Wonderful Mechanical: Keen Eye and the Wonderbolt Saboteur.

by Monocrome_Monogatari

The so-called friendship of Keen Eye and Rivet

Rivet, Rivet, Rivet…

How do I explain Rivet…?

Rivet is like that one annoying neighbor kid you had growing up. You know the one. The honor roll student. The one your parents would constantly compare you to when they were yelling at you.

“I bet Rivet keeps his room clean.”

“Rivet keeps up with his homework, why can’t you?”

“Rivet has such good manners, why can’t you be like that?”

“I bet Rivet never gets sent to detention.”

He was living proof that, whatever you were, you weren’t good enough. And yet, when you saw him, his half-pint stature, his sandy yellow coat, his name matching cutie mark, his short cropped brown mane, his excited smile at whatever subject he was studying, oblivious to the world around him, or his trembling frown, overwhelmed by the world around him, you couldn’t completely hate him. He did nothing wrong after all.

You could resent the hell out of him though.

He and I had that kind of relationship.

(Oh, and if you’re the kind of reader who needs to know what the protagonist looks like...

First of all, shame on you for being so shallow. Looks aren’t everything, you know.

Second of all, I’m a light green Pegasus stallion, short brown mane with long swept bangs just reaching past my eyebrows, with a streak of gray going down the middle. My eyes are, more often than not burdened with bags, and my winning white smile has a front tooth missing, my personal favorite battle scar. My cutie mark is an eye with a sparkle flashing off the pupil. I never leave the house without wearing my favorite red scarf. )

We had met years back, when I got him to drag me through a group project. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to arrange that. When he wasn’t being picked on, 90% of the student body was content with ignoring Rivet and he was content ignoring them, but when it came time to partner up, suddenly he was the post popular colt in class. The class president even had to make a waiting list behind Rivet’s back, one I cut through in a story involving blackmail and at least one beating by the students I cut. I say “at least one” because my memory gets hazy after my skull hit concrete.

It was supposed to be a quick business-like relationship, but Rivet was surprised to find somepony who could keep up with him, and I was surprised to find somepony who could out-pace me. We had something of a pseudo-friendship/pseudo-rivalry after that. He came to me to talk about things few others would care about. I would try to keep people from picking on him, and in exchange I would have exclusive right to pick on him. At the end of every term we would compare test scores and report cards.

Of course, he bested me more often than not. It’s only natural. Rivet was as straightforward as straight A students get: a student with a preference for mathematics and the sciences, who turned the metalworking shop into a second home, and studied for the sake of studying. I was a student that preferred the “softer” sciences like psychology, and the liberal arts. When it came time for tests, I couldn’t be bothered studying, so I instead found better and better ways to cheat and improvise my way through the answers. I think that makes my results more impressive. I kept up without giving it my all, imagine what I could do if I actually tried!

…What’s with that look you’re giving me?

…Okay, okay, “I could have won if I tried” is a lame excuse, I admit that. Still, it’s how I operate.

The best wins aren’t the ones where both parties give it their all, and everyone’s content.

The best wins are the ones where someone exploits a flaw in the ruleset, and ruins the game for everyone.

Anyways, for a few years that’s how we spent our days: chatting, laughing, fighting, studying, wandering… I even dragged him into being my assistant the times I played amateur sleuth. Those days were fun, and it was a shame to see them end…even though, looking back, I probably wasn’t the healthiest friend for him. He’s probably found much better by now.

After graduation, we were bound to go our separate ways, but we promised to keep in touch, and compete to see who got farther in life.

Rivet went on to become a genius engineer, and was eventually hired to be the lead in the research and development branch of the Wonderbolts.

I became a homicide investigator, got roped into some interesting cases, some boring cases, and some incredibly painful cases, eventually quitting in disgust, moving cross country, and supporting myself selling paintings on street corners and privately taking up odd cases from ponies who somehow got wind of my old life.

I think we can see who won here.

Just as with our bodies, soon it seemed our hearts began to drift apart. As the letters between us got shorter and more infrequent, it felt like we would soon reach the point where we run out of things to talk about, and never hear from each other again.

That is, until I got an SOS.

“Dear Keen Eye

Please come to the Wonderbolt HQ ASAP. There’s something that I need you here for. Show this letter to security and they should let you in. I’ll explain more when you get here.

--Rivet”

His bit with security didn’t exactly go as planned though.

I wasn’t exactly expecting our reunion to be us sweating under the gaze of a burning Spitfire…

Comments

[blank check]

(Oh, and if you’re the kind of reader who needs to know what the protagonist looks like...

First of all, shame on you for being so shallow. Looks aren’t everything, you know.

Second of all, I’m a light green Pegasus stallion, short brown mane with long swept bangs just reaching past my eyebrows, with a streak of gray going down the middle. My eyes are, more often than not burdened with bags, and my winning white smile has a front tooth missing, my personal favorite battle scar. My cutie mark is an eye with a sparkle flashing off the pupil. I never leave the house without wearing my favorite red scarf. )

This is a somewhat egregious excerpt. First of all, I almost thought you were interrupting the story to address the readers as an author. Then I realized you were interrupting the story to address the readers as the character. Either way is pretty bad. You should find a better way to blend a description of your protagonist into the story, rather than breaking the flow of the story's current subject, Rivet. Rivet's description was fairly placed, and it mixed physical features with some of his character. You could probably do the same for Keen Eye in the next chapter (I'm assuming that they get a dressing-down, so you could invite a self-conscious character description with a judgmental once-over from Spitfire). Here is not really the place for it, though.