I do not own Gurren Lagann, Gainax does. Kirei Bachika, ISO, Hawquieru, and Illustrious Kazenami belong to me.

Makken darted through the halls of the Dai-Ganzan's command tower, checking every room he came to. Still he found nothing. He could not find the device that had prevented the Combining. His one stroke of luck was that the over-wrought beastmen were busy down below, trying to repair and man the stricken fortress.

Finally, the bald man found the door to the command centre itself. Kicking down the door, his eyes were blinded by two lights, one green, the other red. The green light was the Lagann's drill, still spinning above him. The other was red, shining like a star from underneath the enormous throne that stood in the centre of the chamber.

Instinct told Makken that the red light, whatever it was, was to blame for the de-Combining. A quick look under the throne revealed the source of the red light to be a mechanical orb, small enough to hold in his hand. The Moshogun's pilot grabbed it, ran towards the window and threw. The glass shattered, the orb falling into the gorge below.

Above, Simon's face went from concentration to hope as he saw his spiral gauge spin to full. Makken had come through for him after all.

"Alright! Time to end this!" the Digger yelled as he gripped the joysticks tighter.

Leeron's face lit up as he saw the change on his screen, the stylized green lines, which until a moment ago were being slowly driven back towards Lagann, suddenly leapt out to all sections of the Dai-Ganzan. The Combining was complete.

"Simon! Dai-Ganzan is yours! The combining is complete!" he yelled in jubilant relief.

"Okay then! Kamina where are you?" Simon yelled into his comm.

Thymilph cried in pain as the Hawquieru's beam whipsthrew Byakou into the canyon wall, rock fragments pattering off the grey armour. The Illustrious jumped over the ISO ganmen, handgun blazing. But the magmamarinal ganmen's armour, capable of resisting the heat of the Earth's mantle, was up to the task. Inside, Ribofunf laughed as he heard the bullets bounce off.

"If this is what is making Memeins and Nulleus lose sleep at night, I have nothing to worry about!" he twittered. He was rather enjoying the battle, and decided to show his victims one of the Hawquieru's other features.

Inside the Illustrious Kazanami, the Bachika duo stared as the enemy ganmen's stylized eyes slid open, revealing a ring underneath each one. Both instantly recognized them as CPC emitters, identical to those of the Enki class units.

"Ah shit!" Kiyoh cursed as she saw the rings glow. The Illustrious dodged, landing on the other side of the gorge as two beams of crimson light incinerated the canyon face.

"You can't run forever Survivor!" yelled Ribofunf as he moved slowly towards the dark ganmen.

"Nulleus and Memeins must be your bosses then?" asked Kiyoh, voicing Kirei's thoughts.

"It doesn't matter. You'll meet them soon enough!" The whips coiled, ready to strike again, only for Thymilph to interrupt.

"So this duo are the so-called leaders of this ISO group?" he demanded, as he charged towards the serpentine ganmen. The Hawquieru turned around, only to receive a burst of the Condemn Blaze. The blast scorched the armour, but no more.

"Since you are not going to live much longer, yes, they are!" answered Ribofunf. He lashed his whips at the two ganmen. Both dodged.

"Dark one, we need to find a way to penetrate that armor!" snarled Thymilph as he continued to dodge the whip.

"That armor withstood being inside a volcano!" Kiyoh snapped back. "Nothing conventional can pierce that!"

Conventional. The word rang inside Kirei's mind as an idea popped up.

'Kiyoh, I have an idea! Maybe if we and Thymilph pierce the same place at the same time, we can crack the armor!'

Kiyoh nodded as she turned towards the gorilla beastmen on her screen.

"Thymilph! If we pierce that armor at the same time, we could crack it!" Thymilph nodded in understanding. The Byakou and the Illustrious started running towards the idle serpentine ganmen, halberd and lance raised.

"Whatever it is you're planning, I won't let ya!" sneered Ribofunf as he aimed the whips. Miraculously, the duo dodged. The Illustrious' halberd glowed green with Spiral power as the Byakou's lance glowed blue.

"Alkaid Glaive!" yelled Thymilph as he and the Bachika duo plunged their weapons into the Hawquieru, catching it under its spade-head. The serpentine ganmen jolted, reeling back at the impact, sparks flying. The whips coiled and flailed as the serpent tried to free itself. One of them caught the Byakou's left arm, slicing it clean off.

