Slave Walker
"Alright! Come on! Who's next?! Anybody want a piece of me?! Wabaraaat!"
As if she had become some legendary hero out of myth, Sonia bellowed a battle cry no one could possibly decipher, utterly lost in a world of her own.
One leg thrust forward, a hand planted on her hip — a clumsy, childish pose straight out of some classic hero anime. In that moment, Sonia was absolutely convinced she was the great champion who would save Sky City.
Of course, to anyone actually watching, she was nothing more than a clumsy amateur drunk on beginner's luck.
Sweat beading on her forehead, she half-crouched in what she believed was a textbook attempt at cover and concealment. The ridiculous posture was so absurd that even the Sky City civilians fleeing for their lives paused mid-stride, wondering, What on earth is that hero doing right now…?
And if even panicked civilians could see through it, there was no chance whatsoever of fooling the high-performance sensors of the unmanned drones hovering overhead, tracking every movement in the area.
"Hoo… haah… Careful. Gotta be careful…"
Sky City's D-class hero, whose wishful thinking had long since exceeded one hundred percent of her brain's available capacity. The more the wreckage of collapsed buildings and the bloodied figures of fleeing people filled her vision, the more a faint voice of reason began to whisper from a corner of her mind: Maybe… maybe I really just got lucky…
But once that circuit of optimism and confidence had ignited, it was not so easily snuffed out. Sonia steeled herself once more and pressed stubbornly deeper into the ruined streets. Behind her, the wreckage of drones lay scattered in every direction — blackened scrap metal without a single salvageable part worth claiming as a trophy.
Once could be coincidence. Twice, and it might just be a hidden talent. Thinking as much, Sonia raised her plasma pistol again and fired at the swarm of unmanned drones arrayed ahead.
Another chain of unbelievable explosions followed. All she had done was pull the trigger — pow, pow! — and the drones burst apart like a swarm of bothersome gnats. Unfounded confidence bloomed thick and fast inside Sonia's chest.
This time she didn't even bother hiding. Striding out into plain view of the drones blocking her path, Sonia leveled her pistol with triumphant flair.
"Th-this much… should be enough by now, right?"
Come to think of it, she had already made a solid impression earlier while guiding civilians toward safety. Pushing any deeper into danger honestly scared her a little, and the screams of people had long since faded from the surroundings.
Better to wrap things up with a flourish and head back, Sonia decided.
But the more luck and wishful thinking swell, the more unexpected danger tends to close in like a shadow.
Sonia confidently squeezed the trigger of her plasma pistol for one final shot. Nothing happened.
Click. Gloop…
Click. Click… Click…
"Uh… uh… uhhh?"
No matter how many times she pulled the trigger, the sticky green plasma bolts refused to fire. The cause was obvious. An empty energy cell magazine. To Sonia, who had always treated the weapon as little more than a simple self-defense tool, carrying spare ammunition had never seemed necessary.
And in that exact moment, a drone of the same model that had earlier shattered every window on the block with a massive detonation came screaming toward her, its red sensor light blazing. Before she could even scream, the startled Sonia froze solid on the spot.
The red light closed in until it filled her vision. A terrible future flashed before her eyes — the drone exploding right in her face, leaving her hospital-bound for a long, long time.
> DANGER!
In that split second, a massive bulk of steel erupted between Sonia and the drone at lightning speed. With a thunderous crash, the enormous machine absorbed every scrap of the blast's force and shrapnel, shielding her completely.
"Uh… u… u… ah…?"
"H-hiiik… i-ii… h-haah…"
Thud. With those words, Sonia's consciousness went dark.
Her legs kept trembling. Whatever that car-sized thing that had suddenly appeared in front of her was, without it she would have been obliterated without a trace by now.
Forget a hospital stay — she might have died on the spot. For someone with no one to cover her medical bills, the sheer relief of having scraped past such a horrific fate drained every last bit of strength from her legs, and Sonia collapsed right where she stood.
An urgent voice kept calling from the machine that had saved her, begging her to stay conscious — but Sonia's mind had already drifted far away.
"Ugh… ah… ah?"
Blink. Blink. When Sonia opened her eyes after her brief blackout, the first thing she saw was the night sky of Sky City, already grown dark.
Still hazy, she tried to piece together everything that had happened. Sometime in the middling afternoon she had confirmed the bankruptcy of the Merging Point Association, then accepted a scout offer and joined a new one.
And then… she had gone out on what was supposed to be a simple recon stroll and gotten caught in a terrorist attack. Things had seemed to be going surprisingly well — until her carelessness nearly got her killed, and something had suddenly burst out and…
"A tank…?"
Lying on the ground with her golden hair splayed every which way, Sonia found something crouched quietly right beside her — for all the world like an enormous pet dog.
It gave off a strangely puppy-like friendliness, yet its bulk rivaled a mid-sized car. A four-legged mechanical weapon so imposing she had instinctively called it a tank.
"…Who are you? How do you know my name…?! Ah… and thank you so much for earlier! Um… what should I call you…"
She had to ask. She was curious how a car-sized mechanical weapon she had never seen before knew her name — but first, expressing gratitude to the one who had saved her took priority.
"A combat… walker? I've never heard of those… Anyway, thank you so much!"
Though no human form was visible, Sonia rose to her feet, brushed the dust from her clothes, and bowed politely toward the car-sized quadrupedal war machine.
Despite its dog-like silhouette, a barrel-like launcher was mounted on the upper chassis. The faint crest of Sky City etched into the frame made it clear this was official military or police hardware.
Learning that her savior belonged to Sky City, Sonia relaxed her shoulders with a quiet sigh of relief. The combat walker's synthetic electronic voice chimed again.
She turned her head. The wallet she had dropped when the blast knocked her down lay wide open on the ground. Her own smiling ID photo, and right beside it the clear mark of a Sky City citizen. Even without the combat walker, anyone could have identified her at a glance.
"Thank you so much for helping me. But… you said you're inside, right? That explosion earlier was huge… Are you okay?"
So this combat walker wasn't an unmanned machine after all — it was the kind a person boarded and piloted directly. The unit's lamps flickered as Milli's voice continued.
"I don't know how much help I'd be… but if you're alright with me, I'll stay."
Sonia simply couldn't bring herself to abandon the immobilized combat walker and the Milli inside it.
"So that sister of yours is the pilot of this combat walker Milli's in… She must be… really incredible!"
At the scene of a drone terrorist attack of unknown origin, Sonia had by chance encountered a peculiar pair of sisters who appeared to belong to the Sky City military.
She had yet to meet the person Milli called both "sister" and "Master," but while Sonia leaned against the car-sized quadrupedal war machine chatting with Milli, a woman in a black military uniform came carefully approaching from the distance.
"What did I tell you to call me in the field, Mii~lli?"
Answering Milli's synthetic electronic voice, the woman in the black military uniform — Peko — gave Sonia a light wave of her hand.
"Ah… hello. I'm Sonia…"
Sonia offered an awkward, hesitant greeting. She couldn't help it.
Looking at the results alone, it was her own carelessness that had forced this combat walker to take the hit in her place and left it unable to move.
She had no grounds to complain even if they yelled at her on the spot, so Sonia could only hang her head like a guilty criminal.