Chapter Text
Three days.
Three entire days of utterly maddening silence. That was all you had to show for results.
The Satsuki Sho, one of the most prestigious G1 races of the season, was less than a week away, and your star racer, the cornerstone of your burgeoning career, had all but vanished into thin air.
Tachyon had not answered a single call, replied to a single message, or shown up to a single training session. Each meticulously planned regimen, each strategic analysis, had been met with nothing but the echoing void of her absence. You felt your stomach churn with a nauseating cocktail of anxiety and pure, unadulterated fury.
Any other umamusume would be disciplined, suspended even, but Tachyon wasn't any other umamusume. She was a generational talent, a monster of the turf who won on raw genius alone, and the academy board knew it. This gave her a leash long enough to hang you with, and right now, you could feel the rope tightening around your neck.
But right now? Enough was enough. Your reputation was on the line, but more than that, a spark of pure indignant rage had finally caught fire in your gut. You were her trainer. You were supposed to be in charge.
Your determined march carried you across the manicured lawns of Tracen Academy, away from the bustling dorms and the well-trodden paths leading to the track. The sun was beginning its slow descent, painting the sky in hues of orange and violet, but the beauty of it was lost on you.
Your destination was the old, repurposed science building at the far edge of campus, a place most students and staff avoided. As you approached, a faint, peculiar smell began to prickle at your nostrils—a sharp, sterile scent, layered with whatever sickly sweet chemicals were likely being mixed together.
The door to her designated lab was slightly ajar, a sliver of harsh, white light cutting through the deepening twilight. You shoved it open without knocking, the pent-up frustration boiling over entirely. "Tachyon!"
The name died on your lips as you took in the scene. It wasn’t a laboratory. It was a hurricane made manifest.
Wires and cables snaked across the floor like snakes, plugged into a humming, groaning network of servers and strange, custom-built machines that blinked with dozens of tiny, inscrutable lights. Every flat surface was buried under teetering ziggurats of books, research papers, and printouts. Two massive whiteboards dominated one wall, covered from top to bottom in a frantic spiderweb of chemical formulas, physics equations, and anatomical diagrams of an umamusume’s leg, all rendered in a dizzying array of colored markers. The air was thick with the hum of electricity and the gentle, rhythmic bubbling of liquids in beakers and flasks scattered across a massive steel workbench. Some glowed with an eerie luminescence—one a vivid fuchsia, another a pulsating, toxic green.
And in the center of it all, illuminated by the stark fluorescent overheads, was Tachyon.
She was standing on a rolling step-stool, her back to you, reaching for a textbook on a shelf that was already impossibly high. Even with the added height, the sheer scale of her was breathtaking. The oversized lab coat she always wore, somehow pristine despite the cluttered workspace, hung off her shoulders, its hem swaying around her ankle. You could see the powerful, defined curve of her calf muscles, straining slightly with the posture.
"Tachyon," you said again, your voice firmer this time, though it felt small and thin in the buzzing, clicking space.
For a moment, there was no response, only the frantic clack-clack-clack of a keyboard being typed on by some automated program nearby. Then, with a sigh that seemed less about annoyance and more about a brief interruption in a grand cosmic plan, she turned.
She placed the book on her workbench and stepped down from the stool. The floor seemed to vibrate with the soft thud of her heeled boots. And then she was facing you, and the full, overwhelming reality of her presence was staring you down into the floor.
You were not a short person, but Agnes Tachyon was a different order of being. At eight feet tall, she didn't just tower over you; she eclipsed you. Your eyes were level with the leather straps that held rows of shimmering blue vials against her torso. To look her in the face, you had to crane your neck back at an uncomfortable angle, like a child addressing an adult. She loomed, a living, breathing mountain of intellect and muscle, casting a shadow that swallowed you whole.
A slow, curious smile spread across her lips, but it held no warmth. It was the smile of a researcher observing a curious specimen that had just wandered into the petri dish. Her dark red eyes were devoid of any reflective shine. They didn't just look at you; they seemed to be scanning you, cataloging you, seeing past your skin and into the frantic pulse beating in your throat.
"Ah, my guinea pig," she chirped, her tone light and playful, completely at odds with your simmering rage. "Excellent timing! I was just contemplating the next phase. Your appearance is greatly appreciated. I was beginning to worry I’d have to waste time fetching you myself."
