Mass Effect: Final Error

Chapters 38-40

Chapter 38: The Yang

Oriana stared at her sister in horror, brain racing at the implications. What the fuck. No, seriously, what the fuck. She got so lost in trying to figure out what to do with the new information, that Shepard apparently got impatient and leaned forward.

“Okay, try that again. Why the fuck are the Yang involved? They are a pre-space civilization. By the Reapers’ own policies, they should have been left alone. That’s the whole reason everyone withdrew the monitoring sats and observation stations there.”

Miranda sighed and ran a hand through her hair in a harassed gesture.

“That’s what everyone believed, right up until converted Yang started showing up on the battlefield. At first, the Think-Tank thought it was seeing the introduction of the Brutes from Ori’s first go around. But when the Salarian’s dug into the genetic material, and discovered they were actually converted Yang. A stealthed survery team went to Parnack and discovered it’s been overrun by Reapers. Best guess currently is that, since the Yang were extremely close to achieving Space Flight on their own, even having sent up a few test rockets, that the Reapers decided that was ‘close enough’ when they were in need of a more dangerous infantry unit.”

Oriana flinched at that, then sighed and added her own thoughts, now that she’d had a minute to process.

“It might be our fault, twice over. Thrice over, even. We hurt the Reapers badly in the opening round, they’ve been having trouble on the ground from the start, and there’s been no sign at all of Banshee units. Brutes didn’t appear until some time into the conflict, my first time around. With the Reapers actually struggling and deprived of the easy elites of the Banshees, they went shopping elsewhere for a solution. The fact that they haven’t been able to take many Krogan due to the way they’ve gone underground on Tuchanka might also contribute.”

Shepard made a face at that. Tuchanka had been a problem they’d known about. Even with the partial cure to the Genophage given to Wrex, allowing him to rally his people to him…there hadn’t been enough time to do all that much with that cure. There were a lot of Krogan children around now. But even as comparatively fast as Krogan children grew up, none of them would be battlefield ready for several more years. Which means that the cure had, if anything, locked more of the Krogan population down in dealing with a sudden baby boom. A baby boom which was proving itself more than a little chaotic. The Krogan hadn’t exactly had a lot of experience with too many children being underfoot recently.

That didn’t mean they weren’t contributing to the war effort. Krogan males, at this point, were practically begging to be sent to the front lines instead of having to help care for a dozen kids. Several elite battalions of them were deployed all over, in various ground operations, and were proving just as effective as they always had been. But the Krogan’s need to expand their civilian infrastructure had limited what they could do for Tuchanka’s defenses. Not to mention what percentage of their population the Krogan could spare for action elsewhere. The solution for the planet itself had been simple enough. Tuchanka was already a radioactive wasteland with few above ground cities…and a metric ton of old underground fortifications, mostly left over from their pre-uplift civilization.

Rather than attempt to defend the planet surface, the entire population had gone underground, heavily reinforcing those already formidable bunkers into interconnected city-states. The Reapers space-superiority meant almost nothing when there was nothing to bombard from orbit. Worse for the Reapers, their ground forces were hilariously ineffective trying to fight close-quarters, underground and in relatively tight spaces, against thoroughly prepared Krogan. A small number of the same miniature relays given to Kar’shan were present for Tuchanka. Less of them, by far, but more than enough for what the Krogan actually needed in the way of supplies and people movement.

On the downside, it would be years before Tuchanka could really spare more fighters than they already were. On the plus side…the fighters that were available were all elites, the less experienced Krogan having been forced to stay home, where the tunnel fighting gave them an insurmountable edge against the invaders. Also on the plus side, this meant that the attrition rate for their Krogan veterans was actually pretty low, compared to virtually any of their other forces. And that low rate of attrition, as well as their inability to crack the defenses of those underground cities on the Krogan homeworld, meant that the Reapers had been almost completely denied Krogan bodies to work with. Since the original Brutes had been an amalgam of Krogan and Turian genetic material, it was entirely possible the Reapers would never manage to make them at all.

