It was the day.
Today was the day the Equestrian Death Battle Tournament began. The DBE stadium was slowly filling up as ponies from all over came to watch. The stands began to fill, as the minutes before the first battle decreased.
Yah-Shee, a light blue unicorn with a green mane and tail, watched this happen with a small smile. He and Arrell had started these battles as what was essentially a science project; Arrell came up with the idea to pit ponies and other creatures together in battles, and Yah-Shee had access to the technology to pull it off. Using advanced virtual reality mechanics, the two of them could create battles with anypony they wished, so long as they entered the correct information.
After just a couple of battles that they showed to some friends, the idea took off; now, the Equestrian Death Battles had become more of a sport that ponies could watch and enjoy all over. The tournament had been Arrell's idea, and it worked; ponies, humans, and all sorts of other creatures entered, and now the first battle would begin.
Arrell, a dark red pegasus with a brown mane and tail, sat nearby, ready to get the show on the road. Double-checking to make sure everything was in place, Yah-Shee put on his headset and moved up to his microphone. Arrell did the same.
Welcome, fillies and gentlecolts - and everyone else - to the Equestrian Death Battle Tournament! A chorus of cheering erupted as Arrell spoke. Our judges have been working nonstop on research, and we've been coding our machines for weeks, so we're ready to roll!
Yah-Shee took over. Our first match is between Tundra Stanza, the alicorn joined by the spirit of Shirayuki...
...and Knightmare Demonbane, the Breeder Changeling of the Chessverse!
I'm Yah-Shee and he's Arrell, and it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor, and skills to find out who would win an Equestrian Death Battle.
Species: Alicorn (formerly human)
Not very skilled with magic or flying
Possessed by the spirit Shirayuki
Not very durable
Can summon a katana at any time
Mostly ice-based magic
Tundra Stanza, once a twenty-one-year-old male human, woke up the day after his birthday in Equestria, now an alicorn mare.
Hah! Gender swapped!
However, it wasn't ordinary Equestria that Tundra ended up in; rather, she found herself in the Equestria seen in the popular story "Through the Eyes of Another Pony".
So...basically, it's a fanfic of a fanfic...yo dawg, I heard you like-
*SMACK*
Moving on! While she was a blank flank when she arrived, an impromptu karaoke performance earned Tundra her cutie mark for singing. That night, when the Nightmare possessed Twilight Sparkle, she defeated it, only for it to turn and possess her instead.
After a few trials, Tundra met Shirayuki, who's basically the Nightmare turned good. Shirayuki has basically possessed Tundra, so now they can switch between each other on command! All Tundra has to do is say "Dance, some now..." Wait, that isn't it. Uh...
"Dance, Sode no Shirayuki".
Yeah, that!
Tundra herself is not a very good fighter. She has ice magic and can essentially turn anything she wants into ice, but due to not being very experienced with magic, she tends to use this accidentally more often than deliberately. However, Shirayuki is much better.
Shirayuki wields a katana named Ruri'iro Kujaku and wears plated green armor. She's an expert in swordsmanship, has enhanced speed, high spiritual power, and has a lot of magic abilities! For example, she can turn herself into ice and reform herself, make a circle of light that freezes and shatters anything within it, and basically just create ice and cold by waving her hand! ...am I the only one seeing a pattern here?
Her abilities tend to revolve around ice manipulation, which can prove to be a disadvantage as ice is, honestly, not that good in combat. It can't be used for fighting aside from being a blunt object to hit others with and is extremely fragile, making it a bad choice for both offense and defense.
Shirayuki does have some energy-based abilities, but they aren't very reliable and are better against large groups rather than single enemies.
In addition, all of these abilities require intense concentration and focus, which there tends to not be time for in the Equestrian Death Battle arena.
Getting back to Tundra herself, she can summon the same katana as Shirayuki, which either of them can also call to them magically if it gets separated from them. However, Tundra's fighting skills are less than average, and she can't take a lot of physical abuse before she crumbles.
She is also clumsy, and while one major flaw is that she doesn't like having to kill, a similarly major rule of an Equestrian Death Battle is that any reluctance to murder is removed for fairness' sake.
Meanwhile, Shirayuki has her own downsides: she has no real tactics and just relies on her various abilities, she's used to fighting enemies with similar fighting styles, and when she turns back into Tundra, none of her injuries get healed.
Tundra and Shirayuki are usually aided by others to fight, and have trouble with one-on-one combat. The battles moves too swiftly for them to keep up with, and it becomes easy to overwhelm them. Even as Shirayuki, a good couple of critical blows can take her down once she gets tired out.
That armor only covers so much.
