"It'd be handy if you could just short them out like that!" None of this wind or root nonsense. On the other hand, she can hear the metal shell being pierced by something, and she figures that it's probably whatever spell he just used.

"That--whatever you're doing, can you take it up to ten?" Would the old man get her hip cat lingo? Hopefully he would get the gist of it. "We gotta crush them with force, they're too strong for anything else."