illogical processes
yandere!five pebbles x reader
author's note: hello rain world fandom... i have no idea if y'all are interested in yandere fics lmao, but i love pebbles so i wrote one anyway. also reader is an ancient in this fic.
warnings: general yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, forced isolation, a lot of angst, major character death (reader)
word count: 4134
There was most definitely something wrong about all of this.
It had been so long since someone had come to visit you. Of course, it wasn’t like you weren’t used to being confined to one room for hours and even days on end, but eventually there was always someone who came to visit. Your father, or your aunt, or some of the few friends you’d managed to make in your early childhood, or even sometimes colleagues and acquaintances of your father, who would ask you of his great innovations as if you actually had any worthwhile knowledge of their inner workings.
But now it was just you.
And Five Pebbles.
“Pebbles, I’m bored,” you complained, sluggishly tossing aside a pearl you’d been turning around in your hands for the past few minutes. A pearl that you’d read over and over and over again, just like the rest of them. A sigh came from the robot suspended above you. His umbilical cable moved down the wall as he lowered himself to your level, looking you in the eyes. “Then read something. Or listen to music,” he said matter-of-factly. You glared up at him, annoyed with his response. “I’ve read and listened to everything in this room hundreds of times now,” you pointed out, your voice strained, “Can’t I go outside for once? Or talk to Big Sis Moon and the others? It’s been such a long while since you let me chat with them over communications.”
Five Pebbles mirrored your expression, although his glare contained a venomous iciness that yours lacked. “Don’t you dare say that name,” he seethed. You knew that something had to have happened between him and Looks to the Moon, since he had recently started speaking of her as if she were a horrible person (which she was not); but you had no idea what exactly had happened. Every time you tried to ask, Five Pebbles simply dismissed your inquiries. However, now that you had his full attention, you thought it’d be worth another try. “Why shouldn’t I? I love Big Sis Moon, and I miss her a lot. I know I can’t go and see her anymore, but I want to talk to her at least,” you said, trying to keep your voice as free of frustration as possible so as to not anger Pebbles too much. He avoided your eyes and mumbled something under his breath.
Tilting your head to the side, you pressed, “What was that? I couldn’t hear you.” Pebbles’ eyes darted up to yours again before he repeated, louder this time, “I said, that’s not possible.” Clenching your hand into a fist, you retorted, “Why?! Why isn’t that possible?! You never properly tell me anything, Pebbles! You never tell me about Big Sis Moon… or about my father. Why can’t I see them anymore? Where have they gone?!” Your shoulders heaved along with your breaths. You had been trying to be calm, but his constant dismissals were really starting to grate at your nerves. An odd emotion flashed in Five Pebbles’ eyes for a moment. He looked almost… guilty. But before you could properly process it, it was gone, being once again replaced by the ice-cold annoyance that always seemed to rest on his face. “You ask too many questions. I’m going back to work,” he concluded, returning to his previous position, suspended above you like some sort of god or otherwise ethereal creature.
You were silent for a while, lost in your thoughts. The only noise in the small space was the low hum of Pebbles’ operating system as he worked through his calculations as always. He really never did anything but work, did he? You wondered what he was always doing. You had faint memories of your father explaining why he built Moon and later Pebbles; something about ascension and the Great Problem. You never really understood your people’s obsession with transcending in the first place - you had other things to worry about, after all.
“Pebbles?” you tried again after around ten minutes had passed. He let out another sigh upon hearing you call him, but it wasn’t as exasperated as the last had been. “Yes?” he responded without moving from his spot up in the air. “Can I at least go outside? Just for a bit,” you asked gingerly. Pebbles put a hand to his forehead, rubbing at his temples in frustration. “There’s never an end to the questions with you, is there?” he remarked, surprisingly not sounding as irritated as you assumed he would. You pouted, saying, “Well, if you’re like me and you’re stuck in a plain-looking room for hours on end with your only company being a literal supercomputer who’s always busy and never has time for you, you would do nothing but ask questions too.”
Five Pebbles’ shoulders twitched at your scathing words. He was quiet for a moment, before you felt yourself being lifted off the ground and towards him; a result of his gravity manipulation, no doubt. Once you were close enough to him, he tentatively placed a hand on your shoulder. The contact shocked you a bit, as Pebbles had never been the type to initiate physical affection. Even when you gave him hugs and such in the earlier days of your time together, he would simply grumble and begrudgingly accept, but never reciprocate, the contact. His next words were spoken in a very soft tone that was also out of character for him, “Look. I’ve told you this more times than I can count, and I’ll say it again. You’re sick. Going outside could potentially be dangerous for your bodily condition. Even if I send an Overseer with you, there’s no guarantee of your safety. What if you collapse and nobody’s there to bring you back to me? What if you get found and eaten by some sort of creature? There’s too many unknowns. Just stay here.”
