A.N.: This part had reached the 4k words limit, so I decided to write it as a self-contained chapter. I hope to finish it by December. Thanks for the attention!
"I can't believe!" Cytomander kicked the remains of his ganman. "Useless piece of junk! Argh!" He gripped his left leg. His anger made him forgot the huge gash in it, caused by the impact of the fall. He looked at the sky above. "I hate humans."
"Then you must hate me then."
Cytomander turned around. He grunted and said aloud, "Of course, Cinoshisa!"
She wore no mask, so he could see the malignous smirk in her face and the fact she pointed a revolver at him. "You'll have lots of reasons to hate me. I own this game now and you'd better follow me if you want to live." Cytomander growled but relented by sitting down, showing his hands.
"Status?" Dayakka asked.
"The ship is fine, but we're surrounded." Kinon said. "Do you want to hear the odds, Dayakka?" She turned around and saw the crew in the bridge. They would fight to the end but their eyes denounced the fear of losing, of fighting so hard and yet lose, the fear of having swum from deep waters to the shore and succumb in the sands of the beach.
"We're Team Dai-Gurren." Dayakka said, though it sounded like a mutter. "We didn't get to this point to run away." He pressed a wall communicator, "Leite, status of the engine?"
"All clear 'ere!"
"Guns?" Dayakka turned to Attenborough.
"Missile bays still cooling down, but artillery is A-OK!" The bridge gremlin saluted.
"Very well." He closed his eyes passed his hands on his face. "Nia, how's the situation with the airborne mecha?"
"We won't give up. The odds are against us, but has there been a time where they weren't?" Nia said, with a small, tired smile. She knew the disheartening odds, but she also knew that Dai-Gurren knew when the lowest the odds, the greater the miracle they had to pull through.
"We have no choice but to go forward." Dayakka said. Throughout the bridge and the communication channels, the crew agreed, with muffled "hurrahs" echoing through the battleship.
"Alright! Pay attention, you bozos!" Kittan intervened. "It's all or nothing! Dai-Gurren, charge with your all!" He yelled and all the team followed through.
"Wait!" Dai-Zilla Ultra stopped in the air to a halt, followed by the airborne mecha.
"What now, Leeron?" Kittan grumped.
"Aren't you paying attention to our friends ahead?"
"Leeron, I'm not in the mood to hear your sarcastic quips!" Kittan said, massaging his forehead.
"I'm not being sarcastic darling, this time." He blew a kiss to him. "Look." When they paid attention to the wave of enemies, they realized there was a huge dogfight occurring at the left flank.
"What is happening?" Prince Dmitri said, after being targeted by a fellow mecha. He slowed down the Beliebed speed, tilting the flying mecha updwards, allowing its attacker pass forward. He then shot it down with a missile.
"Your Highness," a rat beastman appeared in his screen, "Some units are engaging in friendly fire!"
"Fool! This is no friendly fire!" He maneuvered the Beliebed to the rearguard, in order to assess the situation.
The same rat beastman now looked with a mix of surprise and fear, "Your Highness, you won't believe this! All of them have flaming skulls!"
"Sorry for the hold up, communications are a-ok!" Leeron said, shaking himself on his chair, barely containing his enthusiasm.
"We heard you guys needed some heroes!" The screen appeared, and showed man holding his arms. The man chewed on a leafed kindling, his eyebrows thick as a tree, the expression of someone that went through hell to just get there. "My name is Banchow, from Dokanai Village and this is my crew!"
"I'm Basilia, from Hatesai Village," another man appeared in the screen, that had the same expression, holding the fist up in defiance against the massive ganman.
"I'm Sawbow, I come from the east!" more and more supporters announced their names and villages with a proud their enemies couldn't ever match (perhaps with the exception of Zerael).
"What? How?" Kittan asked.
"Some months ago, we saw images in the sky close to our villages," Banchow bellowed, "They showed a bunch of idiots that took on the beastmen and won! So, we decided to do the same, steal the biggest amount of ganmen we could, painted a flaming skull and decided to march!"
