Chapter 3 (Janus) - Secrets! Terrible Words Better Left Unsaid!

With the addition of Janus and Yoko to the crew of the Tower, things were noticeably livelier. While always vigilant for Saotome and Invaders, there was some time to relax for everyone. Even Judau, who wasn't terribly keen on being surrounded by adults, managed to find ways to stay occupied.

In particular, he had taken to checking out Granlif.

"Hey, get off of my robot!" he yelled when he saw Judau climbing on Granlif's head. It was difficult, as Granlif's body was very smooth. He started slipping and soon lost his footing. Janus quickly got under Judau and raised his arms up to catch him.

Janus managed to catch the falling teen, but couldn't stand up while holding on, and fell on his back. Judau rolled off of Janus, who was groaning in pain.

"What the heck do you eat up in space, kid?" Janus groaned, slightly relishing the chance to call someone "kid".

"For your information, I eat whatever I please, so butt out!" Judau snapped back, before realizing that Janus had just broken what could have been a nasty fall. "Thanks for saving me, though. I'm not used to Earth's gravity just yet."

"Just don't mess around with Granlif, and we won't have any problems, okay?" Janus replied. Two of the three Getter pilots came in right then. The girl had blue-green eyes, a short, boyish haircut and sported a simple military uniform. The other pilot, a young man, had a large but muscular body, and had short black hair in a buzz cut-like fashion.

"Sure, whatever," Judau said, rolling his eyes. "I didn't get any Newtype resonance from your robot anyway. You must control those bits of yours some other way." With that, he walked away.

"Oh hey, Janus," the girl said. "Good catch, there."

"Thanks, Kei," he replied - he had already been introduced to these two before. "I assume you and Gai are going to work on Shin Getter?"

"That's the plan," Gai replied. "Are you gonna work on Granlif?"

At that moment, Shin Getter 1 was being wheeled in for another round of maintenance.

Suddenly, Granlif's head started to move, its gaze following Shin Getter as it passed by. Kei noticed this and recoiled in shock.

It just moved...please tell me I'm seeing things, Kei thought.

Shin Getter was placed into a repair machine across the room from Granlif. After a few tense moments, the white machine suddenly shot some small jet-propelled objects with white laser blades on the end. The machines rushed right at Shin Getter, as if to cut it to shreds. Shin Getter suddenly opened its eyes and fired a thin green Getter Beam from its forehead, sweeping across the large hangar, destroying all of the flying objects in one motion. The bits were reduced to a fine dust, and a black burn line ran across the rear wall. With one more suspicious look at Granlif, it closed its eyes again.

Kei and Gai dreaded the report he would have to submit to Hayato for THIS incident.

I better talk to my AI buddy, Janus thought as he hurried over to Granlif; He's got a lot of explaining to do.

A portal opened on one of Granlif's feet when Janus approached - as before, it led to the cockpit. But when Kei and Gai saw this, they shook their heads, as if they weren't sure if they were seeing things right.

Inside Granlif's cockpit, Janus got onto the platform with the harness, activating the view screens and starting up the floating head.

"Janus!" the AI exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"Why did you attack Shin Getter?!" Janus demanded.

"What do you mean?" the AI replied, looking genuinely confused. "I was in hibernation mode until just now."

"Don't play dumb!" Granlif's pilot said angrily; "I saw Granlif fire some weird attack drones at Shin Getter!"

"My cache of recent commands has nothing stored regarding firing the Gran Bits," the floating head replied after a brief pause.

"That makes no sense," Janus said, sitting down. "You said you tracked everything about this machine!" The floating head was quiet, and the entire room hummed, as if it was performing a function that required a lot of processing power.

"There is one possibility," the artificial intelligence said; "It may be I am not the only artificial intelligence inhabiting Granlif's systems."

"Explain."

"It is the only logical possibility," the AI explained; "First, the human-machine interface was inactive when the command was issued; Second, I was in hibernation when the command was issued; Finally, no machines in the area seem to possess the ability to compromise my operating system to issue that command to my root kernel without triggering an error subroutine."

Janus blinked in confusion, unable to turn his AI partner's words into ones that made sense.

"You weren't inside, I was sleeping, and nothing here can hack me. Does that make sense?"

Janus nodded.

