Super Robot Wars/Z2/Story Summary/Part 5

CHAPTER 40. Advent of the True!

Strange things are afoot at the Saotome Lab, and Elgan wants Zexis to go check it out. Some on the team are starting to wonder whether Elgan is entirely to be trusted -- maybe he hasn't lied to the team as such, but he doesn't appear to be telling the whole truth either. Ootsuka can't conceal that he has his own reservations about Elgan's preternatural level of involvement in world affairs, and Takeru asks him how Elgan learned of these "strange things" when the Federation observers haven't noted anything unusual.

Ryouma doesn't actually care where the info came from, willing to take any pretext available to go find out whether Saotome really means to destroy the world. He gives Ootsuka a warning to take back to Elgan: Zexis isn't gonna be his lapdogs forever. As Ootsuka hangs up, sensors detect a 5XL-sized flying Gunmen heading toward the selfsame Saotome lab. Game on then, it seems.

Saotome takes the air raid sirens with stoic aplomb. THE WORLD IS ENDING AND IT'S STARTING ENDING RIGHT HERE!!!!!! His ranting quickly changes to recriminations when he notices his son cowering in terror. If ONLY he hadn't ever gotten mixed up in Getter Ray research. If ONLY his daughter hadn't gotten crushed, then dropped from a great height, then exploded in a giant orange fireball. But he'll protect Genki, even if its costs him his life! This seems hopeless, but Shikishima is confident that should Saotome turn Getter Rays to evil, someone is bound to turn up who will use them for good. He tells Benkei that they've got work to do to prepare for the worst-case scenario...

At the controls of the flying Gunmen is Sitmandra, eager to impress his boss Lowgenome. Saotome decides to teach these stupid beasts to respect Getter Rays, and launches a massive army of Getter robots. It is to be a battle between the forces of Evolution and the forces of... well, let's just say anti-Evolution in the interest of avoiding a religious controversy. Zexis shows up before the fracas can begin, and the insane Saotome orders them all one last time to stay out of his way so he can punish mankind for doubting the power of Getter Rays. He and the Beastmen both start shooting, and Ryouma declares the hell with it. He told Saotome once before that it would be him who would finish Saotome off, and today's the day to do it.

 As the battle rages, the Invaders show up, and these ones have evolved to
 actually _eat_ the Getter Beam.  The only chance is to use Open Get, using
 the three Getter Machines' reactors in parallel to exceed the Invaders'
 absorption rate.  Unfortunately the Invaders have a trick up their sleeve
 too -- two in fact, named Goll and Brai.  The separate Getter Machines don't
 stand a chance, but the Getter Team members themselves are tough enough to
 survive a plane crash or two.  They mean to go confront Saotome in person and
 hope the rest of the team can hold the fort in the meantime.

 Sitmandra tries to obstruct them, but Simon runs interference with a
 brilliant plan: he actually coopts one of the flying enemies and uses it to
 fuel his own counterattack.  The Beastmen in fact cannot hope to hang with
 Zexis and Saotome's forces, and are forced to flee with their tails between
 their legs in short order.

 That lets Saotome focus his wrath on Zexis.  He deploys all his Getter
 reserves, which a mysterious man next to him combine into one _giant_
 monstrosity.  Saotome's maniacal laughter has gone into full incoherency
 mode, and Ryouma prepares to shoot the guy when Benkei stops him -- for
 Genki's sake if not for Saotome's himself.

 Shikishima shows up to explain what the hell's going on.  Saotome has been
 possessed, as it were, by the Getter Rays... which the beast Saotome calls
 "True Dragon" is emitting at an alarming rate.  It hasn't been fully
 determined what effect Getter Rays have on life forms, but it's clear that
 they aren't entirely innocuous.  Ryouma and the team need to somehow stop
 True Dragon, but that sounds tough without their mecha.  Fortunately for
 them, the good doctor has left behind one last token of his good will:
 True Getter Robo!

 Saotome doesn't think True Getter Robo stands a chance, and that's before
 more Invaders show up.  Hayato realizes they're somehow attracted to
 the Getter Rays, but Saotome declares that the realization has come too late.
 Of course Ryouma isn't having it, meaning to strike down Saotome's creation
 if he can't strike down Saotome himself.

 Brai and Goll are ugly as hell and constitute at least a minor roadblock on
 the path to victory.  Saotome is nice enough to tell the Getter Team that
 they're actually avatars of Ryouma and Hayato, created as part of his twisted
 master plan.  He promises vengeance for their deaths, but Ryouma means to
 wreak even greater vengeance for Saotome's audacity in trying to clone(?)
 him.

 As True Dragon goes down in flames, Saotome seems to recover a bit of his
 sanity, telling Genki to follow in his footsteps and apologizing both to him
 and to the Getter Team that the divine punishment he earned should fall on
 them as well.  This is the fate of all those who touch Getter Rays, and woe
 to him for not realizing the true enemy till it was too late.  The lab begins
 to explode, and the team are forced to flee for their lives.

Corwen and Stinger are quite nonplussed to hear of Saotome's defeat: the humans are proving far more resilient than they expected. They'll have no choice but to slip their schedule, using the extra time to prepare a better countermeasure for the humans for the next battle. Elgan barges into their UN office at this point, wasting no time in holding them accountable for their crimes by shooting them on the spot. They curse his insight, and tell him he'd better keep his cleverness up until the world ends. As Dorian comes running over to see what the commotion is, Elgan laments that there's only so much he can do to stave off the end of the world -- his only choice is to trust in Zexis to do that for him.

In the aftermath of the blast, the pilots discuss Saotome's checkered legacy, a legacy indelibly stained by the Getter Rays. Hayato has finally figured out something crucial: the Invaders, intelligent or not, are drawn to Getter Rays. This explains why the Invaders preferentially appear wherever Getter Robo and it's Getter Ray power plant go, as well as why they showed up on Earth in the first place. Did Saotome know this even before he built Getter Robo? And what was the purpose of True Dragon? What is clear is that True Dragon, if allowed to function, would act as a massive beacon drawing more and more Invaders to Earth. And given that current technology can't control the combined output of True Dragon's many reactors, the whole thing was likely to melt down and contaminate all of Japan with Getter Rays.

Benkei will take care of Genki for now, and Shikishima is planning to go hang out with his old friends at the Photon Power Lab. As the Getter Team pledge to use Saotome's last bequest (True Getter Robo) to the best of their ability, Hayato wonders about the Invaders: why are they only attacking humans and not the Beastmen too? Was Saotome doing something that specifically attracted them today? And what _was_ the deal with True Dragon, or that dude with Saotome? For what, at the end, was Saotome apologizing?

The fracas has also attracted the attention of Gaiou, who plans a little trip to Japan to see what it is that could trouble his mind so. He will brook _no_ support from his lackeys, who he terrifies into leaving him alone. He's hoping to find something to jog his missing memories, though Eim isn't sure if that's a good thing or not. In either case, he's got to hurry with Asakim on the move.

Meanwhile, it seems Saotome isn't as dead as everyone expected. In a chamber deep beneath his collapsed lab, he finds himself in a pile of rubble along with a chamber, in which is a young man. Gaiou shows up at this point, saying he's got business with the scientist and his subject...

CHAPTER 41. The Life of Marg

With Sitmandra's boasting in ruins, Gwarm is the next of Lowgenome's lieutenants in the firing line. Gwarm actually wants the assignment, having considered the threat posed by the humans' strange little Gunmen to be even more urgent than the Getter Rays. Lowgenome writes the Gurren Lagann off as one more random thing the humans should never have dug up, but Gwarm isn't so sure it's that simple. Lowgenome isn't in the habit of having his subordinates talking back to him, but is willing to give Gwarm his shot based on how long the two of them have been together in return for the promise to kill off the one with the power of the Spiral. One of the Ones Who Know the End, the Gishin emperor, has come to the solar system in search of power with which to fight Baal in the True War to come. The Spiral Lord, however, thinks he can defend the Earth himself.

Back at Battle Camp, Crow is enjoying the best kind of coffee: free. He's been drinking nothing but water at the Zexis cafeteria in an effort to save money, and even his fear of women seems to lssen if those women feed him. All in all, spirits seem bright given the number of problems Zexis (and indeed the world) face -- even Takeru is able to laugh, despite his inevitable fretting over Marg.

A guest arrives for the retro super robot pilots: Rui, from the eighth planet (quite _which_ eighth planet isn't stated). She encountered the Blue Fixer and God Sigma teams before they reached this Earth, and has come in person now as part of the interstellar resistance against Zhul's tyrrany. Word is that Zhul has come in person to the Solar System, proof of how important the Earth must be to him. Takeru has no idea why this might be, but guesses that the team will find out if they meet Zhul in battle. That will, of course, entail meeting Marg in battle too.

As they speak, Zhul is telling Marg that he's changed his mind: rather than destroy the Earth for the danger it poses, he now wants its power for himself. Marg is therefore being sent to get rid of Mars and his pesky comrades, with specific orders to finish Mars off _in_space_ so the Earth itself won't be blown away. Watching the exchange, Roze realizes that Zhul must have re-brainwashed Marg entirely into submission -- at least, until the next contact with Mars. Zhul warns Roze that Marg is the only reason she's still alive, and that another failure won't be tolerated.

After the last battle, the Daigurren has gained the ability to fly, which is good since Zhul's goons show up in very short order. Takeru is clearly their target, and everyone expects Marg to show himself at some point in the battle. That's just fine with Takeru, who's itching for a chance to save his brother. His teammates assure him they've got his back, and say that it's up to Takeru to make his voice heard through the brainwashing or whatever ill treatment Marg's suffered.

 Note that this battle is happening in Atami, meaning Kouji's house is
 nearby.  If Kouji goes there, he'll find Ankokuji rifling through his
 grandpa's stuff -- all part of the investigation, of course!  Ankokuji has
 at least made himself minorly useful, and has unearthed some Super-Alloy Z.

 Takeru's words do indeed start to sway Marg, and it's all Roze can do to keep
 Marg on task.  Realizing the only way to get through to Marg is to separate
 him from his lieutenant, Takeru resolves to shoot down Marg's mech and
 bodily pry him out of the cockpit.  As it turns out, Roze sorties in her
 mech to try to buy Marg time to escape -- a plan that the rest of Zexis
 handily foil.

 However, this is where the Beastmen show up, led by Gwarm.  He tells Nia
 her death would have been so much less painful if she hadn't forced Lowgenome
 into this, and Kitan tells her not to listen to the hateful beast's words.
 That's MISTER beast to him, snarls Gwarm as he fills all these humans (and
 Roze) in on why Lowgenome is to be feared.

 Turns out the Spiral Lord is immortal, and many of his servants are pretty
 long-lived themsleves (Gwarm for instance has spent a millenium in
 Lowgenome's service).  Ryouma flat out doesn't believe this, and Gwarm says
 that it's this sort of ignorance that's always driven humans to seek the
 forbidden fruits of knowledge -- as Saotome did, for example.  It seems
 that beneath Gwarm's shell lies all kinds of interesting knowledge.  He
 tells Nia that she was cast out for the same reason Lowgenome cast out the
 humans: he hates beings that are self-aware.  Beastly to the last, it would
 seem, and Gwarm is all too happy to face the irate Zexis members in the
 interest of testing their might.

 New units arrive from the Moon, apparently with a similar test in mind.
 Gwarm scowls that the moon's guardian has sprung into action, thinking that
 this might just be a bona fide emergency.

The rest of the team is fighting in part to buy Takeru time. He doesn't need much to overwhelm, then get through to, his brother. The family reunion is interrupted by Roze, but Marg vows to protect Mars even at the cost of his own life. Zhul is projecting his consciousness into her mech, and orders her to fire anyway -- Marg is useless now that he's got his memories back. She can't help herself but fire, and Marg indeed shields Takeru with his body. Takeru wigs out at this point, summoning Gaia and preparing for some serious payback. Gwarm senses Takeru's power and decides that it's far TOO powerful; just what he'll be able to do about it is anyone's guess though.

 In the final analysis, Roze has been lying to hserself all this time,
 voluntarily turning herself into one of Zhul's fighting machines even when
 she knows he's wrong.  Roze is going to ram Takeru with her last strength,
 but Rui pleads with her to stop -- turns out she's Roze's sister!

 Gwarm does get the data that he wanted, namely that the Gurren is capable of
 taking over and utilizing other Gunmen.  He also gets a hefty repair bill for
 all the mecha his team has just lost.  He retreats to file his report before
 Zexis can kill him dead, leaving Nia to lament how her stubborn desire to
 believe in her father keeps coming to naught.  Simon encourages her to live
 for her own sake, not her dad's, just as she taught Simon himself to do.
 Now that all four of the Spiral Lord's generals have shown up, there's little
 doubt that a showdown with Lowgenome himself is nigh.

Back to Marg though, who is bleeding out fast from his wounds. He asks Takeru to let him die surrounded by the Earth's oceans, and tells Takeru not to blame Gishin as a whole for this tragedy. Zhul is solely responsible, or so Marg wants to believe.

Like a good little self-imposed robot, Roze has gone to face the music with Zhul. She expects, even wants, him to kill her for her failure as a Gishin warrior in the face of the Earthlings. Zhul sneers at the wench, telling her that she fights for _his_ sake in particular, not for "Gishin" in general. He orders her to get her ass back out there and fight Mars till her pathetic little life is extinguished, just like any other machine in his inventory. Ah well, so long as she can take revenge for Marg's death (which she, let's not forget, caused in the first place...)

Takeru ends up on the beach, gazing out at the ocean and pondering revenge. His mother finds him, guesses what he's thinking, and reminds him that he's fighting for peace -- not for hatred. But what was the point of Marg's life then, so tragic and short? "Point" isn't relevant -- had the two of them traded places, the same tragedy would have unfolded. Takeru bitterly says he wishes he had been the one to die, and Shizuko softly rebukes him for valuing their own time together so little. She tells him that Marg is still very much alive within him. However sad a life Marg led, the onus is now on Takeru to live that much happier a life of his own.

That seemingly gets through to him, and as he walks back to his teammates he asks Rui to tell him about her sister. After the fall of the Eighth Planet, Roze was picked out from among the defeated inhabitants for her ESP, and made to serve Zhul. Rui asks Takeru to liberate Roze from her life of servitude (via death), but what she really wants of course is for him to _save_ Roze. Takeru hopes to appeal to Roze's affection for Marg, the one thing they share. With Zhul now within raech, there's hope: defeating him will cut off the Gishin threat at the roots, and hopefully set free all those currently part of his war machine.

