Chapter 3

As the doors automatically slid open to permit her entrance, Derpy Hooves proudly marched into the Hasbro building. Her head was held higher than she thought possible; all the lights in the main lobby dimmed to accommodate the brilliant luminosity of the golden muffin crown atop her head. But perhaps even more shiny than that was her glowing pride. The sheer radiance of it all sent employees and janitors alike diving to the floor, hands shielding their eyes to prevent them from melting in awe.

“Good morning, Miss Hooves!” one random human said who, despite being unable to wave because of both hands trying to keep all eye matter inside his eyelids, sounded like he had been waiting to say that to her for days on end.

“Morning there, Miss Hooves! Beautiful day, isn't it?” a pony greeted her as she trotted by, who had been fortunate enough to bring sunglasses to the occasion.

Derpy nodded towards the properly prepared pony, and swore she could've heard a head or two exploding.

She pranced with vigor to the set where she was to be filming, accepting each and every compliment given to her from passersby. Lights flickered overhead, barely able to withstand the onslaught of shininess without the bulbs shattering into a million pieces.

“I CAN'T DO IT, I JUST CAN'T DO IT!” A familiar voice wailed dramatically, just ahead of her.

“Mister Thiessen,” Derpy began, recognizing the frantic voice of her director. Though he was only a few feet away, she strained to see him against the glow of her muffin crown. “What's the matter?”

“I just can't direct this episode anymore! It's too awesome and muffinly for my talent! Look!” He took the first page of the script he was holding and nibbled on the corner. “It tastes like blueberry! Only the muffinliest of the muffinly turn things blueberry flavored!”

“Yes you can, Mister Thiessen.” Derpy, taking flight, shook Thiessen by the shoulders and looked into his eyes, her expression deathly serious. “Yes! You! Can! You MUST! For if not, who would direct this episode of epic blueberry flavored, muffinous proportions?”

“...you?”

Derpy stood on her hind legs, dropping a spaghetti-legged Thiessen to the floor, as a powerful sense of muffinly duty ran through her being.

“If that is the way it has to be, then so be it.” she began, as straight-faced as a pegasus of her status should be. “I shall direct this episode, for great justice... and blueberry muffins. Chocolate chip muffins as well...

“but not raisin muffins.”

Mr. Thiessen let out a very unmanly whoop of joy, grabbing onto one of Derpy's legs in near-orgasmic glee.

“Did you hear that?” he bragged to a similarly entranced, nearby pegasus. “She'll direct the episode I wrote! I mean, the one she wrote, but I handed her her own script for it! Close enough!”

“Derpy! Derpy!” another familiar voice called out. It was her best friend in the entire world, Carrot Top.

“Yes, CT?”

“Derpy, my bestest best friend in the entire world that I could never replace or would ever say or do mean things to, I need your help!”

Derpy pushed off the cowering and frantic former director. “What's wrong?”

“We've run out of muffins for the episode! We need more, but we're out of time! The horror, THE HORROR!”

“The HORROR!” Mr. Thiessen cried from his supine position, limbs hysterically flailing.

“No worries CT, my laser-muffin-vision can fix this problem!”

From her focused, misaligned eyes, red lasers shot out at the floor, casting the room in a red glow that mixed with her muffin crown's glow to produce a truly mindblowing combination. One explosion that may have been somepony's brain later, the plume of smoke rising from where the laser met the floor cleared to reveal the giant pile of muffins that had materialized. A massive crowd suddenly appeared, cheering and praising Derpy's name.

“All hail the muffin queen!”

“She's our hero!”

There was a sudden explosion, as the roof of the Hasbro building was torn apart. The gasping crowd cowered from the shower of shingles, but Derpy didn't bat an eye.

The behemoth standing above them was monstrous, to say the least. At least sixty feet from the bottom of its cake-like legs to the tip of the sweetened frosting on its head, the monster from out of nowhere was an abomination of all things good, wholesome, and sugary.

