The Battle of Wits

by Michael_Ing

Rating: teen
Tags: Profanity, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy
Length: 4283

Celestia sends an intelligent filly prodigy to Ponyville to live with Twilight, in hopes that the two will learn from each other and fix some small-scale problems, but Twilight doesn't her one bit.

Celestia sends an extremely smart filly prodigy to Ponyville to spend time with Twilight, Celestia's number one student, in hopes that the two will learn from each other and become friends in the process, but, Twilight doesn't like the fact that some young filly can waltz into her home and overthrow her crown in intelligence.

Published 2019-11-28 00:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-11-28 00:40:01 UTC

Competition for Twilight

"Spike!! Wake up!!! Come on man you don't wanna miss Daring Do's book signing at the town square do you?!"
A bouncy Twilight awoke the young dragon, in which he looked rather distressed and rubbed his eyes.

"Twilight, the fact that you do this to me every Saturday is beginning to get suspicious."
Spike said as his cold eyelids slowly rose.

"What do you mean, Spi-"
"Nah don't start this shit man, you know you get a kick from watching me wake up from my well earned sleep, like especially at the weekend, when everypony else is getting a lie in! Like dude what time is it.."

Spike looks over his shoulder to see a blurry grandfather clock, but could still make out the black bars signalling the time.
"8am, and doesn't that Daring Do meet-up not happen till like lunchtime?"

"Well, yeah.. but we need to be organised! Come on, no time for sleep! Help me find all my Daring Do novels."
A distressed Spike got up from his rounded-bed and heard his knees crack, he quietly sighed to himself.

"My god, why me, why was I the one in that fucking egg."

3 hours fly by, for Twilight, not for Spike, and the duo accumulate over 20 Daring Do novels, with the Golden Oak library looking filthy with the random piles of spell books lying on the dry oak floor. Spike, still contemplating his existence, overhears Twilight's chattering.

"Oh damn, I remember this gem! 'Daring Do and the Drunk Football Supporter that everyone was too scared to confront'! Oooh! I just have so many questions for her that I didn't have enough time to ask at her home... like how many time-"

Spike buried his head into a pile full of dusty books. The particles of dust entering his lungs had better long-term effects than hearing Twilight talk, especially about books.

Then, feeling a tingling in his throat, Spike leaped out of the spell books and prepared for yet another letter from Princess Celestia. Twilight stopped talking, for once, and watched as her life-long assistant produced yet another letter of royalty.
Spike coughed, mostly to look for attention off Twilight, and prepared to rant, once again.

"Fuckin'... why is that the most efficient way of transporting letters?! Oh I get it Princess Celestia is very busy and all, but does she not have the decency to think about the bodily features of people like me? Remember the first time she sent a letter, Twilight?"

Twilight slowly walked over to pick up the scroll, and rolled her eyes, as she prepared to hear this story for the 1000th time.

"I was gonna die Twilight, I'm not joking! I remember my thoughts that moment, 'Well Shit, guess I'll die to my stomach acid over-reacting.' and when I finally got that letter out of my system, I couldn't eat for fuckin' days. Like, I tried having some grapes but the fuckers just weren't going down, that's how fucked my body was after that, it was like-"

Spike's voice became static while Twilight was concentrating on the Princess's handwriting, although Spike was shouting so loud that all Twilight got to see were a few words. 'New Pony.... Just like you... love to see you..... only 12 years old....'

"Can it, Spike!" A frustrated Twilight rose her voice at the frowning purple-scaled dragon. Now she can fully concentrate on what the letter reads.

"To my Dearest Twilight, After seeing your developments with friendship and magic in Ponyville, yaddah yaddah yaddah..."

Twilight skimmed past the boring bits that she'd usually read, 'You've learned your lesson this week,' or 'Your courage this week was outstanding', then Twilight saw a word that caught her off guard, something she didn't expect.
*Sharky*
Twilight raised her left eyebrow and continued reading from that point on.

"A new pony named Sharky joined my academy recently and showed with upmost respect and courage her ability to use magic in a similar way to you. She reminded me of you when you first joined, and I believe you and her have the capability to join forces and get smarter and smarter, so one day, you both may hold a special place in royalty at Canterlot."

Twilight felt a grin growing on her face.
"Oh shit, a new filly's in town!"

