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Agnes Tachyon.
Agnes Tachyon this.
Agnes Tachyon that.
‘Tachyon would've totally won if she was here.’
‘Tachyon, the phantom tripe crown!’
‘It's a shame what happened to her, she would've been the star of racing.’
‘All the other racers are honestly lucky she's out of the game.’
‘When do you think Tachyon will come back?’
It's always her. Always Tachyon. Everybody is so obsessed with Tachyon. It doesn't matter what Pokke does, Tachyon will always be looming over her. Everybody will always be hung up on Tachyon.
Even Jungle Pocket herself.
Ever since Tachyon quit, it's the only thing she can fucking think of. She won the derby for God's sake! But all she thinks about is what would've happened if Tachyon ran. And that she probably wouldn't have won. Scratch that, there was no way she could have won. Tachyon was always ahead. She isn't even running and she still is.
Pokke still sees her. Even right now, while she's running through the rain. Soaked to the bone. The day after the derby. Exhausted. With no food to power her.
She was running on fumes and adrenaline. She didn't even feel it. Hadn't even thought about food or sleep or anything. All of it was Tachyon.
She was being haunted by a living person.
She speeds up. Desperately trying to catch up to the figure she pictures so vividly she wasn't even sure if it was fake. She needed to run. Faster. Harder. Cover any ground. Wet sidewalk starting to look more and more like the racetrack.
Tachyon just got further away.
Pokke ran harder. Wheezing. She needed to catch up to her.
Tachyon was born with some kind of talent. Built for winning. Something Pocket would die for. To be that strong. And Tachyon didn't even care. It wasn't something she even found very useful outside of data. It made Pokke want to scream. How come Tachyon got to haunt her? Why is it that, no matter how hard Pocket tries, she feels like she'll never get past Tachyon? That she won't be the strongest, because Tachyon exists, and even if she didn't, she thinks Tachyon would still somehow manage to haunt her?
It wasn't even about how strong she was.
Jungle Pocket hated Agnes Tachyon. Not because she was faster, not because she was stronger. But because Tachyon lied to her. That Tachyon saw her as nothing more than a guinea pig. That Pokke didn't matter aside from data to her when Pokke cares so much about her. It fucking hurts. And she hates that.
One of her legs lost traction on the concrete, sliding through a puddle and making her stumble. Pokke felt a jolt of panic as she skidded across the ground for a second, frantically trying to reorient herself before she crashed to the ground.
She hit the pavement hard with a groan, her clothes getting even more soaked. Pain radiating from her- well- everywhere. It shouldn't have hurt that much.
She needed to get up.
Pocket attempted to push herself off the ground, only to feel a sudden wave of dizziness and lethargy. Her stomach spiking with a painful reminder of the lack of food she'd had that finally went noticed.
Along with everything else.
God, why now?
Pokke felt a wave stronger than all of her current physical problems.
Hopelessness
Everything hurts. She couldn't move. Things were getting blurry.
Maybe it would be fine if she just.. took… a quick.. nap…
—--------------------
Tachyon was trying to focus on some work for a side project.
Key word: trying.
Pokke hadn't come back yet.
Tachyon had seen her leave, which wasn't completely abnormal, Pocket loved to run.
But, there were a few things that were off.
For one, it was the day after the Derby, so she should theoretically take it easy. Though she hardly listened so that wasn't too surprising.
But, secondly, it wasn't in Pocket's normal running time frames.
Tachyon had observed that there were specific time frames Pocket went out to run. And when asked about it, she had absolutely no idea what Tachyon was talking about, so it was also subconsciously. Pokke wasn't very punctual, but most of the time when there wasn't any outside interference, she would almost always run in those times.
Thirdly, Jungle Pocket hated the rain.
She never said it out loud, but Tachyon had picked up on how Pokke would shiver and wear a more down face than normal when it came around. How, when she noticed it was raining, she would pout before quickly realizing that she was pouting and covering it up, embarrassed.
And lastly, it didn't take a genius to figure out something was up with her.
All of this was for science, of course. Tachyon couldn't have her guinea pig in anything but tip top racing shape if she was going to accomplish.. Tachyon's… goal.
In her place..
Anyway! Point was, she was starting to get concerned for Po- her experiment. She was starting to get concerned that her guinea pig would accidentally jeopardise her experiment. Nothing else.
She had entertained that sentimental part of her for too long. Good thing she fixed it and got back on track with her experiment. This was a completely unrelated train of thought because it was already fixed and so it's not important whatsoever.
It really was raining hard. And it had been a while since Pokke left.
Maybe a walk wouldn't hurt.
No, she wasn't walking a little faster than normal out of her lab. No, she didn't know Pokke's routes for anything other than science. Just like getting her hair completely soaked because she, in her urgency, left everything behind, including an umbrella, was for nothing more than her care for the experiment. Nothing else. She'd invested a lot in this, after all.
