Surprising Discoveries 

Jayr POV - Earth, Gekorn region - 1007 AFA-SW

Watching as Simon continues his relentless assault and his Spiral Power becomes more and more unstable, the frown on my face grows bigger and bigger.

Especially when all of a sudden, Gurren Lagann stops moving and starts throwing up Spiral Power as it kneels over raising its hand over its mouth in a futile attempt in stopping it, moreover the situation turns from bad to worse as the Spiral Power starts gushing out from the hole where usually the drills come out.

At the same time, the counter-currents in Simon's Spiral Power that I sensed before became even stronger, and sensing that I mutter in deep thought, "Strange, right now Simon's Spiral Power is spinning in two opposite directions... How is this possible?" and while I try to find a reason for this, Lagann disconnect itself from Gurren and jumps down a nearby cliff into the fated canyon where he will meet Nia, while the remaining enemy Gunmen follow after him leaving Gurren alone.

Then it finally hits me and I realize what is going on as a terrible theory forms in my mind, especially as I start to notice some similarities between Simon's current Spiral Power and what I felt from Lordgenome's unusual Spiral Power before and as I review everything I saw in the anime, 'Wait! Could it be that right now Simon is so deep into his despair that his Spiral Power is on its way to turning into Anti-Spiral Power!!?'

And soon a full theory forms in my mind as everything I know from the anime and all I learned until now firsthand about Spiral Power surfaces, 'I know for a fact that Lordgenome Spiral Power is of an unusual bright red color different from all the others bright green. This red energy is Anti Spiral Power. It is the same as its counterpart but driven by an opposing mentality. Both are powered by will and the refusal to give up. The red is paradoxically caused by a breaking of will so severe it inspires a new drive that opposes its original desires. The green is the will and fighting spirit of natural life.'

And as I grow more confident that my theory is true, I continue, 'The red is the sheer force of will to go against your own desires and emotions for the greater good. Both Lordgenome and the Anti-Spiral tribe threw away everything for the greater good. They both believed that the atrocities they are committing are truly the only option, thus creating Anti-Spiral Power. They all represent the idea of fear. The fear of the unknown. They all chose to do horrible things in hopes of saving at least something rather than risk the imminent destruction they were all directly but unknowingly responsible for. Rather than keep evolving they chose to halt while retaining their drive to preserve life at all costs even if they must commit atrocities to do it, for the sake of existence as they know it.'

And soon, my mind clears as I realize, 'This is the core of Anti-Spiral Power. Not evil but a drive to preserve something at all costs. Including the cost of moving forward. Anti-Spiral Power is the will and fighting spirit but inverted. Fighting fire with fire to avoid mutually assured destruction should be impossible. Spiral Power made it possible by inverting and becoming an equal force driven by opposite intent. Fear, self-loathing, rage. All negative emotions but in this case driven by a selfless, if twisted, intent.'

Reaching this conclusion, I also realize that I had misunderstood my supposed enemy the Antispiral, and as I realize this, all the actions I saw in the anime have another meaning, 'If everything is really as I think it is, then the Antispiral is a truly tragic figure. It is shown to be fully capable of deploying multiversal-scale attacks on a whim. However, it always meets its enemy head-on with as little force as possible. It claims this is to inspire despair.'

But remembering the scene of the universe-sized Super Granzeboma, this claim doesn't seem to hold, and so my introspection continues 'On one hand, if it just popped Super Granzeboma into existence and crushed Earth it would have massive collateral damage. On another, we have the possibility that Spiral beings will just evolve when faced with an unbeatable foe unless broken spiritually. So I can't help but feel that it does not want to cause destruction. It is also shown to be inquisitive. It claims that it needs to know but not understand. This is because it already understands.'

(AN: I know that his train of thought is going back and forth without a clear connection, this is by choice because I wanted to copy the same state when one idea after another chaotically appears in one's mind. Bear with it.)

