Awesome / Pony POV Series

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Reharmonized Ponies

• Fluttershy showing Fluttercruel who's the boss then singing her to sleep! Fluttercruel was very wrong to call Fluttershy weak.
  • And she keeps Fluttercruel around for rehabilitation. Conquering a foreign personality that stands against everything you represent, and letting her keep her own consciousness to make her a better being is not something just anypony can do. And it works.
    • Works so well, in fact, that Fluttercruel is eventually able to manifest an Element of Kindness. Bonus points to Fluttershy for sowing the seeds of her own salvation by showing kindness to Fluttercruel.
• Pinkie Pie gets one of her own in her story of the same series by defeating Angry Pie, a fractured part of her psyche representing her unexpressed pain and anger over what Discord put her through, inside her mental plane. How does she do it? By merging with her Pinkamena personality, and forming Surprise to fend her off, then merging with Angry Pie itself to become a cohesive personality far more stable than anything Pinkie proper has been since the Rainboom.
  • Also counts as one for the author, for making the new more stable Pinkie Pie still…Well Pinkie Pie! She's certainly more stable and sane, but still her zany, Cloudcuckoolander self!
  • Wollffeey deserves credit for her awesome voice work during Pinkie's chapter, managing to make each of Pinkie's personalities distinct.
• Applejack takes the cake in her own story by being able and willing to stare directly into the Well of Forever, a pool of knowledge that tells all uncomfortable truths as a way to cope with her Brutal Honesty issue with Discord. This is quite a feat on its own, but then she tops herself by jamming her hoof into the pool's safety mechanism when her self control starts to waver, and stares down the Truth until she is forcibly cut off, and she's still game for another round. She spends the night at Canterlot Castle to decompress and the very next day, still with a torn up hoof, she takes it upon herself to use her new insight to help everypony she can get to reassert themselves, and hits a half dozen before sundown. Who is best pony?
  • One of the things she sees is what happened if Apple Bloom hadn't escaped Sunny Town. The alternate Applejack finds out and pretty much goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, destroying the town singlehoofedly. Do not mess with Applejack's little sis!
  • One of the other things she sees is a subtle one. She sees Twilight, during one of the moments that Discord let her remember the past just so she'd suffer more, wrote something down and hide it from him. The next scene has Twilight Tragedy's memories of her past life restored, seemingly without Discord's knowledge, and talking to Apple Bloom and Octavia's descendants. This implies that Bad Future!Twilight manages to somehow out think Discord using his own trick!
  • Another thing she sees is Future Badass Twilight facing down what's implied to be death!
    • Furthermore, while talking to Nightmare Whisper, Applejack hints that Twilight is possibly the pony destined to defeat Death.
• Rarity fights her PTSD of gems. Not by magic. Not by inner turmoil. But by simply powering through it one psychological step at a time. It's not flashy, but according to Word of God, it's their favorite of the first reharmonized chapters because of the lack of flash.
• Twilight gets one in Trixie's reharmonizing by keeping her wits about her through Loneliness' illusion of an insane asylum and catching the fact she'd said her THREE friends, not SIX had brought her there. Loneliness hadn't mentioned Princess Celestia at all, and both things any real doctor taking care of an insane pony would know about her, but Trixie wouldn't.
• Trixie gets one by finally breaking free of Loneliness' spell, and coming out of Discord a better pony than when she came in, completely obliterating Loneliness in the process.
  • The audio adaptation takes this further with the music and the imagery. Loneliness' voice actor also deserves one for just how menacing her performance is!
• Luna actually gaining control over her identity as Nightmare Moon when Discord's games threaten to turn her into a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. And then it's shown that she sent Twilight's letters, due to her sister being Discorded into a useless child, and floats it right under his nose, because "Why the hell not?"
  • Luna wasn't as lucky as Applejack when she looked in the Well Of Forever, but by taking the full brunt of it and learning the entirety of all Truth and The Multiverse, it's a wonder she's hasn't completely lost it. Consider that she had the entire millennium that she was banished, including the fate of everyone she knew revealed to her in eidetic detail to mull over, and the What Could Have Been. Possibly advance information on Nightmare Moon, depending on how the timeline breaks down.
  • One of the thing she learns is that G1 Mimic threw down with Discord after he broke down the Rainbow of Light into the Elements, and kicked his teeth in. Granted, it was the last thing she ever did as a solid state of matter, but there's a good reason he only has the one fang.
    • This moment was so badass that a fan saw fit to make fanart of it. The Defiant to the End expression on her face just makes it all the more awesome!
    • The fanfiction version makes it even more epic by explaining that Mimic succeeding in wounding Discord served as a Hope Springs Eternal, inspiring Celestia and Luna as well as awakening the Element Of Magic, setting the stage for Discord's downfall. On top of this, Discord had told her that there's no way she could so much as scratch him. After she does, knowing he's going to kill her regardless, she says this;
  Mimic: You lose.
  • We finally see this moment in all its glory in "Origins". Its every bit as epic as it was hinted to be, made even more so because Mimic was Celestia and Luna's mother and she went Mama Bear on his flank. And she gets the satisfaction of not only being the only mortal pony to harm Discord in such a way he couldn't heal from it, she manages to utterly destroy his Smug Snake facade for the entire fight without even touching him:
  Mimic: One more thing Discord. I think I should tell you. You know the rainbow that connects this world with the world of humans?
  Discord: Oh yes. Lovely place. I intend to visit there after I'm bored with this dump.
  Mimic: Don't pack your bags. Megan on her side, and Celestia on our side shattered it. You'll never torture another human again.
  Discord: You... you... you...
  • Regarding her final attack on Discord, Mimic delivered those kicks with a broken horn and with Discord holding her in his hands. She did this by focusing all of her magic in the rear hoof that wore a golden horseshoe that had the power of high-speed flight and then released that magic in a burst to propel herself hoof first into Discord's face thousands of times in one second.
    • What makes this impressive was that her final attack was in a position that would have normally be considered a disadvantage. She could only kick with one leg in a position that offered little to no leverage. She needed to channel her magic into her hoof, a hard feat for unicorns as they rely on their horns for their spells and hers was broken (even when wearing her golden horseshoes it must have been hard). Even worse was that by the end of the attack Mimic had a broken leg, meaning that she had to tolerate the pain at the same time she was dishing it to Discord. In spite of that, she actually became the first pony to ever hurt Discord. One cannot help but wonder how much damage she could have accomplished using both rear hooves in a position where she had enough leverage to buck his face properly and with a whole horn to channel her magic.
    • A villainous one for Discord was surviving ALL that and only having a missing tooth. A kick with one leg earns a broken tooth but not Discord. A kick at the speed of sounds would knock a head off one's shoulders but not Discord. Thousands of those kicks in one seconds would obliterate a head and probably the rest of the body before the attack finished but Discord only lost a tooth. As much of a horrible being he is, Discord is truly hard to kill with sheer brute force.
  • Meanwhile, during her reign with Celestia, Luna bests a resurrected Tirek on her own for the position of "Bringer of Night and Moon" and claimed his demonic chariot as spoils of war, the one she used to crash Nightmare Night in Ponyville. And it's used for joyriding.
• Fluttercruel and Pinkie Pie subduing and calming down the berserk Rainbow Dash. Even more impressive is that Fluttercruel manages to do it non-violently! Well, non-violent for Fluttercruel, anyway. Pinkie Pie's profound yet still in character story is also a big moment for her.
• Zecora is the only pony known to shake off Discord's influence under her own self control, and the Manes have to hold her to going to a doctor because she doesn't want them to spend time on her when there are other ponies worse off.
• Alexwarlorn, the author, rewrote the opening of the Fluttercruel Reprise chapter to canonize with Luna Eclipse in a matter of hours.
  • And rewrote four chapters to fit the reveals of "Sisterhooves Social"!
• The Mane Cast and Trixie singing the show's theme song in the penultimate chapter is easily one of the most awesome moments of the fanfic. It's also a Heartwarming Moment. Now if only one of the fan music composures or fandubbers would get their hands on this…

Pearls

• Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Trixie breaking themselves out of Princess Gaia's mind control without magical aid.
  • How they do it is particularly awesome and perfectly in character: Applejack allows her knowledge of the pool of truth to snap her out immediately, as well as use the truth to fight the illusions. Pinkie Pie uses her Medium Awareness and memories of her Battle in the Center of the Mind to remind herself that something was wrong, and that no matter what, her memories of the best times is enough. And Trixie, well, she gets a little intervention from her Imaginary Friend. "What's with the mallet? What do you mean you're sorry?" WHAM!
• Ditzy Doo (Derpy Hooves) going Mama Bear on Princess Gaia's birds to protect Dinky, using a mop as a quarterstaff! Do not touch her little "Muffin" if you know what's good for you!
  • And she NEVER gives in to Gaia. This display of motherly determination and protection causes Luna to publicly give her the title of "'Greatest Mother and Strongest Willed Pony In Equestria'".
  • And Pipsqueak being unaffected by the birds because it's implied Luna kept sending creatures of the night (an owl, a swarm of bats and some night-crawling insects) to drive the birds away from her first post-moon friend. She also keeps him safe from the brainwashing fog by having a legion of spiders barricade his door with webs. And even before that, she has given nightmares to his bullies.
    • It is also implied that Luna may have poured a bit of herself into Pipsqueak, which means he may actually have done all that himself!
• The entire fight with Princess Gaia's Knight Cheerilee. Especially when Trixie goes Guile Heroine and Rarity going Mama Bear.
  • Not to mention Pinkie Pie breaking into the middle of Cheerilee's Villain Song while suddenly appearing behind her, attempting to put her into a sleeper hold and then drag her to the ground from behind.
• The various allies of the Mane Cast doing their best to fend off Princess Gaia's animal army. This includes highlights such as the Wonderbolts managing to take out a full grown dragon and Trixie's mother Morgan taking part in the defense of her hometown.
  • Especially of note is Philomena as the One-Man Army in protecting Canterlot by incinerating anything that gets close. The royal guards are stunned in fear and awe.
• StarSong fighting Anarchy in Pinkie's defense. Especially that she's willing to be erased from existence to protect her friend.
• A group of fans assembling to do an audio version of the fanfic!
  • Worth noting especially is Fluttershy's voice actress, who manages to do her Discording point in such a way that it's both absolutely chilling and completely heartwrenching without overselling it. She also deserves props for being able to deliver Fluttershy and Fluttercruel with the same voice but managing to make them sound like completely different characters based entirely on how their lines are given.
• The whole Boss Battle against Nightmare Whisper. If NW wants to destroy Applejack, she'll have to get through everypony else first. And the others won't give up in their attempt to save Fluttershy, regardless of how much pain or injury they suffer. Especially Rarity, who fights half the battle using telekinesis to move her own broken legs!
  • The mane cast end it by summoning the Elements of Harmony? Awesome. Summoning them WITHOUT the Elements themselves?! EPIC!
  • There's also Pinkie weaponizing her Medium Awareness! First in an Offscreen Teleportation kick and then using a Hard-Work Montage to tie up Nightmare Whisper.
  • Not to mention Pinkie guiding Twilight to Nightmare Whisper by using her Pinkie Sense to tell her where the Nightmare's attacks are going to strike, allowing Twilight to dodge them by moving in a set pattern using the floor-stones as a grid.
    • On top of that, Pinkie intentionally screws up one of her directions for a moment, because if Twilight had gone there immediately, she would have been hit.
  • Twilight finally breaking out of her Heroic BSoD with an epic "No More Holding Back" Speech. Followed by the rest of the mane cast (minus Trixie) and Fluttercruel giving equally as awesome ones and summoning the Elements of Harmony.
• Fluttercruel's return from the Void. She severs herself from Nightmare Whisper, gains her cutie mark, and is revealed, to everypony's surprise, to be a second Element of Kindness. And after Nightmare Whisper tells her that, as a being created by Dissonance, she's likely to be destroyed by being a part of the Element's purification technique she says one thing:
  Fluttercruel: At least I can say I went out with a bang.
  • Don't forget that she had to fight her way out of a Jury of the Damned to do it!
  • Nightmare Whisper and Fluttercruel's Stare Off probably counts. Even more impressive is that Fluttercruel wins!
• In the last part of "Pearl Necklace", Fluttershy manages to stand in front of a huge crowd and give a speech. As if that weren't impressive enough for a shy Pegasus like her, somepony who still holds a grudge on her throws a rock, nailing her in the head. It takes both of the Flutters to manage it, but they barely flinch and continue the speech.
• A subtle moment, but when all the shadows of pain and suffering return to the world, the characters we see don’t immediately discard everything that they did and everything that happened during Gaia’s day. Instead, they’re confused, but they take the time to think through it and their confused feelings. It drives home the point that even if Fluttershy’s plan failed, she did help everyone she could.

