Yumiko Kizaru (also known as the ninja superheroine Feline) was a petite, slender nineteen-year-old, with old scars across her naked arms, naked legs, her bare bottom and firm abs, and her soft D-cup breasts. Her breasts bounced and her buttocks jiggled as she fought her restraints, and her wrists and ankles were red and chafed from trying to tear them from their steel shackles. Feline had been locked into this vertically standing rectangular steel frame for six hours. She had been struggling against it for all that time.

She couldn’t swear, because her mouth had been taped shut. That didn’t stop her mumbling up a storm inside her mouth.

Ms Darling dismissed the two burly security guards who had wheeled Feline and her steel frame into the classroom. Ms Darling was a headmistress in her mid-forties, though she had maintained the body of a voluptuous thirty-something. Her brown hair had many strands of grey in it, from twenty years as a teacher dealing with brats, and her eyes and mouth were lightly wrinkled. But Ms Darling did not look like a stern schoolma’am, not at the moment, at least. Right now, she looked as pleased as the cat that has the mouse between its paws.

Ms Darling strolled towards Yumiko. Apart from the two of them, there were eight others in the classroom. Seven girls (all eighteen to twenty-one) seated at their desks in schoolgirl uniforms. 

The eighth girl stood in front of Ms Darling’s desk. Her schoolgirl uniform was scattered on the floor. She wore only her superhero spandex, a golden one-piece that covered her torso, but not her muscular arms, or her long legs, or even the majority of her round buttocks. On one breast was the letter S, and on the other was G. Until today, these stood for “Solargirl”, heat-powered defender of the weak, thwarter of the mean and mighty, the girl who could outfly a jet, and punch through a tank.

At the moment, thanks to a little brainwashing, the S and G stood for “Sheepgirl”, the flightless weakling who knew the mean and mighty were always correct, and that the weak should stop whining and do what their betters told them. Her only power was the superhuman ability to submit to the establishment with an eager and happy heart. She wouldn’t trade this power for anything.

“Is this your girlfriend, Sheepgirl?” asked Ms Darling. “Is this the disruptive brat with whom you infiltrated the school?”

“Yes, Headmistress!” said Sheepgirl.

Ms Darling went very close to the shackled Feline. For the past six hours, the girl had been pointlessly struggling against her restraints. A thick layer of gleaming sweat dripped down her waxed skin. Ms Darling brought her head close to Feline, but not close enough for Feline to headbutt her.

“I fancy you can guess what happened to your lover,” Ms Darling whispered to Feline, too low for Sheepgirl to hear. “After all, my security guards caught you hacking into my computer. You’d almost sent the Maidens of Mercy my reports on my brainwashing trials.”

Feline tried calling Ms Darling a “fucking bitch”, not that the tape over her mouth let her.

“I bent your friend to my will sweetly and gently, with a little music and a few flashing lights. You, my little delinquent, will not get the gentle treatment. In your scuffle with my guards, you demolished my office. I’m going to brainwash you the old-fashioned way.”

“Five hundred years of ninjutsu techniques,” Ms Darling said aloud to the whole class. “Enough to let this little short-stack hospitalise a half-dozen of my paramilitary-trained security guards.” She tapped one of Feline’s manacles. “Luckily, steel doesn’t have bones to break or acupressure points to strike.”

“Yumiko! You didn’t!” Sheepgirl sounded indignant. “Those guards are Ms Darling’s employees. Her property!”

“Let’s see what Yumiko thinks about this.” Ms Darling ripped the tape off Feline’s face, leaving a bright, pink rectangle around her mouth. “Thoughts?”

Feline spat at Ms Darling. Ms Darling had expected something like that, and so she stepped aside and let the gob of spit splatter on the floor. She slapped Feline with a loud, sharp smack. Feline didn’t wince.

“The CIA couldn’t break me,” hissed Feline. “Neither can you.”

“But did the CIA try this?” Ms Darling threw a look over her shoulder at Sheepgirl. “What is your girlfriend’s greatest weakness?”

“Snap out of it!” Feline was lunging forward, as much as her restraints would allow. “Look at those girls!” She meant the seven schoolgirls. “You’re here for them!”

But Ms Darling had Sheepgirl whisper Feline’s secret weakness into her ear. The voice was too soft for Feline to hear, but she tried to read what Sheepgirl was saying from Ms Darling’s reaction. A smile as bright as hellfire kindled on Ms Darling’s red lips. Sheepgirl’s face was all obsequious expectation, the teacher’s pet waiting for Ms Darling to pat her on the head.

“What an unexpected weakness.” She kissed Sheepgirl on the forehead. “And how convenient. Why, if she were afraid of snakes, I would have had to call up my contacts at the zoo. But for that, we have all we need right here.”

