Chapter 10

Simon had not ever really performed an assault on an opposing planet. Not really.

Sure, there had been that time he had to stop the moon from crashing into the Earth, but even then he did not really have to worry about collateral damage. Not really. This? This was different.

They couldn't even move the super galaxy dai Gurren too close to Calim 4, not without the sheer gravitational pull of the vessel devastating the planet below them. Its guns and batteries could batter this entire solar system into dust, even from lightyears away, but firepower fit to slag entire continents on all but the lowest of settings was ill suited for bombarding planets with friendlies still on them. A single broadside would be enough to liquify all of Calim 4, turning what once was a vibrant world filled with life into a ball of burning plasma and radiation.

The sheer loss of life involved in the concept repulsed him.

So they had taken the very next best thing available to them.

Space was as beautiful as it had always been, he noted, as he moved Arc Gurren Lagann forward, its enormous feet leaving the worldship alongside a host of its giant comrades, the mountain-sized space gunman taking to the void. Each machine was a titan of the battlefield, moving with power and grace.

"This last big fight is taking longer than I planned. I got a fancy dinner date next week."

"You don't have a date Sorthy, you lazy bum."

"The hell I don't! You don't know her!"

"Get real, you blew that last date so hard you had to sleep on my sofa. You still owe me a bottle of booze."

"Shut your traps bozos, we got a planet to save." Moving ahead of the Arc Gurren Lagann was the Space Dayakkaiser, its weapons already out and ready to fire. Even Leyte's talents couldn't build an entire new space gunman this quickly, he had to borrow one.

"Oh? Is the great Kittan done with his little nap?"

"Hey, I didn't know the Dayakkaiser was a two seater. Which one tops?"

"Which one?" "One which?"

"Come now guys, let's have some class. I hope she wasn't too rough on you."

"You guys know I'm on the ship's turrets." Yoko radioed. Simon observed one of the smaller cannons swivel towards their formation, the target data singled out a massive concentration of bugs on the planet's surface. Definitely not them, a ping on the sensors was just a test.

"Keep it up guys. See how long my good mood lasts."

Simon himself was not stupid. He knew enough about sex to know why the two were so furiously teased. The very obvious bite marks on Yoko's neck and all over her so generously exposed cleavage, the scratches on Kittan's face and back, the way both walked funny and exploded into blushes when even just questioned about the absolute mess their respective hairstyles had become. It was no wonder the two scurried off so fast when Simon gave the order to scramble.

As much as practically every male on the ship bemoaned that they had not managed to get with the extremely busty redhead, he was happy for both of them. Even ignoring the fact that both had done far too much for him and humanity in general for him ever to be jealous, the crush he had harbored for Yoko had long since been utterly stamped out by the feelings he had for a lovable dork, who cooked food of a remarkably required taste. A princess with brilliant flowing hair he loved for all that she had turned him down. An innocent girl who could hurt not even a fly.

A girl corrupted and in the hands of some nightmare of space, so horrible as to depopulate an entire universe in the pursuit of its omnicidal desires.

The controls he was holding didn't so much shatter as disintegrated completely under the strength of his grip. Steel so reinforced to shrug off explosions strong enough to vaporize whole cities burst into a rain of metal, the shards bouncing off his skin.

Ah... he appeared to be quite angry.

With a single flex of a wrist, he reformed the damaged handles with a flash of spiral power, his eyes moving over a nearby screen, directly linked to the Dai-Gurren's sensors, showing the vast red blanket that was the tyranid infection of Calim 4's main continent. In that very moment, a multi-kilometer thick beam of one of the Planet-ship's tertiary guns blasted past them, corresponding with several hundred square kilometers of red vanishing of the map.

In order to avoid collateral damage, they had to lower the damage probability of every little thing in the blast and shockwave zone that was not a Tyranid to 0%, meaning each shot took a while. Too long to clear the planet before even more of its population was butchered.

Still, he did not mind this.

It was nice that there was an entire planet of monsters ahead of him to cool off a bit.

"There, was that power nap good enough for you? Because you can't be slacking off for too long, I can't carry you the entire way." Viral grinned over the line.

000

Lasgun fire was a constant addition to the cacophony, albeit muffled through the hull of his Leman Russ.

