It’s worth noting that, as a formally minted princess, Twilight Sparkle was only allowed one weekend off per year.
This free weekend approached every year like a second Hearth’s Warming—a gift from the bureaucratic powers that be. She marked it into her calendars at the beginning of every year right after her birthday and the Grand Galloping Gala. The itinerary of fun and relaxation took weeks of painstaking preparation to create, and was accurate down to thirty seconds.
Knowing all this, one could understand Twilight Sparkle’s agitation at being shaken awake early on the first day of her weekend off and hustled into the Crystal Castle’s Underground Crystal Cabinet Room by her security detail.
In the cabinet room, a snappy-looking officer in full dress uniform addressed a panel of similarly snappy-looking officers huddled around a tactics table. Equestria and her entire army stood poised, ready to knock out any possible threat. When these little pieces moved, the sound of thousands of marching soldiers echoed throughout the room.
Twilight brushed them aside with her hoof and set down a cup of coffee, liberating the Northwest Coast from Equestrian control and ceding it to a dark-roast dictatorship.
“How did you all get into my house?” she asked sleepily. “Did you use the front door?”
“We used the secret Crystal Tunnels, your majesty,” the lead officer said. “And, Spike let us in.”
She glared at the ceiling. He must be up there somewhere, trembling. “Alright, what is it? Is it important enough to get Celestia?”
“The fate of the world may be at stake,” the officer said.
“Good. Why don’t you just get Celestia? I’m already up, but if you leave now I may be able to get some reading in before I realize how badly this affects my schedule.”
“Princess, you are in a unique position to assist us in this matter. Time is of the essence, and as I’m sure you're well aware there’s no rest for the wicked.”
“Apparently there’s no rest for the rest of us, either,” she mumbled into her coffee.
“Thank you, your majesty. I’ll let my colleague from the Equestrian Intelligence Service, Agent Spook, take it from here.”
“Spook?”
A slender pony in a suit stood up on the other side of the table. The illumination from the table combined with the hollow bags under his eyes gave him the appearance of the Boogeyman. Perhaps Twilight was still dreaming after all.
The first words out of his mouth were, “Your majesty,” but they may as well have been, “I’m going to drag you into Tartarus in your sleep.”
Twilight closed her eyes. She wouldn’t fight it. The dead slept forever. She had barely slept three hours.
Agent Spook continued. “We in the EQUIS know them only as The League. They’re a shadowy band of ponies who we believe are attempting to forcefully convert all of Equestria to their insane death-cult.”
“Death-cult,” Twilight echoed, “interesting. And you thought it would be prudent to call an emergency meeting of—what council is this, by the way?”
The officer replied, “The Interdisciplinary Independent Office of Twilight Sparkle, your majesty.”
“IDIOTS,” Twilight deadpanned.
“Eey-yots, your majesty. Eey-yot for short. Interdisciplinary is one word. We are assigned to brief you and offer counsel in the event that travel to Canterlot becomes too dangerous or too time-consuming. And believe me your majesty, time is of the essence.”
“How’d you all get here so quickly? I’ve never seen most of you around Ponyville before.” Twilight looked around. “Why is Ditzy Doo here?”
“This is not a drill!” Ditzy Doo shouted from across the table.
“Miss Doo is our IDIOT in charge of weather production, your majesty,” the officer answered.
Twilight shot him a nasty look. “I thought interdisciplinary was one word!”
“Please, your majesty, there’s no time to discuss semantics. The inter-disciplinary council has convened today—”
“This morning,” Twilight corrected. “Last night is barely yesterday.”
“We’ve convened this momentous morning,” the officer barreled on, “because we have credible intelligence that the death-cult is moving into the final stages of some horrifying plot that will destroy life as we know it.”
“The other princesses should be here to hear this, then,” Twilight said. “They could be here in thirty minutes.” She yawned. “Maybe forty five minutes.”
“Due respect, your majesty, but there’s just no time. This is a Ponyville problem, and by the time the IDIOCelestia and the IDIOLuna could be briefed, it would be too late. This requires immediate action.” The officer nodded to the EQUIS spook, who threw a plain manilla folder onto the table. It skittered across Maregentina and obliterated Appleoosa before coming to a stop on the hills just south of Ponyville. “Everyone take a photo,” the officer said.
Two unicorns and Twilight lit up their horns and took a picture. The remaining earth ponies and pegasi reached for the folder and came up short. One by one, they turned pleading looks on Twilight.
“For the love of the moon,” she muttered as she passed out photographs to the council members.
“Thank you, your majesty,” the officer said. “Agent Spook will elaborate on these photographs.”
