BPT: A Friendship Built to Last

by Wolven5


Chapter 7. The Success Trap

“Come on Techorse, it's not that bad,” Midnight assured, worried sick for his new friend.

The inventor had cleared his entire workbench off and left the remains of his once-functioning invention on the dusty surface. It was still smoking from the blast, and lake mud oozed from every conduit and motor possible. Techorse couldn't do anything but stare in disbelief at what was left of several day's work.

“It's damaged beyond repair, Midnight,” he answered softly, pain in his blue eyes, “the pump has been completely totaled, and the circuitry has been shorted from all the pond scum.”

“Please don't tell me you're going to give up,” Stencil Guide fretted, “you've come way too far to just throw in the towel now! I don't want to see Redtape kick you out!”

Techorse sighed, “I'm not going to give up yet. I just want to start over with a new invention concept so that we don't cause any more trouble.”

“Tech, there's no time,” Midnight stated in a matter-of-fact way, “it already took us three days to get this design finished and build one prototype. By the time we come up with another good idea we won't have another machine ready and functioning for the demonstration, so you've got to build another pump.”

“It's not worth putting myself and others at risk just to stay in town,” he answered, shrugging off the statement, “I'm not that important, and besides... I'm sure dad will let me keep a workshop someplace I can use after work hours.”

He suddenly felt a gentle nudge from a hoof trying to get him to turn around. When he did, his eyes met Stencil's from just a hoof away, giving him a good look at the mare beaming with equal measures of concern and determination. The unicorn wanted to be absolutely sure that she had his attention, and from the quickly relaxing expression on his face, she had it.

“You're important to me,” Stencil said to him sweetly, “and to everypony else.”

“Other than that,” said the prince who was trying to get his friend's attention away from the mare, “this goes way beyond just you, Techorse. Others are counting on you to beat Redtape this week.”

The stallion diverted his attention as requested, “Wait... what do you mean?”

“Maybe you didn't know this about your neighbors, but Redtape took away their pension plan, likely ruining their retirement,” explained Midnight sadly, “he pulled one over them, and something tells me they weren't the only ones he's hurt.”

Techorse's mouth fell open slightly, his eyes going towards the ground, “The Letterwords... they told me they got that pension when they first retired a few years ago.”

“They didn't want you to worry about them,” Stencil explained worriedly, “or worse, they were worried Redtape would take further actions against them... like blackmail them or something!”

Again, Midnight wondered why the lab assistant sounded anxious when talking about Redtape when everypony else had nothing but an angry tone. Stencil Guide seemed fairly easily spooked by him, which got the prince's mental gears turning.

Setting it aside for the moment however, he continued, “That's right. If you don't stop Redtape, he'll continue to trample on other ponies' lives and using his posiiton in City Hall to do it. But if you embarrass him royally in front of Fillydelphia, he'll learn his lesson and never dare to try again!”

Midnight could tell that set off something in his friend, for the earth pony's eyes seemed lit ablaze with his new feelings about the situation. Justice for those cheated by Redtape was a must now. Techorse retrieved his blueprints and laid them out on the workbench again, unceremoniously swiping the remains of the machine off the table and into the nearby recycling bin, producing a horrible crash that made his companions flinch.

“If only I could figure out exactly what failed,” he answered, hope in his voice but doubt in his word choices, “the purification chamber failed to transfer fluid into the sprayer nozzle, meaning the second pump motor didn't draw the clean water into the spraying chamber.”

Stencil trotted up to the workbench and peered over Tech's shoulder, curiously looking over the white ink on blue paper. She wrinkled her nose at the atrocity that was his blueprints, having been hastily thrown together so he could jump right into physically building the machine. Lines and circles hoof-drawn on the documents crossed over each other in ways that made determining the specifics for construction near impossible. Worst of all, the electric wiring diagrams were a spaghetti-like mess with the icons for resistors and manaflux tubes looking almost identical. If Techorse had shown them to a master electrician, they might have died of shock if the resulting faulty wiring didn't kill them first.

