Fanfic / The Saga of Spyro: The Quest for Harmony

The Saga of Spyro: The Quest for Harmony is a crossover between Spyro the Dragon and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic created by TyrakatheDragonFan.

Once upon a time, in the land of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle and her new friends set off into the Everfree Forest to find the Elements of Harmony. At the same time, Celestia makes her way to the cavern of the Tree of Harmony. Fearing for the future of her kingdom and all its inhabitants, the Princesses pleads for the Tree to send something to help her defend Equestria from the coming Era of Disharmony.

The Tree answers Celestia's plea by calling forth a hero from another world, a purple dragon going by the name of Spyro, whose abilities are unlike anything Equestria has seen. Spyro's timely arrival heralds the dawn of a new Era. One that will see the evils that threaten the land cleansed by Dragon Fire. An era in which Twilight and her friends must learn of both the magic of friendship and the power of the dragons to survive.

A New Age of Dragons.

The story was available on Fimfiction.net as well as Fanfiction.net, but the author cancelled it completely on Sept. 18th of 2020 in a post on their DeviantArt profile here, along with deleting their profile on Fimfiction.Net. As this is now a Dead Fic, links have been updated to archive sites. They cited a lack of interest in continuing the story, losing their enthusiasm for writing Friendship Is Magic stories, while acknowledging their Schedule Slip on this story.

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The Saga of Spyro contains tropes of:

• Art Evolution: Spyro and company have gone through several redesigns since the story's initial inception. Earlier designs of Spyro, for instance, made him look like traditional dragons, while his most recent design evokes his classic look. Other characters from the Spyro series went through similar redesigns with the advent of the Reignited Trilogy.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Many characters who appeared in much later seasons of My Little Pony appear way ahead of schedule in the story. Examples include:
  • As a result of Celestia not wanting Spyro or his fellow dragon-worlders to leave the area of Ponyville, Shining Armor is introduced far sooner to the Mane Six as the head of the guard cordon stationed around Ponyville after Spyro arrives.
  • The Hooffields and McColts appear at the end of Chapter 9 when Spyro's fight with Razer (the red Dragon from Dragonshy) ends up leveling the entirety of Smokey Valley.
  • At the end of Chapter 8, Princess Luna appears in her second, fully-powered form, which didn't appear in canon until the show's second season.
  • Flim and Flam, who were swindled out of everything, including their cider machine, by Moneybags absolutely trouncing them at their own game.
• Adaptation Expansion: The adventure-based episodes of My Little Pony have been vastly expanded upon, with the presence of Spyro and company leading to drastic changes in said episodes' plots. Inverted with the Slice of Life episodes, however, as they're brought down to very short chapters that see hilarity and awesomeness ensue when Spyro and company resolve their problems.
  • Also, according to Elora, Ripto's despotic reign over Avalar lasted for 30 years rather than a week as seen in Spyro 2, which led to the entirety of the land, including Elora herself, suffering so badly that they became desperate enough to decide to summon a dragon to help them despite the fact that it would have led to an even worse monster ruling over their land if Spyro hadn't answered the call.
• Adaptational Personality Change: Several major Spyro characters have had their personalities overhauled by Tyraka. For example:
  • Spyro himself, while still a good guy at heart, behaves more like traditional dragons in other media with some traits of the theropod dinosaurs of Walking with Dinosaurs and Dinosaur Planet mixed in along with a few hints of his Skylanders Academy personality.
  • Hunter's personality is based on the nature of his real-world counterpart.
  • Due to Adaptational Expansion, Elora's personality is based heavily on how she suffered under the rule of Ripto and how she was brought back from despair by Spyro.
  • Downplayed with Bianca, who has most of her classic personality intact. The only key difference with her is that she's played up as being "a more civilized girl in a more tribal setting", reflecting the state of the Forgotten Worlds in comparison to Avalar, where many of her other allies come from.
  • Zoe's personality was heavily inspired by her appearance in A Hero's Tail, with the Troll aspect of it cranked up as she's now "a cocky smartass who likes to mess with everybody."
• Adapted Out: Sparx is notably absent; Zoe takes his place in the Saga's canon.
• All for Nothing:
  • In Life in Ponyville Shimmers (Over a Fire), Spyro declines Pinkie's Pony Sacrifice due to being into more humanoid females, meaning that she had essentially violated half of Ponyville's population for naught.
