//------------------------------//
// A Cursed Past 
// Story: Pumpkin's Struggle (Part 3): Love is a Lie 
// by AngelShy24 
//------------------------------//

	The sun was setting, and Celestia’s sun was starting to disappear. Ruby was still nowhere to be found; she was no sign of her in the clear. And her Mother, Envy Rose, who was expecting her by now… was getting rather worried of where she was in town.
“6:30pm; where is that little Filly,” she thought to herself, “It’s getting late.”
She looked at her picture of her Grandfather and sighed, “Oh Grandfather, I fear that I almost lost my only child today. Was letting her do this the right way to go about this situation? After all this town’s ponies gave me no choice and if everypony here knew the truth… it would be catastrophic. WHERE THE HAY IS THAT FILLY!?”
Suddenly, she heard a rather hard knock at the door. Nonetheless, she felt relieved because she thought it was her daughter finally returning.
“Oh thank goodness, for a second I thought that something bad happened to her.”
She trotted over to the door and opened it expecting to see her daughter…
“Where were you, young… child?”
But instead, she was approached by a group of four police ponies who were looking quite serious. She was wondering what this meant about her daughter.
“Are you Envy Rose?” one of them asked.
“Yes, I am her,” Envy responded nonchalantly.
“We’re going to have to ask you to come with us to Town Hall; do not show any form of resistance.”
Envy wasn’t planning on doing such a thing anyway; but for them to address that to her, she had a slight thought of what was going on.
“Very well,” she replied, “I’ll go get my bag.”