Spike looked up at Twilight, and this time he was interested in what she had to say.
"Apparently she's only 12 and has many skills. Like intelligence, bravery, carver, mathematician, sportspony..."
Twilight started slurring her words after reading some more key skills. She put a look on her face that told Spike that it was some pretty mundane stuff, and that she can easily do the same as her. Spike looked at Twilight with a surprised look, and decided to speak again, forgetting about his rant on Celestia's form of transporting letters.

"Oh shit she's the whole lot, you're not a sportspony are you Twilight?"

A stubborn Twilight opened her mouth, and thought about what she was gonna say.
"Nah remember I came 12th in that race and I beat AJ and Dash?"
Spike chuckled to himself, and Twilight's mood instantly changed.

"What other things did Celestia say she could do?" Asked a curious Spike, starting the gain an interest in the young prodigy.
Twilight rolled up the scroll, ignoring the abundance of other skills. "Just them, basically Celestia's sending her over for a week to gain more intelligence from the locals and myself. Guess I'll have to show her some of the more advanced shit, even though she probably won't comprehend it."

"Teh, sure. When's she coming over?"

Twilight ignored Spike's past comment and responded.
"She's getting a train from Canterlot tomorrow morning, but we have to write to confirm first. SPIKE! TAKE A LETTER!

"Ohh... you don't have to fucking shout! I'm right here! Besides you're the unicorn here with years of studying magic, do you not have the power to pick up a virtually weightless pen and write down all this shit to the Princess?"
Twilight turned to Spike, "Jesus, what's up your ass, Spike?"

Twilight and Rainbow Dash stood in line anxiously, because they're favourite author was just a few steps ahead of them.
"I actually know Daring Do on a personal level, I shouldn't be in this line with the rest of you plebs." Rainbow Dash said as she hovered in the air clutching onto her novels, trying to get a glimpse of the Mare's temple.
Rainbow's words flew past Twilight's conscience, as the only thing on her mind was Sharky. The fucker is only 12 and yet she qualifies to be a mathematician.

The line grew shorter and shorter, and Twilight was able to catch the sight of Daring Do's amber cowboy hat. The thought of Sharky was starting to fade away. 'She probably knows the basic principles... she hardly has the time to recite Pi and also have the stamina to run 100m.' Twilight's mind soothed her, and she got excited seeing that she was next in line to see that brave pony she grew to adore.

"Hey Dash, I was getting scared, I thought I was gonna see you in here!"
You could tell Rainbow Dash was silently freaking out in her mind, but her physical stance was trying to show that she was just here because she was bored, or she had no choice, but even then she was finding it difficult to find a stance she was comfortable with. Hovering a few metres above the soil with her hands behind her back, eyes half closed, anything to make her look like she wasn't a total fangirl.

"Yo what's up Do, Twilight told me about this little meetup you were doing and she was wondering if I wanted to get my novels signed, and I was like pff Twi, she's my friend I don't get stuff signed by my friend but she was like but Rainbow I don't want to look like a total loser getting my novels signed by myself,"
Rainbow Dash put a hoof up to Daring Do's ear and whispered,
"I just thought I'd get these signed so she doesn't feel left out you know?"

Twilight could perfectly hear Rainbow's shit attempt at trying to be discrete, and Dash was the pony that begged her to go with her in the first place, but Twilight decided that Rainbow probably doesn't want to be shown as a total fan-girl towards one of her greatest heroes. Besides, Twilight was pretty excited to be meeting one of her favourite authors once again, and it'd be weird to go alone.

Daring Do smiled at Rainbow and let smirked as she saw Twilight's huge stack of novels that she collected over the years. It kinda looked like a game of jenga, if jenga consisted of dusty adventure novels with some of the covers ripped off.

"Sorry the books aren't in a good state, kinda had a little emergency this morning.
Daring Do, still dumbfounded at the amount of novels stacked in front of her, replied,
"It's alright, I think you may have brought.. duplicates.. of the same novels.."

Twilight felt a little angry, "No actually they're just from different era's of time, like this one, the original Daring Do story, published in 1993, the cover is you swinging into a dark cave, but in the 2013, the 20-year anniversary re-release had the cover remastered, see your character has more of a ligh-"
Daring Do quickly phased out of what Twilight was blabbering about and started signing the multiple copies of her novels.

After about 10 minutes of signing both Twilight and Rainbow Dash's novels, Daring Do let out a sigh of relief.
"Alright, thanks Do, I'll see you around alright?"
Daring Do didn't respond, instead she called the next person up and mumbled something, most likely a swear word. (Understandably)

After having a tasty dinner at Sweet Apple Acres with the others, Twilight returned home. She completely forgot about Sharky, not until Spike confronted her at the front door.

