Riley might have been a little in love with Race's cherry GTO. As they cruised through the streets between the Inn and the warehouse district, she peppered the poor man with questions about torque ratios and gear box ratios and top MPH and why did the car's doors open on command. Little known fact: The Cat is a gear-head.

The GTO rumbled through the wide doors of the recycling plant hanger to an empty reception. The employees long since sent home for the day the trio would have all the quiet in the world to pry information from their 'guest'. However the Mogul didn't expect them to get much considering how low on the chain the man probably was. And he had Riley asking question after question. But he answered them calmly. The voice commands though? "The vehicles AI is in development."

"That's just freakin' cool," she gushed. "Gonna market 'em? I'd kill for like a smart house or something"

Fio been following them since the Inn, keeping to a discreet distance on her Harley and glad that the plant was in the same general direction from the Red Dragon as the Eye was. Just coincidence, to anyone seeing her leave. She flashed her headlamps a few times as they got closer to the place and she realized where they were headed, letting him know she was there.

David listened with some interest, but stayed out of the conversation for the most part. While he was a lot more communicative than, say, two years ago, he was still fairly quiet around people he didn't know. When Riley mentioned a smart house, though, he had to comment. "Yeah, we could name her Sarah."

Riley snorted and winked at David. "I'm partially to Buffy. Or hey, we could get a boy's voice and call him Spike." The Billy Idol-esque vampire had always been her favourite anyway.

At the signal from Fio, Race tapped his breaks lightly to flash her back. "Public marketing is still in debates. We're far from the only company that produces them but it's not a direction the company wants to take just yet." Coming to a stop next to the pulp press for recycling paper he got out. "Geist, trunk..."

She rumbled to a slow stop behind him, pulling into the open truck bay of the recycling plant where the enclosure magnified the echoing roar of the engine until she palmed the spellbox off. The silence that followed by comparison was shocking.

Riley climbed out as well and headed around to the back of the car quickly. If their guest had awoken and was in a place where he could make a dash for freedom, she wanted to be the first to nab him. Maybe with unsheathed claws, if necessary.

As though they'd coordinated it, David went out the opposite side of the car from Riley and moved to the back as well, cutting off any chance of the Yak's escaping.

The drying flecks of speckled blood on her skin were annoyingly itchy. Her fingers flexed and curled as she fought against the overwhelming desire to make them all wait until she took a shower. She shook her hair out, tossing the helmet in the sidecar, and stalked toward rear of the councilor's GTO where the others stood. "Please tell me he is still alive."

Sunglasses removed and tucked into the front of his shirt, the Mogul joined the rest at the trunk. "It wasn't that long of a drive....and if he's dead...I know a few necromancers. So we can bring him back...."

Kyo blinked in the sudden comparatively bright light and squinted up into the faces of his captives. Spotting Riley, a stream of mushy Japanese errupted from his broken mouth, the words slurring into each other. He held out his empty hands to her and then to David, his tone clear that he was begging for something, his life perhaps.

"Sounds pretty lively to me," David commented drily when the man started his pleading.

Riley ignored the necromancer comment, though David might have noticed a subtle tightening of the skin around the corners of her eyes. "Whatever happened to Japanese stoicism? I thought these guys were supposed to be tough?" she said to David, then repeated her words in Japanese, arching an ironic brow as she turned her attention back to the pile of biker in the trunk.

"Does that door close?" Fio asked, meaning the large overhead door they'd driven through. Best not to have witnesses, or allow him an egress. "And I'd prefer him talkative, not stoic. I want to go home and change before I make an appearance at that festival tonight."

"Easy to be tough when you're shaking down 80-year old shopkeepers. It's a whole different story when seven-foot women are hurling bar stools at your face."

Riley's words had him closing his mouth immediately. It slowly dawned on him that he wasn't going to be set free any time soon so his lips narrowed into a thin white line. Only the rapid dilating of his nostrils as he panted gave any indication as to the amount of pain the man was in.

At Fio's question he points a finger at the overhead door firing off a green beam of light hitting the control button. With a lurch the heavy door slides down on its chains. Then he turned back to the topic at hand. "Well, someone want to pull him out? I'll go and start things up."

Riley chuckled at David's comment and motioned to the guy in the trunk, speaking to him in Japanese. "Anata no namae wa?"
"Watashinonamaeha Kyodesu," but made no move to climb out of the trunk. Either he was being stubborn or maybe he was incapable of moving on his own.

