Starlight Glimmer vs Tempest Shadow
Villains in Equestria almost always seem to end up reformed, one way or another. That's something a surprising number of them share in common.
But it took until the fifth season for us to get an ordinary pony as a series premiere-and/or-finale antagonist... and man, did it deliver!
Starlight Glimmer, Twilight's student who was previously the mayor of the nameless town of Equal Ponies...
...and Tempest Shadow, formerly the commander of the Storm King's invasion fleet.
You know, it's been a while since we did one of these. Feels a bit weird to get back into it so abruptly.
Heh, you said it. He's Yah-Shee and I'm Arrell!
And it's our job to analyze their magic, powers, and skills to find out who would win an Equestrian Death Battle.
Starlight Glimmer
Species: Unicorn pony
Special talent: Magic
Magic power is enhanced by her emotions
Spells include mind control, super speed, cutie mark removal, and emotion suppression
Possibly as skilled with magic as Twilight Sparkle
Guidance counselor for the School of Friendship
Born in the town of Sire's Hollow, Starlight Glimmer was an ordinary filly... for a while. When she had yet to earn her cutie mark, but her friend Sunburst got his and moved out of town, she formed a grudge against cutie marks.
...wait, that's why she did the whole 'equal town' thing? Cause a friend moved away?
Yeah, it's not the best excuse. Anyway, over time, Starlight became very skilled with her own magic, and soon set out to eliminate the cutie marks she saw as evil by using a special staff to take away cutie marks. But when the mane six got involved, it was revealed that she still had her own cutie mark and it was her own magic, not the staff, that allowed her to do what she did. Ousted as a hypocrite, she fled from the town.
Sometime later, she returned to get revenge on Twilight, and boooy was she mad! She used time travel to prevent the original Sonic Rainboom from happening in hopes of preventing all the girls from getting their cutie marks, but after she realized just how she was dooming the world by doing this, she redeemed herself through a musical number.
Wait, that's all it took? "Hey, you're ruining the world, stop it" and suddenly she's a good guy?
I don't know if you've noticed, Yah-Shee, but Glim Glam's villainy days didn't really coincide with the days of good pacing.
Ugh... anyway. Since then, Starlight has been on the side of good, helping the bearers of the Elements of Harmony with their various adventures and tasks as Twilight's student. Most of the time, her lessons revolve around learning to not rely so much on her magical capabilities.
But with skills like she has, can you blame her? Besides stealing cutie marks and traveling through time, she can use mind control, fire laser beams, transform things into other things, literally bottle up her emotions, trap ponies in crystals, and put up barriers that counter attacks with explosions! And she can make Big Macintosh almost as talkative as Pinkie Pie!
It's evident that Starlight's magical prowess is not to be underestimated; however, it does have its limits. Her magic power is enhanced by her emotions, especially negative ones such as rage and lusting for revenge, which is all well and good. But it also means that most of her better feats are impossible to do on command.
She's done a lot without her emotions to power her up, though. She can effortlessly teleport herself or other ponies, levitate herself, and disappear from episodes you'd expect her to be in.
What?
And remember that whole mind control thing? That was done without any emotional buildup!
Aside from her magic, Starlight's not exactly a pushover. She has a surprising amount of guile and strategic planning, allowing her to lead a team to defeating Queen Chrysalis even with her magic powers nullified. And she at least has enough physical stamina to keep up in a fight with an alicorn.
Sure, something like that relies heavily on her use of magic, but you can't deny that most would get pretty exhausted during a tussle like that!
Overall, while her reliance on magic can slow her down, it certainly doesn't stop Starlight Glimmer from remaining a threat. There's a reason the mane six wanted to keep an eye on her even after her redemption.
"I know what it's like to lead by fear and intimidation, and I know what it's like to want everypony to do what you say, but I was wrong! A real leader doesn't force her subjects to deny who they are. She celebrates what makes them unique and listens when one of them finds a better way!"
Tempest Shadow
Real Name: Fizzlepop Berrytwist
Species: Unicorn pony
Commander for the Storm King
Broken horn limits her magical capabilities
Can turn ponies to stone with Obsidian Orbs
Increased physical prowess
Fizzlepop Berrytwist - shut up.
I didn't even say anything!
