The 747 airliner landed with a loud bump though muffled under the sound of the plane's engines. The wheel's screeched across the runway for a moment and the roar of the engines slowly died down to a hum. Aboard the plane, one of the stewardesses was giving the routine departure speech. Most of the passengers were handling well. Men, women, and children all begin to stand and grab their lightweight luggage and such causing a lot of noise in the process. It didn't take a long time before the plane was empty and silent once again.

"Ooohhhh...Urk!"

"Are you okay in their sir?" another stewardess asked. She stood there toward the rear of the plane gently knocking on the bathroom door, the occupied sign lit.

"Yes'am...I'm fine. Flying and me just ain't never got along to well." replied a muffled male voice from inside. Almost at the same time, the occupied light went off and the door opened. A young oriental looking man stepped out. He had on navy blue T-shirt, slightly faded blue jeans, a pair of gray high-top style sneakers.

"Are you okay Mr. Heagy?" she asked and received a silent nod in less than a heartbeat after asking. "Well, you're the last one off the plane," the young lady smiled slightly, "I don't ever recall a passenger being so airsick before. Perhaps you would like to go for the record?"

"Ah...well...I'm fine now...aren't I?" John replied, a look of easily recognized embarrassment crossed his face. "I guess I oughta grab my stuff." he said as he hastily made his way back to the airplane's main cabin.

"You wouldn't know anything about Chinese would you?" John asked as he dug a wrinkled letter out of his blue jeans pocket. "Perhaps you could translate this last part for me…I can't read the name of the hotel I'm supposed to check in at."

"Sorry. I'm not really familiar with anything other than English." She responded.

John nodded and stuffed the crumpled back into his pocket, "Guess you can't win 'em all."

"Well...Thank you for choosing "Vomit Comet" for all your travel needs. Please come again." the stewardess added as John made his way toward his seat.

"Ugr..." John groaned as he grabbed his black backpack and exited through the hatch, mumbling something about quietly to himself.
 

"Volpe…are you sure your jeep is some where around here?" Lilly asked as the four rambled around in the high brush. Most of them were already possessing countless small scratches and scrapes one their limbs from the twigs and branches.

"Oh ye of little faith…" Volpe replied ahead of the rest, basically hidden under all the bushes, "You couldn't just expect me to leave it in plain sight, could you?"

"Yes, but she probably also expected you remember where you stashed it as well." The reply had come from Iwa who was standing around by a tree, her trusty wolf not far behind her.

"Jackpot!" Volpe yelled from up ahead. Grinning ear to ear he pulled off the camouflaged canopy and tossed it aside, "The chariot awaits fair maidens." he said with a mock bow as he motioned toward the jeep.

"Umm…Volpe …We could've just followed that road there and skipped going through all that brush." Lilly said in a slightly annoyed voice as she glanced at the nearby dirt road.

"What? And miss all that fun?" the investigator answered, his grin seemingly growing larger. Jumping over the door with ease he started the ignition. Iwa seeming appeared out of no where from around a large tree before jumping into the back of the jeep, the white wolf followed suite and the small brown squirrel hastily did the same.

"Things are gonna get interesting now." Kumori added as she floated down gracefully, gently setting down on the ground before climbing in beside Iwa.

"Volpe's driving, so get your seatbelts fastened." Lilly commented as she opened the passenger side door, quickly following her own advice and fastening her seatbelt.

"You aren't just whistling Dixie either!" Volpe said as he shifted gears and stomped down onto the gas. The jeep's wheels dug into the ground for a moment before tearing out of the ditch at breakneck speed.

"VOLPE!!!" Lilly shouted as she clawed into her seat. "Slow down!"

"Party pooper." Volpe muttered as he eased off the gas, "But I guess I just can't say no to such a beautiful lady, eh?"

"I guess this it…the symbol sure looks about the same." John said to no one in particular as he glanced over a sign on a chain length fence. He stood outside the gate of a pretty good-sized airfield. The gate was wide open and there were several yellow and red signs along the length of the fence, though all were in Chinese.
"Well…the gate's open so I guess they were expecting me." and with those words he entered through the gates.

The airstrip was large though only one vehicle was visible. It looked like a solid black Chinook of some kind. He continued walking toward the huge helicopter like vehicle.

"(Stop! You are trespassing on private property!)" a voice rang out in pure Chinese.

"Huh? Umm…are you talking to me?" John replied slowly as he turned around. There, about fifteen feet away stood two Chinese men in similar clothing, a dark blue uniform of some kind. One was pretty large, a good build to. The other looked small but still seemed to be in good shape.

"(Hey! Didn't you hear me?)" the large man yelled out in Chinese again, easily showing his anger. John had set down his backpack and was closing the distance between him and the two men, waving his arms and shaking his heads as he did.

John reached into his pocket for the letter of introduction for the tournament and continued approaching the man. "Sir…I got this letter and I was won-Ooofff!" John's words were cut off as the large man brought his fist up into his stomach. Grabbing his stomach as all the wind left his lungs. He glanced up for a moment just in time to see the other guy sweep his legs out from under him.

