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The Breeding Grounds (f/f, sci-fi, 6 chapters)

Kunzite

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Dec 2, 2001
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The Breeding Grounds

Chapter 1: Planetfall

The air inside the canteen was stale and smoky, but it was breathable. Kara scanned the dimly lit interior through the narrow window of her envirosuit’s visor. Aside from the artificial atmosphere, no one had bothered to put much money into the place. A handful of age-tarnished metal tables and chairs were scattered haphazardly around the room, and against the bar were several thinly-spaced stools with tattered upholstery. The floor was covered in a layer of the reddish-orange dirt from the planet outside, tracked in over the years by countless weary patrons and never cleaned up. A few airtight windows provided a view of the barren, lifeless landscape of the planet outside, with its craggy vermilion mountains and plateaus, overcast with thick methane clouds. Nothing about this place was inviting, but it was the only place on this planet to get a drink.

Kara reached up and undid the latch on her helmet. She ran through the intricate process quickly, keying in a personalized sequence of buttons and undoing the series of latches that kept her helmet safely sealed. It was occasionally annoying, but in her line of work it was important to have a suit that couldn’t be unsealed by an angry attacker. There was a thin hiss as the vacuum seal was broken, and Kara lifted the helmet off her head.

After days of breathing recycled air, her first few breaths were harsh and unpleasant. As the canteen’s only patron, Kara took her pick of the seats and sat down in the least dusty one she could find. Right on cue, a small serving android rolled out from the back room, plowing a thin trail through the layer of dirt with its spinning treads. It skidded to a quick stop in front of Kara’s table, with an excited beep and a flashing of green buttons that indicated it was happy to serve.

“Can you speak?” asked Kara.

The android gave another series of high-pitched beeps, this time accompanied by an array of red flashes. The answer was apparently no.

“This place is too cheap to pay for a speech synthesizer, huh?” asked Kara idly. The android’s silence indicated that it did not recognize this as a question. “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll have a vodka and nutri-tonic.”

The android beeped accommodatingly, and a series of whirring and fizzing noises came from inside its rotund body. A moment later a hatch opened up in its chest, producing a slide-out tray holding a freshly-stirred glass of dark purple bubbling liquid. Kara took the glass and swiped her credit chip by the android’s sensor array.

Kara sipped from the glass as she watched the bleak planetscape outside, savoring its comfortingly bitter flavor. Somewhere out there, in the shantytown that passed for an outpost here, her partner Calysta was handling the final details of their latest bounty capture. This time it was Calysta’s turn to haggle with the local law enforcement, and make sure that they got something close to the reward they had been offered for this job.

Kara was only halfway through her drink when the communicator on her wrist began beeping. It was a simple but reliable signal that meant Calysta was finished with her business and ready to rendezvous. That was quick, Kara thought to herself as she downed the rest of her drink and stood up to leave the dusty canteen. The authorities must have been easy to convince this time. The android server beeped a pleasant goodbye as it saw her leave, and turned around to roll back behind the bar to await the next customer. It might be a while, thought Kara.

Kara re-sealed her helmet as she walked into the airlock leading outside into the unbreathable atmosphere. With her face now hidden except for the thin rectangle of her visor, she was an intimidating figure: cold and mechanical in a suit of nearly impenetrable armor. The airlock closed behind her, sealing off the canteen, and a moment later the exit opened, flooding the chamber with the thick methane gas of the planet’s surface. Kara stepped out into the vermilion soil, walking slowly towards the spot where her ship was docked nearby. Calysta would meet her there, and hopefully they could get off this lifeless rock as soon as possible.

Suddenly, Kara felt a sharp sensation that made her jump. It was not painful, but all of her muscles immediately tensed reflexively. It felt almost like…

Before she could finish the thought, she felt it again, and she knew what it was. It was a soft, tickling sensation, underneath her suit and all her clothes, directly between her firm asscheeks.

It was all Kara could do not to shriek with laughter immediately. This was one of several spots which Kara kept a closely guarded secret: a spot on which she was unutterably ticklish. After only seconds she could feel her knees begin to tremble, and she had to bite her lip to hold in the laughter. She prayed it would go away, but the sensation only became more pronounced, moving up and down the crack between her buns until her entire body was quivering. She tried to hold out, but it tickled so badly; forced giggles began to escape through her lips, and she knew it was only a matter of time…

In another second, the tickling of her ass became too much to bear. Kara exploded in laughter, falling to the ground in a cloud of red-orange dust and clutching her shapely butt. As she rolled around screaming in the alien soil, another figure walked up to her, wearing an identical envirosuit and holding a small electronic device. Kara looked up to see the face of Calysta above her, smiling knowingly through the visor window.

“Feel something?” came Calysta’s voice through the speakers in her helmet.

Kara could only shriek with laughter as Calysta held up a small remote control.

“I don’t think I told you about my most recent acquisition, captain,” said Calysta, her voice echoing with a tinny resonance inside the confines of Kara’s helmet. “A trader we ran into a while ago was helpful enough to supply me with a wonderful new device called the Infiltrator. A tiny microchip, nearly undetectable to the naked eye. But if you slip it inside a pair of panties and then trigger it, it produces a very mild electric current. A current which, amazingly, is perfectly calibrated to feel exactly like a soft, fluffy feather. Would you happen to be ticklish in there, captain?”

Kara clawed at her suit, trying to undo the countless latches and locks that kept it seamlessly in place. But she knew it was impossible: removing an envirosuit was a precision job, and in her current state of hysteria she had no coordination at all. It did feel exactly like a feather: gently sliding up and down with a hundred wispy filaments brushing against the ticklish flesh between her cheeks. Tears welled up in her eyes as the blurred image of Calysta began to speak again.

“Amusing, isn’t it?” asked Calysta. “That with all the protection your suit provides, the true threat was underneath it all along. I’m sure that if nothing else, this will teach you to put a lock on your panty drawer.” She chuckled.

Her transmitter off, Kara could not respond: she could only swear revenge to herself as the invisible feather tickled mercilessly between her well-toned buns. She would get back at her, Kara told herself. She would get back at her.

“I must say, I’m pleased to see it’s so effective,” said Calysta, looking unconcerned. “On a related note, I’ve decided to contemplate a change of jobs. You see, living paycheck to paycheck just doesn’t suit me. So as a retirement package, I’ll be taking 100% of the bounty this time. And the ship. If you have anything to say about that, well, I encourage you to stop me.”

Kara screamed vengeance through her laughter, but the tickling was so unbearable she could not even stand up. The soft feather inside her undies robbed her of all her strength, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. As she flailed helplessly on the ground, Calysta calmly bent over to remove the pilot’s key from Kara’s belt, pocketing it.

“I’m afraid we part ways here, captain,” said Calysta with a grin as she turned back towards the ship. “But if it’s any consolation, the power in that chip should give out after 6 hours. Or maybe 12, if you’re unlucky.”

Kara reached out with her hand towards her traitorous companion, but it was a futile gesture. A moment later her arm fell to the ground again, her muscles turned to jelly by the fiendish tickling. Her helmet filled with deafening laughter, a sound only she could hear; outside, only Calysta’s calm footfalls towards the ship broke the ghostly silence of the planet’s surface. Kara rolled on the ground, the invisible feather dancing between her firm cheeks as she watched Calysta step inside the ship and the door close behind her. Laughing helplessly, she could only watch as the engines began to turn on, and their tiny craft lifted off the planet’s surface and sailed high into the star-studded sky until it was no more than a speck of light…

* * * * *​

Kara bolted awake in a cold sweat. Immediately she saw the familiar metallic roof of her cabin above her, and felt the warm climate-controlled air around her. It was just a dream. She had relived that day over and over in her dreams for the last three years, ever since her escape from that hellish place. Countless hours had passed with her lying alone on that alien world, laughing helplessly and crying out for help that never came. Even after the chip had finally shorted out, it left her utterly exhausted, with muscles so weak she could not even stand. It took her half a day before she had recovered enough to walk, and longer than that to book passage on a transport ship off the planet. By that time, Calysta was long gone, with her ship and her money, to any one of hundreds of star systems. But Kara had sworn revenge, and it was a promise she meant to keep. For the last three years she had systematically followed the trail of her former partner, waiting for the moment when she could finally deliver long-delayed justice. And last week her patience had finally paid off. She had found a lead.

Kara stood up and walked to the bathroom. The dim, silvery light automatically turned on as she walked through the doorway, bathing her nearly nude body in a sheen of moonlight. She shook back her cascading raven hair, and the beads of sweat on her pale skin glistened in the soft light like pearls. In the warm climate-controlled atmosphere of her personal ship, all that covered her tall, muscular body was a skimpy pair of panties: white and low-cut, they revealed a tantalizing glimpse of curvaceous asscheeks that peeked over the tight waistband like the halves of a succulent peach. Her massive, naked, perfectly spherical breasts bounced with every step she took; even if she had worn a bra this would still be true. Her long, powerful legs, exposed up to her trim waist, took long confident strides across the warm deckplates, and her large bare feet made no sound as she walked.

Kara turned the chrome handle of the faucet and splashed cold water on her face to calm her nerves. She met eyes with her reflection in the mirror, and she felt her nerves calm slightly. Well, she was awake now, so she may as well not be the only one.

Without bothering to put on any other clothing, Kara walked out of her quarters and into the corridor. Her ship was very small, only meant to hold one person, but tonight she was not the only occupant. After a short walk, she arrived in the storage bay in the rear of the ship. It was for the most part empty, with one major exception: in the center of the room was a bondage chair made of gleaming titanium. And sitting in it was Kara’s lead.

Her name was Zoe, and she worked for Calysta. Kara had painstakingly tracked her across three star systems, finally catching up with her a week ago in a run-down bar inside a distended space station. Kara had bided her time: watching her from across the room as Zoe, celebrating a successful mission, raucously drank her reward money away. Once she stumbled outside for a change of locale, it had been easy for Kara to ambush her, and bring Zoe’s unconscious body back to her ship without anyone being the wiser.

And for the last week, Kara had spared no opportunity to interrogate her guest about Calysta. It appeared her ex-partner had been busy these last few years. After marooning Kara on the planet, Calysta had transitioned from bounty hunting to kidnapping for profit. She now ran a small syndicate of ex-bounty hunters, each of which were happy to switch to non-criminal targets in exchange for a larger paycheck. Calysta herself rarely got her hands dirty these days, preferring to oversee her miniature empire from an undisclosed planet. After Zoe had been helpful enough to supply her with the coordinates to Calysta’s stronghold, Kara had set a course for the planet, and they were due to arrive any time now.

Zoe awoke with a groan from her fitful, troubled sleep as her captor entered the storage bay. Her lustrous blonde hair was short-cut, falling just above her broad shoulders, gleaming in the dim light of the storage bay. As a fellow bounty hunter, her body was every bit as muscular and well-toned as Kara’s, with ample and perfectly-sculpted curves complementing a thin waist and long, luscious legs. Every bit of her body was on display, for Kara had left Zoe without a scrap of clothing. Zoe sat in the restraining chair, arms behind her head, with her feet elevated and her legs spread wide by individual leg restraints. It was a position that left very little to the imagination.

Zoe’s eyes widened as she saw Kara approaching. She knew what was going to happen next.

“Oh good, I see you’re awake,” said Kara with a smirk.

“Please! I’ve told you all I know!” pleaded Zoe.

“And I believe you,” smirked Kara. “This time, it’s just old-fashioned torture, from me to your employer.” And with that, Kara pressed her fingertips into the centers of Zoe’s smooth arches.

“YEEEEEEEAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! NOT THE FEEEHEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEETTT!!!” screamed Zoe, pulling at her metal restraints like a madwoman. Her feet were the same size as Kara’s: a tall and shapely size fifteen, with high curved arches and long, slender toes. And like Kara’s, they were off-the-charts ticklish. Simply touching them was enough to cause Zoe to scream and howl in ticklish agony. And for the last week, these deliciously ticklish tootsies had been Kara’s playthings, exposing them to every manner of devious tickle torture she could conceive of to get her guest to spill her secrets. It was from Zoe that Kara had learned where Calysta’s hiding place was: on a small, undeveloped planet far into the frontiers of unexplored space. Several sessions of prolonged foot-tickling had been sufficient to convince Zoe to give up the coordinates, and they were scheduled to arrive very soon. Of course, no one said Kara couldn’t entertain herself until they arrived.

“I GIVE UP!!! I GIVE UP!!! WAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” pleaded Zoe, but even she knew it was futile. Kara moved in with more fingers now, pressing her rounded fingernails into the soft, pliant flesh of Zoe’s soles with glee. The ticklish expanses before her were huge, and every inch could be devastated by the slightest touch. The sense of power was overwhelming. Zoe shrieked and begged for mercy as the nails scribbled long, complex patterns over her helpless feet. The walls echoed with her laughter, becoming worse by the second as Kara used her accumulated knowledge to utterly destroy these poor, ticklish soles.

“Mmm, I just love how ticklish your lovely feet are,” taunted Kara. “I could just stay here for hours, tickling them and watching them dance for me.”

“MERCY!!! MERCEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!!!” Zoe begged, even though she knew it would not come. Kara could be very dispassionate when the situation called for it, but when she took something personally, she became the kind of merciless, sadistic tickler that girls like Zoe had nightmares about.

“That’s it, beg for mercy,” said Kara, tracing long, complicated patterns over Zoe’s bright pink soles with her fingernails. “Tell me what a ticklish bitch you are.”

“PLEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAASEE STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!!” cried Zoe, half-delirious from laughter.

“Say it,” said Kara, continuing her merciless assault. “Say it, or I’ll tickle you to death.”

“I’M—I’M AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!” screamed Zoe, unable to finish the sentence. Kara smiled to herself as she put her captive through the test several more times. She knew a secret spot on Zoe’s arches that could reduce her to a babbling, speechless wreck with a touch. She didn’t have a chance.

And then, it was time for Kara to unveil her trump card. Before the eyes of the hysterically laughing woman, Kara produced the single most powerful weapon on the ship. She revealed a soft, white, fluffy feather, positioned directly between her captive’s spread legs.

“OH NOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!! ANYTHING BUT THAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHATTT!!!” cried Zoe in abject terror. With every ounce of her vise-like strength she desperately tried to push her legs together, straining the titanium restraints with a force that could literally have bent a weaker metal. But her legs remained open, and Kara only smiled. She reached between the tall, muscular legs and ever so gently brushed the feather tip against the most devastating spot possible.

“YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!” Zoe’s eyes flew open wide as the first gentle touch evoked an unbroken, bestial howl of laughter. The soft wisps of the plume danced across her creamy thighs and teased her swollen lips, imparting its sweet sensual torture with every flick of the wrist.

“Koochie koochie koo,” teased Kara, drinking in the anguished laughter. “You have such a ticklish pussy, don’t you, hmm?”

“OHHHOHOHOHOHOHOHO GAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHADDD!!!!!” screamed her captive, with streams of tears pouring down her face. The soft, tickly feather was having a very noticeable effect, as well: her moist lips began to part and a trickle of sweet nectar began to drip down her inner thighs. Her sex radiated arousal and warmth, becoming more intense with every wild scream.

“Mmmm, admit it, you want more of this, don’t you?” asked Kara devilishly, sliding the feather up and down lustily. What had once been a trickle was now a flowing stream of love juice, coaxed out by Kara’s masterful feathering.

“YEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHESSSSS!!!” cried Zoe, despite herself. For the last week, she had been subject to tickle tortures the likes of which she had never imagined. But the feather between her legs had been the worst. Not once in the hours upon hours of torture had Kara permitted Zoe release; always taking her to the brink of climax and backing away. More than anything, she desperately, furiously needed to cum, even if it meant paying for it with an eternity of tickling.

And Kara knew it, as well. “You need release so badly, don’t you?” Kara cooed with malicious delight. “But it’s not going to come. I’m going to keep you on the edge, teasing you until you can’t stand it anymore, hearing each and every scream for mercy and driving you to madness. What do you think of that?”

The answer never came. Suddenly the two of them were cut off by the sound of an alarm from the cockpit. It was the proximity alarm: they were finally within range of Calysta’s planet. The ship would be dropping out of autopilot now, and Kara was needed at the helm to manually bring it in for a landing. It looks like Zoe got lucky this time. In a way.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to continue this another time,” said Kara, dropping her feather as Zoe moaned with unfulfilled desire, her eyes shut tightly and grinding her legs against the hard metal in a hopeless attempt to relieve her sexual tension.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back very soon,” added Kara from the doorway. She was already thinking about it.

Sitting in the pilot’s seat in the cockpit, Kara had a full view of the planet before her. Just by looking at it through the main window she could tell it was nearly uninhabited: the continents were a vibrant green and completely unblemished by the gray of industrialized settlements. The sensor readings confirmed that assessment: no sentient life or buildings of any kind, with only one exception. A small facility on the southern continent was emitting powerful energy signals. That had to be what Kara was looking for. Satisfied, she entered the coordinates into the computer and prepared to break atmosphere.

But suddenly, her plan hit a snag. Out of nowhere, a satellite in low orbit appeared on her sensors, dropping out of stealth mode to scan the ship that was now trying to enter the atmosphere. And clearly, it did not like what it saw. After only a few seconds of collecting data on Kara’s ship, it reached the decision that she should not be here. Before Kara had a chance to react, the satellite discharged a massive bolt of energy that struck her ship with a thunderous crash!

Kara was nearly flung out of her pilot’s seat as the entire ship rocked like a sailing boat in a hurricane. Electrical surges blew out monitors all around her, and the lights went out, to be replaced seconds later by the dim red glow of the emergency lighting. Kara wrestled with the controls, trying to pull away before it was too late, but the ship would not respond. The navigation systems were fused, and nearly all the controls were unresponsive. She was dead in space. Caught in the drag of the planet’s gravity, the ship began to plummet into the atmosphere, barreling into free-fall with no way to slow the descent. Kara’s knuckles turned white as the clouds of the upper atmosphere screamed past, her ship tearing through the atmospheric friction with frightening speed. She was going down, and going down hard.
 
Chapter 2: Rude Awakening

Kara lay face-down on the deck, every muscle in her body aching. The ship stood motionless, and the faint acrid smell of electrical smoke hung in the air. Judging from the relentless pounding in her head, she was either still alive or in some particularly unpleasant afterlife. She chose to believe the former.

It was minutes before she could muster the strength to lift herself up and look at her surroundings. The first thing she saw was not encouraging. The cockpit was completely destroyed, with equipment shorted out and shattered by the force of the crash. The main window had been shattered, scattering poly-glass shards across the floor. A warm, humid breeze blew into the cockpit from outside; at least she had had the good fortune to crash on a planet with a breathable atmosphere, she thought.

Kara forced herself up off the floor, getting slowly to her knees and trying to steady herself enough to stand. But as it turned out, she didn’t need to try hard. The next moment, the entire ship shook with a massive tremor, accompanied by the screeching sound of twisting metal and cracking ceramics. The bow of the ship began to sink forwards, and that meant only one thing to Kara: they had landed on unstable ground. Whatever they were resting on now, it wasn’t strong enough to support the weight of a spacecraft, and it was going under. Motivated by a rush of adrenaline, Kara leapt to her feet and ran from the cockpit to make an escape before it was too late.

The ship shuddered ominously around her as Kara sprinted down the corridor, heading towards the exit. Snapped cables dangled from the ceiling, their wires exposed and spraying sparks across her path as she ran. She felt the ship sink with every passing second: for all she knew the exit could already be permanently blocked. There was no time to gather equipment or even put on any clothing: she had to get free of the ship before it went under. But her single-mindedness was interrupted as she passed by the storage bay.

Inside was Zoe, still bound to the restraining chair and apparently passed out from the impact of the crash. As much as Kara wanted to leave, and as much disdain as she still harbored towards Zoe’s employer, Kara knew she couldn’t leave her here to die. Kara sighed angrily as she ran into the storage bay. She hoped she wouldn’t regret this.

“Wake up!” cried Kara, slapping Zoe across the face as she entered her security code into the chair’s keypad. Immediately the padded restraints holding her captive in place snapped open, and Zoe slumped down to the floor. For a moment Kara was afraid Zoe was unconscious: she didn’t know if she could spare the time to carry a body out of here and still make it alive. But a moment later, Zoe began to stir, and groggily got to her feet.

“What…what’s happening?” Zoe asked, looking around.

“There’s no time to explain!” shouted Kara, pulling Zoe by the arm. “We need to get out of here or we’re both dead!”

To her credit, Zoe was in peak physical condition. From her previous state of near-unconsciousness, it only took her seconds to regain the use of her muscles. By the time they were out into the corridor, Zoe was already sprinting at full speed alongside Kara, and like her underclothed captor, Zoe was still naked from her trials the night before. But neither of them thought of anything except escape. The groaning sounds of the ship became louder and more violent, and they wondered if it was too late for them. But a moment later, they turned a corner, and there in front of them was the ship’s main exit, standing wide open with its doors wrenched open like a tin can. Through the doors streamed the bright sunshine of the planet outside.

“We’re almost there!” shouted Kara, with Zoe at her heels. The stifling heat of electrical fires made the corridor an inferno; worse, the shaking of the ship was wrenching the deckplates apart, creating chasms in the floor beneath them that appeared out of nowhere as they ran. But beyond this gauntlet of mechanical destruction was a portal leading out into a world of blue skies and green foliage: a light at the end of the tunnel. Beams collapsed from the ceiling behind them, blocking off the hallway, but they barely noticed. All they focused on was the exit, getting closer and closer…

“Jump!” cried Kara as they reached the exit at last. Without breaking stride, both girls flung themselves through the doorway, with an explosion of sparks and shrapnel behind them. Neither of them knew where they would land: it was a leap of faith, and for one terrifying moment in mid-air both of them wondered if they had cast themselves to their deaths. But an instant later, both of them landed with a soft thump onto a patch of green vegetation. They were safe.

Gasping, the girls looked up at the ship. It was indeed half-buried, nose-down and slowly sinking into oblivion. But what was unexpected was what it was sinking into. They might have guessed that she ship had landed in quicksand, or perhaps a body of water. But it was neither of these. The ship was slowly sinking into a lake of interwoven, tangled vines, closely knit to form a soft, porous surface that the girls were lying on now. It was apparently strong enough to support the weight of two women, but not a spacecraft.

“Where…where are we?” gasped Zoe, looking around after lifting up her face from the ground.

Kara, too, looked up at her new surroundings. Very rarely had she ever seen a planet with such pristine, unspoiled natural beauty. The skies above were a brilliant azure, with the air bracingly clean and pure. The sun shone down with a warm glow over all manner of plants, every color of the rainbow. There were tall trees with bright viridian leaves, hanging with fruits of fiery oranges and reds. The ground was carpeted in lush, jade-colored grass that rustled in the breeze, punctuated with beautiful flowers of vivid purple. Bright blue lakes dotted the rolling hills, reflecting the sunlight from their placid surfaces. The entire landscape was so stunning, it took Kara a moment to realize that something was missing. After a few seconds, she put her finger on it: there was no sign of animal life to be seen, not even any birds in the treetops. It was strange, but it added to the feeling that this was a truly untouched frontier.

Kara was about to stand up and explore these striking new surroundings. But unexpectedly, she found that she could not. Panicking, she tried harder to get to her feet, only to discover that she was being forcibly held down. It took her a moment to realize why: the vines she was lying on had wrapped around her waist, holding her down with the force of a steel clamp. Kara shouted aloud as she struggled for her freedom, and next to her she saw that Zoe was in the exact same position. What kind of vines could these be, thought Kara, to be holding them down like the tentacles of some enormous beast? What did they want?

But neither Kara nor Zoe had to wait long to find out. More vines came to hold down their ankles, and to pin their wrists above their heads, stretching them taut and motionless on the ground. Once they had rendered both of the girls immobile, more vines rose up from the tangled mass below them, moving as though they had a mind of their own. And these vines had a very clear agenda, one that made both girls gasp in terror. The vines gathered in an ominous, twitching mass directly in front of Kara and Zoe’s bare feet.

“What’s happening?!” demanded a panicked Zoe. “What have you gotten us into?!”

“T—this is all your fault!” shouted Kara, staring in terror as the tendrils crept closer to her helpless, squirming feet.

“Mine? You’re the reason we’re here, you bitch!” cried Zoe, her anger surpassed only by fear as she reflexively covered one ticklish bare sole with another.

“I saved you! Why you—“ began Kara. But there was no time for further recriminations. Vines darted towards them like a striking adder, wrapping around the girls’ big toes and binding them together like a cord. With a quick jerk they were pulled back, and now Kara and Zoe’s feet were completely immobilized: their soles stretched taut with every inch of the silky surfaces exposed. The girls had only an instant to register the full helplessness of their position before the vines pressed into their soft, ticklish soles.

“BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Only a single vine pressed gently into each of their soles, like the soft touch of a fingertip, but it was enough to make these insanely ticklish girls explode into hysterical laughter. From the centers of their smooth arches, the vines slid up and down slowly, causing instant ticklish devastation on the tender surfaces. Side by side, the two fearsome warrior women struggled for dear life amidst a storm of laughter while the vines gently stroked beneath the balls of their feet. Four towering, size 15 feet thrashed hopelessly as they were forced to endure torture beyond belief. Twenty long, shapely toes danced hysterically in all directions, in thrall to the movements of the tickling vines. There was no escape for the Amazonian beauties, all of their strength useless in the face of this unbearable foot-tickling.

And for them, the torture was just beginning. More vines came to join the assault now: dozens of arboreal tendrils that sunk their firm tips into the soft, pillowy flesh of the ticklish soles. Kara and Zoe howled together in anguished harmony as every soft spot on their feet was explored and ruthlessly exploited. Even worse, thin vines began to creep inside their splaying toes, tickling the sensitive webbed spaces in between. The girls tried to scrunch their toes together to protect themselves, but every time they tried the vines would press into another ticklish spot on their soles and destroy their self-control.

“OH GAAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHADDD!!! I CAAHAHAHAHAHAN’T TAKE IT!!!” screamed Zoe, her face red from laughter.

“IT’S TORTURE!!! YEEEEAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!” laughed Kara: at least on this they could agree.

Each of their towering feet now faced a full tickling assault which was the stuff of nightmares. At that moment, each of these battle-hardened women would have given anything to protect their helpless feet. Their finely sculpted bodies, carefully toned for combat, were no match for this ordeal. Sweat poured over their rippling muscles, and streams of tears trickled down their cheeks and onto the dew-covered grass. Swarms of vines prodded everywhere over on those deliciously soft soles, touching them without mercy. Two pairs of powerful lungs blasted out booming laughter, and two pairs of huge, mountainous tits jiggled like mad alongside each other.

But as ticklish as their poor feet were, their tormentor had no intention of neglecting the rest of the girls’ bodies. They felt the vines creep up their legs, wrapping around their ankles, and slowly working their way up. Completely new bursts of laughter erupted as the vines discovered the backs of the girls’ knees: ticklish spots that even the girls themselves had not fully been aware of. But it was just starting. The vines crept further up until they reached the girls’ exposed, supple thighs, and a new level of torture began.

“OHHH NOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOOOO!!!!!” Both girls cried out in terror as the sadistic vines discovered their ticklish thighs. Almost immediately they knew to stroke them gently, caressing the creamy, hidden flesh with a feather-light touch. Even worse, tiny soft bristles covered the vines, imbuing every touch with the maddening feel of a brushing feather. The vines hungrily coiled all around their satin thighs, tickling the captive flesh without mercy and driving the girls even deeper into the depths of insanity.

Neither Kara nor Zoe could even think straight, with their entire lower bodies in the clutches of the nightmare vines. Back down at their feet, the vines were learning the patterns of their ticklish soles better by the second. Every last one of their toes was held back by tiny vines as thin as twine, leaving their feet completely immobile while dozens of vines scribbled across their baby-soft soles. But even still there was more torture awaiting them. Kara felt the vines climb even further still, slithering from her thighs towards the small of her back. Kara heard an ear-piercing ticklish shriek come from Zoe next to her, and Kara thanked her lucky stars that she was still wearing panties.

But unfortunately, Kara’s skimpy panties were not providing much advantage over her companion in resisting the tickling onslaught. Her massive, ticklish body remained almost entirely on display, and all of her glistening, exposed flesh provided a wealth of ticklish weak spots. The vines reached their waists, and immediately wrapped around their bodies to begin tickling their belly buttons. The vines held firm and rigid as they traced tickling circles all around the girls’ tummies, causing hysterical belly laughs that drove the air right out of their lungs. The vine tips dipped into their belly buttons, pressing down into the ticklish crevasses and causing shrieks with every touch. Every second was more unbearable than the last, and the girls could barely see through rivers of tears.

But there was still one devastating spot remaining, and Kara knew it would not be long before it too was mercilessly exploited. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind, though, when more vines began to rear up like striking cobras, hovering above their prey. And in this case, their prey came in the form of some extremely ticklish underarms. Desperately Kara tried to lower her arms, but in the throes of laughter she was weaker than a baby. Oh no, her mind cried out in horror, oh please not there…

At the first touch, any last hope Kara might have had of fighting back was gone. They touched the exact centers of her underarms, pressing into the ticklish curvatures, and Kara suddenly found that it was possible to laugh even harder than before. The vines dug into the soft, tender hollows, and Kara could only scream louder and louder as she lost control. Clumps of vines ran up and down her underarms in tandem, like a soft-bristled brush: these terrifying plants were the most versatile ticklers Kara had ever seen. The world went blurry behind a veil of tears until she could not even see what was in front of her. She was certain this would be it, tickled to death by this ravenous plant on an unknown world.

And suddenly, chaos erupted around them. There was a monstrous crash, and the ground shook beneath them as though a massive earthquake had struck. Even through her blurred vision, Kara could see what had happened: the vines had dedicated themselves so much to tickling the two of them that there were no longer enough to support the weight of the spacecraft. With a massive roar, the spacecraft plunged below the surface of the vines, and the entire mass recoiled in pain like some wounded, tentacled beast. The vines flew up in the air in a spasm as the spacecraft wreckage buried itself beneath the surface, and like two rag dolls tossed aside, kara and Zoe went flying through the air!

They landed at least twenty feet away, the wind knocked out of them as they hit the grassy ground. They were utterly exhausted from their ordeal, their breathing belabored and their muscles practically too weak to support them. But they were safe. It was over.

