"Hey man, lemme ask you something you might be able to relate to. How do you handle not being loved by people?"

A normal person wouldn't typically ask this kind of question. Fortunately for the Robotic Fizzarolli, he wasn't one. Neither was the robot currently under his arm, once known as Woobly but now known as "that one animatronic that looks vaguely similar to the old mascot of Loo Loo Land that caused several lawsuits". If you were to point this out to Mammon he would, of course, deny it, then charge you for wasting his time with stupid observations.

The two of them were sitting on the edge of the stage in Loo Loo Land's sole circus tent, alone in the meager light the park provided after-hours. The rest of their merry band was still in the closet they would be thrown in during this time. That is, except for Robo Fizz, who had his own special room as per Mammon's instructions. Not out of any fondness for him, just that any damage would be too expensive to fix and the park was already hemorrhaging enough money as is. If you were to ask if that had anything to do with the lawsuits against the park for being a rip-off of Lucifer's Lu Lu World, Mammon would again deny the claims and then charge you to help fund those nonexistent suits.

Anyways, in having his own room, Robo Fizz had his own agency, and could roam the park should he choose to do so. Which he did, for something happened that very day that was so crushing to his imaginary soul that he couldn't power down and it drove him to drink a special brand of oil meant only for emergencies (which he found out early on he could get inebriated from if he consumed enough). And when that couldn't wash away his woes, he dragged poor Woobly out of storage to have a shoulder to complain on. But what brought him to such a lowly state?

Someone didn't like him.

It all started after the end of yet another terrific performance. Children cried, parents tugged on the harnesses of kids who refused to leave, and an odd-looking man leaned against a balloon cart and glared at Robo Fizz. His oddness didn't come from the horns on his head nor the hump in his neck, but for the fact that he dressed like a clown and was frowning. When Robo Fizz saw such an unhappy clown from the stage, he assumed he came to see him to be cheered up. It made the most sense. After all, who brought more joy than him?

So, with a spectacular cartwheel sure to entertain, Robo Fizz leaped off the stage and barreled straight towards him, stopping just short and raising his arms with a proud flourish. He held the pose with his eyes closed, waiting for the expected applause. But none came. When he opened his eyes, he still met with that fixed scowl. Well, if physical acts weren't going to bring a smile to his face, Robo Fizz thought to himself, comedy would.

"Say, what's got you down, clown? Is it rough running the balloon stand?" A classic set-up that Robo Fizz served with a smile. With a jab of his thumb at the aforementioned stand he delivered the punchline, "Probably due to the rising cost of inflation, huh?"

Hugging his chest, Robo Fizz couldn't help laughing at his own joke. His robotic cackling, however, did nothing to elevate the delivery and only served to make the clown's angry glare intensify. Not that Robo Fizz saw, doubled over in laughter as he was.

"How much would it cost for you to shut the fuck up and get out of my face?"

The clown did nothing to hide the spite in his tone, and Robo Fizz stopped mid-laugh to look at him with confusion. He couldn't understand how, after a cartwheel and a joke, the man still looked so sour. Not knowing how to rectify the situation, he could only put his hands up defensively.

"Woah, hey, if you don't like the joke just say so. They aren't all winners," he paused before a small smile crept onto his face, "although I found that one pretty fun-"

"Listen, asshole," the clown got into Robo Fizz's face, his strapped-on red nose poking Robo Fizz with a slight honk, "what part of what I asked meant I wanted this conversation to keep going? Fuck off back to your stage so I can hate you in peace!"

Harsh words from a man wearing size 18 shoes, and they managed to cut into the robot deeply. His fans were cranked to high as his computerized brain tried to form a sentence. After a moment, he managed to stutter out, "W-what do you mean hate? Everyone loves me! I'm the one and only Robotic Fizzarolli! How could you hate me?"

A very reasonable question, to which the clown rolled his eyes at and waved him off, "I'm not about to give my life story to some cheap tincan copy."

