Ozzy sat in his shack watching the boar plunder his hard earned fruit and the energy contained therein. He had no doubt just from what he’d seen so far that the thing was significantly stronger than him. While not wanting to face it yet he also didn’t want it growing even stronger by letting it continue to snack away at his fruit. While he could take the fruit that would likely draw attention to himself doing so. He could instead take the energy out of the fruit but he had no real way to store it. Even as he said this he found himself looking toward the thousands of cores he’d stored in his cabinets.

For some reason this whole time he hadn’t thought to see how or why the energy in those cores didn’t coalesce into particles like the energy did when in his domain, or the other domains he’d seen. Pulling a core to himself he felt around the membrane and could only feel the intent to maintain the contents or allow more energy in. Nothing on the surface explained it so he dove deeper. While he had felt inside of the cores before he hadn’t actually gone through the core in its entirety. Heading right for the center he found what he suspected he might. One single particle sat at the center and it had a different packet of intent. The meaning of which as best he could understand was something like stasis.

For a moment he began planning how he could make himself a storage vessel. Almost as quickly as he began his thought process he shook his head and laughed at himself. He had literally thousands of them sitting in his cabinet, and he’d already confirmed they were set to accept more energy. Starting small he pulled the energy from a single fruit close to his shack and nearly directly behind the boar. It thankfully didn’t react at all and he was able to pull it into his shack and push it into the waiting core. The fruit's energy, even though it more than tripled the stored energy in the core, didn't come close to filling this single one. Repeating the process for every fruit on that tree did begin to show a pressure on that core when putting in more energy. Setting it aside Ozzy started with a second core and a second tree.

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Ozzy set down the twenty eighth core that was now full to bursting with energy. He’d emptied all the trees and fruit of their energy. Starting with all those on the top side with the boar. It hadn’t reacted at all to the energy being whisked away out from under its nose. Though it had ended up downing two trees worth of fruit before he’d gotten to them. Despite the fruit now being nearly void of energy the boar continued to go after them with the same gusto as before. As much as the boar seemed to love the fruit there was no guarantee it would continue to hone in on them forever. Ozzy needed to come up with an actual plan that didn’t involve simply hiding in his shack.

While collecting the energy he hadn’t been idle. There were several plans he’d tossed around as possible solutions to the problem. Not only that but he’d continued the slow process of improving his domain. Many of his plans were promising. He’d thought of creating a kind of harness he could use to lift the thing off the ground that would hold it better than his old tentacle spear had held the rat. If done correctly it would keep it from utilizing the ground to bring its strength to bear and attack him. Combined with a separate contraption to harm it in some way he was pretty sure he had a good chance of succeeding. The problem being that if it wasn’t enough and it got loose the followup rampage would likely leave nothing standing in the haven. Not the trees, not his shack, and he was pretty sure he’d also end up horizontal. If not a pile of shit after the boar had its way with him.

There were a few other scenarios he’d played out as alternatives. Such as testing the improved sections of his domain against its hide. Some of the plans would allow him to test them against the beast without directly confronting it though. Leaving him room to try other avenues. The one he’d felt most likely to succeed was inspired by exactly the scenario that was playing out right now. The boar could clearly be distracted by other things in the environment. Evidenced by the fact that even now it was still munching on a pile of fruit. While he didn’t have much left in his haven that could distract it he had lots of other havens connected with his which did.

Even with that option he had thought of several alternatives that would allow him to test different possibilities out before committing to a single path forward. For instance he could simply open the veil between his haven and all the others allowing the boar to see the many beasts arrayed before him. He suspected the boar may simply ignore them though as it was already focused on its meal. Especially if they didn’t see it and didn’t attack. It would also allow the boar to see the enemy and prepare for any move it did make. Alternatively he could open the veil in the other havens allowing them to see his haven. He suspected he could open many of them and get no reaction from the denizens thereof as they wouldn’t want to attack the boar directly. However there were a few ways he might be able to spur them on.

Even as he was rehashing the most optimal plans he realized he’d forgotten about some ways he could handle the situation. One of which might kill two birds with one stone. There was a haven who’s occupant he was also afraid of that he had yet to connect to his home which might scare off the boar. The thirteenth imp would also be able to test for him if his improved domain could do damage to the boar. As he watched he could still work on his domain in the meantime. Maybe even improve the process he’d created so far.

