A/N: Thanks to Insane Boy for the transcript and qazse for help with reactions!
A huntress in stylish green plated armor with some kind of ponytails walked along a mountain region as something observed her from above. "You know it feels like something's missing from the New World something a little bit..." Rage began, before a loud buzzing was heard. "What... what the hell is... the hell is that noise- oof!" He cried out as something flew at the Huntress, dropping her to one knee as it passed just above her, flying away too fast to accurately be seen. "What the hell is that. You can't just do- oh... Jesus I just want to say... what the folks. STOP. Ha ha ha. Shut up okay." Rage cracked up from his intro as the Huntress was repeatedly assailed by a flying menace.
Ruby, Coco, Nora and Emerald all looked on in amazement and desire as they saw the hunter's armor. "That armor looks so cool!" Ruby and Nora said, clasping hands together.
"Yeah. It's functional and stylish. You look good while wearing armor that the Grimm probably couldn't even get through... except for the few open areas." Coco noted.
"And it's perfectly in my color." Emerald added.
Everyone jumped at the fast flying monster. "Whoa! That thing was super fast! Did you guys see that!?" Jaune asked excitedly.
"I couldn't even tell what it was." Pyrrha explained.
"Well, whatever it was, looks like it's giving Rage a hard time!" Qrow chuckled.
"Hello my fellow hunters, today... Well, today we explore giant fuck off monster bugs." Rage explained, whispering the last bit with an ominous echo as the screen went black. "It's creepy, it's terrifying and the counterpart of something much bigger and much scarier but you know it's kind of got its own creepy beauty when viewed from behind very thick glass." Rage explained as a large bug with a huge horn was shown on screen watching the huntress. "So the pair of creepy crawlies today then and yes I did say a pair you and this pair then to me is the most fascinating of all the Neopterans the order which they belong also containing Hornetaur and Vespoid that you've well seen buzzing around, hopping around and generally being right little bastards in the world." He continued as a hunter faced off against a Seltas flying around the jungle.
However, the creature eventually stopped, allowing everyone to see what it was. "Aah! Disgusting! A giant bug!" Weiss cried out.
"Come now, sister. Surely, you aren't still afraid of bugs." Winter said.
"N-no, I'm not! I just... don't enjoy them. This is going to be a terrible episode." Weiss complained, getting small, but noticeable nods from Emerald, Velvet and even Roman.
"And even worse, there's two of them." Emerald groaned.
"For once, I'm with you, minty." Roman agreed with Emerald, shuddering at the thought of these bugs.
"The strongest of the neopterans of course being Konchu!" Rage declared, giving the audience a fake-out as Ahtal-Ka's image was replaced by Konchu's.
When Rage was talking about the strongest Neopteran Neo gestured to Kin with both arms as the Ahtal-Ka posed proudly, only for Konchu to pop up at the last second. A record scratching sound could be heard as Neo and Kin looked at the screen in shock and anger. (What!? Impossible! I could easily rip apart one of those pathetic bowling balls! And with Ahtal-Nesto, I could flatten their entire species!) The mantis monster cried out.
"Yeah! And I would pry them open with my umbrella like a crowbar and shishkabob them!" Neo declared. Everyone else couldn't help but laugh at their expense.
"We know you'd get them, girls. But come on, you have to admit, it was a good psyche out!" Yang told them.
"We will admit nothing." Neo pouted.
"This though is Seltas he's a happy little chap that really want's to brutally impale and murder everything smaller then it to satisfy its craving for flesh. So what I love about him is that he is in the line of weak early quest introductory get you used to the hunts, wet your weapon monsters. He's a great Jaggi- well, a little bit more advanced but not crazily far cuz normally right you're expecting to see a Kulu Ya Ku type, raptor-y not too threatening and then all of a sudden we got this blitz bug of impalement hurtling at you at hilarious speeds trying to spear you on its four foot horn I was like 'Yes!', but also 'NO!' and I'm pretty partial to this pesky bug." Rage said as the huntress was shown engaging in battle with a different Seltas.
"Oh, good. Giant impaling bugs faster than Penny." Jaune said nervously.
"Actually, Jaune. I am most certain I am faster than Seltas, but it's speed is still quite impressive. I'd say it could likely keep up with standard motor vehicles." Penny corrected. Surprisingly not helping the situation.