The streets were empty for a while. Maybe it was a different route? It wasn't uncommon for guinea pigs acting unnatural to also choose different paths.
What was that laying in the middle of the sidewalk?
Ah.
That was a person.
An uma.
Specifically Jungle Pocket.
No, Tachyon will not talk about the rise of panic in her, it was just for the experiment after all. She will also not discuss the speed she moved to kneel down beside her. Or the way she didn't care about her knees bruising from the concrete.
Tachyon quickly moved to pick her up and rush her to the nearest open building. Which was an empty lobby, not even the staff there. Irresponsible.
Fine, she'd do this herself.
Please have a heartbeat. Please have a heartbeat. Please-
Tachyon rarely prayed to the God's, but in this moment she suddenly felt more religious than she ever has.
A heartbeat, a relatively stable one at that for how shallow her breathing was.
Knocked out. Unstable breathing, but now that Tachyon was looking harder, still noticeable. Shivering and cold to the touch. Completely soaked head to toe. Likely close to hypothermia.
How come Jungle Pocket chose the worst time to do this? The closest place with what she needed to help her was likely the academy. Considering this entire area tended to close down for the night like people of 60 years of age and older. The entire area.
Well, Tachyon will just have to work with what she's got.
She shucked off her jacket to wrap around Pokke, in which it was even bigger on her.
…
It had been enough time to warm up Pocket a bit, at least enough to where Tachyon was comfortable making the journey back to the academy with her. Carefully maneuvering her to comfortably rest on Tachyon's back, arms hoisting her up by the legs after carefully draping her arms over Tachyon's shoulders.
.
The trek back was significantly less easy, with an unconscious Pokke piggybacking and her jacket no longer protecting her from most of the rain.
Tachyon didn't exactly care though.
…
She barely remembered the time between finding Pocket passed out and entering the Academy dorms, soaked to the bone and panting.
Running up the stairs as fast as possible without jostling Pokke too much. Borderline banging on the dorm Pocket and her roommate shared.
Narita Top Road opened the door, and was, unsurprisingly, shocked.
For one, there was an unconscious Pokke
Two, a Tachyon no one had really seen out of her lab in ages. Three, said Tachyon was the least Tachyon like anyone had ever seen. And four, they were both completely soaked.
She didn't have time for this.
Tachyon pushed past the stunned uma, setting Pokke on her bed and pulling her coat off of her.
Alright, time to properly treat her.
Tachyon immediately started peeling off Pokke's soaked clothes, which ended up finally snapping Top Road out of her stupor.
“H-hey! What are you doing?! What-”
“Pokke is close to hypothermia. If she doesn't have it already, that is.”
“Why-what-when-how- Why are you taking her clothes off!?”
“Hypothermia. If you're not going to be useful, shoo.”
Tachyon deadpanned, she didn't have time for explanations.
She paused to quickly ransack Pocket's closet for suitable clothes before continuing to remove any articles that didn't remove all of Pokke's dignity.
Quickly replacing them with dry clothes before putting her jacket back on over her. Pulling the blankets out from under Pokke to instead pull over Pokke's body.
“Do- do you need any help? Like, something super hot to warm her up?”
Tachyon audibly sighed.
“No, she cannot change in temperature too drastically. Go get the nurse.”
“A-Alright!”
Top Road quickly ran off. Slamming the door behind her as she disappeared into the hallway.
Alright, no heating blanket available that Tachyon knows of, so body heat instead.
She quickly crawled into bed beside Pocket, dragging her close and carefully placing her hands on her neck to warm the center of her body more.
She breathed.
Pokke was going to be fine.
And she breathed again, this time easier.
Relieved.
She sat there for a little longer.
…
The nurse would be coming by soon, she should leave before then.
Tachyon, albeit reluctantly which would never be brought up, removed herself from beside Pocket.
She should turn to leave.
Tachyon's still staring at her, Pokke's face calmer than before, she thinks.
This is not important, this will not be mentioned. This has no effect. Pocket is nothing more than a guinea pig to her, for everyone's sake. This proves nothing.
Tachyon gently runs a hand through Pokke's hair. Separating the damp locks before briefly grazing her fingertips over her face.
Tachyon pulls back.
Tachyon leaves.
She watches the nurse rush into the room behind her, quickly grabbing Top Road to stop her from following.
Tachyon offers her a wide smile.
“I feel I should confirm with you that this isn't important enough to be mentioned to Jungle Pocket, right? After all, I'm just making sure my guinea pig can still run for my experiment. It'd be a hassle to lose so much data and progress.”
Top Road looks confused.
“Huh? Uh- but-”
“I simply don't want to lose data. I assume her mood and the current incident has been related to her unreasonable feelings involving my superior perspective. It'd be best if that data wasn't messed with any further.”
“I-”
“You found and brought her to the academy. I had no involvement in this.”
“O-okay.”
And with that, Tachyon released Top Road's shoulder and took her leave.
.
This was for the best.
.
.
Right?