"I suggest letting me run a deep search through the system." the AI suggested. "If I find anything suspicious, I will CLEAVE it!"

"There is no data my error subroutines cannot cut!" it suddenly boomed.

"Okay, okay!" Janus said, happy that an easy solution had presented itself, but annoyed at the AI's yelling.

"However, I will need a way to distinguish myself, as the primary AI, from this hypothetical alternate AI - just to prevent conflicts in my programming."

"So in other words, you want me to name you?" Janus then asked.

"Indeed."

Janus thought for a moment.

"Hm...what was your model number again?" he asked, an idea forming in his head.

"XNG-0A," the floating head replied.

"Xengar," Janus finally said. "I'll call you Xengar. The 'X' is pronounced like a 'Z'."

"...Understood!" Xengar boomed - if he had hands, he probably would have saluted Janus. "Data has been stored. Shall I run the deep search?"

"Make it so, Xengar!" Janus said, liking the name more and more.

The AI closed its eyes as if in concentration, causing the entire cockpit to start humming again. After a minute of this, Janus stood up.

"Well?" he asked.

"Patience!" Xengar replied. "This will take time. This machine has 2.5 petabytes of data to scan."

"Scan faster, Xengar!" Janus said. "Who knows when someone will attack?!"

"Very well," the AI said. "I shall focus all spare computing power to this search. But before I do..."

Suddenly, Janus fell through a portal that opened in the floor, dumping him back in the hangar before closing behind him.

"Geez," Granlif's pilot grumbled as he dusted himself off and got up, "If he wanted me to leave, he should have just said so."


While Xengar was running the deep search, Janus decided to see if there was anything to do on the ship. As he rounded the corner, he ran into the last of Getter's pilots - a young man with short hair that was an unusual shade of green. Underneath the ragged brown cloak, he was wearing a red jump suit that covered most of his body - Go Saotome. How he was related to the mad doctor was something no one seemed to know.

"Hey, Go," he said, trying his best to be pleasant.

"Granlif…hates Getter," the young man said in a monotone that somehow betrayed a deep worry; "That bothers me."

"It's okay! It's fine!" Janus replied frantically, "It's running a deep scan now, and…"

"Janus…I do not wish to be your enemy."

"We're not!" Janus replied, completely confused as to why Go would say such a silly thing. "Okay, so we're not the best of friends, but we've fought in battle as allies. I'm not going to suddenly turn on you…unless I get possessed by an Invader for something, but other than that…"

"No," Go replied, "I should not have said that. I'm sorry." Without another word, Go started off in the same direction Judau went. Janus followed after him, but by the time he caught up with him, he had slipped into another room. Kei just happened to walk by.

"Oh, Janus…did you see Go just now?" Kei asked. "He looked like he had just done something terrible."

"He said something about not wanting to be my enemy and ran off just now. That guy is a mystery wrapped up in an enigma."

"You're telling me. Anyway, I'm gonna watch one of the Gundam Fight with my dad. We're Japanese citizens, so we can pick it up on Neo-Japan satellite television. You want to join us?"

"Sure, but I didn't think Captain Jin would tolerate that kind of thing," Janus replied. "He seems awfully resentful of the Neo colonies."

"Hey, there's not much to do here other than eat, sleep fix the robots and keep an eye out for Saotome," Kei replied frankly. "Besides, I want to see this new fighter Neo-Japan has. I hear he was trained by Neo Hong-Kong's Fighter!"

"I guess I wouldn't mind watching," Janus replied. "It'll be nice to be on the sidelines again."

The Gundam Fight...I've never watched it before, he thought as he followed Kei. Does it really cause that much damage?


"I've got the popcorn, Dad!" Kei said excitedly as she carried in a huge bowl of popcorn. "You got the candy?"

"Yes, I do!" Benkei replied as he carried in a large bag of individually-wrapped candies. "Ah, this reminds me of old times. I used to be a pretty good baseball player back in the day. Maybe one day I'll go up to Neo-Japan or Neo-America and play baseball there."

"Let's just survive this, Benkei," Janus replied as he fiddled with the TV's antenna. Slowly, the signal pierced through the static, and an image became visible. It was a ruined city somewhere in Italy. The satellite camera, with its incredible range of vision, was able to peer down to the location of the fight. But it was not as they expected.

