Jenjia the Wych Arena Thread

You stand in a steel corridor, bright light filtering through the slits in the door ahead of you, the door to the arena and your next bout.

Checking your gear you have:
A knife
A (loaded) splinter pistol
Your wych suit

The slits in the door are large enough to peak through, there is a pressure pad next to the door to open it. What do you do?

First I take a look through the slits. If I don't see anything suspicious (i.e. a beast just waiting outside for me to open the door to get in close combat with me), I take a look at the door if it could be a trap (like a guillotine that severs arms when reaching through the slits). If I don't see anything that would hint me to such a thing, I try to press the pad.
If the pressure pad can be reached with the blade of my knife and the slits are too narrow for an arm, I use my knife to press the pad and retract my knife as fast as possible. If the pad is in arms reach and the slits are wide enough for my arm to pass through, I press the pad using my wrist armour trying to avoid skin contact and retract my arm as fast as possible. If the pad is impossible to reach with my blade or arm, I take aim with my splinter pistol and fire a shot through the slits at the pressure plate.

You find a pad, and pressing it, realize that it's the switch to open the door. It slides open and you see a sand filled arena, the hot sands sizzle on the ground, and shift in certain places in an "s" pattern.

Suspecting snake-like creatures in these places, I enter the arena cautiously trying to avoid these sand-shifting places. How big/long are these shifts? How many?
Looking around I try to identify my opponent. If I can't see an obvious opponent (sand filled arena with no obvious cover) I suspect these 'sandworms' to be my opponents.
In that case I select the closest 'shift', and shoot at it followed by a charge stabbing my knife into the sand shift. I prepare myself to evade a snake-like counterattack.

The sands constantly shift, so you can only guess the number of shifts (about 5, as they meld into each other.)

Opening fire on the nearest shift, whatever causes it seams to dive deeper into the sand.

You hear an explosion of sand as a serpentine form bursts from the ground behind you! Luckily, having prepared for this, you role out of the volley of sword swipes the four armed snake-man delivers to the air where you where standing. What do you do?

A Sslyth. I take a look at its gear for an instant, then I charge into (real!) close combat so that its sword(s) will have problems hitting me. Using the momentum of my charge, I thrust my knife hard at its connection between head and body, a place I would call jugular for humanoids, trying to hit a connection line between its scales. If it wears a helmet, I thrust my knife between the connection between helmet and body armor. I watch out for its teeth besides its other close combat weapons.

I cross my blades and strike upward against your arm (while leaving a small possibility of getting hurt, it stops the blade from killing me) and then pincer-stab with the other 2 blades and attempt to bite your neck.
I am so confident that this will work that i have no further strategy and will be caught off-guard if this doesn't work and panic

Having my knife arm blocked, I shift my body to avoid the blade stabs. Since I watched its jaws and expected a bite attack it does not surprise me. I thrust my pistol arm upwards and put the splinter pistol between its jaws blocking them and pull the trigger sending poisened shards down the throat of my opponent. At the same time I am angling my right leg and press a foot on the torso to make a sommersault flip backwards over the stabbing blades after firing the splinter pistol.
I am expecting to see my opponent fall or at least flinch, so I scan the arena for the positions of the other Sslyths.

i fall to the ground and feign death, attempting to breath as little as possible. This does not work and results in death, due to the poison round that entered my neck.

An applaud erupts from the onlookers! The smell of a fresh death fills the arena causing the audience to become frantic with a blood rage. with 1 down and more to go we look on with excitement, knowing another death will come.

With the rush of the kill and the caused pain, I feel almost invulnerable. This is what I am living for, the very reason for my existence. With no immediate sign of the other opponents, I gracefully jump on the torso of the fallen Sslyth and do some minor victory poses combined with further scanning the arena. I am prepared to jump off the corpse any time.