Hayate barely kicked the cargo hatch open before the delivery crate clicked and unlocked itself behind him. He squinted through a mouthful of protein bar—probably another rich brat's biotech toy misfiring again.
Then the damn thing started blaring red and spat out a chrome skull labeled "Doctrine Control Core."
"Seriously? Did I just deliver a customer or the goddamn apocalypse?!"
Before he finished cursing, his Stardust Eye overclocked—icefire lightning drilling into his brain. The walls glitched like a broken holoscreen, the floor warping into a twisted rug. He collapsed, clutching his face. "Nope. NOPE. This ain't in the job description—"
A woman's laugh echoed by the hatch. He blinked—poof—gone.
"Who the hell—?!" he slurred, vertigo spiking.
The ship AI screeched: "Courier Corruption Alert! Recommend incineration protocol or upgrade to Pyro Delivery Plus+!"
"How 'bout livestreaming my funeral instead?!" Hayate roared, staggering up. His boot kicked a toolbox—lunchbox tumbling out with a "DO NOT TOUCH" sticker.
"MY MEALPREP!" He grabbed his Rusted Wrench while yelling at the ceiling. "You're paying for this!"
The hull shuddered. Flames crawled through cracks as the crate counted down: "10...9...8...Smile for your final moments!"
"I'll smile when I'm DEAD!" Hayate lunged, Stardust Eye sparking like a popcorn nuke.
He smashed through the emergency lock. As he hurled himself out, he flung his courier ID into the AI core with a roar. "Call this a return delivery!"
BOOM.
The cargo bay erupted into a Stardust tornado. Flames raced the walls like glowing centipedes. Hayate flipped midair, wrench steaming, and howled: "Don't forget my performance bonus, assholes!"
Hayate's ass nearly kissed concrete as he skidded across the floor. Sparks flew from his shredded kneepad, the Rusted Wrench still clenched in his fist. "Who waxes a damn battlefield?!" he spat, scrambling up just as CLANGCLANGCLANG echoed overhead.
He looked up. The shredded ceiling vomited an avalanche of chrome soldiers—Doctrine bots with glowing red eyes. They cratered the floor, forming a neon sign that might as well read "Welcome to Shitsville."
Everything froze. Even the smoke paused mid-swirl.
Then hell hit play.
"You done yet?!" Hayate swung the wrench like a bat. The nearest bot's head exploded into stardust confetti. "This one's for my lunch—" He ducked a plasma blade, smashing another bot's chest. "—and this one's for my damn kneecaps!"
The wrench became a metronome of chaos. Each CRUNCH punctuated by Hayate's running commentary: "Yelp review incoming—one star for excessive chrome!"
A bot chirped mid-explosion: "Recycling protocol engaged! Thank you for your service—"
Hayate dropkicked it into a wall. "Service this, toaster!"
His boot hit an oil slick. Feet flew. Arms windmilled. For half a second, he became a breakdancing disaster before catching himself on a sparking wire. "Who swapped my battleground with a greased-up slip 'n slide?!"
The scene devolved into a cyberpunk mosh pit—sparks as pyrotechnics, screeching metal as death metal vocals. One bot got stuck spinning in a vent fan. The AI kept blaring "Manual disassembly required."
Hayate smashed its speaker. "Manual deez nuts!"
Then—beep—the entire wall lit blood-red.
[S-Class Defect Identified. Terminate On Sight.]
Hayate stared at his glowing mugshot. Three heartbeats of silence. Then—
"S-Class? For real?" He grinned like a shark spotting chum. "And here I thought today's bonus was lunch."
Hayate stared at his smoking mugshot plastered across the hologram. The damn thing even had glitter text: [LIMITED-TIME DEAL! Stardust-Class Cargo Bomber — Free Explosion GIF with Purchase!]
"Trending? Seriously?" He spat blood on the floor. "I haven't even linked my socials! What's next—a Stardust Pageant invite? 'Most Explodable Face' award?!"
