Xanxus looked at Cloud and then pointed at the horizon to the east. "That's the way we need to go...." Xanxus began to walk, with Cloud following less that a few steps behind. Since they began traveling after there spar it was later in the day and the sun was going down, making it cooler in the desert and easier to travel as the scorching heat of the desert would not be on them until the morning, but within this scope of time they would be able to travel a great amount of distance.

As time went on Xanxus and Cloud continued to walk through the desert, the cold desert wind blowing down on them unrelentingly. Cloud looked over to Xanxus and asked, "You alright over there?" Xanxus was showing no signs of fatigue or any problems, but Cloud was still curious seeing as he knew that Xanxus got fatigued very quickly in intense heat, but he didn't know how the cold of the desert would be affecting him, or if it would have any effect whatsoever. Xanxus looked over in Cloud's direction and nodded, "I'm fine....seeing as it is night the heat from the sun isn't beating down on me and this cold is actually keeping me energized. If continue to travel our hardest in the night and less in the day we may end up getting to the coast even faster." Xanxus stops and then looks around, "This looks like a good enough spot. We need to set up a camp, we've been walking since earlier today and in order to keep moving we have to be well rested." Cloud put down his pack and pulled out the two bed rolls, throwing one to Xanxus. Cloud then pulled out some flint and found some dried material, creating a fire, "We'll need this to discourage any predators from coming this way." Xanxus rolled out his "bed" and laid on it, falling asleep.

*Thud* Xanxus popped his eyes open, something big fell next to him waking him up. Xanxus looked to his left, still laying down, and saw a very large man laying next to him, dead. "What the hell!" Xanxus jumped up and pulled his guns out of his holsters and looked around. There he saw 6 men laying on the ground, with many slashes and cuts in their bodies, one man in particular was decapitated. Xanxus then looked up and saw Cloud fighting with 5 men who were still standing. Xanxus ran next to him, "Why didn't you wake me up?!?" Cloud then looked over with a smirk on his face, "Nice to see you up, didn't want to wake you from your sleep, your highness." Xanxus laughed, "Hmm, it seems you've taken out a lot of them so far, I'll take the rest..." Cloud sighed and stabbed his blade into the ground, leaning against it, " Have at it!" Xanxus then pulled up Tsunami and Hurricane and began walking towards the group of bandits. The first bandit ran up to Xanxus, trying to punch at him, but Xanxus raised his gun in front of the man fist and shot through the middle of it, the bullet going all the way up to the man shoulder and causing it to fly off. As the man fell onto the ground the second bandit ran at Xanxus, trying to slash st him with a small knife. Xanxus simply laughed, "Haven't you ever heard the saying, "Never bring a knife to a gun fight?" Xanxus shot the knife out of the man's hand and then began firing at the mans chest, firing a single shot which pierced his heart, instantly killing him. The third bandit hesitated at first but he was a larger man, and he felt that he would have better luck than the other two fools. This bandit wielded a giant axe, but he was pretty clumsy with it. Xanxus smiled as he saw him handle his weapon, "He'll go down pretty easily." Xanxus ran towards the man and began running around him, confusing the bandit. The bandit began swinging his axe wildly trying to hit Xanxus but continually kept missing. Xanxus then lept into the air and landed right in front of the large man. The bandit was shocked but soon recovered and attempted to slash down at Xanxus with his axe, but in a split second Xanxus raised Tsunami to the mans head and fired. After a couple of seconds the large man fell onto his knees and collapsed, it was obvious the man died before he knew what happened to him. Xanxus then looked over the last two surviving bandits. They were visibly shaken and were backing away, as if to begin running. "Hey, i hope you two aren't planning on running away...you attack our camp, and then decide to run as you see your comrades get cut down? How dare you run?! After seeing them slain you have no thoughts of vengeance? If they could see how much their deaths meant to you, they would probably have killed you themselves..." Xanxus looked back over to the bandits after his speech, he wanted to see if what he said had any effect on their next moves. One bandit in particular was becoming angry, he thought about his fellow friends, the bandits, that were killed and how he could not save them or help them in any way. He wanted to kill Xanxus and Cloud, the men who had done this. The bandit pulled out his blade and charged at Xanxus. Xanxus simply smirked and raised his guns, firing a bullet at each of the mans kneecaps. The bandit flew into the air, his feet flying from under him and crashed into the sand. Xanxus laughed and walked towards the man who was sitting on his knees, "I'm sorry about that, i must have given you the idea that you could win against me, but sadly that won't happen..." Xanxus then raised his gun and shot the man in the head. Xanxus looked over the last bandit, who clearly dared not to attack Xanxus. The bandit turned around and attempted to flee. Xanxus raised his gun once again and fired one bullet. The bullet scraped against the bandits neck, splitting the mans jugular vein. The bandit convulsed and collapsed onto the ground and began bleeding to death. Xanxus turned around and walked back towards the camp and where Cloud was standing. He holstered his guns and looked over to Cloud, who was a little dismayed at the brutality that Xanxus showed but from what he knew of his personality he believed that this may just be normal for him. Cloud looked back to the east horizon and yelled over the Xanxus, "It's about time we left, those bandits held us up for to long and we lost some valuable time." With that Cloud and Xanxus gathered their materials and walked off.

