Vizzini vs Twilight Sparkle
Twilight fell backwards through the portal, landing heavily on the ground. For a few seconds all she could do was lie there, reliving the crime she had just committed. SHe had actively murdered another living creature, ended its life in a brutal and barbaric manner and that was something that she knew would haunt her for the rest of her life, however long that would be. Twilight Sparkle rolled onto her stomach and wept bitterly. Her tears fell freely, drenching her cheeks as as she sobbed, letting the hopelessness of her situation bear down on her. This survival game was becoming more and more real to her and this Universe would chew her up and spit her out again if she didn’t become much colder and far more ruthless. But the idea of going out of her way to kill another living thing still made her physically ill. Taking several minutes to close off her mind to everything but the task in hand, Twilight wiped her eyes and checked out her current battlefield.
At her hooves, the long grass swayed gently in the ocean breeze and little white flowers danced between the green blades gracefully. The sweet smell of new honeysuckles mingled with the harsh salty odour of the ocean. Twilight turned to look out over breathtakingly beautiful sunrise to the east, casting a mesmerising glimmer over the surface of the water. The pony was standing atop a large grey cliff, several metres above sea level and covered in grass and wildflowers. Behind her, a large expanse of woodland. Birds twittered all around Twilight and she began to feel herself calming down. To the north was the ruin of an ancient castle, stone walls that had once been grand had crumbled to dust and rubble. Twilight felt that that was as good a place as any to find her next opponent.
The ruin was truly magnificent, a historian’s dream come true. All around her were insights as to how the former occupants might have lived and what their lives may have been like. The sound of crashing waves below gave some insight perhaps as to how they had died. However, despite the arena-like quality that the walls of the ruin possessed, it soon became clear to Twilight Sparkle that she would not find her adversary here. She couldn’t help but feel somewhat relieved that her impending duel had been delayed, but she refused to let herself linger on that thought for very long. If she let herself think about what she was actually doing, then she’d never be able to continue.
Looking around, Twilight noticed the silhouette of a humanoid creature in the distance, sitting on a hillside, apparently waiting for her. Since there were no other living things around except for the various birds, insects and other standard woodland occupants, Twilight reasoned that it must be her opponent.She breathed in deeply, gulped and trotted towards her next would-be killer.
It took Twilight little over a minute to clear the distance between her and her opponent, and when she arrived, Twilight couldn’t help but feel a little bit disappointed.Before her sat a short balding man with dark beady eyes that were set slightly too deep in his head. He wore a disgusting dark green shirt, with odd looking red and gold embroidery. In all honesty, it appeared that someone had carved up a pair of curtains and had tried to pass them off as a garment. The shirt puffed out at the sleeves and seemed to hang loosely around his arms as though they were several sizes too big for him. The overall impression that the man gave off was that of someone who probably didn’t get out very often.
“Had you asked me a week ago,” the man said, startling Twilight Sparkle. “I’d have said that the possibility of me meeting a talking purple unicorn would be completely and utterly inconceivable.”
The man had an infuriatingly whiny voice, smarmy and generally just an unpleasant noise to hear. The arrogance that laced his words betrayed the attitude of a man who clearly put a lot of stock in his own brilliance.
“So my dear,” he continued. “Do you have a name?”
The unicorn hesitated a moment before speaking. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. Who are you?”
It was clumsy speech, but Twilight wasn’t entirely certain as to how to respond to her situation. The man had her permanently ill at ease.
“I am the Sicilian Vizzini, the greatest criminal mastermind the world has ever seen! And the likelihood of anyone ever matching me, well...” He shut his eyes and cast out his arms nonchalantly. “The very notion is totally inconceivable.”
Twilight unconsciously arched an eyebrow at the odious man before her.
“Well then, Vizzini,” She said, thinly veiling her disgust. “I’m sure that one as brilliant as yourself will have worked out why we are both here.”
The Sicilian chuckled as a smug grin plastered his face.
“Naturally, my dear. You and I are here to duel to the death.”
Twilight was mildly surprised. She hadn’t expected Vizzini to actually be so quick witted. Nevertheless, she allowed a small smile to grace her lips.
