Leon held back his irritation at how dirty the public bathroom of the inn was as he released the excess bodily fluids in his body.

"Ah!" He moaned inaudibly in release.

There were only two public bathrooms in Henry's Inn, one was in the lower floor while the other was in the second floor.

Leon used the second floor's bathroom.

Thud… thud…

As he walked back through the corridor to the room, he experienced a weird feeling like someone was secretly watching him. 'Hmmm, am I that tired already?' He yawned and increased his pace, eager to return to the room and sleep.

The dim white electric bulb in the corridor flickered.

As he walked, for some reason, he felt that the corridor was changing.

The colors were becoming more defined. The blacks were becoming blacker, the shadows were becoming deeper.

Leon rubbed his heavy eyes but he discovered nothing. For some reason, he felt a chill crawl down his spine as he shuddered, then he walked even faster. "Am I scared of the dark?" He muttered to himself, slightly amused.

He pushed the door open and entered the room.

Talia already made a clear hierarchy allocation of the beds last night. Since there were only 4 bunk beds, and they were 7, she needed to arrange the order of bed ownership as the leader of the crew.

The bunk beds at the left of the room were for Talia, Kain and Brick. Kain and Brick shared the top bunk bed.

As for the two bunk beds opposite the door, they belonged to Ghostwire, Leon, Rex, and Daren. Daren and Rex shared the top bunk bed, while Leon shared the bottom bed with Ghostwire.

He almost protested the decision of sleeping in the same bed with the creepy NetRunner. Leon felt that Ghostwire was the kind of guy to awaken his other personality in midnight and silently assassinate him.

In the end though, he didn't protest Talia's decision.

Brick was already fast asleep in the bottom bunk bed by the left of the room. Kain sat on the other side of the bed, tinkling with a gadget that looked like a wrist watch while Daren and Rex played a card game despite how late it was.

Both of them sat on the ground, engrossed in their card battle.

As soon as he entered the room, Leon yawned again, instinctively ignoring all of them as he walked towards the double-bunked bed that was opposite the door. He could not wait to climb the bed and sleep.

At that moment, Talia who previously sat on the bottom bunk bed on the left like she was deep in thought stood up.

"I'm going to the bathroom". She casually informed the others and left.

Leon frowned as he watched her leave the room. For some reason, he felt that something was not right but he could not directly pinpoint the anomaly.

He yawned again. He was too tired to think about it so he simply laid on the bed and closed his eyes. 'I'll think about it tomorrow'. He told himself as he slowly drifted into the silent world of sleep.

Outside, in the corridor, the dim electric bulb overhead flickered twice as Talia familiarly walked towards the bathroom.

She passed the stairs leading to the bottom floor and casually looked at it. Nothing was wrong, then she entered the bathroom.

Click!

She silently locked the door.

The moment she locked the door, something changed. Talia's enhanced Ascended senses keenly sensed the shadow in the corner of the bathroom move!

She was confused, and she froze.

Bio-Pulse!

The violent flare of ADE behind her was what jolted her awake from her reverie. Out of pure instinct, she leaned her head to the side just in time to dodge the violent thrust of a sword as it cleanly cut her black hair with blue streaks.

Talia felt goosebumps all over her body as her eyes widened in shock.

She dodged a life-threatening attack, and instantly, her eyes glowed neon green as her mental faculties geared to life.

Her eyes narrowed into slits.

Only one thought reverberated in her head. 'An ambush!'

Her eyes moved rapidly as she tried to lock in on the assailant, but the assailant didn't stay in one place. He moved like a shadow.

In the darkness and shadows of the toilet, Talia couldn't see properly but relying on her instincts again, she ducked, dodging another slash of the sword that would have severed her head, but she made a mistake in judgement.

She never realized that the assassin had two swords.

Bam!

She dodged the first sword but dodged right into the trajectory of the second sword as it stabbed straight into the left side of her chest, piercing straight through her heart!

BA-DUMP!

Talia felt her heart beat heavily, then slow down.

Hidden in the shadows of the toilet, with his sword plunged deep into the heart of his target, Cell's brownish black eyes gleamed.

…

Last night when Cell visited the cell tower base and presented the Lord's gift to the NetRunner, he left disappointed as he didn't get what he wanted.

Lord Parasite's mission was not ambiguous, it was clear. "Hunt Talia".

To do that, his first instinct was to go back to where the NetRunner made an appearance. From his observations and from the story that Brad recounted, he learned very little about the exact process of what happened.

The incompetent NetRunner couldn't even decipher how the base's system was hacked and the message was sent, and that was supposed to be his specialty.

'Incompetent fool'. He thought coldly.

He was not discouraged though. Afterall, this was not the first time that the Zmer gang was dealing with the female rebel.

They didn't even know her real face!

Besides, apart from Talia and her crew, the Zmer gang have dealt with agents of the Freegrid Collective multiple times though it never really escalated.

As for not knowing her real face, Talia was cautious.

Knowing the difficulty of the mission that she was taking on 6 months ago, when she first came to the Wastes with her Wraith Cell-9 crew, she made sufficient preparations, including arming every single one of them with synthetic masks.

