Robot Scootaloo

by alarajrogers

Who Can Be The Biggest Woobie?

Flash Sentry, dressed in a smart suit and tie, grins broadly at the studio audience. "Hello everypony! It’s time to play everyone’s favorite game show, Who Can Be the Biggest Woobie?"

The audience explodes into hoofstomps. Flash gestures with one leg at the first contestant. "Over here we have Nightmare Moon! The evil version of everyone’s favorite princess, Luna!"

"We are not evil! We are misunderstood!" Nightmare Moon shouts.

"Yes, of course you are. And here we have Discord, Master of Chaos!"

Discord struts into the room wearing black leather pants, which somehow seems a bit lewd as it draws attention to the fact that he’s not wearing anything on top, despite the fact that normally he doesn’t wear anything at all. "It’s a pleasure to be here," he says, bowing to the audience, and completely ignoring Flash.

"Our next contestant just wants your love! All of it. Give it up for Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings!"

More hoofstomping, mostly from the back row. Flash looks out over the audience. "Oh, come on, Chrys, you can’t stack the deck like that. You! Changelings! In the back row! Sorry, but only citizens of Equestria get to be in the studio audience!"

A few of Flash’s friends from the Royal Guard, wearing no armor because they’re off duty, escort the changelings in the back row out. Chrysalis scowls. "You can call me Your Majesty. Not 'Chrys.’"

"Okay, Chryssie. And last but not least, the Dark Lord of Fear, King Sombra!"

Dark shadows flow onto the set and coalesce into the figure of a dark grey pony with a black mane and royal regalia. "Slaves," Sombra hisses at the audience. "You will vote for me."

"Now, no trying to intimidate the audience. Remember, this isn’t Who Is The Most Terrifying Villain, heh heh. On this show, villains show their vulnerable side." Flash looks out at the audience. "The rules are really simple! Each of our contestants will tell their villain story. Why did they become a villain? What personal anguish drove them into the arms of evil?"

"Chaos," Discord said. "I never went into the arms of evil. Just chaos."

"Evil or chaos, right. At the end, you, the audience, get to vote. Which one of these villains is more justified in their villainy? Who is the most likely to be a poor, misunderstood creature, sad and hurting inside, who only ever really needed a sympathetic ear? Who—" a dramatic drum roll echoed through the set. –"can be, the Biggest! Woobie!"

The audience goes wild with hoofstomps. Chrysalis looks at the other villains. "Remind me why I decided to participate in this idiocy again?"

"The prize..." Sombra hissed.

"That’s right!" Flash says. "The prize is one week to indulge in your villainy! Or to take solace in the embrace of a sympathetic pony, if that’s what you prefer. Or both! Once you’ve proven yourself to be the Biggest Woobie, ponies will be falling all over themselves to justify every bad thing you did and sympathize with you completely!"

"And admit that I am the superior princess to my sister, and revel in the beauty of my night," Nightmare Moon says.

"Yes, that too." Flash attempts to lift into the air, realizes that his suit is impeding his wings, and stops flapping them. "Now, just to mix things up a bit, we’re going to go in reverse chronological order. So let’s start with you, King Sombra! Why are you a villain?"

"My kind, the Umbrum, left me with the Crystal Ponies as a foal," Sombra says, hissing the words, with reverberations. "All alone, an orphan, charged with a task that a lesser pony might have seen as insurmountable. It is my destiny to free the Umbrum from where they are imprisoned, deep beneath the earth."

"Okay! Now tell us why we should sympathize with you! You want to release evil shadow ponies who are imprisoned underground to take over the Crystal Empire?"

"The Umbrum are not evil!" Sombra shouts, forgetting to hiss. "We are as capable of either good or evil as any pony. But we are creatures of shadow. Light destroys and burns. The Crystal Empire was to be our homeland... we and we alone are the true Crystal Ponies. We are made of crystalline magic."

"Doesn’t the name 'shadow pony’ imply that you’re evil, though? I mean you use dark magic."

Nightmare Moon glares. "This is exactly the sort of luxism that I have come to expect from ponies! As if darkness can only represent evil, and only light can represent goodness!"

"That’s a great speech, Princess, but do keep in mind you’re helping your opponent here," Flash reminds her.

"Oh. Right." Nightmare Moon shuts up.

