{Any more progress?}

Shayla rolled around happily in front of me as I sat on the park bench, watching her enjoy herself.

<I’m sorry, Scamp. But this is all rather hard. We’re used to fixing Lance’s memories when something goes wrong. But this is actual brain damage. Everything is so->
[Fucking complicated! No matter how we approach it, we hit a motherfucking brick wall!]
<Yes, we’ve only gotten bits and pieces so far. But we’re making next to no progress.>
{Great.}

With a happy scream, my daughter jumped to all fours and sprinted straight at another colt who was playing in a sandbox minding his own business.

“Shayla,” I called after her, causing her to come to a grinding halt, looking back at me with a pout. “No, leave the other kids in peace.”

She let out an annoyed groan and ran for the playground equipment, climbing up a ladder and disappearing into the structure.

<Despite everything, your daughter is really adorable.>
{The fuck do you mean ‘despite everything’?}
<... Back to work!>

I let out a sigh as I watched my daughter climb all over the playground equipment, her screams of joy causing the other kids and parents to look a bit nervous.

“Scamp,” I heard from behind me, followed by Mallogory stepping around the bench I sat on and stand before me.

“Hey, Mallo,” I reply with a nervous smile. I hadn’t seen her since last night, and me not going home to sleep probably didn’t help.

“You didn’t come home, then when I call Adry to check on Shayla, she tells me you picked her up. Without letting me know,” she said evenly, looking straight into my eye.

I stared back at her, feeling a light feeling in my chest. “I laid down for a nap… and kinda just slept through the night… Also, I’ve never had to call and let you know when I was spending time with our daughter before, so I’m sorry.”

“Mhm,” she mumbled, crossing her arms. “Scamp, you need to let me know when you just decide to take our daughter out.”

I felt my bad eye twitch as I felt like I was being scolded by my mom. “Mallo, I’ll let ya know going forward, but it’s really not necessarily to worry about-”

“You have fucking brain damage!” she hissed, then composed herself. “Forgive me if I’m a little worried about you just doing whatever you want, but I don’t fully trust you right now.”

“But last night you said-”

“That was last night. Then you didn’t come home, and then took our daughter without telling me. Your decision making recently has been… worrying,” she said, trying not to yell and cause a scene.

“Mallo…” I said in shock, eye wide as I felt a tug in my chest. She’s supposed to always be on my side, but right now she was treating me like…

“Don’t,” she said in a low voice. “Going forward, if you want to run off with Shayla, ask me. I do not want you-.”

“She’s my fucking daughter too!” I suddenly screamed, jumping up and trembling as I stared up at her wide eyes.

Everyone stopped and looked at us.

Then I realized what’d I just done as Mallogory’s face went from shocked, to angry, then to blank.

“Mallo, I’m-”

“I’m going home. Stay at the Dojo or wherever you were last night, I don’t care,” she said coldly as she turned and walked for the playground equipment, grabbing our daughter and walking for the exit to the park.

The entire time, Shayla looked both upset to be leaving, and confused as she looked back at me as I stood stock still by the bench.

“Momma coming?” I barely heard her ask.

“No,” Mallogory said simply as they got out of earshot.

I shook violently as I stumbled back and fell onto the bench, staring after them with an emotionless stare.

<...>
[...]
<...>
[... shit…]

Everyone around me kept staring, judging.

I growled as I shook harder and then exploded as I accidentally slipped into the raging form similar to Breaking Dawn. The bench under me melted as flames erupted from me as I stood up, glaring at everyone around me.

“What the fuck are you all looking at?!”

They all quickly began to move away, taking their kids.

I let out a massive roar of anger and shot into the sky, destroying the ground and melted bench as I did so.

Lilly carefully climbed through the tiny window in the fillies bathroom, entering the Wolverine Kamae Dojo before they were open. She’d left this window unlocked the night before, planning to sneak in and… find something. Anything really at this point.

She crept through the bathroom and came to the door, peeking out and seeing no one walking around. Class wouldn’t start for another four hours, so she was hoping no one else was here. A few of the teachers would be, but she was sure she could avoid them.

Being as quiet as she could, she walked for the stairs that lead up to Vicar’s office, sure that anything useful would be in there.

