A challenge. A daring challenge. Absolo-fucking-lutely amazing. Sammy's breathing is deep, and she's here but she's a million miles away at the same time. 

Decima's fault really, bringing up Luna and Gata. How do you think Sammy got into the field and out of street fights? Watching Gata wind her way through the arena, bullets flying past her like she was made of water. Running circles around Maxima to touch the scoring zone like nobody else was in the arena. It was beautiful, it was magical, it had inspired her to mod herself along Gata's path, even if her own style wasn't quite the same. A successor in spirit.

So in her minds eye, she's back there watching the first match where she saw Gata, and she's imagining how she would move, and meanwhile her body is running in the zone, that fleeting mark of red constantly pulling her forward. No inhibitions, no questions, no second guesses. Not right now, not in the face of this type of challenge, the perfect sort of challenge that demands her full attention yet constantly feels achievable, the kind that pulls you into the zone. 

There's gonna be a big crash later. Whoever she meets isn't going to live up to the vision that inspired her, and then she's going to start a bunch of comparisons and thoughts and Machia is going to come back and run away with her without ever showing up on the scene at all. But for now, there is a wordless rhythm that she could live in forever, right up until she runs out of ground.