“Thank you, Sir. We believe The League has been hiding in plain sight for some time now, disguising their rituals to blend into normal town life. As has already been established, this is a problem unique to Ponyville, but these are no small-town terrorists. The pictures you all hold are some of their higher-ups. They impart their teachings on the peons, but don’t participate in the rituals themselves. Seems they’re all too happy to walk the walk, but when the birds hit the fan they won’t get their hooves dirty.”
The council shook their heads in unison, except for Ditzy, who nodded.
Spook continued, “Make no mistake. These elites are not afraid to use the underlings as human shields. I’ve even seen them talking to—I’m sorry,” he cleared his throat. Were those tears running down his eye-bags? “I’ve seen them trying to recruit children.”
Waves of murmurs rose from around the table. Twilight kept on sipping her coffee.
“How could they have kept this a secret for so long?” one officer next to Twilight asked.
“That, perhaps, is the most horrible part of this entire story.” Spook revealed another manilla envelope, which he summarily used to sweep the Dragonlands clean. Airborne dragon units went flying. “We’ve captured more photographs just recently.”
Twilight wondered why they even bothered setting the pieces up there in the first place as she doled out the photographs again.
“Thank you, your majesty. As I was saying, these pictures are from just last night. We were able to capture a ritual in progress. These may shock you, but it can only be one thing. These cultists are disguising their rituals as... as...”
The ponies leaned into the table. Twilight nodded off, then woke with a jolt and leaned in too.
Spook, in a voice truly befitting his name, whispered, “Slow-pitch adult softball.”
The room recoiled. One officer fainted.
“Who would do that to themselves?” someone asked.
“Now you know exactly who we’re dealing with,” Spook said. “Now you know the severity of this operation.”
“Um, Agent Spook—”
“Yes, your majesty!”
Twilight jumped at the strange enthusiasm in his voice. “Right,” she finally said, “this picture appears to show the game between the Everfree Egrets and the Town Hall-Stars. It’s a recreational league some ponies started six years ago to ease post Winter-Wrap-Up tensions.”
“This may have started as a fun pastime to ease Weather-Warp-Up stress, but these cultists have co-opted the game and twisted it into something awful. Look at this picture, your majesty. Both teams are clearly drinking some sort of kool-aid in the dugout. You know how the saying goes. ‘Bad people get good people to drink the kool-aid, and then they turn into bad people too.’”
The assembled officers nodded their heads vigorously. Twilight went to down the rest of her coffee only to realize her cup was empty. “Drat.”
“That’s not all, your majesty. The bastardizations of normal baseball rules, the strange behaviors exhibited by the players—there is simply more at work here than meets the eye.”
The lead officer spoke up. “You were speaking about their ritual hymn before the princess arrived.”
“That’s right, Sir.” Spook said with a nod. “Your majesty, if I may, I believe I’ve decoded critical elements in the cryptic song they sing with each other during their rituals. If you’d like, I could fill you in.”
“Sure,” Twilight nodded, “but I can’t sing any high harmonies before 7am.”
“No need, your majesty. I’ll sing it solo the first time, and if you’re really feeling it we can go around again as a group. Pay close attention, and I’ll explain each lyric’s meaning as it goes by.” Ha paused, sucked in a deep breath, and belted a surprisingly rich tenor, “Take me out to the ballgame—”
“Starless Hells,” Twilight groaned.
“Exactly, your majesty!” Spook pounded the table. The armies of Equestria scattered, then set up camp once more. “Starless Hells, indeed. It’s so cleverly concealed I can’t believe I didn’t see it before! Take me out—obviously a reference to their agenda of death. Its meaning is twofold. Firstly, it denotes an initiation ritual of a yet-unknown amount of murders—that’s why these are the first lyrics of the song—and secondly, it announces the fate of all those who refuse to join. The ballgame is a code for their ritual meetings, and the next line—take me out with the crowd—refers to their increasing numbers. Now, the devious meaning behind ‘peanuts and crackerjack’ still elude me, though rest assured, I have a few theories. And I don’t think I need to explain the significance of, ‘I don’t care if I ever get back.’ It’s just—pardon the wordage, your majesty, but it’s just plain spooky. Now, from here we go three repetitions of the word ‘root.’ Root, root, root. Why does he say root three times? We must go deeper. What else has roots? Trees. Trees have branches. The meaning could be metaphorical, as in the cult has many branches and thusly have many roots to support these branches. If that’s true, and we think of the cult as a tree, then we really start getting somewhere. What are trees made of? Wood, right? What else is made of wood? Forests. And who has supreme authority over forests? Why, none other than the Equestrian Forest Preserve! Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“Okay, okay, I get it.” Twilight waved her coffee mug in surrender. A single drop spilled from the lip and flooded west Californeigha. “The song’s evil.”