"Damn you!" roared Thymilph. He pushed hard on the handgrips, pushing the glaive deeper.

Suddenly lance and halberd broke, detonating in a bright flash. Illustrious and Byakou were flung away into the canyon wall, while Hawquieru was thrown to the ground.

Inside the Illustrious, Kiyoh groaned in pain, shaking her head to regain focus.

"You alright there?" asked Thymilph, with apparent concern. Fear and worry pounded in from Kirei.

"I've been through worse" she groaned. As her focus returned, she scanned her eyes over her screens, assessing the damage. Illustrious was still in one piece. She looked towards the maimed Byakou, and saw a discoloration on its face. She looked at the Hawquieru, which was still wreathed in smoke, its silhouette sprawled upon the ground.

It rose, a groan of pain reverberating from its loudspeakers.

"You sons of bitches!" it roared. "You'll pay for this!" The smoke cleared, and Kiyoh could see the reason for her enemy's fury. The armour underneath the spade-like head had been penetrated, revealing gears and circuitry. She smirked in triumph, as did Kirei when he sensed her pleasure.

"What's wrong Mister ISO-man?" goaded Thymilph. "Crying over the fact that your toy got broke." Ribofunf growled.

"Just because you found the Hawquieru's weakness doesn't mean I'll let you exploit it! Got that you monkey!" he roared as the eyes slid aside again. Kiyoh gasped in fear.

"Dodge it!" she cried. Illustrious and Byakou obeyed, leaping sideways to avoid the deadly beams. The Hawquieru lumbered towards the already damaged Byakou, no doubt seeking to finish the wounded enemy before taking on the healthy one.

"This is the end for you, monkey," sneered Ribofunf. A wicked grin split his snout as he looked down at the damaged ganmen. "I'll tell Adiane that in your last moments, you…"

But he never finished. The Byakou leapt up, driving its blade-shield into the Hawquieru's open wound.

"You can insult me however you like…but never, ever, bring Adiane into something like this!" the Raging Wave roared as he sliced at the armor. He tugged and slashed, ripping away the armour plates and crushing the circuitry underneath. The Hawquieru reeled back, and just then a shadow appeared momentarily over it. Ribofunf was thrown around inside this cockpit as a heavy weight crashed down on his ganmen.

"What the hell was that!" he yelled.

"You wanna know who we are?" asked a cocky voice over the comm.

"Sorry to drop in on the party, but I just happen to love them" said a second, as cocky as the first.

"Hey, you're…!" Thymilph exclaimed, as he saw the Gurren and King Kittan on top of the Hawquieru, pummelling the armor with their fists.

"What do you think of that furball!" yelled Kittan. The beating was having no effect, but he didn't care.

"Ya! You'll take it and like it!" yelled Kamina as the Gurren jumped up and down on the Hawquieru's spade-head. It didn't budge.

"Umm...humans…" Thymilph tried to interject. "The weak point is…"

"We have no weak point!" Kamina interrupted. "Once we are done with this snake, you're next!" Thymilph was taken aback.

"I'm on your side now" he replied, in a monotone. At this, the two ganmen paused in their battery, and turned towards the stricken Byakou.

"Umm…what?" mumbled a bewildered Kittan.

"What are you talking about?" Kamina was equally confused. "We're humans, you're beastmen, we can't be on the same side."

"It's a long story you guys but Thymilph and his men are on our side" admitted Kiyoh, the Illustrious running over to join the Byakou.

"Woah Woah, hold the fuck up. When did this happen?" demanded Kittan.

"I made on an oath to your leader, Simon the Digger, that if I help you eliminate this fiend, he would accept me and my men into your group" answered Thymilph.

"Wait how come I wasn't a part of this!" snapped Kamina, mad at the fact that Simon would even offer the beastmen sanctuary without consulting with him first.

"It's complicated Kamina…" said Kiyoh, unnerved by his anger.

"He may be trying to pull a fast one on you guys!" protested Kittan. "Didn't think about this first!"

"I told you big brother, it's…" But Kiyoh was interrupted by another voice.

"Bro, it's fine, Thymilph and his men are our allies now." As they heard Simon's voice, they saw the Dai-Ganzan walking towards them. Then they saw the Lagann seated atop the command tower.

"Wait, so you agreed to this Simon?" asked Kamina in disbelief. Simon's face appeared on his screen, nodding.

