Action!

The opening scene of Costumed Champions, Conquered Concubines was fairly easy to set up, requiring only a room with a strategically placed storage cabinet and a preset trap to be sprung by the superheroine starlets.

The Baroness inspected the set wearing a new bodysuit that left even less to the imagination than her usual outfit. It was, of course, made of black leather, though it was polished to a sheen that could easily be mistaken for vinyl.

“Are the cameras ready?”

Kristin checked the master control board. “We’re ready when you’re ready.”

The Baroness signaled Vindiatrix and Shield Lass. “You heard her. Remember to stay in character, uptight and repressed like you used to be before I helped you break free of all that.” She grinned. “Don’t worry too much if you occasionally slip out of character for a moment. Your inhibitions are supposed to start cracking before they break down completely.”

The duo moved into position and struck poses as if they were out on the streets intimidating a mugger into giving up without a fight. It was perfect staging to establish them as stalwart superheroines… which would make the upcoming scenes where the Baroness used them as sex toys all the more arousing.

They had to stand on top of a pedestal before they could fall off it, after all.

Bright neon-pink blobs fell from the ceiling onto the heroines’ shoulders. Before either of them could react, the stuff slithered under the necklines of their costumes. They desperately tore off their tunics, revealing that neither of them was wearing a bra underneath. Attempts to remove the glop only spread it further.

The pink slime stretched and divided and reshaped itself into a network of bright pink cords that clung to each heroine’s neck, shoulders, and arms. As the material started gluing their fingers together, they awkwardly removed their gloves. That bought them only a few seconds as the goo spread onto their bare hands. Meanwhile, pink blobs slid down their bodies to cover their utility belts and seal all the compartments shut.

The Baroness watched, both directly and on the offstage camera feed monitors. The self-deploying memory-plastic webbing was her latest feat of successful inventive intuition. It occurred to her that the stuff could be used in the Trusty Twosome’s tangler grenades. Having them use the same visually distinctive restraints for both crimefighting on the street and bondage on the stage would be a good crossover branding opportunity.

She put the thought aside for now and watched the cords wriggling and shifting across the women’s bodies. The heroines were caught completely off guard as more blobs emerged from the floor to glom onto their boots and quickly encase their legs in pink netting from feet to mid-calves. Multiple thick lines of the material bound their feet to the floor, pinning them in place.

More thick pink cords dropped from the ceiling, flexing and shifting to home in on the duo’s forearms, repeatedly wrap around them, and merge seamlessly into the existing restraints.

Vindiatrix and Shield Lass struggled more desperately than ever as the cords thickened and shortened, pulling their arms toward the ceiling. The cameras and the Baroness watched as these efforts made their bare boobs jiggle.

The pink plastic shifted shape while remaining firm enough to resist the captives’ ongoing attempts to pull free. After a minute or so, it settled into a final configuration of thick ceiling cables, bondage mittens, and leg shackles. The heroines stood topless and helpless.

That was just the tone the Baroness intended to set. In their Intimate Initiation debut, the Trusty Twosome had been presented as lesbian neophytes voluntarily surrendering themselves to the Baroness’s guidance. It was an almost documentary-style presentation of the Baroness’s cover story.

Costumed Champions, Conquered Concubines would present the duo as helpless captives being used as perverse pleasure playthings. It was loosely based on the truth, presented in a bombastic style that would further bury that truth under a medley of overblown porn tropes that shamelessly pandered to the audience.

Baroness Blackleather put those thoughts aside. It was time for her to take the stage.

“Welcome to my lair,” she purred as she strode into view.

“Said the spider to the fly?” Shield Lass snarked as the villainess approached.

The Baroness smirked. “Do you think I’m planning to eat you?” she said in a tone that left little room for the culinary interpretation of the double entendre.

“What are you planning to do to us?” Vindiatrix snapped, in her best no-nonsense voice.

The Baroness smiled, and not just because the script called for it. Vindiatrix was going an excellent job maintaining an defiant initial attitude that would serve to highlight the heroines’ helpless fall into debauchery.

