Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You suddenly appear in the middle of some sort of schoolyard filled with strange-looking girls. Greatly confused, you listen to your comm-link.

“Cave here, chariots chariots, you might have noticed that you aren’t in a test chamber. Don’t worry. We planned that. That’s right, no testing. Instead, we got something equally important. You must find the reincarnated spirit of my racing horse, Combustible Lemon, and train her to be the very best! The earnings from her races should make the bean counters happy for a while. Good luck, Trainer-subject!”

You sigh, you don’t get paid enough for this shit.

Chapter Text

Tired, you sit down on the bleachers as your trainee, Combustible Lemon, finally begins to run. Getting the girl, the Umamusume, as they’re apparently called, to train has once more been the most exhausting part of your day.

Due to 4th-Degree-Interdimensional-Multiverse-Fuckery, she apparently shares certain personality traits with her owner, your boss. Particularly, his stubbornness and disinterest in common sense. Always preferring “unorthodox” training regimes over your more sensible suggestions.

You are awoken from your stupor with the crackling of your comm-link.

“Chariots chariots! Greg’s been telling me that things haven’t been running all that smoothly over there in the horseyverse. I’ve had the lab boys do overtime to develop some science that will help. Though I figure what is really lacking is inspiration, so we're sending in some support.”

Familiar blue and orange sparks dance right behind you, a portal. You dodge moments before something shoots out of it.

Running around in a panic across the training turf is a horse.

An actual horse.

To the girls practicing, the strange creature looks rather unsettling; most choose to vacate the area in a hurry.
Only Combustible Lemon seems fascinated.

How the hell are you going to explain this to Tazuna?

Chapter Text

You watch with displeasure as your trainee fastens her set of boots.

When Combustible Lemon discovered that your employer had sent something to improve her performance, she was adamant about testing it out despite your concerns.

The Aperture Science Gel-Based Propulsion Boots, as the box insisted on calling them, revealed themselves as a set of Long Fall Boots with orange propulsion gel integrated into the soles. From experience, you knew this couldn’t end well, but as your trainee had put it: “Who’s heard of an athlete winning without some bold risk-taking? You gotta go with every opportunity when it comes to racing!” Strangely enough, those were almost the same words Cave told you over your comm-link when he had them sent to you.

As usual, there was little you could do to talk her out of it; if you had that ability, you wouldn’t be caring for and hiding her pet horse from the government right now.

You snap back to attention just as she finishes doing some stretches, satisfied with her footwear. She then notices your frowning expression.

“Don’t you worry your butt off, trainer! I’ve got this, just watch!”

With those words, she gets into a starting position and blasts off down the track. At first, her pace isn't really remarkable until she suddenly stumbles as her boots activate. You wince and close your eyes. But when they open, you are surprised to see her actually still running.

She caught herself! And is shooting down the straight at impossible speeds!

You can hardly believe it, they’re actually working!

Right until the first corner, where, without friction, she fails to make the turn and crashes into the nearest hedge.

Goddamit

TRAINING FAILURE

Mood went down

Wit went down by 5

Speed went down by 5

Afflicted with Practice Poor

Chapter Text

“Propulsion Boots?” “Check!” 

This time, it really was your own fault. Kinda.

“Helmet?” “*sigh*, check.” 

During your last outing with your trainee, you had, perhaps, potentially, maybe, by chance, told her a little more about your previous assignment as a multiverse-hopping test subject than you really were supposed to.

“Portal gun?” “Yep! Check!”

You really should’ve known that telling her about your exploits with the portal gun would make her start demanding to get a crack at it as well, alongside her usual tantrums and threats of firing you if she didn’t get her way.

“Alright, come on people, let’s hurry it up a little here, got lawyers from some human rights organization banging on my door, and boy do they get angry when you let ‘em wait, oh, chariots chariots.”

What you couldn’t have known was that over on Earth One, Cave Johnson didn’t just happen to overhear the whole argument, but also agreed with her!

It became obvious, though, when your old portal gun and a can of conversion gel suddenly materialized in your living room.

Combustible Lemon hefts the multi-billion-dollar device with far more respect than you would have anticipated from her. You don’t even have to prevent her from staring into the operational end of the device. A big win under your, at this point, abysmally low, standards for her.

She looks towards you and receives your go-ahead with a nod.

She aims at the wooden construction in front of her, which is essentially a tall open box you cobbled together in your backyard, whose floor and ceiling you had covered with conversion gel.

Two shots, and a familiar set of orange and blue portals appear on the floor and ceiling, respectively.

This greatly excites her. You can’t help but smile a little, seeing those portals after months of this training nonsense feels nostalgic, and Lemon’s reaction to them was almost endearing. 

She leans forward a little and looks down through the portal, and when she realizes that she is staring at the back of her own head, she rapidly switches between looking up and down while laughing.

