Chapter 5

Cloud Skipper

As the sun beat down on us, Ricco and I held back while Firefly led the way, she seemed to be much more resilient to the heat and sand than us. Even if she was blind, she seemed to know exactly where we were going.

I lowered my sand mask and took a sip from my flask, trying to wash down the sand in my teeth, but only letting more in.

Ricco spit onto the ground, trying to get sand out of his mouth.

“It makes you wonder how she lives in Haywaii with all this sand,” I said to Ricco.

“No it doesn’t,” Ricco said, chuckling.

“How so?” I asked.

“I don’t care how she lived before, the past doesn’t matter now,” He continued,  “All we have now is the future and present.”

“When did you become philosophical?” I asked, trying to get my eyes back on Firefly, who had just passed over a sand dune.

“You like her, don’t you?” He asked.

“What’s it to you?” I said rather coldly, looking over at him.

“You do.” Ricco said, “It means nothing to me, I’m just trying to sort out the facts.”

I ignored him, Firefly had just stopped for the first time in miles, staring off into the distance. I couldn’t see her face, but I could tell she was worried by the look in her clouded eyes.

“Something wrong?” I asked, looking up to her standing on top of the dune.

She stayed quiet for a few seconds, then spoke through the cloth around her face and head.

“Sandstorm is coming, we need to move faster.” She said. “You two need to pick it up.”

Ricco spread his wings and shot ahead, just above the ground.

Firefly spread her wings and landed on his back, urging him to go down.

“If you spread your wings when the storms coming, even strong wings like yours will get you carried away.” She explained.

“Don’t tell me what I already know.” Ricco said, rotating sideways.

Firefly growled as she landed next to me, I put a wing around her.

“Don’t worry, he’ll relax sooner or later.”

“I don’t understand why he always has a problem with me,” she said, staying under my wing and keeping my pace.

Ricco flew back to our position. “C’mon, we’re in a hurry, right?”

She started trotting faster, leaving the warmth of my wing, I sped up as well, letting it relax on my side.

We were all in a full out sprint now, Firefly still leading the pack. The sandstorm had gathered to our west enough that it was blocking out the sun, making the Atacama much darker than before, we still had no place to take shelter when the sandstorm hit, and the pyramid had not been spotted by any of us yet.

The wind picked up at a moments notice, threatening to blow us down the side of a dune or sweep us off of our hooves and claws.

All of the water in our flasks had long since been emptied, and we were practically dying of thirst, all of us were slick with sweat and even Firefly, who had kept her pace this entire time, was slowing down.

Any moment the sandstorm could increase in speed and be down on us like an angry god. I had began to wonder if we had gotten lost in this desert, I could have swore we had walked over the same dune more than five times, ponies had talked about heat messing with your head, and I had started to think that was what had happened.

“Ricco!” Firefly shouted over the wind.

“What?” He responded.

“You have the strongest wings of all of us, try to fly up and look for the pyramid,” She said, “If you can’t hold up against the wind, just come back down.” She explained.

Ricco spread his wings and winced. He took off, heading straight up. The sand was too thick, I lost sight of him within seconds.

I knew it would hurt to fly in this crap, but seriously?  I finally made it above the sand storm.

“Why didn’t we just start flying before the storm, it would’ve been much faster.” I muttered to myself as I looked around.

Sand was the only thing I could see in the front, back, to the left, and to the ri- Wait. I can see a glimmer off the top of something. I was about to go back down, when I noticed I couldn’t see anything on the ground below me. The winds down there were strong, I could’ve been blown half a mile away from them. If I went back down, I might not be able to get back up here. What to do…

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a pink shape break out of the sand, and begin to scan her surroundings, I guess I had been blown pretty far away.

Firefly set her eyes on me. “Ricco! Come on!” She shouted.

“What about Cloud?” I asked, I knew I couldn’t just leave him.

“He can’t fly in this! We have to walk!” She shouted.

“Fine, it’s about a mile to the East.” I shouted back.

I flew towards her and down, getting back to Cloud Skipper.

I saw the Griffon and the pony come through the sand a few hundred hooves away, and ran towards them at full speed, as they tried to talk, I couldn’t hear a word they were saying, and they knew that too.

Ricco eventually started leading the way at an extremely fast pace, Firefly kept up well and I stayed right next to her.

We practically ran face first into the Pyramid, luckily we were on the side with the entrance, so we entered quickly, glad we could finally get out of the sand.

“Alright, we’re here.” Firefly said. “What’s our next move?

Just as she finished speaking, a shout was heard directly in front of us, a feminine shout of fear.

I ran head-first into the dark hallway, looking for the sound, unluckily, I ran into a wall.

“Wait!” Ricco shouted, “Don’t you know what a pyramid is?”

I looked back, Firefly had lit a torch and was steadily walking towards me with Ricco by her side.

“A pyramid is a three-dimensional maze,” He continued, “And you don’t get to turn around and leave if you reach a dead end.”

“And you just managed to evade three traps.” Firefly said, carefully walking over a few pressure plates.

I frowned, “I’m sorry.” He said.

“Just be careful. We don’t know what’s in here.” Ricco said, “Why are we even here, Bubblegum?”

“Celestia said that she had detected Discord’s magic in this desert from this location, is it not coincidental that there is a random pyramid in this exact spot?” She said, “She thinks he is housing the Element bearers here.”

“Discord, eh? He could also be luring us into our graves.” Ricco said, “No more stupid stuff.”

“Got it?” Firefly said, looking down at me.

“Got it.” I said, getting up.

I looked to the left, seeing yet another dark hallway, looking to his right, another hallway was there, a torch at the end of it.

I took a step that way, but Firefly stopped me.

Ricco lit another torch and threw it down that way, the light rolled for a few yards, then dropped into a hall, where a series of hisses and growls sounded until the light was put out.

“Snakes?” I asked.

“Alligators.” Ricco said.

This was going to take us awhile, if it didn’t kill us first. Next Chapter: Chapter 6 Estimated time remaining: 48 Minutes