"Really?" said Gata, looking around. "Look. Here's where my advice caps out: International circuit, short of HexXer. She's still up there, champion eight years running - and if you skip Moonchild's year, champion for two more years before that."

Unmentioned, not worth noting: Gata was a three-time champion before HexXer's unstoppable rise.

"And she's only getting better. Her style relies on her mind and that's just getting sharper and sharper. I could barely match her when I was young and fast and it was only downhill from there. So - I can talk. Help. But my path's a dead end - least as far as I could solve it."

"No yeah, that's cool. I don't...I don't wanna be you. I wanna be what you inspired."

Sammy blushes, full on honest to god blush. "Ugh, that was so cringe, I'm sorry. I'm...just, look, you were, I was...I grew up really poor, I street fought. Like, a lot. I went to one of the matches you were in to laugh at you. Like, all of you, at all the fancy costumes and idiots prancing around up there for cash without knowing how to do anything real. And then I saw you move."

At this point, Sammy is considering jumping off the building, since no convenient holes have appeared to swallow her forever to prevent her from having to look at Gata. But since that is not forthcoming and she's still got survival instinct, she's forced to press on instead while staring at the most convenient air conditioning unit available in Gata's general direction so she can avoid eye contact.

"..."
"..."
"Look I didn't go down the cat route for nothing. I want to move like you, I want to make other people feel the way I felt when I saw you, and I also want to punch some fools in their goddamn faces. I may not have the raw strength of someone modded like Maxima, but I think this style is top tier for the arena, it's perfect for dealing with synthskin opponents, flexible for almost any team because I can mix speed and aggression to fight or score. I just, I need to get better and I need to have a little bit more, a little bit of something special so I don't get chumped by someone's cheap trick. I need to get better."

There's a lot of emotion flowing through her, a lot of processing, a lot of thoughts swirling and a struggle to say more. It's only after all that happens that one stray thought kicks all the others out of they way. "...and what did you mean about Cross???"

Gata was famously not from wealth either. She was a parkour pickpocket urchin on the streets of Rio, when a hot pursuit lead her to crash into an active Aristeia! match. She evaded eight stars shooting for her simultaneously before finally being cornered, and signed her contract while in handcuffs on her way to the police van.

"Cross looks like instinct," said Gata. "But I don't think that's it at all. It's like she's surrounded by ghosts." Her ear twitched. Cats knew all about ghosts. "Titanomachia chose her for a reason. She's going to do better the higher she goes."

She hopped onto the top of the air conditioner unit you were looking at, her stare like a falling moon. "I don't know how to explain," she said, sun behind her throwing her face into shadow. "Maybe you do. Maybe I can correct. Tell me. What is the path to victory? How does all this work?"

“I dunno, it’s like. Being a cat and a brawler, I get to choose how I play. I know you know, that feeling when you’re moving like everybody else is in slow motion, is terrain for you to work with. I think a lot about teams because I get to decide whether I’m going to be the person moving for the scoring zone or the person moving to hit my opponents. Someone like Bit might be faster in a straight line with her mech suit, but if I’ve got a plan for how to reach her, I could take her out no problem and if I’m against her, I could match her in scoring ability and take her out when she commits. Most of the time, most of the time it’s like that, like I can see everybody and how they’re gonna move and just be better. But…”

Machia. This was a question about Machia. It was always going to come back to being a question about Machia. The whole practice session with Decima was her thinking about Machia while she had already lost to a trick too. “Did you see my last match? Where Machia just moved around me and Maxima and Musashi like she was made of water? And then when I try to think about that, when I try to think about how I should have moved, I tune out the rest of my instincts and open myself up to getting hit by stuff I should have noticed if I’d been paying attention.”

Sammy lifts up her head and sighs, breathing out her worries to the sky above Gata. “I don’t know what to do when most of the time trusting my instincts is the way to win but every once in a while there’s someone like Machia or…like whatever ghosts you’re talking about where something comes out of the blue that blows those instincts away, like I don’t even know what I’m seeing no matter how many times I play it back in my head.”

"Instincts are pretty good," said Gata, "but they also suck. Look. Most people are eyes. They're slow. Some people are ears. They're defensive. Some people are instincts, you're instincts - that's normal for International, it's how you've got to be. And some people have weird senses. They process information wrong, or better, or something. Freaks. Get near the top and you get nothing but freaks. Titanomachia was a freak - she wasn't responding to what you were doing, I think she was predicting it. There's no easy fix for them, they're all one of a kind monsters. Learning one doesn't even help you beat another."

She ran a claw idly along the edge of the exhaust pipe, curling up a long line of metal, sending a single mad line of warm exhaust air into her hair.

"There's a lot of flash in your group. It's for the eyes. For the ears. Don't. Your opponent is Kraken. She'll end your run right here in the round of thirty-two. Everything you are needs to go into stopping her."

