Adventure! RPG - Pedestrian Matters (Mature Content)

[Regan McLachlan]

Hands tied behind her back, back pressed up against a steel pole that ran from ceiling to floor. A handsome face, gloating and smarmy all at once, attached to a perfectly pressed black suit. Bare feet pierced by the splinters of rough-finished floorboards, bare flesh pebbled by the air conditioning. Nakedness hardly concealed by two scraps of pale blue satin. Grunts and coughs from the darkness beyond the limelight, the air rank with tobacco, spilt beer and a hint of unwashed humanity.

Pedestrian. Rope instead of hand-cuffs, no tying of the feet to constrict movement, villain in easy kicking range. The hardest part was waiting patiently for the right time to move.

Mr. Smooth jabbed his finger into Regan's cleavage, a valley that many men dreamt of getting lost in. Her blonde hair was tousled in the latest 'just got out of bed' style that all the porn queens were trying to achieve and her blue-grey eyes smouldered in a face that any supermodel would yearn for. She was perfect material for his latest 'film'.

"Obey me and you will not be hurt," he promised in a voice intended to be suave, but Regan found to be slimier than a snake's ass after a slither through the sewer. He was handsome, with the dark eyes, black curls and unshaven cheeks that gave Mediterranean heart-throbs bad names. Pity about the sleaze-bag attitude; she was going to enjoy breaking that pretty face.

"And if I don't?" she managed to ask in a breathy, husky voice that sent sex-crazed sadists like this guy into seventh heaven.

"I will kill you." The words were stark and raw as he pinched her breast. She gasped for effect, trying not to wrinkle her nose at the bulge in his formerly perfectly creased pants.

He was going to kill her anyway. He got his thrills like that. But not after raping her and letting all of his dozen goons have their way with her as well.

Pedestrian snuff porn. The Ubiquitous Dragon had more imagination in his day.

"Want to know something?" she whispered, muscles subtly tensing.

Mr. Smooth smiled evilly. "Sure. What is it?"

"I'm a skilled capoeirist."

With those words, Regan brought her knee up into that so-prominent erection. As he crumpled, she stepped on his back to propel herself upwards, hanging upside down from the pole as her feet wrapped around it. She was hideously vulnerable for the thirty seconds it took to shred her bonds with a sharpened ring - cheap nylon was awfully unreliable - but no one reacted. They were shocked into silence and inaction, it appeared.

Then something fell with a soft thump and the lights came on, revealing a converted warehouse with red brick showing through the dingy plastered walls. Bodies were crumpling to the dirty concrete floor, most of them with wide smiles in their throats or black cords around their necks, throttling them into swollen purple faces. It was so quick, so deadly, that it was either a team effort or an Inspired.

Regan finished getting herself loose as a black-swathed shadow appeared out of the darkest corner, only a pair of brown eyes and a slash of pale skin showing.

American Ninja! she thought whimsically as she slipped down the pole until her hands touched the ground, and bent forward until she was straight again.

Whatever this was... Her telluric radar was working overtime. This guy was an Inspired.

[Regan McLachlan]

"Your sense of humour is questionable," the ninja observed as Regan finished turning to face him. His voice was undeniably masculine, the accent what Regan had come to associate with 'generic American' - neither Southern drawl nor New York nasalness nor Californian 'dude' speak. Whoever he was, this guy could have come from anywhere between Canada and the Mason-Dixie line.

"So, you are telepathic," Regan noted with a faint smile as she looked the shadow over slowly. Built like a brick shithouse with muscles that Arnie would envy, however the hell he'd pulled off a ninja routine with stealth, speed and grace was surprising. Then again, looking at her, you wouldn't expect her to bench-press an amount which would make a dockie blanch. Many Inspired possessed enhanced physical capabilities.

She received the impression of a raised eyebrow from the ninja. "Such abilities do not surprise you."

"Ten points to the master of stating the obvious," was Regan's sweetly sarcastic reply. She didn't even bother trying to scan his thoughts, because if a man like him had telepathic abilities, he probably trained himself to think about other things when on a mission. While she personally hadn't encountered anyone like that yet, she never took it for granted that someone hadn't thought about it. Every ability could be blocked or circumvented.

Ninja-Dude seemed perturbed by her reaction. What was he expecting, the beautiful woman throwing herself at his feet, begging to be allowed to thank him for saving her? For God's sake, she had a bit more pride than that, and while she knew he was likely a better martial artist than her, she was good enough to surprise him and escape.

"I saved your life," he said slowly, as if explaining to a student at the local school for handicapped children. If he knew how intelligent she was, his brain would melt from trying to keep up with her thought processes.

"Mate, I was in the processes of saving myself. You were about as welcome as an echidna in a balloon factory," she retorted as she bent down to touch her toes for a moment, stretching out the kinks in her back.

From the sudden intake of breath, American Ninja liked what he saw. Score one for Regan.

It took him a few moments to process the statement she'd just made. When he was done, a frown gathered on that masked face.

"He was going to kill you. Slowly. His men... There were twelve or so of them."

"Well, duh," Regan snapped, finally losing whatever patience she had with this guy. "What do you take me for, some kind of bimbo?"

From the expression on his face, Regan didn't need her own telepathic powers to figure out that yeah, he did.

She was over this guy. With a good, swift kick to the groin that shocked him, she jumped out of a window.

With luck, she'd not see this dumbass for a while.