Good Imp-Hunting | Alternative Methods

"You know, maybe this was a bit of a bad idea..." Hutch muttered to themself as the boat moved forward on the water. Originally, they had believed that asking another experienced imp trainer in the area for help finding their misplaced Devish was a good idea. But, and this was no insult towards Ulrich, they weren't expecting someone with such... volume to them. Thankfully, Ulrich at least seemed to know what he was doing. "I... really should thank you for all of this, Ulrich. I don't know what I would have done if I wasn't able to find them... and I'm not exactly used to the Forneus Sea enough to actually know where to look. Ulrich smiled wide towards them, the toothy smile both being comforting and a little unnerving. "I'm happy to help ya, boy! Can't be having domesticated Devish in these waters anyways, they'll mess up the way of life in the sea here." Hutch tilted their head slightly. "R-Really? I never read anything about that in the books about Devish..." 

"Ah, that's the thing, lad. You stay in the city too much! Focusin' too much on the domestic habits of imps to really know what they're like as the balls of energy they are. Domesticated imps got a bit more energy to 'em. Though by all logic they shouldn't be able to take much of a punch, in practice imps that are taken care of by someone are more likely to stand up to more damage. It makes 'em real dangerous to send out into the wild again." Ulrich continued on, Hutch already pulling out a notepad to write down this information as it was given. "Feral imps don't have that kind of connection to someone, it makes their bodies weaker because they ain't got any sense of connection to any other creature. It's not like an imp in the wild can feel love or anything, they just sort of move around n' look pretty. Once they become domesticated, that shifts. The owners project their own ability to love and to care onto their imps. Point bein', if a domesticated imp and a feral imp get into a scuffle, the domesticated one's gonna win, and they might just get some big ideas in those little bodies of theirs that they should expand their territory. Leave 'em be for too long and they'll make an entire ecosystem nothin' but smoke and wild energy until some of it starts reformin' into more imps."

"Fascinating! So what you're saying is..." In that moment, Hutch remembered what they were here for, and dropped their notepad suddenly. "Oh no! If we leave the Devish out here, they'll completely decimate the wild Devish population! Along with who knows what else!" Ulrich nodded. "You got it, boy. That's why we need to work move fast. track 'em down and get 'em into that tank of yours." Hutch only seemed to panic more. "But I lost about twenty of them! There's so way we'll be able to find them all!" The taller succubun placed a gentle hand on Hutch's head, calming them down and keeping them from getting even more upset. They would end up shaking too much and causing the boat some issues if they did. "It'll be alright, boy. I know what I'm doin'. Just sit yourself down and let me know if you see any big splashes in the water." It would be difficult, but if that would help, Hutch would do the best he could. 

It didn't take much longer for the sound of aggressive splashing to make way to the two succubuns' ears. Hutch peeked out over the side, following Ulrich's body as he pointed out the area in the water that the splashing was coming from. "That'll be them. Splashing's too large for a single set of Devish to be havin' a territory scuffle. Get to the steerin' panel and sneak us up on them. I'll get my net ready." Hutch saluted, doing as they were told and running up the boat to where the control panel was. He wasn't that great with technology, but the boat's controls were pretty simple, allowing them to set the boat to a much slower speed as they got closer to the aggressive bit of water. He stopped the boat when they were close enough, and Ulrich quickly moved to dunk something under the water. Hutch had originally thought it'd be a net... but they didn't see Ulrich's hands holding onto a net's pole, but certainly he wouldn't be trying to grab the devish with his hands, right? They didn't get much time to think about what was happening before Ulrich was calling out to them.

"The tank, boy! Bring it over here!" Hutch jolted up and dragged the tank over. It was honestly huge, as it was supposed to hold twenty devish while making sure that none of them could see each other. It was more like a set of twenty small containment units slapped together and surrounded by glass. Ulrich then dragged up a large, writhing mass from the water, and Hutch now saw what Ulrich meant by his net. It was nothing close to the nets that Hutch typically used, instead being a sturdy fishing net that was able to haul all of the imps out of the water before slamming them down on the boat, causing them to flop around and create distance between each other. "Uhh, Ulrich?" Hutch started. "Yeah, boy?" Ulrich responded. "I'm honestly a little bit terrified right now. Are they okay?"