-----

Before Envy knew it, she found herself being escorted towards Town Hall where she was sure the Mayor was waiting for her.
“Would any of you stallions care to tell me what’s going on?” she asked.
“That is outside of our job right now, M’am.” one of the ponies replied.
“Obviously.”
Once they got to the Town Hall doors, they brought her through into the large room. However, she got a little surprise when she walked in. She was suddenly in the views of some certain ponies that she recognized very well; including Cheerliee, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, Acer, and more importantly… the Cakes.
Some of them had some expression that felt sorta sorry for her, but others thought otherwise as they were shooting her with some scowls. She noticed that Pumpkin was also there staring straight at her as if she was about to come at her and maul her any minute.
“Have a seat here, M’am,” said one the escorting ponies.
Envy sat down on her flank and was waiting for whatever was about to happen. Even though her nonchalant face didn’t change, she still felt a little nervous on the inside.
“What exactly is going on here?” said Envy sarcastically, “Are we having some sort of party?”
Pinkie suddenly zipped up in front of her giving her a stern look, “Oh sure, it is a party… a party of your CONFESSIONS!”
“Calm down, Pinkie,” said Twilight as she pulled Pinkie away from Envy with her magic, “just let this progress the way it should.”
Cheerliee started to approach Envy along with who Envy was originally expecting… the Mayor. They didn’t look happy with her and was planning to end this situation now.
“Mrs. Cheerliee and the Mayor,” said Envy, “This must be some serious business.”
“There’s no room for you to make jokes now, Mrs. Rose,” scowled the Mayor, “I’m afraid that you’re in deep mess now.”
Envy Rose just scoffed, “I can assure you that I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Oh really?!” Cheerliee responded, “Because I believe what she told us makes us think otherwise.”
Envy looked behind the two mares to find another little unicorn filly sitting in a slumped position. Her Daughter, Ruby Rose. She may have looked up to her mother for a few seconds but then had to look away because she couldn’t bear to see her mother’s disappointed face.
“Ruby… you didn’t…”
“Do you know how wrong it is for a foal like Ruby to have to rat out her own mother?!” Cheerliee continued, “Do you have any idea what you had put your daughter, and this whole family (the Cakes) through?! Open your eyes, Mrs. Envy; it’s bad enough that your daughter did all of this, but you actually let her do it!”
Ruby truly felt like this was partially her fault too, but her Mother might be paying for all of it. She picked herself up and slowly walked over to a nearby corner near the crowd; she felt that her loyalty and trust to her mother was all but ruined now.
“I didn’t just let her do it,” Envy angrily responded, “I gave her a choice; she didn’t have to do it!”
“So you admit yourself for causing Pumpkin Cake so much pain and grief for the past year?” question Cheerliee.
“Yes… I admit it. I am the one who is responsible for all of this. But don’t think that I planned for it to get this far.”
Mrs. Cake didn’t seem to believe her one bit, “Oh, so what?! You planned all of this and just thought that my daughter wasn’t going to try and kill anypony?!”
Envy leered a little in Mrs. Cake’s direction while trying to keep calm, “I’d appreciate it if somepony didn’t put words in my mouth; please don’t be smart with me.”
“I’m being smart!? Honey, hold me back; this mare is asking for it!”
“Enough small talk, Mrs. Rose,” said the Mayor as she came closer to Envy, “Why don’t you tell us exactly what your deal is here?”
“No offense, Miss Mayor, but you ought to know that yourself.”
“And what is that even supposed to mean,” the Mayor retorted.
“I’m specifically referring to when I actually told you what was going on and refuse to do anything about it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“More than a 1 year ago, I remember trotting in here and requested for you to deliver a message to the Cake Family, but decided to turn down my request saying that it was just nonsense and too un-important.”
The Mayor couldn’t believe what Mrs. Envy was saying. She couldn’t have been implying that she was the cause of her action. Was she?
“What; have you lost it? I remember doing none of the sort!”
“Oh… you certainly did. What’s the matter, starting to gain loss of memory?”
The Mayor almost blew a fuse at that last comment; however, she held herself back from making any strike against the middle-aged mare.
“Even if that is true, it still doesn’t explain the reasoning of your actions.”
“Hmph, why should I even explain anything? None of you Ponyville residents would understand to care anyway.”
A lot of the ponies there gasped upon hearing what Envy predicted from them. Cheerliee stomped over to her and got right in her face wearing an expression of sudden anger.
“Two young foals almost died today… including your own daughter! And it’s all because of your selfish, unexplained foolishness! So unless you wish to receive a sentence more serious than what you could have, you will explain everything that is going on right now! And make sure that your daughter can hear everything too… no more hiding secrets.”
Envy looked over at her daughter who still was afraid to face her at the moment and then looked at the Cake family. She was trying her best to avoid witnessing this outcome, but then she thought that maybe it was inevitable to happen anyway. It was time for her to finally confess.
“My only reason to report to you, Mrs. Mayor, was… I-I didn’t wish to witness the sadden expression on the faces of this young couple… once they found out the dark truth of their daughter.”
The expression on Mr. and Mrs Cake changed slightly wondering what happened to the Envy that didn’t seem to care about their position. Pound was feeling confused upon hearing this. This mare knew something about his sister that they didn’t know about.
“Dark Truth?” questioned Cheerliee.
The Mayor didn’t remember any of this, “Now I know that I never heard any of this from…”
“I DID TELL YOU!” Envy shouted suddenly, “I swear I told you. When I did, it was so you could pass on my message to the Cakes. I didn’t wish to witness such emotional family sadness… not again.”
She looked over at the Cakes feeling rather awkward, but she had no choice but to tell them, “Mr. and Mrs. Cake, I admit that I have been rather… harsh towards your daughter’s cause, but none of it was intentional.”
“Yeah right,” Mrs. Cake Scoffed, “that clearly explains everything.”
Envy paid no attention to that comment, “I’ve gone through much emotional stress myself after my husband passed away years ago from an illness he had. It didn’t exactly help with my thoughts of what’s inside that young filly nor my decisions towards it.”
Both Cakes suddenly widen their eyes.
“Wait, there’s something inside our daughter?!” questioned Mr. Cake in a slight panic, “An actual something?!”
“I normally didn’t wish for any pony here to find out besides myself, the Mayor and… you guys; but what Pumpkin has is not a bi-polar disorder… it’s a curse.”
Suddenly, the entire room was silent and some eyes suddenly turned to Pumpkin, who all of a sudden could do nothing but stand there in deep shock. 
Both Cakes stuttered at the same time, “A-a-a c-curse?”
“Pumpkin has a curse!?” shouted Pinkie, “When in Equestria did this happen?!”
“Since longer than you might think,” Envy responded, “Fate had chosen this curse to lay within your daughter’s body long before she was even born.”
Everyone there was suddenly becoming quite baffled and curious of exactly what Envy was talking about.
“It probably won’t help your cause,” said the Mayor, “but how exactly did this happened?”
“It’s a story that I was too afraid to reveal to anypony; let alone all of Ponyville or my daughter. It’s a story that took place back in my hometown in Fillydelphia many years before I was even born. My grandfather told me about it when I was in my early Marehood age. This… curse, made a major impact in Fillydelphia during a rivalry challenge between my Great Uncle, Green Thicket, and a member of the Cake family, Golden Cake.”
Suddenly, that name became very familiar to Mr. Cake, “G-Golden Cake; but… that’s my Grandfather!”
“You mean the Cakes used to live somewhere else besides Ponyville?!” said Pinkie Pie.
“Um, Pinkie?” said Twilight, “I think Ponyville didn’t even exist at that time.”
“Oh right, silly me!”
“Anyway,” Envy continued, “the rivalry between my uncle and Golden Cake was quite a speculation from what I heard from my Grandfather. But what was soon going to happen in that town… no pony could see it coming.

