Ryuko. Wake up. We're in trouble.

The girl opened her eyes, finding herself in a dark, cramped, and very warm place. In fact, it wasn't just warm, it was searing hot. Ryuko could see no fire through the darkness, but she could smell smoke.

"W-where am I?"

"I think… you're sitting on my face," said a muffled Kamina. Ryuko leapt back, ran into the other side of the cockpit, and kicked the offending party away.

"You little pervert!" she screamed.

"It's not my fault," Kamina whimpered in reply. "That's the way you ended up after crashing in here."

Ryuko slumped against the cockpit's wall. "Yeah, right. Now where are we?"

"We're stuck, that's where. We fell into a building, and something hit us," coughed Simon from above. "Everything's on fire, and I can't get Gurren Lagann to move. We're out of Spiral Energy."

"We're toast, bro," moaned Kamina.

"I hate to say it, but it does look that way. We can't break through the defenses of those weird gunmen. How about you, Ryuko?"

"I kept kicking the crap out of that Hermione chick… and then she kept getting more powerful. I guess I wasn't having much luck either."

Kamina pulled at his hair in frustration. "In other words, we're royally screwed."

"Damn," coughed Ryuko.

Wait, Ryuko, said Senketsu. There may be a way out of this.

I'm willing to try anything.

You're going to have to take me off.

No way. We're meant for each other. I can't win without you.

You will win, and you will win with me. Trust me, Ryuko.

Okay, okay. I trust you.

Good. Listen closely.

Ryuko bolted upright against the wall, her outfit returning to its unassuming seifuku form. She quickly began to undo the skirt's suspenders.

"Good idea," said Kamina, carefully observing her. "If we're going to die, we might as well-"

Ryuko placed a shoe on Kamina's neck as she slipped her top off.

"Never gonna happen, pervert," she growled, setting Senketsu down. She kicked the hatch release open, revealing the inferno raging outside. "Now go upstairs. I'm taking over your robot."

She snagged the boy by the neck and tossed him upwards out of the cockpit, with Simon opening Lagann's hatch in time to save him. The robotic cranium sealed around the two pilots, leaving them in darkness again.

"Kamina? What's going on?" asked Simon.

"I don't know, bro. But you had better open up my channel on the display."

Simon did so, though it took considerable effort thanks to the damage done to Gurren Lagann's systems. When the feed did open, it gave them an intimate view of Ryuko's screaming face.

"Listen UP, you peeping Toms!" she roared. "Senketsu's got a plan, and if we listen to him it just might work!"

"Okay, what's the plan?" asked Simon nervously.

"It's real easy, so it gets through your thick skulls! We're gonna combine!"

"We're gonna… combine?" repeated Kamina.

"We're gonna combine!" exclaimed Simon.

Instantly the Spiral Energy readout shot up to operational levels, and Gurren Lagann began to shift in place. It placed a still-functional hand on the ground to steady itself.

Senketsu pressed a single one of his strings into Ryuko's hand with his sleeve.

I am pretty sure I can do this.

If we mess up, we'll know we gave it everything we got, right?

That's right, Ryuko.

The uniform hopped out of the hatch, using its sleeves to climb up until he sat on the machine's right shoulder.

I'm ready, Ryuko. Let's go.

"Got it," said the girl, pressing forward on the controls. Slowly, the damaged Gurren Lagann heaved itself to its feet, crashing up through the roof of the burning furniture store. It began to walk forward into what had now become a burned-out wasteland. The scattered Mobile Suits began to take aim at their target. Hermione floated down a little lower, clearly unhappy with what was happening.

"You… you… survived?"

"That's right," said Kamina. "The spirit of Gurren Lagann is not something that someone can crush with a big attack! It lives on in the hearts and souls of everyone who has faith in the ability to keep on fighting!"

"Because no matter how many times you knock us down, we keep getting up, keep pushing forward, like a drill!" yelled Simon.

