Ideas for "Infinity's Edge"

"Oh, come on, Midge," I said, swinging my leg over the top of the banister, "liven up! Neither of us have done this before!"

"Which is exactly why we shouldn't do it!" The multi-winged changeling replied, nervously. "We're here at Princess Luna's personal invitation! We shouldn't be doing this!"

"Ah, pffft," I scoffed, waving a clawed hand, "Celestia practically told us to come here and try this while we waited. Besides, it's fun. Aside from maybe falling off, what could possibly go wrong?" I mentally winced at the accidental tempting of fate I'd just done, but thought nothing of it. Seeing his continued hesitation, I continued. "Well, then, looks like I'll just have all the fun to myself!"

With that, I placed my entire weight on the banister, and allowed myself to slide at speed down its helix-shaped curve. "W-- wait for me, you crazy idiot!" Called Midge, and I heard him come sliding after me.

I couldn't help it. I gave out a long, loud whoop of joy as I whizzed down, down, down, laughing all the way. At one point, I glimpsed a red and gold figure on a landing as I whirled by at speed. I'm sure he was surprised, judging by his belated "What-- hey, you! Both of you!"

The elaborate brass pole that the stairs spiraled around abruptly gave a shudder, and I saw the newcomer drop past me, hopping off at a lower level with much clanking and shifting-metal sounds. I soon came to a stop with a hoof pressed against the small of my back.

"Ayeup, lad," an Alicorn (whom I didn't recognize,) said, with a disappointed grin and a slight, yet noticeable, "British" accent. I was wondering where the other fellow had gotten off to, but I pressed on.

"Allo!" I said, snarkily. The Alicorn seemed temporarily taken aback at my insubordination, as Midge slid to a stop just in front of me.

The unknown Alicorn leaned closer to me and, catching a whiff of the alcohol that'd been spilled on me earlier, asked: "Been drinkin, 'ave we?"

"Just a nip," I said roguishly, rolling with it, "popped down to the pub for a pint! Bit of all right!" I then put more snark into my next few words: "Going to arrest a man for that? Going to detain a blighter for enjoying his whis-KEY?" I raised my voice shrilly on the last syllable.

"Enough," the Alicorn snapped, all joviality now vanished from his frame. I had one of those moments where I could feel the world about to turn, and the direction it went from here hinged directly upon what I did next. Usually this happened when I decided to take a stand for myself against my mother and her (usually) stupid rules. So, I did what I always did, and fought back.

"Bangers and mash!" I retorted, stunning both Midge and the Alicorn. "Bubble and squeak! Smoked eel pie!" My voice became a bit louder with each item I randomly selected.

"Sir!" Demanded the Alicorn, thoroughly incensed, his accent becoming definitively thicker in his anger.

"Haggis!" I all but shouted in his face. This, it seemed, was the straw that broke the... ah, I mean... that was the last straw.

"Roight, tha's it!" He snarled as he snagged my arm, accent thicker than ever. "Dismount t' bannistah!"

He pulled me off said guardrail, Midge meekly following suit, and he began leading us down the stairs in the normal manner. I, however, was far from beaten, despite having my arm twisted behind my back in the Alicorn's magical field.

"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts!" I shouted, as loud as I could, with a bit of sing-song to the words. "Here they are, standing in a row!"

My arm was twisted sharply as the Alicorn muttered something dark about "fookin' toorists..."

"Big ones, small ones! SOME AS BIG AS YOUR HEAAAAAAAD!" I thrashed wildly on the last bit, nearly dislocating my shoulder in the process.

Midge and I hadn't been too far from the bottom of the stairwell when we'd been stopped by the mysterious Alicorn, so we reached it without trouble. Well, any more than I had been kicking up. We passed a few groups of various sentient beings (ponies, Bionicles, and even a few covenant,) all helping to set up for a big "to-do" of some sort. My money was on a royal ball, if I knew anything about royalty...

We soon arrived at the dungeons, with me being generally rambunctious and annoying. The Alicorn tossed us both in the first available cell, then locked the door with his magic. He still seemed quite "hacked off" at us, as proven by his next few words.

"Now," he said, accent still thick, but not as much as before, "you fookers stay 'ere, while aye go an' git t' Princesses. Got 'nuff t' do wi'out t' loiks a ya wand'rin about." He then stalked off, brow furrowed with determination.

