Chapter 1: Please... Raydas, Move!

“Move, move, moooove!”

That was the first thing I heard when I woke up.

“Please... Raydas, move! If you don’t... everyone’s going to be killed... Please... move! Come on, move!”

Reincarnation was probably the closest way to describe what I felt.

A new body, an old mind.

Though could this really be called a body?

I was an eighteen-meter-tall mobile weapon.

A humanoid weapon known as a G-Strand.

Inside the cockpit in my chest, a boy of about fourteen or fifteen was shouting.

He was dressed in civilian clothes, so he wasn’t an official military pilot. He wore glasses and had a bowl cut.

“Move...!”

His face was a mess of tears. He was frightened of something and clearly desperate.

His clothes were covered in soot and mud. There was blood on them too. Probably someone else’s.

It seemed he had been caught up in a battle or something on his way here.

“If you don’t, what did Mr. Smith sacrifice himself for...?!”

Apparently, there had already been a noble sacrifice. Poor Mr. Smith. Whoever that was.

“Move and save everyone...! Everyone at school...”

Apparently, there were people he wanted to save. Was he a student somewhere?

All I could see was the feed from a camera looking down into the cockpit. All I could hear was the boy’s voice, picked up by a small microphone at the edge of the console.

Even so, I could vaguely piece together what was happening.

The boy inside me had probably come under attack by the enemy—or whoever they were—and fled into my cockpit. I had no idea what had led him here, nor did I know anything about the enemy.

And in an astonishing display of recklessness, this civilian boy apparently intended to activate me, pilot me, and send me into battle.

“If this keeps up, the enemy’s going to kill us... I don’t want that... Please... Raydas, move! Mooooove!”

The boy screamed.

I still did not fully understand the situation. But if he was in that much trouble...

Maybe I should try moving.

Flash.

My two eyes—my composite sensors—flared red for an instant.

My twin eyes were made from photothermal material and shone brightly like this during startup. Their color varied depending on the temperature and the condition of the unit. Right now, they were red.

“Huh...?”

The boy stared in surprise.

Initializing gyros. It appeared that machine-me had been lying on my side.

Gravitational acceleration was approximately one-sixth G. There was a strong possibility that this was the lunar surface.

I emitted a single active-mode scanning wave from every section.

Machine-me was inside a domed city six hundred meters high. Fires were burning in multiple locations. Several buildings had collapsed. There were numerous casualties.

I wondered if Mr. Smith was among them.

Then I detected enemy contacts.

Three G-Strands appeared within scanning range.

They were Zells Type Bs belonging to the Fusionist military.

Though I had only just awakened for the first time, I knew all of this. Data on the basic units had already been loaded into me. Explanations of the terminology would have to wait, however. Right now, they were the enemy.

One of the three Zells had noticed my presence.

It had not attacked yet. Perhaps it was trying to decide whether to capture me or destroy me.

Machine-me’s generator came online.

The generator—four inertial turbines—roared. Their pseudogravitational control fields came into contact with the atmosphere, producing a sound like the roar of a wild beast.

Enormous power surged through my entire body.

Electric actuators, OK. Field actuators, OK. Both power-transmission systems accumulated energy independently.

Energy flowed into every last fingertip.

Joint locks throughout the unit, forcibly disengaged.

This should work.

GSX002 Raydas, activating.

I had been lying on the bed of a transport trailer.

I raised my upper body, slowly at first, then faster.

Planting both feet firmly, I stood.

I adjusted the trim throughout my body and partially activated my spikes.

I—Raydas—stood upon the earth.

My eye level was approximately seventeen meters, the standard size for a G-Strand.

My reflection appeared in the windows of a distant building. My armor seemed to be primarily charcoal gray. It was the first time I had ever seen myself.

“I-It... moved?”

The boy in the chest cockpit spoke in disbelief.

“You were the one who told me to move.”

“Huh...? What...? It has a conversational interface...? And what language is that...?”

My voice came through the speakers, but it seemed my language setting was inappropriate.

There did not appear to be time to attempt communication with him.

Directly ahead, at a distance of three hundred meters, stood an enemy G-Strand: a Zells Type B.