It was hardly a mighty Baneblade, that one of his regiment had sadly been eaten by a humongous worm but three days ago, but Galhad was still proud of his tank, especially considering the round it just put through the skull of an charging Carnifex, the beast's hide covered in almost pockmark like holes from lasgun fire. And most of the company that had been pouring said lasers on the monster.

Colonel Galhad, he was now. Still felt weird to say that. Colonel Lancal died when he blew up the Baneblade inside that worm. Despite the situation, he could feel his chest swell in pride at the memory of the heroic sight. Of the scarred and wounded tank, a venerable machine that had faithfully served the regiment for centuries, slaying xenos and traitors on battlefields across the segmentum, billowing fire from its hatches, all its ammo expended, charging full speed into the maw of that fearsome monster. He could still hear the horn blowing right before it detonated, man and machine spirit roaring their defiance until the end.

That they had lost the Baneblade still sucked though.

In fact, the entire 6 months or so sucked.

It had started relatively well, even. The Mordian 4930th Regiment, together with some lads and lasses from Valhalla, Armageddon and a couple dozen other worlds had been sent out to squash some rebellion in the Calim System. A simple campaign, like they had done before numerous times.

Old Erblic had ranted about how this was too big a force for just some rebellion. That something bigger was going on.

Of course nobody in the Mordian regiment was stupid enough to complain in the open, regulations dictated floggings for much smaller offenses. The Mordian officers weren't complete tyrants, they knew allowing some grumbling in the barracks helped to blow off steam, as long as that was where it stayed. The same couldn't be said for their fellow regiments, their lack of discipline was aggravating.

A nearby tremor rattled the entire tank, the force of the explosion that caused it was strong enough to throw his vehicle half a meter in the air, judging by how hard he banged his head against the bulkhead, one that had not been carved in by an unnaturally durable and sharp tendril of flesh.

The artillery strike he had called on his position over an hour ago seemed to finally be striking, long after his requests to Mordian guns had not gotten any responses. How comforting to know that their allied regiments had finally dealt with those xenos infiltrators.

Ah, good ole Erblic, Emperor rest his soul.

Commissar Daniels had simply said there were so many forces because they were so close to Baal and had reprimanded them for the chatter. The chap was even still alive, from what he last saw. A brave sort, he didn't need discipline for faltering in his duties.

Shame he wouldn't get to see any of the Emperor's angels before he died, "close" as they were to the famed Blood Angels. Supposedly.

According to the sermons they had heard, given by the Adeptes Soritas detachment with their forces.

Course, the Sisters of Battle and priests who had been holding that had all mostly gone crazy yesterday. Screaming some such that the Emperor had arrived and they'd stand tall in his presence.

Sounded a bit heretical, if one asked him, saying the God Emperor didn't do all his mightily important tasks just to alleviate them of their duty. Still, all of them had had this big shine around them, before they all charged the enemy at once. If nothing else, they did a great job of distracting that gigantic spindly monster the Tyranids unleashed, letting his unit put twelve rounds in that titan sized creature's face. That was some excellent gunnery work.

The Sisters themselves did cut down an impressive amount of the bugs before their horrible deaths, guns running empty before drawing knives and chainswords. Dreadful sight that was.

His concussion, it seemed, was slowly coming down while he stumbled upright, he stopped seeing hazy images and now only saw duplicates. Skull trauma training was paying off quite well.

He saw only three different versions of Ensign Mark over his seat. And counter. And the tank controls.

Wait, no, that was Evan, going by the heart that was carved into that helmet. Before this campaign he was flogged for defacing his equipment, but once he regained consciousness he had declared the punishment to be worth it. A shame, he had great jokes. And he was a hell of a shot with that battle cannon.

The hole the sisters of battle had left in their battle lines had put them in a bit of a pickle, he had to admit that. Although to give some undeserved fairness, the whole situation had gone crazy.

Guardsmen dropped their weapons and screamed, some in terror and some in manic rage, sticking hands in the air before running at the enemy fist first. Shamefully a number of Mordians were among them, not just the rank and file, but even a few officers shouted before charging. Only a couple even fixed bayonets first. The legendary discipline that safeguarded Mordia, that defined the regiments sent out from their proud world, it was discarded in a display of colossally stupid bravery.

Then… things had turned truly weird. To a horrifying degree.

