The Steel Titan's Last Stand
The Steel Titan, its massive frame driven deep into the ground, kept kicking its legs wildly. But once something this huge was buried that firmly, it couldn't possibly free itself with its own power alone.
Falcon moved in swiftly and snapped both of those flailing legs. Crackle—! Sparks of electricity burst wildly from the shattered limbs.
Ignoring the damage, Falcon grabbed what remained of the lower torso and forcibly yanked the Titan free from the earth. With only its upper body left, the Titan had no hope of escaping Falcon's mount position.
The overwhelming size difference between them vanished the moment the Titan's body was split in two.
“Come on, you bastard— just die already—!”
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom—! Falcon’s twin fists hammered relentlessly into the Titan’s upper body. The Titan, lying on its back, tried desperately to resist, but each time it moved, Falcon simply dodged lightly and punched again as if to say, How dare you?
Once it was clear the Titan’s resistance had completely ended, Falcon carefully attempted to connect to its soul circuit.
“Like this?”
“Yeah, just like that.”
When Falcon followed my guidance and connected to the Titan’s central computer, countless holograms lit up inside the cockpit. The Titan’s internal condition was laid bare across dozens of screens.
Fuselage half-destroyed, ammunition nearly depleted, catastrophic damage approaching total structural failure… I breezed past all the information and went straight for the Titan’s deepest core—the circuit responsible for its soul and brain.
Just as I had predicted, the Steel Titan’s soul was being manipulated by an unknown code I had never created. Or rather… could this even be called code? The messy machine language felt less like something a human had written and more like a desperate attempt to express supernatural phenomena in binary form.
What kind of superpower even looks like code…?
I began systematically removing the virus created by the esper’s influence, comparing the original code I remembered with the current corrupted version running in the Titan.
Every time I deleted a piece of malicious code, the Titan’s body twitched violently, as if having a seizure. There seemed to be an algorithm designed to prevent the removal of its hypnotic brainwashing. In fact, new malicious code kept generating every time I tried.
But that level of resistance couldn’t stop me from breaking the brainwashing.
“How long will it take…?”
“Not long. Five minutes at most. Ten at the longest…”
I was relaxed enough to chat with Steelstone when the completely subdued Titan suddenly raised its hand and grabbed Falcon by the scruff of its neck.
While I was shocked that a Titan on the verge of death could still move like this, it uttered something even more shocking.
“Evil… must be punished.”
—SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED—
EXECUTION IN: 60 SECONDS
“…Self-destruct?”
“T-This is bad…”
I let out a dry laugh and looked at Steelstone.
“Self-destruct? You actually installed something like that?”
“U-Uh… I added it just in case.”
“No, why would you give a final decisive weapon a self-destruct function…?”
I hadn’t seen anything like this when I checked the Steel Titan’s catalog earlier. Which meant Steelstone had secretly installed this spec without consulting anyone else.
I almost wondered if he was insane. Why install a completely unnecessary self-destruct feature? If this were a situation where it could deal a fatal blow to the enemy, I might have praised his foresight. But right now, that wasn’t the case at all.
It was the exact opposite. Because of that damn romanticism of his, our lives were now in danger, and I couldn’t find anything nice to say.
And he even made it so computer hacking can’t stop it…
Once activated, the only way to stop it was physical removal. One minute left, was it? I didn’t know how powerful the explosion would be, but if Falcon fled at full speed—
That was impossible too. The Titan’s hand was still gripping Falcon’s neck with an iron hold.
“Um… are we screwed?”
“Y-You should run at least. Use something like teleportation…”
“In less than a minute? I’m not even sure that would work, and I’ve got allies I called over nearby. I can’t let them get caught in the blast.”
Even in this moment, time was ticking away mercilessly. I racked my brain as hard as I could, searching for a way out of this situation. Should I call Arima right now and throw both of them through a gate? No, that wouldn’t work. There was no way to move a robot this massive through a gate.
What about wiping them both out with a satellite strike? If that were possible, the Steel Titan wouldn’t have been able to devastate W City all by itself.
This didn’t work. That didn’t work. As my options for stopping the self-destruct gradually ran out, Steelstone slowly rose from the cockpit and headed outside.
“Steelstone? What are you—?”
“—This is my fault. So I have to take responsibility until the end.”
With those words, Steelstone leaped down from Falcon’s body and landed heavily on top of the Titan with a thud. The moment I saw that, I realized what he was planning. He intended to physically enter the reactor and shut down the power source himself.
It was a method whose success was uncertain, and even if it worked, there was no guarantee Steelstone would survive. Just as I panicked and reached out to stop him, the Steel Titan—which had been gripping Falcon’s neck—spoke in a surprised voice.
“M-Master…?”
“…Master? I’m your father, you idiot.”
