Fanfic / Death Battle Equestria

I'm Yah-Shee and he's Arrell, and it's our job to analyze their weapons, armour, and skills to find out who would win an Equestrian DEATH BATTLE!.

Crossing My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic with DEATH BATTLE!, DEATH BATTLE: Equestria is a fan fiction written by RLYoshi that essentially takes the idea of Death Battle and makes it pony-specific. The story originally started off as a joke and not much actual work was put into it, but after seeing the amount of readers it was earning, the author began to look into battles and match-ups much better, just like in the actual Death Battle series.

The two hosts are Yah-Shee and Arrell, whom the author has described as just being Wizard and Boomstick ^note  the hosts of the original Death Battle as ponies and with the author's own humor mixed in. Over time, the story has become less about just the battles, and been giving more focus to actual... well, story.

An OC tournament was going on for over a year before being handed off to someone else, then dropped entirely. However, the author revealed that the eventual winner of the tournament would have been Lucario.

Sometime after Battle 17 went up, the story was marked as "Complete", and an edit to the author's notes of the final battle stated the story was definitely done, and that any further updates "wouldn't be consistent enough to be worth changing the story status to Incomplete or even On Hiatus". As such, the story is naturally considered to be over.

It can be read here.

List of Battles

Tournament battles are not counted in this list.

1. Trixie VS Gilda. ^Result Trixie wins. Being a showmare, Trixie has a wide arsenal of spells at her disposal, even if she doesn't have the raw power to perform them at grand scales. Gilda had the advantage of size and raw power, but her tactic of charging in and relying on intimidation only worked on Trixie for so long.
2. Applejack VS Rainbow Dash. ^Result Rainbow Dash wins. Rainbow Dash has speed, flight, training, and plenty of tricks. Applejack has strong hind legs, but Rainbow can easily avoid them, and Applejack can't fly to catch up to her.
3. Omnius VS Mobius. ^Result Mobius wins. Both fighters have similar abilities, or ways to counter said abilities. However, Omnius has to switch forms to fly or use magic; Mobius can do both without changing forms, and his Sights were very useful in stopping Omnius's Super Aura.
4. Cutie Mark Crusaders Free-for-All (Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle). ^Result Scootaloo wins. Sweetie Belle died first, because she had little to no magic training and lacked the physical strength of the other two. Scootaloo beat Apple Bloom because she has inexplicably higher power, and her scooter gave her an agility advantage (albeit only temporarily).
5. Twilight Sparkle VS Pinkie Pie. ^Result Pinkie Pie wins. Pinkie Pie is just too random for Twilight to properly fight against.
6. Mane Six Free-for-All (Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy). ^Result Fluttershy wins. Rarity died first due to being the least combat-oriented overall. Next was Applejack, who didn't have anything special except raw physical strength. Twilight died next for similar reasons to the previous fight, as well as having poor physical strength. Pinkie was easy to dispatch when pinned down, which Rainbow could successfully do. Fluttershy defeated Rainbow Dash by staying out of the battle until this point and utilizing her ability to command animals, as well as being capable under certain circumstances (extreme emotional distress) to be just as fast and skilled at flying as Rainbow.