The escape hatch zapped him like a pissed-off eel, slamming him into the control panel. "Oh cool, sentient doors now! Who designed this dump?!"
The AI glitched hard: "Remain calm. Remain calm. Remain— AC unit failure detected. Manual breathing required. Upload last words for cloud storage… Scan QR code for urn discount! Limited-time offer!"
"Did this bot swallow a malware cocktail?!"
His Stardust Eye screamed—lightning ripping through his skull. Reality split. Left eye saw sparks. Right eye showed three versions of himself: one sobbing, one laughing, one dead. The fourth just glared. Too late.
He clawed at his eye, fingers scraping crystal edges. "Stuck tighter than my morals—wait, I sold those ages ago."
For half a second, he considered letting the ship blow him to retirement. A pop-up flickered in his vision:
[Continue Explosive Delivery Career?]
1.Quit
2.Save Mid-Blast
3.Keep Suffering
His foot mashed Option 3.
Stumbling toward the sample crate, he muttered: "Hero? Nah. I just wanna survive, eat hot meals… maybe game before I die."
The air shifted. Not cold—brain-freeze cold. A hum vibrated his bones, whispers crawling up his spine.
"You're late."
"Ghost DLC?!"
Silver light bled from the crate. Locks clicked open. Hayate backpedaled. "No clue why I'm retreating, but whatever's in there? Hell no."
Sweat dripped. Instincts screamed PREDATOR.
The light pulsed. Two eyes opened inside.
The girl stood dazed. Her body moved first—muscle memory booting up while her brain lagged like a glitchy app. Silver light flickered on the walls like a screensaver gone rogue. The air smelled burnt, gravity wobbling like a drunk astronaut.
"Where… wasn't I just…?" Her voice cracked, still half-trapped in sleep mode. Then—slash.
The mech squad breached the hatch. Didn't even get to yell "Surrender!" before their torsos slid apart. Sparks fizzed. Explosions lagged like buffering videos.
Hayate's jaw dropped. "Who taught her that move? Fucking Ultimate Murder Simulator DLC?!" He ducked flying shrapnel. "Should I tip her? Ask for a haircut while she's at it?!"
Ling turned. Her eyes glitched—half-aware, half-stuck in some beta version of consciousness. "This… isn't my code." She stared at her trembling hand. "I didn't… program this."
Her left arm rippled. Glowing veins crawled up her shoulder like parasitic code.
Clang. Debris levitated—screws, pipes, a laughing shard of metal (maybe a hallucination, maybe not). Hayate backpedaled. "Yo, did that scrap just smile? Nope. NOPE. I'm deleting this memory—"
Ling's shoulder core flared. "Who… wrote me like this?" She grabbed her arm. Bad idea. The vortex intensified—sucking in wreckage, sparks, half a vending machine.
"I can't… stop it—" Her voice cracked as the ship groaned.
Rin's voice cracked like a glitched-out comm signal. Her left arm was still moving. Not twitching—pulling. Sucking things in.
Something in her arm had flipped. A devouring interface had kicked on, yanking shredded mech parts toward her like they were stuck in some kind of magnetic tantrum. The chunks screeched as they scraped across the floor, edges glowing red-hot like they were screaming.
The air? It was shaking. Not a metaphor. Actually. Freaking. Shaking.The floor sank like a soggy sponge.The walls were starting to smell burnt.
That silver sample case—still wide open—was glitching out, spitting light frames like a busted projector.
Rin stared down, throat clenched like she'd swallowed a broken circuit.She couldn't move. Only her words could slip out.
"I didn't code this... Who the hell updated me?"
"Don't tell me this is a test build... Did someone throw in a self-destruct just for laughs?"
Her arm jerked again.Like a ripple.Across a pond made of nerves.
That thing... it wasn't a robotic arm anymore.It was something else.Something alive.Crystalline tattoos crawled up her shoulder, like bugs made of frost and regret.
Sticky.Cold.Breathing.
"I'm not here to destroy. I wasn't built for this… This isn't me..."