“That’s a very good question. Now that you’re both bound and helpless, I could do whatever I like to you.”

She opened one of the storage cabinet doors to reveal a selection of vibrator wands, strap-on harnesses, double-length dildos, ticklers, and lubricants. “So many options…” she mused aloud as she examined the collection. She then turned her gaze toward the captives. “I’m sure that the supreme detective and her trained protégé are already contemplating the possibilities and imagining what it would be like to experience them.”

After letting that statement hang in the air for a moment, she held up a strap-on harness. “For instance, I could use this to loosen those tight asses of yours,” she declared as she buckled one of the straps around her waist so that the dildo attachment projected from her crotch.

“You witch!” Shield Lass cried.

The Baroness chuckled, recalling how the original script had used the b-word and Shield Lass had suggested the euphemism to reinforce the “righteous heroines trapped into depravity” tone of the scene.

She unbuckled the harness and returned it to the cabinet. “However, I’ve thought of a more interesting alternative, one that you may find somewhat more palatable.”

The silence continued until Vindiatrix replied, “We’re listening.”

The Baroness smoothly raised her arm to touch the open door with a fingertip and slowly push it closed. “I propose to forego the use of these toys and engage you in simple personal intimacy. I’ll even approach you from the rear so you won’t have to look, if you’d rather not admit to yourselves that you’re being pleasured by another woman.”

Her face twisted into a wicked smirk. “Just be sure not to provoke me.” A note of steel crept into her tone. “You don’t want me to use anything from this half of the cabinet,” she declared as she opened the cabinet’s other door. Behind it was an assortment of riding crops, floggers, paddles, and other implements of discipline.

“Personally, I don’t much care for that sort of thing, so I’m hoping you won’t make me resort to it,” she simpered as the cameras maneuvered to zoom in on the display. She had no intention of subjecting her starlets to that sort of treatment, but she wasn’t above pandering to viewers who liked to imagine self-righteous superheroines being subjected to physical punishment.

“Instead,” she said as she closed the door, “I suggest that we stick to positive reinforcement. I shall caress and fondle you while you moan and sigh and tell me how much you’re enjoying my attentions. Do that for me, and I’ll release you from these entanglements.”

She leered. “I think that’s a reasonable proposition, under the circumstances. You both know that, whatever my other faults, when I give my word I keep it to the letter.” She licked her lips. “Just to sweeten the offer a bit, if the first one I embrace gives me a sufficiently gratifying response, I’ll stop there and release both of you.”

The Baroness let that statement hang in the air. “So… which of you wants to go first?”

“Me,” Vindiatrix said. “Do it to me.”

“No!” Shield Lass protested. “Me! I volunteer!”

The Baroness listened closely. The lines were delivered perfectly, as a combination of resigned acceptance and noble self-sacrifice, but there was room for a viewer to interpret it as an argument about which one would get her latent lesbian lust satisfied first.

“I’m the leader of this team,” Vindiatrix firmly declared. “I’m your volunteer.”

“Very well, then.”

The Baroness slowly removed her left glove, and then her right. She swiveled her hips as she sashayed toward Vinidatrix.

“Remember, you agreed to put on a convincing show of enjoying this. If you put your heart and soul into it, you may find that you actually do enjoy it. You might as well do so; it’ll make things much more pleasant for you.”

She unbuckled the heroine’s utility belt and let it fall to the floor. She then began to pull down the heroine’s tights.

Vindiatrix turned to Shield Lass. “I’ll give her a good enough show so that you won’t have to go through this,” she promised earnestly.

“How heroic of you,” the Baroness deadpanned. “However, if you don’t want me to fondle your sidekick I suggest that you focus your attention on me.”

Shield Lass stared silently as her partner’s tights slowly slid down her thighs. Cameras moved in for closeups of Vindiatrix’s bare crotch and backside.