Butterflies

• Alright, it was All Just a Dream, but seeing Celestia use her full-power to defend her subjects from the now evil Luna and winning was pretty awesome, even if she was the Hero Antagonist at the time.
  Princess Celestia: I have had a thousand years to prepare for another rogue Alicorn little sister. I hoped and prayed it would not be you. But I am more than ready. ORION!
• Applejack and Orangejack growing to accept their differences, realizing that their similarities are more important than those differences, and standing united to battle Nightmare Mirror. Bonus points to Orangejack for calming herself down, fighting with her head, and trading verbal jabs with Mirror, despite never being in actual battle before, let alone versus a Nightmare. Then it turns out that Orangejack can bear the Element of Generosity.
  • Applejack calling alternate versions of herself that can bear the Elements of Loyalty, Magic, Laughter, and Kindness and thus invoking the Elements to defeat Nightmare Mirror counts as well.
  • And who is Kindness? Liarjack!.
  • Even more impressive? Luna, and quite a bit of Nightmare Mirror's own words, imply Applejack saved multiple worlds, or at least multiple versions of herself, from Nightmare Mirror by defeating her.
• Easy to miss, but we see Twilight Tragedy manage to get through to Greedity and make her perform a Heel–Face Turn.
• This absolutely epic piece of fanart for Trixie's Discording. It was also used for the Audio Adaptation.
• Sweetie Belle telling off Silver Spoon's mother for calling the Cutie Mark Crusaders urchins and considering them too lowly to be Silver Spoon's friends. She tops it off by ending it on a completely polite note.
  Sweetie Belle: My big sister owns Carousel Boutique; we sell to Canterlot and super-stars! Apple Bloom's family founded Ponyville! Scootaloo is apprentice to Best Young Flyers' Reigning Champion and world record holder for Sonic Rainbooms! (forces Scootaloo and Apple Bloom to bow along with her) Madam!
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders, Spike, and Silver Spoon managing to travel through time. Keep in mind this is a group of fillies and a baby dragon who manage to do travel through time on accident.
• Golden Tiara/Screwball's escape attempt, including effortlessly circumventing the security system including two electric fences, making the orderlies and doctors look like fools. Also she beats a Cockatrice so easily it seems like she's planned it out ahead of time: 1 Closes her eyes. 2 Runs AT it. It's not used to that. 3 Grabbed it's neck and head. 4 Ran for a river, which she could hear even with her eyes closed. 5 Faced it down towards the water and forced its' eyelids open. It is promptly Taken for Granite.
  Well. That was thrilling.

General Transitions/Origins

• While "Generational Transitions" has quite a few, one impressive one is Pinkie fusing the spirit of her deceased best friend Minty with G1 Twilight, creating Twilight Sparkle. Let's put this in perspective, Pinkie, intentionally or not, is personally responsible for The Hero!
• Pinkie and Minty managing to make Luna retreat from their battle while she's trying to erase them.
  • The survivors vs Strife.
    • The author himself get's an awesome moment for somehow managing to make the friggen' G3 ponies look absolutely badass.
    • Strife get's a particularly impressive moment when she backhands The Rainbow of Light. Remember, this is a move that has always been able to take out any villain in the show and Strife deflects it in a single move.
  • Hand it to the G3 ponies: despite how majorly the odds are stacked against them, and this being their first real fight in their entire existence, they manage to give Strife a major run for her money and earn her respect.
  • Strife vs Celestia.
• From the Optional Canon, we get Cadence. You know how Cadence is a Physical God in Canon? Well, in this universe, she defeated Havoc, a GOD of Social Fears (well his avatar) all on her own. The indication from Celestia being that this was the only plausible explanation on how she managed to be reborn into the POV Universe.
  • Worth noting is that this carries off of Origins, where Cadence performed a You Shall Not Pass! on Havoc to allow her three sisters to escape to Equestria.
• It's an Alternate Timeline, but Shady: Line of Fate has Luna managing to pull Shady into Discord's nightmare as a result of Surprise accidentally triggering her magic falling on her in her sleep. Thanks to Shady's intervention, Good!Discord is able to summon Destruction's power, supercharged with his memories of his friends and family, against Evil!Discord using Havoc's avatar's power. It's outright stated that Havoc's power should have still won out against Destruction's, but Good!Discord's bond with his family made it powerful enough for the two to cancel each other out instead, taking Evil!Discord with them.
• It's a minor example and nothing comes of it, but one has to give credit to Dr. Hoof Wave in "Different From Everypony Else", where it's shown that within minutes of encountering Discord, he managed to accurately deduce his family situation and diagnose it as the cause of his insanity and cruelty. And this is after it was shown that his colleagues have no real respect for his methods, proving that he's a bit of a Bunny Ears Doctor. Of course, Discord being Discord, afterwards he immediately discords the unfortunate Hoof Wave into a nihilist who doesn't even believe that rational thought exists.

