Hungry Iterators

Chapter 5: Danger Approaching

Distant Frontier looked over everything he had, trying to keep the others in check as well as figure out how to keep anyone from going against him, only to get attacked by a warning from another iterator. He thought he had shut down anything trying to get to him, but this was not a typical warning. Normally, it was iterators trying to take him down, which was the norm, but this one was different. It warned about another iterator, Five Pebbles, stating he had gone insane and was planning on harming others. DF thought this was nonsense. 

And he kept thinking that until his overseers warned him of some kind of centipede creatures invading his can. These things never stopped, not until they physically couldn't keep going. It didn't matter how hard his normal defenses tried, the beasts kept going, pulling themselves by broken limbs. At first, he was more annoyed than anything else, and simply increased his defenses. That was until one got into his can. It went right for his neurons, quickly eating them up and bolted out as fast as its metallic body could drag them. It was lucky he could easily replace them, but the creature's insistence on getting his neurons of all things was worrying.

He didn't think too hard about his situation, despite the worrying speed some of these things were getting, until one of his assimilated iterators stopped talking completely. A Golden Strand was completely silent, not even a slight semblance of activity could be found her way. Checking on her, he found her puppet room empty except for some viscera and a puppetless umbilical. Further looks into her condition he found all her neuron flies were missing, likely from the metallic beasts. The sudden disappearance of AGS was certainly, worrying, but nothing he couldn't handle, or so he thought. 

He proceeded to increase defenses against the creatures, but they were much too determined to let some minor changes stop them. The more he defended, the better they got at getting past it. He decided to have a look at the beasts, a close look, so he brought in one he assumed was dead. He looked around the being, trying to find its weak point, only to come out naught. The whole thing was made of mechanical pieces, not a single cell could be found on it that belonged to the beast. That was when he noticed it wasn't dead, it was simply deactivated for the time being. It began to snap and crawl up his umbilical, and he tried to kill it as fast as he could, but it simply wouldn't die. He went to kicking it out of his puppet chamber, although this almost didn't work. It was persistent. 

After the encounter, he looked back to see if there was anything he could use to figure out what was going on, finding the old warning. Five Pebbles, the iterator was decently far from DF, so it didn't make sense how anything coming from them was getting all the way to DF. He then checked his map, to find any iterator in the path between him and Five Pebbles had collapsed. An old enemy of his was also on the list of fallen iterators. Everyone had been taken down, and so he looked at the warning once more.

"EVERYONE! FIVE PEBBLES HAS GONE INSANE! I REPEAT, FIVE PEBBLES HAS GONE INSANE! HE HAS KILLED HIS NEIGHBOR ITERATOR, LOOKS TO THE MOON, AND IS LIKELY LOOKING OUTWARDS TO HARM MORE. PROTECT YOUR CANS AS WELL AS YOU CAN, OR TRY TO ESCAPE!

-NSH-"

He then looked back at his map. No Significant Harassment's can was also down, so DF assumed he too fell to Five Pebbles. He tried to look closer at the warning to try and figure a way out, but the only suggestion was either protect as well as he could, which was failing him, or try to escape, which DF didn't know how to do. With the sounds of the beasts getting back to his puppet chamber and nothing of his working against them constantly, he simply went all out with his defense, hoping that might buy him time at the very least.