[Poop post incoming.]

A beam of incandescent light burst to life beside the barn, momentarily blanketing the structure in stark illumination. After the brief flash, the farm returned to normal, save for the smell of ozone and the slow, creaking opening of the barn doors as a man-shaped figure strode out of the structure.

Caius ignored the lurch in his gut that accompanied every displacement. Having one's mass scattered, ferried, and re-coalesced through a beam of light did not, the psion found, feel especially good. Still, it beat traditional forms of atmospheric entry, which were slow, bumpy, and inaccurate. Landing an orbit-to-surface shuttle on the farmland probably would have demolished the barn and any other structure in the immediate area. All the same, he'd need to correct his ship's AI on its spatial placement; it very nearly displaced him into the same position as a tractor.

Black body armor covered him like a chitinous shell of matte-colored ceramite, each piece molded and fitted together smoothly. Silvery slivers of metal decorated the armor here and there, running up and down the length of his torso, counter-point to the glowing nodes that were set into the black ceramic material at regular intervals. He wore his helmet, although he doubted the necessity of its air-filtration system: he was on some variation of Old Earth, where the atmosphere was perfectly safe. Still, better safe than sorry where any potential foes were concerned.

Pistols clung to his hips, mag-locked in place to his armor. His hands rested easily on the weapons, fingers curled around the grips molded to for his hands. The Psi-HUD read off his ammunition count: twelve rounds in each weapon. As far as outward appearances were concerned, those were his only weapons.

Ahead of him loomed something black and gloamy, like a concentrated shadow that resisted the sun's obliterating illumination. In his dynamokinetic perception, he saw the way it deadened the local electromagnetic field, although he couldn't guess as to how. Absorption, perhaps, or simply some underlying diffusion of force and energy? The multiverse held a myriad of mysteries just like the Shroud.
More importantly, Caius sensed the presence of a mind inside, or part of, the Shroud. It stood out in contrast to the rest of the farmland. A sapient mind had weight to it, a sort of density that simpler minds -- like those of the various field mice and birds in the area -- lacked. He didn't try to read it; just being aware of its presence was enough. 

Caius couldn't discern whether or not his enemy was within the Shroud, or [i]was[/i] the Shroud. Not that it mattered. He hadn't been hired to study his opponents, he had been hired to fight and to win. Frankly, what purpose his employer saw in having the multiversal mercenary partake in something like a tournament was beyond Caius's pay-grade. All that mattered was that there was a pay-grade to be had; he didn't earn his keep by asking why he pointed his guns at something, he did so by pulling the triggers.

Caius's autonomous psionic shield reflexively triggered into existence in response to sensing another sapient mind in the area. A bubble of psychic energy warped around him. It was vaguely visible, iridescent like oil reflecting sunlight in water. The pistols unlocked from his hips and the weight of each weapon settled into his hands.

He stopped just in front of the barn, having only taken a few steps, still a good fifty-odd feet away from the dark phenomena of the Shroud.

"Well then?" he asked, as if he expected to answer.

Maybe he did.