"I am sorry, I was just in a hurry and I wasn\'t paying atten-... huh?" The woman stumbled, as the question was quite unexpected, coming from the boy. Trying to calm her agitated nerves, she took a breath of fresh air and slowly exhaled.

Her eyes closed, she seemed to be doing a sort of makeshift meditative exercise. She exhaled a large gasp of air once more, and whilst slowly raising her hands towards her chest, she stored it in her diaphragm before slowly exhaled in rhythm with her slowly lowering arms.

The repeated exercise seemed to visibly cool her senses, as she looked much more collected once her eyelids parted revealing her azure see-blue upturned eyes. Slightly swaying her head, her long blonde hair fluttered helplessly against the wind before it fell in line behind her back. She was of similar height to Lucien, with a curvaceous hourglass figure. She was wearing a light grey business suit above a dark deep blue lacy blouse with matching, light grey pants.

As she calmed her nerves, she took another deeper look at the young man he almost turned into a paste on the pavement, only to gasp in shock.

"Y-you! It is you! I was… I am…" Her whole body was trembling as she realized who she was talking to. This man… this boy…"

\'No, calm down Sera, what are you doing?! You have a mission, you can\'t fail the Master\'s expectations!\' She berated herself mentally, as she once again, took another breath of fresh air, and repeated the earlier exercise a third time.

Meanwhile, Lucien wasn\'t sure how to react. Both of them were fine, and there was no harm done. Although he was still surprised by the extraordinary method of how he avoided being hurt, he would have left the woman already if not the nudging feeling of wanting to know more about her. So here he was standing with an increasing frown expressing itself over his face, waiting for this strange person to finally introduce herself.

However, he was getting to the point of just turning around and walking away.

"So… *khm*" The woman coughed lightly to garner the young man\'s attention. "I am Sera De\'angelis, and I actually was rushing here to meet a very special person." She sighed as she grabbed her temples, muttering the next line mostly to herself rather than the boy. "As fate would have it, I almost hit him with my car…"

Still, maybe due to his heightened senses and hearing, Lucien managed to catch that last thought. He took a step back, entering a guarded stance as he looked the woman in her eyes with cold wariness.

"What do you want with me?! Who are you?!" He asked.

Seeing the alert reaction from the boy, Sera immediately raised her hands trying to calm him. She hurriedly tried to explain, making sure that her nervousness wouldn\'t be misinterpreted as something else.

"No, no, it\'s nothing bad I can assure you! I... " She looked around, seeing the many eyes that were still on them. This commotion wasn\'t something she wanted when she would begin explaining herself, she pointed towards her car.

"Would you let me invite you for a coffee? I would like to explain everything to you, but not here... There are too many eyes on us."

She revealed a warm, friendly smile hoping her words were sincere and innocent enough for the alert youngster.

Taking a moment to think it through, Lucien followed the many eyes that were on them. Although he couldn\'t feel any hostility from the woman, the simple fact that she came specifically for him, going as far as knowing his current location, raised several warning flags. How did she learn about him so fast? He didn\'t meet or talk to nobody from this small hillside town beside the Lewis family. Did they already give away his location? Was he wrong about them after all?

\'I should at least listen to her. If worst comes to worst, I will just escape…\' He made the decision finally, giving a silent nod towards the blonde woman, and walking past her towards her car.

"R-right then, let me take you out for a drink…" She mumbled awkwardly, following behind the boy.

A moment later they were already seated inside. The tires screeched with excitement, as the car sped away in a flash towards the town center.

"So, uhm… do you have a place you like around here?" Speeding through the traffic, Sera tried breaking the ensuing awkwardness between them, she asked a question, which she would undoubtedly already knew the answer to. Still, it was the best, and the only idea she had trying to get closer to the distant youngster.

Not showing any emotion, the young man with the unkempt, wild shoulder-length black hair kept looking at the window, watching as they sped through the traffic, seemingly ignoring the woman\'s question entirely. The occasional scoffs and frowns were the only thing that she received, but even those seemed to be not aimed at her. He seemed to be not paying any attention to her, he was lost gazing at the traffic.

