+- Omni Archive (https://omni.zulenka.com)
+-- Forum: The Omniverse (https://omni.zulenka.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: The Nexus (https://omni.zulenka.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Thread: Prologue: The One That Will Pierce the Heavens! (/showthread.php?tid=6655)
Prologue: The One That Will Pierce the Heavens! - Simon - 02-28-2018
Quote:This is the tale of a child who has yet to realize his true existence.
Simon and Kamina, a digger and his brother, have long since abandoned the subdued life of Giha Village. Hoping to live life as the wealthy Beastmen do, Kamina spurred the two of them to become jewel thieves, stealing treasure from stores and reaping the rewards. However, they did not not live long like this before the authorities caught on, driving the brothers to the end of their rope.
Eventually, this child shall find a new purpose...
Simon blinked. A sheet of what burned like pure light invaded his vision, and his eyelids squeezed to a near-shut state. Yet, while the digger feared becoming blind, he too felt deeply curious about the circumstances.
"...Kamina?" Silence. For all he tried to see and hear, Simon could not find a single trace of the spot he had just been in. The cold earth under his shoes, the wispy black atmosphere of the canyon, the sight of his brother begging for his life at the feet of Beastmen officers..
"Big bro?" Simon asked, as if he might suddenly leap to the call with a yell of defiance and some inspirational words. Neither came, and the spiritual little brother was left wanting. What happened to Kamina, the policemen, the trap- everything? Why was he here?
Why did he have to be alone again?
The young digger looked around, hoping to find something else- anything else besides himself in this endless white expanse. Simon's hands came into his vision, a feeling of self-awareness that didn't prove to be very reassuring. Simon was more than simply alarmed; he was so afraid, so shocked at at this transition that it felt like a struggle to move at all. But move he did, pivoting his feet, craning his head in searching of anything at all.
He found someone quickly, immediately behind him. Any other time, he might've jumped back in surprise at the new-found knowledge that there was a figure behind him, but these circumstances were unusual. As the young digger turned around to fully face this challenger, Simon became aware that this person wasn't alive at all. Because it was a statue.
A three-meter monument, etched flawlessly from a dark stone like granite, depicted a man. Perhaps a man of men, as the shawl of stone he wore hung like a cape over his shoulders, coming down to the ankles even when standing firm. The roughness of the chiseled visage, with star-shaped shades and folded arms, rather reminded Simon of Kamina.
Of course, it was not at all the same. For this was only a statue, so tall that it dwarfed even his brother. A shrine to someone else, it seemed.
With nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, Simon approached the figure. Where the statue stood proud was a pedestal, trickling water into a circular- wait. The stuff coming from the stone was a tint of green. Was it even water, or something else entirely? Simon looked over the edge of the knee-high wall, finding it surrounded a pool of vibrant green substance, perpetually rippling from the flow of similar stuff from the pedestal. The young boy couldn't even see his reflection in the light.
"What... is all this?" Simon asked aloud, taking two steps backward to gaze over the whole sight before him. A mighty statue, a flow of stuff, a pool of similar glowing stuff... it didn't make any sense. What sort of purpose did this thing bear? And why was it here? The child looked around again, as if to find something else that would provide an answer. But no such thing existed- just an endless expanse of white, stretching unto the faintest of horizons. Where even was he? Why was he here?
Deep down, he knew the answer. But this was not the truth that Simon wanted.
"Kamina!? Bro-!" The young digger cried out, frantically swinging his head about. Nobody answered. Nobody else even existed, as far as he could tell. Simon gasped, took a big gulp of air, and nearly choked on it.
This couldn't be right. This couldn't be real. Any moment now, he would simply awaken. Just laying there, in his comfortable bed he and Kamina had rented at that hotel. His big bro would be smacking him over the head for sleeping in too much, when there was such other fortune and luxury in the world to indulge in...
...right?
All at once, Simon's legs gave out. He fell to his rear, his back hitting the edge of the fountain. Both were terribly lukewarm, smooth and hard against his body. Simon didn't care much, simply laying there, overwhelmed at the nothingness.
What was he meant to do? If only Kamina were here, he would know for certain. Not only that, the man would probably take Simon close and scream in his ear for ever thinking of being as down as he was right now. Because a real man didn't think about things like challenges, or consequences, or crap like inter-dimensional whatevers and omni-versing whatnots. A real man would charge forward boldly unto the horizon, rushing towards tomorrow, looking for the next obstacle to overcome! Kamina would say that Simon should never need to believe just in himself- just believe in the big brother that believes in him.
Yeah, he would say that, alright... if only he were here.
"Kamina..." Simon choked on air again. The motion shook a single tear past his cheek and into his lap.
RE: Prologue: The One That Will Pierce the Heavens! - Simon - 03-06-2018
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, HEY!"
The voice that bellowed over Simon's head got him to perk up straight, just in time for a foot to plant itself on his shoulder. "What's all this, huh?" The boisterous yelling lowered in tone a moment, avoiding a blowout of the child's ears. After a few moments, Simon finally recovered from the string of surprises and looked to his size, seeing the bare callouses of a Giha villager and following the leg upward. Past the knee, the young digger found himself staring into the inverted visage of a bold, firm-jawed man. His eyes like peered a determined hound under a crooked smirk, and the defined creases around it all reveled exactly who this man was.