“Now, then… tell me how much you’re enjoying this little lesbian tryst,” the Baroness purred as she reached out to grab and squeeze Vindiatrix’s buttocks. The heroine gasped. “You liked that, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

The Baroness gave the bound woman’s behind a playful slap. She responded with an absolutely adorable little “eep!” sound she’d spent some time rehearsing to get just right. It perfectly fit her new role as an entertaining little toy for her Mistress’s pleasure. She was surrendering herself to indignities that the old pre-recruitment Vindiatrix would have adamantly resisted, which was just what the audience wanted to see.

Well, that and hot lesbian sex, of course.

She took hold of the heroine’s hips and moved in close to press her crotch into the other woman’s backside. She ostentatiously rocked her hips, putting on a suggestive show for the cameras as if she were thrusting a strap-on into her captive’s rear.

On cue, Vindiatrix pressed her hips into her captor’s crotch. “Oh, yes,” she sighed. “I do like this.”

The Baroness chuckled. “Are you just flattering me so that I’ll be gratified enough to leave your sidekick alone after I’m done with you? That won’t do. I want to hear bona fide passion. I want to hear genuine lesbian desire.”

The hands on the bound woman’s hips slid several inches forward and just a few inches back. They repeated the motion again and again, getting a bit closer to the heroine’s crotch with each iteration.

“Feel my hands moving across your body. Soon, very soon, my fingers will slide into your cunt, and then I’ll know whether you’re genuinely enjoying your role as my helpless lesbian sex toy.”

“Oh… oh my!” Vindiatrix stammered, trying to sound torn between resisting and welcoming the imminent intimacy, just as the script described.

The Baroness blew a long gentle breath onto Vindiatrix’s ear, then leaned down to stage-whisper into it. “You must be feeling very confused right now. Everything will make sense when you accept that you want this. You want an excuse to indulge your secret fantasies while blaming it on a nasty wicked villainess.” The speech was a blatant indulgence of fans who liked to imagine that superheroines in spandex were actually kinky queer sluts beneath their respectable straight vanilla façades.

The heroine’s body shivered as fingertips brushed her pubes. They slowly retreated, and then reversed course for a slow teasing approach as cameras moved in for closeups.

Fingertips probed between pussy lips. “I can feel you getting wet. This is what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes! Yes!” the heroine cried as the finger probed deeper and a second finger moved in to join it.

“You like this better than anything you’ve ever had before, don’t you, darling?”

Vindiatrix nodded vigorously. “Yes!”

“I’m going to satisfy you more intensely than anyone else you’ve ever known.”

The Baroness’s fingers thrust deeply into the heroine, who gasped and shouted something that was half “Yes!” and half incoherent scream.

The pink netting holding Vindiatrix’s arms and shoulders stretched a bit as she slumped, until the Baroness’s hands grabbed and lifted her by the breasts. As the heroine recovered enough to stand up straight again, the hold shifted. Instead of simply grabbing and hanging on, the hands began kneading and fondling. Vindiatrix took a few deep breaths, then began gasping and moaning.

“You really are enjoying this,” the Baroness whispered into Vindiatrix’s ear. She idly thought that while her hidden throat microphone should capture the utterance, there was a good chance she’d have to re-record it later. “I think that you’ve always wanted to be with another woman… always wanted to be with a Mistress who could train you to forget your repressive inhibitions.”

“Yes… Yes… Yes…” she gasped.

“That’s why you keep walking into villainess’ lairs and getting yourself captured, hoping to find that Mistress. Well, now you have!”

“Yes…”

“Excellent! You did very well, Vindiatrix…” The Baroness gave her an almost chaste kiss on the cheek. “…but not quite well enough.”

She leered evilly at the blonde sidekick. “It seems that your mentor failed to satisfy my cravings… so now it’s your turn!”

“You promised!” Shield Lass snapped.

“I promised to leave you alone if Vindiatrix satisfied me. She didn’t, not quite.”

“You never intended to give me a fair chance to protect Shield Lass,” Vindiatrix declared.

