Octavia stared up at the building in front of her. Unlike her apartment, this one was completely clean. Like her apartment, it towered over all the nearby buildings with ease. It wasn't quite as large of a building overall, but gave the same sort of presence upon first glance. The front bore a simple numbering next to the doors. The record shaped doorhandles were the only indication that she was even in the right place. She let her gaze wander across the clean white walls once more, then pushed the door open with her hoof.

She strode inside confidently and made sure her instrument remained steady on her back. The decor was just as she would expect from seeing the outside: plain white walls with a few placards bearing ornamental records on them behind the reception area. She walked right past the receptionist, ignoring the sign telling her to check in, and proceeded to the elevator.

It was either her confident demeanor, or the large instrument in its case across her back that stopped the receptionist halfway through a quiet protest. Octavia walked inside the lift and noted the usual plaque stating that this elevator was registered with some governmental body that nopony had ever heard of. She mashed her hoof onto the button labelled "Five" and the doors shut with a ding.

The lift seemed to labor its way up the floors, taking its sweet time to carry the pony and her instrument. She took solace in the fact that at least the speakers in the corners weren't playing any of the usual awful music. The doors finally parted with another ding, and Octavia was immediately greeted with the sound of shouting coming from a door in front of her. Though the hallway extended onwards to her left and right, the only other doorway in sight appeared to lead to a stairwell. A quick glance was all that was required to show that the unlabelled doorway was her only recourse.

Octavia opened the portal in front of her with a cautious air, and was immediately rewarded with an increased volume of yelling. She had made sure to be a few minutes early, and apparently nopony was expecting her yet. The waiting area was completely barren with no indication that she was in the right place except the familiar yelling from the rear of the studio. With nowhere else to go, she wandered back towards the source of the commotion. She found what appeared to be a practice area where Vinyl was looming over a pathetically cowering cream unicorn with a white mane.

"What the hell was that? Can't you even play the music in front of you? We've been here for how long? And we've garnered ten seconds of usable content! Yes, you heard me, ten seconds! This isn't a bucking charity! Why do I even bother to pay you if I'm going to get that kind of a return on my money?"

Vinyl glared down at the poor pony with her sunglasses resting on her horn, using the jarring red color to affect the musician as much as possible. It appeared to be working quite well; the unicorn quailed under the rough treatment and attempted to interpose her violin between herself and the yelling. Vinyl, on the other hoof, had a full head of steam, and wasn't letting her voice trail off in the slightest once she started.

"What, you don't know either? Well look here's a pony with talent, walking in early even! Maybe you should take notes! Get out of my sight! And take the extra time to develop some competency at your craft you useless sack of crap!" Vinyl nearly screamed as she concluded her one sided shouting match. The other unicorn erupted into tears as she galloped away.

"What are you doing back here anyway? Where's Oliver?" Vinyl asked, turning towards Octavia and losing the angry tone of her voice almost instantly. She casually dropped the sunglasses back over her eyes, and looked around curiously.

Octavia responded with a shrug, taking a similar glance at her surroundings. "Didn't see him on the way in. What was all that about?"

“Oh that? Nothing to worry your pretty little head over. Probably just going to have to wind up relying on you more than I initially planned. Hey great news for you huh? That means more bits for you if you wind up having to record her parts too!” Vinyl exclaimed with a grin, and slapped the other mare's shoulder like she had known her for years. Octavia merely responded with a quirk of her eyes.

“What? I was originally planning on having a violin to accompany you in the final product, but apparently my violinist can't get her act together!” Vinyl suddenly screamed over her shoulder.

“Did you get a chance to look over the music Oliver gave you the other night? I don’t need a repeat of that last session. Please tell me you’re actually prepared,” Vinyl pleaded through her hoof as she dragged it across her face slowly.

“Of course I did. It seemed rather simple to be honest...”

“Well yeah, your part is the base of the song. HAH, that’s a music joke kiddo,” she added with another laugh, and slapped Octavia’s side again. “Anyways, the real music will happen in the studio once I have everything recorded. Then, I’ll mix everything together with the main song. That’s when DJ PON-3 works her magic, and everything will come together. Knowing you prissy classical types, you’ve never even heard any of my songs, have you?”

