Vladimir was happy to see that nothing happened to WAR PIG during transit. He leaned against the cool armor plating and closed his eyes, happy to be reunited with his baby. It had been a long flight to Hong Kong, and he never liked being separated from WAR PIG for too long. Sometimes, he liked to sneak down to the loading bays at night just to be with it. To him, it was the most natural thing in the world, but the head shrinkers had a big, fancy phrase for it that ended in 'disorder'. Something about not having a second person for a neural handshake led him to forming a bond with the massive machine. It was a relatively rare condition, but he let them talk. He knew that no one else would quite understand how he felt about the Jaeger.

He didn't think that it was possible to go through that much shit together and not feel [b]something[/b]. His fellow Rangers liked their co-pilots well enough, and the Jaeger was the closest thing that he would have to a co-pilot. It was natural. He had the chance to enter a program to get matched with another Ranger once, but he pulled out and apologized to WAR PIG later that night.

He put his hand in one of the deep grooves that was left from a particularly grueling battle with a Kaiju that had attacked Sydney several years ago. He had even had it repainted after that, choosing flashy colors because WAR PIG wasn't just any Jaeger and Vladimir saw no reason to keep acting like it was. He had gotten several hundred weird looks when the machine was uncovered after the makeover was complete, but Vladimir could sense the jealousy that motivated them.

“Did you miss me?” he asked the gigantic machine, “Because I missed you. Yes I did. Whose a good Jaeger? Yeah, you are.” He ran his hand up and down the huge scar in the armor, like he was petting a dog. He didn't notice half of the stares he was receiving and he didn't care about the half he did notice.