KARMA

“I want... twelve donuts,” says Bonbon, wearing a brown saddle with her three bonbon cutie mark stitched on it.

“What kind of donuts?” asks Pinkie Pie, smiling from her spot behind the counter.

Bonbon taps her chin, her eyes scanning the menu on the wall behind the pinkest pony in existence. There are only fifty varieties of donuts to choose from.

Why so many? Not even the Divine know. But regardless of the reason, the outcome of this is her brain has become sore from trying to keep the colorful squiggly letters that spell out the types of donuts. She can read just about anything, but neon colors have always hurt her eyes and for some reason Pinkie Pie (or whoever writes these things) has decided that neon squiggly letters that blur together is the pinnacle of advertisement.

“I want...” Bonbon stops, thinks for a moment, and then sighs. “You know what, we'll keep it simple. Just give me twelve strawberry delight donuts.”

“Okie dokie!” Pinkie Pie taps on the register, each button making an obnoxious click and clack, and then there is a ding with a '25' popping up on the register's top. “That'll be twenty five bits.”

“... Okay, let's make that six.”

After getting her donuts Bonbon steps outside into the streets of Ponyville with her donuts in her saddle. The sun is warm but hurts her eyes, the breeze brings enough chill to keep her from sweating, and the citizens of Ponyville are milling about, eating, drinking, talking, living life peacefully. Bonbon takes a moment to put on her sunglasses and starts her walk down the sidewalk, passing the remaining numbers of the brightly painted wooden and thatch roofed buildings. The rest of the buildings have been upgraded to brick, but there is also a blight of abandoned with their doors and windows sealed by plants of wood, and in the distance, Twilight's Castle looms over the town, its crystal exterior reflecting the sunlight with a calming blue hue, always serving as a reminder that despite the rough days the royal class will always rule over the peasants. Not that Bonbon minds since the royals have always been good to Equestria. Plus, they give her a paycheck.

As Bonbon walks down the sidewalk, she is passed by bulbous vehicles with round backs and long fronts with tires that have white interiors drive down the roads, occasionally stopping at red street light so the crowd can cross the street. One street Bonbon crosses takes her to her next destination. A simple little building with a glass door and a large window to display its collection of cleaning supplies, from bleach to window cleaners and vacuums. The window also has paint on it advertising a sale of cleaning supplies, and hanging above the shop's door is a simple sign with blocky text: Discount Grocery Store.

A bell dings when Bonbon enters and is immediately hit with a concentrated stream of cold air flowing from a fan hanging from the ceiling. She keeps her sunglasses on to dim the bright lights, the clip-clop of her hoofs on the tile echo in the dead store, and she flashes a quick smile at the pony sitting behind the counter, reading a gossip magazine.

Bonbon goes straight to the cleaning aisle, passing the breakfast aisle, the juice and jarred goods aisle, and a few others. Upon reaching the cleaning aisle she goes straight to the bleach with a basket hanging from her mouth. Specifically the laundry friendly bleach. All of the bottles look the same with their white colors and basic labels, and as far as she knows they all work the same, but she keeps browsing just for the sake of killing time. She has nothing to do, anyway.

“I would recommend the Cloud 9 bleach. It is the best for laundry,” says a stallion with a smooth voice.

Bonbon glances to her side and sees a gray unicorn with a combed mane of white with a red stripe standing next to her, levitating a Cloud 9 bottle in blue aura. He has his thick glasses lowered and his blue eyes are focused on the ingredients printed on the back of the bottle. The concerning part for her is that she did not even see or hear him approach her, so she discretely sizes him up. Luckily he is average size for a unicorn stallion, so she is already bigger and stronger physically. But the magic part will be a problem if he tries anything.

“Thanks,” says Bonbon with a friendly smile.

“Vinegar also works,” says the stallion. “But you obviously have a tough job if you are using bleach. Vinegar is more for softer approaches, whereas bleach can really get rid of a problem. But if you use too much then it ruins the fabric beyond repair.”