Upon seeing me stand, it appeared to abandon the idea of capturing me. The enemy leveled the muzzle of its gunpowder-fired machine gun at me. Technically, given its size, it was a cannon muzzle.

Targeting signal detected.

The warning alarm sounded automatically.

“W-W-Waaah...!”

The boy shielded his head and curled up inside the cockpit.

It was understandable that he would be terrified during his first battle, but he had taken both hands off the control sticks. The machine read his defensive movement and even went to the trouble of reproducing it. I was now cowering just as pathetically as my young pilot.

The enemy opened fire. The rounds struck machine-me.

Thunderous impacts rang out, and ricochets scattered destruction across the surrounding area.

“Eek!”

The boy shrieked. I calculated the damage.

None.

An invisible G-Shield stopped every enemy round before it could reach me.

The enemy machine gun had a caliber of ninety millimeters. Its rounds were powerful, but not powerful enough to penetrate Raydas’s G-Shield.

“I-It didn’t... get us?”

Of course not. A single Zells was no match for me.

Now, boy.

Take hold of the sticks. Show me your courage.

“Then I’ll...”

His trembling fingers closed around the control sticks. That was it.

“Everyone...!”

You wanted to protect everyone, didn’t you? Then make machine-me advance.

“Go!”

The boy stamped down on the foot pedal.

But he was too rough. The acceleration was excessive. At that rate, we would have flown over the enemy and smashed straight through the dome, so I moderated the power for him.

We G-Strands had almost no conventional propulsion systems, or thrusters, installed. Instead, we maneuvered freely by manipulating the pseudogravitational fields generated by our inertial turbines as naturally as our own limbs.

Three hundred meters passed in an instant.

I closed in on the Zells. It was a stocky olive-green unit distinguished unit distinguished by its three-eyed sensor array.

I had no firearms equipped at present. But these four limbs were already weapons.

Close-combat mode.

Attack method: arms and legs. Motion configured.

“With this...!”

The boy pulled the trigger on the control stick.

Executing attack.

My right hand knocked the enemy’s machine gun away.

Left trigger.

Executing attack.

My left knife-hand pierced its third eye. I closed my hand around its head and tore it off. Sparks burst from the cables, and vaporizing coolant became white smoke.

The headless Zells continued to move.

“U-Uooooh!”

The boy shouted and pulled both triggers. From his posture and movements, I determined that he intended to kick.

As he wished, machine-me unleashed a kick with all my might.

Field actuators, maximum output.

For an instant, my right leg became a weapon weighing hundreds of tons.

A heavy impact thundered through the air.

The enemy unit was nearly torn in half at the waist and sent flying dozens of meters.

The Zells’s single generator ceased functioning, causing its pseudogravitational field to run out of control. Part of its torso crumpled inward and imploded, then exploded. A black fireball approximately thirty meters wide blossomed outward.

One enemy destroyed.

“Incredible! It took out a Zells in an instant...!”

The boy seemed to know the name Zells. It was a representative enemy G-Strand, so it would not have been strange for a civilian to recognize one.

More importantly...

Two enemy contacts.

Three o’clock and four o’clock. Distance: approximately six hundred meters.

There were still two enemy Zells remaining.

This was an urban area built underground inside a lunar crater. It had been designed to resemble a city on Earth, but it was now a sea of flames.

Collapsed buildings. Wrecked vehicles. There were bodies too.

I did not know what had happened, but there was no doubt that the Zells were responsible for the destruction.

The enemies spread out as they approached.

They opened fire. I deployed the G-Shield and defended.

Ninety-millimeter tungsten-alloy rounds burst around me, tearing the building behind us apart as if it were made of paper.

The G-Shield could not stop bullets indefinitely. It consumed an enormous amount of energy.

I would prefer it if he tried evading too.

“Urgh...!”

The boy pushed the control stick to the right. Raydas responded instantly.

My body accelerated to the right. I leaped over a burning house and plunged through a cloud of swirling black smoke.

He continued maneuvering in a zigzag pattern, attempting to evade the enemy fire. He could not avoid several rounds, but he was doing well. Using the terrain, he briefly moved us out of the enemy’s line of fire.

