Pepper VS Temptation - Part 1

Story by zmeydros on SoFurry

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#22 of Persephone and Tritonia

As Pepper and Helja grow closer to each other, they form a cross-species bond that brings both of them much joy. But their visits are being kept short because Helja's repairs seem to be exhausting her more each time.

Making things worse, a bizarre NPO is growing exponentially, filling the base with a network of crystalline fibers. It has thwarted every attempt to contain it or arrest its growth and if they don't find a solution soon, the entire Repository will be lost in a matter of days.

Helja's solution to save herself and the Repository risks her existence being known and endangers Pepper's continued service in the POSC. These risks are heightened by the fact that the plan puts Pepper face to face with palpable temptation. To keep her standing and save the day, she's going to have to be patient, resist temptation, and collaborate with a secret admirer on Charlemagne's team. Wish her luck, she's gonna need it.

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Pepper VS Temptation - Part 1

~A Persephone and Tritonia Story~

(edited by Tiliquain and Secretskunk)

(Pepper VS Wordplay is a Prologue to this story)

>>>Pepper's Super-Secret Extraterrestrial Contact Diary<<<

*This Journal is classified Super Mega Double Black, or whatever gets you to absolutely not read this unless I'm dead.*

June 22nd: I brought Helja some aluminum cans and an old cell phone I'd been meaning to recycle. Then I did some research about how to get her some English to reference so she can learn how to sound less like an alien. I downloaded some stuff on Netflix and offered to let her keep my phone, but she asked me to put the Netflix shows on my jump drive and bring it next time.

June 23rd: Netflix doesn't want people putting their shows on jump drives. I couldn't even find the files, so I got Alphonse to help, not really explaining why I needed it done. Alphonse said I still needed Netflix to play the shows because he needed more time to crack the DRM, but I had a feeling Helja would have no trouble. I put a copy of the Netflix app on the drive too. When I gave her the drive and showed her a Wikipedia article on USB, she turned one of her claws into a USB port and downloaded all of Avatar The Last Airbender, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Chilling Tales of Sabrina. I asked her if the DRM was a problem and she asked me what DRM was and then concluded there was no DRM. (I think it was so easy for her to crack that she didn't even notice it was there.)

June 24th: I brought Helja some copper piping and solder I stole from the maintenance bay. While she munched on her alien android snacks, we chatted about the mountain of stuff she didn't understand in the Netflix shows. What struck me was when she taught me a shitload about music by giving me detailed reviews about each show's soundtrack. After that, I told her a story about eating ice cream on my dad's boat and she fell asleep in the middle of asking me a bunch of questions about ice cream.

June 26th: It was super hard to find her magnesium until I remembered Percy telling me about the breaching torches she used on tough locks she just wanted to bypass and how awesome thermite was. On a late night whim, I went to the diving equipment room and discovered we had some thermite torches in our diving equipment room. I laughed watching Helja tear open the end of the thermite torches and eat them like pixie sticks.

July 1st: I'm lucky we had borax for cleaning stuff in the lab because I doubt I could have found Helja boron otherwise. I still need to find her a cleaner source of aluminum, though, she doesn't like the paint on the aluminum cans. When I was leaving I thought I heard footsteps, but it could have just been my imagination.

July 4th: Haven't been able to visit Helja for the past few days because I had to go through my yearly dive training. Should be able to visit her tomorrow. I did manage to squirrel away some time to research how to get Helja more data on people using English and found out records of real people using language are called corpuses. But then I still had no idea what I was doing so emailed a linguistics professor at Washington State U to ask about getting some good corpuses that would be good examples of normal modern human speech.

July 10th: Helja has been very cuddly lately. I think she feels pretty crappy because she seems to get a lot out of being the little spoon. I've tried to talk with her about stuff other than what various things are made out of, but she's very determined to get a few different materials she needs. Her only other obsession has been asking me for information about Earth's music traditions and my favorite bands. This time, when I was leaving, I could have sworn I heard someone gasp and then try to dash quietly away. But I couldn't find any evidence I'd been watched. It seems the more I visit Helja, the more paranoid I get.

July 14th: Helja asked how humans display affection and deep thanks at the same time and I told her a kiss on the cheek often has that meaning. Then she kissed me on the cheek! AAAAH! I'm still smiling about it!

* * * * *

July 18th 2022,

Okay so, a lot happened today. I'm going to start doing more detailed entries, at least until things return to semi-normal.