“We…we made it,” gasped Kara, too tired to state much beyond the obvious.

Zoe struggled to catch her breath. “What…what was that thing?” she asked after a few moments of silence.

“Don’t you know?” asked Kara, irritably, getting to her feet. “This is your planet, after all! What did you lead me into?”

“I don’t know any more about this than you do!” insisted Zoe through gritted teeth, also standing and dusting herself off. “I just knew the coordinates! I’ve never even been here before, and if it hadn’t been for you, I never would have had to come in the first place!”

“And why should I believe you?” snarled Kara, especially ready to assert her dominance after her recent humiliation.

“You marooned us out here in the wilderness and you’re blaming me for this mess?” demanded Zoe angrily. Her fists clenched in barely suppressed rage.

“And what if I am?!” shouted Kara, her blood boiling with indignity. “What are you going to do about it?!”

The answer came in the blink of an eye. In fury, Zoe swung at Kara, launching a wild haymaker at her foe. But Kara reflexively ducked it, crouching as it sailed over her head. Kara sprung at Zoe, tackling her midsection and knocking her backwards with the full force of her weight. The two of them went tumbling down the hill behind them, grappling with each other as their glistening bodies intertwined in melee. They fought each other furiously as they rolled downhill: twisting limbs, butting heads, clawing at each other and raining down blows every time one of them had enough leverage to land a punch. In their fury neither of them even noticed where they were going, but neither of them cared. Snarling, Zoe grabbed Kara around the neck and tried to strangle her, while Kara wrapped her limber legs around Zoe’s waist like a vise and punched her repeatedly in the stomach and chest as hard as she could. They barely noticed that the further they went downhill, the taller the grass became, until it was several feet tall. The blades of grass themselves were extremely thin and wispy, not like any plant Kara had ever seen. But neither of them truly noticed it until suddenly, the wind began to blow.

It was only a gentle breeze, but its effects were immediate. Every blade of grass swayed in the wind, brushing against exposed skin of the two girls. And with Zoe naked and Kara in only her panties, they could feel it everywhere at once: it tickled furiously. Every blade of grass was like the touch of a down feather: impossibly soft and overwhelmingly ticklish. With millions of grass blades swaying together in the breeze, it was like fighting while being tickled with furs over every inch of their bodies.

“BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! STAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!!” cried Zoe, her grip on Kara immediately loosening.

“NOT AGAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAIN!!! WOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” screamed Kara, her nerveless arms no longer strong enough to launch a single punch.

The girls, once so focused on fighting each other, could now only think of escaping the tickling grass. But it surrounded them in every direction, and every movement they made only made the tickling worse. The grass brushed across their soft bare feet like the kiss of feathers, causing them both to kick wildly into the air. But this only let more wispy blades of grass slip between their ticklish toes. Every time they moved their long, muscular legs they could feel the blades of grass reaching up to tickle their unbearably soft thighs from a new angle. Over every inch of bare skin the windswept grass delivered its ticklish touch: across their stomachs, up their sides, and into their soft underarms every time they lifted their arms. Simply standing still was ticklish torture, but moving was even worse.

But the most vulnerable spot on their bodies to this feathery field was Kara and Zoe’s naked breasts. The bouncing gargantuan globes were beset upon from all sides by hundreds of tickling grass-tips, caressing them from the undersides to the tops, and all the way up to their rock hard nipples. Their howling laughter only caused their breasts to jiggle more furiously, and the ticklish teasing to become more unbearable. The girls clutched at their breasts, trying desperately to cover them, but both of them were cursed with a rack far too large to hold in two hands. They only succeeded in covering up the centers of their enormous assets, leaving the sides of their breasts open to more feathery tickling. And with their arms lifted up, this provided a new opportunity for blades of grass to slip into their exposed underarms and tickle the unprotected hollows.

“WAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I’LL GEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHET YOU FOR THIS!!!” laughed Zoe, desperate to blame her ticklish torment on her enemy. But with tickly blades of grass brushing against every inch of her nude, helpless body, she had no strength to launch a blow. Instead, she did the most vengeful thing she could think of: she grabbed Kara’s panties by the waistband and yanked them off.

“YEEEEAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! YOU BITCH!!!” howled Kara. Now her last protected area was exposed, and the grass tickling her private regions was ten times worse than she had imagined. The soft, erotic touch of the feathery grass was just enough to mix pleasure with unbelievable torment. She nearly collapsed with the intensity; meanwhile Zoe’s hysterical laughter took a triumphant note as she brandished her opponent’s captured panties in her hand. With a cry, she threw them as far as she could deep into the grass field.

“GOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO GET THEM!!! AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Zoe taunted, as the wind picked up the thin, skimpy underwear and carried them away.

Only seconds without her panties, and the caress of the feather grass between her legs was causing Kara’s lips to swell and part from the blissfully sensual teasing. Drips of moisture began to emerge, and from what she could see between her opponent’s legs, Zoe was suffering the same fate. But despite her rising lust, the tickling was an indescribable, nightmarish torture. Kara had never been tickled like this before, and because of Zoe she was more vulnerable than ever. Summoning her last reserves of strength, she pounced on Zoe and dug her fingertips deep into Zoe’s ticklish ribs.

“BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Zoe screamed louder than ever at this new assault, but like her foe she too had hidden reserves of energy. Fueled by rivalry and mounting sexual tension, Zoe grabbed Kara’s shapely hips and tickled, while she plunged her face into Kara’s tummy and began licking her belly button.

“NOT THAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHTTT!!!” shrieked Kara, redoubling her own attempts to tickle her opponent into submission. The two of them grappled again, rolling along the grassy ground locked in a fighter’s embrace. Their legs were both wrapped around each other’s bodies, leaving their dripping sexes fully exposed to the erotic ravages of the feather grass. As they tumbled over each other, picking up speed, the grass whipped by them and tickled even more furiously, reducing both girls to laughing wrecks whose sole thought was to out-tickle her naked, writhing opponent. They rolled over each other like a whirling dervish, nails in each other’s underarms, dribbling a trail of warm, fresh love-juice in their wake.

“WAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! CAN’T—TAKE IT—MUCH LONGER!!!” screamed Kara, wild-eyed with lust and tickle-madness.

“I’M—GOING TO—C—CUMM!!!” cried Zoe, her ticklish clit teased beyond endurance by the feather grass.

They could feel the floodgates begin to break down in both of them: climax was only seconds away. Face-to-face, breasts pressed against each other, both girls were close enough to feel each other’s wetness. With the grass gently tickling their completely naked bodies, it would not be long now…

And suddenly, they were safe. Rolling over the last hill, they fell into a small, sandy pit. They lay there exhausted for a minute before they could even stand up, but when they did, they could see what had happened: they had reached the edge of the vast field of feather grass at last. They had escaped.

The two of them stood nude on the ground looking at each other, their eyes meeting for a long, interminable second. And then, they did not even waste another moment to speak. Kara and Zoe leapt on each other, locking their bodies into a sixty-nine position, and simultaneously buried their long, wet tongues into their partner’s warm, dripping pussy.

Both of them licked up the sweet girl nectar ravenously as they felt their partner do the same. Gasping out loud in pleasure, with their faces buried between a pair of soft, creamy thighs, they slurped in the sweetest taste in the universe, caressing the soft flesh with their eager fingertips. Moans mixed with erotic giggles as ticklish spots were teased with a silken touch, turning these girls on more than they had ever thought possible. They were only seconds away from climax, but it felt like an eternity of pleasure. They felt it building deep within them, coming closer and closer, until finally…

“OHHHHHH!!! OHHH YESSSSSSS!!!” moaned Kara.

“I’M—I’M—!!!“ screamed Zoe.

In a single moment, time stood still for both girls as they reached the crescendo of a mind-shattering orgasm together in perfect, unparalleled harmony. All the sexual tension that had been tickled to the surface finally broke free and gushed out like a river of pure ecstasy. Together they kept cumming and cumming as if their two naked, entwined bodies formed a single perfect union. And then finally, their energy spent and their lust satisfied, both girls fell onto their backs in the rapture of afterglow, and fell asleep side by side with expressions of angelic satisfaction.
 
Chapter 3: Informant

“Sorry about your panties,” said Zoe.

In the distance, Kara could still see her panties in the center of the grass field: a tiny island of white rustling in the wind on the surface of a sea of green. There was no doubt that she could use every bit of protection she could get on this tickle-mad world, but wading back into the grass naked was the last thing in the universe she wanted to do.

“That’s OK,” said Kara, surprised at her own lack of anger. “I guess that makes us even, now.”

“Well, they’re gone now. Unless you want to go back in and get them.” Zoe chuckled and arched an eyebrow.

“No, I’ll consider them gone,” said Kara with a wary smile. “As well as our path back to the ship, for that matter.”

It was true: between them and the crash site was now a vast field of feather grass that both girls shuddered to think of entering again. Their path of retreat was closed off: all that remained now was to forge ahead.

“So where do we go?” asked Zoe.

Kara pointed to the valley below them: an enormous basin filled with a lush, verdant forest. At first glance, all that could be seen was treetops: a nearly unbroken sea of green that stretched off for miles and miles. But in the center, something was out of place. What looked at first like tall, spindly trees were not trees at all. They were metal antennae: the tops of huge steel towers poking out through the treetop cover into the open air above.

“See those?” asked Kara, pointing at the antennae. “I scanned this area before the crash, and those are the only artificial constructions as far as I can see. It looks like a communication array of some kind. And I’ll bet that beneath them, there’s some kind of base or facility. If we find that, I’ll bet we can find Calysta.”

“And hopefully a ship to get us off this planet,” added Zoe hopefully.

“Let’s hope so,” agreed Kara. She hated to admit it, but her old craft had probably seen its last takeoff.

The path downhill to the forest entrance was luckily a very gradual incline: getting down to it looked like about an hour’s walk. The real work would begin, they realized, once they entered the forest. By the best estimates it would be several days’ travel through thick foliage, and neither of them had a scrap of clothing remaining. But only a few steps down the grassy hill, and their progress immediately hit a wall.

“Eeeeeeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee!!!” Both girls immediately burst out in giggles as their feet fell on a large patch of green moss. It looked harmless from a distance, but the moment their bare feet fell on it, it felt like walking on the softest fur carpet they had ever felt. Warmth radiated from the moss, making their soles even more sensitive to the touch of the soft, fuzzy surface. Kara and Zoe squealed and leapt up into the air, dancing across the moss carpet as every footfall tickled more than the last. Pure instinct drove them in different directions, and a moment later Zoe was off the moss and back onto the relative safety of the grass. Kara, however, was not so lucky.

As Kara made her final leap off the furry moss, she collided in midair with what looked like a short bush covered in large, bell-shaped pods. As soon as she touched it, however, several of the pods immediately opened up and expelled a burst of glittery pollen into the air. It sprayed all over Kara’s lower legs and feet, coating them in a bright layer of pollen. A second later, Kara fell to the ground and began screaming with laughter.

“WAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! IT TICKLES!!! AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” screamed Kara, lying on her back and kicking her legs into the air. The pollen acted like itching powder on her skin, setting her nerve endings aflame with a million tickling sensations at once. Worst of all, the bottoms of her feet had been exposed to the pollen blast, and her sensitive soles were now covered in the tickling pollen.

“GET IT OFF!!! GET IT OFF!!! WOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” begged Kara, kicking with her pink, glittery soles in Zoe’s direction.

Zoe grabbed one of Kara’ ankles in midair, trying to help her companion. She tried her hardest to brush the pollen off Kara’s legs with her hands, but the brightly-colored dust stayed firmly in place.

“HURRY!!! HURRY!!! WAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” cried Kara. The tickling was becoming worse by the second; it felt as though the pollen was settling into her skin and tickling her in ways she did not even know about until now.

“I’m trying!” Zoe insisted. To try and keep Kara’s kicking legs under control, she forced them to the ground and sat on her ankles, pinning them with her thighs as a hysterical Kara tried her hardest to buck her off. After gentle brushing failed to work, Zoe tried to scratch it off with her fingernails, even running her nails over Kara’s hyper-ticklish soles to try and get the pollen off. But it stayed firmly in place: all she accomplished was to expose Kara’s feet to new forms of torture.

“OH NOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!! NOT THAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAT!!!” begged Kara. The combination of soft, feathery itching and the hard, rigid fingernails was too much for her to bear. Even though she knew Zoe was trying to help her, her ticklish body fought Zoe with all of her might.

Zoe was about to give up, and then she spotted something. The trickles of sweat running down Kara’s flushed feet were not clear. They were glittery. The moisture of the sweat was rinsing off the deadly pollen! But Kara could not sweat enough to cleanse her feet entirely. And that left only on option.

“You’re not going to like this,” Zoe cautioned, “but it’s the only way. Now brace yourself, because this is going to tickle like hell.”

With her warning delivered, Zoe reached down and ran her tongue all along the length of Kara’s massive, ticklish feet.

What followed could barely be described as laughter, and more a cry of pure ticklish agony that split the very sky. Zoe’s long, cooling tongue licked Kara’s flaming size fifteens with loving tenderness, leaving a long, moist trail in its wake. As much as the pollen tickled, however, having her sensitized soles licked was a hundred times worse. Kara’s body summoned up strength she did not even know she had to throw Zoe off, even though she knew Zoe was her only hope to escape the pollen. But Zoe clamped on to her ankles like a rider on a wild beast, slurping her soles from toe to heel, cleaning every square inch of pollen-covered flesh.

“STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!! STAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPPPP!!! I’LL DOOHOOHOOHOOHOO ANYTHING!!!” Kara promised, desperately bargaining for her sanity. But Zoe could not be deterred from her task. After carefully licking the tops of Kara’s feet, almost as sensitive as the soles, she turned to the last place that pollen could be hiding: between Kara’s long, shapely toes.

Kara screamed hysterically as Zoe plunged that first toe between her lips, sucking on it like candy with her eyes closed in the pleasure of her work. Babbling beyond speech, Kara could only howl and beat the grassy ground with her fists as this was repeated over and over: her ticklish toes licked and slurped by Zoe’s amorous tongue, cleaning the pollen from her skin and enjoying every last second of it. Just when Kara thought that her resistance was gone, and she would surely be tickled to death by her companion’s ministrations, suddenly there was relief. Zoe removed the last toe from her mouth, and the tickling was over. Kara’s feet and ankles were coated in Zoe’s saliva, but every last trace of the pollen was gone. The nightmare had passed.

“You…enjoyed that…didn’t you…you bitch…” panted Kara with a friendly but exhausted smile.

“That’s a strange way to show your gratitude,” answered Zoe, smiling back. “I should have left you to deal with that pollen by yourself.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t…pass up…a chance like that…” said Kara, chucking weakly. She collapsed on her back, gasping for breath for several minutes before either of them talked.

“But seriously, what kind of planet is this?” asked Zoe, looking around. “Everything we’ve encountered here has tried to tickle us insane! I’ve never even heard of any place like this!”

“I think I have a guess,” answered Kara. “I’ve heard of planets that have been terraformed not for mass colonization, but for a private audience. Designer planets, specially created for rich buyers to use as their own personal playground. When an entire world is crafted to suit the needs of one person, they can create it any way they want.”

“Who would create a world specifically designed to tickle people?” asked Zoe.