"That ability to keep fighting… to keep pushing forward! That's the thread that's woven into us all! The only thing you need to wake it up is to believe in yourself and your friends!" shouted Ryuko. "I know I'm not always a perfect example, but I know that when push comes to shove, I need my friends as much as anyone else! And now, you're gonna see how strong those bonds have become!"

"You're bloody joking," gasped Hermione.

She swiped her hand across the partially-shattered viewscreen in front of her, and clamped her bleeding palm over the string Senketsu had left behind.

"LIFE FIBER SYNCHRONIZE, KAMUI SENKETSU!"

The Kamui sitting atop Gurren Lagann's shoulder unraveled himself into loose strands, draping himself over the gunmen. As Ryuko's blood ran up along the string, the Life Fibers became active, clamping down over the armor. Inside the cockpits, the pilots could hear the metal groan and pop under the pressure.

"Is it… is it going to work?" asked Simon.

"I know it will," breathed Ryuko. "Senketsu says it will. And I believe in him."

At that moment, the strands of fabric tangled over Gurren Lagann's legs, simultaneously binding them together and crushing them into uselessness. The gunmen tripped forward, falling on its faces once more.

"You were bloody joking!" exhaled Hermione, running a hand through her glowing hair. "That's good, because I thought for a second that you were-"

Pink and green energies began to pulsate across Gurren Lagann's body, until it was a mass of solid alternating color.

"Oh, fiddlesticks," said the witch.

Gurren Lagann rose from the ground, levitating slightly and making sounds roughly equivalent to elastic stretching and leather snapping as its shape began to change. A burst of pink sparkles radiated away as the combination completed, and the gunmen drifted back to the ground.

The machine's once-stout frame had been squeezed into the shape that the Kamui had been intended to fit- namely, Ryuko. Gurren Lagann still possessed its defining traits- the human-looking face of Lagann functioning as the head, the snarling, feral face of Gurren as the chest. However, they had now been crammed down into a distinctly feminine form. Gurren's sunglasses now echoed Senketsu's crest, with a red-and-yellow eye glaring out menacingly from under the left lens, and the right lens being etched with the distinctive 'X' of the Kamui's 'eyepatch'. Excess Spiral Energy rippled out of Lagann's head, forming a wild mane of glowing green 'hair', and a spare bunch of pink Life Fibers hung forward in much the same manner as the girl's red forelock. It drew something small from its skirt armor, which it twirled around its finger until it grew as tall as the machine that held it- A massive drill, attached to the finger-grip of a truly gigantic pair of sewing shears.

"THIS IS GURREN LAGANN!" roared Simon.

"WE AIN'T MESSIN' AROUND THIS TIME," Kamina joined in.

"'CAUSE WE'RE DRESSED TO KILL!" screamed Ryuko.

All three announced the name of the machine to the world in perfect, fiery unison.

"GURREN LAGANN KIRU RA KIRU! JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?"

"I… I… just don't know what to-" stuttered Hermione, finding herself speechless. One of the Gatsby units began to advance toward the newly-enhanced gunmen, and Gurren Lagann responded by removing the aggressor's limbs without a trace of doing so. In one moment, it stood where it had transformed, in the next, it was behind a stripped-bare torso, standing in a pile of manipulators and thrusters.

Rainbow Dash slammed a hoof into her controls. "Don't just stand there and get taken out! Shoot at it!"

The other Gatsby units obliged, raising their beam rifles and firing a barrage of charged particles into their target. As soon as they stopped to reload, their weapons mysteriously split in half, exploding in their hands, with Gurren Lagann appearing directly in front of Rainbow Dash's Gundam.

"N-no way," cried the Pegasus, swinging her katana wildly. Gurren Lagann caught the blade with an open hand and jammed its fingers shut, snapping the weapon in half. With its other hand, it drew a second drill-scissor, which grew to a similar size as the first. It flew backwards until it reached the necessary distance, then threw both blades forward, each following an arcing, spinning path until it the weapons buried their edges between the arms and legs of the now-immobile suit. The gunmen raised its right arm above its head, generating a drill several stories tall.

"GIGA!" cried Kamina.