Dark World

• Considering that it's been like a nightmare for one thousand solid years without hope, for the griffons still to have the moral and internal fortitude to still do an I Am Spartacus is very admirable. (Even if Traitor Dash still might have seen through it.)
• Might also count as Nightmare Fuel but in the latest chapter we learn that somehow Discord's Equestria was once attacked by The Empire of Man. Literally everyone on the planet from hippogriffs to virgacorns (zebra-unicorns) to dragons united to fight off the Empires attack. AND WON. And then Discord visited their leader, described as "a sick old man on life support" just so he could give him a pie in the face…and instead, Discord gave him a flower and restored his health for one day.
• Queen Cadence vs the Mane 6. Queen Cadence gets some hits, but does a good job of showing why the Goddess of Harmony is not to be taken lightly. Highlights include using Fluttercruel's own weapons to electrocute her, tricking Twilight Tragedy into being rendered unconscious by lightning, and using Rarigreed's own rock armor to defeat her.
  • Just to clarify, she takes on all six of the corrupted Element bearers, and wins. She even manages to restore Twilight to her non-discorded state. Unfortunately, Discord himself then sneak attacks and kills her, before re-discording Twilight.
• The play performed by the Sea Ponies actually deconstructs the Evil Overlord List, showing exactly how the items on the list can fail, and even a Genre Savvy Evil Overlord can be hoisted by his own petard.
• Cream and Banana Pie's Establishing Character Moment in Lemons and Flint Rocks. They save a disguised Twilight Tragedy from man-eating rocks, then scare them away. And Cream Pie enters the scene by blowing one up.
• The Cutie Mark Crusaders got a collective one. Namely, they survived long enough to reach adulthood, alone with all their family members and authority figures corrupted in some way and in the Hell Discord turned the world into. Scootaloo was the only one of the three to die an unnatural death, and that was in combat with the corrupted Rainbow Dash after one heck of a fight. Sweetie Belle survived despite living in the Chaos Castle itself (which meant Fluttercruel, Angry Pie, and who knows what else lurking around), dedicating herself to take care of her sister as best she could until she died of old age. Apple Bloom may have been immortal due to her curse, but she managed to stay sane and not ask Applejack to break the curse and free her until she'd saved Sunnytown (becoming a Saint in the process) for so long she ages to dust when the curse is finally broken. Keep in mind, these were fillies when Discord took over the world.
• Dark World!Twilight finally freeing herself from Discord's taint with Cadence/Trixie's help after a thousand years of being Discord's slave/toy. And she caps off her She's Back moment with an epic "No More Holding Back" Speech. It's honestly one of the most epic moments in the entire fic, and that's really saying something.
  Twilight: I leave behind Tragedy, Master's tool, I leave behind Sparkle, Discord's toy, I am simply Twilight The Unicorn. I am me. I have magic to do and tragedies to face. I'm done hiding in the cage I've made for myself and those around me…I'm finally free. And I have some friends to make.
• When trying to get Liarjack to see the light, Apple Bloom enlists a little help from one of the gods. Which one? Celestia's father! The wise father of all Alicorns. Talk about going to the top for help!
• We get another moment with Epilogue!Applejack escaping from Entropy's realm, thanks to the power of Love Redeems with her sister Apple Bloom. And it's only here that she is able to finally accept the Element of Kindness as her new self.
• While it's an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, it's still worth mentioning. Laughter!Applejack's world is one where Destruction didn't cause the end of civilization during G2 but the paradise of G3 never happened. This results in a world were an Ancient Conspiracy is keeping Earth Ponies in the dark about Unicorns and Pegasi, Pegasi are keeping the Unicorns in the dark about Griffins, and Dragons and Alicorns are keeping themselves hidden from everyone. And a group of Stallions In Black erase memories to keep up The Masquerade. Well Laughter!Applejack's version of the Mane Cast (with Pinkamena not having an Element but still being a big help) while still in high school, manage to completely tear down the masquerade, destroy the Stallions In Black's organization, and apparently have several other misadventures. Even though we only hear about it, it's still awesome.
  • Another example worth mentioning is Magic!Jack. Yes; that's right; apparently there's a universe where Applejack is injured so badly in an accident that she can never applebuck again, so she turns to books, takes an interest in magic, and learns how to perform Unicorn-style magic, to the point that she becomes the Element of Magic. That shouldn't be possible, which makes it even more awesome.
• Dark World!Spike managing to overcome his dragon instincts after Discord sets them loose as one of his games. Especially because Discord didn't believe that was possible, making it a big middle finger to him.
  • A blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in the same chapter: Greedity throws Twilight over her shoulder, spin's around, impales Twilight with a stone spike in midair and slams Twilight back first onto the ground, all in one fluid move. The sheer SPEED that would require is amazing and it really shows why Dark World Rarity is the undisputed Queen of Badassia.
• In Dark World 10, Twilight, AJ, and Rarity get Derpy patched up, and then help her permanently get rid of the crow constructs Discord created to pursue her and Dinky. They use a giant tornado to suck the crows and the dirt generating them up and throw them through a dimensional tear into Ponythulu's domain. And then send a tip for baking them into a pie. Oh, and Derpy is the new Element of Loyalty. Discord had better call Forest Lawn.
• "Omake Hearth's Warming Eve" is primarily a CMOF, but it's still impressive how Santa Hooves manages to break into Discord's castle, bypassing every death trap and shrugging off everything Discord and the Chaos 6 throw at him, just to give them their coal and/or gifts, every single year. And then, when Discord demands to know why he doesn't just eliminate Discord, and why he keeps coming, Santa replies with a Death Glare and comments:
  "Because that's not what this special holiday is for. And I bother because…it's always worth reminding you that you aren't the final word in power."
• The "No More Holding Back" Speech Dark World!Spike gives that helps him awaken as the new Element of Generosity. Bonus points for incorporating a pretty good "The Reason You Suck" Speech aimed at Discord, despite Discord not even being there.
  • Even more awesome is the fact that by becoming the Element of Generosity, and not denying or suppressing his instincts to do so, he pretty much tore Discord's beliefs about him to shreds in the process.
    • Bonus points: during the aforementioned speeches, he figured that Discord was ultimately trying to prove the two of them aren't so different. Spike's actions prove that, in the end, Spike is simply better than Discord.
• The Badass Boast that Banana Pie gives on behalf of the entire Apple/Pie clan when they promise to protect Dinky while Derpy goes with the others to fight Discord.
  "They'd have to get through every Apple and Pie alive to so much as touch her. And anyone who tries will walk away on crutches!"
  • The reveal that during the early days of Discord's reign, Dinky somehow managed to perform the memory spell and restore Derpy.
• Dark World 15: Rancor's Big Entrance into the mortal world is pretty impressive.
  • Same chapter, The Voice manages a very effective "The Reason You Suck" Speech on Discord.
  • Dark, but Traitor Dash killing a rebel dragon and fighting off groups of rebel changelings and hippogriffs at the same time, not letting any of them stop her from reaching her goal.
• The Duel of Tears is as awesome as it is heartbreaking, watching Traitor Dash go all out in her attempt to kill Twilight, and Twilight fighting her off. Highlights include TD revealing that she's been holding back her power for a thousand years and becoming Ender Dash, Twilight changing into a Pegasus in order to fight back evenly, Derpy managing to hold her own for most of the fight, and in a more subtle but still awesome example, Rainbow Dash being redeemed by the memory spell and talked out of despair by her friends.
  • Derpy and later Apple Pie breaking free of Traitor Dash's Pony Puppets power. When Dash tries to use it on Derpy again, this bit of awesome happens:
  Traitor Dash: You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!! Treachery!
  Derpy: Loyalty. (No Sells Dash's Pony Puppets ability)
• Apple Pie defeats zombies. By essentially proving to them they should be dead.
  • Followed by Twilight helping her weaponize it with the Royal Canterlot Voice to wipe out the entire army. Even The Voice has to compliment her on that one.
  • The entire group fighting together as a unit for the first time against Discord's defense grid. Even Apple Pie gets in on the awesome by squeezing into the turrets and pulling their wires out.
  • Apparently once in the past, The Master invaded Equestria and defeated Discord, Cadence and all of the Chaos 6 before the Valeyard defeated him with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• The entire fight with the Valeyard. First off, there's how Crazy-Prepared he is (though having a time machine helps with most of that), with the kicker being Twilight tries to use the memory spell, only for a duplicate construct of the Valeyard's personality to implant itself in her mind and take over. Though this is quickly followed by one on Twilight's part when she fights its control long enough to tell her friends to smash her head to destroy the construct; she grows a new one free from its control.
  • Twilight even manages to trick the infection inside her head into revealing itself to her friends.
  • Earlier, the Valeyard turns Derpy into a Manchurian Agent and tells her to kill the others. Applejack uses an illusion of the Valeyard to break her out of it.
  • Then, when the Valeyard manages to discord Derpy and Apple Pie, Derpy manages to un-discord herself by remembering all her good times with the Doctor. And seeing this allows Apple Pie to come back from the brink as well.
  • The Valeyard tries to set off bombs he implanted in the Elements of Harmony via time travel, Rarity absorbs them into herself to save them, then seals her body in rock to minimize the damage.
  • Twilight gets one directly after by tricking the Valeyard into teleporting an exploding rock right in his face thinking it was Rarity's regenerating Element of Desire.
  • Derpy refusing to stay down, even as the Valeyard is practically melting the Elements' brains with sonic attacks and he's hitting her to try and make her stay down. This gives the group the time needed to foil the Valeyard's attempt and turn things around.
  • And then, how the Valeyard is taken down — Derpy remembers something the Doctor told her once, which makes her realize that the Valeyard is using a template to maintain his personality after regeneration, which Applejack and Rarity quickly deduce is being hidden by illusion around his neck. As the Valeyard has an Oh, Crap!, Twilight neutralizes the Valeyard's sonic attacks, allowing Derpy and Rarity to take it from him — and then throw it away, as Rarity instantly realizes it's a decoy. Then she locates the real one inside his body, rips it out, and destroys it, leaving him vulnerable. This is then crowned by Derpy going into a Tranquil Fury and beating the Valeyard to death, letting him regenerate back into the Doctor. It's as awesome as it sounds.
  • Apple Pie gets one too by kicking the Valeyard in the face, stunning him and setting up Derpy's assault.
• Rancor gets one in "Love/Hate Bedlam part 2", where she becomes the first character to be completely unaffected by the voice's attempts to manipulate her, to the point of realizing that its presence is unusual (as opposed everyone else, who just accepted it).
  • Apple Pie being the first one to land a hit on Rancor.
  • Rarity going into a Tranquil Fury and promising to kill Fluttercruel for all the evil she's done, especially to Fluttershy.
  • Heck, Rarity managing to shoot down every lie Fluttercruel tried to tell about Fluttershy without batting an eye. Then there's her response to Fluttercruel attempting a "Not So Different" Remark on her, managing to pinpoint Fluttercruel's loneliness over the fact no one else is a psycho like her.
  Fluttercruel: At LAST you get it!
  Rarity: No; I don't 'get it', you sad filly. You kill for thrills. I'd do nothing if you just stopped. I'm nothing like you. And that hurts, doesn't it? To know just how alone you really are.
  • Angry Pie gets one in a flashback, when it turns out that she is the one who killed Discord's League of Auxiliary Minions, for threatening one of her adopted foals.
• Dark World Part 20: Angry Cruel Love is jam packed with them:
  • Spike holds his own against Rancor by embracing his Genius Bruiser and Badass Bookworm tendencies, even throwing in an obscure Call-Back to his hoof wrestling matches at Trixie's party. He even tickles her into submission!
  • Angry Pie demonstrates how dangerous her reality-bending abilities and Unstoppable Rage are when she's focused: She gives Twilight a brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, wrecks her horn, and even manages to dig out her Element.
  • The Rarity VS Fluttercruel showdown in its entirety:
    • Rarity yet again shoots down Fluttercruel's accusations and even gets in a nice Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: The only pony who can save you is Fluttershy . . . and since I can't bring her here, I'm going to send you straight to her.