Dark eyes ticked back and forth between them. "What?" Fio asked. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it, given the circumstances.

David reached into the trunk and gathered a handful of shirt again, hauling the man out of the trunk without ceremony and planting him on his feet, then grabbed his upper arm, holding it in an unbreakable grip.

Riley translated word-for-word, a noseful of the man's emotions. Fear, hatred, resignation...it made things rather difficult for her on so many levels.

He nodded and reached for the cup with a free hand, taking it gently from Fio's hand and sipping it. It was crap but strangely, he didn't care.

It was such a tiny thread of it at first, a subtle flow of energy that wound around him at those points of contact, knees, thigh, palm, fingertips. Fio amplified it with a ghostly wash of pheromones that slowly permeated the air between them with each breath. She willed his heart rate to slow, to join hers. "Kyo-san," she breathed desire on the hush of his name, and waited for him to look at her.

Another darted look over the rim of his teacup, meeting the woman's eyes for half a second before darting away once more. Strangely, he felt a calm descending over him, wondered at it. Perhaps the spirits of this place had finally come to his aid.

Riley's spine stiffened suddenly and without apparent cause. She took an involuntary step back and barely contained a low growl and snarl of her Cat. A nearly identical darted look was flashed David's way while Riley struggled with Jaguar's instinct to run, despite the tasty food on display.

Safely behind, and therefore out of sight of the Yakuza thug, he lifted one hand slightly, making a palm down gesture in Riley's direction. Calmly, love. He didn't know what had set her off; nothing seemed amiss here.

"Kyo-san," Fio whispered again, pouring a little more of herself into it, filling the air with warmth and want. She worked at the sharp edges of the pain, blunting and blurring where she could, trying to draw him in a little more. "Look at me."

The Mogul somehow found himself looking at David and Riley with an arched brow. The ring on his right hand wasn't flashing so they weren't in any danger, least none that he sensed anyway. Soon his gaze went back to Fio working her 'magic'.

Despite his surroundings and circumstances, Kyo felt himself relaxing more, his pain lessening inch by inch. He glanced down into the cup. It must have been drugged. His eyes went hard and flinty at that and he barked a question at Riley, the first time he'd willingly addressed her.

"He thinks we drugged him," Riley said after wresting control once more over the Cat in her brain. She shook her head, spoke in patient tones, assuring Kyo that she didn't drug him. She didn't drop the information that apparently the Governor was putting the whammy on him. And man, oh man, was that food for thought.

Warmth and desire, sex and home, All sorts of good and pleasant and pleasurable things. Fio widened the flow, letting the energies branch and web and envelop. A third time, she said it: "Kyo-san."

He made a grunty noise, indicating that he'd heard Riley's explanation, but didn't quite believe her. He gave the woman facing him directly now a longer look, meeting her eyes now, allowing the spells she was weaving to fully envelop him. He asked Riley a question, tipped his head towards Fio, raised his eyes to meet Riley's briefly before lowering them to Fio again.

"He wants to know why the Governor is here, why you're not letting a lackey do this." She gave David a grateful look over the top of Fio's head and reclaimed that step the sudden flow of unexpected spell work had taken, moving to Fio's side once more.

David shot her a little wink as he returned to a relaxed and ready posture. He really didn't mind not having a speaking role in this little show.

This time, their gazes met, and she kept it. Her mobile mouth curved in a slow, close-lipped, approving smile. Her eyes shone with an unspoken, affirming warmth. She squeezed his hand, and opened the gates a tiny bit wider. No good in overbaking the poor man. "Because I care about what happens to him. I wish him to remain safe. I wish him to help us so that we can protect him."

Riley translated Fio's words and worked hard to keep from flavouring her recital with her own opinion.

He raised his eyes to Riley's face while she spoke and then back to Fio's while he considered her words. Part of him knew the gaijin was lying; she didn't care what happened to him. His broken, painful face was testament enough to that. But the rest of him saw no guile or duplicity in Fio's face. To say he was confused would be an understatement.

Oh, she meant every word of it. Her thumb stroked the sensitive underside of his wrist, tracing the line of his pulse familiarly. Heat and want. Lust and hunger. Desire and affection. "You want to help me, don't you, Kyo-san?"

Christ. Riley's eyes were mostly pupil now and she fervently wished David could somehow share her sense for just a moment. She translated the words, her voice thick with the effort to control herself.

