MEI LIU

HISTORY

Mei was born on the streets of Cerulean City, Kanto to an unknown mother who abandoned her soon after her birth. She was taken in by a poor orphanage, where she lived until she was 13 years old, after which she was sold to a seedy trafficker who brought her to a Rocket-controlled brothel in Fuchsia City. She served at that brothel until the age of 16, after which she was identified as an ideal candidate for an experimental Rocket program called PROJECT GOSSAMER. This initiative was focused on training young, unassuming, beautiful women as assassins who would be able to easily infiltrate and get rid of high-ranking League officials in support of the Rocket takeover.

Mei was very successful as a sex worker who was secretly an undercover Kanto Rocket assassin using the codename SOTERIA (a.k.a DELIVERANCE); women like her were key components of the regime's rise to power. Despite her loyalty to Rocket's cause - brainwashed into her from a young age - Mei (like all caged things) inevitably became curious about the world outside of Kanto. At the age of 20, she "requested a transfer" (i.e. seduced an underboss into approving said transfer) to another region. She might have gone anywhere, really, but was assigned to Hoenn by the underboss she seduced. Mei has a naturally investigative, independent spirit, but it was only when she arrived in Hoenn that she began to realize just how oppressively controlling Kanto had been.

PERSONALITY & TROPES

Mei grew up dirt poor, and though she was treated to life's basic necessities by Kanto Rocket due to her role in Project Gossamer, Mei has never really had her own money to spend on whatever she wished. Now that she makes her own living, and has more freedom to do what she wants, she tends to pursue luxuries she was never afforded in Kanto. As it turns out, she enjoys being pampered, and has come to appreciate fine dining (she fancies herself something of an amateur sommelier) and high fashion.

Mei was the victim of abandonment, child trafficking, illegal sex work, and torture in the form of grueling combat training sessions meant to weed out the weak; the primal instinct to survive combined with a naturally competitive spirit allowed her to thrive, but she has subconsciously suppressed much of the trauma she experienced. She views both sex work and the art of killing positively, because they have always been the things that have kept her alive. She is indifferent to the moral quandaries that often accompany murder; Rocket says jump, she asks "how high?" Rocket has been her only source of praise and "parenting" her entire life; she, therefore, cannot fathom a world in which she were not loyal to them. In her mind, she does not even have a choice: without Rocket, she would be nothing.

Because she grew up without a proper understanding of friendship (Project Gossamer, as well as the brothels she worked in, forced her to compete against other young women rather than befriend them), Mei, at first, fumbled through trying to form relationships with people in Hoenn that were not explicitly sexual in nature. She botched aspects of her first real friendship with another woman (mila alexopoulos) and wishes to start over and do better with her current roommate (Yumi Hasegawa).

Despite a lifetime of sex work having shaped her, Mei is naturally playful, seductive, and highly perceptive. She has a deep and practiced understanding of human emotion. Though she is very good at manipulating others, deep down, she very much yearns for authentic connections: people who care for her regardless of her beauty and sex appeal. When it comes to romance, she is very inexperienced. Sex is straightforward; love, on the other hand, is quite complicated.

Mei is an example of the Femme Fatale and Professional Killer tropes. Her story is also somewhat inspired by that of Marvel's Black Widow.

CURRENT PLOTS

ROCKET ASSASSIN
Mei has continued to work as an undercover Rocket assassin in Hoenn like she once did in Kanto. Because of this, Mei is often assigned to missions involving the retrieval or elimination of Rocket traitors. She is capable of and willing to take on anything involving combat or the elimination of threats, but due to her nature as a skilled sex worker, it is often the case that she is asked to spy more so than kill. Hoenn Rocket must work far more secretly than Kanto Rocket, after all...the gathering of information and having the patience to strike when the time is right are key.

SEEKING:

• Rocket assassins, thieves, spies, beasts, and/or combat-focused grunts who might wish to collaborate with Mei on various missions
• Newer Rocket grunts interested in combat training opportunities
• League (especially ex-Rocket) characters interested in being hunted down and/or clashing with a Rocket assassin (*outcome determined by all roleplayers involved)
• League characters interested in divulging secrets to Mei via an intimate capacity(*information and outcome determined by all roleplayers involved)

EXPLORING THE WORLD
Mei does not like to sit still for too long, and often has the "itch" to travel. She wants to see more of the world, broaden her horizons, and make up for the "lost time" she spent in Kanto unable to experience new and interesting people, places, and Pokémon. Naturally curious, and eager for undiscovered thrills, Mei is willing to do just about anything Rocket might wish of her: travel into dangerous rifts, explore virtual realms, or visit other regions - for her own benefit as much as theirs.

SEEKING:

• Rocket characters interested in visiting one of the rifts (Wilds locations) with Mei
• Rocket characters interested in going into the RKS machine with Mei
• League characters interested in visiting one of the rifts (Wilds locations) with civilian Mei OR clashing with Rocket Mei during an expedition

OTHER PLOT HOOKS

PAST CONNECTIONS

• People Mei worked with (either as friends or rivals) from Project Gossamer and/or Kanto Rocket (in general)
• People who have hired her in the past for various intimate services (who might wish to again OR who have some lingering issue with her because of whatever transpired between them)

NEW CONNECTIONS

• Friends and/or rivals within Hoenn Rocket
• Clients (for intimate services, regular or as a one-time thing)

RELATIONS

AQUAINTANCES / COWORKERS

• Zev Harcourt - A Rocket Beast, and fellow assassin, that she sometimes works with

FRIENDS

• Yumi Hasegawa - Mei's roommate, and one of her first ever truly close friends. Wants the best for her. Recruited her into Hoenn Rocket.
• Hitoshi Inoue - Yumi's bodyguard. Mei has an understanding with him: together, they do their best to look out for Yumi.
• Marza Volchitsa - A Rocket Beast Mei is totally smitten with and tries to work with as often as possible
• fern delaney - Friendly superior who seems sincerely invested in the relationship between Marza and Mei
• mila alexopoulos - Something of an ex-friend Mei misses dearly and wishes to reconnect with
• Gunner Graves - Mila's lover (who is totally not her boyfriend...sure...) who Mei still considers a friend despite seeing him less than she used to when Mila was more present in Mei's life
• KING WAYLAND - A good friend and one of the first people Mei met in Hoenn. Mei runs her "business" out of his bar
• freya morningstar - King's lover. Something of a rival and a friend? Mei adores her but also likes to push her buttons.

ENEMIES

• Remiel Calcifet - Currently hunting him down (and trying to kill him for Rocket)

LOVERS

• TBD!