Maybe they'll be like the short story I wrote that covers my initial meeting with Helja. I have no idea if anyone will ever see any of this. But at least it's written down? Don't look at me, I took "Creative Writing" as an elective.

ACK! Why am I talking to the person who I don't want to be reading this? :-/ It's just, I don't know how to write as if there's no audience. And writing to myself feels weird unless I'm a character in a movie that can write messages to her younger self or something.

My God, how much that would have helped young me. I would have sent something like:

To young me,

YOU ARE FLAMING BISEXUAL! Ask Becky out, already! Like, she's amazing in bed and you're gonna waste the first two years of high school not going out with her. And yes, her breasts really are that big.

URGH! I'm just gonna pretend someone other than me is gonna read this someday or I'll never get around to actually writing down what happened.

Ahem, Dear reader of this journal, I'm sorry I'm not sorry about my flamboyant lesbian tendencies and penchant to get overexcited about everything...

Speaking of flamboyant lesbian tendencies, Charlie (my hung horse-girl GF) was amazing when I got back to her room after meeting Helja. Like, we started off trying to cuddle and settle in to sleep, but then she started getting hard against my back. She's got very little control over her whinnies and I find that hot as fuck.

I turned to face her and had her fuck my front while I sucked and lapped at the broad head of her horsecock. I somehow managed to swallow her humongous load, saving us from having to change the sheets, so double yay!

Think that's strange? Well, Percy (my hung shark-girl GF) is a hermaphrodite like Charlie, but has two prehensile cocks! Charlie's too big to fit in me, but Percy? I'd let her fuck me all day and night if I didn't have other stuff to keep me preoccupied. There's nothing quite as fantastic as getting a cock or two shoved in me. Though, seeing how much she loves giving me dick has brought back my adolescent obsession with trying to imagine what it felt like to be on the other end of the fucking. I can't help but wonder if sticking a dick in someone feels as good as getting dicked...

Okay, that's enough of my lewd rambling, I need to tell you all the crazy shit that happened today.

* * * * *

Percy's cocks were slipping free of my pussy, both of us feeling a bit lazy from having a big breakfast. Just as Percy and I were getting off her bed and using our pajamas to wipe up some of our mess so it didn't drip on the floor, a klaxon went off that was three squeak-beeps repeated every five seconds.

While Percy and I looked at each other, bewildered, the librarian's voice came over the intercom. "Containment Breach in Section A493."

"Please be more specific," Charlie broadcasted over the intercom.

"An NPO breached containment twenty-eight seconds ago and is located in Section A493."

"No, I mean, be more specific about the NPO that breached containment. Is it safe for us to enter section A493?"

I smiled from hearing Charlie struggle with the Librarian. At least I wasn't the only one!

The Librarian paused. Her low growl-laced voice came back a few seconds later. "The NPO is forming an exponentially expanding network of tubules. I have no further information, but I believe it is safe to enter section A493. Other than significant electrical activity inside the tubules, I am detecting no emissions from the NPO."

That sounded really bad.

"Gillon, gather a small team and investigate the containment breach," Charlie said.

"Wilco and out, madam." Gillon said over the intercom.

Percy said, "Huh, I kinda want to go see what the Librarian's talking about."

"Ehh, shit happens all the time when you're in the military. My advice is to only get involved if your CO asks you to. Otherwise, you'll work yourself to exhaustion," I said. The number of things I'd had to put out of my mind so I could enjoy myself over the years numbered in the hundreds.

"Charlie did say she expects us to make full use of our days off. I guess I'll just hop in the shower and try to forget about it for now." Percy's pricks were almost back in their slit.

I gave her a kiss on the side of her shark muzzle and groped her sizable balls one last time before smacking her ass and saying, "Yeah, you better, otherwise I'll end up pestering you for another shark ride."

"I don't doubt that one bit." She chuckled as she walked over and stepped into the shower.

The showers in the habitat were pretty small, making it a bit awkward for two people unless they were being lewd. That was a good thing this particular morning, because Percy wouldn't see the bizarre research I was doing on my laptop. Helja needed high-purity aluminum without a bunch of coatings on it and I was trying to figure out if we had anything on the base that people wouldn't miss that was made of it.

Not helping me focus was Percy's energetic humming of a bluegrass song she'd had stuck in her head for days. And the fact that her cum was dripping into my panties. I really should have thought more about letting her shower first.

