One Winged Alicorn is a straightforward My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan novella by Mondai Shunketsu
. Similar to the season 1-3 opening episodes, it revolves around a newly introduced Big Bad.
Twilight Sparkle and her friends must once more band together to stop the evil alicorn known as Shades of Grey. However, Grey's influence has threatened not only Equestria, but all of ponykind. Twilight has excelled in magical prowess since becoming an alicorn princess, but without the Elements of Harmony, can the Mane Six hope to prevent Shades of Grey from realizing his goal?
It can be found here.
This fanfic provides the following tropes:
- As Long as There Is Evil: Shades of Grey points out that using the Elements of Harmony to defeat him is pointless, since that mechanism is how he was formed in the first place.
- Beat Them at Their Own Game: Shades of Grey is an embodiment of chaos and disharmony, so they figure Discord - the god of chaos and disharmony, and thus his hierarchical superior - would be a fitting counter.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Discord loses.
- Big Bad: Shades of Grey.
- Deadpan Snarker: Shades of Grey, at times.Twilight: "Where are my friends? I won't ask again!"Shades of Grey: "Then stop talking, and lower your stance."
- Evil Laugh: Shades of Grey starts off emotionless, but gains one of these after he absorbs Discord.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: Shades of Grey states that he despises "all things harmonious." Being an embodiment of disharmony himself, it's possible that such things actually fundamentally offend him.
- Flunky Boss: Shades of Grey summons neophytes to take on the mane six while he resumes his duel with Luna.
- From Bad to Worse: Discord's defeat and absorption is bad enough; the absorption of Luna as well gives him a virtually unstoppable edge.
- Good Hurts Evil: Even without the Elements of Harmony, a declaration of friendship between the mane six is enough to shield them from Shades of Grey's assault.
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: Shades of Grey has one white and one black.
- Hope Spot: The Eclipse spell looks like it may actually defeat Shades of Grey. Instead, Luna gets beaten off-page immediately after.
- I Am Your Opponent: Discord insists on fighting Shades of Grey himself to buy Twilight some time, ignoring Grey's offer to let him just walk away.
- Luna also does this to keep Grey's attention away from the mane six.
- Inconvenient Summons: Twilight (as an alicorn) is capable of teleporting both herself and other people to and from any location she can visualize. Spike gets teleported this way in chapter 2, without warning, and is summarily confused.
- Made of Evil: Shades of Grey. The Elements of Harmony neutralize evil by absorbing it and sealing it away for later dispersal, similar to how a vacuum cleaner sucks up dirt and keeps it in a bag. Shades of Grey is what happens when that dirt piles up, becomes sentient, and breaks out of the bag.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Shades of Grey wouldn't have been released in the first place if the mane six hadn't attempted to use the Elements when there was obviously something wrong with them, but in their defence they had no way of knowing.
- No One Could Survive That!: Twilight figures Shades of Grey couldn't possibly have survived Luna's Eclipse attack.
- Noodle Incident: The CMC somehow sneak past the guards into the Canterlot throne room mid-briefing. Rainbow Dash actually asks how they did so, and the question is completely ignored.
- One-Winged Angel: Ironically, Shades of Grey does not fit the trope comfortably since he doesn't physically transform; his absorptions are instead marked by the attachment of scales (the transformed bodies of his victims) to his wings. The power and personality changes might qualify for the trope, though.
- The Power of Hate: The attack Shades of Grey uses to defeat Discord is called Hate Wave.
- Razor Wind: Shades of Grey hits Discord and Twilight with this.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Shades of Grey.
- Shout-Out: The story's very premise and title are references to the iconic song One Winged Angel.
- Rainbow Dash refers to the aforementioned Inconvenient Summons as "instant transmission".
- Shades of Grey was born from the build up of negative energy in the Elements of Harmony.
- "Wait, Shades of--? Bwahahaha! I can't believe you said that."
- Twilight's reference to the neophytes as "wannabe shadow puppets" is a possible reference to The Immortal Game.
- "Your confidence is your weakness." "Your friends' faith in you is theirs." The wording is changed slightly, but this otherwise very strongly resembles an exchange between Luke and Sidious in Return of the Jedi.
- Spikes of Villainy: Shades of Grey.
- Taken for Granite: A cockatrice comes to Fluttershy's aid against Shades of Grey's neophytes.
- Title Drop: Chapter 3 refers to Shades of Grey as the One Winged Alicorn.
- Villains Never Lie: Shades of Grey insists that he's true to his word. When he says he wants to kill you, nothing will change his mind.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Rainbow Dash spends most of chapter 2 building up to one. Not only had she taken Twilight's coronation and ascension into high society rather badly to begin with, but the mention of the "Harmony" spell (which would potentially allow Twilight to wield the Elements' power on her own) is what pushes her into firm "oh, you don't need us anymore?" territory.
- She goes off on it again in chapter 5, and this time the rest of the mane six slam her back for it.
- You Will Be Assimilated: Shades of Grey absorbs Discord and Luna, incorporating their powers into his own.