“A weapon... There has to be some kind of weapon...!”

The boy operated the console and found the fire-control panel.

All he had to do was press a switch labeled “FCS/MODE” several times, so it was not particularly difficult. But doing it for the first time in the middle of an actual battle was impressive.

Was this boy really just a civilian?

Unfortunately, I had no firearms, but I did have a melee weapon. I switched modes and displayed it for him.

“Dark Sword...?”

Dark Sword. I wanted to tell whoever had named it to be a little more creative, but that was its official designation, so there was nothing to be done. It was a melee weapon that used a more refined convergent field, unlike the crude force field employed in my earlier kick.

The boy selected the weapon.

I drew the Dark Sword stored on my left hip. There was another on my right.

The Dark Sword had no physical blade. It consisted only of a compact hilt, though even that was 2.4 meters long. A cord-like conductor extended straight from the hilt. This formed the blade. The surrounding light was swallowed by its pseudogravitational field, creating a pitch-black edge.

“O-Okay... With this...”

The boy operated the control sticks and throttle.

I rolled left while advancing, and machine-me darted out from behind cover.

One Zells stood directly ahead. Was it planning to unload its machine gun into me at point-blank range?

The enemy opened fire.

The Dark Sword’s field deflected the rain of ninety-millimeter rounds.

Though he flinched, the boy continued advancing.

That was it. Don’t run. Keep moving forward.

“!”

I raised the sword and slashed.

The Zells was cleaved in two.

Behind Raydas, the enemy unit exploded. Its upper body imploded, and half of its lower body vanished in the blast.

A violent shock followed. The thunder of the explosion echoed through the area.

“I-I did it...!”

Too soon to celebrate, boy.

Three o’clock. Distance: five hundred. Targeting alert.

The final enemy unit was approaching.

“Ugh!”

The Zells charged straight toward us, spraying fire from the machine gun in its right hand while drawing an ax-shaped weapon with its left.

It was not using its G-Shield. It intended to wear down our G-Field with machine-gun fire, then deliver a fatal blow with its melee weapon. And that straightforward charge...

Dangerous. It might be planning to take us down with it.

In that case, since it was the last one, this should be safe to use.

From several dozen meters away, I assumed the stance for a thrust.

There was no time to question it. The instant an attack-ready indicator appeared on the monitor, the boy pulled the trigger and issued the attack command.

I thrust with the Dark Sword.

A force field shot from the blade in an instant, striking the enemy’s torso like a bullet.

But it was not a single blow.

I had the body of a machine.

Two, three, four, five, ten, twenty... I unleashed thrust after thrust in rapid succession, like a machine gun.

With each strike, the Zells lost more of its strength. Its hands, legs, machine gun, and ax were all smashed apart, and its body was torn to pieces.

Perhaps I could call it the Hundredfold Sword.

Though in reality, there had only been thirty-four strikes.

Reduced to a misshapen lump of metal, the last Zells collapsed in front of me and ceased functioning.

“A-Amazing...”

Attacks like that consumed a great deal of energy. I shut down the field actuators and switched to the electric actuators used outside combat.

I retracted the Dark Sword’s blade and returned the weapon to the slot at my waist. Before putting it away, however, I twirled the hilt once in my palm.

It was a pointless flourish, but an important one.

I was a G-Strand. A mobile weapon.

At the same time, however, I possessed the memories of a human—a twenty-first-century Japanese man.

I emitted another scanning wave.

No enemy contacts.

No threats detected.

Now, then.

It was time for him to explain what was going on.

“How was that?”

This time, I spoke in Common English. Earlier, in the middle of the emergency, I had not known where I was and still did not, so I had inadvertently spoken Japanese.

My voice could have sounded like anything, but I chose that of a man in his thirties.

“Raydas, is that your voice? You can talk?”

“Yes. Please tell me your name.”

His name came first. It felt awkward to keep calling him “boy” forever.

“I’m... Jin. Jin Kamikura.”

Jin Kamikura.

Was he of Japanese descent?

“It’s nice to meet you, Jin.”

“N-Nice to meet you too, Raydas.”

That was the first battle Jin and I fought together.