One look at his eyes told you that Pebbles wasn’t budging on his point. Your expression fell, the little bit of hope that you felt from his unusual treatment of you having been extinguished once again. “...You used to let me out,” you murmured, “You used to let me go into the city. I want to do that again. I want to be able to see the view from the top of your superstructure again. Please, Pebbles. I can’t handle being stuck in this room anymore… Please.” His hand fell from your shoulder, instead reaching out to take your hand, but stopping halfway. “That’s not possible anymore. The city isn’t what it used to be,” he replied, his tone almost pensive. He then quickly recomposed himself before turning away from you and continuing, “Either way, I’m busy. If you have nothing worthwhile to say, I’d like for you to stop bothering me now.”
That statement was the last straw for you. “Hah, I’m always bothering you, aren’t I? If you don’t want me around so much, then why don’t you just let me die,” you spat angrily. Five Pebbles snapped his head back around to look at you. “How utterly illogical,” he retaliated, “The way your mind works is impossible for me to understand sometimes. Just do as I say and occupy your time with something other than continuously questioning me about such… ridiculous topics. As I say all the time, I am busy.” With that, he floated you back down to sit on your makeshift bed, and resumed his calculations. As per usual, when Pebbles decided that the conversation was over, you had no say in it anymore.
Your body formed a little ball on your bed, trying to hide the tears that threatened to fall from your eyes. “Things were better when I lived with Big Sis Moon,” you whispered, curling into yourself. Suddenly, the mechanical whirring of Five Pebbles’ computer processes stopped all at once, almost like he’d short-circuited. “What did you say?” he asked, his voice dangerously low. When you didn’t reply, he repeated his words, this time in a furious shout, “I asked, WHAT DID YOU SAY?!” All the electronic systems in the room abruptly flared back to life as soon as Pebbles had raised his voice. Multiple discharges of light that looked almost like thunderbolts projected out of the holographic circle which was always behind him. He was really angry this time, and it honestly scared you. You huddled further into yourself, as if doing that would put you in some sort of safe shell where Five Pebbles couldn’t harm you.
Before either of you could say anything, a loud beeping started ringing out in the room. “Shit!” Pebbles yelled, the expression of profanity an unusual thing to hear from him, “Ugh, of COURSE you made me make an error in my processing! All of you are so absolutely unbearable! Both you, and Moon! You’re always interfering, always getting in the way!” Sticking your head out of the ball you had curled into, you softly said, “Pebbles, I’m so-” Turning to you, he screamed, “SHUT UP! I don’t want to hear anything out of you anymore!” You flinched at his harsh tone, and the tears that had been threatening to spill from your eyes all this time finally came out. As you sobbed quietly, you could hear Pebbles frantically working, trying to fix the apparent error that your interruption had caused him. He was mumbling things to himself, most of which you couldn’t hear. There was one thing you could make out, which he repeated several times, “I hope this didn’t make things any worse…”
Quite a bit of time passed after that - you honestly weren’t sure how long it had been. Pebbles seemed completely engrossed in his work, the multiple screens around the room telling you that he was computing way more parallel processes than he usually did. A thought suddenly occurred to you. Since he seemed so wholly focused on what he was doing, maybe this was your chance. Maybe, just maybe, you could finally get out of this godforsaken room.
As quietly as you could, you crawled off of your bed and slowly walked over to the wall, enough so you were right under the pipe that would take you outside. You glanced over at Pebbles. He was turned away from you. Perfect. You bent your knees to get more momentum, then jumped as high as you possibly could. With the help of the low gravity, you got about halfway up the wall. While floating in the air, you kicked yourself off the wall to further propel yourself upwards, and reached your hands above your head. When you managed to catch the edge of the exit pipe, you used all your strength to pull your body up into it. Although it took a little while and left you feeling exhausted, you eventually managed to pull yourself through the pipe and outside Pebbles’ room. Somehow, you’d done it.
Once you were outside, one look around told you that you’d gone through the wrong pipe. Instead of ending up in the access shaft that would take you on top of Five Pebbles’ can, you had accidentally taken the pipe that led to the inner workings of his superstructure. You considered going back to change pipes, but figured that it was too risky. If Pebbles had already noticed your absence and you went back in, he could use his gravity control to render you essentially immobile. Shrugging, you decided that you’d try and find another way out by going through his superstructure. As long as you avoided the dangerous-looking mechanical parts, you should be fine… right?