"(Trying to pull a weapon…little punk…)" the smaller man muttered as he tried to kick John in the side. Unfortunately for him, John quickly rolled to the right and put a large distance between him and the two men.

"I think…we have…a misunderstanding." John managed to get out as he flipped to his feet.

"(Your dead kid!)" the larger of the two shouted as he charged toward the John.

"Oh crap…oh crap…" John managed as he cupped his hands together and bent over, small sparks of ki beginning to build up in his hands. The man was approaching fast, "…not enough time…" and with this his broke his left hand away and through a small disk shaped blast of ki toward the man.

The man never had time to react, the Plasma Disk impacting directly in his face. With out pausing, John brought his right up, tossing a second disk at the ground. The energy disk traveling across the ground at a high speed before flying up, impacting directly into the large man's chin and sending him down on his back.

The smaller man, obliviously a martial artist of some kind, sent John flying forward with a well timed flying kick to the back. Dust went flying as John fell on his face, hitting the ground relatively hard. The man took full advantage of this and brought both his knees down straight into John's back, causing him to arch backward with a scream of pain. The larger man began to stir and slowly stood up. Lifting John up easily he grabbed his arms and held him up. The smaller man grinned and popped his knuckles as he approached him.

'This is not good…not good.' John thought to himself, 'Gotta time this right…Il… Ee… Sahm… Sah… O… Yuk… Chil!' and at the end of his mental countdown, John basically used the smaller man as a running post and performed a backflip over the larger man. 'It worked! Got to move fast…Howling Wolf Strike.' his mind screamed at him. Thrusting his right elbow into the larger man's back then bringing his right arm up for a back fist before spinning around and shooting out his left elbow into the man's kidneys and his left fist hit his neck. "Fist of the Howling Wolf!" John cried out as he brought his right fist back to his waist, blue sparks begin to gather around it. 'Il… Ee… Sahm!' and with that he slammed his right fist directly into the large man's back, sending flying forward a good ten feet.

"Stop it…now!" a voice rang out if pure English followed by a gunshot.

"Wha-?" John stuttered as he let his stance drop. He turned around to see a relatively strong looking man with a black shirt on, even more noticeable was the smoking handgun he was pointing towards him.

"Your trespassing kid." The man said calmly as he holstered his pistol.

"But…I got this letter and-…" John begin as he dug the wrinkled letter out of his pocket.

"Letter? Let me see that." The man said as he walked toward John and snatched the piece of paper from his hands. He scanned over for a few moments before his features relaxed, "Ah…you're a fighter in the tournament, right?"

"Yes…the name of the airport matched this one…" John paused for a moment before scratching the back of his head, "Well…at least the symbol looked like this one."

"Well, you could have used the phone by the gate. Would have been a whole lot easier on everyone." the man said as he handed the letter back to John. "We're planning on taking off pretty soon, go and wait on board." he said as he motioned toward the Chinook. "There are already a few fighters on board, we have one more group due here soon before we leave for the island."

"Yes sir." John answered as he picked up his backpack and walked toward the huge ramp in the back of the Chinook. Dusting his shirt off, he slowly walked up the metal ramp. There were two rows of seats on either side of the Chinook. On the left side were three other guys, two of him he remembered reading about in a newspaper. The guy with the blonde hair was Cody, former convict…and the other was Guy, a legendary Bushin master. The third guy he didn't recognize, but guessed they were all friends. He nodded slightly to them but remained silent as he walked on slightly further down. Setting his backpack down on the opposite side of the other three men before he sat down by himself.

A dark green jeep skidded to a stop in the airfield. Volpe jumped over the door and stretched, "Now, wasn't that a nice little ride through the country?"

"Only if you like seeing things in a blur." Lilly responded as she opened the passenger door and got out.

"Where's our ride?" Kumori asked as she floated slightly above the jeep, looking around as she did. Iwa's wolf and squirrel leaped out of the jeep quickly and Iwa did the same.

"See that Chinook over there? That's our ticket to the island." Volpe said pointing the large helicopter -like vehicle. The entire group moved toward the Chinook's entrance ramp. Volpe was the first aboard, glancing over toward Crimson, Cody, and Guy.
"Hey! You guy's made it okay I assume?"

Crimson nodded, "Yeah, except Cody here was dragging behind the entire way…I thought we were gonna be late."

"Me? You're the one who had to grab a snack!" Cody responded.

"Easy you two." Volpe interrupted before anymore could be said. He noticed a young man sitting off by himself starring out of the window. He glanced toward Volpe and gave him a nod before turning back toward the window. Volpe only smirked and muttered, "Kids these days…"

The two large propellers begin to twirl as a man's voice was heard over the intercom, "We're about to take off now, please get buckled in." Everyone chose a seat and strapped themselves down.

"This is going to be a long flight…" the young man muttered.

Volpe glanced over at him and grinned evilly for a moment before leaning back, this was going to be an interesting journey indeed.