  • In Dragon War, the Mane Six's efforts to get Razer to leave prove to be fruitless because of Fluttershy is unable to overcome her crippling fear of dragons, meaning them having to separate from the Dragon-worlders to take the long way up the mountain and spending a fortune in gems Rarity was going to use for her dresses to pay Moneybags to help them get there in time was all for naught.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Spyro begins to challenge the logic of Friendship is Magic in the first chapter, asking Twilight and company why they, out of all ponies, are going to find the Elements of Harmony and confronting Nightmare Moon despite the fact that none of them have even prepared to face her.
  • Spyro later pulls this again in "Boast Blazers", asking Twilight why she hates friendship when she refuses to take part in a Wizard Duel that he and Trixie have decided to take part in.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Zig-Zagged. While Spyro and the other Dragon Worlders are not that much larger than, say, humans, he and his friends are quite large when compared to the ponies. This is due to the planet of Equus being much smaller than the Dragon World, which has in turn resulted in the ponies being roughly the size of small dogs (the show's called 'My Little Pony' for a reason). It's Played Straight, however, when Spyro himself grows into his giant adult form to battle much larger enemies, like Callisto the Ursa Major and Razer the Equestrian Dragon.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Celestia, knowing that an Era of Disharmony is coming, goes to the Tree of Harmony and wishes for someone who can help Twilight and the others defend her kingdom. The Tree responds by summoning Spyro, who not only uses methods she dislikes, but also has a far different view of the world than her.
• Bring My Brown Pants: In Dragon War, Spyro's immense power causes Celestia's top Dragonology experts to wet themselves out of fear.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Spyro and company pull this on Celestia after the Dragon War ends, pointing out how she took nearly ten hours just to prepare and deploy the necessary countermeasures for the crisis while ponies were dying from inhaling volcanic ash caused by Razer's smoke.
• Composite Character: In this fic, Spyro himself is not based on any one canon iteration. Instead, he's based on all three of his past iterations. He takes the most influence from his classic self, having faced villains like Gnasty Gnorc, Ripto and the Sorceress, but he has the elemental powers and legendary status of his Legends incarnation along with a close bond with Ignitus, whom he sees as his father. He also notably worked with the Skylanders and Master Eon.
  • Also Zoe, who retains the abilities of her canon counterpart while assuming the role that Sparx had in the original games.
• Conflict Killer: Spyro and Razer unwittingly become this to the Hooffields and McColts when their battle results in the destruction of the Smokey Mountain Valleys and the homes of the warring families.
• Crossover Beyond the obvious two, several Crash Bandicoot characters also appear, with Crash, Coco and Crunch in particular being recurring characters.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Spyro's fight with the Manticore in War of The Night comes off as this, given how effortlessly Spyro wins.
  • Also, Spyro's game of Mario Party with Trixie, which he wins due to having much more experience with the game.
  • Averted in the cases of Nightmare Moon, Callisto the Ursa Major, and Razer the Dragon, however, as they all put up a decent fight.
• Darker and Edgier: Unlike Friendship is Magic, this fanfic takes a much more mature approach to the story of the series, given the presence of a more realistic Spyro. Changes to the series include not only more violence, but also many sexual references and even a Pony Sacrifice at one point. There are also notable mentions of death, which were not present in the original show.
• Deconstruction: The fanfic bashes many of the flaws in the logic of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, especially the whole Friendship Magic thing, which Spyro himself views as childish because he knows that it won't solve all the world's problems. This is especially notable in the Slice of Life episodes, where Spyro and company call out the ponies for their idiocy and attempt to solve the episode's problems with Fridge Logic and unadulterated awesomeness.
• Destructive Savior: Spyro himself, who flat out admits he won't hesitate to kill other creatures in the name of fulfilling his destiny or saving others. Also, when he grows into his giant adult form, he notably levels the mansion belonging to Octavia's family, killing them all save for her, as well as Smokey Valley during Chapter 9.
• Fatal Flaw: Spyro may be firmly on the side of good, but he is still a dragon who is prone to succumbing to his instincts and temper if wrongly provoked. As a dragon, he is aggressively territorial over whatever land belongs to him to the point where he takes Spike's sending of a letter to Celestia as a challenge to a fight to the death over Ponyville (which Pinkie unwittingly gave him) and Razer's roosting in the mountain at the edge of Ponyville county as a violation of his territory.
  • In Dragon War, Twilight's eagerness to prove herself to Celestia leads to her reading the first half of her recent letter and assuming the Princess wants her and her friends to convince Razer to leave Equestria... when the full letter Celestia sent actually ordered them to prevent the Dragon-Worlders from getting involved by any means necessary, and Twilight neglected to read the whole thing in her haste to please her mentor.