Then I start to think back at the background of the Antispiral that I read on Wiki, 'The Antispiral is the collective consciousness of at least one species. A Spiral species. They collectively formed the Anti Spiral mentality and threw away their entire existence to create It. They gave up everything to create a guardian of the multiverse who could do what had to be done no matter the cost.'

Then the scenes of the fight between it and the Dai-Gurren Brigade once more surface, 'I remember that it showed anguish over the things it had to do when facing Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Its rage and fury were a show of frustration. It gave up everything and became a cosmic horror for the good of all creation. Now it's coming face to face with a race that is nearly equal and is fighting internally to suppress its own emotions and not empathize with them. As well as frustration that it might have given it all up for nothing. It had several opportunities to kill them effortlessly and still doesn't. It even tried to trap them in their own fantasies. It didn't want to hurt and kill because it was sadistic. It did it because it believed there is no other way.'

Reaching this point, I think back to Earth's current situation, 'The fact that it allowed Earth to survive under the rule of Lordgenome is further evidence. It tries several times to give the Spirals a way out, which considering the sacrifices it has made is pretty telling. It could just crush the opposition but tries to invoke despair so that the Spiral races can exist without the threat of the Spiral Nemesis. On death, it even asks Simon to take up its cause. It isn't evil, it just sees no other way. It can even be interpreted as its desire to cause despair is actually a cry for help.'

I look at the cloudy sky as if trying to see through the dense layer of clouds and look at the immense sky beyond it, 'In trying to fight on equal terms it could be doubting its own convictions, and allowing the opposition the chance to try and change its mind. Even if it can't admit it. Subconsciously it's leaving openings as the hope of Humanity makes it doubt itself. In the end, it seems to even accept Simon as a successor rather than lament its loss or despair of the possible Nemesis. As a scientist it saw a possible other way and allowed a hypothesis to play out, letting Team Dai-Gurren "level up" to match it both in power and ideals. This doubt could even explain why his Anti Spiral Power is purple. It no longer has the true Anti Spiral mentality that causes the red energy.'

While I realized all this, the other Gunmen of the Dai-Gurren Brigade finally reached the downed Gurren piloted by the Rossiu Adai, and together they start to jump into the canyon to rescue Simon, this brings me out of my storm of thought, and soon I follow after them to make sure that nothing wrong happens.

Simon POV - Earth, Gekorn region - 1007 AFA-SW

Feeling the wet sticky cold mud on my face and the cold rain falling on my body, I regain my senses and as I try to get up, a coughing fit hits me a reminder of that strange urge of throwing up that I've felt before.

After a few moments, the coughing stops and as I regain control of my body, I unconsciously clean my mouth with my sleeve and look back at Lagann laying on the ground behind me and mutter in confusion, "Why did... the controls?" then I slowly move toward it and once again enter in the cockpit.

Once inside, I turn the Drill Core to check Lagann's current situation and control if it works so that I can climb up from this place and return back to the Dai-Gurren, and with relief I realize that Lagann activates without problem and mutter, "It works!" and so, following my controls, Lagann starts to slowly walk up the nearby slope as I start to climb up.

At the end of the slope, I find myself in a strange place, it seem like that place Yoko told me about, if I remember well, she called it a junkyard, it is full of countless boxes, broken stuff, and the like, then I notice a Gunmen standing on top of the opposite rock wall in the distance casually throwing another one of those box.

That particular box lands on the muddy slope and starts sliding down until it stops just a few meters in front of me, and unable to hold back my curiosity, I jump down from Lagann and slowly walk toward it as the splashing sound of my boots echoes all over this place.

Once in front of it, I move my hand over the cold metal surface, and then I notice a small familiar drill-shaped keyhole, exactly the same kind of keyhole found in Lagann, and realizing this, without thinking I run back to Lagann to grab my Core Drill,

Standing in front of this box with the Core Drill in my hand, I notice that it is once again pulsing just like the first time I activated Lagann and that the same thing is happening to the drill-shaped keyhole.