Octavia shook her head as she decided to not indicate her lack of knowledge about this 'DJ PON-3' thing as well.

“Figured as much. Well I won’t bore you with the details. Still, I need some good samples to work with, and it seems those are getting harder and harder to get. That's where you come in, my little Octobabe. You will make me the musics, and I shall transform them into art! Come on, let’s get started. Have you ever played in a studio before?”

Octavia shook her head again, and barely managed to contain herself at being referred to as “Octobabe.” She could already tell working with this pony was going to be far more trying than she'd initially thought. It turned out however, it also paid extremely well. Provided she could stomach putting up with this awful unicorn, that is. The bits would buy her a considerable amount of time in looking for real opportunities, so she tried to mentally prepare herself for the worst.

“Well, it’s simple! Just imagine you’re playing in a concert hall, except nopony is listening to you except for me, and it’s a hell of a lot smaller! Here I’ll show you. The room is soundproof, but I can hear you in the other room. Also there’s these speakers for me to... give you feedback. It’s right through here, Octybaby.”

Octavia shut her eyes, and ground her teeth together as she tried to retain her composure. This was going to be a battle of the wills. She'd been forced to put up with unicorns just as bad as Vinyl in the past and was confident she could do so again. There was no question over who would win; she wouldn’t give this foul pony the upper hoof. Octavia was an upper-class pony at heart, and she could take anything this uncouth, foul, loudmouthed, poor excuse for a musician could dish out to her.

She was lead into the medium sized room through a side door, and Vinyl walked into the center of the room to adjust the microphone with her magic. Vinyl pulled the microphone down to nearly floor level, where it would be best suited to capture a double bass, and roughly kicked the chair in the center to one of the corners. Octavia, in the meantime looked around. The white walls were functionally plain with some strategically placed sound absorption panels. She could also see into the room from which Vinyl would be watching her from through a large pane of glass.

"Do you need a dancefloor? Maybe some mood lighting? Dinner and a movie for you and your instrument before we get started?" Vinyl jabbed at her with a mischievous grin.

"This will be fine thanks."

"Great! Just remember: you're giving me the base, so cut all the fancy crap. Just play the notes. If I want you to do something special, I'll tell you."

"Noted."

Octavia was one with the flow of the music, she could feel it resonating through her entire body. Her instrument was merely an extension of her hoof, and it felt marvelous. However, she knew that this was but a fleeting moment. She knew that soon, they'd be broken apart by-

"How many bucking times do I have to tell you to stop being fancy? This isn't one of your prissy, fancy-pants recitals! So stop varying the bucking tempo and just play the celestia-be-damned notes!"

Octavia took a slow breath then started to play again. She drew the bow across the strings and closed her eyes. She felt the song inside of her, but only got about half a page through the song before-

"Hello? Are you even listening? Are you ignorant as well as stupid? I just told you to not be fancy, and you immediately start playing in the wrong time! Try it again!"

The gray mare was overcome with the desire to send something hurtling through the glass at the unicorn shouting at her. She restrained herself with a another deep breath and tried to continue onwards. She picked up the song from where she had left off, and drew her bow across the strings carefully. She stared at the music on the stand in front of her intently, focusing her attention on the notes and not the feel of the song. This worked for about a page and a half until she found herself dancing with her instrument again, and she winced in anticipation of-

"Oh for the love of Luna! You even got my hopes up that time! Are you trying to piss me off? Or is that just your special talent? Should I be looking for someone to make you a new cutie mark? You're doing a pretty good job of it so far!"

Octavia bit down on her lower lip to contain her anger. She had managed to remain composed through this ordeal so far. Lowering herself to the level of this creature would do her no good at all. She would just have to keep her cool.

"Again from the top, and don't mess it up this time!"

"Yes Miss Scratch," Octavia said through her teeth. She took a deep breath before she drew her bow across the strings once again.

Trying to play the music the way Vinyl wanted it, was probably the most challenging thing Octavia had been asked to do in a long time. Vinyl wanted the music calm and even without any tempo changes, or for that matter, any artistry at all. It seemed like she just wanted Octavia to pretend she was back in elementary school playing the notes as simply as they were stated on the sheets. If this was the case, then she couldn't figure out why this horrible pony wanted someone of her caliber to do the playing.

