Jok exited the cave slowly, checking his corners out of sheer habit, the submachine gun in his hands cutting an invisible line across the terrain, ready to unleash hell with only a slight pressure of his finger. He scowled as he thought of that, tests conducted early on in his mission to this strange anomaly had revealed that bullet physics were not what they were on his home planet, so he couldn’t be confident in his weapon. He didn’t seem all that formidable at first glance, barely topping five foot with a very human look about him, save his large eyes. He had olive skin, like someone from the Mediterranean, and tattoos adorning his arms. However, few of these traits were visible behind his fairly complete tactical gear, kevlar vest and ballistic face mask with a spec-ops combat helmet, he was even wearing an Alice pack on his back and all manner of weaponry adorning his body.

However, even these traits of a well-equipped soldier would likely be outweighed by one outward trait. His body was surrounded by metallic structures that followed his joints, the Ramor exo-suit. It allowed him to hit harder, run faster, jump higher and essentially be the best a soldier could be. It barely made a sound as he moved, only a slight rushing like air escaping an inflatable or the breath of the wind. He thought back to his equipment, quickly running through his full load out, picked up from his supply cache at OL40.

SOP Submachine Gun, three magazines.
Hazard MGL, six HE rounds, three chemical, three heat rounds carried on an ammunition belt around his chest.
36Rde Anti-personnel grenades, two on his ammunition belt, one in his pack.
Smoke Grenades: One on his belt.
RE20 Explosive: One in his pack.
Finally a Jackhammer Revolver with six extra rounds and his combat knife equipped to his right and left hip respectively.

He also carried his med-kit in his Alice Pack, but this didn’t run through his mind as he rarely ever needed it, it was time to focus on the mission. By his reckoning he had entered the island from the north east. Time to search and destroy.

The nature of tournaments was not one that could be described easily to a priestess who was the head of the military arm of her religion, but explanation or no she had been sent to participate and participate she would. Her first step on the island was in the forest to the north east, just by a river, and she wasted no time by preparing her Megumi no Fuujin immediately – without this crucial technique, much of her combat ability was rendered null and she was vulnerable to threats that she would not be when within the embrace of the Wind God.

It was safe to assume that she was not alone on the island, but a cursory glance around reminded Touho that the island was significantly larger than she had imagined her arena would be – her opponent could be nearby, but that was highly unlikely, and it was likely for the best if she stayed to the shadows until such a point as she could identify them.

Content to wait, Touho floated to the top of the nearby canopy – far enough back that the winds she commanded would not disturb the trees enough to give her position away and low enough down that seeing her would require some degree of searching. Her scope of vision was not immense as a compromise, but she would rather consider herself safe from an ambush than have perfect information.

It was not the way of the Windspeakers to hide, but measures had to be taken. Touho kept herself vigilant and prepared, awaiting some sign that her opponent was indeed on the island and was searching for her. It was only a matter of time, after all.

Jok looked around for a moment more and then moved swiftly away from the relative safety of the cave mouth, his steps carefully placed to avoid snapping twigs and making noise disturbing other detritus. He moved by his reckoning south east in relation to the cave entrance, his carefully quiet but also impressively fast pace driving him to the very edge of the terrain in but a few moments. He stopped then, looking both directions, before preparing to circle the island from the outside of the island, moving steadily clockwise. It made sense to secure the perimeter with his back to impassable terrain, though he kept a safe distance of about ten feet from the cliffside. This place was like nothing he had seen before, he wasn’t taking anything for granted.

Checking behind himself often he began his quick and careful scouting operation around the outside of the island, moving carefully across an open section of terrain and passing a stone pillar. He didn’t like moving out in the open like that, but there was little other choice that the environment permitted him.

He slowed his pace as he reached another section of forest and he slowly merged into the foliage, watching the space he had traversed carefully to scout for anyone pursuing him. If he had made it this far unscathed he had a significant advantage if his opponent had the drop on him, though he had no way of knowing.

Jok's entry to the forest would initially go unnoticed, as his distance and the lack of obvious noises that he made were enough to obscure his presence from the Windspeaker, but his settling point was close enough that Touho knew something had entered the vicinity. She did not make any overt movements that could give away her position nor change her breathing patterns, but silently moved the digits on her right hand, twisting her wrist slightly, as she created Symbols of Fuujin with which to be prepared. While she would stop (or speed up depending) upon hearing another movement or seeing something to suggest such movements, the Symbols would mount fairly quickly until she had created five.