Anyway, I was getting nowhere because anything structural was made out of aluminum alloys and that's all I could think of. On a whim, I looked up aluminum foil, thinking there was no way it actually fit the bill. I grinned when I found out that it wasn't an alloy and was relatively pure.

The professor I emailed had gotten back to me with an apology about being on a summer camping trip to Oregon and links to a few corpuses. He also asked me if I was doing computational linguistics and needed large datasets. I replied telling him I did. Then I downloaded all the corpuses he linked to and put them on the jump drive.

Instead of continuing to wait for Percy to stop her vertical swimming or whatever was taking so long in the shower, I put a cotton pad in my panties to catch Percy's cum and then put on my running outfit. I didn't like running all that much, but it was a way to not feel stir crazy in the undersea confines we all lived in and it helped me learn my way around the repository. It would've been way more fun if we had bicycles, however. Instead of just going for a run, I decided I'd look for Gillon along the way so I could suggest that we get some bikes.

I started off my run by giving the obelisk in the center of the Repository's main entrance the middle finger. Even though I wasn't sure whether Librarian had eyes, it made me feel a bit better. Then I took a moment to marvel at the glittery silver striping in the greenish-beige ceramic of the Repository's ceilings, walls, and floor even though I'd seen it many times now.

The bulkhead door four to the left of Helja's was already open, so I ran through it. The wide cylindrical corridor was lined with human-made bulkhead doors and forked a hundred yards ahead of me. I took the left fork toward the sound of Gillon's proper British diction. As I got closer, I heard Gillon's British accent loud and clear. I took a right at the next fork and found him, Tsubumi, Alphonse, and Abrams in front of what looked like a combination of crystalline slime mold and a 3D spider's web that was filling the whole corridor. It was beautiful, creating a prismatic kaleidoscope of color out of all the light that passed through it.

Abrams had a thin ceramic rod that had a square cross section in one of his big strong hands, Tsubumi had a hacksaw in her slender hands, and Alphonse had a metal file in one of his scrawny hands.

Because of Gillon's fancy butler good looks, the sledgehammer he was holding was completely out of place in his hands. He was watching Abrams try to score one of the crystal branches with a corner of the ceramic rod. Abrams had thick leather gloves on and was being meticulous. The rod made a shrill grinding squeak as it was drawn back and forth across the thin crystalline branch a few times. Then his glove brushed against a nearby crystal branch which yielded to his glove, becoming like a thick liquid for a brief second. Then his glove was stuck in it.

"What the?!" Abrams said as the ceramic rod fell out of his hand.

Pulling his hand out of the glove, Abrams tried to grab the rod out of the air. But his hand accidentally passed through a couple branches of the crystal and he yelped in pain.

As Abrams jumped and pulled his hand away, the crystal returned to its hardened state and the ceramic rod shattered on the floor.

Rubbing his hand, Abrams said, "That was way worse than touching a live AC line."

Gillon grabbed Abram's hand and examined it. "No obvious tissue damage. It must have been more like a taser than a power line."

"Why did it just let his hand pass through, but hang on to the glove?" Tsubumi asked.

Alphonse shrugged. "Maybe it's sadistic and wanted to shock him?"

"Or maybe it was protecting itself?" Gillon said.

"Yeah, I'm just mad," Alphonse said.

"Abrams, please get your hand checked at the infirmary to make sure there's no damage. Then retrieve the die grinder and the portable compressor. Tsubumi, I want you to accompany him and bring the hydraulic metal shears. Alphonse, get a stopwatch up on your phone and use it to time the speed that the mesh regenerates nicks from the diamond file."

I didn't bring up my bike idea because they looked like an aggressive bike disassembly gang. Instead, I asked, "I take it that's the NPO that breached containment isn't phased by a sledgehammer?"

I did a double-take and nearly missed what Gillon said when I noticed that a branching tendril of the crystalline webwork nearest me was an inch longer than before.

Gillon turned one of the faces of the sledgehammer toward me, showing me the numerous dents and missing chunks. "It's bloody resilient, I'll give it that, but we still have some tricks up our sleeves."

Tsubumi said, "Hey Pepper!" and gave me a fist bump, still holding the hacksaw in her other hand. She was the only other person on base as informal as me. It was so nice.

"Hey!" I said, exploding the fist bump before turning my attention to Gillon, I asking, "Is there anything I can do?" The bit of the crystalline thing that was growing forked, making two new branches.

