Chapter Text
“It couldn’t end any other way.” She settled back in her seat as she watched her trainee. There was never any doubt, really. Agnes Tachyon wouldn’t lose to anyone. Not now. Not with her condition stable and properly managed.
It’d taken monumental effort and a few medical ethics violations, plus maybe breaking her trust a little bit, but it’d been done. They’d done it. Or… she had. Her trainer’s efforts wouldn’t be remarked on. Which was fine. If it wasn’t from her own sweat and blood let the accolade rest on someone else. She was here and so she helped.
That was all there was to it.
The only question now was figuring out what Tachyon would do next. Her trainee was a wild one, for certain, and it was a question whether she’d remain in the Twinkle Series, leave to the Dream Series, or even retire entirely to publish her papers. Any would be viable options, and, as always, her trainer would be there to support her.
“Aaagh.” She rolled her shoulders as she stood. Support, unfortunately, included dealing with the media. “This is gonna suck.”
It was the one thing she may actually be a little genuinely annoyed at Tachyon for. Among their little group everyone knew what to call her, but to the media?
Being called ‘sir’ always fucking sucked.
At least it didn’t take too long. Being reticent and giving out the absolute least while still being an effective answer was a talent by this point. The vultures didn’t deserve anything anyway. The only even slightly acceptable one among them was Etsuko Otonashi, and she was usually drowned out by the mass of everyone else. Not that a stage interview was the best place to properly work with her.
If she’d gone into training instead of reporting she would have been amazing. But that wasn’t here nor there, so onward to a new session of scraping nails over the fucking chalkboard.
The least the newsies could’ve done is at least sound sexy. Unfortunately, that sort of sound was generally lost on down on their luck twenty to thirty year old men. What she wouldn’t give for at least one Q&A with a bunch of cute girls instead. Not that she could actually say that.
Anyway.
Into the belly of the beast.
…
“Wasn’t too bad this time.” She rolled her shoulders as she finally made it offstage. By this point everybody in the room knew what to expect when she came out instead of Tachyon, so things had gotten to a mostly stable equilibrium. She refused any question that wasn’t directly about Tachyon and tended toward being as direct as possible with anything she would actually answer. Simple, easy, and it kept the actual press time down to the most important stuff.
“I still don’t know why you bother with that, guinea pig.” Tachyon raised a hand, her sleeve flopping dramatically at the motion. Frankly speaking that particular fashion choice wasn’t something she’d ever gotten. If racing uniforms weren’t bespoke she could believe it was just a result of Tachyon’s usual shopping, but no. Tachyon had chosen to have excessively large sleeves. “We both know you aren’t a fan of feeding the endless hunger of the media.”
“I’m not fond of it when they call me sir, Tachyon.” She sighed. “This is about the closest I’m ever going to get to having my own press conference after winning a race, so I may as well take what I can.”
“Ah, yes. That.” Tachyon’s eyes lit up a little as she was, once again, made aware of that little fact. She hadn’t forgotten, she wouldn’t ever forget anything that important, but it was even odds if she remembered it before it’d been pointed out. “I still don’t understand why you aren’t just out with it.”
“I’ll come out with it after you’ve moved on or retired. Maybe I’d wait a bit if some other uma comes in that would be a good fit, but I don’t have too many of my best years left.” Unsaid was how they were at the tail end of what Tachyon, and most racers, would consider the best years of her life. Despite her being a little younger than her trainer. It was one of those curious little disconnects that meant trainer and trainee never had quite an even relationship. “They could strip my license for it.”
“Yes, the morality clause. I looked it up after you informed me.” Tachyon sighed as she flopped back into her chair. “Such an outdated thing, don’t you think? All there simply to deny you both of your interests.”
“Well, biology denied the big one.” She shrugged. “It isn’t too bad not being out when transitioning wouldn’t really do what I wanted anyway.”
“And yet it is harming you, guinea pig!” Tachyon leaned forward, eyes wide and smile wider. “The constant feeling of never being enough no matter how much success you achieve. You assisted me in fulfilling my own dreams, both of them, and I find it excessively unfair I cannot help you. You know I don’t care about kotowing to the media- if you used this time to express yourself, as a triple crown trainer, then the regulatory boards would have to listen.”