"I didn't ask for-"

The clown threw his hands up in exasperation, cutting him off, "You know what? It's obvious you aren't getting it. I'm just going to stand outside."

With more than a few tugs at his balloon cart, he ineffectively rotated it on its two wheels and started hauling it towards the tent flaps. As soon as he put distance between himself and the bot he angrily muttered to himself. Unfortunately, not so low that Robo Fizz couldn't still hear him.

"Fuck what the boss says, I ain't spending another second in here if that thing is gonna try to get friendly with me."

A single sentence, but it dimmed Robo Fizz's usual smile and left him metaphorically colder inside. The feeling stuck with him for the rest of the day and made him question his function. His purpose, as designated by Asmodeus, was to bring joy to everyone in the park. As designated by Mammon, it was to make him money. But how would he be able to accomplish either if someone didn't like him?

To that end he had been racking his memory banks to figure out what he did to make the clown hate him and what he could do to fix it. But no matter how hard he searched he couldn't find the reason. He tried every keyword he could think of: clown, imp, clown imp, clown imp balloon, clown imp balloon stand, clown imp balloon stand hates comedy, and so on. With every search query he returned less and less results. The more this dragged on, the more thoughts formed in his head.

What if other people hated him too and they never said? Were the posters hung up all around the tent with his face over-exaggerated for cheap marketing? How much did it cost to run a balloon stand?

Time passed and the park eventually closed, leaving him alone to escape his room with canisters of unsupervised oil and a want to talk to someone about his problems. Thus leading to a now-drunk Robo Fizz and an offline Woobly, not that that stopped Robo Fizz from talking.

"Hey! Woobles! I asked you somethin'. Don't tell me you hate me too after everythin' we've been through together!"

He slurred his vexation and swayed side to side, while a drunk hand smacked against the animatronic's back. Unbeknownst to Robo Fizz, this hand simultaneously depressed a comically oversized button which began to activate the animatronic. His body shuddered to life, his eyes glowed, and his gears clanked together while Robo Fizz took another swig of oil from the stack he brought with him to the stage. When Woobly fully booted up, he let out an ear-piercing screech that caused Robo Fizz to spit out the drink he took. He dropped the can and clapped his hands over his receptors as they threatened to explode in his head.

"Gah, fuck! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, it's just a question!" he exclaimed, but Woobly ignored him, content in screeching his robotic head off.

While his bigger model, appropriately named Big Woobly, was known for doing that, Woobly only strummed strings on a guitar that didn't actually work. Although his arms were currently going through those motions sans the guitar, his screeching needed to stop, and Robo Fizz had just the solution. Taking the can that dropped in his lap, he shoved it into Woobly's misshapen maw and he swallowed it eagerly. His cries came to a halt, and gave Robo Fizz a moment to relax.

The moment wouldn't last long, however, as Woobly started to shake and convulse beside him. A strained choking sound emanated from his mouth, sobering Robo Fizz enough to consider running from the likely impending explosion. Before he could, Woobly hacked out the can Robo Fizz shoved in him, along with a clump of indiscernible metal, while streaks of black oil flowed between his misaligned teeth.

As Robo Fizz looked at him in disgust, Woobly got control of his arms enough to raise them triumphantly in the air. "Hiya, I'm Woobly, and I love you!"

Although his garbled voice came out harsher than Robo Fizz's programmed tone, Robo Fizz could understand him and he cautiously scooted back over to him.

"So we're good then?" He asked somewhat nervously. "Even though I kinda implied you suck and I nearly choked you to death?"

Dropping his hands, Woobly brushed off his concern, "You're my best friend!"

Robo Fizz breathed out a sigh of relief and threw his arm back over him. "Well thank Lucifer you don't hate me at least. But that still leaves this dumb clown. Why is he such a jerk? Like my memory banks keep telling me that was the first time I ever saw him, but he still hates me!"

Robo Fizz shook his head, frustrated. Woobly stared at him, unblinkingly, before saying, "Hiya, I'm Woobly, and I love you!"