It was now noon and the desert was at it's hottest. Cloud walked on with no fatigue whatsoever but Xanxus was sweating profusely. He wanted to slow down the pace but he refused to be a burden, so he trekked on. Cloud could tell that the heat was getting to him and tried to slow down his pace in order for Xanxus to slow down as well, but Xanxus noticed this and walked past him, walking even faster. Cloud simply sighed and continued walking. Xanxus yelled back to Cloud, "We've been out here for three days so far...the coast shouldn't be so far away from us right now." Cloud nodded his agreement but he wondered how far the coast would be from their current location, he was getting bored with this journey and hoped that this little adventure in this godforsaken desert would come to an end. Xanxus stopped and began to dig in his pocket. He pulled out a clicking device and began to click it four times. Almost at the same instant that he clicked the clicker on the fourth time a large beast emerged violently from the sand. Cloud looked at the beast in sheer shock and curiosity, "What the hell is that thing?!" Xanxus looked back to Cloud and began to laugh, "My father must not have told you about him I see....Well this beast is Nosferatu, he's a servant of mines. My father gave him to me when i was young in order to protect me. The only drawback for my father was that when he banished me he attempted to take him back, but since Nosferatu is so fiercely loyal to me he betrayed my father as well and continues to serve me." Xanxus then looked back to Nosferatu, "It's been a while...seems like you're fully healed from that fight we had with the Flame King. Anyway, I need you to burrow underground and go in the east direction. Since you move faster than we can walking I want you to go to the coast and come back and tell me how far the coast is from our current location. We will stay here and wait for you to return." Nosferatu nodded his head, understanding each command that was given to him and then jumped back into the sand and disappeared to see where the coast was. Xanxus sat down on the ground and dug into his pack, pulling out a bottle of water. He slowly drank it while speaking to Cloud, "While Nosferatu is looking for the coast this is our chance to relax and regain our energy." Cloud replied, "Yea your right, this would be the best time...." But Cloud was not fatigued at all, and he knew that Xanxus was just using this as an excuse to stop walking for the moment, so he simply laughed to himself.

It had been one hour since Nosferatu left and Xanxus was beginning to get worried. Cloud noticed this and asked him why he was worried. "Nosferatu can move deathly fast under the ground, as you saw with me making those clicking noises and him appearing right before the last one. If it's taking him an hour to get to the coast and back that could mean a total of 6 hours for us just to talk there..." Xanxus then looked up and saw that it was getting darker, "...But this might not be so bad as it's getting cooler so we might make good time if we run." Almost as soon as this was said Nosferatu burst from the sand landing in front of Xanxus. Xanxus simply smiled at the sight of Nosferatu, "So what news do you have for me?" Nosferatu simply stared at Xanxus and Xanxus nodded his head, "I see, so the coast isn't as far as i predicted, you just could not travel underground as closer to the coast you got the more water saturated the ground, so you had to walk the rest of the way above ground....Good job, you can leave now..." With that Nosferatu lept back into the sand and disappeared. Cloud then looked over to Xanxus, "So i guess we had better get going then Xanxus. We need to go as far as we can while the sun is down...." Xanxus nodded his head in agreement and stood up, walking forward with Cloud.

