Recrusive Race IV

Speed Joker and Shouji waited in a waiting room. Then the team they were about to meet came. There were only eight people, including the horse girls stood beside them. But it was only four person who actually came, which was all of them were trainers.

The guy who was in the middle, who was apparently a trainer for the strongest horse girl in the team, ranked at D5.

Shouji shook the middle man’s hand and said, “Nice to meet you. My name is Shouji Kisamata.”

Then the middle man, who wore a chequered shirt, he replied, “My name is Shohei Bado, Nice to meet you too, Kisamata-san.”

Speed Joker looked behind the trainers in the team, there were no Horse Girls.

She said, “Where is the rest of the crew?”

The trainer who had a very muscular body. He got a name tag on his shirt, which it said ‘Choji Fujita’. He also had a very nice jaw line.

He then replied to Speed Joker’s question, “They are currently training, while we wait for the track to be open for tomorrow’s qualifying run.”

Speed Joker nodded at his answer.

---

For the Aurora Comet Series, for this race. It would be called the Toku Shetsho Cup. It needed horse girl to qualify lap times. It would get them points for the race.

The length of the track that would be selected for this race, it was 1800 meters length. The qualifying time they need to get points were 1:50.0 or less.

Speed Joker read the paper for the race regulation. It was a lot more stricter than the Twinkle Series. Secondly, all the horse girl need to be a lot more careful on their health.

Unlike in the Twinkle Series. Aurora Comet Series was like an endurance for all the horse girls that participated in the series. They would race significantly longer, roughly 8 years before retirement happened.

Speed Joker also read few other major race in the series from the Umapedia, which would be: Gold Satsuki Sho, Chandlier Cup, Deki Sho, Endurance King Cup, and Sunrise & Sunset Cup.

---

With the meeting of the trainer continued. Speed Joker saw one of the quiet trainer, his name was Daichi Hirata. It reminded her of Rice Shower, despite she was quite shy with her. But time to time, she would hang out with her.

The last trainer she met, his name was Eigen Fujimoto. He was type of trainer who would do anything to let his trainee win the race. He had a soft eccentric personality, but not to crazy in the terms of obsession of his passion as a trainer.

Eigen placed the paper on top of the lass table. There were many copies of it between layers.

He said this while his hand still placed on the paper, “I did some digging on what who will be racing with. Roughly, there would be three teams in this N9 Class race.”

Eigen put his hand up, to release the grip from the paper on the table. Speed Joker grabbed the paper with the list of contestant that would likely joining the race.

This was the list for teams in each horse girls:

===

Team Rankings: Violet Rush [VUR – N3], Empathy Zero [ZXT – N5], Goreus Racing [GRP – N7], Quzi Mesh [QMH - N6]

1. Fuji Ramirez (Violet Rush)

2. Furious Bucket (Empathy Zero)

3. Double Pain (Quzi Mesh)

4. Stardust (Empathy Zero)

5. Pilon Rex (Empathy Zero)

6. Moaning Wake (Quzi Mesh)

7. Atheros Zeus (Quzi Mesh)

8. Cairon (Violet Rush)

9. Mambo Chop (Violet Rush)

10. Raiketan (Goreus Racing)

11. Six Shooter (Goreus Racing)

12. Ampere Pellet (Goreus Racing)

13. Speed Joker (Goreus Racing)

Sponsorships: Umastagram, Umatube, Polyphony Digital Entertainment, CyGames. Inc, and Rush Flow Racing Parts.

===

After Speed Joker read all of it. Shouji looked at Eigen and asked, "This is very detailed, even to the sponsors. Is the sponsors really needed?"

Eigen nodded, and replied, "Yes."

He then continued, "Winning teams would likely to get sponsored more by corporates. Roughly, we can get a maximum of 12 Corporate sponsors in a single team."

When Eigen said that, Speed Joker said as she put the paper on the table, "If I'm not wrong, we can also get win bonuses if we get to the podium."

Eigen smiled, and snapped his fingers, "Correct!"

Shouji thought about this for a while.

Unlike the Twinkle Series he knew, the Aurora Comet from the pass was very different.

The previous years, they would allow some sponsors on the race only, similar to the Twinkle Series.

Then news about the head director for the Aurora Comet Series changed. Many rules were revised, since it was similar to the Twinkle Series.

After that change, many horse girl running fans were excited about the major changes. It was very different from the Twinkle Series.

If many teams raced here have sponsors, that would mean, they also had their own places.

When Shouji mixed his ideas into one. Then he said, "So, we don't have any place to practice. But, with the money we get from corporate sponsors and also the win. We can build our own training ground to practice there."

Daichi softly replied, "Yes, that is true. Each team had their own training area. The more facility we get, the better we would train for our horse girl."

With that meeting out of the way, they adjourned it.

Shouji and Speed Joker were left wandering on who was going to join the race.

As for the team in the paper written by Eigen, it was all true in many rumors.

Outside of the Sapporo Racecourse, there was one vendor who sold snacks. Speed Joker went to the vendor. It was selling grilled squid.

