Fanfic / Astral Disaster

AstralDisaster (or Désastre Astral in French), is a French My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fanfiction, written by Quivering Star which takes place not very long after the end of season 2, and revolves around two strange newcomers arriving (or rather crashing) in Ponyville aboard an out-of-fuel flying tower. The two characters: an asocial Unicorn traveling mage named Quivering Star, sporting a crooked horn; and his short Earth Pony assistant Sol.

It is soon revealed that the tower Quivering uses to travel is powered by an ancient magic orb created by his ancestors, and that the traveling mage is searching for clues about his family's past, when they used to be a powerful clan of mages... While at the present day, Quivering is the only member of his living family to take an interest in magic. However, his artifact, as well as himself, are the targets of Arcadès, a strange, sword-wielding black dragon; who seems to have a grudge towards Quivering's family, the Stellmares.

Quivering and Sol quickly form a few bonds with the Mane 6 despite the mage's aloofness and lack of tact, but his behavior as well as the fact that he is targeted by a dangerous beast gives him a bad reputation in front of the villagers.

While Quivering tries his best to find clues about his past, refuel his flying tower, gain some respect from the village, and works with the Mane 6 to repel Arcadès; the orb itself seems to have strange effects on his owner despite being depleted...

---

Tropes associated with Astral Disaster:

• Above Good and Evil: Nebula is clearly evil, and acknowledges that what she's doing is considered evil by everyone. But she believes the current concepts of good and evil are outdated and arbitrary, and flat-out doesn't care about what others think.
• Alchemy Is Magic: The Stellmares were known as some of the best wizards of Equestria, and they had an alchemy lab among other things.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Dethicorns, a race of dark unicorns that crossed with the Stellmare Clan. They had a parasitic behavior,sticking with other groups/civilisations, and waited for the best moment to stab them in the back in order to gain power. Their actions led them to be near-exctinction even before meeting the Stellmares, and it was their hunger for power that led to them being sealed along with the Crystal Dragons and the flying city of Stellmare 1000 years ago. The last current representants of this race are their leader Nebula Shade, who managed to put her soul/mind/spirit/whatever inside the Star of Sylas, just like Sylas put himself inside a book; and Quivering Star/Antarès Stellmare, who, despite being an almost normal unicorn, still has the usual Dethicorn powers and Villainous Lineage.
• Amplifier Artifact: The Stellmare Boosters, magic necklaces worn by Sylas' friends to grant them magic or their natural powers more efficient. Even Guardian Blade, who is an Earth Pony, can use potent spells with it.
• The Archmage: Sylas Stellmare was apparently this to the Stellmare Clan, altough his actual title was "Master Artemage", due to his mastery of magical artifacts.
• Ascended Extra: Derpy and Doctor Whooves, as in the actual Doctor Who ponified and involved in the plot get important roles. The former gets dragged in the main plot along with the Mane 6 and the OC's, while the latter just inserts himself into the group and helps them while trying to stay undercover (going as far as claiming his name is Time Turner) despite his unusual behavior and knowledge. Nopony has any idea who he really is and how he can know so many things about what's happening despite never having involved himself in anything important before that time, but his help is appreciated, if not met with confusion.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Arcadès is smaller and thinner than most dragons, but he's still huge compared to Ponies. His big brother, Emperald, literally TOWERS over him, though.
• BFS: Arcadès wields a sword, not a very big one compared to his size, but it is still scaled up.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: Antarès might qualify, even tough he mostly uses his Dethicorn powers in order to fight better, outside of corrupting Twilight Sparkle. Nebula, however, clearly made full use of that same kind of powers when she made the Stellmare Clan crumble on itself by corrupting everyon in it, save for Sylas and a few rebels.
• Bad Samaritan: From the very start of the story, Quivering had evil intentions, but tried to gain the trust of Ponyville's inhabitants once he discovered that Twilight and her friends were the wielders of the Elements of Harmony, which he needed for his plans. Helping Rainbow Dash with the weather-control or Pinkie Pie with her cooking were nothing more than ruses.
• Base on Wheels: Quivering Star's flying tower, even though it runs out of fuel at the start of the story and stays grounded for a good dozen of chapters. Later, long after his Face–Heel Turn, his flying tower combines, or rather reassembles with the flying city of Stellmare, making it his new moving base.
