//------------------------------// // Chapter 40: Not All Family Relations are Great // Story: Pearlwort, Unintentional Villain // by Halira //------------------------------// Here I was at last staring at the Pegasus that sired me, and my loathing for him had only deepened. He sat watching me for a long moment with a sad smile on his face. He was clearly my father, the resemblance was too close to deny. Plus he named himself as my father already. "Fig Leaf I presume?" I finally said to break the silence. "That is one name for me. Not my actual name, but one I have used extensively. By the way, good job tracking down what little trail I left. You are my least disappointing direct offspring, and I have many. I had about given up on that whole project by the time you came along. You and your half niece are the only ones that amounted to anything, and you go so well together," Fig Leaf said, and then giggled. He actually giggled, and it was creepy. "Who is my niece?" I asked with confusion. "Well, you have many nieces and nephews to be honest, and grand nieces and nephews, and great-grand nieces and nephews, and so on. I have been at this for a while now. So many disappointments, but not you two. Though I admit, it would have been better for every pony if you were disappointments as well," Fig Leaf said with a sad shake of his head. "Who is she?" I demanded to know. I was afraid to hear the answer, as I was pretty sure I knew it. "Isn't it obvious? Your wife is the daughter of your half brother, Diamond Glow. Nothing ever came of Diamond Glow himself, but Mera definitely was surprising. I wouldn't be too upset about the incest involved. Between her Changling DNA and all the magical transformations you two have gone through you aren't really that genetically close anymore. It's not like you two are going to ever get the chance to have foals anyway," Fig Leaf said, as he watched me gape in horror at his response. "Mera's my niece?!" I asked, feeling sick to my stomach. That meant I was in a highly incestuous relationship. "Half-niece, weren't you listening?" Fig Leaf answered. He then shivered while clutching at his bell and let out a gasp of pleasure. Did the fact she was my niece matter? We hadn't known, and he made it pretty clear that despite the close family bond we were genetically far apart. I thought about Patina and her many husbands; it wasn't quite the same thing, but it helped ease my mind some. It was still a very hard pill to swallow, but I could go on as if it didn't matter. "You are suffering, I can tell. I never really had my bell in my possession until now, he took it so early on, but Grogar told me that I would feel the bliss. I can feel it from you, and I can feel it from all those dying out fighting my creations, and can even feel it from my creations. It feels so wonderful. I didn't want to believe that I would want to feel it, but I want more," Fig Leaf said with a dreamy smile on his face. "Bliss? From others suffering? That is horrible," I said with a growl. "That's almost exactly what I said," Fig Leaf giggled. "And it was exactly how I felt too, up until Grogar returned my bell to me after I captured you. It is impossible to describe though, now that I am actually feeling it. It is feels better than anything else possibly could; it makes you hungry for more, and makes all the guilt go away. I have felt so guilty for so long, but now I am free. For the first time I am happy and content being a monster." "Who are you really then, monster. You said Fig Leaf isn't your real name. Who are you and why are you doing all this?" I demanded, sickened by the thought this pony was getting pleasure off the suffering of others with absolutely no shame about it. "Oh, you have known me for a while now. I have been pulling your strings for most of your life, both yours and Mera's. Starlight thinks she is such a great manipulator, a lot of them think they are too. They ain't got nothing on me," Fig Leaf laughed. Fig Leaf stood up straight and a pink cloud enveloped him. It lasted a few seconds and then cleared. My eyes all but popped out of my sockets as the question of what Alicorn had been manipulating events was revealed. It was definitely not who I would have expected. Before me now stood the smiling pink Alicorn of Laughter and Joy, Pinkie Pie. "Haha, whose your daddy?" Pinkie laughed with perverse joy. Pinkie Pie was my father..mother..parent? I guess father since she wasn't my mother, and she was in a male form when she got my mother pregnant. I wasn't that hard to wrap my head around that concept, it wasn't much different than what two mares did to have a foal. As someone who had changed out physical parts herself I likely took that part of it easier than many others would. What hit hard was I had an Alicorn for a parent and that Alicorn was the one that had been the source of everything that was going on now. That and it was Pinkie Pie, because Pinkie Pie wasn't even a possibility for who was responsible up till now. "You didn't answer why," I said with a lowered voice, trying to contain my emotions. "That is a complicated question. Why I signed up to do all this is something that doesn't matter anymore, I don't think. Ha! I think that was a joke. As for directly why I have you here now and what I hope to accomplish with that I can tell you, as you can't do anything to stop it. You are the trigger on my weapon to destroy the Great Tree, and that weapon is Mera. With her thinking you dead, and with a bit more manipulation on my part, she will do the impossible and tear that tree down. She has the power to do it, with that magic absorbing ability of hers. She just needed the right push, and you being dead is just the push she needs to make her do it. Well, that and her finding out that it was me who supposedly killed you. You need a lot of power to kill an Alicorn normally after all, and she is definitely going to want to try to kill me. She won't manage it, but she will definitely try," Pinkie laughed. "Why?" Is all I am able to manage to respond to that. She was going to make Mera into an unsuspecting monster too. I wanted to think Mera wouldn't do such a thing, but I knew my wife. When it came to anything involving me she had no boundaries, and if Pinkie revealed herself as my killer Mera would stop at nothing to