Her first technique would likely be Spiritual Armour in order to get a feel for her opponent's preference for range - she was capable at mid range and short range, but had an offensive disadvantage at the longer ranges. The more quickly she could cover the distance, the easier it would be to land a crippling blow and win the fight from there. These assumptions were just that, however, and she withheld any true judgement until she knew the capabilities (or at least had a cursory idea) of her opponent. Any significant action before that would be brash.

Jok was unable to spot anyone following him immediately, but he was content to wait in his forested cover on the southern edge of the island, standing stock still with a decent view of the central plains. He was kneeling to keep his own profile low with a good degree of scrub blocking him from anything other than a careful of somehow enhanced view of the forest. What he was assured of was that if they were in view then he would be spotting them first, with his own impressive eye-sight.

His SMG was raised slightly and pointed outwards, ready to be locked on any targets he judged within its effective range. It wasn’t the best long ranged weapon, but he was fairly confident there were few places on the island his bullets wouldn’t reach, strange physics aside.

Touho continued to make symbols at the previous rate that she had before until she had a total of twenty three symbols, taking an additional 9 seconds. She had decided that her opponent was not in the immediate area, and that her initial thoughts had been wrong. Perhaps this was foolish, and she kept herself alert during the entire process in order to be ready to react in case she was wrong, but it did not seem like there was an opponent nearby.

The easiest way to win against an unknown opponent was to grind them out - she was able to stay well out of range of most possible combatants for a long time, and her ability to blanket the entire arena in a frigid hailstorm was one that she would have to take advantage of. She had seen a glimpse of what looked like a cave entrance, but she did not know if there was an interconnected series of tunnels. When fighting commenced, she would be sure to check it out - but until her opponent revealed themselves it was too much of a risk to make the first move.

The first to act was the first to fall, she had always been taught, and it was a tenet that had saved her life multiple times in the past - now was no different.

Jok continued to survey the open field for a short while, and provided nothing had entered his surveillance region in the next five minutes he would probably move another twenty feet or so through the forest’s edge and continue to survey the battlefield, watching his back carefully as he did so. This process would take around thirty minutes to complete, so if nothing happened for that time thirty minutes would pass with Jok on the north western side of his forested area.

In order to continue to not take the first action, Touho decided that she must take action. With her recently amassed symbols of Fuujin, she used her Akishimo no Gishiki technique that would create a hailstorm capable of blanketing the entire battlefield in shards of ice and freezing winds - she was content to take the risk of her opponent having an affinity to ice as the chance was extremely low compared to the chance that it would force them to take action. Most opponents would be forced to retreat and find shelter from the blistering cold that would fall over the battlefield, and in doing so she would force her opponent to take action first.

Provided that her opponent was not, in fact, immune to the effects or of helped by the cold, they would find themselves quickly in a risky position. Action would be required of her opponent first, and even if that action ended up not being beneficial to the Windspeaker, the battlefield was her domain in the Akishimo no Gishiki - she would have a distinct advantage against almost all opponents.

Jok was looking out across the empty plains when he noticed clouds forming up on high. Normally he wouldn’t pay attention to something as mundane as the weather, but quite quickly he noticed that the sudden storm approaching was no natural phenomenon. He swore inwardly at his luck, starting to reconsider his earlier elation at being picked for this mission, not only were physics fucked in this strange world but now the weather was all done in as well.

The hail fell with purpose, driving the air to freezing temperature and Jok settled down beneath the shrubbery and the trees to plan his next move. Covered as he was completely in tactical gear he was uniquely protected from the effects of the cold, and the dense coverage above him was more than capable of keeping the hail from bashing against his body. Though he had no reason to consider it his race was particularly resilient to any extremes of temperature and as those things went this storm wasn’t even that bad. Without a piercing wind he was fairly well insulated from the effects of the cold and saw no reason to move immediately.

His armoured exo-skeleton was naturally resistant to the cold and would further protect him from losing heat so he judged he could easily last out in the hail storm for about half an hour, at which point he may seek shelter in a cave like the one he had entered from. With little else to do he kept peering out into the teeth of the storm and waited for it to pass, wondering if the threat would be so well protected from what he thought was a natural by-product of a strange world.

If the Hailstorm did not rouse her opponent - she had not seen any movement over the area she was surveying - then Touho would be content to simply wait for it to dissipate over the course of three minute and start the gradual process of regaining her lost energy. Her five remaining Symbols of Fuujin would dissipate over the course of the next three minutes, but that energy would be reabsorbed and she would simply create them again later.