You took a breath, steeling yourself. "Don't call me that. And I'm not here for an experiment, Tachyon. I'm here because you've missed three straight days of training. The Satsuki Sho is on Saturday! Do you have any idea how serious this is?"
She blinked, tilting her head. The motion was bird-like, unnervingly quick. "Serious?" she repeated the word as if it were a foreign concept. Her gaze drifted past you, toward one of the bubbling beakers. "The relative seriousness of a single race is a purely subjective metric. From a data-gathering perspective, it has its merits, but it's hardly necessary."
Before you could retort, she closed the distance between you in a single, fluid stride. Her hand shot out and clamped around your forearm. Grip nearly crushing you in an absolute hold. Her fingers were long and cool, wrapping completely around your arm with an unyielding firmness that sent a jolt up your spine. She pulled you forward, effortlessly dragging you deeper into the lab until you were standing right beside her workbench.
Her personal space was an assault on the senses. The chemical smell was stronger here, mixed with the faint, clean scent of sweat. You were completely enveloped by her height, a helpless human tucked against the side of a giantess in a lab coat.
"Forget the track for a moment," she said, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial, excited hush. She gestured with her free hand toward a computer monitor displaying a rotating 3D model of a complex protein. "I've finally stabilized the isomer! For weeks, I've been struggling with the enantiomeric purity, the chiral centers kept inverting post-synthesis, but a targeted application of microwave-assisted organic synthesis in a triphasic catalyst system did the trick!"
You just stared at her, your carefully rehearsed reprimand dissolving into confused silence. You had no idea what she was talking about.
"Don't you see?" she pressed, her red eyes wide with manic glee. "This isn't just about reducing lactate buildup or increasing oxygen uptake—that's rudimentary! This compound, if my theoretical models are correct, should temporarily enhance the neuro-muscular junction's firing efficiency by almost sixty percent! Imagine, the brain's signal to the muscle, arriving faster, stronger, with almost zero degradation. It's the very precipice of potential!"
She released your arm only to snatch up a small beaker from the bench. It was filled with a viscous, faintly glowing liquid the color of a twilight sky. She swirled it, the thick fluid clinging to the glass.
"And you, my favorite little test subject," she cooed, holding the beaker up in front of your face. Her smile was back, wider this time, a little more unhinged. "Are the perfect candidate for the first live trial. We have so much baseline data on you already, it would be a shame to let it go to waste."
You recoiled, shaking your head, finally finding your voice again. "No! Absolutely not! Tachyon, listen to me! This is your career! If you bomb at the Satsuki Sho because you've been in here playing with some glowing sludge—"
Her expression shifted instantly. The playful, mad-scientist facade vanished, replaced by a gaze of cold, dismissive analysis.
"Bomb?" she interrupted, her voice losing all of its childish inflection. It was flat, sharp, and utterly devoid of emotion. "A race is a controlled experiment with multiple variables, nothing more. Victory or defeat are merely data points. My 'career,' as you call it, is the pursuit of knowledge. That race is a means to an end, a public demonstration. My real work happens here." She gestured to the surrounding lab. "This work is what will allow me to transcend the very limits you seem so concerned with. Your job is to facilitate that, is it not?"
She leaned in closer, her towering frame blocking out the rest of the lab. The glowing beaker was just inches from your lips. Her voice dropped to a low, persuasive murmur, the coercive silkiness returning.
"Just cooperate for a moment guinea pig. Let me collect my data and—"
You planted your feet, a last, desperate bastion of defiance against the overwhelming tide of her manic energy. "No," you stated, pushing the beaker of glowing liquid away from your face with a hand that trembled only slightly. You had to find a way to get through to her, to appeal to some shared sense of purpose. "Tachyon, please. My job—my entire purpose here—is to help you reach your peak potential as a racer. That means proper training on the track, a controlled diet, physical conditioning. It's a partnership. I handle the strategy and the preparation so you are free to do what you do best: run."
You tried to meet her gaze, to project an aura of sincerity and control you were nowhere close to feeling. "Let me help you win the Satsuki Sho the right way. That's how we prove your theories. We show them on the track, in front of everyone."