You were about to. Anyway, she was an ordinary unicorn filly with aspirations of enrolling in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. But that all changed when a simple game with friends went horribly astray.
She had gone into a cave to get back their ball, only to run into an Ursa Minor. She somehow managed to get out alive, but got her horn broken off at the base for her troubles.
This resulted in her magic becoming uncontrollable and unstable, and while her friends tried to be patient with her, they were still unnerved by it and would sometimes distance themselves from Fizzlepop. Feeling betrayed, she left Equestria, soon taking on the identity of Tempest Shadow and joining the Storm King; not only in the hopes he would repair her horn, but also for revenge against the ponies she believed turned their backs on her.
You might think a unicorn without magic isn't much of a threat... you'd be sorely mistaken! Since she now had to rely just on her physical capabilities, Tempest trained them hard, so much so that she became commander of the Storm King's army. Yeah - a unicorn, who didn't even have proper magic, became leader of an army!
Of course, it helps that she isn't fully lacking in magic. It's just... hard to control. When she utilizes her magic to blow up Captain Celaeno's ship, all it takes is one zap, and the whole ship goes up in fireworks. And later on, we see that her magic blasts are as strong as the blasts put out by the Staff of Sacanas, which at the time is powered by all four alicorn princesses.
But Tempest doesn't rely on her magic, especially when blasting things to oblivion is only part of her job description! No, her primary weapon is her Obsidian Orbs; balls of energy that turn to stone whoever they hit!
Since these Obsidian Orbs are separate from Tempest's magic, their use relies solely on her aim - which, as shown when she's able to hit Princess Luna midflight, she's particularly good with. The orbs can also pass through magical barriers, or at least can't be held off by them permanently, and their effect seems dependent on the green smoke that comes from them, meaning a direct hit isn't required.
She's also pretty smart, constantly staying on the mane six's tail while they're searching for the hippogriffs despite all the attempts to throw her off, and pretty much singlehandedly leading the Storm King's army to almost successfully conquer Equestria! Though... apparently not smart enough to not reveal her real name in front of Pinkie Pie.
She also wears armor on her torso; while the exact material is difficult to pin down, it's almost certainly a type of metal overlaying cloth. Human armor of this style is usually made of iron or steel plates, making for sturdy protection against blunt objects, but can be easily penetrated by strong sharp objects such as swords.
This armor in particular has something special! Like just about all the Storm King's minions, it's almost completely magic-proof, keeping any offensive spells from doing much of anything to the wearer! But... well, it's not exactly covering her whole body.
Overall, Tempest's abilities rely heavily on brute force, focusing solely on her target while letting her minions clean up the loose ends. Regardless of how things turned out for her, there's a lot to be said about somepony who took out Celestia, Luna, and Cadence in a two-minute timespan.
I mean, given what we've seen from them, is it really that impressive?
...go home, Arrell.
Tempest Shadow: Here's the deal, ladies. I need your magic. Give it up nicely, please, or we make it difficult... for everyone!
Princess Luna: And why should we cower before you? There's one of you and hundreds of us!
Tempest Shadow: (chuckles) I was hoping you'd choose "difficult".
Alright, the combatants are set! Let's end this debate once and for all.
It's time for the return of the Equestrian Death Battle!
Dark clouds rolled through the bright blue sky, obscuring what would’ve been a perfect day. The ship, black and dark magenta, lowered itself to the plaza, knocking over several pillars and crushing booths from the falling debris. When it landed and the door opened, out stepped an intimidating-looking unicorn mare, her torso clad in armor and her horn broken off at the base.
Looking out at the crowd, she smirked, especially when she spotted the four ponies at the front. "Oh, goodie... all four princesses." She grinned wickedly, descending down to the ground.
"Excuse me!" Another unicorn stepped up around the princess of love, waving to get her attention. "Hi! I don’t know if you forgot your invitation, but crashing a party like this isn’t very nice."
The larger unicorn glared down at her. "Excuse me?"
"What, did I say something wrong?" She rubbed her cheek. "Oh boy. Let’s start over. I’m Starlight Glimmer."
"...I'm Tempest Shadow." Tempest took a step forward. "And you are in my way. Stand aside, and let me... negotiate, with your rulers."