-----

Thicket and Golden always competed against each other all the time. Every single aspect about themselves, they would try to best each other at it. The citizens back then didn’t seem to mind though; it always made great entertainment. Heh, they both sounded like such free-spirited stallions.
Golden Cake was blessed with a wife and 2 young foals; an earth colt and a unicorn colt; see where this is going?
His unicorn child name was Blackberry the 3rd; named after his Grandfather. He was rather close to his father and always rooted for him and always wishes to do anything to help him in these challenges. Then on one fateful day, Golden Cake lost to Green Thicket in a cooking contest; mainly because Golden’s food didn’t seem to cook right. The thing is, it was more likely for Golden to win that event, but he gave into his mistake and declared the win to Thicket; who was gloating in Golden’s face… a lot. But how did that go with Blackberry? One would say that he wasn’t happy; that that he was staring very intensely at Thicket gloating at his father. My grandfather told me that he saw this and thought that there was something strangely off about him.
Later that grim day, when the sun was setting and the sky was turning dark, Golden and his wife realized that their youngest son who was just 8 years old was missing and couldn’t find him anywhere. They ran through the streets frantically; praying to Celestia that they would find their son and that he would be alright. But then, somepony called to them from behind and told them to follow; my Grandfather. The two parents were a bit worried because of the somewhat expression on his face; what did that mean for their son.
Once they reached their destination in a dark alley, they saw a huge group of police and medical ponies there. They were awfully worried now; could their son be seriously hurt if not worse. But it wasn’t their son’s dead corpse that they found… it was… my Great Uncle’s. He was truly dead; lying in his own pool of blood. Golden and his wife were both relieved that it wasn’t their son, but Golden was still devastated over the sudden death of his friend. But they were still wondering what happened to their child… and who killed Thicket. But much to their horror, they saw nearby a little unicorn colt being restrained by some of the town’s strong-stallions (strongmen). The colt’s coat was ruggedly ruffled and blood stains could be seen all over his body. He looked up at the couple with crimson red eyes and wore an expression of murderous intentions. That colt… was their missing son.

