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Pepper VS Temptation - Part 2

~A Persephone and Tritonia Story~

(edited by Tiliquain and Secretskunk)

July 19th 2022,

Even though I told myself I'd leave the whole deranged crystal network thing alone, my feet carried me in that direction during my morning run. Charlemagne and Septimus were watching Gillon, Tsubumi, Abrams, and Alphonse don PIKL units. The NPO was like a crystalline weed and was now blocking two corridors requiring us to take the long way if we wanted to get to the areas behind it. Light was refracting through thousands upon thousands of its branches creating a dazzling spectrum of hues, as if all the world's rainbows had been trapped in it.

As Tsubumi helped Alphonse get the heavy battery backpack on, Septimus handed me earplugs and a pair of laser safety glasses. "You better put these on, we're about to start."

"Will lasers even work on something like this?" I asked.

"Yes, we already tried one unit and it did some damage," he said loudly. Earplugs tended to make people yell. I found it amusing.

"Cool," I said, putting on my glasses and earplugs. Watching the PIKL units blow shit up was always a treat and I couldn't help but grin.

Charlie helped Septimus get his PIKL backpack battery on as she said, "This better work or I'm gonna owe Gillon a bottle of scotch."

"I'm thinking I'll ask for a bottle of Naadura," Gillon said as Charlemagne got her PIKL unit on.

A frustrated sputter came from Charlemagne's equine muzzle. "You cheeky bastard."

"I'm planning to share, dear. I'm not a monster, I just have expensive tastes," Gillon said.

I stared at Charlemagne's hefty bulge as she interacted with Gillon, getting twinges of desire in my crotch. My pussy was such a size queen that it lusted the most for things I knew wouldn't fit.

"Everyone, power up your PIKLs," Charlie said as she flipped a shrouded switch on the PIKL's emitter, which looked like the offspring of a camcorder and a rifle.

They all did the same as my heart quickened its pace.

"Aim at the center of the lower right quadrant of the corridor directly ahead of me." Charlie aimed her laser rifle.

"FIRE!" Charlie barked.

Popping sounds somewhere between a gunshot and the sound of grapes in the microwave rattled my eardrums. Bright flashes from the exploding plasma the lasers were creating made it hard for me to watch the action. It looked a bit like those fireworks that go off in groups adding a bunch of big blinding bangs. Some of the explosions were near the front of the crystalline mass, but a lot of them were deeper in, wherever a laser pulse hit one of the branches. It was so loud that I was worried my ears would get damaged, even with the earplugs in.

We were far enough away that the bits of crystal they were blasting off weren't hitting us. As the seconds marched on, I grew more and more sure that it was working, that they were going to actually burn a path through it.

A few minutes later, Charlie held up a closed fist and said, "Cease fire!"

Charlie took off her laser glasses while Gillon walked up to the area we'd been shooting at. He turned around and said, "Looks like I won the bet," with a flat expression on his face. The joy about getting an expensive bottle of scotch was absent.

"Damn it!" Charlemagne said.

My heart sank as I got up closer to the area they'd tried to clear. They'd managed to blow a lot of holes in the crystal cobweb, but the gaps they'd made were just getting healed by the crystals growing toward each other from either end of the gap. Due to the intricate lacework the crystals made, it was gonna take dozens of people shooting at this stuff for an hour to temporarily clear a path.

As everyone started talking about the next possible solution, all I could think about was Helja. Surely she could help with something like this. She was a whiz at materials science, after all. Hoping the pain Abrams had felt only applied to when the crystals were part of the webwork, I touched one of the crystal shards we'd managed to knock loose. It had the cool touch of glass and when I picked it up, I found it was as light as a hard plastic.

After getting several of those shards discreetly in my pocket, I tried to get Charlie's attention.

She was talking with Gillon and Septimus, saying, "Wouldn't using that shield just delay the inevitable?"

"We're out of ideas, so I think our best option is to buy some time," Gillon said.

Septimus nodded. "If we come up with something better before the shield array is set up, we can just switch to that instead."

"Fine, get Tritonia and Kirkii to help with the emitter placement geometry," Charlie said.

"Better them than me, I'd rather get jettisoned than touch algebraic topology again," Septimus said.