"Well, remember, children. We have aura to protect us. And if they send rookie hunters after them, surely they can't be as dangerous as Rage made them out to be." Summer reassured the concerned students.
"And while it may be fast, it's attack seems relatively straight forward. Literally, it comes at you in a straight line, so just keep an eye on it and move out of the way when it charges." Ren explained.
"So Seltas aren't horribly dissimilar at least in general theme to our normal world giant beetles with big horns. The Hercules beetle, your Stag beetles, your Rhino beetles and they, too, can fly with some effort. They have some serious volume to them-" Rage started, showing someone with a Hercules Beetle in their hand, before showing the beetle trying to fly while its owner held its horn, producing quite a bit of sound from its wings. "And really something that large flying at you is going to be kind of intimidating." Rage said as a normal Seltas was shown again.
Ozpin and Glynda smiled at this. "Ahh, yes. the Dynastinae. Bartholomew absolutely loved studying these wonderous creatures in his younger days." Ozpin said with a smile.
"There's nothing wonderous about them!" Blake cried out, a bit intimidated by the bugs themselves. Sure, her cat instincts sometimes caused her to chase bugs, but ones that size caused her to panic.
"Now, now, Miss Belladonna, all creatures serve a purpose and these mighty beetles are no different. They have their own fascinating charm and beauty." Glynda explained.
"Besides, Blake. They may appear intimidating, but they're almost entirely harmless. The worst one could do to you is scratch you with the hooks on its legs while crawling along your body." Pyrrha added.
Then, they saw the beetle being held by its horn as it tried to fly. "Oh, come on. That's mean." Velvet complained.
"Yeah! He's trying to fly, so leave him alone and let him do it!" Ruby scolded.
"Whoa! You guys hear those wings?!" Nora asked.
"Yeah! It's almost like the propellers on a Mistral airship!" Neo said, impressed.
"But they're not the best fliers. It's like they take off immediately realize- 'Wait I have no idea what I'm doing', loose control and start panicking." Rage explained.
Immediately after, a Rhino beetle was shown on screen and Rage provided a voice over for it. "Alright I just need to take of here ..ahhhhh." The beetle screamed as it flew for a fraction of a second. "Ok ok oh back on the ground oh I never want to do that ever- AGAIN! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Move! MOVE! MOVE!" The beetle cried as it flew at the camera man.
A lot of the kid and some adults laughed at Rage's voice over of the beetle's misfortune. "It is quit comedic to see them flying. It looks like something that just shouldn't work, but just barely does." Winter said.
"Oh, man! That's amazing! Now I can't stop thinking of Yuma freaking out like that when he flies!" Ilia laughed.
"That's something I would pay to see." Blake giggled.
"Yuma may act tough, but it's honestly easy to make him make a fool of himself." Adam told them.
"I love it they're are some of my favorite insects they're ones that I would happily handle. I think they're charming creatures. So, to get back to the bug of the hour, there's really not a lot of complexity going on here, he's a huge flying beetle-y type fellow." Rage admitted.
"Sometimes it's the most straight-forward that are the most deadly." Hazel pointed out.
"Only if you can't see them coming. Once you understand what you're up against, it's over." Coco says.
"But, isn't your style straightforward and predictable? I mean, you're either shooting a gun or swinging a purse." Weiss noted.
"Maybe, but that's why my Semblance powers up my Dust so much so I'm almost unbeatable." Coco told her.
"Emphasis on almost." Cinder warned her.
"He can go really quite quick he's got two scythe falling claws that can cut a hunter in half like a hot knife through butter he can rear up and shoot acidic globs of just out of his abdomen stinger and of just ewwww out of his abdomen stinger and of course his kingly adornment crest that doubles up as both a protective canopy and an offensive spear. It can penetrate rock though you can cut it off and make a very, very sad Seltas" Rage explained as the Hunter continued to fight against the Seltas, while the creature used all the abilities Rage had mentioned.
When they saw this male hunter, Nora's eyes filled with stars at the sight of the green hammer on his back. "Is that... a rocket powered drill-hammer!?" She asked in amazement.
Ruby looked as if she was about to faint from the mere sight of such a beast weapon. "It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I need it in my life." She said.