They recognized Neo-Italy's Neros Gundam, a large red, yellow and gray mobile fighter. It was stomping after a man in a red cape, who was heading for a large building. The mobile fighter began to fire its vulcan cannons at the red-caped man, as if trying to kill him.

"Hey! What's Neo-Italy's fighter doing?! What a creep!" Kei yelled. Suddenly, the red-caped man skidded to a stop and turned around mid-slide. Behind him, a massive red metal object that resembled a lily flew upward. The red-caped man suddenly let out a hot-blooded battle cry as he raised his hand.

"RISE, SHINING GUNDAAAAAAM!"

With a snap of his fingers, the red flying lily began to open up, revealing a white Gundam with blue and red accents. As the flower opened, the rockets began to reduce their power, causing the platform to slowly descend to the ground.

"It's him! That's gotta be Neo-Japan's fighter: Domon Kasshu!" Benkei exclaimed before stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. "Boy, now that's what I call an entrance!"

Domon, the man in the red cape, leapt up as the platform came down, landed in the Gundam's hand and jumped into the cockpit. After a few moments of standing still (to the tune of some rather awesome music used by the broadcasting team) the Gundam began a rather showy martial arts exhibition, though more to ensure that the machine was still in top condition.

The two Gundams faced each other down, then a bell rang (again, provided by the broadcasters) and they charged each other and began grappling.

"Get 'em, Kasshu! Squash the creep flat!" Kei screamed, jumping up and down.

Suddenly, Shining Gundam broke off the grapple and did a backflip, and Neros Gundam fired its vulcans. As it landed, Neo-Italy's Gundam followed up with a pair of shoulder cannons, knocking Neo-Japan's Gundam, which was guarding with its arms, back and into some rubble.

"Come on, Kasshu! You're our man…fight!" Benkei roared. Janus found himself intimidated by the amount of boisterousness these two let out.

Neros Gundam then got down on one knee, and opened up some weapons from its legs. The turrets began firing dark gray energy bolts from those turrets, which flew off in every direction.

"Man, now that guy is just a sadist!" Kei cried. "He's not even trying to hit him, just cause random destruction!"

Suddenly, Shining Gundam appeared and quickly put itself in the line of fire, shielding something with its enormous hand. After a few moments, the mouth portion, just under its eyes, opened up, revealing a red interior. The hand it was using to shield the unknown near-casualty began to shine gold, and it began to push back the beam. The loudspeaker could make out two words being roared in the most hot-blooded way possible:

"SHIIIINING FINGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!"

Shining Gundam grabbed Neros' head and slowly began to squeeze it, as if trying to crush the head section.

"…Yeah! Yeah! Crush it, Kasshu!" Kei screamed, now completely beside herself with excitement.

But just as Neros Gundam's head began to give way, the signal gave out, a sudden influx of Getter Rays completely ruining the image. An alarm started blaring out as well.

"OH COME ON!" Kei screamed, throwing the bowl of popcorn down. "OF ALL THE TIMES TO…" But suddenly, an image started to appear on the television…it was connected to the monitors of Tower, and something horrible was being shown.

The earth itself seemed to moan and groan with pain as something pushed its way out. Eventually, something did: a massive monstrosity, with a number of energy towers embedded in its back, huge red and blue pipes that looked eerily like thick blood vessels snaked along its arms and from its torso into the very ground; its face was similar to Shin Getter's, but with more horns and tainted by evil.

"Is that…" Kei gasped.

"…Shin Dragon!" Benkei said. Shin Dragon turned to face Tower, and let out an unearthly roar. Just then, a small pillar of stone rose out from in front of it. The camera attached to the Tower began to zoom. A man with wild gray hair and a tattered white lab coat stood there, his back to the group. As this was happening, Gai came in.

The man began to speak, turning his head to look over his shoulder.

"…Long time no see…gentlemen."

"Dr. Saotome!" Janus and Benkei said at the same time.

"I do not die so easily!" the mad doctor declared, opening his arms out dramatically. "No…not until I witness the destruction of mankind and the last day of the world!"

Suddenly, someone on the Tower's outer platform apparently picked up a bazooka and fired it straight at Saotome. But an invisible barrier stopped the shot, and it exploded as if it had struck something solid. Saotome let out a laugh.