"...if this is the type of negotiation that ends with us under your hoof, I’m gonna say no." She widened her stance, staring down the other unicorn.
"That is not your decision," growled the larger mare, pawing the ground. "But if you insist on throwing your life away... that, I suppose I can allow."
Moving fast, Tempest jumped up into the air, a glowing ball being produced from her armor. With a well-aimed kick, she sent the sphere flying straight at Starlight. The pink unicorn dodged to the side, watching the sphere collide with Cadance's chest. The princess of love looked shocked and tried to step back, only for her body to slowly be encased in hard stone. Upon seeing this, all the other ponies quickly began running away. "...okay, avoid at all costs," Starlight muttered, before rounding on the mare and letting loose a blast of magic.
Quickly, Tempest managed to avoid the blast, darting to the side, before turning and charging at Starlight. Not quite expecting it, she barely got off the ground before she was set upon, body glowing with the blue of her magic. Either not noticing or not caring about the magic aura, the tall unicorn tackled her, one hoof going forward at her muzzle.
Starlight flinched, a shield forming between the two of them to try and force her off. Tempest's hoof collided with the shield, bouncing off as expected, only for the mare to continue pounding away at the shield. Starlight just lays there in midair with the mare on top of her, feeling quite awkward about all this.
After a moment, she lifted the shield up further and started spinning it. This took Tempest by surprise, and she instinctively tried to cling on. Suddenly, Starlight flung her and the shield to the side, colliding with a pillar. The smoke that rose from the explosive collision obscured Tempest's form for a bit... but suddenly, out from the smoke came another Obsidian Orb.
Not given much time to think, Starlight did the first thing she could think of and zapped the projectile with her magic. It doesn’t stop it, but she got hit in the face with a teacup, instead.
After a moment to stare at the object, she groaned and faced the sky. "Darn it, Trixie!" Of course, this distraction gave Tempest an opening, and suddenly Starlight was kicked hard in the chest. She flew backwards, colliding hard with the ship.
The envelope of the airship got punctured, causing it to sink slowly. The rush of air blew the poor mare, surrounded in her magic, back out and along the ground, dizzy but relatively unharmed.
She groaned, shaking her head as she stood back up. "...okay, this is getting pretty destructive. Something quick to end this, maybe?" She tapped her chin as her horn lit up. "What was it, again? Cogeria… Fiducia Compelus… dash of Persuadere…"
Seeing what the mare was doing, Tempest narrowed her eyes. Her broken horn started sparking, bolts of magical electricity arcing outward, striking the ground near Starlight... and slowly getting closer.
Startled out of her casting, she dropped the spell and instead charged a different one, increasing her speed. She zipped past the blast and set fire to the mare's tail, hoping to distract her long enough to charge her spell. This distracted Tempest, her lightning now arcing all over the area as she struggles to regain full control, flicking her tail to try and put out the flames. Starlight was forced to dodge both lightning and a flailing, fiery limb, cursing her own lack of foresight.
Finally, the fire was put out and Tempest regained control of her magic. Turning on Starlight, she growled, horn sparking as she started charging up another blast. The pink unicorn huffed and fired a blast of her own straight at her face. At first, the larger mare didn't look worried... then it struck her, knocking her several feet backwards, head over hooves.
Growling, she stood back up, shaking her singed mane. "Alright... I've had enough of you." Pulling out another Obsidian Orb, it looked like Tempest was going to launch it, but instead she jumped towards Starlight, the orb still in her hoof. She yelped and teleported away, landing on the stage and looking out at the mare in the middle of the abandoned plaza.
"Will you just hold still?!" Tempest growled, rearing up to launch the orb... only to realize it was missing. For the first time, she looked genuinely shocked, turning her attention to the mare and spotting the orb laying at her hooves, having been teleported with her. "How did you...?"
"You got a little close, there." She looked down at it, lifting the sphere with her magic. "Does it only work when thrown?" She hurled it at Tempest to demonstrate, her horn staying lit once it exited her grip. Narrowing her eyes, Tempest jumped up, kicking the orb right back at Starlight. She grit her teeth and teleported it behind the mare in response, only for Tempest to jump out of the way and keep it flying at the other unicorn.