    • Fluttercruel finally pulls out her most dangerous weapon of all: The Stare, just like her mother's. She manages to Stare Rarity into submission and comes within seconds of murdering her...only for Tom's fragment to smash itself straight through her eye and leave her wide open for Rarity to take the Element of Cruelty. Then, while Fluttercruel (who was likely suffering the same Rapid Aging as Twilight without her Element) is ranting about her taking it, Rarity finishes her off by impaling her.
• In "Real Hoof Blues", Apple Pie, despite being terrified, refusing to abandon Applejack when she's about to be killed by Angry Pie is both this and Heartwarming.
  • She also manages to Logic Bomb Angry Pie twice, giving her headaches and helping distract her long enough to free Applejack.
  • Also in this chapter at one point a frighteningly calm yet still enraged Angry Pie beats the ever-loving daylights out of Rarity, Derpy, and Spike all at once. She does this by grabbing the diamond sword Rarity made out of her own blood and then stabbing Derpy with it while Rarity still holds it and simultaneously kicking Rarity in the head.
  • While it's also terrifying, Twilight revealing herself to be Not Quite Dead, followed by calling Angry out on her hypocrisy while beating her to death is quite cathartic.
  • Which is then followed by a proper awesome moment, as Twilight's friends and a different voice talk Twilight back from the edge of the Moral Event Horizon, after which she then enters Angry Pie's mind and manages to talk her personalities into merging back together, saving her.
• In "Off Da Rails", Fluttercruel is trying to break the Elements of Harmony by pointing out they're ultimately selfish hypocrites who are willing to forgive their friends anything (even trying to kill them), but are perfectly willing to kill those they don't know for the same crimes. Rarity and Twilight shoot this down by partially agreeing with it, admitting their faults, but also saying that friendship is more complicated than that.
  • There's also the part were the group face off with Discord's Mooks (which are as random as you'd expect). The mooks weren't much of a challenge. Highlights include Pinkie Pie taking out an Eldritch Abomination with her Party Cannon and Apple Pie blowing up a giant-cyborg-spider-vampire with a Logic Bomb. The group then takes on 300 Goblin-Cowboy-Samurai and are more focused on philosophical discussion than their enemies.
  • Dark World Pinkie saves the elements of harmony by utilizing her rock farming knowledge. (It Makes Sense in Context)
• The Elements of Harmony and a copy of Destruction's power (fired by Rarity) reacting and obliterating Odyne!Cruelty's body. When she then tries to Body Surf into Twilight, Pinkie('s ghost) knocks her away, and Fluttershy's spirit shows up to restrain her daughter long enough to hit her with the Elements again, banishing her from the mortal plane and even destroying the piece of Havoc in her in the process.
  • As if that wasn't awesome enough, it gets followed up by Fluttershy traveling to the Draconequi realm and staring down all of Discord's siblings and Havoc and telling them that she has the right to take Cruel with her and teach her a better way to use her concept. Havoc is impressed enough by this he lets her go.
  • The author gets one for managing to make Fluttercruel sympathetic, and making it work.
• "My Little Alicorn" has Twilight get a pretty epic Shut Up, Hannibal! to the Nameless Passenger for telling her to kill the sea pony that's trying to take two of Celestia and Luna's feathers.
  Twilight: From what Applejack told me about her redemption, Applebloom's ghost took a feather already on orders from their...Father, so it must be safe. And I'm not a murderer. That's why.
• During the final confrontation with Discord, Twilight breaks away from the Nameless Passenger's script by refusing to give into her hate and stopping the others from beating the already dying Discord to death, saying there's no point in fighting him when he's already lost. In doing so, it's implied she's broken a "Groundhog Day" Loop.
  • Followed up on in the following chapter when she actually does break the loop by finally shaking off the Passenger's influence and refusing to restart the loop. This forces the Passenger to try and possess Twilight, only to be forced away by her friends' care for her.
  • The above also counts as one for Discord. He had Twilight use her Memory Spell on him so the memories would show her what resetting time would really do, Out Gambiting the Passenger in the process. On top of that, he Trolls the Passenger by forcing her to endure several hundred pictures of him mooning himself set to a continuous loop while Twilight sees the memories.
• "Give A Reason" has Twilight and the others continuing to shoot down Nightmare Paradox's lectures even when Paradox takes Twilight to a Pocket Dimension. Twilight even turns a few back on her. Paradox doesn't listen, but it was still awesome.
  • Rarity, with the others supporting her, using the Elements of Chaos to break through Paradox's Pocket Dimension and showing Twilight You Are Not Alone.
• Sparkler confronting her grandmother over her attempted murder of her daughter (and Sparkler's mother), Ditzy. Her grandmother rants and raves about how Ditzy was a "failure" and an "embarrassment", but Sparkler has none of it, completely telling her off and reaffirming her love for her mother.
• The continuing battle between the Dark World Mane Six (and their allies) and Nightmare Paradox's Psycho Rangers has some quite awesome moments:
  • Paradox is stopped from taking advantage of the previous chapter's cliffhanger by Rainbow Dash and the Princesses arriving in time to fight them off and free the others from their various imprisonments.
  • Spike and Apple Pie are tag-teaming Nightmare Mirror, who tries to Break Them by Talking, pointing out that Apple Pie is just a Promoted Fangirl in over her head, and Spike is a freak (being a generous dragon) who Rarity wouldn't look at twice if he wasn't an adult. However, Apple Pie merely laughs off her situation, and her cheerfulness empowers Spike, who says he likes being unique, and doesn't care why Rarity's with him as long as she is.
  • Rainbow Dash hits Paradox so hard she actually manages to break off her White Mask of Doom... which reveals that in a previous loop, an attack from Alicorn!Trixie scarred Paradox's face so badly it left a Wound That Will Not Heal.
    • Even more so with the later reveal that said Trixie survived her universe's erasure and became Princess Anasi.
  • The group causes enough damage to the Nightmares that they're forced to retreat back into Paradox. Afterwards, the Benevolent Interloper points out that Paradox is on her last legs.
  • Minty Pie finally catches up with the group, and when Paradox tries to incinerate her, she jumps out of the way and uses Paradox's own attack to destroy the time-reset spell Paradox has been trying to get Twilight to use. Twilight is stunned at how good her combat reflexes have become.
    • She also deserves credit for staying so calm in the fight, even when Paradox almost kills her a couple of times.
    • As well as cutting off Twilight's horn to stop Paradox's attempt to corrupt Twilight into a Nightmare.
• The epic conclusion to Dark World's Final Battle: Twilight distracts Paradox with a speech, before throwing her soap box in Paradox's face, followed by the heroes attacking the distracted Nightmares and mortally wounding them... only for Paradox to rewind time and undo the damage. But then, Discord calls Paradox from the afterlife and Trolls her into the start of a Villainous Breakdown, ending with telling her that he was just a distraction. At this point, it turns out that Twilight wanted Paradox to undo the last attack, so that she could copy her time powers. Then, combined with her link with Minty Pie, Twilight is able to summon the G1, G2, G3 and G4 (pre-Reign of Chaos) Mane Casts, tapping into their Elements of Harmony as well as reactivating the Princesses', giving the heroes six sets of Elements to use. For final measure, Twilight's parents (still plants) restrain Paradox, allowing the heroes to deliver the final blow, which seemingly destroys the other Nightmares and depowers Paradox, starting the process of fusing her with Twilight in order to turn Twilight into an Alicorn.
  • Of special note from the above is the "No More Holding Back" Speech Twilight gives just before the final attack:
  "You have power over time? The magic between friends transcends time, space, reality, death, beyond all barriers! Friendship doesn't just pierce the barrier between life and death, but all barriers, everywhere! This is a friendship that pierces the walls between worlds! We've been made, unmade, and remade, but the links we've forged between our souls are all still here! You have six Elements of Harmony that are absolute? We have six sets of hearts beating together in harmony! You have a gallery of Nightmares? We have a herd of FRIENDS! I'm not scared. Not with all of you by my side. And neither are they scared by my side!"
  • More impressive? Twilight had no idea her parents were going to do that! This means that Twilight's plan was to overpower the Nightmare's Elements in a Beam-O-War. It didn't happen, but still, that takes guts after seeing what they can do!
  • Eclipse deserves a villainous one for the fact all this was more or less a requirement to defeat her due to how dangerous she ultimately was.
• While also sad, Razzaroo and Twilight's fight for the position of Alicorn is a moment of awesome in and of itself, as is the fact Razzaroo not only survive the G3 universe's erasure, but progress far enough to potentially become an Alicorn. Even though Twilight wins out, it's later revealed that she becomes the Alicorn of Wishes and Miracles.
• Twilight not only completing her Alicornification, but helping Rarity undertake her own, in the process releasing a World-Healing Wave that removes the last of the negative traits of Discord's chaos from the world.
• One of the first things Twilight does as an Alicorn after the Final Battle is restore the entire Daring Do franchise from memory. Followed by doing the same with the Super Stallion franchise for Apple Pie.
• While it's also a Tear Jerker, there's the duel between Amicitia and a younger Cadence, who's convinced that magic is inherently evil and wants to prevent it entering the universe, at the dawn of time. Amicitia manages to No-Sell all of Cadence's attacks for a while, before Cadence manages to overpower her... causing Amicitia to stop holding back and nearly kill her, forcing Cadence's Light of Existence to be reborn as a mortal, presumably causing her to change her mind and become the kinder pony seen in the rest of the series. In any case, Havoc and Rancor were thoroughly impressed.
  • Havoc Himself gets one. He outright admits that at the dawn of time His Concept currently has no purpose, meaning, at the time, He's essentially powerless (or at least considerably weaker). When Amicitia tries to call Him out on not interfering, He's not even phased and gives a perfectly acceptable explanation for why He didn't and why He was there with Rancor in the first place that even the Alicorn of Twilight Sparkle has no choice but to admit is correct and accept.
  • Of course, this is followed by a series of events that are just straight up awesome (and quite a few are heartwarming): Amicitia turns much of existence into a Stable Time Loop, among other things turning out to be the Benevolent Interloper, helping herself in the past (as well as being the one who taught Dark World Dinky the Memory Spell); is the one who led Firefly to the Rainbow Bridge and convinced her to ask Megan for help, setting the events of G1 in motion; protected a BSODing Celestia during the Alicorn/Draconequi War, and helped her, Luna, and Galaxia escape to the mortal world.
  • Amicitia cures Lyra's curse. Boom.
  • Followed the next chapter by traveling The Multiverse, subtly interfering and manipulating events to give happy (or at worse, bittersweet) endings to practically every major MLP Dark Fic out there — yes, even THAT one. Most impressive, however, was engineering the Rainbow Factory's destruction, with its leader getting chased by an angry mob and falling into the Pegasus Machine himself.
  • A later chapter revisits this and, after manipulating things so that humans are no longer a Slave Race and things are better for human and pony alike in the Chains reality, and keeping Rarity from killing stallions in an attempt to make a perfect spouse for herself, and instead convincing her to create Equestria's first dating service (and getting help from Anasi to seal away the spirit of Loneliness that almost drove her to do those horrible things for good measure), Amicitia comes to the universe of The Immortal Game. There she is contacted by that world's Celestia, who tries to convince her to go back to the distant past and convince Luna and Celestia to kill Titan and Terra instead of sealing them away (since even if she stops Esteem from releasing them, somepony else could later). But before she can make a decision about how best to help that world, which she dearly wished to, Nyarlathotrot shows up, mad at Amicitia for giving so many worlds happy endings, and enters the world himself in an attempt to make the events even worse, with Amicitia chasing close behind. The two then star a game of shoulder angel, with Amicitia stopping Nyarlathotrot at every turn. And even then, she manages to get Empyrean to realize his father's evil and surrender instead of fighting the rebels, and has Fluttershy pull a Big Damn Heroes moment and save the price when Titan tries to kill him for failing him and not being useful anymore, though she is unable to change anything else prior to that.