"I… I am not that familiar with this area, so if you don\'t have any preference, let\'s just try this place. What do you say?" Not giving up, Sera asked again, while she drove into a parking slot in front of a classy-looking diner.

It was the average, not too shabby but not too elegant type either. The one that most of the working class would use to grab a bite for breakfast, drink the disgusting black oil that they tried calling coffee, or just sit in after work, order a burger with drenched fries and forget the day\'s ordeals.

Seeing that the boy once again ignored her attempt at starting a conversation, Sera could only sigh and park her dark blue, luxurious-looking sports car whilst already deep in thought about how to discuss everything with the boy she needed to. She needed to convince him, she needed to earn his forgiveness and understanding which seemed harder by the minute…

Meanwhile, as she was driving, Lucien didn\'t ignore her out of spite, but he was actually in a conversation with the strange, floating text, the mysterious system or to be more precise, the entity behind it.

Going back in time, when he took his place at the front. As he sat down, he focused his attention on the System, bringing the floating, black transparent window up.

A moment later, even without him asking a simple note have appeared from the order of the bloodied letters.

\'[...::: Follow the woman. :::...]\'

\'Why should I? Who is she?\' He asked mentally whilst trying to hide the confusion that almost appeared on his face. Why would he need to follow this blonde girl? Who was she to him?

\'[...::: She is important to the host\'s progression. Follow the blonde woman. :::...]

\'This doesn\'t explain anything!\' He scoffed at the system\'s response. That was basically just telling him \'follow after her because you have to\'. He wasn\'t willing to accept such a command, after all, the only thing he promised to himself that he will never again be pushed and ordered around. He will never again be someone\'s or something\'s puppet to play around with.

As if noticing his bubbling emotions, the bloodied letters rapidly appeared, and changed positions, formulating a surprising response.

\'[...::: We understand the host\'s feelings, but the host should be patient and listen to the System. The woman didn\'t come with any hostile intentions. On the contrary, her purpose was to meet up with you. Your destiny is entangled, the host should be understanding, and listen. :::...]

Reading through the response, Lucien scoffed once again, as he made the screen disappear, and see that they have arrived in front of a diner.

The large bright, yellow neon light read \'Momma Dana\'s Diner\' at the front. Glancing to the windows, he could see a couple of figures already inside. He turned his head to look at the gently smiling Sera, and with the same distant coldness that he displayed before he asked.

"Is this the place?"

Finally receiving a response, even if it was in the form of a question, Sera felt happiness bubble up inside her. She nodded, responding with an unmasked eagerness.

"Y-yes! Do you… do you like it? Should we go inside, or do you want to go somewhere else?"

Instead of responding verbally, Lucien opened the car door and stepped out of the car. Waiting only for a single moment, he slowly began to walk towards the entrance of the place, not bothered if Sera was following after him or not.

He closed his eyes for a moment, sighing inwardly.

\'I do hope that this won\'t give me more trouble…\'

---

At the other side of the town, a silver-painted van entered the city limits. Sitting at the side front seat, a bearded, short figure was laser-focused on the screen of the laptop sitting on his lap. He was wearing a white lab coat, he ruffled his few strands of greyish hair atop his head.

On the monitor, a stream of numerical data -similar to what Dr. Frida was reading with surprising ease a while ago- was flowing without stop.

"Turn right here, we are close." He gave a vague order to the driver who was equipped with a familiar set of armor just like the large group sitting behind them.

Each one of them was wearing a dark set of kevlar armor, with skull-like plastic masks protecting their identities. Each was armed to the teeth with a variety of deadly armaments. Long sabers with strange handles hanged on their backs, leaning against special, unrecognizable automatic rifles and shotguns…

Reading through the stream of data, the bearded scientist figure smirked as he spotted the fences at the distance to a particular home.

\'The subject was definitely here… The signal is particularly strong there… AM-03 couldn\'t have escaped too far…\'