The Dimensional Quest Part I: Journey To The Infinite

Chapter 38

A small part of the wall slides open, allowing the heroes to find their way to the river.

"Now, how do we get to the desert?" Emily wonders.

Then Mongo suddenly rises out of the water.

He takes them by surprise, as Lily gasps and jumps back.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," Mongo apologizes.

"It's okay. Can you take us to the desert?" Breeze asks.

Mongo looks down for a second, thinking, then looks back up.

"Since I'm water, and it is terribly hot over there, I can't take you all the way. However, I can cover some of the distance," Mongo replies.

"We'll take it," Kitty says.

Mongo reveals their float from earlier, and the heroes climb aboard.

As they travel, the surrounding land turns dry and loses vegetation, while the air loses moisture.

The breeze starts to taste stale.

Eventually, they arrive at the end of the river, where only a few brown bushes and a surface made of sand surrounds them.

The heroes jump off of the boat.

"Good luck," Mongo says before lowering into the water while the others wave.

Then they set out into the desert.

The sand makes a soft sifting noise under their feet as they move.

Besides the sun and the sand, there is cacti and tiny creatures that look like mice scurrying along the ground.

"How can anything survive out here?" Bliss wonders.

The sun's heat gradually grows more intense like it has a thermostat slowly cranking up.

After about an hour, it begins to wrap around the bodies of the heroes and fry them mercilessly.

"We should have brought some water," Lily moans as she wipes her forehead.

She watches helplessly as what water her body has leaves and trails down her skin, in its futile effort to cool her down.

As for Emily, her mind is whirling around, and she finds herself unable to focus on a single thing.

At one point, she is staring at a cactus.

Suddenly it morphs from an intimidating, spiky plant into a tall chocolate cake, coated in lemon icing.

Emily dashes towards it, while squealing like a child.

April gasps and grabs her.

"Emily, no!" she shouts.

"But I want my cake!" Emily whines.

Her dehydrated brain has torn apart her logic and common sense like it was thrown into a blender.

Kitty rushes in and injects a small device into Emily's neck.

The girl gasps, then her eyes slowly close and her body becomes limp.

"I sedated her," Kitty says.

Amethyst volunteers to carry the napping girl on her back as they continue.

Then, she spots a tiny spot of green lying in the sand.

Amethyst drops Emily, rushes to the object and scoops it up, and sees it is a gem.

"Here it is! We found it!" she exclaims.

Meanwhile, the others behind her look at each other and watch in confusion.

Amethyst turns to them, holding the gem in her hoof.

"What's wrong? We found the gem!" she says.

April sighs.

"No. That's just sand," she reveals.

Amethyst rubs her eyes and the gem vanishes.

Indeed, all that remains is a small pile of sand on her hoof.

Amethyst's head falls into the ground.

Chloe walks to her side and lifts her up.

"We'll find it. Don't worry," she assures.

However, right now she is most concerned about finding a source of hydration so they will not turn insane.

Chloe surveys the surrounding area, and her eyes land on pink fruit attached to a few cacti.

She ponders the best method of collecting them in her mind.

April can see the number crunching and calculations running through her eyes like they are calculators.

Chloe then takes a stick lying next to her, and uses it to wedge the fruit off of the cacti.

Next she picks them up, and squeezes the juice out of one of them.

She collects it in the palm of her right hand, and then the juice is gently poured into Emily's mouth.

The girl blinks her eyes open and smiles at Chloe.

"Thank you," she thanks before staggering onto her feet.

Kelsey holds onto her to keep her from falling.

Chloe returns her smile and then treats Amethyst with some of the juice.

The others drink some as well.

Later, they come up on a very tall cactus, high enough to cast a big enough shadow over the heroes and serve as a resting place.

They sit down on the sand.

"I have an idea," April says.

The others turn to her.

"We can split up into groups, each going to a different place to look," she suggests.

Amethyst notices the height of the cacti, and that it stands much taller than any of the others around.

"And we can use this cactus as a landmark, to mark this as the location to regroup," she adds.

Chloe pats her head.

"Good thinking," she says.

Kitty points at a mountain a couple of miles in the distance.

"I'll go to that mountain," she decides.

Amethyst sees an entrance into the ground near her.

"I'm going there," the mare reveals while trotting towards it.

"I'll tag along," Bliss says as she follows the unicorn.

Emily points to a forest of acacia trees.

"Let's go there," she says, and she sets out with her friends.

That leaves Daffy by himself.

"I guess I'll go this way," he sighs, heading in a random direction.