“How did you read these?” she blurted out of revulsion, “don't you know how to draw blueprints?”

Techorse stopped scanning his documentation to address her, “I... hardly use blueprints. Most of my ideas come to me and I build them from memory, but since we want to mass-manufacture these if they work to fix everypony's dead gardens...”

The mare gasped, “Woah, so you build everything from memory?! How do you do that?”

“It's my special talent!” he used as an excuse while clearly flicking his tail to draw attention towards his cutie-mark, “These aren't chevrons, they're check-marks. My parents used to say you should check things three times to make sure you get it right the first time. I kind of took it to heart when building my own designs and may have ended up with a cryptic cutie-mark as a result.”

Stencil managed to put two and two together, “But with these kinds of blueprints, you can't really do any checking! But, if you have some more blueprints and a pen... I might.”

“Huh?”

She smiled, “Well, this is my special talent. I love to organize things, especially designs for things! I used to create them all the time, before I got into office work and started reading more books than anything else.”

“Office work? Aren't you going into inventing?” Midnight questioned, having picked up on the inconsistency.

Stencil realized her blunder and stuttered, “Um... well, this is a... career change for me because.... offices are boring, right Techorse?”

“Oh yeah, they are,” he answered, “and you made the right choice coming here instead! Let me get you that paper and pen.”

Midnight felt a twinge of suspicion, but once those blank blueprint papers and white pens were in front of the alleged trainee, he was impressed by the sudden display of artistry and perfection. Stencil was already concentrating with her eyes darting back and forth, her aura sending the pen in perfect straight lines as she read Techorse's garbled design and translated it into something legible and functional. Her design skills impressed Techorse as well, who couldn't help but stand so close he could smell her faint perfume and of course the shampoo in her thick mane. His presence went all but ignored in her intense fit of concentration and effort as she completed a complete rework of the stack of diagrams in minutes.

“There, done!” she declared, dropping the pen lazily on the bench, “I took your design and simplified it, keeping all the components and writing down measurements, wiring diagrams, and the notes you scribbled down in plain Equish! What do you think?”

“That was incredible, Stencil!” he answered, looking like a young colt on Hearth's Warming morning, “A perfect blueprint in record time, you must practice this constantly!”

“You... you flatter me,” she blushed, ears down, “but it's your engineering that's really cool. That's why I wanted to learn from you.”

Techorse too felt his cheeks go red, “Oh... well, thank you, Stencil.”

Midnight wanted to laugh at the astonishing lack of professional behavior, but instead chose to remain focused on the mission, “So, can we tell now what went wrong?”

The three gathered around the cleaned up designs and scanned for where the explosion may have been caused. It took about fifteen minutes of careful study and taking another look at the husk of the first pump, but eventually Techorse figured it out, a robotic finger smacking into the blueprint as his mental command triggered his saddle's sudden action.

“Aha! I found it! There was supposed to be a safety catch here that would slow the pumping of the pond water into the holding tank if it couldn't be purified fast enough. I never put it in,” he answered, mentally kicking himself in the flank.

“Yup, because you drew a tiny circle around that line right here and wrote 'catch device' on the original,” Stencil teased, “so it wasn't there in the final product.”

“Well this time it will be,” he answered with a satisfied nod,” Midnight, hand me my tools! This'll take half the time of the first pump, and then we can retest!”

It took them hardly any time at all to work out the bugs, thanks to the clarity made to the blueprints by Stencil, and after Midnight used his magic to clean up the Letterwords' yard, and with their permission, they were ready for the next test. As they set the pump up, Stencil stood by with the Letterwords, who, as much as they supported Techorse, looked a little nervous.

Stencil gave them a reassuring smile, "Don't worry, Mr. & Mrs. Letterword, I'm confident this time will be different."

They gave her an agreeable nod, but still.

"Okay, we're ready!" Techorse declared, retracting his mechanical arms into his saddle. "How're the hoses, Midnight?"