Bonbon nods slowly like a good mare interested in the fascinated subject of bleach versus vieagr, and the unicorn smiles at her and shakes his bleach bottle.

“Better hurry, these bottles go fast when they're on sale,” says the unicorn.

Then he trots away, whistling the Equestrian National Anthem, and Bonbon watches him for a couple more seconds before she looks at where he got the bottle from. There is a disposable camera siting on the rack that looks identical to the ones near the front of the store, and after studying it for a moment she swipes it, puts it in the basket with her bleach and heads to checkout.

A few minutes later of navigating pedestrian traffic and finding a random route Bonbon reaches her home. It is near Twilight's Castle and is one of the few remaining thatch houses left in Ponyville, so she has bragging rights.

However, what the population does not realize is that her front door has three locks, each with a different key that must be unlocked in a special sequence (which is a pain when trying to get inside with groceries on a rainy day), the front door is actually metal with wood covering, and the outer wall has a nice safety feature of concrete and rebar blocks, disguised by wood. Her windows are bullet proof, her roof has a thatch outer layer, but it is also metal, the chimney is fake, and all of her lights are motion activated. Needless to say, it has been very expensive for her to get her house upgraded to the design she wanted and she is not selling it anytime soon. If ever.

Once Bonbon is inside her little fortress she puts her saddle on the kitchen counter, does a quick search of her property to make sure no one is around, and then she puts a donut on her table, sits with her back to the wall, and brings the camera to her eye.

A pair of blue lights slide side to side and up and down, thoroughly covering her eye and temporarily blinding her. After that, there is a beep and a seal appears consisting of a gold hexagon with the sun inside, wings outside and black letters of S-I-D on the bottom.

'Identity Confirmed. Senior Special Agent Sweetie Drops activated.' scrolls a message.

The message and symbol flicker away to a blue background and a flag of red star with gold hammer and sickle appears. Beneath it are three green orbs with diagrams of their molecular structures next to them, as well as Radiatium-239.

“Special Agent Sweetie Drops, the S-I-D will make this quick,” says a stallion. “There has been an incident in the United Kingdoms of Altai. The griffins are keeping it quiet, but our channels have picked it up. Long story short, three orbs of weapons grade radiatium have been stolen from Fort Gemvein in East Altai.”

Bonbon hums, and then takes a bite out of her donut. Despite Pinkie Pie being the absolute weirdest pony she has ever met she can always count on her to give her fresh food. Unlike those guys at Hearty's Junior. They always give her cold fries and put pickles on her hayburgers.

“Each orb is strong enough to level a major city. Canterlot, Griffenstone, Saddlerock, so on,” continues the voice. “The good news is that our thieves are terrible at navigating the dark market so we were able to find them and their buyer quickly. The bad news is that in five days they will meet with this pegasus in Harrow Valley, North Zebrica.”

The current images are replaced with a small walled compound in the middle of a prairie, and a picture of a stallion with a dark gray coat, a black mane, white freckles, white tipped wings and hazel eyes. He is wearing an all black suit with a golden jester hat a pin. Seeing this brings Bonbon's muscles to stiffen.

“Moonstone Skyward,” says the voice. “We all know he is the next highest ranking member of KARMA, and capturing him will bring us one step closer to apprehending Dr. Astral Plane.”

The pegasus is replaced with a tall and slender unicorn stallion with yellow eyes, a pale brown mane, and copper colored fur. He is wearing a pressed gray suit and has tired eyes, and next to his picture is a crescent moon with a sword and shield, and 'DENOUNCED' stamped across the symbol.

“We capture Moonstone Skyward, we have a chance of apprehending Dr. Astral Plane, and that will bring us one step closer to dismantling KARMA,” says the voice. “We cannot stress how important this mission is. If KARMA gets hold of those radiatium orbs then they will destabilize the whole world. More details will be discussed at Cloud 7-2. This message will self destruct in five seconds.”

Bonbon drops the camera, covers her eyes with her hoofs and groans loudly. There is then a small flash of light and thin smoke rises from the camera, where it quickly disappears as if it had never been there. Just like Bonbon's vacation.