For a moment, she just looked at you, her head tilted. The cheerful, unhinged mask was gone, replaced by an expression of placid, academic curiosity. With a soft sigh that seemed to convey disappointment in a slow student, she placed the beaker back on the steel workbench. You felt a flicker of hope, a foolish, fleeting thought that you might have actually broken through.
Then she took a deliberate step toward you.
Instinctively, you took a step back. The heel of your shoe hit a coiled bundle of thick cables on the floor. You stumbled, and she took another slow, drawn out step forward, her sheer presence forcing you back again. Another step, and the cold, unyielding steel of a massive data server cabinet pressed against your spine. You were trapped. The messy labwork, which had seemed so wide and open moments before, now felt like a cage.
She stopped, leaving barely a foot of space between you, forcing you to crane your neck even further back. She was so close you could see the faint, almost invisible freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose, the way the harsh fluorescent light caught in the strange, linear patterns of her irises.
"Your 'job'," she began, her voice a calm, didactic drone, "is something I have taken the liberty of studying in great detail. The Tracen Academy Trainer-Umamusume contract is a fascinating document. Have you ever read it thoroughly? I have."
Her lips curved into that same unnerving smile, not a fathomable flicker of warmth. "For instance, your primary duty, as per section two, paragraph one, is to provide 'comprehensive support tailored to the individual umamusume's needs in order to maximize their potential.' It does not, you will note, specify how that potential is to be maximized. Your assumption that it is limited to your conventional, frankly archaic, methods of physical training is a projection on your part. A quaint one, but contractually baseless."
You opened your mouth to argue, but she simply raised a single finger, silencing you before a sound could escape.
"Furthermore," she continued, her tone sharp, "Section three, subsection B, clarifies that a trainer's duties include, and I quote, 'facilitating the umamusume's unique talents and methodologies for performance enhancement.' My unique talent, my core methodology, is this." She made a sweeping gesture with her hand, indicating the humming, bubbling, chaotic laboratory around you. "My research is my method. Therefore, contractually, you are not only permitted to support it, you are obligated to facilitate it. To deny me my primary methodology would, in fact, be a dereliction of your duty."
Every word was a nail being hammered into the coffin of your authority. Your arguments felt like sand castles against her logical tide. "That's... that's twisting the words," you managed to stammer out, your voice weak.
"Am I?" Her smile widened. She leaned down slightly, her face now unnervingly close to yours. "You speak of diet. Is providing a revolutionary, chemically-synthesized nutritional and performance-enhancing supplement not the absolute pinnacle of dietary support? You speak of pushing me physically. Is testing the very boundaries of what is physiologically possible not the ultimate expression of that? You are thinking in two dimensions, my dear guinea pig. You must learn to see the bigger picture."
You felt your anger and resolve curdling into a sort of dizzying helplessness. She was right. Not morally right, not ethically right, but in her cold, twisted, legalistic interpretation of the rules, she was unassailable. You had come here to reprimand her, and she was calmly and cheerfully explaining how you weren't even doing your own job correctly. The sheer audacity of it was staggering. You felt impossibly small, pinned against the cabinet by her presence, your face flushing with a deep, burning humiliation.
"So you see," she murmured, her voice becoming soft, almost gentle, which was infinitely more terrifying than her previous tone. "Your concerns are unfounded. We are working toward the same goal. I simply have a more efficient, more ambitious roadmap. You want to see me win, don't you? You want to be the trainer of the umamusume who shatters every record, who proves that the concept of a 'limit' is merely a failure of imagination?"
She held your gaze, her red eyes boring into you, and you found you couldn't look away. You could only give a weak, pathetic nod.
"I thought so," she whispered, a genuine, thrilling excitement entering her voice. "This is the path. Our path."
She turned, picked up the glowing blue beaker again, and held it out to you.
"You want to fulfill your contractual obligations?" she asked, her voice soft but firm. "Drink this."
The world seemed to shrink down to two points of focus: her unwavering, expectant eyes, and the swirling, luminous liquid in the glass. Defeated, your shoulders slumped. The fight had gone out of you, replaced by a hollow sense of inevitability. With a trembling hand that you could no longer control, you reached out and took the beaker, your fingers brushed against hers.
You lifted the glass to your lips. You didn't even hesitate. You just tilted it back and drank.
The liquid was thick, and tasted surprisingly of citrus, almost like licking a battery. You drained the entire thing in three gulps, the viscous fluid sliding down your throat.