• Battle Aura: Anyone who has access to magic manifests this at some point, sometimes even weaponising it.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: When Antarès finally understands that his "fake" Helpless Good Side is not as fake and helpless as he thought, he goes into his own mind and directly fights Quivering Star in order to gain full control of his power. However, there isn't much of a fight since Quivering is reluctant at fighting a part of himself, even if it's his evil side, and his passive resistance causes him to be apparently suppressed from his own mind.
• Beam-O-War: Celestia vs Emperald. Also Quivering vs Arcadès, even though he stops the beam with his bare hands, he then tries to shoot his fire breath through the beam.
• Bishounen Line: Crystal!Spike's second form. The first one was huge and strong, but pretty slow, and was easily neutralized by Sol, Derpy and Sylas, to the point that they were able to hold him down while exposition was going on. However, after Arcadès tries to turn him back into a normal dragon, and partially succeeds, he gets a slender body, only twice the size of a pony, and fights with a much faster and more unpredictable style.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Twilight and Spike, by Antarès. It's also hinted that Antarès might also be brainwashed, and is only evil because Nebula Shade, who is hidden inside the artifact which he has been using; has the power to bring out the bad side of the beings she comes in contact with.
• Brought Down to Normal: Shining Armor gets his horn broken by Spica!Twilight when she attacks him and Cadence. Later, Antarès loses his magic when Quivering Star manages to separate himself from his alter-ego.
• Camp Gay: [[spoiler: Sirius, Nebula's younger brother and the only Dethicorn among Sylas' old allies.
• Casting a Shadow: Spica!Twilight seems to be able to make her surroundings darker, but it may also be caused by the mass amounts of shadowy energy that was sent along with her, which would mean it actually is Antarès' doing. Sirius uses shadow magic as well, by virtue of being both a Dethicorn and a Necromancer.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: By virtue of Talking Is a Free Action, some characters tend to discuss important, but less-than-urgent points at times where they should focus more on fighting back or running away.
• Character Catchphrase. Arcadès doesn't say it that much, but he has a tendency to claim that "[he] wont fall in the same trap twice". So far, he's delivered on that, notably with Rainbow Dash Sonic Rainboom-ing in the face. He gets hit at full force the first time she tries it, he just swats her away with no difficulty the second time. If he keeps going like that, and judging by all the things he gets hit with, he's gonna be progressively more difficult to defeat...
• Chekhov's Gunman: Zecora. She appears briefly when Arcadès refuels himself in the Everfree Forest by burning the trees, she is last seen running away from the fire and we get no sign of her for a bunch of chapters. She finally reappears while the Mane 6 minus Twilight are searching for Sol and Derpy in the forest. They find her along with Steven Magnet, and looks a little worse for wear after nearly avoiding being burned to cinders.
• Combat Tentacles: Quivering/Antarès has these. Nine of them. With very sharp tips. All Dethicorns apparently had these, and Nebula Shade can manifest hers on the artifact that contains her soul.
• Combination Attack: One of the spells Quivering Star uses is a "synchronisation spell", which allows him to connect to magic artifacts or other Unicorns. He does it a few times with Twilight Sparkle in order to cast bigger spells while fighting Arcadès. The spells can also serve to control other Unicorn's movements and spells, almost like puppet strings. Twilight learns it the hard way when Quivering reveals who he really is.
• Cool Versus Awesome:The duel between Princess Luna and Arcadès in the Everfree Forest: An Alicorn's lightning spells and etheareal blades made of Lunar Energy vs a Dragon's fire breath and Flaming Sword.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Celestia gets absolutely OWNED by Antarès/Quivering right after a huge Plot Twist. It helped that she was already exhausted from her previous battle against Emperald. Twilight Sparkle also gets outclassed by the same opponent after giving him a good fight.
  • During their encounter above Stellmare, Nebula manages to force BOTH Princesses to use a Desperation Attack against her, just so they can escape her overwhelming electrocution spell, and Nebula simply floats away while her opponents fall towards the city. She did that while possessing Cadence's exhausted body. A while later, she completely WRECKS the Mane 6 when they finally get at the top of the Ras Alhague Tower, giving them no chance to strategize and countering every single one of their moves with her lightning, Eye Beams and Combat Tentacles.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Derpy, as innocent as she is clumsy. She can crash in spectacular ways by just bumping into someone WHILE WALKING AT A NORMAL PACE, and when asked to transport Sol, she's suddenly unable to fly in a straight line and crashes into a fountain by doing a sharp turn at full speed for no reason.