Shining Armor Arc

• It may be an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, but there's the fact that Queen Tiamat, the ruler of the dragons, ended the Dragon/Hooviet War by showing up and delivering a Curbstomp Battle to the entire Hooviet army singlehandedly.
• The battle with Makarov's forces in part 6 of Shining Armor's Arc. Despite being badly outnumbered and outclassed technologically, Shining and the few griffins with him successfully hold off and take down a large number of deer Mooks. Then when Shining fights Makarov himself, he does hold out long enough for his troops to show up in large enough numbers to scare the Hooviets off. And for a villainous angle, Makarov deserves some credit for kicking Shining's ass.
• The moment where Shining pulls a fast one on Makarov for insulting Celestia, and say that THAT is an insult to get upset over.
• Thunderchild's Big Damn Heroes moment saving Shining from Makarov. Then when the Gun Ship Rescue happens, Master Chief Spartan shows what he's made of and plows straight through about ten Mooks all by himself.
• Running Gag saving the group investigating a magic surge (several Misfit squads, Cadence and the hoofmaidens, and the Doctor) from an inbound group of Hooviet soldiers and mercenaries by tapping into their radio frequency and impersonating Makarov, sending them in the other direction. It's so impressive that not only does Garnet give him The Big Damn Kiss (upgrading them from "just friends, honest" to Official Couple in the process), but Cadence promotes him on the spot.
• In Shining Armor 15, Shining manages to project a force field that covers the entire village that his and Mother Deer's forces are in and keep it up even after being hit by over 200 rounds of Hooviet artillery. This is enough to cause Makarov to have a small scale Villainous Breakdown.
  • Cadence gets an awesome moment when she taps into the harmony between the members of Misfit Actual and the Rebels in order to kick Makarov's flank, all while singing a "The Villain Sucks" Song, which acts as a Shut Up, Hannibal! to the Breaking Lecture he had been giving. Makarov pulls an Actually a Doombot, but it's still impressive, especially when she then picks the robot up and throws it out of the village to explode harmlessly.
  • Shining managing to defeat one of Makarov's Alicorn Cyborgs Mercy Killing the poor pony trapped inside.
  • Mother Deer gets one by converting a captured Hooviet tank's crew to the heroes side by talking to them.
  • And of course, there's the Invincible leading a Gunship Rescue to drive off the Hooviets.
• Cadence gets a subdued one in Shining Armor 16-2: the group is in a Hooviet-allied nation and, in disguise, attends a play depicting Hooviet propaganda views about Equestria. Slipping into Tranquil Fury, Cadence drops their disguises, letting the actors know that they just spent two and half hours insulting the home nation of a diplomatic party. She then politely compliments them on producing such a wonderful parody, forcing them into the choice of either defending it as a straight play (thus admitting that the Hooviets are jerks) or going along with it being a parody (thus admitting it as propaganda.)
• The chapter also has Misfit Actual being completely defiant even as Makarov has them all tortured.
• In Chapter 17.1 Shining Armor gets a truly amazing CMoA by using his magic to ruin the magic-blocking force field that Makarov has raised to wipe out all the forces in the massive battle they're observing. He also mocks his enemy and his bragging all through it, reducing him to helpless fury.
  • Makarov, of all beings, gets one in the fight when he takes down several enemy ships with a rocket launcher and a katana. He also causes a dragon to explode in the process.
• In 17.2, Pandora shows up to verbally bitch-slap Makarov, followed by nullifying his Plot Armor and letting all the plot holes he's created catch up with him, putting him and his forces at a severe disadvantage against the allied forces.
  • Said allied forces include Tiamat, Bahumat, and Celestia herself delivering some literal Wrath of God down on the Hooviets.
• 17.3 just keeps racking up the awesomeness, including but not limited to: Shining and Dima downing Makarov's helicopter with the clever use of rockets, the allied forces taking out several Hooviet tanks (Including a Mammoth tank), curbstomping one of Makarov's Alicorn cyborgs, Shining and Gilda taking out a cyborg Diamond Dog, and the reunited Misfit Actual — despite being bloody and beaten — not even hesitating to join Shining in going after Makarov's superweapon.
  • A subtle one, but Garnet had minimum supplies to work with and was herself beat up, but still managed to save Gag's life and patch Misfit up fairly well and seemed to have worked herself quite hard in the process. Shining is impressed.
• And even more in 17.4:
  • Ellis and Zangief take out a Cyborg with a combination of grenades and a rocket, while Thunderchild and Running Gag take out another by directing lightning.
  • Meanwhile, Shining gets through to the third of Makarov's Alicorn Cyborgs, allowing her to retake control long enough to activate the self-destruct of Makarov's Skyfall superweapon removing both it and herself from Makarov's use.
  • Dima giving Makarov one last screw you by sacrificing himself to save Gilda, ruining Makarov's hopes of a climatic battle with him and Shining simultaneously.
  • The Allies taking out the last Alicorn Cyborg with an AA battery.
• 17.5 has the entire Final Battle between Misfit Actual and Makarov, which they get an edge in by Trolling him to make him lose control of his powers. But the key moment in when Gilda, fatally wounded but still going, destroys Makarov's Iron Curtain, allowing the Wolf to come in and erase Makarov. On top of that, Shining makes it perfectly clear that he's willing to let the Wolf take him too if it means destroying Makarov.
• In 18.1 the Master tries to convince Minuette to open her fob watch so she becomes him again and fight against Marakov.
  Minuette: "But if I open it...if I release you...I'll stop being me, won't I?"
  The Master: "Why does that matter?"
  Minuette: "My friends would lose me forever. I'd be replaced by a monster who I can't trust to still be their friend. I can feel it. A darkness...You have no heart."... But how could I ever trust my friends with somepony with no heart? You're right, I'll do anything for my friends. And that includes NEVER becoming you."
  The Master: YOU EQUINE FOOL! You are ME! You are the MASTER!
  Minuette: No. I. Am. Minuette. Colgate (hurls fob watch across the room)
• 20: Shining managing to escape from the Wolf when it comes after him with quick thinking.
  • A minor one, but a scene with the CMC showed that Kyubey was in this universe trying to do his "make a contract with me and become magical girls (or rather, fillies)" nonsense with them... only for the Wolf to come in and (after undoing Scootaloo's contract) erase him and "[sever] the race of fairies' connection to this universe". If you know anything about Puella Magi Madoka Magica, then this should rival erasing Makarov for you.
• 21: Cadence managed to save the Invincible and the crew from Discord's chaos with her memory spell, in the process saving Shining's life when the driven mad doctors give him an overdose by letting them fix it.
  • The crew help save Caruba from a disastrous megastorm triggered by recent events disrupting mana streams though at the cost of Sunset and Ranger's lives.
• Shining Armor and Cadence fighting together to drive the Blank Wolf off once and for all, finally saving Shining's existence.
  • Minutte gets one shortly before, when she throws the Master's fob watch to the Wolf, erasing the bastard once and for all.
    • What's more awesome about that? Minuette was completely aware that destroying the Master could very well erase her along with him. She does it anyway.
    • And survives.

