The status quo favours you. The longer you move the higher your score. But Decima takes her time to appreciate the show.

You feel the serpent's gaze lock into place. You hear the soft crunch of leaves and earth under her feet as she walks on the edge of your vision. She can see you and you can't see her. She's not being stealthy, you can hear the clink and shift of her toying with her weapon, her scratching her feet against dirt and stones, her rustling her cape - all sounds faintly blending in beneath the pulse of the music.

"You're going to need to move like that if you want to fight Lios," whispered Decima into the communicator. "Have you heard? First she was training with Titanomachia, and now she's signed up with Taowu. People are saying that she's a favourite for the finals all of a sudden. She's definitely the only person who might move like the person you're imagining..."

The sensation of danger begins to grow. A little at first, but increasingly severe. The way she shifts and winds with the flow of your head and neck, the way those neon aquamarine eyes glint out at the edge of your consciousness, the flash of silver, the almost hypnotic refusal to be stealthy even as she refuses to be clearly seen. Hers is the aspect of a snake and something inside you rebels at this game: you need to stop playing and give her your full attention right now. She's doing something.

"... but it's the wrong stance to take if you're not fighting her. Have you ever fought a monster before?"

But she hasn't done anything yet. Not that you can tell.

"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.

You make eye contact with Decima. Colder than blood.

She knows all about cats and snakes too.

Your Synskin locks up, all at once. Hits in multiple locations. No pain, just the flexing of neomusculature fiber strong enough to override your native strength. "Don't forget," she said, "I am your opponent today."

She crouches down next to you. "That's my trick for this round," she said, silver hair cascading to the left as she tilts her head. "I was not sure it would work. Now that you know I'll need to go for a full alternate loadout if you wind up on the other team. But knowing if it worked on someone with your instincts was important. Look -"

She pointed to a series of small silver needles embedded into your armour. They had not penetrated, they were lodged in the plating far from your synskin. She touches the tip of one with a finger and a crackle of lightning passed between the network, jumping between the different spikes. "Electroneedles. My own design, new. Subtle, invisible, quiet. No muzzle flash like you'd expect from this big sniper rifle - which as I showed you, is just a case and not where I'm spending my energy budget. What looked and sounded like me just walking and maneuvering my gun around was me firing eight shots. Individually the charge in these things is too weak to do damage, but with enough of them built up I can create a current that the synskin will register as a full body blow. My answer to heavily armoured opponents with low situational awareness, especially Lios, Bit, Astra and Argeltia."

"Knowing this, how does it change your approach?" she asked. "If you can be shot without any sort of sensory feedback, what is your counter?"

"ffffffuck!" says Sammy, and with an intense rippling muscle flex that shudders through her armor, she puts a hand around Decima's throat. Her synskin is locked up, but her armor enhancing her strength and running her muscles against every spot means that even through that she can manage a move particularly near the edges where the needles don't fully reach, giving her some range of motion with the wrists and ankles even though the majority of her body is locked up. It's not that meaningful, surely Decima wouldn't crouch down next to her defeated opponent. But she should remember that if she has to get this close this long to commit, it means that even a heavily disabled opponent might pull out a sidearm and get a shot on her in turn as their parting gift.

She relaxes then, waiting for her equipment to all reset. Her eyes are calm, no swagger, calmer than Decima would have seen up to this point. The contemplation of someone who just got punched and is done with stupid shows for the moment. "I think what surprised me isn't that I didn't notice getting hit, it's that I didn't notice you firing. No trigger pull, no muscle twitch in the corner of my eye, didn't see your fingers move or the gun shift at all. Guess there's no kickback, like no shit, tiny needles need like zero force to fire. Makes sense. But where's the choice to fire happening? If I see that next time, I won't get hit. If you're got some bullshit neuro link to that thing, then I'm just punching you first if we're not on the same team. If we are, well, depends I guess. Shadow me or whoever's fastest on the team. Dunno if this'll work on Argeltia though, she's fuckin huge. Even if you get like a million needles in there, you got the energy budget to electricity something that big?"

Decima had no reaction whatsoever to your act of heroic strength, did not flinch at all to the hand on her throat. Her reptillian eyes held a fatalistic fearlessness that was the exact opposite of your act of defiance. You know instinctively this goes all the way; if inevitable death came for her she would not die tired.

"None of that. Spend power budget on a neural uplink? No, it fires whenever I move the thing like this," she made a vague little wave with the gun. "There's a little metal maze that I shake the needle out of, it fires automatically when loaded. Might get the odd misfire but odds are nobody notices. Like I said, the gun is just a case, but it's a case that people project a lot of assumptions onto."

"Argeltia," said Decima, changing tack. "Never going to stop her. Point is to tilt her. She's used to everyone playing around her. Not used to pain, not used to being the target. I woouldn't be shooting her hands. I'd be shooting at her main body through the portals. If I land enough hits to lock her neck I think she'd panic and lose her cool. How do you plan to deal with her?"

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?"

"You are my top priority," said Decima, eyes as frozen as ice. "That's why I invited you here. That's why I'm showing my hand. You are the only one fast enough to take me out and still get back in time to score. The only thing worse than that happening would be you doing it without realizing that you were doing it."

She leaned forwards. Each motion was so small, the repositioning of an inanimate object, that it felt like a miracle in and of itself.

"The reason Lunah never became a champion was because of Gata," said Decima. "Do you know what it's like? Rooting for someone who never figures it out? Who loses every time? I see you and I see Gata come again, and all I can think is that this curse will not repeat. I have a Gata-shaped target on the inside of my eyelids. If you dare to reach for that potential I will be the one to put you down."