"Did it leave a bad taste in your mouth?" Gillon asked.

"I know very little about that field and thinking about it makes me dizzy." Septimus started walking away.

Charlemagne said, "I'll look through our NPO registry to see if I can find us another option."

"Sounds good," Gillon said.

As Charlie walked away, I followed her, saying, "What would be your procedure if we discovered an alien that we could communicate with? One that might be able to help us?"

"Pepper, please not now." Charlemagne let out an exasperated groan. "Just thinking about the paperwork and all the meetings I'd have to attend is enough to give me a headache and I already got one headache to deal with today."

And with that, Charlemagne had completely cured me of wanting to talk to her about Helja. "Sorry, I know that was random, we can chat about stuff like that later. Just trying to understand POSC procedures and such."

Ahead of us, Septimus had stopped in his tracks.

"I appreciate you trying to learn the correct procedures for things, but so many of the questions you ask are about scenarios that have zero probability of happening," Charlie said.

"Sorry, I guess I get a little carried away at times," I said.

"Your creativity is an asset, even if I don't always know what to do with it." She turned back toward the rest of her team. "Talk to you later."

"Yep! See you!" I said.

Septimus had started walking again.

I followed him, waiting until we were out of earshot of the others. "You seemed pretty interested in our conversation."

"I was," he said.

"Is there a reason?" I asked, feeling like we were in a game of cat and mouse, pun intended.

"Let's talk in my lab," he said. The fact that we both had something on each other was adding electricity to the air and some tension to my shoulders.

As we walked toward his lab, I marveled at the hint of pink in his light brown fur and the way his ears flicked in the lazy air currents of the well-lit hallway. He was a couple inches shorter than me, which only made him cuter. And I couldn't get over how attractive his wide hips and nice round ass were. I had no expectation that I'd ever be able to do more than admire him from a distance, but that admiration wasn't pointless. Finding things I liked about people made it far easier to forgive them when they got on my nerves.

Septimus's lab smelled really clean with hints of cherry and vanilla extract. It was full of micropipettes, machines with tinted glass tops and fronts hiding tiny tubes that looked a bit like wires, shelves full of vial containers that came in every color in the spectrum, test tubes in racks, and shiny black-topped tables holding shelves and cabinets with easy-access outlets on the front.

After Septimus closed the lab's bulkhead door, he said, "Verbal games tire me quickly, so I don't play them. You can either tell me about the alien you found behind the center door in the entryway that you're giving raw materials to, or you can not tell me and I'll keep your secret a little while longer."

"Define alien," I said, realizing I was no better than the Librarian.

"So you're not going to tell me, okay. I guess I won't help you procure more materials." He walked to the door and opened it. "See you later."

Next time I had to talk to the Librarian, I was bringing Septimus along. I grabbed the door and closed it, saying, "Why would you want to help me?"

"I think you're a good judge of character and I'm willing to trust a random alien more than a random human." He shrugged. "Plus, you don't seem indoctrinated or injured, so I'm confident this synthetic alien creature isn't harmful."

"Why are you so convinced I've found an alien?" I asked, stretching my neck to try and relieve some of the tension this conversation was putting in it.

"Your question to Charlemagne a few minutes ago and your behavior over the last few weeks."

I crossed my arms. "Just how long have you been spying on me?"

His ears pinkened in a blush as he held his paw-like hands in front of himself. "Sorry, I've only been doing it for a few weeks. I was curious about your bizarre secretive behavior. You are not the sort of person I'd expect that from."

"Why didn't you confront me earlier?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. I wanted to know what was going on and also not upset you."

"You don't seem to have a problem upsetting other people, why do you care about upsetting me?"

His blush was worsening with every sentence he spoke. "I, uh, don't know. You are far less irritating than the others."

"That's sweet, I don't find you irritating either."

His whiskers twitched. "R-really? Even considering the fact I spied on you?"

My chest, neck, and shoulders were tight. I knew I'd have to talk about Helja and that stalling wasn't getting me anywhere. I carefully took one of his paw-hands in mine, seeing if I could calm his nerves. "Really."

He smiled and gave my hand a squeeze. "I'm so glad."