"Here we are, ready to kick the Spiral King's ass!" Basilia completed.
"This is wonderful!" Nia said. "They saw the transmission, now they've managed to fight on their own! Simon, look at what we did!"
"I'm very glad we managed to be such an inspiration, Nia," Simon's face appeared in the screen. He seemed tired and moved the controls tightly. From the distance, a rock parted in two, sending dust everywhere, but she could see two dots clashing. Simon and Arshun still continued their duel, distant from the battle that enveloped the skies of Teppelin.
"Alright, Team Dai-Gurren, charge!" Dayakka ordered.
The once seemingly won battle took a different turn with the reinforcements. The Dai-Gurren battleships rose their flags high as they advanced through the mass of enemy ganmen that came from the capital. Behind them, Do-ten-kai-zan moved slowly, still recharging, but the army of Dai-Gurren opened a path through the clouds. The sky smelled burned metal and the ground littered with scraps of all colors.
"This is unacceptable." Dmitri ranted to his fellow princes. "How did they manage to amass such an army in a short timespan?"
"OUR REPORTS CLAIMED THE BEASTMEN WERE HOLDING THEM?"
"The truth is," Prince Irenai coughed and explained, his voice lower than the normal, "Many local beastmen commanders were too intimidated by the advance of humans, many lied in their reports fearing retaliation. Never before in the history of the Spiral Kingdom we had so many human rebellions and defections. Some willingly surrendered their own mecha to the humans in exchange for their lives, a few ones even joined them and are shooting at their own brethren at this moment."
"WHY WOULD OUR KING ADUMBRATE VALUABLE INFORMATION FROM US?"
"The King dismissed the reports, claiming that they would be harmful to our force's morale." Irenai explained. However, Dmitri caught something in his expression in the screen.
"THIS CHANGES NOTHING! WE SHALL PREVAIL! FOR THE GLORY OF THE SPIRAL!" Adamastor charged fully at the enemy forces, only to be intercepted by a familiar star-shaped ganman and its pink lance.
Dmitri waited before acting. Opening a private communication channel to Irenai, he asked, "You are hiding something, brother."
"Do you wish to know the true reason?" Irenai asked. He sounded tired. He always sounded tired when he left the throne room for too long. Dmitri nodded, his gaze firm at the screen.
"The Spiral King wishes to allow the humans to taste the hope of the victory so he can crush them, and to take the leader of Dai-Gurren to himself."
"Oh, really?" Dmitri raised an eyebrow, "Our father is such a strange person. What does he hope to gain with this senseless strategy? Does he think he might lose?"
Irenai silenced on this remark. Dmitri knew he didn't doubt Lordgenome, but that didn't make any sense to him. Still, if Lordgenome would shirk from his duties, he wouldn't. Pressing a button in the panel, Beliebed armed its weapons.
"Nia, you won't believe this!" Kinon said, patching up to Solvernia.
"Tell me, Kinon." Nia promptly answered.
"I've picked an energy reading in the top tower of Teppelin," she said as she put on the side of the screen a map, "It's Gurren Solvernia! Or at least from a ganmen that's identical to yours!"
"Nia, I have a bad feeling about this. It's where the Spiral King must be." Rossiu said, from Gurren.
"I know, Rossiu, we must investigate." Nia said, then she opened communications to all Dai-Gurren. "Me and Rossiu will go to the throne room, can you hold yourselves?"
"Zee! I'm back!"
"Shut up, Kiyal!" Kittan said, slamming the wall of his ganman. "What you say, Nia?"
"The beastmen don't stand a chance, charge with everything you got!" Banchow cried and his battleship advanced through the horde.
"High energy concentration ahead of the first group, be careful!" Kinon said, the radar blinking.
"They are no match-" Bancho cried, but that would be his last words. Nia, Kinon, all of the original Dai-Gurren crew recognized the light that came out of the explosion. As if a small sun suddenly grow out, engulfing all ganmen in its radius, the noise it made ripped through the skies, piercing the survivors' ears.