"I'll tell you later, but Bro you need to trust me." Kamina stared at him, disbelieving and shocked.

"But Simon, they're"

"I know Bro. But I can't let that cloud my judgement remember? And besides, Thymilph and his men were sent to death by their own leader. They have nowhere else to go. Would we sink to this ISO group's level, just killing them outright?"

Kamina took this in. He had made Simon the co-leader of the Brigade because he knew that Simon had the smarts and know-how. What was more, he had done it because Simon had heart, something he had first seen that fateful day underground when he dug up the Lagann, a day that seemed like a dozen lifetimes ago.

Simon had shown that heart, he realized, in accepting Thymilph's offer. He had put his own beliefs and vendettas to the side to benefit the Brigade as a whole. He sighed.

"Alright then. I'll take your word for it Simon."

"Do you honestly think…" said a voice from the Hawquieru. The humans and renegade beastman looked up at the sound.

"…THAT YOU COULD BE RID OF ME THAT EASILY YOU FUCKING MEATBAGS!"

The whips flailed wildly, and the eye-doors slid open. Raging and snarling, Ribofunf turned the Hawquieru towards the Dai-Ganzan, eyes glowing red. Everyone but Kamina and Kittan knew what was coming.

Simon's heart stopped. The Dai-Ganzan was trapped in a gorge, lava was to their sides. The only way out was dead ahead, the way blocked by a ganmen that could destroy a mountainside with a single blast.

"There's no way out," he thought, his soul sinking. "This is it. We're all going to die…and it's all my fault."

It was his fault. It was his plan, his risk, his responsibility. This he knew, and this he could not escape.

The Illustrious emptied its handgun into the Hawquieru, the shots having no effect. Thymilph tried to move his Byakou, but the maimed ganmen had suffered too much, and would not respond. Kittan was at the Hawquieru's tail-end, unable to intervene. Kamina stood atop the spade-head, staring at the glowing rings that would soon destroy all he cared for.

There was but one thought on his mind, one possibility.

Destroy those rings.

Kamina ripped the shades from the Gurren's plastron and jammed them into the left CPE. The Hawquieru threw back its head, sending the Gurren into the air.

"DIEEEE!" roared Ribofunf has he fired, aimed at the airborne Gurren.

And in a flash of red light, everything changed. A flash of red that could be seen from the top of the Dai-Ganzan, making the already-fearful Simon gasp in shock

The stream tore open a gash in the cockpit of the Gurren, passing through the ganmen's face and out its back.

Inside, Kamina screamed in pain, his red shades shattering and his blood boiling as the beam scorched his flesh. The beam carried the Gurren further into the air…before an explosion tore it in half.

From the top of the Dai-Ganzan, there came a scream, a cry of grief and despair that seemed like it would set the air on fire.

"BRO NO!"

"Kamina!" Yoko shrieked, the sound breaking her shock.

"You're done meatbag!" Ribofunf twittered in joy, watching the ruined ganmen crash to the ground. There it lay, its back to him, dead.

But then the Gurren twitched. It rolled over, and Ribofunf saw that it was holding another set of shades in one hand, and what appeared to be one of Illustrious' drills in the other.

"Me? Done? Who the hell do you think I am" wheezed Kamina. Blood ran over the cauterized flesh of his ruined torso.

"Impossible! I gored you! How could you live from that!" roared Ribofunf in disbelief.

"It's called… FIGHTING SPIRIT!" Kamina yelled weakly. With his last strength, he pulled on the controls, drawing back Gurren's arm to throw the shades. As they flew towards the Hawquieru, they split in two, becoming two pairs of shades. Spinning like throwing knives, they struck the exposed throat, widening the jagged wound.

As his life faded, Kamina saw something behind the Hawquieru. It was the silhouette of a galaxy.

"I…I…I don't wanna do this anymore~!" Ribofunf whined as he tried to manoeuvre his damaged ganmen away.

"You ain't going anywhere!" Kamina roared, his voice rising with the last of his life. "Finishing move!" The drill merged into Gurren's right hand. The rest of the group watched in silence, awestruck, knowing what would come.

"No…No…No!"

"Explosive Dai-Gurren~!" The drill grew to three times the size of the Gurren.

"Nulleus! Memeins! Anyone! Save me!"

"Giga!" The drill began to spin rapidly.