Ms Darling proceeded to whisper her plans to her seven other schoolgirls. As she did so, she cast smirking sneers at Feline.

With a racing heart and tumbling stomach, Feline said to Sheepgirl, “You didn’t… I know you didn’t tell her…”

“Fucking hell, Headmistress,” said the black student, holding her hand over her rolling eyes. “That’s fucking weird. I’m not doing that.”

“I wasn’t asking your opinion, Simone,” said Ms Darling. “Girls! Tickle the brat!”

Ms Darling had given a direct order, and though the girls didn’t like it, they were good, brainwashed girls who did as they were told. The girls got up and converged upon Feline. Teary-eyed and aghast, Feline glared at Sheepgirl’s bland smile. Then, Feline bucked against her restraints. Her fight-or-flight instincts were at full holler as the seven girls, their fourteen hands, and their one-hundred-and-forty wriggling fingers got nearer and nearer to Feline’s bare, goosefleshed skin. As much as she could, Feline arched her torso away from the girls. It didn’t help.

Feline normally had a deep voice, but that laugh could shatter glass. Ms Darling plugged her fingers in her ears as she told her students not to be frightened by Feline’s caterwalling. Those delectable screams just proved they were doing a great job. Nevertheless, even Ms Darling was surprised by just how loudly Feline was laughing. She had tickle tortured a few students in her time, but none seemed so sensitive over every inch of their body.

Every touch made Feline laugh. Fingers swirling on her belly, fingers up and down her ribs, fingers skittiering the hollows of her armpits, fingers doing dances along the backs of her knees and elbows. She writhed like she was having a fit, jolting her limbs, contacting her belly, rolling around her neck, tossing back and forth her head as laughter firehosed from her throat. Her tormentors’ ears were ringing with her laughter.

“But I know that’s not all.” Ms Darling could be heard clear as a bell over Feline’s giggles. “Sheepgirl, you’ve told me your girlfriend’s ticklish, but she must have a most ticklish place.”

Feline’s consciousness had almost entirely narrowed to the fingers fondling her limbs, her tummy, her neck, so it took her a moment to process what Ms Darling had asked Sheepgirl.

“No, Solar–” Her belly hurt from laughing, her throat was hoarse. “Solar… Lily! Don’t… Don’t!”

“Go on, Sheepgirl,” said Ms Darling. “Show us your beloved’s most ticklish spot. Show us with your hands.”

Unlike the other girls, Sheepgirl did not approach her prey reluctantly. She dashed like a puppy to a chew toy.

Feline saw Sheepgirl coming through her tears of laughter. She was stuttering and stammering to Sheepgirl to tickle her anywhere but her most sensitive spot. She begged Sheepgirl even as Sheepgirl circled behind her back. The other seven girls had brushed this most ticklish space once or twice by accident, but so long as no one focussed their efforts on that place, Feline knew she could endure for another hour. Sheepgirl was on her knees behind Feline, grinning at Feline’s buttocks.

“Please, Lily!” said Feline. “No! No, Lil-eeeeee!”

Sheepgirl’s fingers were tickling the base of Feline’s buttocks, the little join between the upper thigh and the lower cheeks. Feline’s legs were spasming uselessly in her restraints.

“Stop!” That was Feline’s last word before she lost the use of her tongue in her delirium. She could only laugh and squeal and screech as her girlfriend tickled the base of her buttocks, and the other seven girls scurried and scattered their fingers up and down her body.

“It seems the cat no longer has any bite.” Ms Darling was face to tear-stained face with Feline as she gave the laughing girl the terms of surrender. “Say, ‘Sorry’. It will be over with that one word. Just say, ‘Sorry’, pussycat.”

It took Feline three minutes to respond. She was not being defiant. It took one minute for Ms Darling’s words to penetrate her fraying mind, and another two minutes for her to get her mouth to do something other than laugh.

“So…”

Giggles swallowed the world, but Ms Darling waited patiently, sweetly smiling at her naked, wriggling student.

“Sorr… So– Ss— Sorreeeee!”

The word out, she broke into guffaws as a girl tickled her between her toes.

“Good girl,” Ms Darling said into Feline’s cackling mouth. “Girls! Stop!”

As soon as ordered it, the girls’ hands snapped to their sides. Phantom sensations of those fingers still ran over Feline’s blushing flesh. She tittered and jittered, her body twitching like a ragdoll with an electric current pumping through it. A sliver of drool dripped from her lip to the floor. 

Ms Darling clapped and told the girls to return to their seats, not Sheepgirl though.