CHAPTER 42. [Route Split]

Things are not off to a good start for the Federation forces gathered at Langley. Patrick's attempt to enthusiastically greet the dredlocked Daryl goes quickly awry when Daryl recalls how quickly Patrick got his ass kicked by the Gundams last time. Patrick's not impressed that the Overflags' top gun isn't participating in the fight, figuring he must have gotten scared, and Daryl nearly punches his lights out before a strange newcomer halts the argument. It's Jeremiah, looking _very_ different than before and apparently with some sort of mental glitchiness at work. Patrick nearly starts a fight with him too by calling him "Orange" before Suzaku quietly but firmly tells him to settle down.

Daryl can tell that Suzaku has changed quite a bit -- become "forged", one might say, like one of the signature swords from his home country. Lloyd confirms that Jeremiah is now part machine after his brush with death at the hands of the Black Knights, and says that like Suzaku he himself wished to join the Federation war effort. Lloyd privately suspects that Jeremiah actually joined because he's heard Schneizer's real reason for joining the Federation.

As though Patrick wasn't at odds with enough of his own army, he then gets to squabble one-sidedly with Zechs about who's the AEU's top ace. Zechs sniffs that being the best "in the AEU" has become a moot point, and at long last Jeremiah's superior _Colonel_ Cattie shows up and hints Jeremiah ought to remember that everyone is one big happy Federation now. In response, he tells her he'd love a private lesson on the topic alone in her quarters (keep in mind he's merely a captain, and by rights ought to be court-martialed by now), saying he has no real interest in pondering the question himself. Cattie scowls impressively at this, and orders him to prepare a report on the state of global geopolitics in the time until the next mission briefing. Depending on how he does, she may indeed have to deliver a "private lesson" (and not one he'd like, though Patrick seemingly misses the threat in her tone).

As he runs off, Cattie fumes to the others how embarrassing all this is. Sergei tells her that such youthful exuberance is, after a fashion, needed in the new world order they're all striving for. That goes for Pierce too, to whom promises a victory toast once the war is over. It is Zechs and Cattie who has the perspective to wonder just who it is this victory will be over: the aliens, or mankind's own self-destructive tendencies...

Meanwhile, Zexis has decided on its own to divide in half out of distrust for Elgan's motives. The Imperium has quieted down some arter the fracas at the Saotome lab, and the time seems ideal for rooting out the Spiral Lord and Gishin emperor. The spacebound forces plan to use Dragons' Hive as their home base, partially in the hopes of picking F.S.' brain some more before heading to the moon. Traia agrees with the team's drive to take out these two threats sooner rather than later so that the Imperium can ben focused one exclusively.

Crow can choose which way to go; for the Dark Continent go to 42D. For space, go to 42S. Either way, Traia tells him that his new info about the Sphere is helping her make headsay into unlocking its secrets. Crow asks her to look into just how Carlos got his hands on the darn thing, and Traia tells him it's time to tot up his reward. Esther actually provides a drum roll, having installed a frigging drum kit in the lab to help her blow off steam, and the pay for Crow turns out to be fairly generous this time. He thanks the two ladies for all their support from the lab, going so far as to all Esther "cute" and almost instantly regretting it when she gets overjoyed.

CHAPTER 42D. A Victory March for Tomorrow

World events have Carlos majorly fired up: so many enemies to fight, so many logistics to keep track of. Sionny however has gotten even more pissy, unsatisfied with piddling little battles in the borderlands. She wants the Great Nations taken down, and nothing less will do. Carlos warns her that she should try putting herself in the place of the residents of those "piddling" countries she's helped destroy: if she wants this game to last, she'd better calm down. Otherwise, the Federation will simply focus their power on the Imperium and wipe it out at once. As it is, Treize is wiping out every expeditionary force the Imperium sorties. Sionny furiously orders him to shut up "or else", and Carlos shrugs. If Gaiou would just do "it", all their troubles will be over. For the time being, he announces that he's headed to Japan to see what fun Eim is planning.

The Area Eleven residents get quite an eyeful when they visit the other Japan: the peace and prosperity they see is precisely what they're hoping to create in their own homeland. As this is the last rest day before heading to the Dark Continet, the womenfolk are looking forward to some quality spa time. They hope to get Karen and Ibuki into the act too, and maybe make them a bit more feminine in the process. "Feminine" is a relative term of course.

With the women off shopping, the men ponder Japan's current tranquility. Dr. Hell hasn't tried anything lately, and the Heterodynes aren't even acting out of turn. The Imperium is currently off causing trouble in East Africa, either unwilling to pick a fight in a Federation stronghold or just acting at random as they always have. Though the Imperium appears to be playing with the nations of the world, Banjou fears that there's a method to Eim's madness.

The peace, conveniently, doesn't last. A new Heterodyne has appeared, the size of an entire cloud formation. There's an ongoing dimensional rift through which more and more Heterodynes are pouring, and from Domeki's calculations all of Japan could be overrun in a single week if something can't be done to stop it. Oh, and in a _month_, all the Earth will be in ruins. She's figured out where the Core is inside the dark clouds, but it's certain to be a rough journey getting to it. 21st Century president Taiganai has a few words for the team before they sortie though.

He was in the JSDF 12 years ago when the first Heterodynes appeared, which explains how he lost an eye. He also made the mistake of using "OE Weapons", special strategic arms whose immense power is only permitted by treaty under very narrow circumstances. Back then, Tokyo itself suffered considerable collateral damage from the OE weapons, and the military is prepared to pay that price again if Dai Guard and friends should fail. Given the size of this Heterodyne, the OE's required would probably level Tokyo completely. Akagi is adamant that this must not be allowed to happen, and even Zero is impressed by his simple determination. This battle will be all about preserving a future and a home for all those currently-peaceful Tokyoites.

The entire Zexis detachment get a lift onto the airborn Heterodyne's surface, as everybody fears an attack from Eim's forces on top of the regular Heterodyne menace. Heck -- maybe Eim is _summoning_ the Heterodynes? As it turns out, he's doing his damnest to try, though Eim claims that even he can't gate something this size in unaided yet. All this seems a bit overblown just for Eim's grudge match with Crow, and Banjou asks what the value of two Sphere-bearers fighting would be. Eim says he's trying to gather the Twelve Keys, though he won't say what that would result in.

In come the DBs, and along with them Margret. Eim will give her one last chance to clear her own name and avenge her brother's death. What's more, Zexis only has six minutes till the military will launch the OE Weapons and blow the whole region to Kingdom Come... just as Eim wants.

 At the battle wears on, the Heterodyne Core transforms into... a black
 Dai-Guard!  That sounds intimidating until Domeki radios in with word that
 her latest superweapon has just been complated: the Great Knot Punisher!!

 You can either have Crow Persuade Margret, or shoot her down.  Either way,
 Crow demands to know what a noble knight is doing serving a lying bastard
 like Eim.  And what is the deal with Shane, the little brother Margret claims
 Crow killed.  What the hell do she and her brother, visitors from another
 world, have to do with Crow?!?  If she wants him to fight her, he has every
 right to know.  Margret can't answer, screaming incoherently as she rushes
 away instead.  Eim laments that Margret simply can't seem to cast herself
 away, and decides to summon a more faithful servant: Shubal.

 This loyal dog is all to happy to stand in for the disloyal bitch, and
 if for the guy's idiotically enthusiastically-tinged blood lusty speech
 [feel the wrath of my Grammar Bending!] if nothing else, Crow is all too
 happy to murderize his ass.

 The big scary black Dai-Guard sucks compared to the real one, mainly because
 it does not have the power of Teamwork(tm) in its corner.  Eim doesn't like
 what he's seeing one bit, and retreats in a huff to rethink his stratgy.
 Akagi's joy reminds his teammates of monkeys they used to keep as school
 pets, though they can't agree if he's more a Japanese macaque or a chimp.
 The friendly argument is broken up by the disintegration of the Heterodyne,
 and the team fly back to the surface triumphant.

Back at the office, it seems that even Allies of Justice can get bogged down in paperwork. At least that paperwork is being done on the clock, so people like Crow can actually get paid for helping finish it. Tomorrow, the Dark Continent beckons, and with it a load of Beastmen who likely won't appreciate all the fancy clothing the women were hoping to shop for. Oh well.

Margret, somewhat like Roze before her, has returned to base to get yelled at by her superiors some more. Eim informs her that she is now persona non grata, but she is _not_ to be sacrificed(?!) to Gaiou just yet. Why? She's of no value, intones the man himself as he strides onto the bridge. In his massive battle-hardened hands he clutches... a hot dog, courtesy of a street vendor who was impressed at Gaiou's concern for Area Eleven affairs. He's got some Area Elevenese munchies as souvenirs too, but the hot dog is especially yummy in his estimation.

His foggy noggin is starting to have substantial shafts of light shining in, as it were, and he bellows at Sionny to set course towards the Dark Continent to the South. A certain dude there is likely to have some of the missing pieces of Gaiou's past...

CHAPTER 42S. A Tower of Memories Leading to Space

The Dancougar teams march into Dragons' Hive with a vengeance, determined to get F.S. to divulge everything he knows about the mystery foes from the moon -- the ones F.S. said at the time were "one of" the foes the Dancougars were meant to face. F.S. says that he has nothing to say on the topic, and doesn't so much as bat an eyelash when Kurara pulls a gun on him. Shinobu tells her that F.S. isn't going to cave, and Ryou adds that Tanaka would take her down before she could actually pull the trigger anyway. The most F.S. will say is that the team will find out "soon" what's really going on, and when they do it will signal the beginning of a great trial for the Earth.

Guess the team'll have to wait for the trial to begin, huh? Not Johnny, who resolves to take matters into his own hands about Eiyda. ...Which doesn't really amount to anything beyond chatting with her the next time the R-Daigun shows up, but at least he's got the determination thing going. While he and his teammates try to stay focused, Rolan and Kira ask Seimy and Rue to try and track down Diana and Lacus, who presumably got sucked into this world along with everyone else. The Aquarion and Gravion teams don't bother putting in a missing-persons request for their bosses, fully confident that they're happy and healthy somewhere not too far away. We hope so, since the Gishin have decided to start attacking Dragons' Hive directly...

Takeru still has a lot to think about, facing the people responsible for his brother's death. Marin can only offer one piece of advice: the only way for humans to evolve is to figure out how to overcome their hatred. Marin learned that the hard way, and would like to spare Takeru the same pain if he can. Takeru promises to leave the Earth if he can't manage to control his hatred.

The enemy are led by Roze, who professes loudly that she's fighting to get revenge for Marg. Takeru incredulously points out that that's _his_ line, and everybody knows that it's all Zhul's fault in the end anyway. Shit gets real fast, but F.S. is adamant that if humans can hate each other enough to kill, they can also figure our how to quell that hatred. Sure enough, the R-Daigun shows up, and Eiyda is ready to help the team this time around.

 Takeru does in fact have trouble containing his lust for revenge when faced
 with Roze, who is fighting to repay the life-debt she owes Marg.  Marin
 intervenes at the right moment, pointing out that Marg isn't likely pleased
 with her and Takeru throwing down on his behalf.  Roze knows intellectually
 that Zhul is using her like a machine, but she's willing to go along with it
 anyway as a pretext for laying down her life -- a pretext the team won't
 let her get away with.  She finally relents to their logic and tells Takeru
 to do with her as he wishes.  Gritting his teeth, he tells her to get her
 ass out of his sight, and go wherever she wants so long as it's not here.

 Thus is one cycle of revenge broken.  More problems follow however, in the
 form of an armada from the moon.  They're headed for Dragons' Hive, and as
 they approach it a voice is heard as if from a long distance, calling out to
 the "Earth WILL" that there's still time.  The Earth WILL however isn't
 ready to see life on Earth wiped out just yet, and the other WILL says it's
 got no choice but to destroy Earth WILL and get on with business.

 Team D, and the R-Daigun, race to intercept, and fend off the first volley
 while taking heavy damage.  They know they've got to hang on somehow, and
 F.S. declares that the time has come for "Transcendence Mode"!  Enter
 Dancougar Max God, which incorporates the R-Daigun into the Nova for even
 more ass-kicking action.

 These suckers are actually somewhat tough, and making matters worse is who
 shows up next: a couple mobile suits equipped with Solar Reactors.  That
 makes them the Federations's new toys, and indeed Sergei and Peerless are
 at the controls.  They actually came to fend off the aliens, and are quite
 surprised to find a _base_ here.  Peerless wonders if they should be
 attacking what is surely the CB's hideout, but Sergei reminds him that,
 insofar as the Federation is supposed to be about the common good, it would
 do little common good to be tussling with Zexis.  Amuro and Quatro feel
 something like a Psycommu from Peerless' mech, and as Sumeragi accepts
 their aid Tielia watches with keen interest how well the new mecha perform.

 The Unknown fall in short (enough) order, but the victory is somewhat hollow
 given the knowledge that whoever is pulling their strings now knows where the
 Dancougars' base is.  Sergei and Peerless take off, and the CBs are all on
 edge over Peerless' strange psychic aura, and over the thought of how
 dangerous these new mecha would be if the CBs were to face them in combat.
 But that's a minor concern, compared to this "Moon WILL"...

Even F.S. can't stay quiet after all these goings-on, and he knows it. When representatives from all the Zexis components confront him, he admits that "the time" has come for a full reveal. He starts by introducing Urajimiel, who actually turns out to be none other than Tanaka's ex-wife! She's been away from Dragons' Hive for some years, having found a sponsor to execute the previously-constructed plans for the R-Daigun. It was that sponsor's wish that she and the mech aid the Trinities, which turned out rather badly when the Trinities' true backer decided to cut ties with them all. Result: Ragna Harway's untimely assassination, and the near loss of Urajimiel and Eiyda as well.