“I think we know the who,” answered Kara with a frown. “And as for the why, it could just be for entertainment. I knew Calysta, and tickle torture was her favorite method of persuasion. I guess it makes sense this is what she would buy when she struck it rich.”

“Why wasn’t I seeing any of this money?” Zoe grumbled, looking around. “Enough cash to buy a private planet, and she wouldn’t even reimburse me for fuel? You know, one time she told me she couldn’t afford to pay for a docking permit on one of my jobs? I had to land on a different planet and take a shuttle out of my own pocket!”

“Why did you put up with that?” asked Kara. “I mean, the kind of work you did, didn’t it bother you?”

Zoe shrugged. “Back when I was a bounty hunter, the people I caught went to jail. Working for Calysta, the people I catch get paid huge salaries to work for her on a private planet. I feel sorrier for the people I used to hunt.”

Kara shrugged back with ambivalent acceptance; she had generally found that not overthinking things was the best policy in her line of work. “Well, if you’re OK with the work, at least it sounds like you could use a change of employer,” she pointed out.

“I wouldn’t mind being my own boss, if this is what the rewards are like,” said Zoe, looking around. “Maybe we’ll find something in that facility down there that could get me on that track.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Kara with a smile.

The trip to the forest’s edge took longer than they had expected: the entire way, both of them were constantly on the lookout for any new ticklish surprises the planet had to offer. Painstakingly avoiding contact with everything possible, they ended up taking a twisting path to avoid suspicious-looking vegetation and other obstacles. But by mid-afternoon, both of them stood at the edge of the forest, still standing and with a slightly greater understanding of what was safe on this planet and what wasn’t.

“I’m not looking forward to going in there,” said Zoe, looking at the thick underbrush with concern.

Kara nodded. It was true: avoiding the tickling plant life out in the open air was one thing, but entering a thick forest of possibly sentient plants without any clothing to protect their vulnerable, naked bodies was almost foolhardy.

“And just when we were starting to learn what to avoid,” complained Kara.

“You mean, everything?” responded Zoe.

“Good point.” Kara walked over to the edge of the forest and examined the foliage. The trees hung heavy with deep green leaves which looked unremarkable from a distance, but upon getting closer, the leaves were shaped like green, wispy feathers. Kara reached up to touch one of them with the back of her hand. She shuddered: it was exactly like the touch of a feather.

Zoe saw her reaction and shuddered as well. “And we’re going to have to be brushing past those, like this?” she gestured at her own naked body.

“I don’t like it either,” said Kara, sighing. “But if we’re going to—“

Kara was cut off mid-sentence by a sound that they had not heard since they landed here: the sound of a motorized vehicle approaching. Instinctively both of them dove behind a large rock, hiding themselves from sight as the vehicle came closer. Peering out from around the corner, they could see it coming out of the forest: a massive hover-transport breaking through the trees, a strange mechanical anomaly on this pastoral planet. It was the first real confirmation they had gotten that they were not alone here.

The transport came to a stop just outside the forest, its repulsion system hissing gently as the vehicle lowered itself onto the ground for a landing. The doors opened, and three figures stepped out. One was a short, petite woman no more than five feet tall. She wore thick, black-rimmed glasses and kept her black hair tied back in a bun. She wore a long white lab coat that came down to her ankles, and a pair of black flats. Flanking her were two much larger, identically-dressed security guards, both of whom wore body armor and face-obscuring helmets. Clearly they were her protective escort.

“Are you going to be OK here, Dr. Kim?” asked one of the guards as they stepped out of the hovercraft. “We can stay if you want.”

“I’ll be fine,” said the Doctor with a wave of her hand. “Just unload the specimens from the back and you can pick me up later.”

The guard shrugged, and she and her partner opened the hatch at the back of the hovercraft. A moment later they removed two girls: stripped naked and round with white cloth strips from their shoulders down to their ankles, with their bare feet peeking out at the bottom. The girls struggled in the hands of the guards, but their protestations were in silence: each of them wore gags.

“Where do you want them?” asked one of the guards.

“Over there, right next to the vine pit,” answered Dr. Kim, shuffling through some papers on a clipboard. Kara and Zoe shuddered as they saw it: it was the same tickling foliage that their spacecraft had landed in. Those girls were in for a torturous ordeal.

“That’ll be all,” said Dr. Kim, as the guards got back into the hovercraft. “I think…four hours should be enough for observation.” She smiled sadistically. “Come back around to pick me up then.”

As the hovercraft’s engines started up again and the vehicle disappeared into the forest, Dr. Kim calmly opened up a briefcase full of equipment and began going through her tools of the trade.

“Now, first things first,” said Dr. Kim, speaking to the two bound and gagged girls. “Before we begin observing what an effective tickler this new species of vine is, we have to get its attention. You girls are a bit too far away for it to notice you, but luckily I have a pheromone here specially designed to get its attention.” She held up a spray bottle containing a dark blue liquid, obviously enjoying herself as the two girls struggled even harder in terror.

“Fight all you want, you won’t be able to break those strips,” said Dr. Kim to her mute companions. “Of course, the vines will have no difficulty untying the knots in back. Now, shall we?”

“I think it’s time for a change in plans, Doctor,” boomed Kara from directly behind Dr. Kim. The Doctor had been focusing so much on gloating over her victims, she had neglected to notice Kara and Zoe creeping up behind her. The Doctor started with alarm, dropping the bottle on the ground as she shrieked with surprise.

“Who are you?!” Dr. Kim demanded as she spun around to face these two massive, muscular, naked Amazons towering several feet above her. “N—no, it doesn’t matter! You shouldn’t be here! I’m calling—“

“—Nobody,” finished Zoe, as she grabbed the Doctor’s communicator out of her hands before she could activate it. “Now, what were you planning to do to these two defenseless girls, hmm?”

“Give me that back this instant!” demanded the Doctor, jumping up to grab it as Zoe dangled the communicator tauntingly above her head, laughing.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to make demands,” said Zoe. “Now, why don’t you start by telling us what you’re doing here, and who you’re working for.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything!” protested the Doctor, and almost as soon as the words escaped her mouth she looked as though she regretted them. She clearly understood that she was in a very bad situation.

“Oh, I think we can get you to be helpful,” said Kara. Effortlessly, she held the short, willowy woman to the ground, straddling her waist and pinning her down. “Now I couldn’t help noticing that you were staying very far away from that vine pit. That wouldn’t be for a reason, would it?” And as though to answer her own question, Kara slipped off the doctor’s shoes and cast them aside.

“N—no! You can’t!” protested Dr. Kim, struggling hopelessly for freedom with her bare feet wiggling in the open air.

“Oh, I think we can,” said Kara with a wicked grin. She reached over to a nearby branch and plucked off one of the feather-shaped leaves, holding it between her thumb and forefinger. “Now, this is your last chance, doctor. Tell us what we want to know, or else—“

“—Koochie koo,” finished Zoe with an eager smile.

“No! Please! I can’t!” pleaded Dr. Kim, wide-eyed.

“You heard the lady,” said Zoe. And with a nod and a smile, Kara slid the feathery leaf across Dr. Kim’s bare soles.

“YEEEAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Both Kara and Zoe were delighted to see that the good doctor was every bit as ticklish as they were themselves. As the first touch of the feather on her bare soles, Dr. Kim burst into hysterics and began fighting with strength that was surprising for her thin frame. But still Kara had no difficulty holding her down as she feathered the doctor’s feet, sending her into paroxysms of girlish, high-pitched laughter.

“Tickle tickle, doctor,” taunted Kara, stroking the doctor’s smooth insteps with her soft leaf. It was every bit as devastating as a down feather, and the forest was full of these tickling tools. It was the perfect place for an interrogation.

“STAAHAHAHAHAPP!!! STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!! I CAAHAHAHAHAN”T TAKE IT!!!” pleaded Dr. Kim, as Kara used the stiff tip of the leaf to focus on the centers of her arches. Tears poured down her cheeks, and her thick-rimmed glasses began slipping off her face as she shook with laughter.

“I’m sure you can’t doctor,” agreed Kara. “I’m sure these pampered feet of yours aren’t used to getting the same treatment you give your test subjects, am I right?”

“It’s not quite the same until you know what it feels like, is it?” asked Zoe. “I say this bitch needs a good, old-fashioned tickling.” And no longer content to watch from the sidelines, she plucked her own feathery leaf and went to work feathering one of the doctor’s feet while Kara worked the other.

“OH NOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOOOOO!!!” howled the doctor, as both of her ticklish feet now fell under attack simultaneously. The soft leaves flicked over her hyper-sensitive soles, both of them held by women who knew from first-hand experience how truly effective feathers could be against ticklish feet. Their expert hands made the feathery leaves a hundred times more dangerous, tickling the doctor’s petite tootsies with the kind of satisfied sadism that only the outrage of a truly ticklish girl could bring to bear.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was clearly as ticklish as they come. The soft feathers dancing across her feet had her in the throes of hysteria, and her soles were as smooth and sensitive as if they had been freshly pedicured. She emitted high-pitched, staccato shrieks as the feathers quickly flicked across her insteps, which turned to prolonged howls when the feathers made long, slow slides across her arches, and finally maniacal cries for mercy when the girls bent back her toes and feathered the ticklish undersides. Kara and Zoe worked in tandem, their techniques always different enough to make the tickling feel random, but just enough in sync so that they hit the Doctor’s weak spots together.

“Ready to talk yet, Doctor?” asked Kara. “Or do these tickly feet need more feathering to convince you?”

“I CAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHANN’T!!!” pleaded Dr. Kim. “SHE’LL KILL MEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEEEEE!!!”

“Then perhaps we need to show you that the alternative can be worse,” answered Kara. And with that, both she and Zoe cast aside their feathers and launched a full assault on the Doctor’s ticklish feet with their sharp fingernails.

“BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!!” After the soft, teasing touch of the feathers, the sudden change to long, rigid nails raking across her ticklish feet was too much for the Doctor to bear. Twenty sharp fingernails skittered across the tiny, ticklish surfaces, darting from one soft spot to the next, pressing into the soft, pliant flesh that offered no resistance against her expert torturers. The Doctor, fighting with the hysterical strength of the nearly-broken tickle victim, summoned up such desperate power that she almost managed to buck off the massive weight of the muscular Kara on top of her. But she stayed down: helpless, motionless, and unbearably ticklish with her feet at the mercy of two girls who would not take “no” for an answer. At last, she could hold out no longer, and through the gales of laughter, she cried out the only words that could save her.

“CALYSTA!!! I WORK FOR CALYSTA!!! WAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

“Jackpot,” said Kara with a smile.
 
Chapter 4: Pedicures in the Jungle

“Is this really all you’ve got?” asked Kara, squeezing into the white lab coat with some difficulty.

“I told you, you’re lucky I have those with me,” answered Dr. Kim. The white lab coats that she had handed Kara and Zoe were perfectly sized for the Doctor herself, but on the two bounty hunters’ broad and towering frames they fit much more tightly. While the coat fell down to the Doctor’s ankles, on Kara and Zoe they fell above the knee, like short dresses. And while the Doctor could button her coat in front without any difficulty, wrapping the coats around Kara and Zoe’s massive, spherical breasts was proving nearly impossible. After trying and failing several times to button their coats, they finally gave up and let them hang open. It wasn’t much in the way of protection, but it was better than nothing.

“So what exactly is this planet?” asked Zoe of their new acquaintance. “I mean, I work for Calysta too, and I’ve never even heard of any of this.” The first part of that sentence, Zoe decided, was rapidly becoming less true.

“Calysta brought us here a few years ago,” answered the Doctor; apparently she felt that now she had given up her employer’s name, she may as well not hold back. “Biologists, botanists, and experts in terraforming and gene splicing, mainly. But the thing was, the atmosphere here was already breathable. What she wanted was to fill the planet with new plant species: species she wanted us to design.”

“Species that had a particular hostility to ticklish intruders?” asked Zoe.

“Exactly,” nodded Dr. Kim.

“But why?” asked Kara. “I mean, I know she has money to burn, but a whole planet is beyond excessive, even if her operation is going well.”

“No, you don’t understand,” explained Dr. Kim. “This planet is her operation. The kidnappings she sends her bounty hunters out on are just to provide her with a staff of researchers. This planet is the real moneymaker. It’s a breeding ground for tickling foliage of all kinds. Once we’ve determined that they work properly, the plants are bred and sold to rich property-owners as a completely new kind of security system.”

“So this whole planet is a kind of beta test?” asked Kara with an arched eyebrow.

“Something like that,” said Dr. Kim. “And these plant species have been selling at an incredible rate. Unlike machinery-based security, these plants don’t need maintenance, they don’t need power, and they don’t need any special installation. We just plant them where the customer wants them, and soon they have a fully operational security system that can be left completely alone. It’s much cheaper for the buyers, and we’ve found that many of them prefer to look at gardens instead of metal walls and razor wire.”

“I can’t believe this!” grumbled Zoe. “All this time she was getting rich off my hard work, and she never even told me about it! Do you know what kind of hours I work just to draw a paycheck, while she was lounging around watching the cash roll in?”

Dr. Kim shrugged. “Do you think I’m here because I want to be?”

“You looked like you were enjoying yourself well enough a few minutes ago,” pointed out Kara sharply.

“Yes, well…” Dr. Kim trailed off. “So what are you going to do now?” she asked, suddenly changing the subject.

“We’re going to find Calysta, and I’m going to settle a score,” said Kara matter-of-factly. “And you’re going to help us.”

Their march through the jungle was slow and methodical, with Kara taking the lead and using a broad stick like a machete to hack away at any suspicious-looking plant life blocking the way. Zoe took up the rear, putting herself in position to keep a careful eye on the good Doctor, in case she should decide to run off. The three of them walked in strained silence, with distrust hanging thick in the air.

“I don’t see why you keep looking at me like that,” grumbled Dr. Kim after a while as Zoe glared at her from behind. “It’s not like I can run off.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Zoe, eyeing the Doctor’s briefcase which she carried at her side. “We’re still not too clear on exactly what kind of tools you have in there. Something that could be used as a weapon?”

“I don’t have any weapons!” protested the Doctor hotly. “There’s nothing in here but observational equipment for my research! Nothing that could be dangerous even if I wanted it to be!”

“And what about that bottle of pheromones?” asked Kara from the front. “From what you were saying when we saw you, it could be used to attract some…unwelcome attention.”

“Good point,” said Zoe in agreement. “I think I’d feel better if I were the one carrying that briefcase, Doctor.”

Zoe grabbed the briefcase and pulled, but the Doctor was stronger than she appeared. She gripped both hands around the handle and began pulling back, not about to surrender her equipment without a fight.

“Let go!” cried Zoe, and gave another tug at the briefcase. And this time, she managed to break the Doctor’s grip on the case. But Zoe pulled too hard, and as her mighty tug yanked it from the Doctor’s hands, Zoe too lost her grip on it. The briefcase flew into the air, and at the peak of its arc, the briefcase’s latches fell open, scattering the contents in all directions! Most of it was harmless: small metal implements or handheld computer devices that fell to the ground around them. But the one thing that made them stop in their tracks was the bottle of pheromones.

