The math homework doesn't get done, even after Diana goes home.  Magic is in the world; she's about to get magic; she's about to get a Wish; there's no time to spare for math!  Better to read a good book and stare out the window checking if every rustle just might be a magic cat or magical girl or magical something else.

She almost tells her dad, but doesn't.  At least not till she finds out why everyone's keeping magic a secret.  There might be a good reason, and she can't un-tell him... or maybe she could?  But she knows she couldn't use mind-magic on her dad.

Next morning, her notes include a lot more about magical musings than the teacher's lectures.

(And a few quickly-scribbled equations so she has at least something to hand in for math class.)

Jenny considers cutting class and hunting witches, but she ends up not.  She's got enough charge, no particular leads, and seeming responsible might help make a good impression on the new girls.

Finally, after much too long a school day, she ducks into a corner of the hall and whispers, "Hey, Kyuubey!"

:Hello, Jenny Burton.  I will be with you momentarily.:

It thinks that the girls will be more likely to Wish if there is a short period of time before they meet Jenny where it can carefully tell them some truths.

Lila is waiting by the door where she and Diana said they'd meet, musing over what she might do with magic, and what ways it might be staying secret.

Diana is also there, pacing, clearly thinking heavy thoughts from the tight-lipped frown of stress on her face.

::Good afternoon, Diana Adelene Vitalis and Lila Roisen.  Jenny Burton is occupied at present, and will be some minutes delayed, but I shall give you some advice: Your working relationship with her, as agents in the fight against entropy, will be bolstered by seeming impressive.  You will be more impressive if you have contracted, and wish well.  Furthermore, she is blunt and impatient, and likely to blow someone who is wasting her time off entirely.::

"Oh -"  She covers her mouth and continues more quietly.  "Thank you - and I'll thank her too -"

She glances down the hall, with several other groups of students in sight, and then at the empty classroom near them.  "Let's go in there.  Diana?"

"...Sure."  She'll follow Lila inside.

The Incubator has no objections.

::Do you wish to make a contract with me and become a magical girl, Lila Roisen and Diana Adelene Vitalis?::

-- but it is Diana that speaks up first.

"...Not really, because I'm almost certain that anything you're trying to sell this hard has some sort of catch to it, but I can hardly leave Lila in danger alone.

"I'll go first.

"I wish...that no matter what challenges face me, and no matter what challenges I face - be they so simple as math homework, so complex as the repair of a broken body or a broken mind, or so grand as the death of stars and the heat death of the universe itself - I wish that when I face these challenges or they face me, that my facing of these challenges shall happen on a field where I have the tools, skills, knowledge, and will to overcome them."

The Incubator watches.  The Incubator listens.  The Incubator, on autopilot, processes a wish.

-- There is a short, sharp, look of surprise upon its face, insofar as its kind experiences any such thing --

-- and Diana is facing down the heat death of the universe, the boldest, grandest task a magical girl can ever face --

-- and her soul ignites, brilliant and hopeful and shining, a new star flaring in the firmament that is still a thimble trying to empty the ocean, but that would leave her wish un-done because that challenge is un-met, that is not her intent, to briefly make negentropy does not a solution to the problem cause --

-- something shifts, reality twisting around the bright sharp line that is Diana's Wish and will to overcome all evils, to render their harms undone, cutting through the Grief that tries to mar her soul and marks her body with freely falling desperate tears as a wish with power well beyond her theoretical starting potential is drawn forth because this too is a challenge and she will face it and win --

-- there is a path to a brilliant, shining future.  And she will find it.  She will pick the lock that is the strictures of reality, until the tumblers --

click.

And so she stands, despite the weight of the cosmos she placed upon her shoulders.  And so she strives, to carve a path through space and time she only knows exists.

But exist it does, and therefore so she shall.

The Incubator, of course, has precious little care for the feelings of man, for all that it has live access to most of them.

It was rather more concerned that the Wish would spiral out of control and immediately eat the other candidate; that would end up balancing unfavorably.

Still...This magical girl seems quite usual, as magical girls go.  Higher-than-average 'idealism', perhaps, and certainly above-average intelligence, but a past full of 'trouble'.

Perhaps its sensorium was miscalibrated; all past wishes that utilized the words 'stars' and any conjugation of 'death' came from particular patterns of human, and this Diana Adelene Vitalis scores far too high on the 'self-sacrifice' index to have considered a wish for immortality for only herself.

(Those seeds are generally thrown into the nearest unorbited white dwarf or neutron star, when their 'grief' inevitably overtakes them, and they are discorporated.)

And as for what Lila sees?

A moment, where space twists and time shatters - 

and then, Diana, rising to her feet, using an honest-to-goodness warhammer for leverage, though something about it seems a bit strange, like it's not quite the thing it looks like it ought to be, that it's more things somewhere else.

As for her outfit, perhaps the best term is 'spacesuit chic'; the traditional layers and ruffles and bangles are still present, in a way - her color scheme is gold on star-speckled midnight blues and steely greys, with the occasional accent in orange, mostly to mark pockets - though her helmet and gloves and boots are literally the sort an astronaut might wear; white, with variably-transparent faceplate - and not a single inch of skin goes uncovered.

Lila shakes herself after a moment's staring.  She feels that she must've missed something, and she doesn't want to look and stare at magic when she can get it herself!

She squares up her shoulders, folds her hands, and declaims like she's onstage:  "I wish to face exciting challenges - and to be able to meet them - and by meeting them do the kind of good things that if I knew it now, I'd be happy with."

(Vague images of stories are passing through her mind.  Sometimes the protagonist dies, sometimes she changes who she is and realizes her previous visions were too limited, sometimes she changes who she is and falls while completing her mission, sometimes she stays herself and gets a happy ending, sometimes she only does half the job and leaves the rest for someone else - but regardless, in part or whole, she wins.  Unless she fails; there's always that risk - but because of a bad decision of her own.)

And then, for a moment, she's inside a swirling cloud that feels like the story possibilities, or one of them - but it's going past her like someone's reading the book at twenty times human speed -

And then she's in a shimmering grass-green dress with sky-blue trim, and with a crossbow hanging at her side and a quiver of arrows at her back and a ring on her finger, and with her hair waving lightly in a wind that doesn't exist in the material world.

She laughs in glee.  She's magical now!

"That looks very pretty on you."

...Well.

::Jenny, you should come in now.::, it sends.

::There are, unfortunately, more tangible representations of the forces of entropy - magical girls call them 'witches'.  You would be more vulnerable to their manipulations without having wished.::

"Thanks, Diana!"  Lila twirls in her new magical dress.

... only to suddenly stop at the cat's words.

Of course there was something the cat was hiding, just like Diana said.  Of course there's a reason for the magic to have nicely provided them weapons.  The cat might be telling the truth that they'd be more vulnerable otherwise, but there's probably something it's hiding there too.

"What do the witches do?"

::They are drawn to places of what humans most commonly identify as 'suffering', and they then exacerbate the locale's problems with unusual deaths and disappearances.::