A Whole New World (Where You Don't Want to Be) //PRIVATE//

Sorry, I have an annoying life that gets in the way of writing. Let's get this started.

"Do we have everything set up?" Kinashki asked walking into the room. Jake followed him a smile on his face. They'd been working on this for several weeks now. Taca and Roshiel looked up from the maps they were studying.
"We have the arena completed and people are getting the food stands and merchant shops ready," Roshiel explained. "We were just looking at the area surrounding to make sure we wouldn't have to make any other adjustments."
"That's good, we have a few days before we start getting entries for the fights and the healers are working a little extra to make sure that have everything needed incase something goes wrong," Jake explained. "I hope everything goes as planned."
"We've only been planning this tournament for four and a half months," Kinashki chuckled.
"It will go as planned and we will make sure of that," Taca assured. "It's the first time you ninja have allowed us humans to join you and we intend to make the most of it."

(I’ll introduce one of them at a time)

”Seriously?! Another round?!” one of the people around the table of two complained with the sound of disappointment in his tone. Caden sat at the other end of the table with a spades’ royal straight flush in front of him while he readjusted his glasses with much satisfaction.
”Wanna go for another round?” the winner asked with a teasing smile.
”Hell yes, give me back my five hundred grand you demon…” the other player replied while the master of the game chuckled as he shuffled the cards.
Upon placing the first card down, the master collapsed onto the table only to become conscious again… somewhere he’d never seen before. He slowly stood up and to his surprise, found his signature deck of cards in his jacket’s pocket.
Damn pockets… he thought as he walked towards… well, who knows. He wanderer hopelessly for a bit until he saw what he could only make out to be an arena of some sort. He decided to walked towards the structure, not really sure what he might find. Whilst walking, he was also shuffling the deck of playing cards he had with him.

Kinashki had gone back to the arena with Jake. They were walking calmly through the crowds of people that were forming. "How's Tonakee doing?" Jake asked.
Kinashki replied with a cheeky grin. "She is doing splendid. Hasn't beat me yet, and she's determined that this will be the one. Part of me thinks that it could, but she still has a bit to learn."
"She still hasn't learned all your dirty tricks in other words," Jake gave him a light punch to the shoulder.
"You know me a little too well," Kinashki smiled as they continued to the arena. "Are you going to be competing this year?"
"Originally last year was going to be my last, but," he crossed his arms as they walked. "I think I'm up for one last hurrah. Did you hear who else was planning on being here?"
"I did, and I have to say I was kind of surprised by his willingness to get into a fight. Do we know his opponent?" Kinashki continued.
"From what I've heard he doesn't have one at the moment. Honestly I don't know who my opponent will be either," Jake explained. "I wouldn't mind going against him though. From what I've heard he and I are about the same battle skill."
"I don't know, he's still pretty young," Kinashki put his hands in his coat pockets. "We'll have to see."
"Yes we will."

As Caden continued towards the structure, he had to make his way through the crowds. After some effort, he ultimately gave up on trying to get pass the flood of people. He drew one card up from the deck he held and threw it across the groups of people formed. When the card hit… something, Caden was teleported to replace the card while the card itself returned to the pile.

The gambler looked up to see what the card had hit and realized that it was a person, one who stood with another figure by his side.
”My apologies!” he immediately said. He, though, felt like these two weren’t just your everyday bystanders. If anything, they might even be fighters as given by the aura he’d sensed from them.

Kinashki jumped in surprise when the figure appeared next to them. But Jake merely laughed. He noticed the figure's obvious embarrassment, and looked at Kinashki. "Well, it's nice to see so many variety of people that come to this. It really is quite nice to meet them," Jake nudged his friend. Kinashki was still looking at the figure a little uncertain.
"Yes it is," he said blinking away his shock. "Are you okay sir?"

Caden solemnly nodded as he uttered the words of: ”Yep, I’m fine”. He soon reached for the back of his neck and scratched it just slightly.
”Uhm…” he started again ”—I kinda got lost. Could you tell me where this is?” he asked, trying his best to keep himself from spoiling the fact that he was sent here without his consent.

"Ah, another one of those problems," Kinashki nodded. "Well, this place right here would be known as the Imperial Kingdom. The planet we're on is called Htrae. Anything else you need help with?"

”Yeah actually… I was wondering… since there is an Arena right here, is there a festival going on? There seems to be a lot of people as well so I was kinda thinking there is?” Caden asked quite nervously. So the ‘pockets’ really took him to another realm. He was, though, intrigued in seeing what this realm was like.