• Fix Fic: The story not only highlights the flaws in the logic of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, but also acts on them with Spyro and the Dragon-Worlders resolving various episodes' problems with Fridge Logic.
• For Want Of A Nail: The arrival of Spyro and the other Dragon Worlders leads to radical changes to the events of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, with the plots of many of its episodes being altered by their presence. Examples include:
  • War of the Night:
    • Thanks to Spyro taking over the Mane Six's mission to find the Elements of Harmony and defeat Nightmare Moon, the Manticore is easily slain, the grove of haunted trees is obliterated, and Nightmare Moon suffers a brutal beatdown by Spyro before being stripped of the Nightmare possessing her, which is slain and leaves Luna with scars from the fight.
    • Celestia comes away from the above events being filled with hatred for Spyro and his methods for solving problems, as it left her recently-returned sister with severe disfiguring wounds that will not likely heal.
  • Life in Ponyville Shimmers (Over a Fire):
    • Pinkie's attempted Pony Sacrifice, while rejected by Spyro on the grounds that ponies "aren't [his] type", is taken as a sign that Ponyville is now officially Spyro's territory.
  • Boast Blazers:
    • Trixie's encounter with Spyro and her visit to Dragon Shores help her to achieve her Character Development much earlier, allowing her to own up to her mistake in telling her story about getting rid of an Ursa Major. This leads to her not only calling out Snips and Snails for their stupidity, but also choosing to stay in Ponyville with her new friends.
  • Dragon War:
    • Everything that occurs in this part of the story is a result of Twilight believing Celestia wanted her and her friends to help expel the challenger dragon Razer from Equestria when in actuality, Celestia's message to her contained orders to prevent Spyro and his fellow Dragon-worlders from getting involved by any means necessary, which Twilight failed to notice due to moisture warping on the scroll obscuring said orders.
    • Due to Ponyville now being an extension of Spyro's territory, he leads the effort to get Razer to leave. When he succeeds after a long and devastating fight, he claims the entire continent of Equestria as his territory, leading to every magical map on Equus now bearing the name "Jendovahzoor" over Equestria to signify his presence on the planet.
    • As a consequence of Spyro and Razer's battle, the Smokey Mountain Valleys are completely and utterly destroyed, along with the homes of the Hooffields and McColts, essentially leaving both parties with nothing left to fight for.
    • Due to the above, Twilight and her friends learn the hard way that despite being Harmony's Chosen Ones, they are still in way over their heads due to not having any real experience with fighting dangerous threats like Spyro and his fellow dragon-worlders. They also learn not about being able to keep faith in each other, but rather about knowing each other's limits and when to not ask something of someone who probably can't handle the task they're given.
• Freudian Excuse: When Spyro delivers the Armor-Piercing Question to Twilight as to why she seemed so abhorrent towards friendship when they first met, the best answer she can give was that she was so focused on her studies in magic to give any thought towards having friends, though she also claims it may have had something to do with her getting sick of hearing Celestia constantly badgering her about making friends after she joined the School for Gifted Unicorns.
• Fridge Logic: Used frequently by Spyro and the other Dragon Worlders as a means for resolving an episode's issue. It's especially notable in the Slice of Life episodes, which see the ponies themselves serve as the cause of the episodes' problems.
• Genre Savvy: Spyro and the Dragon-Worlders on several instances:
  • In The Real Ticket Master, Spyro immediately recognizes the events occurring in front of him as something out of a 90s kids' cartoon, which in turn allows him to see Celestia's sending Twilight the tickets to the Gala for the Secret Test of Character that it is.
  • In Boast Blazers, the Dragon-Worlders lecture Twilight and her friends on "novice envy" and explain how stories surrounding it play out.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Spyro's arrival and his various adventures around Equestria earn himself the ire of Princess Celestia, who seems to have a past with dragons from his world...
• Hypocrisy Nod: Much like in canon, "Boast Blazers" has one. In this case, however, the Dragon Worlders go to town on Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash, pointing out their own status as Ponyville's resident glory-hogs when they start accusing Trixie of boasting and accusing them of having "novice envy".
• I Choose to Stay: Instead of leaving, Trixie decides to stay in Ponyville, even when given the choice to leave by both the ponies and the Dragon-Worlders.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Spyro and his friends, at their worst, are Jerks with Hearts of Gold with a tendency to be quite tactless, but are nonetheless correct in what they tend to point out to their equestrian comrades.
