Round 1: Zora VS. Gunny
The mental preparation for a duel was brutal. A fight as public as God's Tournament will be remembered, discussed, dissected and enshrined in the annals of history forever. No pressure.
Zora and Gunny faced each other on stage. Gunny held a gun in each hand: a pistol and an automatic rifle. Zora had a few throwing knives.
Gunny felt the last swig of his homemade whisky coursing through his veins, giving him life. He had placed his half-empty bottle by the side of the stage. I'll have the rest after this fight, he thought.
"Out of all the people I could've fought, I got you," Gunny laughed bitterly at his luck. His eyes were bloodshot and he wiped his nose.
"Isn't this what you wanted? For someone to end your miserable life?" Zora responded without missing a beat. Her mind was laser sharp and focused. Her eyes were narrowed and piercing.
"Close, but not completely right," Gunny chuckled. She had a point.
From the elevated viewing gallery, Ashley watched the two fighters take their places. The audience was glued to the main screens that projected the fight.
"All right folks! This is the first fight of God's Tournament. Zora and Gunny, both from Vinlan Corp, are you ready?" Ashley shrieked excitedly.
Gunny clocked his guns in both hands.
"Ready, start, fight!"
Gunny and Zora did not move immediately. They were seasoned fighters, and experience had taught them not to make the first move until they were certain. Gather information, strategise and execute.
Zora threw a knife at Gunny's head. It spun at an angle, but missed as Gunny easily dodged it.
The spiral tattoo on Gunny's forearm glowed as it began to absorb energy and channel it through Gunny's body. This was the rōōh that the Doctor had mentioned.
Gunny shot his pistol. Zora raised her arms, and the stage complied to her energy. A block of concrete was swiftly lifted from the stage as a protective wall.
Crash! The wall shattered into fragments, as if a grenade had hit it.
'That isn't a regular bullet. Even a scratch would've killed me. What power does he have?' Zora was flummoxed for once.
Gunny, on the other hand, had deduced the power that Olo had bequeathed her: the power to move earth.
***
Ashley was in full commentator mode. "Looks like they're testing one another. Caaaan you feel this tension in the air? Just who has the upper hand here?"
Zora needed more information to solve the riddle of Gunny's power, and she needed to figure it out fast. She spun around and kicked the remnants of the crumbling wall. This move formed projectiles made of rock, which were targeted towards Gunny.
Gunny staggered from one side to another drunkenly. His balance was buoyed by rōōh manipulating the air around his body. 'He may look drunk, but he's still in control,' Zora made a mental note.
Seeing the rock projectiles, Gunny waved his hands in a flow to protect himself. This redirected the stones, sending them in a circle—right back at their owner. There goes my advantage, he thought.
Zora escaped easily from the path of the projectiles. Using her powers, the rocks collided with one another and shattered. 'Gunny's power was wind,' she realised.
Gunny's other hand, on his automatic rifle, was cocked. Bullets began spewing out in quick succession as Zora erected walls to block them while running to find an opening. These bullets packed a less powerful punch than his pistol, but were still much, much stronger than regular metal pellets. Charged with rōōh, they could cause a searing pain upon impact—which could potentially be lethal.
Zora had to get closer to Gunny. The earth beneath her feet lifted to create a set of stairs towards Gunny, which she ran up. From her vantage point, Zora threw a second knife at Gunny's head. Gunny's pistol hand had lightning quick reflexes. His next bullet knocked the knife askew in mid-air. A few others ricocheted off the walls and nearly hit the commentators' booth. Ash and Ashley ducked for their lives, cowering in fear as one stray bullet scratched a microphone.
More knives followed towards Gunny's head. Zora was now in close range to Gunny. The staircase had formed a semicircle around him, limiting his ability to back away. With another wave of her hand, Zora formed vertically-pointed spikes from the stage, targeting where Gunny stood. The very stage where Gunny stood would be his own trap.
Gunny's rōōh manipulated the air around him, so that his body moved as if it were naturally repelled from the spikes. His target, Zora, was above him. He kicked himself up into a backflip. Whilst in midair, upside down, he pointed his pistol right at Zora's head. A clear head shot. Gunny smiled and pulled the trigger.
The bullet whizzed past Zora's left ear. Gunny landed and looked at Zora standing off-balance. She had manipulated the elevation of the staircase, sinking her right leg into the ground. Her head tilted just in time out of the way of the bullet.
Both of them stopped to catch their breath.
"What a show! This is what I've been talking about!" Ashley clapped gleefully along with the audience.
"You're much smarter than I gave you credit for," Gunny said, panting. Now that the both of them knew what the other was capable of, it was time to get serious.
"Won't matter when you're dead," Zora replied smoothly.
Gunny smiled. "Would you mind if I finish my drink? This might be my last."
Zora nodded, indifferent.
***
The viewing gallery was intensely holding their breath. Dart, Felix and Kitaro had their noses almost pressed up against the glass.
"Whoa! Can he do that?" Dart pointed at Gunny walking off to the unbattered side of the stage to rescue his drink.
"It's sportsmanship in its own twisted sense," Felix shook his head in disbelief.
"And what's up with those bullets? They exploded like dynamite!" Dart was thoroughly impressed, his naivety showing.
"He's using air," Kitaro explained solemnly. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his brand-new jeans.
"No shit," Dart rolled his eyes. "But last time I checked, air doesn't blow up on its own."
"Compressed air does. Gunny's power of wind allows him to manipulate the space between molecules. Generally, molecules in air are loosely packed by their density. He's packed the air between molecules together so they release explosively when they exit the gun barrel."
"Okay." Dart was quiet.
"You didn't understand it, did you?" Kitaro hazarded a guess.
"No… not really," Dart admitted.
Kitaro tried again. He closed his fist. "The air is pressurised in a small space. Once released, goes boom!" He opened his fist to mimic the explosion.
"Ah. Great, it's starting again," Dart turned back to the stage. His mind was running with all sorts of scenarios, and secretly, he was relieved that he wasn't in Gunny's shoes. Zora was in a whole different league.
As if reading Dart's mind, Felix whispered back. "I hope Gunny wins this. Even I don't want to fight her."
< WHO IS GOING TO WIN?>