In the aftermath of a brief battle, Raiden Shuga stood atop his Juggernaut, pensively surveying the scene that stretched before him.
Above, a blue sky was clearing. The metal-butterfly sparkle of a cloud of Eintagsfliege receded toward the horizon ahead, while below these a small handful of mostly-damaged Ameise likewise retreated. Despite their small number and limited remaining ammunition, the remnant of Spearhead Squadron had managed to destroy or repel a scouting patrol they'd encountered as they forged deeper into Legion territory.
…Or rather, Shin had accomplished nearly all of it by himself.
Raiden had served with Shin longer than anyone else. He knew the way his friend fought. Undertaker had always been paradoxically precise yet savage in battle, able to tear through enemies with ruthless effectiveness, and yet… the abandon with which he engaged these Legion was different. It was somehow frighteningly more of every quality that made him such a beast at war.
It took not only experience and skill to master a machine as complex and dangerously fickle as a Juggernaut. A great deal of purely physical strength and stamina was also required. For reasons Raiden understood better than anyone, Shin had always brimmed with positively inhuman levels of those traits; but this latest performance went beyond even the prowess his comrades had learned to expect from him. More speed, more brute force, more quickness of reaction—and all executed with a sense of urgency Raiden had never perceived in him before.
If not urgency, then perhaps… something like an unholy sense of eagerness.
The Vice Captain turned a canny eye onto the field that stretched out before him, littered with nearly a dozen still-smoldering wrecks of Legion units.
Shin was currently moving among them, on foot and unarmed, save for the grim pistol that remained holstered at his hip. For some reason he had insisted on personally inspecting the destroyed machines. His attention seemed to have zeroed in on a particular unit, for he strode toward it with purpose; and upon nearing it, he stretched out his hand.
His ungloved left hand, which for a moment came to rest almost gently on the shattered white hull.
The brief shudder that passed through Shin's body at the contact was something Raiden painfully recognized.
A moment later, that glimpse of vulnerability was hidden once more, and Shin moved on to another unit that evidently drew his interest. This one was still functional enough to twitch a creaking leg as he approached. The movement spurred Raiden's instinct to leap forward and defend his captain; but before that impulse could even reach from his brain to his body, Shin's own hand fell upon the machine.
It stirred no more, and Raiden squeezed his eyes shut, a slow breath shivering out of his lungs.
Oh, hell.