Simon sighed as he looked into the beautiful sun setting far in the distance. His shadow morphed against Lagann standing motionless and inactive. Watching the sun after Kamina died was a way that Simon could remember his brother. It had been a few weeks after his death; he had met Nia only a few days ago. Simon usually sat on the highest part of Dai-Gunzan and thought of his bro. 'Bro...' he thought to himself, 'we really miss you...'
"What are you doing up here alone?" A young and curious voice chimed from behind Simon. He turned his head and his body slightly to see Nia with a small plate of food in her hands. A small smile crossed Simon's face; "I brought you dinner!"
Simon took the plate and sat it on his lap. Picking up a piece of food and chewing it, Nia sat down next to him and watched the sun lower with him. She enjoyed watching the sun set, but not exactly as Simon did. After finishing the food on the plate, Simon placed the china next to him and turned to Nia. With a smile, he thanked her. "You are welcome, Simon!" She replied to his thanking. After a moment of silence, Nia's expression on her face lowered to a sad look. She was thinking of how to ask Simon the question that had been on her mind for a while.
"Simon," she began slowly, "what was this Bro character like?" Simon looked at her with a slightly puzzled look, then returned his gaze to the sunset; "Bro was a strong and powerful guy who stopped at nothing to defend Team Gurren. Bro protected me and made me see my full potential when it came to being... well... myself. He motivated me to give one hundred and ten percent. Bro was like the true brother I never had."
Nia looked as Simon fixated his gaze in a downward angle with a look of depression filling his face. His hair began to wave in the light breeze that passed over the two. The digger didn't like talking about Kamina as much as he should. After all, Kamina was his idol and his protector. But the thought of his death always caused Simon to feel down and weak. Nia wrapped her arm around Simon and hugged him softly. She felt the pain Kamina's death brought Simon, and she always tried to avoid bringing the bad memories back. Her short light blue/pale blonde hair brushed against Simon's cheek, causing him to blush a little, but he placed a hand on her shoulder and continued to stare out to the sunset. Unaware of her presence, Yoko stood behind the two awkwardly watching the young couple. She had originally came to ask Simon an important question, but decided to keep quiet. After a brief silence, Yoko approached the two with "Simon, can I talk to you?"
They both turned to look at Yoko who shifted her wait to the right. Simon looked at her with a blank, yet curious look. "Yeah, what's up?" Yoko looked to Nia, who smiled to Yoko. A look of innocence covered her face.
"Do you want to just talk to Simon?" Nia asked in a curious tone.
"Yes, that would be appreciated." Nia nodded to Yoko and turned to Simon.
"I'll be in the kitchen when you are done." She smiled and stood up slowly. After taking one last look at the sunset, she walked down the stairs and headed to the kitchen. After she had left, Yoko sat down next to Simon where Nia was sitting. Simon watched as the shadows casted by the mountains grew larger. Yoko eyed him with a serious look, but couldn't help but feel sorry for him. A slight look of depression covered her face as she tried to think of the words to say. She sighed and looked at the sunset. "So what did you want to ask, Yoko?"
"I wanted to ask you about... about Nia." A look of confusion covered Simon's face. "What do you mean?"
Yoko blushed as she thought carefully about her words. "Well, you are always around her and she always believes you in particular will be there. It makes me wonder if, if you and her have a thing going on."
Simon looked at her with an odd look, then thought about why she would ask something like that. He sighed. "I don't really know how to answer that, nor do I feel comfortable answering that." Yoko frowned and nodded her head. She then nudged him playfully and got to her feet. "Remember, we have a training session tomorrow!"
As she walked away, Simon chuckled "How can I forget something I organized?" He returned his gaze to the sunset and thought of why Yoko would ask that. 'What did she mean by a thing?' He shook it off and began walking down the stairs to the kitchen to meet Nia.
LUNAR ORBIT
Objects floated randomly about a dark room with light from the an air-tight window flooding in that revealed inactive technology and a blank white screen with a single icon that appeared to be a human-shaped figure with a heart monitor and a brainwaves monitor. In the shadows was a pod with a strange shape hanging over an airlock door. A timer on the wall in red numbers showed only 30 seconds until it reached 24 hours. When the clock stopped on 24, a red light began to flash. A moment later, the airlock door above the pod opened, causing all the air and floating objects floating to be sucked into space. The pod released and a set of boosters ignited sending the pod out of the room and speeding towards the planet below. As the pod hit the atmosphere, it caught flame and sped even faster to the planet. The brainwaves monitor began to speed up almost threefold what is was originally reading. Almost five minutes later, the pod crashed into the hard crust of the planet, causing the earth to rise in a huge cloud of dust and fragments of crust.
Leeron caught notice of this occurrence in Dai-Gunzan's monitor and control room. Rubbing his chin, he turns to the others and says in a concerned voice "You may want to come look at this." As everyone crowds around, the radar began to flash a red dot in the lower left corner. "What could it be...?" Leeron mumbled to himself. "Whatever it is, it had a hard landing." Kittan said aloud. They surrounded the radar and studied it until Yoko walked in. "What is everyone looking at?"
They all turned to her and told her about the huge splash radius the object created. She looked at the monitor for a moment and began to walk out of the control room; "I'll get Simon and we will go check it out." The door closed behind her. Leeron turned back to the monitor and thought about the it for a moment. "What is it...?"