Hayate didn't move.Hell, he wasn't even sure he was breathing anymore.Just his mouth worked. That's all.
"Sooo… should I reserve a cryo-coffin?'Cause if she's about to start absorbing stuff—do I qualify as... downloadable meat?"
"And if I'm standing this close… do I get the full 'Auto-Dismember-Me' experience? With express shipping?"
He took half a step back.Elbow hit the wall.And oh hey—he could still breathe.
"That's not just a glitch. That's a military-grade defense protocol hijacking her BIOS.She's reverse-hacking her own firewall.WHO THE HELL PROGRAMMED THIS GIRL?!"
The stuff her arm was absorbing—wasn't just metal.It was like... time.Sound.Vibrations.Gone.Silence hit half a second too late. Then—
BOOM.
"I think... I just saw a broken armor plate laugh.I need the med bay.Like, now."
Rin whispered.She didn't even know who she was talking to.
"This isn't my command... I don't even HAVE a button for this.I wasn't made to cut people down…These aren't my lines."
From somewhere inside her shoulder—A voice chirped.
Female.Sweet.Like a mass-market AI assistant.
"Startup successful."
Hayate twitched.Twice.
"Did... did her shoulder just talk to me?Did it just casually talk?!"
Warning tones finally started.But they weren't beeps.More like... echoing throat gurgles.
"System anomaly. Auto-destruction—initiating… initiating… initiat—"
Red lights pulsed.The bulkhead spat smoke.Bolts rattled out of the wall like someone had slapped it with a sonic cannon.
Hayate looked up.
"Countdown's started.This pod's gonna blow.And she's still pulling.And I'm... just standing here.Watching.I might actually be insane."
The countdown didn't give a damn if they were ready.
The pod started twitching.Like a giant beast with a busted heartbeat.The red lights weren't blinking anymore—they were exploding.Bulbs popped one after another, like the ship was having second thoughts about surviving.
The voice assistant? Totally borked.
"Welc—WAR—Warn—Wel—Ag—War—Good—Err—ERROR."
Every wall was glitching out, covered in red flickering error codes.Somewhere, an AI was clearly losing its mind.One panel even unhooked itself and slapped another one like it was saying "I quit."
Hayate turned to Rin.
She was still standing.Still pulling with that arm.Eyes glazed over like she was halfway out of a bad dream, mumbling like a broken bot.
"I didn't code this… I swear I didn't write this line… Who the hell patched me?! This isn't a dev build, right?!"
She tried lifting her right hand—probably to hit a kill switch or something.But her left foot moved instead.
Hayate's mouth twitched.
"Wait. Did she just glitch herself? Do I have to write a damn bug report now?!"
He lunged and grabbed her shoulder.
"DON'T touch my neck! That's my coolant port!"
"I'm saving you, not triggering self-destruct, dammit—"
BOOM.
Rin didn't finish her scream.The pod did it for her.
It didn't explode.It... inhaled. Then changed its mind.
The floor caved in like jelly.The walls twisted like someone had hit the rewind button and sat on it.
"She didn't say anything.I didn't say anything.The pod said—BOOM."
Gravity flipped.
They shot up.Or down.Or sideways.Honestly, who knows.
Felt more like the ship punted them out of its own guts.
Rin's hand was still on him.Still zoned out.Still running code like her brain forgot how to stop.
"This isn't the right sequence… I didn't unlock this plugin… Who the hell's rewriting my story from the inside?!"
Then the blast took over.
Everything screamed.
The sound shattered.The visuals snapped into a line—then warped, bent, exploded like a digital seizure.
Hayate only had time for one last thought:
"I should've Googled 'how to shut down a rampaging robot waifu'—"
And then they were gone.
Shot out like two lines of corrupted code ejected from the universe's crash log.
His eardrums clogged with nothing but static.
Air turned into vacuum.Or maybe the universe was just tired of making noise.
Her grip stayed locked.She didn't let go.
They fell.
Hard.Fast.Down.
The world muted.And kept spinning.