When jerks and bullies don't cut it, sometimes the show has to resort to good ol' fashioned villains with plans of world domination!
Nightmare Moon, Discord, and Queen Chrysalis. Each have their own powers and weaknesses, but out of the three of them, only one can be the strongest.
He's Yah-Shee and I'm Arrell!
And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armour, and skills to find out who would win an Equestrian Death Battle.
Species: Alicorn
True Identity: Princess Luna
Special Talent: Raising/lowering the moon
Occupation: Raising/lowering the moon (though more raising than lowering...)
Can turn into smoke
Capable of defeating Princess Celestia
Nightmare Moon was the first villain to appear on the show, but the fandom still remembers her. Once the ruler of the night, Princess Luna, she was corrupted by jealousy and became the evil alicorn that we know.
Green with envy? More like black with envy!
Nightmare Moon's powers are vast. She has any and all powers that Luna has, including come-to-life spells and the Royal Canterlot Voice.
She also has her own powers! Nightmare Moon can turn into smoke and fly away, unable to be caught but still able to interact with the environment. This extends to even allowing her to collapse cliffs just by flying into the cracks! And to top it all off, judging by one Steven Magnet, the smoke is still capable of slicing objects clean off!
However, smoke isn't all that Nightmare Moon can turn into. She can also transform into thorns, ponies, and likely a variety of other things, but each one carries with it an obvious dark blue and black colouring, making this ability less practical for disguises.
Smoke aside, Nightmare Moon can also cast illusions and create fog, which can help throw off her enemies. She can also summon lightning and shatter solid stone just by stomping the ground near it! And just to add to it all, she managed to defeat Princess Celestia without any help!
There's more to that story than is let on, in fact. Nightmare Moon somehow managed to get rid of Celestia within thirteen seconds of escaping the moon, as that's how long it took after her escape for it to be revealed that Celestia was missing. While some may argue that she must have taken Celestia off guard, the point still stands, as she was able to take her off guard.
As for Nightmare Moon's personality...well, she's loud, evil, hammy, overconfident, and speaks in that 'you mere mortals' way. So...pretty much just like every stereotypical villain ever.
Overconfidence aside, however, Nightmare Moon has surprisingly few flaws. She was only defeated because, despite believing she had destroyed the Elements of Harmony, she didn't expect friendship to triumph and recreate them.
Like it always does.
She has trouble planning ahead, and her idea of obstacles for the mane six seem to have been almost designed exactly for them, which ended up leading to her defeat. She also doesn't seem too unwilling to let her foes take several minutes to talk or prepare to beat her, instead of just casting some spell on them while they're distracted or something.
But I guess when you're a night-controlling alicorn, you don't feel at too much of a disadvantage against six mares talking about friendship. I sure wouldn't.
"Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last! From this moment forth, the night...will last...forever!"
Species: Draconequus
Former Occupation: King of Chaos
Current Occupation: Lawn ornament
Can warp reality at will
Floats, teleports, and transforms
Overly playful
Discord is widely considered by the fandom to be the greatest of the villains, wielding the powers of warping reality to cause unlimited chaos.
He can do literally anything by snapping his talons! Want roads to be made of soap? Easy! Bunnies with ten-foot-long legs? No problem! Chocolate rain coming down from clouds made of cotton candy? Child's play!
Discord's powers are almost impossible to go into detail about, as they are quite simply...anything. He can create, manipulate, and destroy things at will, usually doing so to amuse himself and cause chaos. He can transform himself or other things, corrupt ponies to act the opposite of how they normally would, teleport and float around...the list is endless.
This is probably gonna be a short analysis.
It doesn't stop at powers, though.
...maybe not that short.
While Discord has the power to easily do whatever he wants, his personality keeps him from doing so. He is extremely playful and only does what he does for entertainment, as opposed to actually wanting to conquer or destroy the world. Due to this, he tends to give his opponents too many fair chances and remains oblivious when they gain the upper hand, which was what led to his defeat shortly after escaping stone.
Overconfidence...every villain has it, and every villain suffers because of it. But overconfidence isn't all he has; Discord also likes to be cryptic and manipulative, fooling ponies into doing things so he himself can have an advantage! Rhyming riddles are a specialty of his, but since this is a fight to the death and all, those probably won't be very helpful...or helpful at all.
Discord, while capable of doing literally anything, doesn't appear to have complete control over his powers.
Wait, what?!
Example A: chocolate milk of glass. After drinking the glass, Discord appeared to be genuinely confused that he drank the glass instead of the milk, and just shrugged it off. While this doesn't appear to happen too much or too majorly, it could still pose a problem, as his spells and curses may backfire on him.
Plus, his corrupting curse can be broken by just a memory spell, and seems to require actually having the chance to really get into the minds of his opponents. And in the Equestrian Death Battle arena, chances to pull off stuff like that are virtually impossible to come by, so I don't think corrupting his opponents is gonna cut it this time around.
"Looks like we might be due for a big old storm of chaos!"
