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Cressa Tal had no idea if this was going to work.
Her and Cephalon Suda had enjoyed numerous intimate moments together, and they were hardly a stranger to each other's bodies - if you could consider Suda to even have a body. Still, even at her most confident, she couldn't hide the fact that she was sometimes extremely awkward around her fellow Syndicate leader. Given that their relationship was built on a lack of real-world physical interaction, it changed the dynamic of everything they did in private, an idea that she was still getting used to.
Suda, ever the genius, had come up with a solution. More specifically, she had tried to.
The hardware that made up the robotic parts of Cressa's body had undergone many revisions, especially now that she was completely free of Grineer rule and able to exist on her own terms. Aesthetic changes had come first to distance herself from her xenophobic and violent kin, but whenever she had a spare moment, the defector would spend time tweaking the internal parts or making changes to the limited software within. Cephalon Suda held the honour of being the only individual she trusted to do the same, and only with express permission. After all, her augmentations were her body, and she didn't take unauthorised intrusions lightly.
This new solution was... different, though. Instead of having to visit the datascape to simulate their private time together, she had only needed to connect a small component to her arm, and big blue had promised that she had designed everything in an isolated environment. The last thing they wanted was to plug in some scavenged or salvaged technology that would break her arm's actuators or rotation controls, especially if it was a tracker for some kind of Grineer defector-hunting team or the G3 unit.
In theory, it made sense - if Suda could connect to part of Cressa's body, it would prove that there could be more ways for them to interact in the physical world. However, the Cephalon had been unusually insistent on testing it through Cressa rather than a spare set of augmentations, even refusing to use an exact replication of her current parts.
Now, lying alone on the bed in her quarters, she had nothing to do but wait as Suda did... whatever she was doing. For testing purposes, she had been asked to shut down her arm, leaving it to dangle uselessly over the metal edge. Although the pair of them were technically on open comms with one another, big blue had been oddly quiet.
"Are you done yet, Suda? I want my arm back."
"Interesting. These augmentations are not mapped directly to your brain. I had hoped as much." While Cressa couldn't feel any changes in the disabled arm, Suda's tone of voice suggested that she had been hard at work. "There is a buffer with a delay of zero point zero five seconds. Did you do this intentionally? I would have expected a direct connection, to improve reaction times."
"Wait, a buffer?" Thinking back to all of her nights tinkering with her own components, the Grineer tried to run through the general design of her limbs in her mind. "I don't remember putting that in at all..."
"It may be a trace of your Grineer origins that you never changed. Signals leave your brain and are stored for that exact length of time before being transferred to your artificial limbs. Perhaps they did not know how to make the process more efficient."
"Eh, that makes sense, but its news to me. I've replaced nearly every part on that arm four times, but not all at once. I guess I just missed it."
"If one were able to harness that buffer..."
Suda's voice trailed off as Cressa felt her arm snap upright, completely numb yet still moving as if it had a life of its own. She wasn't easily scared, but the sight of her body moving independently made yelp in fear for a second, and she nearly tumbled off the bed then and there. Her brain required a few more seconds to properly process what she was seeing, but once the instinctual panic subsided, that soothing Cephalon voice returned.
"Excellent. I was correct. The buffer can be used to control the main motion system remotely, even when the owner is unable to operate it themselves." To prove her point, she made Cressa's fingers twitch into a fist a few times, then performed a few simple gestures. "Such a simple control system, all based on signals. Quite easy to learn."
"So this is all you wanted to try? Find a security vulnerability in my body?"
"No." Cressa's Cephalon-possessed arm shifted around a little more, as if she was still getting used to the controls of some electronic toy. Then, after a few quick movements back towards a resting position, it slipped down towards her midsection. "I was attempting to find a means of physically interacting with you. I believe I have a solution."
