The Brony Survival Guide

Chapter 10: Antagonists

Written by Jlargent

Me: This is it the final chapter! When I first started this I had no idea it would be this popular. With that being said I present to you the final chapter in The Brony Survival Guide, typical disclaimers apply I do not own MLP in any shape or form.

Of course every group of heroines need an antagonist to try and make trouble, otherwise what would the point of having power if you can't use it? This chapter will cover the antagonists from seasons one and two.

Season one:

Night Mare Moon

When Princess Luna's jealously towards her sister Princess Celestia reached its peak her power changed her into a ruthless being wanting to plunge the world into eternal night. Only for her to be stopped by Princess Celestia and the Elements of Harmony, using their power she banished Night Mare Moon for a thousand years on the moon.

Much like an archetypal, over-the-top villains, Night Mare Moon is overly confident of herself and dramatically declares that the protagonist is a fool (foal) for thinking she can defeat her, and that "the night will last forever".

Night Mare Moon uses her magic to indirectly set obstacles in Twilight's and her friends' path to the Elements of Harmony, making creatures unwittingly assist her, like the manticore whose paw she embeds with a thorn so he'd attack the ponies, or the sea serpent whose mustache she cuts off so he'd make the river impassible. She further indirectly attacks the ponies by causing a cliff side to collapse underneath the ponies' feet, and by making trees appear as monsters. As the Shadowbolts, she tries to persuade Rainbow Dash to abandon her friends so they won't be able to cross a fallen bridge and reach the Elements of Harmony. Despite her indirect approach, when she is attacked by the royal guards, she quickly repels them with lightning, then turns into mist and floats away. She also confronts Twilight Sparkle directly when the two charge at each other, right before shattering the Elements of Harmony.

She was defeated when Twilight realized that she and her newly acquired friends represent the Elements of Harmony freeing Princess Luna from her trapped state.

Gilda

Gilda is a griffon and was an old friend of Rainbow Dash during Flight Camp she arrived in Ponyville to catch up with her but was constantly interrupted by Pinkie Pie's actions. When she was alone by herself she showed little tolerance towards the ponies even scaring Fluttershy even though she was trying to apologize for bumping into her. Pinkie happened to see this and decided upon a way to get revenge by hosting a party in her honor.

At Pinkie Pie's party, Gilda seems to hold back her temper and misbehavior around Dash, but she eventually snaps after getting repeatedly pranked and she lashes out at Pinkie and the other ponies. She goes on about being "cool", blindly mistaking the pranks as Pinkie's doing, and leaves in a huff when Dash tells her she better find other "cool" friends. In truth, the pranks were set up by Rainbow Dash for other ponies, however Gilda always happened to be the victim.

Enraged at the revelation she called Rainbow Dash "Un-cool" and a flip-flop and tells her that she'll be waiting when she decides to leave her friends behind.

Trixie

Trixie is a traveling performer that is incredibly boastful about her skills as a magician and often speaks in third person . Trixie's claims and proclaim her as the most magical and talented pony ever. Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack take Trixie's challenge to see who is better, only to be humiliated one by one. Twilight Sparkle, who fears that she might lose her friends if she shows off her magic like Trixie, doesn't accept the challenge and runs off. Trixie then proclaims herself victorious, and ends her show.

After the performance she bragged that she defeated a Ursa Major to Snips and Snails and later that evening they went to a nearby cave and unintentionally awoke an actual Ursa Major and chases them to Ponyville where they informed Trixie about it and after failing to actually defeating it she confessed that she made the story up to increase her reputation so Twilight Sparkle took it upon herself to try and stop it.

After putting it to sleep she revealed that the Ursa Major was in reality a Ursa Minor an infant version of the Ursa Major. Trixie snaps out of her stupor and decides to take credit for Twilight's actions and escaped.

Diamond Dogs

When Rarity ran low on gems for her dresses she asks Spike to accompany her to retrieve more gems. Their journey leads them to the mountains outside of Ponyville where a large deposit of gemstones which Spike used his claws to dig for.

The Diamond Dogs secretly watch Rarity and Spike as they collect gems, initially thinking Spike is the gem finder, before realizing that Rarity is using her magic to find them. They then make themselves known and tell Rarity they hunt for gems, and will hunt for her since she can find the gems. They have a tussle with Rarity and Spike but manage to abduct Rarity into their extensive system of underground mines.

They attempt to force Rarity to find gems for them, but Rarity puts on a complaining and whining act, tricking them into doing all the work while she relaxes. When Rover gets wise to this, he forces Rarity to pull the gem cart, calling her a mule. In response, Rarity acts hurt, crying loudly about being compared to an "old, ugly mule." By the time Rarity's friends arrive to save her, the Diamond Dogs are begging for Rarity to leave, even letting her take all their gems with her.