"Let's avoid a meaningless fight, shall we?" he said, chastising everyone as if the unknown shooter could have been any of them. "I only came to see my child."

Benkei gasped again, and Janus started to wonder what was going on. Everyone within the Tower was dead silent. Seeing that he had everyone's attention, Saotome opened his arms yet again.

"Now, come to me…"

"Don't!" Benkei yelled.

"…My dearest child, Genki…no, KEI!"

Kei looked shocked for a second, but acted like it was nothing.

Gai looked at Kei with a mixture of horror and sympathy. "Kei…you're…no, no way!"

"I'm Saotome's child?" Kei said with a shrug. "Why would he say something so stupid? Right, Dad?"

Benkei looked away in guilt and shame. Kei's confidence faltered a little at this.

"It's a lie, right, Dad? Hey, tell me it's not true!"

Benkei couldn't bring himself to look at his daughter in the eye, but his face and posture said it all.

Kei was starting to get extremely anxious. "Please! Please tell me the truth! Dad!"

And suddenly, Benkei, his eyes still closed, began to explain everything.

"Dr. Saotome had named his baby girl Genki. It's the Japanese word for 'bright' or 'happy'...and that is exactly the way she grew up."

Janus looked up at Kei, who was sweating, still trying to shut out the now obvious truth.

"However, Genki lost her mind on the day of the Getter Ray Armageddon. The shock of the incident shattered her fragile sense of self, and she lost her memories."

Memories… Janus said to himself.

"When people realized that the child of the mad scientist who ruined the world was living in the shelter with them, they tried to take Genki away from me. Then…I had an idea. I deceived them by calling her my daughter…named Kei. The fact that Saotome raised Genki as a boy ended up working to my advantage. They believed me."

Kei was staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at her adopted father, stunned by this rather startling revelation.

"…No way! You must be making up! Am I right, Dad?" Kei cried, now almost hysterical with both rage and sorrow. Benkei looked away again, ashamed for deceiving Kei for all these years.

"It's a lie! It's a lie! It's a lie! It's a lie!"

Saotome let out a long, loud laugh, apparently having heard this sad tale, though his twisted mind only found it amusing.

"The truth is always painful, isn't it?" he said. "But now, come to me. Come to me, Genki! Why don't we, as father and child, witness Armageddon together?"

A slight breeze pushed away one of his long bangs, revealing three tiny eyes and legs: sure signs of Invader possession. This sight suddenly caused Kei to remember something: a young woman, lying as if peacefully asleep, but her torso torn open, her internal organs turned into now-dead Invaders.

"I am Saotome…" Kei gasped. "Genki Saotome…"

"Kei…" Gai said, about to console her.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Kei suddenly roared, now hating the scientist all the more. "I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF!" She rushed toward the door as Benkei called out to her. She opened it, only to see a man close to middle age with a pistol in his hand. He had a muscular build, semi-spiked blonde hair, and blue eyes. The man pressed the barrel against her forehead.

"Schwartz, what do you think you're doing?!" Benkei cried.

"No…you will be the one to die first!" Schwartz growled. Benkei and Janus rushed toward the door, but Schwartz pushed the gun harder against Kei's forehead.

"You idiots, anyone related to Saotome must die! I'll start with his brat!"

"Stop!" Janus yelled as he rushed forward. But suddenly, as he had changed his mind, Schwartz's gun aimed up, and he blasted a hole in the TV, which still showed Saotome's evil and hideous face. He lowered the weapon.

"Why…why do you look like such a normal human being?" the man growled in anger and frustration. Kei ran out, towards one of the decks outside. There, a double-barreled gun platform sat waiting. Kei jumped into the seat and quickly locked on to the scientist.

"Diiiiiiiiiieee!"

She pulled the trigger, firing rapidly. The bullets flew towards Saotome, and one landed on its mark, blowing his head off. But being possessed by Invaders, he simply regenerated with ease.

"What? No! DIE-DIE-DIE-DIE!"

Kei began firing like mad, blowing off Saotome's right arm, left leg, and part of his torso. These too regenerated in a gruesome fashion, right up to regenerating his white coat.

"…Damn you, monster!"

