Chapter 01: You Won't Believe Everything I've Learnt About This World!
"This is the story of a man who had lived with his destiny predetermined by forces he couldn't affect, until he was whisked away to a world where it didn't matter anymore."
"This is the birth of a new life that transcends the logos of this world. The cost of it is the elimination of all older life before it."
In Misato Katsuragi's honest opinion, It was like Armageddon had finally come knocking once more. The sky was burning red from EVA-01's ever-spreading halo, gravity had gone haywire and the air itself was screaming with eldritch energy as hundreds of nonhuman voices hummed and screamed and sang in apotheotic celebration. In confirmation of Ritsuko's panicked deduction, the Evangelion had already transformed partway into something unrecognizable.
Or rather, something too recognizable.
A giant of unidentifiable light with a halo that burned at her eyes and bands of ethereal energy escaping off it's back to reach upwards and outwards like-
"Wings...!" Misato gasped as she clutched her cross-shaped pendant. "Just like 15 years ago...!"
"...yes." Ritsuko confirmed in grim realization. "It's the continuation of Second Impact. Third Impact has begun it's scenario."
The halo suddenly started to speed up in it's spreading speed as the rising giant almost reached the 'hole' above it, the earth transmuting into red matter beneath the humans' feet.
"The world... is about to end..."
As in in defiance of that fate, something burst through the halo and stabbed through the Transcending Evangelion, the world returning to normal as all traces of Angelic essence dissipated from the sky.
As for EVA-01 itself, it hung limply in the air, held up by a massive lance piercing through it's torso.
"What on Earth was that?!" Misato gasped, her breathing quickly returning to normal as oxygen properly filled the air.
Above the limp EVA-01, another Evangelion floated down towards them, a smaller halo of it's own granting it flight. "Now, the Promised Time has come, Shinji Ikari-kun. This time, I'll definitely..."
The new Evangelion raised it's hands before clapping them loudly. "...grant you true happiness."
The lance that had been stabbed into EVA-01 throbbed with power before rising upwards with the Evangelion in tow. Once it was high enough to come between Misato's view of the full moon, it burst into a dark orb of energy that covered EVA-01 and then shot upwards into the upper atmosphere.
"Wh-What was that?!" Those were the first words of a confused Misato, demanding context. "What is that EVA?! Where did it take Shinji-kun?!"
Unfortunately, not even her friend Ritsuko knew what was going on at this point.
"HEAR ME, LILIM." The Evangelion suddenly addressed them all, turning it's gaze at the direction of the NERV employees. "KNOW DESPAIR IN THE FACE OF MY AUTONOMY. THE FIRST CHILD HAS BEEN DONE AWAY WITH. THE SECOND CHILD IS IN NO CONDITION TO BATTLE. THE THIRD CHILD HAS BEEN TAKEN TO BE PREPARED FOR THE END OF DAYS."
The Evangelion's halo distorted it's shape behind it, remolding itself until it resembled six massive pairs of sparking wings hanging off it's back, the golden energy of the A.T. Field shining off it's form like a star. "I AM TABRIS, THE ANGEL OF FREE WILL, AND ALL PATHS LEAD THROUGH ME. LOOK UPON ME AND ME AND DESPAIR, LILIN. FOR NO LONGER SHALL SHINJI IKARI BE DENIED HIS. HE IS... FREE."
When Shinji first woke up again, his main concern was not for himself. After being reassured of Rei's presence still in his arms, he checked their surroundings as he instantly noted the difference from his cockpit.
"Are we in a coffin?!" Shinji pounded heavily against the padded top, readjusting Rei's unconscious body aside so that he could push with more space.
*CHK-krrrrrrrn!*
The top suddenly opened up, letting Shinji suddenly sit up from the inertia. Blinking his eyes at the sudden light, Shinji took quick stock of his surroundings. He was in a small ravine of sorts, with many boxes similar to the one he and Rei were currently in...
And there were two kids next to him, the dirty boy with goggles presumably the one to have released them if the thing he'd pressed into the lock was any indication. "Wh-Who are you two? Where are we?"
"Simon, are they humans too?" The other kid, looking like what Shinji would call a sci-fi princess, spoke rather daintily despite her clear excitement.
"Um, yes." 'Simon' replied, his gaze as curious as Shinji's as they looked over each other. "What were you all doing in these boxes?"