"All set and ready, Tech," Midnight reported, "I ran a quick scanning spell on them, and have confirmed all are in prime condition, as are the energems and the necessary spellwork."

"Excellent," Techorse looked down at the device, proud of the improved design making it more manageable, and definitely more appealing in appearance. Taking a deep breath, he gave everypony a look and when they all nodded, he stated, "All right, moment of truth... Here we go!"

The pump was switched on, and everypony held their breath as they heard the systems gear up. The unmistakable sound of suction reached their ears, sounding noticeably more fluid than it did before. A light lit up, signaling the water had reached the holding tank and so the purification process began.

Unlike before, there was no troubling sounds of sludgy build-up but rather the sound of liquid swirling, becoming fainter and fainter, until finally, the purifier fed the thoroughly cleaned water to the hose extension, reaching the detachable sprinkler. It span and released clear and glistening clean water!

Everypony gasped, and Midnight took the opportunity to just slightly light up his horn, casting a growth spell into the water, and almost instantly the results became apparent as the dusty ground of the Letterwords' lawn turned nice and muddy, the dried and yellowed grass turned vibrant green, growing lush and soft! Plants that were once nearly dead soon popped themselves back up, flowers blossomed through the accelerated process spurned on by Midnight, and the garden was restored to its former glory. The Lettewords, thinking they would never see their beloved display of horticulture healthy again, felt tears come to their eyes.

Of course, Techorse, Stencil, the Letterwords, and Midnight weren't the only ones to witness this wonderful sight, as neighbors and passerby quickly took notice. It was hard to ignore the sudden regrowth of a formerly dead and barren garden, after all. They gathered along the Letterwords' front yard, murmuring excitably and with keen interest, and Techorse couldn't help but laugh and cheer, "It's working! It's really working! We'll finally put an end to the drought!"

The inventor heard a happy laugh as Stencil Guide threw her hooves around him in a friendly quick hug. As he tried to hug back, she let go quickly, nervously pushing up her glasses.

“Heh, sorry! Got excited for a moment, boss.”

He answered after clearing his throat, “It's okay, this is our victory, Stencil!”

Everypony began to cheer for the clean water, which formed a rainbow in the light of the afternoon sun, and the neighbors finally began to see Techorse's true value. Midnight smiled happily for his friend as he thought,

Well done, Techorse!

Once the excitement had died down a little, and the neighbors had gone home to think about what they had witnessed, the three friends returned to Techorse's garage. The Letterwords couldn't help but bake them a fresh batch of chocolate chunk cookies, so they sat on some lawn chairs and munched on the treats while going over the results of the day.

“Looks like you've finally made something the locals want,” Midnight said, commending Techorse on his success, “I wouldn't be surprised if they came back looking for you to start mass producing those sprinklers. In fact...”

“One day at a time, Midnight,” interrupted the other stallion after a bite of cookie, “we're way ahead of schedule, and the blueprints are put away in my safe for now.”

“Well, based on the responses we got today, it's not like more work needs to be done,” Stencil added, licking chocolate off her hoof, “guess I don't need to come back tomorrow, huh?”

“Please come over anyway,” he answered, “I think we all ought to go out and have a day off! I know some places we could go for some fun.”

The long-maned mare jumped off the bouncy pink lawn chair and removed the crumbs from her face with a bit of magical energy. It wasn't really that late in the day yet, which roused Midnight's suspicion again.

“I'm looking forward to it!” she said, finding herself actually wanting to be there, “But I have to go home, guys. Got some chores to take care of.”

“No problem, take the rest of the day off, you deserve it,” answered Techorse, “I wouldn't have made it this far without you!”

“T...thanks!” she stuttered, before prancing off excitedly.

Midnight thought that there were two possibilities as to why Stencil consistently acted weird when talking about where she had to be, and why she wanted to come back each day. One of the possibilities was very fortunate for Techorse, and the other... not so much. The prince figured his natural abilities in the realm of stealth should allow him to harmlessly shadow Stencil for the rest of her day, and put some of his doubts to rest. But he needed to convince Techorse without directly lying to him.