But as she neared the steps, she heard voices in an office doorway on the ground floor. It was laughter. Vicar’s laughter.

Resisting the urge to eavesdrop, she moved for the stairs. But as she neared the door the laughing was coming from, she heard a bit of conversation.

“That’s priceless! Worth all this trouble she’s put us through!” Vicar laughed in a different tone of voice than she was used to hearing.

Stopping, she put her ear up to the door.

“Restart the video, I want to see the look on her face as her family slips away from her!” Vicar roared, followed by the sounds of a video playing. It sounded like it was Sensei Scamp and her Wife talking. But as she listened, she realized it was not just simple talking. Her eyes widened as she listened.

“She’s my fucking daughter too!” she heard her Sensei’s voice scream, followed by the room exploding in laughter.

“Finally! Part one of this plan is showing some promise!” Vicar cheered.

“I thought those two would be harder to come between, but wow! Having that kid of theirs really weakened them!” one of the other teachers yelled, followed by the sounds of the others agreeing.

“Once we’ve made sure she’s been punished sufficiently, we’ll continue with getting into the Kejtdra’s home dimension,” Vicar announced as the video restarted in the background.

“Yeah, payback first! Then we’ll get you a Thorn, boss!”

Lilly listened closely, but something moved behind her. She spun around to see the tired eyes of Psalm looking right at her.

The mare looked at her, then the door, then back to her. “They’ll kill you if they know you heard any of that.”

“I…” Lilly began, but the mare shook her head.

“Let me save you,” she muttered, her horn glowing as she stepped forward and touched it to her forehead.

Lilly gasped as she sat up, staring up at the window to the fillies bathroom. She looked around confused, as she felt like something had happened. But she couldn’t place a hoof on it.

Standing up, she tried the window, but a note sat in it.

‘Leave.’

Her eyes went wide as she realized she’d somehow been caught before she even entered the building. Spinning around, she galloped away, not noticing the mare watching her from a second floor window.

I looked at my shaking hoof as I sat on the cloud overlooking the vast forest below me.

<Scamp, I can see what you’re thinking about. It won’t help you. You know it won’t.>
[Yeah, I’ve seen your memories. This shit just hurts you in the long run!]

“Oh shut the fuck up,” I mumbled out loud, opening my pocket dimension and looking into it at bottle of alcohol. “I’m not going to drink it, just looking at it makes me feel like I have control of myself…”

Closing the pocket dimension, I looked out over the forest again, deep in thought.

“Hey, Scamp,” I heard someone say from above me as they landed next to me. “I heard what happened.”

Looking to the stallion beside me, I sighed as I leaned into him. “Lance, everything is… falling apart.”

“Yeah, it tends to do that,” he says, putting a wing around me as we sat there. “Want to talk about it?”

“Fuck, no,” I muttered, using my own wing to wipe a tear from my eye. “The image of her walking away with my daughter like that… it's hurting me, Lance.”

“I know,” he said soothingly. “But it's not over, you two are just fighting. Couples do that.”

A deep sigh escaped my lips. “This felt different. We’ve fought before, but this whole business with Vicar has put a lot of strain on our relationship.”

“Then just drop it all,” Lance offers.

“I…” I thought for a moment. After everything he’s put me through, could I just drop it? Just like that? “I can’t, Lance. It’s not who I am. I can’t leave something like this unfinished.”

“At the cost of losing your family though?” he pressed, causing me to close my eye.

“If I can just get the upper hand for a second, I’ll be able to fix everything. Mallogory will understand once it’s all finished.”

“But what if she doesn't? What if this takes so much a toll on you two that she just leaves?”

“She wouldn’t do that…” I muttered, then the image of her walking away with my daughter flashed before me. “... Oh Celestia… I’m sick, Lance. I just can’t live a normal life. Conflict shows its ugly face, and I latch onto it and don’t stop pursuing it till I’ve won. I can’t fucking help myself!”