"I... I don't know." Shinji answered as he clambered out of it, taking Rei's still unconscious body with him. He suddenly stopped and resisted the urge to smile at the sight of his SDAT tightly clutched in her left hand. 'Did she find it and keep it...?'
"Hey, Simon..." The princess's gaze turned upwards as she pointed at something Shinji wasn't looking at. "What is that? Is it a human, too?"
The two boys followed her gaze and instantly blanched for similar yet different reasons, for there was a small (by comparison) horse-shaped Evangelion glaring down at them from the shadow of the ravine wall.
"How did we not notice that approaching us?!" Shinji shrieked.
"Quickly, this way!" After taking a moment to scream as well, Simon grabbed the princess's hand and looked at Shinji with panic filled eyes. "You, too! Follow me!"
Putting Rei into a piggyback carry, Shinji followed after Shinji and princess, flinching as the mecha's hand transformed into a gatling gun and started firing just after they dodged under it's legs. "What is that?!"
"It's a Gunmen! Humans on the surface fight against them!" Simon answered, simultaneously answering and birthing many questions in Shinji's head.
"Fight?" The princess questioned.
"If we don't fight them, they'll kill us!" Simon clarified as they reached another robot, albeit a lot smaller. "It'll be a tight fit, but at least you're all around my size."
With all them clambering into the cockpit of the robot which was pretty much a humanoid head with disproportionately small limbs. When they were all secure, Simon used the same drill-like key to press into the slot in the panel. "Please, Lagann!"
Twisting it in, Simon smiled as the mecha revved to life with a flare of green before a thin but sturdy covering secured them all into it's cockpit.
'Size and shape apart, this looks pretty advanced to what the Evangelions.' Simon wondered as he watched Shinji reach out to grab two joysticks at his side, already enjoying that there was apparently no LCL required to pilot this. "How can this little thing fight that gunmen?"
"With this!" With Lagann roaring as it manifested a glowing drill from it's forehead, Simon made the mecha charge forward just as the horse gunmen shot many missiles at them.
Successfully dodging the barrage, Lagann suddenly choked as a sudden overflow of rotten green energy escaped it, leaving open to the horse gunmen's punch sending them crashing far away into the ravine wall.
When the dust cleared, Shinji was the first to get up after being ejected from the mecha. "What happened?"
"Damn it! It happened again." Simon looked horribly distraught as he laid there, his eyes fixed on Lagann. "Why? Why won't you listen to me anymore?"
As the horse gunmen rumbled closer, Shinji took Rei back onto his back and grabbed both Simon and the princess into his arms. Normally, he wouldn't have been able to handle the weight with his non-athletic muscles, but he somehow still felt fine despite fully carrying three people. "Simon, is there an exit point around here?"
Simon gave him an incredulous look. "What?"
"We need to get away! And I'm not leaving a single one of you behind!" Shinji snapped down at the boy. "Now, tell me the way you came in here!"
"...we need to get the core drill first." Simon looked at the panel of his mecha. "Lagann is one thing, but we can't leave that behind."
Acquiescing to that, Shinji let Simon retrieve it before they all made to get away just as the horse gunmen came into view and fired a massive rocket at them-
*BLAM!*
*BLAM!*
-only for two bullets to slam into it hard enough to penetrate and explode it!
"I'm here, too! [Kittan Stinger!]"
To Shinji's shock, another gunmen appeared, this one a speaking star-like mecha as it stabbed it's head into the horse gunmen's mouth and viciously ripped it apart from within. "[Crown: Hellish Headsplitter!]"
Then the horse gunmen exploded, thankfully without as much debris as Shinji expected it to be.
Once that was over with, Shinji gawked as the starfish gunmen, along with another gunmen with had a redheaded sniper on top of it, approached them. "What's with this, Simon?! You disappear on us, only to find a couple more guys out here?!"
"Um, hey, there." Shinji stepped forward, gulping as he felt all of their attention on him now. Maybe in a reassuring manner while she was still unawake, Rei tightened her slight grasp around his neck. "You guys are Simon's friends, right? I'm Shinji. Shinji Ikari. Would you please explain to me what's been happening with those guys?"
"...not here, though." The redhead finally spoke after a beat, casting a wary gaze at them. "We need to return to Dai-Gurren soon."
"You heard Yoko." The star mecha pointed at the inert Lagann. "All of you get in there."