With Fio doing her thing and Riley playing translator, Race had a feeling David wouldn't let the man get too far if he ran. Not really in a position to help too greatly he moved around to the driver's side of the car and pulled a book out of the storage area in the door. A hard backed book with "Pathfinder: Core Rulebook" printed on it with the image of some elven warrior facing off against a large dragon. Still listening to the line of questioning he opened to his bookmark.

He nodded curtly, speaking before thinking. "Hai." The tea cooled in his hand, forgotten. His eyes were firmly locked to Fio's face, not wavering.

"Hai," she repeated, smiling again. "Yes." Yes. Oh, yes. She spilled a little more heat into the channels between them, pleasure to reward a wise choice. "How many of you are here, now, in RhyDin?" Her knee shifted along the inside of his thigh, reasserting itself in the glide of contact.

David was paying more attention to Riley now than he was to the wanna-be Yak, trying to figure out what it was that was affecting her so strongly. Sometimes, he really kind of wished he had her senses.

He darted a look towards Riley as he awaited her translation, his knees separating a bit, the hard line of his shoulders softening, pain receding to the back of his mind.

Riley did so, knowing it was futile. He wouldn't know anything like that. He wouldn't be trusted with anything like that.

The Mogul has to cough a bit feeling the mojo raise the hairs along his skin. His own fault for venturing this close really.

"Watashi wa sore no izureka o shirimasen."

"He doesn't know," she said, her hands forming into fists at her sides, breathing shallow and fast.

"Tell him that we will give him a safe place to stay, and doctors to help him mend. Tell him I want him to help us, later." I want him. I want him. I want him. Desire and ache pulsed in the air between them.

Riley did so, wondering where they were gonna stash him, how he'd react to healers if they decided to go that way with him.

"Domo arigatogozaimashita," he said, bowing deeply over their conjoined hands again and again, repeating the phrase, tears pricking at his eyes with the force of his gratitude.

"Shhhhh," Fio hushed him like a child, her breath, his breath. "Tell him to go to sleep." She touched a kiss to the poor boy's forehead. His eyes fell shut with a sigh and his shoulders went limp. He fell forward into Fio's lap, making Riley's input unnecessary.

Race slowly takes a few steps back trying to figure out just how big a bubble Fio is casting. Either way he knows a cold shower is in store once they're all done. An ice cold shower, yep yep.

"Jesus Christ," the Cat whispered and put a huge distance between her and Fio, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane as she struggled with Jaguar's desire to either kill or mate right then, right there.

Fio took her first, full, deep breath and straightened, twisting to look at Race, eyes skirting Riley. She knew what she was, could guess at what she guessed. "You have someplace to keep him?"

"Yes." Gives a nod and lifts his hand, the odd ring flashing before ropes of green fly out seeking to wrap the sleeping man up and lift him aloft with relative ease.

"Honor what I promised him. He's a guest. Make sure a healer sees him. Mkae sure he's closely guarded. I'll get Alain's folks to falsify some travel trails for him."

Skirting around the edges of the room, Riley arrived eventually at David's side, reaching out to take his hand, drawing strength from him and using it to build her Centre again. "Fio," she said, her voice cracking. She cleared her throat, tried again. "Fio, you ever want to learn more about these guys, ways to deal with them, let me know. I'll be more than happy to share what I know."

"Thank you," she turned fathomless, dark eyes on Riley for a long moment, incongruous in her nineteen-year-old face. "I appreciate that, and I will. You can be certain of that."

Riley nodded, the gesture almost a bow, and turned to David, whispering in his ear. He nodded once and they took off, sprinting for Seaside to give the Cat the opportunity to work off what she felt from Fio's...whatever that was.

Race almost looked offended that Fio had to say that to him. Almost. Slowly the ropes lower the Yak-abe into the GTO's trunk once the med table folds back up. "He'll be healed before I get to Garrum's Gulch...."

"Thank you," she rubbed her palms across her face, flakes of dried blood from before dusting her hands when she pulled them away. "I need to get home and take a shower."

"Makes two of us.." he grumbles closing the trunk and shakes his head. "Learn something new every day..."

He got a shrewd, sharp look from her, and a ghost of a bittersweet smile. "Don't you?" She gulped another breath and started for the bike, Fresh air, wind in her face, a go at her punching bags, a shower. Then back to her public face for the event tonight. As soon as he opened the door, her engine roared to life and she was off, the helmet left in the sidecar.

Behind the GTO's wheel he waited a moment to light up his pipe before taking off for the southern Gate.


((Taken from live play. Thanks to Riley Lo, David Lo, Fio Helston, and Race.))