“I grant that it was highly unlikely that I’d be persuaded to let your sidekick go untouched,” the Baroness smirked, “but it was never completely out of the question. For instance, you could have left me too exhausted to continue.”

“You’re playing with words!” Shield Lass protested. “This is a twisted perversion of our deal!”

The Baroness laughed. “Oh, I know far more about twisted perversions than you do. I shall be happy to educate you on the subject.”

“Maybe I can’t get away, but I’m not going to pretend I like it!” the sidekick protested as her captor moved into position behind her. “Stop that!” she snapped as her butt was pinched.

“On the contrary, I intend to continue until our encounter reaches its climax.”

There was a brief interruption in filming as a Leathergal moved in to apply a sheen of lubricant to Shield Lass’s pussy lips and work a bit of the gel inside her. As she withdrew, the closeup cameras moved back into position to capture this depiction of her arousal.

Kristin gave the signal to continue, and the Baroness moved in. Rather than teasingly move her hands from hips to crotch, she quickly put her arms around the blonde’s waist and began fingering the captive woman’s pubes. “Oh, my,” she purred. “You won’t have to ‘pretend’ that you like it. You’re wetter than your partner ever got!”

“No! That’s not true!” The protest was distinctly halfhearted, just as the script directed. While this sex scene would be play out somewhat differently than the previous one, avoiding tedious repetition and pushing a different set of audience hot buttons, the outcome would be essentially the same.

“Oh, but it is true!” She slid two fingers into the sidekick’s slick cunt and was rewarded with a loud moan. “Your body wants this. You want this!”

She mugged an expression of sudden understanding. “Are you a closeted lesbian, by any chance?” She knew that Shield Lass had been just that before being converted into a very un-closeted lesbian porn starlet. Of course, nobody would take the statement seriously in this context, and the sidekick’s secret would remain hers unless and until the Baroness decided to have her reveal it as a publicity stunt.

Her fingertips found Shield Lass’s clit, eliciting another loud moan.

“Or perhaps you’re enjoying this so much because you’re a bondage fetishist?” she asked, referencing the various rumors and jokes that had been circulating, especially since the incident last year where Luxor Lord had captured Shield Lass and hacked into the TV networks to deliver a supervillain rant and triumphantly display his mummy-wrapped prisoner.

The Baroness looked thoughtful as she continued to teasingly stroke the bound woman toward climax. “I think I know. You’re aroused by the sheer helplessness of your situation.” She grinned at the thought that much of the scene’s audience appeal depended on exactly that aspect.

“You’ve been a superheroine for a year and a half, but already you’re all too aware of what a burdensome responsibility it is. Your sense of duty won’t let you quit or even take more time for yourself… but if someone compels you to set that burden aside for a while, well, then, it’s not your fault. That leaves you free to enjoy yourself.”

“All you have to do is give in and let me take charge. Even if I occasionally leave you hanging in suspense…” she said as her hands momentarily pulled away.

“No! Keep going!”

“…you know all you have to do is beg a little and I’ll give you what you need,” she continued.

“Please! I’m begging you! Do it!” Her surrender was utterly abject, just as it was supposed to be.

“Whatever happened to Little Miss ‘I’m not going to pretend I like it’?” the Baroness scoffed, echoing Shield Lass’s earlier defiant words in a whiny nasal parody of the sidekick’s voice.

“I’m not pretending! I do like it! I need it!”

“That’s a much better attitude.” Her fingers went back to work. “I really am glad that you like it, since you’ll be getting a lot more of it. So will your partner.”

“What!” Vindiatrix snapped. “You promised to let us go!”

“I promised to release you from these entanglements. That’s a very different thing from letting you go. A so-called ‘supreme detective’ should be more careful about jumping to unwarranted conclusions.”

The Baroness laughed as her fingers slid in and out. “There’s no escape for either of you. Both of you are going to be my sex slaves from now on… and both of you are going to like it!”

Shield Lass gasped as her hips began reflexively bucking into the thrusts. Her body shivered in climax and went limp.