"It's a Seltas hammer, made with materials out of the bug boy. And there's plenty more where that came from." Razara explained, using her powers to summon and show Nora all the different hammer made from different monsters, including elder dragons.
After seeing them all, Nora just drooled and muttered one thing. "...Nora like." She said as if she'd just had a night of ecstacy.
"So yeah they buzz around you kill em and all is good with the world so hats off to you my Sel-" Rage began to praise the beetle, before something snatched it, accompanied the the Psycho them as Rage broke down into inaudible babble. "Meet ladies and gentlemen your queen..." Rage introduced the beast as the Seltas on screen was grabbed out of the air and a bigger crab like insect was shown coming on screen as the British queen music started playing.
"Ah Terrence no that Queen her own soul song." Rage reprimanded the editor.
They couldn't help but chuckle at this.
"Oh yeah. Sorry boss. Here you go." The man apologized, before the queen's proper theme started playing. On screen the queen slammed the Seltas on to her head wear it seemingly fused and became a part of her?
The sudden appearance of the queen and Psycho theme for the Queen took them by surprise. "That's the queen!?" Jaune cried out.
"She's freaking enormous!" Emerald shrieked.
"You're right. She may actually be as large and even as bulky as a Paladin." Ironwood agreed.
But then, any fear turned to laughs from the music slip up. "Oh, yeah. I'm gonna be real afraid of something with that music behind it." Yang laughed.
"Still, that music may not be intimidating, but that tail pincer sure is." Summer warned her eldest child.
"Indeed. It looks like it would even be capable a breaking a person clean in half." Glynda said, disturbed.
"Oh yeah, this is happening so before we address whatever that shenaniganry was let's look at her majesty herself. You see, Seltas is a species with extreme sexual dimorphism, the male's the flying attack bugs, the females huge armored tanks rolling over all with their immense weights and thickness crushing hunters to bloody pulp under her spiked plating a long flexible segmented tail deceptive in its reach and dexterous speed tipped with vicious pincers that can bisect through armor with a mere twitch. This is many a hunter's final sight powerful grasping forelimbs able to cleave into rock and enable her to dig through mountain homes and forest floors alike." Rage spoke as the huntress on screen was now shown doing battle with a Seltas queen.
"How does that even work?! How is the male supposed to... You know... Do his job, if the female's so much bigger than him. It feels like... parts wouldn't fit together." Velvet said, trying to delicately word what she meant A: for Ruby and Penny's innocence and B: so the less mature among the audience wouldn't make fun of her for it.
"Well, their methods are often quite different than our own, Miss Scarlatina. Nature is nothing if not creative, as we've clearly seen throughout these viewings." Ozpin explained.
"Fighting either of them seems like it would be quite a challenge. Facing both of them alone seem insurmountable." Ren said in shock.
"Everything has a weakness, Ren. Even if it has a partner to cover it, it's still not invincible. With a good strategy and solid defense and offense, someone can defeat any opponent." Pyrrha said.
"But what if they work like bees and there's an entire swarm of them?" Coco questioned.
"Then it's time to run." Pyrrha admitted.
"These are where the Seltas Queen likes to make her nest. Able to call on an armada of males at a moment's notice, occasionally they are seen traveling with them as almost a royal escort though more normally they are lonesome creatures roaming looking for prey that they can bully into submission not ones for stealth or speed they hunt with pure brute strength crushing and breaking would-be meals into fine pulp for greedy consumption." Rage said as the hunter and Seltas continued to fight.
Yang smiled and clapped at this. "Alright, queen-y! All strength, that's the way to go!" Yang cheered.
"Unless you can't catch your enemy." Neo teased.
"Oh, yeah? Cuz I can catch you now!" Yang declared, grabbing and tickling Neo.
"She's right, though, Xiao Long. Power isn't everything." Cinder told her.
"Who are you and what have you done with Cinder?" Nora asked.
"Oh, very funny. Although, I will admit, that did feel very weird to say." The half-Maiden admitted.
"Herbivores, smaller monsters, easy targets and she is no slouch able to fight off and sometimes even win against the likes of an aggressive Zinogre" Rage explained as on the screen, a large horned wolf-looking beast was shown roaring at the sky. "Elder dragons of course well pop her like a balloon but they do have to put in a bit of work they're gonna get some sweat on their brow cuz that exoskeleton haw. One of the hardest natural materials to be found." Rage claimed.