Species: Changeling
Occupation: Queen of the Changelings
Can transform into anypony
Feeds on love
Can fly
Only main villain to not defeat Celestia without help
The last of these three villains is Queen Chrysalis the Changeling, the love-feeding pony-like creature.
Like a hybrid between a pegasus, a unicorn, and really old swiss cheese!
...sure, we'll go with that. Changelings possess the ability to transform into anypony they wish, absolutely flawlessly. The only thing that stands out is their magic colour, which does not change if they turn into a unicorn or alicorn, and instead remains green.
Though being honest, the ability to change shape isn't particularly useful in this kind of situation.
Another attribute of the Changelings is their ability to feed on love and use it to power themselves up. Chrysalis managed to feed on enough love from Shining Armour to successfully overpower Princess Celestia, but this brings up an interesting point that shall be gotten into shortly.
Love-feeding isn't useful either in Equestrian Death Battles. Something tells me that Chryssie's screwed.
With the exception of those two attributes, Chrysalis and all other Changelings can also fly and use magic, similar to alicorns. Aside from that, however, they don't have very many special powers. Chrysalis herself commands all of the Changelings, being their queen, so for this battle we shall be allowing her to use a limited amount of her subjects.
Just to even the score a bit. Changelings have shown to be more deadly in groups, as they can outnumber and confuse their opponents more easily. However, they're also exceptionally weak, to the point where just tripping over a pony defeats them.
Now, onto Chrysalis herself. Being the queen, she tends to be rather overconfident, as all villains are. However, this also leads to her being outright oblivious to when she's about to fail. Not only does she doubt the power of love and friendship in the middle of Equestria, but unlike Discord, doesn't even try to stop it.
Yep, she's a moron.
However, one thing Chrysalis has shown that Nightmare Moon and Discord have not is the lengths she'd go to in order to succeed. While everything Nightmare Moon and Discord did was meant to just incapacitate their opponents, Chrysalis goes to the extent of trapping Princess Cadence and Twilight Sparkle in a cave under Canterlot, hoping to let them just starve to death over time. She shows a degree of viciousness that other villains have yet to.
If only she had the skill to back it up, though. So far, she's the only "big villain" who couldn't take down Princess Celestia without help - specifically, she had to feed off love from Shining Armour for who knows how long, and even then it was hard!
Yeah, I think it's safe to say she doesn't have much of a chance...but, well, gotta throw her in anyway.
"This day is going to be perfect..."
Alright, the combatants are set! ...except for Discord, who's turning everything into cotton candy again.
Uh...he'll focus once the fight starts, I think.
Hope so...anyway!
Right! *ahem* IT'S TIME FOR AN EQUESTRIAN DEATH BATTLE!
A flash of lightning struck the empty, moonlit field that had been marked as that day's fighting arena. When the lightning cleared, a dark alicorn wearing ancient-looking armour stood where it had struck, looking around for her opponents.
Seconds later, in a small twinkle, a mix-and-match-looking creature blinked into existence on the battlefield. He paid no attention to the pony already there, instead choosing to toy around with a rose he plucked from the ground, turning it into a variety of things. He soon got bored, turned it into a blue striped rocket ship, and sent it flying off into the sky.
Lastly, in a surge of green fire, a large royal Changeling entered the fray, flanked by exactly ten of her ordinary Changeling subjects. All of them stood around her protectively, willing to do whatever was needed to help their queen win the battle.
The battle began with a burst of lightning, summoned by Nightmare Moon in an attempt to strike Chrysalis where she stood and take her out fast. However, the queen and most of her subjects managed to dodge, leaving only two of them to get incinerated in the strike. Taking the challenge, Chrysalis and her remaining eight subjects charged at Nightmare Moon first, hoping to overpower her with numbers.
Not wasting time, Nightmare Moon simply turned to smoke and flew off, with a few of the Changelings trying and failing to catch her. With one of her foes currently on the defensive, Chrysalis decided to go after her other opponent: Discord. Turning towards him, she saw him casually lounging in a hammock, not even paying attention. Grinning, she gestured with one of her front hooves, sending three Changelings after the lazy draconequus.
Without even looking up, Discord snapped his talons, calling up a storm of chocolate rain to hold back the Changelings. Naturally, this did nothing but slightly impair their vision, and they soon reached him and tackled him to the ground. Together they tried to hold him down, but with a yawn, the draconequus just teleported away.
Growling, Chrysalis looked around for either of her foes. Seeing a cloud of smoke sneaking up behind her, she turned and fired off a beam of magic, missing but getting the message across to Nightmare Moon for her to stop hiding and start fighting. Taking her true form again, Nightmare Moon charged at the Changeling queen and her subjects, horn beginning to glow. Two of the Changelings darted forward to intercept her, but were trampled to death within seconds.
Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis locked horns, pushing against each other and waiting for one of them to give in. This continued for several seconds that felt like hours, Chrysalis ordering her subjects to keep out of this one-on-one. They did as told, using the time to look around for Discord.