As you floated through the center of Five Pebbles, you marvelled at all the colours and noises that filled the large space. Sure, it was a little overwhelming, but it really emphasized the fact that you were inside the heart of a supercomputer. You could see all his neuron flies and other biological parts around you. When you reached out to catch a neuron in your hand, it felt oddly warm, almost like holding someone’s hand. It was a nice feeling compared to the cold metal that Pebbles’ puppet body was made out of. You hugged the neuron fly to your chest for a brief moment before letting it go. Suddenly, you felt awfully guilty for leaving Pebbles alone. Shaking your head, you told yourself that it was fine. You could never understand why he was always so dramatic about you leaving; it wasn’t like you’d be gone forever.
Not long after you’d started your journey, you made it out of what seemed to be the central area of Five Pebbles, and ended up in an area that sported mostly white walls, along with more biomechanical parts. This area was a lot less visually striking than the central part you’d been in before, but it was still fascinating to you. You’d never known that the inside of this superstructure consisted of so many different looking spaces. It just made you admire Pebbles all the more. Of course, this admiration also extended to your father, since he was one of the people who built all of this. You missed your father. Maybe you’d be able to see him after finding a way out, and then you could tell him that you finally understood how amazing his creation was.
Eventually, you exited the white-walled area, and moved into an area which was much darker than the other two you’d been in; although there was a dull, teal-coloured light that illuminated the chamber enough to see. The other odd thing was that this area seemed to have little blue lights along the walls, as well as blue ropes running between them. You continued downwards, wondering if those blue ropes and lights were also some of the biological parts of Five Pebbles.
Suddenly, the entire room shook violently, causing you to freeze, before you suddenly found yourself free-falling. You let out a yelp and managed to barely catch onto one of the blue ropes before you hit a solid surface. Was the gravity on now? The teal background lighting had turned red, so maybe that signified that the zero gravity controls were disabled. That was strange… This hadn’t happened in any other part of the can that you’d travelled through. You wondered if Pebbles himself had been the one to stop the gravity, maybe as a way to prevent you from moving any further; though that theory was quickly debunked once you noted that it also prevented you from going back. Pebbles would never act that “illogically”, as he would say.
As abruptly as the first time it had happened, the room shook once again before the light turned teal, and you felt your body floating. The zero gravity was back on, it seemed. Pushing yourself off the rope you’d been holding onto, you used the momentum to propel yourself further downwards, grabbing onto another blue rope soon after to ensure you didn’t fall when the gravity turned back on, which it soon did. This was definitely strange, but you didn’t really see the point in pondering it too much. After all, you knew very little about the inner workings of the iterators; maybe this was necessary for some specific purpose.
While you waited for the gravity to switch again, you observed the little blue lights on the walls of the room. Suddenly, one of them twitched, almost like it was alive. Your eyes widened, and you decided to look closer. That’s when you realized that these blue lights weren’t a part of the wall; they seemed to belong to fleshy, black creatures that were attached to the wall. The creatures also had stubby little tentacles that protruded from them, wiggling back and forth in the air. As soon as the gravity switched, you let go of the blue rope you’d been holding onto, now very aware that those weren’t part of Five Pebbles, but some other… thing. Whatever they were, you didn’t want to go near them. Unfortunately, as those “ropes” were the only things to hold onto in the open space (other than the occasional metal pole), you were forced to latch onto another one to avoid falling to your death once the gravity turned off again.
Something flashed in the corner of your eye. You looked to the wall next to you, only to jump when you noticed something new coming out of a section of the wall that was devoid of the weird black creatures. Your initial shock faded when you realized it was one of Pebbles’ Overseers. The little robot was projecting a holographic arrow at you, pointing up in the direction which you’d come from. It then added a little picture of Pebbles next to the arrow, obviously trying to convince you to go back to him. “I’m not going back yet,” you told the Overseer, “I want to go outside for once. I’m not leaving forever, I’ll be back at some point. I know you can hear me through this thing, Pebbles - so don’t freak out too much, okay? I promise I’ll be back.”
The Overseer did not seem happy with your reply, shaking back and forth violently as if it were trying to say “no”. It then projected an X in the air, later adding a drawing of a mouth behind the X. “What? Are you asking me to stop talking? My god, Pebbles, you can be so annoying sometimes. I’m leaving,” you stated, propelling yourself off the blue rope you were hanging onto. Pebbles’ Overseer seemed incredibly distressed at this, and went back to trying to convince you to return to Pebbles by pointing upwards. You simply ignored it, huffing in annoyance.
Suddenly, you started to hear a squelching sound. You couldn’t really compare the sound to anything else you’d ever heard in your life, but whatever it was, it made you shudder. You looked below you to see what was producing that sound… only to see a large, spider-like creature advancing up towards you. The main part of the monster looked like the fleshy black things that lined the walls - only this one was mobile and had several long tentacles, some of which it was using to climb upwards. The tentacles that weren’t propelling the creature up were reaching up, reaching towards you. You screamed and frantically swung your limbs upwards, as if you were swimming. The Overseer pointed you upwards once more, towards a metal pole that you could use to pull yourself away from the creature. Reaching out towards the pole, your fingers barely brushed it before the room shook and the zero gravity turned off.