It was like he was a different person...oh crap he was blushing, bashful, and deeply concerned what I thought of him. And I was feeling some of those same things. What a bizarre time for us to figure out we liked each other.

Letting go of his hand, I changed the subject. "The alien's name is Helja and she looks like an anthropomorphic kangaroo dragon with tiger stripes. When I first saw her, she had a lot of gashes and bits missing, but she's been repairing herself with the stuff I've brought her and she's starting to look better."

"Is it hard to communicate with her?" He asked, grabbing his tablet from his desk.

"No, she speaks English pretty well," I said.

"What's she like? Her personality and such?"

"She's incredibly curious, loves to cuddle while chatting, is very careful about what she says and how she says it while still trying to be as honest as possible, and she doesn't seem to understand the concept of wearing clothes and just goes around with her huge balls hanging out for all to see." I blushed, realizing I'd just blurted stuff out without thinking.

"Excuse me, balls? She has humanoid genitalia?" He asked with one ear up and the other down. The slight tilt to his head made it clear he didn't understand why an alien would just randomly be sexually compatible with humans.

"Yeah, she has both sets." My body was heating up. Why did thinking about her bits make me so horny?

Septimus's nose was twitched as he sniffed the air. He took a note before asking, "Are you attracted to her?"

"Next question," I said, blushing deeper. My snatch was getting moist. Knowing he was interested in me and the fact that I couldn't stop thinking about Helja's balls was driving me wild.

"Alright, have you copulated with Helja?"

"Not yet." I put my hands over my mouth and nearly died of embarrassment before saying, "I didn't mean--I don't plan to--ugh! You know what I mean."

"It's completely okay if you are attracted to her. A kangaroo dragon sounds like a rather pleasing aesthetic mixture and exotic individuals tend to excite people." He had a soft smile. I think the idea of a human and an alien getting up to shenanigans warmed his heart.

This made me heat up more. "Fine, I am attracted to her, okay?"

He took some notes, still smiling a bit at the edges of his lips. "Hmm, I imagine she's very charismatic and affectionate, then."

"Yeah, she really is," I said. "I think everyone on base would enjoy meeting her, but that would lead to lots of paperwork and she doesn't have time for that. She needs help now."

"Raw materials?"

"Yeah." I pulled out my phone and opened the list of things Helja asked for last time we were together. Then I remembered how unsure she was about her own survival and frowned. I handed him the list, saying, "Yesterday she told me she's sick due to some problems caused by her own repairs and we're both worried about her health."

"That's concerning." He frowned as he continued taking notes. "What sorts of problems?"

"She said unexpected byproducts from repairing herself."

"Porous carbon? I think she means activated carbon and wants to try and filter the byproducts out. Not as sure why she needs the other stuff on this list, but they're generally useful materials. I have activated carbon and we can get graphite from zinc-carbon batteries." He thought for a moment as his whiskers twitched adorably. "And I actually have trace amounts of platinum series metals including ruthenium and osmium."

"What? You can get her everything on that list?"

Nodding excitedly, he said, "I was stumped on the platinum series metals until I realized I had a fountain pen collection."

"A fountain pen collection?"

"Ruthenium and Osmium are both very resistant to abrasion and were used to keep fountain pen nibs from degrading. When this base was inhabited in the forties, everyone was using fountain pens and I've been collecting every one I can find. Previous teams left a lot of junk here. I have a collection of vacuum tubes, too." As he spoke, he went through drawers in his lab until he found a large container of activated carbon.

"So, you're just going to give all this to me?" I asked.

"If you agree to introduce me to the alien, yes," he said.

"I'm not sure when would be good to do that. It's risky for me to visit her already."

He pulled some large cylindrical batteries out of a bottom drawer. "Unless you promise to let me meet her, I can't help you. I've wanted to meet aliens since I was five years old and I've wished I was an alien since puberty. Maybe she won't like me, but I want another option than befriending more humans."

"Do you hate humans?"

"No, hating something takes way too much energy. I just prefer not to deal with most humans if I can avoid it. Everyone treats me like an outsider and I'm sick to death of it. I've spent my entire life trying to learn to communicate with them, but they never took the time to learn to communicate with me. Neurotypicals want everyone else to conform to their cultural norms rather than put effort into changing their own patterns."

