We Could Have Been Anything That we Wanted to be

by RainbowDeathClaw

Rating: everyone
Tags: Starlight Glimmer, Trixie, Comedy, Queen Chrysalis, Random, Discord, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 2821

Why do bad guys become bad, no pony really knew and not much research had been done around it, Twilight was going to change that

Twilight is doing some research, most of this research is to do with villains and what makes them tick. was it money, wealth, power, fame? Or did they simply just do what they were good at. Either way Twilight is going to get to the bottom of it no matter who she has to ask about it.

Inspired by the song "Bad Guys" from Bugsy Malone

Published 2017-09-05 16:10:11 UTC
Last updated 2017-09-05 16:10:11 UTC

Discord

It was a Autumn afternoon and at this time most ponies would be a home wrapped up enjoying not having to wear twenty nine or more layers to buy groceries, Twilight Sparkle was not one of those ponies. She, like any other, could happily appreciate the crunch of the leaves below her, and it was a joy to kick a bunch of them up, but at the moment twilight was walking for work, and when work involved going outside when it felt cold enough for snow, Twilight would be grumpy.

She furrowed her brow and squinted as a particularly strong gust of wind picked up leaves around her, she rounded the corner of the path when the familiar cottage entered her sight.

Twilight trudged down the path to Fluttershy's house wondering what decisions she had made in her life to be walking for the sole reason of talking to Discord. It wasn't that she had anything against him, it was more that his talk tended to end with some pony in the chaos dimension. Usually her. So it wasn't usually the best idea to visit him, but after consulting with Spike they had both decided it was the most convenient option for the task at hand. The task at hand being a study in villains and how they are created, Twilight doubted that Discord would give her many answers, but he was just on the outskirts of Ponyville so he was first.

All kinds of animals scurried around the garden, with squirrels burying nuts and a bear helping them out, some bunnies scurried off in search of lettuce and a singular swan seemed very confused about how she was upside down. Twilight knocked on the door softly so as not to startle Fluttershy and after what sounded like pots crashing, a train crash, and a cat's wail hit Twilight's ears the door was flung open by none other than Discord.

"Twilight! How delightful to see you, I got your message and I just couldn't wait for your visit, but I must ask right of the bat; is this a social call, or strictly business?" Discord stared at her expectantly.

"Oh um hi Discord, This is uh, well I guess this is strictly business, but it's nothing formal." She made sure to clarify that fact.

"And here was I thinking you had come to see an old friend." Discord pouted, Twilight felt a little guilty that she hadn't talked to him in so long, but continued past him inside. 'Fluttershy is just making us some tea right as we speak, so, since this is 'strictly business' why don't you just get this over with since you obviously don't want to talk to me."

"I do want to talk to you Discord, it's just that this is a little more important at the moment, sorry." she smiled at him sheepishly, but Discord seemed to handle it well only having one storm cloud float above his head. "uhh anyway since you want to get it over with, I've been doing some research into villains and what their like, so this is an interview of sorts. The main question I've got for you is... Why are you bad? If you understand what I' saying. Why did you choose to be bad?"

"Why am I bad? Or I suppose, why was I bad?" Discord pondered this for a second with a single talon tapping against his chin. It was a simple question, on the surface, but it wasn't actually one that athe had considered before this, "and why exactly, are you asking me this?" He looked down to the mare who had begun questioning him. Twilight looked up from her clipboard. (where she had already begun to jot down notes)

"Oh I'm doing a study of villains, if I can find a way to prevent ponies from going bad before they try to take over Equestria, it would help greatly in reducing the number of threats to all ponies everywhere" she looked at the draconequus who seemed rather bored.

"I don't think that's going to happen we get at least one every season"

"No we don't we haven't had one this winter or this spring"

"I- oh never-mind, you wouldn't understand anyway," he waved a paw to brush off wherever that conversation was going, "to answer your question... I don't actually know, I mean I simply adore chaos and anything to do with it, as you know." To illustrate the point, a grayed out Twilight appeared in front of him which then walked out of Fluttershy's cottage. (not without scaring a few frogs on the way out)

"Yes, I obviously know that, but is there a reason for loving chaos? Some child-hood trauma? Or maybe you have a wanting to be a bad guy, I mean, why didn't you create chaos for good?" Twilight asked this, slightly annoyed of the reminder of what Discord used to be like.

Discord squinted at Twilight, "And why are you asking me exactly?"

