She'll go back to...hm, actually, probably ought to go to the gym, but she will go to the library and look up some common monster-fighting tactics, first; she wants to start developing something useful.

Oh, and when do the facilities open in the morning?

Gym at six, library at nine. She'll need to sign in at the front desk with her new ID.

Intern is going to leave after escorting her to the library, then! The librarian's desk is empty, now.

"Thank you; safe travels.  Sorry for the inconvenience."

Alright, she's looking for common anti-monster tactics...

Anti-Monster Tactics and Risk versus Reward by one Steel Helm is still available.

The preface reads thusly:

From the beginning, Humanity has had to contend with many dangers. The hard facts of life, climate, thirst and hunger. Nature spirits and their disdain for anything that encroaches upon them. The unfathomable clash of titans as large systems outside our control move into one another to create an earthquake, a blizzard, or a volcano. Each other, with conflict and war following humanity wherever we go, from the Romans' conquests to the Great War that ended less than a century ago in 1922 (may it never repeat). But most of all: The great enemy, a dark mirror, forever plaguing humanity and likely never to be truly abolished.

Monsters. 

cities creep along the rivers like mold
factories drink greedily, tainting and spilling
whole new worlds built on earth's thin skin
full of prosperity, love, comfort, joy and art
the parasite should be careful not to kill the host

The nature of spirit bearers is to war against monsters. Take this truth into your heart and find resolve to slay that which will not, cannot, coexist peacefully with us. Just as the human body holds some microbes within it and bears an immune system to keep them under control, so too is some level of monstrous taint inevitable, even healthy, while any rampant infections must be speared by society's defenses. Not every threat must be met with all-out attack at the fore. Consider how much good you can do with a long and successful career of cautious monster-hunting, versus heroically dying in a desperate last stand. Sometimes one's duty is to stand and die. More often one's duty is to retreat and fight another day.

Table of contents:

Foundational Spearwork
On Scouting
The Calculus of Death
Introductory Team Tactics
Common Pitfalls
The Best Defense
Communication Confusion
At-A-Glance Judgements
Elementary Elements
Managing Civilians
Encyclopedia Monstrum (abbreviated)

...She might just sit down and read this cover-to-cover, honestly, it shouldn't take her past closing time, even if she writes down the important bits - which she's going to - but she's going to focus on - okay, that's like, half the book.

She's going to focus on how not to fuck up, mostly, and also this Elementary Elements thing sounds interesting if not necessarily critical.

The book is pretty dense, in the sort of way where you can read it multiple times and keep finding new things rather than a way where it's confusing and inaccessible. Some things that are stressed repeatedly: In combat, doing nothing is also a choice, and telling when it's the correct choice is hard. Trust your instincts especially if they're saying 'I'm in danger'. Save meat over metal; Evacuating or guarding civvies is a good default. Don't be afraid to run away and call for help. Keep your plans simple, communicate clearly, combat is confusing. Watch each others' backs- And that means someone's job is just guarding, not attacking and also guarding. Most monsters are vulnerable to fire but fire gets out of control easily; Pair up with a water buddy if you do fire.

...And the elements bit?

Ugh, she's going to have to invent an entire new discipline to manage her hotswapping.  And she needs to see if they share the same processors!

Elements are common patterns of magic that many spirit bearers' power seems to line up into. They're usually a decent shorthand/assumption when working with unfamiliar spirit bearers for what sort of things they might be capable of, or what their style would be.

The commonly recognized elements are:

Water; Flexible, defensive, momentum, battlefield control. Some good tricks to learn: Unseating footing, attacks from unexpected angles.
Fire; Passionate, aggressive, destructive. Some good tricks to learn: Oxygen consumption, direct heat manipulation, inflict burns.
Air; Highly mobile, evasion, indirect attacks. Some good tricks to learn: Flight, dust and sand attacks, air blade.
Earth; Unyielding and direct, either attack or defense. Some good tricks to learn: Quicksand, pebbleshot, rock armor.
Light; Assisting allies, hindering foes, ranged attacks. Some good tricks to learn: Flashbang, healing others, triggers/alarms/mines.
Dark/Shadow; Deceptive, shaping the battlefield. Some good tricks to learn: Confusing fog, energy drain, choking smoke.

The next two are generally recognized but much less common. 

Lightning; Fast and destructive, mobile, supporting. Some good tricks to learn: Static-charged skin, PRACTICE CONTROL A LOT
Metal; Defensive, cutting, traps and holding a position. Some good tricks to learn: Barbed wire, caltrops, barriers in general.

Some less-common "elements" with at least a few examples: Plants in general, flowers specifically, ice, steam, salt, sand, poison, jade, solar, lunar, wax, blood, thread, porcelain, pumpkins specifically, glass.

(It goes into a fair bit more detail on all of the above, of course. There's a whole chapter.)

Hmm.  Well that's interesting.  Can elements shift over time?  She feels as though Diana's supposed to be light.  Or hearthfire, perhaps.  That she should be able to support, rather than simply burn.

Luna is a little bit miffed that Ophelia's out-analysted her, but it was psychology and she's crap at that anyway.

...And now that she's had that thought...she can't help but wonder if it's possible.  Because she doesn't want to burn it all down, really.

The only thing this book says about shifting elements is that some spirit bearers develop double or triple elements, usually at 30+ power (with a year or two of experience), but it's been known to happen early too. And some spirit bearers can have 'thematic shifts' after 'major life events' (this is probably a euphemism for major trauma).

Or a major positive shift in outlook, surely it's possible.  Well, she can but hope - and that's probably the right thing to do, anyway.

Anyway, it's time to put this stuff into practice.  To the gym!

The gym remains a gym. The door receptionist demands to see her badge. Main area has four spirit bearers kicking around a soccer ball non-magically; water-themed white redhead, water-themed white blonde, fire-themed latina, possibly air-themed black girl, laughing and teasing each other.

She waves politely.  Maybe if she wasn't about to do experimentation she'd see if they wanted a fifth, but she's here for a reason, unfortunately.

One waves back halfheartedly. They're focused on their game. 

And she moves onwards; she needs to practice burning things.

One of the fire practice rooms is in use (there's no windows into it, just a red indicator light), but the other is available.

Alright, then.

Control, first.  Always and ever control, for a fire burns and she will see it burn only what needs to be destroyed.

Sylvia can contribute targets to practice upon, at least, or it would be rather more difficult.

There are also targets painted on the walls.

Her fire naturally flickers and flows above her palm, like an enormous candle flame. The elementary control exercises suggested for fire are making it steadier, changing the color, changing the size (matching it with your breathing), and making it narrower or wider. It's not quite like a muscle, but not quite like a thought, the odd other-somewhereness of the magic.

Oddly enough, it is Sylvia who has the best success at inhabiting the mindset necessary to cultivate that steadiness, 

, Luna, knowledge of how to change the color, ransacked from a chemistry textbook,

, and Ophelia, the knack at shaping things to turn a candle-flame into a blowtorch, or flaring it into a cone or disc,