The Dark Ones
is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Warhammer 40,000 crossover by Snake Staff.
Equestria is dead. The sun and moon have stopped, and the planet is in ruins. The xenos that built the civilization are gone, their works in ruins. Investigating the planet, Interrogator Kylara makes a surprising discovery, one that might hold the key to what happened to this once-fair land - and what might be done to stop it.
It takes the form of a series of interviews between Interrogator Kylara and an increasingly deranged Twilight Sparkle, with the former trying to coax the mystery of what exactly happened to Equestria from the latter.
Now with a sequel, Of Xenos And War, detailing Twilight's time with the Imperial Inquisition in its war against the eponymous dark ones.
The original is complete, but the sequel hasn't been updated since August 2015.
Tropes in this story include:
- Absolute Xenophobe: Interrogator Kylara, in the "finest" Imperial tradition.
- Affably Evil: Trazyn the Infinite remains as polite as ever, even when discussing genocide or screwing his partner over.
- After the End: The state Equestria and its planet are found in.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Twilight has no issue with pleading for mercy.
- Alien Invasion: The titular "Dark Ones" being the invaders.
- Apocalypse How: Class 6 unleashed on Equestria, barring Twilight. Or maybe not, Trazyn mentions numerous "specimens" taken from the population.
- Apocalyptic Log: Kylara's interviews with Twilight effectively function as one, though unusually the "author" is still alive, albeit mentally damaged by the experience.
- The Bad Guy Wins: In "The Dark Ones", Imotekh the Stormlord leads the Necrons to a total victory over Equestria and Trazyn gets everything he wants, barring Twilight as an addition to his galleries.
- Benevolent Boss: Twilight. Get in her way though, and, well...
- Big Bad: Not the Dark Eldar, surprisingly, but the Necron race as a whole. Trazyn and Imotekh look like the biggest contenders for the individual spot.
- Big Good: Lord Inquisitor Tas Rovini.
- Bittersweet Ending: Twilight lives, and mentally recovers to some extent, but the Imperium is embroiled in a war with the Necrons, snuffing out billions more lives.
- Combat by Champion: Imotekh challenges Twilight to this, with the lives of Shining Armor and the guard ponies as the prize. She loses.
- Collector of the Strange: Trazyn's whole motivation for arranging the invasion was to collect all the unique creatures and artifacts of Equestria. He took three princesses, Discord, and the Elements of Harmony that we know of.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Necron attack on Canterlot.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Necrons overpower and capture Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Cadence, as well as Discord.
- Distant Finale: The epilogue, which is a Munitorum report from several years later, along with a pair of personal logs.
- Eldritch Abomination: Discord. He only gets mentioned, but he's described as being a "unique warp creature", and considering the things that live there...
- Enemy Mine: Twilight's reason for joining the Inquisition. "You're monsters. But I need monsters to destroy them."
- Establishing Character Moment: It happens in chapter seven of the sequel, but it nonetheless qualifies. When two of Twilight's new subordinates refuse to serve under her, she threatens to kill them for insubordination. When they continue to refuse, she kills them without a seconds hesitation.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Illuminor Szeras took part in wiping out Equestria so he could conduct his "studies" on pony specimens.
- Evil Is Petty: An entire world of sentient beings is destroyed because Trazyn wanted some of its stuff.
- False Friend: Kylara to Twilight. Twilight gets wise to her in the sequel.
- Foregone Conclusion: Equestria, except for Twilight, will be wiped out. The question is how, and by whom.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: All Necrons have them.
- Hearing Voices: Twilight appears to be hearing the aliens from time to time, and repeatedly begs non-present beings for mercy.
- It's Personal: Twilight reserves a special hatred, bordering on obsession, for the Necrons in the sequel.
- Killed Off for Real: Applejack, Big Mac, Applebloom, Granny Smith, and Mayor Mare are definitely dead. We don't know what's happened to the others.
- Last of Her Kind: Twilight.
- Mean Boss: Twilight, at least to her current crew. The reason for this is because she doesn't want anything, including inexperienced teammates, to get in the way her personal crusade against the Necrons. She never wants anything to go anything less than perfect against the Necrons.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Kylara repeatedly expresses the view that she would be happy to kill Twilight in her sleep.
- Revenge: In the sequel, Inquisitor Twilight now wants this on all Necrons.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Twilight gives one to Lord Inquisitor Tas Rovini and the Imperium of Man in general. But the impact is lessened -Rovini is completely unfazed, and Twilight joins the Inquisition immediately after.
- Sanity Slippage: What's happened to Twilight after years of living alone on her dead homeworld.
- Sequel Hook: In the epilogue, Twilight is alive, and working for the Imperium.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Every multicellular animal on Equestria except Twilight has been wiped out, down to the corpses.
- Title Drop: Twilight calls the invading aliens "the dark ones".
- Took a Level in Badass: Twilight, in the sequel. Working for the Imperium will do that to you.
- Troll: Trazyn to Illuminor Szeras, cheating him in their bargain at the same time as congratulating him on their success.
- Unreliable Narrator: Interrogator Kylara worries that Twilight may be this.
- Unstoppable Rage: When Twilight meets one of the Necrons responsible for destroying Equestria, she gets so mad the she rips open a portal to the Warp and throws him inside it. Unfortunately, that was just a fake...
- Villain Team-Up: Imotekh the Stormlord, Trazyn the Infinite, and Illuminor Szeras all worked together in the Necron attack.
- Weather-Control Machine: The aliens appear to have one. Or at least Imotekh does.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What exactly happened to many of the characters, including four of the mane six and Spike, is left unresolved by the end, because Twilight doesn't know.