Unfortunately, even they don't know who the Trinities' backer actually is... but Moon WILL does. She, as F.S. terms her, will reveal all. It was Earth WILL who fished Final Dancougar out of the "red space" and drew up plans for Nova and the R-Daigun (though not, apparently, the one actually responsible for Final Dancougar getting there in the first place). WILL is an inorganic life form with limited control over dimensional energy, and when he actually greets the tiem he does so by forming a temporary body literally out of thin air. This is the guy who accessed Veda before, though even he is unable to do so again at the moment. Under certain conditions, such as when he rescued Final Dancougar from Muge Space, he's capable of interdimensional teleportation... and unable to control precisely where or when the target arrives.

In fact, WILL was actually Muge Zolbados's _prisoner_, given how Muge was some higher-dimensional super villainous dude and whatnot. The Dancougar folks were nice enough to take Muge down, which set WILL free and let him get back to regular space. It turns out that there are innumerable WILLs spread across space, time, and all parallel dimensions. See, a long time ago, in a galaxy more or less exactly known as this one (and yet, not!), there was this little minor cataclysmic war. Civilizations laid waste, walls of space and time ready to crumble at any moment, that kind of stuff.

Those who survived decided to become guardians of spacetime, fanning out in the hopes of averting any similar fracas from ever happening again. Enter Muge, who too could control dimensional power and was all eager to learn the secrets of the decimated dimension Earth WILL called home. Yes, the Dangerous Death Ray(tm) was intended for _entirely_ peaceful purposes.

Now, what's it take to be a guardian of space? First, understand that being a life form means the constant struggle to establish your own place in the world through constant butting up against other life forms. This by itself is an amoral process [that's "amoral", not "immoral", for those keeping score at home], but once a life form achieves sentience, its self-assertion instinct becomes a menace to the cosmos. The WILLs are the observers of the rise and fall of life forms on a universal scale, and this WILL has learned well that humans are a particularly vigorous, inventive, expansionist, and warlike race.

However, and this is where Earth WILL differs from his colleagues, for all their immaturity and barbarism, humans have a diversity and a restless individualism that gives them a chance at being more than just another lifeform to be gardened away. This took some convincing, but WILL's had a lot of evidence to weigh since coming here. Take Takeru for instance, who isn't even from Earth, yet learned both love and forebearance from its inhabitants. Rather than menacing the cosmos, these are things that would promote peace.

WILL was still on the fence after the Dancougar team's heroics led him to this Earth, and after chatting with F.S. at length WILL decided to make a bet -- or rather, a hedged bet -- on whether the "bestial" nature of mankind could bring mecha like the Nova and R-Daigun to their full potential. If so, the two would fuse and help defend the very ones responsible. And, if WILL's faith in humankind was misplaced, at least the Nova would still act as an Ark and preserve Earth's life forms elsewhere in space.

All this preparation to fight presumes a foe,a nd that foe is Moon WILL, held captive like Earth WILL by Muge. Moon WILL is a proponent of Dancougar itself, but rather more pessimistic about Earth in general. What spurred Moon WILL into action was the Imperium and the massive outpouring of destructive ego it represents. Fortunately, the Nova taem have found out how to access Max God mode, and Earth WILL's gamble has come out in favor of saving mankind. F.S. apologizes at this point for respecting WILL's wishes to keep his rather unusual position secret till now.

While this all will require some time to sink in, it's now clear that this great trial before the Earth is going to be one hell of a doozy. The Nova team however have grown strong enough to help face the challenge. And rather than wait for Moon WILL to send in more goons, both Dancougar teams are strongly in favor of taking the fight to the Moon itself. And wouldn't you know it, Richard Biller of the Frontier fleet (he being the owner of the S.M.S.) has sent a little care package. It is the long-awaited Super Packs for the VF-25s, making them fully space-combat capable. Alto assures Ozuma that he's going to master this new gadgetry, as the Nova team aren't the only one's who've matured. Eiyda wonders if this is the power of love talking, and she quickly gets shushed up before Ozuma can start glaring too fiercely at his protege. In any case, the hopes of mankind hang on Team D and the rest of Zexis now.

CHAPTER 43D. To the Capital, Tepperin

Lowgenome muses over the ancient proverb that God created the Earth in seven days' time, with mankind's creation waiting till the sixth day. If man really was the final creation on Earth, does that mean he was best? Sitmandra certainly doesn't think so, and asks to be allowed to lead the assault on the humans and other foes invading the Dark Continent. Lowgenome gives him the assignment, and after he marches off Gwarm scowls that this 200 year-old baby still thinks of warfare as just a game. He may be a kid, but he should still be able to whittle down the Earthlings' forces some... at which point Adeene and Gwarm are supposed to go in and finish the job. Gwarm is worried though: the humans have this habit of sprouting up again after being trampled, like some kind of indestructible weed.

This is the power of the Spiral, and despite Lowgenome's best efforts to seal the humans underground the humans seem determined to use that power for their own destruction, unknowingly. That ignorance is, in a certain sense, the bliss that drives their will to fight. Lowgenome thinks that that's about to come to an end, as the one who oils the Spiral's turning is about to be laid waste. And when the Spiral falls still, that will be the end of human progress...

As the Zexis detachment near the Spiral Lord's stronghold, news comes in of the Imperium landing in Northern Africa. It sounds promising at first that the Imperium would be tangling with the Beaastmen, but taken together with the Unknowns from the moon it sounds like Zexis is at a disadvantage overall. Why? For starters, all the Beastmen scattered throughout the world will be converging on Africa to defend their home base. Simon however thinks this is a good thing: if the goal is to settle the score with the Beastmen, the more of them present, the more decisive the victory.

Zero has been thinking the same, and has requested that Simon be in charge of the operation to come. He knows the Beastmen better than anyone else on the team, and is also the one most capable of raising morale. Simon accepts the responsibility head on, assuring his teammates that Zexis is mightier than the Beast armada. Their destination is the Beastmen's capital, called Tepperin!

Sitmandra is waiting with baited breath, and Simon identifies him to the team as the foe most in need of being taken out fast: they can't waste time here with the capital so close.

 Sitmandra, like Chimilf, has a customized Gunmen hiding inside his doomed
 flagship.  That saves him for maybe... four moves.  With him defunct though,
 a second wave of Beastmen arrive, including the absentee Viral.  Viral is
 fit to be tied over all the humiliation he's suffered since Chimilf's
 defeat, literally having to beg on his hands and knees to be allowed to join
 in on this battle.  Adeene is here too, resolved to settle Nia's hash once
 and for all.  Gwarm is taking the longer view, meaning to televise the
 gruesome execution of Zexis to all the other foolish humans in the world.
 Think that's going to go well?

 Of course not!  Faced with extinctin, the three remaining Four Kings, plus
 Viral, combine to create "Dotenkaiser", a really rump-shaking, three-fold,
 four-directional death engine that has even Zexis worried.  It turns out
 though that it's the Four Plus-or-Minus-Episilon Kings who should be worried:
 all their bad-assery has summoned none other than the Imperium.  Gaiou yells
 out to the combattants to ignore his crew for now -- they'll take on whoever
 is left of course.

 As they retreat to coo up some popcorn or whatever, Gwarm starts battling in
 fear.  Too late, he realizes the error in all this ass-bandinage, and that
 Gaiou is about to awaken to his true calling... which would appear to be the
 ruination of the world, and the Beastmen in it.  Neither side is sure what to
 do next, until Simon yells out that it doesn't mean a goddamn thing who's
 watching the fight.  If there's antoher wall awaiting after drilling through
 this one, he'll just drill through that too!  THAT is how to get to Heaven.

 Sion's ability to turn fear into strength, to tap into the very Power of the
 Spiral, has Gwarm shitting his already sodden trousers, or were if he were
 a high enough life form to wear any.  Maybe he wears a kilt instead?
 Anyways, the key to mankind's strength is their heart, the determination to
 move foward with every inch each turn of the drill affords.  And there's no
 end to how many times that drill can be turned.

 With his last breath, Gwarm tries to warn Lowgenome that something is about
 to happen to the Earth.  Who knows what though.  Adeene meanwhile gets a
 _severe_ comeuppance for calling the humans "trash".  Interestingly, Viral
 is the one who puts up the most fight, refusing to die till he sees Kamina
 dead first.  Simon points out that Kamina's been dead for ages, whereas Viral
 realizes that Simon himself is the one who's been kicking his ass.  For
 Viral, that means Simon is Kamina's spiritual successor, and the one
 deserving his wrath.  By this point though, Simon isn't one to just give up:
 he calls upon the spirit of Gurren Lagann itself for strength, and with all
 his teammates acting in concert he shows Viral what _real_ will is.

Defeating the last of the Beastmen here does not bring an immediate counterattack from the Imperium, implying that they want to see whether the team can take out Lowgenome too. Why not show them exactly that?

Somehow, Viral managed to eject from his mech's collosal explosion, and makes it back to Lowgenome with the bleakest of war reports. He's crawled back here with a burning question in mind, fully prepared to take his own life if ordered once he gets it answered: what the FUCK is the deal with the humans, anyway? Hasn't Lowgenome always claimed they're the weaker species? Lowgenome gives something between a smirk and a snort, musing that the Beaastmen are truly an unfinished lifeform. Their immense lifespan comes at the cost of periods of deathlike regenerative sleep, from which the slightest awakening means certain cellular death. They are, in essence, evolutionless masses of living tissue: nothing more.

But it was Lowgenome who made them! What the hell was he thinking?! Lowgenome asks if he really wants to see what humans are (Viral does), and tells him and his uninvited guest (that would be Gaiou) to wait a little while. They'll find out soon enough...

CHAPTER 43S. Roze's Resolve

See the other path for Carlos' caution to Sionny, reminding her just how much human cost she's already incurred in her quest to dethrone the Three Great Nations.

Back at the Gishin base, Roze is seriously conflicted. First it was Marg who saved her shapely little behind, then it was Mars himself. What's she living for, exactly? Zhul has the answer in a hurry: she's alive for the sole purpose of killing Mars. And by the way, she's just run out of get-out-of-jail cards. As she walks off to prepare for her final(?) battle, Zhul orders Saghoul to keep an eye on her, and to destroy her if she does anything out of line. In fact, Zhul's chief of staff has already installed a remotely- triggered bomb in her mech... after all, she is from a captured planet and her sister is the leader of the resistance. They both reckon that Mars' sympathies will be his undoing this time around, and though Mars is but a pebble before Zhul's might, Zhul isn't interested in Mars spreading ripples in his pond. As it were. Saghoul and his friend Wall both imagine themselves better than Roze in Zhul's eyes, which is a _very_ optimistic view.

The Security Council's official position on Moon WILL is that it's an unknown quantity that Zexis should investigate. Reading between the lines, Elgan's actual intent is quite clear: Zexis are to "investigate" Moon WILL with the extremest of prejudice, and the largest caliber ammo in their arsenal. Elgan's doubletalk isn't winning him many friends among Zexis, but it's true that his mission for this half of Zexis has granted them considerable freedom . compared, at least, to the Earth-bound crew fored to deal with the Imperium.

In fact, the chat with Earth WILL has proved immensely cathartic for the team. The Getter Team have always been aligned against the Invaders, but now Team D know specifically who they.re fighting too. And Takeru has Roze to save, provided she musters the will to walk away from Zhul's war machine. The situation reminds Crow very much of Margret, and gives him all the more reason to help out.

Setsuna seems a bit skeptical regarding such faith in the enemy, and Amuro sets out to allay his fears. Recall the goal of all this fighting: eventual peace, which means joining forces with whichever of one's current foes are still alive. Maybe it was Amuro's Newtype powers that prompted the lecture, or maybe it was just Amuro's own store of life experience on the subject. To Amuro, the Newtypes ultimately are a sort of humanity capable of perfectly understanding each other... at least in theory. In practice, coexistence doesn't require ESP, just positive intent and maybe a reality check or two. That's what all Amuro's piloting has taught him, though unlike Setsuna he didn't become a pilot specifically to search for such an answer. Amuro assures the other pilots that he sees himself as a resident of this world now and that he means to defend it with his life, but in the back of his mind he worries about what Treize is up to... and what Quatro may be up to as a result.

Zexis' next foes are more Gishin forces, and the Valkyries are still growing into their new armaments. Note the difference between the powerful but heavy Armored Pack and the Super Pack: mastering the Armored Pack is the mark of a true ace, something which Ozuma purposefully tells Alto is beyond his skill. In fact, Ozuma figures that Alto's development is helped by feeling like an underdog, as recent events have already shown.

 Sure enough, Roze is among the Gishin forces, seemingly bound and determined
 to be Zhul's faithful battle robot come hell or high water.  Takeru isn't
 buying it, and vows to pry Roze out of her cockpit and melt the ice that Zhul
 has erected around her heart.

 Disabling Roze's mech is the least of Takeru's worries: the hard part is
 convincing her that she's got a reason to live.  Takeru explains that he
 derives his strength from all the loving people in his life, which sounds a
 lot better than Roze's motivation: fear.  What should she do now, so that she
 may live?

 She should, actually, die, at least of Eim has anything to say about it.  We
 know the drill by now: he covets Crow's Sphere and is prepared to pull any
 and every dirty trick in the book to get it.  The question is what happens
 should he manage to assemble all twelve of the Keys, and Eim certainly isn't
 saying.  He'll be happy if half of Crow's friends can be slaughtered here,
 which shows just how much Eim hasn't been paying attention to the way the war
 effort's been going.

 Takeru moves to get Roze out of danger, but of course Saghoul has other
 ideas.  He orders Roze to grab Mars so he can detonate her mech, proving that
 Zhul meant to use her as a sacrificial pawn from the start.  Rose finally
 decides that she wants to live, but since that seems unlikely she at least
 tries to get her mech as far from Mars as she can before blowing up with it.

 Lucky for her Mars is a mighty Esper, and he manages to teleport her safely
 to his mech just before the blast.  Risky? Yes.  Worth it?  Also yes. Crow
 points out that Margret's relation to Eim is just like Roze to Zhul, but she
 fails to see the analogy at this point.  Saghoul meanwhile is forced to go to
 Plan B, the one where he tries to vanquish Zexis and gets his ass demolished
 instead. Don't believe me? Then fight on!

 Despite all his threats of retribution against Mars and Roze, Saghoul can't
 mount more than the most token of threats. Mars refuses to kill him though,
 demanding instead to know why Saghoul is so determined to fight for an
 emperor who uses his people like puppets.  Saghoul is convinced that he's
 exempt from this treatment, right until the moment Wall shows up and tries to
 blow Saghoul's ailing mech up with him in it. All in the service of taking
 out Mars, of course.  Saghoul might have realized his msitaken allegiance to
 Zhul, but it comes far too late to save his own life.