“I’m not going to do it when the blowback could hit you, Tachyon. We’ve been over this.” Not that there was much anyone could do to her now, but Tracen was not an unbreakable fortress. Academia was, in some cases, just as cutthroat as racing and significantly more dishonest. Only after Tachyon had been given time to detach herself from her old trainer would it be a good idea to begin grinding the axe. Pissing off the government was in her red, white, and blue blood, but not if it came with Tachyon being denied every opportunity she’d worked toward.
The URA would be content to let a famous trainer being trans slide if she only came out after retiring, but picking a fight? Speaking up for people like her who couldn’t or didn’t want to hide? The URA would come down on everyone associated with her. Tracen could weather it, frankly speaking Tazuna and Akikawa might already know and be prepared, but Tachyon? Cafe and Pocket and Flame too. They’d get a lot of scrutiny, and any hint of being okay with such a ‘degenerate’ could put a lot of roadblocks in their way.
The old fucks in charge of regulations would make sure of that.
Assholes.
“You know I would already place myself in front, yes?” Tachyon chuckled at the familiar frown. “I can make my choices just as well, and nothing about your mental state precludes you from being an effective trainer. Why such a thing was connected to a morality clause in the first place astounds me. Hasn’t society already come forward quite enough?”
“Apparently not here.” Not back home either. The NURA was a lot newer than the URA, but it was still an old person's game at the top. Uma could be just as bigoted and stupid as humans, but with a side order of being even more concerned about the ‘young innocents’ that might get a ‘perverted trainer’. “And you really don’t need to do that-”
“Hey,” the knocks came heavy through the door, “almost time! We need you up on stage.”
“Well, guinea pig, we can discuss this later.” Tachyon leapt off the chair like the overdramatic bitch she was. “I have to express my victory through a dance number!”
Her trainer watched as she swept past. God, she really was just the perfect trainee for her, wasn’t she? Both of them overdramatic, adrenaline junkie bitches. Though at least her issues with doing her chosen path were manageable. The frailty genetics had given her could be overcome, but being biologically male was a lot trickier of a situation.
“Haah.” She shook her head and stepped out of the room. “I thought being a trainer would make it easier not to be able to run.”
Really, she should’ve known. Watching what you couldn’t have, day in and day out, was worse than not watching at all.
“Should’ve taken that offer to go pro.” Motorbike racing wasn’t the same, but it was still racing. Or any of the other places that’d offered. Turns out attempting to fill a hole made for good motivation. Maybe that would’ve been better.
~[#]~
“It really isn’t fair.” Tachyon felt her smile get even wider at that declaration. The winning live was done, her Arima Kinen trophy comfortably secure… wherever her parents deigned to put it. Likely next to the crown trophies. It wasn’t really a concern of hers. The actual concern here was her trainer.
Her stated goal of getting as close as possible to her dream was both successful and not. There was no doubt she was one of the most successful trainers currently at Tracen, having seen her trainee run, and win, the triple crown and the Arima Kinen. It was simply that such a thing only underscored how much she was not the one doing it. Beneath that cheerful facade was someone with a desire and drive equal to Tachyon’s own, if channeled in another direction.
And Tachyon had already figured out standing on the sidelines wasn’t something she could stomach.
“It’s a good thing I’m not concerned with fair.” The doctors of her youth had deemed her own dream impossible. Perhaps she’d manage a race or two, but the extreme strain of professional running would render her unable to move forward in short order. It wasn’t fair, but that was life. Simply shrug, make your peace, and move on.
As evidenced- Tachyon did not do that. She had gone beyond that, and reached even further beyond. The Zone, that curious state when the world bowed to the uma’s will, reached at last. Allowing Tachyon the excuse to run as she should have been able to from the start.
Her trainer could not reach the same. The Zone was… not quite reserved for uma, but research on it was scarce and Tachyon’s own interest didn’t extend to other sports. Or at least it didn’t extend to non-uma sports. There were traces of evidence of something similar being present in others, but only rarely and never followed up. Likely kept a secret between those who should know about it just as The Zone was a secret between the uma racers who might one day reach it.