A beat of silence passed. Then, for the first time, Agnes Tachyon's smile reached her eyes. It was a look of pure, unadulterated scientific delight.
"Excellent," she breathed, taking the empty beaker from your nerveless fingers and placing it carefully on the workbench. She gently took your wrist, her thumb pressing against your pulse point.
"Let's start collecting some data, shall we?" As Tachyon's cool fingers remained pressed against your pulse point, a strange warmth bloomed deep in your belly. It wasn’t unpleasant at first. It felt like a sip of alcohol was spreading through your veins, a pleasant, languid heat that made your limbs feel heavy. You watched her face, her red eyes narrowed in concentration as she stared at a digital stopwatch she was holding.
"Initial heart rate post-ingestion is one hundred and twelve beats per minute," she murmured, more to herself than to you. "A moderate increase. Let's observe the—”
Her voice cut off as a violent shudder wracked your entire body. The pleasant warmth erupted into a raging inferno, It’s a flash fire. A searing, coiling heat ignites deep in your gut, a liquid inferno that spreads outwards with terrifying speed. It’s not the gentle comfort of alcohol; this is a raw, primal energy that rewrites your entire being in a matter of seconds. Your skin flushes hot, so hot it feels like it’s steaming. Your breath hitches in your throat, coming out in short, ragged gasps. Every nerve ending in your body is suddenly alive and screaming for stimulus.
Your clothes became instruments of torture. The soft fabric of your shirt felt like coarse burlap, the waistband of your pants a band of hot iron cinched around your hips. Every tiny seam, every crease, was a line of agonizing friction against your suddenly hypersensitive skin. You let out a choked gasp, your legs trembling so hard you weren't sure they could hold you.
"Ah," Tachyon said, her voice sounding both impossibly distant and deafeningly loud. She looked up from her watch, her expression one of mild surprise. "A much faster metabolic uptake than anticipated. If you couldn't tell this is a custom-designed pheromonal catalyst. My hypothesis is that by directly stimulating the hypothalamus with a targeted protein sequence, I can induce a state of extreme arousal in a non-Umamusume subject. A biological ‘heat’ if you will.
The word "heat" is hardly even processed by your brain. Your mind is reeling, trying to process any of what was happening, but it was impossible to form a coherent thought. Your entire consciousness was being hijacked by your own screaming nerve endings. The cool air from a ventilation duct brushed against the back of your neck, and you cried out, the sensation so intense it was like being caressed by fire and ice all at once. Your body was no longer your own. It was a prison of sensory overload, and every single input was agony and a strange, brutal ecstasy.
"Subject's heart rate now approaching one hundred and eighty BPM," she narrated calmly, her gaze analytical as she scanned you from head to toe. "Cutaneous vasodilation is evident, causing significant flushing of the skin. Note the pupil dilation and extreme hypersensitivity to tactile stimuli."
You tried to speak, to scream at her, to curse her, but your throat would only produce a strangled whimper. "You..." you gasped, your own voice unrecognizable. You reached for her, a desperate, clumsy lunge born of fury and panic. You meant to grab the front of her lab coat, to shake her, to make her see what she'd done to you. But your coordination was gone, your legs turning to water. You pitched forward, a cry of despair on your lips as the world tilted sideways.
But you never hit the floor.
Two strong arms wrapped around you, catching you with an effortless, fluid motion. One hand splayed across your back, the other circling your waist, hauling you flush against a body that was as firm and solid as granite. The impact of the full-body contact was apocalyptic.
A bolt of pure, white-hot lightning shot from the base of your spine to the crown of your head. Your vision went white. The sensation of your soft front pressed against the unyielding muscle of her torso, the rough texture of her sweater, the solid wall of her body holding you, steadying you—it was too much. Your mind overloaded with feelings you didn't know were possible. A strangled scream tore from your throat as an intense, agonizing wave of pleasure crested through you, so powerful it bordered on pain, making your toes curl and your back arch violently in her arms. It was a ghost of a climax, a phantom that left you shuddering and breathless, on the verge of complete collapse.
All anger, all coherent thought, was incinerated in that moment. There was only the heat, the need, and the impossible, overwhelming presence of the one holding you. Your desperate lunge to attack became a pathetic, desperate cling. You buried your face against her chest, inhaling her scent, which only served to fan the flames higher.