Just as she’d done with Vindiatrix, the Baroness took hold of Shield Lass’s breasts to help hold her upright. She squeezed, eliciting a squeal even cuter than she’d gotten from Vindiatrix.

Once again, the grab evolved into a caress as the sidekick recovered her equilibrium. “Yes, Shield Lass, relax. Put down that heavy shield and allow yourself to enjoy this pleasure and allow me to take responsibility for it.

Shield Lass sighed.

Finally, the Baroness stepped away. “Let me help you both experience some really deep relaxation.”

She reached into the cabinet and took out a damp cloth. She pressed it over Shield Lass’s face. The heroine’s body went limp and her eyes repeatedly fluttered open and shut. Soon afterwards, Vindiatrix was in the same condition.

Several Leathergals wheeled a pair of padded platforms into position. They positioned themselves to catch each heroine as the Baroness sprayed the pink restraints with a clear liquid that caused them to disintegrate into dust. They then placed the heroines on the platforms, stripped off everything but their masks, fastened cuffs around their wrists and ankles, and linked the cuffs to eyebolts in the platform frames.

The Baroness addressed the heroines. “I know that you’re still awake. I want to be absolutely certain that you understand your situation. You’re my sexual playthings now. You’re going to be my sexual playthings forever.”

In a smug tone, she concluded, “I promised myself that, and I am a woman of my word.”

After an afternoon filming at the studio and an evening patrolling the city as Vindiatrix and Shield Lass, Tracy Torvill and Jenny Jonssen returned home. They put their costumes into the laundry, changed into their pajamas, and settled onto the couch. They snuggled close and exchanged kisses but weren’t feeling up to anything more at the moment.

Tracy turned on the local news in the middle of weather forecast that called for clear comfortably warm conditions for the next few days. The announcer then segued into a story about the jewelry store robbery the duo had thwarted earlier in the evening. “Earlier tonight, Heldeburg’s controversial crimefighters…”

“Geez, we might as well put ‘Controversial Crimefighters’ on our business cards,” Jenny snarked, imitating the anchor’s voice and making finger quotes to set off the phrase.

The station played security-camera footage from the store showing the Trusty Twosome’s arrival on the scene. Jenny pressed a button on the remote to pause the video.

Tracy playfully tousled Jenny’s blonde hair. “Come on; we’re both too tired right now.” The screen showed Shield Lass in mid-leap at just the right moment to present a boobs-and-butt view to the security camera.

“I didn’t do that on purpose! I mean, I paused the program on purpose, but…” Jenny shook her head and got back on track. “Did you hear how Ethrienne unloaded on Meghan Firrello on Tongue Waggers for calling us bad role models?”

“No, but I’m not surprised. Now that she’s come around and accepted that there’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing, she’s been really supportive.” She frowned. “More supportive than somebody I could name who doesn’t mind having me watch her back but gets all gay-panicky if she thinks I’m watching her backside.”

“You and Cloakfist were still able to work together to take down Mazerscythe, right?” Jenny replied, knowing exactly who her partner was talking about.

Tracy nodded.

“You didn’t let yourself get distracted because you wish you could get into her tights.” She held up a hand to forestall Tracy’s reply. “You know you do. Hell, I wish I could get into her tights, too! But she’s straight. Not gonna happen. We both know that. Neither one of us is going to make a pass at her, because that would just be stupid.”

She paused to take a deep breath, trying without much success to keep her frustration out of her voice. “So why is it even an issue? I really don’t see why anybody even gives a damn if we look but don’t touch!”

“It’s… how it is. I don’t like it either” Tracy paused. “I remember the hang-ups I used to have before the Baroness helped me get over them. Some people never do get over them.”

The statement was followed by an awkward pause.

Tracy broke the silence by changing the subject. “Anyway, was there anything else you wanted to ask me about?”

“No.” Jenny pressed another button on the remote. Onscreen, she completed her maneuver and sent one of the robbers careening into his partner in crime, putting them both down for the count.