“Well? You ready? Keeping ol’ Cave waiting is a bad idea, trust me, can’t end well.”

She steels herself for a moment and then jumps in.
You watch as she falls into the bottom portal, only to come right out at the top. It doesn’t take long for her to become a speeding blur as she continues to loop.

Her theory was that this would somehow train both her guts and power. You kind of regret letting her read that trainer’s manual, as she has been using terms from it to come up with ever more ridiculous ideas like this.

Though Cave seems to like it, as your commlink comes to life.
“Look at her go! Man, that kid has some spunk, Greg! Remind me to have a face-to-face chat with her at some point. Oh, stop whining already. Bringing a reincarnated spirit back to its original world doesn’t “anger” any stray gods. That’s a myth, Greg. Anyway, good work, Training Subject. I’ve got to go, though, so you’re gonna have to wrap this up without me. Cave out!”

The final part of all this involves shooting a blue portal onto a panel lying on the ground next to the box, thus launching her straight into the air.

That step wasn’t going so well. She seems to be having some issues aiming the device while in free fall. She tries to speak, though her velocity and constant portal…ing make it difficult to make anything out.

“I- ca–aim–th–dam–gun–everyt–is–spin–AHH–HHH-HHH-”

You got the gist of it.
“Just keep shooting it! You will get a hit eventually!”
The panel on the ground was the only thing also covered in conversion gel, so blindfiring should be fine.

Streaks of blue start flying out of the lemon-shaped blur. They harmlessly fizzle against various things in the area, including her (actual) horse in the nearby makeshift stable that had been watching this whole ordeal with concern.

In her panic, Lemon then starts shooting orange portals as well. Naturally, it’s one of these that actually hit the target.

Whoops.

Without a portal beneath her, Combustible Lemon crashes into the bottom of the box at an incredibly high speed. Her boots redirect the bulk of the impact away from her back into the ground. The earth shakes violently while your jury-rigged box is ripped apart by the violent forces at play.

Your yard is in shambles. Chunks of wood and conversion gel litter the area. The horse is absolutely spooked.

Out of a particularly large pile of wooden remains emerges Lemon. Only slightly bruised, though covered with gel and splinters. You pull her free, and she wordlessly shoves the Portal gun back into your hands. The two of you walk back towards the house, for some reason, you try to lighten the mood with some tasteful jokes.

“Good thing I forced you to wear that helmet, eh? Even though you can be pretty, hehe, hard-headed sometimes.”

She simply stares at you for a second before her already annoyed expression sinks into a deep frown once she realizes what you just said.

“I am going to go shower… Remind me to fire you once I’m done.”

Wrong move, oh well, she’ll get over it.

Hopefully

Mood went down

Guts went up by 10

Power went up by 5

Chapter Text

You repeat the story of your latest misadventure to a fellow trainer called Sosuke while the two of you wait for your trainees to arrive. 

The man is your mood kindred, as a fellow guinea pig, though for an Uma, not a company. You trust him to the point that you even told him about your background as a multiverse interloper.

You were about to expand on how you had to clean up your yard and calm an (actual) horse down, when he suddenly interrupts you.

“Wait, run that last part by me again.”

"Huh? Uh, sure, Lemon got upset with me for telling an admittedly bad pun and went for a shower.”

Sosuke watches you silently for a moment, as if trying to determine if you were messing with him.

“So, not only did you invite her to your house in the middle of nowhere, but she showered there, too? Casually? Just like that?”

“Well…Yeah? She was fairly dirty after all the chaos.”

His eyes narrow, and he leans towards you to speak in a whisper.

“You and her aren’t a thing, right?

“A…thing?”

"Y’know, a thing, a couple, lovers, romantically engaged. That thing”

You stare at him in disbelief for a second.

“People do that? Date their trainees?”

Now it was his turn to be astonished.

“Well… It's officially discouraged, but happens all the time anyway. You didn’t know?”

“No… though it wouldn’t have crossed my mind with Lemon anyway. I’m certainly incapable of feeling that for her.”

“Why not?”

That question catches you off guard, deeply flustered, you stutter out a reply.

“N-no way in hell, man, s-shes way too similar to my boss.”

You feel a strong shiver down your spine.

“...She never struck me as having much in common with Director Akikawa.”

“N-No you idiot! the other one!”

“Ohhh, that guy. Is she really as bad as him?”

“As a person, she’s less awful, I guess, but the mannerisms, man, the mannerisms... Sometimes I feel like I am talking to Cave Johnson with some kinda’ girly voice changer!”

That is an image so ghastly that it immediately kills the conversation and sends another frosty shiver down your spine.

The two of you sit in silence while you wrangle the mental image of Cave Johnson in a racing outfit out of your mind.

Friendship with Trainer Sosuke went up by 7

Wit went up by 5