At first, this seemed completely reasonable, but then Cressa's mind caught up with the implications of what she was being told. The way that 'her' hand was gently stroking the very bottom of her waistline didn't help matters, and it wasn't long before her cheek began to turn a subdued shade of pink. "You're saying..."
"I am. Would you like to try?"
The sudden prickly warmth that spread across the Grineer's forehead, combined with oddly comforting numbness in place of her limb, told her to say yes. Her body, already mostly exposed now that she was out of her suit and in her comfort-wear, only doubled that feeling. Swallowing nothing but air, she gave a quick nod, then remembered that Suda couldn't see her in a physical sense. "Uh... s-sure."
With her free arm, Cressa pushed herself to the side and up against one of her walls, offering a better angle so that Suda wouldn't be forced to dislocate the cybernetic shoulder she was controlling. Despite how strange this all felt, she was willing to try it at least once, and there wasn't really a reason to say no. As soon as she had gotten comfortable, the Cephalon moved her arm further down the Grineer's damaged yet smooth flesh, managing to slip the attached hand underneath the small pair of leisure shorts wrapped around her hips.
Cressa had explored herself many times with her mechanical hands, but this was different. This wasn't her hand anymore, at least not when it came to the techniques it could perform.
As typical with Suda, her first act was one of experimentation - she poked and prodded at the soft skin between the Grineer's legs, as if trying to judge how it felt. They were idle motions, almost clinical, and it felt completely different to the way she would touch herself during lonely nights. If she had been in control, she would have moved to satisfy whatever cravings she had at that exact moment - because Suda wasn't her, and couldn't feel those cravings, she found some of the touches and gentle rubs to be the exact opposite of what her body was desperate for.
She liked it. She couldn't explain why, but she really liked it.
Quietly grumbling to herself as the busy arm went to work, the unpredictable connections between her phantom fingers and her sensitive slit causing sudden shivers and jolts of warmth in her lower half. Even being more machine than flesh, her lower legs still reacted as if they were human, twitching and shifting around in response to the sensations running across her.
Suda piped up, her voice lower and more human than was typical for a Cephalon of her temperament. "I... remember. It's been so long since I had a hand that could...”
Biting her lip to hold back a short groan, the Grineer’s eyes widened as she felt the hand slowly spread her lips, preparing to explore deeper. As much as she wanted to beg for something more fast-paced, the sheer concept of what was going on between them right now excited her more than she had expected. If she closed her eyes, it would probably feel like Suda was really there alongside her.
Gradually, the professional slow pace of the hand’s motions began to unravel, with the metal fingers seeming more and more impatient every time they began to play with a different part of her lower body. Small tremors shocked through key muscles in her spine as she felt a single finger glide up against her slit, rubbing the surface with a strange mixture of care and curiosity. That restraint only made her quiet moans longer and more consistent as her mind began to cry out for a little more of everything, but she was beholden to her partner’s pace.
Her other hand, now firmly gripping the surface of her bed, had begun to tingle at the asymmetrical numbness in her torso, but that was somehow making this even more pleasurable. Cressa didn’t even notice the small gasps and huffs leaving her throat until she tried to speak, the lack of air in her lungs forcing her to take a few quick breaths first.
“S-Suda, how are you…”
The question was capped off by an extended moan as the Grineer felt her body melt against the wall, feeling two fingers slowly pushing into her by Suda’s command. While they had been able to re-create this in the datascape a few times, it was so real like this, even with the odd prickle of a deactivated limb.
When Suda spoke again, a new element had been added to her voice – a breathy, almost ragged, edge. “I have missed this. An arm, a hand, can do so many… curious things. I would like to share them with you.”
Within Cressa’s most sensitive space, the two fingers began their work, gently probing both inside and outside while trying to find whatever sweet spots they could. By now, Cressa would probably have brought herself to a climax if she was in control, but that wasn’t the point – the added sensuality and slower movements were almost foreign to her.