The program cut back to the anchor desk. “And so another crime was thwarted by the controversial—”

Jenny rolled her eyes and turned off the TV.

The Baroness reviewed the recordings. Everything had gone smoothly. Even the sound from the throat microphone has come through loud and clear, leaving no need to tape replacement audio.

She noticed something about the scene where Shield Lass learned that she wasn’t going to avoid the Baroness’s groping hands and played it back frame by frame. She’d done a good job of acting surprised and shocked, but for just a moment her expression had turned over-the-top hilarious. Marketing ideas sprang to mind. She pictured that face, with the Baroness herself looming in the background with a properly villainous leer, becoming a “SURPRISE BUTTSECKS” meme on coffee mugs and t-shirts and various other merchandise. The inevitable Internet nitpickers noting the absence of actual “buttsecks” in the scene would provide a bit of free advertising.

She put a note in her working files and attached a copy of the image. That was enough work for one day, she decided.

She considered going to the Remodulator room to see how Ethrienne’s latest stage of attitude adjustment was proceeding. Getting up and walking felt like too much trouble at the moment. Instead, she tapped a few keys and entered a password.

Most of the screen showed a full-body image of the squirming superheroine. She was strapped onto the platform, naked except for a fitted thong that held front and rear vibrator wands in place. One corner displayed a set of readouts summarizing her modified mental state. She wasn’t quite ready—yet—to let herself be publicly known as a porn starlet and profess her willing embrace of that lifestyle, but she was almost there.

She indulged herself with a few closeup views of Ethrienne’s heaving bosom and vacant expression as she recalled the Tongue Waggers interview that confirmed her progress in that direction more definitively than any instrument readout. That reminded her that she hadn’t seen the entire episode; the rest of it should be entertaining even if it wasn’t relevant to her plans.

After watching the Remodulator Room feed for a little while longer, she switched to the recorded Tongue Waggers episode. It conveniently cued up to the moment she’d quit watching. A few clicks of the mouse skipped over the next commercial break and brought her to the beginning of the segment about Quantress.

The Baroness recognized the name from the news. Quantress had first appeared on the caped crimefighting scene three years ago. She’d become known for a few high-profile incidents of rescuing people from disasters and thwarting supervillain attacks. She’d never crossed paths with the Baroness’s lower-profile criminal enterprises, and conversely the Baroness had never paid much attention to her.

She began playing the video.

“Welcome back. I’m Meghan Firrello, and my next guest is a local superheroine introducing a daring new look.

Quantress sashayed onto the stage to show off her “new look”. She wore short shorts and a crop top in tight electric-blue spandex that left little to the imagination. Only her mid-calf boots looked substantial; only her domino mask concealed much of anything.

The Baroness had never paid attention to her before, but she was certainly paying attention to her now. She paused the video to properly enjoy the view.

There was more to her perusal than simple leering, though that was certainly part of it. There was also a more refined consideration of how every feature of the woman’s body enhanced her desirability. Her slightly tousled silvery hair accentuated her youth rather than suggesting age. Her curves were delightfully feminine without compromising her petite athletic build. Her body language projected confidence but invited causal friendliness.

She smirked as it occurred to her that she was sizing up the sexy superheroine for potential recruitment. It was just a daydream, she told herself. She couldn’t just capture and brainwash any pretty girl in spandex that caught her eye and maintain the pretense that they’d willingly chosen to strip off the spandex for the cameras.

With a sigh, she clicked the mouse to restart the video.

“Thank you for joining us on Tongue Waggers,” Meghan said as the heroine settled onto the couch, crossing her legs in a way that showed them off nicely.

Meghan paused a moment, apparently trying to figure out exactly what to say next. “This is quite a departure from your old look.” An insert at the upper left of the screen showed Quantress wearing her previous costume, a more modest ensemble in subdued shades of blue and off-white. “Why the change?”

“Why not? Wearing more spandex doesn’t give me more protection.” Her body glowed with a forcefield aura. “Anything that can get through this would just shred it anyway.”