Margret comes to the same fate as on the other path, forced to realize that her allegiance to Eim is misplaced to say the very least. Shubal doesn't fare any better, and it would seem both Zhul and Eim will have some rethinking to do before the next battle. Roze too has her life to rethink, and accepts Takeru's invitation to see how Zexis does things to help her decide. It is Mars. kindness that is perhaps his greatest strength, and none of the other pilots oppose the addition of their new anti-Zhul .advisor.. Certainly the Blue Fixer folks have learned from Marin that not all aliens are bad.

She drops a useful tidbit almost immediately: there are records of Zhul, over his unbelievably long life, battling the WILLs at least once before. The Cosmo Crushers offer Roze Takeru's old seat aboard their ship, and with increasing enthusiasm she officially joins the war for mankind's survival. Just as Marg would have wanted.

See the other path for the Imperium chitchat regarding Margret's latest cockup. Not that it's her fault as such. Not that that matters to Eim or his barking dog Shubal. It seems that the Imperium's next stop is the moon, though on what errand even Eim claims not to know.

CHAPTER 44D. The Spiral Lord's Fury

Gaiou may be a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, but he's not exactly an intellectual menace. To wit: though Lowgenome makes it clear that he knows much of Gaiou's past, and even sounds willing to spill the beans, Gaiou deliberately choses not to ask. His reason? The missing memories are _his_, and he'd rather recover them himself rather than take any shortcuts. Certainly just the sight of Lowgenome hasn't shaken anything important loose, so Lowgenome's advice is to head to the Shadow Moon. He's sure that Gaiou will find what he's looking for there, though Lowgenome would personally prefer if Gaiou remained amnesiac. Rather then beat an explanation out of him, Gaiou decides to help him battle Zexis... just for the hell of it. Gaiou's compulsion to fight is a sign to Lowgenome that those missing memories are about to return, and with it the realization of why Gaiou is here in the first place. Protecting the Earth from folks like him is why Lowgenome is trying so hard to destroy the Spiral man.

Timp is still helping out Lowgenome's side, confident that the Spiral Lord will tilt things in his favor. Fleeing if the going gets tough is his motto, but that might not work out today if Viral has anything to say about it. Viral's undergone further surgery, now possessing a body capable of continuous fighting without the need even for sleep. There's only one way to lure out the Spiral Lord, and that's to trash all his troops.

 Timp, good as his word, bugs out as soon as his ass is in danger. That's more
 than Viral can say, whose loserious ways are causing him no small amount of
 mental anguish. Turns out there's a reason he sucks so hard: his undying body
 and prodigious strength were not gifted him by Lowgenome to fight the humans.
 No, certainly not the humans, who've harnessed the power of the Spiral. In
 fact, Viral's role is to be Lowgenome's mouthpiece, infinitely repeating how
 cool Lowgenome is as he gets incorporated into Lowgenome's body! ...Which, in
 fact, sounds rather crummy. Maybe Viral should be rooting for Lowgenome to
 lose?

 Well, at least we finally get to hear Lowgenome's justification/excuse/
 talking-out-his-ass rationale for mistreating the humans so much: he thinks
 he's saving them! More specifically, he thinks he's the custodian of the Earth
 (the only place humans can live), and informs the team that he won't suffer
 them trying to destroy everything any further. After all that buildup, he's
 just proven himself one more storybook villain, prone to spouting selfish,
 impenetrable excuses before silencing his critics. The tricky part is that he
 too has the power of the Spiral at his disposal, and a mech identical in every
 way to Gurren Lagann: the Razen-Gun!.

 Before the fighting can begin, a couple of Gaiou's lackeys show up to measure
 Lowgenome's power. Crow demands to know what Lowgenome knows of Gaiou, and
 instead of giving him a straight answer Lowgenome recalls a man who once
 fought as Crow fights now, not knowing this his actions were leading mankind
 to ruin. Lowgenome refuses to explain himself, which is basically an open
 invitation to the party to demolish his ass and force the truth out as his
 dying breath.

 Now, he does have some tidbits for Crow though, calling him one of the twelve
 Fragments of a Certain Someone. Said person's heart and knowledge were split
 asunder and fell to Earth in twelve places, and as someone who Knows the End,
 Lowgenome will not tolerate that power rising again. He has more cryptic
 stuff to say to the rest of the team, belittling hope as the destroyer of
 humanity, deriding the Getter Rays as hastening the Spiral, and basically
 talking smack to anyone within earshot. The real question is whether Simon
 would walk further down this path, knowing(?) that to do so is to plunge the
 Earth into an irrevocable fate. Like, duh? Duh.

 If it's a question of who's Spiral is bigger, let's just say that Lowgenome
 is well-named. He is, however, also suprrisingly durable, and it takes a
 heroic speech from Simon AND heroic support from the rest of the team to
 finish the task.  When it becomes clear that in fact Simon's Spiral is
 bigger, Lowgenome sounds rather relieved: it is now Simon's burden to bear.
 He'll tell the team only one thing: "When ten billion monkeys shall fill the
 land, the Moon shall become the Servant of Hell, and lay waste the Spiral's
 Planet".  So saying, Lowgenome lets himself detonate along with his mech,
 naming Simon mankind's new guardian with his dying breath.

 Morning, it seems, has finally come to the Dark Continent, as the Beastmen
 will no longer threaten its inhabitants. Peace may be a long way off, but
 Simon's drill will reach it one day, and from there, to the heavens above.

It seems there's no rest for the righteous though: word has come in that the Frontier fleet has discovered the Vajra's nest, and need the Earth Zexis to help take it out. Lee Long, as fate would have it, has just discovered that all the Gunmen (Daigurren included!) were apparently designed with space operations in mind, and with a little duct tape for airtightness the whole fleet will be ready to really take their drills to the heavens. Privately, he worries about Lowgenome's last words, wanting to tear Tepperin apart for clues when time permits.

As all this has been going on, Ranka's rise to fame has been meteoric. Eiyda's abrupt disappearance from the idol scene has narrowed the public's focus even further, and even Sheryl is feeling the loss of attention focused in her direction. She's not one to let this get her down though, and is a week away from returning to the stage. Grace, in fact, has asked Ranka to come as a special guest . possibly as a prelude to luring her away from her current manager. But that kind of talk can wait . for now, the two singers have much preparation to do.

...Which would be a lot easier if they were, you know, conscious. Ribbons, acting on Grace's orders, has other plans. Ribbons tells Grace that abducting the two is a piece of cake. something which Grace herself should have been readily able to do. He's not buying the excuse that the idols "needed to be kidnapped violently", and wants to know why Grace asked for him in particular. Grace coos that he's got brains to go with his pretty face, and says that he's faaartoo good to be stuck serving _that_ boring man. This despite the fact that Grace is cooperating with him (meaning Alejandro) too, even getting him named as a special assistant to the Frontier fleet's president.

She orders Ribbons to see to it that the two idols are sent to a spot perilously close to the Vajra nest, recommending that he not risk going himself. She doesn't mean to sacrifice her little princesses though, telling him that she'll post a bodyguard as extra insurance. She's mainly running a little bet, and if she's right, the last thing the Vajra would do is kill the girls. well, one of them at least . the other is just an "imitation" and may not be protected by the warranty. She won't explain this to Ribbons until the day he possesses the Earth.

Back aboard the Great Axion, Carlos asks Shubal if Gaiou's back yet. Shubal shouts that that's "LORD" Gaiou to him, and Carlos slyly commends his slavish devotion to the very man responsible for destroying his whole world. Is Carlos casting aspersions on the Arcsabers?!? Carlos sniffs thathe needn.t cast anything: with what happened to Margert, the Arcsabers have pretty much aspersioned themselves. Sionny walks in at this point and tells the increasingly infuriated Shubal to get lost. Carlos tries bantering with her instead, but she orders him to get on his knees and beg forgiveness, lest she have him killed on the spot. It seem the Imperium no longer needs him.

CHAPTER 44S. Flight to the Future

Gaiou has decided to have a nice little cht with Moon WILL. Moon WILL knows him well, as both ally and enemy, and is rather surprised to have met him in this world. Something in Gaiou's memories is stirred at the sight of Moon WILL. As on the other path, Gaiou stubbornly refuses to actually let Moon WILL fill him in on anything in his missing memory, as those memories are HIS. Logical? Not hardly. What's more, Moon WILL won't allow Gaiou's memories -- that is, his recognition of his mission -- to return. Rather than squish Gaiou here and now, Moon WILL says that all will be solved once the Earth's humans are toast. Gaiou will lose that mission, and slumber once more. Gaiou smirks at that, saying that he's just gotten interested in whether Moon WILL can withstand Zexis kicking her robotic ass. Moon WILl cautions that Gaiou's policy of fighting poison with poison is going to come back to bite him one day.

Moon WILL's forces are raising hell on the Earth, but from the Moon's surface the place still looks increadibly beautiful. Zexis encountered little resistance in getting this far, but presumably that's about to change for the worse. After a bit of psyching themselves up, the team demand that Moon WILL get her ass onto the battlefield, and sure enough a bevvy of the lunar mecha appear. Time for Moon WILL to find out just how strong mankind can really be.

 Moon WILL's minions are some righteous cannon-fodder, but they fall in short
 order. Moon WILL then trots out her trump card: "Original Dancougar". A lofty
 title, especially when said to the faces of the original Dancougar team, but
 that's the kind of arrogance Moon WILL's come to these days.  She says that
 the power of Dancougar gave her hope for the Earth...  and that mankind
 dashed that hope.  Thus, she made a _new_ original for her very own... which
 shows a surprsing lack of basic dictionary skills, given how long Moon WILL's
 been around.

 Moon WILL starts lamenting the inevitable destiny of organic lifeforms,
 bent on finding the slightest toehold with which to live and willing to kill
 anything in the way in the process.  She simply cannot grasp how such
 immature, uncontrolled life forms would be allowed to threaten the
 stability of the universe, and gestures as proof at the Vajra that have just
 turned up.  How foolish the Earth, where the powerful steal from the
 powerless.  How... biased the sample set that Moon WIll seems fond of
 excerpting, as Team D are quick to point out.

 In fact, they find it preposterous that a Guardian of the Universe(tm) would
 turn out to be nothing more than a know-it-all frosh.  The last thing Zexis
 will do is get killed on account of some metal-headed morality term paper,
 and though Moon WILL puts up one heck of a fight (with cryptic quotes like
 Lowgenome on the other path), even she soon falls to Zexis' might.

As she expires, Moon WILL tells Zexis that they'll regret rejecting her and her protection as the Earth's god. If the humans continue to evolve, "they" will surely come... and when "they" do, this universe is dooooooooomed!

Doomed. Or not, for all anyone on Earth knows. What they do know is that it's one menace down, N-1 left, and if any should prove too much for the team to handle, F.S. and friends can always unleash Dragons' Hive's full power. Let's hope things don't get that bad.

Moon WILL seemingly took whatever info she had on the Vajra to her grave, leaving the Macross Quarter crew to wait for the Frontier fleet's scouts to find something. Find something they do, though instead of "requesting" assistance when the Vajra nest is located, Mishima "orders" the Quarter fleet to intercept it (claiming he's got Elgan's approval). This sounds like a dangerous mission, but if it works, that'll be N-2 things for the Earth to fear.

See the other path for the abduction of Sheryl and Ranka, and the obsoleting of Carlos.

[I kept the Earth route.]

CHAPTER 45. Little Queen

Gaiou has gone on a little fieldtrip, making himself rather hard for Eim to track down. When he does, Eim reports that their plans are on schedule, with 40% of the world's military strength depleted and an open door for the subjugation of the Three Great Nations. Gaiou however cuts him off, saying that the Nations can go fuck themselves compared to the opponent he's just found. When Eim asks slyly if Gaiou's memory's returned, Gaiou unleashes a massive barrage in his direction -- a reminder that Eim is best advised to _not_ get in Gaiou's way. He's impressed that Zexis put paid to Lowgenome and WILL, but says it won't be as easy to take out the Pan-Galactic Ones, or the Embodiment of Evil. If they _can_ make it back to Earth as the Champions of the World(tm), they'll finally be ripe for the eating. Either way, dinner time is approaching fast.

Ribbons has meanwhile returned to Alejandro for a bit more mutual genital fondling. Alejandro is uber pleased with how well he's bringing the world together under his will, and lavish with praise for Ribbons' key assistance. Grace's little stunt has caused a massive uproar in the music biz, but Ribbons is sure that Alejandro has the charisma to quiet it in time. The question is whether Veda really will let Alejandro manipulate Treize, Schneizer, Mishima AND Elgan all at once, especially since Zexis' defeating the Vajra and Gishin isn't a sure thing. He is counting on using certain "strategic" weapons Treize and Schneizer have dotted around the world, if it becomes necessary to silence his critics. And he's got the Federation army to deal with whatever strength Zexis has left. It all sounds so nice and neat.

Route rejoinings are never nice and neat, so if you want to know what all the blah-blah is about, read the other path above. The big revelation is the ransom demand Grace has just "received" regarding the abduction of the two idol stars. That doesn't prevent the briefing on the Vajra raid from starting, and it's immediately apparent that the Aquarion folks don't trust Mishima. ...Who, it turns out, is Cathy's fiancee -- explaining why she hasn't patched things up with Ozuma.

Anyways, it seems the Vajra's Fold abilities permit crossing between dimensions at will... though the weakening of the dimensional walls in this world due to the Calamity Birth certainly isn't helping keep them at bay. The Vajra seem to resemble colonial insects like ants or bees, including their collective organization and methods for sharing information. As such, they possess at least a _collective_ intelligence, which combined with their ability to internally manufacture weapons and fly around through space-time makes them a real menace. In case that wasn't already clear. The Vajra's adaptation to its communal experiences has already been demonstrated to make them tougher in combat, and if mankind can't keep devising newer, better ways to slaughter them, the Vajra are sure to gain the upper hand in time.