"But she is right," Sombra growls. "I was an innocent foal, a child no more tainted with good nor evil than any other, but every year during the celebration of the Crystal Heart, I endured agony. While other foals were all about, playing and enjoying their celebration, I was confined to a bed, unable to eat, or read, or sleep, or do anything except contemplate the terrible pain I was suffering. And then I learned from our beloved Princess, Amore—" He spits.

"Your Majesty, that’s really unsanitary, and unsightly besides. Try to avoid doing that if you want to win ponies over."

"I apologize for my crudeness," Sombra says. "But her very name disgusts me, even now. She knew. She knew my kind were trapped below the surface, imprisoned there by the Crystal Heart. She knew what I was. She knew why I suffered every year during the celebration. And she did nothing! I stood before her, an example of how Umbrum ponies can be wholly innocent, but still she persisted in the belief that because the Crystal Heart harms us, we are by necessity evil. And so my people – the mother and father I have never seen, the brothers and sisters I may have, any of my kind – are trapped in their crystal forms, imprisoned by ponies. So I took over the Crystal Empire! I enslaved ponies to force them to dig my race free! It was fitting, as it was their ancestors who trapped the Umbrum there! Would not any of you have done the same, if it were your family wrongly imprisoned?" He sweeps his hoof out to the audience.

Many ponies in the audience are crying in sympathy. Discord is dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief. "I’m not crying! I’ve just got little bits of black crystal dust in my eye!"

"That’s an amazing story," Flash says. "Really hits you in the heart. Our other contestants are going to have to work hard to top that one!" He turns to Chrysalis. "Queen Chrysalis. What’s your story?"

"Sombra speaks of family trapped underground, that he’s never known," Chrysalis says. "But Sombra has no foals of his own. He has no idea what it’s like to be a parent, watching your children starve." She looks out at the audience. "Every one of my changelings is my child! Other villains may have minions, or servants. I have my own sweet changeling foals. It’s my responsibility to make sure they are well fed with love... but ponies are stingy with their love. Ponies won’t love us in our true forms; they call us horrible names. Bugs. Cheeselegs. Cockroaches."

"Cockroaches is fitting," Nightmare Moon says.

"You’ll get your turn, Princess. Please be quiet while the other contestants tell their stories," Flash says. "So how, exactly, does invading Equestria get you love?"

"Ponies in a Changeling cocoon aren’t harmed," Chrysalis says defensively. "They dream within, even with their eyes open, that they’re with the ones they most love. A beautiful dream of idyllic times with their loved ones, in exchange for providing food to my starving children. How is that such a terrible thing to do?"

"Sure, but did you try asking for love?"

"Does that work if you try it?" Chrysalis retorts. "Oh, I know what love you feel, Flash Sentry. Have you ever thought of going up to Twilight Sparkle and simply saying 'please love me?’ Do you think that could possibly work?"

"Uh, actually, Princess Twilight is cute and all but I’m certainly not in love with her..."

"DON’T CONTRADICT ME! I’m a Changeling! Of course I know what love you hold in your heart! You love Twilight Sparkle! Everyone says so!"

"Okay, but... I actually don’t? Anyway this isn’t about me! Fellow ponies, first we’ve heard from a pony whose entire family, entire race, is imprisoned, who was just trying to rescue them! Now we’ve heard from a mother who’ll take desperate measures to feed her children! Can you decide between them? I sure can’t!"

"Ahem," Discord says. He is suddenly looming over Flash Sentry. "I do believe it’s not time to judge any villain’s story just yet. Not until we’ve all taken a turn."

"You’re absolutely right! So Discord, if you can just get back to your podium, and start telling us your story! Why did you become a villain?"

"I was trapped in stone, for more than a thousand years," Discord says. "Sombra goes on and on about how his people are trapped as crystals. Well, in my case, I was the one who had to suffer through being imprisoned as a statue! More than a thousand years, unable to see, or smell, or feel, or move. More than a thousand years of being able to hear ponies, but never being able to speak to them. Can any of you imagine how lonely and horrible that was?"

"I can," Nightmare Moon says.

"Oh, you could at least see. Even if there was nothing to see but the surface of the moon. I’d have given my left toe to see the moon!"

"Your left foot is the goat hoof. You don’t even have a toe."

"Princess, I’m going to have to ask you to not interrupt during Discord’s story," Flash says. "So go on. You were trapped in a horrible imprisonment."

