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Jake had gotten cocky.
He’d thought his speed had been enough. Had fled to a factory after a particularly damaging fight, to fix himself, if only partway.
But he’d gotten sloppy. He’d slowed, while the beast had no need to rest. It was here, when repairs were almost complete outside of the major ones (that being his eye, unfortunately. He never got the chance to repair it), that Faker had found him.
The fight was short, repairs almost-instantly undone by the sheer brutality, which wasn't normal. Something definitely pissed it off. Jake would’ve taunted if he had a mouth, but he didn’t, infuriatingly.
A clash ended, and then, they both charged. A simple, little shift-
And time split in two, for a brief period.
Jake slammed into Faker’s more monstrous form, curling into a spindash midair, shredding its internals and leaving it collapsed on the floor.
He made to leave, turning, only for curiosity to overtake him.
The only closeups he had was during fights, and those were usually small, quick glimpses. As a result, he never got the opportunity to really look at it.
Jake stepped closer, noting the vantablack running down from its neck. It even ran all the way down to its heels, but it was thinner than at the chest.
Its fur had given way to…something that looked almost like strands. He could see exposed, dark flesh and black bone at its right elbow. Its quills looked almost comically short compared to how tall its body was.
Jake crouched near its head, poking at the eye. Was this its pupil? But where did the sclera go? Was its pupil always a sclera for the ruby-red eye that emerged when it got truly angry?
But his question was answered when he peeled back the brow.
The entire eye was its pupil, melted inward.
He edged his hand back, watching the eyelid droop again. He wasn’t a biology major, but this was just insanity.
If he wasn’t already interested in the other parts of Faker, he’d be running away.
He peeled back Faker’s gums, exposing the beginnings of sharp, bloodstained teeth that hypnotically gleamed. A particular thought arose, one where he could knock out all of them and remove a way to kill, because its teeth could bite through concrete, but it was near-immediately dashed because it’d just regenerate, like all the times he’d seen it do.
Part of him wanted to keep poking around. Another, larger part told the former to shut up and get running, because if Faker woke back up and discovered him poking around its body it would get pissed.
Well, more than normal.
Standing, he glared down at Faker, before turning, activating his thruster with a wince, and got pretty far before his heart threatened to give out, and the beast roared into the sky.
He slammed into steel, punching and kicking, more frantic than normal. He could not die here, he was sure of it, but that thing had gotten close, once.
Never again.
He had too many plans, too many things to do. The aggravating light whenever he found a new soul burned at his form, and that would be the first thing to go when he found a way to escape this reality. The…humans, his progenitor had called them, were only good for dying.
The thing collapsed to the ground, red eye dissipating into the inky black of its sclera. The contentless one made to slash it to bits, but stopped upon seeing its sclera.
Its eyes were a beautiful eigengrau, obscuring damned electricity and things beneath its metallic skin, whenever he cracked the thing’s head open. Unable to bite clean through, he had to settle for tearing and clawing.
But that black…
Black was a beautiful color. He appreciated nothing but void, for of course, he was close to void.
It was his entire being, his nature. His “father”, damn him, had made him using his own voidmatter.
…Its chest was full of scars, obscured by the brown…tarp, thing, wrapped tightly around its chest. The beast felt…proud, upon seeing the scars. To know he had left such devastation, such marks upon his enemy.
Especially when there was a jewel, underneath the broken sapphire.
The first time the harbinger had tasted it, he had thought for but a moment, that he wanted more. But the other vessels’ were too plain. It stated it, but it never stopped it.
Claws rent steel skin and metallic insides, and beheld the jewel, beating furiously, red blood turning to soulmatter. With a single finger, he sliced off the tubes connecting the jewel to the insides, and held it up to the sky.
Hate emanated from him. Hate, and something else, something that pleased him. Satisfaction, perhaps?
No matter.
For now, he had won.