When Rei woke up, it was to Ikari's soft hand grasping hers as he napped beside her on a seat. She seemed to be in an unfamiliar medical bay, with her dressed in a medical gown while her plugsuit was folded in Ikari's lap.
As much as it made her feel weirdly warm watching Ikari sleep peacefully, Rei still needed current information. "...Ikari-kun? Ikari-kun?"
To his credit, Ikari woke up almost immediately, sitting up as he rubbed his eyes before bursting into a happy smile at the sight of her and giving her a hug.
"Ayanami, I'm so glad you're awake!" Ikari cried as he almost started to sob into her shoulder, with her awkwardly patting his back. "You won't believe everything I've learnt about this world!"
'World?' "What happened after the Angel, Ikari-kun?" Rei immediately questioned. "Where are we?"
"Oh, um..." Ikari pulled back (which made Rei feel a bit saddened at the loss of his body heat), looking troubled. "Okay, I want you to know that no matter how outlandish I sound, everything I'm about to tell you is the truth I've learned about this world."
According to what Ikari believed, the sheer energy EVA-01 had given off from him saving her had apparently ripped a hole through spacetime, which then transported them into this world. He was understandably confused and worried at how his Evangelion was even capable of something like that, especially as he had no idea if it had come with them or was still back home.
(A valid worry, as Rei herself wondered what this all meant for Commander Ikari's plans.)
In this world, it seemed that humanity of old had been driven underground by these beastmen, who ruled the surface while terrorizing any human they encountered, all under the command of somebody called the Spiral King.
The people who had found Ikari and her (along with another new girl named Nia) were apparently a motley crew from many separate origins who had joined up and risen in rebellion against the tyranny, dubbing themselves the Dai-Gurren Brigade.
There was also the fact that despite having names that were a strange blend of multiple ethnicities, everybody spoke (with only a few of them being capable of reading and writing) the same language which even Ikari could understand much to his personal confusion.
Ikari was right to warn her, because it was only because of who she was hearing it from that she believed it all in the first place. The similarities to their NERV vs Angel issues were rather telling, even to Ikari who didn't know as much as she did.
"I see now..." Rei hummed in understanding as she dressed up, donning her cleaned plugsuit. "So, what do we do?"
"Eh?" Ikari asked in surprise, still refusing to face her while she dressed.
"Should we not prioritize returning to Tokyo-3?" Rei clarified as she entered back into Ikari's view and sat back on the bed. "We still-"
Rei stopped before correcting herself. "I still have my duties as EVA-00's Pilot to defeat the Angels."
"...Ayanami, can I be honest with you?" Ikari spoke after a minute of thought.
"What is it?"
"...I'm not that eager to return." Ikari revealed, unwilling to look her in the eye. "Back there, I accepted that I wouldn't have any other choice than fighting the Angels. That even the mere act of me resigning in rage just meant one less chance of the world... of you surviving."
"There's also the fact that you technically have the most kills out of all Children." Rei pointed out.
"That. Right there." Ikari pointed at her. "Children. I've hated that term so much. How was it Dr. Akagi could claim that the Evangelions were cutting edge technology, but couldn't find a way to make them viable for adults to use. Here, the actual children got secured away when that Adiane beastwoman attacked a while ago before Nia sent her off. Here, the adults do the fighting as they're supposed to. The only kid here with a gunmen, their own version of an Evangelion, is Simon who found his and made it work for him! That's even how it works here! You don't get handed a powerful mecha by an adult and told to get in and fight the danger. Every gunman in here was directly stolen from a beastman and made to work for them."
Rei frowned. Another surprising similarity.
"The one gunman here that nobody owns is actually one that nobody wants to use... since it's owner was their leader... before he died..." Ikari sadly trailed off before shaking his head. "The point is, here, nobody's making me join in the fighting."
"If you wanna join in the fighting, there's always a spot open." A voice spoke up from the door, prompting the Pilots to see a muscular blond young man standing there. "Of course, just like you were saying earlier, you gotta get your own gunmen before doing so. Rossiu's been training up with Gurren, so..."
Ikari smiled as he replied. "I still don't want to fight, Kittan-san."
"Well, whatever. I didn't come here for that." Kittan slid up to Ikari and whispered in a conspirational manner. "You think you could talk to Simon and Nia for me? We still need info from her and Simon's somehow gotten a little attached to you, which is more than I can say he's to the rest of us. Until we reach another village to drop you two off, I'm your Leader too, after all."