Not The Wedding You Remember

• Queen Cocoon vs Chrysalis.
• Blueblood of all ponies using logic to figure out why Unicorns looking down on Pegasi and Earth Ponies is BS. Since Alicorns embody all pony races equally, none of the races can possibly be superior or inferior to each other.
• Silver Spoon managing to break free of Nightmare Diamond Tiara's Mind Rape and drive her out of her mind. By absolutely refusing to accept Diamond is irredeemable and can't become friends with the CMC.
• Trixie managing to resist the temptations of an entity seemingly representing the Alicorn Amulet.
• It turns out Cranky did face Discord. And shut down his attempt to play games with him.
• Lyra, Bon Bon, Moth, Twinkle Shine, and Minuette managing to sneak into the castle and break Chrysalis' control of Moon Dancer and resolving to do their part to stop Chrysalis. Bonus points for being the first ones to throw a wrench into Chrysalis' works so far.
  • Lemon Hearts' Establishing Character Moment, which consists of chasing two Changelings clear out of the castle with a giant lemon monster.
  Lemon Hearts: HOW'S THAT FOR AN ANGRY MOTHER LEMON?!
• Blueblood of all ponies along with his fillyfriend Arcane rescuing Cadence and bringing her to interrupt the Wedding.
• While she still loses in the end, Celestia gets bonus points for winning the Beam-O-War this time around and giving Chrysalis a nasty head wound. She only doesn't end things then and there because A) she had to hold back so not to hurt the innocent ponies crowding the room and B) Chrysalis Playing Possum to give herself the opening to counterattack.
  • Likewise, Luna gets one by being seconds away from blowing Chrysalis' head off and would have too, if Shining hadn't been brainwashed.
  • Starlight Sparkle actually managing to wound Chrysalis, however minor, in a moment of Mama Bear rage. It didn't work, but it took serious guts.
  • And of course Twinkle Shine and company being the Big Damn Heroes at the end of the chapter.
  • Applejack gets one as well. While being brainwashed by Chrysalis, trapping her in an And I Must Scream situation, she's tempted to become Nightmare Mirror to make it stop and stop Chrysalis...but ultimately manages to resist the temptation, knowing that it'd just make things worse on everypony else. Applejack resisted going Nightmare despite being in an abolutely horrible situation, being forced to act completely contrary to her Element in every way, something Fluttershy wasn't able to do.
• Queen Chrysalis versus Makarov. Chrysalis for how well she fairs and Makarov for leaving Chrysalis battered and badly wounded during the fight.
  • Luna managed to save all the ponies launched with her from falling to their deaths while being launched hundreds of miles. Also counts as Heartwarming Moment for showing even in a situation like that, the Princesses care for their subjects.
  • The Mane Six, with help from the Hoofmaiden's group, managing to fight their way out of the Wedding Hall and escape.
  • Lemon Hearts' Angry Mother Lemon proving strong enough to hold off General Hercules.
  • Minuette, with a great deal of effort, managing to stop time for a short period.
• Misfit Actual deserves credit for being able to keep a level head despite the situation they're in and managing to escape the situations they end up in during the wedding with quick thinking.
  • In particular is Thunderchild's fight with Carpenter Bee, ending with him using his mastery of lightning to electrocute Carpenter into submission. Particularly in the revised version where they have a sword fight first.
• The heroes' group managing to escape the changelings. Highlights include Pinkie Pie invoking Scooby-Dooby Doors to finally give them the slip and the mysterious Cobweb using an electrical trap to knock out half their pursuers.
  • Moth finally managing to overcome her cowardly nature and reveal herself to the group so she can give them intel. Cadence standing up for her also counts. Depending on your perspective, the heroes giving her a beatdown in anger for what her cowardliness did can also count.
• How the heroes manage to free Twilight from Chrysalis' control — by providing a distraction for the Changelings (including Rainbow Dash performing a Sonic Rainboom indoors), they give Cadence the chance to get through to Twilight with nothing but her love for her.
• The Pegasus Interviewer convincing the suspicious Wonderbolts of the truth about the invasion and getting them to side with her, using nothing but logical reasoning.
• Chrysalis gets a villainous one when it turns out she was prepared for Twilight being freed by Cadence, having implanted an illusion spell in her mind to make her think Cadence was Chrysalis, so she'd kill her.
  • Of course, this is then countered by another heroic CMOA, as Cobweb turns out to be a disguised Trixie, who realized something was wrong after Chrysalis' attempt to break her, and came back in disguise to undermine her. She then fights defensively well enough to match Twilight, long enough to get Cadence inside her head to free her from Chrysalis' spell.
• The Crusaders getting dangerous in order to save Spike, managing to take down two Changeling adults via having Scootaloo use the Puppy-Dog Eyes technique learned from Applebloom as a distraction, then knocking them out with heavy books from behind (with a Groin Attack thrown in for good measure with one of them). And then they cover their escape by summoning a water elemental (they were aiming for a fire one, but it still counts).
  • Silver Axe/Tongue gets one the same chapter. Lemon Hearts jumps the gun, the group is arguing over what to do. What does he do? To go from 'Doting Parent' to 'Badflank Guard', Curbstomp a Changeling trying to attack him in two moves, and tell the group to get their act together. He spends the rest of the mission calling the shots and does so very well.
• Applejack resisting Chrysalis and Evil!Sweetie's attempts to break her while brainwashed. According to Chrysalis, what they put her through so far should have broken her, but she's holding herself together through sheer stubborn refusal to quit. There's also her hitting Chrysalis hard in the Berserk Button with her Shut Up, Hannibal!.
• Misfit Actual and their allies managing to take down Digger Wasp, one of Chrysalis' Co-Dragons, thus cutting off the Changelings' communications network. Though Digger Wasp deserves credit for managing to fight well enough that the whole squad is needed to take him down.
• Dawn, Noon, and their allies managing to corner Dusk and pin her down long enough to free her from Chrysalis' control. Bonus points for actually managing to outsmart her, when one of the traits she represents is Twilight's intellect.
  • Afterwards, Chrysalis gets a villainous one when she not only refuses to go all "This Cannot Be!" over the above, but tells Half-Light Dusk that she will not let Rota Fortuna dictate her fate, and that she won't let anything stand in her way of her goals.
• In The Stare versus The Truth we get several astounding moments:
  • Though it also counts as Nightmare Fuel, seeing Applejack use her Truth Vision on Twilight's friends to send them staggering.
  • Getting into a stare versus stare with Fluttershy so intense they both consider going Nightmare simply to stop Chrysalis. All the more impressive for AJ given that this is all happening while she's under old Locust Legs' complete control at the time!
  • Applebloom let herself get 'dragon mailed' by Spike to save her big sister from Chrysalis — and it works!
  • And then AJ uses her Truth Vision on Chrysalis and actually hurts her for the first time in this arc, making it probably one of THE most satisfying things seen in a long time in this arc.
• At one point during this Applejack tells a still-brainwashed Sweetie who's just compared the mind-control of ponies to the raising of trees, that if her trees got up on legs and wanted to live their own lives, she'd let them.
• The fight between Twilight and Shining Armor. Also qualifies as Nightmare Fuel when you remember how much they truly care about each other, and yet thanks to Chrysalis they're trying to kill each other.
• In the Orange Butterfly chapter two amazing things happen. First of all, Scootaloo saves Sweetie from Queen Chrysalis. How? She FLIES! And YEARS earlier than her Dark World version! Go Scootaloo!
  • She then manages to not only take down the changeling coming after her, but cut him, which is really hard to do.
  • Also in that chapter in a moment that crosses one with crowning moment of Funny and Heartwarming we see Jet Set and Upper Crust having their usual lunch date. During a state of martial law, because why should that stop them from their usual schedule. It ends with an injured Changeling crashing into their table. The response of these two rather shallow Canterlot nobles? They treat his injuries and bear him inside.
• Rarity freeing her sister from Chrysalis' mind control is both this and heartwarming.
  • Likewise is the reveal that Scootaloo's big moment above resulted in her getting her cutie mark.
• Misfit Actual and their allies facing off against Kabuto.
  • Weaver ending the fight by copying Kabuto's One-Winged Angel process in order to fight him long enough for Garnet to develop a counteragent to reverse it, depowering him. For bonus points she knew that without his modifications, it's Cast from Lifespan nature would likely make it a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Gag knocking Kabuto out after Garnet's concoctions causes a Karmic Transformation that turns him into an Earth Pony.
• Garnet treating Weaver after she's revealed to be a changeling, even allowing Bombardier to shapeshift into Gag and use her mind magic to get the love required.
• Thunderchild giving an epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Lone Ranger.
• Weaver and her siblings proving that Changelings can coexist peacefully with other creatures, with bonus points for going out of their way to follow the law as much as possible.
• Everypony fighting against the changelings, especially with the new armor Rarity made.
• The CMC wreaking havoc on the changelings.
  • Bonus points for Sweetie freeing a number of brainwashed ponies and using logic to get the changeling Tick to rethink his race's philosophy.
• Twinkleshine and Silver Axe performing a The Rest Shall Pass on the Changelings trying to stop them from reaching Chrysalis.
• Fluttershy cowing a monster being used to guard Chrysalis.
• Fluttershy and everyone else telling Chrysalis to shut it.
• Twilight figuring out that the changelings are a lost pony tribe.
• Shining is free!
• Thunderchild's speech to Bombardier.
• Blueblood using the Changelings's lack of knowledge of his Character Development to his advantage.
• Misfit Actual and the other remaining guards showing up to help Trixie's group fight Hercules Beetle, making the changeling desperate enough to go One-Winged Angel.
  • Ellis using a homemade bazooka to damage Hercules' supposedly invincible shell.
  • There's the simple fact that Hercules takes 10 powerful ponies and several of Lemon Hearts' Familiars fighting him all at once and at the end of the chapter has the upperhand. The Interviewers calling him the 'second most dangerous Changeling in existence' was Not Hyperbole.
  • The group taking Hercules down by repeatedly hitting him with alternating heat and cold attacks, weakening his armor enough to destroy it completely. On the other hand, Hercules deserves credit for still going afterwards even though he can barely stand, only stopping when they knock him down and he's too weak to get back up.
• Cadence challenging Chrysalis/Cadenza for the position of Changeling Queen.
• When Luna's guard shows up to help hold off the Changelings during Cadence and Cadenza's fight, the Changelings use special counters for guard moves. One guard, Average Joe, counters by adapting to their counter, pointing out in an actual battle that style of fighting doesn't work so well.
• The arrival of Princess Luna and her Guards and some... special allies the lovecats from the first IDW comics arc in the Princess Luna Returns chapter is a truly heroic moment in the story. It's followed by many, many more in that chapter, such as:
  • Rarity calling back to her G2 self as Melody and healing Cadence's crushed vocal cords with a song. And all Chrysalis can do is rage that this is impossible.
  • The Lovecats showing up and helping the ponies fight the Changelings. Effectively.
  • Screwball/Golden Tiara laying a beatdown on several changelings, all the while demanding to know if they think their mothers would be happy to see them sacrificing themselves for Chrysalis. At first she's merely stopping them. Then one of the Changelings is foolish enough to call her a 'savage', and... She also keeps fighting long past the point where ANY other pony would have collapsed.
  • The Mane Six teaming with members of Misfit Actual to take several of the Changelings down.
  • Princess Luna being willing to let the Mane Six take the lead with these words:
  "Heroes inspire. Inspire them."
• Cadence and Cadenza's Shapeshifter Showdown.
• Shining and Cadence working together to finish Cadenza off.
• The Mane Six shooting down Lone Ranger's arguments.
  • Rarity slices Lone Ranger's throat to scare him and show him how bad what he wanted was, but she did it in such a way that it couldn't possibly kill him.
• Remember what Celestia said she would've done to Fluttershy/Fluttercruel if they had gone too far as Princess Gaia? That's what Kabuto's punishment was. And there's no fate more fitting for him.