It had been five hours since the two had left and they could see the signs of an area with more water the more and more that they walked. There was more greenery and creatures could actually be seen. Xanxus looked around, "Looks like we are getting closer to our destination..." Cloud nodded and then looked forward and began to run. Xanxus looked at Cloud in curiousity and began to run after him, "What did you see?" As soon as Xanxus said this his body began to pulse as if reacting to something in front of him, "I see..." Xanxus began to run trying to catch up to Cloud who had continued to run. After a while Xanxus finally caught up to Cloud, who was standing in front of the Ocean. Cloud looked back to him, "I knew the coast was just up here, I could feel it's presence when the wind began to blow. I tried to run up here to make sure this is what i felt." Xanxus then looked over to Cloud, "Yea I felt it too..."

Cloud stood at the top of a small sand dune that bordered the shore of the ocean. It was still dark, but in the distance the first evidence of sunrise could be seen from the faint yellow glow of the distant clouds. He took a deep breath, relsihing teh sensation of the sea breeze against his face. In the desert he had missed that feeling, there it was always dry anmd still. No rain, no wind. Nothing.

Xanxus tired of waiting much quicker than Cloud did. He wanted to return to the ocean, where he was most at home, but at teh same time he was the least welcome. Xanxus turned and beckoned to Cloud to come down. "I imagine youve heard about the paths that connect the 6 main islands of the water nation, and that usually a water element is required as a guide right? Well let me show you why"
Xanxus looked around for something large enough to cause a decent splash and saw a medium sized piece opf drift wood. He picked it up and threw it far out into the ocean where it landed with a splash and floated. within seconds the water bagan to seethe and bubble and a massive tentacle larger than a house rose up out of the water and smashed down on the floating wood.

Xanxus chuckled as Cloud stared in horror at the spectacle. How could something so large conceal itself like that? He swallowed nervously. "So...uh... how are we supposed to get past that... that... thing?"
He pictured being in a boat and the tentacles crushing them, dragging them to the depths... and he shuddered.

Xanxus was quite enjoying seeing Cloud so close to what could only be described as fear. "That 'thing' is a kraken and as for getting past it...well, like I said, there are roads. Not normal roads mind you, they are concealed well." He walked into the water without hesitation, walking for several metres. He looked back and saw that Cloud clearly expected him to be assaulted by the Kraken at any second.
"The roads are actually just huge coral reefs that run through out my kingdom. They are about half a metre below the water but its impossible for most people to tell until its too late. The kraken takes anything that ventures off those reef pathways."

Xanxus judged by Clouds expression that Cloud wasnt going to believe his words alone, so he started to wade into teh water "Keep right behind me Cloud or else you might make a wrong step and no one will be able to help you." Cloud didnt need telling twice. He was right on Xanxus's heels in an instant. With a inward sigh of relief at being home Xanxus set off on the submerged path towards teh first of the islands which could be seen in the distance.

The shortest distance was between the mainland and the first island, so Cloud and Xanxus arrived after only a single solid half days travel. It was an hour past midday when they reached the shore. Cloud, who had been extremely nervous for the first several hours of the journey had come to accept that the Kraken really didnt bother with anything that didnt leave the safety of the reef pathways.

Xanxus on the other hand was barely paying attention to Cloud, he was relishing the familliar feelings and scents of the ocean, remembering his early childhood, playing dares and seeing who could go the closest to the edge of the reef paths. He snapped out of his day dreaming and turned to Cloud.
"If we keep travelling at this pace we can reach teh 5th island in 2 days. It would normally be much longer, but I know the shortcuts. So what do you say?"