Season two:

Discord

Discord is the god of chaos and disharmony and he ruled Equestria in a perpetual state of never ending chaos, which would range from abnormal weather patterns to physically altering reality around him to suit his needs and desires as he sees fit. Of course he was eventually stopped by the royal sisters due to the fact that he did not take his confrontation seriously.

Prior to Princess Luna's transformation into Night Mare Moon both she and her sister Princess Celestia wielded the Elements of Harmony to turn him into stone. Over the course of a thousand years the magic that trapped him gradually weakened to the point where he escaped, once freed he restarted his campaign of chaos, taking the Elements of Harmony and hiding them so he could play a game with Twilight Sparkle and her friends, Twilight figures out that he placed the Elements of Harmony inside the Royal Maze inside of the castle gardens.

When Twilight and her friends venture into the palace labyrinth, Discord magically removes the ponies' wings and horns so that they would be unable to use their magic or be able to fly to "cheat" in the "game" he forces them to take part in. He also separates them by raising sections of the labyrinth's walls. Discord uses representations of the cast's cutie marks to subtly manipulate them into behaving in discordance with the element they represent. The one exception is Fluttershy, who doesn't fall for Discord's manipulation leading him to snap and simply convert her by touch. He bids her goodbye with an extremely agitated "arrivederci".

He eventually plays with Rainbow Dash's loyalty to her friends by showing her a vision that her hometown of Cloudsdale would be destroyed without her. He offers her a choice: she can either have her wings back and go to the aid of Cloudsdale, or continue seeking the Elements. This tricks her into flying out of the labyrinth, breaking Discord's rule that magic and wings are forbidden. Discord, having "won," then causes the entire labyrinth to collapse, and standing before the five remaining ponies, gleefully states that Equestria will now be thrust into eternal chaos.

Twilight is upset when Discord takes away the maze before they can find the Elements of Harmony until Discord reveals they were not in the labyrinth, as she thought. Discord magically shows her the riddle again, and she realizes that the Elements are "back where she began." Afterwards, Discord turns Ponyville into what he claims will be the "chaos capital of Equestria". Twilight finds the elements and forcibly places them on the corrupted ponies and Spike (substituting for the absent Rainbow Dash). However, Discord is unimpressed, and the Elements fail completely. When Twilight finally cures all her corrupted friends, Discord continues to act calm and complacent, thus allowing him to be easily defeated with the reawakened powers of the Elements. After being struck with a rainbow similar to that previously used on Night Mare Moon, Discord is turned back into stone, but this time with an expression of horror frozen onto his face.

Description:

The word "draconequus" is composed of the Latin "draco" and "equus", meaning "dragon horse". Discord is a combination of many body parts from different creatures. His head is horse-like, much different from the other character's head styles, with a deer antler on the right, a goat horn on the left, one long fang, different-sized pupils, a snake tongue, and a beard. He has the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, and the left leg of a goat. In addition, he has a bat's right wing, a Pegasus' left wing, and a snake's tail. A creature composed of several different animals is called a chimera. While Discord is technically a chimera in that sense, this term is not used in the show.

Flim Flam Brothers

The Flim Flam Brothers are a pair of unicorn salesmen that tried to run the Apple Family out of business through trickery and lies. They drive into one of the gates of Sweet Apple Acres' apple orchard on a cider-making contraption and introduce themselves through song and dance. They challenge the Apple Family to a cider-making competition against their machine, The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.

With Ponyville's citizens faced with the dilemma of a limited quantity of manually pressed cider, they turn to the Flim Flam brothers and their automated cider production. The brothers attempt to broker a deal with the Apple Family, who will supply them with their delicious apples, and they will sell the cider under the Flim Flam brothers' name. They call for a 75-25 split in profits in their favor. The Apple Family denies the offer, which prompts Flim to state that if the Apple Family refuses to partner up with the brothers, they will run the family out of business and Ponyville. The Flim Flam brothers challenge and provoke the Apple family into a cider-making competition.

The Apple family uses their skills at manual labor to beat the brothers, but they soon find out that the Flim Flam brothers' technology is overpowering them. Twilight, seeing that the Apple Family needs help, asks the mayor if she can help. The Mayor asks the brothers, who allow it. Twilight and the others eventually get the Apples to produce more barrels, endangering the brothers' lead.

The brothers, in a panic, enhance the suction of their machine, causing it to suck up whole trees. This tactic results in the apples being pulped and mixed with rocks and branches, meaning none of them were accepted and made into cider. To fix this, the brothers change the setting of the machine so it no longer performs a quality check on what goes into their cider, which allows them to fill their barrels much faster. Eventually, it is announced that the Flim Flam brothers win due to the amount of cider produced. But bypassing the quality check causes the cider to taste horrible and all the ponies refuse to drink it. Realizing nobody in Ponyville will pay for their cider, even though they won, the Flim Flam brothers decide to try the next town over and beat a hasty retreat.