"So, what time is she arriving, like, do we have to meet her at the train station?"
Twilight remembered the whole thing.
"Yeah I guess... 10am... you seem to be talking about her a lot for some reason.."
Twilight looked down at Spike, who was wearing a pair of red cheeks. He looked away in shame, in hopes Twilight didn't catch a glimpse of him.

"I just... want to make sure she gets to the right place, and shit.."
Twilight smiled and sat down, releasing a small breath.
A troubled Twilight thinks to herself.
'I know she can't be as smart as Celestia makes her to be, Celestia always make people seem better than what they already are.'

"Alright I'm hitting the hay, just to make sure you don't fuckin' pull that shit you did this morning."
Spike slowly ascended the stairway, and Twilight was left thinking again. Something that happens often.
Twilight was always considered the smart pony. The go-to when you needed plans for making blueprints, or to help the crusaders with their homework. She never would give them the answer, she'd give them small hints until a lightbulb lit above their mane.

Nopony was smarter than her. At least that's what she thought.

Author's Note

Chapter 2 will be arriving very quickly, I just felt that implementing Sharky's arrival in this same chapter would take up a lot of space and I wanted to keep this short and simple. A few short stories will be emerging aswell. You should throw this story in your tracking folder just to know when Chapter 2 comes out, which will probably be either tomorrow, or the coming days. (Maybe even tonight if I'm feeling lucky)

Aight, that's it.

Sharky's arrival

Twilight decided not to wake up Spike, due to yesterdays outrage. Instead she went down to get some tea and toast, or any kind of food that will warm her up, the weather was freezing last night for some reason. She checked the time.
7:35 am
'Sharky's probably on the train right now.'
Twilight's mind spoke, all night last night she thought of Sharky. She didn't see her yet, but she had a feeling she was going to look all dressed-up for the occasion. Why wouldn't she be? She's meeting Celestia's best student.

Twilight checked the date on the bread.
21/11
Shit, one day. It doesn't matter, nothing will matter if Sharky really is the dream student Celestia was talking about.
The toaster worked its magic, alongside the kettle. A tired Twilight opened the cupboard and pulled out a delicate china teacup Fluttershy got her from Manehatten. A quarter of a smile broke out and it rose up to her left cheek. Her friends would still believe in her. So what? A little competition isn't gonna bring her down. She's notoriously known around Ponytown for studying all day, all night.

What if Sharky was smarter. All that studying, all the times spent telling Spike that it was for the good. Just the be thrown down the sewer cause of some lucky 12 year old who got lucky with her DNA.

A tear found it's way to the outside world via Twilight's dead eyes.
A few footsteps were to be heard upstairs, and judging by the back crack and the soft whine, Spike has woken up.
Twilight grabbed the kitchen town and rubbed her face clean of her thoughts.

"Yo thanks for not waking me, still feel like shit though."
Spike walked past Twilight, looking a bit better than yesterday.
Twilight was still facing the cupboard, and acknowledged the dragon by releasing a "mmm."
"Why did you put on the toast? It was out of date yesterday."

"I don't fuckin' know man..."
Twilight released that the toast was already done, even though she didn't hear the ding of the toaster probably cause she was drowning in her own conscience.
It felt soft, only a tiny bit of heat remained. Not only would she have to face one of her fears, she'll have to eat stale, cold toast that felt like a wet cloth.

"Heh, what's up your ass?" Spike said confidently, standing his ground after yesterdays conversation.
Twilight ignored him, and sat down on her chair and chewed on the cold bread.

Spike didn't want to bother her, he could but he didn't want to piss her off. He walked into the same room as Twilight and turned on the TV and surfed through the channels.

After watching around 3 and a half episodes of 'Keeping up with the Pie's', somepony knocked at the door.
Spike opened his mouth to say something but Twilight beat him to it.
"You get it."

Unlocking the barrel locked door, a pink pony was the first sight to see, behind her were 4 other ponies, all in different stances and shit.
"Oh,"
Spike ended his sentence on a cliffhanger, forgetting what word to use to greet the ponies.