Ruby was shocked at the Rage's belief of the queen's capabilities and who it could beat, however. "What!? No way! I don't believe it! There's no way that oversized fly can beat my dragon puppy!" Ruby said, petting the Stygian Zinogre in her lap.
"Well, to be fair, Ruby, he only said Zinogre, not the Stygian variety. Since Dragon Energy acts as a steroid to physically power monsters, it's likely that it cannot defeat a Stygian Zinogre." Penny reminded her friend.
(Queen or not, I'd squash her like the bug that she is!) Crimzon declared. Although this clearly didn't bode well with his Dracofage bugs, as he suddenly began rolling and itching wildly as they bit into him. (Oh, come on, guys! You know I didn't mean it like that! I didn't mean you guys!) He pleaded.
"I think that symbiotic relationship just turned parasitic." Ilia said.
"Also in command of the water element able to fire out pressurized globs of mucus like liquid that explode with force and causing lovely water blight say goodbye to your stamina. Letting her have a small amount of ranged combat capability but the thing is she is well sluggish. She's easy to get behind and start cracking away at that shell and then just speeding into the soft flesh hidden within." Rage explained as the hunter continued to face the fearsome queen.
"In that case, I could finish her easy." Adam declared proudly, confident he could get behind her quickly and slice open her shell in its most vulnerable areas
"Don't get cocky. The queen still seems smart. She's smart enough to a male for extra maneuverability, And she can snatch a Seltas out of the air. So while she's slow, her reactions and that tail aren't." Hazel warned him.
"Also remember, he only said you can start cracking away at her shell, not that you'll instantly get through it. And most of these creatures' hides are stronger than steel. It would take you a while to get through it, at which point the Queen would know you're there." Winter informed them.
"I'd like to see how her armor stacks up to my bullets! Even if they take a while to get through her shell, the force and pressure from being pelted with bullets should stop her from charging at me." Coco boasted.
"So her chief and most effective weapon are her pheromone she convent's them from underneath her body covering a hunter's in this awful foul substance that essentially makes all of your food uneatable and items unusable for a time, all of your friends are unable to be around you and the requirement of 15 showers. She can also use this pheromone to attract a male Seltas from nearby. Once it has been lured in grabbed with her tail and then injected with a higher concentrated dose ceasing the poor creatures struggling and forcing it to swear unwilling fealty to her majesty. It will then be plunked on top of her head and now they fight as one." Rage said as The huntress was now shown fighting the fused Seltas form.
"That's pretty epic! Two monsters fighting as one!" Jaune said.
"But they're fighting as one because one is mind-controlled." Ren pointed out.
"Yeah, I gotta admit, that's a bit too far, even for me." Roman agreed.
"And besides, it's not like either of them really needed the power boost." Emerald said.
"The male Seltas is adding his front scything claws to her already deadly attacks. Allowing his horn to be burrowed into the ground and laid as a spear charge forward as she rips through the earth itself and attempts to completely obliterate all in her path. Able to maneuver and spin changing direction suddenly this can catch many a overconfident hunter off-guard but more than that the male Seltas can spit his own icky globs from her back and he can even give her little bursts of speed with his wings adding an element that she previously did not possess. The fight is much harder than the sum of its parts and then some but most of all what the male Seltas can do is fly her up into the air which serves as very effective transport out of combat but in combat the Queen is essentially-" Rage began, before showing a clip of two men standing on a dark wall was shown with the Seltas and Queen's heads photoshopped on.
"We can take them." Said the "Queen".
"It's a long way" Answered the "Seltas".
The Queen looked down for a moment before... "Toss me." She ordered.
"Oh, lovely. Now the super powered bug tank can fly." Qrow said sarcastically.
"Still, if we could utilize that, we could have an army of flying Seltas Queens that could stop an invading Grimm force and decimate them on ground or from above." Winter argued.
"Yes, but the male has no control over it. And he's being forced to lift something that must be at least three times his weight. You'd basically be making the males into slaves. You'd be like your father." Cinder reasoned.
"Funny scene, though. And it seemed like it was from a cool movie." Ilia said.
"Lord of the Rings. A great series, but each movie's close to three hours long. The last one is three hours and twenty minutes." Katana explained, leaving the group shocked.