"It's true," sobbed Rainbow Dash. "The rumor was true this whole time!"

"DRILL!" followed Simon.

"I'm gonna die a horrible death!" wailed the Pegasus.

"BREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!" finished Ryuko, as the machine dove forward, plunging the weapon through the Gundam. Rainbow Dash spent her last few nanoseconds watching the front of her cockpit give way to the spiraling tip of her certain doom… before she realized that one of her modifications to the suit was the addition of an emergency AEGIS evacuation system. With her trademark reaction speed, she tapped the button and was transported back to the safety of the Mobile Defense hangar. Below her, on the extended viewing deck, was a particularly-sedate crowd of Reis, each holding lit candles. Ahead of them stood Char, next to a closed casket and several large, sepia photographs of herself.

"She brought such light into all of our lives," said the commander of Mobile Defense. "And never again will that light grace us ."

Rainbow Dash floated down to her memorial service, taking a bite out of the bouquet that had been placed on her casket.

"Never again, huh, Char?"

A small alarm went off on Hermione's AEGIS to notify her that Rainbow Dash had not expired.

At least that's good. But now I've got this to deal with.

"You," seethed the combined voices of Simon, Kamina, and Ryuko as Gurren Lagann's mouths echoed their words. "You've kept this up for long enough."

"Yes I have," whimpered Hermione.

The gunmen turned, both drill-scissors in hand, and began to advance toward the powered-up witch. Hermione began to charge up an attack to hold them at bay, but it was too late. With incomprehensible speed, it performed a diagonal slash with each blade-like drill, creating an X-shaped wave of energy that propelled Hermione back through thirteen city blocks. With no foes left to challenge them, the pilots of Gurren Lagann brought the mech to a kneel, deactivating it. Senketsu deactivated as well, reverting into a tangle of strings before reconstituting himself into the familiar black seifuku. Without a constant stream of Spiral Energy, Gurren Lagann also reverted into its previously-wrecked state. Ryuko leapt out of the cockpit and snatched the falling garment, holding him tightly in her arms as they bounced off the ground.

"You did it, Senketsu! You did it!" she cried.

No, Ryuko. We did it.

Simon and Kamina climbed out of Lagann's dented cockpit.

"Unbelievable," whispered Kamina, looking out at the damage they had been able to cause in their combined state. "I've never seen us get that powerful!"

"Kicking logic to the curb and making the impossible possible," said Simon with a twinkle in his eye. "That's the way Team Gurren's meant to roll. Ryuko, we're honored to have worked with you. I think we'll stick with your team for a little while longer, if you don't mind."

"Sure thing," said the girl, still giving her uniform a hug. "But expect to get hit if you keep on acting like perverts."

Simon nodded. "Okay. So why don't you put your clothes on?"

Ryuko realized that she still was in her underwear, and was about to uphold her end of the bargain she had just made when a shower of blue sparks appeared behind them.

"Not more of them," whined Kamina.

Instead of further reinforcements, the figure that fell to the ground before them was, once again, Hermione. Her appearance had also undergone another change. She was no longer glowing with energy, or quite so youthful.

"What happened to you?" asked Ryuko.

"I'm… not sure," said the woman, clutching her stomach. "I think I used up all of my Time Vortex energy in order to save myself from your attack."

"Well, that should make it a lot easier for us to kick you around, right?" snapped Kamina.

"Hold up, guys," suggested Simon. "I don't think she's here to fight this time."

"You're right," said the witch, picking herself up. "Now, hold still." She tapped a few buttons on her AEGIS, and all four of them were transported to the other half of their team, which Alucard and Mikasa had rejoined.

"And that's how I defeated Lord Tirek," concluded Twilight.

"AWESOME!" cheered Ruby. "Everything needs that many explosions!"

"Hey, guys," said Ryuko, announcing their arrival with a wave.

Twilight held up a hoof. "Good. Everyone's here. I need to act quickly!"

Without further comment, she charged up her magic, her horn's glow changing from lavender to a blinding white. In a flash, everything went dark, and slightly salty-smelling.