The four-legged robot knocked away its master's powerless arms, though, and ran straight at the three-wheeled truck.
Mamimi was enraged. Why, why do you never do what I want you to?
"Why are you doing this? You have to listen to what I say, Takkun."
But Takkun ignored her words as it skillfully grabbed the truck and started chomping down on it. The metal frame and components were chewed to bits in its mouth and then swallowed completely. It had a terrifying bite and appetite.
The surprised ones were naturally Masashi and Gaku. After all, a robot beast had come bounding down the alley out of nowhere and eaten up their beloved truck.
There were people who were trying their hardest to hunt down that robotic monster: Amarao and the Department of Interstellar Immigration members.
Today, Amarao was in the passenger seat of the car that Kitsurubami was driving, reading a map on a panel that was installed in the car. It looked like a GPS system from its appearance, but it was actually a radar system for use on special missions, a piece of equipment designed to search out the components and terminal core that had separated from the giant MM robot.
Amarao and Kitsurubami had been searching for several days, but hadn't a clue yet as to where the terminal core had gone, although it shouldn't have had any mobility capabilities.
The terminal core had been communicating through special electronic waves with that towering hand, so they'd been tracing that electronic signal. But the signal had been weak and unstable, so the mission had encountered problems.
Finally, though, the car that Kitsurubami was driving was heading toward the correct destination. What had made all the difference to their mission was that, as of the night before, the electronic impulses from the terminal core had become clearer. Gradually, they had become stronger in output power, and now the team had narrowed down the area it could be in to a radius of a few hundred meters.
But that didn't mean they were overjoyed. This could be evidence that the damaged terminal core might be trying to self-repair.
Kitsurubami wore an uneasy expression as she drove the car. On top of the hill, the factory that had been emitting continuous smoke was now shooting out an even larger quantity of thick white smoke. It was almost as if it was angry that it couldn't fill up the entire world with smoke.
Now, she also had come to understand the true threat the MM factory posed.
"You saw it, too, didn't you? The footage?" Amarao asked.
"Last week, at the department," Kitsurubami replied.
A few days earlier, Kitsurubami had been dispatched to the central office, where she'd been shown some terrifying video footage.
At first, she'd thought the footage was of one of the poles. A flat mass of land spread out smoothly, like a frozen lake, and the land was flat as far as the eye could see, as smooth as a mirror. But it wasn't a polar cap she was seeing; it was a scene from another planet. In the sky, there was no familiar moon, but a floating satellite instead.
The strangest part of the video footage, stranger than the scenery, was the presence of a giant iron on the vast flatness. It looked exactly the same as the MM factory that stood on the hill in Mabase. Moreover, it wasn't just an ordinary building; it moved across the continent. And it didn't just move. When it sensed a wrinkle on the surface of the ground, it would approach and flatten the offending imperfection.
Kitsurubami understood immediately without explanation: The planet was so completely smooth as a result of that giant iron's actions. The giant iron had wiped out the hills, the mountains, anything that wasn't flat. It was the embodiment of an obsessive desire to systematically smooth out the whole world.
Looking deeper in the far off distance of the footage, Kitsurubami was able to make out a number of irons moving across the land. The dead surface where nothing lived was a surreal world where irons slid silently.
Kitsurubami had shuddered when she'd understood the dangerous position their own world was now in. One of those giant MM irons had come to this planet.
"It's all right. If we can just get to the terminal core first, it will be all right," Amarao said. "We have to do something, or it's the end of the world."
"But…" Kitsurubami put all her energy into expressing a thought that had been nagging at her, "if that rumored Pirate King is here, then won't he do something?"
At the polar opposite of MM's obsessive principals of equality, a universal organization called the Galaxy Space Police Brotherhood was fighting with all its might. But MM's most feared enemy wasn't a part of that brotherhood, rather a single man known as Red Pirate King Atomsk. Although he didn't belong to any camp, he had halted MM's progress on many planets in the galaxy, thwarting its ambitions.
"He's not one of us, so we can't rely on him," Amarao said. "Besides, there still has been no real sign of Atomsk."
Amarao had received information about a year prior that Pirate King Atomsk had been captured by MM. And then, they suspected that robot Canti also had some kind of connection to Atomsk, which would explain why it gave off Atomsk's personal organism magnetism sometimes. If that were the case, then MM's persistence in trying to capture Canti made sense. And as Amarao had said, there had been no sign of Atomsk, so if he had fled from the danger, then they had no other hope except seeking the terminal core.
The signal turned red and Kitsurubami put her foot on the brake.
Amarao caught a glimpse of her white stocking-covered legs up her mini skirt, and he moved his eyebrows oddly. His eyes remained in that sideways glance position, looking at his subordinate's body.
Kitsurubami noticed his gaze immediately. She understood straight away what her boss was thinking; it was so easy to read.
As expected, Amarao spoke: "What do you do on your days off?"
Hey, the tone of your voice has changed, Kitsurubami thought. At this critical time, you shouldn't be falling for feminine charms. Anyway, you're still in love with Haruko, aren't you?
"Um, that's kind of private…" she trailed off, wanting to maintain a smooth working relationship.
I don't want to talk to you.
"Don't say such sad things. People weren't made to live alone." Amarao had placed his hand on top of Kitsurubami's on the gear stick.
Not again, Kitsurubami thought. This man wants any woman in front of him. He thinks he can make any of the women working under him his. Idiot.
"Work relationships can be problematic."
"What are you saying? Any problems that arise tend to be so small— Argh!"
They both were surprised by something suddenly coming at them from the intersection—a giant, four-legged walking monster robot. A high school girl was clinging to it from its collar.
"Stop it, Takkun!" The high school girl screaming was, of course, Mamimi Samejima.
"Takkun! Terminal Kore!"
Even while misunderstanding the reason Mamimi had named the robot what she had, Amarao still correctly recognized what it really was.
"Commander, its size!"
"Geez, it's massive."
Amarao and Kitsurubami were taken aback by the size of the terminal core. They had been looking for something about the size of a kitten, but the thing that appeared before them was a robot the size of a horse. There was no questioning that the four-legged machine was the terminal core, though—even the radar panel was indicating it was.
Amarao had been wondering why the electromagnetic waves the terminal core gave off suddenly had gotten stronger, and now he knew. It had grown to a greater degree than self-repair alone would have allowed. But why?
"No, Takkun!" Mamimi screamed. "Mamimi doesn't want this!"