The plan therefore is to take out the queen, and take her(?) out fast. Alto is not exactly in the best shape to concentrate on the particulars, but an increasingly angry Ozuma yells at him to remember who he is and what his role is. Ozuma is in the process of (reluctantly, and irately) leaving Sheryl and Ranka's rescue up to the regular Frontier forces when Mishima says that they are a secondary objective for the team. He claims that the Vajra themselves did the kidnapping, and that odds are high that they've been taken to the Vajra's nest. The best way to do this is going to be to do the rescuing BEFORE the full-scale fragdown ensues, and Alto volunteers for the obviously dangerous mission. Ozuma vows to kill his ass if as much as a hair is out of place on Ranka's head, and that's just great with Alto.

 As the battle goes on, a new menace appears at the entrance to the nest.
 It knows enough to focus its attacks on Alto, but as things begin to look
 desperate he hears Ranka's song coming from the borrowed earring.  She must
 still be alive.  At that point, Brella appears and pitches in.  Nobody knows
 if he's really friend or foe, but his mech is of Earth origin and any extra
 set of hands is worth keeping at this point.

 Alto reaches the entrance to the astroid housing the Vajra nest soon
 enough, and Brella follows him inside.  And not a moment too soon, as Ranka
 is starting to lose heart so far from everyone else.  Sheryl tells her to
 keep a grip on herself and to sing, the only thing left to them.  Alto pulls
 up and hastens them inside, but before they can make good their escape the
 Vajra queen(?) notices them.

 Fortunately Brella is there to draw its fire, since something about the Vajra
 queen has finally jogged Ranka's missing memories.  The Vajra queen certainly
 isn't about to let Alto (or is it Ranka?) escape easily, but Sheryl acts as
 his own personal cheering section.  She knows all she can do is sing -- it's
 Alto who has the power to actually protect them all.  Alto gets the message
 and manages to drop the two girls off at the Macross Quarter.  If you've
 fulfilled the right requirements, Alto gets the Tornado Pack at this
 point -- a firepower and manoverability monster _just_ out of first-stage
 trials.  It's up to him to tame it, and come back alive.

Everyone is _very_ glad to see the giant Vajra -- the queen? -- gone. Everyone except Ranka, who sensed something very wrong at the moment it bit the dust. Brella seems to know something too, but he's as laconic as ever. In fact, he does little more than name himself as a Galaxy fleet pilot, tell Alto once again that he's not worthy of Ranka, and fly off.

Meanwhile, somewhere... else, news of the Vajra's demise has reached Charles and V.V. V.V. is quite impressed with the firepower of Zexis, and Charles remarks that he'll soon be able to travel to the World Without Lies. That, after all, is the contract he and V.V. share.

Back aboard the Quarter, Sheryl greets Alto as he dismounts his Valkyrie. She's clearly still ill, but is putting on a very brave face in the interest of giving Alto some proper thanks. He appreciates it, but when Sheryl tells him to go look in on the stricken Ranka, he insists that she come along too for a full-blown checkup. Seeing as how he saved her bacon ten ways to Tuesday, she relents, wryly "allowing" him to put his arm around her shoulders for support. Along the way, they run into Amuro, who informs them that with the Gishin's frontline base so close at hand, there won't be time to return them to the Frontier fleet before the final reckoning happens. That's cool with Sheryl, who knows Alto will be helping protect her and the others.

CHAPTER 46. The Embodiment of Evil

When Ranka comes to in sick bay, there's no immediate sign of her recovering her memories. Johnny comes up with a convenient excuse to get Ozuma to stop hovering over her bed (saying that Cathy is calling), giving Alto a bit of time alone with her. She asks how Sheryl's doing (asleep in the next room after all her exhaustion), and stars fretting again about how much grace Sheryl showed under pressure. Alto recalls Sheryl's observation that "birds live to fly", saying that Sheryl basically lives to sing. And so, unless Alto is greatly mistaken, does Ranka. That gets her smiling again, and he repeats Ozuma's promise that the whole team will do their utmost to protect Ranka and Sheryl... and to all come back alive while doing it.

Johnny did a good thing by letting Alto and Ranka chat alone, but he may have done an even better thing by giving Ozuma and Cathy a chance at a heart-to-heart talk. Johnny is resolutely _not_ taking sides in any of the love triangles in question, but he knows that without dialog at all none of the relationships will ever get resolved. The rest of the pilots aren't agreed whether Ranka or Sheryl is a better match for Alto, with Sylvia figuring that the little-sister type seems well-suited for the composed older-brother type. Certainly her love for her brother (based on past-game^H^H^H^Hlife dynamics has stood up to the passage of 12,000 years, but as Reika points out there's a vast difference between a little-sister type and a bona fide little sister.

Observing the Earthlings bantering about love, Roze marvels at how open they all are. Takeru has been thinking a lot about love himself, but in a larger, more abstract way -- the love atop his mind is more like love for mankind as a whole. Indeed "love" seems to be the very heart of humanity, which is the diametric opposite of Zhul. Zhul is pretty much the anti-love, anti-Christ embodiment of Evil, and the team is about to take him head-on. Zhul's ultimate objective is as mysterious as ever, seeming to vascillate between destroying and subjugating the Earth, and discarding his underlings at will. Nothing for it but to beat the truth out of him, and maybe get some payback for Marg.

Word reaches Zhul's stronghold that the Earthlings are closing fast. Even Zhul seemingly can't decide whether it's a good or a bad thing that the humans took out the Vajra -- he, as it turns out, it the one who leaked its location. Zhul reminds his subordinate that he knows everything, and that he's even fought the Vajra before (mind you, a different "herd" than this bunch). He orders Wall to go strike the Earthlings down, which is sounding like an increasingly dangerous assignment -- still, fleeing would put Wall's life in even greater danger. In fact, the only route he sees to live through this would be for Zhul and Mars to take each other out.

Wall imagines that when (yeah, "when", uh huh) Mars buys the farm, he'll try to take Zhul with him in the Photon Bomb's blast. That means he's got to engineer a confrontation between Mars and Zhul, avoiding the wrath of Zexis in the process. All the Zexis forces understand that until Wall is out of the picture, Zhul won't show.

 Wall is quick to surrender when threatened, offering to help the team against
 Zhul.  This is hyper-suspicious, but Takeru wants to give him a chance to
 speak as a sign that Zexis aren't ruthless like Zhul.  Even Zero edorses the
 idea, though he orders the team to swiftly repay any treachery in kind.
 Wall professes to have been moved by the sight of the Earthlings fighting for
 their planet, and has realized that Zhul's way will mean the reduction of
 Gishin's populace to mere machines.

 This does nothing to build confidence in the team, though Takeru is
 convinced that Wall has no further will to fight... meaning Takeru is
 disinclined to simply shoot the guy.  As Wall had hoped.  Now all he's got to
 do is wait for Zhul and Mars to take each other out, and swoop back in to
 finish them both off.

 NOT HARDLY!  Zhul seems to know just what his slippery subordinate is
 thinking, and the only shred of mercy he shows is to kill Wall in a single
 shot -- thanks for fractionally whittling down a bit of the Earthlings'
 warpower.  He promises Roze a similar fate, and shows Mars a bit more of his
 power by teleporting everyone to some sort of subspace.  He's prepared an
 all-star cast of former adversaries, and a pair of avatars for the team to
 tangle with.  Only after _those_ are defeated will the real Zhul stand up.

 Trashing Zhul's little experiment in Body Divide does in fact bring the
 man himself to the battlefield, a ferocious assemblage of mechanism and
 malice whose only admitted mistake has been sending Mars to do in the Earth.
 He proclaims that the suffering of the humans or their pitiful planet is
 insignificant next to the rulership of the galaxy, and although he won't
 say outright why he bothered coming at all, he does tell Crow that his
 Fragment is part of the reason.  The Earth is a Singularity, prone to
 drawing the Twelve to it in every world.  They who have touched the Black
 Knowledge attract each other, which is why the General of Dimensions is on
 hand and why various other Earthlings are awakening to their power (hint:
 that means Ranka).

 Rulership of the Earth, says Zhul, breaking his own vow not to fill in the
 puny humans, means gaining control over the Spiral of Evolution, the
 uttermost primordial power of Life itself.  That recalls to mind Bernal's
 words, and Zhul's stubborn lack of sympathy for those lives he's crushed
 makes him the enemy of... pretty much everybody you could name.

 Zhul is overflowing with dire-sounding verbiage about how the Earth is going
 to become a threat to the universe itself if left unchecked -- the proof of
 which are all the dangerous-esque Zexis types facing him now.  This sounds
 like circular, or at least elliptical, logic, and nobody on the team with
 the possible exception of Roshuu really gives him any credence.

Sure enough, even someone as insanely powerful as Zhul is no match for the Human Heart(tm). His last act is to try to flee and leave Zexis stranded between dimensions forever, but Takeru isn't having that. As he goes to bodily grab the fleeing despot, a recorded message from Idea appears on the screen. He's predicted that Mars will eventually find himself fighting for his life and driven to the brink of death, and observes that to truly fight for life is to truly appreciate what death is. Idea charges his son with bringing peace to the universe, in all its unimaginable vastness, and says that vanquishing Zhul will be the first step. If Takeru can find it within himself to truly fight for life, a miracle shall occur.

Getting the mesasge, Takeru sets his Photon Bomb to detonate, informing Zhul that he's going to take them _both_ to the next life, blowing open the subspace in the process to let Zexis escape. The other pilots are predictably reluctant to leave their friend to commit this noble suicide, but Zero cries to them to pull out and not waste Takeru's resolve. As light envelops God Mars, Zhul screams that this won't kill him: his cells will be scattered across space and will eventually return in another guise. In fact, even the Zhul back on Gishin is just one of his numerous cells. Is he bluffing? IS HE?

Zexis find themselves back in normal space, and in a mere few lines of dialog, Takeru returns too -- a "miracle" of sorts. Somehow the Photon Bomb was teleported from his mech to Zhul's body at the very last moment, leaving God Mars intact and considerably less dangerous to everyone now. Ignoring Zhul's "last" words for the moment, it would certainly appear that victory is Zexis', and the time has come to focus solely on the Imperium. Goodness knows Mars (and Roze) are fully committed to fight on till peace finally arrives.

Word of Zhul's defeat reaches Dr. Hell, who isn't 100% surprised that all that power couldn't save Zhul's ass from demolition. Given all Zhul's knowing one-liners, even Ashura finds him/herself shaking in dread. How was it that this alien overlord knew the ancient Mikeene personally? Such thoughs will have to be put aside though, as Dr. Hell means to press forward to the utter core of the island in pursuit of the means to control the world's fate. As his underlings repeat the usual pledges to protect him, Dr. Hell thinks to the departed Zhul that he won't waste the Black Knowledge that Zhul so thoughtfully shared with him...

Zexis' success is also the cue for Alejandro to kick off Operation Daybreak, what he thinks is a surefire plan to bring dawn to the world. Schneizer and Treize know of Alejandro's ambitions, and that he thinks this will be the end of the existing world order -- they, however, think of it as a new beginning. Elgan also visits them, and Schneizer asks if it was really best for Elgan to silently allow Alejandro's plan. Is he asking as a UN rep, or as a Celestial Being collaborator? Both. Elgan snorts that Zexis wouldn't have been worth assembling if they couldn't pass a test like this, which explains why he asked Treize and Schneizer to keep Alejandro's plots from the Zexis folk. What Alejandro thinks as an ending, what he thinks is the support of the Federation army, is really just the prologue to a new beginning: a war in space that must be fought to the bitterest end.

CHAPTER 47. The Victors Opposed

As Zexis head back to the Earth, Crow finds himself musing over the improbable (some say "miraculous") makeup of the team. So many strange things had to happen to bring the disparate members together, some of them natural enemies, that one has to suspect a higher power at work. Given that rational discourse and appeals to the greater good haven't proven foolproof at bringing people together over the ages, there would seem to be only one means left of pulling a team like this together: a common enemy. In short, Zexis' goodwill towards each other could just be a temporary thing, lasting only as long as external peace remains elusive.

Then again, "peace", "justice" and the like are concepts that depend on the viewer. Such concerns can be conveniently postponed until after the Imperium is laid waste, and that is going to take a while. When a herd of DBs show up with Gaiou personally leading them, he informs the team that they're by no means at the "finals" of this "tournament" yet. All that throwdown in space merely means they've made it through the semis, and before the "finals" begin he means to have a little exhibition match. The team has three minutes to battle his forces while he watches, and let no one thing this is mere caprice: Gaiou claims to be every bit as busy as Zexis themselves are.

"Exhibition" is a pretty good word for the carnage that ensues... carnage, that is, for the DBs. Zexis' pilots are still spoiling for a fight, but Gaiou is nowhere to be seen after his three round timelimit expires. It would seem that the final stadium is to be the Earth itself, and the good news is that Zexis are much stronger than they were the first time some of its members tangled with Gaiou.

Runa proposes a little party before the fragdown commences, celebrating the victories past and the further victories to come. What better way to unify everyone's hearts, and maybe salve the wounds that have occurred along the way? As the pilots scurry around making preparations, something has just occurred to Crow -- something he keeps to himself for now. What if the "final round" of the tournament _isn't_ against the Imperium? Could it be that Zexis has yet more foes to deal with?

CHAPTER 48. The Bells of Dawn

Before the "finals" or whatever they are, Crow phones in for a chat with Traia and Esther. Esther has added a triangle to her drum kit, and is apparently prone to pounding on it at the thought Crow is out risking his ass so much more than her. To get her to stop, Crow tells her that he'd much rather she use that than a tambourine or whatnot. The news is good on the financial front: defeat the Imperium, and his debts look to be well and truly clear. Until that day, he's decided to postpone any sort of victory toast. Unfortunately for him, there's a line of people behind him waiting to use the videophone, and his ongoing fixation on clearing his debts doesn't sound very good regarding his motives for restoring world peace. Only Lockon seems to appreciate his attempts at humor, and the two adults have a lot of encouraging each other to do.

Morale is high as the team continue heading back to the Earth (again, except for Roshuu). The GN-X's that the Federation are fielding (based on that stolen CB tech) are giving the Imperium fits, and all indications are that Zexis is well-positioned to challenge the folks at the top. The ZEUTH folks have all resolved to stick with the war effort out of concern for peace in the world, and are hoping to use Eim's knowledge to get home once all is said and done. Of course, that will mean no longer seeing the friends they've made in this world, but as Amuro says, best not to count those chickens before they hatch. Renton is worried about the inevitable showdown with Holland and the other Gekkostaters, since they're helping the Imperium, but that too is an imponderable.