Pity they’d replaced them with the Yang.

Ugh.

“So…what can be do about it?”

Miranda looked uncomfortable at Shepard’s question, enough so that Oriana sighed and took the reins. It was pretty obvious to her what the Think-Tank and High Command would have decided on.

“The only options we really have are to either wipe the Yang out ourselves, or else use the harvesting stations there as a lodestone to force the Reapers into actually defending a location. One of their biggest advantages so far is that they usually don’t need to defend anything. It’s also one of their biggest weaknesses. Since, frankly, they suck at it. They aren’t used to thinking in any other direction than ‘attack.’”

Mirana nodded and added the official line.

“The Think-Tank debated both options and recommended the latter option to High Command. Who gave their stamp of approval as well. At least until such a time as the Reapers actually learn how to defend properly, repeatedly running strikes on the harvesting plants there will allow us to kill a few Reapers, slow down their deployment of the new Brutes, and possible even save a tithe of the Yang in the long run.”

Shepard looked like she desperately wanted to protest, but couldn’t. Oriana didn’t have the heart to tell her that, if the Reapers got stupid and concentrated enough of their fleet at Parnack, the powers that be would probably blow the relay to wipe out another chunk of Reapers. The Yang were so inherently, biologically violent that the Council had long been quietly interfering with their ability to achieve Space Flight. They wouldn’t commit genocide casually, there was always the hope of a species growing beyond blind violence. But if it was between trying to salvage a violently aggressive species that had long worried the Council and wiping out another 1% of the Reapers’ total numbers? Frankly, Oriana wouldn’t even protest the choice. She wouldn’t like looking herself in the mirror afterward, but she’d already done enough horrible things trying to save the galaxy, that she already might never be able to do that without pain again anyway. Shaking off that maudlin thought, she directed her next question at her sister.

“I assume since you’re bringing this to us, Command wants to assign us to a first strike?”

Mirana, visibly relieved to leave the uncomfortable portion of the conversation behind, nodded and tapped her omni-tool. Files transferred the War Room holotable and it lit up with an image of the Parnack system and everything they knew about it, past and present.

“Yes. We don’t think the Reapers have any idea we managed to probe the system, but that just means we want to plan the most effective first-strike we can. It’s exactly the sort of Special Op that you and Shepard are best used for. Maximum destruction, while using the minimum number of resources required. The primary target is their main harvesting facility here,” a city with an obvious heavy Reaper presence was highlighted on Parnack’s northern continent. “But any additional damage that can be done, either to the secondary Harvesting locations or the Reaper’s themselves, is obviously desirable. Command has included a list of assets for this task, and will consider any reasonable request for more seriously. So long as you don’t ask for much in the way of Fleet assets, they’ll probably grant almost anything.”

Oriana leaned forward, studying not the planet, but the few Reaper fleet assets in orbit or patrolling the system.

“I think I already have an idea…”

Chapter 39: Parnack

“This is insane, you know.”

Captain A’Sota’s voice was both dry and utterly done with all of her immediate bosses particular forms of insanity. Oriana couldn’t help but grin at the tone. Jenita had, by this point, been made the Captain of the Pheonix. It just hadn’t worked out to have Shepard filling that role. Even if she still went where Shepard directed her, Jenita commanded the ship in all other ways at this point, including in battle. Thankfully Asari had proved to be an extremely good choice, being far more mentally flexible than most Captain’s they could have found. That didn’t keep her from becoming increasingly exasperated at the unconventional tactics Oriana and Shepard came up with, though. She hated those plans most of all…because they worked. It’s also why she kept going along with them, despite their insanity. The older Asari had long since declared she was going to retire and start a farm once this was all over. Something simple. Where ‘rithel-shit crazy’ humans would never bother her again. Oriana didn’t believe it. She was quite sure the Captain secretly enjoyed the insanity.