Ulrich laughed a little, giving a light smack on Hutch's back. "Ah, don't you be worrying yourself now! They'll be fine! Sure they got bonked a little on the way up here, but that just means they'll leave each other alone on the boat until we can get 'em into their places. Now come on, pick out your domesticated ones and toss 'em in the tank! Hutch was still a little unsure, but it wasn't like they were going to let the devish flop around the boat without helping them. The two of them worked together to pick out the feral devish from the ones that Hutch had lost, filling up each spot of the tank until every imp had their own spot. That left them with two wild devish, and Ulrich placed the one in his hands into the water gently. Hutch had tried to do the same, but was stopped by an arm holding him back. "Gotta keep 'em separated or they'll start fightin' again. Since it's two wild devish it should be fine, but I don't wanna take any chances."

"Oh! Then should we go around a bit more to see if we can find a spot to place them?" Hutch asked, already looking ahead to see if there was any spot they could point out immediately. Ulrich shook his head with a smile, gently plucking the devish out of Hutch's hands. In the next moment, Ulrich moved his arm back, before suddenly moving it forward, launching the devish out of his hand and watching it spin around in the air a little before splashing into the sea a few meters away. Hutch, unsurprisingly, was horrified at the sight. That was, until they saw the face of the devish peek out of the water again, to which they simply settled for sitting on the boat, dumbfounded. Was this how other imp tamers worked? Was he just being a wimp or was this man actually some kind of insane person!? At the very least the imp was okay, but they still couldn't believe what they had just seen. Ulrich seemed to notice the expression on Hutch's face. "Yeah... probably should've expected you to react like that, huh. You doin' okay?" Hutch didn't respond, just staring at the floor of the boat with their jaw slack. "I'll take that as a 'not right now.' then." Ulrich hissed a little under his breath, nervously making sure the poor succubun was okay before he moved over to the boat's control panel. "I'll check in on you when we get back to shore then. Just uh... tell me if you need anything."

---

Hutch had recovered by the time they got back to the shore, having fully processed everything and accepted that their methods were different. Neither of the methods were wrong persay, it was just that one was created from a love of imps and wanting to see them happy and cared for, and the other was created from a love of nature and wanting to see it stable and undisrupted. Both of them cared about imps, just in different ways... yes, that was the logic that allowed Hutch to keep their sanity about this situation. Ulrich helped them carry the tank back to their vehicle, tucking the devish in the back and making sure that they were fully secure. The imps seemed to be calmed after their big adventure, and Hutch could only hope that they wouldn't try to do anything crazy in the near future. 

"Thank you for all your help, Ulrich. This was really... enlightening! Yes... that's a good word for it."  Hutch tried their best to sound respectful, despite the fear they felt after seeing the succubun toss an imp into the sea. Ulrich wasn't buying it, but he smirked nonetheless. "It's okay, boy. You can say it scared the shit out of you, I promise I won't be offended or nothing." To that, Hutch collapsed, clinging a little to the taller bun's leg. "It was horrifying! I can't understand how you can do that all the time! If I had to handle imps like that as often as you do, I wouldn't be able to function!" Ulrich couldn't help but laugh, but still leaned down a little to pat Hutch's head in a comforting manner. "Yeah, yeah. Let all those feelings out. Don't want you holdin it in on the way back to the city."

Hutch proceeded to cry for about thirty minutes, allowing Ulrich to hear their misery and how they hoped that they would never have to see an imp handled like that ever again. Ulrich truly wasn't offended by it. After all, he had encountered a lot of city folk who felt the same way about the way he handled the nature of burrowgatory. Not many of them would imagine any situation where they would have to handle an imp as aggressively as he did in his line of work. In fact, in some strange way, it kind of boosted his confidence to hear someone from Burrowgatory fear him like this... might be something about the protection of the Forneus Sea from the overbearing grip of greed buns, or something like that.

But he wasn't going to say that to Hutch. The poor thing was already a sobbing mess when Ulrich was trying his best to be as city-friendly as possible.