7 Dreams/Nightmares

• Subtle, but 'Gaiden; 7 Dreams/Nightmares: Bon Bon's reveals that G2 Bon Bon's sister Misty sacrificed herself to shield her daughter from the explosion that destroyed civilization, saving her life.
• Sadly it's primarily an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, but as shown in "Origins", after the Class 2 apocalypse at the end of the G2 era, Patch was tasked with scouring the world for the seven pieces of the Rainbow of Light, and succeeded in regaining them. And this included taking on Grogar, who according to Word of God is basically a Darkseid expy in this universe.
  • We get to see this in her entry in "Gaiden: 7 Dreams/Nightmares", along with taking on various other warlords and criminals who had possession of the shards of the Rainbow of Light. She also ended up fighting the dragon Basil (who was at his prime thanks to his shard), and beat him into submission, forcing him to recognize her as his master.
  • Grogar gets one of his own. Patch rings the bell that's defeated Grogar countless times before…and it does nothing. Grogar used the Rainbow Fragment to protect himself from that weakness, and laughs in her face. Also, even though he still loses, he manages to severely wound Patch as she makes her escape, leaving her with a limp for the rest of her life and coming close to killing her.
• Starlight managing to admit the role she played in the destruction of the world and find herself guilty in her afterlife trial, saving her soul in the process.
• Sweetheart's 7 Dreams/Nightmares chapter reveals that during the lead-up to the casting of the world changing spell, some corporate ponies — fearing a loss of profit caused by a world where everyone gets what they want — sent some thugs after Sweetheart's family in order to intimidate her friends into stopping the spell. Sweetheart's husband Teddy proceeded to put them all in the hospital.
• Melody's 7 Dreams/Nightmares chapter gives Mortis one when he has to deal with Rancor (who came back from the future to take part in the Cosmic Retcon due to how time works outside of the mortal plain). She goes overboard and he effortlessly subdues her with acupuncture needles.
  • While not seen onscreen, the Sea Ponies get one for building the Rockin' Beats a huge sea side stadium to perform in during their tour. Why does this count? They manage this without having forelimbs. Melody is impressed by their cleverness.
• Bright Eyes' 7 Dreams/Nightmares chapter has an action that is both awesome and heartwarming. During the G3 apocalypse, Bright Eyes/Zipzee's dedication to and love for her fellow Breezies was strong enough that she was able to break Discord's spell on them that had changed them all into Parasprites. More to the point, while doing so she was fighting off what appeared to an attempt by Entropy Herself to drive her past the Despair Event Horizon.
  • Later, in the Nightmare section, Bright Eyes, having lost her memory, reveals she knows Lancer is her husband despite not remembering it. How? Via Sherlock Scan.
  Bright Eyes: You've been concerned and protective of me from the start. I felt hurt when you were hurt and I know we're not identical twins. That means you were either my husband, a friend, or my brother. Sweetheart didn't find us being together strange at all. So that rules out stranger. You've been struggling with being close to me but not being too close. So that rules out family. You weren't possessive of me, so that rules out stalker. You might have just been a friend who was pinning for me and my husband died in whatever disaster happened. But you weren't acting ashamed or hesitant like this was your big chance. And I feel safe around you, the first thing I called you was 'White Knight', which means I felt safe around you before and I remember your voice calling to me. So you must have had some great meaning for me. Oh and our wedding rings are identical.
  • Bright Eyes having a Battle in the Center of the Mind with Cruel Eyes/D___t, first fighting off his attempt at Break Them by Talking, then "physically" fighting him, ultimately realizing that since they're in her mind, she has the advantage. Not only that, but after mortally wounding him, she then slices up his Shadow of Existence, making sure that he stays Deader than Dead.
• During the Gaia Festival, Zecora and Fluttershy are attacked by a pony seeking revenge for Fluttershy's actions as Princess Gaia. Zecora's response is to calmly punch him out without even turning to face him.
• From Clover's Nightmare section; the group are waiting to possibly get into the base controlled by General Ripper (yes, he is based off the Trope Namer). Clover stands up to the insane general, leading him to throw a punch at her...that knocks off Dazzle's wig (poor mare lost her mane in the disaster). The General proceeds to scream that she's bald. This was a very bad idea. General Ripper finds himself being thrown through the air and into his own troops. Due to Clover's good luck, this ends up destroying Ripper's supply stockpile and foiling his 'fight' against the Unicorns and Pegasi before it could ever start.

Side Stories/Recursive Fanfiction

• Sunset Shimmer got her Cutie Mark by raising the Sun as a little Filly.
• In the third chapter of the 'Sirens' arc, we see Sunset Shimmer finally learn what her true Element of Harmony is. TRUST, the one destroyed long ago by Discord.
  • In the Friendship Games adaptation written by Persona22, her "Daydream Shimmer" form is translated into the POV multiverse as her ascending to concept status as a goddess!
• From Tirek's Origins Episode: Tirek's army vs Lahb, the giant spider guarding Pandora's Box of dark magic Morning Star stole and let loose that Lilith created. Highlights include:
  • Lahb gets one for fighting an army of dragon killing Centaurs and winning.
  • The Moochick sending the forty foot spider flying with a White Magic Wave-Motion Gun and leaving her stunned for a few moments.
  • Scorpan managing to actually hurt Lahb by destroying one of her fangs. Too bad for him, and the world (due to him being Tirek's Morality Pet), it was a Dying Moment of Awesome, as she kills him moments later.
  • While also terrifying, as it's his Start of Darkness, Tirek's Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Lahb, by absorbing some of the dark magic and using it to fire a Wave-Motion Gun that kills her.
• From "The Smooze" chapter has a big villainous one for Reeka, who after being hold up with her mother in Mount Gloom, finally decides to apply herself and is revealed to be Brilliant, but Lazy, creating the Green Smooze which is immune to Flutterpony Magic, the one weakness every version of the Smooze since Lilith's Smoss has had.]] Even the post Heel–Face Turn Draggle is impressed by what her sister did and this enough to finally get Hydia to be proud of her. She gets another later after Hydia dies in the final battle, Reeka goes berserk and manages to put up a fight against the entire army of heroes before being brought down. Took a Level in Badass indeed.
  • The heroes get one in return by figuring out how to defeat the Green Smooze by throwing it through a portal to Discord's realm, with the Flutterponies completely exhausting themselves pulling a You Shall Not Pass! while they set it off. Special mention goes to the Bushwhoolies who tickle the Green Smooze and make it fall in, with Wishful sacrificing himself to do so, resulting in the two fusing together and leaving the Smooze the more friendly entity it is in G4.
  • Megan keeping charge throughout the entire thing and coming up with the plan to defeat the Green Smooze. She also is the one to take Hydia out by deflecting her own death spell back at her.
  • Princess Tiffany gets one by distracting Reeka enough for her to be beaten, and being badly hurt in the process.
• The Moochick holding up a magical barrier for days. His sister Bonnie also deserves credit for her fighting skills.
• Heathspike's Big Damn Heroes moment saving Moochick and the Elves from Tirek's Reptilian army, not caring if even Tiamat herself wants to stop him.
• The birth of the Rainbows of Light and Darkness.
• Majesty destroying a whole coven of witches BY HERSELF after they killed her herd.
• Majesty later defeating Thunderstorm, though Thunderstorm deserves credit for proving to be an immensely powerful Pegasus and able to keep up with her head on.
• Majesty destroying a tidal wave with a Wave-Motion Gun and saving Vynciani.
• Majesty and the ponies of Ponyland holding their own with Tirek's army.
• Majesty vs. Tirek! The chapter is called "Clash of the Titans" and boy does it live up to it. They have one of, if not THE biggest knock down, dragout fight between two characters in the series. They use magic spells, weather control, creating constructs, transformation, flight, energy blasts, and good old fists and hooves and it's as epic as anything Dragon Ball Z ever dished out. And special mention to Majesty losing the match but making Tirek's victory totally empty. She uses a spell to erase all memory of herself from everyone everywhere except for Tirek, so that her death will not affect her ponies and leaves Tirek having gone through the fight of his life and have nothing to show for it.
• Every single chapter of the Cutie Re-Mark timelines arc of Amicitia's story. Considering the premise of this arc is finding ways to turn every single bad future shown in the episode into a happy ending this is no surprise. Specific examples:
  • In the Sombra War timeline, they encourage Rainbow Dash to finally let loose everything despite her metal wing. She performs the Sonic Rainboon 10 years late and then just keeps going, hitting Sombra repeatedly and accelerating, and even as her metal wing starts to fall apart, she declares she will keep flying with pure weather magic if she has to. Her sheer determination makes her ascend into an alicorn, and she beats up Sombra until he shatters, also releasing a lot of ponies from his mind control.
  Rainbow Dash:THIS WAR IS OVER!
  • In the Flim Flam Incorporated timeline, Applebloom has managed to become the owner of the company ten years in the future, and even created advanced robots that defeated Sombra himself. Despite being an antagonistic force, she becomes one of the elements of Harmony once starlight Glimmer manages to make them work, and later creates new technology that doesn't have the same negative effects on the environment.
  • In the Tirek timeline, Trixie uses the Alicorn amulet to fight Tirek, despite the fact she almost lost control using it against Sombra in the past, only being saved by her friends. She loses, but the determination of her friends to die with her makes Trixie realize that neither chaos nor darkness is inherently evil, and she awakens her friends' elements of chaos, purifying the amulet and combining its power with theirs to utterly annihilate Tirek. This also makes her ascend.
  • In the Discord timeline, the World Mirror turns out to still connect to the canon Equestria Girls universe. So Celestia goes in and gets the assistance of the Humane Six plus Sunset, and hit Discord with the elements while pretending everything was just a show to trick him. And since Sunset has the restored trust, this also destroys Discord's extra power.
  • Several in the Nightmare Moon timeline:
    • Twilight fails to hatch the egg. So she steals it and spends a couple of weeks researching before finally hatching it with a self-designed spell, earning her cutie mark. She doesn't become Celestia's student, but she is still proud of herself.
    • Both Twilight and Trixie become agitators spreading propaganda under pseudonyms. Coloratura and Sapphire Shoes also do it with their art.
    • Cadence and Shining Armor throw Nightmare Moon out of the Crystal Empire after defeating Sombra, and it becomes the seat of the rebellion. Blueblood even grows up and becomes a good administrator. Also, Spike's desire to protect his loved ones causes him to grow while still retaining his conscience.
    • Rarity secretly feeds Zecora, after she is sentenced to starvation for rebelling.
    • Twilight manages to get guard!Rainbow Dash on her side, and they join up with Fluttershy(taking care of a depowered Discord), Rarity, Zecora, Moondancer(Celestia's student) and Pinkie Pie and recover the elements of harmony. She also notices when Nightmare Moon traps then in a dream, and manages to break the spell... By telling the others to ignore Nightmare Moon.
    • old!Starlight Glimmer goes to hold off Nightmare Moon by herself to give time to the others. Discord then comes, gives her a chaotic magic injection and the two hold her off for enough time.
    • Rainbow Dash rejects Nightmare Moon's offer with a little help from Amicitia, awakening her element and helping the others understand what to do.
    • Reconstruction manages to foil Nyarlatotrot's attempts to isolate Moondancer... without even talking to her.
    • Twilight completely fails to be jealous of Moondancer awakening her element. This causes her to awaken her own element.
    • They finally defeat Nightmare Moon with the Elements.
  • Also several in the Chrysalis timeline:
    • Zecora is so concerned with defending the ponies under her protection that she actually manages to ascend. And kills Chrysalis in single combat.
    • A group headed by Daring Do manages to recover the elements. Sunset betrays them by stealing the element of magic, but they still come to save her, redeeming Sunset and awakening the elements, trapping Kabuto and gaining a way to restore 'husks' drained of love. It also gives Cadence and Celestia a chance to take back the Crystal Empire.
    • The group manages to convince Changeling Princess!Sweetie Belle that Chrysalis was wrong. And Mirror manages to keep Big Mac from going Nightmare.
    • The duel between Sweetie Belle and Pitcher Plant, Sweetie is winning before Pitcher goes One-Winged Angel, so Rarity is forced to run through fire to give Sweetie her love, making her ascend into a Flutterpony Changeling Queen. They she wins in the dark magic BeamoWar. Then Rarity's life is saved by Daring Do helping her awaken the element of Generosity.
  • Finally the Ashlands timeline is so unstable the concepts are forced to descend in person to fight Nightmare Conundrum, a being made of paradoxes and possible villains. So they start redeeming the villains that make part of it and absorbing the variants of the being they have, slowly weakening the monster. And the Blank Wolf ascends into Tabula Rasa, who can write fates. And Chance manages to manifest and give them a bag of coins that can be used to split Conundrum into hundreds of stable timelines, Amicitia splitting into her many aspects to do so. And then the angel Starlight Glimmers from the various timelines manage to use the elements of harmony to finish off Conundrum, while Tabula Rasa writes a new fate for the world and Princess Gaia restores life and Jiniri saves the people Conundrum had eaten. A fitting ending for an epic arc.
• Human!Trixie fighting the freaking human world Blank Wolf to a stand still in her Amulet powered form to protect Princess Twilight is this.
• Sunset Taking the Bullet for her friends against Wallflower is definitely this.
• Due to Wallflower having far more control over the Memory Stone than in canon, the fight is considerably more epic than in canon, ending with a Beam-O-War of a shade of Entropy clashing with the Rainbow from the Elements.
• The Final Battle between Human!Majesty and Human!Tirek, ending with Majesty being impaled by Tirek, but ripping off his Immortality Inducer crown and stabbing him through the heart.

