Fanfic / MLP Next Generation: Love Conquers All, Avarice Takes It All

[Avarice detected.]

[Love detected.]

MLP Next Generation: Love Conquers All! Avarice Takes it All! is a crossover between My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the Green Lantern series being writtenby Michael_Ravencroft. It is a direct sequel to MLP Next Generation: Know Fear!

The story centers around Kilala97's OC's: Anthea; Fluttershy's adopted Daughter, and Nidra; Daughter of Princess Luna and Supernova.

Anthea, in the wake of Starburst departure, wants nothing more than to find the mare she called friend, and reunite her with her mother, Twilight, and her newfound love, Golden Delicious. But Annie knows that in the face of the overwhelming power that Starburst possesses, she need power just as great to rival that of the Fear Lantern’s. Unfortunately, during a harrowing event, Annie’s plans may be skewed slightly when a delegation to the Mintoaurs takes a turn for the worst, to keep love alive, and to find the missing mare Annie must shine with violet light…

Nidra, having lost her best friend, and angered by the actions taken by her fellow Royals, seeks comfort in the dragon-pony stallion, Turquoise. Seeing that Annie is away on a mission with High Princess Twilight, Nidra sees this as an opportunity to show Turquoise Blitz just how much she loves him. But, when things don’t go as planned, Nidra will need a little help, and that help comes in the form of orange light. After all, avarice is just another form of love, right…?

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Love Conquers All! Avarice Takes it All! provides examples of:

• All Love Is Unrequited: Lucky's had a crush on Annie since they were foals, but he never said anything because he was worried about ruining their group dynamic. When Annie finally senses his feelings with the ring, she comforts him, even if she can't return those feelings.
  • And of course, Nidra's unrequited feelings for Turquoise are a major plot point.
• And I Must Scream: After Orange Lantern Nidra defeats Annie, she tosses her into a Sensory Deprivation pocket dimension, in order to drive her insane. Fortunately, she's not in there long before her ring finds her and frees her.
• Ascended Extra: Annie's friends the Troublemakers — Lucky Star, Hot Head, and Amber Lily — appear again in this story. As a contrast to Know Fear where they appear for only one chapter and are easily defeated by Sunny & Star, in this story they not only act as Princess Twilight's bodyguards, but also take down several Griffons while donning Steel Wing's reverse-engineered shape-shifting armor.
• Badass Creed: Annie and Nidra will presumably get one, however weather they'll change theirs like Starbust did has yet to be seen.
  • Annie keeps to the Star Sapphires' traditional oath for most of the story, but coins a new one when escaping from the Sensory Deprivation dimension Nidra put her in:
  "From the warm embrace of Celestia's light,
  "To the cool breeze of Luna's night,
  "I bring many wonders from my ring of light,
  "My love gives me strength... from my sapphire light!"
  • As the Orange Corps has no known oath, Nidra creates one on the spot after finally giving in and subsequently wiping the floor with Luna, and stealing her powers.
  “To take what I want, that is my right,
  I’ll steal your heart in the black of my night!
  See my moon glow that is my sign,
  The Night, the Stars, and the Light…ARE MINE!!!”
• Badass Pacifist: Annie hates fighting, but when she does, she more than holds her own.
• Berserk Button: Annie does not enjoy hearing ponies spread rumors badmouthing Starburst.
  • The minotaurs take Sacred Hospitality seriously; the griffons trying to kill Twilight's diplomatic party in their throne room pisses them off.
• Big Bad: Nox is pulling the strings of the war from the shadows.
• Big Damn Heroes: In chapter 14, just when it looks like Twilight and Annie's expedition is about to be destroyed by the griffon/Diamond Dog forces led by Anubis, Starburst makes her return, wiping out Anubis' forces.
  • In the final chapter, when an exhausted Starburst is about to be overwhelmed by griffon forces, Nidra shows up and wipes them out with the Orange ring.
• Demoted to Extra: Starbust, due to the story shifting its focus to Annie and Nidra. She doesn't even show up until fourteen chapters in, then leaves in the following chapter, only to get most of the last chapter dedicated to her.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: It's become a bit of a Running Gag with Annie, who accidentally says something that comes out sounding dirty, and tries to take it back, only to make it worse.
  • The same thing happens to Turquoise when he blurts out that he thinks Nidra is pretty, and tries to take it back without making it sound like he's insulting her.
• Emotion Eater: Like the other Lanterns, the Sapphire Ring is fueled by love while the Orange Ring feeds on greed.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted. Nox might have used to care for his sister, but that was before becoming a Black Lantern.
• The Exile: Nidra exiles herself out of shame for her actions when under the Orange Ring's influence, joining up with Starburst to fight the griffons.
• Freak Out: When Twilight is confronted by a griffon Pretender wielding a whip, she completely freezes up and goes into shock, having flashbacks to her torture in Maretonia. She admits later that she's suffering from PTSD.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: The Orange Ring awakens Nidra's darker side, which argues with her more conscience-fueled mind over whether or not to use the ring to steal Turquoise from Anthea.
• The Heavy: All things considered, Nox barely shows up, with the role of main antagonist being divided between Anubis the Jackal Diamond Dog in Annie's story, and the Orange ring itself in Nidra's story. Shortly after Anubis is killed, Nidra is corrupted completely, making her the Final Boss of the story as a whole.
• Henshin Hero: Twilight's reverse-engineered Steel Wing's shapeshifting armor for use by Equestrian soldiers.
• Heroic RRoD: Annie is more at risk than other ring bearers, because her ring is drawing on her inner magic to heal her eyes and restore her sight. When the ring's power levels drop too low, her sight goes back to being completely blurred, and if the ring runs out of power altogether, she'll go completely blind and be left that way until her magic restores itself.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Prince Steel ultimately takes a blow from Anubis meant for Twilight, killing him almost instantly.
• Heroic Second Wind: Annie is easily defeated by Orange Lantern Nidra and tossed into a Sensory Deprivation dimension, with nothing but Nidra's Breaking Lectures playing in her head. But then her ring finds her, and a construct of Starburst (which turns out to be the real one somehow talking to her) helps reminds her what she's fighting for, and she breaks free to fight Nidra again and free her from the Orange Ring's influence.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Aside from being declared an outlaw and renegade, Starburst's actions as Fear Lantern have received some mixed results among the public, with some ponies fearing she's planning a coup. These rumors really piss off her friends.
  • And by extension, once Annie gets the Star Sapphire ring, lots of people become wary of her.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Will no doubt be filled with these to Know Fear!
  • Right off the bat, there's the fact that Starburst is a renegade, and that Nox is now a Black Lantern.
  • There's also repeated mentions to the griffons capturing and torturing Twilight, which happened pretty late in the last story.
• Let's You and Him Fight: When Starburst refuses to come home, Annie tries to force her to, leading to a fight that the latter ultimately loses.
• Long Game: While the previous story had already established that the griffons had been planning the war for many years, Nox explains to Gilda that they've actually been planning it for centuries.
• Love Triangle: Anthea/Turquoise/Nidra is a core plot point. Which is complicated by the Orange Ring's influence on Nidra, and Annie asking her to look out for T while she's away.