"I don't feel like you're an outsider."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean you." He turned to face me, his apologetic smile twisted by a flurry of emotion. "I'm so bad at this."

"You look overwhelmed. Do you want a hug?" I asked, opening my arms.

He hugged me tight, staying silent for a while before saying, "This is nice, but what I want most is to meet Helja."

"I'll do my best to make that happen." I hugged him back. "I don't know what your story is, but I am here, Septimus. And you can be as emotional as you want around me." It was something I'd said before to my cousin, something I meant every word of.

"Thank you, you're actually the first person I've hugged in over a year," he said.

"Whoa, I couldn't even survive that long without a hug." I held him tighter. His chest was soft under his lab coat, softer than most men I'd hugged. It was really nice.

I felt his nose twitch against my collar bone as he sniffed me. "This is really strange, I normally don't like being touched."

"Ahh, I've heard some people are like that. I'm glad you don't mind me touching you because you're a good hugger," I said.

He dug his little claws into my back as he kneaded my flesh a bit and rubbed his whiskers against the nape of my neck. "Mmm, Pepper, I am so glad you're here."

"Me too," I said, resting my chin on the top of his furry head.

"I'll get the rest of the materials you need and you can deliver them to Helja. I'm guessing you want to have her help with the crystal network?" he asked, reluctantly pulling out of the hug.

"Yeah, I'm worried that this isn't something we can solve without her."

"I feel the same. Her knowledge about the Repository and its contents likely goes well beyond ours," he said as he opened his bottom desk drawer and reached into the back of it.

"Probably, she's just not going out of her way to advertise that fact. She's opening up as I get to know her, but she's also being a bit cautious. I'd be annoyed if I wasn't doing the same. I've been trying not to compromise base security and such. I'm already treading on very thin ice by secretly meeting with her."

He handed me a clear box full of antique fountain pens. "Makes sense. These are all the ones that need a bit of repair before they'll work again. May as well just give them all away. I have more than enough projects."

"All the same, thanks for being so willing to give them away," I said.

"I can do even better." He rolled his chair over to the tabletop Scanning Electron Microscope that was sitting next to his desk and started going through the drawers under it. Pulling out two little white cardboard boxes, he said, "These are gold and iridium targets for coating non-conductive or delicate samples. The purity's quite high and I'm sure she'll find these useful."

Grabbing the boxes from his outstretched paw hands, I said, "Are you sure? These sound expensive."

He laughed, "Do you have any idea how big the budget for a typical genetic sequencing lab is?"

"I'm guessing pretty high?" I said as I put the boxes with the rest of the stuff I was going to bring to Helja.

"Astronomically high and my lab does a lot more than just gene sequencing." He patted the SEM, which looked like a strange cross between a huge desktop computer and a coffee grinder. "This SEM alone cost a hundred and sixty k because it has elemental analysis and some very helpful automation."

"Okay, I feel less guilty now," I said.

He nodded. "Good, now let me extract and clean the graphite electrodes so you can get all this to Helja ASAP."

* * * * *

Septimus sent me out the door with a bag full of goodies for Helja.

When I arrived, she said, "I remember you saying that the middle of the day was a risky time to visit me."

"Oh, it is, but everyone's currently trying to deal with the crystal NPO that's slowly taking over the Repository and I wanted to drop this stuff off ASAP," I said, setting the two shopping bags down at the edge of her bed.

"What's happening to the Repository?" Helja asked with one of her kangaroo ears folded down.

Pulling the crystal shards out of my pocket, I explained what was happening in as much detail as I could remember.

She took the shards and put one of them in her mouth for a moment before spitting it back out. "Highly conductive nanograin ceramic composite." After trying to bite it and also pulling on it to try and snap it, she said, "It appears to be a structural ceramic, not unlike what the Repository is made out of."

"Any idea what it's for or how to stop it?" I asked.

Slumping on the bed, she said, "Sorry, can't analyze it or the situation further right now. I need to conserve my energy for repairs-cleansing."

"Please do," I said. "I'll come back to check on you later."

"Thank you for working so hard to ensure my survival," she said.

"Remember, no dying. I won't allow it." I started heading out.

"See you in several hours," she said.

END OF PART 2

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