Kei got up from the platform and began running toward the hangar, where the Getter Machines were waiting. Janus, who saw her run by, took off after her.


The two arrived at the runway for the Shin Getter Machines, and Kei made a run for Shin Jaguar. Go, who was hanging out there as usual, suddenly went up to her and grabbed her shoulder as she climbed up the ladder. She stopped, and turned to him.

"You must not go," he said in his usual monotone. Even so, there was the faintest hint of concern for Kei.

"Hey, let me go," Kei replied, shaking him off.

"You must not go," Go said again.

"Who do you think you are? Why do you keep bothering me?" she said, annoyed at Go for keeping her from the self-imposed task of destroying her insane father. At this point, Gai, Judau, Yoko, Christina and Janus had arrived on the scene.

"I will protect you," Go said.

"Don't make me laugh. This is none of your business."

"Kei!" Yoko called out. "You might want to take him a little more seriously. But if you won't let him protect you, at least let us protect you!"

Christina nodded. "I may not have known you for very long, but I know one thing for sure. You, Go, and Gai…you're the Getter Team. You need each other."

Janus stepped forward. "If you go out there alone, you'll just get killed, and then no one will be able to stop Shin Dragon and the Invaders! This world will be truly destroyed!"

Kei paused and looked at Go. He smiled a little. Kei somehow felt comforted by that smile, and relented.

"…Fine. You can all come along. But Saotome is mine!"

With that, she dove into Shin Jaguar as everyone else boarded their mechs, and took off. The three Get machines combined into Shin Getter 1.

"Alright, ladies and gents, let's go turn that freak into black paste!" Janus yelled as he spurred Granlif forward (which forcibly interrupted the deep scan), with Shin Getter at its heels. Yoko and the two Gundam pilots followed close behind, firing their beam rifles to try and damage the behemoth.

Responding to their presence, Shin Dragon turned to face them. It roared, and suddenly, pieces began breaking off of it, and each piece turned into one of the three forms of Getter Robo G: Getter Dragon, Getter Liger and Getter Poseidon, all capable of flight.

"Dragon! Liger! Poseidon! Crush them!" Saotome cackled.

"Go, let's switch to Getter 2!" Kei called out.

"Right," Go replied. "OPEN GET!"

Shin Getter 1 broke back into its component machines: Shin Eagle, Shin Jaguar, and Shin Bear, and rose into the sky.

"CHAAAAAAAANGE GETTEEEEER TWOOO!"

Instead of Go in the lead, now Kei's machine was on top, and the three fused together to form Shin Getter 2.

"Hey, sweet! That thing's got a drill just like Gurren Lagann!" Janus said with some excitement as he watched Shin Getter 2 drill holes in several Getter Ligers.

"Janus, focus on the battle!" Yoko scolded him as she fired a few rounds into an incoming Getter Poseidon.

"Right...GRAAAN CLAYMORE!"

Granlif conjured up the golden two-handed sword and dashed straight into the approaching mass of Getter Robos. As a pair of Getter Dragons rushed in with tomahawks keened to strike, Janus quickly preempted their attack by slicing them in two with his mighty blade.

Meanwhile, Judau and Christina were nearing Shin Dragon. The two Gundam pilots were scanning Shin Dragon for any weak areas, and firing off beam rifle shots to ward off attacking Getter Robos.

"This thing is solid...I can't find any weak points!" Christina growled. "Hey, Judau, you having any luck?"

"Yeah, but they're all on the inside. Its outer body is thick, but I think we can at least stagger it by getting it in the face! That works on pretty much anything! Christina, cover me!"

Judau spurred the ZZ Gundam back around, and began charging its ultimate weapon: the Hi-Mega Cannon mounted on its forehead. As it reached the front of the beast, the weapon began to pulse, its charge waiting to be released.

"Eat this! HI-MEGA CANNON!"

A massive energy blast shot out of ZZ Gundam's forehead, sending it rocketing back towards Tower. The attack struck Shin Dragon square in the face, and just as Judau had anticipated, it was stunned by the attack.

"…Now's your chance, Getter Team!" Judau called out.

"Kei, use Drill Hurricane to burrow into Shin Dragon's body," Go said. "We can stop it from within."

"If you say so...DRILL HURRICAAAANE!"