She pointed at one of the spicy flavored grilled squid, and said this to the man was cooking it, “Excuse me, can I get one of these?”

The man turned his attention to the horse girl, and happily said, “No problem!”

He placed pull out of the grilled spicy grilled squid and handed it over to Speed Joker.

Speed Joker also handed over the exact amount of money to buy the grilled squid.

Then the old man said to Speed Joker with gratitude, “Thank you for purchasing, young miss.”

Shouji saw Speed Joker bought her own snack from the vendor. He went to her and asked, “Your not really nervous for tomorrow’s qualifying?”

Speed Joker shook her head, and replied, “Not really, this would be my first race over ten years after inactivity. Still, I’m nervous to mess up in the turf.”

She took a bite of her grilled squid in her right hand. The spicy flavor coated with slight of sweetness and natural saltiness from the grilled squid touches her tongue. She surprisingly murmured, “This taste so good!”

Shouji sighed at Speed Joker being half serious or not. He always wanted to know about Speed Joker. Because, she was the most irregular horse girl he encountered at the academy.

Although, despite Shouji wanted to know more about Speed Joker. He needed her to be in his team, Team Spartan.

In Shouji urged of wanting Speed Joker in his team. But he need to set those aside, since he was just a temporary trainer for her.

---

To spend their time in Sapporo, they went around town. Shouji went to grab a touring guide around the town.

Few famous spot they ventured. They were Moerenuma Park, Historic Village, and finally where they currently at. It was Mount Moiwa.

Speed Joker went near the guardrail in front of her, leaning slightly at the entire view of Sapporo. The horizon from the setting sun made the view more beautiful with the added beauty of mother nature.

She whispered under the cold air, “Amazing.”

Shouji was behind her. He had a camera with him, but he thought of only use was in the track, after the race for tomorrow.

Shouji pull out the tripod and placed it in the middle. He then put put his DLSR camera.

Speed Joker saw what he was going to do, and she said, “Ready yet?”

Shouji put the timer in ten seconds, then went to Speed Joker that was near the guardrail. They both pose as the camera clicked, and took the photo shot automatically.

Shouji went to the camera, and looked at the photo on the build-in display. Speed Joker looked at the picture and smiled. She said, “Nice picture. You want to keep it?”

Shouji kept looking at the LCD display, and replied, “Yeah, one in a lifetime that I would get this picture again.”

---

As the next day came. Both, Shouji and Speed Joker, they went to the Sapporo race course. They saw quite a few staff members walked down in the hallway.

It was quite a busy time for today’s qualifying race.

When they made it to the field. Speed Joker already changed to her track suit. She went to do some stretches on her arms and legs. It was significantly less stiff unlike 9 days ago.

There was Ampere Pellet with her Trainer, Daichi Hirata. She saw Speed Joker for the first time in the field. Her rank was at N6 at best.

Daichi looked at Ampere, who was curios by looking at Speed Joker. He said, “You want to go meet your teammate?”

Ampere nodded her head happily. She said with a smile, “Yes, I want to get to know her. Hope we can do our best in the race.”

Daichi smiled at Ampere’s enthusiasm. He replied, “Go.”

Ampere walked to Speed Joker, who was very focused on her warm-up. Shouji on the other hand, he was preparing his clipboard with many record of Speed Joker’s training result.

Shouji was pondering at the record paper on the clipboard. He did what he do best. But with limited time frame of 8 days, can he truly pull off Speed Joker at beating the time set track record?

He just needed to find out in the race later.

Speed Joker stood up after her stretching, then looked at the horse girl near her. She had a dark metallic orange hair and light green eyes. Her ear accessory was at left side, which it was a pink bow.

Ampere cheerfully said, “Nice too meet you! Can I ask your name, since we are teammates?”

Speed Joker saw the very cheerful dark metallic orange haired horse girl. She thought, {Hmm, right. I did not meet any horse girls of the team yesterday. Might as well get to know her.}

She put stretched her arms up, and replied, “Call me Speed Joker, or Joker as my nick name.”

Then Ampere quickly replied, “Call me Ampere Pellet, and my nickname is Pellet!”

Speed Joker put her hand down after stretching then said with a smile, “Nice to meet you too, Pellet.”

Both of them talked with each other. Despite being met for the first time. Ampere was a very cheerful horse girl. But sometimes, she can do goofy thing when now one was around.

With Speed Joker and Ampere Pellet was busy talking with each other. There was a horse girl with cyan indigo hair color, paired with her red orange eyes. Her name was Raiketan. She was ranked at the top of the team at N3.

When she looked at Speed Joker, she was slightly disappointing at her, and thought, {Another case that I need to carry team, yet again.}

Raiketan’s trainer, Shohei Bado. He saw that Raiketan was looking at Speed Joker. He knew the type of mindset of her.

He calmly said, “Don’t worry. She won’t be a liability for the team. I already checked her performance, it can be very surprising later when you see it on track.”

Raiketan then folded her arms, and replied seriously, “Hope you can keep your words, trainer. I won’t be responsible for the team’s degraded score later for this season.”