The last black crusade

by ThatRarityIsaSpy

A new era

Twilight walked through the earth. This had once been farmland. Now, it was a barren wasteland littered with groaning and screaming corpses and the stench of the dead.
Yet in this hellscape, behind all the ruined war machines of humanity, behind the rotting corpses, behind the bones there lay a rose. Many roses actually.
There were no bodies to be recovered from this campaign. Every burial site of the dead yielded a blossoming rose, light pink in color, yet glowing. Those who weren't buried were covered with petals until their corpses hid from sight, then utterly vanished, returning as a rose.

The roses spoke. Whispering.
"Arven...... arven....."
"Cato....Cato......"
"Druwin.... Druwin..."
The names of every last astartes who had fought for harmony, for the Emperor and for the galaxy would be forever remembered. Their names would last as long as the immortal rose that whispered their names.
In this blasted hellscape, life once again gave a new in the form of hope. Hope was the first step to life. A better life. A better future.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
The Emperor sat in his throne-room. The golden throne was long unneeded merely a ceremonial trinket that the Emperor used. It was a reminder.
The Emperor waved a man clad in white power armor and with a white hood. Whispering into his ear, the man nodded and vanished in a puff of smoke.
The Emperor smiled to himself. Cypher was easily making out to be an excellent messenger. Whatever powers he had, not even the Emperor cared to know, just to make best use of it. The man had requested to be the personal messenger and voice of the Emperor. After his noble actions over the course of 10,000 years, The Emperor granted his wish.

As Cypher departed, The Emperor turned his head out the window to watch the massive building that was a human webway gate. Recently constructed. Took a long time.
Like three hours. Manus really was sleeping on this job.

Cypher returned about a second after he departed and gave his news. The reports were in from Cadia. The eye of terror was indeed shrinking and the grip the dark gods have over the material universe was slipping. Chaos had lost. Perhaps forever.

While The Emperor mused about his next plan, Sanguinius sat on the cloud over orbit. Twilight's potion had done it's job quite well and he too was able to reside and lounge on the water vapor in the skies, even build things out them. He watched curiously as Pegasi worked at a weather factory that cleaned the Terran atmosphere. He watched as a rain cloud deposited water onto the earth.
Just momentarily did an earth pony tap the earth. A small sprout emerged once again. Terra would soon be green like it was in the days gone by. Free of pollution and taint.

The Emperor had personally appointed and removed officials. Unscrupulous, power hungry and mad as some may be they certainly wouldn't dare to oppose the word of The Emperor. He watched as his new officials went to work, brains racking to help improve the Imperium.

Celestia and Luna were among them. Their wings had been covered with the Emperor's Aquila. This was the new sign that the sigilite (sigilites) now beared. Their ideals of tolerance, peace and love would be spread across the Imperium to replace the hatred and warfare that plagued it for so long.

Equestria's moon had now been built upon. A fortress monastery for the space marines that wished never to leave Equestria. Whether it was out of bond for their deceased comrades, sentimentality or wish to remain on the planet it didn't matter. They stayed stubbornly as well as helped conduct mining operations on the moon.
With the presence of a massive astartes force in orbit, even the most bloodthirsty Dark Eldar raiding party would think twice before as much as setting foot on a normally-defenseless planet.

Speaking of the moon, it was discovered there was a massive concentration of shards of harmony on the Equestrian moon. In addition, Ferrus Manus had built a device capable of holding the creatures of the warp at bay with said shards of harmony making them now a needed material for the Imperial webway project. Trade began with Equestria and Terra with the former receiving technology whilst the latter receiving the materials they needed.

The Imperium soon became what The Emperor had wanted. Life was taking a turn for the better. Even though chaos had been defeated there were still threats in the forms of orks, necrons, tyrannids and all the other enemies of the imperium. But The Emperor, in his endless wisdom had ways to deal with these threats other than bolters and legions of warriors. With his sly diplomacy, he convinced many ork clans to go wage war with the Tyrannids and necrons, secured a treaty with the Tau empire and made a few pacts with the Eldar craftworlds. He would soon prepare for the invasion of Commorragh and destroy the dark Eldar but that was a story for another time.

