Following the hole through the wall with his domain he found his house undisturbed. Not a single cabinet, drawer, his recliner, or blanket were disturbed. The tension increased as he searched the place top to bottom. Including both reservoirs, the one of water and the other of energy. He again couldn’t see any specific thing out of order.
Pausing for a moment he remembered that sometimes going right to the fine toothed comb wasn’t the best approach as a broad view could catch things the tighter focus would miss. Stepping back, metaphorically and metaphysically, he allowed his view to take in the whole of the shack. Watching for a moment he still couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The only movements he could see was the water in its reservoir swirling as more was pumped in, likewise the energy in its own storage was entering but then freezing in place. Though even as he watched the level of energy in the reservoir wasn’t increasing. In fact it was decreasing. It was a strange phenomena as he was not seeing energy disappear per se, yet every time his focus adjusted he found the energy was lower.
Pulling his view back once more, though this time to encompass just the reservoir itself he again tried to force himself to keep this point of view. The human mind was so prone to dialing in on any detail out of place that it could easily miss the larger picture. It didn’t take long before he began to see a pattern emerge. When energy entered the reservoir it shuffled about for a moment before settling. At the cusp of where it was nearly still but still moving some of the existing energy would wink out. Like the eyes of predators closing at night.
Ozzy of course suspected what was happening, but another common human, and animal, trait was to try and gather as much info as possible before acting. Seeing grass move in the distance was a pretty good sign that there were predators about, but more often it was simply the wind. If you panicked and ran from every rustle in the grass you’d never have time to eat, or sleep, eventually exhausting yourself. It was also possible you’d run from the wind and find yourself running directly into the mouth of a predator in the opposite direction. Ozzy wasn’t interested in jerking back only to find himself plunging into the embrace of the voidling.
Instead he watched again, as more energy dribbled into the reservoir continuously he was able to examine repeatedly. If this was the voidling it had taken some form that was impossible to see, even with his domain’s senses growing ever sharper. Regardless of if he could see it, there was something inside taking his energy. He needed to take some action, even if it wasn’t a direct attack. Linking with the pathways that brought the energy into his shack he redirected them. Pulling the energy to himself instead he slowly began to replenish his reserves. Having recently made several suits, a starfish, and fighting for what felt like hours, he felt diminished.
Returning his focus to the reservoir he watched as the last bit of energy entered and the flow stopped. Though while the energy ingress stopped the drain continued. Then it picked up suddenly as it appeared the voidling realized the ruse was up. The drain ramped up quickly and the guise the voidling had donned dropped. It was spread out in the reservoir with a small portion of its form stretching down to a part of the membrane that he could now see was slightly different from the rest. It appears it had broken through then created a membrane of its own to seal and hide the damage. Even as he turned back to the voidling as a whole it was morphing from a dispersed cloud of nothing into a dense and thickening wall as it absorbed exponentially more energy every second.
The voidling was already more than twice the size it was previously. Acting as quickly as he could Ozzy dissolved away the reservoir's membrane and pulled out the trips that held the energy in place, which allowed it to begin to spread out. As he did a rush of air blew into the shack as apparently the voidling had formed a vacuum inside the reservoir to keep out the air. At the same time the voidling began to spew energy as the air came back into contact with its surface. The voidling now knowing for certain the jig was up expanded and snatched up what energy it could before again reforming it’s membranous protective layer. Turning it followed the retreating membrane that was still dissolving around it. Even after the trips had fully returned to their ground state the voidling still followed. Confirming it could see them as clearly as it could membrane.
If it could see membrane, domain, and energy returning his domain to himself might just bring it directly to him. Instead he could form another suit to fight for him. Yet while they had kept the voidling busy when it was smaller he wasn’t sure how that would fare with its still growing form as it snatched up the dissipating energy and it advanced slowly, but menacingly. Even that small behavior suggested something had changed. The voidling had previously jumped from one behavior to the next with full force. Even the simple act of looking in a new direction was a twitchy affair. The new, slower pace and smooth motion suggested not just its size, but its cognition had increased.
With the combination of not just a growth in size but an apparent increase in intelligence Ozzy couldn’t just take the same actions he had before. Yet, that didn’t mean he couldn’t merge a few of his previous tactics. Forming a new suit with some of what he had collected from the shack he bound his intent into it and pulled back a bit with the rest. While he formed another suit a few squares behind the first he also watched the larger voidling. It hadn’t appeared to react when the new suit was formed, just continued on as if this was all expected. Stopping in front of the new suit it twisted a bit like a fish swimming. Though Ozzy suspected this movement was its new method of looking around. Its attack came suddenly and viciously at the suit. Though the twitchiness was gone that didn’t mean the thing was any slower, just smoother and more concise in the way it moved. The suit dodged on its own just as he’d hoped with the way he’d imbued it with his best impression of avoidance.