“Of course it’s insane, Captain. That’s why it’s going to work!”

The Asari made an indescribable noise that mixed resignation, disbelief, and fear for one’s sanity. Really, the woman was quite expressive to get that all into one noise. Maybe Oriana would recommend she become an actor instead of a farmer. She’d be spectacular in that Elchor remake of Shakespeare’s Hamlet!

“Are the drones ready for deployment?”

Captain A’Sota grumbled, but confirmed they were. Oriana’s expression shifted into a vicious grin.

“Then, my dear Captain. It’s time to beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker! You may jump when ready!”

Captain Jenita A’Sota slumped, sighed, then slowly drew herself up. After this, Oriana thought rather overdramatic, display of gathering herself, the Captain activated her com. She gave the order to spin up their FTL drive with a hand gesture, even as she spoke on the mission-critical channel.

“This is the Captain. FTL jump to commence in 60-seconds. Remember, this is going to be a hot engagement. Brace for immediate combat as soon as we exit FTL. Special Ordinance Team, deploy the drones the instant you can, and don’t stop until we’re forced to retreat or you run out of drones. All teams, acknowledge.”

Acknowledgments came back rapidly, all teams reporting ready. Which was good, given that the drive was already spinning up. It had, of course, simply been a pro-forma check anyway. Everyone had already checked in twice, just to be sure. This was going to be a complicated operation and all the parts needed to go off at least semi-smoothly or the whole thing would be a massive waste. Right at the 60-second mark, the FTL drive of the Pheonix engaged, taking them all to lightspeed for several long seconds…

...

…

Which ending with them dropping out of FTL right between two Reaper Dreadnaughts. Those Dreadnaughts were clearly surprised, given that the Pheonix got off the first barrage…but Reapers were not limited to normal sentient reaction times. They rolled to bring their own guns to bare on the Pheonix with blinding speed…only to pause for long seconds as the Pheonix wildly jinked between them. Neither Reaper could fire without a serious risk of hitting their companion, and for all the Pheonix’s firepower, they weren’t doing enough damage to force the Reapers to risk the friendly fire. Particularly not when they only had to wait a bare handful of seconds for the cruiser to dart out from in between them. The instant it did, both Dreadnaughts opened fire, even if the cruiser’s evasive maneuvers made both ships miss their initial shots. Of course, they had already begun to accelerate, and there should have been no way the cruiser would escape intact as the dreadnaughts began to pepper space with their fire.

The maneuver should have been suicide.

But that didn’t count the Special Ordinance that an equally special team had started launching using the Phoenix’s missile tubes and every single docking point. The Ordinance wasn’t, strictly speaking, even weaponry. Which is, of course, why the Reapers ignored it. They shouldn’t have, but to them the low-powered drones would barely look like space junk. And the missiles would scan as ECM platforms…mostly because that’s exactly what they were. Those ECM platforms, however, weren’t the frantic attempts to make the Pheonix harder to hit that the Reapers would think they were. Instead, their Counter Measures were covering the maneuvering and slow activation of those large pieces of ‘debris.’ Which, not at all by happenstance, were maneuvering to bracket the Reapers.

Those drones were the result of a failed project. An attempt to craft a mobile mass relay large enough to send ships through. The JumpGate project, as it had been termed, had run into one too many technical problems and proven too costly to keep going in light of other, more promising, efforts. Even on a war footing, the Citadel Alliance couldn’t pour money and resources into every project, and the JumpGate project had been one of many that had been abandoned along the way. Not because it hadn’t produced results, but because the results couldn’t be made viable within the span of years they had to work with.

Initial testing had managed to create a set of drones that could, in fact, create the massless corridor through space that a Relay produced. Two problems had deemed the project unfixable in the time they had. The first was simple range. The power requirements of a Mass Relay were enormous. Even splitting the requirements between dozens of heavy-duty drones, the best the JumpGate team had managed was a jump roughly the distance between Earth and Luna. Completely useless on a galactic scale, unless they radically upscaled the project at extreme cost. The second, just as important issue, was that balancing the corridor between so many point sources had been…problematic. Of the three dozen jumps the team had preformed, not a single one of their test vessels had come through as anything other than a tangled heap of scrap.