While Shirayuki often acts as a voice of reason, Tundra is rather easy to anger, causing her to just lash out without a plan. She prefers to make things up on the spot, but considering how it takes time for her to focus her abilities, this may not be a good thing.
This really boils down to the question, "are two heads better than one?" Well, today we're going to find out!
"Dance, Sode no Shirayuki!"
Full Name: Sir Knightmare Demonbane
Species: Breeder Changeling (formerly human)
Occupation: Celestia's chess piece for the Chess Game of the Gods
Can transform into various forms
Wields a seven-string guitar shaped like a battleaxe
Worked at the SCP Foundation as a human
Sir Knightmare Demonbane, better known as simply Knightmare, is one of many participants in the famous Chess Game of the Gods. Formerly a human named Theodore Wilkins, he was chosen by Princess Celestia to come to Equestria.
But before he got there, Celestia decided to train him for a year. So she put him in a magical stasis, turned him into the Changeling he is today, and sent him to a world that was basically empty space littered with a bunch of floating islands.
Specifically, his Dream Zone. An extension of his mind that's a part of Tel’aran’rhiod.
...what?
...empty space littered with a bunch of floating islands.
Okay!
There, he was trained by The Doctor, Firefly, and Starswirl the Bearded for a year. Whether or not it truly improved his skills is up for debate, but nevertheless, he survived.
This is where the canon starts to get a bit confusing, but piecing it together the best we could, we determined that this was about where Knightmare was dropped into Equestria. And when I say dropped in, I literally mean dropped in.
After a misunderstanding with Rainbow Dash and a few other events, Knightmare was taken to Canterlot, where he was filled in on his role as a chess piece.
He also fought Queen Chrysalis. And won. Considering he's a Breeder Changeling, that's pretty impressive.
Breeder Changelings, like Knightmare, are supposed to only be used as...well, basically, Queen Chrysalis's personal sex toys. They're not built to fight, but thanks to Knightmare's abilities and training, he's much better at it than expected.
One of his abilities is extra maneuverability due to having four wings instead of two, which he can create music with! Doing this in the air just makes it really hard for him to fly, but on the ground, it makes him a lot more agile! And, of course, being a Changeling allows him to transform. His usual form seems to be a bipedal, human-like Changeling with fingers. Or claws.
However, Knightmare is not particularly strong, and due to his body being just an exoskeleton, he can be very vulnerable to attacks. Fortunately, he is usually very lucky, and death seems to almost deliberately avoid him; all attempts to kill him as a human failed, either through sheer coincidence or dumb luck. As a Changeling, this luck seems to continue following him, though it doesn't keep him from getting hurt.
His one weapon is a guitar-axe-thing called Nyx! He can play music with it, but he can also use it like a battleaxe to chop at his foes! His music can help pump up others for battle, but if he loses Nyx, he's got pretty much nothing to fight with!
Knightmare is often humorous and wisecracking, though also rather cynical. He also has a tendency to be rather vulgar and perverted, a trait that is only increased by his status as a Breeder Changeling, and tends to flirt with just about any female he meets that he finds attractive. He also never even tries to conceal his emotions and feelings, and is rather easy to anger.
Main problem with Knightmare, though: he seems strongest in teams, and he's going solo for this battle! Can he manage on his own, or will he be the first one eliminated from the tournament?
Let's find out!
"Stand back, gang. I'm about to do something STUPID!"
Alright, the combatants are set! Let's end this debate once and for all and finally get this tournament started!
IT'S TIME FOR AN EQUESTRIAN DEATH BATTLE!
Two figures approached each other on the battlefield, eager to prove themselves in this tournament of might. One of them, a strange changeling that walked as if it were a bipedal creature, wore a cocky smile on his face, while the other, a mysterious alicorn, simply watched her opponent carefully.
“So, Tundra Stanza, huh?” the changeling asked. Eyeing her appealing figure, he added, “I don’t know, you look too hot to be called a tundra.” Running his hands over his head as if he had hair, he said to her, “I’m Knightmare...but I think I might be your best dream ins-”
Tundra interrupted him before he could go on, saying, “You do realize I used to be a man?”
“Oh re-he-heallly~?"
Before Knightmare could even recover, Tundra focused her power into her horn, intending to end this battle before it could even begin. With a wordless cry, she summoned a small ring of icicles around Knightmare, trapping him within an icy jail. Confidently, Tundra charged forward, summoning her sword to her as she ran.
As she reached up to impale him, the changeling quickly pulled out his ax, and shattered the ice with a high-pitched powerchord. Forced to abandon her charge, Tundra brought her sword up to keep the shards from tearing into her eyes, barely able to deflect the worst of it. Knightmare, seeing his opponent preoccupied, took the opportunity to dash forward, and slam the flat of his weapon into her face.
