Martin was acting nothing like himself.
Instead of holding the line, he kept forcing plays that drew attention, and the ants punished every opening. One shoved too far around his shield while another slipped through an angle he should have covered. Angel caught the first mistake, then the next, but even she couldn't smooth over everything when Martin kept chasing attention instead of controlling the battlefield.
The harder he tried to stand out, the messier the fight became. NukEncore watched from behind the others with her smile slowly fading. Martin was usually loud in a simple, familiar way. He charged, joked, complained, and somehow made even stupid things sound normal. Today, his energy had a strange edge, and he kept reacting to pressure no one else could see.
Before NukEncore could figure out what was wrong, she flipped, landed, and made Rias laugh harder than NukEncore had ever heard.
The sound caught her off guard.