As far as he could tell, going by reports from sectors all over the damn planet, everyone was consumed by the same vision. Even just thinking about it... it sent a sharp drill of pain through his brain, entirely distinct from the concussion currently making his forehead feel like it was filled with minced meat.

A sight of a colossal maw, stretching to engulf a galaxy entirely between its fangs, ready to swallow it all. To see the glory of humanity and all other species of the Milky Way swept away by an unending tide of fang and horn. Consumed by a hunger that was infinite, ever expanding, ever ferocious.

Words, concepts, entirely foreign to him had invaded his consciousness.

Sights of a titan of endlessly evolving energy arising from the galaxy, delivering a mighty right hook against the doom that was about to befall everything.

How biomatter, so ludicrous in number and size as to outmass every ship, every planet, every star of this galaxy, shuddered as one in earnest pain, perhaps for the first time in the history of the universe. How countless little subsections, incomprehensible in number and yet presenting such a miniscule amount of the greater whole, had been severed of it as psychic nerves spawning entire nebulae were set ablaze and withered.

The vision itself couldn't have lasted more than a couple minutes, but it had taken hours. This went far beyond any kind of trauma management training he had done, it almost felt like some type of psyker effect, but without the sensation that his soul was manipulated in the process. Galhad honestly had no idea how to describe it, except that the process was thoroughly unpleasant and yet….

There had been a strength in him for a couple seconds afterwards, one he couldn't say he disliked.

Alas, that was the way of heresy and the commissar's bullet. He was not nearly so silly as to believe in powers other than the Emperor.

Whatever this giant of power was, it was only yet another horror to assail humanity in this galaxy.

When it finally receded he climbed out of his Russ' hatch, catching part of his jacket on a chunk of scrap metal. The tear he heard was going to see him catch hell from the… right, he was the Colonel. He was still getting used to that. He was in a battle, he couldn't care about his uniform right now. Instead…

He climbed on top of his tank, his joints aching now that he could stretch. Only habit kept him moving, instead he just… stared. It had been a long time since he was struck dumb like this.

The tyranids had been hit worse than them, a lot.

A whole bunch just…. Exploded. Others disintegrated, some being pulled into tiny pebbles of flesh and more had their insides rapidly become their outside. There was a giant pile of flesh nearby his ruined tank, he initially mistook for one of their blasted digestion pools until he looked closer. It was a smear of flesh and bone that seemed to have been melted, then left to dry for who knew how long. There was a larger mass in a crumpled building nearby, it was recognizable as a carnifex, or at least it was.

The rest, they ran. He did not think that expressions of fear were even possible on those gastly faces, but he had learned better. Beasts with inhuman viciousness and unnatural coordination simply… scattered. Like prey animals running for their lives, in a way these xenos simply did not do. Their basic strains could fall back to regroup, or to set up a new defensive line, their cunning strains could set up traps or lure attackers into an ambush, but this? They behaved more like human rebels, losing their nerves and fleeing.

Worse, and he had to tap his head a couple times to ensure his eyes weren't deceiving him, he saw a pack of the smaller types through the tank's scope, the briefings called them termangaunts, small creatures with a short ranged projectile weapon -the officer was vague over what it actually shot, spikes or poison or even small bugs- and a nasty bite, snacking on a larger strain's corpse. The moment something moved they took off running in a chittering panic, vanishing into the ruins.

Something had horrified to an extent that was frankly beyond his comprehension. Were he a stupid man, he'd lose much sleep over what had done it.

He was a proud son of Mordia however, so he had simply figured it was the same thing that had them all dreaming, and so he had just gunned as many as he could down, figuring that they'd be back.

Sadly he had been right.

From the dubious safety of his Russ he witnessed a monster stomping past his location, something that shook the ground beneath him, rattling the heavy tank like a toy. Or well, what was left of it. A lesser strain compared to what he saw in the distance.

It wasn't a relief force that finally arrived, hours after it would have mattered. A trio of towering Knights, huge machines that acted as auxiliaries to the mighty Titans, tiny compared to the god machines yet still mightier than anything less than a Baneblade, sporting battle cannons and fearsome huge chainswords, stomped into view. Only to find something waiting for them.