The party entertainment is provided by Sheryl, who as usual is stunning live. Even Ozuma has to admit that she kicks ass, though he's still a fan of the legendary Fire Bomber, a rock band from another Macross fleet whose music and spirit defy easy explanation. Ranka will be performing after Sheryl, and she first asks Nia about the ancient song she learned from her father (the Spiral Lord, let's not forget). Nia doesn't know where _he_ heard it from, but the Gurren team promise to let her know if their investigations in the Dark Continent turn up anything. Ranka asks everyone to sing the song with her when it's her turn on stage, and as Liina reminds everyone, such songs are more than just sound. They're a means to stir the soul, crossing time and space.

As the singing proceeds, some of the pilots on the sidelines confer about their plans after the Imperium is overthrown. The Gundam boys will go back to their Colonial freedom work, but indications are that they won't have to do it with terrorism. Elgan appears close to actually brokering talks between the Great Nations and the colonial independence folks, and one can only hpoe those talks succeed. The Black Knights too will be returning to their liberation efforts, though they won't be able to count on help from the CBs. _Their_ ultimate objective, unifying mankind against a common threat, has basically been met -- no need for military interventions anymore. Rasse and Lockon are sure that the CBs will still find ways to make themselves useful regardless.

Ahh, if only the whole world could work together like Zexis! Zero deadpans that that's awfully idealistic, then notes that without ideals to follow, people tend to just let their lives burn out without achieving anything. A living death is the easy road, and it's not the road he's chosen. Sumeragi then walks over and asks him to join her for a drink. She appears drunk, but when Zero politely refuses she notes slyly that he must indeed be a minor. Zero barely manages to smooth that over, noting that Sumeragi is as sharp as ever, alcohol or not, and she gets him to promise to finally share that drink with her when their objectives are all finally met. Setsuna and Hiiro both have a lot to think about too: what sort of world do they envision once all this fighting ceases. Will it be the sort of peace Rilina envisions?

As the team draws near the Earth, its two moons come into view. The Shadow Moon is subject to severe dimensional warpage, and as yet nobody's set foot onto the thing. Still, the Black Continent eventually became reachable -- who's to say the Shadow Moon won't be open for tourism at some point too? That's a distant, romantic worry... For now, there's a big problem to confront: the Federation army! They've been sent to apprehend Zexis on suspicion of aiding terrorists, and Sumeragi is sure that the CB's traitor is behind it.

Even Zero would never have guessed that the person pulling the Federation's strings would choose to tackle Zexis before the Imperium. It's almost a relief that there is _obviously_ to be no parlay that could avert this battle, meaning that both sides can just get to breaking each other's heads. Sumeragi tells everyone to break through as fast as they can while she tries to get through to Elgan and figure out what the hell is going on. Something is pretty fucked if the people who are supposed to cooperate to take out the Imperium take each other out first, and Lockon tells Setsuna that it's their job to straighten the world out.

 Here we have the usual panoply of enemies with grudges.  Jeremiah and Suzaku
 are both, in their way, driven out of their right mind with desire to take
 Zero out.  Jeremiah's cranial implants are an obvious source, but in Suzaku's
 case Zero quickly realized that someone must have told him of Zero's
 involvement in Euphie's death.  Does that mean he knows of the existence of
 Geasses too?  Zero knows Suzaku has begun to suspect his identity, but by
 this point Zero's gotten used to the idea of having to fight his old friend.

 Peerless freaks out if he sees Sergei in danger, but Sergei assures her
 that he'll escape safely.  Peerless fears being left alone more than anything
 else.  It's Allelujah who gets the shock of his life when Peerless opens
 her cockpit.  It's Marie, Allelujah's childhood friend, and though
 Hallelujah knew this all along, he kept it from his alter ego lest it
 endanger them both.  The thought that Allelujah has been battling his only
 friend is almost more than he can bear.

 Zechs and Noin know this whole thing is a farce, and only participated to
 avoid Zechs' enemies having ammunition to use against him.

 All told, Zexis has faced 19 mecha equipped with the Pseudo-Solar Reactor --
 there should be eleven more somewhere.  Sure enough, one of them is in
 Ali's hands, and he uses it to strike a severe blow against the Ptolemy.
 It spirals out of control, and Ali rushes off to finish the kill -- leaving
 a bevvy of reinforcements for Zexis to tangle with.  The CBs rush off in
 pursuit, and the rest of the team vow to follow as soon as they can.

 Ali lets them catch up, and springs his grand ambush.  It seems that the
 Federation army attack was all a ruse to get the CBs alone: his employer has
 decided that they need to be eliminated out of hand.  The rest of Zexis will
 be dealt with soon enough.  Of course, if he thinks it'll be that easy, he's
 an even bigger fool than he seems -- especially since Hallelujah has agreed
 to help out directly

 Life is definitely not easy for the outnumbered CBs, and it gets worse when
 Alejandro himself shows up.  He orders the CBs to surrender and become his
 servants, claiming that he's the one who is truly bringing Ioria's plans to
 fruition.  Who but he has the power to oppose the Imperium?  How could there
 be any room for doubt?!

 Easily.  Not only did Alejandro's batallion fail to stop Zexis, he also
 misjudged how strongly they'd support the CBs.  Other ideology aside, the CBs
 are fighting for world peace, and that's something every right-thinking
 person can get behind. 

 Sarches is, predictably, harder to kill than he looks at first.  That's
 where Lockon comes in, making the best use of his one good eye to a) defend
 Setsuna, and b) get revenge for his family.  The effort leaves him
 unconscious and adrift until the battle ends.  And _that_ means taking out
 Alejandro, who is laughably proud of his mech.  It's got _seven_ Pseudo-
 Solar Reactors, which does him exactly jack shit in terms of good.

 Now, the million-dollar question: why has Alejandro inserted himself into
 Ioria's plans?  What is he after?  Destruction and rebirth!  He thinks he's
 got everything figured out with Veda at his control, even claiming to have
 a backup plan for smiting the Imperium with Zexis out of the picture.
 Before Alejandro can make good a clean escape, Lockon regains consciousness,
 shoots Alejandro's Pseudo-Solar Reactor, and sends Setsuna off to finish the
 job.  He promises to the rest of the team he'll be waiting for them...

 ...but actually means to call an end to it all.  Despite his Haro's
 pleas, he sends it and his precious Gundam back to base, leaving himself
 adrift among the asteroids.  From here, the flames of the war gripping the
 Earth can't be seen, only a promising tomorrow where someone like Lyle could
 live in peace.  Lockon expects to die from his wounds, die for what he's
 done, or tried to do.  His last words are a question -- are "they"
 satisfied with this world? -- and his own answer: hell no.

 Now maybe all Setsuna can do is fight -- but if he's going to fight, he's
 going to make damn sure to take out the source of all the world's distortion.
 Alejandro is forced to haul out his personal mech, loudly proclaiming that
 Setsuna's time has come!  What the hell does he think he can do all alone?!
 How about... demolish his ass with one shit? 

 As the harsh reality begins to set in, Ribbons radios in to tell him that the
 plan he was fitting into was not Ioria's, but Ribbons' himself.  But what
 about the long-cherished desires of the Conner clan?!  Like any would-be
 world leader would care about something like that.

 Anyway, this result is thanks to the Gundam Exia's secret weapon, a special
 sword designed to ignore the GN Field and be used in the event that someone
 were to distort Ioria's plans.  That explains why Lockon was so insistent
 that Setsuna hurry ahead for the final battle.  Lockon's mech arrives along
 with the rest of Zexis, but of course he's not aboard.... only his Haro,
 plaintively repeating its departed master's name.  No sooner does the
 party start lamenting than Treize and Elgan show up.  It will fall to
 Elgan to explain how all this mess happened...

Setsuna sends a voice message to Marina, explaining why he's been fighting so hard, so long. Ever since seeing that Gundam back in Kursis, he wondered why the world has become so warped -- where did that warping come from, and what could be done about it? Why do people seem to unconsciously hate each other so often? Why do they dominate, and be dominated? Though he's going about it differently than she, he knows the both of them are continuing to travel toward that answer. Neither Marina nor Rilina know whether this path of unity the world is on will result in peace, though both can be sure their love interests will do their damndest to try. Just then a new _special_ ambassador from the UN comes in, and Marina insists that Rilina stick around and join in whatever talks result. Said ambassador is none other than Diana Sorel...

As the pilots lament Lockon's untimely death, Elgan and Treize explain what's been going on. They and Schneizer had gotten together with Alejandro in a bid to unify mankind and put an end to all the needless fighting. Ironic that it took an impetus like the Imperium to kick those plans into action. The full scope of Alejandro's treachery only came to Elgan's attention relatively recently, but even Schneizer and Trieze dared not reveal his schemes to Zexis lest the setup for a unified Federation founder. This was in fact the right call, but it still led to the death of someone precious, and Sumeragi gives Elgan a slap across the face to be sure he knows it.

Watching this unfold is making Zero extremely fidgety. He realizes that Elgan isn't focusing on world unification or even world peace... but something even farther ahead than that. What else is there?? A still more glorious dawn, perhaps? His reverie is cut short by an emergency communique from the Quarter: a horde of Emerge have appeared at the South Pole. Elgan cautions Zexis that the Emerge's actions are sure to stir the Imperium into motion...

CHAPTER 49. Rainbow

It was two years ago when Setsuna was introduced to the other Gundam Meisters by Sumeragi, and his tender years didn't exactly endear him to Tielia and Allelujah on first sight. Lockon, on the other hand, enthusiastically greeted the guy, telling the others that age doesn't mean squat compared to piloting ability and the desire to change the world. That's a desire Setsuna and Lockon definitely shared...

Back in the present, everyone would love to know what has brought the Emerge to the south pole, and in such cataclysmic numbers. Nobody knows precisely what makes the darn things tick, but it's pretty clear that they're somewhat intelligent and bent on the destruction of humanity. This series of calamities is so seamless that it's almost like it's... scripted or something.

Eureka observes sadly that the Emerge's actions are probably motivated by the current state of the world. Tifa adds that the Emerge have _curiosity_ about humans, and one might conjecture that the Imperium's mayham may have caused them to give up on mankind. The ZEUTH pilots recall their dealings with beings much like the Emerge, and wonder if in fact these beings are the selfsame ones who were "persuaded" to leave their Earth alone.

But as Crow puts it, "So what?" if some or even all of the world's populace are to blame for the Emerge's despair(?). He, and Renton, and indeed all the team aren't just going to bend over and take it in the ass as the world gets ruined. Kouji says it best: if there are bad people in the world, better that Zexis punish them than for the Emerge to get involved.

Setsuna and the other CBs are on board: the whole point of their mission has been to ultimately benefit mankind. Lockon's Haro even agrees, causing a moment's disconcert when it almost seems like Lockon himself is speaking from beyond the grave. It is for Zexis, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thusfar so nobly advanced.

The key is Renton and Eureka, who can demonstrate to the Emerge what the better angels of human nature look like. Renton going along with her as ambassador will serve a double purpose: he can protect her in case the Emerge try to simply kidnap her and use her accumulated knowledge against mankind. As the pilots ready for battle, Felt and Setsuna reaffirm their commitment to the cause Lockon gave his life for -- a life whose absence the other snipers like Michelle will feel quite keenly.

Zero sees Elgan watching the preparations, and asks him if he's satisfied at how his "pawns" are busting ass to save the world. Elgan replies that he's never once seen Zexis as pawns, which sounds a bit hollow to Zero. Certainly Elgan is the one who gave Zexis birth, but like children everywhere, Zexis has developed a will of its own, one unrelated to its parents' wishes. Jeffrey and Sumeragi share Zero's view, and tell Elgan directly that they're acting on their own initiative from now on. Elgan tells them that all he's ever wanted from Zexis is for them to fight to protect the world and its people, and at least to Zero's eyes he's telling the truth.

He continues that Zexis will have to relate to the rest of the world somehow in the days to come, and says that he means to have the Security Council recognize Zexis as a truly independent force -- a bona fide guarantee of their autonomy. And to lead them, to gather them at need, Elgan names not Jeffrey, not Sumeragi, but Zero. Zero thinks carefully, and accepts this perhaps ceremonial role, stating for the commanders all to hear that he does _not_ intend to use Zexis for the Black Knights' personal quest to free Area Eleven. That settled, Elgan grabs Treize and heads off to deal with the aftermath of the Federation Army vanguard's demolition.

Jeffrey and Sumeragi almost playfully ask Zero for his orders, and he tells them that he knows full well that Zexis is bigger than any one person's will should control. But he's happy to represent the group's will, and that will is to go to the South Pole and get the Emerge to lay off, by hook or by crook!

It should surprise no one who's been paying attention that where there's the Emerge, there's also the Gekkostate. The setup is this: Eim's promised Holland that his special knowldge of the pan-dimensional Emerge will help Holland and co.'s wish come true. To make the Emerge understand Holland's desire to rebuild the world into Wonderland, Renton and Eureka will be needed, and _they_ are presumably with the rest of Zexis headed to the South Pole. Eim's unctuous pledges of aid have Holland a bit suspicious: what's in it for him? Eim wants to use the Gekkostate to psychologically destabilize Zexis, and doesn't much care how the world gets reconfigured should Holland succeed. He lets it suffice to say that his interdimensional powers give him sufficient immunity, though it's pretty clear he's not telling Holland everything... especially when he says that the Imperium won't sent its flagship for something this "trifling". Remaking, and probably destroying, the world is "trifling"??

Talho is very worried from what she could hear of the conversation, but Holland tells her to go back to sleep, especially with how ill she's been seeming lately. He promises to go after Renton personally while the Emerge take on the rest of Zexis. Holland intends to have the Gekko, and its precious cargo of passengers, waiting at a safe distance. And though his promise to save everyone precious to him (especially Talho), Talho herself seems increasingly uncertain that all this is a good idea...

Renton will need to take Eureka to the Emerge's Nucleus, and the vast number of Emerge that, um, emerge along the way look to make that rather tough. But you know what they say about when the going gets tough -- I hope you've been shopping for the right upgrades.

