BPT: A Friendship Built to Last

by Wolven5

Chapter 2. A Delicious Deviance

Redtape smirked arrogantly as he settled into his large and comfortable chair before his walnut desk, feeling rather proud of himself. Sure, the mayor’s praise of him attracting more and more tourists and businesses to Fillydelphia had exponentially led to an increase of their city’s economy as well as high morale for the citizens and his reputation was solid gold among the Fillydelphia higher-ups and plebeians alike, Redtape’s true cause for his good mood was that not only was he gonna finally kick out that undesirable upstart and crackpot excuse of an inventor but in less than a week’s time he was going to turn Techorse’s name into mud.

He reached over his desk to his intercom, pressing the button and saying, “Stencil, be a dear and bring me a copy of my weekly schedule? I’d like to prioritize.”

“…Coming, Mr. Redtape,” was his answer.

Redtape then opened one of his desk drawers and chuckled at the case of expensive cigars it contained. Sure, he typically saved these for special occasions but what the hay? He was feeling good today!

He lifted one out and smelled the cigar from one end to other, sighing with content at that subtle yet unmistakable scent of tobacco when the door to his office opened and in walked his secretary, a mare named Stencil Guide.

She had a light gray coat, beautiful like a statue hewn from marble, her mane was a soft orange tipped blonde, pulled back into a bun with a couple stray locks. Today, she had forgone her contacts and was wearing her trendy glasses in front of her light blue eyes, and her cutie-mark was a colorful pen leaving a trail on a clipboard.

She carried a clipboard with a few papers on it and a pen tucked behind her ear, and stumbled a bit on her long trailing tail but caught herself so that she didn’t fall down.

Sure she looked a little nerdy. In fact, when the office first hired her and assigned her to Redtape, he’d taken one look at her and planned to replace her with somepony more appealing to his yes. But then later that week, during a business party, he’d seen Stencil and all but dropped his jaws at how nice she’d cleaned herself up! Her mane styled into an elegant braid, her contacts showing her sparkly blue eyes, and the dress she’d worn was simple but complemented her perfectly!

“Here’s your schedule, Mr. Redtape,” Stencil hooved it to him, and he accepted it without looking at it, placing it on his desktop while gazing in desire at her.

“Thank you, my dear. You know, Stencil, I am the stallion who has it all.”

“Do you, sir?” Stencil looked at her cop of her boss’s schedule, paying only minimal attention.

“Yes indeedy,” Redtape chuckled s he span his chair around, stood up, and walked over to his office window to gaze down at all the little noponies, scurrying about acting as though they mattered.

“I’m wealthy, successful, and not to toot my own horn but I’d say I’m one good looking son of a-”

“Oh, sir, sorry, just to let you know,” Stencil interrupted, “you have a notice from the Fillydelphia Weather Office.”

“Uh-huh, sure, but the point is, Stencil,” Redtape waved off her interruption before turning to give her another predatory look, “despite what I have there’s a very certain something I’m missing.”

“And that, sir, would be…?” Stencil noticed an error in the schedule and mental note to have that taken care of.

“A great, lovely, and amazing mare to share it all with,” Redtape answered, his smirk loosing some of its smugness at how little his secretary was paying attention to him. “See I’s got my eyes on such a mare and I aim to make her the Missus to my Mister.”

“Sounds like she’ll be a very lucky pony, sir,” Stencil still wasn’t catching on.

“How much more obvious do I need to be, babe,” he said, clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth and pointing at her with a hoof, “it’s you!”

Stencil Guide’s mane hair stood up on end, “ME!??”

“Sure is!” laughed the haughty politician, “Just think of it, Stencil. You and I, in charge of everything this city has to offer! I’ll do all the talking and real work since I’m the stallion, and you’ll get to swim in all the attention and praise from the loving citizens… which they’ll give you when they learn you’re my sweet little wifey!”

The little secretary, still trying to process the massive amounts of chauvinistic garbage her boss was slinging at an alarming pace, cleared her throat gently. Of course, he was many times larger than the nerdy little mare, and she had a healthy fear of what he might do if she declined. But just thinking about the consequences of… marrying him made her shudder. Even if it meant unemployment, that was better than spending the rest of her life hitched to a total cavepony like Redtape.

“That’s, very nice of you, but… I’m not interested.”

All he could make out was a quiet, “...Excuse me?”

First, she wanted to try flattery to get out of it, “Oh well, you know, I couldn’t be married to you, Redtape. I mean, sure we’ve known each other a while sir, but… well, I’m just a secretary. I don’t deserve you the way that really special mare does!”

She activated her aura and picked up a very sultry copy of a stallion’s magazine from a nearby table, “Like this um… saddle model on this magazine. You deserve a much more beautiful, less… awkward mare like her!”