"And for what?" Discord asks, impassioned. "A little chaos? Making fish swim through the air? Making cotton candy clouds rain chocolate milk? A little bit of world redecoration here and there? How does anything I did justify turning me to stone for more than a thousand years?" Nightmare Moon is visibly struggling with the urge to say something. "Is a little chaos really so terrible?"

"So you’ve been through some really painful hardships," Flash says. "But what made you turn to villainy in the first place? Why did you decide to take over Equestria and plunge it into chaos?"

Discord shrugs. "I like chaos."

He doesn’t elaborate. Flash stares at him. "That’s it? You like chaos?"

"I really really really like chaos."

"Ok, but Sombra was trying to free his race, including his parents. And Chrysalis is trying to feed her starving children. You... didn’t have anything driving you to make chaos? Maybe ponies taunting you for not being a pony? Maybe Princess Celestia turned you down for a date? Maybe you were feeling lonely and rejected because ponies don’t like chaos and wouldn’t let you be friends with them? Or maybe ponies called you a monster and tried to kill you?"

Discord shrugs again. "No, nothing like that. I just like chaos." He looks out at the audience. "But don’t forget, I was turned to stone! And left that way in a garden! Where birds could poop on my head!"

"Okay then." Flash shakes his head disbelievingly. "Let’s go to our last contestant. Nightmare Moon! Tell us the story of how you transformed from Princess Luna into the mare you are today."

Nightmare Moon points her hoof at Discord. "Yes, but can I just point out how absolutely biased and nonsensical Discord’s explanation of his history is?"

"Princess..."

"Because it’s my turn to speak now, and that miscreant is claiming that he did nothing harmful! Ponies lived in terror of the constant changes he’d make!"

"Princess..."

"He once cast a spell to make every door a random teleport gateway, and scattered families and friends across all of Equestria, separating ponies who thought to live together forever, such that they never saw their loved ones again!"

"Oh, that was a good one," Discord says, reminiscing fondly. "The chaos I got from that one simple spell..."

"And he’s not even remorseful in the slightest!"

"PRINCESS!" Flash shouts to get her attention. "This is your turn to talk about yourself. Not about your opinions of Discord."

Discord sticks out his tongue at her and waggles it. Nightmare Moon looks as if she’s going to try to blast him, but then sighs. "Of course. He is beneath Our notice. We will tell you the story."

She looks out at the audience. "It was Celestia’s duty to bring the day, and rule over it; mine to bring the night, and the moon. But ponies don’t appreciate the night. Or the moon. None came to my court to petition me for a redress of wrongs; they went to Celestia. None sought audience with me; all they cared for was currying favor with Celestia. In my own court, I might as well have been invisible. At night, ponies closed their doors and barred their windows, and slept. None of them even looked at the stars I placed in the night sky!"

"That does sound bad," Flash says. "But ponies are creatures that sleep at night. Can you really blame them?"

"YES! They could have held revels at night under the moon, instead of in closed buildings lit by mage-lights and candles. But they didn’t care! Worse, they feared the darkness! Just as Sombra said earlier, ponies thought that light meant goodness and dark meant only evil, and they hid themselves away from the beauty I created, warding themselves from evil, as if evil cannot walk under daylight! As if corrupt nobles who sought to deceive my sister and win favors for themselves over the peasants they ruled did not make their plans, and carry them out, during daylight! I spoke to Celestia... but she thought this the natural order of things. She would do nothing, nothing, to ensure my fair share of the honors due us both. And when we spoke together in council, oftentimes she overruled me! As if I were the little, foalish sister who knows nothing of the serious business of governing a nation!" Nightmare Moon is trembling with her fury. "They say I was jealous. When your birthright is stolen from you, when you are ignored and treated as if you are of no import and the person who supposedly loves you plainly loves their own glory more, is it jealousy to see the unfairness, to want to snatch your rightful due back? Or is it righteous rage?"

"Wow. That is certainly a story. The worst I ever got into with my sister was whether she remembered to put the lid back on the toothpaste!" Flash chuckles.

"And then. And then, for the crime of wanting what I should be rights have been granted, she banished me to the moon for a thousand years!" Nightmare Moon cries. "Discord whines about his imprisonment, but as much of a hardship as it must have been for him to be unable to talk—" The audience laughs. Nightmare Moon smirks. "—he could at least hear ponies. He may have been lonely, but he was not alone. I had no company at all but my own, for a thousand years! Nothing to do but look into the sky and see the birthright that was taken from me!"