"Lordgenome I beg you!" shrieked a terrified Ribofunf as the Hawquieru's stubby legs began to break down, a legacy of King Kittan's efforts. It tried to back away but could barely move.

"Drill!" Green energy flooded over the Gurren as it leapt the Hawquieru, blazing from the oversized drill like the exhaust of the rocket it resembled. Time seemed to slow down as the ganmen came on. Ribofunf knew he should move, but he could not. He could not even think.

"I want my mommy!"

"BREAKEEER!" The Giga Drill Breaker drove into Hawquieru's head from behind. The ganmen's torso was obliterated in an instant, along with Ribofunf the Frenzied's mortal body. The Gurren passed straight through, the green radiance dispersing to reveal the ganmen restored anew, the miracle of the Spiral energy. As what remained of the Hawquieru exploded, the two sets of shades became one, affixing themselves to the Gurren's torso.

The sound of the explosion faded, falling wreckage pattering on the ground like rain.

Inside the Gurren, the Demon Leader, the man who would have united a planet, closed his eyes and slumped his head. He had given everything.

Everything.

Simon and the rest of the Brigade, human and beast alike, cheered in unrestrained jubilation, knowing that their tormentor had been vanquished. Kirei sighed in relief and slumped his head as he saw the large explosion.

Five words brought them back to the harsh world we know as reality.

"See ya around…you two."

They knew that voice. Simon and Kirei looked towards the Gurren, and saw that it was not moving.

"Bro? Bro you there?" Simon asked. There was nothing but silence as the rain began to fall. And Simon the Digger realized what had happened.

His eyes widened in shock, breath flying from him, as the truth came upon him. He threw back his head.

And he screamed.

Kirei did not hear it.

He saw a door, open only a crack. He peered through, and saw a blood red machine, similar to the Illustrious Kazanami, holding a person over a pool of light blue fluid.

He saw the machine clench its hand into a fist, blood spurting between its fingers, leaving only the head to fall into the pool.

He saw the CPE blast goring Kamina, heard his cries of pain. His eyes widened and his jaw went slack as a great pain bloomed inside his head. Kiyoh felt it too, clutching her head as she shared his agony.

His mind screamed, mingling with that of the Digger

"No!"

The sound echoed across the blasted land.

The rain came down in torrents, and would cloud the sky the rest of the day. The commandeered Dai-Ganzen, who would later be renamed Dai-Gurren, stood like a mountain in the midst of it. Upon its deck stood the Brigade's ganmen, along with the Byakou and the few remaining Grunts, all staring at the still form of the Gurren as its mouth slowly opened.

Kamina's eyes were closed, blood coating his mouth. A hole had been scorched in his right abdomen, vaporizing many of his internal organs.

There was a smile on his face, even then.

The rain mingled with Yoko's tears as she held a bawling and screeching Simon to her chest.

Kirei threw himself to the deck, trying to screaming at the top of his lungs, his mind overwhelmed by pain other than his own. He bashed his head on the deck in shame as Kiyoh tried to hold him back, tears in her eyes as well.

Kittan and Makken bowed their heads in grim sorrow. The Twins and Zorthy stood silent. The Tornado brothers hid their faces against their arms to hide their tears, even though it was raining. Leeron remained silent. Kinon and Kiyal were sniffling and crying. Gimmy and Darry were making Rossiu's tunic even more drenched in the rain as he shed silent tears.

Thymilph stood behind them, along with his few remaining pilots and staff of the Dai-Ganzan, which included a black labrador dog beastman and his fish-girl twin lieutenants. They stood to attention, heads bowed, hats held across their chests in solemn reverence.

The falling raindrops were like tears on the face of Lagann and Illustrious Kazenami.

It would be on that day, Kamina Giha, the Demon Leader of the Dai-Gurren Brigade, died in battle.

He would be a man that the earth lost, and could never replace.

Well that's the end of Kamina for yeah. Not that much ISO in this chapter but it will be ISO-centered next one.

I made Kamina's death as epic as possible without making Gurren into Gurren Lagann. Hope you liked it.

I will be posting the first chapter to Vigilante either next or after Words 15, my muse must champion over my Writers block, and so must you, my dedicated fanbase.

40 Reviews, I must say, I am garnering quite the number, Mr. Mander and CSakuraS are the only ones higher than me. I will surpass them. Lol.

Beta'ed and reworded by Juubi-k, a true british bro.