“THen surely you are aware that you cannot possibly hope to defeat me. From my studies of human beings, I understand that you aren’t exactly a fit and healthy specimen, I can see no weapons on your person and as such challenging a unicorn to a death match would be suicidal. Surely it is obvious that I have you at quite the disadvantage.”
Twilight had no idea what she was saying, but it sounded good, so she decided to stick with it. Vizzini, however, appeared unphased by Twilight’s fighting talk. In fact, he seemed to be almost enjoying himself. Either he didn’t care about dying, or he had some plan that Twilight was thus far unaware of.
“You are absolutely right, Twilight Sparkle, in a physical confrontation you would have me at a disadvantage. But,” he paused for a few seconds to let the suspense build. “What if our duel is not one of a physical nature. Perhaps our battle will be one of wits and luck rather than pure brute force.”
“And what if I choose to make it a duel of force?” Twilight could feel herself becoming increasingly furious with Vizzini. The Sicilian demonstrated unadulterated arrogance that made Twilight’s skin crawl. However, as she was calming herself down, a deep purple cloud began to swirl around her, encasing her in a glittery prison of smoke. After a few seconds, Nightmare Moon stepped out of the cloud and loomed over Twilight, grinning menacingly at her.
“Actually, my little rebel,” Nightmare Moon whispered, “you don’t have the luxury of choice here. You see, myself and the Changeling Queen have laid so many counter charms and spell blocks around this man that you wouldn’t be able to harm him, no matter how much you wanted to. This duel shall play out in the manner in which it was intended and there is absolutely nothing you can do to change that.”
The dark princess vanished and the cloud receded, leaving a terrified Twilight Sparkle once again in the middle of the field, with only the Sicilian for company. Vizzini appeared to be completely unphased by the whole situation, but Twilight was more on edge than ever before. Begrudgingly, she asked Vizzini for the terms of the duel. The Sicilian clapped his hands once and burst into a huge grin as he leaned forward slightly.
“Excellent!” Vizzini cried. He reached into his shirt and pulled out a small cylindrical container, stoppered with a small piece of cork. He opened the satchel that was resting behind him and withdrew two goblets and a bottle of red wine. He opened the bottle, filled both goblets and handed the small tube over to Twilight, instructing her to remove the lid.
“Have a smell of this, but do not touch the powder.”
Twilight pulled out the stopper and inhaled slowly. There was nothing potent about the scent, it seemed to completely vanish into the background to the point where nothing was detectable. Looking into the tube, Twilight could see a relatively large amount of white powder. It seemed dense enough to be unaffected by the gentle breeze, yet it didn’t weigh upon the tube too much.
“I smell nothing,” she said as she levitated the stopper back into the tube and placed it on the ground at her hooves.
Vizzini smiled before pointing at the tube on the ground.
“What you do not smell is Iocaine powder, an incredibly potent poison. It is tasteless, odourless, dissolves almost instantly in most liquids and can kill a man in less than a minute.”
Twilight Sparkle listened intently to everything the Sicilian was saying, making sure that she understood every scrap of information that he was telling her. Clearly Vizzini was highly intelligent, so he was likely to have a trick up his sleeve. He wouldn’t choose a challenge that he did not feel confident that he could win, so Twilight would have to divine his strategy quickly.
Surprisingly, the Sicilian handed Twilight the two goblets of wine and gestured for her to take the poison as well. He smiled as she tentatively levitated each glass and the tube back over to herself.
“Now,” Vizzini began, “pour the poison into one of the goblets and the challenge shall begin. THe game will end when I have decided which goblet holds the poison, we both take a drink and we find out who has won.” He paused for a few seconds, giving Twilight a devilish look. “And who is dead.”
Twilight understood the premise of the challenge now and it scared her. One goblet would hold poison, the other would be safe. If Vizzini chose the right glass, then Twilight would be killed, and if he chose wrong, then she would survive. Twilight levitated the glasses and the Iocaine powder over to the area behind her and turned around, away from Vizzini. She considered her options very carefully. She could refuse the challenge, but that would mean that she was trapped in this arena forever. As much as she hated the idea of killing again, Twilight manage to convince herself that since Vizzini had given the terms of the challenge, if he died then it would be on his head. She didn’t allow herself time to second guess that approach, otherwise she wouldn’t go through with her plan. What troubled her now was how could she think of a way to make sure that Vizzini drank the poisoned cup? After a minute or so of deliberation, she finally settled on her strategy. She poured the poison and placed one glass before Vizzini and the other before herself.