“I think I'm going to get going too, if you don't mind,” he requested, “royal duties are a pain.”

“I don't doubt it,” responded his friend, chuckling while taking off his goggles for the first time that day, “go ahead and get your task taken care of. I'm just going to relax here until it gets dark.”

Midnight stood up and re-disguised, blue smoke rising from his position as his form changed into the identity he had picked. He walked a few steps away before Techorse stopped him.

“Hey, wait, are you going to be here tomorrow, I was thinking bowling or Crystal Beam Tag,” Techorse answered, “it's a new game imported from the Crystal Empire, heard of it?”

“Heard of it, never played,” he said after turning back, “and no thank you. I will probably need tomorrow for my task. Besides...”

After putting on a teasing smile and batting his eyebrows he added, “I wouldn't want to be a third wheel.”

Techorse's saddle opened up, and a robotic hand came out just to wag a finger at him, “Hey, don't imagine things are there that aren't. That's not very professional.”

The next morning, Redtape woke up in his master bedroom, stretching out the bed aches and getting up to open his bedroom window, taking in a deep breath of that fresh morning air. Sighing, he gazed out to his city, smirking victoriously, for the end of the week was nigh, and once that loser Techorse flopped with his so-called "invention" he would be kicking that wannabe onto the first train out of Fillydelphia.

And of course Stencil will accept my hoof in marriage, or she can rot behind bars, Redtape thought with a devious chuckle-

"Redtape, we gotta talk!"

"AUGH!!" Redtape reared up and fell over onto his back as something red and loud popped up in front of his perfect view, and he saw it was "JESTER!! What the hay, are you trying to give me a heart attack?!"

"We've got ourselves a problem!" Jester fretted, "I just got the word on the street! Techorse fixed his water-sprayer doohicky and it's working now! Heck, it's the talk of the town!"

"Ex-CUSE ME?!?!" Redtape snarled as he stood up and gave the dragon such a glare that Jester actually began to fear for his life! "Yesterday, you told me that grease-soaked gearhead's little toy was a DISASTER!!!!"

"Well... that was yesterday!" Jester responded lamely, bells jingling from his scales as he tilted his head, "Don't forget, he has Prince Midnight helping him! They must have figured out how to make that dumb thing work!"

For once, Redtape put two and two together, “Or a certain mare looking to get out of her wedding day is stabbing us squarely in the backs, Jester. I have a feeling my little sweetie is stepping over the line of our agreement. Not once this week did we get useful information out of her, but all of a sudden, Techorse is capable of creating productive machinery!”

And somehow you figure she won't betray you every day she's married to you?, Jester wondered but dared not to say, pretty sure it's a wedding ring, not a shock collar.

“Quit giving me that snarky look,” said his friend, snapping him out of his thoughts, “despite Stencil helping that grease monkey, we can still win this through some strategy of our own.”

“We planned to cheat since day one,” Jester said, rolling his reptilian eyeballs, “what's changed this time?”

“Come with me to the office, I'll explain on the way...”

The door to the town hall opened up, and Stencil walked in to give her daily report, catching Jester with her boss whom she'd never met before. She saw all the fancy office furnishings that had been loaded into the room, having replaced her previous modest desk, and whistled at the thought of the expense. Not only was it made out of fine carved wood, but a brand new lamp and monogrammed pen set were available for her use in managing her paperwork. After ogling the pricey set for a bit, she went ahead and asked about the stranger in the building.

“Redtape, who's this? What's with all the new furniture in the office?”

There was this new air of confidence about the mare that bothered Redtape, but he held his expression firm.

“Oh, this is just the... dragon who delivered the furniture,” he explained, “all of these new items are for you, Stencil! I figured your office space needed an upgrade after all you've been through.”

Jester took that as his cue to leave, and gave Stencil a finger gun with his right claw before walking out the door. The secretary held it open for him, and closed it in unison with taking a deep breath for what she had to say next to her boss.