Abrams pulled the remains of his leather glove off as he said, "Don't worry yourself on your day off, we got this."

Alphonse ran a hand over his manicured curly black hair as he spoke. The touch of a French accent in his voice was really pretty. "The only part that worries me is that it's growing pretty quickly and it can heal--"

"Let's not trouble her with this," Gillon said as I noticed a bunch of tendrils had forked along with the one I was watching. There were a couple branches that were getting closer and closer to the wall to my right.

Alphonse nodded, "Right! We should probably get back to work. Have fun and don't forget the Stargate SG-1 marathon on Friday. Charlie's gonna let me use the projector in the wardroom."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," I said. Some of the branches that had been near the wall were now touching it.

"See you there!" Boom called after me as I went back to my run.

I spent the rest of the day waiting until I could slip in to talk to Helja again. That time came when Persephone and Charlemagne invited me to watch a movie and I passed on it.

As they started their movie night, I sent Gillon a note that we were out of aluminum foil. Then I went to the spare quarters that we used as a mess, tip-toeing like a jewel thief in a cartoon. I grimaced as I opened the drawer containing the foil, even though there was no one around to hear the slight creak it made. Grabbing both boxes of foil, I left the room and shut the door behind me, still walking overly carefully.

Septimus's "Pepper?" from behind me got me to shriek and drop one of the boxes.

Helja had picked the absolute worst person to harvest materials for her repairs.

"Y-yes?" I turned back to look at him.

"Are you okay?" His mouse ears were drooping in concern.

"Yep! Fine!" I said as I set the other box on the floor and took off my backpack, wanting to get those boxes out of sight before anyone thought too hard about them.

Percy popped her head out of Charlemagne's room. "Everything okay?" She was hiding behind the door, very likely completely naked.

She and Charlie rarely could settle down for a movie before they got off. Being totally honest, I was the same. Sometimes I even thought my libido was higher than theirs. They often went a day without getting off, but I'd been masturbating twice daily since high school.

Putting the aluminum foil in my backpack and zipping it, I said, "Just got a little spooked, I'm fine."

"Ahh, okay. See you later, love!" Percy said.

"Later!" I said.

She shut and secured the bulkhead door.

"Pepper, about those tests I wanted to run, would Wednesday afternoon be a good time?" Septimus asked.

"Absolutely," I smiled at him. He was so cute! I couldn't get over his mouse ears or whiskers or the bit of extra size in his front teeth. It always took me some effort to remember he self-identified as a misanthrope.

"Sorry for frightening you," he said.

"Was just on edge. It's fine. Though, I wonder why you don't schedule stuff through ?"

He shrugged. "It's hard enough for me to find reasons to talk to people, so I try to introduce topics in person and then do the reminders through email. Plus, the way someone answers questions about scheduling things tells me how much work I'm going to have to put into reminding them."

"Huh, so if someone seems bored, you think it's gonna take more effort to get them to follow through?" I tilted my head.

He nodded. "The more information I can glean from an interaction, the less interaction is needed overall."

"Min maxing how to spend as little time with people as possible," I said. "You're something else, Sep."

"Says the woman who was sneaking around with rolls of aluminum foil like they're top secret blueprints." The edges of his lips curved upwards as his whiskers twitched. "You're quite amusing."

Trying to make sure he didn't ask about why I had the foil in the first place, I followed his lead. "Is that why you talk to me more than most of the others?"

His right ear flicked as he suddenly broke eye contact. "I suppose it is." The end of his mouse tail curled as he turned toward his room and said, "Have a good night, Pepper."

"You too," I said.

Now that I thought about it, Septimus really did treat me differently. I'd even seen him get the hint of a smile whenever he talked to me. It rarely happened with others. Maybe it's because I didn't try to offer him a silver lining whenever he said something depressing? Whenever my cousin was going through a mental rough patch, it always worked better to just be a good listener and not constantly offer reasons to feel better.

Someday, I hoped Septimus would tell me what had given him such a grim view of humanity, but right now I had to get to Helja without being seen.

I went through the bulkhead door and straight through the giant door that led to her chamber. It was so freaking distracting in there with all those knickknacks on shelves constructed out of knickknacks that I often forgot what I was doing the moment I got in there.

Because I was nervous about getting caught and distracted, I jumped and screamed when Helja called my name. After a moment of hesitation, she hugged me to help me calm down.