Now on the height of his power, with his own empire on the rise and for the first time at peace, The Emperor knew the fruits of his labor would be great. Astartes recruitment went into overdrive to ready for a second great crusade, the Imperial guard's traditional tactics would be scrapped, and given a better military doctrine then "run-at-the-enemy-while-they-mow-you-down".

His own sons too would enjoy the benefit. Guilliman, Dorn and Manus stayed on Terra. Guilliman went into politics, Dorn went into rebuilding and Manus went to work on the project with The Emperor. While that, the others all went on their own crusades to expand the imperium.

Equestria too rebuilt. And it rebuilt overnight. Literally. The ingenuity of the earth ponies boggled and amazed the minds of many techmarines of how fast they worked, able to rebuild large structures in mere minutes.

Despite the influx of technology, Equestria would still cling to it's traditions. In the private chambers of Princess Celestia, it would seem just as common for her to have a high-tech map of the galaxy right next to an old fashioned telescope.

The Emperor too visited Equestria quite often. The Tree of harmony and the crystal empire especially. He was always given a warm welcome, venerated as the most powerful being in magic. He would later write down some of his ways to teach to Equestria. After all, in Equestria, great psykers weren't born, they were made.

And now, after 10,000 years of strife, war and hopelessness, the Imperium was getting back on it's feet. The galaxy would be once again peaceful and the power of the dark gods would be broken forever.
Now, the galaxy may finally launch itself into a new era of peace and prosperity.

Comments

[master109]

nice ending

[ThatRarityIsaSpy]

3675937
Thanks. I am considering on writing a fic that involves Emprah invading Commoragh. I do have the time after all. Though I am somewhat rusty with Dark Eldar lore and I am having trouble with making material.

[Duskrunner]

Hi. Nice to see a finished story. I'll add it to my reading list just as soon as I finish with mine :)

[Bronzer]

3676015

Commorragh was invaded by the Salamanders once in like the 38th millennium or something. The result was a number of Cabals ceasing to exist The reason for the attack was that Vect wanted several rival Cabals wiped out, so he stole a Salamanders Strike Cruiser (with the Marines still on board) and then stuck it amongst the rival Cabals.

Even though the Dark Eldar failed to actually take the ship (in terms of board and defeat the marines on it, obviously), a few years later the rest of the chapter had successfully figured out how to enter the webway, located Commorragh, and launched an attack on the Cabals near the ship (Vect's rivals). The result was that Vect rose to control all of Commorragh, the Salamanders got the ship and brothers back, the the Dark Eldar still think they stand a chance against the Imperium. Is being absolute morons endemic in xenos?

Also, why mention treaties with the Tau? They are one of the weakest, tiniest factions of all the minor xenos. That is part of the reason they are playable. To give the players a chance to see things from the minor xenos point of view (even for the minor xenos, they only control two dozen worlds, that is including the worlds and colonies of their client species). They stop at nothing to subjugate and brainwash everyone they come across. No, seriously, they actually have social conditioning facilities where people are hooked up to machines that rewire their brains. Those who are resistant to the processes are sterilized and then worked to death. I honestly believe the Imperium would be barely cognizant of the Tau's mere existence, let alone want to do anything more than exterminate them for the terrible crimes they so gleefully commit.

Sorry, the constant "Tau iz r pwrfulz" crap that many Tau players spurt just pisses me off.

This is a great fic! I really like the ending. It feels very nice and leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside!

The ingenuity of the earth ponies

It's inherent magic, not ingenuity. Although, it would be quite shocking to see in real life.

[ThatRarityIsaSpy]

3762704
I just realized that......
Whoops.

[The Red Angel]

4717509

Yeah, I know. (I didn't 30 weeks ago when I wrote that)

[Zillafire101]

3761302
And your ignorance of tau pisses me off. Brainwashing, please, tell me again about those commissars and space marines being indoctrinated to be perfect little grunts for the empire. And speaking of crimes, by your logic, the imperium should not exist. How many races have they wiped out? How many planets have been butchered. How about the first war of Armageddon, how did that end for the citizens there. Enemies if the Tau are not worked to death. They work long hours to understand how the greater good works, but are not worked to death. You know, like what the imperium does.