It was the bane of all things muffiny.

“Oh no! It's the evil cupcake king out to destroy us all! And to banish all the muffins in the world! The horror, THE HORROR!”

The king's beady eyes glistened with anticipation as it let out vile, gluttonous laughter; for once, the pony would not be feasting on the cupcake, but the dreaded reverse. Many of the ponies fainted dead away while the rest, scared and confused, looked to Derpy, who stood resolutely despite the king's massive frame.

“Not on my watch, which I didn't forget this time!” Derpy said, standing proud.

She now wore a blue cape with a muffin logo on it, and her golden muffin crown was now a golden muffin helm; a gift from the mysterious realm of hammerspace.

“I SHALL SAVE US ALL!”

“My best friend, the hero!” Carrot Top cheered, though her words were lost among the rush of flame now jetting from the bottom of Derpy's hooves as she took to the air and bravely charged the evil cupcake king. She had just aimed her watch laser towards the cupcake king when-

“Derpy! Wait, I almost forgot!”

Derpy looked back down to her best friend, whose face was now very serious.

“We're running late Derpy! Get up!”

----------

Derpy shot up from her bed, a half eaten muffin falling out of her mouth.

“Finally, I've been trying to get you up for fifteen minutes now.” Carrot Top said, then looked to the half muffin and the collection of muffin wrappers – about a dozen strong – strewn about her sheets. “And Derpy, what have I told you about eating muffins in your sleep? You really need to lay off those things. Remember what the doctor said?”

“That I can't reference him in this story because he's trademarked with another franchise?”

“I... what?” Carrot Top gave a stressed look. “Just... get ready. We're running late.” She left the room, already having had all she could handle of Derpy's eccentricities.

Derpy looked to her clock. The little arm was over the muffin with eight blueberries. The larger arm was over the muffin with just one. Late.

“Oh no!” Derpy cried, rushing out of her room to catch up with her friend.

----------

Late late late!

The word itself hit Derpy particularly hard – no matter what obstacles stood in her path, one thing she never allowed herself to be was late. With the promise to Dinky and herself still fresh in her mind, she flew as fast as her wings would physically allow her to. She cursed not having her “Animation License”; without it, the benefits of free physics defiance or plot convenience weren't available to her.

“DERPY!” Carrot Top shouted through the gusts of wind, “FOR THE LOVE OF HASBRO, SLOW DOWN!”

Carrot Top hung onto Derpy's hind legs for dear life; to her, if the gray pegasus kept up this speed, she'd see for herself if Hasbro Studios would remain standing after a Sonic Rainboom.

“I CAN'T CT! WE'RE RUNNING LATE!” Derpy shouted back to her friend over the harsh wind.

Carrot Top's eyes watered from the cold, sharp breeze in her face. It was perhaps all for the best that her cheeks were numb, because right now she was mentally slapping herself for ever thinking going along with Derpy's crazy schemes would be a good idea. She cursed her unfortunately lethargic “morning brain,” as it was evidently somehow able to make her believe that this wouldn't end in disaster.

Derpy suddenly and swiftly cut right to narrowly avoid a street light. The potted plant hanging from it, however, met with Carrot Top's thankfully numbed face. The parts of the plant that hadn't stuck to her face instead fell onto the sidewalk below, the pot making a loud crash as it shattered.

Inside the adjacent building, a very nervous Mr. Bowing jumped, startled; his attention was temporarily stolen away from the eyes of the purple unicorn mare in front of him.

“Well, Mister Bowing? Does everything seem to be in order?”

He looked back to the mare, Twilight Sparkle, as she glared at him through a pair of thin-rimmed glasses waiting for his answer. While she could see clearly without them, even her eyes got sore after dozens upon dozens of pages of tiny text, despite her well-established reputation as a bookworm. He shifted his body, trying to find a comfortable position to sit in; after three hours of sitting, his rear was getting quite sore.