“Shh, I know what it’s like,” he reassured as he patted my side. “You’re not sick. You’re just not use to everything being peaceful and safe. I was the same way long ago, after the battle that destroyed Ponyville. I couldn’t relax, thinking I had to be ready to fight at a moments notice. But I’m telling you, Scamp,” he said, laying his head on top of mine, “it feels so much better to just let it all go and just… exist. Losing your family is the worst thing that can happen to you.”

I shook a bit as I wrapped my legs around him, hugging him tightly, “I want to let it go! But every time I think about it, I feel so anxious! Like what if I let it go and he hurts someone I care about?!”

“He won’t,” Lance assured me as he let me squeeze the life out of him. “He’s a prick, that’s for sure, but he’s been doing things by the law. I don’t think he’ll attack you unprovoked, otherwise he’ll look like the bad guy. The best way to deal with him is to ignore him.”

“That’s terrible advice,” I replied, wiping my face with my wing again. “But… I don’t want to lose Mallo and Shayla…”

“Just try to move forward, and see how it goes,” he says, “and if things get worse, I’ll handle it myself.”

“Thank you, Lance,” I say, relaxing very slightly into him.

“Yeah,” he says back, staring out at the forest below.

“How’s my two idiots doing?” he asked after a moment, trying to cheer me up.

I frown, “... they grow on you.”

“Told you,” he chuckled as he pulled me into a tighter hug to rival my own.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped up to my door.

<We’re here for you, Scamp! You can do this!>
[Go in there and kick ass!]
<Well don’t ‘kick ass’ in the literal sense.>
[Shut up, Dawn! Go in there and make this conversation your bitch!]

A light chuckle escapes my lips as I push open the door and step inside.

“Mallo?” I call out, seeing no one in the messy living room.

“Scamp?” I heard her call from the back rooms, followed by her coming out of our bedroom. She walked down the hall and stopped in the living room, frowning at me with crossed arms. “I thought I told you to stay at the Dojo tonight.”

“Yeah,” I say, sweating profusely as I stood there under her intense glare. “I’m done. No more Dojo. No more Vicar. Just us and Shayla.”

She didn’t relax her stare as she held it on me. “Just like that? I don’t believe you. You can’t let ANYTHING go.”

“I know,” I conceded, “I never can let anything go, and I’m having trouble letting this whole Vicar thing go. But I’ll do it, for our family. I just don’t want to lose you!”

Her gaze finally softened. “Scamp, if you don’t want to lose us, you have a strange way of showing it.”

“Please, Mallo,” I almost begged. “I’m going to try, I promise. No more drama or conflict, just us. Please.”

She let out a heavy sigh as she sat down on the couch. “I don’t want to be the bad guy here, but I’m going to need to see this to believe it.”

“Of course, that’s fair,” I say back, trembling with emotions.

Rubbing her face, she nodded, “okay, Scamp. I’m going to put my faith in you that this is over.”

“Thank you, Mallo, I won’t-”

“But that’s it. Like I said last night; screw up and lie to me, then it's done. Consider this you making your choice. You say you’ve chosen family, well now you’re going to prove it.”

I gave a shaky nod, “I will prove it.”

Then she sighed again, “you don’t have to stop the Dojo. I know you enjoy teaching the kids to be better, so as long as you stick to doing JUST that, then that’s okay. But no more rivalry, and no more causing problems.”

“But what if Vicar does something on his own? Even if I don’t react to it-”

“Then let him do whatever he wants, he’s harmless if you don’t feed into his attention seeking behavior. This all started because you gave in and let him get into your head. You should have pressed charges when those two attacked you the night you gave birth, but you insisted you could handle it. So accept this is your fault, and we can move forward as a happy family.”

I closed my eye, breathing heavily. “This was… all my fault,” I said slowly, hurting as I did so.

“Good. Sleep out here tonight, I need the night to myself,” she said, standing up and walking back down the hallway.

“I love you, Mallo,” I called after her as she reached our door.

“Love you too,” she said back, stepping into the room

The way she said that didn’t sit well with me, but I didn’t press it.

<That went->
[Shitily.]

My nerves were shot, but I couldn’t do anything about that as I stumbled to the couch and sat down, breathing raggedly

This was actually hard to write, emotionally. I can write some dark shit, but this was the first time I've actually had to walk away a few times while writing.