"T-Tachyon..." you mewled the name pathetically. Your hands, which had meant to strike, were now fisted in her sweater, holding on as if she were the only solid thing in the entire room. The heat inside you was coiling tighter, an unbearable pressure building in your core. It hurt. It hurt so much, and yet you instinctively knew that only more of the thing that caused the pain could grant any relief.
You began to squirm in her grip, a helpless, instinctual motion. You couldn't stop yourself from rubbing your body against hers, chasing the delicious friction, the maddening contact. Every movement sent fresh waves of torturous pleasure through you.
"Please," you whimpered, your breath coming in hot, ragged pants against her chest. Your hips moved of their own accord, a desperate, pleading rotation. "Please, it's—it's too much. It burns. Do something... you have to do something... please..."
You tilted your head back, looking up at her with tear-filled eyes, your entire being reduced to a single, primal, begging prayer.
Tachyon simply looked down at you, her expression unreadable. The smile was gone, replaced by a focused intensity. She adjusted her grip, holding you more securely as you trembled and writhed against her.
"Hmm," she hummed, a low and thoughtful. "An unforeseen but highly valuable data set. The psychological component is far more pronounced than hypothesized." Her red eyes held a new glint of scientific interest. "The subject is no longer resistant. In fact, she appears to be actively soliciting intervention. Interesting." Her gaze was sharp, analytical, like a jeweler examining a flawed but fascinating gem. "To understand the full scope of the compound's effects, I need to quantify this tactile response."
Before you could even begin to process what that meant, the hand that had been steadying your waist began to move. Her fingers slid with agonizing slowness from the soft fabric of your shirt onto the bare skin of your stomach where your top had ridden up. The touch was electric. A choked sob escaped your lips, and your entire body convulsed in her arms. It wasn't a rejection; it was a desperate, involuntary arching into the touch, seeking more of that exquisite torture.
"Note the immediate myoclonic jerk in response to cutaneous stimulation of the abdomen," she murmured, her thumb stroking a slow, deliberate circle just above your navel. "Pupils are fully dilated. Skin temperature is elevated significantly." Her other hand began its own exploration, sliding from your back down to the curve of your hip. Her fingers pressed firmly, mapping the shape of you, and you just melted, your legs feeling weaker, hotter.
"S-stop..." The word was a pathetic puff of air, devoid of any conviction. It was a lie, and you both knew it. Your body betrayed you with every shuddering breath, with the way your hips began to rock in a slow, unconscious rhythm against her.
Her hand slid lower, her palm cupping the swell of your ass through the fabric of your pants. She gave a firm, appraising squeeze. "Vocal protest is noted," she said, her voice laced with amusement. "However, it is directly contradicted by positive physical feedback. The subject is exhibiting increased pelvic tilt and involuntary gluteal contraction."
Her touch was light, yet it was setting your entire world on fire. You were melting into her, your body a pliant, willing thing in her grasp even as your brain med in protest. The heat in your core was becoming an unbearable, throbbing ache, a desperate, hollow need that demanded to be filled. The friction of your own clothes was no longer enough. You started to grind against her, a more frantic, deliberate motion now, trying to chase that impossible relief.
She shifted her stance, her leg pressing more firmly between yours, providing a solid, unyielding point of contact. You latched onto it instantly, your body taking over completely. A low moan rising from your throat as you humped against her thigh, mindless and desperate.
"Ah, and there we have it," Tachyon observed, her voice unwavering as you shamelessly ground your clenching core against her. "The drive for climax has now apparently supplanted all other rational thought. The subject is utilizing me as a tool for self-stimulation."
You were panting, your mouth hanging open, drool beading at the corner of your lip. Your head was thrown back, your eyes squeezed shut, lost in a world of pure, agonizing sensation. You were on the absolute edge, a precipice of release so intense you could barely breathe.
Tachyon leaned down, her face close to yours. "Increased salivation, shallow, rapid breathing... let's test the oral reflex."
You felt the tip of her finger brush against your lips. Then, slowly, she slid two of her fingers into your mouth. Your immediate, subconscious reaction was to suck. You latched onto her, your tongue and lips working desperately, pulling her deeper. Her fingers were long and tasted faintly of chemicals. It was an anchor in the storm, another point of sensation to focus your entire being on.