“I can’t believe I just hit on a drag queen!” he moaned to himself, watching the alicorn get tossed by the weight of the ax.
Tundra shook her head, trying to clear her head from the impact. Sensing that Knightmare was slightly distracted, she attempted to charge him once more. Her sword thrust towards his neck, almost surely a killing blo-
“Whoa!” she cried, slipping on one of the shards of ice from earlier, completely missing her target. She crashed into the ground, and recovered almost instantly, only somewhat disoriented.
Finally getting over his near-brush with homosexual tendencies, Knightmare realized that he had escaped death by mere inches, and didn’t want to repeat the process. Playing an invigorating chord on his ax, he rushed to the alicorn, and once more slammed his ax into her. It was only the strength of her plate armor, and the weaker body behind the attack, that saved her life right then. She swung her sword at Knightmare, forcing him back, and realized she would have to get serious if she wanted to survive this.
Playtime was over.
“Dance, Sode no Shirayuki!” she shouted.
Newfound power surged into her body, as Shirayuki, the being within Tundra’s body, took over. Surprised, Knightmare could barely lift his ax up to block the first onslaught, unprepared for this sudden change in tactics. Desperately, he flared his insectoid wings out, and jumped away from her, trying to put some distance between them. With another charge, the alicorn rushed forward, rapidly slashing at her opponent.
Even with his wings giving him that extra speed, Knightmare found himself hard pressed to dodge the attacks. He had to duck, dive, lunge, and weave between every single blow, forced to focus only on his movements. Every time he thought he had an opportunity to attack, he was quickly deflected by another swing of her sword. Shirayuki, for her part, quickly started feeling more and more frustrated with each dodged blow.
"Oh, c'mon now! You make a lovely mare, Miss Stanza!" Knightmare shouted, looking directly at Tundra, but certainly not at her eyes. "But, ya see, it'd make things easier for us both if you did not have a sword...y'know what I mean?"
Utterly confused, angered, and otherwise infuriated, Shirayuki faltered in her attack, allowing Knightmare to flare out his wings once more, and buzz away with them. As he did, he stopped to pull at his cheeks, and stick out his tongue at her, laughing at the enraged expression on her face.
Finally, the alicorn started to charge her magic once more, freezing the ground right beneath Knightmare. The changeling, however, hovered lightly over the ice, his wings beating furiously as they tried to prevent him from losing control.
“What? Do you think I need to chill out?” he called over to her, smacking his behind a couple of times, egging her on. He then yelped, however, when a stray snowball hit him right on said behind, sending a shock of cold through his system.
As he frantically brushed the snow off of himself, Shirayuki focused her magic once more, calling upon every single ounce of power she had left. Pure, raw, power coursed throughout her entire body, as she brought everything into an enormous beam of cold energy. The beam freezed everything near it as it shot forward, bearing down upon its target. Knightmare watched as it came closer, and closer to him...
And then he buzzed to the side, as the beam missed him completely and froze half of the arena walls on contact. “Girl, I just gotta say,” he whistled. “You’re as cold as ice.”
Exhausted, the alicorn collapsed to the ground, struggling to even gather any amount of her magic now. She was completely drained of energy, but she still stubbornly attempted to try for one last attack.
Knightmare, seeing this, reached for his ax, and played yet another high pitched chord. Her focus shattered, Shirayuki staggered, completely dazed. Just as she shook herself back into order, she was met with the sight of the changeling’s axe hurtling towards her exposed neck.
With all of his strength behind the blow, Knightmare Demonbane completely decapitated his opponent. As her head rolled onto the ground, he placed his foot on her corpse, and played a quick riff on his guitar in victory.
K.O!
YEAH! That's the way to start a tournament!
While Knightmare had a slight disadvantage due to wielding such a cumbersome weapon, his evasiveness kept Tundra from landing a proper hit on him, even after letting Shirayuki take over. Tundra's lack of real training, combined with Knightmare's good luck, was also a rather large contributing factor.
Not to mention Tundra's not very good with one-on-one fights, especially against speedy opponents!
Indeed, Arrell. Plus, Tundra has no real fighting style, and just rushes in trying to kill her opponents quickly, while Knightmare's personality makes him unpredictable. Once he distracted Shirayuki from her attempted onslaught, it was all downhill for her.
This was definitely a cool way to start the tourney!
The winner is Knightmare.
Next time on the Equestrian Death Battle Tournament:
Brand Fire VS Plymouth Valiant!
Who will win? Who will die? Find out next time!