Even the slightest variance from their perfect formation had caused the corridor to do weird things to the mass inside. All of which actually just highlighted how little they understood about what actually happened when traveling that corridor. After all, the miniature Relays they were making, based on the Protean design from Ilos, really shouldn’t work. Not when they connected between two places that had physical matter between them. Like, say, deep underground in IIos and inside the Citadel Presidium. Clearly, mass inside the corridor was fundamentally not interacting with the rest of the galaxy. A revelation that had basically fucked every existing model of physics sideways with a corkscrew.

Ultimately, with their understanding of the physics involved not up to the task, the project had been canceled and the drones just left sitting around with no purpose. Until, that is, Oriana decided she had an insane plan to use them. She’d known about them, having consulted on the project. And getting them for use in her little plan had been an easy sell, given they were literally just sitting around collecting dust. If this actually worked, they could potentially kill two Reaper Dreadnaughts and destroy the primary Harvesting station on Parnack, a double whammy that the High Command was happy to stamp approval on.

Shepard had just quietly extracted her team from said planet, after they’d placed the homing beacon to target the other end of the mass-corridor on. Which is why Oriana was in command of the space-side of the operation. A side which seemed to be working nicely, as she noted the slowly forming mass corridor that the Pheonix was racing desperately to escape. A corridor which the Reapers, blinded by the ECM tuned to hide it, hadn’t realized they were inside of. The next three minutes of desperate dodging, until they were out of that corridor, was tense. Damage began to accrue as shields failed, even as the surprised, slower-to-accelerate Reaper Dreadnaughts fell behind. Alarms screamed, orders were shouted, but Oriana remained poised and laser-focused, watching as the outline of the corridor firmed up. Waiting for the Phoenix to slip past its limits. Then they were passed the invisible line, but she held off for another second, two, five. Only when the Reapers were at risk of reaching the line as well did her thumb press down viciously. A moment later…the universe seemed to jerk.

You were not supposed to be this close to a barely-stable zero-mass corridor when it activated. You were either supposed to be inside it, or else far, far away from it. Which is precisely why Oriana had waited until the last possible second. Space-time shuddered and heaved, twisted and screamed around them. The clocks all seemed to freeze for an instant…and then they shot out of the localized warping and smashing of space time, even as the phenomenon itself faded. No one, not even the Captain, could focus on their damages just yet as they all looked at Parnack…and the utter devastation that had once been a city.

It was nothing but a crater now, a crater several kilometers across and half of one deep. And, even as they watched, earthquakes shattered cities hundreds of kilometers away. One of the secondary harvesting centers even collapsed, as everyone held their breath. No one had been quite sure exactly what would happen when the mass of two Dreadnaughts suddenly became real again, already moving as insane speeds, right before hitting a planet. The only point of reference they’d had was a terrorist strike where someone had hit a planet with a shuttle moving at FTL speed, in the years before safety regulations had made the effectively impossible to repeat. Technically, the Dreadnaughts wouldn’t be moving nearly as fast. But they sure as hell massed a lot more…

Oriana breathed a sigh of relief, closing her eyes and offering up a prayer of thanks to whatever divine force might exist, when the planet didn’t crack in half. That had been…a non-zero percent predicted possibility. Seeing that the worst hadn’t happened, she braced herself and snapped orders.

“Captain! Assess our damages! Coms! Find the location of our ground team. We’ll need to pick them up before we hit the Relay!”

