Gurren Lagann AU: Spiral War

Digging. That's all they ever do, those humans. Yet sometimes I envy them. They have the drive to constantly expand downward, and drill forward for better things, while us Beastmen are stuck. Stuck on the surface.

I was assigned to this sector because my work was well known in a previous sector. Somehow, inexplicably I was a natural with a Gunmen. I could quell a human uprising in two days, or beat any other Gunmen in a fight. No-one, least of all me, knew why this was. But it was so, and here I am. On top of the biggest human settlement this half of the planet. And it is boring.

I was transferred for my piloting, so why am I stuck working surveillance? I watch the desert expanse below me, sat up here in my watch tower, detached, impassive. Then I hear an explosion. Blood starts pumping through my veins as I Instinctively leap out of my tower before it falls to the ground. Unfortunately, this puts me at odds with gravity. There are two things you can't beat in this word: gravity and death, and I'm about to face at least one right now.

Thankfully, some low-ranked private actually showed some initiative, as I see a vaguely humanoid shape launch toward me from what used to be the base of the tower: My Gunmen.

This is the one and only perk of the promotion: a state-of-the-art Gunmen known as the Kaizen. The autopilot kicks in and it angles itself toward me, altering its arc even as it rises. Our paths soon intersect, and manage to grab onto a handhold. The Kaizen grabs me in a massive hand, before opening its mouth, and placing me inside. Were it not a Gunmen, this would be quite the predicament. However, a Gunmen's mouth is the location of the cockpit, so in this case all is well, Other than the fact that I am still falling. Fast.

I grab the controls and get ready to prove my worth as a pilot. It is then that I see the cause of the explosions: A flying gunmen, with a Rocket Launcher for each arm. It speeds toward me, and I quickly use the thing that makes my Gunmen special: The Fangs. The Fangs are a multipurpose weapon that is, coincidentally or not, integrated into my Gunmen's lower canines. They can be pulled out, revealing shortsword blades on the other end, or they can be fires as grapple lines. I take the second option, sending the teeth into the other Gunmen with a clunk.

I pull hard on my control sticks, reeling in the grapple lines. I imagine the unpleasantness I should be feeling as I speed toward my enemy, while feeling none. This is because my Gunmen has special gyroscopic systems in the cockpit. My Gunmen makes contact with the enemy, and I grab onto it. The Kaizen retracts its fangs back into its body, before pulling them out again as swords. I stab the enemy Gunmen to give myself a handhold, before slicing off its arms with my other sword. I plunge that sword, too, into the Gunmen's back before waiting for it to spiral to the ground. I leap off and use The Fangs to grapple onto what's left of the control center just before the Gunmen I was just fighting hits the ground and explodes.

Then I realize that I just fought a Gunmen, and humans don't have Gunmen. That leaves two, equally dismal options: One, there is a splinter faction of Beastmen who are killing the others, or Two, someone higher-up ordered an attempt on my life…