• Dance Battler: Trixie, who focused more on having an acrobatic fighting style, rather than relying on her magic, which she admits is relatively weak.
• Data Crystal: Quivering's magic orb is a very big crystal ball that can hold lots of information and even act as a GPS. Once Quivering reveals his true colors and unlocks the orb's (or rather, the Star Of Sylas) full power, he shows that it even has millenia-old recordings of the Stellmare Clan, as well as the three tribes.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sol frequently comments on everything around him, especially his boss' awkward behavior.
• Decoy Protagonist: Quivering Star, as he later reveals he's the villain, and the Mane 6, minus Twilight, and plus Sol, Derpy, Sylas and a few cameos (including Doctor Whooves) form the main group that goes to stop him.
• Defector from Decadence: Sylas and a few other friends of his were the only ones to try and stop the battle between the rest of the corrupted Stellmare Clan and the rebelling Crystal Dragons. Among them was also Sirius Shade, Nebula's brother and the only Dethicorn not to take part in this senseless war.
• Demonic Possession: Not only can Nebula Shade corrupt magic-oriented ponies such as Antarès, she can also take control of someone else's body, and does just that with Cadence, in order to attack Celestia and Luna, who are infiltrating the city of Stellmare.
• Ditto Fighter / Mega Manning: Crystal!Spike's second form seems to be able to "scan" his opponents and copy something from them. He starts by copying Arcadès' sword, creating a smaller, crystalline, self-repairing version of it. Later, he copies Arcadès' wings, down to their ridiculous and impractical size. He quickly adjusts them for him to be able to fly, though. Even later, he copies his ability to shout.
• Dynamic Entry: Arcadès gets to the receiving end of a few of these. Rainbow Dash Sonic Rainbooms him the face once, though he manages to swat her away the second time she tries it. But it doesn't take long before Sol and Derpy fly into his face at absurd speeds after being launched from Pinkie's bazooka.
• Energy Weapon: Emperald can shoot energy beams from his claws, Converging-Stream Weapon style.
• Epic Fail: Courtesy of Derpy when she tries to help during a fight against Arcadès. She can't fly straight while lifting Sol, and ends up crashing into a fountain. She only manages to hit Arcadès when Pinkie Pie shoots her and Sol from her out-of-nowhere BFG. She completely misses her target when she tries to swoop down on him a second time, and crashes into the ground, leaving him in Stunned Silence.
• Evil All Along: Quivering Star, or rather Antarès Stellmare.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Antarès regularly gives a shot at throwing racist and mysoginistic remarks around, and following them with an Evil Laugh.
• Evil Laugh : Quivering does that a lot once he becomes drops his act, as to show he's gone full villain.
• Evil Matriarch: Nebula Shade, the wife of Sylas Stellmare, who founded the Stellmare Clan with him, but betrayed everyone for power, and is still active in the present day due to being a Sealed Evil in a Can.
• Evil Plan: Since the beginning, Quivering Star/Antarès Stellmare was looking for a way to unlock his orb's true power, in order to revive the Stellmare Clan and Take Over the World with raw magic power. He traveled aboard his flying tower to find clues about his clan's past. When in Ponyville, he finally found a book written by the clan's founder, and discovered that he needed the Elements of Harmony to reactivate the orb at full power. Coincidentally, the Mane 6 were around him and Arcadès was a big enough threath to bust out the big guns. He simply waited for the wielders of the Elements to use them against the Dragon, and promptly synchronised with Twilight, forcing her to use the Rainbow of Light on the tower instead of on Arcadès, depleting the Elements and recharging his artifact. After that, he dropped his act as a traveling mage and went on to gather enough power to Take Over the World and exterminate all Ponies who can't use magic.
• Eye Beam: Nebula can do that, wether from inside the Star of Sylas, or as an Astral Projection.
• Fangs Are Evil: The Crystal Dragons, of course. But more importantly, Quivering Star, once he reveals his real identity as Antarès, and even Twilight Sparkle after she gets brainwashed by him.
• Fighting from the Inside: Twilight Sparkle has been fighting her evil side, preventing herself from using her full power and allowing her friends as well as Trixie to defeat her. The same thing seems to be true for the real Quivering Star, who is also weakening Antarès from the deeps of his own mind.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Arcadès' three kids, Sulfurite, Stalagmite and Fulgurite respectively. Also, Arcadès himself uses a lot of fire, while [[Antarès and Nebula]] are quite fond of lightning magic.