7. Echo the Diamond Dog VS Griffin the Griffon. ^Result Griffin wins. Griffin had more training than Echo, a much deadlier weapon, and experience with battling bipedal creatures while Echo has never fought a griffon before (except Griffin himself in a sparring match).
8. Big Macintosh VS Iron Will. ^Result Big Macintosh wins. Big Macintosh is shown to clearly have much more power than Iron Will was ever shown of having, and in addition, Iron Will is surprisingly lightweight, allowing Big Mac to keep hitting him away and keeping him at a distance.
9. The Flim-Flam Brothers VS ATLAS and P-Body. ^Result The Flim-Flam Brothers win. ATLAS and P-Body's portal guns aren't made to be used as weapons, while the Flim-Flam Brothers could utilize their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 as one to crush the robots.
10. Ditzy Doo VS Vinyl Scratch. ^Result Ditzy Doo wins. Vinyl's Bass Cannon wasn't very useful against a flying opponent, and that aside, she didn't have any advantages over Ditzy; Ditzy had the same amount of pain resistance as her, and Vinyl's magic isn't anything special.
11. Antagonist Free-for-All (Nightmare Moon, Discord, Queen Chrysalis). ^Result Nightmare Moon wins. Chrysalis was beaten first; despite being given some of her Changeling army as backup, she had nothing special against the other two villains. Discord could do literally anything, but his playful nature led to him toying with Nightmare Moon rather than just killing her, giving her time to send him to the sun.
12. Trixie VS Gilda (a second look at the first battle). ^Result Trixie wins. Same reasons as the first battle.
13. Nyx VS Fluffle Puff. ^Result Fluffle Puff wins. Nyx may have lots of magic power, but as a foal, she didn't have the knowledge of its use. When she became Nightmare Nyx, she hadn't had enough time to recall everything before Fluffle Puff saw her as a threat. In addition, Fluffle Puff is simply a childlike adult, while Nyx is actually just a kid.
14. The Wonderbolts VS The Mario Bros. ^Result The Mario Bros. win. The Wonderbolts pale in comparison to the Mario Bros. in terms of strength and teamwork, and the Bros. had plenty of items and teamwork attacks to catch the Wonderbolts when they tried to use flight to their advantage. Even if the Wonderbolts had used their inherent weather powers, Luigi has power over lightning and both he and Mario have tanked worse blows. And even if more Wonderbolts were called in, Mario and Luigi have fought larger armies, alone or together.
15. Little Mac VS Big Macintosh. ^Result Little Mac wins. While Big Macintosh has amazing strength, Little Mac had more than enough endurance to withstand it, and his own power and speed outmatched Big Mac's.
16. Nightmare Moon VS Slender Man. ^Result Slender Man wins...? Technically, the two were tied, as Slendy didn't have a weakness Nightmare Moon could invoke, but she could still avoid his attacks (for the most part). Realizing they were tied, Nightmare Moon left Princess Luna's body and entered Slender Man's, allowing him to kill a helpless Luna. However, the hosts declared that nobody wins, as Slender Man is now under the control of Nightmare Moon, and it was Luna who was killed, not Nightmare Moon, who is its own entity.
17. Littlepip VS Blackjack. ^Result Blackjack wins. Blackjack has better weapons and more experience, her cyber-alicorn body functions as extremely powerful armor, and she is actually proficient with melee weapons while Littlepip has rarely (if ever) used them, meaning she would have a backup if the two were to run out of ammo. Littlepip also tends to wait until after battle to heal rather than during; finding Party Time Mint-als would leave her hesitant and vulnerable; and she's less aggressive and more predictable than Blackjack. Plus, if Blackjack were to find an alcoholic beverage - something at least likely - Littlepip would be at an even bigger disadvantage.