The five mares that had accompanied Twilight didn't seem to be faring well either. Of the five, only Rarity, the white unicorn, seemed to be paying any attention at all. Two hours in, she had lent Twilight her spectacles, but otherwise hadn't contributed much beyond correcting small errors as Twilight went through the seemingly endless paperwork. Towards the corner sat Fluttershy, a yellow pegasus who, besides a small yelp when the flowerpot broke outside, said nothing the entire time. She seemed preoccupied with watching a flock of birds congregating outside.

The other three – Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie – didn't bother with hiding how bored they were; Applejack had offered a polite greeting through clenched teeth, and had non-verbally made it perfectly clear she would rather be anywhere else ever since. But at least she was awake.

Rainbow Dash had fallen asleep no more than ten minutes into the proceedings, to which Mr. Bowing thanked his lucky stars; the meeting would no doubt take at least twice as long if they had to pause to wake her up every time she nodded off. Pinkie Pie managed to be even more disruptive; the first half-hour was her rapidfire stream of progressively more inane questions, before prattling on about random non-sequiturs without even waiting for an answer – not as if Mr. Bowing would've been able to, anyway. The next two-and-a-half hours was her snoring, the volume of which may have been the only reason Mr. Bowing hadn't fallen asleep himself.

What Mr. Bowing did remember of the drudgery was that he was sure not all of their demands could be dealt with. At least the mare had been kind enough to “abridge” it down to the most important demands, such as more show-accurate merchandise, but even the abridged list of demands took the full three hours.

Mr. Bowing snapped back to reality as the ponies who were awake looked to him, waiting for his delayed response.

“Oh, um, yes. Everything seems to be fine. I'm sure they'll agree to everything.”

He couldn't lie to himself... he too only half-listened to the demand list. In his defense, the sun would probably have gone supernova long before the unabridged version could be read through.

“Great,” Twilight said, using her magic to place the ten inch stack of paper into a box, stirring two ponies out of their slumber. “Now just take this to the toy department for review, and let us know what they have to say.”

Mr. Bowing nodded, taking the heavy box. With a moan and grunt, he began to walk out of the room when a phone rang from behind him. Twilight answered it.

“Hello?” She said cheerfully, feeling better now that things might be going in their favor.

That cheerful mood soon diminished, as her smile quickly turned into a frown. Mr. Bowing could only guess what she was being told, but made haste to leave before he became a target. Just as he closed the door behind him and rounded the corner, the phone Twilight was using had been launched through the door, leaving a large, phone-sized hole in its wake.

Wide-eyed and possibly fearing for his life, it took an approximate 0.2 seconds for him to exit the office building and find himself on the busy streets of Hasbroland.

“Next stop for the morning... Hasbro Toy Department,” Mr. Bowing mused to himself. “and note to self: don't talk to any purple unicorns.”

----------

Colgate, Berry Punch, Lyra, and Bon-Bon all sat on the set where they were to work today, all of them bored out of their skulls. Missing however were Derpy, Carrot Top, and Jason Thiessen, the director. They watched as many stagehands continued to clean and place props, even though none of them had any idea what was needed.

“So, where is everyone?” Bon-Bon asked, breaking the silence.

“I dunno.” Lyra shrugged, going back to kicking around a pen cap between her hooves.

From above the mares, a sudden racket of metal bangs erupted. They looked up, just in time to see the golden, crossed eyes of Derpy come crashing through the ceiling vent, along with what was certainly years of accumulated dust. The stagehands worked quickly to clean up the dust cloud that dirtied the group and much of the set.

“Look CT, we made it!” Derpy said proudly, shaking herself to rid her of the dust. “You okay CT?”

Carrot Top sat upright, spitting a chunk of dirt from her mouth. Her mane was covered in random plants, dirt, dust, and even bits of what used to be a bird's nest.