• Flip Personality: Quivering Star and Antarès, even tough the evil side aknowledged and started directly interacting with the good one after the third flip, and apparently managed to suppress him, taking full control of himself.
• Floating Continent / Ominous Floating Castle: According to Sylas Stellmare, the Stellmare Clan used to have their own flying city at the peak of their glory. And Antarès is trying to find it and make it work again. As of Chapter 18, he succeeds, and the city immediately looks like it may be too much for Equestria to handle.
• Gatling Good: Sol weilds a Stellmare-made minigun during one fight, but quickly depletes all its ammo, and discards it by throwing it at Antarès, who destroys it before it hits him.
• Gentle Giant: Arcadès has shades of this, when not trying to kill Quivering Star and destroy his magic orb, he acts kindly towards Spike and Derpy, for reminiscing him of his youth and for delivering him his mail, respectively. Emperald also acts like that towards his two nephews and his niece.
• Hard Light: Even tough Nebula died long ago and put her soul inside the Star of Sylas, her Astral Projection is still powerful enough to physically attack the Mane 6, while Sylas' is too weak to be tangible. Though he later manages to absorb enough energy coming from the city's heart to become a "solid" ghost, most like his old allies who pop up around the same time.
• He's Back!: Luna manages to negociate her way out of the crystal sphere whe was stuck into by the Crystal Dragons, and goes to heal her sister in order to help against Antarès, bringing both Princesses into the fray in the span of two chapters, after they've been out for at least ten chapters beforehand.
  • Twilight Sparkle when she gets freed from Antarès' brainwashing with the help of her friends and Trixie.
• An Ice Person: Stalagmite, Arcadès' daughter, has a freezing breath, and uses it to travel by creating ice pathways to slide on, Frozone-style.
• Identical Grandson: When the spirit of Sylas Stellmare, founder of the Stellmare Clan, reveals himself to Sol and Derpy, it's quickly noted that he has the same appearance and even the same voice as Antarès/Quivering despite the all the generations separating them.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter is named after spatial events, such as Supernova, Pulsar, Comet or Dark Matter. However, the story up until now doesn't have much to do with space or stars, aside from Quivering's magic orb, called "The Star" by the Crystal Dragons, and Arcadès seeing an unknown constellation slowly appearing in the night sky. Antarès' name also comes from the brightest star in the Scorpion constellation.
  • The star/space theme slowly makes itself clearer over time, such as the reveal about Nebula Shade being the one who introduced her passion of stars to the Stellmares, and eventually the appearance of artifacts such as the Ophiuchus Heart, which draws its energy from space, and the zodiacal stones which help keep its power in check and were brought by Nebula and the Dethicorns.
• Infernal Retaliation: The principle of Arcadès' Limit Break.
• Ironic Nursery Tune: Spica!Twilight sings a slower, distorted version of her and Cadence's song, before appearing and attacking the latter.
• It's All About Me: Nebula.
• Kill It with Fire: Arcadès uses a lot of fire attacks with either his Flaming Sword or his breath.
• Knight of Cerebus: Arcadès, even though he has his Comically Serious moments; instantly makes everything more serious and action-packed when he appears. Antarès does an even better job than him, although he also cracks a few (tasteless) jokes every now and then.
• Leeroy Jenkins: After getting some supporting advice from Fluttershy, Sol decides to go confront Antarès alone, because It's Personal. It doesn't stick for long, but had he been able to go alone, he probably would've been killed either by monsters from the Everfree Forest, or by Antarès himself.
• Made of Iron: Arcadès. Taking a Sonic Rainboom point blank to the face, and still be able to stand up right after it certainly count.
• Master of Illusion: Trixie, even though she prefers using her acrobatics to fight, can still muster up pretty decent invisibility spells. Kinda useless against Antarès though, who is so full of magic that his eyes can see through it.
• Mind Rape: Quivering/Antarès does that to Twilight Sparkle in order to forcefully get her on his side.
• Necromancer: Sirius who summons a horde of wailing souls with a giant pentagram while fighting Taurus
• No Nonsense Villain: While most characters tend to chat a lot during fights and question each other's motives, Nebula has a tendency to simply interrupt what her opponents have to say by attacking them mid-sentence and keep attacking them without interruption, while keeping her Evil Gloating for after she's beaten down her foes. Or while she's beating them.
