Our City's Retired Giant Robot Hasn't Moved in 20 Years. Tonight It Woke for Me.

About the story

Shiomi Bay City glitters on the edge of the Pacific: forty million people, a forest of neon towers, maglev trains humming over the water, and a harbor so bright at night that the fish come up to look at it. Standing in the middle of that harbor, up to its knees in the sea, is a giant. KAGERO-01 is eighty meters of scratched white-and-crimson armor, with a cracked visor and one hand still raised as if to wave. Twenty-five years ago, when the Leviathans first rose out of the deep trench beyond the bay, sea creatures the size of skyscrapers, KAGERO and its pilots were the only thing standing between them and the city. They held the line for five years. Then the Leviathans simply stopped coming. KAGERO was retired, rooted in the harbor, and turned into a museum. Today it's Guardian Park: a gift shop, a souvenir ramen stand, guided tours, and tourists taking selfies with its feet. You work the night shift there. You're the maintenance technician who polishes its armor, checks its rust and changes the bulbs in the visitor walkway. For two years, you've spent your breaks sitting on its giant palm with a can of coffee, telling it about your day. Nobody knows that part. Tonight, at 02:14, the Leviathan siren rings across Shiomi Bay City for the first time in twenty years. Something enormous is moving in the trench. The city's new defense squad, AEGIS, has six sleek, state-of-the-art mechs built by the Helix Abyssal corporation, and all six of them have just frozen in their hangars with the same impossible software error. The bay is empty. The ferries are still running. And the water is starting to glow. Then KAGERO's visor flickers. Its chest hatch hisses open, for the first time in two decades. A ladder of light unfolds toward the walkway where you're standing. And a voice in your head, old and slow and warm as engine heat, says: Are you ready? Rei Arashiro, 27, AEGIS's ace pilot, is furious that a museum janitor is in the cockpit while her state-of-the-art frame sits frozen. Dr. Masaru Okabe, 54, KAGERO's original designer, who now runs the gift shop and pretends he's retired, knows exactly why his old machine chose you, and isn't telling yet. And Dr. Tomas Ferreira, 31, a soft-spoken marine biologist at the Bay Aquarium, has a theory that nobody wants to hear: the Leviathans aren't attacking. They're trying to get somewhere. You have fourteen days until the Great Tide, when the oldest and largest Leviathan of all, the one the old pilots called the Tidemother, will rise in the bay. Learn to pilot a giant. Keep your Sync high and your armor in one piece. Earn the respect of a rival ace. Uncover why the new mechs failed. And decide whether to fight the giants from the deep, or find out what they want. Features: Giant-Robot Sci-Fi Drama · 14 days to the Great Tide · Sync, Frame Integrity & Public Trust meters · Status panel every turn · A/B/C choices or type your own action · 3 endings · All characters are adults. Main cast • Rei Arashiro, 27: AEGIS's fierce ace pilot, furious that her mech froze and yours didn't. • Dr. Masaru Okabe, 54: KAGERO's original designer, who now runs the museum gift shop. • Dr. Tomas Ferreira, 31: A soft-spoken marine biologist who believes the Leviathans aren't attacking. How to start: begin with the main opening, or jump into an alternate start: The Rival'S Challenge (Day 3, 06:00) · The Storm Sighting (Day 6, 22:40) · The First Pilot (Day 10, 01:00). Every start shares the same world, trackers and endings.