"...And how do they do that, exactly?" she snaps out, full of bitter resignation and resolve.

::The total list of known methods is too large to transmit in a timely fashion.  The common elements between all witches you are expected to face in the course of being a normal magical girl are as follows:

::Witches have - and are, in some senses - a Barrier, that produces and contains a themed environment often but not always aligned with where the witch is found.

::Within that environment are Familiars; Familiars are the primary way by which a witch kills, as they can enthrall unprotected 'despairing' minds and lure them into the barrier to die.  They cannot do this without a Barrier, but Familiars can grow into new Witches if they are not slain.

::When a Witch is slain, it will leave behind what most magical girls call a 'Grief Seed'; these items are useful in the purification of magical girls' Soul Gems, but if tarnished and left unattended, will hatch into a copy of the Witch they fell from.  Incubators can dispose of these when they are tarnished.::

Lila is starting to smile now, thinking about the possibilities.  This's already been going on all along, and now she can fight it.  That's the sort of thing she'd love to use magic for.

She's about to ask more about grief seeds, but --

Jenny (still in her normal school jeans) throws the door open.

In addition to a Kyuubey, there's one obvious magical girl and... well, that frilly ?spacesuit? obviously isn't school clothes, so she's probably a magical girl now too.  That's a surprise, but shouldn't be a problem.

"Hi, I'm Jenny.  You both already wished?"

She sticks out her hand.

Lila sinks into a curtsy.  "Lila.  And yes, I wished for adventure and victory."

"Well, you should be getting some of that.  You heard about witch-hunting?"

"We did, yes.  And I am rather annoyed that I wasn't told about that before I actually wished, but I suppose it would have negatively impacted my long-term gains if I'd actively considered the possibility of combat more than I had, so - I have to tentatively endorse the outcome, even if I absolutely despise this thing's methods.  Diana."  She shakes Jenny's hand firmly.

...Really, the 'frills' are more in the form of 'pouches and belts'.

Her handclasp is firm, too.

"Long-term gains?"  She chuckles, shrugs, and sits on the edge of a school desk.  "Well.  I'm told you just saw me transform yesterday?  What has Kyuubey told you?"

"Magic exists, there are certain people with potential that the Incubators can convert into negentropy-and-wishes.  And the whole witches-exist thing."

"Hah.  Well..."

There's so much they don't know, but she's not really in a teaching mood, much less a mood to comfort them if they go off the wrong way about soul gems.  Which both of them seem like they just might, in different ways.

"... Let me show you how to dowse for witches, why not.  Change back into your muggle clothes - they'll give you second looks if you go through the halls in this - and let's go outside."

"How... do I do that?"  She fingers her dress as if feeling for her old blouse under it.

"Just will the magic.  It's instinctive, but it might help if you hold up your gem."

(She intentionally isn't saying "soul gem.")

Lila holds up her hand and concentrates on the gem.  She pictures herself in her normal boring everyday clothes.  She feels an urge to move that feels something like dancing, and gives into it - and then a moment later, after a burst of light and a motion she can't quite comprehend, she's back in her normal clothes.

With, still, a new ring on her finger.  As if it's a sign of the magic still hiding in her.

Diana - places her hand over her breast?  Where is her soul gem?  It's not immediately visible on the outside of her outfit - and -

twists, along a dimension she didn't previously know to exist -

and is now standing there in perhaps not quite the same outfit she started in, because she wasn't wearing what is perhaps best poetically described as a mantle of stars 'round her shoulders beforehand.  The long, thin tapering crystal in the golden-winged brooch-clasp holding it together shimmers oddly; the light that reflects within (or emanates from) its faceted diamondoid surface seems to have a heartbeat's swell.

"...Huh."

She lifts up the clasp contemplatively.

"...Well, I probably could get that to go away if I tried, but...it would feel...itchy?  Wrong.  So I'm not gonna."

"Ooh, beautiful!"

Partial costume? That's a new thing.  Jenny squints at Diana.  "Okay, well, people will notice, so... if you can't take it off, stuff it under your shirt or something?"

A moment later, Jenny notices Diana isn't wearing a ring - is there something odd with her soul?  Well, she can't ask that question yet... though she probably should before they meet a witch.

"I can do better than that if I must, I think.  Since it does -" she fiddles with the crystal brooch, waves a bit of cloth around from where it looped through one of the three 'wings' - "let me rearrange how I wear this more than that.  I'm thinking a chest-wrap.  ...Though perhaps that's a matter best left for later experimentation."

Jenny shrugs.  "Yeah - just something that makes sense for you to wear.  Random people on the streets don't think anything when they see me in my magical-girl skirts, and I don't think they would around school, but..." She shrugs.  "They might care about your whatever-that-spacesuit-is, Diana - or maybe not; I think there's something magic there too."

"If anyone does make a fuss, it's easy enough to pass off as cosplay.  ...We should ask -- where'd the Incubator go?"

It's certainly not here anymore!

"Beats me.  Don't expect them to be around when you want them.  Just like ordinary cats, I guess."

She throws open the door and leads the way toward the same back alley where Diana and Lila saw her yesterday.

And Diana shall follow her!

In the alley, Jenny runs her fingers over the ring she's wearing and slips it off her finger.

(Diana and Lila will notice it's got a large gem on it, glowing a slight magical glow. Except for the color, it looks a whole lot like Lila's new ring, and something like the gem on Diana's brooch.)

"These gems..."  She pauses, considering what to say.  "... are really important.  I'll tell you more about them later.  But one of the things they can do is dowse for witches."

She fingers it in another way, and it transforms into a bauble, still glowing but now a little duller.

"It's shining a little - that means there's a witch probably somewhere around town, but not close by.  You'll get to know what they mean later.  But for now - take yours and transform them too?  It's intuitive, just like your costumes."

"I'm pretty sure the Incubator said they were soul gems, and I haven't caught it in a lie yet, so yeah, they sound pretty damn important.  ...Let me just, see what I have..."

...Apparently Diana has an astrolabe, with a funny little protrusion on the bottom that looks like an old-style key.  She even seems to know how to use it.

"...hang on, that's not the right starscape for where - and for that matter, when - we are...though I have to admit, I'm not sure how I have such certainty of that fact!  ...Probably -" she shakes her head, and then continues on with more surety, "- actually, definitely wish stuff.  ...Tools, skills, knowledge and will, to - face the challenges that are coming to me.  It'd fit."

Lila has a bauble like Jenny's, but with a more ornate setting and what might be a pen-tip on the bottom.

"Does this give us a direction, or do we just need to walk and try to triangulate the witch while it's... making people depressed, I guess?"