• Mana Drain: The Orange ring allows Nidra to drain the magic of others, starting with her mother.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Twilight has a more subdued version of this when she realizes that she's been using Anthea as a substitute to Starburst, to the point of referring to her as such during an argument when Annie decides to help fight the griffons. When this happens, Twilight realizes that she's essentially using Annie as a second chance to make up for the decisions she made about Starburst as the Fear Lantern, and it sickens her.
  • Nidra is horrified at her actions when she's freed from the Orange ring's corruption, to the point that she flees Canterlot and tells everyone not to follow her. She later tells Starburst that she's exiled herself for her actions.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Apparently, the other Wing Commanders share in the general feeling that Gilda isn't properly prepared to be Empress, but will obey her until such time as she proves incapable.
• Not What It Looks Like: When Anthea comforts Twilight over her Freak Out in Minotaurus, they end up spending the night cuddled together. The next morning, Amber Lily finds them having shifted to a more... compromising position. Once they clarify what happened, Amber doesn't stop teasing Annie about it.
  • Hot Head and Lucky walk in on Annie and Amber training, with Amber having pinned Annie to the ground, and both being sweaty and panting.
  • Amber walks in on Annie and Twilight again while they're having a touching moment that involves nuzzling, leading to her teasing them some more.
• One-Winged Angel: During Annie and Nidra's final fight, the latter turns into a Nightmare, fueled by Avarice.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Fluttershy finds out about Annie getting a ring and going off to fight in the war, she blames Twilight, under whose watch this happened. She proceeds to punch her in the face. Hard enough to send her flying out of Fluttershy's cottage.
• Puppet Queen: Gilda is crowned Empress in light of her father Stratus being killed at the end of the previous story. But she's being manipulated by her brother, who's "offering help" from the sidelines, while her own military doesn't respect her authority.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: King Thunder Fist and Prince Steel Nerves of the Minotaurs are able to take on twenty griffons by themselves at the same time.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: King Fist and Prince Steel officially declare Minotaurus neutral so as to protect their people from the griffons, but still secretly send troops along with Twilight's expedition in order to discover if the griffons are planning an attack anyway.
• Sequel Hook: Like Know Fear, it ends with three: first, there's a self-exiled (and still partially corrupted) Nidra joining up with Starburst, then there's Annie deciding to keep fighting to protect Equestria, and finally, two more rings — one Red, one Indigo — arrive in orbit, but pause there due to complications in finding hosts.
• Shout-Out:
  • A pony version of Frozen is referenced at one point.
  • Prince Steel shows up to help the larger Equestrian force with 300 soldiers, claiming that he's brought more warriors.
    • In fact, that whole section of the story is turning into a Whole-Plot Reference.
  • When stargazing at the constellation of Draco, Annie recounts some dragon mythology about it lifted straight from Dragonheart.
  • At the climax of the expedition's siege at the Gates of Vulkan, they abandon ship, but leave behind explosives to destroy it and kill the boarding Diamond Dogs, like in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
  • During their fight, Star and Annie attack each other with construct hawks and doves, respectfully, a shout out to Marvel superhero duo Hawk and Dove. It also doubles as a shout out to another story by the same author, wherein Star and Annie become Hawk and Dove.
• Something Else Also Rises: Turquoise gets a "wingboner" when he first sees Annie in her Star Sapphire uniform.
  • There's a more traditional example from poor Hot Head, when he and Lucky walk in on Annie and Amber training, when they're both sweaty and lying on top of each other.
• Simultaneous Arcs: The story is currently following Anthea, as she and Twilight investigate griffon incursions into minotaur territory, and Nidra, as she deals with the temptations of the Orange ring's power. These storylines ultimately intertwine when Nidra gives into the ring, and Annie has to fight her.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: T actually thinks "Stupid sexy Annie" when he can't get the image of Annie in her provocative Star Sapphire uniform out of his head, turning himself on in otherwise inappropriate situations.
• The Bus Came Back: After being missing since the end of the last story, Starburst reappears in chapter 14 in time for a Big Damn Heroes moment. Then she leaves again to keep fighting the war.
• The Corruption: The Orange ring slowly works to get Nidra to give into her avarice and take Turquoise for herself. It eventually succeeds.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: At the end of their fight, Starburst tells Annie that she lacks conviction in her powers, and that is why she lost.
  • Orange Lantern Nidra hands these out like candy.
• Time Skip: Picks up six months after Know Fear! ended.
• Took a Level in Badass: Anthea goes from being a blind mare who's adapt in magic to an Action Girl the moment she gets the ring. And then she asks for training from the Troublemakers to help make her even better at it. And then Prince Steel also starts giving her training.
  • The Troublemakers themselves really step it up from their appearance in Know Fear!, where they got their asses kicked by Starburst in short order. Here, they are not only capable enough soldiers to fight alongside Twilight's forces on the field, but at the climax are even able to fight Orange Lantern Nidra evenly, for a time.
• War Fic: Continuing on from the last story.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: Subverted. Annie is horrified with herself after she destroys a griffon warship, killing everyone onboard. Her friends have to talk her out of her guilt.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Twilight caught a bit of flak from her friends over how she handled finding out about Star being the Fear Lantern.
  • Nidra rips Valiant Heart a new one for his failure to support Starburst. Later, she gets a more mild one from Turquoise in reaction, when he points out that Star is going to need everyone's support when she eventually comes back, even Valiant's, and that she should try to eventually forgive him.
  • When Nidra finally gives into temptation and tries to seduce Turquoise, he's furious.

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