Finale

• The Blank Wolf puppy defending Sweetie Bell in her sleep.
• The Elders coming to the Crusaders aid in stopping Discord's plans. Special credit goes to Entropy/Void Taking the Bullet to protect them.
• Anarchy protecting Nurse Red Heart. Considering how powerful this spell is implied to be, the fact he's able to actually protect ponies himself deserves credit.
• When Dash finally figures out that something's wrong, she remembers that there used to be this filly who loved her. She can't remember her name, but she knows she existed. And she'll save that little filly that is, Scootaloo. No matter what.
• The epic duel between Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie when the former goes after the wrong target when trying to track down and solve the cause of whatever's wrong in Ponyville; bonus points for the entire fight - including combatants' motivations and the ending - being a giant Shout-Out/ homage to Homura vs. Mami from Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion.
• The CMC managing to freaking survive in the grimdark Crapsack World things have been twisted into alone counts as one of these.
• Nurse Red Heart, presumably with Anarchy's help from earlier, managing to turn her area into holy ground dedicated to Saint Sweetheart and gain Healing Hooves. Of note, it's the only place the CMC have been too so far that isn't corrupted like the rest of the world, even being 'animated' differently.
• Scootaloo not only managing to escape the Death Trap the corrupted Cheerilee put her into by using Pegasi magic to shatter the cage, but using the Power of Love the two had as sisters in G3 to free her, in the process purifying the school with a World-Healing Wave and saving her entire class.
• Anarchy performing a Heroic Sacrifice to get Alula off of the CMC's tail. He knows he's screwed due to his Avatar, but willingly goes into the fight.
• In Chapter 7 Answers and Identities Revealed we get several awesome moments:
  • Nightmares Manacle, Banneret, Mirror, and Granfalloon deciding that they're sick of being trapped in an endless dream and that they're breaking out NOW.
  • The twin revelations that the Nightmares are being aided by Starlight and Razzaroo to escape Nightmare Whisper.
  • In a dark way, the introduction of Nightmare Whisper's TRUE form and powers. She's more dangerous and powerful than when she originally appeared — MUCH more dangerous.
  • The gathered Scootaloos of 171,015 worlds coming to the rescue of the Nightmare Manacle and her friends.
• And in Chapter 8, the protagonists of "My Little Pony Tales" get a Big Damn Heroes Moment when they come in to help, wielding Zanpakuto-esque weapons based on their personalities and named for their loved ones. Awesome.
• Small one, but Princess Anasi (aka, the Trixie who scarred Eclipse's face for eternity and is revealed to have survived her universe's erasure) manages to No-Sell Nightmare Mirror's truth vision due to being the genuine Concept of Trickery.
• Nightmare Bannerette vs Abandon.
• In A White Wolf Versus the Dark Hound, the CMC and 'Blanky' defeat both Nyarlathotrot's Hound of Tindalos AND roughly half a dozen Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath. And they do it with ease!
• They top the above by taking out Shub herself a few chapters later.
• Flash Sentry, of all ponies, leading a group to save Princess Luna and stop the Nightmare Forces.
• Scootaloo saving Rainbow Dash by getting her and her rumors self to split. This turns into one for Rainbow-as-Mare-Do-Well for managing to defeat her own rumor's counterpart by throwing them into the Pegasus Device.
• Daring Do curbstomping the factory workers to protect the foals without killing one of them.
• Diamond Tiara demonstrating her new power as a Nightmare by battling an enraged Venus and knocking her out cold.
• When facing a crazed Big Macintosh, the CMC and Button Mash comment that after all the crazy stuff they went through so far, this is child's play and Curb-Stomp Battle him.
• Sweetie Belle using a Wave-Motion Gun spell Chrysalis taught her to blow a hole through Nyarlathotrot's Dark Storm Avatar and kill it with the rest of the CMC and Applejack bracing her and Daring Do holding him off (which is one of these in and of itself). Followed by Button Mash, Applejack, Applebloom, and Scootaloo using Button's wind leaf to slice its falling corpse in half when it attempts a Taking You with Me.
  • Not just a Wave-Motion Gun. Sweetie Belle's spell apparently calls upon the power of Entropy herself.
• Applejack's fight with Nyarlathotrot especially once AJ's other incarnations lend their strength to her.
• Nightmare Mirror performing a Heroic Sacrifice to protect Applejack from one of Nyarlathotrot's attacks, then fuses with her, transforming Applejack into her Alicorn self, Princess Veritas. She proceeds to use the powers of all five tribes to combat him. Particularly of note is towards the end when she pounding into him while dedicating each blow to somepony he hurt in his 'masterpiece' timeline. She finishes the fight by literally kicking him so hard, Nyarlathotrot's soul is launched out of his body and the universe itself.
  • The fact that by doing so Nythy and his family who helped in his plan are banished from the Pony POV multiverse for 8 billion years.
• Applejack, Starlight, and Razzaroo's rescue of the Interviewers and Shining Armor. Special points go to Starlight, who has to shed her Reaper powers just to be able to help. it doesn't slow her down much.
• While it was stated, we get to see some of the Pantheon and other's actions keeping ponies alive:
  • Strife Curbstomps a Predator to give another deity a chance to rescue a pony from it.
  • Judicium tying up Kangaroo Court rumors. All of them.
  • Sea Ponies and King Leo vs Dra-Gon, with King Leo's Big Damn Heroes moment of tackling Dra-Gon so hard he's sent flying, despite the Eldritch Abomination being far larger than him.
  • Mother Deer tricking Discord by reverting back to her original form of the Tree of Harmony (which the Rumors don't know to attack) and using her power to protect her subjects from danger.
  • All Twelve Doctors plus Minuette helping save ponies.
• All four Elders, in mortal avatars, curb-stomping expies of Bayonetta, Asura, Kratos, and Demi-Fiend to allow the CMC to advance. Even better, Discord sent them to counter the Elders because they were all known for being god-slayers, yet the Elders barely even put any effort into the fight.
• Flash Sentry defeats two crazed members of the asylum with CQC skills, then figures out how to bring Celestia back to her senses; with cake.
• The final battles between Scootaloo and Alula and Sweetie Belle and Tootsie. Sweetie manages to overpower Tootsie's Compelling Voice and outlast her, while Scootaloo and Alula fight one another to a draw. Scootaloo and Sweetie then follow this up by redeeming them.
• Featherweight, with his special talent of stealth, infiltrates the bad guys' base.
• An understated one, but Rota Fortuna shows Applebloom the true nature of the multiverse and that every choice one makes means other universes exist were they made different ones and asks if this makes choices meaningless. Applebloom's response? No, it doesn't, because those other Appleblooms aren't her and she's not them, therefore their individual choices DO matter and every version of them has their own past AND future different than the others. Rota commends her for getting the right answer.
• Applebloom calming Button down when his realization he'll cease to exist if they win causes him to attack her.
  • Likewise, Button deciding to do what a true hero would do: allow the world to be saved, even if it costs him his existence.
• Apple Bloom shuts down Nightmare Diamond Tiara's arguments that the Shadows Who Watch are evil, then resists a Lotus-Eater Machine where she is a princess.
• Applebloom finding the hole in Nightmare Diamond Tiara's plan: the printing press is the keystone of the entire Rumor's plan, so she couldn't completely destroy it beyond repair. Which means Applebloom can fix it. Cue a Big Damn Heroes by Button Mash and Featherweight, who proceed to hold off Diamond Tiara long enough for Applebloom to fix the Press and use the drop of Truth in her eye to refill the ink to reverse the Rumors plan. This action earns her Cutie Mark, for fixing things.
  • One of the biggest ones in the entire series? The CMC saved all of existence.
• Starlight Angel, due to the Cosmic Retcon, saving many lives by realizing the explosion was coming early enough to warn others, then performing a Heroic Sacrifice to delay the blast as long as she could.
• Button Mash's Heroic Sacrifice to save all of reality managed to impress all five Elders (one of which is Entropy and the other is Azerhorse) enough that they collectively vote to merge his Shadow of Existence with the current Button Mash to resurrect him in a sense and allow him to remember his friendship with the Crusaders and relationship with Sweetie Belle as a reward. When the strongest beings in all creation view your actions as worthy of reward unanimously, you know they're impressive.
• "Princess Rainbow Dash vs Everything". The title is not an exaggeration. It's the fully ascended former Nightmare Manacle vs an entire universe of Peggy Sues and she manages to beat a number of them and hold her own. Even better is she was just the distraction, Princess Apple Bloom from the Variety Show verse repairs Yggdrasil (the computer running the universe) to allow the loop to finally end.
• Apparently, Pitcher Plant and her 'Black Hive Changelings' tried to attack the Wuv Cats' kingdom like Chrysalis did in the prime universe. The Wuv Cats won. Also, apparently she also tried to kidnap the Crusaders as Chrysalis did in Revenge of Queen Chrysalis by brainwashing Fluttershy's animals. The Crusaders also won.
• Discord appears to Trixie in a dream and tries to tempt her with the Alicorn Amulet, but she doesn't fall for it and then Princess Luna shows up to help drive him away. Later, Trixie's mother Morgan challenges her to a fight. Morgan's special talent is Destruction, and she uses it in very creative ways. The fight goes all over the place, and even when Trixie copies her Destruction spell, she's no match for her. It is then that Morgan reveals this was all a ploy to get Trixie to copy her spell, and to teach her not to get complacent in the face of future threats.
• Apparently, at some point off-screen a mass break out of Tartarus occurred and the mane six and allies had to fight it off and send them back. It involved Spike grown into his adult form but mind intact, Shining Armor with a war hammer, and Twilight dueled Hydia. This was taken from the Variety Show verse, but it's still freaking impressive.
• Mother Deer gives the Elements of Harmony a Full-Potential Upgrade.
• The reason why none could tell Discord was free? Diamond Tiara willingly smashed his statue and allowed him to use her as a host body, since as a Nightmare, she can't be sensed.
• The heroes nearly effortlessly deflecting Discord's taunts, utterly shocking him.
• Twilight managing to get in Discord's head, even for a moment, by showing him the thing he's too afraid to face: the image of Shady hugging little Dissy like mother and son.
• When Golden Tiara attempts to interfere with the final battle, Flash Sentry nearly effortlessly defeats her, despite her Super-Strength and martial art skills. Golden Tiara gets one when Flash has the Changeling Death Stalker secure her to the ground with his slime, only for her to rip a section of the ground out and clock Death Stalker with it.
• Twilight managing to convert Chrysalis's anti-Nightmare Rune into an anti-Chaos rune to weaken Discord enough to make fighting him feasible, with the Diamond Dogs doing the digging and Gifted Unicorns powering the rune, and creating a forcefield based on hopes and dreams to prevent Diamond from attacking it. Discord doesn't take it well.
• All of "Round 1: Fight!" Especially Rarity conquering her dark self by realizing that she HAS no dark self to face, and Pinkie pulling a No-Sell on Cupcakes Pinkamena because she's already conquered her dark self long ago.
  • Trixie gets one for similar reasons to Pinkie, but gets one heck of a Shut Up, Hannibal! on her dark self.
  • Twilight giving her dark self, Nightmare Eclipse, a Shut Up, Hannibal! to her mentioning her friends might die and be separated from her by saying she'd do anything for them, including let them go.
• Chapter 8 of the Last Battle has Fluttershy temporarily unlocking her true Princess Gaia form to annihilate the endlessly-regenerating statues and hedge monsters, without giving them a chance to regenerate again.
  • Before that the group uniting to fight together is epic. Even if they keep respawning, shows how tough they've become.
• Nightmare Diamond unleashes an army of the Pinkie clones sent to Oblivion, all armed with copies of the Concept Killing Spear. Twilight very briefly channels her Alicorn self's power, telekinetically pulls all their spears away at once, then twists them into a ball. Then Silver Spoon, all by herself, manages to convince the very angry clones to withdraw.
• Twilight managing to defeat the out of control and Came Back Wrong Destruction, with some help from Discord.
• Fluttershy managing to defeat Griffoncord through clever use of her powers and ultimately trapping him in a Lotus-Eater Machine. Best of all, she kept her word and beat him nonviolently. Execution also counts: at first it looks like Fluttershy actually is fighting violently and losing...at which point it turns out the first illusion that 'didn't work' (back on Paradise Estate, something this part of Discord simply doesn't care about) was part of the real illusion and he already lost.
• Celestia showing just how experienced and powerful she is by how she handles Quetzalcord. Both with her Shut Up, Hannibal! retorts to his attempted Breaking Lecture and Shapeshifter Guilt Trip routines, but in physical combat as well. Particularly when she reveals she has the same Power Copying ability as all Elements of Magic and actually has her own variants of Sombra's, the Siren's, Tirek's, and Chrysalis's spells, an cripples Quetzalcord with a spell she stole from Chrysalis. She then forces Discord to let her go by singing him Dissy's favorite lullaby, something he can't stand.
• Luna managing to defeat Batcord by appealing to his pride and ego and convincing him to fight her one on one, neither using any powers. She ends up forcing him to cheat, and swiftly capitalizes to defeat him.
• Pinkie Pie and Seacord stalemate overall...so Pinkie Pie wins via Offscreen Teleportation and appearing outside the closed in battlefield with him still trapped inside.
• Dragocord greedgrows Spike back into Spikezilla...and Spike begins pounding him because the thing Spike wants the most is his friends. With help from Trixie (who electrocutes Dragocord by shooting a lightning bolt into one of the giant needles Rarity sent up the Detachment's nose), he wins. By asking Dragocord what he and Discord truly want, something he can't answer.
• The group using teamwork to defeat Deercord, ending with Applejack and Rarity destroying him.
• Trixie's entire showing in the fight shows just how far she's come as both a fighter and a person.
• Silver Spoon gets one by beating Goatcord's first 'game' by tricking him into eating himself. It didn't beat him, but if beat the first stage.
• Scootaloo beating the 'second stage' by punching him in the face with a move she came up with, saving them from being dropped into a pit of fire.
• Apple Bloom beating the third phase by throwing a potion into him.
• Sweetie Belle beating the next phase by using one of her dark magic spells on his exposed body instead of aiming for his moving head.
• Silver discovering that some part of Tiara loves her enough so her her tiara still protects her while fighting Goatcord.
• Scootaloo figuring out Goatcord's weakness and beating him with the cape Entropy gave her until he ceases to exist. Goatcord doesn't return to Discord, he's just gone. And Discord admits his insanity went with him.
• Rainbow Dash managing to defeat Eris despite her pulling out every last stop she could against her. Even when Eris pulls out a giant robot (which is literally a Megazord made of megazords).
• Celestia and Luna managing to take advantage of Scootaloo erasing Goatcord and Discord's insanity to ask him a series of Armor Piercing Questions and Armor Piercing Responses that actually causes him to have a Heel Realization and try to just call the fight quits. Had Diamond not usurped him, the fight would've been over then and there.
• Celestia and Luna bypassing Nightmare Nhilis's ability to No-Sell their magic by using nonmagical attacks.
• A subtle one for Trixie: She can do mane magic, which as in canon is near impossible to actually do for most, even Nhilis. All without even realizing this is impressive.
• Apple Bloom saving Twilight's life with an alchemy potion.
• Rainbow Dash managing to trick Nhilis into destroying her own needle shooting weapons.
• Applejack destroying Nhilis' blades and land aa pretty big hit on her.
• Applejack and Pinkie Pie managing to catch and force back Nhilis' Giant Foot of Stomping, making her hit herself in the process.
• Trixie saving Ponyville with her mother's destruction spell.
• Rarity showing off her Nerves of Steel facing down Nhilis and forgiving her, which definitely hits home.
• Celestia shrugging off Nhilis' despair inducing attack because she's endured so much despair for a thousand years she can fight through it.
• Prism Rush managing to talk down Rainbow Dash from falling for Nhilis's taunts.
• When Sweetie Belle and Nhilis prepare to fire two Unholy Nukes at each other that would end badly no matter what happens, Pinkie Pie manages to get Rarity into the area and let her give Sweetie a Cooldown Hug, which still leaves Nhilis. Discord finally swallows his pride and does the one thing he can do to shock her out of the spell: admit that what he did to Shady was wrong and selfish and that he sent Surprise away to save her from himself.
• Nhilis tries to break Rainbow Dash by convincing her that because they're not the Heart World, then they're all fakes. Rainbow finds a very good rebuttal:
  Rainbow Dash: "... It's true, I'm not the Heart World's Rainbow Dash... and I have NO regrets! She didn't get to know Scoots like I have, but we're still the same pony where it counts. Here, there, Equestria is still a place you can trust griffons, zebras, ponies, donkeys, and the rest to be treated as equals. Where you can count on the Royal Guards to be decent creatures who don't exploit people for 'protection money.' Where my friends have problems, but we aren't psychos. I'm THIS Rainbow Dash, this is MY Equestria, MY friends, MY WORLD, MY FAMILY! And I wouldn't have it any other way!!!!"
• The group coming very close to apparently purifying Nhilis with her only managing to stop it at the last second.
• Cheerilee managing to defeat the rabid Timberwolves Nhilis sent at the Apple's Farm and Zecora and Cupcakes manage to defeat her Shade she sent at Ponyville.
• Gilda shows up out of nowhere. Nobody saw her coming, and she had no idea what was going on and simply came because she wanted to patch things up with Rainbow Dash. Annoyed at the "useless background character" butting in, Nhilus separates her from the others and tries to kill her. Despite Nhilus having the power of a god and Gilda not having any magical augmentation like the others, Gilda fights back and even makes Nhilus bleed, shocking her. And even when Nhilus beats her down and breaks so many bones she can't move, she remains Defiant to the End and sings the Junior Speedsters song.
• All of Fidelitas and Nhilus's fight. Fidelitas shows that while Nhilus has the Spirits of Dark Magic inside her, she's a several hundred thousand year old Alicorn with a lot more fighting experience, and pretty much owns her early in the fight until Nhilus manages to adapt. The fight ends with the two going all out and Fidelitas taking a page from Princess Anasi's book and leaving a permanent, irreparable hole in her armor for the heroes to exploit with her last attack. While she technically lost the fight, Fidelitas still wins in a way by saving Gilda, giving the heroes a chance to rest and recover, and clearly wearing Nhilus down a bit, all of which were her actual goals. Nhilus in turn gets one for managing to hold her own against someone as skilled and powerful as Fidelitas, even if Fidelitas was holding back for various reasons.
• Flash Sentry, Deathstalker, and Filthy Rich managing to beat two demons Discord set up as guards for the Final Battle.
• Trixie managing to effectively fool everyone except Nhilus Discord included with her Faking the Dead act. It doesn't ultimately have the outcome she intended, but still impressive.
• Trixie trumps that by fooling everyone completely and utterly, while also disguising herself as a powered up Twilight and fighting Nhilus head on to distract her from Rarity's plan.
• Pinkie Pie and Silver Spoon managing to stun Nhilus by channeling Silver and Diamond's hoofshake through Sweetie Belle while Fidlitas reveals she regenerated underground and assists in holding her in place.
• Rarity sacrificing herself to merge with the Spirits of Dark Magic, both to defeat Nhilus and to temper each of them. Even more so given she does so by tearing her soul into pieces to give to each, which is completely agonizing, but keeps going. This also redeems the Spirits, effectively permanently ending the threat of Nightmares forever.
• The Final Battle with Paxphobia has a lot of them:
  • Paxphobia attempts a Villain Override on Fluttercruel...and Fluttershy instantly shuts it down and snaps her out of it.
  • Paxphobia does his variant of the Blade Serpents attack that has been used by Strife and in Dark World by Odyne, revealing Havoc was the one Strife got it from. Rarity (or rather Rarity II, a Reincarnation of the original Rarity Pinkie and Luna made using Princess Rarity's Light of Existence from Pinkie Pie) makes a gemstone buzz saw from the gems in her saddle bag and dices them, using both her eye for detail and past life memories from Princess Rarity seeing Strife's version, with Spike melting the rest.
  • He attempts a fear attack on them, but Fluttercruel uses her Semi-Divine power to snap everyone out of it, allowing Twilight to intercept an attempted attack from Destruction's essence and then impale him with a copy of the spell Celestia used against Chrysalis at the wedding.
  • In Paxphobia's credit, he shrugs off the Fires of Friendship when the mane Six manage to invoke them against him and takes multiple blasts from the Elements.
  • Paxphobia manages to trap Applejack in a red crystal that traps Rainbow when she goes to save her and then tries to grab Twilight when she goes to free them. Spike eats the Gems to save all three.
  • Rainbow Dash manages to generate a tornado to negate one from Paxphobia and let them evade a massive attack.
  • Paxphobia summons some of Entropy's pet 'time eaters'. Discord warns them and tells Fluttershy and Fluttercruel to deal with them, allowing Cruel to surprise and keep them still due to being Entropy's granddaughter and let Fluttershy scare them with the Stare, causing them to eat each other in panic.
  • Paxphobia finally goes berserk and launches an Alpha Strike, which Twilight blacks out for a moment countering part of while Pinkie uses her Toon Physics to make a bunch of drone to intercept the others.
  • Paxphobia attempts to Mind Rape them with a psychically assisted Breaking Lecture on how many times ponies have nearly destroyed the universe. Applejack counters with a Shut Up, Hannibal! pointing out how it goes both ways and ponies have both fixed their messes and helped fix some of the gods' messes just like the gods have their.
  • Outside the Anti-Chaos barrier, Paxphobia simply removes the mane cast's ability to do magic at all to send them falling to their deaths...and they refuse to show him any fear at all. Luna then dives into the Truth (by doing a full powered charge straight through all its defenses no matter how much it batters her) and reaching out to every character in the story, Expanded Universe included, most by name, to channel their potential Elements of Harmony into Trixie (briefly making her the strongest unicorn who has every existed) to send to the Mane Six, who use it in a Combined Energy Attack to obliterate Paxphobia once and for all.

Other

• Nightmare Bannerett's Villain World has him manage to take over...but not by force like other Nightmares: everyone willingly gave in to him, something other Nightmares haven't accomplished.
• It's finally done. After over seven years of blood, sweat, and tears from Alexwarlorn and his co-writers, all the trials and tribulations both for him and for the characters in his story, all the hard work and time spent, the story has finally reached a definitive conclusion. For the better part of a decade he poured his heart & soul into this series, and at last it has paid off with a proper, satisfying end to it all.