Shiny...
"The world has changed. It is in the water...it is in the air...it is in the earth. Much that had once been is lost, because those charged to keep hold of it, have not. The world was not always so tame."
Knights of Equestria
is a fanfic set in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic universe.
Knights of Equestria provides examples of the following tropes:
- All of the Other Reindeer: Since Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were forced to leave Ponyville because of what Twilight did during the series and since she also went insane in her own right, most of the ponies in town treat her like a pariah.
- Her apprentice Sweetie Belle isn't fairing any better. It got to the point that Dusk Nox had to pry Dinky Doo off of her and violently suppress a lynch mob wanting to kill the poor filly because of her association with the local 'monster'.
- Anyone Can Die: And how....so far, the author has killed off Trixie, Ditzy Doo and Twilight Sparkle.
- Not that the last two stayed dead.
- Ax-Crazy: Yellow Jacket becomes this when Trixie manages to take out one of his wings.
- Badass Bookworm: Twilight Sparkle, duh.
- Big Damn Heroes: In the final chapter, it's only Rainbow Dash's sudden arrival that saves Rarity and the others from certain death. And then after that, it's only DITZY'S sudden intervention that saves DASH from certain death.
- In the last chapter of the follow-up, EVERYPONY steps up their game a notch.
- Came Back Strong: Spike, full stop. Before his disappearance, he was a Team Pet. Now, he's a Badass Bookworm.
- Let's not forget that Twilight and Ditzy came back as the super-powerful Dusk Nox.
- Combat Pragmatist: When he's fighting Trixie, Yellow Jacket throws everything from lightning to broken pieces of a tree trunk at her. And when he realizes she's pretty nearly immortal he steals the one weapon that can kill her from ANOTHER immortal! In contrast, when he's beating Fluttershy up to within an inch of her life, ol' Jack relies on his own bare hooves for the job.
- The Corrupter: Yellow Jacket manages to do this to Twilight directly, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy!
- Darker and Edgier: While not the darkest fic out there, this story is still incredibly dark, with characters getting stabbed, beaten, burnt, and otherwise emotionally traumatized.
- Death Is Cheap: kind of. Twilight can certainly shrug off most injuries without batting an eye, but her sister Trixie, and Yellow Jacket all bite the dust in the first story.
- Disability Superpower: Ditzy is able to shrug off an otherwise unbreakable illusion spell because of her crossed eyes.
- Eldritch Abomination: From the many stories to the first war against him, it's pretty clear this is what Tirek was.
- End of an Age: Referenced strongly in the stories concerning the battle against Tirek in the past.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Yellow Jacket really doesn't take it well when Twilight abandons the evil plan out of love for her friends and fallen sister.
- Fantastic Racism: Yellow Jacket, the antagonist of the story and a pegasus, really doesn't like unicorns and earth ponies...
- First Law of Resurrection: Twilight and Ditzy very much so. Also, perhaps Gilda. If the character appears in the series, he or she seems to have Plot Armor.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Spike the Dragon. What looked like his death was actually his being sent back in time to grow up so as to meet with the Knights after Ditzy's execution to help them pay The Master back.
- Fusion Dance: Dusk Nox is the official reincarnation of both Twilight Sparkle and Ditzy Doo. Just before the big fight scene, they separate back into their original selves and pretty much start the talking-Tirek-to-death ball rolling. Explaining how they got joined together in the first place gives everyone else a headache.
- Heroic BSoD: Rainbow Dash didn't take Ditzy's (temporary) murder at all well and was fairly hacked off at the rest of the Knights for not having a loved one die.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Twilight Sparkle blows herself to bits in order to buy her friends time to escape the Master's latest trap.
- It's All My Fault: This is what drives Twilight Sparkle to the extreme lengths she takes to "fix" things.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Everyone, let's be honest, the pacing on Twilight Sparkle's fall to insanity in the first story is kinda fast.
- The Mole: Dusk Nox recently revealed that she was only working with the Master until new Bearers of the Elements emerged to take the place of those who fell. Now that they've started to appear, she's going to help the heroes kill him.
- Her first act was to plant Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie in Stalliongrad so they could keep an eye on him.
- Morality Pet: Ditzy Doo to Twilight Sparkle; that's because the only thing keeping Twilight from mad with power is that Ditzy's memories and part of her soul have imprinted themselves on our hero. This becomes important later on.
- Red Right Hand: Dusk Nox and the Master both have heterochromia. Also, both seemingly want bad things for everypony.
- Restraining Bolt: The shard of Ditzy's soul that used to be stuck in Twilight's body was the only thing keeping her from going mad with power; after she sort of died, Twilight didn't take it much better than Rainbow Dash because the Ditzy-in-Twilight went catatonic.
- Sequel Hook: The magical exoskeleton Twilight builds for Shining Armor is not only a Shout-Out to Iron Man but a sort of allusion to the next story in the same universe.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Every so often, a very bad situation becomes marginally better after a sort of time shift. After the clean-up from the final battle begins, Twilight thanks the Doctor for doing so but he hasn't a clue as to who did it either....yet.
- Shared Universe: The sequel crosses over with another fanfic called It's A Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door.
- Shock and Awe: Twilight's preferred method of fighting.
- Shout-Out: There's quite a few Doctor Who references spread throughout both stories... which is a given since the Doctor is a character in both.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: In what
the author admits is a tribute to Blackest Night, the ponies power up the Rainbow Of Light by telling Tirek to basically shut up about how meaningless life is. - Stable Time Loop: Twilight and Ditzy explain that everything they did as Dusk Nox happened because they remember it happening when they were separate entities. This leaves the others sort of woozy despite most of them having admitted to being part of Dusk Nox's plan.
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: Ditzy Doo; she did have her speech impediment under control through most of the first story but the side effect of her Diving Save was to more or less permanently scramble the Broca's area of her brain...as well as to leave a part of her soul in Twilight's body.
- Took a Level in Badass: Twilight Sparkle...dear lord, Twilight Sparkle. And Rainbow Dash too...actually, she might have taken several at once.
- Time Skip: A little over a year passes between the original and its sequel.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Yellow Jacket eventually proves to be one. Also what Twilight starts to become during the story.
