Owner	Pose
Satana Hellstrom	The invitation was delivered by a short humanoid creature, with repulsive, leathery, wart-covered skin, greenish-grey in hue, dressed, absurdly, in a tuxedo. "Mistress says I'm to give this to you," it said, without any attempt at introduction, as it stood in front of Willow's home's front door, holding out a card in an envelope. "Mistress said you would reward me with candy," it added, eyes shifty, in a tone of voice that sounds too much like someone trying to be persuasive rather than reporting the truth. "I like jujubes best," it adds. However the demon is rewarded, or if, the card is simple: it has an address. A time. And a signature: Satana Hellstrom. Underneath it is a handwritten postscript: "We should begin your training."
Willow Rosenberg	Willow should have been studying. In her daytimer she had blocked out times for studying - really she did! But was she doing it? Noooooo. She was not. Instead she been looking at some spells that she was pretty confident that she could improve it. With a nudge there.. a substitution there.. *knock knock* Well drats! Putting down her laptop and opening the door a crack, she almost said that the person who had ordered the pizza was two doors down, she thought about it, and asked instead, "Does it have meat on it?" Except it wasn't a delivery person. Or more correctly, it wasn't a pizza delivery person. "Um.." Willow cocked her head to one side and *stared* at the tuxedoed delivery person.. uh.. goblin. "Jujubes? Huh?" She reads the invitation. "Would you accept chocolate chips cookies instead?" As for the note, she reads it ..twice, and nods. "Now? I mean does she expect you to escort me to her? Or..?"
Satana Hellstrom	"I was only meant to deliver the card. Mistress said you would understand. Chocolate chips will suffice, yes. Very much so." The demon capers and does a backflip in anticipation of its reward while Willow watches. A neighbour walks out of their apartment, past the demon without seeming to notice it, even though she changes course to avoid colliding with it. "Hello, Willow. Just hanging in the doorway?" she asks in passing, chuckling. "If he's so late you're waiting like that, ditch 'im and get yourself a hero instead of a zero." Laughing at her own cleverness, the neighbour enters the stairwell and vanishes from sight. "Chocolate chips?" the demon asks, literally drooling at the prospect.
Willow Rosenberg	"Uh.. uhm.. actually.. well.. I mean.." The goblin isn't strange for her, and she certainly realises it might be easier if the neighbours couldn't see some of her guests, but Willow was flummoxed by how to answer the (joking) question. If it was joking. And considering her luck, maybe if wasn't. "Yeah. I thought the pizza guy was coming up." Quietly she whispers to the goblin, "Stay here. I'll be right back. Promise. She closes the door. Gathers a bag of cookies for the goblin, and quickly opens the door again. "Tell her, in an hour.. an hour and a half.. maximum." And passing him the cookies, she closes the door and begins to get ready.
Satana Hellstrom	The demon takes the bag of cookies with surprising gravitas before back-flipping in joy. Once. Twice. And on the third it vanishes in a puff of greasy, sulphurous smoke. Meanwhile, in the burned out husk of the church, Satana lounges on a fallen beam, charred by flame, and idly scratches profanity into the one-time altar. The profanity is in ancient Aramaic, so at least it would only be very educated people who would find it offensive. She then plays on her phone a while as she waits for Willow: cheating by using technomancy to win a "pay to win" game without actually paying.
Willow Rosenberg	It takes only three quarters of an hour to dress, brush her teeth, pack some cookies and make it to the meeting place. It helps that the meeting place was in Gotham. Right in her neighbourhood! Peeking around the burnt out church she called out softly, "Satana? Are you here? It's me. Willow?"
Satana Hellstrom	"Oh, darling! Nice of you to drop by. I hope Etreier was polite and didn't extort you for treats? I'd told him what happens if he held back the card until he was given treats..." Satana stands and makes her way to Willow as she talks, her face looking ... very unpleasant ... as she discusses the fate of a goblin who tried to extort. "He seemed to understand, but with his ilk you never know until..." Satana shrugs eloquently. "So I just hope he didn't cause trouble. For his sake." Something in Satana's demeanour suggests she's hoping for the opposite, actually. "So, Willow, your shield was impressive and warrants exploration. And that lightning of yours ... I'd kiss you for how well you did that, but you'd probably misconstrue it as me not trying to seduce you and that would be wrong." *sigh* Succubus. "So I was thinking we could explore your shield technique. Perhaps making it instant. Or invisible. Or tricks to use it as restraints." Satana casually perambulates to Willow, stepping past personal boundaries to near-contact before stopping. "But of course, if you wish to learn something else, I can probably oblige. I'm here to help you grow, Willow."