He came back around that time, idly watching the showdown between the two royal villains. Smirking, he summoned a trail of soap beneath them both, causing them to slip up and fall over. He laughed jovially at the display before taking to floating in the air again, staring down at the two of them and waiting for them to continue.
Rather than continuing to fight each other, Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis silently nodded at each other, reaching an unspoken agreement to take down Discord before continuing with each other. The dark side of Luna flew right up after the draconequus, while Chrysalis called over her remaining six Changelings to formulate a plan.
Discord, seeing Nightmare Moon coming at him, decided to get serious and summoned two manticores...dyed pink and purple. Regardless of the colour choice, they seemed just as vicious as the real deal, and flew straight at Nightmare Moon. The alicorn found herself forced to stop and deal with these two Everfree Forest creatures before taking down the real threat.
Something caught Discord's attention out of the corner of his eye, and he turned to see what appeared to be another him, except wearing a gray wig. The poorly disguised clone waved him down with a stern look. Deciding to play along and act as though this thing was his mother, Discord floated down and began bickering with her.
Meanwhile, Chrysalis saw her opportunity to take both of her foes down in one fell swoop. They were both distracted, and she still had five Changelings at the ready. She made some gestures, sending three of her subjects after Nightmare Moon and the other two after Discord, whom she also went for. The draconequus, tired of the game, snapped his fingers and summoned a large rock to crush his fake mother. He turned around just in time to see a black hoof spotted with holes collide with his face.
Up in the sky, Nightmare Moon had taken care of one manticore with the help of some lightning, and was starting on the second when she was struck by three Changelings. Hissing, she turned around, and the pony-like creatures instantly knew they were dead. Three bucks later, they were nothing but bits and pieces on the ground. After sending the second manticore away, the ruler of the night flew down to the ground to join in the scuffle she could see.
Discord tried to fight back against Chrysalis's onslaught, but she and her two Changelings were doing a good job of keeping him occupied, unable to do much. Even he wouldn't last the assault for much longer. Thankfully for him, Nightmare Moon intervened at that moment, crashing into the ground and crushing the last two ordinary Changelings. Rearing back and stabbing her horn forward, she impaled Chrysalis, pulling her horn out after just a second to let the dead queen fall to the ground.
Now left with only one opponent, Nightmare Moon found it easier to focus. Discord constantly tried teleporting away, but in her smoke form, it wasn't difficult for the queen of the night to catch up. Growling, Discord decided to resort to his greatest trick: corruption.
Stopping his teleportation and feigning weariness, he waited for Nightmare Moon to reappear. She soon did, horn glowing and about to work - when he put his paw to her forehead, grinning maniacally as he started planting thoughts in her brain.
This proved to be useless, as Nightmare Moon just started her horn again and summoned a bolt of lightning right next to Discord, startling him enough to remove his paw. Turning back to the alicorn with a scowl, he found that she was no longer there. Looking around, he couldn't see her nor her smokey trail.
Shrugging, he laid upside-down and began sipping from a coffee cup that was on fire, waiting for his opponent to return. He grew bored quickly and slipped on a pair of sunglasses, beginning to fall asleep. A sudden light from behind him that even got through his shades made him look up...directly at Nightmare Moon, casting a spell.
The last thing Discord saw before being banished to the sun was the smug grin of his opponent, who regally trotted away from the battlefield after finishing.
K.O.
Aw..."to the sun" doesn't sound as good as "to the moon"!
Despite his ability to do...well, anything, Discord's downfall was his playful attitude. From the very beginning he could have summoned anything, from pits of fire to explosive chocolate milk, to take care of his foes in just a matter of seconds. However, his craving for amusement and lack of foresight prevented him from taking such an easy route.
It was obvious from the start that Chrysalis was out, but Nightmare Moon winning was probably a twist next to nopony saw coming!
Comparing the cons of the three villains, the only one Nightmare Moon showed any evidence of was overconfidence and a lack of planning ahead. Since each villain shared this trait, it essentially nullified all of her weaknesses - Elements of Harmony notwithstanding. Her ability to turn into smoke and temporarily flee also helped, while Discord and Chrysalis always stayed in or near the battle scene.
And in the end, I gotta say...Discord, sun, I am disappoint!
The winner is Nightmare Moon.
Next time on DEATH BATTLE: Equestria!
The Equestrian Death Battle Tournament finally begins with a bang! Who will win? Who will die? Tune in for the first fight of the tournament!
Got a suggestion for a Death Battle? Post a comment below suggesting matchups, or send me a PM with suggestions in it!
You may suggest OC characters, provided they are from a story on this site that is at least somewhat well-known. You may also suggest characters from other universes (i.e. anything non-pony related), as long as their opponent is from MLP:FiM, either the show or a known fic.
Please do not suggest matchups that have already happened. You may suggest individual characters to appear in matches against a different opponent than one they have fought previously, but suggestions like those are less likely to be used (unless I REALLY like the idea).