“Yes, just fine Derpy.” The sarcasm dripped off her debris-caked lips.

“Great!” Derpy, ever-oblivious to her friend's harsh tone – Carrot Top rolled her eyes – looked to the other ponies around her. They were trying to regain their composure after being dive bombed by a gray dust cloud. “Looks like we're just in time, too!”

Carrot Top went to cleaning herself off while Derpy wandered the room.

“Oh, Mister Director! Mister Director, where are you?”

“He's not here Derpy.” Bon-Bon said.

Derpy's head turned a full 180, her body following a second after.

“What do you mean? Where is he?”

Suddenly, as if on cue, the double doors slammed open.

“I'm here! I'm here!” Mr. Thiessen wobbled into the production set, his jacket buttoned up incorrectly. He was missing a shoe, and his briefcase was crammed full of papers, most of which were sticking out the sides.

“Whoa, what happened to you?” Lyra questioned.

“Beenupallnighthaven'tsleptyetnotime.” Mr. Thiessen spoke with speed rivaling Pinkie Pie. His bloodshot eyes and nervous twitching showed signs of caffeine abuse.

“Did you finish the script?” Colgate asked.

“YES!” He shouted, dropping the suitcase onto the ground.

It exploded with a shower of papers raining upon the crazed director.

“Okaythen, nowwejustgottaputthepagesinorder.” He began to sway back and forth.

“Uh... Mister Director, are you okay?” Derpy asked.

Mister Thiessen stood still for a split second. “JuuuuuuuustfineDerpy. Now, Imustgogettheboss-”

Jason Thiessen took one step towards the doors and collapsed. Derpy ran quickly to help him up, but he had passed out.

“Uh oh... What do we do now?” Lyra asked.

“Panic?” Berry slurred.

“No, he needs to rest.” Derpy, with assistance of the other ponies, dragged Jason to a couch and laid him down to rest. “There there, Mister Director, get some rest. We'll handle it from here.”

“Handle it? How?” Carrot Top asked, ever the skeptic.

“Uhhhhhh...” Derpy looked around, noticing Colgate trying to straighten up the mess of papers. An idea came to Derpy's mind.“Easy! Colgate, do you mind getting the script in order?”

Colgate was in the process of placing sheets of paper in multiple stacks. “Um, I suppose,” she answered, though she looked like a deer caught in headlights against the mess of jumbled paper.

“Great! Okay, well Mr. Boss-Tato doesn't know he's here yet, so we should have-”

There was a sudden ringing, interrupting Derpy. A brown phone – the receiver in the shape of a spud – continued to ring as the ponies stared at it, waiting for somepony else to answer. Derpy, feeling all eyes on her, walked over and picked up the receiver between her hooves.

“Hello! Derpy Hooves speaking.”

“Ah, Miss Hooves.” It was Mr. Potato Head's voice. “I was told by security that Mister Thiessen had finally arrived, but he hasn't come by my office yet.”

Derpy bit her lip.

“Can I speak to him?”

“Uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh...” Derpy looked over to her director, still fast asleep on the sofa. “He... can't right now. He's... making some... last minute... edits?” “Oh please buy it, oh please buy it...”

“Oh, alright Miss Hooves.”

Derpy let out a held breath.

“I'll just be on my way down then.”

Derpy inhaled the breath, which tasted a lot like her blueberry flavored toothpaste.

“Well, Mister Boss-Tato, you see, he's-”

“It's quite alright Derpy. I just want to see the script and speak with him for a moment. I'll see you all in a few minutes.”

“Wait, Mister Boss-”

The call ended.

“Tato...” she drifted off. “Aww, raisin muffin.”

Derpy hung up the phone, looking frantic as she tried to use her brain to think up a solution.

“Derpy, what's the matter?” Carrot Top asked uneasily, sounding the slightest bit worried for once at her friend's expression.

Both of Derpy's eyes crossed in panic.