The shock of that, too, caused Simon to choke on his breath a little longer before he could stammer out, "K-Kamina-?"
"Of course!" He belted back in response, straightening his back and shoving Simon out with his firm foot. As the youth rolled sidelong over the ground trying to right himself, Kamina stomped onto the wall of the monument, legs spread straight and arms folded. "Throughout Giha Village, the awesome reputation of Team Gurren echoes far and wide! Their leader is a badass paragon of indomitable spirit and incomparable masculinity!"
Simon righted himself, sitting up and gazing back at the mighty speech. Masked with pointed glasses, draped in a tattered orange cloak, and death-gripping a wicked long katana in one hand, there could be no mistaking that figure. "When they refer to this man of men, they refer to me alone! Nothing in existence could ever hope to truly match the epicness that is me, Kamina!"
The young digger forced a glob of spit down his dry throat. "It- it really is you, big bro?" He asked, still so uncertain of... well, anything here, to be honest. "But, how did you get here-?"
"Dumbass! What kind of a question is that?!" Kamina roared, leaping off the wall and slamming feet-first into the ground. The volume and the impact had Simon nearly falling off his haunches. "Who's the one who made method of my madness, who made the impossible possible? You, Simon, and your drill!" He announced, leaning in close and jamming a finger into Simon's chest.
"M-my drill?" The digger repeated, blinking twice to trying and stop his eyes from blurring so much. His hands pawed over the ground he was leaning on, texture smooth as stone- as he did so, Simon became aware that the hand-cranked drill probably in question was not on his person. "B-but, I- ah..."
Kamina looked over Simon quizzically, raising an eyebrow. "Eh? What, don't tell me; you lost your drill?" He belted out in accusation.
Simon buckled under the sentence, a lump forming in his throat and his face scrunching up in shame. The tone of his big brother's words made it sound like he was in trouble- but what concerned him more was that he really had managed to lose his drill somehow. Digging holes, day in and day out, was all he knew how to do- without that, Simon was truly nothing.
"But how can that be-" Kamina stepped back, still locking eyes with Simon, "-when you've got one right here?!"
The man gave a swift kick of his foot, cussing quietly at he stubbed himself on the hard object sent rattling towards Simon's feet. Pushing off his feet, the youth looked down over his legs to see what his big brother was referring to. That object happened to be none other than Simon's own trusty hand-cranked drill. After another moment of disbelief, he threw himself forward and grabbed the tool, inspecting it thoroughly.
So the drill had made the transition to this strange place along with himself and Kamina! That was good- well, relatively speaking. He had probably just dropped and lost track of it earlier, or something. The comfort was a small one in comparison to the greater problem, but it meant a lot to Simon.
Now that Simon had all this back now... what was he to do? "Kamina," the digger spoke up, but faltered when trying to follow up. Confusion surrounded Simon and his thoughts, so much so that it was hard to know where to even start asking. "Um..."
"What's with the face, bro?" Kamina interrupted, crouching to Simon's level and draping an arm over his shoulder. "Aren't you grateful for your big bro here?"
Simon looked up to Kamina again and forced a small smile, trying to control his expressions now that his brother brought it up. "I- I am! But, it's just that... well, I don't know what's happening. There's so many strange things-"
"Yeah, so?" Kamina butted in again, blowing away Simon's confusion with a smirk.
Unfortunately, it was replaced with incredulous thoughts instead. "So!? We're in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to help us!" The young digger nearly cried out, filled with genuine concern.
Kamina's face furrowed more intensely, breaking eye contact to glance over the expanse. "Yeah, I guess that is kind of a big damn problem," he muttered, eyes squinting. Simon followed the line of Kamina's gaze, looking aside as if his big brother had seen something noteworthy.
Before he could even start looking, Kamina took Simon's head in one hand and twisted it back around, facing eye to eye. "But! There's no use trying to think too hard! Don't worry about the where or when, the how and why, the whether or not!" He pulled Simon close, their faces inches from touching. "Just set your sights on a goal, and go forward with unrelenting resolve! That's how Team Gurren rolls!"
Flinching from the sheer volume of Kamina's point-blank words, the youth tried to pull his head away, and only succeeded when Kamina let him. "Do you remember, Simon-?" His brother asked, heaving himself upright on his feet, "What is it I always say about you and your drill?"
Simon hesitated, actively trying not to look quizzical at Kamina's interrogation. "My drill? My drill..." He repeated, searching his mind for the answer. The little brother had believe that he could easily recall anything his big brother had said... but why was it so difficult now? Why could he only see back so far? "My drill... is the only thing you can depend on?"
The end of Kamina's sheathed weapon slammed into the ground, propelling Simon a foot into the air out of sheer fright. "Your drill-" Kamina corrected, "-is the drill that will pierce the heavens!" He turned sidelong to Simon, flipping the katana in his grip to rest it on his shoulders. "And don't you ever forget that, bro!"
The young digger just swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded hurriedly. Glancing over his drill, Simon quickly secured the tool and stowed it on his belt, the burden pleasantly familiar to feel. He stood up, brushing himself of creases and dust, and straightened out to look at Kamina-
Except, he was gone. "Bro-?!" Simon gasped, about to panic again, but he was quickly saved from his fear by the sight of Kamina marching across the white expanse, towards a near-invisible horizon. "Aah! Kamina, wait for me-!"