The very large man briefly rubbed his goatee, then leaned towards the much shorter personage sitting on his right. He whispered to his silent partner, who made a quick sketch on the notepad. Both of them momentarily glanced backwards, and each took in the universally-stunned visages of the audience.
They made themselves look at the half-smirking female on the stage and in doing so, had to mutually adjust their sight lines to be a lot lower than usual.
"All right," the large man said. "So we've ruled out trapdoors."
The blue unicorn mare nodded.
"And obviously there's no way it was sleight of hand," he continued, "because..." And trailed off right there. He had a naturally commanding presence, seldom looked or sounded awkward, and therefore wasn't all that good at it.
"Because," the mare finished for him, "no hands."
He nodded. "Which would bring us down to this." He stood up (which took a few seconds), and his partner did the same. "We're going to show you this sketch. If this is what you used, then we win. But if you didn't, then that's our last guess. You will have officially fooled us. You'll get the trophy and two months from now, you'll open for our show."
The mare's tail curled up a little. The half-smirk got wider as the two men came onto the stage, and became a full smile when the smaller one placed the well-rendered image of mechanisms in front of her eyes.
"On my honor as a magician," the mare told them, "that wasn't what I did. Not even close."
The large man took a very deep breath.
"Wow." There was a lot of sincerity in those three letters. "Wow. It has been a while. A lot of performers have come up here, and a few have gotten past us, but this is the first time neither of us has even been in the right ballpark. It's going to be fun having you opening the show --"
She wasn't really listening. She was watching the trophy's platform descending from the ceiling, and it wasn't coming down fast enough to suit her. The mare's corona ignited, and a flare of energy collected the token of her triumph.
Several hundred people gasped.
"-- what was that?" the very large (and extremely stunned) man said.
"Magic!" the mare proudly said. "What day should I be at the hotel? I'll need some time to set up."
"...magic," the much smaller one said, and incidentally did so for the first time ever. (The resulting gasp was nearly as loud.)
"Of course!"
"Real magic," the larger one slowly tried.
"Yes. Because I'm a magician. So. For my calendar?"
The big hand went through the field, grabbed the trophy.
"That's cheating!" he stridently declared.
"No, it isn't!" the mare shot back, now using the energy to pull. "You said to fool you! With magic! And you thought it was just mechanisms and distractions and tricks! So I fooled you! I won!"
"But it isn't the right kind of magic!" he insisted as he leaned backwards, putting his weight into the tug-of-war.
"Yours isn't magic at all! You're just being jealous! I won!"
The big man released his grip, all at once. The furious mare levitated the trophy until it was floating at her side, panted from the effort.
"You're not being fair..." she weakly said.
One hand came up, stroked at the goatee.
"You know something?" he told her. "You're right. I'm not."
Everyone looked at them. Partner, audience, camera crew.
"So... I won?"
"I'm not sure," he admitted. "Not within the rules as we normally use them."
"But --"
"-- there's someone," he cut her off, "that I really want to introduce you to. But only if you'd happen to be interested in making a million dollars..."
The very old magician with the bushy white beard brought sharp eyes up as the big man made a summoning gesture towards the darkness at the right edge of the stage.
"All right," James Randi rather skeptically said. "Let's see what this 'discovery' can do."
This was fantastic! So much more nuanced than I imagined when I suggested it; you knocked it out of the park!
monster hunter I want to see the mighty pickle run a muk
Aww, hell. I was trying to remember James Randi to suggest his million dollar prize. Cool.
I bet the pyrotechnic guys got a shock when she made her entrance.
Bwahahahaha! Now I want to see Penn & Teller vs James Randi! I can picture Penn Gillette now: "Sure it's a trick. But if you can't prove it's a trick, then we still get the money!"
Went exactly where I expected it to, and I loved every moment.
As for future suggestions, not sure if you're familiar with the games, but I have to think Banjo and Kazooie have some unfortunate ingrained reactions to people who speak in rhyme over bubbling cauldrons. Cue Zecora fleeing from Grenade Eggs. ("Is this a dream? It seems absurd to face a team of bear and bird!")
Who the heck is James Randi? I did enjoy Penn and Teller shown up as they occasionally deserve it.
Nice, also glad to see they went for Randi's prize.
8962483
Are you in for an education.
I attended one of his lectures. Still a strong speaker.
But for those who just want shorthand (and should read the article anyway): if anyone can prove a paranormal ability to him, he will give them a million dollars. He has spent his life in not giving it away, and many have tried. He'd probably love to find the truly supernatural -- but he knows all the tricks, and the people who attempt to con him always fail.
Lauren Faust meets Celestia? Seems nearly as necessary as Deadpool.
Never heard of Penn and Teller, but James Randi I am definitely familiar with. I would pay actual money to see him meet a genuine magical unicorn. Scratch that, I would pay actual money to see a genuine magical unicorn, period.
What does he call magic, given theres some really, really weird things been demonstrated in laboratories. Invisible textures, backward moving light, mind reading of sound and images, and those are with standard tech and not even plasmonic forms.