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Ozzy gingerly touched his domain to the thirteenth imp haven and initiated the communication to bring the two havens together. After the sequence finished he paused for a moment watching but nothing happened. Using some of his upgraded trips he reached into the newly connected haven and saw as the imp looked up. He was pretty sure that was simply because he breached it’s haven not because it could actually see his domain. Waving the tendril he’d sent in about he confirmed that it didn’t follow the movement. Using his domain to connect to the other haven he initiated the same request he had several times before in his own. The veil of the haven thinned and disappeared allowing him, and the imp, to see back into his own haven.

The reaction from the imp was immediate. Initially it only squinted its eyes and adjusted its angle to more easily see the new land which had been made available to it. Though after it watched for a bit as the boar continued to munch on the fruit the imp flapped closer to the edge of its domain. There it stopped again and eyed the boar warily. The imp’s eyes drifted to the other trees and the other fruit. Which is likely what eventually drove it to push on. Ozzy was confused as he hadn’t thought the little demon would be interested in fruit or plants of any kind. Despite his preconceived notions the tiny monster flapped its way up to the top of one of the trees and grabbed a fruit. The fruit was then shoved wholly into the gaping maw the imp had for a mouth and ground into nothing in a matter of moments.

The boar stopped chewing the moment the imp had crossed the barrier between havens. While it didn’t get up it did crane its neck around to follow the imp as it flew to the top of the nearby tree. When the imp at the first fruit the boar twitched a bit. It did the same at the second, but after the third and fourth the boar apparently decided this wasn’t very important or concerning and turned back to the pile in front of it. The imp had kept one eye on the boar throughout as well, but after the boar returned to eating it also focused on the fruit at hand. Despite the imp’s miniscule size it was packing away the fruit at an alarming pace. Within a couple minutes it finished the first tree and alighted on a second.

Ozzy watched mesmerized with the display. The imp's belly began to protrude as it scarfed down the fruit at an alarming pace. Though when it flapped to the second tree it noticeably diminished at a visible pace. The boar again watched the imp fly to the second tree but returned to munching once more when it settled down. Ozzy was reminded of a story while watching his plans of setting them against one another crash and burn. He couldn't remember specifics but had heard several instances of people intentionally importing plants and animals for a purpose that quickly turned awry. In fact he was pretty sure there were easily hundreds of examples in modern times. If only he’d remembered that tidbit before importing the imp to handle the boar. Which reminded him he should be more careful with plants. Hopefully he didn’t find anything like kudzu.

At the least the two seemed wary of one another and that brought a bit of the attention off of him. So he felt a little safer to add a bit more focus to his project of improving his domain. There were a few things he’d learned since the last time he’d attempted this. Firstly he could now make a storage vessel for his energy, or at least understood the principles thereof. Starting a new membrane he shaped it into a cylinder a meter long and a meter wide. He formed a string from the center of one circular cap to the other and placed one of the new bonded particles in the middle. Then he added the same intent he’d felt from the center of the cores. Finally dumping in energy from one of the twenty eight cores he’d set aside he watched. The energy expanded to fill the space and once each little piece was equidistant from every other it froze in place.

He smiled at the results and wondered if he’d be able to store all of the energy he had in the new space. Looking back up from his success he realized he had completely stopped watching the intruders and something had changed. The imp was now on what appeared to be a seventh tree. The boar did not seem very pleased with how fast the imp was going through the fruit and was now standing staring at the tiny monstrosity downing the fruit like a vacuum. As the imp tossed yet another fruit into its maw the boar appeared to have had enough and rammed the tree the imp was sitting on. The imp flapped furiously to save itself from the fall it nearly took. Flying up above the pathway it looked down at the boar incensed. Which in turn caused the boar to whip around to keep the imp in view.

Watching the process unfold Ozzy could see what was going to happen before the boar could. The imp’s domain formed into a whip and snapped the boar between the eyes. Oddly there was barely any noise to go with the violent attack, well not from the whip of domain. The boar though more than made up for the lack of a whip crack. A squeal that bordered on roar sounded from the beast's snout and it jerked its head back and forth to shake away the pain. A spurt of blood shot from side to side as it did so. Leaving a spray on the pathway. The sight raised Ozzy’s hopes that they would deal with each other.