It didn’t take long for Zain to find the address to the suspicious location. Or rather, it was hard for him not to take a short time to find it, for a portside bar with a giant neon lion head for a sign blinking its multitude of colors wasn’t exactly the definition of “concealed”.

What in the actual hell am I getting into… the young man could only shudder at the thought that the mysterious assailant following him was from this kind of showy establishment.

Taking a quick glance around, he could see a couple of men in leather clothing joyously sharing their booze – a normal scene for a bar. Of course, this meant that he could not enter through the front door looking like a fully suited burglar. Sneaking from the back didn’t look like an option either, simply from the fact that this was a one-story building, and there was no back door to speak of.

“Guess I’ll just do this,” Zain mumbled. “Not like my face was plastered on the wanted posters anyway.”

And so, still in his casual look – a frayed red jacket shoddily worn over a black undershirt and matching jeans – Zain walked into the bar.

Though the bell hanging by the door rang to signal the new customer, and Zain’s red jacket was already too much of a standout in a bar of only black, the people inside didn’t pay much attention to his presence. A natural response, too, considering that most of them were already drunk off their minds.

“Hello, Sir…” A familiar voice sounded as the young man sat by the counter.

Zain could not believe his eyes as the hulking figure, complete with his bald head and scar running across his face appeared before him.

“Mitch?”

“Zain? Eeeyy, it is ya!” The giant of a man raised his hands and his voice, elated to see an old friend. “Where ‘cha been, buddy? Enjoyin’ the freedom life?”

Though Zain never had his real name mentioned in any news, Mitch's brash voice was more than enough to send him into a state of high alert, forcing the young man to quickly glance around for any incoming foes. However, everything was soon proven to be for naught, as the men around the bar were only barely conscious enough to distinguish between left and right, let alone have enough reasoning to follow a conversation.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Zain soon turned to anger as he punched the air. “Damn it man, you almost gave me a heart attack!”

“Haha, sorry, sorry…” Mitch waved his hands around to apologize. “But seriously, wat’ ya been up ta? I haven’t heard from ya in like, eva.”

“It’s a… long story,” the words reminded him about what happened that day, and he couldn’t answer with anything else but a sigh filled with regret.

And so, Zain told his story.

Even after the young man had finished his tale and was waiting for a reaction, Mitch couldn’t say anything.

For him, Zain and Rex were his true friends from his days being stuck in the Infinite Prison.

However, it was only that much between them.

He never thought about anything else. For him, the day Zain disappeared was also the day the young man was let out. And after a few days of not seeing Rex anymore, he had simply thought that Zain’s appeal worked, and the two of them had both left the facility. Never before had he imagined something as crazy and out-of-this-world as the story that he had just heard.

“Dat… uh… was sumthin’ else,” in the end, he could only exclaim with that much, even if inside his head were a hundred more things he wanted to say, but cannot possibly make into words.

“I don’t blame you,” Zain replied with a woolgathering look at the half-filled glass of milk in his hand. “If I wasn’t the subject of matter, even I wouldn’t believe it.”

“So… Rex is…”

“Here,” pointing at the pendant on his neck, Zain answered. “The nanobots that made his body, that is.”

“Wait… so…”

Mitch wasn’t the brightest tool in the shed. After all, he had just called out Zain’s name without care. And so, it shouldn’t be so much of a surprise if the same situation would happen again, but this time with the actual alias that would be dangerous for the young man.

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“Dat means yer the Masked Lion!”

“God damn it Mitch can’t you put two and two together!?”

Just a second ago, the bar was filled with nothing but drunkards (saved for two people). But as soon as those words escaped Mitch’s mouth, everyone had completely shaken up their hangovers and stood at the same time, as if there was some sort of miracle drug to get rid of all the alcohol in their bodies.

Or, they had been pretending to be drunk from the start.

Strong and smart as he was, Zain was still only a seventeen-year-old boy. Throughout his time in the Infinite Prison, he was banned from all forms of alcohol. After all, those at the top couldn’t risk having their ultimate soldier be tainted by toxins, so, Zain only knew what drunkards look like, but he had never actually met one in real life.

That’s why it was only natural that even though none of the men in the bar had that signature alcoholic smell to them, Zain never noticed it. And by the time he did, it was already too late.