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Tropes:

• Action Girl: All female fighters, natch. Except Rarity^note Mainly due to Yah-Shee's dislike of her.
• Advantage Ball: It's revealed that Nyx's sudden transformation to her Nightmare self was because of Fluffle Puff. The ball instantly goes back to Fluffle after that, however, due to perceiving her as a threat.
• The Alcoholic: Arrell is implied to be this, just like Boomstick.
• Badass Adorable: Since this is set in Equestria, this is to be expected.
  • One particular example is Fluttershy, who wins the Mane Six Free-for-All.
  • Another is Fluffle Puff, who drowns Nightmare Nyx in a lake.
• Badass Pacifist: Like in regular Death Battle, any restraints the characters would have against fighting or killing are removed. This ends up being the key to Fluttershy's victory; her shyness and unwillingness to fight is one of her defining character traits, not to mention practically her only negative trait. Without it, she was unstoppable.
• Berserk Button: Yah-Shee reacts to Rarity the way Wizard reacted to Michelangelo. Arrell reacts better compared to Boomstick, though.
• Call-Back: The "Second Look" for Trixie VS Gilda is basically one big Call-Back to the story's first battle. Even the way Trixie kills Gilda is the same.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: Nyx becoming Nightmare Moon caused Fluffle Puff to see her as a threat, which led to her defeat. However, the transformation wasn't of her own volition.
  • Similarly, Little Mac becoming Giga Mac actually evened the battle out more...when he had the advantage. It made him stronger, but slower, and his speed had been a primary advantage. In the end, though, he still wins.
• Composite Character: In the Mane 6 Free-For-All, Pinkie gets this by adding Pinkamena as a Superpowered Evil Side for the pink pony, this leads to an even more brutal death for Twilight compared to their solo fight but doesn't help her against Fluttershy's Stare.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Rainbow Dash VS Applejack. Rainbow as the stomper, Applejack as the stompee.
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders Free-for-All, at least partially. Sweetie Belle lasted maybe fifteen seconds. Apple Bloom VS Scootaloo, however, was fairly close.
  • Seth Disarmonia VS Big Lugnut. At first, anyway. Nothing Seth does can hurt Lugnut, and being the powerhouse that he is, Lugnut is able to get some pretty good hits in. Subverted in the end, however, when Seth accidentally starts a fire that weakens Lugnut enough for Seth to rip his gears out.
  • Ivan VS Scarlet Lightning. The fact that there still isn't much story on Scarlet didn't help her odds against the blood-fetishist zebra, making their battle the shortest one ever.
• Disney Villain Death: Not really a villain, but Apple Bloom's original death was going to be this before it was changed In fact, it's Scootaloo who (seemingly) falls off the cliff before rescuing herself via the vines below.
• Drunken Master: One of Blackjack's odd advantages is how much stronger she gets when drunk. Naturally is used in the battle, and helps her put the finishing blow on Littlepip.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first two battles were jokes and not properly researched, though the first one had a "Second Look" later on. The third battle was also a joke, but was properly researched. All battles afterwards were looked into properly.
  • At the beginning of each tournament battle (sans the first one), there used to be a small interaction between the previous battle's fighters. This was dropped after Vinetion VS Lucario.
• Eaten Alive: How Pinkie dies in the Mane 6 Free-For-All, courtesy of Fluttershy pinning her in place with The Stare and sic'ing the animals of the forest the Mane 6 were fighting in on her, reducing her to a skeleton.
• Excuse Plot: Averted! It took until the start of the tournament, but an actual story has been given for the battles. Arrell came up with the idea to do battles between ponies, and Yah-Shee had access to the technology needed to create simulations of the sort (so nopony actually dies). They did it for fun at first, but as it got more popular, the battles became more of a sport ponies could watch.
  • Also averted for Blackjack VS Littlepip by giving a reason for the two to battle: Littlepip sees Blackjack from a distance, mistakes her for a raider, and fires a shot that breaks Blackjack's bottle of whiskey.
• Gender Reveal: In the first tournament battle, Knightmare attempts to hit on Tundra Stanza. Tundra points out that she was male back when she was a human. Knightmare is…actually pleasantly surprised.
• Geo Effects: Averted. The author deliberately compares the combatants as if they fought in a place that gave neither of them any advantages or disadvantages, and writes the battles the same way while still giving them an environment that can make the battle interesting.
• Guns Are Worthless: In Brand Fire VS Plymouth Valiant, the latter's gun doesn't do much. Except for landing the killing blow.
  • Obviously subverted throughout Blackjack VS Littlepip. Zigzagged with Littlepip, however; her weaponry is useful, but lacking a non-firearm method of combat is part of what led to her downfall.
• Hidden Depths: Judging by a comment from Arrell in Blue Breeze VS Quick Fix, he is (or was) in the Royal Guard.
