have a short film to show you--I'm sure you're all very excited about becoming part of the International League of Magical Girls, so this might answer some of your questions!"
The lights dimmed, and with a mechanical whirr a flickering black-and-white image appeared on the screen. It showed a cartoonish heart surrounded by a circle of small stars, with a crossed pair of magical wands in the background. "I.L.M.G.: Standing For Love and Justice Across the Earth!" proclaimed the white cursive lettering underneath the logo. Cheesy swing music blared, and for the first time in a long while Samuel found himself snickering. It looked like a crappy Cold-War-era propaganda piece.
"Cut that out," Mira commanded, bonking him on the head lightly with her staff. Samuel bit his tongue and watched as the movie cut to a shot of a handsome man in a double-breasted suit leaning against a heavy wooden desk.
"Hello there!" he smiled, his voice distorted and tinny. "I'm Mortimer Vates, Lieutenant-Overseer of the American branch of the International League of Magical Girls. As a new inductee, you might be wondering how our organization began. Well, listen close, and don't tell it to anyone else! It's a story for you, and you alone!"
"It all started in a Japanese city called Toyonaka," he explained as grainy stock footage of a Japanese village began to play. "On January 15th, 1950, a small meteor impacted near one of the city's elementary schools." The footage transitioned to rotating display showcasing several boomerang-shaped stones.
"The meteorite fragments were discovered by a group of three schoolgirls, who decided to take them home. In the weeks that followed, rumors spread about a trio of 'Miracle Girls.' The stories grew more and more fantastic, with accounts of the Miracle Girls healing the sick and expelling evil spirits. Since our good old boys in uniform were occupying Japan at the time, eventually even the U.S. military launched a secret little investigation."
"What they found was amazing: the pieces of the meteorite had given the schoolgirls powers right out of superhero comic books! Using the stones, they could transform at any time from this," he said as the film showed a photo of three smiling Japanese girls in unassuming dresses, "to this!"
The picture transitioned to an image of the three girls again, but now dressed in exaggerated shrine maiden outfits and wielding wands that glowed with light. Their bodies looked unchanged, but Samuel couldn't help but be impressed by how heroic they suddenly seemed. All three stood in aggressive fighting poses, with confident smirks on their faces as they faced down an off-camera foe.
"In this picture they're preparing to fight an Embryonic-class Shattered One--which was quite a discovery in itself--but we'll leave those fellows for the next film," Vates said, winking and smiling in a plastic way that sent a chill down Samuel's spine. "After all, it's at this point in the story that the very Director-General of the League got involved! Isn't that right, Annie?" he said, saluting a small blonde girl wearing a pseudo-military outfit that looked like a Girl Scout's uniform.
"That's right!" said the girl in a voice so squeaky it would've made Shirley Temple roll her eyes. "I'm Director-General Annie Swanson, also known as 'Atomic Annie!' When I found the Miracle Girls, I had to convince them to share their powers with America."
She held up a framed picture of a stern-looking military man in an officer's cap and an immaculate dress uniform. "And in a way that surprised me at first, they did! Would you believe this is a picture of me from ten years ago? I used to be Major Andrew Swanson of the U.S. Army, but shortly after the Miracle Girls gave me a chunk of the meteorite...I started to change."
"Now I'm Atomic Annie, proud upholder of love and justice!" she beamed, holding up a photo of her posing alongside the Miracle Girls. "But I didn't just -look- different. I started to see things differently, too. My bosses cared too much about East versus West; communist versus capitalist. I decided that each and every nation on the Earth deserved to have the power of the Miracle Girls. That way, we could all stand side by side in our fight against evildoers! And plus, I could find a bunch of new friends that way, too!"