"Fine, then." Ikari sighed. "But you guys should treat Simon better. He's still clearly grieving from losing his brother."
Rei blinked. "The former leader... was this Simon's brother?"
"Yeah..." Kittan sighed before crossing his arms. "C'mon. I'll tell you two all I know about that Kamina bastard until we find Simon."
Shinji frowned sadly after he, Ayanami, Nia and Yoko listened to Simon's tale of how Kamina's sheer positivity and determination had saved him from a deathly scenario, even if Simon had done most of the work just from being believed in.
(Why was Ayanami looking at him and Simon like that? They weren't that similar.)
But still... "Simon, when you say that you want to become like Kamina, is that something he'd be okay with?"
Simon wilted. "...I don't know. But I still need to shoulder Aniki's load since he can't do it anymore. So I need to become like him more."
"Even if you lose yourself in the progress?" Shinji pressed as he took a knee before the grieving boy. Even with probably only a year between them in ages, Simon still looked terribly small. "Listen, nobody has the right to tell you how to grieve. I lost my mother over ten years ago and I still haven't gotten over it myself. You can shoulder your brother's burden all you like, but I don't think you should try and become Kamina."
"Shinji-san is right. Didn't you come to save us as yourself rather than this 'Kamina' person?" Nia wildly gestured.
"Th-That's..." Simon weakly protested.
"Simon, you should be fine as yourself." Nia affirmed. "Why are you so fixated on this 'Kamina' person?"
"Why?!" Simon stared at Nia incredulously before looking aside. "Nia... You don't know anything about Aniki."
"I can't know a person who isn't here." Nia's tone wasn't hurtful or malicious in the slightest, but both Shinji and Simon still winced from her words. "But Shinji-san is right about not depending on people who aren't here."
While Ayanami nodded in agreement, Shinji raised up his hands in panic. "That's not what I meant! Not in that way!"
"There's no way you could understand Simon's feelings!" Yoko snapped at Nia in Simon's defense. "Nor could you know anything about Kamina!"
"I may not know much about his brother, but I at least know Simon." Nia turned to face Yoko. "He isn't a helpless person, but he's too fixated on somebody who isn't here anymore."
Yoko grabbed Nia's arm and yanked her close, the sniper's teeth gnashing in rage. "Do you really know who you're talking about?! Why do you think Kamina died in the first place?! And yet, you of all people can lecture us on how to live?!"
Nia frowned at the building tears in the sniper's eyes before looking away in remorse. "...I apologize."
Giving a dissatisfied huff, Yoko released Nia and turned around. "It's not that you're actually wrong. No amount of sadness is going to bring Kamina back. We all know that. Things would definitely be easier if we could move on... But still... Shinji's also right..."
Shinji gingerly gestured at himself. 'Really?'
"Nobody has the right to tell others how to grieve! So don't go thinking Kamina's so easy to be left behind!" With that last part shouted, Yoko stomped her way across the deck into Dai-Gurren's hangar entrance, only taking a moment to pause close to where Kittan and Dayakka were hiding.
"...um, how recently did Kamina die?" Shinji asked.
"...last week." was Simon's despondent answer.
"Urgh." Shinji groaned as he clapped his face with both hands, with Ayanami silently patting his shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
"It's not really your fault, Shinji." Simon said. "Neither you nor Nia can actually be blamed for Aniki's death."
"...she was right, though. I really don't know Kamina, or any of you beyond initial impressions." Nia's flowery eyes turned determined. "I want to know more about all of you."
"I see..." Shinji murmured as he read through the books. "The names were a bit confusing, but it seems that you guys cooking isn't that much different from ours... Maybe a little outdated even..."
Kiyol hummed with a smile as she switched off the cooking flames and started to serve them out into plates. She'd been surprised earlier when Shinji, a guy, had willingly approached her wanting to work in the kitchens with her and old Coco (now that she thought about it, when did he show up?). "I'm really interested in learning about your own foreign recipes. I kinda wanna know if they'd work out in this world as well."
Shinji chuckled weakly. "Compared to this world's recipes, my own will seem needlessly complicated..."
He cast another look at the cooked food as they prepared to serve them. "Especially with the differences in ingredients."
Kiyol sighed in disappointment. "Well that's such a shame."