Captain A’Sota cursed as she realized she’d fallen down on her job and began barking orders. Oriana, meanwhile, closed her eyes and tried to forget what she’d just seen. Even if the planet hadn’t cracked, they’d likely just killed millions of unharvested Yang. Even if it was likely a less terrible fate that allowing them to actually be harvested, and even if the Yang weren’t exactly someone she wanted to give a hug to anytime soon, the decision still horrified some part of her. Even if that part was distressingly quiet these days…

Chapter 40: Therapy Sessions

Oriana found it a little hard to believe that the collective powers that be in the galaxy had conspired to send her to therapy. She was even more bewildered that they’d somehow roped Sha’ira into handling her case personally. Sure, Sha’ira was a fully accredited psychologist. In fact, that was a horrible, horrible understatement. Few non-Asari ever really understand, but ‘Consort’ is just as much a title as ‘Justicar,’ and one that requires an equally unusual individual to acquire, even if the two types of individuals are nearly diametrically opposed. Consorts aren’t just experts of the mind, or as many non-Asari believe, experts of bodily pleasures. They are healers who specialize not in the body, or even in the mind, but in the soul. To become one requires understanding the minds around you, yes. But it also requires the ability to deeply understand people, to empathize with them to an extent that you can’t help but love them. Then, with that understanding, they have to be willing to fully invest themselves. To try just that little bit longer than anyone else can imagine, to reach and heal each client. No matter who they are, or what they’ve done.

For Oriana, who straddled the line between Asari and Human in many ways, the closest she could get to explaining the needed level of understanding and what it meant, was to point out a line written by a 20th century author, Orson Scott Card. In the case of the character involved, it was in reference to his enemies, but the work did a good job of verbalizing the depth that Consorts are able to understand the people they ‘comfort.’

“In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.” (Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game)

That was it. That was what Consorts were. Someone who could understand another person well enough, understand their wants and desires deeply enough, that they ended up loving the person as that person loved themselves. That took an unusual mind, and an even more unusual spirit, even for an Asari. It also made them, just possibly, the best therapists in the galaxy. Their approach to healing was far more complete than the meagre methods of a psychologist. Sha’ira just so happened to be one the most widely respected Consorts in the galaxy, and one of the very few who was able to achieve that level of understanding and empathy with non-Asari. A task easily an order of magnitude harder, given that every race thought a little differently, had a different perspective of…everything, really.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Oraina’s disbelief didn’t change the fact that the Think-Tank, the Citadel Council, Shepard, Aethyta, Benezia, and even the Geth had all somehow conspired together to land Oriana’s posterior in a unfairly comfortable couch, sipping a custom tea she’d never even heard of, across from the famous Consort. While each of them had possessed slightly different reasoning for their meddling, it had all ultimately boiled down to, ‘You are waayyyyy too important to have a breakdown on us. Here, have this drop-dead gorgeous Asari help you sort out the complete and utter fuckery that is your entire self and backstory.’

It was really a pity that Oriana didn’t actually think they were wrong. She really was sort of a mess.

“And so you fear not what you have done, but who you have become. You fear not your actions, but the ever quieter voice of restraint inside you. You have claimed greatness, but you have done it not for yourself…and you fear that in giving so much of who you could have been up to fuel the fire of hope for a galaxy, that you have betrayed that optimistic little girl, who looked at the night sky in wonder, and dreamed.”

She also kinda wished the woman wasn’t quite as good at figuring out all of Oriana’s deepest fears. This was both comforting and horrible in ways that she could never have imagined. On the bright side, she supposed, maybe she’d get a round of more physical affection from the gorgeous woman after she bawled her eyes out three or four times…

-----

Oriana smiled in delight at the mixture of innocent giggles and throaty moans that burbled up from her ‘victim,’ as she made the simple feather dance across Liara’s skin. The two of them were alone, for once, with the bound and blindfolded maiden spread eagle over the large bed of Liara’s own quarters. Another giggle and squirm was forced out of the blue beauty as the feather traced just under a breast, a moan following the giggle a moment later as a rapid flick of the wrist sent the same feather arching across a rock-hard nipple. The sounds, and even more so the sensations of joy and uncomplicated pleasure coming from their feather-light embrace, acted as a balm to soothe a part of Oriana’s soul that she hadn’t wanted to face before her session with Sha’ira.

