Bon Bon was pretty sure there wasn’t supposed to be a red blinking light coming from the captain of the Wonderbolts’ office. Unless, of course, Spitfire had some heretofore undisclosed hobby in robotics. That would explain the presence of the metal device sitting atop her desk like some garish paperweight, a nasty tangle of wires protruding from its smooth, shiny exterior.

“See what I mean? Freaky!” Surprise squeaked, crowding up against Bon Bon to press her face flat against the tiny glass window set in the captain’s office door. The flapping of her wings was stirring up a small cyclone in the hallway of Wonderbolts Academy.

“Freaky is an understatement.” Bon Bon dropped down on all four hooves. “That looks like an improvised explosive device, and a sophisticated one at that.”

“Leave it to you to determine how complex it is from a glance,” Strawberry Sunrise remarked. Bon Bon assumed it was a compliment, though with her naturally condescending tone, it wasn’t an assumption she could make in confidence. “So, what do you think? Are you able to disarm it?”

“Of course she is!” Lyra tossed a hoof over Bon Bon’s shoulder. “If anypony can save Wonderbolts Academy from turning into a big heap of sky rubble it’s my Bonnie!”

Bon Bon forced a smile under her wife’s nuzzling. “If I’m going to save anything, I need to be able to actually get inside Spitfire’s office. Does anypony have a key?”

Surprise burst into a fit of giggles. “Aww—you’re funny Bon Bon! Spitfire would sooner recruit that one wacky mare from the Washouts than give me a spare key to her office. She calls it ‘professional boundaries,’ but I know it’s because she doesn’t want to find a whoopie cushion on her chair during a meeting. Can’t imagine why, though.”

Lyra exchanged a snickering glance with Bon Bon who found she was becoming increasingly curious about how Surprise ever managed to clear cadet status. “In that case,” Bon Bon said, “I can try picking it.”

“No luck there, either.” Strawberry primly shook her head. “Unless you can pick your way past a chair.”

A sinking feeling plummeting through her chest, Bon Bon pressed her face to the glass once more, only to confirm that somepony indeed had wedged the back of Spitfire’s desk chair under the handle.
Bon Bon grumbled, “Whoever did this must have gone through the window and locked it up behind them. That all but confirms it was a pegasus.”

Cursing this potential disaster to Tartarus and back, she narrowed her eyes, cupped her hooves around her face, and focused on the bomb. The details were obscured by the distance and the vexing fog of her breath, but Bon Bon finally found what she was looking for—a subtle glimpse of hope.

“I think it’s remote activated.”

She turned to the three mares with her. “Which means finding a way inside is less of a concern than finding the device set to trigger this one.”

As they nodded and murmured in relief, Bon Bon paced, all business, sweeping her companions with an interrogating stare. “Surprise, did anypony suspicious come through here today?”

The boisterous Wonderbolt shook her head. “Nope! Like I said, I just noticed the flashing when I was walking by! I saw some of my squadron-mates, a few new cadets…” She pressed at the end of her snout, as though her memory was aided onward by the tapping of her hoof. “Oh! And Ditzy Doo of course, at the same time she usually delivers the mail. Although, come to think of it, she didn’t have her mailbag on her. Or her cute hat! How can a mailmare make deliveries without her hat?”

Bon Bon ground her teeth. “She might not have been delivering mail, but something else.”

“No way!” Lyra was shaking her head. “You can’t seriously be suspecting Ditzy! She’s a sweetheart. She wouldn’t drop off a bomb at Wonderbolts Academy.”

“Maybe not willingly. But she’s a pony with regular access to places all across Equestria. Nopony would think twice if she showed up to plant a bomb somepony else coerced her into delivering.”

Lyra’s ears drooped. “Oh no. Poor Ditzy.”

“Well it’s about to be ‘poor Wonderbolts Academy’ if we don’t hurry,” Strawberry interjected. “Ditzy is our best lead, right? Bon Bon, you should head to her place. I’ll keep watch here.” She gestured to her earpiece. “Just radio me if you find anything. Assuming I don’t blow up first.”

Bon Bon smiled wryly. “We both know you wouldn’t let that happen.”

“I’ll come too!” Surprise exclaimed. “You’ll need a pegasus to deliver the mail after all!”

She was met with a trio of bewildered stares and laughed, turning one right back at them. “Because Ditzy didn’t have her mailbag with her? Geez, have you all not been paying attention?”