Queen Chrysalis

Queen Chrysalis first appears as Princess Cadance looking and sounding like her, but acting different enough to raise Twilight Sparkle's suspicions, though Twilight's friends, Shining Armor, and Princess Celestia don't buy Twilight's story. Chrysalis walks on-screen right after Twilight's flashback and description of her memory of Cadance as a beautiful, loving, and kind pony, from when she foal-sat Twilight. Chrysalis doesn't recognize Twilight, which unsettles her and raises her suspicions. When Chrysalis comes to check the menu for the wedding, she insists on being called "Princess Mi Amore Cadenza", and even though she politely compliments Applejack on her baking, she throws away the food Applejack offers her, again raising the ire of Twilight. When she comes to inspect the dresses Rarity is sewing for the wedding, she sneers at her bridesmaids who praise the dresses and asks Rarity to make the dresses a different color. She sarcastically remarks on Pinkie Pie's party plans that they're "perfect... if you were celebrating a six-year-old's birthday party." Twilight sums up Chrysalis's behavior to her friends as "an awful pony who doesn't deserve to even know Shining Armor let alone marry him." When Twilight tries to broach the matter with Shining Armor, Chrysalis interrupts them before Twilight has a chance to say anything; Twilight comments that "she sure has a way of sneaking up on people." Chrysalis asks Shining Armor into the other room, where she casts a spell on him that makes his eyes roll. Twilight spies on them through the door and runs out after seeing Chrysalis cast the spell.

At the wedding rehearsal, Twilight accuses Chrysalis of being evil and levies some accusations on her. Chrysalis tears up and runs away, and Shining Armor confronts Twilight and dispels her accusations, saying "Cadance" is using her magic to heal the migraines he gets from his protection spell. Chrysalis returns and stomps on the figure of Twilight that's left over from the song. At first she gently strokes Twilight's mane, but then her eyes glow green and she engulfs Twilight in green flames that sink with her into the ground down to the tunnels beneath Canterlot. Chrysalis, still looking and sounding like Cadance, taunting Twilight through apparitions in an underground cavern's crystals, and telling her that she's using Shining Armor for her own ends. Twilight shatters the crystals and uncovers a path to the real Cadance, also imprisoned by the Changeling Queen. After outwitting Chrysalis's three bridesmaids who were guarding the cave, Cadance and Twilight manage to confront Chrysalis right before Princess Celestia weds her to Shining Armor.

Princess Cadance proclaims that the impostor is "a changeling. She takes the form of somepony you love and gains power by feeding off your love for them." After that, the impostor transforms and introduces herself as queen of the changelings, who is named Chrysalis in the episode's script but not on-screen. She keeps Cadance at bay by threatening to send her back to the caves, and explains that she's been feeding on Shining Armor's love for Cadance, which weakens his protection spell that keeps the changelings out of Canterlot. Princess Celestia confronts her and attacks her with a beam from her horn, but Chrysalis fires back and, thanks to the power of Shining Armor's love, overpowers Celestia, who gets knocked to the ground. Celestia urges Twilight and her friends to get the Elements of Harmony and use them to defeat the queen.

The changelings breaks through the magical barrier protecting Canterlot and capture Twilight and her friends, bringing them back to the wedding hall, where Celestia finds herself encased in a chrysalis hanging from the ceiling. The queen sends her subjects to feed, Twilight to frees Cadance when Chrysalis is distracted. Cadance's magic breaks the spell over Shining Armor, and gives him strength. The queen mocks this sentiment but quickly finds that Shining Armor's spell repels her and all of the changelings out of Canterlot, flying into the distance.

Description:

After she is confronted by the real Cadance, she transforms into a creature that looks like a pony with a twisted unicorn horn, a pair of insectoid wings, and stands as tall as Princess Celestia herself. Unlike a pony however, she has a sharp pair of fangs and dark green eyes with elongated oval pupils. She has a teal mane and tail, a blue-green insect-like body plating over her midsection, and she wears a small, black crown tipped with blue orbs. Her voice has a distorted echoed quality, as if two voices are speaking slightly out of sync. Her legs are full of holes, and her limbs and torso are extremely skinny.

This concludes my guide to surviving Equestria I hope that this guide was helpful.

The End.

Me: Well that's it, now I had help with this fic so here's credit where its due: I would like to thank The Counter-Point Man, Storm Uchiha, The Ishvalen Chimera (You're still Moony to me.), GoldFlygon, Hound of Chulainn, and you for reading this awesome fic.

As always Hoody Hoo!