"Strong suction reflex," she noted with detached interest, allowing you to slobber and suckle on her digits. "Approximately 4.5 PSI."
She let you continue your frantic work, humping against her leg, sucking greedily on her fingers, a complete and utter slave to the chemicals she had poured into you. She wasn't a partner in this; she was a conductor, a scientist observing her experiment as it reached its fever pitch. You were a mess of whimpers and slick heat, writhing in her arms, and her only response was to watch, to record, her cold red eyes taking in every single humiliating detail of your undoing.
A low, amused hum vibrated through Tachyon’s chest. Ceasing her academic narration, she set aside any equipment she was using for data recording. Her entire, formidable attention, which had been observing you like a specimen under a microscope, now focused on you with a new, terrifying intimacy.
She leaned down, her lips brushing against the shell of your ear. Her hot breath fanning out air against your hypersensitive skin, sending a violent shiver through your already trembling frame.
"Tell me, guinea pig," she murmured, her voice a silken, teasing whisper that slid directly into your brain. "How does it feel? This… potential I’ve unlocked within you. Is the data I’m collecting satisfactory?"
As she spoke, she began to move her fingers inside your mouth. It was no longer a passive occupation. She toyed with you, dragging her fingertips slowly across your tongue, tracing the sharp line of your teeth, curling and uncurling them in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. You could only respond with a desperate, wet suckling, trying to draw her deeper, your mind a haze of pleasure and abject submission.
Then, the leg you were desperately humping began to move.
It started as a slow, circular grind, and the feedback was immediate. A drawn out moan slipped from your throat. Your hips, which had been moving with frantic energy, were now locked in perfect, helpless sync with her motion. You were no longer just grinding; she was grinding back, meeting your desperate thrusts with a firm, dominant pressure that sent sparks flying behind your eyes.
"That's it," she chuckled, the sound a low mockery as she egged you on. She began to bounce her thigh in a steady, jumping rhythm, and you were lost. You clung to her, your fingers digging into the thick muscle of her shoulders, your body now just a passenger on a ride you couldn't stop. You were riding her thigh, bucking and sobbing with each intentional, perfect application of friction.
"Look at you," she cooed, her voice dripping with a condescending affection that was more violating than any insult. "So desperate. So wanton. You’re quite cute like this, did you know? All that fiery authority and pride, completely boiled away, leaving this pure, needy little animal. So eager to please."
Her words washed over you, but they didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the rhythmic pressure, the building, coiling inferno inbetween your legs. The world was gone. The lab was gone. There was only the solid muscle of her thigh moving against you, the slick heat dripping out of you, and the agonizing promise of release. Your mind was pure static, unable to form a single thought, a single protest.
"Tachyon," you sobbed the name again and agan. "T-Tachyon... please... nnngh!"
You could feel it coming, a tidal wave building on the horizon of your senses, about to crash down and pull you under. Your whimpers pitched higher, becoming frantic, keening cries. Your entire body went rigid in her arms, every muscle pulled taut as a bowstring. Your back arched so far it felt like your spine would snap.
"Yes," she whispered, her voice a triumphant hiss in your ear as she increased the pace, driving you mercilessly toward the peak. "Show me. Show me every single part of you."
And then the wave hit.
It was an all-consuming cataclysm. A raw, piercing scream of pure, undiluted pleasure was torn from your throat, muffled against the fabric of her sweater. Your world exploded into blinding white light. The orgasm ripped through you not as a release, but as a complete system failure, a full-body convulsion that shook you in her arms like a ragdoll. A wave of intense, slick heat flooded your panties as your clenching muscles gave their final, shuddering surrender.
The moment it was over, the strings holding you up were cut. You collapsed.
Every ounce of strength, every pretense of form, vanished. You went completely boneless and limp, a dead weight in her arms. Your head lolled to the side, your breathing coming in shallow, ragged gasps. You were spent, utterly, completely empty.
Tachyon easily held your collapsed form, looking down at the quivering, sweat-drenched mess you had become. A slow, deeply satisfied smile spread across her face.
She adjusted her grip, cradling you almost gently as she finally removed her fingers from your slack mouth.
"Conclusion," she stated softly. "Subject is highly responsive to tailored, active stimuli. Peak physiological performance achieved." She looked down at your limp form, a new light shining in those dark red eyes. "Yet we still have a ways to go. Don't we guinea pig?"