As Bon Bon ran down the powdery dirt paths of Ponyville, her wife beside her and Surprise gliding overhead, she found that the buildings looked remarkably similar—even if one of them might have contained a remote detonator. The call to action that morning was the first Bon Bon received in a long time, but her vigilance hadn’t dulled in the interim. Ponyville may have been home, but she was never fooled to believe its pastoral thatched houses and storefronts were as innocent as they appeared. Not when she had witnessed monsters emerge from them.

Bon Bon came to a skidding halt at Ditzy’s porch. Lyra was panting a half-step behind her and Surprise looped twice in the air before alighting on the balcony above the door. Without a word to either of them, Bon Bon deftly pulled her set of picking tools from her saddlebag and got to work breaking into her sweetly unassuming neighbor’s house.

“Something smells good. Suspiciously good…” Surprise was murmuring from above.

Bon Bon pressed her ears to her temples as she focused on threading her pins through the lock, a bead of sweat running between her eyes. “I’ll keep lookout,” Lyra said, her hooves thumping on the wood slats of the porch. “Also, Surprise is right. Something does smell pretty good.” She sniffed. “Like boysenberry? No—blueberry?”

Unlike the muttering from Surprise, her wife’s voice smoothed out all possible distractions, melding into background noise. Bon Bon had just felt the dead bolt unlatch when Lyra hissed: “Somepony’s coming!”

Bon Bon twisted the knob and bolted upright. “Surprise! Inside! Now!”

A white blur of feathers swept through the door, Bon Bon and Lyra hurrying behind. Lyra had been right about the sweet smell in the air, like something fresh from the oven. Kicking the door closed behind her, Bon Bon crept to the edge of the window, peeking below the curtain.

“It’s just Applejack,” she whispered. The orange mare was trotting at a leisurely pace down the road. “I don’t think she saw us. She’ll pass by.”

Bon Bon surveyed the house, running her tongue over her teeth. She rose onto her hind legs and began rifling through a bookshelf.

But then came Lyra’s whisper: “Actually… I don’t think she is.” She was crouching beneath the window sill. “Oh Celestia; she’s at the door!” Her eyes went wide and she skittered backward, flattening out on the floor like a turquoise unicorn-shaped rug.

Then came a steady shave-and-a-haircut—two bits knock. A pause, just long enough for Bon Bon’s stomach to flip. Then a second round of the same rhythm.

“Ditzy? Ya home?”

Bon Bon was frozen stiff. Until she saw Surprise approaching the door.

She was saying, “We better let her know that we’re taking care of some extremely important bomb-related business so she doesn’t get suspicious.”

Bon Bon was on her like a flash. Muscle memory kicked into action, and she had Surprise on her belly, haunches pinning her wings to her sides. They rolled under a nearby table and Bon Bon clamped a hoof to her mouth. “Or we stay quiet and hope she leaves!” Bon Bon panted into the flicking white ear beneath her muzzle. A little squeak of apparent agreement rose from Surprise’s throat.

Bon Bon’s head rose to confirm whether Lyra was out of sight. But it seemed her wife had other plans.

Lyra’s face was screwed up in intense concentration, the kind of expression she wore when trying to beat Bon Bon at a board game. She was also wrapped in a shining green field of magic. And before Bon Bon could ask what in Celestia’s name she was doing, Lyra disappeared in a shimmery flash.

Bon Bon blinked. Beneath her, Surprise jerked as she let out a little “eep.”

“Applejack! What a coincidence!”

That was Lyra’s voice calling out, muffled through the wall. Her words were punctuated by her hastened hoofsteps, making her way to Applejack at Ditzy’s door.

“Oh. Hey, Lyra.” Applejack’s silhouette appeared through the curtain. “Can’t say it’s that much of a coincidence. Considerin’ we are neighbors and all.”

“Right. We sure are!” Lyra laughed, sounding out of breath. “I meant: what a coincidence we both showed up at Ditzy’s place at the same time!”

Applejack’s hooves shuffled on the porch. “Right. I guess you didn’t get your mail, neither?”

“Nope, sure didn’t! And that’s because…” Lyra cleared her throat. “Uh—she’s on vacation! You know this time of year is just perfect to go see Rainbow Falls. She actually asked me to cover her deliveries while she was gone. You know I can never turn down a pony who needs a helping hand!”

“...Hand?”

“Anyway, I’m so sorry Applejack! I slept way too late and missed the usual delivery time. And on my first day on the job, too. I won’t make that mistake again!” There was a rough scraping, like a pony being bodily pushed down the short steps of a porch. “You should just head on home. The mail will arrive at Sweet Apple Acres before you can say, well, apples!”

Author's Note

Message given to Rego for Chapter 1:
Have fun writing Strawberry Sunrise!