As your body catapulted downwards, you tried to reach for something, anything, that you could grab onto to prevent yourself from falling into the tentacles of the terrifying black-and-blue creature. However, your efforts were in vain. You felt a tentacle wrap itself around your ankle and pull you down towards the creature’s bulbous body. “PEBBLES! HELP!” you cried out, reaching towards his Overseer. Unfortunately, his Overseer could only reach so far, and it wasn’t far enough. And what could it even do for you if it could reach you? Nothing. It was only an Overseer; its only capabilities were hologram projection and acting as a camera for its iterator.
Even as the zero gravity came back on, you were still being dragged downwards, closer and closer to the creature. As you neared it, it latched more of its tentacles onto your other limbs to stop you from struggling. Once you were close enough, it began to shove you into what you assumed was its mouth, despite being unable to see any sort of facial features on its body. First went your legs, then your hips, then your torso. It felt so painful; as if your body was getting crushed up into mush, every bone in your body slowly shattering and the remnants of your limbs being forcibly pushed together as the creature squeezed you into an easily digestible pulp. Before the creature totally consumed your head, you were able to let out one final, broken cry of Pebbles’ name. The last part of you to go was your hand, still outstretched towards the Overseer, something that couldn’t even help you in the first place.
~~~~
After Pebbles had finally managed to correct the error that he had caused due to his anger at your final statement, he turned back towards your corner of the room, ready to apologize and smooth things over with you (as much as he didn’t want to admit his own fault). However, he was shocked to find that you weren’t there. He called your name a few times, only to receive no response. Had you somehow slipped out of his room while he was busy fixing things? “No… How could I have let them get out?!” he shouted, angry at himself. He sent a large number of Overseers out to look for you, covering every part of his can, as well as the exterior of it.
Eventually, Pebbles found you. But he found you in the worst possible place you could be in. You were in the area of his superstructure that he called “Unfortunate Development”, as it was the place where the Rot infecting him was the most virulent. He told his Overseer to convince you to come back as quickly as possible - there was no way you could survive in Unfortunate Development. He could hear you speak through the Overseer, “I’m not going back yet. I want to go outside for once. I’m not leaving forever, I’ll be back at some point. I know you can hear me through this thing, Pebbles - so don’t freak out too much, okay? I promise I’ll be back.”
“Don’t be stupid! You’ll never get out of there alive. Come back, come back right now!” Pebbles shouted, even though you couldn’t hear him. He told his Overseer to tell you to stop speaking, as some of his observations had shown that the mobile Rot cysts reacted mostly to noise. “What? Are you asking me to stop talking? My god, Pebbles, you can be so annoying sometimes. I’m leaving,” you declared through the Overseer, then pushed yourself away from it. Shaking his head, Pebbles screamed, “No, no, NO! LISTEN TO ME!” He continued commanding the Overseer to try and convince you to come back, but his efforts were futile. There was a Rot cyst advancing towards you, and Pebbles couldn’t do anything about it. He had completely lost control over the gravity system in Unfortunate Development some time ago, so he couldn’t propel you away from the Rot cyst; and there was nothing his Overseer could do except project holograms. He could only watch as you were consumed by the Rot.
Five Pebbles had failed once again.
It was all his fault. If he hadn’t been so antagonistic towards you, maybe you wouldn’t have thought of leaving in the first place. If only he was more like Moon; kind, caring, friendly, and warm. But he wasn’t any of those things. He didn’t know how to be kind, didn’t know how to care for others, didn’t have any friends except Seven Red Suns (who he had lost by now), and he was so, so cold. If only he could have made you love him as much as he loved you, maybe this would have never happened. A little voice in his head told him that that wasn’t true. Even though he loved you, it wasn’t like he’d ever told you that. He always treated you horribly too, locking you inside his room with no entertainment other than the pearls that you’d read or listened to over and over again until even they became a source of boredom.
The mechanical whirring that rang out through Pebbles’ room became almost inaudible as he slowly paused or shut down all the processes he’d been working on, as well as all the Overseer camera feeds. They didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did. He’d gotten so used to your presence, and now that you were gone, potentially even dead, Pebbles couldn’t bring himself to do anything. Even if you somehow weren’t dead and you did reincarnate into the next cycle, why would you ever come back to him? There was no way you would. After all, why would you want to be with someone who kept you locked in a tiny room for cycles on end? Pebbles sank to the bottom of his chamber, his legs hitting the floor and putting him in a hunched-over sitting position. He hid his face in his hands; he was sure that if he could cry, he would be right now.
Now he really had nothing.
He was all alone.
Just as he deserved.