This was what enabled her to run circles around the Zmer gang for months when Parasite was adamant in capturing her.

This was why Cell did not became impatient after leaving the cell tower base.

That same night, he mobilized the forces of the Zmer gang, instructing them to pay special attention to any recent abnormalities in Community G.

The Zmer gang basically ruled Community G, their tentacles and network extended everywhere through the Wastes community.

Cell got feedback almost immediately.

He got 4 news: the first was a rich customer of unknown origins going to Gary and Mary's restaurant and ordering food for all the people inside the restaurant at the time of him eating.

The second news was an Ascended battle that broke out at the border of the community, the third was a new mechanic workshop that recently opened in the open market.

Lastly, the fourth news was about a new client who entered the underground circle and market of the Community G, offering a lot of money for certain sensitive resources in the underground.

Not just anybody or Ascended knew how to access Community G's underground.

In normal times, all 4 occurrences were clearly normal. It was not strange for a rich scion to visit the Wastes, Ascended battles in the Wastes were rare but they still experience a few every month.

As for a new mechanic workshop popping up and a new client offering a lot of money in the underground market, it was rare but not impossible. Maybe the new client in the underground market was the same restaurant guy.

Despite the lack of a clear suspect to attract the Zmer gang's attention, what ignited Cell's suspicion was the simple fact that Talia was back, and his mission.

This Gene Augur had two thoughts about the whole situation. It was either both Talia and her crew already gave up and escaped the community, or they were still adamant in stopping the slave trade business.

And if they were, he was 70% sure that they were involved in at least 1 of the 3 incidents that was reported to him.

The Zmer gang isolated the LAN network, but they didn't block the borders of the community. They didn't have the manpower to do that, and this meant that the Freegrid cell could leave if they actually put in the effort.

Maybe Talia already escaped secretly, but if so, it was Cell's job to find out and confirm the truth. This was why he pushed deeper into confirming the circumstances of the anomalies.

Cell couldn't exactly track them through advanced digital means. Afterall, the Zmer gang didn't have the technology or resources of the major factions.

He was still not discouraged.

The Zmer gang may not have the digital means, but they did have the manpower for a simple search mission.

Cell changed his angle of approach. Instead of relying on technology, he decided to comb through the inns in community G.

Afterall, if Talia decided to stay in the community, there was a high chance that she and her crew would decide to stay in an inn.

This was time-consuming and it may not be effective.

Maybe it would take days before he could get any result, but Cell wasn't deterred by the difficulty of his mission.

From his analysis, Talia's crew was more likely to stay in one of the numerous wooden inns in the community to avoid attracting attention, but combing through all the wooden inns without tipping them off would take days.

This was why he didn't throw all his eggs in one basket. No matter how low the chance was, there was still a tiny chance that Talia and her crew dared to stay in a standard inn.

And since Community G had only one standard inn- Henry's Inn, it was a simple task for the Gene Augur.

The results left Cell surprised.

A traveler crew of 7 people lodged in the inn just yesterday!

At first, the result was contradictory. Afterall, the Zmer gang knew Talia's crew to have 6 members, but the traveler crew had 7 members.

Despite this contradiction, Cell relied on another factor to confirm his suspicion. The Zmer gang may not know Talia's face, but they've clashed more than 5 times, and Cell had personally met the Freegrid rebel twice in these clashes.

Later that evening, he went on a disguise to Henry's Inn. One glance was all it took; he recognized her stature immediately.

The face was different from what he last saw, but he also remembered that due to the battle that eventually forced them into the fringe of the Wastes, he managed to rip out and destroy Talia's synthetic mask.

'Maybe this is her real face'.

And that was all Cell needed; he decided to attack that night.

Even if it is confirmed to be an innocent traveler at the end, he decided to just take it as collateral damage.

"It will be her honor to die for the Lord's cause".

He waited patiently till it was late at night- 10:00pm, then with his innate nature as a Geneform with the DNA of a Shadow Bat, he sneaked into the inn.

With the knowledge that Talia's crew was full of Ascended, he had no intentions of taking on the full crew. He was confident in his ability, but he was not reckless. Most people feared him and thought he was a psychopath. Maybe he was, but he was not that arrogant to take on 6 or 7 Ascended alone.

He only wanted his target- the leader of the crew, Talia.

And as a Geneform himself, he knew the one characteristic of biological beings that they simply could not bypass, excretion.

At some point, they'll have to visit the toilet.

And to make this factor play in to his advantage, he influenced it.

Using the deterrence factor of the Zmer gang behind him, he forced the inn to put a substance in the beer and water that evening that'll force Geneforms to visit the bathroom more frequently that night.

An Ascended's instincts would most likely discover poison hidden in a glass of water, but it was harder to discover if the substance was not deadly.

And as fate would have it, Talia bought a bottle of beer that night. From then on, she became his marionette, dancing to the tone of his music.

The full sequence from there on already played in his head.

And now, as the sharp blade of his sword pierced through the heart of his target, he smiled coldly. "Let the Lord's will be done".

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