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Spoiler Alert! Hope you guys have watched through Season 7. That's exactly where some of the stats are coming from.
Properties in this chapter belong to Hasbro, ScrewAttack, Insomniac Games, and Krome Studios.
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The Moment No Pony was Waiting For
Season the Sixth
~Drag! Drag! Dra-Dra-Dragon up!~
Dragons are legendary creatures, often depicted as spewing fire and other elements from their very mouths. Some are greedy, some hold immense power...
... and some just really want to compete with each other.
I present to you Cynder, from the Legend of Spyro!
Over here is Ember, from the... My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series. Can we switch intros?
Too late! We already called it.
Aw, dang it!
He's B and I'm W, and it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win a Death Battle.
~~~Death Battle~~~
Ember
-Titles: Princess Ember, Daughter of Torch, Lord of the Dragons
-Blue, Western variant of dragon with wings
-Occasional attire: bronze dragon armor
-Breath weapon: fire that can shatter rock
-Strong enough to crack the ground just by punching it or landing on it forcefully
-More intelligent than other dragons of her age
-Not so good at expressing her feelings
In all of the literature and history available to ponykind, very little has made mention of the dragons.
Well, considering the average adult dragon in that world has a jaw big enough that it could swallow a pony in one bite, I'm not surprised. Then again, it's also baffling as to how the heck they manage to find dragon eggs for unicorn school entrance exams without angry dragon-moms wrecking the place in retaliation.
Mysteries aside, there are apparently a few things that Celestia and Luna can explain. When a Dragon Lord of a nearby region summons younger dragons to crown a new Lord, they summon all potential candidates by making their scales glow and itch. Among the previous Dragon Lord's roster was his own daughter: Princess Ember.
Ember made it a point to remind those that cared to listen how different she was from your run-of-the-mill dragon. She thought plain, old greed and strength was overrated and wanted to raise to position a smart and cunning dragon... namely herself.
And so, after disobeying her father's orders and teaming up with a dragon that was friends with ponies, she won the Gauntlet of Fire. Well, technically Spike won, but then he gave the scepter over to her, but the point is she's the Dragon Lord now.
I don't know why she was so insistent that her strength is in her smarts. Her actual strength isn't anything to sneeze at. She can punch the ground so hard that it cracks, and she can lift a giant boulder like it's nothing more than a basketball.
Her scales are tough enough to resist heat and hold against claws of other teenage dragons. Additionally, her fire breath is strong enough to break solid stone into pebbles. Due to its pinkish coloration, her flame is comparable to burning lithium, an unstable alkali metal that reaches a gaseous state at over two thousand, four hundred degrees Fahrenheit!
Dang, she's hot! ... I mean, the fire is hot. Gosh darn it! Did I just become a scaley-furry?
Speaking of weird feelings, Ember isn't very good at communicating about her own. There are obvious hints that she'd like to have more friends, but her natural competitive nature makes that difficult to achieve. Fortunately, she gained life coaching from an unexpected source: the current leader of the reformed changelings. In exchange, she helped him learn to be more assertive and that in turn helped him deal with a rogue group of rebel changelings. But that's a story for another day.
Sometimes Ember wears a set of bronze armor, complete with a helmet that makes her look like a guy dragon. Yet, she can still fly around like the weight isn't there.
And after making her father see reason, she was granted the title of Lord of Dragons... for whatever that's worth. It's difficult to gauge how much authority she holds over dragons that ignore her rules just to be a nuisance... Garble.
Ah, give Ember a break. It's not like she can be everywhere at once, baka.
"Stop talking!"
The ruler Thorax sits there with his eyes wide open and blinks.
"That's how you do it."
"Whoa-ho-ho. I got chills."
~~~Death Battle~~~
Cynder
-Black and ruby, Western variant of dragon with wings
-Former tool of the fallen purple dragon Malefor
-Attire: Silver choker and bracelets
-Breath weapons: Fear, Shadow, Poison, Wind
-Melee combat: slightly swifter than Spyro, but slightly less powerful strikes
-Aether: breath can dismantle at the atomic level; drains mana more quickly than other breath weapons
-Hates being reminded of her dark past
According to prophecy, the purple dragons are the ones who will save the world from darkness.
But one of these purple dragons decided to be a jerk and bring about the end of times instead. Frigging Maleficent.