Even if she managed it, that shell of her would deny it. The distinctly male body, kept in shape because it was useful to do so rather than care, locking away what she truly wished. Even running normally was a struggle, or so she’d said when Tachyon had asked. An extreme dysphoric response to moving on her own two legs. Even swimming had the same problem, according to the data Tachyon had acquired, if significantly reduced.
To reach the furthest height required an honesty of self that her trainer simply couldn’t have. Not while under pressure from outdated regulation and the tragedy of her own genetic code. But… if that weren’t the case…
“I wonder how high you’ll reach?” Tachyon’s hand crawled past beaker after beaker. An endless stream of failures, their shadows twisted to reach a singular goal. Years of work focused entirely on a single subject. If Plan A wouldn’t work, then there was Plan B.
Yet… Plan B required an uma. There was no guarantee anyone of the next generation, or even her generation, would produce a talent capable of reaching and surpassing the limits of an uma. Even in her entire life it wasn’t a guarantee. TM Opera O was a once in a century talent. Meisho Doto was a once in a decade talent. Relying on random chance and love to move together in creating a body that could even approach the limit was… unacceptable.
Truthfully she hadn’t even had the idea at first. Even subpar parts can work to create a miracle, especially with the influence of The Zone. Perhaps it wouldn’t be as grand a breaking of the shackles as it could have been, but, much as the thought rubbed sandpaper across skin, it would have been enough. Except then her trainer arrived.
An uma trapped in a man’s body. Unable to run because it felt wrong. Desperately throwing herself into each and every extreme sport she could in an attempt to capture what should have been her birthright. One who’d gotten a trainer license only because nothing else had worked. Who had accepted her lot as a guinea pig solely so someone else could have a chance at the glory she craved.
Director Akikawa was an interesting person, but if she was right about anything it was this.
Every umamusume should be protected, supported, and given the chance to run.
No exceptions.
It was only natural to work to ensure such for even the most misfortunate uma. If it happened to provide assistance elsewhere too… well. Tachyon would take the credit. A lot of scientific breakthroughs happened while chasing something else. That didn’t make them not breakthroughs and unworthy of being acclaimed.
Her hand stopped its crawl as it bumped against the heaviest container she had. A modified thermos, sealed so as to let nothing out. Usually it contained her more stable concoctions, safely stored so she could drink them but nobody else could get into it. But the Arima Kinen was behind her, the next season of racing something far in the future and would only questionably have her own presence. So sacrificing it to hold her most important work wasn’t a problem.
“Just a little bit more.” Glassware clinked as the thermos was pulled to the front. Light spilled out of the cap as she twisted it off. “Not quite yet.”
This couldn’t be done hastily. Not only did the mixture have to be specially made taking into account the full genetic profile, but it needed quite some time to properly set. The ingredients were simply too volatile to put together in any time frame that wasn’t measured in days. A single mistake would be ruinous, and the mixture failing could not be allowed. Not because she couldn’t remake it, but because there would be no point. Severe multiple organ failure was generally extremely fatal.
“Don’t worry, trainer.” Slowly, ever so slowly, a new liquid was added to the mix. The light pouring out shifted, lensed, just for a moment, into a rainbow. “Just wait a little bit longer.”
~[#]~
Another day, another stack of paperwork. It had actually surprised her just how much paperwork one uma could generate. It wasn’t even down to Tachyon being Tachyon, it was just Japan had never managed to get out of the paper era. There was no signing up online. There were forms, filled out in triplicate, and then handed over to Tracen to fax on over to the URA.
Thankfully this all was just the tail end of everything. The last little bits to end off the season. It wouldn’t even be half this big if Tachyon hadn’t won the Arima Kinen, and even with that it’d take like… a hour or two. Maybe. Depended on how much the URA wanted to screw around.
See, the URA got money in very specific ways. Especially in terms of merchandise and access to the umas that ran in their league. While the actual image rights remained with the uma in question, unless given up through some legal contract, actually racing, and performing, at URA races meant allowing them some leeway. They could, for instance, request that an uma running in one of their races did some advertising or host a press conference related to the race.