The three of them gasped as the bottle of pheromone-laden liquid flew through the air, like a live grenade thrown into a battle. All of them reached up desperately to catch it, but it was too late. It twirled end over end, flying above their heads, and the girls watched in horror as its top came loose and fell to the ground. The uncapped bottle scattered a fine blue mist all over, covering each of their bodies in the pernicious liquid. Their hair, their clothing, and most of all their skin were tinged blue and gave off a sweet, pungent aroma that made their blood run cold.

“Look—Look what you’ve done!!” cried Dr. Kim, her eyes conveying sheer terror as they darted back and forth like a trapped animal, surrounded by predators.

“What I’ve done?! This is your fault!” cried Zoe, but her outrage was also tempered by fear. With the blue liquid covering her skin, the jungle suddenly seemed a much more hostile place. She felt as though eyes were watching her from the underbrush, tracking her every move, salivating in the darkness and waiting to strike.

“What’s going to happen to us?” asked Kara, keeping her back to her two companions as she scanned the treeline. She tried to brush the liquid off her skin, but with no success: it seemed to bond with her skin the moment it made contact.

Suddenly, the three of them heard an unmistakable rustling in the trees. Something very close to them was moving.

“Could it be a wild animal?” asked Kara hopefully.

Dr. Kim shook her head. “This planet has no indigenous animal life, and we only engineered plant life. Which means that sound is something…responding to the plant pheromone.” She spoke the words like a death knell.

“We have to get out of here,” muttered Zoe, her eyes wild as she tried to fight off the claustrophobia of the forest around her.

“Where would we go?” asked Kara, who could also feel the unsettling sensation of the forest closing in around her. “We’re too far in to run.”

“We have to do something!” exclaimed Dr. Kim, who appeared the most frightened of all of them. “If we just stay here, any minute, something’s going to—“

The Doctor’s sentence was cut short as the terrifyingly familiar sight of moving vines broke through the trees, taking the three of them by surprise. Before they could do anything, vines wrapped around their waists, lifting the three struggling ladies off the ground and pulling them back into the underbrush as they screamed and fought for dear life.

And in seconds, they were brought face-to-face with their captor. It was a terrifying spectacle even on this strange and frightening world. Ten feet tall, it was comprised of a tall, thick stalk like a tree trunk. It had a huge pod at the top larger than a human head, bedecked with teeth like a Venus’ fly trap that gave it the eerie appearance of smiling wickedly at them. Extending from the stalk in all directions were a hundred different tendrils, flailing like tentacles: each of them seemed to have something different at the end of it, giving the plant a chaotic, patchwork appearance, as though it had been stitched together from dozens of different plants. As the plant beheld its new prey, all its tendrils immediately came to attention.

“Oh no. Oh no, no, no,” said the Doctor in horror, shaking her head.

“What is it?” asked Kara, not sure she wanted to know.

“It’s…a pedicure plant,” said Dr. Kim. “It’s a new creation in the experimental phase. Oh god, why did it have to be this?”

“A pedicure plant?” echoed Zoe with concern. “Is that what it’s going to do to us?”

But Zoe did not have to wait long for her answer. With the girls still lifted off the ground, the plant extended six thick tendrils, one for each of their bare feet. At the end of each was a large green pod, filled with some kind of liquid that sloshed around inside. With single-minded determination, the plant encased each of the girls’ feet in a pod of their own, sealing them at the ankles. For several seconds, nothing else happened: their feet were left to soak in the pods and absorb the moisture as though they had been in a foot-soaking tub. Kara was about to tempt fate by asking whether this was all there was. But the next moment, the liquid inside each of each soaking pod began to whirl around in a frenzied vortex.

“Mmmmph! Mmmmmmmpppphhhh!!” Kara struggled to hold in the laughter as the warm water whirled around her bare feet. She could feel tiny jets of water spraying against her soles, causing her feet to squirm as she fought for composure.

“Eeeeeek! It tickles!” giggled Zoe, the streams of bubbles striking the bottoms of her feet as well.

Dr. Kim tried to keep silent, but snickering escaped her sealed lips as her feet wriggled helplessly inside the soaking pods. With every passing second, more bubble jets were turned against the girls’ soles, and the water vortexes inside the pods began to churn at faster speeds. The girls tried to resist, but they could feel their resolve slipping: the foot-soaking was making their already sensitive feet all the more tender. They could feel the laughter building up, ready to break through their trembling lips, as they tried to hold it back one more second…

And then, unexpectedly, relief came. Just when they thought they couldn’t hold out for another second, the soaking pods opened up and drew away. Three pairs of warm, pink feet emerged, dripping with sweet, rose-scented liquid, dangling in the cool air.

“Is…is it over?” asked Zoe, breathing heavily.

But before anyone could answer her question, a new threat arose that caused all three girls to gasp aloud. More vines rose up towards them, except these did not carry liquid-filled pods like the last ones. The ends of these vines were coated in stiff bristles like a brush, covered in a thick, shiny liquid that gleamed like soapy water.

“It’s—it’s the next phase,” whispered Dr. Kim, her face pale. “Foot brushing.”

“No!” squealed Zoe, her toes curling in anticipation. “Keep them away!”

“S—stay back!” demanded Kara shakily. But the vines kept slowly approaching their targets.

“BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!” Instantly, all three girls exploded into hysterical laughter as the bristles made contact with their bare feet. The liquid the plant excreted coated their soles in seconds, allowing the stiff bristles to whip across the wet, slippery surfaces with ease. It was exactly like the touch of a foot-buffing brush covered in soapy water, wielded by a sadistic pedicurist out of a ticklish nightmare. And in this nightmare, their pedicure was not going to be over soon.

The three of them screamed with laughter, tugging on the vines holding them while their defenseless feet were exposed to one of the most nefarious tortures they had yet encountered. Kara and Zoe’s massive size fifteens danced in ticklish spasms beside Dr. Kim’s tiny size fives, but despite the difference all three were equally ticklish. And after their foot-soaking, their feet felt twice as ticklish as before. Any resistance they might have built up by walking across the dusty ground was gone: their feet were soft, perfectly clean, and ready for torture.

“STAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPPP!!!” pleaded Kara through wild laughter. The brushes continued to scrub her bare feet, coating her soles in sudsy bubbles that left them soft and frictionless. She cried hot tears as the bristles ran up and down her tall arches, buffing her heels and the balls of her feet with ruthless abandon. Kara had endured some pedicures in her time, but not one of them reached this level of pure, unbridled torture.

“NOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” howled Zoe, with her hyper-sensitized soles being utterly dominated by the soapy brushes. When they reached a soft spot on her soles, the brushes would rotate in a quick, circular motion like an electric toothbrush, tickling Zoe so badly that she could not even think straight. Her massive feet were at the mercy of these brushes, and they were happy to deliver a pedicure capable of tickling their subject to death.

“SAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAVVE US!!!” begged Dr. Kim, whose tiny tootsies were receiving every bit as much attention as their larger neighbors. The brushes concentrated their scrubbing even more tightly, as though they wanted to make up for the lack of surface area to tickle. Even worse, they focused on brushing underneath and between the Doctor’s toes, sliding their bristles into the hidden crevasses while the Doctor screamed at the top of her lungs. Her black-rimmed glasses fell off her face and her hair fell out of its neat bun into a disheveled mess, but she did not even notice: all she was aware of was how horribly ticklish her feet were.

And it was about to get worse. With their feet buffed by the hellish brushes, it was time for exfoliation. More vines arose, secreting a thick cream with a rough consistency onto the girls’ feet, as though it were filled with ground pumice. As the brushing continued, the vines spread the cream over every inch of their soles.

It was like receiving a foot massage with itching powder. The finely-ground granules inside the cream gave the rough effect of an abrasive that tickled their already sensitized soles like they could barely believe. The girls whooped with renewed, louder laughter as the tickling of the exfoliating cream contrasted with the quick strokes of the brushes that continued to torture their feet. With two different kinds of torture assaulting them simultaneously, their minds could no longer put up a defense against the tickling. All they could do was abandon their sanity and howl as they endured the spa treatment from hell.

“I CAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHANN’T TAKE IT!!!” laughed Kara, her poor feet glowing pink beneath the layer of cream. Her toes went into wild spasms as the brushes scrubbed her feet even harder, but this only caused the exfoliating agent between her toes to tickle even more. It was a devastating combination, one that was taking Kara and her companions to the edge of insanity.

Zoe and Dr. Kim, meanwhile, were past the point of speech. They babbled incomprehensibly in their laughter as their unbearably ticklish feet faced the treatments of a ravenous tickling machine. Their faces were red and their voices hoarse; it looked as though they might pass out from the tickling at any moment. But the plant, in its fiendish intelligence, seemingly knew to keep its victims conscious for their entire, harrowing ordeal. Moments before Zoe and Dr. Kim, and perhaps Kara as well, were about to slip into blissful unconsciousness, the tickling stopped.

The brushes receded from the girls’ abused, tickled feet, leaving only the combination of cream and soapy liquid behind. It dripped viscously from their dangling feet, which hung untouched for a moment of rest that the three girls desperately needed.

None of them could speak. For endless seconds, they only gasped for breath in silence. After what seemed like forever, Kara finally opened her mouth to speak. But she never got the chance. Their floral pedicurist, carefully attuned to the vital signs of its victims, apparently decided that it had given them enough of a rest. Suddenly, dozens of jets of the rose-scented water sprayed at the girls’ feet from all angles, washing the cream and liquid from their feet, and causing them to erupt in wild laughter once again.

“YEEEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!!!” squealed Zoe, accompanied by the high-pitched laughter of Kara and Dr. Kim as the bubbly jets sprayed their feet clean. In several minutes that felt like hours to the girls, their feet were once again pristine and sweet-smelling, dangling in the air and even more sensitive than ever before.

“W—what’s next?” asked Kara with a low moan. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take!”

“Please tell us it’s over!” begged Zoe. Her tender tootsies had had all the loving care they could stand.

But Dr. Kim said nothing, and the girls knew what it meant. There was no good news to give: more of this pedicure nightmare was on its way. The Doctor looked as though she was summoning up the mental strength to even name their next trial. But in its eagerness, the plant saved her the trouble. More vines rose up: these ones shaped like hands, with five finger-sized appendages at the end of each one. More noticeably, each “finger” had a pointed, rigid growth at the end of it, which looked exactly like a long fingernail filed to a rounded point.

“What are they going to do?” asked Kara fearfully.

The vines approached their helpless, wriggling feet once again, taking a hold of them gently as the girls fought to hold back the laughter. Like the last ones, these vines squirted a soft, white cream onto the girls’ feet. But this was not an exfoliating scrub: it felt more like a cool, moisturizing lotion. But unfortunately, the vines were not content to leave it at that. Using its appendages as fingers, the vines began to firmly massage the moisturizing lotion into the girls’ feet.

The sensation was like having their feet massaged by a pair of hands with devastatingly long, pointed fingernails. No matter how hard they tried, the nails kept touching ticklish flesh, pressing into the tender skin and brushing over soft spots by “accident”. No one but an expert could have given a foot massage with nails of that length, and the plant was channeling the spirit of either a complete amateur or a secretly malicious foot-tickler.

“NO MOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHORRRE!!!” Kara begged her deaf assailant as it worked the lotion into her feet. The touch of the finger-like vines on her soles was bad enough, but the fingernail-like appendages were truly doing the damage. You never knew when one of them might scratch your instep, or press into a soft spot with the accuracy of a homing missile. They were the kinds of accidents that could have caused a weaker woman to lose bladder control. And they happened with devastating frequency.

“PLEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAAASE NOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!!” Zoe screamed beside her. The lotion on her enormous feet was doing more than just moisturizing her skin: it was providing a slick, slippery surface for the fingernails to slide across with impunity. The finger-like vines rubbed the lotion deep into her ticklish feet, and after all the scrubbing and exfoliating she had endured, Zoe’s feet were now little more than a huge, ticklish nerve ending to be exploited.

“STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!! STAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!!” was all Dr. Kim could cry. Even half-delirious from the tickling, she could still feel the humiliating burn of suffering this indignity at the hands of her own creation. But she had little time to reflect on the irony, as her feet were subjected to the most ticklish lotion massage of her life.

And with every passing second, the fingernail-touches became more frequent, and more devastating. The plant was slowly discarding the subterfuge that it was trying to avoid these “slips”. The girls felt one sharp nail, and then another, and then ten, scribbling across each smooth, lotion-covered sole with glee. It was a full tickling assault: sharp, manicured nails against soft, pedicured feet. All of the ticklish preparation and pampering of their tootsies had led them up to this, with soles more sensitive than they had ever been in any of their lives. None of them could have understood was it was to be truly ticklish until now. They could not see through their tears, or hear through the sound of insane, babbling laughter: the tickling was their entire existence. The cruel nails raked across their feet, scribbling forth the laughter that their tickler craved like sweet nectar. Their feet were beyond sensitive: they knew they had only seconds remaining before they were tickled into unconsciousness. The world started to spin around them, and just as their vision began to dim, they felt it: mercy.

The tickling was over, and this time, they knew it was for good: the plant obligingly placed them on the grassy ground beside it. The pedicure was over.

For more than a solid minute, the girls lay motionless on the forest floor, teetering at the edge of consciousness. And then slowly, they managed to life their heads to see the three of them lying side-by-side. Their bodies were drenched in sweat, and their bare feet were soft, sparkling clean, and moisturized. It took them a moment to notice a final detail: as the final step of their pedicures, the plant had filed their toenails and painted them a bright cherry red. It was somehow vaguely mocking.

“I…am never…getting…a pedicure…again…” gasped Zoe, before she collapsed on her back.
 
Chapter 5: The Enemy's Doorstep


Moving through the jungle on their newly pedicured feet had been slow progress. With every step it seemed there was a clump of soft grass to brush against their hypersensitized soles, or a bed of sharp pebbles to gently press into the soft flesh of their feet. Their progress slowed to a crawl as they took every step with the utmost caution, and even then a trail of barely suppressed giggles marked their passage as they went. But their perseverance had paid off. They had arrived.

The facility itself had been hidden under the tree cover, so neither Kara nor Zoe had known what to expect. A metal factory, perhaps, with gleaming chrome machinery proclaiming its industry. Or maybe an imposing power plant, with tall, stately cooling towers. But what stood before them was none of these. Towering above them was an enormous mansion: a tall, gaudy vanity palace which was the epitome of bad taste.

The entire five-story structure was built of gleaming synthetic marble, so white that it hurt the eyes to look at it. The front of it was decked with garish Corinthian columns that supported nothing, with ostentatious capitals topped with carvings of grape bunches. The front of the house was covered in fake ivy forged from gold leaf, which was all the more egregious since there was plenty of real ivy in the surrounding forest. Huge windows offered an immodest view into the lavishly decorated rooms inside. And at the very pinnacle of the palace was no ordinary roof, but a massive glass dome that gleamed like crystal in the sunlight. There was no aspect of this building that was not painstakingly crafted to appear expensive. The entire effect was as though the architect had read about mansions, but never actually seen one. Kara knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had finally arrived at the dwelling of Calysta.

“My god. It’s where taste goes to die,” muttered Kara.

“Honestly, if I ever get this rich, I want you to kill me,” said Zoe with a nod and a shudder.

“Beginning the re-think the idea of a higher salary?” asked Kara, her eyes still glued to the mansion like a train wreck.

“No,” answered Zoe, “I just think I could find better uses for money. Like burning it for warmth.”