"Twenty ONE minutes, mom. Get it right!" Tekko scolded her mother, suddenly holding a number of figures, presumably from the movie, very protectively.
"And he plunks her back down with shattering force resulting in her most powerful single a hit. They are a fun little duo to fight and then some. Their symbiosis is strong and all the time the queen will use the males as sentries while she sleeps during the night but this relationship as you might imagine from how it begins isn't the most balanced, she's... a bit of a bitch." Rage said as the hunter tried to survive the might of the combined Seltas pair.
"Oh, really? I hadn't gotten that impression." Weiss said.
"Weiss, have you been paying attention to the full viewing?" Penny asked.
"Yes, Penny. I was being sarcastic." Weiss explained.
"Oh, good. Because the Queen has been quite cruel so far and it seems she may become even worse." Penny said.
"I'm not sure how she could get much worse than that." Adam said.
"Honestly! When she is truly exhausted, truly injured, truly threatened with death's dark doors, well..." Rage began, stopping to let the audience see for themselves as a Queen Seltas was shown grabbing the male flying around her before slamming it head first into the ground... one... two... three times before dropping it's broken corpse in front of her unsettling the hunters observing this as sad music played in the background.
"What the fuck!" Came from a clip of JonTron.
Everyone was shocked at this. "That would be how, Taurus." Hazel said in shock.
But the cinnamon trio was absolutely horrified. "No! Why are you doing that!?" Pyrrha cried out.
"He's on your side! He's helping you! Stop hurting him, please!" Velvet pleaded.
"I can't look! If I'm not looking, it's not happening!" Ruby cried out, covering her eyes.
"I don't think even my father could be quite that cruel." Weiss said, shocked.
"Uh she... she finishes off in brutal manner the male and eats him right in front of you for stamina and health. If that's not a damn nature you're scary. Which I think honestly is wonderful, insects should be a lot more alien and inhuman in their mannerisms and to them, well... It's a drone sacrificed for the good of the queen but to us it's a heartbreaking cruelty and the first time you see that happen it's just you stop fighting mouth open 'Okay... Wow... All right then'." Rage said as the hunter fought the fused pair once more.
"But why would they do that?! The Seltas was so loyal and kept protecting her!" Ruby cried out.
"I don't like it either, dear. But nature's cruel sometimes and animals will do whatever they can to survive." Summer told her daughter.
"I think I'm gonna be sick." Emerald said.
"Join the club." Ilia groaned, feeling ill herself.
Cinder shivered at this, as she knew in the main timeline, she had betrayed and thrown Neo into the abyss once she was done with her. "I will NEVER allow myself to become like that." She promised herself.
"The thing is every time you kill the little Seltas she just summons in another one so you can get through quite a lot of them. So that's the Seltas duo they are just magnificent monsters and add so much to the world imagine them in the new world but there is a little variation on them." Rage said as the hunter still fought the pair.
"So, it's never-ending cruelty until you kill the queen." Penny said, deeply disturbed.
"I hope we get these on Remnant, because I want to tear them apart." Blake admitted.
"This is why no one should follow a queen. I just wish I'd learned that lesson soon." Hazel said.
"You learned it in the end. That's all that matters." Ironwood told his former foe.
"You have the deserts Seltas which essentially are well the Seltas'es but they are specialized for more arid environments the male gets his head crest replaced with twin horns which make for a lot more range widthwise and on top of that the usual stronger, faster, different coloring and they're not the most well diverse of subspecies but they are really interesting." Rage said as the desert Seltas was shown on screen as Rage had described it.
"I can appreciate the two horned look." Adam admitted.
"Yeah, but isn't the one horn more effective, like Penny mentioned with Diablos and Penny?" Ilia asked.
"But of course, with a Desert Seltas must come a Desert Seltas Queen." Pyrrha said with a glare.
"It's kind of cool seeing the colony adapted for another loculation. On top of what a regular one can do it gains the ability to dig and tunnel and come bursting up underneath the hunter. It's ranged glob abdomen squirt-" Rage began, before cracking up as he realized what he said. "That's not the best way to describe it!-" He laughed.
"RANGED ABDOMINAL SQUIRT?!" Yang cried out, falling to the floor in laughter along with Qrow, Neo, Nora and Coco.
"That's SO bad!" Coco laughed.
"Miss Adel!" Glynda snapped at her student.