-----

This story was very different to everyone who was listening, but the resemblance was all familiar to the near death that almost happened to Pinkie.
“Pinkie,” said Pound, “this is very déjà vu creepy.”
“You’re telling me,” said Pinkie while shaking in her hooves.
Mrs. Cake was hugging Pumpkin to make sure that she was okay; but since when did such a similar event occur.
“M-m-mom,” said Ruby suddenly, “are you saying that Blackberry had the same… whatever Pumpkin has?”
“That's exactly what I am saying, Ruby.”
“This is all very weird seeing that this is all turning out to be like Pumpkin’s experience,” said Cheerliee, “So since times were a little different back then, how exactly did they treat this?”
Envy knew that her description would only get worse as she continues on but… they needed to know.
“It was a rather darker time according to my Grandfather; you should actually count this little filly lucky.”

-----

Blackberry was treated in a similar way that Pumpkin has because thankfully Golden’s family was pretty wealthy enough to get the best care. But even though his family was always there for his son, the same couldn't be said about many other ponies. They were afraid of him, they criticized him, and called him some kind of demon.
After some years, he was released from his hold, and he was out into the world again; mostly cured. However, some ponies still questioned him because he still seemed to still have some minor anger issues, but it was always easily taken care of. And if that’s not much of a coincidence enough, Blackberry soon fell in love with a beautiful filly that seemed to take his stressful feelings away. Everypony realized this and soon their fears and doubts disappeared and they could continue moving on without worry.

-----

“Wait a minute,” said Acer, “There’s no way that the same overall experience could occur twice; that’s too much of a coincidence.”
“It’s no coincidence, boy. My Grandfather is very trusting and he’s never lied to me.”
Suddenly, Pumpkin decided to walk up towards Envy with narrowed eyes to see if she was indeed telling the truth, “So… let me guess, he no longer got mad, lost control of his magic, and he spent a lot of his time with his special somepony, and they all lived happily ever after, right?”
“I wish it was, child,” Envy responded in a sorrowful tone, “but it was nothing close to it.”
Pumpkin’s eyes widen and suddenly backed off from Envy; almost afraid of what she could say.
“W-what?” she thought.
“What do you mean by that?” said Acer.
“One day, without any signs or warning… he just went crazy; out of control… a rampaging pony of destruction.”

-----

Everypony thought that Blackberry’s anger and rage was settled down and in complete control; they were wrong. The more happy and calm he was, the more inner anger started to build up deep inside. And since he wasn’t experiencing any light moments of stress and frustration, all that build-up anger could not contain inside any longer. It burst out all at once and Blackberry lost control of his actions.
The city was in complete turmoil; destruction laid everywhere he went and he couldn’t be stopped. No matter who stood up to him, they couldn’t bring him down; not even Princess Celestia. Unfortunately, a good share of ponies lost their lives that day and many of his friends and family couldn’t get through to him; he even hurt the very one that he fell for. The curse took him over completely and he was no longer himself anymore.
Everypony feared that they were going to fall by his corrupted might; but at one point when he was about to kill his own family, Blackberry somehow temporarily got in control of his body again. When he realized what happened felt heartbroken and devastated for what he had done. He begged any of his unicorn family to finish him before his power took him over again; he’d rather die along with the curse than to risk killing all of his loved ones. However, none of them had the courage to do such a thing to him. But then, my grandfather came in and offered to accept his wish. If he continued to rampage like this, soon all of Equestria could be up in flames because of him.
My Grandfather gave Blackberry his blessing and then took a shot while the young colt had himself wide open; and then… his body fell to the ground completely still. My Grandfather didn’t wish to do it, but the now mourning family gave him no choice. With Blackberry dead along with his emotions, whatever evil that was inside of him was long gone as well… or so my Grandfather thought.