Shin Getter 2's drill began to spin rapidly as it rushed underneath Shin Dragon. It jumped up and managed to pierce the monster's thick hide, and began drilling deeper and deeper into its body.


Deep within Shin Dragon, Go began to mentally connect with Shin Dragon as if he had always known how, entering a trance.

"…Stop this. Now is not your time," he said to the gigantic creature telepathically. "I will come back soon enough, and when that time comes, you will be free to fulfill our true purpose. Please, sleep."


Shin Getter 2 burst out the other side rather explosively, leaving a massive, gaping hole in Shin Dragon's back.

The monstrosity let out a terrible roar of pain, and its head suddenly began to change. It contracted in on itself, and soon became a featureless cone shape. The massive wound closed, but it was obvious that Shin Dragon would not be any trouble for a little while.

"Impossible! Shin Dragon is…" Saotome growled. "No, you have only delayed the inevitable; Farewell, fools!" With that, Saotome disappeared into the rocky pillar.

"Well, Saotome got away," Christina sighed, "but at least Shin Dragon will be quiet for a while."

"Go, what in the world did you do?" Kei exclaimed. The mental connection Go had was brief, but it was enough to get the message across.

"Shin Dragon is asleep now," the enigmatic young man replied. "When it wakes again, it will be a savior."

"…A savior?" Gai exclaimed. "Go, you really ARE weird."

Meanwhile, Janus turned to his AI companion as they flew back to Tower.

"Sorry about interrupting the scan," Janus said to Xengar. "Did you find anything before the battle?"

"I did," the floating head replied. "As I suspected, it seems there was another AI in the code that was issuing commands while I was inactive!"

"Did you delete it?"

"I couldn't," Xengar replied, slightly shamed. "Access was locked by some sort of powerful encryption that requires no less than ten levels of permission."

"...So, Granlif might attack on its own again?" Janus asked.

"That won't happen," Xengar assured the pilot. "Apparently, this AI hijacked my core programming, issues a command, and then erases it from the command cache...I was able to find the problem in my core, and patch it."

"That's good," Janus said with a sigh.

I wonder what those permissions are...


"Simon! Welcome home!"

The young woman who greeted Simon on the roof of a skyscraper in Kamina City had hair that was a mix of pale yellow and sky blue. It seemed to be made of clouds or cotton candy and extended all the way down to her ankles. She wore a pink dress with white shoulder decorations and some modest gold clips. Her kind, innocent eyes were cyan, but her pupils were pink and vaguely shaped like pink, four-petaled flowers.

She was Nia Teppelin, Lordgenome's daughter and the love of Simon's life.

"Hi, Nia," he said.

"So, is it over?" she asked.

"Yeah," Simon sighed in reply. "Viral's been captured."

There was a moment of silence between them as Simon fumbled through his pocket for something. Nia drew closer and gently stroked her beloved's arm.

"So, you think it's prettier than before?" Simon asked.

"Mm-hm."

"In spite of everything, the people are down there, smiling and enjoying themselves under the open sky."

They exchanged smiles as Simon pulled out a ring out of his pocket, but kept it in his grip. It wasn't very elaborate - just a simple white band with a green jewel fixed to it.

"Listen, I've been waiting to ask you this," Gurren Lagann's pilot said; "And now seems like as good a time as any."

His heart started pounding.

"You may be a princess, while I'm just a digger...but I want to see things together...hear things together...laugh, and even cry together. Don't you think that would be nice?"

Nia cocked her head a bit, unsure of what Simon meant.

"Our eyes and ears...our souls becoming as one?"

Nia sensed that Simon was about to ask her something important, but didn't know what it could be. Finally, Simon showed her the ring.

"Nia...will you marry me?" he asked. Nia's eyes widened as tears formed in them - she finally understood.

"Simon...I...I…"

Absentmindedly, she looked up at the moon, as if seeking its approval.

Just then, Nia felt something take hold in her mind, as if gazing up at the moon had flipped a switch inside her. The world around disappeared into blackness, and she suddenly felt utterly cold, even as an ominous voice called to her in her mind:

The desire for souls to unite with one another...this is what drives evolution, and what drives all toward ruin...

