Hungry Iterators

Chapter 2: Violent Reintroductions

It had been several cycles since Five Pebbles had talked to anyone, and it began to worry his local group. Particularly Seven Rising Suns, who had been the closest to him, other than Looks to the Moon. He decided to send out a messenger in an attempt to communicate with him, a very special slugcat he had nicknamed Spearsy. He also sent out an overseer to keep watch of Spearsy, in case things went poorly. With that, and a pearl in Spearsy's chest, Spearsy was sent out. 

Most of Spearsy's trip went well, after all the slugcat was good at survival, but things started getting weird once they got to Five Pebbles's superstructure. The structure was quiet, strangely quiet. The only noises came from Spearsy himself or the occasional movement of air through the structure. Something was wrong, SRS knew it, but he didn't know exactly what was wrong. Even the rain outside of Five Pebbles's superstructure was calm, it didn't even get deadly at its worst. Careful, Spearsy continued his path.

When they got to the memory conflux, this was when the problem seemed to show itself. The neuron flies weren't acting like they should, but most of them moved as if Five Pebbles was thinking of irregular things. Some, however, acted different. They had gained an eye on their front and their tails were longer than they should be, with sharp points at the end. Spearsy got close out of curiosity, only for it to attack him. The purple slugcat jumped from the sudden attack and fought back, using one of the spears on their tail. The neuron fly went down easily, only one pierce needed, but the aggressive nature of these strange neurons was worrying. Neuron flies were not aggressive, they passively floated around the memory confluxes. 

They eventually got to Five Pebbles's puppet chamber and saw Five Pebbles, although he wasn't acting like himself. The sudden intruders caught him on edge and SRS's overseer noticed something else odd, Five Pebbles now had a mouth. When Five Pebbles finally got himself back together, he looked at the pair a bit confused.

"Why are you here?" He asked, looking to the slugcat and overseer for answers.

Sadly, overseers can't talk, so SRS couldn't respond. Five Pebbles was noticeably uncomfortable with the situation, even more so when he began to drool. The sudden activity worsened his discomfort and Five Pebbles tried to rub the saliva away, only for it to return every time he looked at Spearsy.

"Why won't it stop?" He asked, panicked. 

There was nothing SRS could do to help, both because he was using an overseer to watch everything go down and because how was he supposed to help? Iterators don't have mouths, that's just not something they had. While SRS didn't know what was going on, it seemed Spearsy did. The purple slugcat kept their distance from Five Pebbles, seemingly recognizing Five Pebbles's activity as a dangerous one, and being a puppet chamber, the only way out was up, a direction that without anti-gravity was impossible to use.

"Wh, what's going on?" Five Pebbles now clutched his stomach tightly, clearly in pain. "H, hey, what is the slugcat doing? Why is it doing that?"

Keeping themselves in a defensive position, Spearsy kept their eyes on Five Pebbles. He tried getting closer, only for Spearsy to bring out a spear as a warning. Ignoring the warning in hopes that the slugcat would maybe not see him as a danger, Five Pebbles got closer. Instead, Spearsy threw the spear at Five Pebbles's face, hitting an eye. After doing so, Spearsy tried to get away by scratching at the walls in hopes of climbing them. The hurt Five Pebbles went over to Spearsy and grabbed them by the scuff of their neck.

Despite how upset Five Pebbles was about the attack, he did notice how scared the slugcat was of him. Shaking and unable to stop, he paused for a moment, only to notice he was biting the air. For a moment, it seemed like Five Pebbles didn't know what to do, only for him to bite Spearsy. The poor creature began to struggle in Five Pebbles's grip, trying to get away, only for Five Pebbles's to bite harder, the blood pooling into his mouth and onto the ground. SRS was horrified.

Then, like a demon or wild animal had gripped him, he began to tear Spearsy apart, wildly tearing the poor thing to shreds. Once he was done, there was nothing left of Spearsy except for blood and bones scattered around the floor and his body. Dripping from his hands and face, he began to lick it up. The pearl that was originally brought there was also on the floor, discarded like waste, and SRS could not watch any longer. The overseer was summoned back.