• Noticing the Fourth Wall: In a weird way: After being hit by a magic discharge from his malfunctioning orb, Quivering starts having hallucinations in the form of memes revolving around the world he's in. He sees Fluttershy and Rarity as a tree and a marshmallow on a few occasions, and Scootaloo as a chicken, for example. It's gone after he reveals his real identity, and may have been a part of his disguise.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Arcadès, and later his big brother Emperald, as well as Arcadès' THREE kids, Stalagmite, Sulfurite and Fulgurite. They're not exactly your usual type of dragon either, they are soon revealed to be Crystal Dragons, a unique species who has a bit of an history with the Stellmare Clan, one of the main reasons for that seems to be because the Stellmares CREATED them, or at least made them into what they are by experimenting on them.
• Painful Transformation: Spike's cristallisation. By extent, all the other Crystal Dragons' cristallisations. It involves having a myriad of magically-charged crystal shards stabbed into the subject's body.
• Pimped-Out Cape: Quivering Star wears a cape reminiscent of Trixie's. It seems to hide his Cutie Mark, he refuses to take it off even when at the spa, and gets angry when Twilight barges into his room when he takes it off. It actually hides his nine, black Combat Tentacles.
• Playing with Fire: Spitfire basically becomes a living fireball while fighting. It proves very useful when she manages to partially melt one of Emperald's wings by flying through it, forcing him to retread underground. Sulfurite, one of Arcadès' three kids, can apparently emit fire and heat.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Antarès is discriminating towards everyone who isn't a unicorn/can't use magic. He's also misogynistic towards Trixie.
• Psycho Electro: Quivering/Antarès has a real knack for electrocution, be it from his Unicorn magic or his Combat Tentacles. Nebula Shade seems to like electrocuting her opponents as well, the similarity is even lampshaded during her short encounter with Celestia and Luna.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Nebula Shade. Even the Star of Sylas changes colors accordingly once she manifests herself.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Nebula Shade, once she reveals herself as having been inside the Star of Sylas all along, by making her eyes appear on the artifact.
• Red Right Hand: Quivering Star has crooked horn, which is hereditary in his family, it doesn't seem to signify any kind of anomaly, even though he has a haughty and awkward behavior. He also uses his magic normally despite that, at least before his orb malfunctions and he gets hit by a magic discharge that gives him hallucinations and makes his spells unstable. And even after that, he actually IS evil, but his crooked horn is still unrelated.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Nebula Shade, who managed to avoid dying or being sealed away by putting her soul inside the Star of Sylas 1000 years ago. She started waking up when Quivering Star discovered the artifact and started using it, and is completely awakened a short while after the Star is reunited with the flying city of Stellmare, all the while staying hidden and advancing her plans.
• Sealed Good in a Can: Sylas Stellmare, founder of the Stellmare Clan, transfered his mind inside the very book Quivering Star was looking for. But he only manages to manifest himself to the heroes a couple of chapters after The Reveal, since he didn't have enough energy to intervene at the time Quivering/Antarès revealed his identity and intentions.
• Shock and Awe: Luna uses a lot of lighting spells, as demonstrated during her fight against Arcadès. Fulgurite, one of Arcadès' three kids, is also able to turn himself into a lighting bolt.
• Shout-Out: To Kamen Rider, when Arcadès basically uses a Rider Kick on Luna.
  • To Skyrim, when Arcadès tries to destroy a magical forcefield with a FUS RO DAH. It doesn't work, but Crystal!Spike shows up right after that and charges the team with a WULD NA KEST shout.
  • To Star Wars, Final Fantasy VIII, Kingdom Hearts, Power Rangers, Xenoblade Chronicles 1, and Soulcalibur when during a fight in an armory, Antarès uses weapons that are described as looking like Darth Maul's double-ended lightsaber, a Gunblade, a Keyblade, the Green Ranger's Dagger-flute, the Monado and Soul Edge. Sol also picks up a weapon that might be a Soul Calibur look-a-like during the same fight.
• Slasher Smile: Quivering, once he becomes Antarès.
• Slave Race: The Crystal Dragons were nothing more than living tools for the Stellmare Clan one thousand years ago. They were created to help them, granted, but they were also supposed to live with them in harmony. However, it was the Dethicorns' corruption that pushed the Stellmares to treat them like dirt. Only Sylas and a few of his close friends managed to remain sane and tried to stop this, to no avail... When Arcadès and Sylas meet again at present day, the latter makes it clear that he never intended that and wishes to mend for his Clan's mistakes,and Arcadès accepts to put the past aside and gives his help to the heroes.