Twilight blinked, "Oh that's easy. You were closest, Celestia knows how hard it's going to be to interview Chrysalis, you simply were the easiest to get in touch with"

"Humph, I suppose that's fair, but I refuse to be referred to as a villain, I am reformed and villains are so out at the moment, you should see the polls" Suddenly there was a chart in Twilight's face with Discord wearing a statistician suit (imagine a suit, but more statisticiany) just as quickly they disappeared leaving an exasperated twilight.

"Fine, I won't call you a villain." Ten minutes ago she had walked up to Fluttershy's cottage with the full intention of simply going in and out, but she could tell that that may not be happening anytime soon, Fluttershy was kind as always letting her in and even offering her tea which she now wish she had accepted. She could tell Discord would love to talk about himself and hoped she could get an acceptable answer quickly, she jotted down a note that Discord rambled a lot and moved on.

"Anyway, to answer your question I guess I should go from the beginning" when he saw Twilight look at him with a generally confused face, "How I was born." he clarified. Suddenly Twilight found that she was inside of a... presentation. The first slide flickered revealing a green, blue and orange planet which rotated 180 degrees to reveal Discords face.

"Imagine two stars colliding with each other while simultaneously going supernova while at the center is a planet, lets call it... Discordia" Twilight stopped taking notes to give the discord head a disgruntled look and the slide changed to reveal the chaos dimension "now scrap that entire image because in reality I have no idea how I was born. I just wanted a planet named after me"

Discord teleported in front of Twilight wearing the kind of suit a college professor would wear and large round glasses "To put it simply all I remember is the chaos dimension, it wasn't as chaotic at the time, it was more... empty with random objects inside of it. One of them being me, and yes i was just a baby god at the time," a slide, which would forever haunt Twilight's dreams causing more than one awkward talk with Princess Luna, of Discord wearing a diaper appeared, quickly transitioning to the next slide of him (diaper free) bashing together rocks, "So my power was limited, but it developed overtime allowing me to find out about other dimensions such as my favourite, of course, Equestria. Where as you know, I spread chaos everywhere yadda yadda daring, danger, ponies win by hugging each other a lot, all that blues"

"I think the phrase is all that jazz" Twilight corrected

"Bah, It will never be the same. So, does that answer your question?" Twilight and discord teleported back in front of Fluttershy scaring the yellow pegasus who proceeded to drop some tea.

"Gah!" the purple alicorn fell back as well, Discord simply chortled.

"I'm ever so sorry Fluttershy for suprising you, ooh did you make tea?"

"That's okay Discord and yes I did, but uhh..." Fluttershy gestured with a hoof to the mess of tea leaves, china, and water spilled everywhere around her.

"Oh I can sort that out for you." Discord snapped his claws and the mess was whisked away to the kitchen. (no literally whisked away a giant kitchen implement had stirred them out the room)

"Thank you Discord." Fluttershy smiled at him and then sat down as well, she was joined by a small bird that had nestled into pink mane.

"So I get that you were born in the chaos dimension, that you grew up very strong, and that you tried to take over all of Equestria slash wreak havoc across the land, but that still doesn't answer my base question of why you chose to be bad, didn't you have other talents that you could have developed just as easily?" Twilight inquired.

"Why yes I did in fact, I was simply marvelous at playing the trombone," a trombone appeared in his hands and when he tried to play it, it fell limp and made a sad mix between a cat and Satan himself, "I guess I'm a little flat. Anyway, I guess I didn't exactly explain the why so... Hmmm, well I could have been anything that I wanted to be. I definitely had the ability to anyway, I had the magical abilities of course and I guess I did have the ability to use my powers for uses other than chaos. But doesn't it just make you feel warm inside that i chose to become evil?"

"No!" Both ponies said in unison. Twilight with a glare and Fluttershy seeming nervous at the suggestion.

"hmph, well, I guess it was simply the decision I made, I mean, I have so much more fun when I create chaos and yes it is nice to have friends, but the feeling of total mayhem and destruction across the land just appeals to me. Oh I don't know ask me a different question."

After jotting down a note to make sure Discord was 100% reformed and a brief second of thought into a different trail Twilight could go down to try and coerce the answer out of Discord, Twilight asked, "Ok... why Equestria and why Ponyville of all places why was this the place that you chose to invade and almost destroy?"