Nia looked around, and finally down - there she saw a great light below her, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. Then she looked up, and saw countless machines, of equally countless different shapes and sizes, all plunging toward the great light. She sensed an insatiable hunger from them all, and then began to hear the voice speaking the names of each of these terrible entities in her mind as they passed:

Getter…

Newtype…

SEED…

Geass…

Mazin…

Instinct…

Dimension…

Spiritia…

Choudenji…

Genesic...

Spiral...

...SEPHIROT!

Nia looked back down as they all collided into the great light. The great light turned into a great darkness, and began to draw everything into it...

Moons.

Planets.

Stars.

Galaxies.

Universes.

Everything.

And finally, when there was nothing else to devour, Nia felt herself drawn into the great darkness.

This must not happen! You, as our messenger, must prevent this! Awaken!

She could only scream as her mind started to fragment.

Meanwhile, Simon was watching the glitter go out of his beloved's eyes as she started to levitate, floating higher and higher. He could only wonder what in the world was going on, even as a mix of strange winged beings and strange polygonal entities appeared and started firing on the city.

Then, it hit him.

When ten million apes gather to watch the end of all conflicts, the moon will become Hell's messenger and destroy the world.

Those words, uttered as Lordgenome's last, had bothered Simon for the longest time. Worst of all, he didn't know what that first part meant. The second part was clear enough, especially after Rossiu's investigation of the moon with his lunar probes: the moon was not a natural satellite. Something was underneath it, but the lunar crust was too thick for even Gurren Lagann to penetrate easily.

But now it was becoming clear, as he stared up at the girl he loved, now floating high up, and her body covered with red, wire-like markings. The beautiful light in her eyes had gone dim; even as the city burned from the attack, they seemed to reflect no light. As Nia spoke, she sounded like she was a computer…it was obvious something was controlling her. Of course, only the people of Kamina City could see or hear this message - the colonies in space and the other colony-sponsored cities on Earth would be blind and deaf to it.

"Attention, humans of Earth. Hear me now," Nia said. "We, the Anti-Spiral races of the universe, have determined that humans have achieved Level 2 on our danger scale, and have been deemed a threat to the integrity of the universe. To prevent catastrophe, we hereby activate our Humanity Extermination System. In six months time, the moon will descend upon the land where a final conflict will take place and bring humanity to an end."

Simon growled in frustration as the new enemies gathered behind her. Gurren Lagann, which he had parked nearby, flew up, as if answering an unspoken call. He hopped in.

"…Nia!" Simon called out. He rushed to grab her with Gurren Lagann, but she dissolved into a mess of varying polyhedrons, leaving only the enemies, which quickly moved to surround him.

"Damn it! DAMN IIIIIIIT!" Simon roared. Consumed by rage and anger at this Anti-Spiral enemy, he only had these tiny grunts to take it out on.

"Eat this!" Simon roared. Gurren Lagann opened up in numerous places, revealing drill tipped missiles. They launched out in all directions. Anticipating this, the winged soldiers all warped away, leaving only the polygonal entities. Some of the missiles, with no targets to aim for, went for the next closest ones: the very buildings of Kamina City, the city Simon loved and fought so hard to protect. Those that struck the polygonal entities only caused them to dissolve, but spawn dozens of tiny cubes of similar nature, which exploded on contact with anything solid.

Explosions rocked the city, laying waste to numerous buildings and setting it all even more ablaze. The young man, for the first time since Kamina's death, was overwhelmed with despair and anguish.

"What? No…I…I didn't mean it…I…"


Next time…

In Tara's route, the Nadesico heads into the atmosphere in hopes of escaping Earth and heading to Mars, but they must pass through the Big Barrier, a defensive shield that surrounds the Earth, keeping anyone from coming in or going out without permission! Meanwhile, Suzaku has been accused of killing Clovis - can Lelouch save him, and what will he have to do to accomplish that without giving himself away? Find out in Chapter 4 (Tara) – The Man Called Zero! Escape the Big Barrier!

In Janus' route, things are relatively quiet on Earth, even as the Gundam Fight gets underway. But up in space and on the Moon, forces are maneuvering to change the course of history! A mad general seeks to unseal a forbidden weapon, while Char Aznable makes a deal with the Earth Federation...but what are they seeking to accomplish? Find out in Chapter 4 (Janus) - Lunar Escape! Turn A, Turn!