Her Masterpiece (Ruan Mei X F.OC)

Swarm

It was she that... Basically ran away.

Ruan Mei was not stupid enough to delude herself with lies of devotion and duty. She had ran away, that is clear.

Her... Isolating nature was not the sole reason she avoided the Herta space station even if she was invited here more often than she would like... Actually, each time Herta found a curio, she got a barrage of texts to come take a look at it and ask if it would help her in her studies.

She usually either ignored or sent a short disinterested reply, making up an excuse when she was extremely insistent.

But in the end, she was running away.

The stoic, 'having a hard time expressing my emotions', genius she was, was running away.

And she was no fool, she knew for a fact she was running away.

Not because she was scared... Or at least not what she classified as normal fear... Trepidation? Shame? A bit of all? A pinch of none? An inability to categorize such a feeling was bothersome but then again, she was not the best at it either. She understood them but it was not in her nature to be anything else but calm and collected.

And this thing she ran from was making her anything but.

That was basically what she was thinking about while Herta and Screwllum talked about the simulated universe, not realizing she wasn't present in the conversation.

The barest of sighs out her nose, eyes closed for a moment.

And here Ruan Mei thought she had complete understanding over human biology, being stumped by herself was a new experience.

Instead of dealing with her little headache herself, by sending Stelle down to do it instead would once again mean she was running away, not facing her past.

The meeting ended with no real outcome but that was not her priority.

Her priority was... Was what?

She wanted to make sure what she saw was indeed what she thought of.

And.

The want to get away from this space station as fast as she could without verifying.

Such contradictions in her thoughts and wants, and on something she can't hypothesis on and test before hand... Bothersome...

Making her way back to the docking bay (forgot the names of the areas and I am not launching HSR just to check it is too early for that shit) with the huge bay windows to look out at the planet below.

Space was always beautifully morbid, the cold depths of it beyond understanding, yearning to be explored.

And yet her mind always brought her back.

Crossing her arms with an almost disgruntled yet silent sigh.

Was it shame? Embarrassment? Blame? Just what was making her run?... If she needed to put a name of it it would be... Disappointment? 

Hmm... It fit...

Disappointed in the outcome of her decades of planning, in the years of hard work and hope she put into this project, in the failure of a promise she made to herself.

Dis--... Disappointed in herself.

But before she could think more on it, something powerful, like a roar, shook the space station.

This time it was a sigh of bothersome annoyance clearly heard.

Seems Stelle can't deal with the clone of the emanator alone can she?

Seems she'll need to interfere like she promised.

Hmm... Seems like the world is not letting her run further, keeping her on the space station a bit longer.

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A quiet sigh.

Nihl put the sticky little orange cat-cake down... This time more sticky them usual as it somehow found the little pot of honey forgotten in the storage room and got the cap of, getting it everywhere...

She wiped her hand on the nearest surface, not really caring the wall now had honey on it.

"You all stay here." She said. "It is bad enough that the living stelleron saw you guys, I am not putting you in danger now that she awoken the emanator."

The swarm minions were multiple but it was a hivemind, Nihl realized that killing one here and there would not make the emanator stir but killing many in quick successions would set it off and finish waking it up... Guess who went and did that...

And now she'll need to go and save her ass... Being honest, she wouldn't if it was safe but the stelleron in her body was stable and probably wouldn't be if she died so she needed to help.

"And I need to find Eye-X." She grumbled, the little adventurous idiot... Curious in this new person coming down here, Nihl could just assume it had followed her since it happened while she was still uptop.

"I really need to make Herta pay me." She thoughtlessly said, pulling the folded staff out and snapped it out into its complete form.

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"Who goes up against a giant bug with a bat?!! An idiot that's who!!" Stelle screamed at herself, skedaddling around the room while a huge copy of the emanator of propagation was whirring menacingly fast after her, spawning its loooovely minions who also joined in the chase.

She felt like in those cartoons March watched in their downtime, that character running away while the whole population of a village was chasing them down.

She did a half spin to whack the closest bug, braking in the exoskeleton and making it crash down as she ran on... In circles around the room.

"Meeeeeow!!"

"Don't complain! We're still alive!"

One of the jelly creation of Ruan Mei had been caught up in all of this and it was hanging of her, paws around her neck and body whipping in the wind behind her... It was quite a hilarious sight for those that could express such emotions or weren't currently being chased down by deadly bugs.