Discord gave a nervous chuckle, he was obviously uncomfortable with the situation and the line of questioning, but it was much more apparent that Twilight wouldn't let up anytime soon, he sighed, "Not only is Equestria a symbol of stability and friendship, which I never had by the way, it also contained the elements of harmony, basically my one weakness, so it seemed smartest to defeat them first then take over everywhere else unopposed. But there was also the fact that it would give me great satisfaction to tear down some friendships so that they knew how I felt. There wasn't a single pony in Equestria who wanted to go near Discord back then, it was simply awful" he swooned for dramatic effect.

Twilight felt a small pang of sympathy for Discord, yes this may all be a trick to look good or it was just Twilight always looking for the friendship lesson in everything, but she felt sorry Discord. He was just a... celestial being of pure chaos... that wanted to have a friend and when everyone rejected him he... made her entire world go loopy and almost ruin the best friendships she ever had... Twilight really needed to stop looking for friendship lessons. Luckily, it was Fluttershy who took the high road.

"So it was not having a friend that caused you to try to... be... less good?" Fluttershy was far nicer than Twilight would be right now.

"Hmm? Oh no no no! Not at all," After seeing both the mares confused looks he continued, "I take a lot of pride in being less good, as Fluttershy so eloquently put it, being bad is an art-form, you see Twilight? It's like I said before, I'm not a villain, I'm an artist and Equestria is a blank canvas with which I paint with streaks of chaos." Suddenly an afro of brown hair was atop his head and a easel in front of him, "It's quite beautiful if you ask me."

Twilight was curious, she knew that she had to continue along with this and have it so she had detailed notes on major villains and why they chose to be evil, but if everyone was going to be like Discord, she didn't know if it was worth it, he was talking about painting with chaos for ponies sake, how could she handle this. Would Celestia be disappointed in her if she didn't get this done? Not really... would her friends care? not at all, and she could just walk out now and forget about this whole situation and not be wanting to rip her brain out of her skull. Yea that sounded good just leave now and never come back... eve

Twilight internally sighed she was probably missing a lot information, but she didn't care, she just wanted to head home and relax, but instead she forced herself to continue listening to Discords ramblings.

"-of course the toaster had turned pink at this point and my good friend jerry the hamster had," he cut himself off, "ahhh so nice of you to rejoin us, I can tell when someone is spacing out so don't worry you didn't miss anything important."

"Maybe we could take a quick break then we can keep talking?" Fluttershy suggested.

"No no Fluttershy it's quite alright I haven't been here too long," Okay, get the answer and get out as soon as possible, let's go.

"Let's try and wrap this up shall we? I understand Twilight that you're trying to find out why I am the way I was," Twilight decided not to try to correct Discord, "but this is just the way i turned out to be, I"m very proud of who I am and how I work so I'm just going to say it, I am the very best at being bad,maybe I don't be bad anymore I am still the very best. I enjoy it, I nearly won a lot of the time, and I'm basically a god. What more is their to say other than that? I didn't have this epiphany like moment where suddenly I was bad, it was just the decision I made nearly immediately and I do apologise if that wasn't the answer you were looking for, but it's the best you shall get from me"

Twilight processed all the information Discord had given her, checked through her notes, and checked through them again for good measure. If that was the best answer she was going to get it was a pretty good answer. Yes it was a bit bare in depth, but then again, if she was evil she would do it simply for a base need such as knowledge so it mad sense that the same could be said for Discord. "Thanks Discord." she said simply.

"Really? I didn't do all that much you don't need to thank me" he looked over to Fluttershy, who smiled back.

"What can I say? You tried your best and I can't ask for more than that. So yea, thanks for letting me talk to you. Hey Fluttershy will I see you tomorrow for the party Pinkie has planned? Discord can come as well if he wants."

As soon as the words left her mouth, Discord was suddenly in full formal dress with a tuxedo, as well as clown makeup on his face, "I don't know if it's a formal event or not so I'm prepared for both." Even that made Twilight smile just a little.

"Yes, we'll both be at the party," Fluttershy filled in for Discord.

"Okay Fluttershy. Thanks again both of you for letting me come over" Twilight left Fluttershy's cottage, which inside the bustle of animals was ever continuing. As she neared the path a couple of Monkeys passed around her stopping her in her tracks, she watched them go. As she turned around she pulled out her list to see who was next, "Okay let's see here, we can now mark Discord off the list, and next is... Trixie. This shall be interesting." After making sure she had crossed out Discord's name from the list she made her way back to Ponyville, it seemed a certain 'Great and powerful' mare was in need of a visit.

Author's Note

Please leave any feedback/criticism/hate down below I'd love to hear how i can improve this, I had a lot of fun writing this.