Beliebed had struck. Its missile left a rain of molten metal. A single Dai-Gurren flag burned and turned to ash before hitting the ground, its ashes swept away by the wind.
"No." Nia whispered. Gurren Solvernia stood close to Dai-Zilla Ultra. Banchow. Basilia. Sawbow. And many others, she had just met that she didn't have the opportunity to talk with, gone in a matter of seconds. It hit harder on her because it was just like in Jiha: the vanguard which she was part of, their duty was to open way through the earth and they had great greats of dying because of landfalls. Her grip sagged. Landfall, incineration, it reminded her that the human body was frail.
"The power is too much!" Rossiu said. "If we leave now, they'll wipe out our allies."
"The Spiral King can wait," Nia said, holding tightly the controls. "The princes are our first priority." She put down the goggles on her eyes and Gurren Solvernia flew to where Beliebed was.
"Dmitri, I won't let you reap any further lives!" Nia said. Gurren Solvernia summoned a drill from its right arm and charged at the white jet.
"Enough of small fry, then." Dmitri said. A small smirk flashed in his face and Beliebed transformed. The jet gave place to a ganman, with wings in its back and the crest resembling a swan. One hand behind its back and the another held a rapier. With a quick sidestep, Beliebed made a riposte, making the enemy's drill miss the target and thrust the rapier on an opening in Gurren Solvernia's shoulder.
Inside the red mecha, the screen blinked red. Nia, Boota and Rossiu grunted and looked in disbelief as Beliebed unleashed a series of thrusts, plunging the thin sword in the joints of Gurren Solvernia. Dmitri knew what he was doing, hitting all the possible weak spots of Gurren Solvernia.
"So, this little girl is the one that's object of the attention of our King?" Dmitri sneered. "Pathetic."
Dmitri had technique and style. Nia twisted the core drill, making more green energy flow. Lots of drills emerged from the openings through Gurren Solvernia, but Beliebed parried and all of them. With a combination of precise movements and circular parries, the drills couldn't hit the white ganman.
"Enough of this!" Dmitri said, slashing sideways Gurren Solvernia's neck. Solvernia and Gurren detached from each other.
"Now, Rossiu!" Nia said.
"Got it!"
Gurren picked its blashades and tossed at Beliebed. It parried it effortlessly, but Dmitri didn't saw Solvernia charging with a drill in its forehead. Beliebed parried the first drill, but Solvernia had two more coming out of its hands. Dmitri was forced to tighten his grip on the controls and finally moved the other hand of Beliebed and forcing it to step back. With Gurren striking on his left and Solvernia on his right, he blocked both with two rapiers.
"You don't know me, you little twerps!" Dmitri said in loud voice. "I've been practicing even before your grandparents were born! You're just two kids who don't know any better and I WILL show you!" Beliebed break off both Gurren and Solvernia. Both mechas now span in the air, like a spinning top. Nia and Rossiu could only wail at the fact they lost control of their ganmen.
"Now, you're both finished off!" Dmitri lost any edge of self-containment and a red aura surrounded Beliebed. Both its arms extended back and it seemed there were dozens of white hands holding gleaning rapiers, ready to slice Gurren and Solvernia into a thousand pieces. "Take this, my ONE THOUSANDS FEATHERS OF THE WAR SWAN!"
Both Nia and Rossiu managed to glance at something and moved their mechas one centimeter before taking the hit. Then, they heard a thump and Beliebed was tossed against a nearby mount, after flying a while.
After they recovered their senses, they looked at the horizon, coming from the west. There was an enormous ganman. In fact, it was as huge as Dai-Zilla, plus it had four legs; in its deck there was a cannon. No, it wasn't a cannon, the form looked nothing like a cannon, although it did have smaller three barrel cannons, similar to the ones in Dai-Zilla, in the sides of the deck. It had the shape of a fork, with two prongs in vertical opposition to each other. The thing was lengthy as half of the deck itself, while the rear half had the bridge of the battleship, also shaped like a face. Nia knew the reinforcements were friendly because it sprouted a flaming skull flag on the top-left of the bridge and the fact the giant fork aimed at beastmen battleship, shooting them down with one blast.