Ms Darling tossed Sheepgirl a small key. “Let the pussycat have a walk.”

Sheepgirl gave Ms Darling a warning. Feline might look out-of-it, with her drooping eyes, drooling mouth, liquified muscles, but she was a ninja. She knew how to play dead.

“I’m so very happy you’re looking out for my safety,” said Ms Darling. “But I think I know how to handle students.”

Sheepgirl, still a little hesitantly, unlocked Feline’s restraints, first the ones around her ankles, and then the ones around her wrists. Without the restraints holding her up, Feline began to fall forward, about to crash face first onto the floor. To arrest her fall, Sheepgirl thrust her hands in front of Feline. 

Feline didn’t need her help. Feline planted her palms on the floor, and she got her legs into a sprinter’s starting position. Feline had indeed almost passed out from the tickle torture. Her Sensei, however, had taught her to always keep one burst of ki in reserve. When your enemy lowers their guard, use the last of your strength for a killing blow.

Feline dashed forward, aiming her fist at Ms Darling’s throat.

Ms Darling pressed a button on a tiny remote control, which played the sound of a high-pitched, tinkling bell.

Feline’s stomach seized up. She tripped over her legs. Her one last burst of ki exploded into giggles, laughter, uncontrollable guffaws, as she collapsed onto the ground. Ms Darling kept her finger firmly pressed onto the remote’s ringing button, grinning down on the ninja squirming at her feet.

From the beginning of the tickle torture, Ms Darling had pressed this button on her remote. Two sounds had begun playing. One of them couldn’t be consciously heard, certainly not over Feline’s giggles and guffaws. It had been the hypnotic audio that had gotten all Ms Darling’s students in such a docile state of mind.

The second sound was the pre-recorded tinkling of a bell. Pavlovian conditioning, intensified and accelerated by the hypnotic audio. Tickle her while a bell jingles, and then whenever the bell jingles, she’ll double over without even laying a finger on her. 

Ms Darling let go of the button and waited for some sign of awareness to surface in Feline’s eyes. She told Feline all about her conditioning, and how it was pointless to attack her.

Feline’s Sensei had also told her that when the enemy had you beat, the surest tactic was to recoup your strength until an opportunity presented itself. Feline allowed herself to fall asleep.

Ms Darling looked at the time, well past 6pm. Detention was over and it was time for the girls to head back to their dorm rooms. Not Sheepgirl, however.

“You are my favourite student,” said Ms Darling, lightly massaging Sheepgirl’s shoulders. “When I trust a student, I can let them live at home. You will be coming into class tomorrow, won’t you, Sheepgirl?”

“Of course, Headmistress,” said Sheepgirl.

There was another reason why Ms Darling was letting Sheepgirl live outside the dormitory. It might raise suspicions if Solargirl/Lillian Jameson was gone from the public eye for too long. The same reasoning could apply to Feline/Yumiko Kizaru, but…

“Your girlfriend, however, will need to live in the dormitories,” said Ms Darling. “I’ll need to give her extensive, one-on-one discipline sessions before she can be trusted to leave the schoolgrounds. I hope you won’t feel too lonely at home.”

“A little, Headmistress,” said Sheepgirl. “But I wouldn’t want to live with a brat.”

Ms Darling praised Sheepgirl’s good sense, and she told her she had just one last thing to show her in detention. She gripped Sheepgirl’s shoulders and faced her towards the board. With a press of the remote, the board began to swirl with soft colours, and Sheepgirl’s eyes softened. Ms Darling poured a few suggestions into Sheepgirl’s mind, before stepping back and watching them take effect.

The board switched off and turned black. In a haze, Sheepgirl put back on her schoolgirl uniform, covering her superhero costume. In a haze, she marched down the hall into the Academy’s front courtyard. In a haze, she waited at the front gate, swaying back and forth, waiting for a security guard to open the gate for her.

When the gate opened, Sheepgirl stepped over the threshold, and…

Solargirl rubbed her eyes and stretched her limbs, and twisted around to see the security guard locking the gate. Her school uniform was crumpled and creased. Solargirl remembered…

Solargirl and Feline had been investigating Darling’s Academy, but they’d found nothing. Feline had chosen to stay behind to keep searching, and Solargirl would return to the school every weekday just to get updates. Solargirl didn’t really expect to find anything, and Feline was at no risk of being discovered. 

In an alleyway where no one would see her, Solargirl stripped off her schoolgirl uniform and flew into the air, the Academy fading to a speck. At the Academy she had seen nothing important, but when she tried to recall what she had actually, specifically seen…

She found it so boring to think about the Academy. It didn’t matter. Feline would tell her anything she needed to know.