Unfortunately for Stencil, Redtape seemed a tad “determined”, as the stallion put on his most charming, suave face he could muster in that hot suit of his, and snatched the gentlecolt’s magazine in his manipulated shoed hoof before tossing it haplessly into a nearby paper shredder. Bits of the magazine scattered like confetti. Stencil watched the magazine get destroyed with fear in her heart.

“Those kinds of mares aren’t what I want,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “I want you, Stencil. You’re far more naturally beautiful, and you can handle things around the house while I’m gone at work, too!”

“Excuse me?” she gasped.

“Yeah, you’ll be doing your best as a homemaker, where a nice, smart mare belongs,” continued Redtape, sighing at the thought, “raising the best sons and daughters she can.”

“But… but I want to work!” protested Stencil Guide gently, “I have the cutie-mark for being a good assistant and secretary, and I’d really like to use that first. Foals can wait.”

“Ah but you don’t have to, and think of all the mares who’d bend over backwards to have that privilege,” chuckled the politician.

Running out of options fast, the poor mare had decided she was through with the deflective approach to the situation. If the stallion in front of her wouldn’t take the hint, she’d have to take more drastic action!

“Well, if you can’t stop this, I’m not sure I can keep working here,” she said firmly, turning away.

He boiled with anger on the inside, being presented a threat that she’d leave. How dare this little bespectacled secretary, a mere assistant to an important pony, deny him his right to wed her? To pass up such a great, lucrative opportunity to bear his foals was the worst offense that could be given, although pretty much anything involving telling Redtape he couldn’t have his way was an affront thanks to his titanic ego and poor decision making process.

Nonetheless, he wanted to end the conversation on a positive note, so he muttered, “Well, I want you to just think about it then, honey. I’m going to take my leave for the afternoon. Be sure to lock up, Miss.”

“Yes Sir,” said Stencil, rolling her eyes.

Redtape, still moping about his rejection despite his outrageously handsome appearance and vast fortune, walked over and grabbed his fancy sports coat conveniently hanging on a nearby rack. He suited up, adjusted his favorite blue-striped tie, and strutted out of the office with his nose pointed to the air. He failed to hear the sigh of relief from his target of interest, but nonetheless the moment he was outside, he started to indulge in self-pity again and mutter to himself about his misfortune.

“How dare she! After all I’ve done for her since the office party! Her own office, conveniently shifting the last merit raise to her account… she’s a stubborn one all right! Well forget it, I need a drink… and a new plan to get Miss Hottie in my future.

Shaken Not Stirred was Redtape’s watering hole of choice, a rather upscale and fine place in comparison to the other pubs around Fillydelphia. Only the best dressed ponies, or dragons if they were able to pull a good look off, were allowed to enter as patrons, and it wasn’t hard to guess that the drinks and fare were far pricier as well. Redtape’s size made him eye to eye with the alleged “bouncer” out front, a pegasus pony that only ever checked for dress code.

“Oh, Mr. Redtape, hello!” said the chipper guard, if he could be called that.

“Not now, Bowties,” grumbled the massive stallion, shoving past the greeter rudely.

Bowties adjusted his now ruffled dress shirt, and cleared his throat. It was best to not challenge the stallion on anything, at least when he was mad…

High class lounges and friendly barkeeps dominated the inside appearance of the establishment. Polished dance floors made from marble, high-class comfortable seats at black granite tables, and mares who could sing any song from the past decade completed the sophisticated atmosphere. One of the tables instantly recognized their favorite politician, and claws and hooves alike raised their glasses to him.

“Heeeeey R-T!”

“Knock it off,” demanded Redtape as he angrily plopped his flanks into the last empty chair, making sure each and every one of them knew he was angry.

Redtape’s friends were happy to see him despite his sour mood, and they continued to enjoy their slices of fine salt lick and various beverages. A few of them were just common stallions and their wives, a couple of ex-workers for the public office, mostly unicorns. But some of them were wealthy business owners who enjoyed a special sort of collaboration with Redtape and his political policies. Just last week, the pegasus to the left of him in a wide-brimmed white hat had accepted a little bit of money in return for making a very generous bid for the city’s new gas heating system, as well as giving Redtape a nice personal gift of a few million bits he happened to not need anymore.

The mare across the room in an outrageously purple faux-fur coat had been presented with an under-budgeted charity project to donate to for building a new library, but of course she had been permitted to write off the entire thing on her taxes despite the project being over-funded, and anything left over just “happened” to become liberated for Redtape’s own political projects, like a set of water fountains in the park he built in his own honor.

Of course, even the leftover bits from that were kept by the politician to make sure the books were perfectly balanced, it helped him even more that he got a nice discount on the cost of building the fountains from the master plumber a few seats down from him. And with the fountains built and the gas heating working at such a low monthly cost, who were the taxpayers to complain? They all believed Redtape had brought them the modern conveniences of city life in Equestria for reasonable rates, embezzlement wasn’t even a word to them with their houses warm and their thirsts quenched.