“And so the battle of wits begins.” Twilight Sparkle mumbled to herself.
Vizzini stared at the goblet in front of him for a few seconds before shifting his attention to the glass in front of Twilight. He switched back and forth several times, presumably searching for some trace of the powder that may have landed on the rim of the glass, but there was no clue as to where the poison was in that respect. Eventually, he spoke.
“Well, this is so simple. I merely have to use what knowledge I have of you to determine whether you are the type of pony who would put the poison into her own cup, or her enemy’s.”
Twilight Sparkle merely rolled her eyes and sighed. She had hoped that Vizzini would leave the entire battle to luck and just pick a glass, but clearly the Sicilian had other plans.
“Now let’s see,” Vizzini continued. “You seem to me to be a fairly innocent minded creature, good at heart and mostly pure, so it is unlikely that you would go out of your way to try and kill me, so I can’t trust the glass in front of me.”
“Very well then,” Twilight said, levitating her glass up to her lips. The Sicilian however interrupted her and instructed her to put the glass down.
“I haven’t yet finished my deliberations. You should learn to be a little bit more patient my dear. Now, where was I? Ah yes, I can’t trust my glass. Having deduced that you probably wouldn’t poison me, I must also accept that you are young and most likely still love life. It is therefore unlikely that you would willingly poison yourself, so the poison is clearly not in your glass.”
Twilight was very confused. First Vizzini had discounted the possibility that the poison was in his glass, but then he turned around and eliminated the possibility of the poison being in hers.
“But if it isn’t in my glass, and it isn’t in yours, then where is it?”
“Oh, it’s in one of them, certainly. From what I know of you, this is clearly not your first battle, and given the way you challenged me earlier, I can deduce that your previous opponents fought you by physical means. This suggests that you have impressive physical strength, strength that you believe may be enough to save you should your glass be poisoned, so I can’t trust the wine in front of you.
“However, you are also clearly intelligent, due to your eloquent speech. You have obviously studied and during your studies you must have realised that poison is almost always fatal to those who aren’t accustomed to it. Since you didn’t recognise the Iocaine powder, I know that you have never encountered it before, could not have developed a tolerance to it and would have therefore tried to move it as far away from yourself as possible, so I can’t trust the wine in front of me.”
Twilight enquired as to whether Vizzini was just wasting time, trying to get her to reveal some secret hint as to where the poison had been put. However, Vizzini just laughed and pointed a round finger at Twilight. His eyes narrowed and he looked somewhat akin to a parent about to discipline a disobedient child.
“you’d like to think that wouldn’t you! But it’s too late for you now, you’ve already given everything away! Of course I know where the poison is. I’ve always known! Now,” he hesitated for a moment. A look of genuine terror flashed across his face and he pointed at the treeline behind Twilight. “What in the world can that be?”
Twilight wheeled around quickly, lowering her head so that she could fight back if she was attacked. Her eyes flicked from right to left, looking for any beast or monster that could be lurking, primed and ready to attack. But having scanned her field of vision for several seconds, Twilight looked back to Vizzini, saying that she could see nothing out of the ordinary.
“I could have sworn that I saw something. Never mind, shall we drink? Me from my glass, and you from yours.”
Finally, Twilight thought to herself. She lifted the glass to her lips and placed them delicately on the rim. The sweet red liquid rolled into her mouth and she allowed herself to savour the flavour before feeling the smooth liquid roll down her throat with a satisfied gulp.
“You chose wrong, Vizzini.”
Vizzini began laughing incredibly hard. He pointed at Twilight, barely able to catch his breath as he revelled in his victory.
“You only think I chose wrong you fool! I switched glasses with you when you weren’t looking. It’s one of the most commonly known mistakes that you can ever make! The first is never get involved in a land war with Asia, but only slightly less well known is never get into a contest with a Sicilian when death is on the line!”