see Pinkie dead. She wouldn't even think of the consequences of her actions in the meantime. Mera had a dark side to her, and that dark side had everything to do with me. "I must see the Tree destroyed because of my contract with the Elder Gods. Grogar has been pushing me to get it done for years now. He made me do so many things, but now the end is in sight, and I have my bell again so I can not feel the guilt. I am sure that the suffering that the Tree coming down will cause will fill me with so much bliss I will be filled with happiness forever. As for why I signed the contract to begin with, well..we all do silly things sometimes, and I do more silly things than any other pony," Pinkie said with a smile. She was describing it as the Tree falling down. That would do more than just cause suffering, that would kill ponies..millions of ponies possibly. That was beyond monstrous, and she didn't seem to have the slightest bit of regret about it. "So everything you have ever said to me or did around me was a lie?" I said accusingly. "Not completely. Yes, I manipulated you to do what I wanted. I encouraged your relationship with Mera to make sure nothing got in the way of this happening. I also made sure I was the one left behind in Crystal Heart so I would be sure you could be captured. I pushed you two into meeting, and set loose the nanobots in both Starlight's Folly and in Ocid. I also manipulated Mera into worshiping me, and killed your mother on the battlefield. I did a lot of nasty no-fun things along the way to get what needed to be done, done. I even set Starlight up to look like the guilty party; she was so eager to earn worshipers among the Thestrals after that little war that it was easy to get her to go out to your village. I did worry about you after the rape, and I was honest when I spoke with you back in Meadowbrook's temple," Pinkie explained. "You admit to killing my mother?!" Out of all the things that Pinkie had just admitted to, and there was a lot of horrible things she had just admitted to, that was the one that ended up setting me off. It had been something that Mera had suspected, but I hadn't completely believed it up until now. Up until I met Mera, and to a lesser extent Hot Sticks, my mother had been the only pony that had been close to me, and she had been a good pony that didn't deserve that. She was turning my wife into a monster, and she murdered my mother; that was all that I needed to know to hate Pinkie Pie. "To be fair it was something I was forced to do by Grogar. I felt really bad about it at the time. I am glad I am getting bliss from it now though. I wish I had my bell this whole time. It is finally time for Pinkamena to come out and play," Pinkie said with an evil smile and laugh. I slammed myself up against the bars of the cell, wanting to break through them and sink my teeth into the laughing pink Alicorn. My field of vision was red with rage as she continued to laugh at my futile efforts to reach her. I didn't care that this bitch was technically my parent, she had murdered my mother and had glee in the fact she did. "Oh my, you shouldn't be doing that you silly pony. We need to have you not hurting yourself too bad before you are given over to Grogar. Speaking of which, we do need to get you completely intact again," Pinkie said with a giggle. Then she dug a hoof into her mane and pulled out a glass jar containing my cutie mark. She opened up the jar and the mark quickly zipped through the air back to my flank. "There we go, all better! You need to be healed up some more for Grogar, and he wants to keep you alive for a long time. I don't know what he actually wants you for, if you are wondering. I was told it was none of my business to ask. Maybe he wants to get you to agree to a bell as well. I highly recommend it; you will never feel so good as when you start feeling the bliss." "I'll never sell my soul like you did, bitch!" I yelled at her with my face still planted up against the bars. "Never say never," Pinkie said while still smiling. "After he has had you long enough you might do anything just to have him let you go. Grogar can be very convincing about getting you to sign a contract." "I'd rather die first," I growl back at her. "Well, then I guess it was a pretty super-duper idea to make sure you have your mark back on you again so you can't go and do that, now wasn't it? You'll have to just deal with whatever fun things Grogar has planned for you. Maybe he doesn't have a bell planned for you, maybe it is something else. You better hope that it isn't something else though, getting stuck with Grogar forever is a very long time with no fun. You aren't getting rescued this time, no pony knows you are alive still, and they almost certainly wouldn't even think that Grogar has you. Not that they could get you back from Grogar even if they figured that out, no pony comes back from Tambelon alive," Pinkie said, the smile never leaving her face. "Where is this Tambelon place?" I thought I might have heard Sunset mention it once, but I couldn't remember anything about it. "Tambelon is to the far north, beyond the Lost Lands. It is where all the undead come from, and where Grogar lives. I guess I lied a little bit when I said no pony comes back from there alive, because I went there and came. Bad Pinkie, lying to your daughter," Pinkie giggled while slapping her hoof against her leg. "I will never consider you a parent of mine. You murdered my mother, you intend to trick Mera into doing something horrible, and you are a monster in every sense of the word," I said, glaring hate at her. She just laughed some more. "Well, it has been a blast telling you all my super secret evil plans. But it is time for me to get going. Mera isn't going to get to tearing down that tree without encouragement, and I don't need to be hanging around when you get to Grogar. That goat really stinks and needs to take a bath. It is hard to laugh when you are choking on the scent of a goat that hasn't paid attention to basic hygiene since..well, forever. Like seriously, just sit in a room with him for like ten minutes and you'll do anything just to get away from the smell," Pinkie never stopped laughing the whole time. She was completely nuts. She kept on laughing as she walked out of the room and left me alone in my cell.