Touho would not make the first move within sight of her opponent unless the situation absolutely demanded that she did - and so she took to waiting in the tree once more. Though many shards of ice would come close to the tree, the Megumi no Fuujin would effortlessly direct them to the sides where they would fall against the floor as the other shards did. If one was particularly observant and able to see Touho, perhaps it would be obvious that something was amiss there, but she doubted that anything could see her in such a position if she could not see it (without being outside of her range of vision - and she had ruled out the possibility of anything being behind her).

The Windspeaker was, as usual, content to think upon the Wind God's will while she surveyed the battlefield for signs of activity from her opponent.

Jok decided to scout quickly through his forest while the hail fell, looking for shelter if required and also deeming it unlikely that anything would be moving across the plains. He quickly noticed a fire close to the centre and next to it was a cave-mouth strangely similar to the one he entered from. Satisfied that he had a contingency plan he used the large pillar with a torch mounted atop it as a reference point and moved swiftly towards the west side of the forest, causing him to discover a river was blocking easy passage to the west side of the island. He remained waiting there at the edge of the forest, stumped for a moment, and then shrugged whole-heartedly. He wasn’t willing to cross the river to complete his scouting mission, even though the hail was already showing signs of stopping, so he moved to the north-most point of the forest with the maximum view of the island.

What a shitty place he thought somewhat bitterly, wishing he had air-support or some other intel to aid him in searching for his hidden foe. He had to assume by this point they weren’t moving or they would have met him half-way or otherwise revealed their presence, and the fact that he hadn’t been engaged yet was narrowing down the positions the threat could be waiting in ambush. Considering the nature of the terrain and what he had seen thus far his opponent could be in one of two rough locations. Mentally the Ramor began mapping out the area which he had moved through, deciding on the safest place for an ambush. He looked out into the distance at the two forested areas from his hidden position and began to think.

Windspeaker Touho elected to prepare another five Symbols of Fuujin before activating her Megumi no Fuujin: Reitekina Yoroi [Grace of the Wind God: Spiritual Armour] technique and jumping down from the tree she had been hidden on, stopping to hover half a foot above the ground. She could cover the distance between where she was and the center of the island (as evidenced by the pillars, if she had to guess) in approximately two to three seconds in this form, and she decided to do so simply because the advantage gained from waiting diminished with each passing second. With no knowledge of her opponent, who know (presumably) had knowledge of at least one of her techniques. She had waited for long enough that she had almost entirely recovered from the loss of energy from having created the hailstorm and felt that she had enough of her strength to adequately fight.

Vigilance was the first tenet of the militaristic mind, and she remained prepared to react to anything that her opponent would do upon her moving and arriving - she would still not make the first outright move, but being stood in the center of the arena as a challenge would likely ensure that she would not have to.

If one was looking at the Ramor particularly carefully they may have noted a slight tensing of his muscles as he peered out into the clearing. That small reaction was all that Jok made as his target seemed to fly into what he was guessing was the very centre of the island and then stopped.

Is it really going to be this easy? He thought to himself fervently, slowly adjusting his aim to compensate for the distance between him and his opponent’s location, which was negligible but still a concern for his silenced sub-machine gun. Considering he had positioned himself at the far northern edge of his forested region he was incredibly close to his foe, perhaps thirty or forty feet at most, which would serve him well considering his comparative lack of range with his current equipment.

He waited for a few moments, seeing if his foe would move suddenly or reveal the trap he presumed they were setting. His gun was trained on them the whole time, his finger now hovering over the trigger. His shock at seeing what seemed to be a flying human was palpable, but unnoticeable on the surface...

Touho was well acquainted with the patterns of nature, and of hiding when it was necessary, so she turned her steely gaze towards the nearby areas to look for glimpses of her foe - the nearest areas able to conceal her foe (he was not out in the open, so if he was in the area he was concealed) were the forests to her south and to her west. Touho rotated her form around slowly, hovering just off of the ground, going counter-clockwise to ensure that she viewed as many of the target areas in as short a space of time as possible. She focused quite intently as she looked, moving slowly enough to drink in as much of the scene as was necessary to gain a good idea of what could be lurking in the forest.

Given the short distance of the forest, Jok's concealment would not hold up to close scrutiny. The plant-life could conceal him from someone who did not know what to look for, or to listen for, but Touho was experienced in the arts of war and of camouflage (despite her disdain for using them - it was important to understand the principles to root out evasive foes) and after finding his probable location after a couple of seconds of staring, she would focus on that spot quite intently and prepare herself to strike.