“I'm sorry Redtape, but I've told you, no gifts,” she firmly stated, “I don't want them.”

“They're not for that,” lied the stallion, fixing his tie gently, “they're an apology... for that.”

The unicorn softened her expression, “Oh? You're sorry?”

“Yes, well... it turns out that after a few days of you not being here at the office, I've realized I only grew so fond of you because you're here constantly... there's no other mares for me to talk to,” he went on, running a hoof through his well-kept mane, “I think I might be overworked, out of touch even! Either way, I guess you're not that mare for me.”

A wave of relief passed through her body, “I'm really happy you've changed your mind. When you do meet that mare, she's going to really appreciate you. I'll come to your wedding even, if you want!”

Oh, you'll be at my wedding all right...

Verbally he carried out the rest of his plan, “You're very understanding, Stencil. Now, I want you to go back and continue your duties keeping Techorse under watch. I've already heard about the success of his invention, so if I'm going to win this little contest, you'll need to keep him busy while I work out a way to stop it.”

The mare sighed and braced herself for the other half of the conversation. It was too good to be true already that Redtape had no interest in her bunking with him anymore, now she needed to stop him from ruining Techorse's life as well.

“That's the other thing I wanted to talk about, Redtape,” the light gray mare continued, “Techorse isn't going to blow up half the city. His invention is stable, even if you lose, the water crisis will be solved!”

“True, but the city will make a mockery of me,” the bureaucrat insisted, “he must be stopped.”

“But can't you just take credit by being gracious about it?” she continued, “You inspired him to fix the problem!”

Redtape groaned and put his hoof to his face, “Just... what's he doing today, Stencil?”

She lit up with excitement, “Nothing! Turns out he's happy with the invention, so he's invited Midnight and I to go have some fun on the town. Might be a nice break from reading my books and drawing designs... alone, that is.”

Getting yet another idea, Redtape loosened up, “Ahhh, what a good idea! Please, spend all the time you need today with Techorse. Don't bother coming back for a report since he's up to nothing... you deserve a good break, Stencil.”

“Thank you! Redtape, I really like this new leaf you're turning over,” she said, proud of him, “I really mean it when I say somepony will be happy to be yours.”

“Anypony can change,” he assured her, “now please, go, enjoy your day. I have work to do.”

As soon as she was gone, Redtape returned to his own desk and poured himself a glass of something powerful. There were too many conflicting thoughts sailing through his head, and a drink could be the only cure. He filled his small crystal glass to the top with a brownish liquid out of a green bottle kept on a shelf near his desktop.

“She's... different,” he said to himself, slamming back the first glass of whatever the strange liquor was, “She no longer stutters when she talks to me, and doesn't shy away from my glance. That mare didn't even think twice about the fact I could fire her and ruin her career for good. It's... unattractive... and I bet that Techorse has been messing with her head!”

The deeper his plans got, the more he found himself... actually starting to lose interest in Stencil. This made her the perfect scapegoat for the water shortages and embezzlement that he himself had been committing under the nose of the public. There were other prizes to be won besides one mare, and Buck Cheap was about to make sure of that for him... if he could hold out for a few more days.

“You know,” he continued to say as if somepony was listening, all the while considering a second shot of his beverage, “even if she's right, even if I can have any mare I want, I couldn't have her. If she won't be an object of my love, then she most certainly can be an object of my hatred.”

After a second, he grabbed his bottle and poured himself one more glass, downing it right away.

“I still have to deflect the embezzlement charges to her though, and have Techorse beaten to a bloody pulp. Perhaps then she'll go back to being that timid, dependent unicorn I wanted,” continued Redtape, “But if not... well, maybe I am happy with letting her go! I'll have a mare in my hooves in no time, just like she said, and I'll be happy to remind her of that as they give her those twenty dark years!”

With a hearty laugh, he settled with himself and got to putting away his preferred poison. Confidence was not something he enjoyed in his mares... but Redtape certainly liked seeing it broken. He asked another worker in the office to send a message to Jester, detailing the rest of his plans.