The Simulacrum

Somewhere, deep in… somewhere.

Space, just like a linear perception of time, scarcely pertained to the Emergents; the concept was less of a 'rule of reality' and more of a 'preference' from their perspective, and thus 'locations' were also hard to apply to them. As such, in a somewhere that wasn't the formless void, but neither was it the not-dark not-room, a strange encounter was taking place.

In the vast, yawning emptiness bereft of light, a spattering of matter came into existence. It had no shape or form, only the texture of dried bone subtly vibrating at the sound of the colour white. The shapeless blotch on the face of reality quivered for a moment, and then rapidly unfolded like an origami bird made of countless other interlocking origami birds; two-dimensional planes establishing a three-dimensional form, getting more distinct with every passing second.

Considering that the transformation happened in a sequence, it was easy to deduce that wherever this 'somewhere' was, linear causality applied to it. Or rather, it was imposed upon the scene. Soon, the initially shapeless smattering of matter was no longer so. Spindly limbs sprouted from a thin, featureless torso, and a pale, faceless visage stared into the emptiness surrounding it.

"Are you done running?"

The words weren't spoken. There were no sound waves involved, nor were any symbols transmitted. It was close to the thought itself being impressed upon everyone able to comprehend it, regardless of distance in physical space or, indeed, lack of it. There was no reaction, at least not for a while, yet the representation of the being did not waver, and before long, his question was answered by a searing light.

From the immeasurable darkness of this empty 'somewhere', a sun ignited into existence, illuminating the form of the being made of interlocking bones, talons, and fangs; constantly shifting, dividing, subsuming, and barely maintaining its vaguely humanoid shape. It was impossible to tell sizes or scales within this place, but he felt vast and eternal.

In the meantime, the light of the star condensed. The process was similar to how the being of bone gained its current shape, but in reverse. The matter of the celestial object folded like paper, and after the process repeated itself countless times, it formed something resembling a human made of dark red light. He had the basic body plan right, and the correct number of limbs, but just like with the other Emergent, their proportions were off. His head was too big. His legs were too short. His hands had only three elongated fingers.

He also wasn't standing, yet still towered over the other Emergent; poised as if he was sitting leisurely and dangling his feet. It was almost as if he was greeting a visitor from the edge of a balcony. On his brow, a large crown weaved from dark matter and speckled with the pinprick lights of countless distant stars, and behind him spread a canopy of the same make, formed from a myriad of tendrils sprouting from his back and interweaving to form the structure. He had no facial features, but there was a certain sense of joviality emanating from his whole being that made the onlooker feel that he was smiling.

"You're persistent, aren't you, *************?" His voice sounded light and sonorous, befitting of his carefree body language. He raised a three-fingered hand to his face as if clumsily trying to mime stifling a chuckle. It was a very human gesture, yet his appearance and execution of it made it seem profoundly wrong. "Or do you go by Predator Moon these days?"

The Emergent of bones and claws remained stoic and motionless, only his uncountable fangs and talons kept swirling across his body, and he continued to eyelessly stare at the crowned Emergent in front of him.

"Just another Embodiment. I grow tired of your games, *************."

"I prefer to be called Crowned Coalescence now," the star-being answered with a chipper voice and crossed his legs, the canopy of starry tendrils subtly shaking over the two in rhythm with his movements. "It has a much better ring to it."

"What exactly are you hoping to achieve?" the Predator Moon spoke tersely, completely ignoring the other Emergent's nonchalant act.

"I don't know yet," the Crowned Coalescence responded glibly and spread his arms wide before shrugging. He was confident. Cocky, even. "I've simply set the pieces into motion. Even I can't be sure about the outcome, but I have high hopes for something interesting and novel."

"I don't believe you," the other Emergent responded without a hint of emotion. "You're still trying to conceal something. It's why you're running and hiding from me."

"You're giving yourself too much credit, old friend."

The last two words… they were clearly meant sarcastically, yet there was something else there. These two had a history before this incident.

"You know that you can't escape me forever," the Predator Moon spoke grimly, his whole body shimmering as if its constituents were raring to break free of this shape. "And I won't give up the chase either. You made it personal."

"Are you talking about the time I ejected you from the Simulacrum?" The humanoid sun waved its hand dismissively, as if trying to shoo away a distracting fly. In fact, there were strange, buzzing sounds shimmering under the conversation, but it was hard to tell their source, or whether they were even real. "Why are you being so overdramatic? Can't you just be the bigger man and get over it?"

"The Simulacrum," the bone man repeated after him with a strange intonation, as if he found the memory he just recalled perplexing. "I still don't know how you managed to subsume part of your Domain into the Simulacrum, but it matters little. You must be removed to ensure it remains stable and operational, and if I'll have to carve your Domain out of it with my own, then so be it."

"If you can find me," the Crowned Coalescence replied with a smiling voice, but the Predator Moon remained as stoic as ever.