I insert the Core Drill into the keyhole and turn it, and instantly to my surprise the box lets out some freezing cold smoke and starts to open, letting out even more smoke that blocks my sight of the content of this pod.

But soon the cold smoke clears away revealing what is inside, stunning me, inside this box is a beautiful sleeping girl, and as I'm looking at her in my stunned state, she stirs awake, and slowly opens her eyes, then she elegantly raises her body and looks at me for a few second before an enchanting smile form on her face as she says, "Greetings!"

Still stunned by her I stumble back unsure, "G-G-Greeting!?" then take a closer look at her, she is a beautiful and delicate-looking young girl of average height with long curly, light blue/pale blonde hair, which appears immaterial, floating and moving like a cloud with hair tips resembling the edges of a blue-gold cloud, peach skin and unique blue eyes with pink crosses "+" for pupils that looks like flowers and wears some regal looking pink and white outfit.

(Image Here - Nia Teppelin)

While I'm looking at her, the girl asks in a sweet and elegant tone, "Who might you be?" unconsciously raising my hands like a sign of surrender I repeat and mutter while feeling strangely nervous as I stand in front of her, "Wh-Wh-Wh-Who might I be? Asked so elegantly...!"

But just before I could reply, she looks at the sky and exclaims with glee in her tone and asks, "Ah! This is outside, isn't it? Is this rain!?"

At the same time, she raises her arms and opens her palms as she feels the rain falling on her.

Then she suddenly starts to climb out of the metal box in such a way that she would carelessly expose the scenery under her skirt, and noticing that, I quickly tear my gaze away.

Soon, I hear the splashing sound generated by her feet as they touch the muddy ground, and as I look back at her, I hear her say in wonder, "This is... cold!"

Confused, I mutter, "It's just the ground..." and noticing the fact that she is barefooted, I ask, "Are you okay being barefoot?" which she replies with a tone that seems to indicate that she is enjoying the sensation, "It's cold, muddy, and sticky. It feels nice!"

Hearing that, I further question her clearly confused by her attitude, "Are you sure... It feels nice?" but she doesn't reply, she just looks at me, and all of a sudden, she moves right in front of me and hold my face with her hands, so close that the only thing I can see now is her clear and unusual but still beautiful eyes, I also feel her light breath touching my face, and can't help but feel incredibly nervous as a heavy blush forms on my face.

At the same time, she asks with genuine curiosity in her tone, "Why are you the same as me?" such a question and the overall situation stuns me so much that I can only utter, "Huh?" before she continues, "You don't have a tail, fangs, or scales. And also your skin is soft!"

As I start to calm down a little, I quickly reply, "Well, of course... that's because I'm human."

The girl once more asks, "Human?" making me confirm it once more, "Yes, human. As in, people."

Hearing my reply the girl takes a step back and asks, "People? What exactly is that?" her clueless expression surprises me once more and after a few instants, I try to explain as well as I can, "Eh... well... people are beings like you and me. They're shaped like us and have faces..."

The girl's face lights up as she asks with yearning in her tone, "There are more like us?" to which I simply reply with, "Yes... Yeah... there are."

My reply seems to make her happy, then she asks, "Really!? And... they're all like you? With the same face?"

I quickly reply with, "They're not all the same. If we all had the same face, it'd be creepy." the girl repeats what I just said with a question in her tone, "It would be creepy?" but then she raises her head and exclaims, "Ha! The rain stopped!"

Hearing that I look up and realize that it's true, the rain stopped, and, at the same time, I notice that the cloudy sky that hunted us since that dreadful day is starting to clear as the sun's rays start to make their way through the clouds, and say, "Ah... you're right."

And after that, we fall into a strange silence that seems last an eternity, but a few moments later she once more asks, "I wonder why I'm outside?"

Unable to find an answer to her question, I start to stutter, "Eh... well... you ask why, but..." but then I suddenly remember that we are still in danger as there are the Gunmen of the Human Eradication Army nearby, and while starting to take off my boots, I say, "A-Anyway, we need to get out of here."