“Yes, but aren’t you concerned about modesty?”

“Frankly, no. I thought about it and decided that presenting myself like this was just more honest.”

As the forcefield faded away, Meghan rephrased her question. “I mean… well, to be blunt about it, why make yourself into such a blatant sex object?”

“Again, why not? Is there something wrong with having sex appeal?”

“Well, no, but the question is whether you’re flaunting it a little too much.”

“It’s my right to decide what is and isn’t too much. Remember when I was on your show last year and talked about feeling attracted to women and wondering whether or not I was really straight?”

“We did get some comments from viewers who thought that was bit too much,” the host acknowledged. She leaned forward. “So, how did that turn out?”

“I was in a relationship with a woman for a few months—I kept it quiet because she was in the closet. That’s not really the point. The point is that it’s part of who I am and I don’t see the need to hide it unless there’s a good reason like protecting somebody else’s privacy.”

She paused a moment. “You said something about role models in the last segment. Well, if I’m a role model, it’s a model of a woman who’s powerful and self-assured enough to present her own sexuality honestly and openly.”

“So you want people to see you as an example of a woman being strong and sexy?”

“I hope that’s what people see when they look at me, yes.”

“Doesn’t it bother you that some people who look at you will just drool and gawk?”

“Let them drool and gawk. That’s their problem, not mine.” She grinned. “If it’s a problem for some villain who gets distracted and caught off guard, so much the better.”

“MightyGal once said that’s the reason for the big cut-out at the front of her costume.”

“That’s one advantage, yes,” Quantress replied. “I’m not going to go so far as to quit wearing a mask and assume that nobody bothers to look at my face, though.”

Meghan chuckled. “It sounds like your view of feminine empowerment is the basic reason, and any tactical advantage is just a side effect.”

The heroine nodded. “They’re not necessarily separate issues. Being true to myself is a tactical advantage. It’s what gives me the strength to bounce back from setbacks and win.”

“That’s an interesting insight that leads right into the next topic,” Meghan replied. “What’s it like being a solo operator who doesn’t have teammates for backup?”

“I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but with my powers I don’t usually need backup. When I do need help, I’m not too proud to ask. For instance, I teamed up with the Palladium Paladin to go after Doctor Disruptro a few months ago.”

She chuckled. “Speaking of distraction, you should have seen him. Disruptro, I mean. Obviously not PalPal; nothing distracts him.”

“Doctor Disruptro was ogling you, even in your old costume?”

“Not really, at least not any more than anybody else does. Let’s be realistic, anybody who’s into girls is going would stare at me even if I had spandex covering every square inch. That’s one reason I decided that this costume is more honest.”

She waved her hand. “Anyway, no, what distracted him was being called just ‘Disrupto’. He threw a hissy fit, and PalPal said in that monotone of his ‘There is no known evidence indicating that you possess a doctoral degree’. He got so furious that he started wildly shooting his blaster cannon at us until the power ran out, and then we were able to bring him in without any trouble.”

The Baroness tuned out the conversation as it turned to other random anecdotes about the heroine’s exploits. She’d already heard the important part—the part where Quantress had set herself up for plausibly-deniable recruitment with her public embrace of unabashed sexualization as a feminist statement.

It would take a bit of planning, of course, but it should be possible. The fact that she usually operated alone would simplify matters. Once the preparations were in place, it would be a straightforward matter of luring the heroine into a trap, keeping her unconscious or restrained while the suppressor unit analyzed her power signature and generated a dissipator field properly tuned to counteract it, and then getting her strapped into a Climax Remodulator.

Once she was converted into an obedient thrall, she would be guided down the path toward plausible recruitment. Her rhetoric and costume would become even more shameless. She would make another public profession of bi-curiosity, and this time she would bring a girlfriend into the limelight. After a while, it would seem perfectly believable for her to “voluntarily” sign on as a lesbian adult actress.

The Baroness let herself daydream. She imagined the things Quantress could do by generating tiny little sparks of quantum energy at her fingertips…