Ruby-Beta felt a very neutral satisfaction that its hunt had been successful. It's prey hadn't even seen it, didn't even realize that it was there, not until its massive paws had slammed into him and forced him to the ground. Good - he could tell the Overseer, then, that he succeeded at least once, hunting and successfully pouncing on an enemy.
It realized, in the few moments that it was holding Imp down, that there was nothing where its eyes were supposed to be. Only empty sockets with nothing to give it a sense of sight. Disappointment flooded its veins. This was not a real hunt if its prey was so crippled. It only mattered if Beta succeeded i taking down formidable prey, not ones with a handicap. But, well, maybe it wouldn't have to tell Vargas that. Just hunting would probably suffice.
Still, its small victory was short-lived as heat rapidly began growing beneath its paws, searing the flesh on his paws. With a hissing sound it lurched back, releasing the hybrid before the heat burned its skin too much. It moaned as it stumbled away, raising its previously injured paw up to its face.
It huffed and began licking at the paw.
Imp took a deep breath.
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN YOU WERE JUST PRACTICING?! Practicing WHAT, you douchebag?! JUMPING ON BLIND GUYS AND GETTING THEM ALL WET--fuck I'm all wet-" he realized, hauling himself up and shaking himself off. Feet hissed as they touched water, and Imp winced, turning and squatting to face Ruby-Beta warily.
He was not quite pointed at Ruby, though, just... vaguely in that direction.
"Maybe DON'T FUCKING JUMP ON PEOPLE if you don't want them to freak out?!" His heart still jumped in his throat, the fear gripping him, adrenaline spiking through him. And misery, too; he couldn't defend himself. Not at all.
It was a lesson, though: he'd have to stay a lot more alert. ...And away from noisy waterfalls.
"Fuck," Imp added, exhaling a shaky breath, as if for emphasis.
@Ruby-Beta
Beta paused in the middle of licking its paws at the hybrid's sudden outrage, acidic eyes flicking up at the raging...thing.
It continued licking at its paws until the stinging sensation had lessened a little bit before it remembered that it was, in fact, standing right next to water. It leaned forward to put its paws in the cool pool and sighing at the relief that it brought it. It flicked its eyes back to Imp, observing his strange shape. It did not know what it could even be. Perhaps some kind of reptile? But then it should not have hair. Maybe a bird? The wings werent the right shape.
"Doesn't matter if you knew, you're still a piece of shit," Imp muttered, but more subdued, because thing had felt pretty heavy and he was still blind and fighting large, heavy things when you were blind wasn't all that smart. Even so, he was too pissy to just keep it to himself. "Now I'm fuckin' wet, you know how long these shitbag feathers take to dry? You'd think they'd be some nice slick ones but noo.... I had to get fluffy..."
Imp didn't know what the hell a designation was, so he bluffed. "My designation? Oh I left it in Canis. It's a big one, though. Real pretty." -That'd do, right? But as to what he was, well!
He turned toward Ruby again, puffing himself up--literally, these days, with that mass of feathers--proudly.
"I'm the grandson of a MASTER!" he declared, even though Nemean had insisted up and down that Aquarian had just been using them. For good measure, then--"-and one of the COOL ones, too, not that tiny shitbag Nemean."
He paused, and then added, "You know she's in and out of her stupid rock all the time? She can't even stay alive," he mocked, which was pretty fucking rich coming from Imp. Speaking of which: "Call me Imp, by the way--who the fuck're you?"
@Ruby-Beta
Beta stared at Imp, eyes narrowing a bit, but not quite with anger. Disappointment maybe. Hurt, but if it was genuine, it was hard to tell. Not that it mattered anyways, since there was no one to see the meager expression.
It looked at him strangely.
It's humor dropped a bit at his bad-mouthing of the Master. Not that it really cared what happened to him, but if it respected the Overseer, then it respected his superiors as well. In a different, more impersonal way, but at least the respect was there.
"Still not cool to just jump on a guy," he muttered. "Yeah, the feathers are new--I didn't need to be warmer but here we are. And yeah, it was from Hydra? How'd you know?" A sightless, quizzical glance back at Beta."You know 'beta' ain't a number, right? I don't know what it is but nobody goes one, two, beta." It was said with less hostility than before, in any case, as Imp turned his attention to the pool again. He began to edge along its side, listening and sniffing for any signs of surface-splashing fish, with no luck.
