One cold for July night in Ponyville, one of them had a door to answer.

“Hello?” Lyra said.

“You need to get the door first,” Octavia said.

“Right.” She got up from her pierogi and answered the door. “Hello?”

“You said that with an upward inflection as if you don’t know who I am,” camerapony #3 said.

“Sorry. Do you have a transcriber with you or is it just you?”

“There’s been one in your house since late last night.”

“Where?”

“Under your table.”

Camerapony #3 forced her way inside and closed the door. Lyra went back to the kitchen, lifted the side-covering tablecloth, and found transcriber #3 under there.

“She’s been there since last night?”

“Yes.”

“How did she get in?”

“Teleportation. You may notice she’s a unicorn.”

Lyra looked back at her for a moment. “Well, what am I supposed to do, get the entire house turned into an anti-magic zone?”

“Yes.”

“But I’m a unicorn, and sometimes I do magic here. And it would cost thousands of bits.”

“This isn’t what I came here to film. You’re behind on sexually assaulting Octavia.”

“Can I just surprise her a bunch of times tomorrow and then it’ll be made up?”

“That, or you could just do one extremely long kiss. And it would have to be standard-issue, not those weird ones you always do where you don’t even have your mouths open.”

“I’ll ask her.”

“Okay, because if you don’t do it by tomorrow, you’ll be sacked.”

“Just me?”

“Both of you. Unless Octavia agrees to sexually assault you daily, but come on.”

“I guess I have to do it, then. For her.”

“Do you have the drama flu or something?”

“Yes. You want me to give it to you?”

“Why would you ask that?”

“Just to be sarcastic.”

“Well, it could actually be useful for when I ask camerapony #4 if he wants to be my boyfriend.”

Lyra’s brief look of surprise made her feel heterophobic. “Okay... that’s weird. About wanting the drama flu, not the relationship.”

“I didn’t think that’s—”

“You don’t have to forgive me if you don’t think I deserve it. Which I don’t.”

“Drama flu?”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I know I said I wouldn’t get with ponies just because I’m desperate, but I changed my mind. Camerapony #4’s a good friend of mine and—”

“You’re a camerapony, nopony cares about your romantic life. So, Octavia, how do you feel about the transcriber in our house?”

“We agreed that they could do this.”

“But I didn’t think they actually would.”

“I assumed they had been since we signed it.”

“It’s not creepy that we’ve been watched this whole time to you?”

“Of course it’s creepy, but I assumed it was happening.”

“So am I just dumb?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“So yes.”

They felt very uncomfortable despite their ergonomically designed Inverted Che Manufacturing brand chairs.

“So I still need to sexually assault you,” Lyra said. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Dammit.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 114: The Third Episode of Withstander Estimated time remaining: 10 Hours, 13 Minutes