"As a matter of fact yes," Jake replied. "We are having our annual Skills Tournament. Once it starts it will go for two weeks, with several matches a day, where people can challenge each other to power matches, knowledge tests, or strategy scenarios. There are also match mixes where you combine more than one of the categories. The thing that most people come for are the power matches. Where they get to watch people testing their fighting abilities including speed, strength, technic, skill. Strategy scenarios are when you get thrown into different situations and you have to find the best way the is the most beneficial for everyone. And then the knowledge tests are just seeing what you know of each area, race history, and quite a bit more. The most common combination of each is the strategy and the power. It's also quite interesting to see the rivalries that have formed through these. My friend here is a perfect example of that. For the past nine tournaments he has been challenged by the same person. They have yet to beat him in any of their matches."
"She is also my apprentice and has a bit to learn still. Being fair to her," Kinashki added. "By the way, so we don't come off as rude, my name is Kinashki Haru, and this is my friend Jake Mantle. We are overseeing most of the preparation for this event."

”Ah, I see. Well, since you did so I’ll do too. I’m Caden Cadence, I know, very creative name. And now that you mentioned such an event, I’ve got to ask—“ he leaned in a tad bit closer with excited gazes ”—where can I apply?!” he asked with an interested tone.
He kept the deck of cards in his pocket subtly when he asked… though he also slipped a card into Kinashki’s pocket and another one in Jake’s when he leaned in.

"Well, it's not exactly applying persay," Kinashki said glancing at Jake. "But you can sign up to be in one or two of the matches by the front gates. You'll write a small not very descriptive bio about what you can do. Seeing as how you haven't been to this planet before I would suggest not signing up for a knowledge test, they are pretty difficult. However you could probably do the other two if you wanted."
"Yep, you might even be allowed to choose who you want to face. Otherwise you'll just put your name on the list and someone will choose you," Jake finished for Kinashki.

Caden took in this new information, a bit at a time and started to realize how he wanted to try. In all fairness, he wasn’t the best fighter from where he’s from, people’s abilities were insane there, but perhaps he could put up quite a show for this new group of audience.
”Alright, thanks guys. You’ve been great help” he ended before he started towards the front gates.

Along the way to the gates, he got a feeling that he wasn’t the only here from the place he called ‘home’. Upon arriving at the gates, he approached the receptionists with a polite tone.
”Excuse me, is this where you sign up for the matches?”

The people standing in the booth type thing looked up at the newcomer. "It is," a younger looking man said. "You put your name on one or more of these papers with a small bio. If you're planning on doing a power match, I would advise against making the bio very detailed. I made that mistake last year, and it didn't end very well for me."

(You still have a way to get here because you just got to the planet. Just have them walking around the arena and I'll throw someone at them.)

Blinking with confusion Lachlan tipped his head to the side as he looked at the woman. As far as he knew there weren't any cuts right here. So where had this woman come from? "Um, good afternoon? Ma'am. Uh… Um. Should I ask if you're being chased or something?" Lachlan internally smacked himself upside the head. Way to be a complete idiot. This isn't my cup of tea though, dammit. Where are any of the others when I need them?!

"Okay, Uh…. would you like to know where we are and what is going on? Or I can point you in the direction of someone who can actually help you better than I can," Lachlan rubbed the back of his neck. "I have to admit that I'm not the best at talking with people. Sorry."

"Well, if you want to be where all the action is you are already there," a new voice spoke up from next to them. Lachlan jumped slightly and looked over to see Kye leaned against one of the booths. Surprisingly he was a bit banged up looking. "Hey Hunter, how you been?"

(Hey, sorry to be the bringer of bad news but I won’t be completely active until the 7th or 8th due to school work and activities. You guys can go on without me, I’ll find a way to slip myself back)

Kye had a completely black expression on his face. "I agree it has been quite a while," he replied in a monotone way. Lachlan looked between the two for a moment.
"Okay knock it off, I've been trained well enough to know when you're clearly very excited to see each other. Geez', I'm gonna go find Ovan," he turned and started walking away.
"Do be careful of the sarcasm you seem o be dragging behind you Lach," Kye called after him.
Lachlan replied with a wave of his hand, before disappearing into the crowd.

(I will keep a way to get you back into this. I promise!)

"Were you going to tell me that you were going to come? Because I told you about this a month ago and got no response," Kye still spoke monotone and had a completely blank expression.

"It is not fighting," Kye corrected. "It is a competition in which we test our skills to see what we need to work on or touch up, or to see how far along we have come." He offered his arm as he turned to start moving. In his typical gentleman fashion. "Would you like to see the rest of the area? We have a couple hours before the first batch of matches start."