Willow Rosenberg	"Etreier? That's what his name was?" Once Satana appears, Willow relaxes. "He was a gentleman, and didn't try to bribe me until after the message was delivered. I didn't have any jujubes, so I gave him some cookies. Oh, and I brung you some too. Chocolate chips. I'm really good at that type." She hands over a bag. "I've been practising force lightning for years. I tried something Harry told me about fire bolts with lightning. It didn't do too bad." As for her shields, she blushes. "I wasn't sure it would work. I never really tried to combine with others. I thought, though, if you and Harry held the main parts then what you needed wasn't something to nudge and fight for supremacy, but to fill in the cracks like mortar. Only more like filaments of silk. You liked it then?"
Satana Hellstrom	Satana walks around Willow, keeping very close, close enough for her body heat to be felt, but never quite touching. "Silk is something I always enjoy, Willow," she purrs. "It's soft. It's gentle. It's smooth. It's lovely. And it's stronger than steel. Nothing quite matches it in the mortal plane. So if you find yourself drawn to silk ..." She's behind Willow, but Satana's smile has almost palpable presence that can be felt. "...I find myself drawn even more to you. So shall we work on that?" Satana's voice is now murmuring directly into Willow's ear. "Perhaps I can even inspire you by introducing you to the many wondrous properties of silk..."
Willow Rosenberg	Oh dear.. Satana was very close to her. Very.. very.. close. Not that Willow was surprised. She had thought about it since she was sober and decided to ask her for training. Harry was there. And he didn't sound too worried for Willow taking classes from Satana, even though she was a Succubus. Closing her eyes (bad mistake!) Willow tried to be grown up. "If you mean sexually, I read about that." Oh goddess, without a particular place to put Satana in, her mind was going haywire leaving her with faint touches along her whole body, when surely, she couldn't have touched her everywhere.. could she?? Forcing her eyes open was a whole nother ball game. Satana was sexy. And she did reach out her fingertips as she bent her head to Willow to 'share a secret' so to speak. "You make it.. it.. hard to think of the lesson." Willow wet her lips. "Can you step back?" *pause* "Please."
Satana Hellstrom	There's a short pause, then a breathy chuckle. And Satana's presence withdraws, stepping in front of Willow again. "We'll have to work on that later," she says. "You'll have to be able to concentrate and cast even under extreme distraction. Thankfully you'll find that I excel at distraction, so once we start down that path you'll be able to focus no matter what's happening to you." Satana walks a bit farther away, then, turning to face Willow once again. "OK, let's start with the basics. Put up a full, all-directional shield, but do it with that silk strand thing you did. I want to feel you making it, then I want to inspect the outcome. After that, we'll talk about altering spells on the fly."
Willow Rosenberg	Suuuuure. Although Satana was, indeed, correct Willow /DID/ need to cast under any circumstance, she did not account for seduction as one of the types of circumstances she had already been under. She had plenty of practice for almost every other type of thing.. except seduction. While Willow collected herself, she tried to envision herself in a shield made of silk filaments wrapped around her - at first very smaller compared to what the previous shield had been. Of course that was because it had no base to compare it to. When she realized that she had to give it some area things worked out better. Not that she couldn't have left it so close to her body.. The filaments of silk like material were almost invisible even for a mage. Each strand of the shield was separate like silk - thin, light, and oh so strong when they combined neatly together. And combine them she did.
Satana Hellstrom	Satana walks in circles around the shield, tapping it with her fingertip, but apparently backing that up with some of her own clout, making the shield ... Well a regular shield would ring like a bell, mystically speaking, but the stranded shield ... swallows the force. Satana purses her lips in approval. "Very nice design, Willow. I think I could crack this..." An understatement. She's a Hell Lord. "...but it would take far more work than I'd like because I couldn't shatter it. I'd have to abrade it and that takes up so much more effort. You have come up with a very good construct here." She slides a finger along, seemingly, a single filament, inspecting it with her eyes closed, using scrying to work it out until... ...Another tap with her finger and the filament's trace back to Willow causes a small, sharp, needle-like sensation on Willow. "And here it is. All shields have a weakness. Yours is that it's connected to you in so many ways. If someone does abrade it, you would not enjoy the sensation." Satana locks her eyes on Willow. "Well, unless they do it carefully and just stimulate you to climax. But that's a speciality talent and who would have this level of knowledge?" She winks and continues inspecting the shield. "I see how you drew that into filaments. But you're going by rote. You need to be able to start feeling the mana flow directly instead of following formula." She snaps her fingers, straightening up. "Drop it and do it again. This time try to feel the mana flowing through you as you shape it. And when you do shape it, keep everything the same except ... move it 3 metres away from you so you're on the outside. If it helps, picture wrapping it around ..." Satana looks around the ruins before picking a broken pew. "... that. See if you can't completely exteriorize your shield." And the pew is suddenly covered by flames in a round shell, quickly extinguished. "That's what it should be like, only ... your spider web."