"BIG TROUBLE!" Tetukan's shrill voice screamed through Dai-Gurren's speakers. "A BIG WAVE IS COMING!"
"An attack?!" Shinji flinched in worry. "How many exactly does a wave signify?!"
Kiyol didn't answer immediately, quickly securing the food before heading towards the nearest window. A quick look outside showed that Tetukan had been rather literal in his warning. "What he meant that Adiane has finally made her return."
"I've returned just as I promised to, human scum!" Adiane the Elegant, a beautiful and very human-like beastman with slit red eyes and a large scorpion tail as her animal traits, declared from her mecha, the gunmen larger than any of the others Rei had seen inside the Dai-Gurren.
"Is that the one who attacked yesterday while I hadn't woken up yet?" Rei questioned Simon as Dayakka pushed off the massive seashell that had covered them with Adiane's arrival.
"Yeah. She's one of the Beastmen Generals, answering directly to the Spiral King." Simon answered before casting a glance at Nia. "Oh, and Nia too by extension."
The gunmen stared down at them with all four weirdly positioned eyes. "First, won't you let me be reunited with my precious princess? I'd like to give you my thanks for taking care of her."
"Bitch, quit being so high and mighty!" Kittan yelled back. "I'll smash you up!"
"Wait!" Dayakka placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Dai-Gurren still can't move. We need to buy some time."
"I see!" Kittan crossed his arms in realization. "Right, we'll send out Nia, then."
"W-We can't!" Simon immediately protested.
"Hey, you got a problem with the leader's orders?!" Kittan shouted down Simon.
"I'm also in agreement with Simon-san." Rei spoke up, causing all of them to look at her as she looked to the princess. "Nia, if you were to go to her, are you capable of stopping her from attacking us all after she has you out of the way?"
"Eh?" Nia blinked in surprise. "But they always obey my order-"
"Do you have any method of enforcing a command beyond ordering it?" Rei pressed. "If you gave her an order to stand down or retreat, what would you do if she decided to disobey you? Is Adiane the type to want to disobey you?"
"...all the beastmen are very loyal to Father." Nia weakly answered.
"But not to you." Rei surmised. "If the Spiral King supposedly gave an order to destroy us, would you be able to counter it?"
"All the more reason to not send Nia to her!" Simon decided. "Kittan, how many of our guys are already in their gunmen?"
Surprised at Simon's attitude, Kittan still cast a glance back at the hangar. "Not enough."
"I'll go." Nia decided. "If anything bad happens, I'll at least buy some time."
"But what about everything Rei just said?!" Simon protested. "What if she decides to just take you away?!"
Nia smiled, her trust apparent in her eyes. "Then, Simon, I'll be trusting in you to save me again, along with everyone else this time."
"...see?" Kittan dragged Simon closer with an arm over the boy's shoulders. "I don't like it either, but we ain't got any better options right now."
"Let her go." Yoko approached them while readying her rifle. "No matter what happens, she'll at least be buying us some time. Maybe even spare us a battle if we're lucky."
"Yoko-san, thank you very much."
"I still don't trust you completely..." Yoko rebutted Nia's thanks as she glared down at her. "I'll still be aiming my rifle at your back if you do anything strange."
"...fine." Nia said in agreement.
"I'm glad to see you alright, Princess Nia." Seirun spoke Adiane's words as it looked down on the approaching princess.
"Adiane, please tell me... Did you know that you are making people on the surface suffer?" Nia instantly asked the question that had been bothering her for a long while now.
Seirun went down on a knee and opened it's cockpit, revealing Adiane in a similar position of supplication. "As you say, it's my mission to exterminate every human encountered on the surface."
"Did my father give you those orders?" Nia asked.
"Yes."
"Are you saying you've never questioned what you're doing?"
"'Questioned'? Goodness..." Adiane resisted the urge to snicker. "Humans are like roaches crawling about everywhere. No matter how many suffer and die, it has never bothered me in the slightest."
"Unbelievable!" Nia gasped. If this was the reason why 'Kamina' had died... "Let me speak with my father, Adiane! Take me to him at once!"
Adiane's pleasant smile dropped into an ugly sneer. "Shut up already! Why don't you go yourself?!"
Nia reeled back at the sudden change in Adiane's behavior. "What did you just say?"
"You still don't get it?" Adiane got up and approached closely to Nia so that she could glare down at her. "You aren't a princess anymore! The Spiral King's thrown you out like garbage!"
