There's a moment where Sammy is just crestfallen. Not head in hands, but her ears droop and her face droops with it as she watches the gun motion. Stupid, repetitive. Should have seen it by the third time at worst. The snake aesthetic was actually doing all the work there, making it seem like Decima was moving around to size up her shot when she was actually taking her shots. Obvious and stupid. Never going to beat Machia with that level of vision.

She's not squeezing any further, she lets her synthskin reset, loosens her hand, stands. The point was made, they'd both shown off their capabilities. Sort of, at least. There were still a few wildcards, she suspected. If she had to guess, in Decima's case it was that she had a desperation movement of some kind. Some way to unload or overload the thing if she had to. If they weren't on the same team, the question was going to be what the consequences would be of immediately punching the girl. 

As for Sammy, flexibility was queen really. Good odds that she might not even be in the same role as she was here when they got to the arena. And if she had the budget for it, maybe she'd pack something a little different. Just had to stop beating herself up long enough to consider it.

"I suppose it's smart, thinking about the mental game, even if it makes  you a fucking asshole every time. Aristeia's a budget. Power is power. If you need speed, you invest in speed. If you need strength, you invest in strength. Easy shit. Every watt spent elsewhere makes what you're good at weaker. Like no shit, if you can get someone to suck at spending what they're got, you're gonna beat them. Same time, if you're constantly investing your resources in debuffs, then you're not much of an ace yourself. Somebody has to be the ace, has to have the skills to score or take out the other team or something. And since Machia's apparently out for the fucking count, that's gonna be me. Maybe that means I run up her arm and punch her in the eyes so she can't aim. Maybe it means I just jump around her."

With her synthskin reset, Sammy rolls her shoulders, lifts her arms and stretches, lifts each leg a few times, then pulls out the rest of her coffee and drinks it till she has to tilt it up to get the last drop out. "Goddamn that's good. Okay, different question, Deci. You see yourself as focusing a couple key targets right? But this is a team game. My answer to Argeltia's gonna depend on whether she's punching through tentacles or tied up trying to push out Astra, or if she actually gives a shit about me, personally. But what about you? Who're you gunning for? You rattled off Lios, Bit, Astra and Argeltia. You're guaranteed at least one won't be on your team. How you gonna pick who's most important? Who's your top priority?"