  • In War of the Night, Spyro finds it unacceptable that Celestia knew well in advance when Nightmare Moon would return without bothering to set up the necessary contingencies should Nightmare Moon's reign last for more than a single night or even come up with a fallback plan in case her initial one failed. He's also more than annoyed that Celestia chose to send Twilight and her friends, who have no experience with heroics or any sort of training for taking down powerful villains, to confront Nightmare Moon without so much as a map to lead them to the ruins where the Elements are kept.
  • In Life In Ponyville Shimmers (Over a Fire), Zoe, despite being the most rude and abrasive among Spyro's companions, makes two valid points:
    • The ponies of Equestria have no immediate means of defending themselves from the monsters they share the land with beyond "panicking and running away like frightened gazelle" due to being "spoiled by fortune and an incompetent powerhouse of a ruler" and that the Tree of Harmony most likely summoned Spyro because it knew that the threats that would come with the impending Era of Disharmony would be far greater than anything Celestia herself could handle.
    • In spite of having lived in the same world as them for eons, the general populace of Equestria lack what the Dragon-worlders consider common knowledge about Dragon customs and culture that they should know if they plan on sharing the land with dragon-kind. This point is soon proven when Spyro goes on a livid rampage throughout Ponyville in his attempts to find and obliterate Spike upon sensing his presence because even though Spyro rejected Pinkie's Pony Sacrifice, the gesture means the town and the land surrounding it was unwittingly given to Spyro as an extension of his territory, and any dragon that enters it without Spyro's permission is practically committing suicide by trespassing on the land of a highly territorial Physical God.
  • In Boast Blazers, the Dragon-worlders rightfully point out to Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity that they have no room to judge Trixie for being a braggart given their status as the town's resident glory-hogs and the fact that as a stage performer, Trixie is supposed to advertise herself in a way to draw in crowds and in order to make a living.
  • In Dragon War, Celestia is nothing short of livid with Twilight for misinterpreting her message and allowing Spyro and his friends to get involved in the mission to expel Razer from Equestria when she specifically ordered her to keep them in Ponyville by any means necessary, a misunderstanding that results in the destruction of the entire Smokey Mountain Valleys after the five hundred years of hard work Celestia put into making sure its beauty would never be tarnished by the evils and greed of Equestria. However tactless Hunter, Bianca, and Crunch are to write off the destruction as little more than collateral damage, they rightfully point out that the whole point of their involvement was to ensure no innocent lives were lost during the debacle, and they were successful in their mission by sparing the Hooffields and McColts from a gruesome death from being caught in the crossfire of Spyro and Razer's fight. Spyro then harshly yet accurately retaliates that Celestia is in no position to criticize them for how they handled the situation when she had no immediate contingencies for dealing with the crisis and wasted ten whole hours preparing to confront Razer, which allowed his volcanic smoke to get so out of hand that Equestria's ponies were dying from the volcanic ash in it.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Despite having ruled for at least three thousand years, Princess Celestia herself doesn't really know about the dangers of dragons and the volcanic ash that they produce when sick. She still insists that she and her experts know how to deal with draconic threats, even when Spyro and the Dragon Worlders (i.e. an actual dragon and people who lived in a world with true dragons) attempt to inform them what's actually happening.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Snips and Snails get hit with this hard at the end of Boast Blazers when Spyro, furious at them for antagonizing the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor enough to drive them to nearly destroy Ponyville just to see Trixie defeat it, orders them to clean up every bit of wreckage and debris the Ursa Minor caused during its rampage. Pinkie adds to the punishment by having them banned from Sugarcube Corner and all of its products for a full year, which even Spyro considers A Fate Worse Than Death.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In Chapter 8, "Boast Blazers", Spyro tells Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity to let Trixie "have her twenty-two minutes of glory".
  • There are also several instances where characters are made aware of Equus' Mana flow. In this setting, mana flow is a natural phenomenon in magical worlds. In Chapter 3, Bianca, a sorceress-in-training recognizes that the flow on Equestria seems to be deliberately directed, which seems to have made the creatures of the world become friendlier in appearance. The ponies notably have padded flesh over their hooves, which prevents them from seriously hurting anyone even if they wanted to.
  • Dragon War implies that Equestrian dragons seem to have been affected more than most other creatures on the planet, with Twilight soon realizing by comparing Razer's appearance to Spyro's that it was like "someone had turned [Razer] into something they wanted, that they could control."
• Mundane Utility: In Apple H-Yuck Season, Spyro uses his Earth powers to generate a tremor powerful enough to cause all the apples on the trees of Sweet Apple Acres to fall, much to Applejack's chagrin.