Cloud, who had no interest in spending any more time in the krakens territory than neccessary, was only to keen to take whatever shortcuts Xanxus had in mind. He trusted his sense of nvaigation by now and didnt see it as a risk. so they set off almost immediately along towards their next destination. Cloud was a little confused when they headed off at a right angle to the path that other people seemed to e taking towards the second island. Xanxus stopped and explained his plan to Cloud "By taking this shortcut we essentially cut the 2nd, 3rd and 4th islands out of our journey." he didnt add that the only problem was that bandits had been known to camp out some shortcuts for days at a time, hoping to catch some unsuspecting travellers.

Cloud and Xanxus travelled until well into the night until they reached a section where the reef formed a very small island no more then 10 metres by 20 metres. There they slept until morning. Once they were both up and rehydrated they packed up and set off once again. It was several hours of travel later that the 5th island came into sight. Suddenly, Xanxus stopped dead in his tracks, almost causing Cloud to crash into him. Cloud looked about in confusion as to the reason for their sudden halt. Then he heard a faint whistling sound and he had the sudden instinct to get down. He tackled Xanxus and they both went down as a blue blur whistled through the space where their heads would have been. Cloud looked up and saw several people ahead of them.

Xanxus had seen the bandits hiding in teh shallow water over the path and was about to warn Cloud when he was knocked over quite suddenly by Cloud, much to his frustration. He shook Cloud off, now completely soaked instead of up to his knees. He had half a mind to throw Cloud into the ocean, but the badnits needed to be dealt with. He drew his pistols and ran forwards, firing at them. To his immense satisfaction he nailed two of them in the upper torso and they fell.

Behind him Cloud seemed reluctant to attack for some reason, but Xanxus didnt care, this was his turf and he was in control. He fired at the water between two more men causing a pair of spikes to shoot up, impaling and killing them on the spot. He cursed as two bandits he hadnt seen rose up behind him, swinging their blades at his neck. In that moment he knew that he was going to die...

Cloud had been reluctant to fight in fear of falling of the path and into the ocean proper, but as two shapes rose behind Xanxus he raced forwards, blade unsheathed and cleaved them in half at the waist. Cloud was suprised by the lack of resistance in the blow but had other concerns when the remaining bandits decided to cut their losses and retreat. Cloud, feeling more confident now, ran after them, Xanxus tried to grab him but it was too late. He had sprung the trap. A massive geyser of water erupted beneath them, sending them spawling into the air and out above the ocean.

In that moment, when Cloud sprung the trap he was furious. They were going to die and it was all Clouds fault. If tehre was an afterlife he was going to find Cloud and make his afterlife hell... They quickly rerached the apex of their flight and began to descend down towards the ocean. Xanxus imagined the Kraken just below the surface, waiting for its prey to come to it like a delivery meal on the house.
Just metres above the water Xanxus closed his eyes and prayed that his death would be quick.
Then he felt someone grab him and he felt a sharp shock as he opened his eyes to find himself being carried by Cloud, who was... bloody hell... the git was using his sword as a fricking surf board!

Cloud had been reciting the same word over and over in his mind ever since he and Xanxus had been propelled into the air. "Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck....." It was only when they were falling that Cloud remembered back to his early teenage years, the children of Gentle gust used to use planks of wood as surf boards in the lake and use wind to propel themselves on the still surface. It wasnt a surfboard, but he slid his Blade into place under his feet and grabbed Xanxus out of the air next to him just in time to land on the oceans surface. Without hesitation he focused all his energy into a concentreated gust of wind and they raced towards the 5th island.

behind them, a dark shadow raised from the depths. The kraken had snesed its prey and had come to collect. A masive tentcale, just like the one Cloud had first seen raised up in the air behind them and began to descend on them, casting a massive shadow. "Hold on! This could get hairy!" Cloud shouted in xanxus's ear before sharply turning his 'board' left and out of the way of the incoming tentacle. The tentacle hit the water with a mighty crack, sending waves in every direction. waves which sent Cloud and Xanxus into the air again. But this time Cloud took full advantage of it, gaining speed from Clouds wind and landing several hinderd metres from where the tentacle had dissapeared.