This back-and-forth continued on, the match more akin to a magic-enhanced game of tennis. Eventually, fed up with the lack of progress, Starlight blasted her opponent with a new spell as she hits the sphere in mid-air, trapping her in a purple translucent crystal. She caught the Obsidian Orb with a conjured baseball glove, tinted red from the dark cloud literally hovering over her head.
"What?!" Charging up her broken horn, Tempest tried blasting the crystal from the inside, only to cry out as the lightning coursed over her body instead, the crystal leaving no room for it to travel.
"Hey Tempest!" Starlight tossed the ball slightly up into the air, turning the glove into a bat and smacking it, aiming right for her face. "Catch!"
Her eyes widened, the orb impacting with the crystal. It pushed against it for a moment, before powering through... and hitting Tempest directly. She cried out, a stone casing starting to form around her body, her scream being cut off as her head was covered as well, her whole figure now petrified.
Too mad at this mare to feel satisfied by this, Starlight lifted the crystal up with her magic and smashed the whole thing against the pavement, panting heavily as shards of crystal and stone scattered from the point of impact.
She immediately froze up and looked around, the cloud dissipating right away. "No one saw that, right?" Silence answered her, as the empty plaza remained as such. Sighing in relief, she moved to examine the petrified Cadance. "How do we fix this…"
KO!
Who woulda thought a battle between two purple unicorns would be so cool?!
While Tempest's physical prowess and experience made her a threatening foe, and Starlight's reliance on her magic could be a problem, there just wasn't much that could be done about it. Starlight has shown numerous times that her knowledge of magic can counter or dodge almost any physical attack, and the only way to prevent that would be to utilize some form of anti-magic power. And while Tempest's armor is magic-resistant, it doesn't cover her whole body, limiting its effectiveness against somepony with more skill and experience with combat magic like Starlight. Aside from that, she doesn't have any way to actually cancel out magic capabilities.
Sure, Starlight's magic is only at peak performance when her emotions are powering her up, so she can't just call on her time travel or cutie mark removal spells at a moment's notice. And since a lot of her spells require time to cast, Tempest just had to keep her on her metaphorical toes, and she wouldn't be able to do much of anything.
Unfortunately for Tempest, she doesn't have a whole lot in the way of lethally ending a fight without any backup. Her Obsidian Orbs can turn ponies to stone, but as they're physical objects rather than being created from her magic, she'd only have a limited amount of them. And frankly, Starlight would have no trouble dodging projectiles like that.
Even their stamina would be hard to figure out; Starlight can keep up with Twilight in battle, and seeing as magic is shown to take physical exertion as well, that's no easy feat. Tempest is the captain of an army, but she lets the army do most of her work and usually staying out of combat, which is already docking points from her capabilities, but since we don't see much of her physical limit we'll be nice and say they're roughly even. And since Tempest could keep Starlight from using offensive magic, but Starlight's other spells kept Tempest at bay, it came down to who was smarter and quicker to think and react!
Starlight surpassed Tempest in strategy and intelligence. Throughout the film, Tempest is frequently tricked by other characters; the Storm King, Capper, and even being temporarily tricked into believing a cosplaying Derpy Hooves turned to stone was Princess Twilight. Starlight, meanwhile, had the cunning to keep an entire town under her hoof for who knows how long, and was able to save Equestria from Queen Chrysalis without access to her magic. Not to mention that as the fight dragged on, Starlight's magic would become powered by her emotions, giving her more of an advantage the longer it went on, meaning if it came down to a war of attrition she'd eventually pull ahead.
While it may have been close, it was only a matter of time before Tempest faced her smashing defeat!
The winner is Starlight Glimmer.
Hey, look at that, I'm back. 
I don't know how consistent updates will be now; I'm just doing this for fun. Might have random hiatuses, might be every week or so, you never know.
Thanks to enigmaMystere for their help writing the fight scene!
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- TundraStanza · 421k words · 227 34 · 7.4k views
- Ecthelion_Yuda · 58k words · 184 33 · 6.6k views
- Mobius of the Moon · 73k words · 49 6 · 2.9k views
- Mobius of the Moon · 18k words · 38 4 · 1.2k views
- Dragon Heart · 19k words · 8 5 · 676 views
- Trexorb · 70k words · 40 5 · 1.8k views
- Blue Breeze · 207k words · 88 7 · 3.1k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.03 seconds
Total duration
1,039 users online
2,000,431 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Oh hey look at that
That's... not even close to true, we also see she's a very capable martial artist as well in Klugetown, so she can end a fight just fine.
