Gundam Seed: Kira Reloaded c20 (Patreon)

“W-Where is he!?” One of the ZuOOT pilots said with a nervous look. He looked from where the beam came. The moment he did, the midday sun slammed into the camera of his machine.

“Fuck!”

He moved his machine away.

“DODGE!!!”

Athrun roared at him through comms.

“Huh?”

CRACK

**BOOM!!!**

A linear Railgun’s bolt slammed into the Anti-Fortress Mobile Suit. The suit inflated like a balloon before exploding into a thousand pieces.

The second beam was less than a minute ago! Kira just took out the Land Battleship, and less than a minute later. He took out one of the ZuOOT! 

When Athrun saw this, he paled! Kira was still a monster! Space or Earth! He still crushes ZAFT forces, regardless!

“Calm down! Spread out and try approaching his location from a different location!” Desert Tiger instructed his soldiers.

“ROGER!!!” He replied swiftly, and the remaining six BaCUEs rushed towards the source of the beam.

However, Athrun and Diarka were in a pickle.

Their machines have no upgrades when it comes to the sands of Africa.

The moment they landed on the sand, their mobile suits started sinking into it.

“Damn! I need to spread out the machine’s weight!” Aegis’ pilot reacted to the situation. He swiftly started to adjust the OS.

“Ughh…”

“Daerka! We need to move!”

“R-Right!”

The Buster’s pilot proceeded to move his machine, but he had the same issue: his Mobile Suit started to sink into the sand.

“Athrun! My Buster can barely move!”

“Adjust the weight displacement!”

“Oh, Right!”

The gunner proceeded to adjust his OS as well.

~~~~~~Meanwhile~~~~~~

The BaCUEs and lone LaGOWE were rushing towards Kira’s location.

CRACK

**BOOM**

“W-What the hell! He can even predict our dodging patterns!?”

Andrew Waltfeld grimaced as he heard that. He was rushing towards Kira’s possible location post haste as he had been losing men with each shot from whatever location Strike had been shooting.

“...I still can’t see him.” LaGOWE’S gunner said with a frown. She was in disbelief!

“...We already crossed more than five miles…” Andrew said with a bitter tone. There was a thin line on his lips. He had underestimated how good this Kira Yamato was!

But then he snapped from his shock as a green and yellow beam was rushing towards him!

“SHIT!!!”

His LaGOWE took a sharp turn to dodge, but it was not a complete dodge as his support wing was destroyed!

“That was close!”

“Yes! But I can see from where it came!”

“Where?”

“Atlas Mountains!”

“...”

“You telling me he was sniping us from 15 kilometres away!?” Andrew was shell-shocked, to say the least!

As they were getting closer to the mountain they soon saw Strike rushing towards them!

When Desert Tiger saw the machine, his train of thought stopped for a second. He saw a heavy, customised machine with an array of BaCUE parts on it.

‘Damn that kid! We need to put him down! Now!’ LaGOWE opened fire with beam cannons from its back, but Strike already launched missiles from its shoulder.

“I am taking him down!” 

“Target its head!”

The fire exchange started the next second. LaGOWE easily took down the missiles and tried to take down the Strike, but Strike was similar to LaGOWE in its ability to move with the caterpillars.

For a second, the two machines circled each other before lunging into each other. 

Kira discarded the desert cloak as he threw it at LaGOWE.

‘Crap!’ 

The yellow cloak blocked the view. The Desert Tiger’s eyes widened as he was blown away. The kid was a machine, and the machine was the kid. It was like it was part of his body.

‘How can someone exist like that.’

Before he could exclaim, his machine blared out errors as LaGOWE collapsed.

All four legs were cut.

His machine was out!

“Commander!”

Athrun and Daerka appeared on the screen.

“You two run away! He is prepared to fight in the desert! Call for reinforcements!”

The pair looked shocked to hear that. 

~~~

Kira looked at the downed LaGOWE. It looked like an improved BaCUE, something he was itching to dismantle and examine.

But then the alarms blared, and he needed to dodge.

“KIRA!”

“Athrun…” The Ultimate Coordinator whispered under his breath.

He turned around and saw Aegis and Buster.

“Athrun, two of your buddies are missing. Where are they?” Kira asked with a curious tone.

“They are not here because of YOU!” Athrun sounded angry as he opened fire.

“You want to face me with an inferior model which you haven’t improved by yourself?” Strike dodged it easily as he ignited thrusters and rushed at Aegis with rapid speed.

“TSK!!!”

Strike jumped midair and delivered a Spartan kick with the new caterpillars. The kick disfigured Aegis' face. But it was not enough, as the GAT unit tried to fight back. The Strike did a spin and delivered a reverse kick, which removed the head of the machine.

“D-Damn!!!” 

“Athrun!!!” Daerka opened fire at Strike, who lowered itself as if it were on skates.

‘Shit!!! what the hell!’  Daerka panicked as he saw Strike rapidly approaching. He tried to shoot, but the shoulder-mounted railgun blasted away Buster's weaponry and got closer. 

The blonde panicked as he froze in place.

‘H-How do you even fight someone like this!’

