It had just sat down for a nap somewhere in a far corner of Orion. A nice, cool, shady area, exhausted from a day of moderate work, in a nice bed of moss that had been growing in the crevices. And when it had closed its eyes, it fell into a wonderfully deep sleep, free of dreams or nightmares or restlessness. Just peace and relaxation to take it through the night.

And it had thought that it had only been a single night, so it was quite surprised when its eyes blinked blearily open to see nothing but deep blood-red surrounding it. At first it was confused, unable to remember where it was at all, before raising its head. Or, at least, trying to raise its head. But it felt something solid and hard halt its movement for a moment, immediately causing an instinctual panic. It was stuck in a cage, solid walls on all sides, and it had no idea how it had gotten there.

It lashed out, punching at the walls of its chrysalis, but the gemstone shattered easily, sending shards flying away and dumping Ruby-Beta on the ground, where it gasped in a breath of air and immediately coughed up a mouthful of fluid. Great, now it was all sticky and wet and feeling absolutely disgusting. Ugh.

It immediately stood and stepped away from the remains of its chrysalis to turn around and clean off its pelt. The fluid tasted funny and there were bits of ruby stick in its tangled fur, which was weirdly oily and flaked with old skin. Damn, it was like it hadn't given itself a proper cleaning in cycles.

It froze. In cycles. In...cycles. Its eyes moved towards the chrysalis. It had been in its chrysalis. But it didn't remember ever getting in there. It didn't get in a fight or anything, it wasn't forced, was it? Which meant...it had been hibernating. But for how long? "Oh shit," it hissed under its breath, immediately standing up. If it had been more then a cycle then the Overseer...

Oh shit. The Overseer was going to kill it for missing its test. And its training! It was supposed to be training all this time! It groaned and sat back, then, lifting its paws to rub at its face. Oh, man, it was so screwed.

Bloodstone was toddling along, trying to remember the steps that Alpha had "taught" them in their last lesson. Scent out prey... track it, find it, kill it- there had to be more steps than that. How were they supposed to kill it? They'd have to find out, they supposed.

Left, or Condemn as they'd started secretly calling themselves to differ between the others, was sleeping, nestled up with her head turned towards their spine to keep her from flopping around as they walked. Inferno and Char, the middle and right heads, were alert and attentive, looking around and trying to find something of interest to scent out. So far it wasn't going great, but it had only been a few minutes.

Inferno grumbled softly as they lifted up a rock, finding nothing underneath, not even a whiff of prey (though they did find a cool rock!). It was rather boring as they walked along, sniffing and searching up and down, left and right, sideways and up ways- nothing.

They were awfully startled when they heard a rather nasty crack ring out from one of the crevices in the walls. It woke up Condemn, who grumbled at the other two heads before being shushed quickly, all three peering around the corner like it was a cartoon, one on top of the other.

Oh that was a person- should they tell Alpha? Investigate?

Before they could come to an agreement, Condemn dragged their body forward, cooing curiously at the being within, head bobbing up and down as the other two hissed and growled at her for her sudden action.

"Hello!" Condemn spoke rather cheerfully, her softer features and white coloring contrasting against the other heads' tones and mannerisms.

The superego to their ego and id.

@Ruby-Beta

It didn't notice the creature at first, too busy trying to figure out what on earth it was going to say to the Overseer when it met up with him, and rubbing furiously at its eyes, but then there was a voice, calling out to it and it paused, blinking blearily and looking up. Something was approaching and it had to stare at it for a moment to realize that it wasn't three separate creatures, but one. "What the fuck..." it muttered to itself as it lowered its paws back to the ground. It was small, definitely smaller then it, or maybe just young. More the size of Delta or Epsilon, although maybe this one was bigger. Beta didn't know, it could barely remember their...what what it call them? Family? Friends? No, those words weren't right. Uh, hatchmates? Yeah, it could barely remember the size of their hatchmates anymore. Which really told tale of how long it'd been away and sleeping.

It's tail swished behind it as it stood, stepping forward and leaning down to sniff the hydra curiously. "Hello?" It rumbled back. Why did it smell familiar? Or, no, it didn't smell familiar, but there was some scent clinging to its hide that stirred up something. "Uh, so, who are you? Have we met before or something?"

@Bloodstone

Condemn went to reply before Char interrupted, eyes narrowed, "You look like the Overseer."

Condemn shot him a nasty look as Inferno sniffed at Ruby curiously, all three heads showing clearly conflicting opinions before Inferno piped up, "And the Master too!"

All three heads seemed to pause and think about that fact, mumbling to each other about how the Overseer did in fact, look a lot like Master Vargas in terms of head-shape. And so did Ruby...

Three sets of yellow eyes narrowed in on Ruby, each of the heads looking her up and down before Char spoke again, "Overseer Alpha sent us to hunt on our own... he's nearby, we should tell him-"

"But what if they don't want us too, hm?", Condemn said to the grey head, who's mouth turned into a frown.

Inferno backed them out of the crevice, dodging snapping teeth as the two quarreled before sighing and looking to Ruby-Beta, "We're um... We're Bloodstone. Or at least that's what Master Vargas calls us. Who are you? You look like him and the Overseer... are you uh... of them?"

@Ruby-Beta

Beta's eyes widened at the mention of the Overseer, but, really, it shouldn't be surprised. He hadn't exactly been hiding himself and he must have had a good amount of time to roam around and make himself, and the Sentinels, known. It wondered, then, how the others were doing. If Alpha had actually done something useful with its life instead of bully, if the others had ever gotten scouting missions from the Overseer, or if any of them had run a Trial without it...