• How Much More Can He Take? / The Determinator: One main trait about Arrell Ragnarok (the fighter in the tournament, not the host) is that, when he gets angry, he can take just about anything you throw at him. However, as Yah-Shee points out, he isn't invincible - he just doesn't react to the pain.
• Implacable Man: Big Lugnut.
• Kill It with Fire: Downplayed. Seth weakens Big Lugnut with fire, but the killing blow doesn't use it; the killing blow was only made possible because of the fire however, so it still had an indirect yet crucial part.
  • One of Slender Man's powers. It doesn't get used.
  • Littlepip's zebra assault carbine does this. It actually damages Blackjack, but isn't enough.
• Lethal Joke Character: Fluttershy won the Mane Six Free-for-All due to most of her negative attributes being removed by default Death Battle rules.
  • Fluffle Puff seems like an odd choice of opponent for Nyx, who is widely regarded throughout the fandom as overpowered. The hosts make sure to point out several of Fluffle Puff's odd powers that make her a strong foe. Fluffle Puff wins without so much as breaking a sweat.
• Mythology Gag: Littlepip tricks Blackjack at one point by casting an illusion spell on a memory orb, making it look like a grenade so that she'd grab it and be forced to relive the memory. Not only did Littlepip do this in her own story a fair amount, this isn't the first time it's been done to alicorns.
• No-Sell: Big Lugnut is tough; nothing Seth does to him leaves any lasting damage. Or even any temporary damage. Except for ripping his gears and wires out, killing him.
  • Similarly, a lot of things Littlepip tries against Blackjack have little result due to her cyborg body. Only her zebra assault carbine is able to do proper damage and it ends up not being enough anyway.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Arrell and Yah-Shee. Lampshaded by their respective text colors.
• Revised Ending:
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders Free-for-All was originally going to end with Scootaloo throwing Apple Bloom off the cliff^note In the actual battle, the roles were reversed. It was changed to something the author felt was more original, with Scootaloo instead strangling Apple Bloom with her own hair ribbon.
  • An odd example with Nyx VS Fluffle Puff; one ending was released, with Nyx hugging Fluffle Puff, who reacts by happily licking her, and then the two of them go off to have fun. While the author insists that this is what would actually happen, he is making a second ending with the two of them actually battling so people don't complain.
• Rule of Three: Blackjack and Littlepip are given three weapons when going into battle. Littlepip gets Little Macintosh, her zebra assault carbine, and her sniper rifle; Blackjack gets her security baton, Vigilance, and Duty and Sacrifice. Blackjack's weaponry outclasses Littlepip's in almost every scenario.
• The Scrappy: Rarity is this for Yah-Shee, the latter ends up going on a rant about her during her analysis to the point that Arrell has to knock him out just to get him to stop, and no points for guessing who dies first in the Mane 6 Free-For-All as a result.
• Shout-Out: Blackjack VS Littlepip is very similar to Deadpool VS Deathstroke from the original Death Battle. Both are battles between similar characters, one of whom has inspiration from the other^* Deadpool was outright based off of Deathstroke, while Blackjack came about from being a spinoff of Littlepip's story with similar beginning characteristics; both of them use a variety of weaponry, especially guns, in the battle; the battle takes place in a city^* though it's a destroyed and abandoned one for Blackjack and Littlepip that they constantly run around; both have banter with one another during the battle; and both characters have a Red Oni, Blue Oni dynamic (Deadpool and Blackjack are red, while Deathstroke and Littlepip are blue) even though the Blue Oni is the one that initiates conflict. Also, the Blue Oni is the one that loses in both cases. It would qualify for a non-character Expy if not for the fact that the author has commented on this being entirely unintentional.
• Sliding Scale of Visuals Versus Dialogue: Compared to DEATH BATTLE!, this one focuses more on dialogue. Obviously, since it's a written story rather than an animated show, but it also counts thanks to the fanfic taking more time to show the actual story rather than just being loads of fight scenes.
  • Compared to Epic Rap Battles of MLP, this one technically focuses more on visuals.
• Squee: In the first ending, Nyx does this as she hugs Fluffle Puff.
• Taught by Experience: Fluffle Puff's advantage over Nyx; the latter is really just a filly, and the former is simply a child-like mare.
  • Littlepip and Blackjack have this in different ways; Littlepip was out of the Stable longer and saw more of the Equestrian Wasteland, while Blackjack got involved in combat more often. Blackjack's experience trumped Littlepip's.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The hosts have this reaction upon realizing that Nightmare Moon has possessed Slender Man.
  Yah-Shee: So, the winner is nobody. Because honestly, with that thing roaming around, everyone might as well kill themselves now.
  Arrell: ...probably right.
• Your Head Asplode: The final blow in Blackjack VS Littlepip is dealt this way by Blackjack's telekinetic bullets.

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