"I hadn't heard yet, damn" Sammy says. Her ears perk up, and her dance grows just a bit tighter, arms up closer to her head, her movements shorter, smaller, and faster. "I thought Machia was only training that new girl, Madeleine. Didn't know she worked with Taowu either. Fucking scary thinking about those two working together."

The tension is palpable, and Sammy is leaning into it. "mrrrr" she says, thinking aloud as Decima asks about monsters, without skipping a beat in her dance. She twirls, her eyes passing over the whole space as she keeps her arms tight to chest, then steps out to hit a far spot before pulling back again. "Dunno what the fuck counts as a monster. Haven't fought Kraken before, kinda thought of it more like a field problem than a fight problem. What's your point, should we add random obstacles to the DDR board?" She  grins, flexes, kicks like there's a tentacle coming out of her DDR pad that she needs to sever before she can step on it. Right roundhouse hook into stomp and then push back off again.

Decima is close now, in every sense. Close in distance, close in action, close in tune. But, here's a fun fact about cats. Did you know that cats have faster reflexes than snakes have striking speed? It's true! Cats have evolved in such a way that if a snake is coming at them and they react to the strike, they'll hit the snake first. There's a lot of factors at play, and Sammy's eyes are wide open, every muscle tensed, but she doesn't pick a direction. She steps and she dances and she imagines a field full of obstacles and thrown objects as she does, until the strike begins.