“I could go on!” Spook said. “I’ve gathered lots more research that may be of interest to you!” The song seemed to have whipped him up into a frenzy. He drummed on the table, battering the west coast of Zebrabwe with earthquakes.
More whispering from the officers. Twilight was certain she had woken from a dream to a nightmare. Maybe she was still asleep. If that was true, she had to have rolled off the bed and hit her head on the Crystal Nightstand. She must be sprawled out on the floor this very moment, twitching and bleeding all over the rock-hard Crystal Carpet.
“This is just the beginning!” Spook shouted as his wrath moved inland. “We must take decisive action!”
“This is not a drill!” Ditzy Doo shouted from across the table. The other officers soon began echoing her cry.
Spook shook his head and whinneyed. “These IDIOTS are right! This is no drill!”
“Okay, enough.” Twilight couldn’t hear herself over the din. Were there really only a dozen people at this table? Had a chorus snuck in while she was nodding off? “Enough!” Still nothing. “Come on!” Nothing. “Would you idiots please shut up?”
The room went dead silent, save Twilight’s heavy breathing. At last, it seemed, the land of Equestria would have a moment of rest.
From across the table, an officer whimpered, “What did she just call us?”
“I don’t know who half you ponies are. You invade my house, allegedly at Spike’s behest, though I haven’t seen him at all so I can’t confirm that. You’re part of an office—”
“An inter-disciplinary office, your majesty.”
Twilight saw stars. “You’re part of an office supposedly assigned to me, yet I’ve never heard of you before. My security detail is strangely absent. I would feel much safer around you loonies with them around, thank you very much. And to top it all off, you just had to make a push on dismantling the area’s largest and only recreational softball league on my—one—weekend—off!”
Twilight was suddenly aware that all the eyes at the table were glued on her. She opened her mouth, then closed it.
Spook bit his lip. Somehow, his bulldogish face fell even more. “Your majesty, I should remind you that since we’re a publicly-funded government agency, transcripts of all our meetings are available to the public.”
She took in a deep breath. “I’m—sorry. I’m sorry. I just want to go back to sleep. I have a weekend itinerary, and it’s all totally ruined now. I’ll spend the whole weekend just trying to fix it. Look—what do you want me to do about this? Just tell me, and I’ll do it.”
Spook nodded slowly. “Well, your majesty, that’s where we need you the most. As an interdisciplinary office, we’ve gathered all this data, but we need an authoritative leader to take it and put it into motion. IDIOTS are nothing without a leader.”
Twilight spent the next few moments considering the thin film at the bottom of her coffee cup. Would the coffee grounds trapped there get her hopped up if she chewed them? Not enough, probably.
“Okay,” she said, “you want a solution to this death-cult? Let’s make a solution to this death-cult. We should do some reconnaissance on their meeting tonight. I have it on good authority that it’s a playoff game. That means they’re all the closer to springing their endgame.”
More whispers. “What do you think their endgame is?” Spook asked. “Mayhem? Destruction?”
“Worse. The winners of the championship are gonna take over the Ponyville Tavern for a night. Who knows? From there they might take over the world.”
The shouting resumed. Above the din, Spook cried, “This must not stand!”
Twilight held up her hoof. The shouting stopped instantly. “I only trust in two ponies to take care of this delicate operation. Spook, and...” she made a gesture at the head officer. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Sir, your majesty.”
“Of course. You and Spook are the two best qualified ponies to take care of this situation. You are to infiltrate the spectators at the game tonight—sorry, the ritual tonight, and gather as much information as you can. Leave no stone unturned.” Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a light glinting off one of Sir’s medals. She looked up only to realize he was shaking. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, your majesty,” he replied, clearly not okay. “I’m honored you think me suitable for this—this incredibly life-threatening mission.”
A look at Spook revealed he was in no better shape. He had actually gotten paler, if that were possible. “Do you two think you’re capable of this task?”
“Of course!” they shouted in unison. “We’re just the IDIOTS for the job!”
“Your inter-disciplinary skillset, whatever it is, is essential to the future of Equestria. I have full faith that you’ll get the job done.”
“Yes, your majesty!” Spook barked. “We won’t let you down!”
Twilight smiled for the first time all day.
As she led the counsel through the castle towards the front door, she said to Spook, “I expect a thorough report from you no sooner than—let’s see...” She pursed her lips in thought. “Monday.”
