Chapter 41: Failure

Dusk walks out of Fluttershy’s home, feeling slightly better. He felt better knowing that she would know why he wouldn’t be at her house. He looks up at the sky, and could see the sun is still quite high in the sky. Judging by the position of Celestia’s Sun, he can see that it is just past noon.

He wants to go with the girls to the hospital, and he wants to see if Zephyr is going to be okay, but he couldn’t muster the courage to do so. He couldn’t see either Zeph or Twilight right now. He wouldn’t be able to handle the guilt if he saw Zephyr, and he could imagine the distress that Twilight is under right now. He saw how devastated she was when she saw Zeph slump onto the ground.

Dusk looks around the path, to see if there is anypony in the area. When he confirms that he is alone, he does the only thing that pops into his mind…

“AGGRRRHHH! WHY AM I SUCH A BUCKING FAILURE!” He forcefully bucks a nearby tree in frustration, which hurts his back hooves. “Why do I have to be so bad at keeping my friends safe?! First Cloudie, then Fluttershy and now Zeph! Why, *buck* WHY, *buck* WHY!” He bucks the tree a fourth time, which hurts his hooves, badly…

Just as intended.

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He hobbles into town, (mainly because of the outburst before) and sees that some of the local residents have exited their homes. Some of the town’s houses were still occupied by ponies too paranoid to step out of their homes. When everypony in town saw him, they began to celebrate his victory.

“Hooray for the ‘Protector of Ponyville’!”

“Thank you so much for protecting the town!”

“WOOOOO!!!”

Dusk looks up at the group, feeling no better about the whole ordeal of his. He asks a question to the gathering crowd in a confused tone.

“What’s going on here?”

A mint-green unicorn starts to speak for the group, “We’re thanking you for driving away those diamond dogs. We could have been in a lot of strife if you hadn’t beaten them.”

Dusk couldn’t accept the compliment. “Yeah, but I couldn’t protect my friends. One of them is in the hospital thanks to me.” Says Dusk, in a dark manner. He punches the ground with his forehoof, which brought a bit of dust into the air. He stares at the ground with an ashamed look

She pities Dusk, “Aww, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that, but I’m sure that he’ll be okay-“

“But what if he isn’t okay!? If I didn’t open my fat mouth, than he wouldn’t be in the hospital in the first place. I’m useless, a complete buck of a friend-”

“No, you’re not, I saw the battle from my house, and you couldn’t have stopped what happened to your friend. It wasn’t your fault.” Says a brown coated stallion.

‘Hmm… He raises a good point, they would of gotten him even if I didn’t distract him… Wait no. What am I saying, Zeph might have still beaten those diamond dogs if he was focused on them.’

“I suppose that you could be right.” Concedes Dusk. He walks away from the group feeling a little bit better about the situation.

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He walks across the town, still in a regretful mood. He is constantly receiving praise from the passing townsfolk, and he fakes happiness and appreciation to keep them happy. He is still uncomfortable with visiting Zephyr in the hospital, because he still feels utterly horrible about causing his injury.

‘I really hope that the girls are helping Twilight deal with this, because if I decided go to the hospital and she was still broken down… I don’t think I would be able to deal with it.’

He hears a middle aged mare’s voice in the distance. “DUSK! DUSK! YOU NEED TO COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!”

He turns around and sees Mayor Mare running in the distance. He watches as she slowly closes the distance between the two and he could see that she is quite angry at him. She catches up to him (although he wasn’t running anywhere in the first place) and glares daggers at him.

“You are going to have to fix this.”

Dusk returns her near death-threat tone, with his own dark, yet sarcastic tone. “Fix what? My friend’s injuries, or my psychological scars?”

“No, you are going to help the workers fix the town hall.”

“WHAT?! Bu-bu-but I don’t know anything about carpentry and repair.” He shockingly says.

“If you don’t help, then I am pinning the bill on you, ‘Protector of Ponyville’.”

‘Oh you son of a…’

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Dusk had been taken to the site of the town hall. Repair-work has already begun at the damages hall with a group of six workers already fixing the large building. The Mayor leaves the area with a warning.

“If I hear that you have left the job, than you’ll be paying for all of this.”

‘Well, might as well meet my new friends…’

Dusk walks up to a maroon coated stallion. He, along with the other five workers, are wearing hard hats and high visibility vests. This earth pony in particular has a short and messy, light brown mane and tail with a cutie mark of a crane. He, along with all of the other workers, seemed to have a much stockier build than Dusk. The worker is grabbing a box of nails from the nearby table.

