Savages
She saw him through The Lady's scope, saw him with his men slaughtering animals. This was the edge of northern Legion territory. Julia and her girls were on their way to reclaim Burham Springs from the gehenna, or at least plunder the mines. They were passing through Manti-La territory and that's where she saw him, on his Manti-La campaign.
Mortuus Anima was destroying Manti-La hunting grounds, killing the tribe with attrition. He gleefully massacred animals with his machete, a weapon he'd carried with him since childhood. He let the blood of the beasts spill on his clothes, covering himself in viscera. His smile was broad, he only truly found himself happy when he was killing. There was nothing careful or graceful about his killing, hacking at the beasts indiscriminately with his cherished weapon. When the beasts were dead he set upon the corpses, mangling them until no distinguishing marks remained. He towered proudly over their desecrated bodies. He made sure there was nothing left for the Manti-La.
It disgusted Julia. She was horrified at his savageness, his brutality. She lined him up in her sights, scrutinizing to make sure it was really him. There was no mistaking it. She considered killing him then and there. Amongst his men. She could picture it, him proudly surveying his savage exertions when suddenly and unexpectedly his head burst like overripe mutfruit. She couldn't stop picturing his face as it happened. The thought made her sick. She couldn't do it.
The Maenads had been on a campaign of terror for weeks, indiscriminately killing and maiming as they felt on their way to the Springs. Only rarely did their violence serve any purpose. Occasionally they slaughtered raiders for an ammo cache, or tortured tribals for food supplies, but more often than not they did because they could.
They killed because no one could stop them and it felt good. All their lives these girls had been intimidated by the wasteland, its size and scope, its dangers that lurked everywhere, omnipresent and terrifying in innumerable ways. It had all changed. They had changed. They were now the force best adapted to the wasteland. They were now big, the wasteland was now small. They towered over the wastes like giants and gleefully stepped on the ants (occasionally literally) simply because they could. Because they had spent a long time being scared by the ants, being scared by the thought of the ants. Now the ants were scared of them. They had the supplies, the ammo, the weapons, the armor, the strength and smarts and speed to fear no more.
Julia looked at her hands. Her gloves were stained with blood of all kinds. The faceplate of her helmet had a diagonal stripe of dried blood where an arterial spurt had splashed and she had left it there. She let the Dead Soul and his men leave, watched them walk away from their carnage triumphantly through the scope of her Anti-Material. The day would come when she would kill her kindred spirit. That day would not be today. The endless fires of Burham Springs beckoned.