There were a few other things there, but the main thing was that Tachyon didn’t care to do any of it. She was likely the biggest winner the URA had made the least money with. Certainly not enough to make back her race winnings. Not like they were in the red, but the uma were idols to some degree, and one not towing the line didn’t tend to make them happy. Which translated into more paperwork.
They wanted to know why Tachyon didn’t do this press conference or walked away from this advertising deal. All under the guise of preventing exploitation. The difference in paperwork between Tachyon doing something they wanted and her not doing something was extreme. Not helped by the fact that they were the regulatory authority, so there was no way to realistically stop it.
Now, this was only so bad because it was Tachyon. The vast majority of trainers and uma don’t need to think about it, and it really didn’t take all that much time. The profit shares from selling videos of a race or a winning live were generous. Enough that particularly successful uma lived near entirely off of money from that. Not to mention the potential for making money from advertising outside of their sphere and merchandise. The system worked, is the thing, it just was overly invasive and annoying when… well.
When her trainee was a very unusual uma and she was… not inclined to be nice to the URA. It was their rules that prevented her from being out and proud, after all. No matter how much it was… fine, it still sucked. Her leg bounced at the thought. Maybe HRT would be enough to make running not suck.
“Trainer!” Aaand there's another form to fill out. At least the one for door repair was quick and Tachyon hadn’t forced her to use all of them already. That was a pretty common complaint at the bar… not that she went there much.
Other trainers were weirdly uninterested in actually training themselves. It was weird. Except the Kiryuins. That entire family was crazy and probably some level of atavistic. There was no other explanation for their immense physical abilities. Frankly speaking everyone feared the day they had an actual uma born to them. It may have already happened, depending on if you believed the rumored ‘Ryuko Kiryuin’ actually existed.
“Tachyon?” Anyway, focus on the important thing. She pulled back as her trainee thrust that container she called a thermos forward. It more resembled a mad science experiment as done by someone with no idea what they were doing, which was pretty accurate.
Tachyon wasn’t very good at engineering.
“I’ve done it! Finally!” Ooo-kay. Tachyon only said stuff like that when she’d been up for two days but less than three. “It took careful manipulation over the past twenty hours, but it’s complete!”
“What’s complete?” A careful hand reached up and gently put the thermos onto a clear spot of the desk. “Another new drug you need me to test?”
“No testing this time, trainer! It’s all or nothing, one and done!” Tachyon leaned back into that pose she always did. “It works, or you get horrific cancer in your everything and likely die of severe cascading organ failure!”
What. “What? Why would you even make this?”
“To strive to ensure your dreams come to pass, trainer! Plan B was always to raise another uma to the height I believed I might not achieve, but I couldn’t just rely on a suitable uma coming to me could I? No- if necessary I had to make one!” Wait. What did she… that… what? “I thank you for opening that very line of inquiry, trainer! Without meeting you and your disclaimer I wouldn’t have ever known of such an affliction, nor would I have been able to render aid! The limitations on drugs that the URA places forth are precise and strict, necessarily so, but no match for my genius.”
“So.” She swallowed. Her tongue darted out to wet suddenly dry lips. “What does this… do?”
“It induces controlled genetic decay and repair in order to switch the chromosomes from the masculine version into the feminine version. Specifically of an uma variation. More research would be needed for other combinations, but they are theoretically possible. Don’t leave it open too long, it’s extremely radioactive even if I minimized the half-life enough it shouldn’t prove problematic to the area or your body in excess of the time the boosted healing.” That… made absolutely no sense and probably broke a few scientific laws. “The end result will be a fully healthy uma! And likely a not small amount of castoff radioactive biological waste.”
“So… I drink this and it turns me into an uma?” Tachyon nodded. “Or I die. Horribly.”
“You won’t, I wouldn’t let anything happen to my perfect trainer!” Tachyon waved a labcoat covered hand. “Anyone else would take a similar amount of time mapping genetic sequences and bodily structures for a similar level of certainty.”
“Other people- Tachyon, you made a cancer potion! A mega-cancer potion. I’m pretty sure this is a crime against humanity. Or several!” Probably several. “But also this is the single most amazing thing you’ve ever done and, no matter what happens, I love you for the opportunity.”
Tachyon blinked. “What?”
