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. "Aw man," it rumbled with a whining tone. "And this was just starting to heal too."

It huffed and began licking at the paw. "You know you didn't have to freak out like that I was only practicing."

@Imp

you know that inhale? seagull meme? b/c the red eyes now occur and-

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. "Practicing my hunting." And, somehow, Beta continued to sound about as cheerful as ever, a relatively friendly tone in its voice. "I have been given the task of practicing my hunting on other Greaters. You were here so I thought I'd do it on you. I didn't know you were blind." Yet it did not apologize for its behavior. It did not see a reason to - blindness was a weakness and it didn't really feel like pitying the guy shouting obscenities at it.

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. "What are you? And what is your designation?"

@Imp

"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. "That is not very nice. I don't think I'm "a piece of shit." I didn't hurt you or anything." It looked up and down Imp's body, now wondering if he hadn't been hatched with it, from the way he was speaking. "Are the feathers new? Are you not used to them yet?" It thought for a moment. "Fur and feathers are useful against the cold, at least." A thought occurred to Beta, then. "Oh were you in Hydra? Is that where you got the feathers?" That would make sense - the rewards of Hydra were supposed to help the Champions against the particular weather at the time. And it had been cold, not long ago. Feathers would probably make sense.

It looked at him strangely. "Uh...I am asking for your designation. Like...gemstone and number. My designation is Ruby-Beta." It scoffed at his tale of being related to a Master. "Right, right, I'm sure you are. I'm sure the Masters have many children." The sarcasm was dripping from its voice, but it didn't seem to be in bad spirits - it genuinely thought it was a joke and was playing along.

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. "You should not bad-mouth the Masters like that, you know. They could kill you." Probably obvious but it thought it should point it out, anyways, to remind him.

"Like I said...I'm Ruby-Beta, one of the Sentinels and the offspring of the Overseer Vargas." Kind of an impressive title, although it doubted the names would mean anything to Imp if he didn't even know what a designation was.

@Imp

Okay, in this stranger's defense, it wasn't being a total asshole. Imp's feathers smoothed down, and he looked back to the water.

"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. "A good guess. The rewards for the Champions are always to help them survive the climate. And Hydra was recently freezing." It lifted its paw from the water to inspect the burns but then paused, blinking with confusion. "Is it...not? I though it was a special number or something. Alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and epsilon...are they not numbers?" Had the Sentinels named them incorrectly or something? Why had the Overseer not corrected them, then?

Beta snorted. "Aquarian? Isn't he the big snake that lives in Cetus? You don't look like a snake. You look like a funny bird." It wasn't quite prepared for the range of facial expressions that ran across Imp's face at the mention of the Overseer, but it was certainly shocked when he suddenly launched up and began shit-talking the one person in Beta's life that it truly respected.

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. "Don't talk about the Overseer like that! He is strength, and power, and he is my life-giver! If he pulled out your eyes that you did something to deserve it! He does as Nemean commands because she is a Master." It growled dangerously and began picking up rocks and launching them as hard as it could at Imp, the only thing it could do to strike back at the hybrid. "I am honored to be his kin! I'm not going to let you get away with insulting him like that!"

@Imp

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. "You're just mad because you probably thought you could get away with misbehaving with the Overseer around!" The "fat" comment also seemed to hit a nerve as it flinched a little bit and growled louder, apparently forgetting for a moment that Imp couldn't actually see it to make that judgement. "I'm not fat, I'm muscular! And the Overseer isn't fat either, you disrespectful asshole!" Might as well throw its insults back, even if it didn't quite know what the word meant.

It threw another rock his way, more out of frustration that it couldn't do anything then actually trying to hit him. "Of course I do! I relax! I take it easy! What the hell even IS art?! I do whatever I want until the OVerseer needs something from me! He is NOT a slave and if you save that one more time I'll..." It paused. Shit, what would it do? It couldn't get rocks up to him and it couldn't get up there on its own. But then it remembered that Imp, in fact, couldn't see. "I'll come up there after you! I've got big wings and I can just follow you wherever you go and make you regret being so rude!"

@Imp

Imp was silent for a moment. The promise of big wings was... worrying, to say the least. But why wasn't it already chasing him? Why throw rocks? Afraid--yet doubtful--he tried to send out his magic.

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