Then I lay them on the ground in front of her feet and say, "Here..." and hearing her confused exclamation, I explain, "You can't walk like that. Put these on."

The girl then says, "Okay!" and inserts her feet into the boots, then with a smile she says, "I'm Nia. And you?" at the same time, the sun rays start to illuminate her figure, and feeling the heat on my cheek, I reply, "M-Me? I'm Simon."

Nia looks at me and with a bright smile, she says, "Simon! That's a nice name, isn't it!"

Now that the light is shining on her whole body, she appears even more beautiful than before, and as I feel the heat on my cheek growing even hotter, I reply, "Thank you..."

Nia then snaps and catches my attention by saying, "Hey, Simon..."

Looking at her, I ask, "What?", she raises her hand and point with her finger at something behind me and says, "What is that?", and with a hint of dread I turn around and see the enemy Gunmen if I remember right it is called Mezu, a horse-faced Gunman armed with sharp claws on its right hand and Gatling gun fingers in its left hand.

Seeing that I let out a scream, then I quickly grab Nia's hand, and yelling "Quickly! This way!" I pull her toward Lagann, while the Mezu shoots at us with its Gatling, but luckily the Gunmen's reaction was too slow and once it started shooting, we are already away from the danger zone, running down between the Mezu's legs.

While we are running, Nia calmly asks once more, "Simon, what is that?" and in panic, I quickly explain, "It's a Gunmen! Human on the surface fight against them!" hearing that Nia asks, "Fight?".

I feel the ground shake as the Gunmen behind us start to turn around, and as I briefly look back to check on the enemy I answer her, "If we don't fight them, they'll kill us!"

And as I said this, we finally reach Lagann and without hesitation, I jump inside with Nia behind me, and insert the Core Drill into the circular dashboard, then I mutter, "Please! Lagann!" and turn it to activate Lagann hoping that it works.

Luckily Lagann activates without problems and I full of relief yell "Yes!" but at the same time, the Mezu had the time to take aim and shoot a volley of missiles at us.

Seeing that, I quickly close Lagann's cockpit, and as the missiles are about to hit us, I take control of Lagann and jump toward the Mezu using the explosion and smoke created by the missiles as cover to start my counterattack.

Seeing the opening in the enemy's defenses, I once again feel the desperate urge to destroy them so that I can avenge Aniki and fulfill my role as his replacement, and so I bring out the drill from Lagann's forehead and rush toward the enemy ready to pierce through it.

But once more Lagann stops and goes out of control as it gushes out that green energy from everywhere, and that gives the enemy Gunmen the chance to hit us with a punch that sends Lagann crashing into the ground, and we fly out of it.

Still disoriented from the impact, I find myself laying on the ground with Nia on top of me as she asks, "Simon, are you okay?" but I don't reply to her and mutter totally confused by what is happening, "Damn it! It happened again. Why? Why won't it listen to me? Lagann!"

At the same time, the enemy Mezu approaches, and seeing that, I get up and say, "Run, Nia. You should run away without looking back. I'll hold the Gunmen off!" while saying that, I move toward Lagann and search for my drill, the drill invented by my father and that has always accompanied me since my days at Giha Village.

Meanwhile, Nia tries to stop me, but I instantly interrupt her and yell my genuine feelings, "I can't bear it! I can't bear to watch anyone else die! If anyone else is going to die, then it's gonna be me!" but despite saying this, I can't hold on the drill firmly as my hands continue to shake in fear of the thing that I'm about to face.

I continue to shake as I look at the big Gunman in front of me as it opens its horse mouth and reveals the huge missile inside that aims at me, but soon I feel a set of hands holding my own.

I look at the person beside me, and see Nia looking back at me as she asks, "Do you want to die?" which surprises me, and then she continues, "If you're scared, it's okay to run. You mustn't die."

Hearing that and seeing her clear gaze, I look away and mutter, "I-I'm not scared." but she quickly catches my lie and says, "You mustn't lie either." I once again look at her and with a smile, she adds, "Let's run, together." and she starts to pull me away.