Malefor.
Same difference!
As part of his wicked scheme, he kidnapped a young female dragon and infused it with some of his negative energy. This somehow quickened the female's aging process to a much older dragon with power that could bring down other dragons with ease. Most of the land was lost to Cynder and the rest of Malefor's minions.
Then, a young purple dragon got a whiff of the real world, learned the four breath elements Avatar-style, and went on to defeat Cynder. I guess he hit her just the right way to revert her age back down to about the same as himself. Then they sort of... both got transported to the future? I'm not really sure how that all worked.
After popping in and out of Spyro's story for a while, she eventually ended up in a situation where she became magically chained to him for essentially eternity. Luckily, this chain was sort of a blessing in disguise, as it did not hinder her ability to fight using her claws and tail in rapid strikes, and it could be used in conjunction with Spyro as a sort of jumping assistant.
Her exposure with negative energy apparently gave her some fancy silver bracelets and a choker, as well as a set of powers unlike other dragons before her. Instead of the normal elements like fire, ice, and lighting, Cynder's breath weapons consist of fear, poison, wind, and shadow.
She also has access to Aether breath, an element that comes in both light and dark forms. Either way, she can use this to break apart rocks and enemies at the atomic level. The drawback is that it uses up her mana much more quickly than the rest of her elements.
She can either build up mana by waiting around for a long time, or by breaking open blue or rainbow-colored rocks. Hey, wasn't that the name of a movie?
Heck if I know. While she's fairly tough and has defeated many enemies both on her own and with Spyro, she is not invincible. Enough damage can bring her crashing to the ground.
Plus, she's got a bit of a sore spot regarding her past when she was being used as Malefor's tool. So, uh... try not to bring that up too much. Oh, and she's in love with Spyro. Not that there's anything that adds to her fighting capabilities. Just throwing it out there to be informative.
Spyro looks dejected. "I failed... How could I let this happen?
"Some things are beyond your control. You shouldn't blame yourself."
~~~Death Battle~~~
Alright, the combatants are set. Let's settle this debate once and for all.
It's time for a Death Battle!
~~~Death Battle~~~
A beautiful sunset is in the background of a small mountain range. In the foreground, a couple small quadruped dragons sit together and snuggle. He asks if she'll be okay in the events to come. He offers to help her like old times. She playfully accuses him of underestimating her capabilities. He chuckles, before giving her one last hug and nuzzle for luck.
Elsewhere, a blue bipedal dragon is adjusting some armor pieces. This armor covers her knees, her elbows, her tail, and her shoulders. Her claw passes by a scepter topped with a glowing ruby. However, she shakes her head before reaching across for a full-faced helmet.
The combatants spread their respective wings and fly toward a center point. It's a valley with grass, some pretty rock formations, and a small river flowing through. The dragons hover in the air. They eye their next target, each other, carefully.
"FIGHT!"
Both dragons fly toward each other with gusto. Their respective right claws scratch at each other upon contact. Cynder attempts to spin her advance around into a tail swing attack. This whacks the helmet off, revealing Ember's true face. Ember immediately uses both her claws to clench down on Cynder's tail.
Ember swings Cynder around in a few circles before throwing her away. Cynder ends up crashing through a rock pillar and into the hard wall just behind that. She shakes her head and pulls herself off the wall. Cynder dives down, then flies up quickly under Ember. She kicks Ember in the torso area. Ember hovers back a little from the impact.
Cynder follows up with some spinning air combos: Horizontally with her wings and tail, vertically with her horns and feet, and horizontally in the opposite direction with her claws and feet. Grunting, Ember regains her composure and grabs the front claws of her opponent. From a zoomed-out camera shot, a blue blob quickly pushes a black-and-magenta blob down into the water.
When the camera zooms back in, Ember takes a deep breath and half-yells, half-roars. She breaths out a huge plume of bright fire at her opponent. The heat boils the surrounding water, creating a hot cloud of steam. Cynder lets out a yelp upon contact with the boiling steam, flapping her wings wildly. She takes a breath of her own and unleashes a light blue whirlwind.
This miniature blue gust blows the steam away, allowing the audience to see the valley again. Cynder snorts and locks eyes on her opponent. She breathes out a sickly green trail that travels in a straight line. Ember attempts to counter this with a long breath of her fire. The breath attacks casually slide past each other. Both dragons groan when they get hit by the incoming breath attacks.