-----

“Do any of you ponies understand now that I had to explain it to you?”
“No, this can’t be true,” said Mrs. Cake, “that can’t be what happened?!”
“It has happened,” Envy replied, “Every other pony wasn’t quite sure of what it was, but my Grandfather had a strong feeling that it was a curse that he had heard of; an ancient curse that could control its host’s emotions and changes their deepest anger into horrible, and devastating actions. At the time I thought he was just making up a story, but pretty soon I did believed him. I don’t know how you will deal with it, but this is what you are dealing with.”
She dug in her bag and pulled out this shiny orb-like object for everyone to see, “Do any of you know what this is?”
Twilight knew what it was right away, “Wait, that’s a memory orb! How did you get one; there are only a few of those in Equestria!”
“Very observant,” Envy replied, “it captures whatever memory you wish to be seen over and over again… and yes; my Grandfather owned one of them. He passed it on to me because he had a feeling that the curse was not fully destroyed when Blackberry sacrificed. Observe.”
The orb shone a bright light before showing the past live image showing everything that Envy had described. Some of the ponies there were totally shocked and frighten of witnessing such violence and some had to look away because they were too squeamish. Ruby couldn’t believe it; this is what her mother was hiding from her. However, she kinda wishes that she still didn’t know about it. What they were dealing with was far worse than she had thought.
Envy then signaled the orb to deactivate and it went back in its originally shape.
“I’ve kept this as a reminder in case something similar to this had ever came up; and surprise, I find out about this.”
“This is a real surprise out of the box,” said Twilight while pacing back and forth, “With an event such as this, how come I’ve never heard about it in the history archives?”
“Only a few heard about it and still live today including yours truly. Originally, my Grandfather said that Blackberry’s family didn’t wish for his unpleasant experience to be remembered and begged Celestia to disguise the cause of his death as an illness. She understood and fulfilled their wish. If I was brave enough, I would tell Celestia just how foolish it was for her to make such a huge mistake.”
“So you are telling the truth,” said Cheerliee, “but can you explain to us why you think you had to do what you and your daughter did?”
“After I requested to the Mayor about it and didn’t work out, I felt like I had to do something about it. Knowing what could happen, I had to figure out a way to spring out little doses of the filly’s anger so no huge amount would be released at once.”
“And that’s where your daughter comes in, right?” said Cheerliee.
“Yes, during all this time, I used my Grandfather’s teachings to teach Ruby many arts in defending against such a power in case she was up for going against the curse if it ever came back. I couldn’t do it because… well, as of now, my magic is not what it used to be. You can believe me or not, but you told me to tell you everything and I did.”
“Hold up just a second,” shouted Pinkie, “So… this curse… it doesn’t matter what we do to it, right? If we purposely or accidentally get Pumpkin mad, her emotional magic will come out and that would be a bad thing. But, if she stays calm and collective, her inner anger will just build up inside, and then later it will all burst out at once and that would really be a bad thing!”
Pumpkin did not bode with this well. She felt that she was in control all this time, but now it seemed that it was utterly impossible to keep it back now.
“I… have a curse…” she said in deep sorrow, “and there’s nothing we can do to stop it? I’m going to be the death of everypony!”
“Your’re not going to be the death of anypony, Pumpkin,” said Mrs. Cake holding her daughter tight, “If… what Envy says is true then don’t worry; we will figure out something.”
“Yeah,” shouted Pinkie, “after all, we don’t want to end up ending your life.”
Suddenly, Pumpkin broke free of her mother’s embraced and raised her voice, “Well, in case you forgot, I almost ended up ending yours, Aunt Pinkie; not to mention your fiends!”
She suddenly broke down sobbing again, “Now today, I almost got rid of two more; I’m never going to be cured… am I?”
Once again, Acer knew that he had to come over to her to calm her down; curse or not.
“Pumpkin, do realized that what happened today wasn’t exactly your fault; was it, Ruby?”
“N-no, it wasn’t,” Ruby responded sadly.