Dr. Kim appeared equally disapproving of the design choices, but discreetly opted to remain silent on the matter. “Well, this is it,” she said, gesturing towards the towering behemoth. “Calysta’s living quarters make up most of the upper levels, and the research portions are mainly below-ground. I could try to get you in through the front…”

“No,” interrupted Kara, “we’ll never make it if we just charge in where she can see us coming a mile away. We need another way in.”

Dr. Kim hesitated for a moment, as though weighing the pros and cons of speaking up at that moment. However, Kara and Zoe were quick to pick up on her nonverbal cues. With both of them moving close to her, glowering down at her from their massive height, the doctor was suddenly reminded of what might happen if she were judged uncooperative.

“There’s another way in,” she said quickly. “Just around back, there’s a ventilation shaft that leads to the manufacturing levels. It’s overgrown with vines, so almost nobody knows about it. It isn’t even guarded; you can slip right in without being detected.”

Kara nodded approvingly. “Now that’s more like it.”

“But really, that’s all I know!” insisted Dr. Kim. “I don’t even know the layout of the lower floors; Calysta keeps us in our designated areas, and even when we leave it’s almost always under escort! I swear, I wouldn’t be able to help you anymore!”

“She has a point,” said Zoe, with a thin but purposeful smile. “Perhaps she can’t help us anymore.”

“Then you’ll…let me go?” asked Dr. Kim with trepidation.

The Doctor’s answer came ominously and unmistakably. Both girls turned and eyed each other slyly, nodding conspiratorially with broad grins of anticipation. Dr. Kim looked up at their intimidating, muscular bodies towering above her. And she swallowed hard.

* * * * *​

The wild, muffled laughter that echoed throughout the ventilation shaft had finally faded to a distant but recognizable murmur as the end of the shaft came within sight. At least the Doctor had been truthful with them; but of course, if she hadn’t, they knew exactly where to find her.

“I wonder if the gag will be enough to keep the Doctor quiet?” asked Zoe mischievously, crawling single-file behind Kara.

“Oh, I think so,” said Kara, and although Zoe could not see it, she was smiling just as broadly as her companion. The metal walls of the shaft would have provided ample room to smaller-built infiltrators, but with Kara and Zoe’s muscular statures, they were lucky to squeeze through the passage. “Besides, we had to keep her busy somehow. At least now we know exactly where she is, and that she’s too busy to cause trouble.”

“Busy’s one word for it,” grinned Zoe. “It was quite a lucky break finding one of those plants with the pollen.”

Kara had been the one to find it, recognizing it from her ordeal earlier on the planet. With a surgeon’s touch, she had managed to fit a cloth bag over one of the pods and carefully harvest its glittery pollen. While Zoe tied down the Doctor with vines, Kara had covered every inch of her skin with the tickly pollen, causing her to go insane with laughter while they watched with voyeuristic satisfaction. They had no idea how long the pollen would continue tickling without being washed off, but they did know the Doctor would be kept occupied for a long time.

“I was almost hoping you got some pollen on you again,” giggled Zoe behind Kara.

“Oh, don’t you worry about me. I think I could handle it,” smirked Kara with as much bravado as she could muster.

“Even on your big soft feet?” taunted Zoe. “You mean to say they’re not…ticklish?” And she punctuated the last word by pressing down her fingernail into the center of Kara’s upturned sole in front of her.

“EEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!!!” squealed Kara, caught off guard by the sneak attack. As she giggled, she leapt up and banged against the ceiling of the shaft: unhurt, but still within full reach of Zoe behind her, and with no room to turn around.

“You mean to say you don’t mind when I…touch them? Like this?” Zoe gleefully pressed her fingertips into Kara’s ticklish arches, letting them sink into the soft skin as Kara squealed twice more on cue. With her newly pedicured feet, Kara was twice as responsive as ever, and the baby-soft skin was no match for Zoe’s eager fingernails.

“STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!!” cried Kara, crawling as fast as she could in an attempt to outrace Zoe’s tickling fingers. She dragged herself at full speed towards the end of the shaft, where she would have the room to defend herself again, but Zoe was hot on her tail. Crawling just as quickly, Zoe brought her fingers down on Kara’s helpless feet, tickling her fleeing quarry with delight.

“Koochie koochie koo! What’s the matter? Not running away from a little tickling, are you?” Zoe delightedly called after her, following those tall, tempting feet with single-minded desire.

Kara, for her part, was ruing the decision to enter the shaft first. Laughing, she scrambled down the narrow metal shaft, fleeing the tickling that she could not see but could most definitely feel. Again and again, Zoe’s sharp fingernails came down on her tender arches, sliding backwards over the balls of her feet before she did it again. The faster Kara crawled forwards, the more Zoe kept up: pressing those fingers of hers into Kara’s defenseless soles. She could see the end now, getting closer and closer, making her last sprint towards freedom as Zoe teased and tickled her from behind, until…

With a gasp of relief, Kara popped out of the ventilation shaft, falling on her back as she twisted free from the ticklish confines. She was followed by Zoe a moment later, landing on top of her and looking down with a grin. For a moment they said nothing, their lab coats both draped open, providing an enticing view to their partner’s roving eye. It was only after some time that they realized that they were in public, somewhere, and both of them giggled self-consciously.

“Next time, you go first,” Kara said, smiling.

“Well, if it’s for you, I suppose it’s only fair,” answered Zoe coyly. She smiled as she saw Kara gazing down momentarily at her exposed, pink soles: targets rife for payback.

As the two of them got to their feet, they began to take a look around at where they had emerged. In the immediate vicinity, there was not much to see. They had come out on a small ledge, large enough to hold the two of them and not much else. But over the railing, there was a far more impressive sight to be seen.

From their vantage point on the ledge, the two of them could see an entire factory floor spread out beneath them. It was obvious that this was no amateurish operation: this was a full-scale production facility. The pristine, gleaming floors and walls bespoke an environment so clean that humans must rarely, if ever, come here. The floor was abuzz with the movement of machinery: mechanical arms on wheels spun around enormous hydroponics bays that held hundreds of species of plant life: vines, grasses, flowers, everything they had seen outside on the planet and more. The plants were carefully separated, and a constant flow of robotic arms came up to water them, fertilize them, and toss the carnivorous ones a snack. The robots spun and twirled around each other in a complex ballet of mechanical precision, each one attending to its duties without interfering with its dozens of neighbors. In other corners, the arms would harvest seeds from the plants, which almost looked as though they were giving them up willingly. The seeds were taken to assembly-line conveyor belts, where they were systematically packed into crates and sealed. It was an impressive panorama to behold: a fusion of the organic and the robotic working together.

“Even I didn’t know how large-scale this was,” murmured Zoe with suppressed awe. “Just imagine how much all of this is worth.”

“Quite a bit, I’d say,” answered Kara, without the enthusiasm of her companion. Profit was all good and well, but she was here in the lair of her enemy for strictly personal reasons.

“So where to now?” asked Zoe. “It’s too far down to jump.”

Kara pointed across the room. On the far side of this cavernous hall was another ledge, like the one they were standing on: a ledge with a doorway leading deeper into the facility. They had no way of knowing where it led, but if they were going to go anywhere, their options were limited.

But fortune had given them a way to traverse the gap between the ledges. A long, thick industrial cable ran between the two walls, hanging just above their heads. Both of them looked at it, thinking the same thing.

“Do you think it’ll hold our weight?” asked Zoe.

“Only one way to find out,” answered Kara.

The two of them reached up and grabbed the cable, and after giving it a sharp pull to verify that it would hold them, swung hand-over-hand across the expanse. It was several hundred meters to the other side, but neither Kara nor Zoe were concerned: after a career of arduous physical activity, this was light exercise to them. Below them, the gentle hum of well-oiled machinery continued unabated, with neither the plants nor the robotic arms aware that anything was occurring right above them. The girls’ short lab coats rustled as they swung across, and if there had been anyone below looking upwards, the two of them would be in a rather compromising position. But modesty had to take a back seat to necessity right now.

The two of them were halfway across when it approached. At a distance, neither of them could tell what it was, only that it was a small flying robot of some kind. It puttered about seemingly undirected, as though it did not particularly care where it was going. But then it turned, and saw the two girls hanging from the cable. It hovered in place for a moment, as though deciding what to do next. And then, it approached them. Slowly but determinedly, it flew right up to Kara.

Kara’s hands gripped the cable even more tightly as she stared back at the hovering mechanism appraising her. It was comprised of a central camera which looked unsettlingly like an enormous eye, looking her over. It was flanked on either side by small, round appendages, each about the size of a fist: perhaps batteries of some sort. As she hung in front of it, Kara was increasingly aware that her lab coat did an embarrassingly poor job of covering her body: it hung open from her shoulders, fully revealing her firm, enormous breasts and her taut stomach. And even though it barely covered her ass in back, in front her coat effectively covered nothing from the waist down. Kara looked back at her companion: another hovering probe had approached Zoe and was watching her, who was in a similar state of undress. If anyone was watching this footage, they were getting quite an eyeful.

“What are they doing? Are they going to attack us?” asked Zoe through gritted teeth.

But before the girls could speculate further, it became suddenly and terribly obvious why the probes’ appendages were the size of fists. Each probe uncoiled their appendages into a pair of human-sized hands, sitting on either side of their mechanical eye with fingertips outstretched. The hands were covered with synthetic skin, and ominously, each of them sported long, ceramic fingernails filed to a perfectly rounded point. The purpose of these terror-inducing talons was all too clear.

Both Kara and Zoe could only hang from the cable overhead, dangling helplessly. They swallowed hard.

The probes approached cautiously at first, as if sizing up these girls as a possible threat. But they moved in, and with their mechanical hands they squeezed the girls’ sides through the thin fabric of their lab coats.

Even with the coats’ protection, Kara and Zoe could feel the fingernails pressing into their supple flesh at the first touch. Both girls gritted their teeth, fighting to hold back the titters of laughter that welled up inside them. But playing tough did not fool the probes. They began to knead the girls’ ribs and stomachs, moving up and down in slow, determined motions while Kara and Zoe fought for control.

“Mmmmmppphhhh!” A giggle spilled out from Kara’s lips as the fingernails dug into a sensitive spot halfway up her sides. She redoubled her efforts to fight back, but she could feel herself slipping.

Zoe made not a sound, but her face was turning red from holding her breath, and her body trembled as her sides were squeezed more and more vigorously. She, too, had unfortunately ticklish sides that the probes were quickly learning to take advantage of.

And then, the probes decided it was time to up the ante. They slipped their fingers effortlessly underneath the girls’ lab coats, and planted a fingertip into their underarms.

The laughter was instantaneous. Neither of them could fight it for a moment: the moment those long, sharp fingernails pressed into their ticklish underarms, both Kara and Zoe exploded into high-pitched shrieks that echoed throughout the room.

“DON’T TICKLE MEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEE!!!” squealed Kara, as she felt the first press into her tender hollows. She squirmed and twisted wildly to escape its touch, with her long, muscular legs kicking reflexively at empty air. She clutched the cable even tighter, trying to hold on, but what made it harder was knowing that her assailant was barely trying.

“PLEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAAASE NOT THEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHERRRE!!!” laughed Zoe, whose underarms were every bit as ticklish as her companion’s. Her legs pedaled the air in a mocking pantomime of running away, but her hyper-sensitive body remained just where it was to receive its punishment. Her chest quaked with laughter, and her firm, flawless tits bounced up and down in the exposed air.

And it appeared that the security probes were just getting started. They dug all of their fingers into the girls’ underarms, coaxing forth hysterical hoots and screams from the dangling intruders. The fingertips slowly walked up and down the smooth, flawless curvatures, leaving a bright pink mark at every spot where they pressed into the hopelessly sensitive flesh. Kara and Zoe screamed louder with every gentle prod, their knuckles turning white as they hung on to the cable for dear life.

“GET IT OFF!!! GET IT OFF!!! WOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” Zoe howled. Both girls tried desperately to shake off their ticklers, gyrating their ample hips and twisting their torsos left and right, their jiggling breasts following a half-second behind. But the flying probes were not deterred for a moment: with superhuman speed and precision, they matched every movement the girls made, ensuring that their mechanical fingers remained buried in ticklish girlflesh without a single interruption. Whatever the girls could do, the hands were always one step ahead.

Kara’s eyes flew open and she gave an unbroken, ear-piercing scream: the diabolical hands had just discovered what they could do by pressing into the soft spots in the exact centers of her underarms. She no longer cared about stealth or remaining undetected: all that mattered was the unbearable, mind-blowing tickling. It took all her strength to remain holding on to the cable, but even as she did, she wondered if she could let go and risk the fall. It was a long way to the ground, but almost anything would be better than hanging here helpless while these merciless hands tickle-tortured her senseless. As the thought crossed her mind, she felt her fingers slip.

“HAHAHAHAHANG ON!!! WAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” cried Zoe as she saw Kara’s grip start to give way. But she was barely hanging on herself.

As though sensing their resolve, however, the probes began to pick up the pace of their assault. Their fingernails slid more quickly up and down the ticklish hollows, one after the other, like a harpist playing the strings of her instrument. But the music they produced was the cacophony of hysterical laughter. Tears streamed down the girls’ faces as they fought for self-control.

“CAN’T—HOLD ON!!! WOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” screamed Kara; she felt her hands slipping as her strength ebbed away. Her fists loosened, and only her fingers hooked around the cable supported her. Every second felt like an eternity as the probes exploited her vulnerable position. The floor suddenly looked much farther away.

And then, as she looked at the floor, something appeared just above it. It was a safety net, drawn up as though explicitly to catch the two girls as they fell. But she could immediately see that this net was not benign. Its cords crackled with electricity: anyone who fell into it would be shocked into unconsciousness. Kara had seen these before, but mostly in net-guns designed to capture prey and stun them. Someone was expecting them.

“My, my,” said a voice from the darkness below. “Fashionably late as usual, I see.”

Kara gritted her teeth as white-hot fury overtook her. She knew that voice. It was a voice burned into her psyche with the fiery heat of an infernal, blazing sun.

She looked down, and a figure walked calmly out onto the floor below, her high heels echoing with each footstep. She wore a crimson silk kimono, decorated with ornate gold patterns that fluttered gently about her as she walked. It was cut high enough to reveal a shapely pair of calves, and fastened in front to reveal a plunging neckline and a copious amount of cleavage. The very edges of her breasts could be seen: without a bra, they bounced gently as she strode forwards. Behind her was a head of long, blonde hair, fastened with a jeweled barrette that held her hair back in a long ponytail falling to her waist. But above all, Kara noticed the face: proud, confident, manipulatively cruel, and seductively beautiful. It was Calysta.

Calysta walked onto the floor as she looked up at Kara and Zoe, laughing furiously as the probes tickled their underarms. “I’ve been expecting you for quite a while,” she said, her every word oozing self-satisfaction. “So pleased to see you could make it.”