Before he could raise the machine’s hands to defend himself, Buster’s legs and hands were swiftly removed by Kira, who had two beam sabers out by this point.

~~~

As Kira quickly dealt with mechs, Andrew Waltfeld looked at this with wide eyes as he realised that… all of his forces were down! All of them!

The only ones left were these GAT units, which were slow in the desert.

But Strike dealt with them with ruthless precision.

“That is checkmate, Desert Tiger.” 

The Strike moved close to LaGOWE.

“My preparations were superior. I knew you would return, so I prepared and struck first.” Kira's face appeared on LaGOWE’s main screen.

‘So young, he is the same age as those two.’

“...You want us to surrender?”

As Andrew said, the Archangel finally appeared.

“As the victor of this fight, all your machines belong to me.”

“IS THAT ALL YOU CARE, KIRA!?” Athrun roared at him as his Aegis was dismantled as well.

“Athrun, grow up. This is war. In war, we fight. In war, we improve our fighting capacities. I have been preparing for this conflict my whole life. 

Unlike you, I knew we would fight, so I did everything in my capacity to be the best. So that I could dictate who will live and who will die.”

“...You are mad! If you truly want this machine, then you can have it!!! In scraps!”

As Athrun said that, he pressed a few buttons, and the self-destruct keyboard popped. He was ready to blow it up.

Kira sighed as he knew what was coming, so he pulled one of his trump cards.

“Aegis, initiate overwrite protocol 178413.”

Aegis' eyes flashed several times as the machine entered lockdown mode.

‘What the hell!?’

Just like that, the Aegis was down.

~~~

“Work! Work! Damn it!” Athrun was punching the controls with a furious look.

He felt that Kira was ten steps in front of him.

Not that it worked. A few movements later, he thought that someone was moving the machine. The cockpit was pitch black, and he could not see anything. Everything was down.

‘How on earth has he overwritten the machine’s controls?’

…

…

…

At that moment, Athrun paled as he realised that this was Earth Alliance’s machine. ZAFT might have improved the OS, and they did double-check for any sort of viruses.

But…

Was there some sort of sleeper virus? Or backdoor?

“That Kira… Damn him!”

After sitting in the dark machine for several minutes, he could hear sounds. Then, seconds later, the hatch opened, and bright light slammed into him. 

Athrun needed to use his hand to cover from the light.

“Get out, Athrun Zala!” 

‘Damn that, Kira…’

Slowly Athrun came out from Aegis. The soldiers continued to watch him closely.

“Rise your hands slowly.” 

The redcoat of ZAFT followed the orders as he looked around. His eyes widened as he saw massive piles of mobile suit parts in the distance.

‘...That Kira… just what is this ship? Is it Earth Alliance’s vessel or his personal toy?’ 

Eventually, his eyes landed on someone he never imagined in his wildest dreams to see!!! 

“L-Lacus!???” 

“Haah… surprised? I saved her in space. She was floating in the debris field of Junius Seven. It's thanks to her that you are alive.” Kira walked over with crossed arms. 

“...W-What do you mean by that?” Athrun looked surprised to hear that. But then he recalled that Kira would always go easy on him, unlike Yzak or Nicol, who barely survived the encounter with his Strike.

“Don’t look surprised. While you do have talent, your heart is not for war. That is why you always lose to me.” Kira said that while shaking his head.

The soldiers didn’t allow Athrun to reply to that as he got handcuffs on and was taken away to the brig.

The second one to be taken out from Buster was Daerka, who didn’t speak at all. He just looked at Kira for a second before looking away. 

He finally got to see the face of the bogeyman of ZAFT.

And lastly…

“This is quite awkward.” Andrew Waltfeld said with a smiling frown as he looked at Kira and other gathered officers.

“Same could be to us,” Lieutenant said with a strained smile.

“We rarely take prisoners.” Skygrasper's blonde pilot said to the commander as he looked at Kira, who was looking at Lacus at that time. He had something on his mind.

“To think that you would have Chairman’s daughter.” Andrew was surprised just as much as Athrun.

“WELL…” the captain said with a similar strained smile as she looked at Lacus, who was walking down the stairs toward them.

How can they say that the girl is responsible for keeping Kira down to earth? The kid could easily get carried away and ‘cook’ something insane in the hangar bay with all the junk he collected.

“...We offered her to leave several times, actually.” 

As the blonde clarified, the girl was standing next to them.

“It's good to see that you are alive, Commander Waltfeld.” Lacus slightly bowed to him.

“It would seem Kira didn’t kill you.”

“Oh, he tried to. I somehow survived it.” The Commander clarified to her.

“That time, you took twenty percent to the right. Your dominant hand is right. All I needed was to target a few inches to the right to take you out. I didn’t because Lacus has a high opinion of you.” Kira clarified why he survived.

“You one scary kid,” Andrew replied with a sweaty forehead and twitchy smile.

Lieutenant sagely nodded. He has the same opinion of Kira.

“Regardless, it's sad to say, but you are under arrest.” The captain chipped in as people were getting all buddy-buddy.

“I know.” The Desert Tiger offered his hands. His co-pilot did the same.

As they were taken away, Lacus looked at the commander.

“My thanks for not killing them, Kira.” 

The Pilot of Strike snorted. 

“Well, part of me wanted to see how Athrun will react with you here.”

The Ultimate Coordinator smiled.

Lacus looked at him for a second before sighting.

“I suppose it can’t be helped.”

“You want me to speak to him about us?” The girl realised that she was in a deep mess. But from what she remembered, her engagement to Athrun was already getting strained. Athrun’s father was slowly getting unhinged.

By now, he should have been elected the supreme chairman.

‘I do need to return to PLANTs…’ 

“Indeed, one of the reasons he is still alive.” He shrugged without much care.

“...Fine.”

‘At least he cares about my wishes.’ 

The pair proceeded to walk towards where the brig was.

In the meantime, the mechanics looked at Buster and Aegis with small smiles. They only need Blitz and Duel! They have sixty percent of the original loadout!

“Begin assessing Buster and Aegis. We need them fixed.” the captain instructed the mechanics.

“...Well, well, I might end up piloting a GAT unit after all.” Mu La Flaga said with a small smile. Now, he can’t say no when there are these machines around.

“Indeed.”