Robo Fizz rolled his eyes, "I got it man, don't make it weird." Then he sighed, "Maybe he had a bad time with one of my brothers and thinks I'm the same guy?"

While he posed the question mostly to himself, Woobly put forward his two cents, "Aw, don't worry about it. You may grow up and forget me, but I'll never forget about you, my special friend!"

Robo Fizz slowly turned his head to him, visibly discomforted by the seemingly random statement. Slipping his arm off Woobly, he scooted away from him and back towards his pile of oil, taking another can and punching a hole into it with a clawed finger.

"Geez, I can see why you stopped being the mascot," he commented with a shiver and a drink, trying to forget what he said. Yet he began to focus on his words instead, and somehow he found a kernel of wisdom in them. Perhaps it was what Woobly was trying to tell him to begin with and he merely misinterpreted him. Or maybe he was starting to lose it after ten whole cans of oil. Thinking about it, he couldn't recall Woobly ever having the ability to talk.

"But you do have a point, Woobles," Robo Fizz said. "No other model outside the park looks like me, and I'm the only one here. So if I can't remember messing with this guy, and he hates another Robo Fizz, then his beef is with them! Unless it was so bad he hates all Robo Fizzes now, then the guy just has issues," he finished with a wave of his hand.

For a moment Robo Fizz felt better, thinking he found the answer to his problem, and he became confident he could move on. But such convictions didn't last under the influence and he just as quickly went back to brainstorming how to get the clown to like him.

"But what if I didn't act like myself? If his issue is with a Fizz, then I could just not be a Fizz, but only for him, since others seem to be fine with me… does that make sense?"

Woobly seemingly pondered on his query, as a brief silence hung between them, before he simply responded, "Woobly thinks you're the greatest just the way you are!"

Robo Fizz nodded along, not really taking in his input at first. But as he tilted back to get the last drops of oil out of his can he froze as what Woobly said hit him. Turning to him, he tilted his head and asked, "What are you saying, man?"

Woobly remained silent, confident he got his point across as oil dripped onto his Saturn t-shirt, his eyes vacant. A truly spitting image of intellectual insight. In that silence Robo Fizz thought to himself, and an epiphany struck him.

"Wait…" he said with a wag of his finger, "I think I get it. You're saying I shouldn't change myself just cause one person doesn't like me."

He paused again, looking absently in the sky as he tried to understand what he just said. A couple seconds later he facepalmed himself and fell back onto the stage with a laugh, "Why didn't I think of that earlier? I mean, what am I saying? Changing myself, me, the amazing Robotic Fizzarolli, just cause some sad clown says he hates me? Who cares what he thinks? Hell, what does any other hater think? They're the problems here, not me!"

Rolling over, Robo Fizz hugged Woobly's waist as affectionately as his drunken arms could manage, while black drool dripped down endearingly onto his head from Woobly's maw. "You know what, that guy can go fuck himself! I still have droves of people who love me and come to see me. Probably more than anyone who comes here for some cheap balloon."

Tilting his head back, "Thanks Woobles, you've been a big help!"

"Let's celebrate with a big birthday party! I hope there's plenty of cake!" Woobly responded exuberantly with a raise of his arms. Which was immediately followed by him vomiting out a torrent of black onto the floor below until he sagged over himself. Thankfully for Robo Fizz, the mess of oil and indescribable gunk arced right over him, but that didn't leave him any less disgusted.

With an awkward chuckle, he looked him up and down and joked, "You look like you could do without the cake, big guy." Woobly stared at him, unresponsive

Unraveling his arms from Woobly, Robo Fizz stood up, "Let's just get you back into storage before I get accused of getting handsy with the band members again."

Woobly offered no complaints as Robo Fizz grabbed his hands and began dragging him backstage. As they departed, the two of them felt a little lighter, their talk helping clear the gunk that had been weighing them down for so long. Although Woobly's gunk was far more real than Fizz's, and a very unwelcome sight for the poor employee forced to clean it up the next morning.

That employee being a certain sour clown, a bucket and mop replacing his usual balloon cart.