 As the team hack their way through the Emerge, a new and unexpected threat
 appears.  Remember Graham?  He's back, and his Flag has one of those
 Pseudo-Solar Reactors... and he's out for revenge against Setsuna.  In fact,
 his obsession with the overwhelming capabilities of the Gundams is a twisted
 form of "love", a love which Graham has sort of blown straight through on
 the way to hatred.  He even realizes all this himself, and yet can't make
 himself stop the idiocy.

 Speaking of which, it's Holland!  He's got a frigging immense booster on his
 mech to help him take Renton down, but Renton is through running away from
 the guy.  He can understand why Holland wants to remake the world, but ain't
 having the selfishness aspect.  Eureka tells Renton to go kick Holland's
 ass, and Setsuna means to do the same to Graham, as one more person whose
 ego has overshadowed his recognition of mankind's larger needs.

 The CBs are pretty confused when they blow Graham's ass to smithereens: is
 he a symptom of the distortion clouding the world?  And is that their fault?

 Holland meanwhile simply won't give his selfish quest for redemption a
 fucking rest, despite having his big-ass booster shot out from under him.
 The Gekko draws close to the battlefield at this point, and Holland hollers
 out for the rest of his crew to protect Talho while he goes and hog-wrestles
 Renton.  He means to activate the Compact Feedback System, which apparently
 has something to do with locating the souls of those around him.  What he
 discovers, to his shock, is the soul of the new life growing inside Talho:
 his unborn child.  NOW HOW DID THAT GET THERE OMG wtfbbq.  Talho says she
 kept quiet because she knew Holland would give up on his own dream to help
 her instead.

 This is where the ship's doctor speaks up: "It's worse than that, it's
 PHYSICS Jim!"  Actually, Misha says that the child's development is 100%
 normal -- that is, even if Talho herself is aging abnormally quickly, the
 unborn baby is not.  The Gekkostate will _not_ pass on their misfortune to
 the next generation after all.  Talho tells Holland that she's love to show
 the child both its mother and father's smiles, and Holland has to agree:
 maybe such a world wouldn't be so bad after all.

 Eim's had enough by this point, hauling out the troops and even dangling
 Margret in front of Crow to "sway" his scales.  If he thinks Holland is
 going to just fight for him blindly, though, he's sadly mistaken.  Holland
 tells Renton to shoot him in the back if he wants, but asks that Renton help
 defend Talho and his child from the Imperium... and the whole world besides.
 Yeah, that was pretty much the plan.  And by this point, Crow's "swaying"
 has stopped completely.  After telling domesticated doggie Shubal to go
 fuck himself, Crow aims his Do I Have To Choke A Bitch ray at Eim.  Today is
 the day that Eim gets that smug-ass face punched inside out.

 Margret just can't seem to shake off her quest for revenge for her brother,
 even though she herself knows she's Doing It Wrong.  She begins to see
 reason though when Shubal nears defeat though: what precisely are they,
 proud knights, doing serving the very person who destroyed their world
 (Insalaum)?  Surviving, that's what!  They're the last two members of their
 race, and the only way to survive is to sere Gaiou... or, is it?  As Eim
 is about to slay Margret for her unwillingness to fight, Shubal leaps to her
 defense and takes the fatal blow meant for her.

 In fact, all his bluster, all his bravado, have been an act all along.  His
 only loyalty was ever to Insalaum, and with his final strength he means to
 show Eim just how big a mistake it was messing with him.  This is the moment
 Gaiou's been waiting for, and he tells Eim to move so he can receive the
 blow himself.  Sadly for Shubal and his dreams of letting his former
 countrymen rest in peace, his blow is 100% ineffective.

 Gaiou's counterattack, on the other hand, is about 1000% effective.  In the
 wake of the blow Gaiou claims will shatter Shubal's very soul, a solitary
 white feather floats down: the birth of a new warrior, as Gaiou puts it.
 Shubal's last words are to Margret, to never lose her bravery, and to Zexis,
 to witness just how steep the cost of failure is.  His mech is abosrbed
 by Gaiou, and converted into a new Dimensional Beast.

 This solves the riddle of who the "younger brother" Margret was obsessed over
 is: the same mindless killing machine Crow was on a quest to kill.  The herd
 of DBs turn out to be the remains of the Arcsabers, though none of them
 retain a shred of their former selves.  Crow takes the sight in with
 impressive calm, ordersing Margret to leave Eim behind and help Crow kill
 his ass.  She reluctantly agrees, and Gaiou demands to know if Zexis has
 forgotten how badly he beat their ass the last time they fought.  Crow smirks
 and asys that he's been feeling pretty senile lately.

 Gaiou figured Zexis had this kind of backbone, and promises to finish them
 off once and for all -- once he's finished a little errand.  They may have
 won the Tournament, but if they want to fight Gaiou, they'll have to get
 through Eim first.  As he squares off against the team, he starts spouting
 a stream of seeming gibberish: a Red Thread and Sand... Yea verily, the
 Sow.  Gentleness and on the planet's monitor, the three-headed night's night
 sky.  The bl-bl-bl-bl-black white seiging UFO's clock's hair gives forth
 even the true intention's blitzkreig.  And so forth.

 It does appear that our man Eim has blown a gasket, and Crow for one is
 sick of hearing the guy's shit.  Unfortunately, pulverizing him just makes
 the babbling get even worse.  Clearly the only humane thing to do is to put
 him out of his misery, but it seems that task won't fall to Crow.  At least
 not if Asakim has anything to say about it.  Oh, Asakim!  I distantly
 remember him, I think.

 After making his dramamtic entrance, he observes that Eim is on the verge of
 being devoured by the Sphere's power.  The ZEUTH folks might remember what
 happened to Ohara "Maiden of Sorrows" Setsuko's sight, or the intense pain
 that Rand "Wounded Lion" Travis felt as their powers came closer to fruition.
 This dementia seems to be the fate of Eim "False Black Sheep" Rheinart,
 whose powere is keyed off the word "falsehood": ultimately, its bearer will
 lose the ability to say anything with meaning.

 With the explanation out of the way, Asakim gets busy hunting down Eim's
 soul.  Claiming Eim's Sphere, he sort of apologizes to Crow that Crow won't
 get to be the one to kill Eim off.  Oh hey, what about the part where ZEUTH
 needed Eim's power to get back to their own world?  Not to worry, says
 Asakim: they don't _have_ an "own world" anymore: they too are Accursed
 Wanderers now.  He tells Crow to get stronger so he can hunt his soul later,
 and departs without any further explanation to the team.

Well, that's that then. Crow thinks to Eim's departed soul that it'd better think up some pretty good lies from now on: it'll need them to deal with the devils in hell. The good news is that Eureka and Renton finally get to return to their parley with the Emerge. Eureka, truth be told, is very scared: she has to admit that there's a lot of evil in this world, despite all the good she's received at the hands of Renton and his friends. As it turns out, she must actually give her memories entirely to the Emerge, losing her self in the process. She mentally tells Renton that so long as he lives and dreams, she'll always be there within those dreams. That's her dream, anyway.

As she gives her memories to the Emerge, a rainbow breaks out over the South Pole, and all the Emerge-scape vanishes. Unfortunately, so does Eureka's personality. Holland suspected that this would happen, and is sure that Eureka did herself. That she made the sacrifice of her own free will should be enough to quell the sudden anger directed at Holland, and as the team grapple with how to express their feelings, Nia hits upon song. The whole team join in, and sure enough Eureka recovers herself. Holland observes that this miracle, this happy ending, is a result of how Renton never gave up no matter how rough the going go. He vows to go on fighting too till the whole world has a happy ending, and Zexis will accept his help against...

The Imperium! Who, annoyingly, have made their flagship disappear -- probably with some sort of stealth tech. After all the warpower the Imperium just lost, it seems that they might be showing the first signs of actual caution... and that can't much work in Zexis' favor. Margret says that Imperium has never had any discernible strategy, just Gaiou's inscrutible directions to go on. Is there no one who can guess what they're up to?

There is, in fact, and Traia has hauled him all the way out here by the scruff of his neck! It's Carlos, who claims to have fled the Imperium in fear of his own life. Just the person to extract info from given that the next fight will decide the fate of the world.

Speaking of the Imperium, Sionny is beside herself over Eim's death, and knows full well how vulnerable her big-ass mobile fortress now is. Gaiou orders her to shut her whimpering piehole unless she wants it mashed flat, and smirks when she implores him to destroy Zexis to let them complete their conquest of the world. Destroying Zexis was always the plan, but Gaiou's got somewhere to go first: the Shadow Moon. He confirms to Sionny that he's recovered quite a bit of his memories along the way, and reckons he can recover the final piece there. And when he does, Zexis is t-o-a-s-t.

CHAPTER 50. Era of Destruction

News of the Emerge's recognition of mankind's positive nature reaches the world's leaders, and reactions are somewhat mixed. Diana and friends in Azadistan hail Zexis' good works, but Schneizer tells Cornelia that due to Zexis' shady nature, the result will likely be reported as a victory for the Federation Army. Upon seeing her discomfort, he tells her to blame him if she must, for the world's indebtedness to a group harboring Euphie's killer Zero. She says in formal tones that the government made the correct decision, and Suzaku allows that he merely follows the orders he's given. Schneizer tells Suzaku that he's under Cornelia's command now, and that all of them have to wait and believe that Zexis can take out their final opponent: the Imperium.

Back at the Kurogane-ya, even Shirou's figured out that the Federation means to take the credit for the hard fight they've put Zexis into. Tsubasa however tells him to suck up the indignation -- the Zexis pilots themselves care far more about the right then getting done, than who specifically does it or who gets credit for it. She assures Shirou that all of Kurogane-ya's graduates in Zexis will win the day.

Back to Zexis. Margret explains that the Earth she hails from is multidimensional like this one, and that the Holy Nation of Insalaum was able to unify it under a single banner. Insalaum was an absolute monarchy, and the Arcsabers were both its royal guard and the leaders of the worldwide peacekeeping forces. Said peacekeepers had to battle aliens and space monsters more than once, and the Arcsabers proud record of victory stood until the day "he" arrived: the Lord of Destruction.

The occasion was an experiment in harvesting Superdimensional Energy, conducted by her world's best minds. The experiment was a failure, and Gaiou was able to enter through the breaches in the world's dimensional walls. Gaiou's servants, the DBs, set the world ablaze in short order, and unlike this world Gaiou himself entered battle from the outset. The Arcsabers themselves succumbed all too quickly, converted one by one into DBs by the Revive Cells Gaiou's mech manufactures. Far more powerful in mindless unlife, these new DBs further tilted the odds in Gaiou's advantage, and it seems Gaiou makes a point specifically of seeking out the strongest opponents in the interest of making the strongst DBs. Margret can make out no higher objective than sheer love of battle.

With their king dead and their comrades defeated, Shubal and Margret were waiting for death when Eim appeared, coming like Gaiou from another dimension. Eim offered Gaiou a deal: accept Eim as his servant, and Eim would proffer up new battlefields -- the so called "Project Vortex". Gaiou took him up on the offer, and Eim spared Shubal and Margret's lives in return for them acting as his agents. And though Gaiou officially gave Eim control of the DBs, the DBs only ever do as Gaiou wishes. Margret tells Ryouma that while Shubal's motives for feigning allegiance remain unclear, her own reason was simple fear -- all the more so after seeing her brother Shane DBified before her very eyes. This of course is her big chance at revenge, and Crow tells her she's sticking with the team till the end.

Interestingly, even Gaiou doesn't seem to know who is is or precisely why he's doing what he's doing. All the same, Zexis won't allow him to keep doing it and making this world another Insalaum. Now if they could only find the Great Axion... Sadly, Carlos no longer holds the reins of his company -- Sionny is to blame for that, ever more drunk with power. To his credit, Carlos knows that he's partly responsible for a level of world mayhem that a simple apology won't fix... and says that his business motto is fixing things that get broken. Though he says he's "learned his lesson", he doesn't "regret" what he did. He actually rather likes Gaiou, and says that this world deserves a bit of a black eye for all its faults -- as such, he is in no hurry to divulge where the Great Axion is headed. Wouldn't the CBs and Black Knights feel the same?

In any case, the original goal of Project Vortex was the "breaking" of the world, and though an uncontrollable monster got involved somewhere along the way, it seems that objective is close to being fulfilled. Sumeragi asks why he didn't just use Axion's native resources to bring about this change, and he says that the hearts of the populace at large aren't to be swayed by cloak-and-dagger intrigues. There has to be a great evil to rally against, doesn't there? No, actually -- Setsuna finally manages to speak for the CBs' past actions, pointing out that there's a difference between revolution and outright ruination. Maybe so, but Carlos disagrees that too much blood has been spilled already: without spilling even _more_ blood, the world just has more Alejandro types to look forward to.

Zero allows that Carlos' words make a certain amount of sense. But he's also learned from fighting as part of Zexis that there are some things one simply cannot repair if broken. Among them is human life, and meaningless loss of human life is precisely what Gaiou's presence means. Zero tells Carlos that he means to strike Gaiou down, in accordance with Justice as he himself sees it. _That_ is what C.C. was hoping to hear.

Carlos still isn't in any mood to simply divulge everything he knows, and in even less of a mood to have it extracted by torture. He claims to have a poison tooth installed, preferring to simply die at the hands of his "Life Span Acceerator" than to suffer extensively. Seeing that things are going nowhere, Zero orders Carlos into revealing what he knows -- that Gaiou is likely headed to the Shadow Moon in search of the final pieces of his missing memory.

That gets the team thinking quickly, and Traia figures out a possible entry point through all the dimensional distortions surrounding the Shadow Moon. To the rest of the team, it seems that Carlos just succumbed to Zero's commanding presence, but C.C. knows what really happened: this is the effect of the Geass that Lelouch placed on Carlos _waaaaay_ the hell back when they faced each other at chess. What an incredible confluence of boldness and plain good luck!

Time for Zexis to go forth and make the final move that will assure world peace and world renewal! The two idol stars will actually head back to Earth to root for the team from a safe distance. Eureka thanks Ranka for the song that restored her fleeing memories, grateful for her support for her and Renton's blossoming romance. Things are less cheerful between Crow and Margret, who finally lets her grief out at having to watch her brother lost twice. She even knows that Crow did Shane a favor by freeing his soul, but as his older sister it still hurt deeply. Despite his instinctual fear of women, Crow proves to be an incredibly good shoulder for her to cry on, and a source of inspiration for her to dry her tears and get back to kicking ass.