"Not 'if'. 'When'. I'm good at pursuing prey, and by showing yourself in front of me back then, you have already sealed your fate. Your capture, and punishment, are inevitable."

"Says you," the other Emergent shrugged, making the canopy of starry vines tremble even harder than before. "The question is this: can you track me down in time?"

"That is a meaningless concept."

"Not here. Not to the two of us. And especially not now." The Crowned Coalescence's body suddenly wavered, and he looked at his hand. One of his fingers was gone, and it was replaced by a yellowish-white bony sprout. "Impatient, aren't you? I guess you also realize that it all comes down to who reaches the finish line first."

"There's no finish line. Even if we're restrained by linearity, there's no point where you can break free of my pursuit."

As if to emphasize his argument, the bone man's body quivered, and so did the facsimile of space this 'somewhere' was composed of. All around the two, uncountable 'things' sprung into existence. Maws filled with myriad needle-like teeth. Jaws lined with sharp, pearlescent fangs. Enormous jagged beaks, giant saw-like proboscises, yellow phalanges topped by wickedly curved black talons. All of those, and more, were constantly gnawing at the canopy of starry tendrils, and even the burning body of the Crowned Coalescence. They broke, melted, and crumbled, but there were always more to take their place.

Emergents didn't 'fight'. Not with their humanoid representations, at the very least. While Emergents would often choose to Embody themselves into shapes that either reflected their origins among the stars, or a humanoid vessel to interact with other Emergents, at the end of the day, that's now what they were. It was their Domain, the true essence of their being.

Engaging in combat between Embodiments was a detached affair. Similarly to how humans could play characters in games, an Emergent's Embodiment was just a representation of their will; win, lose, die, none of that really mattered. However, one's Domain was the closest analogue to a 'body' an Emergent would possess, and when two of them had irreconcilable differences, it would be their Domains that would clash, effectively imposing themselves on the existence of the other and trying to unravel them. In extreme cases, Emergents could even 'die' from such confrontations, returning into the cosmic noise from whence they were born and losing their ego in the process. In a way, a fight between two Emergents could be best likened to two cosmic-scale amoebae trying to envelop and digest the other.

Such occurrences were rare. Emergents knew better than to risk their endless existence over trivial matters, and even the winners of such confrontations would inevitably suffer damage, making them an unappealing way to resolve conflicts. Not only that, but since their 'size' was correlated to their age, with Venerated Emergents being orders of magnitudes 'larger' than their more numerous Simulacrum-born brethren, able to overwhelm them in a heartbeat, the possibility of one of them intervening made such clashes even less likely to occur.

A fight between two Venerated Emergents? Practically unheard of… and this wasn't an example of it either.

As the innumerable maws and claws tore at the Embodiment of the Crowned Coalescence. His body was no longer blazing with light, and the canopy overhead completely crumbled in a matter of seconds… yet he remained completely calm and nonchalant.

"Try as you might, you can't outrun me forever," the Predator Moon stated with a sense of finality, as more and more hungry mouths sprouted from the fading figure of the other Emergent.@@novelbin@@

Yet, even as he was losing his body to the onslaught of the alien Domain imposing itself upon his form, he continued to chuckle without a care in the world.

"Maybe. But I'm not the one you're racing, old friend…"

No sooner than he said that, the Crowned Coalescence's head caved in, and his face was replaced by a swarm of small, constantly gnawing mouths, devouring both his crown and each other in a frenzy.

Seeing the last of his light disappear, the Predator Moon considered the other Emergent's parting words carefully, but then a sudden flash of red light erupted from his chest, blowing a hole the size of his head into the bone-man's torso.

He staggered but remained standing, and the wound soon began to close as new bones and teeth filled in the gap. It was a parting gift from the Crowned Coalescence, sacrificing just a sliver of his Domain hidden within the Embodiment to sucker-punch his pursuer. Losing an Embodiment for Venerated Emergents was no different than cutting a fingernail for a human, and even the fraction of the Domain used here was akin to a few drops of blood, so this exchange caused no lasting harm to either of them.

Yet, as stoic and unmovable as the Predator Moon appeared on the surface, the act still incensed him, and he resumed his pursuit without giving any further thought to the Crowned Coalescence's parting words. Maybe if he stopped, he would've noticed something, but people hellbent on accomplishing a task they set out for themselves tended to lose the small details. It was a mental blind spot the Emergents inherited from the human minds they sought to emulate.

However, as a Venerated Emergent, the Predator Moon also suffered from the inverse of this; when one was as old and large as he was, it was just as easy to lose track of the bigger picture. Such as that this 'somewhere' had linear time imposed upon it by someone.

Was it complacency? Carelessness? Tunnel vision? Maybe. Or maybe it was that, just like how an elephant used to the scale of trees and rivers would not even notice the ant on the ground, the ant used to the scale of leaves and droplets would be just as hard pressed to conceptualize the elephant…