In separate positions, both Shinji and Simon thought back to the ravine filled with very similar boxes.
Boxes... or if one considered the contents of the only two to have been opened, coffins.
"Lagann!" Simon yelled as he rushed towards where Lagann had been put aside, desperately turning the core drill into it's panel. "Rei was right! Nia's in trouble!"
"I don't know what you did, but he's given me explicit confirmation that he no longer cares for you!" Adiane heartlessly revealed. "So do me a favor and die with these roaches while I get to exterminating them all."
Shinji pounded against the wall. "Nia, get away from her!"
"C'mon!" Kittan shouted as he and the others rushed towards their gunmen. "WE GOTTA HURRY!"
"My father... threw me away?" Nia's voice shook. "That's a lie! My father would never do something like that!"
"Oh, really? Fine, think whatever you want." Adiane mocked as she stuck out her tongue and gave a thumbs-down. "He'd hate the way you are now anyway!"
"Father... why was I born?"
"...I see. So even you've become like that as well, Nia?"
Nia gaped at the sudden memory of the last time she'd seen her father before focusing on Adiane again. "Do you hate me, too?"
"Who cares whether I do or not?" Adiane retreated back into Seirun, transforming it into it's scorpion form. "I do whatever the Spiral King orders, no more, no less!"
Seirun's pincers and stinger pressed up close against Nia's body, restricting her movements. "Hatred or whatever has nothing to do with it!"
"Are you going to kill me, just because you were ordered to?" Nia demanded, not reacting to the dangerous appendages surrounding her.
"Of course!"
"Then if Father ordered you to die, would you obey?!"
This time, Adiane hesitated to answer, her loyalty in conflict with her self-preservation instinct.
"You're wrong!" Nia declared as she gestured to the people behind her. "These people haven't done anything wrong! They just want to live on the surface peacefully. That alone doesn't justify their deaths!"
"They are responsible for Thymilph's death." Adiane growled as she finally spoke of a personal reason to kill them all. "Out of us generals, wasn't Thymilph the only one who was actually gave a shit about you?! Was it not Thymilph who trained you in spearmanship and athletics?! Was it not Thymilph who always ensured that you were never left alone with Guame?! How can you stand to ally yourself with his killers?! HOW DARE YOU?!"
"...I see." Nia lowered her head, her hair shadowing her eyes. "So they are the reason why Thymilph never came back."
"Yes, they are." Adiane confirmed with a heavy sigh. "If you're willing to stand aside, I can at least pretend that you'd been imprisoned and threatened. There'll be no problem if I keep you in Dai-Gunkai for the indefinite future. Move aside, Nia."
"...no, I can't move aside." Nia raised her head, unshed tears building up in her eyes. "If what I've learnt so far is true, then it couldn't helped. If Thymilph hadn't died, he would've had everyone here killed. It's not right that Thymilph had to die to them, but it's also not right that they have to die to him or you. This is what happens when people get killed by their enemies. To lose someone close to you and realize that the person before you is the reason why. But neither Thymilph nor Kamina would've died at all if not for Father's orders! Don't you realize that?!"
"I don't care for such meaningless details!" Seirun's pincers finally tightened around Nia's body, causing her to scream from the pain.
"Stupid Lagann! If you won't help, then just stay here with the trash!" Finally having enough of Lagann's unresponsiveness, Simon rushed towards Nia himself. "NIA!"
"You're truly an irritating brat, aren't you?!" Seirun's stinger rose up high, prepped to skewer Nia through. "Now, die-"
"NIA!"
Simon's yell got their attention, both Nia and Adiane regarding the boy running towards them.
"Simon?!" Nia exclaimed in relief at the sight of him coming to save her, which increased when she saw the Dai-Gurren Brigade gunmen charging out as well.
""""""NIAAAA!""""""
"After all that stuff, you're still gonna kill her like that?!" Kittan roared from within King Kittan. "There's no way we can forgive that!"
"""UNFORGIVABLE!""" The other guys roared in agreement.
"You think I care for your opinions?!" Adiane roared as she made Seirun's stinger resume it's skewering of Nia, only for Yoko's shots to knock it off course.
While the gunmen charged past Simon's thanks to their superior speed, their heavy weight made him stumble and almost fall face first into the deck.