"Yang Xiao Long. That's enough of that, young lady." Summer told her.
"Oh, come on, Sum! You can't deny that's hilarious!" Qrow said.
"I can and I will." The Rose matriarch declared.
"So shameful." Winter scoffed.
"-Becomes a paralytic a substance that renders you, well... paralyzed. So, of course we have the desert Seltas queen stronger in the general sense but her tail much lengthened and much more of an effective weapon." Rage said as the desert Seltas queen was now shown on screen.
"She uses it to plunge deep into the earth and grab a sleeping dormant male deserts Seltas wakes them up with the injection of mind-control pheromones and forces them to fight. That's yeah that's one hell of a rude awakening right there but she is somehow even crueler to her male counter but she doesn't even pretend that they're equal." Rage said.
"Oh, no..." Jaune groaned, looking to Pyrrha in concern.
"This will NOT end well." Ren stated.
"I fear greatly for the male Seltas." Penny said in concern.
"Now she uses her male Seltas as ammunition for her ultimate attack the beetle cannon. So she uses a high pressurized liquid build up to then blast out with the Seltas parked on the front and sends him screaming at you and whether it impacts an unlucky hunter for ginormous concussive force or the wall behind when you dodge the Seltas fired explodes into pieces dying horribly and then she rips another one out the ground immediately to replace it yeah so that's, There active at night so that's cool." Rage said as on screen, the Queen pulled up a male Seltas, plopped it on her head and fired it hitting a unlucky hunter and causing the doomed bug monster the explode into a shower of guts and gore before the Queen pulled up another one to repeat.
"Noooo!" The cinnamon trio cried out upon seeing the Celtas' demise.
"How could she do such a thing?!" Pyrrha cried.
"Poor Seltas." Velvet sobbed, hugging Coco tightly.
"What is wrong with her!? Those males are just minding their own business and she blows them up like nothing! I want to cut her in half with Crescent Rose!" Ruby said angrily through sobs as Summer hugged her and Cinder held one of her hands.
"I love it I do I think it's such a fun interaction how can anyone not think that's badass I guess unless you're a male Seltas then you ya know poor guys..." Rage said as the screen cut to black.
"That may just be the understatement of the century." Ironwood said.
"Yeah. I've never had the best luck with women, but at least I was never used as ammo and at a Grimm." Qrow agreed.
"Nature can often be cruel, my friends. But we must learn all we can about it to peacefully coexist with these creatures." Ozpin said.
"Wise words, professor." Weiss agreed with her headmaster.
"So, thoughts?" Katana asked, a bit worriedly.
Ruby was so upset, she absolutely had to vent on it. "Seltas was so cool and awesome and fun, but the queen was terrible, using the male like that and slamming him around and eating him! And then the desert queen throwing the males at people and making them explode is just a new level of cruel! They were mean, evil, nasty and smelly with their icky pheromones and... and they were such... such... bitches!" She screamed, everyone shocked at the wholesome little red reaper saying such a word.
But, they couldn't help but agree with her. "I would normally scold you for such language, Ruby, but in this case, you are absolutely right." Summer admitted.
"Yeah. We better start making some giant flyswatters, because if we get them on Remnant, I'm smashing as many as I can find!" Yang declared.
"Again, I'm getting Salem flashbacks from those freaky things: they're evil queens that will destroy their underlings as soon as they're no longer useful to her." Cinder said, shuddering in fear.
"Honestly, they may even be crueler than Salem. At least she never ate any of her subordinates." Hazel said. [1]
"That's one queen I actually DON'T want to be." Nora added.
"I just hope that the males will eventually learn to live for themselves and not be so devoted to her." Velvet said hopefully.
"I doubt it, Bun-Bun. It's sad, but that's how evolution made them." Coco told her sadly.
"Perhaps we should just move onto the next one." Winter suggested.
"Indeed! Perhaps a more positive monster, please." Penny requested.
"Hm... Well, I have one in mind. And while it's not nearly as horrible as the Seltas Queen... You're REALLY not gonna like its diet. One of the dumbest and smartest monsters ever, the Kulu Ya-Ku." Katana explained, playing the next video.
[1] I was originally going to have him say "Bad as she is, she never resorted to mind control", but then I remembered "oh, yeah. The hound." Needless to say, I was hitting backspace REAL quick.