It shook its head. No, no way a Trial started without them. The Overseer would have found them, right? But who was this Master? Nemean, maybe? But that didn't really seem right because it didn't look anything like Nemean. It snorted. "The Overseer, yeah, but which Master are you talking about?"

But the answer came a moment later. Overseer Alpha. Which made Vargas a Master. Eyes widened and, before it could stop itself, it was bursting into laughter. "Overseer Alpha! Orthoclase-Alpha! The Overseer! Hahahaha! It must have been busy beating up kids or something! That makes Overseer Vargas Master Vargas now, doesn't it?" It calmed its laughter, more out of a deep-seated dread that, now that Vargas was a Master, he could probably punish it so much more painfully.

For a second, it considered not Bloodstone its name, because then they'd go running back to Alpha and Over-Master Vargas and tell them all about how it was sleeping all this time, but they'd probably find out anyways. "Ah, I'm Ruby-Beta. Yeah, I'm one of 'em, hatched right next to Alpha and it beat the shit outta me fresh out of its chrysalis." It snorted. "And what about you? How do you fit into all this....shit? And why do you have three heads, which one do I talk to?"

@Bloodstone

"Well... that's rough, buddy," Inferno said a bit awkwardly, "And I'm uh... training? In training I mean... And you can speak to all of us... or just me if it makes you comfortable."

The other two heads nodded, Condemn much more enthusiastically than Char did.

"The Overseer is nearby... they were watching over my hunt, so we have to go back," Inferno said, before turning to trot away a few steps, "Should I tell them you're here?"

Condemn turned to face Beta, ears perked up, "Or... you could help! They're not very good at explaining things."

Char hissed at Condemn and snapped out at her, "It's a privilege to be able to server the Overseer and the Master- learn respect-"

Inferno blocked them out, already looking tired of the two.

@Ruby-Beta

It was a little confusing following three heads, but he did as the middle one asked and focused on that one, especially while it was talking. Probably the controller or just the main head. Perhaps the others had sprouted off of it, since they were a little mismatched compared to the middle. Its tail flicked suddenly when the thing mentioned Alpha nearby. Immediately, its nose flared, trying to catch a whiff. It remembered the scent that it caught on the thing now - that was Alpha's scent. It just barely caught that smell in the air, some ways away, and it internally cursed itself. How did it not notice until now?

It wanted to decline, but it realized that it would probably tell Alpha that it had run into it here, and Alpha would probably tell Vargas and then it would really be in trouble for disappearing. Might as well just get it over with. "Yeah, why not. Little family reunion." It hauled itself to its feet and made to walk after it.

It snorted when Condemn commented on Alpha's ability to teach. "Of course it isn't! All it knows how to do is fight! But I guess we should respect it - if Master Vargas trusts it to be an Overseer, well, I can't argue with that."

@Bloodstone

Inferno nodded and waddled off, their stubby legs carrying them surprisingly fast towards where they last saw Alpha to be.

Bloodstone made their way across the rocks and through the various obstacles in their way, still searching for something to eat. When they caught a scent... all of the heads reared up and faced towards the lone rabbit that froze in the hydra's fierce gaze. Teeth were bared and fins flared, before they shot forward, each maw wide open, ready to snatch up and rip apart.

Char snatched up the critter first and rose it up to try and keep it from the others, each head tussling over the poor critter before tearing it into 3 pieces and gobbling them down, with only an ear left. Inferno picked it up to carry to Alpha as proof of their kill, and lead the rest of the way back.

"Iverseer?" Inferno called out, looking around for the behemoth.

@Orthoclase-Alpha
@Ruby-Beta

Its assignment for the bloodstone had been fairly simple - hunt in Orion and bring back a prize. Paw, ear, tail; Alpha didn't care. Anything to prove that the whelp was successful in its hunt and that it could be trusted to be self-sufficient. The first few days had been filled with teaching the basics, but the Overseer (that still felt so odd to think) wanted assurances that Bloodstone wouldn't... y'know, starve to death because its three heads were too uncoordinated or their squabbling scared prey away.

Alpha did, of course, trail after them. Just on the off-chance of betrayal or conniving or running away. It clung to the shadows, but didn't make any particular efforts towards hiding. Just reducing its own noise and making sure it didn't ruin the hydra's prospects.

There were some voices - one was... familiar - murmuring through the ruins, and just as it went to check more closely on Bloodstone, the whelp came scuffling towards it. Toxic eyes glanced down at it, and it rose from where it was crouching. "What is it -" it started, sniffed, and whipped its head up. Is that - "Ruby-Beta." Awestruck? Astounded? Stupefied? Alpha blinked slowly. "Where have you been?"

Said with none of the joviality usually associated with the phrase.

@Ruby-Beta

Beta followed after Bloodstone, really not looking forward to this, that spark of jealousy that had started in its chest growing hotter as it thought about what it had missed while Alpha had been out training and getting Vargas's approval, but when it turned the corner to see the beast, it found itself no longer nervous. Here was someone it knew, a hatchmate, given life by the same being. It bared itself in an attempt at a grin. "Orthoclase-Alpha. Long time no see!"

It's tail flicked behind it as it snorted with amusement. "Where do you think? Sleeping! I think I, uh...slept a bit too long this time, though. I didn't mean to, I promise!" It occurred to Beta that it actually had no idea how long it had been unconscious. And with just a quick glance over Alpha, it saw that time hadn't exactly been gentle on it, with quite an obvious scar on its left side and other signs that Alpha had been in numerous fights. There was a momentary surge of fear - what if it had been asleep for too long, that Master Vargas had abandoned any hope of seeing it again? "I need to ask - how long have I been away?"

@Bloodstone @Orthoclase-Alpha