Obstacles are a necessary thing for any journey to have meaning. By breaking through the walls that the world has set in front of us, we become stronger.

- Avatar of the Spiral

Chapter 3: But That's Impossible

The rest of the week passed without much happening as the Spiral Conference approached. As it turned out, Leeron wasn't able to get any new information from the wreckage of the impostor Gurren Lagann. At least, nothing related to the attack.

"So why did you call me?" Viral had asked when he walked into Leeron's personal laboratory.

"Viral, how would you like to have a kid?"

That caught him completely off guard, "What did you say?"

"I think I made myself quite clear the first time." Leeron said with a sly smile.

"You must seriously be joking. I'm a beastman, I can't have children. And even if I could, I'm immortal, I'd outlive them."

"And yet you got married despite that fact." Leeron pointed out.

Viral looked away, "That was… a special case."

"Now now, no need to get embarrassed. I know your wish is to have a full family. The truth is, you're already halfway there."

"What do you mean?"

"Beastmen lack spiral energy, due to their genetic code not being a double helix. However, you still have spiral energy. Haven't you ever wondered how that could be possible?"

"Because of the modifications Lordgenome made to me when I became immortal of course." Viral replied.

"That's what I thought at first, but it turns out that that isn't the case. All living beings are capable of using spiral energy. It turns out that double helix DNA just acts as a catalyst, making it easier to generate it."

"And how does that equal me having a kid?"

"Well, I was trying to figure out what happened to the pilot that attacked the honor guard. The fact that there wasn't any pilot found made me come to the conclusion that there wasn't a pilot in the first place."

"But Gunmen need pilots to move." Viral pointed out.

"That's the same thing I thought. But then I thought, what if there was another way?" He said, turning back to his computer. "Did you know that there are living things that are capable of reproducing without DNA?"

"What?"

"Tiny bacteria, made up of only a singe cell. Some of them have the ability to exchange their genetic code with each other, essentially creating new life. Basically what I'm saying is that I could do the same thing with beastmen."

"But that's impossible." Viral pointed out.

"Tsk tsk Viral, I thought you would know better by now that nothing is impossible. Beastmen already contain all the necessary equipment to have children, it's just non functioning. I could perform surgery on you and your wife to make you able to have kids."

"So you'd be using us as guinea pigs?"

"Not really, I've already run about a thousand simulations each in multiple programs. The chance of success would be equal to that of any two humans."

Viral just stood there, dumbstruck. Could his dream really come be within reach? It seemed to good to be true.

"Tell you what. Why don't you take some time to think about it and talk it over with your wife. Come see me after the conference has gotten underway and we'll talk again."

Meanwhile, another unthinkable event was occurring…

"So, I was wondering… since I can't compete, would you go with me to the Gunmen Battle later?" Anne asked,

Shihos mouth practically hit the ground. Then he punched himself in the face.

"What was that for?" Anne asked.

"I wanted to make sure I wasn't dreaming."

"Well if you don't want to go…"

"NO NO, I'LL GO, I'LL GO" He quickly responded, waving his arms back and forth. He couldn't believe that after all this time, Anne was asking him out on a date.

She saw the look on his face almost immediately, "This isn't a date, understand? We're going as friends."

"Of course." he replied, only slightly disappointed "Just as friends."

Since they were both registered competitors, Anne and Shiho managed to get a pair of decent seats at the stadium without much difficulty, despite the fact that it was the weekend and most of the city had come to see the fight. Todays match was Itachi Shirara in his Kamita and Beka Morima in her Bekatoko. Anne had fought against both of them in the past and knew that Itachi in particular was a fierce fighter. Even though she would have preferred to be the one fighting against him, she figured that it would be fun to watch a fight from the sidelines for once.

The Gunmen Games were originally created as a way to allow military officers practice in combat, but it was soon opened up to everyone that owned a Gunmen. On top of providing entertainment to people it also had the added benefit of allowing people to work off their hot bloodedness in a controlled environment. However, even with Spiral Locks, special precautions had to be made. All ammunition had to be replaced with non-lethal rounds and the weapons were all replaced with weaker versions. A match would continue until either one of the Gunmen was unable to move or an hour had passed. Of course, there were still accidents, just as with anything else, but there hadn't been any deaths in a few years.

"COME ON ITACHI. TEAR HER A NEW ONE!" Anne suddenly yelled.

"Are you still sore about the fact that she beat you the first time you fought her?" Shiho asked.

"No." she replied "It's just that I was looking forward to fighting him. If she wins, I won't be able to fight him during the preliminaries."

"Thank you all for waiting!" The announcer shouted, "Fighters on my mark. Ready… set… FIGHT!"

Itachi made the first move, his weasel-like gunmen rushing in with his joined kusarigama. While he had never personally fought against Beka, he knew her gunmen's weakness. The Bekatoko had been designed to take hits like a brick wall. But its limbs were extremely short, so it couldn't move that fast. Beka's normal strategy was to slowly approach her opponent while they tired themselves out attacking her and crush them under her gunmen's weight. He threw one of the sickles towards the her gunmen's legs and the chain quickly wrapped around it.

"Itachi's got this in the bag." Anne said.

"I wouldn't be to sure." Shiho replied.