"We have arrived at time." Nia knew that voice and smiled when she saw who the commander of the battleship was.
"Lady Straea!"
"Continue aiming at the beastmen capital ships!" Filli said, ordering them with a baton.
"Rossiu, kick some beastmen butt for your mommy!" Hobelis said, waving from a terminal in the control room of the battleship. Rossiu waved at the screen, embarrassed by his mother acting so uncharacteristically.
"This is the Denkabaki, a forgotten battleship that laid dormant in the bottom of the Third Sea and now it rose to fight against my father."
"But, how did you find it?" Nia asked, still in awe with the might of Denkabaki. In addition to single shots, the prongs could concentrate the energy and liberate at once, creating a laser that mowed down lines of enemy ganman.
"After you left, Nia," Evelynne stepped in to explain, "We decided to check the records in order to see if there was something we could do to help you. Then, we discovered our founders had let tips to find this battleship in the bottom of the Third Sea. We took the entire village, but we found it!"
"I thank you for the help." Nia said, in a small bow, even inside Solvernia.
"Dmitri will not bother you anymore." Straea said, as the cannons of Denkabaki shot down the airbone debris from a destroyed beastman frigate that would have crashed against its hull.
"And what about Stratos?" Rossiu asked.
The orbital prince had been awfully quiet during the battle, save for the initial shot.
"Leeron, please, patch me up with Stratos." Nia requested.
"For sure, hon~!"
"Why do you bother me?" Stratos's face appeared in the screen.
"Stratos, your sister is here, this is your opportunity to fight for something greater." Nia argued, once more determined to end with a talk instead of a fight.
"I will not attack my sister, however I do not want to subvert my allegiance to the Spiral King." He said. Save for a blink or two, he showed no emotion when saying this.
"Stratos, you fool." The Spiral King's voice boomed through all communication channels. "Have you gambled your life joining the rebels, I would have commended you. But you took the path of indecision, and that is unacceptable for a prince and Spiral Knight. I cannot tolerate your existence anymore."
In one of the frozen poles of the planet, a baboon beastman, wearing the heaviest coat he could find over the second heaviest coat he could find, drank a cup of tea.
"I wonder," Guzack said, after sneezing once, "Why didn't Viral simply kill us? It'd be much better than get stuck in this frozen hell."
"This is an advanced outpost." His mate, a cat beastman equally dunked in heavy clothes, replied, "I have no idea of what those computers do, but we're doing a thing for the Spiral King." Behind him, a sloth beastman slept under dozens of covers.
"Hey, guys," a walrus beastman entered. He wore nothing but a swimsuit to the other two's cringe, "I brought the dinner."
"Fish again?" Guzack whined.
"I like fish."
"What I wouldn't give for a piece of grape-hippo…Damn humans…Stole everything from me, from my mecha to my dignity..." Guzack sighed and then took a long gulp of his tea.
Then, without warning, the computers started to beep. They heard a giant parting sound coming from the glacier close to them. They exited their house and saw the glacier parting in two. Emerging from the gap, a huge cannon brimmed with electricity and loaded of purple energy. The cannon made a loud noise, as if sucking the air, turning its surroundings briefly into a purple tone – and then, just as quick, it fired a purple beam at the heavens.
After that, as sudden as it appeared, it disappeared as it retreated back into the depths of the glacier, which started to move back its original position as if nothing happened.
"For the Spiral! I think we're missing the biggest thing in the last years!" Guzack uttered.
"What do you mean, Father?" Stratos asked, his voice both annoyed and tense. "Do you want to me to turn against you?" The screen of Karamuru started blinking. Stratos turned his head to the left and saw a beam of purple energy coming at his direction.
He barely had time to react when the purple beam pierced Karamuru's armor. The orbital ganmen parted in two and the lower part exploded first, followed by the second. Karamuru was now just a piece of scrap falling down the planet's surface
"Oh, no!" Nia said. Rossiu gasped below.
