Other World Logs 1 part 3

Tactical Gray POV

Recently, I was assigned team strategist, but at the moment, I feel more like a team event planner. Having to look up what we can do in the future, and having to come up with daily training schedules. Still, I'm happy to do it because looking up opponents and researching who's a threat, while finding weaknesses, is what I used to do a lot. I also used to come up with ways to improve myself, with the team's trainers and coaches coming up with ways to strategically beat opponents in whatever race I entered. Still, I had to do this because even if I had an obvious lack of talent, my enormous love for running will always overcome such excuses.

I began at a young age, and I thought I was good and I loved running, until I faced real competition. I soon found out I was just lucky to start early, and I was hard-working, but I had no talent. I had the killer instinct, the sports sense, even the tactical knowledge, but when I faced real competition, I was beaten badly, and it didn't help that my body took forever to improve and learn techniques. No one believed I could be great, not my family, friends, loved ones, trainers, or even coaches. Still, I didn't want to give up what I loved, so I had to use what I had, and take every advantage I could get, I learned psychology, dirty tactics, rule bending, and even in race sabotage, along with my regular tactics and practice. I studied race tracks, rule books, opponents, race types, and more.

By the time of the race, I knew everything about my opponents and the race we were in. I set up my opponent's failure before and during the race. I was the devil and a coward to them and all their fans. I had to learn to talk trash and to fight, knowing it was coming with the way I did things. I've been suspended, humiliated, harassed, and humbled, but I kept going, never doing too much to get kicked out. I moved around teams, organizations, leagues, and race types, to the point you would think I'm a mixed racer.

Still, I kept going, doing the same thing no matter the team I'm on or the cast of coaches, trainers, and teammates I worked with. That's how much I loved running, and now it's just a new group of people with a different task for me at the moment. Still, I wanted to return to running like everyone else in the group, so every day I'm either training or researching in computer cafes, and libraries using supplies with things KiWi got from who knows where. I looked up the academies, but lacking past race credentials and academic histories for all of us, that was a no-go. It's as if the person who sent us up here didn't want us to go into the training academies.

Then, as I was searching, an ad to watch a local free-style running tournament popped up. Made sense thanks to the cookies in my search history. I was coming up short in my search anyway, thanks to the ridiculous demands my team wanted me to find, so I clicked on it. It then sent me to a website selling tickets, and it said it had Relay Races, Obstacle Races, and Flat Races, both in Dirt and Turf. I caught a break and began to search what Freestyle Racing is.

I was surprised and then excited by what I had discovered. Flat races range from Short races built for sprinting Uma Musume, to marathon-length long races, in both Dirt and Turf. Which made it perfect for everyone in the group. Then there were obstacle races where physical contact, sabotage, temporary alliances, crazy tracks, and obstacles like in the name exist. I loved it for myself, and it was perfect for the crazier parts of the team, as well as the Free Runners and Mixed Racers in said team.

Then came the Relays, which had 4 people in each team running the same track to win, making it perfect for the team aspect that we weren't looking for, but I know a lot of people in the team would love. Finally, the Mixed Races, which fused some, if not all the races mentioned above in a hybrid-like race that I saw online, went insane. It was all perfect for us, and made a skeptical person like me very excited. I then thought, why haven't I heard of this mentioned in the franchise? I then remembered that in the movie Jungle Pocket transferred from Freestyle to Regular Races after seeing Fuji Kiseki run. 

I then began to research more about it and found out that since it was run by a different group from the URA, they began to actively make sure that they overshadowed it in every way. They blocked it from being advertised on popular websites and broadcasting, and made sure to have a small smear campaign saying it was violent and dangerous. They even held events and races at the same time as events in the country to make sure no one cared about Freestyle racing. Plus, with the internationally large league not seeing a strong market in Japan, they only held Open Tournaments here. That's why we've never heard it on the show and franchise much; most people in Japan barely know it exists.

I soon began writing down my research on it and how it would benefit the team while copying and printing stuff I needed. I even created a PowerPoint and brochures to make the presentation I have for this later easier. I even quickly informed the other 4 leading the team before the presentation, giving them the data to study. Most looked excited, Mama Blues, Great Wonder, and Tyrant Rose, but Victory Gate seemed indifferent. Still, I could tell that's because she was so busy with the team and their antics she couldn't pay attention; she really is the perfect leader for this crazy team.

The day of the presentation came, and soon I began talking about Freestyle Racing. I talked about the worldwide league called the Free Style Racing League, or FSRL for short, that ran these races around the world. They held multiple-level tournaments from the lowest Opens to promote the sport to the top of all Freestyle Running, the Point Tournaments. They had Minors, Super Minors, Majors, and Super Majors all cultivating cash and points for the chance to participate in the Premier, along with qualifiers for said Premier to make it more competitive, I explained to them. I then explained the races that drove the team from interested to very excited. 

People began looking actively at the brochures and paying attention for more information, as now they were very interested. I even told them about the voluntary concert teams can choose to have at the end because of tradition, and that blew excitement to the roof, making sure everyone was truly onboard for this. I looked around and saw everyone's reactions, Mama, who already knew everything, was checking for everyone's reaction to help out anyone who needed it, Vic was in deep thought, probably thinking about the team, Rose was excited about the obstacle races, while GW was surprisingly loving the Relay races. ImP and KiWi were excited to just race again, while Lily, Spice, Rain, and Jo were excited about the world-class competition in it for their own personal reasons, and the rest, Norn, BlaD, and Sweets, were excited about the optional performances that were definitely going to happen. I soon began the vote for who's for it, and who's against, and with confidence, everyone accepted, Vic being the only person who held back in agreement until everyone in the team agreed, which I respect and expect from a pretty great leader so far.

I soon began assigning everyone what I needed from them for us to move forward. I asked Rose and GW to check out teams that might be hiring, while I look for more teams just in case, and also gave them a list of our requirements. Like salary demands, music performance requirements, and creative freedom rights. Then I told Rain to handle training, BlaD to compose music for later, Norn to buy certain needed outfits, and separated the rest to where they could help. I then asked Vic and Mama to be ready for the team interviews, prepping not only themselves, but the rest of the team too. Everyone soon scattered to do their assignments, and we're going to be very busy soon.

Authors Note: Free Style Running was inspired by a line from the Uma Musume movie when Jungle Pocket switched from that to transferring to Tresen Academy. I also based the league's system on DOTA 2's Pro Circuit, and added to it. Finally the races are based on races I found in real life, Relay from track, Obstacle is a mix of street car racing but with Uma Musume instead of cars, hurdle racing, parkour, and obstacle courses and your allowed to sabotage, and mess with your opponents, flats are literally track running but in dirt or turf, cross country running, and marathon running, that changes depending on the race length. Finally Mix is just me messing with the races of either merging them together or adding something to make it interesting.