"Damn Monroe what happened to your hair?"  Marcus said in way of greeting, having come up behind her.  He was still a few feet from her when he spoke, wearing what looked like cargo pants and a long sleeved shirt with the academy logo in dull black letters across the chest.  Like Rin, he wore his combat boots which were rather dusty and beat looking and there was the unmistakable clink of tags that hung around his neck.

After graduation Marcus had been assigned to a ground unit on one of the more volatile planets where he ahd quickly racked up 13 notches on the barrel of his rifle as a sniper, and a few more on his combat knife.  He had run a few covert missions, some in success and some in failure, but had managed to get through most of it unscathed save for a few scraps and near misses.  The trenches, as his unit called them, were as brutal as he had envisioned and as his brother had warned him.  It was a lot of sitting around and then a mad scramble, close quarters fighting, then sitting around again.  A vicious cycle that got to some people's heads.  How Marcus hadn't lost it yet he didn't know, but he knew Rin's messages helped even when they were about how much of a pain her squad leader was.

"I mean I know you said you cut it but this is a bit more then I thought,"  Having reached her now he looked over her with a critical eye as if studying her to note the differences and changes.