“Mister Boss-Tato is coming down to see the script, and talk to Mister Director!”

“So?”

“SO? Look at him!”

Derpy pointed to the director, a drool puddle forming on the couch cushion. His shoeless foot twitched.

“If Mister Boss-Tato sees him like that, it could be bad.”

Carrot Top seemed to understand where Derpy was going, which was arguably a miracle in itself. Shocking herself further, she cared enough to ask, “So what do we do then?”

Derpy's eyes began to drift further apart as she racked her brain for some sort of idea. Her right eye caught Berry Punch attempting to open a bottle. She succeeded, but in doing so sent the bottle skidding across the ground and spilling out most of its contents. The muffin above her head lit up with an idea.

“Berry!” Derpy called, rushing to the intoxicated mare.

Berry Punch looked up from licking the liquid off the floor. “Yesh?”

“Mister Boss-Tato is on his way, I need to you sit outside the doors and distract him while we try to wake up Mister Director.”

“Uh, Derpy...” Carrot Top started. “Are you sure that-”

“You got it!” Berry tried to salute, but only succeeded in falling backwards, having smacked herself in the face.

“Great! Colgate, how comes the script?” Derpy turned to the dentist. Her mouth fell agape at the sight.

“I'm doing my best, Derpy!” Colgate said, a slight tone of panic in her voice. She looked to have assembled only a small fraction of the mess together, several strands of her mane having gone haywire. Sheets of paper were still spread out everywhere around the mare.

“But I can't seem to figure out his ordering system!” she complained. “The first several pages are numbered correctly, but after page twenty five they stop looking like numbers.”

“What do they look like then?” Lyra asked, stepping closer to a stack of papers.

“Just random squiggles! At first I thought I found a pattern in them, but now they are completely erratic! Some pages don't even have that! And why in the hay is there a page G3.5?”

“Okay, well just do your best before-”

“No thank you Berry,” Mr. Potato Head's polite, but clearly impatient voice called from the other side of the doors. “I don't wish to see how many bottles you can balance on your nose. I just wish to go inside and see Mister Thiessen.”

Derpy froze. “Crap crap crap...”

She took notice to Lyra, magically levitating a stage prop and poking Bon-Bon. It startled the mare; in turn she began whining to Lyra in a different voice than her usual one. Carrot Top saw the growing smile on Derpy's face and suddenly found herself apprehensive.

Derpy had an idea.

----------

Berry Punch stood on her two hind legs, blocking the double doors leading to the set.

“Please, Miss Punch, I'd really like to enter the set now.”

“Weeeeeeeell... you can't. Because... they're... uh...” Berry smacked her head, trying to unclog her thoughts as she tried to stall for more time. “Still setting up.”

“For what? I do not need to see any of the props. Just the script.”

“Well... OH! Did you know that I'm a good juggler?”

The absolute randomness of the question caught the spud off guard.

“Um, a juggler?”

“YEA! Watch!” Berry Punch withdrew from behind her three green bottles. She weighed them with her hooves, comparing each and taking quick sips to level them out. When she was finally happy, in more than one way, she threw them up in the air and began to juggle.

If the sounds of shattering glass constituted juggling, then Berry Punch was the greatest juggler the universe had ever seen.

Her cutie mark wasn't based on juggling for a reason. Two of the bottles hit the tile floor with a crash, with the third one bumping her head and shattering on the floor in kind – three bottles' worth of contents all over both her and the floor.

“Uh-oh!” Berry Punch said, clapping a hoof to her mouth in mock surprise. “Safety hazard! Safety hazard! There's broken glass everywhere!” She began trying to push Mister Potato Head away; he didn't budge an inch. “Why don't you come back in about...oh, I don't know, twenty-five or thirty hours and-”

Mister Potato Head had seen enough. He began to push on the double doors, trying to force them open while Berry Punch shifted her efforts to the door, trying her hardest to ignore the quickly drying and delicious liquids around her.