Octavia tried her best to push all these thoughts from her mind and focus on the music. It was difficult though. If she lost herself in the music completely, she'd start throwing in her own artistic touches. Whenever that happened, it wouldn't be long before the screaming voice cut in over the speaker telling her to stop. It took all of her concentration to keep walking the fine line between focusing on the music, and keeping herself from actually playing it.

"There! Was that so bucking hard? Take five Octobutt."

Octavia took a deep breath and put her instrument to rest against the back wall. She fell heavily into the chair in the back corner. She'd been here for only a few hours, but it seemed like all day at this point. Normally she could do long playing sessions without issues, but having to put up with Vinyl throughout was draining her energy. She sat there pondering what it was about Vinyl's behavior that was so tiring, but was interrupted from these thoughts as she looked up to see the door opening. Oliver appeared with a steaming cup of tea grasped in his magic.

"Here. I figured you could probably use it. You're doing amazingly, by the way; she's barely yelling at all. Still, I've never seen someone go even this long on their first session before," the stallion said as he passed the hot drink to her with his magic.

"What?" she asked incredulously, forgetting to thank the pony in her confusion.

"You haven't figured it out? You seemed the smart type. Miss Vinyl always tries to completely break down a pony when she first works with them," Oliver said, with his face alight with surprise even as he looked upon Octavia with respect.

"She tries her hardest to get them to melt down so she can establish their limits, and then push them later on. It seems nasty, but I've seen her push people to do things they never thought possible when they first started working with her. You on the other hoof... You're not budging an inch. You're not giving her anything to work with. I've never seen anypony put up with her abuse for this long."

"What are you implying Oliver? Are you saying she's making up reasons to yell at me?"

"Well, yes and no. For the first recording she really does want just the simplest rendition possible. She's taking any excuse she can get to yell at you, yes, but you're not giving her many. So she's having to rely on trying to degrade you instead, but you're not reacting to that either."

Octavia sipped on the tea as she considered this assessment, slowly taking in the pleasant daisy flavor. It wasn't an unheard-of way of managing musical ponies, but she hadn't run into anypony who had tried it on her in quite some time. She couldn't help but crack a small smile, knowing that she was messing everything up for Vinyl. Oliver didn't know it, but this would make it easier for her to put up with Vinyl's crap.

"Anyways I'd be careful if I were you. She's likely to try something drastic at this rate," he said with a warning tone as he then took the empty cup in his magic and walked out of the room.

Octavia was left alone to mull over this ominous statement. As she looked around the room thoughtfully, her gaze automatically fell on her instrument resting against the back wall. She wondered what kind of actions Vinyl might take if Oliver's warning was correct. She didn't think that Vinyl would interfere with the music; so she probably didn't have to worry about her instrument, but it was still a consideration. She pondered the possibilities for a long moment before she was again distracted by the door opening.

"That's good enough for now. Oliver will have some more music for you to look over for next time. If we can take less time getting through it, then it would be great. Once we get through the boring parts, we can start having more fun with it, so cheer up Octobabe."

Vinyl opened the door for Octavia, and stood aside indicating that she was done for the day. The gray mare packed up her instrument and heaved it across her back before she started to stride out the door with her head held high. She only got halfway through before she was interrupted by a rough hoof slapping across her flank and striking her right under her tail.

"Great job today. Keep it up and I can see us working together again in the future." Vinyl said with a devilish grin spreading across her face. Her smile remained in place even as Octavia slowly turned around to give Vinyl an icy glare. Vinyl kept the grin plastered across her face with an expression that was just daring her to do something about it.

Octavia nearly broke. She was just barely able to prevent herself from yelling as her face flushed with heat. She was eventually able to calm herself back down when she remembered Oliver's words. She satisfied herself with an indignant "HMPH!" as she turned her back to Vinyl and walked out the doorway with as much dignity as she could muster. She strode right into the lobby, where she snatched the music from Oliver with her mouth and kept walking straight out the studio. She made sure that the door slammed nice and loud on the way out, and stashed the music in her case. One thing was for certain: she couldn't wait to get paid, just so she could be done with this vile unicorn.