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The dodge was a much more fluid motion than he himself had been able to enact while throwing himself or the other suit around trying to avoid being hit. There was something completely different about being able to imbue your intent and not have it affected by your state of mind, or the hurried calculations of a meat based computer prone to errors. The suit had almost lazily leaned to the side leaving the barest of gaps for the protrusion the voidling had shaped into a scythe to slice the air ineffectually.
The voidling allowed his scythe to slide back into the whole before taking action again. This time there was no obvious indication it was looking around to warn for the attack to come. There were two scythes this time coming from opposite angles. The suit tucked and rolled backward before springing up again into a wide stance Ozzy was sure he’d seen an olympic gymnast do once. With the confirmation that his initial play was going as planned he turned his focus back to the second move he planned. The second suit he also layered in the avoidance he’d added to the first but with an additional layer. This second layer he wasn’t entirely sure would be successful though the moment watching the voidling fight had given him an idea.
He’d been trying to wrack his brains on how he could get his constructs to target nothing without them flailing randomly in the air. Though watching the exchange just now he’d been captivated by the membrane it formed and the weapons it created from it. This membrane seemed to have some physical form, and he had an example of it laying just a few meters away. Pulling the shredded flap of membrane over to the suit he used it to create a focus to create a target for the construct. After a few failed attempts it began to swing its tentacled spears slicing into the husk. Grabbing the suit with his domain it stopped like all his other constructs did and he threw the thing at the voidling that was still going after the first suit. The moment his domain left the suit it reoriented itself in mid air and zeroed in on the voidling. As it neared it prepared a strike and let loose on the enemy. The voidling dodged as smoothly as it had attacked and even began to attack in return.
Despite now having a second combatant to deal with the voidling didn’t seem to be perturbed or worried at all. It didn’t even stop attacking the first suit. Which now that Ozzy’s attention was brought back to it, he could see had a few minor scratches and one gash in its membrane. Indicating the voidling wasn’t just better able to control itself but could also learn from those it faced and improve as it continued to fight. For another few seconds he was mesmerized by the fluid fight between his constructs and the resident of the void. It was almost like a dance. Now with the second suit in the mix the voidling found it hard to land a hit, yet so did the second suit. Their movements flowed forward and back, to attack and avoid in turn. Though between the suits the voidling was the most graceful of the three. One side attacked while the other barely avoided being hit by a spear.
To turn the tide Ozzy reached out to the first suit and layered in the same commands as the second. When it dodged the voidling’s next attack it followed it up with one of its own. This attack, being so out of the pattern so far, slipped past the voidling's awareness and landed quite solidly on its membrane. There was no hiss or shriek to accompany the damage, simply an adjustment to the voidling’s reactions to account for the change. Instead of continuing to watch, Ozzy began creating a third suit. As soon as it was ready he sent it off and began work on a fourth. Once it had joined the fray he allowed himself some time to evaluate. The voidling was now taking damage every few attacks, though at the same time it was able to use the multiple opponents against one another. Maneuvering itself to have one or more of the suits blocking the others meant their attacks couldn’t hit it as well.
As he watched he saw one of the suits end up hitting another in the back, apparently not caring if its ally was in the way of what it was trying to attack. Though obviously he hadn’t accounted for anything like that with his commands. It took a few exchanges before he was able to add another layer of intent to fix that conundrum. This had the unintended, but appreciated, consequences of the suits also maneuvering themselves into better positions to attack. He had been worried he’d need to add an incredibly complex set of layers for such behavior. Thankfully he’d struck it lucky and found a simple solution by accident.
Continuing to evaluate the situation he was pleased to find the damage to the voidling's protective shell had increased significantly. Not to the point that he suspected it would die any moment, but enough that he held out hope this solution would pan out. As before the voidling was clamping down on any gash forming on the membrane. There was the brief splash of energy flowing out from the air getting in. Though something was different with that energy. A growing portion of it was slowing, then changing directions and being absorbed by the voidling. Nothing like half of the energy which relieved him. Though his next realization removed any such relief from his mind. The energy in the air around the voidling was forming a vortex like Cederick's. Not quite the same range the kid’s was at, but enough that it was clearly making up for what it was losing in the fight. Enough that Ozzy could visibly see the voidling growing.