"Karamuru was shot down by an energy projectile coming from the southern pole of the planet." Kinon said, showing a model of the attack in the screen.
"Stratos!" Straea said. Getting up from the command seat, she looked in shock at the shinning dot falling in the atmosphere, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. Her entire crew turned their attention to her.
She closed her eyes and sat down. She placed her hands firmly on the handles of the chair, in a vain attempt to hide that she trembled. She took a deep breath and her face returned to her impassive expression. The princess was back.
"Increase the fire rate of the main cannon." She ordered. "Blast them off the sky."
"Ojou-sama, the main cannon is almost at full capacity," Evelynne said, after checking the screen with a technician. "I recommend we decrease the fire rate in two minutes, in order to cool down."
She didn't reply.
"Enemies diving down," Hobelis said, her screen showing the anti-air countermeasures shooting down enemy ganmen, "We're having difficulties with one, though."
"It's Irenai." Straea scoffed. "All guns take aim at Kuratori!"
The jet-black ganman dodged the hail of bullets with ease. It never stopped in one place, always rolling or dodging the hail. After it was close enough to Denkabaki, it changed its form. It assumed the form of a black ganmen, with its wings transforming into shoulder pads. It also had something like a mail around its chest, concealing the lower face, while the upper, smaller face was covered by a knight's helm. It had a huge morningstar in its right hand.
"Sorry, princess Straea." Irenai said, as he moved Kuratori's controls. The black ganman swung its morningstar and plummeted through the lower prong of the gun, smashing through it. After it exploded, the upper part fell down and the servos of the gun followed in the flames. Denkabaki's knees bended and the battleship stopped.
"Status report!" Straea ordered, holding to her chair. The command room had some of the crew on the ground and others holding to their chairs and terminals.
"Main weapon is destroyed, everything else is operational!"
Straea sighed and regained her composure. The enemy ganmen still harassed the battleship with their numbers. The good thing for Straea and her crew was that they were far from the main concentration of enemy ganmen.
Meanwhile Nia, Rossiu and Boota engaged Prince Dmitri, Kittan and Kiyal engaged Prince Zerael, Simon and Arshun fought the battle of brothers in the ground.
"Brother, it doesn't have to end like this!" Simon asked. Both the fake Gurren Solvernia and Yaotel clashed their swords in the ground of Teppelin's perimeter.
"I want to end like this!" Arshun said, as Yaotel sliced horizontally. Simon's mecha managed to step back and avoid, allowing for his own counterattack,
"How many have you killed?"
"How many have you killed?"
"I knew you'd ask this." Their mechas fought to a standstill, blades cringing against each other. "You know the difference between you and I."
"I do, it's just that I don't care." Arshun replied, with a smirk that would make the Chesire Cat cower.
"One thing I learned early with Dai-Gurren is that they all had reasons. But you seem to have none."
"I don't need to, because I'm free!" Arshun made Yaotel jump back and it landed on rock. There, his mecha pompously posed with both of its scythes crossed against its chests. "I was born in royalty. At that a young age, I understood that when you're born in royalty, you are free to do everything I want. If I want to take a seat, I just throw away the beastman that was there before and there was nothing he could do. Freedom is the ability of doing anything I want, and if people stand in my way, I just stomp at them. I! AM! FREE!"
Three seconds of silence. Both mechas remained still.
"Is that so?" Simon asked. If one made enough silence, one could hear his eyebrow arching.
"What?"
"Don't you have anything beside it? Any further motivation?"
"What are you talking about?"
"So, don't you have any motivation to do what you do beside that you want for purely egoistical reasons?"
"Why would I need anything else?"
"Brother, if you are really older than I, I'd recommend that you act like it." He ended with a sigh.
"Don't you dare to patronize me! I am superior than you in all aspects!" Arshun cried, turning into a shade of anger red.
"To think I ever looked up to you one day…" he stopped to sigh and continued, "I wish I was fighting Guame right now. I don't know why he fought, but I believe he had better reasons than you. This has become a chore, did you know?"
