“Alrighty then… I’ll see you around, Lyra!”

“Yup! See ya!”

Bon Bon held her breath, willing her body to remain as still as possible. The door shut, and Lyra squinted through the peephole. “She’s leaving… Still walking… Still walking… Around the corner… Annnnnnd… Gone.”

Bon Bon counted fifteen extra seconds in her head. Once she was certain that Applejack wasn’t returning, she removed her hoof from Surprise’s mouth. “Okay. Get up.”

Surprise giggled as she began to untangle her limbs and extract herself from beneath the table. “That was fun! It’s just like playing hide and seek with Spitfire! That’s when I hide from her when she’s mad so she can’t write me up until she forgets about what I did!”

“This isn’t a game,” Bon Bon muttered, pushing past her to continue ransacking the bookshelf. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

“And pie.”

“What? Lyra, I said that if you weren’t going to take this seriously, you couldn’t come!”

“No, pie. There’s a pie on the windowsill.” Lyra pointed to the living room window, where a rather large pie was indeed resting on the sill. What caught Bon Bon’s attention was the abnormal amount of wiring that seemed to be coming out of its side.

“Yummy!”

“Surprise, no!” Bon Bon pushed the pegasus backwards and approached the suspicious pastry.

“That’s no pie, is it?” Lyra asked.

“Honey… What do you think?” Bon Bon rotated the pie carefully, noticing little bits of metal and circuitry penetrating through the dough.

“I knew that Ditzy was a bad baker, but I didn’t know she was that bad!”

Bon Bon muttered to herself and pressed the button on her earpiece. “Strawberry, we found the second device in Ditzy’s house.”

“Great!” came the reply. “Unfortunately we still can’t get into Spitfire’s office, so Wonderbolts Academy might still explode. Can you figure out what yours does?”

“Well… It’s in a pie.”

“Ooh! What flavor?”

Bon Bon’s eye twitched. “What does it matter what flavor?! Are all of you insane?”

“A little,” said Lyra.

“Yes!” said Surprise.

“So I’ve been told,” said Strawberry.

Bon Bon muttered a string of curses under her breath. “Whatever. I’m going to see if I can figure out what this thing does.”

“Okay! Don’t blow yourself up!” Strawberry replied with her usual faux-enthusiasm.

“Lyra, you and Surprise better get somewhere safe.” Bon Bon squinted at the pie, formulating her plan of attack.

Then, she watched in horror as a butter knife suspended by a green aura levitated past her. “Lyra. What are you doing?”

The knife slid through the top of the pie and removed it effortlessly. “We didn’t explode!” cheered Surprise.

“You’re welcome!” sang Lyra.

Bon Bon made a mental note to give her wife a long, deep lecture about the dangers of approaching unknown devices. But that would have to wait. She discarded the pie top and gazed into the pin. “Strawberry, come in.”

“Yours truly speaking!”

“The device here isn’t a bomb. It looks like it interfaces with the device at the Academy.” Bon Bon took the bag she had brought and placed the pie-machine inside. “We need to get these two things together and hope that Strawberry can piece this together.”

“Oooh, but first!” Surprise went over to the doorway, where Ditzy’s courier bag was resting. “We got to deliver the maillllll!”

“There’s no time for that!” screamed Bon Bon.

Lyra cleared her throat. “I mean… We kind of have what we need. Why don’t we let Surprise take care of it? Maybe… Have some time to ourselves, you know? Have our own adventure?”

Surprise lept over to Ditzy’s coatrack and threw on a black coat. “I’m ready for my duties!” she chirped, snatching an envelope and staring at it. “To Miss Twilight Velvet… Cordially invited to A.K. Yearling’s Party!”

“Is that what it says or are you making it up?”

Surprise just giggled. “Here I go!” With that, she leapt out the window and darted down the road.

“A party? Do you think that’s important?”

“Honestly honey… I have no idea.”

Author's Note

Message given to AltruistArtist for Chapter 2:
Have fun.