But the only real friend that Redtape had at the table was a dragon sitting to his right who went by the name of Jester. He was a smart, cunning dragon with scales of bright orange, and light blue head fins, his nickname came from the fact that his fins were rather long and bent over in each direction, giving him the appearance of wearing a fool’s cap. Not wanting to ruin his appearance with piercings, he decided to run with his nickname by wearing a few bells on the handful of thin spikes he had topping his tail. The wiry dragon ran his claws over his silver belly scales for moment, before drumming them on the table.

“Hehehe,” he snickered, bearing his actually very well brushed teeth for a moment,

"Tweeeeed, you are scowling like crazy and ruining this hangout. What’s wrong, strong colt?”

Redtape never let anyone but Jester call him by the first word of his name, but he acknowledged the clever dragon with eye contact and a huff through his nostrils.

“So how’d that there proposal work out for ya?!” laughed the western-hatted pony to his left, rubbing some liquor out of his mustache with a hoof, “tell us, Red!”

“Are you serious?” answered Jester, a threatening reptilian rumble being mixed with his words, “Redtape clearly is upset about...”

“No, it’s ok Jester...” grunted the earth pony, silencing him with a hoof, “well Baron, she totally rejected me.”

“Aw well, that’d be her loss then buddy,” Baron answered, frowning, “but hey there’s lots of lovely mares out there, and we know plenty ourselves who’d jump off a cliff just ta...”

“NO!!” shouted Redtape angrily, bashing his hooves on the table and sending several drinks flying.

His allies nearly thought about ducking for cover, but Redtape never made any threatening moves for any present. He was merely just making a point… for the minute.

“I want Stencil Guide as my wife,” he said, determined, “and I will have her hoof in marriage, one way or another!”

Jester’s bells jingled from a slight swish of his tail, which poked through the fold of the soft black cloth chair. The dragon was highly amused by his best friends’ antics, to him, he wasn’t the only fool at the table.

“And we will help in any way we can to make that happen, old friend,” he said, smiling.

There was just nothing more fun than the squabbling of ponies to Jester… though he truly cared about Redtape’s happiness.

With that in mind, he brought up a new topic, “On another claw… how about that clown Techorse you hate so much, hmm? Any progress on kicking him out on his rump?”

Redtape’s shoulders relaxed as he put all hooves on his seat again, “Weeeeell now that you mention it, Jessie, I actually do have some good news! I challenged Techorse to a little legal contest… he has a week to come up with an invention that actually does something good for a change, or out he goes!”

His supporters cheered for him, not because they also hated Techorse, very few of them knew much short of the occasional explosion, but because it meant Redtape was easier to work with while he was in a better mood. Jester scratched his scaly chin, thinking up something diabolical that could perhaps take care of multiple problems. But he needed to lead his friend into talking about it first.

“And… what if he wins? Don’t you think maybe you ought to weight the odds a little bit?” chuckled the dragon.

“Cheat? Jester, I thought you’d never suggest it,” agreed the stallion, snickering, “but it has to be something subtle this time…”

“Ah yes, of course,” he answered nervously, remembering his last failure trying to help Redtape.

After shaking away the embarrassment, Jester placed his claws together and sat at the table bent at the elbows.

“Now, if I may, I believe I may be able to solve both your problems at once,” he explained, all the ponies leaning in, “what if you send Stencil Guide to go spy on Techorse for you? She could then report back what he’s doing, and it’ll give you all the info you need to ruin his invention!”

“And then?”

“If you get caught… she takes the fall unleeeess,” giggled the dragon, shaking in his seat, “she agrees to accept you as her hunky, snuggly hubby?”

Redtape smiled in delight and picked up a nearby mimosa from a waitress, toasting his buddy, “Jester, that’s the best plan you’ve ever come up with!”

“Glad I could be of service as always,” answered the dragon, bowing humbly at the waist, “Now a toast to our best friend, Tweed Redtape every pony and reptile!”

Glasses clinked, liquids were downed, and for the first time that evening, Redtape was able to have a good time with his supporters. Soon, that pretty little mare would be all his, and his hated enemy would be gone. His thoughts turned to how his friend’s plan would be able to take down even that pesky alicorn in support of the inventor.

I’d like to see that meddlesome Prince solve this one! One hay of a honeymoon, here I come!

Author's Note:

Spirals95 and I both handled the office scene while he wrapped things up with the rest. All characters in this chapter belong to him

Comments

[Creative Quill]

Is it safe to say that I hate this guy even more now?

[Southern Wing]

8355416
Nope. I hate him even more now as well. Really hope Redtape gets what’s coming to him.