Down the hatch!
OH GOD IT ACTUALLY TASTED EXACTLY LIKE IT SOUNDED!
~[#]~
Before Jungle Pocket had met Agnes Tachyon she hadn’t known a lot of things. Some of them were things she was glad to know, like the exact look on Tachyon’s face when she was just happy. Others were the sorta thing she’d gladly have never known, ever. Like the fact that Tracen had an incinerator just… available on campus. Or what paradoxically fresh but rotten flesh looked like. Or the smell of said flesh when it burned in an incinerator.
“We are going to be in so much shit.” Pocket rolled her neck as the last bits of the stuff was burned. “Like… this might actually end with us all in jail.”
Cafe shrugged. Then took a sip of her coffee. How she could stand to do that when they’d just burned flesh Pocket had no idea. It was also very Cafe though, which made things just sorta feel better.
“We probably won’t go to jail?” Dantsu Flame did not look like she believed in her own words. “Tachyon said her trainer wanted this?”
“I mean… she wasn’t really quiet about it, yeah. I can totally believe her doing that sorta thing, just like I can believe Tachyon figuring out some way to make it happen.” The other uma had done some wild stuff. Pocket still had to ask her about that energy enhancer she’d handed Pocket to test that one time. It’d turned her hair rainbow! It made her, like… twenty percent cooler or something. Maybe it’d be a good thing to do when pride came around again. “She was always kinda…”
“She… jumped out of planes. Also off bridges. And mountains.” Cafe blinked and tilted her head. “A lot of jumping.”
“Y’know, I’m kinda annoyed this happened now, because we definitely aren’t going to take the trip she promised me.” They were going to wingsuit down a mountain. It sounded so cool!
“Wait… he- she really wanted this?” Aaah, right. Flame hadn’t really interacted with her as much. There was really only so much of Tachyon’s energy one uma could take, and those two were cut from the same cloth. Flame could deal with one Tachyon, but dealing with Tachyon and a slightly different Tachyon was a recipe for her getting right the hell outta dodge. “I don’t think I heard about that…”
“Nah, don’t feel bad about it. She was all big on keeping it on the down low and everybody who knew wasn’t about to talk about it.” Pocket would have personally worked over anyone who dared out someone without their consent. Not that she really knew how to fight all that well, and definitely not better than miss Muay Thai herself, but it was the thought that counted. And possibly the broken bones. “Something to do with the URA I think? Blowback would hit anyone she had any hand in coaching, and she loved to give time to anyone that came around.”
“Nearly one third… of Tracen.” Cafe swirled her coffee around. “Last Tachyon counted.”
“Probably close to a half by now. She set up a whole unofficial weight class on Tachyon’s rest days. Give some of the uma who haven’t been taken up by a trainer some guidance.” Plus guidance to some trainers who’d never even held a weight before. Only so much you could really learn by looking at the charts or whatever they used.
“Wow. I never knew.” Flame shook her head with a blink. “But why would the URA care?”
“Old regulations.” Cafe waved her coffee cup. “Old people. How… they are.”
“That sort of thing? I get it.” Pocket blinked and opened her mouth-
“So.” All three of them turned. Symboli Rudolf crossed her arms and gave them a look. “Care to inform me why three of Tachyon’s friends are incinerating biological waste?”
“Tacyhon did something stupid and her trainer did something even more stupid.” Rudolf blinked. Whether it was because Pocket was being immediately honest or because it was usually the other way around she couldn’t tell. “I think that's the last of it?”
“According to Tachyon it should be. Everything else for her,” Flame looked, understandably, ill at recalling the exact state of Tachyon’s trainer, “should be healing.”
Rudolf audibly breathed in. “Was anything coerced?”
“Nah.”
“Is anyone in danger?”
“Stable now. Critical time was… last night?” Cafe looked up at the sky. Pocket looked too, and damn if it wasn’t actually lighting up. Good thing this was the offseason and she didn’t have training, because it would’ve been such a bitch on this little sleep. If she actually got to sleep. “Last night.”
“This is going to cause another crisis for the school, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely.” Flame hadn’t looked as dead certain of anything outside of a race… ever.