“Wait...” Berry strained through gritted teeth.

“No. I've waited long enough!”

The double doors suddenly swung open, but not from the two's struggle. Derpy looked between the spud and purple pony, then smiled.

“Mister Boss-Tato! It's good to see you, please come in.” Derpy stepped aside, allowing her boss to enter. “Mister director is waiting to see you now.”

With a final scolding glance to Berry, he followed Derpy into the production room, taking a large step over the mess of broken glass.

Seated, if it could even be called that, on the couch was a sloppily dressed Jason Thiessen. He leaned to one side, and his right leg was straightened out in front of him despite not having a rest to lay it on. His normal glasses had been replaced with a pair of dark, oversized sunglasses. Mister Potato Head stopped, taken aback by his unusual appearance.

“Mister Thiessen, are you... alright? You look worse for wear.”

Jason's mouth opened, and moved in a crude, but seemingly believable talking motion.

“Of course, Sir. I'm just fine.”

Derpy and Carrot Top both looked to one another in astonishment, both silently crediting Bon-Bon's mimicry; the voice actually sounded identical to that of their director.

Behind the couch, crouched and out of sight were two ponies: Lyra, using her magic to control the directors mouth and other body parts if necessary, and Bon-Bon, using her impeccable speech skills to voice for him. Her cutie mark was deceiving, for her mimicking skills were far superior to her candy making skills.

“I was running a tad late, so I got ready in a hurry.” 'Thiessen' said. Lyra could hardly contain her laughter. “It also seems this couch is in quite poor condition. Very uncomfortable.”

Mister Potato Head looked skeptical, but he couldn’t place a plastic finger on what it was. “I see. Well, do you have the script?”

“Right here, Sir!”

Mister Potato Head, along with the other ponies turned to Colgate, who was floating a stack of papers alongside her. “Mister Thiessen's suitcase latch failed, so his entire script had spilled out. I was straightening it up for him.”

“Not a problem, thank you.”

Mister Potato Head took the stack of papers, breezing through them like he was Twilight Sparkle herself. Five of the mares looked on anxiously, awaiting the boss's next words. Carrot Top was just curious if Derpy and her merry band of misfits could actually pull this off.

After several silent moments, Mister Potato head looked to Jason, whose head had slumped over.

“Well, Mister Thiessen,” Lyra was quick to straighten up his head. The pair of sunglasses shifted slightly, now crooked and nearly revealing his closed eyes, “everything seems to be in order.”

Derpy beamed with delight. Carrot Top’s jaw dropped.

“You can’t be serious?” she remarked, gasping in breath when Derpy elbowed her a moment after.

“Miss Top, I didn’t need to fully read the entire script. I have enough trust in Mister Thiessen that no matter what he writes, it came from his heart. He gives one hundred and ten percent for everything he writes. I simply wanted to make sure that my deadline wasn’t too short, and he was able to fully complete this. I see the appropriate page amount, plenty of text, and a bold The End at, well, the end.”

Mister Potato Head handed the pages back to Colgate.

“Well, now I imagine you’re all going to be quite busy the next several days, so I shall leave you be. I’ll stop by on occasion to check on your progress. Oh, and I'll send someone up later to replace that broken down couch. I can't have you all uncomfortable.”

The mares watched as he walked to the doors. Even Lyra and Bon-Bon stuck their heads above the back of the sofa.

“Good luck, ponies!”

The double doors clicked closed, leaving the mares to themselves once more. Plus their director, whose shirt was beginning to get wet from drool.

“Well, that went better than expected.” Derpy happily stated.

“Or just dumb luck.” Carrot Top added. “But that was some quick thinking, Derpy. I'm impressed.”

Derpy beamed as though she had just become the CEO. Carrot Top managed to not roll her eyes. Barely.

A short time later, the six mares were once again in a group, going over what Colgate had been able to place together of the partial script. Until their director came back to life, they'd have to use what they had.