Willow Rosenberg	Willow took a deep look at what Satana was doing. As she picked a strand of her shielding apart to see what it did when she tried to get in, and Satana found a weakness.. something neither of them knew Willow could do happened. Where the shield started to come in on itself, with a 'poke'.. suddenly the shield became more fluid. Where a second ago it was a prickle, now it was a rolling shield that mimics her flesh, with the ability to spread out the force, until each little part of it carried so little force it was negligible. More like a wind that you knew was out there, but were not worried about. In short, Willow had learned it as Satana was testing her - without teaching her.
Satana Hellstrom	Satana turns back to Willow, pointing to the pew. "Now protect it without moving yourself." Her eyes narrow and face tilts as she regards Willow with intrigue. "Do what you did with my little strand prick. Feel the mana flow and change it dynamically. Don't rely on your rotes. Feel how it works underneath." She walks back to Willow, standing behind her right at that cusp between being a distraction and being a major distraction. "I'll be testing your shield with Soulfire, so concentrate," she murmurs.
Willow Rosenberg	"Soulfire?" Willow was just about to close her eyes to concentrate when that brought her back out. "What do you mean?" Unfortunately, that might have been a mistake. Almost immediately, she quickly returned to her shields again. But that momentary lapse may have cost her. She knew what Satana meant about the wayshe was rigid the first time. There she had left the strands to be 'fillers', filling up the places Harry and Satana had left when they put their shields together. But this time she was only protecting herself (so far!) and while she could move, it was slightly behind her motion. And when she was still, the prickles were still a problem.. Not for most magic users! Most would find her shielding just as Satana said: Too much to try and break them for the effort. There were always bigger and better magic users, though. Fluid.. fluid.. air. Air.. fluid.. As Willow put that into her brain, she felt the shields shifting and adjusting until they became lighter. And stronger. Instead of one point of contact, there were many. Constantly moving about her. Until she felt good enough to open her eyes and still keep them up.
Satana Hellstrom	The shield is up. Relocated. Satana nods in approval. "Very good. That's the key to proper magic instead of all this hedge stuff. You have to be intimate with the mana. Take it on like a lover. Learn its mercurial ways and how to bring it to arousal." *sigh* Succubus. It's a whole worldview, isn't it? "But now, you see, you've got the shield up, but because it's in unfamiliar space, I'll bet you you've left openings in your weave. A hint of malice enters her voice. "Shall we see?" she asks. "If the pew is burned, you had holes. If it isn't, you had no holes. Let's hope, however, you didn't leave the pricklies because otherwise this is going to HURT. She doesn't give Willow time to steel, to prepare. Out of nowhere she brings into being what seems to be the very fires of Hell, burning through her eyes in a pair of bolts of bright, baleful red too luminous to look at direction. The bolts fly forward from her eyes into the shielded pew, enveloping the sphere of the shield in splashing flame that desperately claws the surface of the mana barrier, looking for holes.
Willow Rosenberg	Ah. Soulfire. Now it makes sense. Oh, does it make sense. But where she would be unable to protect the pew if her shielding was inadequate, the most that she felt was a mild burning like the beginning of a sunburn. Not quite a burn, but she could feel she had almost had enough sun. She remembers: Fluid. Not static. So that one point on her shield does not take the brunt of the attack. Instead, spreading it out throughout the entire area. A sphere always made it so that it was more stable. Basic physics. Basic mathematics.