"Yeah, I know they can. I mean, they can TRY. Nemean had to run away from me," he added, proudly, which wasn't entirely true but--she had avoided his eating her, anyway. Jupiter's presence totally hadn't factored in. "What, you don't believe me? I'm Aquarian's grandkid. My dad's Aquarian's kid. Nemean talks shit but she doesn't know shit," he added, muttering. At the mention of Vargas, though, Imp turned--first in shock, and then outrage, and then hilarity, in rapid succession.
"You're VARGAS'S kid?! That giant shitbag slave?!" he asked--while launching skyward, because honestly fuck hanging around in scratch-and-bite range when smack-talking someone's giant father; "THAT FAT FUCK? HAHAHAHA! Vargas is a shitbag! He does whatever Nemean tells him to 'cause he's a scaredy shit! That piece of fuck pulled out my eyes!" Imp added, looking for a perch of some kind up higher. A hanging stalagmite, maybe. Anything where he could continue this questionable conversation out of reach of Ruby, and without having to worry about flapping around for ages.
Hind claws and wings smacked into--and nearly fell off of, but soon found purchase on--something hard. A ledge, he thought, from a wall higher up, but he turned and listened, in case Ruby came for him. "Man, what is it LIKE, having to be his kid and live with that shit? He's a total asshole!" Imp cried, apparently in sympathy, but he was hiding up high, now, just in case.
@Ruby-Beta
Oh it was probably good that Imp was relaxing a little bit. To be honest, Beta didn't really like fighting as much as its larger sibling and if this had dissolved into a fight, it would have been a little disappointed.
Beta snorted.
Beta frowned, standing taller and reaching to grab onto Imp, to pull him back down before he flew away, but he was way out of its reach before it even reacted.
As he reached the ceiling, he kept babbling.
"And I don't look like a bird. Shit can have feathers without being birds. Like-" (a quick mental inventory found nothing whatsoever, here) "-Me."
Then, something smacked him, hard, across the ribs, and suddenly he was glad for those stupid feathers cushioning the blow. For a moment he started, nearly falling, afraid that somehow Ruby-Beta had closed the distance between them and had hit him--and then afraid, an instant later, of What if it's bats or something?! It took hearing the echoing clatter of a couple rocks for him to realize what was going on.
Being blind was fucking terrifying. It sucked, and he hated it.
"Ow--Ow! Ouch! FUCK, are you throwing ROCKS at me, you fat asshole?!" he demanded. Thunk as a rock smacked off his tail. "OW, fuckin' STOP THAT SHIT! What honor?! You're HONORED to be some big ugly dick's servant?! You're the SLAVE OF A SLAVE, shit-for-brains! You ever done ANYTHING for yourself?!" His quasi-moral tirade was half-interrupted by another rock, this time to his neck, and he flinched and nearly fell, scrabbling up to try and get farther away. He found a dip up above the ledge and scrabbled into it, doing his best to hide there.
"Anything--FUCK, STOP!--like-" and again, Imp's brain supplied only a faint and distant buzzing, "um, ANYTHING? Like ART!?" he demanded, finally coming up with an example.
@Ruby-Beta
Ruby-Beta tried to get on his hind legs to launch the rocks further at Imp, but once he'd gotten out of its range, there wasn't really any hope of inflicting more damage, especially now that it was hiding. It curled its lip, acidic eyes narrowed with anger. Imp had pressed the one button that really got it angry.
It threw another rock his way, more out of frustration that it couldn't do anything then actually trying to hit him.
He couldn't be sure--the red flicker of a heartbeat wasn't entirely clear--but it didn't look like it had wings. Maybe they were just folded, right now, over its back..?
Imp decided not to mention this.
"Misbehave?! Who gave him the right to decide what GOOD BEHAVIOR is?! Anyway he's ugly," Imp added, a little less vehement (potential wings were worrying) and a little more sullenly. "You're just brainwashed. And how do you not know what art is?!"
Imp paused. ...How did he explain art?
"Art's when you make shapes and colors and things on the cave walls! You make stuff look like other stuff. It's an expression of the inner self! And also Nemean's penises!"
@Ruby-Beta