“From what I can actually read of this,” Colgate began, “we've got about ten minutes of episode we can record. For the rest of it, we'll have to wait for Mister Thiessen to wake up and rewrite when he's mentally capable. Also, I think he's drooling again.”

“Sounds good!” Derpy clopped her hooves together. “So now we just need to start!”

With those words, the production set of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic beamed to life. Camera crew set up their equipment. Lighting engineers checked the bulbs and made final adjustments. Daniel Ingram sat in his music room with his orchestra, awaiting and ready to begin.

Derpy tried one last time to wake their director, but he only seemed to drool more in response.

The mares studied their lines, got into their places, and with the smack of the clapper board and an “ACTION!” they began recording.

----------

Against all odds, and Carrot Top's better judgment, the first several hours of recording went off without a hitch. Even without having the director giving orders and forcing heaps of retakes, the mares did decently in their first time ever in the spotlight.

They each had their little falters – Derpy a few more so than the rest – but this was something very important to her. She couldn't allow the show to suffer due to her klutziness, so she tried her hardest to stay on goal.

After an exhausting day, the cast and crew finally called it a day around eight at night. Dinky, who had been watching their performance at the studio since her school let out, ran to Derpy, the huge smile on her face telling more words than she could say.

“Well, what'd you think?” Derpy asked, ruffling her daughter's mane as they gathered their things.

“You were awesome, mommy!” Dinky said, giving her a tight hug.

Lyra and Bon-Bon couldn't help but gush over the affectionate display. Carrot Top, who was long-since used to the mother-daughter mushiness, had a silly grin on her face. Even though she thought Derpy was klutzier than every other pony and some of the Transformers put together, she couldn't help but smile when Derpy rose to the occasion.

The mares decided to celebrate a successful recording day with dinner.

Derpy had stopped at the doors when she accidentally knocked a broom over. Sloppily setting it upright, she ran out to join her friends. The slam of the door as she exited was just enough to knock it back over again. This time, the falling broom landed on a switch to a power strip, switching on an industrial fan used for windy scenes. The sheet that had been covering it flew off, gliding at the perfect arc to cover the nearby couch.

Seconds after, the double doors swung open. Floating, using an unknown source of technology, were two massive robots. One was blue, the other was red, and both had strikingly large 'M's of the opposite color on their chest.

“Now, the boss said we were getting a couch, right?” The blue bot questioned.

“I thought we were getting a sofa?” The red one responded.

“I think those are the same thing.”

“What are?”

“A couch and a sofa... right?”

“I think so. Isn't that what the boss told us to get?”

“Yes. So let's get it.”

The two bots began searching the set for their objective. They searched high and low, finally stopping at the only couch in the room, still covered with a white sheet.

“Do ya think this is it?” The red bot asked.

“Hmmm...” The blue bot raised a mechanical hand to his head, rubbing his face as if he had a chin, and thinking as if he had a brain. He then lifted the sheet up and was greeted by the visage of a still-sleeping Jason Thiessen.

“Excuse me, sir. Is this the couch we're supposed to be getting for the boss?”

Jason incoherently mumbled a response.

The red bot peered from behind the blue one. “I think that was a yes.”

“I think that was a yes, too.”

“That's two out of three. The odds are in our favor, Slash.”

“I do believe you're correct, Hack.”

Slash replaced the cover back over Jason and the two each grabbed a end of the couch, completely ignoring the passenger on board. The two bots floated towards the door, the lead bot opening it so they could exit.

“Hey Hack.”

“Yea Slash?”

“Where were we suppose to take this thing again?”

“Hm... I'm not sure.”

“You know, Hack, I've always wanted a couch for my room.”

“I've always wanted a sofa for my room.”

“Why don't we share it then?”

“Sounds like a plan!”

And with that, the bots exited the set, carrying their new found prize and passenger homeward... wherever that was.