Ha, "fooling" them by using real magic when they expected a trick. That's pretty good.
Given the title you chose, I feel obligated to suggest a crossover with Doom. Yes, the videogame about shooting and chainsawing demons in hell.
I've read some of The Amazing Randi's books. They're good.
8963047
Penn (Jillette) and (Raymond Joseph) Teller are a long standing pair of magicians. They're main gimmick is Penn is very tall, very outspoken and very loud while Teller doesn't speak at all (at least not as part of the act). They've had several TV shows, the most recent one and the one that the fic is referencing is Penn & Teller: Fool Us. Stage Magicians go on stage and basically perform for them (and an audience) and if Penn and Teller can successfully tell how the act was performed, they win. If not the magician gets a trophy and a chance to open for them at their Vegas show. Fooled all not, they generally also provide a generalised feedback of the act.
There's plenty of clips on Youtube. A lot of magicians who have had appearances have posted their segments on their own personal channels. The show also closes out with Penn and Teller performing either an act of their own, or third party who specialise in areas they don't wok in themselves (there have been a couple of performance/escape artists routines at the very least).
Edit: Oh, and they also appeared on a episode of Babylon 5 as 23rd century comedian duo Rebo and Zooty
More ideas:
Beyond Detective Rarity vs Carmen Sandiego, maybe one where Rarity meets Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (the classic version!!) would be nice.
Fluttershy meets Newt Scamander (Fantastic Beasts)
Princess Celestia meets Selesia (Re:CREATORS)
Princess Celestia talks with Elsa (Frozen) (I guess that they would have a lot to talk)
Sunset Shimmer or Shining Armor pilots a Patlabor
Got a few ideas for ya:
Twilight meets Temperance Brennen, maybe there is a character that can out intelligence Bones after all?
Luna Meets Batman; When the goddess of the night meets the protector of the night
One of the mane 6 meets one of the Bad Seeds (Far cry 5)
Bulk Biceps meets Alex Armstrong, remember the manliest greeting scene, anyone?
Celestia meets Superman; when the sun is the source of your power and you both can reconfigure the world with said power, what could go wrong?
The cutie mark Crusaders meet Oogie's boys
King Sombra VS Jason
pinkie Pie meets chucky
Spike meets Toothless
Gamer Luna games with a youtuber
Q sneezes at the wrong moment and teleports Picard to Fluttershy's cottage. Tea is had whilst Q and Discord argue over whose fault it is.
Scrooge McDuck tries to hire Rarity as a prospector.
Scrooge McDuck wants to cut a business deal with Sweet Apple Acres. He and Applejack get off on entirely the wrong foot until they have to run off a mutual annoyance in the form of the FlimFlam brothers. They're so similar, yet so different. They'll probably fight at first sight, massively underestimate each other, and end up fast friends.
CandleJack accumulates random ponies as he tries to catch Pinkie Pie who is rushing about Ponyville getting his "Welcome to Ponyville" party ready. You know, this loon.
In light of the latest story, it only seems appropriate to inflict Professor Skywise on the spacefaring sci-fi series of your choice.
a short story comes to mind: "the shortest challenge to the throne to date":
Celestia made a law that anyone who wanted to challenge her to a duel over the throne only had to sit on it.
a demon-possessed BREEZIE tried to challenge her that way...
she sat on him, and never noticed!
I love the mental image of Penn in a tug-of-war with Trixie.
Very fun. Plus it has a reasonable and positive end note!
This one is funny because I've been watching a lot of clip of the show lately because YouTube suggested it to me.
8990523
How did you manage to
saytype that name and finish your sentence? (Yes I'm calling you out for not playing along with the joke.)9156872
*Snaps claws* I knew I was forgetting something...
If you're taking suggestions, Celestia and/or Luna meet Baron Klaus Wulfenbach from Girl Genius? Like, just imagine Equestria entering diplomatic talks with the Wulfenbach Empire. I don't imagine it would come to violence; Klaus comes down hard on people within his empire who break his laws, but Equestria isn't part of the empire, and wouldn't be likely to break empire law even if they were. And he only goes after outside nations who attack him first, which again, Equestria isn't likely to do.
Highlights might include: pony reactions to Castle Wulfenbach (The only capitol able to patrol its own empire) flying level with Canterlot, Equestrian nobility reacting to a mere baron owning an entire -empire-, misunderstandings over necromancy involving the empire's construct citizens, and (the most likely reason for these talks) the question of rogue sparks coming to Equestria.
Also, something I just realized; Klaus has dealt with immortal, insanely powerful monarchs before. Her Undying Magesty, Queen Albia of England comes to mind. And of course, it's heavily implied that he was married to one of Albia's 'sisters' (in quotes because we don't know how they're actually related), Zantabraxus, God Queen of Skiffander.
9333563
Only if Twilight gets to meet Gil, Tarvek, and Agatha.
8963703
I am now much more familiar with Penn and Teller. I love most of the Fool Us clips on YouTube. But my absolute favorite has to be Richard Turner, just because of how flawlessly he executes his tricks. Watch and be amazed.