The Kamita started to pull on its chain, it's plan to trip its opponent. The Bekatoko started to tip backwards.

"Gotcha!" Beka suddenly yelled, swinging her foot backwards sending her spinning in the air and pulling Itachi towards her.

Itachi cursed his luck just as Beka landed on top of him.

"Well…" The announcer said, "It appears we have a winner."

The crowd was silent expecting that the match would have gone on for quite a bit longer. Then, slowly, the applause started, starting off quiet and growing until it sounded of a torrential downpour.

"Oh well," Shiho said, facing his pouting "date", "There's always next year."

"Was that supposed to cheer me up?"

"No."

"Good, because it didn't. Let's get out of here." She said, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the exit.

Shiho felt like the luckiest man on earth as left the stadium the stadium. Finally, he had gotten the chance to go on a "not date" with Anne, even if it was short. He had been in love with her ever since their first match back at the academy. In fact it was because of that match. They had already been friends for about 4 months when that years student tournament had been announced. Without his consent, she had entered both of them as a joke. So, naturally, they were set against each other in the first round. She had been worried that the match would ruin their friendship, no matter how many times he told her that it was just a match.

"It may be just a match," She had said, "but I'm one of the best pilots in the school. I'll make a complete fool out of you out there."

"Great to see how much confidence you have in my skills. Just promise me you won't hold back."

While she never promised that to him, she still won in under a minute when he became the very first person that she ever used her finishing move on.

"I hope I didn't embarrass you too much." She told him after the match.

"Are you kidding, that was awesome. What did you call that move again?"

"Nova Buster?"

"Yeah that was the one. I never would have imagined that you could do something like that."

"You shouldn't be all that surprised" she said. "It was only because of all that tutoring you gave me that I was even able to think of it. That's why I called it the Nova Buster. It's named after you in thanks of the teaching you've given me."

At that point, Shiho had needed to make a quick excuse so that she wouldn't see him turn beat red.

Half way between the Earth and Mars floated the colossal space station Tetsuko. Its four faces looked out in all directions while a giant drill extended out of the bottom, slowly turning. The entire structure was a testament to the peace that the spiral races hoped to one day achieve. Due to the massive number of attendees, the actual meeting was being held in a massive spherical chamber with holo-cams floating between the ambassadors. It was here that Rossiu was leading the Spiral Conference, and right now, he would have preferred to take on Lordgenome in a fist fight. Even though he had prepared for this day for the past twenty years and he had Kinon sitting beside him, the sheer scale of everything was mind blowing. There were discussions about trade routes, colonization, tourism, military occupation, currency exchange, Spiral Energy regulations, and a whole host of other things that he couldn't even remember at the moment.

Even though the Conference had been going on for less than an hour, arguments had already sparked up between some of the representatives (fortunately, Jifu had been rather quiet). The Hebibi and the Sumangu (who came from the same solar system) were arguing about another planet that they both wanted, the Houshou wanted control of trade routes and the Iroains wanted everyone sorted by color.

"Why did Simon have to leave all of this to me?" he wined low enough so that only Kinon could hear.

"Because he knew you were the best person for the job." She replied, patting him on the back.

Before she could continue, someone came running in the door and whispered something in her ear.

She turned to Rossiu, and with a heavy heart, repeated what she had been told. What little color there was in Rossiu's face disappeared when he heard the news. Adai Village was under attack.

Authors Notes:

Well, here's the third chapter. Once again, I'd like to give thanks to my brother for proofreading it. Quite a bit shorter than the other two, but then again it was just more character development. Plus, it finally game me a chance to bring Viral into the story. My conclusion that Beastmen already have the parts needed for sex comes from one thing, Adiane and Thymilph's relationship. Guame implied that their relationship went beyond simple friendship, making me think that there might have been actual sexual interaction between the two. Of course, he was a pervert, so he might have just been joking.

As for the whole double helix not being needed for generating Spiral Energy, we must look towards the Anti-Spiral. During the final battle, it was made quite clear that the Anti-Spiral doesn't understand the basics of Spiral Energy (refer to the "Where are you drawing all this power from?" exchange) despite having lived for eons. So it would make sense to come to the conclusion that no one in the series fully understands how spiral energy works or even how it's generated. All they knew was that it runs on fighting spirit and everyone that appears to be able to use it has double helix DNA. This becomes especially apparent when Viral is shown in the second movie to be able to generate Spiral Energy despite the fact that he lacks double helix DNA, thus rendering the DNA requirement moot. It certainly wasn't Lordgenome that gave it to him, because Lordgenome only made him immortal to spread the story of the futility of humanity trying to rise against him. Thus we must come to the conclusion that any living thing can generate Spiral Energy, it's just easier for those with a double helix of DNA.

The gunmen were inspired by two yokai. The Kamita is based off of a Kamaitachi (the inspiration behind the Pokémon Sneasel and Weavile) and the Bekatoko is a Nurikabe (the inspiration behind the Whomp from Mario). I went back and forth on whether or not to make the fight longer, until I realized that it matched the theme of the series, solve the problem by taking the most direct route.

Comments & constructive criticism is appreciated.

One final thing: See if you can figure out the jokes behind the other species names