Rainbow Dash looked confused.
"Tff, you not gonna finish that shit?"
Spike looked over his shoulder to view the pegasus.
"No, I just, like I forgot what I was gonna say, like, you know?"
Rarity giggled, "That's so stupid, how did you forget to do that shit?"
She started laughing to herself, which caused a chain reaction amongst them.
"Yeah that was a bit stupid to be honest with you there Spike", Said the orange earth pony.
Pinkie Pie laughed with the rest of the group, but she wasn't listening when Spike was talking because she noticed that Twilight didn't move a muscle since they entered.

Pinkie bounced towards the depressed pony, and began her speech.
"Hey Twilight!! I see you watching my show!! Ooh I remember that episode! Applejack was all like, 'oooh pinkie what are you doing a great apple acres?' and I was all like-"

Twilight stopped the energetic earth pony from talking with a simple, "I'm not in the mood, pinkie."

Pinkie stopped bouncing, and smiled.
"No problem, Twilight."
The other 4 friends finished up their conversation.

"I dunno Spike, that was pretty fuckin' stupid." Said a hovering Rainbow Dash.
Twilight's posture alerted the ponies, and they approached her.

"Hey Twilight, we was just wondering if you'd like to come down to Fluttershy's for lunch today, since there's nothing going on."
A honest Applejack requested.

"I'm doing something."

The ponies awaited for Twilight to elaborate on her statement, but judging by her staring at the TV, that was all she had to say.

Spike told the mares all about Celestia's letter, and how she's not feeling too good, despite Spikes lack of understanding of why Twilight isn't her usual self.

The 4 understood, and all of them said their goodbyes to a dead Twilight.

Spike closed the door behind the last pony, and turned to Twilight.

"Hey, Twi, sorry if I'm acting like an ass, but, what's up?"

She lowered the TV volume.

"You wouldn't hate me if somepony else was smarter than me, would you?"

Spike felt a few butterfly's in his stomach, which is a fucking problem. How do they get in there?

"Of course not, Twilight. You don't have to be the best the earn my gratitude."

Twilight tapped her hoof twice against the floor.

Opened her mouth.

Closed it.

And turned up the TV volume again.

"Last stop for Ponyville!"

The cream-coloured earth pony called out amongst the ponies on and off the train.
The weather was fucking freezing. Sorry for my language but, Jesus Christ I was there dude and it couldn't bear that shit man.

Frost grew along the top of the platform and the roof of the station.

Twilight stood outside the train. Her confidence was back, after turning the TV channel to some show about the evolution of parasprites, Twilight pointed out the typos in the subtitles and constantly fact-checked the narrator, while Spike made fun of the narrator's tone. Which was usually the norm in the Golden Oak Library.

The doors of the train slammed open, like full on went around and hit the train. It makes this big rattling noise after it, which kinda ruins the quiet atmosphere of Ponyville. It only started doing that yesterday, when Twilight and Rainbow Dash were watching Daring Do's train pull up, the loudest bang just shattered the eardrums of everypony in a 100m radius. Like imagine waiting to see your loved one get off this train, you haven't seen this person in years and you used to talk so much, and then you see her silhouette in the train, and then WAHBANG!! The fucker makes you jump and the officers are just like, oh Jesus fuck this town has gone to shit.
Sorry for going off-track, just needed to make sure you knew how bad the economy was in Ponyville.

The rattle of the train doors stunned the station, everypony jumped by the sound of it. Some engineers were trying to fix it, but no one knew the source of how it was happening. Twilight peaked over the crowd to see if she could recognize the filly. She saw a small one, but it was probably too small to be considered 12. She saw this buff pony that reminded Twilight of Bulk Biceps, but it was here first time in Ponyville so the sound of the train doors absolutely smashing the trains exterior rattled her and she started hyperventilating.

Then, she heard a voice nearby, a really squeaky one, ugh, the sound was like a fork scraping a plate. To make it easier for you to understand, just imagine someone you know that has a reallyyy squeaky voice. Alright? Now you can't proceed unless you have someone in mind here. Got it? Ok, because I have no way of checking whether you do or not. Alright, so take that person's voice... And high up the pitch by 100%. Looking back, I'm just gonna use this as a metaphor. But still. Damn that voice annoying dude.

Twilight could make out some of the words. For some reason, that pony was talking as if she was trying to gather a crowd.