Kara summoned up every last ounce of strength she had. She couldn’t be beaten by Calysta. Not this way. She would hold on…

But her body had other ideas. With every ticklish touch to her underarms, Kara’s laughter reached new heights, and she felt her fingers slip from the able ever so slightly. She looked down at Calysta, calmly surveying the two hanging girls as they laughed and struggled furiously. All Kara’s rage and contempt flew through the air like sparks, and she could almost believe that Calysta could feel the heat of her passionate rage like an arc of electricity. But for all her passion, she was powerless to stop the tickling: she felt her fingers slip away, further and further, until…

“WAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

At the same moment, both Kara and Zoe could take no more. The relentless assault on their underarms was too much to bear. Their heroic grip on the cable at last gave way, and both of them, in a torrent of laughter, plummeted through the air, screaming as they fell. For several terrifying seconds, there was only free-fall, and time seemed to stand still. And then, both of them hit the net beneath them. But there was no gentle landing in store for them. The moment their fall had been broken, a current of electricity from the net passed over them, and with a final cry both Kara and Zoe were instantly shocked into unconsciousness.
 
Chapter 6: Inner Sanctum



Kara slowly lifted her head as she shook off the foggy shroud of sleep. Before her eyes had even adjusted to the onslaught of light, the heady scent of incense and perfume assailed her senses. The gentle babbling of water nearby was one of the only sounds to be heard. Kara tried to move, but she was hardly surprised when she discovered she could not. She was shackled by her wrists to the wall behind her, although her lower body was strangely left unbound. Slowly and with trepidation, Kara opened her eyes to find herself in what appeared to be an enormous, lavish boudoir.

The walls of the massive room were covered with closets, wardrobes, and clothing racks, displaying a dazzling array of dresses, scarves, accessories, handbags, and above all, hundreds upon hundreds of shoes in every conceivable style. The sheer amount of clothing represented a queen’s ransom in high fashion, each article meticulously organized with a loving hand. Jewelry cabinets overflowed with gold, silver, and pearls. Beside these, expensively carved end-tables held porcelain vases, jeweled figurines, and lavish bowls of exotic fruit. The floors were bedecked in expensive carpets, except for one corner inlaid with pink tile that held a luxurious, bubbling hot-tub. Glittering crystal chandeliers hung from a ceiling which was neither wood nor metal, but a huge crystal dome that offered a full view of the cloudless sky above them. From above, any voyeuristic eye could look into the boudoir and see any salacious deeds taking place within. Kara knew where they were: they were on the top floor of the mansion, in Calysta’s personal penthouse.

“Ah, I see you’re awake,” pronounced Calysta as she lackadaisically slid a single ripe strawberry between her luscious lips. She lay, reclining like a goddess, upon a gargantuan four-poster canopied bed which would easily have fit six people. Delicate gauze curtains fell along the sides, and blood-red rose petals were scattered over the silken sheets. A pile of down pillows surrounded her as she looked at her two captives. In one hand, she held a nail polish applicator, which she used to calmly paint her fingernails a bright red. Beside her lay a small tablet computer.

“Just keep smiling, because the moment I get out of this, I’m going to kill you,” swore Zoe. She, too was naked and held dangling from wrist shackles on the wall alongside Kara. If possible, she looked even angrier.

“And this is the thanks I get for taking you under my wing,” said Calysta with mock disappointment. “I would have expected such hostility from your traveling-companion, Zoe, but after all I’ve done for you I would have hoped for some gratitude.”

“If you want to talk about gratitude, I noticed you didn’t even bother to send a hunter after me to rescue me after I got captured,” snarled Zoe in rejoinder.

“I did think about it,” said Calysta offhandedly, “but the nice thing about employees is that I can always hire a new one.”

“You stabbed us both in the back, Calysta,” growled Kara. “Both of us have a score to settle.”

“And so vengeance brought you here,” said Calysta, casually flipping back her hair. “Funny how that turned out.” It was true, Kara was forced to grudgingly admit to herself. Things had not turned out as expected.

“If it’s any consolation, though, you never had a chance,” continued Calysta with triumphant cockiness. “I’ve been waiting for you ever since your ship was shot down. I knew it would only be a matter of days until you got here, so I took it upon myself to prepare some…entertainment.”

Calysta entered a quick series of keystrokes onto her tablet computer, and a moment later, both Kara and Zoe involuntarily gasped aloud. The sensation of a soft touch covered their entire bodies, causing a chill to run down their spines and goosebumps to form on their exposed flesh. For an instant, it felt as though a hundred invisible hands had ever-so-gently brushed against their skin, with a lightness that caused them to quiver.

“You look surprised,” grinned Calysta from her bed. “But Kara, at least, should be familiar with my newest acquisition. While you were unconscious, I took the liberty of fitting both of you with a network of microchips based on the Infiltrator model. And I’m sure you remember that, don’t you, old partner?”

Kara said nothing. She only glared at Calysta, with loathing and terror fighting for dominance in her mind.

“Both of your bodies have been covered with several dozen chips in…strategic locations. Each of them emits a tiny, modulated electric current that simulates a feather’s touch. And with this tablet, I can not only control where you feel the sensations, but the intensity of the touch and even the technique. Truly a marvel of modern technology.” Calysta held the tablet in her hand as she looked hungrily at the two naked bodies of her captives, bound up for her pleasure.

“You—you won’t get away with this!” was the only thing Kara could think of to say.

“Tsk, is that the best you can do?” asked Calysta. “If you really can’t do better than to throw clichés at me, I think the time has come to end this pleasant conversation. And now, ladies, let me show you the first of many uses for this marvelous device.” And with that, Calysta entered a new series of commands onto her tablet, and a moment later, Kara and Zoe were plunged into hysteria.

“WAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Kara and Zoe exploded in instant hysterical laughter, their legs furiously kicking the empty air. Calysta watched with a cool, detached smile from her bed as they fought off their invisible ticklers.

“This setting, ladies, is feathers on the feet,” explained Calysta helpfully. “Oh my, I had expected some ticklish tootsies on you two, but this is better than I had hoped. And I do hope those big, pretty peds of yours are ready to be feathered.”

And it felt exactly like feathers torturing the ticklish bottoms of Kara and Zoe’s feet. First there were soft, wispy plumes that teased the tender skin with long, lazy brushes. Then they were joined by stiff feather-tips that traced excruciatingly precise patterns across their soles, stopping to focus on a tender spot every time the tablet told them to. The girls howled at the tops of their lungs, and although they kicked desperately, they could never escape the sensations for a moment: the invisible feathers moved with their feet, taunting their escape attempts.

“NOT THE FEEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEEETTTT!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” screamed Kara, bucking wildly in mid-air. Despite her pride, the tickling was far too intense for her to pretend to resist it.

“NO MOOOOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHORRREE!!! WOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” pleaded Zoe beside her. She, too, was desperate to end this nefarious foot-feathering, but their tormentor had other ideas.

“I’m glad you agree about this technology’s effectiveness,” smiled Calysta with casual cruelty. “Why, I can even make it do more than that. For example, this is what it would feel like if long, tickly feathers were sliding between your toes.” She entered a quick command onto her tablet, and then lay back and undid her hair, letting her long locks cascade onto the pillow as she watched the show.

The two girls screamed, wild-eyed with laughter and clawing the air with their immobilized hands as the hidden crevasses between their toes lit up with feathery sensations. Calysta giggled as she watched their long, nimble toes danced in a hundred different directions, slaves to her calculated manipulation. For Kara and Zoe, the tickling was unbearable; tears streamed down their cheeks as the feathery torment on their plush, sensitive feet drove them insane. This was not the random, organic tickling they had received at the hands of the plants outside. This was precise, mechanical, and merciless.

“I can only imagine what it must be like,” said Calysta, beaming serenely from her bed as she looked at the two faces contorted by hysterical laughter. “All that feathering on those big, luscious feet must be pure torture. And I’ll bet you’d do anything to make it stop, am I right?”

“YEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHESSS!!!” howled Kara; at that point, she would do anything.

“PLEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAAASSSEE!!!” laughed Zoe in agreement.

Calysta smiled with satisfaction, looking at the soles of her captives’ feet: inadvertently shown to her as they kicked the air. Not only were they temptingly smooth and perfect, they glowed bright pink from hyper-stimulation. For several minutes she drank in the enjoyable sights of these lovely soles. And then, for reasons of her own, she pressed a large red button in the lower corner of her tablet. In a second, all the tickling sensations on the girls’ feet died away. They hung in their bondage: exhausted, speechless, and panting for breath.

“I could have your feet tickled until you pass out,” said Calysta, delighted to so brazenly exert her power. “But there’s so much more that I want us to share. And I’m sure you wouldn’t want to cut short our time together, after spending so long to find me.”

“Go…go to hell,” panted Kara, barely regaining her powers of speech.

“Well, if you’ve recovered enough to make threats, I’d say we’re ready for some more fun,” replied Calysta. “Here’s one I’ve been looking forward to, and it should be especially familiar to you, Kara.” She gave an ominous smile, and entered a single command into her tablet.

The sensation only lasted for a second: a single feather-stroke, a quick, sharp shock on their bodies. But it made both of them gasp in fear as much as in ticklish reflex. It was something Kara had a special dread of, from years ago. Both she and Zoe had felt a single feather sliding along their bare, ticklish asses.

“No! Please!” blurted out Kara, in spite of herself. Oh god, she thought to herself, not there, not again…

Zoe remained silent, but there was no mistaking the look on her face. She was every bit as ticklish as Kara on that spot, and in every bit as much terrified anticipation.

“I knew this would strike a chord with you,” said Calysta mockingly. “Now, let’s see how you girls enjoy it for real.” And with no further hesitation, she turned it on once again.

“WAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!” Both Kara and Zoe instantly exploded into the mad, unbridled laughter of the nightmarishly ticklish. Few would have imagined that their firm, toned athletes’ builds held such a delicious secret; that their muscular, tempting buns were so unbearably sensitive to the touch. They were girls facing feathering on their most secret spot: a spot that they had prayed no one would ever discover again. And now that spot faced the worst kind of tickle torture imaginable.

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” asked Calysta coquettishly, enjoying the spectacle of the girls’ ordeal like a queen. “A single feather, sliding ever so gently between your luscious cheeks, caressing your supple skin with a maddeningly soft touch. So soft. So very ticklish.”

“OHHH NOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” howled Kara, her legs kicking in the air helplessly. It was terrible déjà vu: her recurring nightmares about that long-ago day brought to life once more. The feeling of a long, slender feather-tip slipping in between her supple cheeks to tickle the hidden inner recesses; it was more than she could bear. No movement or flexing of her muscles could protect her; it was as if a pair of lascivious hands had grasped the two jiggling hemispheres and spread them apart for a feather to wreak ticklish havoc between them.

“YEEEEEEAAAAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!!!” Beside her, Zoe could barely speak; she had never endured torture like this before in her life. Her exquisite asscheeks, the perfectly chiseled glory of her Amazonian form, had never been rendered so helpless before a feather’s kiss. Dangling from her shackles she danced like a marionette, trying hopelessly to escape the dread feathering of her ticklish buns.

“That’s it, laugh for me, girls,” intoned Calysta silkily. “Show me just how ticklish those juicy, delicious asses of yours are.” As her boudoir filled with wild, echoing laughter, Calysta stopped to pour herself a flute of champagne from a bottle in a golden ice-filled bucket. “But now,” she said as she took a sip, “Let’s see if we can’t make this even more…enjoyable.”

And with another command on her damnable tablet, Kara and Zoe felt a new sensation enter the fray. Soft feathers began caressing their enormous, heaving breasts: stroking the undersides, swirling in circles around the circumference, and spiraling slowly inward until they touched the sensitive areolas and ever-so-lightly teased the girls’ erect nipples, which grew instantly as hard as diamonds. It tickled furiously, but even though their insane laughter reached new heights, in spite of themselves both Kara and Zoe cried aloud with pleasure. The mind-bending torture mixed with sweet erogenous teasing, both of them unbearably overwhelming.

“OH GAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHADDD!!!” cried Kara as the feathery sensations covered her huge, jiggling spheres.

“NOT THE TITS!!! WOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” begged Zoe, wild-eyed with tears streaking her face. But despite her protestations, a voice within her prayed it would not end.

“Oh, how wonderful,” cooed Calysta, wiggling her toes sensually from her mattress. “I’m going to enjoy watching those lovely, ticklish titties bounce for me.”

The feathering was diabolically calibrated to be doubly torturous: not only did it tickle insanely, but teased their erogenous zones with such a light touch that it kept them always teetering on the precipice of pleasure, desperately wanting more. Both Kara and Zoe tore at their wrist shackles with a madwoman’s strength, but their aim was not to free themselves: more than anything they wanted to grab their breasts and massage them, rubbing them until they moaned with pleasure and one hand would slowly drop down between their legs to stimulate the growing desire…these images played tauntingly in their minds as they tried fruitlessly to free their hands, all the while slave to Calysta’s teasing caress. The growing heat between their legs begged to be touched. The frustration was too much to bear.

And Calysta knew precisely what they were thinking. Drops of wetness were forming between her captives’ legs, proof positive that her fiendish tortures were having their desired effect. “Do you want more, girls?” asked Calysta, licking her lips in wicked appreciation. Slowly, Calysta pierced the skin of an apple from her bedside, sliding her tongue into the moist aperture and licking the dripping juice with the tip of her tongue, allowing her captives to imagine the sweet mercy of release denied to them. “Allow me to grant your wish.”

And with a press of a button, Calysta unleashed the most devastating weapon in her arsenal of ticklish terror. It was a single microchip: painstakingly calibrated to be the ultimate in sensual torture. The moment it was turned on, the girls’ laughter turned instantly to an unbroken scream mixing lust, panic, and ticklish agony. They could feel now what they had feared above all else: a single feather was tracing its way between their legs, tickling the moist, swollen lips of their dripping pussies.

The sensation was beyond words. In an instant their bodies were on fire with arousal; their eyes rolled back in their heads with the sheer intensity. The tickling on their bodies subtly shifted to build their growing desire: the tickling on their asses became a gentle stimulation, and the feathering on their quaking breasts became a lover’s touch, causing their bodies to tremble with anticipation. Giggles mixed with moans as the girls felt themselves building up to climax: everything was now subservient to their ticklish arousal. They threw their heads back and laughed in sharp cries of deep, sexual longing, their powerful thigh muscles flexing as they tried to bring themselves over the edge. With their nipples fully erect and their throbbing sexes radiant with heat, they could feel it coming, like a dam seconds away from bursting in a torrential explosion…

And then, in unimaginable cruelty, the tickling shifted. The soft, arousing feathering of their labias stopped, just as they teetered on the very edge of sweet release. And in the same moment, the tickling returned to pure, mind-bending torture. Feathers once again danced in between their asscheeks, causing their moans and gasps to be replaced by insane shrieks of hysterical laughter. The feathering on their breasts was no longer a gentle aid to stimulation, but the cruel feather-strokes of a cunning torturess. And soon, there was more: soft feathers tickled their taut tummies, stroked the insides of their thighs, and brushed against the tender soles of their feet. Their ticklish bodies were spared no quarter in this new, relentless attack.

“NO!!! NOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” shrieked Kara, burning with unfulfilled desire. It was too much to bear: she had been so close, more than anything she wanted, she needed to climax. Nothing else mattered.

“PLEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAAASSE!!!” begged Zoe, alongside her. Droplets of moisture fell from her still-swollen lips as her body twisted and flailed from the tickle torture, praying for one more touch that would push her over the edge.

