Whether Lee picked up on Inzoās perception of him or not, he grinned broadly upon receiving the green light to proceed with Plan: Garden Gnome. āOh, I have magic for days.ā He was quick to brag, clapping his hands together and rubbing them quickly as dark, vivid purple energy began to radiate off of them in waves. It was kind of nice to be able to show off a little, actually. Most of the time his interpersonal interaction ended with paying them for a bag of fast food or, well, doing Entropyās work. While the shimmering pulses of magic visible on a visual spectrum were at first near-translucent, they rapidly darkened until his hands were consumed in a dizzying, opaque haze. āAbracadabra - hocus pocus - open the blahblahblah-ā He lifted his blotted-out hands up to his eye level and grabbed at something unseen but quite tangible, grasping hold of it firmly and then rendingĀ it apart. As the air in front of him began to tear - the only way to describe it, really - a sound like a mountain groaning or something creaking, collapsing beneath its own weight rumbled through the immediate area, only ceasing when he had ripped a hole right through thin air and left a jagged crevice with a view directly into a⦠warehouse full of gnomes. Well, he hadnāt been lying about that.
Lee poked his head through the portal, looking around and assessing it for signs of any security. He was pretty sure heād accurately targeted one in a timezone well past working hours, but it wouldnāt be the first time heād screwed it up. Seeing no one to stop him, he widened the āholeā and stepped inside. Although he didnāt expect Inzo to follow or help him, he wouldnāt stop him if he tried. Humming to himself, he began loading up a cart with armloads of ceramic statues in a variety of poses and costumes, ranging from garish to simply āodd.ā Once the cart was full, he pushed it back out onto Esfirās lawn and tipped it over, letting them all pile up. Some of them cracked or lost minor chips as they collided with each other, but none of them outright shattered. He repeated this process twice more until there was a very sizeable collection piled up on the grass, then shoved the cart back into the warehouse and snapped his fingers, letting the hole collapse once more.
āAlright! Important question, dude: You wanna be the pitcher or the batter?ā He picked up one of lawn gnomes with both hands and hefted it meaningfully, a big, excited grin on his face. āāCause itās game time.ā
Inzo never really had a head for magic.Ā Required a lot of trial, lot of error, or a lot of letting some jaggoff tell you what to do.
But since his eyes werenāt much more than some mirrors, glass, and photosensitive chemicals transmitting signals down a complicated series of copper wires and, thus, had needed to be enhanced by The Blue that had animated him, he had at least half a sense for magic.
So when the other guyās hands just pulled all that dark out of the air and he used it to just tear the world open, well, the clockwork youth was awestruck in the oldest way: struck with a sense of something massive and powerful moving in front of him.Ā And wielded so casually, too.
When he went or escaped places, he usually just looked around for a soft spot in the world and just leaned in until the soft spot became an opening and heād cross.Ā Usually from there, just wander around an Interstitial ātil he found a door or other, more reliable, portal to a place that sounded fun.
When Esfir went places, it was usually through one of the many, many doors in The Houseās hallways.Ā The House was super-real, full of impossible things, part of something impossible: of course it could have portals.
But just tearing open a hole like that?Ā With something not-unlike his bare hands.
āHoly shit,ā he murmured as the other youth emerged from the hole into the gnome warehouse with the cart full of sculptures.
Looking over his shoulder at The House, he almost protested about Leeās plan--he was almost certainly going to end up having to clean up the scrap--and considered asking to relocate.Ā But he was still trying to process the whole thing, so instead, he shrugged and did his best to shake off the sense of cosmic insignificance and fear (incredibly happy in that moment not to have a digestive tract) before saying, āWell, shit, I know I oughta be making some kinda āthatās what they saidā joke here, but instead,ā he sauntered forward and picked up one of the gnomes, tossing it into the air lightly and catching it with a faint scraping sound in his metal hand, āBack up and get ready to swing.ā