"Okay. So cardinal directions and up and down. There's so many ways a monster can shapeshift, unfortunately, I'm not sure how to cut that down to something you can spit out under stress that we'll understand right."

"Might be a job for lots of practice." She looks at the illusionist. "Do you want to maybe do an illusion of a monster doing a bunch of stuff, and I'll call it in advance, and everyone else can decide if I'm making any sense?"

"Yeah, sure," says the illusionist, and her monster target grows teeth and wings and flies up, preparing to extend a neck to bite Vanessa.

She calls out "flying", "stretch", and "Vanessa" in quick succession.

Vanessa ducks, but not in a useful direction. The illusion monster closes its jaws on her head.

"Hmmm, looks like it would help if I told you which direction to dodge. If I said "Vanessa, left" would that be clear as meaning "Vanessa, I recommend you go left" as opposed to "the monster is going for Vanessa and then left"? Since we'd be using cardinal directions for the monster?"

"Yeah, I think that works because left is relative to individuals."

"Let's try again, then."

The illusionist recalls the monster, then has it dart between Susan and Caroline, intending to bite Caroline from behind.

"South! Caroline, right!"

Caroline dives right, breaking her fall with an invisible shield; she dismisses it and erects a new one between her and the monster. The monster misses her and the illusionist - doesn't know the shield is there, so the monster goes through, but. "That would have worked on a solid monster," Caroline says.

"Nice one! I bet we can get really good at this with enough practice."

"I bet!" agrees Vanessa. "Darlene, how long do we have you for?"

"All day," says Darlene-apparently, "but some people think I'm predictable if they keep practicing with me too long in a row."

"Well, as long as it's Margaret you're predictable to. Let's get three dimensions going on here." She takes off. Susan identifies north for Margaret as Caroline takes to the air, too.

Margaret also gets airborne, since that's where she'd be in a real fight, and yells names and directions and "grow" and "shrink" and "spin" and "tentacle" and suchlike.

And with enough practice they get pretty good at obeying her directions and using her warnings!

It's pretty awesome how willing they are to take her advice, even magically enhanced advice, when she's so new to fighting. She gets better at saying the right thing as quickly and comprehensibly as possible, while also dodging the illusion-monster whenever it goes for her. By the end of the day her voice is going to be extremely hoarse.

They can call it a day when shouting gets difficult and they're all tired. There are couches inside the building for flopping on, and a vending machine with cold drinks.

Margaret gets a bottle of water and downs half of it in one go, then flops on a couch. "That was awesome," she croaks, "but I don't know if my throat or my wings are more wrecked."

"You'll get more used to lots of flying with practice," says Vanessa.

"Yup. Say, is it allowed to fly alongside the truck sometimes during patrols? Or do we need to stay in it?"

"We can fly it towards the end of the shift. You don't want to get tired out in hour three. Since you can leave whenever you want, if you feel like it you can fly the whole time."

"Logical. I can start about an hour before I plan to leave, then, and if nothing happens I get in an hour of flying a day."

"Sounds good," says Vanessa. "I usually fly the last two but I've been at it longer than you."

"Practice makes perfect." She drains the rest of her water and unflops slightly. "I will definitely get off this couch and go home any minute now and not accidentally fall asleep here for several hours."

"You're allowed to fall asleep here if you gotta," says Caroline.