She blinked, slowly and deliberately, then leaned back, looking away. "So, take your own advice and find a different path. Only defeat awaits the quick."

"Damn." Sammy lets out a long sigh. runs her hands through her hair, stands, paces, sits on a rock. "damn."

It's not...she's not sure what she's thinking. Like, that Decima exists for real? That Maxima was right? That Maxima was dead wrong? That she got the better of this one actually? Part of her wanted to call Decima an idiot, and if she'd taken this call last night, before she'd gone a round with Maxima, she would have and been worse off for it.

"I didn't...fucking Christ, Decima, I didn't come in here thinking we're friends. But I did kind of hope we'd be on the same team. If we are and it's not one of the absurdly fucking weird comps where it's us vs. every placer, we can probably take out two opponents before anyone even knows what the hell happened and then we win the match. If we know that in advance, like, even a rough idea who we each go for, then the whole thing is smooth. I came to you and not anybody else because your style matters."

She shakes her head. "So like, don't expect me to apologize, bitch. I guess I know you care now, but we're not fighting Gata and Lunah's battle, and whatever you think, neither one of us is the prodigy of our generation. Not fucking yet. We haven't won anything yet. I'm just sitting here in Titanomachia's fucking shadow!"

She shouts that last, head back, pointed up to the heavens. Then she stretches her neck, her arms again, and brings her body back down into relaxed shoulders and a casual stance, but with a stare that could burn right back through Decima and eat her.

"I'm gonna kit out to win the game. If that means beating you first, that's how it's gonna be. If you're on my team and Bit isn't, take out Bit first, I'll handle the other heavies, nobody else will be able to score. If it's you, me, Bit, then we just split up pummeling shit. Done. If you're not on my team, make sure going for me doesn't lead to you getting punked by a placer. I'd rather duel you again in a situation where I wasn't waiting to see what happened."

She slings her pack over her shoulder then and heads back into town. It was time for a trip to the mall. She wanted a haircut and maybe a new skirt.

You are being followed.

Nothing coherent tells you this. You are in NeoSydney, the economic capital of PanOceania, a place both intensely populated and working incredibly hard to make it seem like it wasn't. Huge boulevards and parks, massive open spaces filled with natural light, groves of native banksia to break up sight lines - the atmosphere was designed to make it feel like you weren't in a city at all. Everywhere you're surrounded by old brick and carved sandstone buildings - but glance up and the dizzying skyscrapers arise in all directions. The skyscrapers wear the hollowed-out facades of the old buildings for the first few stories, and then erupt up into the sky once they're out of the field of view. The only reason it feels dissonant at all is because you're just back from the real country. That - and you're being followed.

This is a cat instinct. Advanced side effect, prey instinct - but not a dread. You're not being threatened with death. But - there is another cat. Another cat at a higher altitude than you. Looking down on you. An uncomfortable sensation, a constant reminder that you are not the most cat that you could be. It's been following you for a while. How do you cope?

Twice in the same day. Well she's not going to make the same mistake twice. Unless she should? No, no don't get inside your own head Sammy. You ignored that prickly feeling while Decima was firing, now you've got the vibe that another cat is above you and every hair is standing on end. No, no more ignoring it.

She considers parkouring up a brick facade. She could do it. Wouldn't be half bad training. Too conspicuous though, don't need the news stories about a star Aristeia! player getting caught climbing random building walls like a freak. She wants a safe place to get up high and survey things. Someplace snug and dark with very few approach routes so she can see and have cover on her back.

Better idea to duck into the nearest commercial building then. Slip in past the sandstone cover to an interior that screams chic shopping center from the heyday of malls and dash up the escalators. First floor, bedding; second floor men's formal wear; third floor women's formal wear; fourth floor women's summer wear, and the end of the facade giving way to big glass windows staring out over the fields of native plant life in varying shades of reds and golds.

She's got her head a little bit lowered and she's not sprinting but she's moving past other customers like she's a stone skipping over water as she makes her way towards the windows. There, past a wrack of pastel sundresses she wouldn't be caught dead in and she's in the corner of the 4th floor by the window to look out. Is the feeling following her the way she came? Still higher up? Has she shaken it?

This is a battle that makes sense to a cat.

You are chasing someone - but they are higher up than you. You are lesser than and greater than them. Predator and prey instincts blur together into a coherent whole. In the contradiction you find impossibility, reflexes clarifying landscapes as pathways.

You reach the windows. Someone has just gone out through them. Onto the cafe balcony, up a vertical glass surface, onto a corporate common area, in through a door. Each motion you follow you only catch a glimmer of shape; the edge of a boot, the flick of a coat in red, a lead maintained. Through corporate offices and then up the elevator shaft, slick as water off a jaguar's neck. The office drones watch in dazed incomprehension, but do not intervene.

This is not someone trying to shake a tail. The lead does not lengthen except by your mistake. There's always a glimpse of direction. There's always a path - over copiers, under legs, across tables, sliding across conference tables and vaulting executives. It gathers speed and complexity; now you're going through a high-tech experimental factory floor, now you're racing across the wet tiles next to an indoor pool -

Layer after layer. To the top. Nothing in this building can stop you. Nothing in this building can cross that golden path that passes through fire escapes and ventilation shafts and beneath cameras and past startled security guards. To the top. Always that flash of red at every corner. Can you keep the pace?