“Just… finish up and get Tachyon to come around as soon as possible.” Rudolf sighed. “I would see her myself, but I already have the urge to throw her through a window.”
“Yeah, that’s a pretty common feeling.” Three Goddesses knew Pocket had wanted to a few times. Along with some other stuff butletsnotfocusonthatrightnow-
“Pokke, why is your face red?”
“Let’s get back to the lab!” A quick early morning sprint would be a good idea, right? Had to keep up conditioning!
~[#]~
“Ughhh…” There were aches, there were pains, and there was exhaustion. It was a matter of how deep it reached. An ache didn’t go too deep, a pain was sharp, but exhaustion… that went right to the bone. Hooked itself in and yanked. There wasn’t any moving with that sort of thing, only laying down and trying not to jolt too much.
“Trainer!” Agnes Tachyon’s eyes darted around for a moment before she pulled her head back. “It was a success! Fully and truly! Pokke, the mirror!”
“This is the craziest shit I have ever seen from you, you know that?” The brunette uma didn’t even acknowledge that as she accepted the mirror. “Turning someone into an uma… I guess if anyone would manage it, it’d be you.”
“Good to see you recognize my genius, Pokke!” Tachyon flipped the mirror around and held it up. “Now take a good look Trainer. After shedding a significant percentage of body weight, you’ve just been reborn! Further uses of my drug will require some weight building beforehand- you are mildly underweight for your current form. Before you would have been considered overweight, though most of it was in muscle.”
Her mouth felt dry. “Ahh!” The instinctive jerk, exhausted limbs desperately reaching for the mirror, caused a wave of pain to erupt around her body. Yet… the smile on the face of the uma in the mirror… that didn’t go away. Instead it just got wider.
“Curious how you managed to end up like this! The genetic data I used to properly sequence a healthy uma code didn’t belong to someone looking anything like this.” Tachyon handed over the mirror surprisingly gently. “I had expected you to end up looking more like Flame, but this proves the genetics involved have little to do with the end result. Fascinating, really!”
“Wait, why would she have looked like me?”
“I used your genetic samples primarily! My own could have conferred my fragility and Cafe’s were unsuitable for similar reasons. I could have used Pokkes, but I ran out when it was time to add to the mixture.” Tachyon shrugged. “I suppose it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say you are related now! Congratulations.”
Few uma had purple hair, and none of them had vivid purple. It looked otherworldly, like it didn’t belong at all. Her eyes were a piercing yellow, but the more important part of them were the circles. They twirled in her irises, never quite seeming to stay still. A headache built in her skull before she snapped her gaze away. Flashing downward to take in the… generous proportions. Just… damn. Had she seen an uma built like this before?
Tachyon’s rambling continued to wash over her. “You came out within the ninetieth percentile in height, which is a step down from being unequivocally one of the tallest in Tracen, but still places you above most of the student body. Your other proportions did not fail to disappoint, however, so take heart in that! I believe the only comparison in the chest department is Meisho Doto, but I haven’t taken much data from her so I can’t give an exact ranking.”
They might actually be a big problem when running. Ughh, more work. None of her trainees had been… this big, so the methods of dealing with them weren’t anything she studied. Plus Tracen was in Japan. A store back in the US might have held a few things off the rack, but in Japan? No way. It’d all have to be ordered.
Good thing she happened to be filthy fucking rich. It was going to be needed.
“Name.” Cafe leaned into view next to Tachyon. Her wide eyed stare, aided by her concerning eyebags, bored into the new uma. “You need… a name now.”
A name… she’d never thought of that before. Why torture herself picking out something that was never going to be used? It just wasn’t worth the heartache. Yet still… there was one thing.
“Ash.” The word fell from her mouth like it’d been waiting. There was a show she’d enjoyed, back when she was getting into every sport she could, and one thing the main character had said stuck with her. His dedication to his sport of choice… that was the first time anybody had ever put into words how she felt about running. Even if she couldn’t ever do it. If she was going to have a name, it had to be that. “Pure White Ash.”
It was a promise… and a curse. Maybe she’d end up like him, maybe not. But… there were worse fates. Tachyon had given her a key to Pandora’s Box.
Hope surged.
And that was the most destructive thing of all.