Yup, time for the most quoted scene from this movie amongst my group of friends.

Enjoy!

Heero shifted slightly, angling for a less uncomfortable position. As a soldier, he could endure practically any hardship it was true, but he was also beyond caring about his warrior's pride at this point. Besides, the rock digging into his side was poking into a long scrape he'd gotten while being hauled up the cliff earlier. Warrior or not, it hurt.

"Stop your squirming," G warned, the small boot-knife pointed at him threateningly. "If you make a sound or a move even a little, I'll blindfold you and kill you so fast you'll still see the spots of the sun in your eyes."

Heero snorted. G was certainly greedy and ambitious, and arrogant, but he was not very intimidating. A real threat shouldn't sound so...picturesque. Or nonsensical. See spots when blindfolded? Moron. But he did hold still, mostly because even if he didn't care if he died, he was at least vaguely interested in the outcome of the next encounter. The mysterious person who had been following them had apparently beaten Trowa as well as Wufei now. Heero was looking forward to somebody putting G in his place.

He didn't have to wait long. The man in black appeared over the hill and began to approach. Heero felt the blade at his throat but he did not even flinch.

"So it is down to you, and it is down to me. If you wish him dead, by all means, keep moving closer."

The man in black took a few slow steps forward. From his angle, Heero struggled to see more than the legs and the braid that swung behind, but he could at least tell that the man had his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. "Let me explain."

"There's nothing to explain. You're trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen," G boasted. Heero refrained from rolling his eyes.

"Can we just talk about it?" the man asked. "Maybe agree on..."

"There will be no agreement," G interrupted, "and you're killing him." Heero felt the bite of the tip of the knife but still did not twitch away. A drop of something warm trickled awkwardly down his throat.

"Then what do you want?" the man in black asked impatiently.

"Nothing. We are at an impasse," G said. "I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains."

At this, the man threw back his head and laughed. "Okay, brainiac, let's just see about that. Up for a challenge?"

"For the soldier?" The man nodded once. "To the death?" He nodded again. "I accept!" G grinned eagerly. He set the dagger down well out of reach.

"Good," the man in black approached openly now and settled himself on the log on the other side of the boulder G had chosen as his table. From here, Heero could only see the side of the stranger's body and every now and again a flash of the mask, but otherwise he was stuck staring at rock. He made a sub-vocal grunt, which both other men ignored. "Pour the wine," the man in black said.

"Inhale this, but do not touch." The man in black passed something across the stone table in a small wooden vial. G took a deep sniff.

"I smell nothing."

"It's called iocane powder, and it's about as deadly as poisons get. You won't even know you didn't taste something before you're dead." Heero could hear the clinking of the two small goblets as the man took them from the table and did something with them. Then he heard them set on the stone once more. "Where is the poison? Pick a cup and drink, and I'll do the other one. Somebody walks away with the prize, and somebody doesn't walk away."

"But it's so simple! All I have to do is divine from what I know of you – are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me."

Heero closed his eyes, grateful no one was looking at his face. He was already annoyed, and from what he had learned about G, the old man was only just getting started. He ignored the next few moments as G rambled inanely about a foreign land and trust and criminals and some kind of circular logic.

"Aw, stop stalling!" the man in black exclaimed, and Heero could hear the wicked smile in the words.

"You'd like to think I'm stalling, wouldn't you?!" G returned hotly. "You've beaten my acrobat, which means you're exceptionally strong and fast, so you could have put the poison into your own goblet counting on your strength to save you. But you've also bested my swordsman, which means you must have studied and in studying you would have learned that man is mortal so you would have put the poison as far away from yourself as possible!"

"You're trying to trick me into giving away the surprise ending," the man in black said in a sing-song voice. "It ain't gonna work, you know."

"It has worked! You've given everything away!"

"Good. Then pick and we'll drink!"

"I will, and I choose...this one." Heero twisted enough to see G reach across the table to take the cup from in front of the man in black. "Drink the other, if you dare."

"You got it," the man replied, sounding relatively calm. There was a tense moment of silence.

"Well, nice drinking with you," the man in black stood. "I'll see you around, though."

"No! I can't have lost!" G exclaimed. "I know I guessed correctly!"

"Um, not really. See you never!"

Heero became aware of a sudden sputtering, rattling noise, which he instantly recognized as the sound a person makes as they begin to die and their throat stops working. A moment later, a heavy weight tipped onto him.

"Sorry about that!" the man in black stepped around the rock and tipped G's body off him. He noted immediately that the chain from Heero's manacles had been secured around his ankles, and he unwrapped it quickly. He pulled Heero to his feet and hustled him away from the body, but left him for a moment to go search G's coat for the keys to the chains.

"It was in your cup the whole time?" Heero found himself asking.

"Nope!" Heero looked up in surprise at the smile and cheerful tone. "Never put the stuff in the cups to begin with. There's no telling with a guy like that if they will try to pull something like switching your cups or some other trick."

"Then how?"

"Not all poison comes in a drink," the man in black replied with cold logic, returning to his search of the body. He sat up in triumph with the keys dangling from a long finger. "A smart guy would have realized that drinking closes the eyes and wine dulls the senses. He let his guard down for a moment, and that was all I needed."

"I see," Heero held out his wrists.

"Not yet," the man in black shook his head, pocketing the keys and grabbing for the end of the chain. "Let's get away from here first. I think your prince and his little army isn't far behind us now and I didn't bring my royal manners."

Heero found himself following, no more sure why he wasn't fighting back than he knew why he hadn't resisted G except that he really had nothing better to do. He was caught between two forces now, the man in black and Prince Zechs. And honestly? Neither side mattered to him at all. If he married Zechs, if the man in black killed him, or even if he was sold into slavery or ransomed – it was all the same to Heero: death or servitude or a crown were the same painful toil of a life he no longer wanted.

-==OOO==-

"...Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me..."

"Was that supposed to make sense?"

"Not really."

"Oh. Okay then."