Dusk starts to speak. “Umm, hello. The Mayor says that I’m supposed to be helping you guys with the repair of the building… because she thinks that I damaged the hall myself…”

The worker has turned around, and sees who is talking. “You mean with that nuke?”

Dusk is intrigued with his knowledge, “Wait, how did you know about that?”

“Well, when a bomb goes off in town, we are bound to know about it sooner or later. And also, you could probably see the explosion all the way from the outskirts of the Everfree Forest…”

*Mental facehoof*

“…Wait a second. Let me take a look at you.” He begins to look at Dusk, trying to find something that the dark blue pegasus is unsure about.

About a minute later, the maroon stallion stops looking at Dusk, and faces his work-mates. “Hey guys! I think that we get to work with the Protector of Ponyville!”

After a collective “What?!” They stop whatever work that they were doing and fly/walk over to Dusk.

‘Gee, I’ve gotten famous.’

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“…Because I had to.” Answers Dusk.

“So did you use the bomb?” Asks one of the Pegasi workers.

“Technically no, but one of my friends used it. She had no other choice.” He swiftly answers.

“You are a lot smaller than I imagined.” Says the maroon worker.

“Yeah yeah, don’t remind me.”

“Apparently, something happened to your friend.”

This comment hit Dusk like a brick wall. He had forgotten about his internal conflict about Zeph, until one of the workers asked him that question.

“…I don’t want to talk about it; I think that we… should get back to work.” He downtroddedly walks over to the nearby hammer, and grabs it with his mouth. He hears another one of the pegasi workers quietly talking to the maroon stallion.

“Nice going Crane, I wanted to talk to him a bit more, but then you had to go and hit a nerve of his.” He says in a sarcastic tone.

‘Oh, you have no idea how right you are…’

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It was about 7:30PM before they decided to call it a night. The Town Hall repair progress was going well, with most of the foundations, and smaller problems taken care of. The Mayor walked up to the group of workers, and thanked them for their efforts. She then walked up to Dusk…

“So Dusk, tell me, do you think you should still be at the construction site tomorrow, since it hasn’t been finished yet?” Asks Mayor Mare.

“I’ll tell you if you’ll allow me to speak freely…” She nods, “Okay good. Now I say there is no bucking way I should be back at the site tomorrow. I’m terrible at this job. Also, I’ll need the day off tomorrow so I can finally remove this cast. If I could make a suggestion, then I should go back to work at the farm, since I am a much better worker there than I am as a builder, and that would also increase efficiency there as well, meaning that there would be more apples to sell, and this would then boost the economy of the town.” Argues Dusk.

“That is a fair point Dusk, I suppose that you could go back to working at the apple farm, since you seem to work better there…” Concedes the Mayor.

“Alright, thank you.”

The two begin to walk in opposite directions, she went towards the middle of the town, while Dusk went nowhere in particular. As he walked away from the site, he saw the worker known as Crane approach him.

“Dusk, I’m sorry before for bringing up your friend.” Apologizes Crane.

“Don’t worry about it too much. You couldn’t have known that this would happen.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Could you tell me what happened, to make you so reclusive about the subject?”

He thinks about this for a few moment before he decides. “Sure, I’ll tell you…”

So Dusk tells Crane about everything that happened to Zeph in the fight earlier today. He mentions the injury, how the girls went to the hospital to go see him, his emotional trauma, EVERYTHING.

“Wow, no wonder you were upset at the time.” Remarks Crane.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“I reckon that you should go see him in the hospital, because I’m sure that he wouldn't hate you for what you did. You had good intentions. If you don’t visit him, I’m sure that he’ll be saddened that you didn’t visit him in the hospital.”

“B-But, what if he doesn’t forgive me.” Says Dusk.

“Well, if you don’t find out, then you’ll never know. I bet all of my bits, that he will appreciate you visiting him…” Argues Crane.

‘I’m starting to agree with him a bit.’

“Cowards will leave their friends behind. Real stallions will face up to their fears.” Motivates the maroon worker.

“…”

“If you don’t see him, than you don’t deserve him as a friend. You have faced up to a pack of diamond dogs, so I’m sure that you can visit your friend in the hospital.”

Dusk finally gets the spark of motivation that he needed. “You know what, you’re right. I’d be an idiot not to visit him. Thanks for the help Crane.”

“That’s no problem Dusk.”

Dusk turns around, and begins to walk to the hospital…

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