Her mind had turned slightly fuzzy, and the gentle murmurs of the Cephalon in her earpiece were only making her even more engaged. Biting down on her lip was no longer working, and the repeated whimpers and mewlings that snuck out of her mouth were becoming harder to silence. She was being toyed with like an experiment, but unlike her time among the Grineer where literal experiments were commonplace, every second was enjoyable.
Just when Cressa had begun to follow the rhythm of her hand’s movements, Suda decided that a more direct approach was needed. With almost no build-up, her touches and drawn-out strokes became twice as rapid, each one still retaining a level of gentle care that only a machine’s mind would be able to balance. Crying out in surprise, the Steel Meridian leader reached over with her remaining arm and grabbed a nearby pillow, holding it to her face as a way of dampening the noises escaping her lungs.
Since she and her arm were running on a different pattern of movements with no coordination between them, it was becoming increasingly difficult to prevent her body from getting caught off guard. Although Cress was frantically trying to adjust to the new pattern that the Cephalon had decided to follow, it would quickly change, always keeping her just off-balance. Even through the soft cushion in front of her mouth, strangled noises and hurried moans kept cutting each other off, leaving her in a constant cycle of rushing to get her breath back.
All of the sensations on her body felt like they had become twice as vivid: the prickles on her skin, the dizziness in her head and the increasing heat that spread throughout her lower half were all vying for her attention. Of course, front and centre was the warmth in her chest: whether it was caused by Suda’s presence, or simply the sensations between her legs, she couldn’t tell.
Either way, there was something growing within her, and it wasn’t hard to guess what was causing it. After a couple of heavy breaths and another stretched-out groan, she clenched her remaining fist and let her head tilt back, sweat starting to make its way down her face. Putting aside her normal confidence, she let loose a pleading string of nonsense, unable to decide on what to say.
It didn’t matter. Suda knew.
The reply that came through her earpiece didn’t sound like the Cephalon at all. The voice was undeniably her, but it contained more raw emotion than she had shown ever before: a cocktail of sensual amusement, hungry arousal and loving tenderness. Undercutting it all was some kind of exhaustion or worry, maybe – Cressa didn’t have time to figure it out.
“Come for me, you deserve it.”
The instant Suda’s voice faded, Cressa felt the pattern and rhythm in the motions start to fall apart, becoming more and more random as she was pushed to the very border of her body’s limits. A pulse of fire launched through her, starting from her waist and moving up, as she felt herself dissolve into the heat of her own pleasure. It felt like everything paused for a moment, the only sound being the pulse of her own heart and the carnal whining she was unable to contain any longer. Her legs, now stiffening, began to shake and shudder slightly as specific muscles below her waist chose to contract on nothing.
If Suda had been there, she would have tried to kiss the Cephalon or embrace her, but it wasn’t possible. Her arm, still numb, removed itself from her lower body, the fingers slick and sticky. All that the Grineer could do was pant for breath and let herself slowly come down from that high, a smile plastering itself across her face.
Cephalon Suda offered no reply or response. Instead, she deactivated her connection to the arm, letting it fall onto the bed’s surface with a limp thud. The fingers continue to twitch gently, evidently still reacting to the sensory messages that had no brain to contact.
It was quiet. For a good minute or two, nothing changed except Cressa’s pulse, which slowly began to fall back to normal amid her gradually-shortening breaths.
“What a… curious feeling. Familiar. From before I was… me. When I had an arm, and fingers, and…” Suda’s speech was closer to normal, but there was some more emotion in there, something Cressa couldn’t identify very well.
After a few more seconds of gentle breathing, the Grineer reached over to her arm and began to reactivate the connection, unsure how to process the scenario she had just been through. It would take a little while to get the limb back online safely, but she could wait – she wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.
“…Suda?”
“Yes?”
Allowing a cheeky grin to stretch out across her face, Cressa took a long, hard look at her own fingers, which were still completely numb and unresponsive. “Whatever memories you brought back there? Maybe we should try and unlock more of them later, they might have some... personal uses."