“You chose wrong.” Vizzini stopped laughing and a concerned expression overcame his face as Twilight Sparkle explained. “My home is very near a forest with many poisonous berries and fungi. My studies into botany wasn’t complete when I moved there, so as a precaution...” She paused as her horn began to glow. For a second or two, nothing happened, but then a thin stream of red liquid slipped out through the tip of her horn. As the last drop plopped into her glass, Twilight exhaled as though she had just undergone some strenuous exercise.
“I learnt how to perform a self detox. I poisoned both glasses.”
Vizzini’s eyes opened in shock as he felt his heart rate immediately drop to zero. Without any degree of dignity, Vizzini toppled backwards and landed on his back with a heavy thud. A portal opened up beside Twilight and she took a few moments to whisper a small apology to Vizzini before stepping through to her next arena...
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I must apologise if there are any spelling or grammatical errors, i felt that i had to get a chapter out so fast that I just didn't send it to my pre-reader to save time. Sorry about that.
Awesome chapter. Gotta say I got a yugioh season 0 vibe from this...OOPS did I give you a new idea?
Yeah, having the character in the Authors Notes is much better.
i'm glad i'm 50% twilight and 25% RD and AJ seperate or i think i wouldve died
Grown men who like a baby horse girl toy show?
INCONCEIVABLE!
1910155 You sir just made my day.
1909977 I'll try and get the updates out as fast as I can. I have a few guest written chapters being sent to me, so they should be up in the next few rounds as well. And don't worry too much about li'l ol' Flutters, I have a plan to keep her in for a while at least.
1910303 Yeah, Toph was a fun one to write, mostly because I think that she is easily the most bad ass Avatar character there is. When it came down to her vs Rarity though, I knew I wanted Rarity to have a bit of a sadistic streak
Quite amusing, good sir. I look forward to the next update. However, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I think this one was my favourite so far
This chapter was good.
But....
I had to google who Vizzini was, and it made me WTF very hard. Why do you use such unrecognizable characters?
1912424 I did put it in the Authors notes and every other fight has had it in the comment section...
As amazing as this story is... I can't help but hope Nightmare Moon, Discord and Crysalis get their just desserts by the end. Maybe they get killed or at least defeated by one of the fighters they chose... Most likely someone powerful, like Goku or the Hulk... I don't know, I just love to see villains get what they deserve, particularly when they emotionally traumatize the protagonists... But anyway, keep it up. This is one of my favorite stories.
1912424 Unrecognisible is relative. The movie is old but it does have a cult following.
I remember one book with a similar setup where in the end nobody drank the poison, but the villain (who was of poor health and convinced that he did drink the poison) died of a heart attack.
Twilight Sparkle vs. Sailor Moon, perhaps?
Wait... A Sicilian? A balding one at that? Named Vizzini? I think I know that one... *Gets up to Iocane powder* Yep. It's the idiot who thought he could win a battle of wits against a guy with the title of 'Dread Pirate.' After letting said pirate set it up. After said pirate took out a vial of Iocane and explained its properties. This guy isn't as smart as he thought he was. Hell, calling him dumb as a rock would be an insult to rocks everywhere.
That said, I'm enjoying this... and desperately hoping the M6 don't end up carking it... specifically a certain character.
1910155
Why do you use that word? I don't think it means what you think it means.
I like the Princess Bride too!!
Predictable
i didn't know how to pronounce his name but i have seen princess bride
1909778 Now the finale will be Death T.
Well, I didn't recognize the name, but I almost deduced the character before he was actually identified.
At first I assumed from the exotic name it would be a wizard of some sort.
But then, as the scene was described, I suddenly thought of the Spaniard from the Princess Bride for some reason.
And then I heard him say "Inconceivable" and I had to laugh at how close I had come.
I've got an interesting match that doesn't involve a physical fight:
Maximillion Pegasus can duel one of the Mane Six (probably Twi since she's quite intelligent and can strategize, as well as probably use a Spellcaster deck like Yugi's).
Pegasus could have been promised by the villains that he would get his beloved Cecilia back if he wins the duel. Twilight would lose her soul if she doesn't win.