For nearly five hours, Jasmine, Ezra, and Kaiden gambled on games with low odds.

Each of them was blowing through the tokens they had exchanged expensive goods for at an impressive pace and showed no signs of stopping no matter how much they lost.

Still, their target, Huijari, the owner of this illegal gambling den, had not yet made an appearance.

From what they had heard from the customers that frequented this place, the man would often stop by whenever a new high roller willing to spend copious amounts of cash appeared.

Naturally, he wanted to keep such people around to increase the money coming into his operation, and he was not above flattering them and offering some free drinks to do so.

Regrettably, it did not seem that Huijari was going to be making an appearance.

Jasmine could only think that they had not spent enough or perhaps he was too busy with other affairs.

'I guess that we'll have to go with our other plan.'

Except, just as she was about to contact Ezra and Kaiden, the man that the three of them had been looking for finally showed up.

Huijari was a tall, but portly man, with short dark brown hair that had splashes of gray in it.

Knowing what his age was, Jasmine could tell that he had received treatments to retain his youth to a degree. Though he looked to be around in his late fifties, the man was truthfully over eighty years old.

On either side of him, he was flanked by two guards that were now more machine than human.

Their cybernetic enhancements were extreme, and they more metal plating than skin.

'They're going to be trouble.' Jasmine thought, already assessing the abilities four security personnel that answered to Huijari.

None of them had any obvious weapons on them, but that likely meant that any armaments the four of them needed were already integrated into their bodies. There was no telling what they were capable of.

Nevertheless, Jasmine was confident that along with Ezra and Kaiden, that they could take them.

Cybernetics could make people powerful, but they came with a set of weaknesses that were nearly impossible to fully cover.

With only a quick scan of the room, Huijari found the big spender that he was looking for.

Jasmine had initially believed that he would come towards her. Yet, his target was Kaiden instead.

'That's not good.'

From the smile on the man's face, Jasmine could tell that Huijari was not only interested in ingratiating himself to someone that was throwing around a lot of cash. He was aiming for something extra as well.

"This was unexpected. We should have looked into him more to find out his tastes beforehand." Ezra said, having walked over to Jasmine so that they could work together when the situation inevitably became chaotic.

He wore a grim expression, as he already knew how this interaction was going to end.

"Yeah, but there's nothing we can do about it now. We at least lured him out. So, when Kaiden start's making a scene, we'll move in and take out the guards."

The two of them watched on as Huijari approached Kaiden and started talking with him.

Despite Kaiden's general lack of sociability, he did his best to keep his calm at first. He knew that Huijari was the one that they had come here for and wanted to try and get some intel out of him.

Honestly, it was a commendable effort, but for anyone that knew Kaiden, the conclusion of how this was going to end was forgone.

Once Huijari started trying to get more familiar with Kaiden and threw and arm around his shoulder, that was the tipping point.

In a flash, Kaiden had pushed the guy off of him and slammed him into the ground.

"Don't touch me you disgusting geezer! You reek of the worst kind of drugs, and I've never felt someone with such slimy hands before!" Kaiden shouted.

Naturally, with their employer having been attacked, the four guards moved to intercept Kaiden.

However, Ezra had already been prepared for this to happen and had rushed onto the scene.

With one arm each, he picked up two of the cybernetically enhanced men and smashed them together.

The sound of bending metal and cracking bones resounded through the area.

Ezra's physical strength was immense and even though the two people he had just attacked were covered in dense metal plating, they were not able to remain conscious after the heavy blow they were dealt.

While most of their body parts had been replaced by machinery, their brains were still those of normal people. Meaning that the concussions that Ezra gave them had been too much to handle.

At almost the exact same time, Jasmine had gotten behind the remaining two guards.

Even with her expensive augmentations, she was not as strong as Ezra and had no confidence in being able to copy what he had done.

Nevertheless, Jasmine was prepared for a fight and had something up her sleeve.

In a show of immense quickness, she pulled out to disk shaped devices and attached one to the base of Huijari's guards' necks.

A strong electrical pulse then shot through their bodies. Short circuiting their cybernetic augmentations and rendering them immobile.

"We've got more incoming." Ezra said, glancing towards a set of security drones dropping down from the ceiling.

Laser turrets popped out of each side of the drones, and they took aim at the three people that were attacking their designated owner.

"Too slow!"

Still angry, Kaiden whipped out his laser pistol and shot down the drones before they could act.

These were not top end models by any means. Their weapons were decently strong, but their propulsion systems were not great, and they were lacking in shielding. It only took a single shot to bring them down.

Ezra soon joined in and with his twin weapons and he began shooting down the security drones without any difficulty.

While the two of them took care of their target's reinforcement, Jasmine secured Huijari who was trying to crawl away.

"Sorry, we've got some questions that only you can answer. So, we're going to need you to accompany us for a little while." Jasmine said as she pulled the man up and pressed her own laser pistol into his back.

"You are not going to get away with this! You have no idea who I am!"

"Actually, we know exactly who you are, Huijari Roisto."

Jasmine tightened her grip on the man and forced him to start moving. Even as he tried to dig his heels into the ground, he was unable to stop himself from being pushed forward Although she may have been smaller than him, Jasmine was strong enough to overpower him.

However, before they could move to a quieter location to extract information from their target, Jasmine, Ezra, and Kaiden found that several of the patrons of Huijair's gambling den had drawn their own weapons and were pointing them at the three of them.

They might not have particularly cared about Huijari himself, but he was the owner of the establishment that they frequented.

If something happened to him, the place would likely shut down and they would be forced to find somewhere else to receive the thrilling and illegal entertainment provided here.

"You should all ask yourselves if your life is worth losing for this man." Ezra said imposingly.

He had his arms held out and his laser pistols pointed in the directions with the most hostile people congregated. If a firefight started, some of them were certain to die.

"We've just got a few questions for him. Once we've got the information that we want, we'll let him go and this incident will all just become a distant memory."

Of course, what Jasmine did not mentation was that she planned to tip off the Alliance Police to this place once they left. She had put up with this gambling den for the sake of their investigation, but there was no chance she was going to let such a place continue operating now that she knew about it.

Fortunately, when it became apparent that Jasmine, Ezra, and Kaiden were not going to back down, the customers that frequented this establishment holstered their weapons and each of them headed towards one of the multiple exits. None of them were willing to risk their lives for a place they came to just to let off some steam from time to time.

Now that there were no more impediments, Jasmine pushed Huijari deeper into the building and found a found a large storage closet where she tossed him inside.

"Kaiden, would you mind keeping watch?" Jasmine asked, knowing that he was not going to be particularly constructive for an interrogation.

Nodding his head, he slipped out the door and closed it behind him.

"Whatever you want, I'm not talking. It's only a matter of time before more of my people show up. You're all going to regret this. I'll make sure that you end up in the worst places imaginable. You'll wish that you had never been born."

Unimpressed by his threats, Jasmine squatted down so that she was at eye level with the man that had fallen flat on his a*s.

"I don't like doing things like this, but I understand that sometimes it's necessary to come down to the level of scum like you. Now, you're going to tell us what we want to know. If you like or jerk us around, then I'm going to blast a hole in your kneecap." Jasmine said, placing her laser pistol directly on Huijair's knee so that he could feel the cold metal of the weapon's muzzle.