• No Endor Holocaust: Averted, as Spyro's fights with Callisto and Razer not only cause notable damage to the environment, but also result in lives being taken. In the former case, the entirety of Octavia's family is killed when Spyro's ultimate attack incidentally causes their mansion to collapse on them in the middle of the night. And in the latter, all the animals who lived in Smokey Valley are all killed when Spyro and Razer's fight end up leveling the valley.
• Poor Communication Kills: Celestia and her top Dragonology experts believed that Razer's smoke was harmless and that he was on the mountain because he was taking a nap. As a result, much of Ponyville was left near-dead from smoke, while Celestia took nearly ten hours to prepare the necessary measures to get Razer to leave. Lampshaded by Spyro and the other dragon-worlders, who deduce that the Dragonology experts' knowledge was likely based on information found in outdated texts from long ago.
  • Also, because Twilight failed to read Celestia's entire message in her haste, she ends up disobeying the Princess's direct orders, which then leads to Spyro destroying Smokey Valley and killing all the animals living there.
• Pony Sacrifice: Pinkie attempts to offer Cheerilee as one to Spyro in Life in Ponyville Shimmers (Over a Fire), but her efforts are in vain, since Spyro is not into ponies.
• The Power of Friendship: Deconstructed. Spyro certainly isn't against the idea (considering he has several friends of his own), but points out that relaying solely on friendship to save the day is a terrible idea as sometimes you have to physically fight a foe in order to stop them, something that Twilight and the girls are simply not prepared to do thanks to Celestia coddling them.
• Precision F-Strike: Twice in Dragon War. First, when Zoe suggests dealing with dragons using methods that make Twilight blush. The second time comes from Spyro after the end of the fight between him and Razer, where the purple dragon turns Celestia's chewing out Twilight and company for failing to let the dragon-worlders get involved.
• Prequel: This story is one to Tyraka's Tumblr-based story, The Saga of Spyro.
• Sudden Video-Game Moment: Occurs when Trixie meets Crash Bandicoot in Boast Blazers as they escape from the rampaging Ursa Minor and suddenly do a Advancing Wall of Doom from the Crash Bandicoot video games, complete with wumpa fruit and suddenly-appearing wooden crates.
  • Averted for Coco in the same chapter, as she complains about not being able to find any visible paths with crates when traveling through the Everfree Forest.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Several are given out in the story. Examples include:
  • Spyro's confrontation with Nightmare Moon, which involves half wiping the floor with her and half calling her out on how petty and insecure she must be to be willing to turn to villainy simply because she felt unappreciated compared to Celestia.
  • Zoe cruelly ripping Fluttershy a new one by calling her an irredeemable coward for not being able to overcome her crippling fear of dragons to help Twilight attempt to convince Razer to find somewhere else to hibernate so that the populace of Equestria wouldn't be killed off by the volcanic ash from Razer's smoke, which left them no choice but to allow Spyro to fight him and lay waste to the surrounding Smokey Mountain Valley as they battle.
  • Spyro and company reprimanding Celestia for not doing anything to help the ponies dying due to the volcanic ash in Razer's smoke until it was almost too late and then having the gall to chew out Twilight and them for how they handled the situation.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Celestia is this towards Spyro, overlooking the good his actions have done Equestria in the long run simply because she is repulsed by his methods of dealing with threats to her kingdom:
  • Despite protecting her student and the other element bearers from the dangers of the Everfree Forest, fighting Nightmare Moon to free her sister, and finally killing the Nightmare that was bonded with her (a feat thought impossible by the ponies thus far), Celestia develops a hateful grudge against Spyro because his methods left Luna injured and physically scarred for life.
  • She is completely livid with the fact that Spyro inadvertently destroyed the Smokey Mountain Valleys during his fight against Razer after the five hundred years of hard work she put into making sure it remained a paradise, not caring that there were no civilian casualties that came from the battle and that Spyro spared her subjects a grim fate from dying from the volcanic ash from Razer's smoke.
• Wham Episode:
  • Dragon War:
    • Spyro claims the entirety of Equestria as his territory, which makes his name known to not just Equestria, but the entire planet of Equus.
    • Celestia herself, who was previously burning with hatred for Spyro, is reduced to being very much afraid of him due to the above. And as it turns out, even she doesn't know about the true nature of dragons.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Celestia attempts to do this to Twilight, angry at her student for unwittingly disobeying her orders and allowing Spyro and his friends to get involved with the mission to expel Razer from Equestria, only for Spyro to turn the tables on her and call her out for wasting almost the entire day to prepare to confront Razer, allowing enough of his smoke to cover a good portion of Equestria and harm its citizens, and having the gall to chew them out for how they handled the situation when she did nothing to intervene.