“I don’t care what’s inside you; none of us do! We’re still going to do our best to help you get through this in any way we can.”
“If it helps any…” said Ruby as she slowly approached Pumpkin, “s-s-so will I.”
Pumpkin couldn’t help but smile a bit, but she still couldn’t get the possible disturbing outcome of her… curse. 
“Hmph,” Envy scoffed slightly, “this is exactly why I didn’t wish to tell all of Ponyville of this truth; yourer all too soft. No offense to every pony in the room, but it seems that no pony here will even realize just how hopeless this all really is.”
“That is quite enough out of you, Mrs. Envy,” said the Mayor, “Unless you forgot, you almost had your daughter make a traumatical mistake! Tell me, why exactly didn’t you just explain yourself to the Cakes about this?”
“I already told you, I don’t do well with dramatic family emotions like this… I did my best to avoid it, which is why I reported to you. Too bad that didn’t work out, huh?”
Mrs. Mayor realized that Envy was being a little sarcastic towards her, but she decided to ignore her for now.
“We’re all very sorry about what you’ve been going through and we grieve for your husband, but I’m afraid that it makes no difference of what happened here today. We have no choice but to take you into custody for provoked violence and family harassment.”
Envy just shook her head and shrugged her shoulders, “I figured as much that this was going to happen anyway. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Yes you did…” said the Mayor, “now! And do notice that that was sarcastic.”
As Envy was being carried away, Ruby just sat there trying to say something but it doesn’t come out right away. But then suddenly, she quickly rushed up to her mother and cried out, “I’m so sorry, Mother! I had a feeling that you would get in trouble if I told everypony what really happened, but I couldn’t take it anymore! I knew I had to do something about it! It felt like the right thing to do! Please forgive me; don’t be mad!”
Envy stopped and laid her hoof on Ruby’s head; and when Ruby looked up at her mother, she was smiling. 
“Its okay, Ruby, I’m not mad. It’s like I told you earlier, doing the right thing isn’t always easy. It seems that I taught you well.”
And with that, she walked out of the building with the police ponies. Cheerliee walked up to Ruby who was crying and feeling worried for her mother.
“Miss Cheerliee,” Ruby said, “what’s going to happen to my mother?”
“Well Ruby, it’s hard to say;” Cheerliee responded, “I’m pretty sure that she’s a good mother and that she means well; but putting you in danger like that and taking such drastic measures in her own hooves could buy her some major years in jail.”
“Hey, Ruby,” shouted Minty as she approached her from behind, “I talked it over with my family and they agreed that you could stay with us until your mother’s possible punishment days officially expire. You can stay with us anytime!”
Ruby’s eyes filled up to the brim with tears as she roughly hugged Minty, “Thank you so much, Minty!”
“Don’t mention it; you’ll fit in just fine.”
Pound saw Minty making the nice gesture to Ruby and he could help but smile; he actually felt pretty proud for her despite what she did earlier.
“This definitely puts a whole new perspective on things,” said Mr. Cake to his wife, “Who knew that something like this has happened before!”
“Well, considering that we just found out that it’s a curse and it affected your family line,” stated Mrs. Cake, “I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised.”
“Do you still feel like slapping Mrs. Envy?” asked Pinkie.
Mrs. Cake just sighed, “Nah, I’ve suddenly lost interest.”
They all suddenly looked to the side and saw Pumpkin lying on the ground brooding to herself with Acer still beside her.
“Come on, Pumpkin, cheer up already,” said Pinkie, “We hate to see you like this.”
“What does it matter; whether I stay happy, sad, or angry, I’m just a big danger to everypony.”
“Maybe so,” said Pound, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t deal with it. Despite what Envy said, I don’t believe that it’s 100% un-curable. We will find a way to stop it somehow.”
Pumpkin slowly got up and snuggled against Acer a bit and then started to walk off ahead of them, “Yeah, I guess.”
“Are you going to be okay, Pumpkin?” asked Mrs. Cake, “Do you believe that you’ll be alright?”
Without turning around, Pumpkin just kept her head down as she kept on walking forward with the weight of her burdened curse on her shoulders.
“I just don’t know what to believe anymore.”