“That’s it, beg me, girls,” said Calysta with a wicked smile from her bed. “I control the torture you endure and the pleasure you feel. I control your bodies, and you are helpless except to feel what I want you to feel. And if I please it, I can keep you here for days, never reaching climax, begging me, promising me anything to let you cum.”

With those words, Calysta stood up from her plush bed, standing beside it with the tablet computer in her hand. She undid the sash on her kimono, and with a single slither of her body, she cast off the silk garment like an empty shell on the ground, leaving her completely nude in the soft light of the boudoir. She, too, had an impressive physique and flawless skin: the careful product of years of self-pampering. Carefully toned muscles ran throughout her slender form, but unlike her two captives, these were not the result of years of combat and life on the fringe of the law: these had been sculpted in the private luxury of a personal gym, filled with the toys of the very rich. Her long, blonde hair fluttered into a shower of gold that ran down her back without her barrette. And she had an undeniably exquisite pair of breasts, which like the rest of her body were perfectly shaped and without flaw. Confident in her nakedness, she gently sauntered over to her two captives, and entered a new command into the tablet.

Both Kara and Zoe, through the haze of ticklish insanity, could only expect a new kind of insidious torture as they saw Calysta play with her tablet once again. But the, in the next instant, both of them fell to the floor, landing on their stomachs on the floor. Their wrists were no longer shackled; the last command had detached them remotely from the wall. And now they lay at Calysta’s feet, writhing in ticklish torment, howling with laughter with their muscles turned to complete jelly, free but too weak to move.

“That’s right, both of you: grovel at my feet,” commanded Calysta, standing proud and tall over them. “I want to look down and see the helplessness in your eyes. I want to see the looks on your faces as you try to beg me for mercy. You came here so proud, but now look at you: weak, powerless, and desperate for the mercies I can bestow upon you. So you want me to grant you pleasure, my girls? Then first, I want to see you crawl over to me. Crawl to your mistress, girls, and kiss my feet.”

Kara looked up through tears of laughter at the towering figure of her most hated enemy. It was true: with the tickling draining every last ounce of her strength, she could barely drag herself across the floor. She could picture Calysta gloating over every inch she managed to pull herself towards those long, pampered feet, waiting for Kara to debase herself by kissing them. The thought of it filled her with rage, and even as her cheeks burned with shame she felt a desperate wave of strength flow through her body, fueled by rage at the mocking figure of Calysta above her. With this burst of adrenaline in her, instead of crawling, Kara launched herself at Calysta’s body.

Her leap only reached a few inches off the ground, connecting with Calysta’s legs, but it was enough. The overconfident Calysta, not expecting anything like this level of resistance from her tickle-exhausted prey, was knocked off her feet and onto her back. Kara knew she only had a moment to exploit this new advantage, and in a flash of insight, the answer came to her. With Calysta still on the floor, Kara knew what she had to do. She threw herself upon Calysta’s fallen body and embraced it in an enormous bear hug.

“YEEEAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” screamed Calysta, and Kara knew at once that she had been right. The microchips that covered her body emitted their tickling voltage in all directions, not only towards herself. For Calysta, touching them by being pressed against Kara was just as bad as having them on her own skin. Kara pressed her enormous breasts against Calysta’s, and instantly Calysta could feel exactly what her captive felt: soft, tickling feathers brushing against her unimaginably sensitive breasts. She was completely unprepared for the intensity of the sensations, and exploded into hysterical laughter.

“STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!!” screamed Calysta, struggling to free herself from Kara’s iron grip. The tablet computer flew from her nerveless hand, landing across the room and sliding underneath the bed.

“NEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEVER!!! WAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” howled Kara, as she tried with all her strength to hold onto her ticklish opponent. She wrapped her limber legs around Calysta’s midsection, and the microchips tickling Kara’s inner thighs imparted their maddening touch to Calysta’s ticklish sides and stomach. Kara reached her legs around Calysta’s waist to plant the soles of her feet onto Calysta’s asscheeks, and she felt them jiggle as they were stimulated by the tickling current.

But just as it looked as though Calysta might free herself, Zoe jumped into the fray. She grabbed Calysta’s lower body, facing towards her feet which Zoe pressed against her own stimulated breasts to tickle her captor’s soles. Planting her feet against Calysta’s inner thighs, she had her ex-employer’s legs entirely at her mercy, fighting even harder to tickle her as she herself howled with hysteria.

“YOU CAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHANN’T DOOHOOHOOHOOHOO THIS!!!” screamed Calysta, sandwiched between her two naked attackers. The three of them formed a twisted, intertwined mass of ticklish body parts, rolling across the floor as round breasts and buttocks pressed against supple thighs, taut stomachs, and soft feet. Three girls laughed at the tops of their lungs as their rippling, muscular bodies glistened with sweat, causing their skin to become slippery. But every time Calysta managed to free one ticklish body part from captivity, Kara and Zoe would twist their bodies to press it against themselves once again. It was a chaotic orgy of mechanized tickling, and with all three girls blinded by tears, none of them could even see where they were moving as they rolled across the massive room. But suddenly, the warm feel of the carpet beneath them gave way to the cold chill of ceramic tile. The three of them had only a second to register what this meant before all three of them tumbled with an enormous splash into Calysta’s personal hot tub.

It was a moment of pure chaos. Water erupted in an enormous geyser, spilling out in all directions as the girls fell into the tub. But beyond the heat of the water and the bubbling of the jets, the three girls were overwhelmed by a new sensation. The microchips that covered Kara and Zoe, complex as they were, still operated by the principle of electric current. And the instant they were immersed in water, all of the chips simultaneously shorted out. Like an electric appliance thrown into a pool, they discharged all their current into the water before shorting out entirely.

If the current had been stronger, it might have harmed them. But the chips functioned on such a low and specially modulated voltage that the girls felt no pain. Instead, it was a jolt of pure, unadulterated pleasure. All over their bodies, for one perfect second, they felt nothing but pure ecstasy in every nerve on their bodies. It was an indescribable experience: every inch of their bodies was an erogenous zone the likes of which they had never imagined was possible. For Calysta, the euphoric rapture was so powerful that her muscles went limp and her eyes rolled back in her head as she moaned aloud. But for Kara and Zoe, whose swollen sexes had been teased to the very precipice of orgasm, this jolt was more than enough to push them over the edge. Both of them cried out in pure bliss as they opened their legs and their bodies were wracked with the most intense orgasms either of them had ever experienced.

Time stood still for Kara and Zoe, and the air was pierced with their climactic screams as both of them arched their backs, their sweet juices flowing into the warm water like honey. Cumming again and again, they forgot their mission, the rivalry, their very selves in the unbearable pleasure of that eternal moment. Without thinking, Kara and Zoe fell into each other’ arms, holding their naked bodies close as they shared their own pleasure and devoured their partner’s. And as their orgasms finally reached their peaks, their bodies collapsed into a mutual embrace, and their lips pressed against each other, sealing their mouths in a long, lingering kiss that hung between them through the last moments of orgasm, and into the warm radiance of post-coital bliss.

And then, there was silence. For several long seconds, none of them dared to speak a word, so stunned were they by what they had just experienced. But it was Calysta who finally broke the silence.

“What—what—“ she managed weakly.

Her answer came not in the form of words. Both Kara and Zoe rose up from the waters, their former weakness gone. Their orgasmic experience had infused them with new strength and determination that even they had rarely known before. Water dripped from their hair and streamed down their naked bodies as they glared at Calysta, slowly approaching her in tandem. As a pair, they were terrible to behold, and even a woman as powerful as Calysta trembled to look upon these fearsome twin Amazons, hell-bent on retribution.

“S—stay back!” cautioned Calysta, but she was empty-handed and naked: all of her previous overconfidence was gone now that the playing field was level. She was afraid.

Neither Kara nor Zoe needed to say a word. Both of them lunged at Calysta, who tried desperately to run away. They grabbed her in mid-air, all three of them flying backwards until they landed on the plush, silk-and-velvet surface of Calysta’s four-poster bed. And without hesitation, they held down Calysta’s helpless body and unleashed a monumental tickling.

“OHHH NOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!!” screamed Calysta as twenty sharp, merciless fingernails exacted ticklish justice from her helpless body. Whatever she had felt before from the microchips was a mere prelude to the assault she was experiencing now. Greedy hands hungrily sunk their fingertips into her ticklish flesh, exacting the sweet sounds of hysterical laughter that the two girls had been dreaming of hearing since their adventure began.

Kara attacked Calysta’s upper body, squeezing her ribs and running her fingers up and down her sides, between quick scribbling assaults on Calysta’s ticklish underarms. As her fingers caused Calysta’s massive chest to quake with laughter, Kara reached down and sealed her lips around Calysta’s ticklish belly button, pressing her tongue into it and licking tight, moist circles around the sensitive target. She could feel Calysta’s stomach trembling with laughter beneath her lips, which made the taste of victory all the sweeter. She slurped up the sweet saltiness of the quivering flesh, and with every passing moment her pulse quickened and her hands tickled even more quickly and diabolically.

Zoe took control of Calysta’s lower body, pinning down her legs as she ran her fingertips from Calysta’s thighs, down to her knees, and down at last to her extremely ticklish feet. She attacked the soles with delighted precision: sliding up and down her arches, walking up her insteps and over the balls of her feet, and every second making note of the most sensitive spots and focusing her sharp fingernails on them with glee. As her fingers tormented the hypersensitive soles, Zoe bent down towards the dancing feet and plunged the writhing toes into her mouth one by one. She sucked on every ticklish toe like candy, wrapping her long tongue around them and letting it slither in between while Calysta howled with laughter. And when she had been through every toe, Zoe pressed her soft lips onto the soles of Calysta’s even softer feet and planted gentle kisses all over, leaving the faint impression of her lips with every kiss.

“WAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! OH PLEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAAASE!!! PLEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEAAASE!!!” cried Calysta, every ticklish spot on her body falling under attack. But her ticklers were in no mood to grant mercy. Neither of them said a word: their mouths were occupied with far more pleasurable matters. Tongues, lips, and fingers devoured Calysta’s ticklish body, and her pleas fell upon deaf ears.

As much as Calysta cried out hysterically for help, no one was there to hear her. Once queen of her own empire, she now lay deposed atop her own bed, drowning in tears as her ravenous ticklers exploited every soft spot on her perfumed body. The portraits she had commissioned of herself looked down at her mockingly from the walls, refusing to help her in her hour of need. Bejeweled statuettes and figurines looked at her silently through gemstone eyes, motionless on their pedestals. All her accumulated wealth counted for nothing, and she would have traded it all away to save herself from this hell.

“STAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAPPP!!! I’LL DOOHOOHOO ANYTHING!!! WAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Calysta begged, and as the words escaped her mouth she could feel her sanity slipping away.

“Mmmmmmmm…anything?” asked Kara huskily, lifting her mouth from Calysta’s ticklish belly button.

“Then we want you…” finished Zoe, between licking Calysta’s long, spry toes, “…to laugh.”

And their wish was definitely granted. Calysta was on the edge of madness; the girls had figured out how to play her body like a musical instrument. Through a combination of intuition and sheer lust for revenge, both Kara and Zoe knew precisely how to wreak havoc on Calysta’s insanely ticklish body. Zoe’s fingers slid smoothly down glistening, saliva-coated soles as she turned around now to lick Calysta’s inner thighs, introducing her to a whole new form of ticklish agony. Kara moved her mouth slowly upwards to tease Calysta’s enormous breasts, running her tongue around the periphery and in slow, tightening circles until her tongue teased the erect nipples, all the while jiggling from laughter.

But between the teasing of her sensitive breasts and silky inner thighs, something new was overwhelming her. She felt the heat rising between her legs: it was not in spite of her helplessness, but because of it. She was a slave to her body: she, who had always prided herself on being cold and detached, always in control. Now that control was finally wrested from her, her own body was betraying her with these feelings of forbidden pleasure buried within the torment. Her final scraps of consciousness tried to fight it, desperately trying to cling to her hatred, as though this would in some way preserve her being. But the resistance refused to hold. She felt the rising tide deep inside her: feelings that she had not felt for so long, that she had not permitted herself to feel. It was coming, and all she could do was abandon herself to it. She arched her back, throwing back a disheveled head of lustrous blonde hair, and summoned the strength to yell only,

“I’M—I’M—!!!!!”

And words became meaningless. Calysta’s supple form, so long denied, exploded in a massive orgasm the likes of which she had never known. The mistress was now the slave, and the result was sweeter than anything she could ever have dreamed of. Her juices flowed without end, flowing like a gushing river whose current was kept going by Kara and Zoe’s masterful tickling. And then, finally, her strength was spent, and the sensations were too much for her. In a final swoon, she collapsed backwards onto her bed with an expression of blank-faced awe, the cruelty and avarice purged from her at last. Her eyes fell shut into the deep, dreamless sleep of oblivion.

Slowly and silently, Kara and Zoe lay down upon the bed beside each other. And as the golden rays of the setting sun streamed in through the glass dome overhead, they held each other and drifted into blissful slumber.


Epilogue

“Are you sure I can’t talk you out of this?” asked Zoe from the landing bay floor.

“I’m afraid not,” said Kara, standing in the doorway of the entrance to her new spaceship. She had had at least twenty to choose from in Calysta’s personal collection, and had ended up going with the most low-key model she could find. It was black and sleekly designed: high-performance and stylish without being ostentatious. The fact that there were flames painted on the sides was something she was just going to have to live with for now.

“I’m just not ready to settle down just yet,” continued Kara. “The whole running an empire thing just isn’t for me. But of course, don’t let me stop you from giving it a try.”

“Well, someone’s got to handle all this money in Calysta’s absence,” grinned Zoe. “That’s the thing about running a criminal syndicate: when you go missing, no one bothers to look for you. I’ll be able to keep Calysta on a nice, short leash and no one will be the wiser. In fact, I’ve already got a private cell for her deep in the basement. Apparently this facility goes through a lot of test subjects to determine the effectiveness of new tickling plants. Personally, I think she’d be perfect for the job.”

Kara smirked back. “I’m sure she’d be delighted to know that she’s still contributing to the business in some small way.”

“So where will you go?” asked Zoe.

Kara shrugged. “To the nearest off-the-grid outpost, I suppose, where I’ll see if there are any bounty contracts out I can take. And from there, well, you just follow the work.”

“Maybe it’ll take you back to my neighborhood someday,” said Zoe.

Kara smiled warmly. “I’m sure it will.”

The launch bay doors opened as Kara stepped into her new ship, and shortly thereafter the thrusters roared to life and the ship hovered above the ground. With a professional’s touch, the ship was piloted out the launch bay doors and out into the open air. Zoe watched silently as the ship flew off into the distance, above the verdant green treetops of the planet, with its rolling hills and thick jungles, its dangers and its enticements. Zoe’s eye followed the ship wistfully as it flew into the bright azure sky above, until it vanished into the vast cosmos beyond. And she smiled.
 
Pretty much all of Kunzite's work is awesome. I can never pick my favorite Kunzite story — The Reservoir Key? The Breeding Grounds? City of Sororities? It's impossible for me. I love the weird, detailed worlds, the characters, etc. As far as "The Breeding Grounds" is concerned... we'll go with chapter 2 as my favorite section. That'll work for this week.

Don't know how active you still are on the TMF, Kunzite, but I hope to see some new fiction from you someday.
 
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