Perhaps it was seeking them out, maybe it was chance that it found them here. But what arrived was a monster, something far different than the deceptively thin Hierophant his unit killed earlier. It was bipedal, with two arms and legs and a head, completely unlike any tyranid he had seen. The similarity to man ended there. Its hide was a patchwork of deformed flesh and scaled plates, much of it looking like it was fused together from countless smaller tyranids. Clawed feet shook the ground from every footfall, curling to grab purchase. One arm had a trio of enormous claws, each one seemed to be an array of the notorious Genestealer's claws pressed together, while its other was simply a massive tentacle ending in a huge curved blade. Rippling muscles contorted all along its frame, seemingly regenerating just by moving its bulk. Or adding more features to an already impressive specimen, he spotted appendages sprouting on its shoulders and arms, and even on its legs, similar to the artillery organisms such as the Biovore, but scaled up and far more numerous.

And its head, it was shaped like the smaller monsters with an elongated snout and a mouthful of fangs, eight eyes focusing on its opposition.

It gazed upon the knights, and let loose a roar that nearly blew out his hearing.

Cannons thundered, blasting its bulk in a cloud of smoke, but it surged through with unnatural speed, leaning forward as it sprinted towards the Knights, the quake of its stomps shaking the ground. Its own bio-cannons fired back, slinging massive spikes that tore through the first Knight's armor, breaking its cannon in half. Once it was closer acid sprays gushed out, the creature weaved around the wounded Knight's chainsword as it was coated in the foul stuff, slagging its armor in a dishonorable attack.

Galhad idly noticed it was half again as tall as the already huge Knights, a worrying observation that he buried when it slung its tentacle out. The second Knight's chainsword cut off the blade part, but the limb wrapped around the weapon's joint and pulled, slinging the whole giant around, right into the third Knight's bulk. Both staggered, the last digging trenches as it caught its footing. By accident that saved it, the monster wretched itself around and unleashed a volley of attacks, swarms of beetles and spikes and even bolts of lightning, tearing apart the second Knight. It slumped, impaled by a lengthy spike right through its cockpit.

The last Knight shrugged off its comrade, adjusting its footing and facing the tyranid abomination. Its head unit was unchanged, but Galhad could feel rage emanating off the Knight.

It charged first, running sideways to dodge a volley of spikes, using its shoulder armor to absorb a lightning bolt. The monster roared as it lashed its tentacle, only to shriek when the chainsword chopped it off. A boom caused the monster to jerk back, roaring as it shrugged off the blast. But that cost a precious couple seconds.

The knight swung its whole body, putting its considerable mass into a downwards slash. Even with as tough as the creature was, there was no way it could survive an attack like that. The knight brought the weapon down-

It jerked, the chainsword limply falling away. The tyranid staggered, forcing the Knight to slump back, revealing that its claws had pierced its cockpit. Metal crunched while it pushed its foe away, ripping its arm free once it was no longer under pressure. The Knight fell into a heap of scrap, its cockpit a thoroughly shredded mess, while the monster shook its arm, flaking off chunks of metal. Its wounds were already healing, recovering from the entire exchange.

The tyranid giant let out a tremendous roar, declaring its victory over mankind. And then, in the middle of having his spirits crushed, Galhad heard an incoming roar. Like artillery but…

Its roar ended, looking upwards.

A tower of grey metal slammed into the ground, right where the tyranid was standing. Galhad's tank shook again, dust billowing out from the landing site of… he looked up, no longer trying to make sense of what he saw. He wondered if he hit his head again, or a psyker was turning his brain into stew, because otherwise he had no explanation for why there was a giant tower in the ground, which was connected to a ship sized knee above it, or why there was a similar tower nearby. That was connected to a hip, and… a massive face shaped torso, and another face above it, and giant arms-

Galhad slapped himself. Looking again, he muttered a curse, He considered flogging himself next, but he dismissed the idea, this wasn't a disciplinary issue. No, he was actually seeing a god machine that made even the mighty Emperor class Titan look like a toddler.

"ATTENTION IMPERIAL CITIZENS. THIS IS THE DAI-GURREN BRIGADE, WE HAVE COME TO SAVE YOU."It bellowed from its maw, eclipsing even the tyranid beast it stomped on.

After a long moment of gawking, Galhad could only sigh. Mordian training needed an overhaul.

AN:
And here is the long awaited next chapter! Hope it's decent and I wish you all a happy day!