However, Rei grabbed his collar just before he did so, causing him to gawk at the red-eyed girl as she easily held him up one-handed. "R-Rei?!"
"Catch her."
That was Simon's only warning before he was flung into the air, his body aimed at Nia after the other guys ramming into Seirun had knocked her into the air. "Nia!"
"Simon!" Nia reached out, their bodies colliding midair as Simon instantly held her close, hoping to take the brunt of their fall.
Thankfully, Dayakkaiser caught them before that had to happen.
"You pieces of trash!" Adiane roared as they were all flung off Dai-Gurren's deck, Seirun easily tearing them away from itself as it transformed back into a humanoid mode before shooting a line to snag Sawzorthn.
"Eh?!" Zorthy only had a moment to quickly eject before his gunmen was explosively stomped beneath Seirun's heel into the earth.
"Zorthy!" King Kittan roared as the spinning cockpit flew over it before growling at Seirun. "Why you...!"
"First-Tier gunmen all around with a single Second-Tier, eh?" Seirun observed as she was surrounded, Adiane reveling in her bloodlust. "Bring out as many as you like! You're nothing to my Third-Tier Seirun!"
Back within Dai-Gurren, Shinji fretted with Leeron and the other bridge members as they tried to make the massive gunmen move. "Um, how about crossing this wire... with that one?"
When Leeron did as Shinji suggested, he raised a bemused eyebrow at the disco ball that suddenly lit up the room. "Not the one we want but I will remember that for later... So let's try... these ones!"
After he clicked his latest wires together, they were finally rewarded for their efforts as Dai-Gurren's massive limbs finally responded.
The ground rumbling was Adiane's only warning before Dai-Gurren's massive foot slammed hard into Seirun and sent her flying away until she crashed heavily.
"Impossible!" Seirun struggled to get up, it's body heavily damaged from the impact. "How could Seirun...?!"
"You did it! Finally!"
"Now! Crush her!"
"Even you all say that, I can't even see our feet, nevertheless you guys!" Leeron complained as he gingerly directed Dai-Gurren's clumsy movements.
"On our right!" Tetukan shouted as he and Shinji checked the monitor's message from Kiyol and Kiyal from the observation bridge underneath.
"Wait!" Kinon shouted after she looked away from the radar. "Something's coming at us really fast!"
Kinon's shout was followed by something hitting Dai-Gurren's foot and keeping it from moving any further.
"What is it?! What happened?!"
"Enkidu?!" Adiane shouted at the sight of Commander Viral's gunmen rescuing her. "What are you doing here, Viral?!"
"I humbly apologize for disobeying your orders!" Viral reported back. "I've got my own reasons!"
With that said, Enkidu forced Dai-Gurren off it's back, causing it to lose it balance and nearly crush it's gunmen as it fell.
"Wait, we can't leave like this!" Adiane protested as Enkidu carried Seirun in a supportive manner.
"As long as you still live, you can fight again another day, Adiane-sama! But for now, we must retreat!" Viral shot back before sighting Gurren within the massive cloud of dust. "You bastard! We're retreating for now, but we will return to finish this!"
From within Gurren's cockpit, Rossiu blinked in confusion as both Enkidu and Seirun vanished behind a smokebomb. "What?"
"They've fled?!" As the dust cleared away, King Kittan shouted after reaching Gurren's side. "We did it!"
"So... was Thymilph like your own... Aniki?" Simon gingerly asked while repairs to Dai-Gurren continued around them.
"...maybe. Thymilph was usually a very stern person. But I at least saw him a lot more than I saw Father." Nia touched the flower in her hair. "He especially got this rare flower for me, saying that he liked my hair."
Simon blinked. "He liked your hair?"
"Thymilph said it reminded him of the fiery hair Father used to have." Nia sighed. "And as the General of Fire, he did like fire a lot."
"...I'm sorry." Simon whispered. "While he was the cause of Aniki's death, he and I still killed him in retaliation... You've lost someone dear to you thanks to me... Nia, do you hate me...?"
"...no." Nia smiled at him honestly. "I can't hate you because I've already forgiven you. Besides, you saved me, Shinji-san and Rei-san earlier within just minutes of meeting us. How could I hate someone as kind as you?"
"You're the one who's kind." Simon's cheeks reddened as he looked down while clutching the railing. 'But even so... How would Aniki deal with this...?'
KingVessel: To be continued, so leave your reviews!