My meeting with her was a bit rushed. Though, I did take time to stare at her satisfyingly-large balls and that big thick dragonish-roo tail while she ate aluminum foil like fruit roll-ups. I grimaced a bit, unable to stop imagining that the sharp metal edges were going to cut the inside of her mouth. Magically, they didn't.

Besides eating aluminum foil and lithium-ion batteries, and the few obvious injuries that were slowly healing, I was pretty jealous of her. Big balls, a cock, and a nice thick tail had to be better than being a boring female human. Until I got her healthy again, I wasn't going to revisit her offer to change me. I didn't want her to do anything that would put stress on her system. Also, if the proper paperwork wasn't completed first, it would probably get me kicked out of the POSC.

Just as I was about to leave, Helja lightly ran her fingers over the side of my upper right arm.

The touch was so gentle, so patient, that I asked, "Do you need a hug?"

To answer my question, she just pulled me into her arms, pressing her nice round breasts, balls, and sheath against my front. She probably didn't realize hugging people while naked was awkward.

Lucky for me, I didn't find it awkward, I found it kinda hot. Especially if a herm was doing the hugging. I bit my lip as I rested my chin on the soft fur of her shoulder. She squeezed me a bit tighter than was comfortable, but when I made a little groan of pain, she let up some. After she wrapped her tail around us, the hug went on for a good few minutes. I really liked the way she felt and how unafraid of contact she was. I was lost in it all, just feeling her inhumanly slow breathing as she idly ran the underside of her muzzle along my collarbone.

This was starting to feel like a goodbye hug. Like that hug I got from my grandma before she went in for surgery on her single working kidney. I put that out of my mind, thinking I was reading too much into things assuming Helja was just lonely.

I gave her a squeeze. "You're so cuddly." We'd spent a lot of time hugging and cuddling since I met her and I couldn't get enough of it.

"I'm assuming that means I enjoy physical closeness?" she asked.

"Yep! When you get into that USB drive, I hope you'll get more of a handle on English words and sayings." I let her go. "I gotta get back before people suspect me."

She reluctantly released me and then took a couple steps backwards before laying on her bed.

My heart hurt from how exhausted she looked as she got herself comfortable. "Are you okay?"

Looking up at me, she said, "The repairs I made have caused strange byproducts which are damaging my secondary power distribution network and other critical systems. I need three hundred and ten grams of porous carbon, thirty grams of graphite and trace amounts of elements seventy-six and forty-four along with as many elements from their associated group as you can procure. They will be hard to find, but they are often alloyed together and I have already planned for separating them out."

"That sounds bad, are you going to be okay?" I asked as my fear that she'd just given me a goodbye hug returned.

"If I get those materials within the next few days, I may survive. The source of the damaging byproducts is unknown, so I lack certainty." She gave me a reassuring smile. "Do not blame yourself if my life ends. You have given me hope that I may survive and I have lived in hibernation hundreds of years without it."

My heart ached as I ran over to her and dove onto the bed. I hugged her against me. "Please, please hang in there. I'll get you what you need, okay?"

She brushed her muzzle on my cheek and then licked my ear as she took me into her arms. "Do not panic-become desperate. If my end becomes imminent, I will download data onto the drive that you and your team may find helpful. It is important your species survives the Heretics. All else is secondary."

Pulling out of the embrace a bit so I could look her in the eye, I said, "I understand, but you better not die on me. I expect you to fight as hard to stay alive as I do getting you what you need, okay?"

"Yes, I expect the same of myself." She let me go and then smiled. "I am very pleased you care about me, but you mentioned needing to leave several minutes ago."

"Oh, right." I hopped off the bed and said, "No dying!" before heading out the door fast enough she didn't have time to back out of it.

Just as I slid out from under the door, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I touched the black disk key thing to the sensor on the door to get it to start closing. Then I walked over to where I saw the movement and found the bulkhead door just to the left of Helja's door open. Whoever had gone through it, had been in such a hurry they hadn't secured it.

Looking down the long, curving hallway beyond, I couldn't see anyone and none of the bulkhead doors were ajar. This wasn't the hallway that led to that webby thing. That was on the opposite side. So this person wasn't just headed to go help with that. They'd been here for some other reason. A chill ran down my spine: my paranoia hadn't been unfounded. There was a good chance someone had seen me come out. And they didn't want me to know that they'd seen me.

END OF PART 1

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