Shad

**SWM 01 Suction** or **Shad** is a recurrent antagonist of Mega Man X: Unit 49. He is one of Saturn's War Machines and his most loyal servant, currently working as an agent for special operations of the Neo Maverick Army.

## **Appearance**

Shad wears a black suit covered by a strong purple colored armor with blue details. His wings are mostly for aesthetics, he can still fly without them, since his main flying devices are inside his boots.

There are two strands of hair in the front side of his helmet and a bigger one above his nape. His eyes are red, similarly to his father's, and sometimes his visor shows red eyebrows. Since the upper part of his face is hidden by his visor, a watermark seen in all of Saturn's War Machines,his face is not totally human-ish making him look like a freak without it.

## **Personality**

Shad has a seemingly flawed AI that can be considered an inherited madness of his creator. Due to his function as a War Machine, Shad is sadistic and likes torturing his enemies before putting an end to their lives.
Aside from that, he acts as if he was an actual vampire, with an exaggerated taste for blood and women, despite his contempt for the flesh. For that reason, Shad has a mixed feeling of hatred and love for his female opponents, such as Rubre and Platina, who treated him as nothing more than an annoyance that should be destroyed. Platina mentioned that Saturn also introduced eros in Shad's mind, and might have been sending him after her purposely for that reason, making him a tool of torment. Shad's insanity and obsession for Platina can make him deviate from his mission just to go after her, and that savage will increases as he gets frustrated.
As Shad gets angered, his vocabulary becomes far-fetched and his insults towards his enemies almost look like poems. However, he is still a goofy person who can be tricked by someone as random as himself, like Trickster.

## **History**

### **Maverick Spring era**

**Saturn War Machine 01 Suction** was created along with his sibling **SWM 01 Knight** by Saturn between 2182 and 2184 to be used as weapons in his terrorist attacks agains the government and to defend himself from the Maverick Hunters. Saturn would improve the two through the following years, turning them into merciless slaughter machines. After the 49th Unit was created, the two groups engaged in many combats and Suction became Rubre's rival, always harassing and provoking her.

Suction's whereabouts during the period Saturn was "dead" are unknown, but it is very likely that he remained together with Paragos 0 until they met their    creator once again.
In August 25th of 2188, Suction attacked a building of the Republic of the North America alone, drawing the attention of the remaining members of the 49th Unit while Saturn travelled to the British Islands to retrieve the Encorium reactor from Dr. Henry Snacman. Suction kept provoking Rubre while running away from them, but it was Captain Elika who was caught off guard. Rubre tried to save him, but she ended up as a hostage. Suction made psychological torture against both of them before beheading Rubre, which led Elika to destroy Suction's front body in despair, but he ended up damaging his own buster and allowed Suction to escape with Rubre's head, a trophy to him. After that event, Suction received more upgrades and he gained a human-ish face, a new appearance and became known as Shad.

### **After the Jakob Incident**

    Shad makes part of Operation Doomsday and is warped with Gigantex along with Saturn to the 17th Elite Unit base while X and Zero are away and unable to come back through teleporting and begin their attack to destroy the headquarters.
Shad then sneaks into the lower floors of the base, killing whoever is in his way, until he finds Axl in comatose inside a resting capsule. He then breaks it and kidnaps him.

It is unknown if Shad's mission was to actually capture Axl and save him from being crushed by the crumbling base or he found him by accident.

### **Parade**

Shad is seen in Parade expressing his admiration for Platina's beauty and then trying kidnap her, but Blue Knight stops him by throwing Shad away with his red energy boosters. Shad still manages to get hid of Blue Knight and flies into Platina's direction, who is being withdrawn by Nora. He then dives into the ground and is hit by a charged shot by X.

### **Battle of Stockholm**

Knowing Platina would likely want to defend her homeland, Saturn purposely sent Shad to aid Chaotic Gargale in the *Fanfare Operations* of the Neo Maverick Army and he soon found her. When Platina and Trickster were fighting NMA troops, Shad came from the sky and knocked Platina down with a flying kick. He was ready to finally do what he wanted with her, until Trickster approached and said he was his fan and was just waiting for the right moment to defect to the NMA. Shad is confused by his words and asks him to prove his intentions by torturing Platina. Trickster pretends to prepare his Eyepoker to hurt her, but he blinds Shad with its blades. Shad retreats in anger attacking everything around and recovers his vision only when it begins to rain and he uses *sound mapping* to see things. A *red energy* is seen coming out of his eyes as he once again searches for Platina and Trickster to avenge the betrayal he had suffered, until he finds them again and challenges Trickster to a fight. However, Trickster still compliments Shad's poetic words out of anger and simply puts a hook in his hand as a gift. Before Shad could even think, the hook pushes him to a vehicle flying in a massive tornado created by Gargale and is presumed to have been severely damaged after that.