Sammy hesitates. Gata was so decisive. So much like she imagined in so many ways, and also offering such a different worldview from how she thought. Sammy was all in the details, the planning, each specific person and each combination of teams and skills. And Gata was over here talking about eyes and ears and telling her not to worry except about the one thing she had taken as...like window dressing, as deciding what the field would look like and how she'd have to play, but not her focus.

Well, it would be a dumbass move to beg for training and then get too embarrassed to ask for help. So nothing for it.

"She offered to train together. Kraken, I mean. Like, right after my match with Machia ended. Think I should take her up on it, or would she get more out of than me?"

She still flushes. Stupid dumb question for stupid idiots who can't think for themselves, nothing profound, nothing useful, no more analysis, she just didn't know what to do with what she had now. Dumb. She's looking at the cement where she's kneeling, seeing how much pressure she needs to put out before her motions cut a line of white into it. Little white circles, anything to hide her face.

"Yes!" hissed Gata, eyes widening for a pounce, fingers digging into the metal. "We are good. But we are normal. We have instincts. Instincts are predictable. She made a mistake by offering to train with you. Take it. Take it multiple times. Watch her." Her hair was standing up as though electrically charged. "As much time as possible. Hang out afterwards. Learn."

She stood up, pacing rapidly back and forth. "Was concerned Gaia was involved. Inspiration link, similar styles. Gaia would never train with anyone else. Kraken is naive - new information. Exploitable weakness." Her ears were focused. "Remember. Remember. Cats are predators. Cats are prey. With Kraken, you are prey, even if she is naive. Do not try to be a predator. Be cute." A pause, and then slitted eyes slide back over to you. "You know how?"

"More or less. I'll figure it out. ...Nyan."

Sammy accompanies this last by lifting a hand and doing a little wrist flick. For emphasis. Because it is cute. Shut up.

She shakes her head to clear it. And starts making her way down, flipping out her phone as well. "Alright, well I got my marching orders." She's already texting Kraken for a meetup. That night if possible, the match was coming too soon.

She turns back to Gata, phone in hand. "How should I reach you again? Or is this one of those mysterious you'll find me kinda things?" A nervous chuckle.

After this, well, she was already next to a major department store. She needed a new outfit. Something disarming. Maybe a long skirt for a change, with a shirt with puffy shoulders and a big hat so she looked like she was out for a stroll in the park instead of doing a workout. That was probably cute.

"No mystery. Agents talked," said Gata. "That's easy for me. Don't do electronics any more. You won't either, once you get above a certain level. Things don't work for you. Too many ways in. Too much weight. Slow you down. Just get someone to tell you the important stuff once a day."

She winked, and you could see the stars ignite around her like fireworks. She gave a smile that took thirty years off her age and made the V-sign.

"Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaa~"

And with that she flipped backwards and power-slid down the entire skyscraper, the echo of her nya fading away into the sound of traffic below.

*

Kraken's reply was immediate:

> Thank You very much for accepting my invitation.
> I hope you will find my conflict fulfilling.
> I have already taken the liberty of kidnapping your friend, Ms. S. Creek, and placed her on public display in Glebe Park.
> Come rescue her at your pleasure <3

Guess this wasn't a day for casual shopping trips. Well, much as she wanted to grind her way down the building after Gata, she thought a change of clothes was warranted, so she want down via the elevator and back into the mall. She was gonna be climbing, so the long skirt wasn't it, but she quickly slipped through and picked up some leafy colored leggings to go with a knee-length floral dress in light green with pink flowers. Looked sort of like she was on an island vacation, or a housewife from like a century ago. But it had short sleeves for free arm movement, and it was cute.

You might be wondering why she wasn't more worried about Creek. Two reasons. One, panicking and running in seemed real fucking stupid in response to this. If Kraken's game was a rescue, it meant she wanted to challenge Sammy trying to get to a point, which made enough sense for an Aristeia! scoring zone. The point wasn't gonna move and the advantage to varying her timing at all from "mad dash immediately in response to knowing where to go" was itself valuable.

Second, Creek was secretly one of the most put together people she knew. As long as Sammy got her out quick enough to keep her from being late for her shift at the daycare, she'd be all gratitude and her ire would be reserved for Kraken. Sammy really didn't envy Kraken on that one.

She decided to grab the sun hat on the way out. It would probably fall off while she was jumping around (though it did have a nice pink gauzy tie so you could keep it around the neck at least) but it would look nice in the meantime. Creek would appreciate it.

Now fully changed and out of the mall at ground level, she moves at a brisk walking pace towards Glebe park, keeping an eye out. The intel was that Kraken did shadow tentacles, so she wasn't sure how fast that would pop out or how many would already be in place, or for that matter how she was going to be acquiring her target. The new dress and the hat might help with that too, Sammy didn't exactly look like her previous profile and it was pretty tough to see her face at ground level with a wide-brimmed hat on.

Time to see where Creek was.