-- oh, only razor-sharp?  Well, then.  She's got armor plating.  She can handle razors just fine.

She twirls her spear much like a pencil, batting a quick-to-strike plane aside and moving in unrecalled instinct as she sweeps up Lila, providing supportive cover - and having a crucial moment necessary for her weapon to shift into something that isn't not a mulcher, shredder, nor leafblower - ...Leaf vacuum?  Regardless, it's already whirring up suction with which to devour her enemies the witchpaper and witchpencils.

She also reaches out and brushes her mostly-free hand (the one that steadied Lila) against Lila's crossbow, a pulse of magic enforcing - be better - upon it, building a repeating magazine, enhancing the fundamental construction -- "Jenny!  How bad do you think this is for you, matchup-wise!"

Lila shoots again and again, pierced papers fluttering to the ground in streams of blood and pencils snapping in midair.  She's surprised at her own aim, how she's managing to hit something as small as a flying pencil.  The magic must be giving her better aim too.  She likes that.

Jenny's sword is whirling in the air, batting things away as they get close.

"Not so bad - just - so many.  Come on, let's not stay here.  We need to get to the center!"

She starts walking toward the door at the other end of the classroom, with a glance behind her at the others.

As she glances, a desk reaches out to trip her - but she sees it and jumps over it in one bound.

Leafblower go vrrrrr.

"Lila, cover Jenny's right, shoot anything that looks like it could possibly move.  I'll cover her left!"

Crossbow bolts break several desk and chair legs - including a couple behind Jenny that were making grabs for Lila herself as she's following.

Less than a minute later... probably; not like anyone's counting the ticks of the clock... Jenny opens the door into the hall.

It fades into a foggy blur several doors down, but they can see tall shadowy figures in the fog, waiting for them.

Lila looks questioningly at Jenny, and then shoots.

One of them goes down.

Then two more.

The others vanish even as Jenny is springing forward into the fog, sword waving.

"After me!" she calls.

Diana brings up the rear, easily shifting to blasting the fog away.  "They're not humans, the proportions are all wrong!"

The fog keeps re-forming ahead of them, as they pass door after door.  More shapes loom closer and closer, sometimes going down to Lila's bolts and sometimes lasting long enough to reveal themselves as vaguely humanoid vaguely troll-like before facing Jenny's sword.

Then another shape starts becoming visible through the fog - something looking like a giant bar or desk, with another ticking clock above it.

And thick books come barreling toward them.

Fuck.  She condenses her implement down to a kite shield, thinks for a second - "Lila shoot the clock!" - ducks forward to hand the shield to Jenny with a "Gonna try boosting your weapon" drawing inspiration from Star Wars' blasterbolt-turning lightsabers to sheathe the sword in reflective energies that will hopefully blow books apart on contact, and sets to brawling, pulling that same blue nimbus around her fists and boots.

Lila sends a bolt for a book that's barreling toward her, and then shoots the clock.

Something that looks sort of like a human - but taller, with a mask over her face, and shrouded by shadows like a black dress and cape so you can hardly see the outlines of its body - jumps up from the mist with a shriek and explodes Lila's arrow in a bolt of magic.

"That's the witch!" Jenny calls.  "Get her!"

Something changes in the energy around her sword, and the next book she pierces is set on fire and thrown into another cloud of books.  She strides forwards.

...Why does she look like a magical girl.

There is a frozen moment of time that - seems to pass, as something spins through the tumblers in Diana's brain, knocking processes into and out of alignment - and something  --  goes  - - - -   c  l  i  c  k ,  - - - - - -

Diana - acts on instinct.

And the instinct is hug, a blur of motion and emotion, a humming afterglow in her wake as she tackles the ?girl? and murmurs reassurances - she's here to help, you'll make it through this, it's gonna be okay, you're not alone, this too shall pass and if it does not pass she will make it pass, because her Wish is for you too, once-human, pain-stricken but still alive -

The witch's shadows reach out to envelop Diana's spacesuit armor in deadly chill and a sense of hopelessness and darkness and failure as the clock goes tick... tick... tick... above them.

Jenny sees the witch's shadows reaching around Diana, and something screeches inside her as well.  She's not going to lose another partner - no, not again - not on her first battle too!

Jenny jumps forward, flaming sword outstretched, and pierces it into the center of the witch's shadows.

... as Lila, her breath catching in her throat, shoots another arrow straight into the clock above them.

And suddenly, the whole misty school vanishes, and they're in the back alley next to the dumpster again.

Diana, no longer with anything to tacklehug, is now lying on the ground.

Spacesuits don't get cold, and she brought a light.

Her gem still shines, bright and radiant, as she curls up on the pavement, shaking - "I think - they might be people -"

And, after a minute or so of - tears streaming down her face, even as the flaring heartbeat of her gem gets stronger, not weaker like Jenny would expect -

She hisses, and stands up.

"I have an Incubator to have words with, I should fucking think."

She does not have an Incubator in her possession with which to communicate!

Jenny was diving downwards herself when the labyrinth evaporated.  She lets her sword clatter to the pavement, catches herself with her hands, snatches the grief seed while she's at it, and then stands back up.

She stands over Diana, unsettled, not sure what to do even without considering what's happening to the gem.

... what's that?  She shrugs.  "Witches?  Yeah, of course they're people."

"More than that - I'm guessing this one... used to be?... a human."

"I would put money on it if I had any.  I did not sign up to be the Incubators' pet executioner.  Not, to be clear, that I would leave witches or familiars to hurt others, but that to be thrown at creatures that once were and still are people enough to - have emotions, even if all they are is grief! -

"That, I cannot countenance doing without far more information!"

Jenny purses her lips.  "I'm not sure whether they feel grief or they just want us humans to."

(Not that she's really thought about it much.  Or more than an idle thought.)