Ember holds her abdomen area while her face turns a slight shade of green. It appears she does not sit well with Cynder's poison. Cynder takes this opportunity to run up and tackle Ember. Before getting completely knocked over, Ember spins around and swings her tail. Some of Cynder's momentum is reversed as she slides across the valley's dirt and grass.
After expelling some sickened fire, Ember looks around. She picks up a large boulder and tosses it at Cynder. The other dragon gets on all fours just in time to get hit by the boulder. Ember picks up another boulder, and another. She keeps tossing these big rocks at her opponent. Cynder yelps upon each impact and rock-related bruise. Eventually, the broken boulders have her covered with pebbles as she lies on the ground.
Ember crosses her arms while looking at the results of her efforts. The camera zooms in on Cynder's face. Closed eyes slowly open up, glowing completely white. Some electric discharge seems to be dancing around Cynder and the pebbles float up and away from her. Ember's wings open wide and she holds out her claws in front of her, unsure of what to expect.
Cynder expels a distance-reaching breath of Aether. The unusual light fills a large section of the valley in front of her. Ember's armor burns away to nothing. Her scales follow suit as she screams. She appears to turn into a dragon-shaped pile of black ashes before being pushed away on the shock waves of Cynder's attack.
The black and ruby dragon's eyes return to normal irises. She takes several heavy breaths before laying her head down.
"Over Kill!"
~~~Death Battle~~~
I guess that's one way to dust things off.
Um, I thought you usually saved puns for just before I declare the winner.
I figured I'd get ahead of schedule this time.
Right... well, in terms of raw strength and intelligence, Ember and Cynder were pretty well-matched. But the difference in experience and breath weapons available to them draws a huge gap between their chances.
While Ember can out-muscle dragons of similar size, she didn't exactly bring anything to the table that Cynder hadn't already seen before. Heck, Cynder's fought dragons bigger and smaller than her at separate occasions, in addition to all the golems, monsters, and various grunts that serve Malefor.
While there's no defined limit on the dragons' firepower in Equestria, none of them have shown expelling it for longer than about four seconds. Meanwhile, even Cynder's finite mana can sustain continuous breath streams for a little longer than that. Both Ember and Cynder can have unstable emotions, allowing Cynder to weaponize her fear breath. Dragons in Equestria are also capable of experiencing sickness, so there's no reason to say they're immune to poison damage.
But the deciding trump card was the Aether breath. I don't care if you can take a casual dip in lava or boiling water. Those tough scales aren't saving you from getting your atoms literally ripped apart!
So while their speed and quick-thinking were on par, Cynder's superior experience, variety of breath weapons, and stronger options would win out in the end.
The cinders burned brighter than the embers this time.
The winner is Cynder.
~~~Death Battle~~~
As the two-player arcade machine declared a winner, Ember grumbled. Her clawed fist came within a centimeter of slamming the pad right then and there. However, she stopped herself and started fanning her face with her opposite claw. She sighed a small torch's worth of fire before turning right to her opponent. Cynder and Ember shook claws as good sports.
Off to the side, two large cooking dishes slammed onto a table. Both of the dragons slowly turned toward the table. Dread was visible in their eyes. However, Dash and Undyne showed no recognition of the emotional tension, as they both looked determined to win this contest. The pegasus and fish monster stared at each other, creating an imaginary bolt of lightning that crackled between their line of vision.
Cynder sighed. "Let's get this over with."
Ember gulped. "Yep..."
Both of the 'chefs' stuck a wooden ladle into the gray pile of garbage that was allegedly their respective pie. Though, the gurgling and unsavory smells made them difficult to describe or distinguish. Each of the dragon 'judges' sweated a bit. They closed their eyes and reluctantly opened their mouths. Rainbow shoved her spoonful into Cynder's mouth while Undyne did the same to Ember.
Ember's red eyes and Cynder's teal eyes shrunk against their respective whites. In the next shot, both dragons ended up on their backs, twitching haphazardly. Unsure of how to interpret their respective judge's lack of comment, Undyne and Dash took a cautious bite of their own concoction. What happened next was to be expected.
Quadruple K.O.!
As compensation, Philomena the phoenix flew overhead and dropped one feather onto each of them.
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