Vindiatrix had been waiting for a good opportunity to cut herself loose. Now, she had no choice but to risk taking a not-so-good opportunity... because if she waited any longer she would have no opportunity at all.

She felt for the little microswitches inside her glove fingers, and entered the “unlock” sequence: thumb, ring finger, and index finger. Simultaneous touches to the thumb and pinky switches deployed the little utility blades hidden in the wrist of each glove. If she could slice deeply enough into her bonds, she might be able to snap them with one good yank.

To do that, she’d need to put her arms and shoulders into it. The action would be obvious... unless she made it look like something else. She flexed her body along with her arms, simultaneously feeling the tiny razors cutting into the wristbands and the dildo pressing against her asshole.

“Yes, just like that,” Baroness Blackleather purred into her ear. The hand on her breast moved down to cup it from beneath.

“Up...” The villainess punctuated the command by pushing up on her breast. The heroine stood up straight.

“Relax...” She lowered her body, pressing the little razors into the leather, trying to duplicate her earlier motion as precisely as possible to deepen the existing cuts rather than start new ones. The tip of the rod poked at her a bit harder than before.

“Wriggle...” She shimmied her hips as little as she thought she could get away with as the warm body behind her pressed closer. The dildo pressed forward, entering her asshole.

“Yes, just like that, darling. Have you done this before?” With a naughty giggle, she asked, “Did you have a boyfriend who liked to tie you to the ceiling and fuck you in the ass? Before you decided you preferred being with a teenaged girl, I mean.”

Vindiatrix tensed for a moment. The rod pressing into her suddenly got a lot more uncomfortable. She forced herself to stop clenching, then bowed her head and nodded. Neither of Baroness’s crude insinuations were true, but playing along and letting her amuse herself would keep her attention diverted away from the slowly weakening ropes overhead.

The villainess leaned into her, using her firm grip on Vindiatrix’s breast to guide her into the thrust that drove the dildo a bit further up her ass. “Tsk-tsk! I would have pegged...” She snickered. “...I mean, figured, a straight...” She laughed again. “...that is, righteous, goody-two-shoes like you as more the ‘lie back and think of England’ type.”

She ignored her captor’s gibes. She tried, without much success, to ignore her touch as she fondled her breast and stroked her labia and gradually worked the dildo deeper into her.

Meanwhile, the conveyor bearing Shield Lass ground to a halt as she reached the end of her journey... with her crotch pressed into the kneeling Leathergal’s face. The henchwoman took hold of the heroine’s thighs, maneuvered her head into position, and began licking.

“Your partner will make a splendid Leathergal, once she gets to know the whole crew,” the Baroness remarked. It was obvious from her tone that she meant “know” in both the common and Biblical senses. “I’m sure she has the talent to be a squad leader.”

As she cut a bit deeper into her wristbands... and took the rod a bit deeper into her ass... Vindiatrix cynically wondered how heavily sex appeal weighted into the Baroness’s “talent” evaluations. The thought was cut short as her captor’s wandering fingers sent jolts though her pussy.

“You’re going to make an excellent lieutenant, I think. You’ll find it an ideal situation... exercising your combat skills while leaving the difficult decisions to your Mistress.”

Vindiatrix drew in a sharp breath as the Baroness slipped a finger deeper into her sex while simultaneously thrusting into her rear. She heard a faint buzzing and felt the helmet gently vibrate against the top of her head.

“That sound means you’re getting close. When the Remodulator detects strong sexual excitement, it begins scanning more intensely to pinpoint the moment of climax. That makes the circuits hum.”

The Baroness did something with her fingertips that sent shivers through the heroine’s body. Vindiatrix got weak in the knees, and only her bound arms and her captor’s tight grip kept her upright.

“You’re responding faster than I expected, actually. All I had to do was crack that prim-and-proper shell and release your inner slut.”

The heroine bit down on the helmet strap in her mouth. It was hard to tune out that remark when her quivering body seemed to confirm it.

Across the room, the younger superheroine moaned and took a deep shuddery breath. The Leathergal licking at her pulled back a moment to take a deep breath of her own. She then teased the bound captive with the tip of her tongue for a few seconds before leaning in to resume her full attentions. Shield Lass’s hips began visibly rocking against the other woman’s face.