“Weapons… do not have… parents—”
“Did you really think that? You really are a foolish child to the very end.”
Steelstone said this as he struck the Titan’s chest with his hammer. The chest plating, which had withstood direct hits from tank shells without a scratch, began to cave inward.
I thought that at this rate, he might be able to cut off the power source and stop the self-destruct in time. But then the Titan released its grip on Falcon and wrapped its arms around Steelstone instead.
“Steelstone—!”
“Father!”
When both Falcon and I cried out in alarm, Steelstone raised a hand to signal that he was fine.
“Let go, you fool. It hurts.”
“Master. No… Father.”
“…Yes, my son.”
“What have I… been doing all this time…”
“My son?”
A moment later, warning alarms began blaring from the monitor connected to the Steel Titan. The malicious code I had expected would take over five minutes to remove was being erased at an incredible speed.
In other words, the Steel Titan was breaking free from its brainwashing using its own power.
“I am Steel Titan. The guardian who protects justice…”
A hero was awakening. The Steel Titan, eyes now open, let out a deep sigh as if regretting everything it had done. But only for a moment. A hero was not someone who wallowed in regret.
A hero was someone who did what needed to be done right now, even after experiencing things worthy of regret. Someone who willingly did what others could not.
“Father.”
“Titan…”
“Thank you for creating me. Little sister?”
“What?”
“Please take care of Father for me.”
With those words, the Titan handed Steelstone over to Falcon. I wondered what it was planning to do next—only to see it thrust its left hand straight into its own chest.
It tore away the crumpled metal plating and stared at the pulsing power core inside.
“Hrrrrgh—!”
The power core, now in self-destruct mode, began to compress between the Titan’s hands. The core, crushed beyond recognition, let out a tiny explosion and a faint noise before falling completely silent.
Having stopped its own power source, the Titan smiled in satisfaction and looked carefully at Steelstone.
“…Father.”
“No, Titan, you…”
“I must have been a shameful son. I became a mass-murdering slaughterer, completely against the ideals you designed me with…”
The Steel Titan had been created as a decisive weapon of war, but that was merely the design philosophy pushed by the ruling class of P City who had sponsored Steelstone.
While building the robot, Steelstone had never once wished for it to become a merciless monster that slaughtered people.
Thus, although the Steel Titan had been born as a final decisive weapon, it had not been born as a slaughterer.
“But Father… at the very end… at least in this final moment… was I a son you could be proud of?”
“…Of course you were, Titan.”
“Ah… I see…”
At Steelstone’s answer, the Titan smiled with deep satisfaction. But only for a moment. With its power core gone, the Titan slowly closed its eyes and came to a complete stop.
The death of a machine. Having lost its power, the Titan had died. Steelstone wept as he gazed at his dead son.
“…Steelstone, let’s go back.”
“…Yeah.”
He held his son for a long time before slowly standing up. A little later, a long contrail streaked across the sky.
The war was over. Since we had left the destroyed Titan exactly where it was, it wasn’t hard for people to guess what had happened there.
Upon seeing their ultimate weapon so pathetically neutralized, P City immediately declared surrender and was saddled with an unimaginably enormous war reparation.
“P City is completely finished.”
“It would seem so. W City still has resources, so they might be able to recover somehow… but…”
“If P City, whose only asset is technology, gets squeezed for that much money…”
I chatted with Steelstone like this. While we were talking, a robot the size of a palm waddled over.
“Father? Please have some tea.”
“Oh, Falcon. Thank you.”
“For Dr. Eight as well.”
“Thanks.”
After delivering the refreshments, Falcon waddled off again toward its own little house in the distance. Watching the miniaturized Falcon, Steelstone scratched his cheek, still not quite used to the sight.
“Good grief… That huge Falcon is now so tiny…”
“It’s the power of magic, what can I say.”
“Magic, huh. I never imagined such a thing existed.”
Steelstone took a sip of tea. As the bittersweet aroma and flavor filled his mouth, he stared at the tiny toy house Falcon had entered with eyes full of wonder—far more amazed by this than by any magic.
From the outside, everything was visible. And inside that house, it was still noisy with fighting.
“You damn brother! I told you to bring Father his tea!”
“Hey, little sister. That’s the younger sibling’s job— ow—!”
“Shut up! Just die already!”
“Hehehe…”
Watching his children bicker, Steelstone let out a faint chuckle. Then he looked at me and said,
“To me, that looks way more like magic.”
“It’s science.”
After all, a machine doesn’t die just because its body is destroyed and its power core is gone. I had retrieved the Titan’s brain circuit and rebuilt the shattered Steel Titan.
The result was exactly what we were seeing now—two small robots clumsily fighting in the corner of the lab. How many people in the world knew that those two robots were once decisive weapons capable of destroying an entire city on their own?
At the very least, the vast majority of people would never know.