Ellya ran up behind Silvien and his Chocobo, then deftly leapt up onto the back. Ellya reached past Silvien and rubbed the Chocobo on the neck. She whispered something to it and then leaned back. The bird creature suddenly seemed to settle, it seemed far less nervous. She then unlatched her gun, patted Silvien on the shoulder and said, "it's a deal then."

"Thanks," Silvien sighed, glaring at the back of the bird's head. Suddenly, cheering could be heard as Mr. Bogg led them to the edge of town. A sea of people parted to let the racers through (almost everyone in town), whistling and hollering, as the Moogle led them up to an endless row of red flags, which marked the border between the human town and sand wyrm country. Hammered into the ground was a badly painted picture of what appeared to be a fish with a mouth full of sharp teeth. 'Beware sand wyrms.'

Something flew up to the racers, humming loudly. It was a strange machine with spinning helicopter-like blades. There was a giant picture screen set up a few feet away, and when Silvien waved at the hovering machine he noticed that he could see himself waving back in the picture. "Hey, we're on TV," he said, laughing. "Wait. That's bad, right?"

"Ready, racers?! Kupo!" Mr. Bogg shouted, pointing a fake gun into the air. "On your mark! Kupo! Get set! Kupo!" POW!

Right at the sound of the gun, Nik and Charles took off; apperently Charles was so scared of the gunshot, he just...ran. And pretty fast. "Whoa, slow down a bit. You don't want to waste all of your energy at the beginning; we have to keep at a steady pace if we want to win," he called to he large bird, who didn't understand a word he said, but slowed down since Nikolas was pulling the reins.

Bucky was startled by the gunshot as well and took off at a quick sprint, but unlike Nikolas, Silvien encouraged his Chocobo to keep up the fast pace, quickly passing him up. "Hahahaa! This race is in the bag!" he shouted back to Ellya, impressed that his instinct told him to pick the best Chocobo. The flying camera chased after them, easily keeping up. "And there off! Kupo!" Mr. Bogg's voice buzzed from the device. "Nikolas and his Chocobo Charles got off to a good start, but Silvien, Ellya, and Bucky pass him up! Kupo! And, oh what's that?!"

Right beside the racers a dark fin rose out of the sand, growing taller and taller until it seemed to touch the sky itself, blocking off the sun. But the Chocobos were too fast for it to keep up and it sank back into the sand. "Oh, my! Kupo! It looks like we've already got sand wyrms, folks!"

((Camera Mr. Bogg and the sand wyrms are NPCs. Enjoy.))

((Edit: Eh, since the sand wyrms don't exist in any of the FF games, I'll go ahead and describe it. They're like giant, black fish with draconic faces and layers of armor (kinda like an armadillo). Their mouths are filled with rows of sharp teeth and they have two jaws, as well as extremely long whip-like tongues used for catching prey. They've got giant shark fins on their back and clawed fins instead of arms. They have no legs, but pointed tails, and they're bodies are covered in sharp barbs. They're about the size of a blue whale.))

Drake had taken off at the sound of the gunshot, but unlike the other chocobos, he did not take off in fright, but in a racing spirit. Though Adriaan was on his back, he knew how to race and kept a good speed, letting Bucky and even Charles pass him. Adriaan knew Drake knew what he was doing and let him have his head. She saw the large fin come out of the sand and hunkered closer to Drake's body with a gasp--it was so much bigger than she'd thought. There was no way they could beat something that size if they had to! Adriaan saw the camera spinning around the racers, capturing the race from every angle, but she ignored it completely--this may be an official race, but they were looking for a gem (though how they'd find it, Adriaan had no idea).

Ellya gasped at the size of the Sand Wyrm, but she was much less frightened of them than of the crowd back in the city. "I'm so glad we're out of there," she said, miming wiping sweat form her brow, "there were so many people."

They continued to ride in peace for a few more minutes when suddenly another sand wyrm popped it's head out of the sand. It was quite far away, maybe half a kilometre, no threat right now. It dipped it's head back underneath the sand. Suddenly, just a few moments later, a sand wyrm appeared right behind Bucky. "Can Bucky go any faster?" Ellya screamed at Silvien, levelling her gun.

"Hang on! Yah!" Silvien kicked the Chocobo's sides, trying to get it to go faster, but Bucky was already going his maximum speed. "I'm sorry. This is as fast as he can--HOLY CRAP!" The head of a sand wyrm shot out of the ground before them, its teeth filled mouth open wide. Silvien leaned to the left, making a hard swerve to the side, just before the gaping mouth came down where the group had been less than a second before.

"Still back there?" Silvien asked the gunner, looking back. He noticed that the camera was still following them.

"That was close! Kupo! Looks like the sand wyrms are exceptionally hungry today!"

"We won't be able to find the gem with that thing tailing us!" the mage hissed. "See if you can shoot it down. Or we could let a sand wyrm get it and make it look like an accident."

Nik was in 5th right now, Since Adriaan was going at an even slower pace than him. He saw the sand wyrm that charged at Silvien, but missed him.

"Just keep going at this pac for a while, then we'll speed up a bit." Nik tried to sound convincing, even though he had no racing experience before.