Arshun screamed. His body tense, he started to tremble and grabbed hold of Yaotel's controls, moving them frantically, left and right, up and down, and diagonally. Yaotel's reply consisted of attacking (or trying to attack) Simon's mecha through all ways possible. What can be defined as a series of disjointed swings, Simon kept his cool while Arshun tried to strike him with no avail.
"This is your weakness, brother." Simon calmly explained, while dodging the fast but predictable strikes his brother launched at him. "You strive for freedom, but you're a prisoner of yourself and your own desires."
Yaotel lifted both its scimitars above its head and they started to glow. Arshun screamed "FINAL CUT! WORLD DESTROYER!" and launched the scimitars at Simon, who tried to dodge, but it sliced off his mecha's left arm (and also a mount behind him).
"I know my limits." Simon advanced his mecha towards Yaotel, unfazed by the loss of an arm. The fact that lost arm wasn't holding its sword helped a bit. "And those limits are what make me unlimited. With the right limits, I can look forward for tomorrow, I can live the present and I can respect the past." The sword in its hand started to glow. "FINAL CUT! HOPE OF TOMORROW!"
With that, the fake Gurren Solvernia plunged its sword right in the middle of Yaotel's forehead. Nothing happened for a while.
"Still, I can't bring myself to put you down." He opened the lid of his mecha and extended his hand. "We can start anew, brother."
"You really are an idiot." Arshun cried. Tears of frustration, anger and hate streamed towards his face. "Just like our father, just like our brothers! But no more, no more!" And with a maniacal cackle, he slammed his fist on the panel.
Simon gasped and entered as fast as he could inside. He didn't even look behind and just listened a huge explosive sound, and the world started to roll around.
He felt his body slamming against the cockpit. Panels blinked and blinked, warning about general failure in all parts of his mecha. The lights then stopped. Still dizzy, he was aware enough to remember that when the lights in the panel stopped it meant the mecha was completely destroyed. Shoten wouldn't go anywhere anymore.
Simon felt a throbbing pain in his chest and left shoulder. It was just a concussion, but it annoyed him. Turning around, he tried to open the lid manually. It stuck, so Simon kicked the lid with full strength. It worked and now he exited the cabin.
He rotated his left arm in order to see if the pain would go away and took advantage to evaluate the damage. Yaotel was a pile of burning rubble not far from him, while the only difference from Shoten was that Simon's ganman wasn't a pile of burning rubble, only normal rubble.
"Simon!" Simon looked up and saw Gurren Solvernia descending. The red mecha kneeled and Nia jumped out Solvernia and went straight to hug Simon. "Are you hurt?"
"I am alright, save for a bruise." He replied, then drifted his gaze away from hers, "But Arshun is dead." He looked into her eyes and asked, "Have you met someone who refused to be helped?"
"Yes." Nia looked down. "Unfortunately…"
"Nia, Simon," Rossiu called their attention, from Gurren, "We are in a vulnerable position and enemy ganmen are approaching! But that's our chance, Kittan told me that the Karamuru is incapacitated, we can attack the capital now!"
"We need to go, Simon." Nia said.
"Nia," he grabbed her hand and looked into her eyes, "Let me go with you." He instinctively glanced at his destroyed mecha.
"It's ok, Simon." She smiled at him. He felt a warmth inside himself when she smiled, that seemed to be out of this world, along with the feeling that flock of birds flew inside his stomach. "I'm sure you want to give a piece of your mind to your father."
"Thank you, Nia!" Simon said. Holding hands, they entered Solvernia's cabin. Nia stepped in first and sat down. Simon entered next and carefully sat on her lap. Nia blushed. She glanced at Boota, whom blinked at her.
"Boota, we're in the middle of a battle, this isn't the time." Nia whispered.
"Something's wrong, Nia? Am I making you uncomfortable with the position I'm sat?"
"Nonono, Simon, you can sit down the way you want!" Nia said, her blush still present.
"We need to go!" Rossiu interjected. Mercifully.
"Right!" The lid closed and Gurren Solvernia prepared to take off. "Dai-Gurren! Aim for the top!"