• Smug Snake: Antarès, even though he's been shown to have enough power and ressources to back his confidence up, at least until now.
• Split-Personality Takeover: Antarès seems to be completely independent from Quivering Star, even going as far as denying his other personality's existence and being appaled and angered when other characters claim that the other one was real. When Sol points out that he never manages to finish off his opponents despite all the power he's gathered, he finally gets a clue that his other side might not be completely gone, and sets off for a Battle in the Center of the Mind to get rid of it.
• Straight Gay: Guardian Blade, who acts as a Foil to Sirius' Camp Gay.
• Super-Strength: Sol has a form of it, being able to straighten Quivering's tower, which has been leaning Pisa-style, by bucking it really hard.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Arcadès has glowing, yellow eyes that act almost like car-lights in the dark. At one point, he makes them glow strong enough to make them work like a spotlight. There are a few times he's surprised or confused enough to lose his eyes' glowiness for a few seconds, revealing his naturally golden pupils, and a slight tendecy to derp. Quivering sports them after revealing is real identity.
• Tron Lines: A lot of stuff that belonged or was created by the Stellmare Clans has these when charged with magic, including Quivering Star's flying tower once the orb absorbs the power of the Elements, and the entire city of Stellmare once it is revived.
• The Unintelligible: Sol briefly sees his voice replaced by duck quacks after Quivering uses a half-failed silence spell on him, because he was snarking a bit too much. Quivering still understands what he's saying, though.
• Unwitting Pawn: Antarès may be this, since he doesn't realize that Nebula Shade is Hidden in Plain Sight inside his artifact and taking advantage of his actions. It may also have to do with the fact that he was probably brainwashed into being evil, and thus is even less in control than he thinks he is.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show:
  • While the fanfic itself has some serious elements and mildly violent fight scenes, it tries to keep the show's lightearted atmosphere. However, once Quivering Star reveals his real identity and evil plans, all bets are off and Arcadès doesn't seem particularly evil in comparison. Quivering/Antarès almost kills CELESTIA after his reveal, kidnaps Twilight Sparkle and tries to forcefully turn Spike into a Crystal Dragon. When Twilight manages to free herself and fights Antarès, she gets savagely beaten, though not as much as Celestia, then gets mind-raped by her opponent, and he's far from done...
  • Things get even worse when Nebula shows up: she's the one who made Quivering evil, and her behavior and motives are very similar to his, but even worse. Same thing for when she fights, she's as violent and relentless as her Unwitting Pawn, if not more.
• Villain Protagonist: Quivering/Antarès is already the main character while undercover, and still has lots of screentime even after showing his true colors.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: Like in the actual show, the characters wouldn't have been going on an epic, Equestria-saving adventure, if antagonists like Arcadès, Antarès and Nebula didn't suddenly pop up and started being threats to the kingdom with their already planned actions and motivations.
• Visionary Villain: Antarès/Quivering has plans to turn Equestria into a "perfect world". Too bad his methods basically make him a nazi...
• Weaponized Headgear: Antarès throws his magically-infused hat at Trixie.
• Western Zodiac: The Stellmare Security Systems are all based on that.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Recited word-by-word by Sol before he throws his shiort-lived, out-of-ammo minigun at an opponent.
• Wings Do Nothing: Arcadès has huge, worn out wings that just drag behind him like a cape. He can't move them, and probably can't feel anything with them either, since he barely reacts when Antarès pins one of them to a wall he's climbing. Arcadès just keeps going and lets his wing get ripped.
• The Worf Barrage: Shining Armor and Cadence try to use The Power of Love on Spica!Twilight, just like they did against Chrysalis, in the hope it will turn her normal again. She not only resists it, but even manages to shoot a powerful spell trough it and destroy Shining's horn, knocking him down and cancelling the spell.
• Would Hit a Girl: Antarès/Quivering, twice so far. First time for Celestia, the second for Twilight Sparkle.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: Spike gets turned into a Crystal Dragon by the villain, just like Arcadès, Emperald and a bunch of unseen dragons were a thousand years ago.
• Wreathed in Flames: A tactic used by Arcadès a few times, but never really to its full potential. He finally shows how much this ability of his counts at the end of his fight against Crystal!Spike, where he burns an entire building and lets himself fall into the inferno, in order to jump back out of it and attack his opponent like a giant, living fireball.

---