"I just thought of something; is there a prize for winning? If there is, does it really matter who wins then? Aw, who cares, I want to win anyway."

"Already on it," said Ellya, looking down the barrel of her gun. She waited until the sand wyrm they had dodged was between them and the camera, then fired two shots. The first one bounced harmlessly off the hard carapace of the beast, and the second whizzed past and buried itself into the camera's lens. In a burst of flame and smoke the flying contraption fell into the sand where it was eaten by a particualrly hungry sand wyrm.

"Kupo! And we've lost Camera One!" The booming voice of Mr. Bogg came over the sands, "but don't worry! Kupo! There's plenty more where those came from!"

Ellya groaned as a fleet of five cameras flew up from the direction of the city. "More cameras!" she muttered to Silvien as a camera tried to get a close up of her face, "they've probably got hundreds of the things..."

"That's not good," he growled, forcing Bucky to charge over a rather steep sand dune to avoid another sand wyrm. "Hmm. I know something that might take care of it." The Chocobo clawed its way to the top of the dune, bounding off and opening its wings so that it glided to the ground.

"Okay, listen to me. Take my spell gun. There's some blue colored bullets in my pouch. Load one into the gun, aim, and say very loudly and clearly 'Explosion!', then pull the trigger. That should take care of most of them."

Ellya complied, and followed every step carefully. She was amazed by the force of the gun when she had pulled the trigger. For a while there was nothing, but then a spark came off the center camera and suddenly the whole fleet exploded in smoke and fire. "Woo hoo!" She shouted above the enourmous explosion, "that was amazing! What is this stuff?"

"They're called blue bullets ironically," he said. "Special bullets that allow humans to use magic. Remember how I told you my spell gun can absorb magic moves? Well, it encodes the information of a certain move into the bullet when you say the name, and then it recreates it in the form of a spell. Any of this making sense?" He could see red flags in the distance, and the canyon farther along. We're almost there.

"I learned that one you just used from a Bomb--a fire monster that explodes when you attack it. Kinda ruined my last outfit trying to get that one."

"Wow! Life as a Gun Mage sounds exciting," Ellya said, smiling at Silvien's back, "so what other spells do you know? Any ones tha tcould help us out in getting that Gem thingy?"

"Eh, not very many yet. Y'see, I've only recently become a gun mage. That's what I was doing in the forest, looking for magical monsters to steal moves from. I took White Wind from that Couerl, which will be helpful for when we need healing. But I've spent most of my life studying magical monsters, which is why I know next to nothing about normal monsters." Bucky almost tripped while jumping over a large rock, Silvien gripping the reins tightly to stay on. "Best save the conversations for later though."

(( o.O; I've been far too busy, it seems. Hopefully, after October ends and November starts (a.k.a after my play is done), I'll be a rockin' 'n a rollin'. ))

((I'm assuming that I'm out there. Let's just pretend that I was there the whole time you guys picked your chocobos and everything. Let's say I named mine "Terra." ))

Sabin was taking his good, sweet time in 6th place. He patted Terra's head. "Good girl; go ahead and save your energy." smiled Sabin. "When the others' chocobos are all out of energy from racing, we'll switch into high gear and pull ahead!"

Terra gave Sabin a mild chirp. "I see." replied Sabin to the chirp. "So, you just wanna relax like this the whole race instead?" The chocobo nodded. "That's a-ok with me!" smiled Sabin.

((Hey, registeel I was in sixth place...but I really don't care. )

Adriaan saw a huge explosion in front of her as the cameras exploded. As soon as the air cleared, Adriaan saw the red flags in the distance. Drake spotted them at the same time and started speeding up. Adriaan hung on as they raced passed chocobos and sand wyrms. One daring sand wyrm tried getting right in front of them, but Drake ran to the left slightly and used a steep sandune to leap over it. Adriaan was amazed at her chocobo's speed and intelligence. She looked up and saw Bucky only two steps in front of them. She grinned and pulled her body as close to Drake's as she could, giving him as much speed as possible.

Ellya shouted happily to Silvien, "hey! Adriaan's gaining on us! We have to go faster!" Ellya laughed and looked over at Adriaan. "We're gonna beat you!" Ellya shouted.

((Sorry, I was gone for a little while...))

Adriaan smiled wickedly and leaned closer to Drake. She wasn't going to waste breath yelling insults or encouragements. She had the advantage with less weight, but it was still going to be a hard race at the end. With Adriaan's light frame pressed as close to Drake as much as possible, he was free to speed up even more, catching up with Bucky and matching him step for step.

Ellya laughed and leaned over the side of the Chocobo, reaching into the sand. She pulled out a handful and chucked it playfully at Adriann, missing her by a few centimeters.

Adriaan looked at Ellya intensely. Had she been aiming for Her and Drake and she had a horrible aim or was she being playful? Either way, Adriaan wanted to leave them behind. "As soon as you feel it's possible, Drake, go ahead and sprint out ahead. It's time to win this race." Maybe two seconds after Adriaan said this, Drake's speed increased more, throwing them ahead of Bucky and his riders.