She’d known she was wounded inside, of course. How could she not, with the jagged spikes of guilt and pain stabbing her whenever she stopped moving? She hadn’t, however, known how to deal with it. Instead, she’d simply kept moving, unconsciously aware that if she stopped…she’d tear apart upon those jagged edges. Jagged edges made out of every death she’d signed off on, every deed done in the dark in a desperate bid to give the flickering light just a little bit more fuel to burn on. She wasn’t military. She wasn’t even naturally inclined toward combat, or aggression at all, really. In another life, she might have become something like a Consort herself. And the weight of all she really wasn’t, but had forced herself to be, had torn vicious wounds into her soul.

Sha’ira words had opened those wounds and, in doing so, they should have destroyed her. Instead, by some personal magic of the Consort’s that Oriana couldn’t hope to understand, the wounds had been washed and cleaned. A path towards healing the worst of the scars offered up with no motive save to help Oriana help herself. Though, there was some amusement to the idea that an Asari’s first suggestion had been some one-on-one time with another Asari in bed.

Still, as she felt the uncomplicated happiness flood out of her young lover, she knew that Sha’ira had been right. In constantly focusing on the terrible things she had done, Oriana had blinded herself to the good she’d created in exchange. Good that was reflected in the feeling of youthful optimism radiating from her ‘victim,’ as the feather continued to dance. The original Liara, from Oriana’s first time around, had been a broken bird. Her mother a traitor, dead at the hands of a mind controlling eldritch monster right in front of her, in a fight she herself had contributed to. Her lover dead at the hands of the collectors, only to be reanimated in the closest thing to a deal with the devil Oriana could imagine without a literal portal to hell being involved. Friends betrayed and tortured, the weight of the galaxy falling on her back as she took up the mantle of the Shadow Broker, few having a clue just how much she’d done to help the galaxy. Somehow struggling onward, through it all, with next to no support the entire time.

Not a single bit of that had happened here.

Benezia lived. Changed, but actually closer to her daughter now than she had been in decades. Liara’s ‘father’ alive and involved in her life. Shepard not only alive, but joined by Oriana and Kelly in a very Asari-maiden-like exploration of sexuality and romance. Yes, this Liara has seen death. She’d faced combat. She was well aware of just how horrible the odds were against them. But this Liara had also had the support network to keep her from breaking. To help her grow instead, and to maintain the optimism that was the core of her, once you got past the layers of emotional armor she’d built for herself. This Liara, despite the galaxy going to hell around her, was Happy.

And it was Oriana that had made it all possible.

It was Oriana who had brought a cure to the Krogan and the Ardat-Yakshi. Oriana who had given the Geth a chance at life and the Quarians a chance to touch their homeworld again. Oriana who had saved tends of thousands who would have died in the destruction of the Alpha Relay. Who had saved even more still who would have died in the opening round of the Reaper War as Earth, Palavan, and Thessa were ravaged. Oriana who had given the galaxy a chance.

Pushing away the still-uncomfortable realization, she focused on her lover. She was making progress. She had proof she could get better. But right now, she had a desperately squirming Asari Maiden to ravish…

----

Ashley bit back a moan as the neural stimulators produced by the Neuralux 3 implant sent her the sensations of ‘her’ cock being sucked. Despite the fact that said ‘cock’ wasn’t currently on her body. It was not, in fact, anywhere within sight of the private café balcony she was having lunch with Oriana on. Instead, it was somewhere else in the city. In the devious clutches of Liara, Kelly, and Samara, with Shepard keeping an eye on the trio to enforce the rules. Under the circumstances, it was impossible to tell who, or even what was currently causing Ashely’s pleasure. The pleasure halted as abruptly as it has started and the Spectre let out an unconscious whine.

“How did I let you talk me into this?”

