//------------------------------// // Ascension // Story: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic -- Off The Record // by The King of Hearts //------------------------------// //// Ascension //// “How long are these effing stairs?” Alex called upward, looking at the rear ends of all of his friends as they continued up the seemingly endless spiral staircase, toward the rooftop, where they would once again confront Twilight. “Longer than I remember… We’ve been walking for almost a half hour now…” Dash huffed, wishing that the hallway was large enough to accommodate flight. “Y’all are a buncha’ babies!” Applejack laughed, looking over her shoulder at the couple lagging behind the rest of the group, “Been spoiled by those wings’a yours.” “I would have flown right up to the top, but Twilight put that dumb wall around her.” Alex sighed, rolling his head on his shoulders, “But no. She decided to go right for my weak point. Stairs.” “I’m getting very sick of all this anti-magic as well,” Rarity said, referring to yet another magic barrier that had been placed on the building, preventing any spells from being cast while inside, “It’s just so bland… Can’t there be a more interesting way of weakening the unicorns?” “Those barriers always make my head feel fuzzy,” Trixie said, having a hard time making out what Aurora was saying to her. “Amen.” Alex muttered. “You know, for all the walking we’ve done, we sure haven’t made much progress,” Pinkie said from the front of the group, looking out a window next to her, “We haven’t even passed the top of the houses!” “What!?” Everypony shouted at once, rushing to the window, and pressing their faces to the glass. “Are you kidding me?!” Dash shouted, frowning more now than she had when she saw that Pinkie had been possessed, “What did that evil purple bastard do to us?!” “I… uh… Think she used a spell to make the stairs go on forever.” Fluttershy spoke up. “This is Mario 64 all over again!” Alex cried, leaning against a wall and sighing slightly, “Just leave me… I can’t go on.” “Okay, you all stay there!” Pinkie called, turning away from the window as she raced up the stairway ahead of them. After about 30 seconds of silence, the pink mare appeared, running up the stairway behind them. “Well ain’t that sumthin’.” Applejack sighed. “You know, I had to deal with this kind of crap like this while we were in the Dark Zone,” Dash said, not happy to be thinking back to those days, “Chrysalis and I had to walk in a never-ending hallway.” “How did you get out?” Pinkie asked, tilting her head. Dash tapped her chin for a moment. “Oh yeah.” She said, chuckling to herself, “I made a Sonic Rainboom inside the house and blew it up!” “I don’t suppose that’s an option, now is it?” Rarity asked. “It defs isn’t.” Dash shook her head, once again gauging whether she could even sustain any kind of flight in the tight stairwell, “No matter how I look at it, I just can’t see myself gaining any speed in here.” “We should just go home then!” Fluttershy resolved, nodding to herself as she pushed past her friends to walk back down toward the exit. Everypony seemed to be on the same wavelength, as none of them tried to stop her. And, after about a minute of her slow pace, Fluttershy appeared at the top of the stairs, in front of the group. “Oh shucks.” She sighed, “I had a feeling that would happen.” “So, what do we do?” Trixie asked, looking to Dash. “I mean, I guess we should smash out the window, and fly up to a higher window.” She suggested, recalling the outer shape of the building, “I know for a fact that this tower has two lines of windows running straight up it.” “I’ll give it a try,” Alex said, “Anything to get out of this stuffy hell.” Walking up to the window, he struck the glass with his hoof, and shattered it to pieces. Then, in an instant, he took off into the open air, and headed upward. “What are the chances that he’s going to end up at this same window?” Trixie asked. “Ah’d bet a bit or two on it.” Applejack responded. And, just as they had predicted, Alex’s head poked above the glass, and his expression was one of pure frustration. “Can you go down again?” Dash asked him. Looking down for a moment, Alex shrugged, and simply stopped beating his wings, electing to let himself fall back to the ground. But, to nopony’s surprise, he fell down, past their window again. And again. And again. Until he reached terminal velocity, and was passing the window every second. “This-“ Alex called quickly as he passed by. “Is-“ “Actually-“ “Kinda-“ “Fun!” Alex finished, flapping his wings instantly, stopping in mid air. “But it’s also not the solution.” He added. “Well, ah’m open to suggestions.” Applejack said, looking to Trixie and raising an eyebrow, “You got any magic left in ya?” “Um… I don’t think so.” Trixie shook her head, before pausing as she tried to make out what Aurora was saying to her, “Actually… maybe?” Everypony gave her a confused look as she closed her eyes, and clearly began concentrating on the fuzz in her mind. “She says… that the stairs have a pattern?” Trixie said, opening her eyes, and looking down. “Oh!” Pinkie shouted, tapping the very corner of the stair she stood on, She’s right! This one has a black mark!” “And the previous step has a white mark,” Fluttershy observed. “The next step up from her is white as well.” Rarity said, looking down at the corner of the stair, “The following one is black, however.” “So, are they just alternating black and white marks?” Dash asked, following the colors up the stairs, “That isn’t really a pattern.” “There’s two whites in a row down here.” Alex spoke up, as he managed to squeeze himself in the window, and make his past the group of ponies. “Alternating black and white, until there’s two whites in a row, at which point it resumes alternating.” Rarity said, nodding to herself, “That sounds to me like piano keys.” “I’m not singing anything.” Alex said quickly, “I haven’t had to sing so far, and I don’t plan on starting.” “You’ll sing if it gets us out of this damn stairwell.” Dash growled. “You know, maybe if I had started dating Applejack instead, I wouldn’t be getting bossed around so much right now.” Alex said, hiding his shit-eating grin from the rest of the girls by looking away. “Ah’ don’t want’cha.” Applejack said simply. “Okay, well, Pinkie then!” Alex said, looking to her, silently hoping that she would at least pretend that she’d date him. “You’re right about that,” Pinkie nodded, with a wide smile, “I wouldn’t ask you to sing.” “See?” Alex asked triumphantly, “Maybe I should—“ “I heard you singing one day in the shower, back when you lived with Twilight.” Pinkie continued, cutting him off, “you’re terrible!” “Oh…” He frowned. “Okay, enough messing around,” Rarity announced, “We need to figure out just how we’re going to progress from here.” “Well, it seems to me that we need to step on the steps in a certain order.” Trixie said, inspecting the walls in their endless staircase for a hint they might use, “Can anypony see anything in here that might offer a solution?” Dash walked her way upward, staring at the roof, in the hopes of seeing something herself. However, after another ten minutes of nonstop searching, nothing was found. The stairway offered no answer to them. “So what the heck are we supposed to do?” Dash asked, looking between all of her friends, as they all gave her an equally stumped look, “Can anypony think of a song that might work?” “Well, do we know how to play the keys in the first place?” Alex asked, looking at the floor, and banging his foot in to it, “I’m not hearing any music right now.” Dash just groaned, as she sat down on the stairs. //// “How many times do I have to say this!” Twilight bellowed, sitting in front of the bound Princess Celestia, and Luna, who were suspended from the ceiling by their front legs, “I’m not looking to take over Equestria! I just want to remove anypony that might stand a chance at killing me!” “I couldn’t kill you, Twilight!” Celestia said, leaning forward as much as she could, “Neither could Luna!” “I know you think that now, but after I’ve burned down a town or two, you might change your tune.” She sighed. “Then why haven’t you done anything yet, Twilight?” Luna asked, obviously putting extra emphasis on using her name, “Why not just kill us then?” Twilight smiled wickedly, and tilted her head slightly, “Oh, I’m sure you’re thinking that somewhere, deep down, I couldn’t hurt you either…” “You’re right,” Celestia said flatly, “I don’t think you could. Between the mare you came from, and that baby I can sense within you… I don’t believe you could do any of the things you’re threatening.” “Indeed.” Luna nodded. Twilight frowned, as she walked toward the pristine white mare. “I’m not like the chaotic mares that you’ve been used to. There is nothing in me that you’d ever recognize.” Then, with a single motion, she reached forward and grasped Celestia’s right wing with her hoof. And, with a combination of magic, and force, she promptly ripped it from it’s place. ////