Zain and Mitch were soon surrounded by the same group of leather-worn men in the bar.

“Hey, kid,” one of them spoke, fully and clearly without any trace of booze on him. “Was that true? You’re the wanted guy?”

Zain let out a sigh of regret. Had it been any other place, he would have just beaten these guys up without a hitch. However, he wasn’t in ‘just any place’ – it was the bar of one of his only friends, something that Mitch undoubtedly had been working hard to build after he was let out. Ruining both its reputation and furniture wouldn't be something that he could do.

And so, for the first time in his life, Zain didn’t resort to his fists.

Instead, the young man pointed towards the door.

“Let’s talk outside. Don’t worry, I won’t run away.”

“Huh?” One of the men raised his arrogance-filled voice. “Why do you think that you have the choice here, brat?”

“Ya know, I’ve been thinkin’ dat I should replace sum tables…” On the side, Mitch picked his nose and uttered a completely unrelated matter, trying to act as naturally as he could. However, it was only unrelated to the group of gangsters threatening them, for Zain knew better than anyone else – those were words of permission, painful as it might be for him.

Without another word, the young man grabbed the head of the one threatening them and slammed him down on a table nearby.

The impact was enough to completely break it in half, leaving the victim with a concussion of a lifetime.

“Now, I don’t think you guys understand your position here,” Zain let out a smirk – the same kind of sadistic smirk that he thought he wouldn’t have to use again. “You’re not making me go outside, I’m making you.”

However, before he could say anything more, the entire scene was rocked by the sound of a revving engine. The sound of rubber burning on the road creaked through the bar. And finally, when everything had settled down, the doorbell rang once more.

Entering the room was a man, or at least, someone who Zain assumed to be a man. There were no curves on his body thanks to the stiff leather suit he was wearing, and the giant yellow helmet with pointed ends – very much resembling cat ears, though they didn’t make the object cuter by any means – had covered all of his face.

“Hey, punk,” the person presumed to be male asked in a deep, muffled voice. “What did you do to my boys?”

While Zain was still taken aback by the weird getup, Mitch had already realized the kind of person they were dealing with.

“Dat weird cat-ear helmet… Dat tiger leather jacket… Yer da Mountain Lion Gang!”

“So you’ve heard of us,” the man chuckled underneath the helmet. “Then that makes you even more foolish.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. It was purely self-defense.”

Contrary to Mitch’s panicked expression, Zain was calm like a still river. One could say that he had more experience in a real fight than anyone else here, so just with a single glance at his opponent, Zain could tell that this guy, whoever he was, was no match against him.

Though, it would be weirder if anyone was a match against project R.E.X’s ultimate solider. The man in the helmet might not have known this, but he was still not so much of a slouch that he would underestimate his opponent.

“I kid, I kid,” raising his hands up in an attempt to step into peaceful talk, the helmet man answered. “If you’re really the Masked Lion, then we puny gangsters have no chance against you. But…”

Taking a deep breath, unsure if it was for making a dramatic proclamation, or if it was simply because the helmet was too suffocating, he continued.

“Long have I wished for a contest between the two of us, especially considering we’re both taking the name of the king of the jungle.”

“Contest?” Zain squinted in doubt. Never had he thought the situation would develop into something like this.

“Just a simple contest, you and me. What do you say?”

“I don’t see why I have to accept.”

“Oh, but you will Mr. Masked Lion,” as if waiting for that sentence, the man let out a wry smile – unseen, of course, since his helmet was still on. “Don’t you wanna know about the owner of those drones?”

The sudden reunion with Mitch had made Zain forget about his original purpose of coming to this place. And now, as he was reminded of it again, there was no chance that he would let it pass.

“What am I wagering?”

“Oh, not much. If you win, you’ll get the information you wanted. And if I win… I’ll take that black suit of yours.”

Zain let out a smile. Not because he was confident in his victory (though he certainly was), but because the nature of the bet was rigged without the other party even noticing. The Bitleo armor was made from the nanobots Rex had given Zain himself. In other words, only Zain could control them, and even if he would give them to someone else, they would only behave like a pile of dust.

And so, there was no way he wouldn’t accept the painfully one-sided offer.

“You have yourself a deal.”