Satana Hellstrom	Satana applies a lot of pressure to the shield, flooding it with her Soulfire, bringing it to the edge of where strands start to abrade away. The incredible heat floods the space the pair are in, though in a flex, after letting the backwash of heat spill over the pair, while keeping her attack up, she also brings up a shield of her own to protect the pair from herself. Once that fire starts to sear the individual strands of Willow's web, requiring visibly a lot of drain upon her, Satana cuts off the flames from her eyes, the sudden lack of attack having its own startling impact on Willow, like a loud, all-pervasive sound suddenly cut, leaving a strange sensation of emptiness in its wake. Wood within 3m of the assault is charred, as are some of the pillars that still (barely) hold aloft the roof. But the pew behind Willows shield is untouched. Likely barely warmed by the raging storm of flame and overwhelming heat that surrounded it. "That's the spirit, Willow!" Satana purrs. "You have so much more potential than hedgework can foster. You've learned something in a few minutes that takes a lifetime of scrabbling for the 'right ritual' by the usual talentless hacks that call themselves witches!" Satana's eyes, still glowing with flames of Hell as she speaks, regard Willow as she subtly nods to herself. "We'll work on more improvisational abilities. Like perhaps next time you do this translation ... but on a moving object that's under attack. That's always quite the fun challenge and it leads to so many burnt things as you miss!" There's a certain gleam in her eye as she discusses chaos and destruction of articles. "And of course, there's always demonology. I'm among the finest in that realm; I can have you summoning Mephisto himself and having him beg for your mercy by the time I teach you even half of what I know." There may be a bit of braggadocio in that claim...
Willow Rosenberg	Willow isn't certain whether or not she is proud or angry. Or maybe a bit of both. Probably both. "You could have hurt me! I felt how hot that Soulfire was." Even as she contemplates, is it a real shield if it attacks back? Willow has some ideas. Using cold for example. Or a vacuum.. or.. But one thing is apparent: Willow is much more than a hedge wizard or witch. She has power. More than enough. When she doesn't think what to do, she taps into her magical aura and things ..happen.
Satana Hellstrom	"Oh, piffle," Satana says, waving off the critique. "You were over here. The flame was mostly over there." Satana smiles. "And I put up my own shield to make sure nobody got hurt. You're a student, not a target. I mean I have to use the real stuff to test you, but I do have control over it, darling." Satana gets closer to Willow, her voice dropping into a purr. "And I have far better things to do with you, Willow, than burn you into a crisp." She winks, and backs off again. "Focus on what's important. You improved something. This is what hedge witches and their ilk can't do. You took something you knew and intuited how to make it into something different. That is something you should be proud of, Willow!"
Willow Rosenberg	Willow blushes. Now whether it is because Satana is flirting, or because she praised her, it isn't clear. "Hmph." She doesn't have anything to come back with. And the fact is, Willow doesn't want to be treated like a child. She can't have both. So, she takes it for what it is: an explanation, and moves on. "So," she's curious. "I don't want praise, I just need numbers, or the like - how many people.. witches, warlocks, magic users, what have you.. can do this.." She gestures to the pew. She thinks about what she had to do, without warning. This is a big shift in Willow's self concept. Going from a hedge witch, to whatever this was. In truth it was scary. One more instance where Willow didn't want to be coddled and let by a hand like a child.
Satana Hellstrom	"No hedge mage I've met can do that. They rely too much on rote. On ritual. They lack any feel for mana so instead memorize motions and sounds and substances for specific effects they painstakingly learn to replicate. They don't understand why; they have no talent. So even their failures when playing mage don't teach them anything." Satana starts to circle Willow again, her eyes unabashedly drinking in the student before her. "Real mages? All of them can do it. But even they need more training than you've taken. Perhaps ... 1% can do it by just being asked to do it and doing it." She pauses her circling behind Willow, resting hands on her student's shoulders. "That is rare talent, Willow. Such power. And such sensitivity," she purrs. "You are a rare treat. A chance to see a true power blossom from seed."
Willow Rosenberg	"Thank you." Willow drops her eyes and needs to think about what she has been told. Her head is full of conflicting ideas. Of course, Constantine tried to protect her. But that wasn't the way. Not by standing between the world and Willow. Not really. And the Justice League? They had even less ability to tell her that she was not a low level magic user as she believed, who just happened upon how to build a portal between Earth and Apokolips. John kept her safe, but she held the portal. Willow always brushed aside as she had no way to comprehend it - at least now without some soul searching. And that Willow was not ready to do. Except.. what she was ready to face about herself may not wait for her. That was the scary thing. "I think I need to think about this." In a very small voice.