Unsure of how much time she had left, Vindiatrix increased the tempo of her up-and-down motions, simultaneously deepening the cuts into her wristbands and taking the rod deeper into her ass. She gasped as she felt a fingertip touch her clit.

Shield Lass moaned again, louder, and arched her back. From the look and sound of her, she was being pushed dangerously close to the brink.

Vindiatrix got up on tiptoe to apply maximum force to her glove blades on the downslash. Her body tensed as a finger slid deep into her pussy. One more touch at the right spot could send her over the edge....

“Now or never,” she thought as she exerted her full strength against the wristbands. They pressed into her flesh... and then split apart.

Before the Baroness could react, Vindiatrix lashed back at her with an elbow strike. She felt the rod pull out of her and spun on one foot to deliver an uppercut to her still-dazed foe. That gave her enough breathing room to bend over and unclip the spreader bar from her ankles, enabling her to rush to her partner’s aid.

The three standing Leathergals barely had time to turn their attention away from the lascivious display they’d been watching before they were tossed aside. The kneeling redhead was yanked away just as Shield Lass emitted a long loud moan that suggested that Vindiatrix had arrived not a moment too soon.

One of the Leathergals got shakily to her feet and cried, “Retreat!” She and one of the others dragged the remaining two away.

Vindiatrix didn’t take time to pursue. She unfastened her partner’s helmet, and then her own, and then set to work on Shield Lass’s shackles with one of her glove lockpicks. She freed one hand, and then the other, and then they were each able to work on one ankle.

The moment Shield Lass was back on her feet, they moved to finish the job by capturing the villainess and her helpers... and stopped short as the laser grid flared back to life, leaving them trapped behind it.

Baroness Blackleather had gotten back on her feet. She scowled furiously at the heroines.

“If you won’t join me, then at least I’ll see to it that you won’t oppose me,” she growled. She jabbed the switch of a wall intercom. “Overload the plasmotronic battery!”

Red lights flashed on the stolen device they’d come here to recover. The grid lasers glowed brighter than ever.

“Don’t worry; I’m not going to blow up the city. According to the experimental notes, the explosion hazard is relatively minor. The pressure will take ten to fifteen minutes to build up, and the walls will contain the blast. It should be perfectly safe... for anyone outside this room.”

The Leathergals headed for the exit. “Just in case the building does collapse, we’ll be leaving now. Farewell—we won’t meet again!”

Vindiatrix glared at her foe. Slowly, she walked over to the corner where she had tossed the Remodulator helmets. She kicked them aside as if they were bits of debris and watched the laser grid chop them into pieces.

The Baroness stared a moment at the fragments that served as testament to her failure, then angrily turned away, following her minions out the exit.

The heroines looked for escape routes. There were no doors or windows on their side of the laser grid, and the walls were solid masonry. Vindiatrix looked ruefully at her utility belt, lying on the other side of the barrier. Among other things, it contained mirrors that could have been used to deflect the lasers back toward their emitters to disable the grid.

Never mind what they didn’t have. What could they do with what they did have...?

Vindiatrix got an idea. “Help me flip the conveyor belt table onto its side!”

Quickly, the heroines tipped the structure over. The conveyor belt was heavy material, with a solid framework underlying it. If the explosion didn’t bring the whole roof down, it should provide adequate shielding.

“Now, we need to slide it closer to the wall and angle it so we’ll have cover overhead. When the battery explodes, we’ll have shrapnel bouncing all over the place.” They leaned the conveyor belt against the wall and wedged the saw into place to hold the makeshift lean-to in place.

They now had a protected space to take cover from the imminent blast... a small protected space, into which the two of them barely fit. They managed, crawling into the narrow space, jammed tightly against the wall and the belt and each other.

Vindiatrix pulled her leg up toward her body, to make sure her foot was under cover. Her knee bent, pressing between Shield Lass’s legs, and her thigh rubbed against her companion’s naked groin.

Shield Lass’s body jerked at the touch. That caused her to reciprocate it.

The two women were pressed close together, side-by-side, face to face. They had just undergone intense sexual stimulation without release, followed by the adrenalin rush of saving themselves and each other from imminent death. Their still-sensitive pussies were positioned directly against each other’s legs.

They simply could not stop themselves. By unspoken mutual consent, their tongues met as each of them began rocking her hips into her companion’s thigh.

The explosion of the plasmotronic battery was the second one they felt.