Xanxus could not believe what was happening. Here was Cloud, surfing on a fucking over sized sword, and being pursued by teh Kraken. He would have laughed if he wasnt one wrong move away from death. He had thought for sure they were dead when they had been lifted into the air, but they seemed to have been given a brief resite as 30 seconds passed and no further sign of the kraken appeared. He was about to let out a sigh of relief when teh tentacle reappeared to their left. Followed by another, and then two more on their other side. Tentacles were raising all around them, forming two massive living walls.
Xanxus sighed, they were royally fucked now.

Cloud saw teh tentacles emerge and, fuelled by adrenaline called out to them "Oh you son of a bitch! is that all youve got? COME AND GET ME!" Then, one by one the tentacles began to come down. the first Tentacles missed by only an inch at most, sending Cloud and Xanxus into the air once again. But this time, Cloud reached down and grabbed his sword by the hilt, pulling it out from beneath his feet and slashing it at the nearest Tentacle, cutting it in half. They sailed through the hole in the 'wall' and Cloud quickly jammed his sword back under his feet in time to land again. Teh 5th island was close now. only several hundered metres ahead. He called to Xanxus, hoping he could hear over the roar of the ocean "Cover our backs, im going to get this baby home!"

Xanxus was past the point of disbelief after Cloud had cut through a Kraken tentacle, so when he yeled at him to 'cover their backs' he just drew his guns grimly and hope that They could get one last miracle for the day. Dozens of Tentacles shot after them, but Xanxus fired quickly and efficiently, hitting the krakens sensitive points and causing them to recoil. All he was doing was making the thing angrier, but hopefully it would buy enough time for them to reach the island which was rapidly getting closer.

With only 100 metres to go, the Kraken knew it had one last chance to get its prey. It sent a tentacle under the speeding pair and ripped it up underneath them, launching them into the air for a third... and final time.

By now, oth cloud and Xanxus thought being thrown into the air was getting ridiculously repetitive, but their irritation was put aside as they saw they were not rocketing backwards, but straight at teh islands mainland. Cloud summed up both their feelings by saying "HOLY SHI-" Cloud and Xanxus crashed into the sandy shore of the island, Clouds sword sticking point first into teh ground, The unlucky pair however hit the sand at breakneck speed and bounced severa times into a sand dune. They lay there, stunned for several seconds before they both began to laugh hysterically. Then they passed out.

They had made it to the 5th island, with teh 6th only an hours travel. They had outrun the Kraken and survived a rather unceremonious arrival. Now with their goal so close, what would their next move be?
Stay tuned to find out

Xanxus slowly opened his eyes. He was groggy and that adventure he had just taken part in had taken a toll on him. Xanxus slowly rose up onto this feet, stumbling a little but soon regaining his composure. Xanxus clutched his head, "Damn that hurt..." Xanxus looked around wondering where Cloud had landed. He looked over and saw that Cloud was still unconscious. Xanxus began to laugh at the sight. "Guess I'd better wake him up, we still have a ways to go..." Xanxus walked over to Cloud and began to kick at Cloud, "Wake up! We don't have time to fool around!"

Cloud gradually tuned into the fact that he was lying face up on the ground and that someone...Xanxus... was trying to wake him up. remembering the events that had just unfolded he allowed a light smile to play on his lips before he opened his eyes and sat up. Cloud took in his surroundings, turned to Xanxus and laughed " well I'll be damned, we actually outran the Kraken" He picked himself up and brushed most of the sand off his clothes before approaching Xanxus.

"So we're on island 5 right? I'm all for taking out the king as soon as possible but I feel like I've been hit by... well a kraken, and you look like shit as well. So I say we go into town, book a room and take a day or two of R&R, maybe gather a little bit of intel as well." Without waiting for a response Cloud began walking towards the islands town with a noticeable limp.

Xanxus nods his head in agreement. "Yes, we've been through alot these pass few days. We deserve some rest. We'll go into the Atrei Ripples and relax for a while. But not for too long, we still have a job to do..." Xanxus begins walking towards town. "I haven't been the Atrei Ripples since I was a child...I doubt the villagers will remember my face, but if they catch wind of my name it could be bad...." Xanuxus continues walking, thinking more about this.

OK, 12 EXP and 600 Gold