As Margret goes off to wash her face, Traia slyly observes that Esther is going to flip when she hears of the episode. She can just hear Esther's rage about "Yeah I'm just a no-good commoner noncombattant chick anyway!", and Crow implores her to _not_ let that happen, lest his will to return home safely suffer. Small fear of that though: Crow has line-of-sight to a peaceful, debt-free world, and that has his juices flowing. Well, peaceful except for Esther's jealousy. Traia agrees to keep quiet for 300G, and slyly tells Crow to get his ass back soon if he doesn't want her to dock his pay. That's the plan, after giving the DM Buster Blaster one final workout.

The team of course make it to the Shadow Moon, a product of dimnensional shenanigans that, like the two Japans, is an artifact of Upper Math(tm) happening. Its gravity is much like the regular moon's, but there's little time for astrogeology. Sionny orders forth her forces, noting that Gaiou was righter than he knew when he called Zexis her "fated" rivals. Driven insane by power, she proclaims that Zexis' life and death means nothing to the world, and that it will indeed be their death for opposing the Imperium! Much like the Dancougar team fights on pure instinct, Sionny is now operating on pure lust for power. Bandying creed words with a witless worm isn't going to accomplish much, so the team tell her to go get stuffed and send Gaiou out already.

 She responds by sending out two frigging enormo-ass DBs, which accomplishes
 nothing beyond making the team bored.  When shot down, her final cry is that
 the "Great Axion" is actually the "Great Limonecia", which will change the
 world just as her own country was changed.  C.C. calls Sionny a "poor thing"
 for how she never knew what she wanted to accomplish even at the moment of
 her death.  With her and her strategic DBs out of the way, all that
 remains is the fight with Gaiou.

 ...Who helpfully shows up, standing on the lunar surface sans spacesuit or
 anything.  What's more, his voice is forcibly making itself heard over
 everybody's speakers.  He scoffs when it's pointed out to him that his
 flagship has been shot down and he should surrender: surrender is _not_ in
 his mission.  Oroo... mission?  He asks the team if they've got something to
 protect, and says that to protect something, there must be something to
 protect that thing _from_.  Err, sure, but what's he getting at?

 When the team confirm that they're damn sure ready to take on him and any
 other enemies of the world, he sighs.  No doubt from their eyes he _is_ an
 enemy of the world.  He confirms to Margret that he's recovered his memory,
 just as she's recovered her pride as an Arcsaber.  What could be this key
 that unlocked his memories, and why is it here in this world when Gaiou is
 supposed to have come from another dimension?

 Well, he's remembered his father's name, his mother's warmth, his friends'
 cameraderie... and his mission, the enemy he must defeat.  He informs Zexis
 that telling them his mission would accomplish nothing -- actually, they're
 actively better off not knowing.  Before they try to beat it out of them, he
 asks once more why Zexis is facing him here, now.  Is it for the sake of
 world peace, or is it just because they want to fight a strong opponent?
 No, really: which is it?  And let's have the "Sphere Reactor" answer.

 [If you're a warlike dude who likes their opponents strong, you can answer
 the later.  You then will be asked if you're sure, and if you insist that
 you're bent on strength itself, and if you've been playing the game on Hard
 mode, you will in fact have to fight Gaiou at level 99.  Otherwise, you get
 him merely at 60, or 70 if on hard mode.]

 Oh what's up quasi-world peace.  "That's METTA WORLD PEACE TO YOU" *facial
 machinegunning*  Crow pities the fool who can only measure the world with
 his own rod, and Gaiou agrees to take him on on that basis.  He even agrees
 to tell the team his ultimate objective: to become the strongest EVAR.  He
 then alls up two mecha he calls "Gaiou" and "Gailtilan", and as thanks for
 their faithful service unleashes them on the Earthlings.  All this warfare
 he's helped promote was to forge warriors strong enough for him to bother
 making into DBs -- he's not made any till now because most Earthlings are
 too feeble.  Even the Zexis folks from other worlds are about to feel the
 wrath, as severing their "stigma" is another one of his duties.

 Whoa, Eim mentioned something about that!  Yes, Gaiou means to return
 control of Zexis' destinies to their own hands.  And in the process, he'll
 show them the power that can slay even a God!

After all the trash talk and extensive throwdown, Gaiou's end is surprisingly anticlimactic: he merely laughs and thanks Crow for a good match before exploding into a burst of light. That said, there's also a strange sense of relief, like athletes who've given their all on the field. One really gets the sense that Gaiou was not fighting out of malice, but out of something... purer. One really has to wonder what it was that jogged Gaiou's memory, especially since it seems to contain such tidbits as the Megadeuses.

Sadly there won't be time to investigate, as the dimensional breach that let Zexis through to the Shadow Moon begins to rapidly close. It's a shame to leave such a treasure behind, but it still must be remembered that the world is about to change thanks to Zexis' exploits. While the various pilots' personal struggles will continue, there is hope for this Earth Federation after all.

Zero orders Zexis to split up to its respective motherships, and head for Earth. When they arrive, Zexis can be considered formally disbanded. Of course, all the pilots vow to stay in touch as they go their separate ways. Even Crow has a lot to look forward to, now that he's debt free...

[It is now the year 0020, and in it the Three Great Nations issued the "Earth Federation Proclamation". All thanks to Zexis, really. Speaking of whom...]

Crow's being kept busy cleaning up DBs. Despite the month that's passed, he has _not_ gotten to savor the debt-free life -- it seems all the stress he put on the Blaster has cost the lab a fortune to repair. That fortune will _not_ come from Carlos, who Traia took in after Axion's demise. She did so on the condition that he donate his vast personal fortune to charity, but there's hope that his business acumen may yet save them from bankrupcy. Carlos is the first to admit that that won't even begin to pay for what he helped to bring about, and even his full testamony to the government isn't much of a reparation. The DBs in question, absent a leader, have reverted to "natural disaster" status, like earthquakes or tornados. And at least Crow can provide the lab a steady stream of revenue cleaning up the mess. In fact, there's so much work that Esther is being given a mech of her own -- and she's thrilled to be able to follow in Crow's footsteps.

Roger and Dorothy meanwhile are stuck contemplating how they _can't_ get back home at present. While they wait for the scientific community to unlock the secrets of interdimensional travel, Roger announces that they'll help rebuild all the areas ravaged by war. He knows full well that this will help bring about a new generation of conflict, but sometimes them's the breaks. And this new conflict will need more than just weapons -- it will need Negotiation.

Renton has taken Eureka back to Warusawa as he promised. Holland apologized to the two of them for what he'd done, and taken off for parts unknown with the rest of the Gekkostate. Renton has to admit that he's still mad at Holland, but he's chosen to put that anger behind him and start a new life with Eureka. Nirvash meanwhile has reverted to its childlike form, perhaps a sign that they need no longer fight. As the world changes, so do the three of them. Renton's deepest promise to Eureka is to never let her be taken from him again, no matter what.

Takeo General Company is at peace once more, mountains of mundane paperwork bearing testament to how peaceful the world is. And thanks to its structure as a jack-of-all-trades company, they even get to play an active role in the new flowers of Federation cooperation. For instance, Banjou's gotten them work hauling building materials for the Federation's new space base. Between Trider, Daitarn and Zanbot, that should be a piece of cake.

Compared to that, 21st Century's workers find themselves mired in nothing _but_ paperwork. This is a bit tiresome, but Akagi and Ibuki have to agree that they'd rather have peace than the thrilling but dangerous role of battling Heterodynes. Then again, Domeki is sure that this peace won't last forever: as long as there are dimensinoal abnormalities swirling around, it's sure that the Heterodynes will reappear. She's got a plan to power up Dai Guard, but as it'll cost a full three year's profits, it's not likely to get approved in advanced. Still, as long as Section 2's teamwork is in place, something will work out.

Elewhere, Team D have come to a joint decision: they want to stay on as the pilots of Dancougar Nova. Things are quiet now, but they've seen enough to know that the peace surely won't last. Even Eiyda is on board, though she'll be resuming her idol career in the meantime (with Johnny managing). The original Dancougar team will be sure to keep up their training, and the Gravion folks will be in on it too. Like Crow, they'll certainly not be bored with all the DB activity to help combat.

The Crusher, Blue Fixer and God Sigma teams are being combined into the New Crushers, tasked with investigating the Solar System's host of planets and asteroids. After all the interdimensional activity, a few extra planets have sort of um, showed up and need checking into. They'll have Roze with them, at least as far as the outer rim: she's got to return to other parts of the galaxy now rife with unrest in the wake of Zhul's death, and she means to make up for what she's done by helping quell the fighting in the interest of good. Takeru tells her that when she does, she should view it not as a penance, but as an opportunity for the future. Ootsuka tells the team not to worry: he's arranged for "certain helpers" in case something comes up here on Earth -- he'll introduce said helpers once the team returns home once more.

The Frontier fleet has finally been accepted as part of the Federation, at least as long as it takes to fix its Fold engines. The trip to colonize the center of the galaxy looks like it's on hold for a while. It's not all wine and roses though: the fleet's uber tech is still a tempting prize for the Earth, and it seems certain that the fleet will keep the S.M.S. and its advanced mecha close to its chest. Interestingly, the Aquarion folks have opted to hang with the Frontier fleet, hoping as it were to enjoy the life of a space person. Alto is rather nonplussed at such a simpleminded reason, but if there's going to be political wrangling on the surface, the Aquarion folks want to be as far from it as psosible. Besides, there's always the outside chance that more Vajra will show up, especially if the "queen" that the team took out isn't actually the real queen at all. Certainly the team will have plenty of music to listen to, and Alto will get a choice of which full-fledged idol he loves best.

(And Grace, for whatever nefarious purposes of her own, loves watching Ranka and Sheryl competing with each other. The power of their songs, and the virus within them, will open the door of the world Grace hopes to venture to. Her plans also seem to include the Vajra, and a certain musical artist she won't yet name...)

Kouji's back at Kurogane-ya, hard at work polishing his martial arts with the help of the resident combat wackos. He's made huge strides, and knows he'll need to make many more if whatever Dr. Hell is planning is to be rebuffed. Tsubasa loves his attitude and no mistake. Meanwhile, the Gurren Gang are headed back to the Dark Continent, the Xabungle folks tagging along for the ride. So are Gainer's crew and Gundams Turn A and X. Even the Orguss folks are joining what seems to be one massive expedition. With all that help, Simon can surely change the benighted land for the better, and thereby let the memory of Kamina live on. Roshuu, to his credit, is thinking ahead to the need to _govern_ the society they'll be rebuilding on the Dark Continent, and is hoping Harry and Queen Diana can give him some pointers. The Getter team will be tagging along too, looking to the Dark Continent as a suitably gloomy place for their disreputable selves.

Kiriko meanwhile has gone missing, leaving the Black Knights and his other friends in the ghetto behind on some quest of his own. Gouto expected as much, as Fiana is still unaccounted for. Ougi did receive one short message from Kiriko for Kotona before he left -- "See you again." Gouto and his folks are actually planning to leave the ghetto before the Black Knights really start a war with Britannia, but they're sure they and Kiriko will find each other again: he seems drawn to the smell of blood and gunsmoke.

Zero meanwhile is busy preparing for the final blow against Britannia: if Area Eleven is to be liberated at all, it better happen quickly before the people lose their revolutionary fervor. C.C. knows that the hardest hurdle for Lelouch to overcome is his own heart -- the Black Knights are already fired up for the fight. Lelouch meanwhile has returned to Ashford and run into Suzaku, the one friend he can't bring himself to simply cut ties with. Suzaku actually asks him point blank if he's Zero, and after an uncomfortable pause Lelouch brushes off the question without directly answering. Inwardly, Lelouch hates himself for having to lie to his friend, but he hates the thought of leaving his great work unfinished even more -- and if he has to become Suzaku's enemy, so be it...

The Colonial Gundams aren't going to be helping the Black Knights, as the strategic importance of Area Eleven has diminished considerably in the new world order. The bigger question is the colonies' decision to join in the Earth Federation -- at least, on the surface. There's a chance that the Earth Federation mean to use this shift to go back to dominating the colonies anyway, in which case the Gundams mean to fight the whole Federation -- even if they don't have backing from those colonies while doing it. Hiiro tells Setsuna that he's not doing any of this for Rilina's approval; rather, he likely wants the same thing Setsuna does. The CBs will take some time to ponder their next move, now that mankind is basically united -- hopefully they won't have any further cause for their patented military interventions. They should probably get busy finding what became of Veda, but they'll have to do it quietly: even with Elgan running interference, they are kind of seen as terrorists by the masses. Still, Setsuna is adamant that they've got a reason for existing -- if the world is enveloped in war again, that's when they will need to step from the shadows.

Speaking of Veda though, all is not well with Ribbons. He's managed to drug Elgan, who's been upgraded from Security Council Chairman to Commander of the Earth Federation, and means to keep him under while leading the world down the path _he_ chooses. He learned from Veda that Elgan is a rather special individual -- none other than Ioria's oldest friend, and by "old" we mean he's been alive for over 200 years. This explains why Veda agreed to help the Federation at least. Ribbons means to gradually deprive Elgan of his reason, and extract from him just what this Black Wisdom business is all about. With the Romfellar under his thumb, Ribbons thinks he can open the door that Ioria built back when...

Treize expected Elgan's promotion, and has taken a number of the Gundam pilots under his wing. Oz is to be a special batallion in the reorganized Federation Army, and he tells his new charges that he has high hopes for them. But for what, wonders Amuro. Formal introductions over, Treize muses over the hard road he means to make them walk. He wants to be the Loser. Dorothy, daughter of Count Delmeyer of the Romfellar, wants there to be as much fighting as possible...

And last but not least [gawd this gets longer every game...] is Crow, who finds himself sneezing at the controls of his transport plane. Is it Margret talking rumors about him -- she having vanished before the team returned to Earth? Or Asakim, who's vowed to harvest Crow's soul? Well, no matter -- for now, he's a regular working stiff with DBs to kill and a steady income. That is, he _would_ if not for Traia extorting his ass to keep info on Margret from Esther. How is it possible Crow's done so much for the world and yet is still so impoverished??

                            T H E       E N D 

                    (until Rebirth Chapter, that is)