"That’s a really tragic story," Flash says.

"And then!"

"NOW it’s time to vote!" Flash says, very loudly, before Nightmare Moon can start ranting again. "Who’s it going to be, fillies and gentlecolts? Who has the saddest, most relatable story? The princess betrayed by her subjects and her own sister?" He gestures at Nightmare Moon. "The queen whose subjects are her children, who only wanted to feed them like a mother should? The king who did everything to free his imprisoned race? Or..." Flash makes a face. "The guy who really liked chaos?"

"That’s a rather biased way of putting it," Discord complains.

"Hey, buddy, those are your own words. So! Everypony’s got a ballot! Mark off who you think is the Biggest Woobie, and put it in the basket that’s being passed around! In just a few minutes, we’ll know which villain is the most sympathetic!"

Music plays in the background as the ballots are collected. Finally the result is presented to Flash in an envelope. "Let’s see who’s got the saddest story, ponies! Who’s it going to be? The King? The Queen? The Princess?"

He pulls out the slip and stares at it. Then he stares at it some more. Then he turns to the pony who brought him the envelope. "Are we sure this is the correct result?"

"They recounted the votes three times. It wasn’t a small margin, either."

Flash sighs deeply. "Well then. The winner of the Who Can Be The Biggest Woobie... the most sympathetic villain, according to our audience... is... Discord, Master of Chaos!"

The audience starts stomping their hooves wildly. Discord teleports to the edge of the set. "Thank you! Thank you! I love you all! You’re a great audience!"

"What?" Nightmare Moon asks. "How can that be?"

"What precautions were taken to keep him from cheating?" Sombra growls.

"Yes, this must be cheating," Chrysalis says. "I’m a mother feeding her children! His only excuse was that he just likes chaos!"

"Oh, but you’re all forgetting something," Discord says, turning back to his fellow villains. He waggles his hips, strutting and turning so they can see every part of his lower body encased in tight black leather. "I was destined to win from the beginning. None of you had any hope, not against my surefire strategy."

"What would that be?" Nightmare Moon snarls. "You had nothing to recommend you! All of us had sadder stories than yours, and the imprisonment you suffered was akin to my own! There’s no reason anyone should be more sympathetic to you than to the rest of us!"

"Oh yes there is," Discord says, smirking. He turns and bows to the audience again, which has the side effect of waggling his butt and his tail in his opponents’ faces. Over his shoulder he turns back to them. "I am the Draconequus in Leather Pants."

Sombra simply looks confused. Chrysalis facehoofs. Nightmare Moon turns distinctly purple. "This is outrageous! We pour out our hearts, expose our vulnerable side, only to lose because of a bad joke about a TV Trope?"

Discord continues to strut around the stage, drinking in the approval of his audience, taunting his opponents, and showing off his prizewinning leather pants. The other villains continue to shout at him. As they bicker, Flash Sentry loses his psychotically huge smile, walks toward the window on the side of the soundstage, and with a running start and a flap or two of not-fully-restrained wings, flings himself through the window.

One of the camera ponies runs to the window. "Flash! You okay out there?"

"I’m all right," we hear him groan. "I forgot we were on the first floor."

"Uh... but considering you can’t really fly with that suit on, isn’t that a good thing?"

"No," Flash moans.

*fwwwt*

Author's Note:

This one almost got serious.

Almost.

Show of hands: Who knew Discord was going to win as soon as his pants were described?

I'm using the comic book history for Sombra because it does kind of make him a woobie. Or at least slightly sympathetic.

I do not ship FlashLight. I also have nothing against Flash Sentry, either version. I just don't think the pony version has any real connection to Twilight whatsoever. He's smiled at her, like, twice. That's not a grand romance.

Comments

[Cydox Crescent]

I knew instantly the leather pants was a reference to the trope but I never thought it'd make him automatically win. This was too perfect

Although if he had told his back story from Not The Hero there's no way he could have lost.

[FanOfMostEverything]

I recognized the trope, but I figured that Discord's secret was that he'd bribed the author.

[howard035]

*Looks at the Chapter Title* Man, lucky for Discord this chapter is still set before later seasons and a certain glimmer of starlight came along, amirite?

7871698 Exact same thing for me. I only regret Discord didn't show up in a blond wig.

[aleja08]

Haha this was great! I also totally knew the minute the pants were mentioned

[Captain Wuzz]

"What's your sob story?"

"I like chaos."

:D