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Location: Her Room -> The Mess Hall -> Chimera's Lair -> Southern Plateau ( Pacific Royal Campus )
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Welcome Home #1.066: Finding strength in being alone
As the trumpets sounded announcing the sign of another new day, Mei got ready for the day ahead. This would no doubt be another day filled with challenges and she needed to prepare herself both mentally and physically for anything that stood in her way. For that she required plenty of energy, both for her own mental processing as well as to fuel her caloric intake for the maintenance and upkeep of her powers.
Dressing in her neatly ironed and pressed uniform, she made her way to the mess hell, not just by walking, but by swinging on her web rope chains through the heights of the university campus.The breeze as she swing in the air brought her happiness and she would take any happiness that would come her way. She knew that either Rory or Haven would no doubt do something that worked against her favour and was already expecting to happen at some point of the day. One would often wonder how she was able to ensure such punishments over the years dished out by Rory, and many would have abandoned such chances and sought out something else long ago, but Mei still clung on, for some unfathomable reason. There was a limit to her bountiful patience and it would eventually run out one day, and many would think that it would be reaching ever closer as the days, weeks, months and years passed.
Mei herself felt the pull and tension of her patience tugged at her and tried to resist the desire to give up, especially considering that Rory had both done and said things of intimacy to Haven and he had never done with her. Many would have taken that as a sign to move on, but Mei’s stubbornness had allowed her to persist this long. Perhaps, the time for her to move on was indeed finally on her horizon. After all these years, there was no one who could say she did not try hard enough or even put enough effort into the chase. At the mess hall, she piled up plates full of rashers of bacon, croissants and other delectable treats with a meal size resembling something of a size that her fellow teammates Katja would eat. Her unique physiology allowed her to consume such large amounts of food without ballooning in shape, her metabolism working tirelessly to convert the food into energy pockets in her body.
Everyone then began to pile into Chimera’s Lair and Mei followed the rest of the group into their seats in the stadium. The anthem was sung and then came the speech by Jim and the new visitors. Mei didn’t care much about the Alexandria Foundation, but knew enough of them to know that they would be a problem. Then came the announcement that the accreditation of engineering, law and medical fields would be lost, and once again Mei felt the all powerful intuition of Asian parents swooping in to save the day. She had fought with her parents endlessly over her major of choice, but in the end, it was her who relented in the end, no match for the relentless might of the all-powerful Asian parents.
While others would push their children to pursue science, law or medical fields, her parents instead pushed her to embark on a culinary path to take over the family business. That decision then, to major in culinary arts instead of aerospace engineering had saved her from the predicament many of her fellow teammates and students faced now. While she observed the strong reactions of her teammates around her, she said nothing. She knew that they would have been affected by the new changes this would bring, and said nothing to make it worse.
As the team proceeded to the plateau and began setting up their tents, Mei had her eyes on both Rory and Haven the whole time, monitoring the actions and movements of the pair. The moment Rory made his move to walk towards Haven, she promptly moved close enough within earshot of the pair. When he popped the question, Mei acted in calming anger, using her enhanced reflexes to shoot out several bursts of silk webbing towards Rory’s ankles and feet, aiming to bind them together to trip him once he moved. She did it so quickly in the hopes of remaining undetected. She then moved towards him and thrusted the handmade silk knitted towel that she had finally completed, the words “Not a Joke” clearly visible on the main surface of the towel. “Here, a hand knitted towel made by yours truly.”
Without looking back to see Rory’s reaction, she headed towards an unoccupied spot on the plateau and began setting up her own tent, settling on the fact that she would be sleeping alone.