"That door bang is incredibly loud, may I say. Is it possible that I can check it out?"
The voice squealed.
Spike signaled Twilight to follow him.
"I dunno, ma'am. Our engineers don't know what the problem is. You can try if you want, but you probably won't be able to see it."
Spike looked up at Twilight.
"That's a bit stupid that they're letting an unqualified filly look at a problem with an extremely powerful vehicle. Goes to show that Ponyville really is going down the shitter."
"Shh" Twilight wanted to see this, it had to be Sharky. The voice, the will to fix things. It reminded Twilight of her when she found out the basics of magic. She wanted to help people with everything.

Twilight couldn't get a proper look at her, probably due to the mass amount of people making their way into town, but she was small anyways. Maybe not the size of an average 12 year old, but still reasonable.

A dark blue hue lit atop of her horn, which was fixed onto the hinges of the metal door. The filly didn't look like she was experiencing any difficulty at all, if anything this shit is normal for her.
The sliding metal clicked into place.

*CLICK!*

"Try it."

The officer commanded the driver to close and open the doors again.
The doors closed slowly, which was normal.
Twilight studied the hinges carefully.
The doors opened.

Just like that, the doors were back to normal. No bang, it just slid open.
Twilight's heart sank.
Deep down she didn't want them to close as perfectly as that, they were like brand new. She didn't even know there was a spell for that, and even if there was, it would probably take a while to get it right.
A voice came into her head.

'Don't lose your fucking cool. Beginner's luck is all that is.'

She wanted to believe that sentence. So badly.

Spike noticed Twilight's mood drop again, and wanted to make her happy again. All 3 of them were in the shelter now, she was in line to give up her ticket.

Twilight tried to distract herself before confronting the young mare.
Her eyes locked on the gift shop.
'Daft tourist trap.'
She observed the mugs and shirts.
"Ponyville! This is how low you've gone!"
And
"Ponyville! Really?"
Were some of the statements typed up onto the overpriced merch.

"You want me to go up to her, Twi?"
Said Spike, hoping Twilight wouldn't be angry at him.
"I'll get her."
Twilight slowly approached this filly that she never spoken to before, yet already developed a strong hatred towards.

The filly looked behind to see Twilight.

"Twilight Sparkle?"
The filly's eyes lit up, Twilight observed her features.

Light blue eye colour. Her mane was short, it mostly went down to the base of her neck. The colour was light-ginger, which went along well with her cream-coloured coat, similar to the officer's. Her tail, in comparison to her mane, extended out to her hooves, it look liked it was cut because it would have gotten tangled if she tried to walk. Her cutie mark was everything Celestia described in the letter, at the left bottom corner was an open book, the pages were flickering around as if there was a gust of wind. There were some symbols that were flying out of the book; a baseball, the Pi symbol and a Filliam Shakespeare skull.

The filly noticed she was smiling, and quickly returned to her natural state. You couldn't tell if she was smiling or frowning. Just like that one painting... aww I forgot which one, shit... oh! The *PONY* Lisa! (Couldn't think of a pony pun)

"Hi, are you Sharky?"
Twilight kept her cool.
"Yep."
Sharky turned back to face the back of another pony.
'Aw shit, that's... shit.."
Twilight just kinda stood there, wondering whether to try small talk or to wait beside her, but Sharky didn't move to let her in beside her, so Twilight just kinda stood beside her, looking like a pony who was trying to cut the line.

'Fuckin'..'
Twilight went past the ticket booth and sat on the wooden benches that were infected by the winter cold.

After about 10 minutes, Sharky walked up to Twilight.

"I can't carry some of these books. Here."
Sharky plopped down around 6 books beside Twilight, all based on different topics, like an in-depth analysis on Mare-beth, 3 books on calculus, and 2 books on algebra.

Twilight thought to herself,
':-| I've never seen these 2 other calculus books before, also, who's Filliam Shakespeare?'

She fixed her magic on the book pile, which reminded her of yesterday with Daring Do. The trio made their way out of the station, with Sharky walking ahead of the others.

"Alright to be honest Twilight, shit, like hearing about this pony on the letter made me think she was an all-rounder and I'm like.... What an ass..."
A troubled Spike admitted his past thoughts about Sharky.
"It's ok, Spike. I already knew."
Twilight placed a hood on the young dragons shoulder.
"It's just a week, let's just pretend she's any other guest."

Author's Note

Oh it's done, cool.
Chapter 1 was a success in my book, a couple of views, a like, a follow, and I had no previous stories or followers before hand.

Chapter 3 is gonna be thrown at you at the same place this one was! :pinkiehappy: