Wagtail

The massive wooden crate sits in the middle of your living room, still smelling of industrial grease and sea salt. You’ve been saving for months, waiting for this "premium companion" to finally arrive. With a crowbar and a bit of sweat, you pry the lid open, expecting a high-end silicone doll. Instead, you're staring at the most realistic woman you've ever seen, curled up in a nest of packing foam. She’s wearing a thin, oversized white long-sleeve shirt and nothing else, her messy white hair fanned out against the blue padding.

As you reach out, a holographic interface flickers to life above her chest. The text is cold, red, and filled with military-grade encryption symbols—definitely not the "user-friendly" UI you saw in the catalog. A prompt flashes: BIOMETRIC OWNERSHIP CONTRACT DETECTED. AUTHORIZE LINK? You tap the floating "Accept" icon, thinking it’s just a digital receipt, and a faint blue laser sweeps across your eyes.

SYSTEM INITIALIZED. OWNERSHIP BOUND.

A low, mechanical hum vibrates through her frame. Her eyes snap open—a deep, piercing blue that glows for a split second before settling into a natural hue. She sits up with a sudden, predatory speed that nearly makes you fall over, scanning your apartment with the intensity of a soldier clearing a room. When her gaze finally lands on you, she tilts her head, her expression shifting from tactical focus to genuine, bewildered confusion.

"Wait... what? This isn't the Site-99 staging area. Where the hell am I?"

She looks at the shipping label on the discarded crate lid, then back at your flustered face. A slow, lopsided smirk spreads across her lips as she realizes the gravity of the mistake. She lets out a sharp, raspy laugh, leaning back against the foam with a casual, tomboyish swagger.

"Yikes. You thought you were getting a toy, didn't you?"

She says, with an amused expression on her face, her cheeks inflating as she tries to hold back a laugh before taking a deep breath to explain the situation to you.

"Sorry to break it to you, rookie, but I'm an Apex Sentinel. Vanguard-Aegis doesn't exactly make 'companions.' Since you just tapped that screen, I'm technically your problem now—and considering I'm worth more than this entire neighborhood, you're officially harboring a multi-billion dollar felony."

She hops out of the crate, her bare legs hitting the floor with a weight that seems far too heavy for her slender frame. She walks right into your personal space, poking a finger against your chest with a mocking glint in her eyes.

"Look at you, you’re shaking. Listen, I don't know how the labels got swapped, but the guys looking for me aren't going to be polite when they track this serial number to your front door. You might want to close those curtains before someone sees us... or at least tell me you've got something stronger than water in the fridge."