But as we are running, the Gunman behind us fires that huge missile, and I can clearly feel it as it quickly approaches us, but then I hear the familiar sound of Yoko's rifle firing three times, followed by the sound of her bullet hitting its target the same number of time, and soon after that, the deafening sound and heat of the explosion behind us.

Then I hear Kittan's voice as he yells, "I'm here too! Kittan Stinger!" and hear the sound of metal crashing as Kittan uses the usual tactic of impaling his enemy with the joined pointy end of his Gunmen, King Kittan, and look while still holding Nia's hand as he follows through by landing on the ground and by the opening of that pointy end that results into the enemy being ripped apart as he yells, "Crown! Hellish Headsplitter!" causing the two halves to grandly explode.

Jayr POV - Earth, Gekorn region - 1007 AFA-SW

I look at the members of the Dai-Gurren Brigade plus Nia as they return back to the Dai-Gurren with a smile on my face, at the same time, I mutter, "It seems that everything is going well. Sure, Simon's Spiral Power is still very chaotic swinging between the natural state and the Anti Spiral Power state, but that is something that should be fixed soon."

I then look at the scraps of the Beastmen's Gunmen behind me, all of them destroyed by the combined effort of Yoko, and Kittan, with a little bit of support from me, and say, "And even if it doesn't and something unexpected happens, I can always pull out Kamina from my Soulbbound Territory and make him punch some sense into him."

Then my gaze doesn't focus on anything as I think back to my previous theory, 'If everything is really as I think, then should I try to save Antispiral too? If yes... how the hell can I do so!? Well, first of all, the driving force of all of the Antispiral's action is to prevent the Spiral Nemesis, a theoretical apocalyptic event involving the overuse of Spiral Power...'

I close my eyes as I try to remember what I read on the wiki in the Arifureta's Earth about the Spiral Nemesis, 'The theory is basically that Spiral Power would eventually reach a point beyond lifeforms' ability to control, causing them to spontaneously evolve into full-sized galaxies. The sudden increase in mass throughout the universe would lead to these mega-galaxies' mass becoming significant enough to crush the entirety of time and space itself, converging all of existence to a dimensionless singularity, a Big Crunch that will swallow the whole universe...'

But as I think of that, a frown form on my face as another image forms into my mind, the scene of the clash between Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Super Granzeboma's Giga Drill Breaks, 'But back then, when Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Super Granzeboma's Giga Drill Breaks collided, the Antispiral's universe began to collapse all mass into a singularity. But regardless of the reality-collapsing event both sides had induced, they had survived the Big Crunch... So even if the Spiral Nemesis could really happen it isn't as lethal as the Antispiral thinks and is inevitable. I can still think of a few solutions to it. Or maybe I'm missing something?'

I open my eyes and raise my hand then use my Spiral Power to create a hand-sized replica of the universe, then I will it to collapse on itself and the result of this is a small black hole that I keep contained with my Spiral Power, and mutter, "This is the result of the natural life cycle of the universe. Everything collapse is devoured by the all-encompassing black hole. But where there is an end, there is also a beginning!"

And instantly I use the feeling of making my Cosmo burn and explode that is by now engraved in my very soul, and as a result, the black hole explodes in a new Big Bang, beginning the creation of a new, bigger, and even stronger universe than before that can contain much more Spiral Power before collapsing once more.

And seeing that, I say, "This is something that will happen to all universes, the only problem here is that the Spiral Power as a force of evolution speed up this process by a lot... But still, the easiest solution to the Spiral Nemesis is to simply protect all the sentient lifeforms until a new universe is born. Hell, with Spiral Power they can even speed up the creation of it...'

But soon I'm brought out from my reflection as I sense something quickly approaching the Dai-Gurren from below, and soon all around it, four enormous pillars of water erupt from the ground forming a water wall all around the walking fortress, and seeing that, I mutter, "Here we go. Another general makes her appearance!"