Oriana grinned, mischief sparkling in her eyes, as she raised her espresso to her lips.

“As I recall, I got you drunk again, told you stories about the games like this I played with Shepard, Liara, Kelly, and even Samara. I implied you couldn’t handle it, since you’re too much of a prude. And you challenged me to the game. Personally, I think you just wanted another shot at experiencing the Neuralux.”

Ashley pouted at the reminder. She actually pouted. Oriana hadn’t been aware that the stern-faced Spectre even knew how to pout. This was a delightful discovery. She would be doing everything in her power to get even more interesting expressions out of the woman. It would be a refreshingly non-violent challenge. Sha’ira had said Oriana needed more of those. So, of course, Oriana would only be following the ‘doctor’s orders’ if she picked this one, right? Surely, it was only a minor bonus that Ashley had been acting steadily more submissive as the random bursts of pleasure came and went…without the Spectre actually being able to cum. That command sequence was currently disabled in the implant, tied to the app on Oriana’s Omni-tool. Just as a similar command sequence that would allow Oriana to cum was tied to the same App on Ashley’s own Omni-tool.

That was the game for the day. The challenge. Both of them had been fitted with their neural stimulators and a pair of chastity belts before Ashely had sobered up completely the evening before. And too much pride, as well as not a little arousal, had been tied up in her issuing the challenge to Oriana for Ashley to back out when she’d woken up this morning. The first one of them to break and ask to cum would be subject, with some limitations, to a week under the other woman’s control. Chastity belt included. And, despite Ashley’s iron will, this was a game that Oriana had played before. The only real chance that the Spectre had was the fact that Oriana was linked to multiple women’s bits, whereas Ashley only had to worry about what happened to the Neuralux 3 cock. For everything that happened to Ashley, two or three things had been happening to Oriana.

It should have been enough to even out the odds.

Pity for Ashley that it hadn’t worked out that way so far.

Oriana had experience with being edged for days. Worse, Ashely had failed to take into account that Liara and Kelly were very invested in the idea of getting into Ashley’s panties. Which they knew was virtually certain to happen if Oriana won. Kelly had already been there, of course…but she’d shared the experience with Liara via a meld, and the Maiden was intrigued. For all the fun they’d had, Ashley with the Neuralux 3 would be the closest Liara had ever gotten to a lover with an actual cock, and the maiden was very curious. Which meant that she and Kelly were giving their absolute best efforts whenever it was time to do something to the Neuralux toy.

Of course, that didn’t mean that they weren’t enjoying the chance to tease the normally-dominant Oriana along the way. As she experienced a moment later when her neural stimulators sprang to life with the sensation that was undeniably Kelly’s particular oral skills. Vibrating tongue included. The fact that Ori knew that meant the redhead was publicly (it was the rules) tonguing either Liara or Samar, a only made the sensations hotter. Thankfully, since Asari and human anatomy didn’t quite perfectly align, it was slightly less intense than if Kelly had been servicing her directly. In fact…she was just barely coherent enough to weaponize it.

“Mmmm. Kelly’s tongue really is something special. You haven’t experienced her implant in full yet, have you? You already know how good she is, of course…but can you imagine just how much better she is when her tongue itself is capable of vibrating? Ah~! Or turning ice cold, like it just did to me? Flicking like a slim cube of ice across your clit, only for her warm breath afterward to make you shiver in an entirely different way…”

Ashley twitched. Her hands clenching and a whimper escaping her as Oriana’s voice, heavy with lust from what was happening to her, continued to describe it all in detail. Ori started weaving in bits of fantasy to the description, making Ashley imagine restraints and hot wax, the brush of feathers and the pinch of clamps on helpless nipples. She could sense it as Ashley’s will gave slightly and she started falling into subspace. She grinned. It was only a matter of time, now…particularly since Kelly had actually stopped half a minute ago. She just had to keep it up until the next time the trio played with Ashley’s Neuralux…