During her brief time spent looking for her opponent, Touho remained as wary as she could, prepared to move or to strike at any second. It was obvious that her entire body was bristling with pent-up energy, waiting to be released, to any who looked upon her - fortunately, this would either prompt a foe into action and give away their location, or it would give her opportune time to strike should they not choose to do so first. Speed gave her an advantage that most foes could not bring themselves to bear against - hopefully she would be the speedy one in this battle.

Jok watched his opponent’s movements for a few moments noting that she, for he had now determined his foe to be a female humanoid, had already picked out his general location and was playing special attention to the area. He had no idea how this was possible, crouching stock still in dense foliage and with an abundance of training in guerrilla warfare (on a planet in which one has to remember the predominant species, Ramor, have exceptional eye-sight.) Still, after all he had seen he thought it safe to assume she must have some other kind of super-natural power to detect his likely location, which just set the odds against him that much more.

Beneath his face mask he grinned boyishly, though there was a twist to his lips that turned the expression sour.

Having had more than sufficient time to gauge his opponent’s movements and distance, as well as prevailing weather conditions, the highly trained Ramor soldier was confident he could hit with over 33% of his rounds even with a submachine gun. With the suppressor inbuilt in his SMG muzzle flare would be negated and the sound of his discharge would be significantly quieter, more of a rattle and pop rather than a loud telling bang. He was confident that to discover his location from the sound of his shots would be difficult, so there was no better time than the present.

Sighting his opponent carefully he quickly squeezed the trigger in three bursts, sending around fifteen shots towards his foe as she remained out in the open. It was frustrating to see the obvious effect that seemed to be slowing his rounds, but they should still be quick enough. Though Jok could not know this, his rounds would still cover the paltry distance in about a fifth of a second, so reacting to the bullets would be difficult at best.

By his estimate about half of his rounds were near the target, though on closer examination only five of the shots would hit in a horizontal pattern around centre of mass, spanning from one arm to the other and everything in between. After firing he had immediately dropped low and shuffled backwards, moving further into foliage to cover his relocation.

Touho's reaction to the attack was immediate - her focus had been primed on the area, and the second the bullets were deflected by her condensed Megumi no Fuujin she knew that she had a small target area in which her opponent was hiding. As her right arm drew back as if to throw something, occurring as Jok had begun to retreat, her left hand made two movements, creating two symbols, before Touho's right arm sprung into action and she unleashed the newly formed ball of condensed wind energy, one of her Namida no Fuujin [Tears of the Wind God], in the general direction that the bullets had obviously come from.

She did not aim to hit any of the trees in the forefront, as that would waste half of the orb's explosion, but aimed to hit one of the trees a good twenty feet behind the forefront of the forest. Her orb would end up hitting a tree approximately ten feet back. This distance was slightly shy of creating the biggest possible explosion, but the rapidly expanding sphere would deal significant damage to the surrounding foliage if not to her opponent himself should it hit him - the desired effect was clearing out the foliage of the area, however, and any damage to her opponent was an added bonus.

After hurtling the orb, Touho prepared herself to move and strike while the advantage she sought to create presented itself, surveying the general area intently and preparing herself to react to whatever situations might arise from her recent actions.

After shuffling backwards a few steps he felt safe in breaking into a speedy crouching sprint at a leftwards diagonal, speeding away from his point of fire. This action was taken with the trained expertise of a man who was used to the possibility of a foe armed with firearms discovering his location and opening fire, an immensely quick and deadly assault. The fact that Jok was still alive to this day suggested he was more than sufficient at escaping before someone had the chance to fire bullets at him far faster than he could run.

In comparison to that, throwing a ball of air at him? That was child’s play for him to avoid.

The explosion of the magical attack obliterating a tree behind him hardly caused him to flinch at all, basically a result of intense training and familiarity with the sensation of loud noise. The scattering of splinters and wooden shards suggested that the explosion was significant, though Jok’s exo-suit augmented speed had carried him away from the debris dangerous radius, it pattered against his armoured back and pack as he fled, giving him more reason to run. The area was cleared behind him, but it hadn’t taken long for the Ramor soldier to re-enter denser foliage, effectively masking his presence from his opponent.

The question running through his mind was not focused on the danger of his opponent, but rather that the attack suggested the rounds he had fired had no effect. Such a thing seemed impossible to him, but then again, most of what he was seeing seemed impossible. His hasty retreat carried him to the western side of the small clearing surrounding the rocky pillar, where he reached into one of the many pockets on his chest, taking hold of a 36Rde Anti-Personnel grenade in his left hand, he activated it and popped it behind him before circling around to the south of the pillar while still in cover and taking stock of the situation.