Magic Box, Wednesday

[gospel_of_oblivion]

Look, if the reindeer-Gremlins kept throwing red noses at her every time she opened the door to their knocking, they had to expect to get dropped through Illyana's portals into the ocean outside. That was just how this was going to work. She didn't want anything that they'd been touching anywhere near her.

There was one that seemed to think it was an amusement ride and kept showing back up, soaking wet, but, well, Gremlins were strange and there wasn't much you could do about them, beyond keep yeeting them off the shore.

The Magic Box was open and ocd-free, and Illyana was there to help, in between playing wack-a-Gremlin with her powers.

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[amitragic]

And then one of the times, there was someone else coming up to the door behind the gremlin.

Eyeing the thing with some concern. Because it was a gremlin. (And soaking wet? For some reason? That was new.)

"Uhhh," he said. To the gremlin. "Do you... want to go in first...?"

[gospel_of_oblivion]

Illyana was going to ignore the knocking, because she knew what it was by now. Except, wait, there was a human voice outside, talking to something?

"Oh for the love of the dark gods, this is your last trip you little creep," she yelled, yanking open the door and glaring down at it. "This is a business, shoo."

The 'shoo' was punctuated by her creating a portal right under the creature, swallowing it up.

(And somewhere off the coast of Fandom, was a 'splash' as a gremlin hit the water.)

"Ullllllllllllllllllllllllllllly. Get in here and keep me company before it comes back."

[amitragic]

To his credit, Ulysses had not startled back when the portal opened up.

... If only because he'd already done that a moment earlier, at the yelling.

"Yeah, sure," he said now, trying not to be obvious about sort of stepping over the spot where the portal had been. He knew it was gone already, but, still. "What was that all about?"

[gospel_of_oblivion]

"They knock, I answer, they throw red noses at me," she explained, waving him in and then shutting the door behind him. "So I have started dropping them through portals into the ocean."

"I think that one liked it? But I am not an amusement park ride."

[amitragic]

" -- you know, there's thing's I'm not gonna say to that, mostly because I don't wanna get hurled out of here, too."

A beat.

"Also 'cause you're like. A kid or something."

[gospel_of_oblivion]

"Yes, I am so very childlike and innocent," Illy drawled, rolling her eyes. "It was going to be a sex joke, wasn't it?"

She wasn't stupid.

"I promise, I have heard of sex before."

[amitragic]

"Yeah but, you're all --"

That vague gesture at her general being said nothing, Ulysses.

[gospel_of_oblivion]

"I am legally nine or ten and it's weird? Or I'm me and I'm weird?" She was teasing, with love. Really.

[amitragic]

Uly's hand did about a twist and a half more of helpless gesturing before it fell again. And then ended up rising up to his hair, brushing errant curls back.

"Yeah I'm just gonna move on, now," he decided. (He missed Carly, okay, that was what this was.) "Glad to see you're handling the gremlins like a pro, anyway."

[gospel_of_oblivion]

"I did the same thing on that terrible day where our emotional baggage became real. I ought to start charging. 'Ilyana's Problem Removal,'" she said with airquotes. "People found it very emotionally satisfying to watch me drop their baggage into a mountain."