"Well," I said, once he was out of earshot, "that was fun!" I'd taken up a chipper tone that clashed horribly with the circumstances, meaning I was a bit nervous.

Midge just stared at me, momentarily dumbstruck. "Are you bucking insane?" He eventually asked. "D'you know who that was?"

"Nope!" I exclaimed, my falsely chipper demeanor cracking slightly. I then turned my attention to the door.

"That was Prince Nova!" he said, aghast. "Nova Corona Solaris Blast, Toa of Fire, leader of the Toa Jörmun!"

"Uh huh, sounds like a nice guy..." I muttered, distractedly, before... "Wait, you mean... That Nova? The Human-turned-Toa-turned-Alicorn?! Oh... D'arvit...!" I swore. Concentrating as best I could, I focused as best I could on my right forearm, willing the "glamour" covering it to... well, dispel, I guess. I was still new to the whole semi-changeling shapeshifting thing.

My arm was gracious enough to work with me this time, and I was rewarded with the sight of flipping "scales" moving from the elbow downwards, extending beyond where the tips of my fingers had been. It was not unlike the effect used for Mystique in the recent X-men movies, including the soft pattering sound as the shift occurred. Doing this revealed my shame, my Hordika arm, which had been hidden beneath the guise.

Unfolding the main wrist, I deployed the Shard Blade, and embedded it deep in the door's locking mechanism. With a sharp jerk, I twisted the appendage and shattered the rectangular device like so much rock candy. The amount of sheer satisfaction I got from that simple act of violence was enough to scare me. "Get rekt," I muttered half-heartedly, before turning to Midge.

He had a foreleg over his face, shaking his head. "Are you always like this?" He asked. "Breaking out of cells and stuff, with general disregard for doorways in general?"

"Nah," I replied, "this is only my second time."

"You've kicked down doors since I first met you!"

"One time! That was one time!" I then sighed in frustration. "Ya kick down one damn door on a lark, and nobody lets you forget it."

"For good reason!"

"Hey," I said, leveling a clawed finger in his direction, "at least I didn't come crashing through the wall like the fuckin' Kool-Aid guy."

"True, but--"

"Forget it, let's scram." I interjected, and hauled the door open.

As Midge (reluctantly) followed me out of the cell, I could have sworn I heard him mutter something about "lots of trouble," but I ignored it. Trouble, after all, seemed to be my middle name nowadays.

After a few minutes of sneaking around, we moved past yet another guard. This time, though, he noticed us, made a sound of general alarm, and gave chase. Moments later, we had a run past (and aggro'd,) enough guards to form a small crowd, all yelling and shooting off spells. Quite predictably, all shots missed the two of us, though Midge wasn't having as much fun with this as I was. In fact, you could almost hear my laughter over the thunderous cacophony of armored hooves clattering against the marble floors behind us.

We came into what would be the "top right" part of a T-junction, with an additional crowd of guards showing up directly opposite us in the "top left." Hanging a sharp left into the perpendicular hallway, I saw there was a closed door at the end, which Midge blasted open as we drew near.

The door opened onto a very wide (about 25 feet) hallway with a grand total of ten doors on either side of its 100-foot length. All of them were open. Taking a second to apprentice what was probably about to go down, I yelled "Split up, and take a door!" then swung right. Midge went left, looking scared and confused.

As I had suspected, each of these doorways seemed to connect to another within the hallway at random, and never the same one twice in a row. Several times I found myself either running alongside Midge, dodging/leaping over/chasing one or more guards, or sidestepping folks who shouldn't even be there (Mike and Sully, the Scooby Doo crew, Deadpool, and Vezon, just to name a few!)

I had to avoid running into duplicates of myself a few times as well. One memorable moment came when I found such a duplicate rushing straight at me with an expectant grin. Without thought, I leapt forward Superman style, above chest height, as he home-run slid under me. Landing with an action roll, I came up running (if a little winded.) A few seconds later, I encountered a similar situation, and I grinned. As the duplicate before me went to leap, I attempted to pull of a slide of my own, confident that I'd pull it off. I was right, of course.

After everyone ran together in a big pileup, signaling that the hilarity of the situation had outlived its usefulness, I grabbed Midge and absconded down the hall to the single door at the far end.