Welcome back
8977998
End a fight as in kill someone. It's a lot harder to kill someone with martial arts than you'd think.
8978037
Not when you combine it with Tempest's already existing abilities.
It would not be at all hard to petrify or just flat out explode some pony if you've got them on the ground.
Plus we know that physical hits make unicorns lose focus on magic, so martial arts would counteract most of Starlight's arsenal. It wouldn't be a measure of if she could outsmart Tempest, it would be a measure if she could ever get a hit in.
Which, honestly one on one, I don't think she COULD get a hit in realistically against Tempest.
Hey if your taking requests for fights I have a guy right here
Character:Ryan
stories:
A survivors guide to Equestria
The War of Champions
...and might be the main villain of the authors next massive crossover and has been hinted at for most of his 17 stories after the war of champions.
8978042
That's your opinion, this one's mine. I'd rather not argue, so let's agree to disagree.
Well, this was certainly... Unexpected.
8978045
Well, can't say I can agree with your findings if you won't defend them I guess. So yeah, agree to disagree.
8978063
I just don't like getting into arguments or debates on the internet. I'll defend objective stuff (for example, if you said Tempest's horn wasn't broken, I'd say you were wrong), but when it's a matter of opinion or perspective I just shrug and move on.
8978070
Well if someone seriously claimed it wasn't broken I would wonder if they had working eyes...
8978083
Trust me man, there are people like that. I've run into them. It's both sad and hilarious.
8978088
The internet is a terrifying place.
Welcome back. How's this for an idea. Applebloom from this story vs Chara from Undertale?
Oh wow, I'd almost forgotten about this story. Nice to see it back.
Hmm...say, think you could do a few Death Battles of the PWNYs from my PWNY-verse stories?
8977998
To be fair, she was able to pull that off against and unprepared opponent, against someone who was focusing on all her efforts on fighting her however....
8978291
Might do, but fanfic characters take a lot longer to research and implement, so might not be for a while.
8978700
Oh yeah, and my fics run quite long.
Wow, an update after all this time. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
8978776
If you've got any particular matchups you'd like to see, feel free to narrow it down for me!
8979918
Two of the shorter ones and ones that have actually been shown to fight, though the outcome was inconclusive.
Pinkie Pie from "You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter" (raised by Kratos of the God of War franchise).
vs
Queen Chrysalis of "The Merc With the Moth" (raised by Deadpool)
That should be a good one to start with.
Nice to see that you're back. Maybe you can get help with the research sometimes, like how Death Battle has its research team?
8983227
I would be fully up for that; I just need people who will actually be reliable.
8983384
I'm up for it, if you want to. Just DM me if you want.
8979953
I also vote for this.
What the...? My feed didn't update me with this new battle. Wow... sorry it took me so long to realize.
Interesting match-up. Yeah, I'd also have to give it to Starlight, because in terms of total screen time... ho-ho boy. She has got a lot of minutes stacked up to work with.
I’ve been reading a lot of Waking Nightmares lately, so maybe the Mercs from TF2 (the waking Nightmare versions) vs the Mane Six, Derpy, Trixie, and Zecora (also the waking nightmare versions)?
I would like Twilight VS Cadance, or, if not, a 4 princesses free-for-all.
Fluttershy vs Baldi.
I know! How about Lord Tirek vs Frieza!!!
Think you could a story with this guy?
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/367720/maleficus-victoria-tome-one-the-age-of-crusades
Interesting premise, but it seems like a lot of the battles end rather unsatisfyingly with some big explosion and the one causing it surviving unscathed while the other just collapses or is turned to ashes or such.
Fluttershy vs. Ace Ventura
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! STARLIGHT GLIMMER WON! WHOO!
Derpy Hooves (Facts) vs Henry Stickmin pls.
Ooo. I have an idea! Pony Life Fluttershy vs FIM Fluttershy possibly vs EQG Fluttershy. Battle of the Shys!
On the off chance this ever updates again, it would sweet to have another villain free for all. Now with all the villains!