Previously:

"Fluttershy, I would like you to tell me where they live."

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"I honestly don't see the kinds of qualities you see in me really. Okay, so I can understand why you might have somehow fallen for me back then... it was probably more of a pity thing more than anything else."

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"But you are a good stallion, and you know it Dusk."

"You know I'm not..."

Chapter 71: Needing Time

He felt alone.

He did not mean to storm of the house the way he did, but what's done is done. He regretted the fact that he went off on a tangent like he did, more so because she didn't do anything wrong to him, and there was no he should have gone off at her for something as stupid as his opinion of himself. He doesn't even know where the sudden aggression came from. It was like a mood swing, but worse, and completely unwarranted. She had only said positive and supportive things to him, as he continued his rant about his worthlessness.

'I guess I'll need to talk to her about it.'

He knew that the night was approaching, but he wanted to stay on the cloud for a little bit longer. He wanted to think about the incident and what he should have done instead. He replayed the whole confrontation in his head, over and over again, and truly thought about what he had done. His mind questioned him about why he had did it, but every answer was simply that he didn't know.

He chose to try and forget about the little incident from a few minutes ago, and see where his mind would take him...

His mind slowly drifted away from reality, and the world around him became a blur; completely unknown to him. The first thought that his mind had thought of, is weeks ago, when he had fought those stallions trying to... violate Fluttershy. He was surprised that she had gotten over as quickly as she did. He knows that he hasn't, he just never showed these hidden emotions. He instinctively felt the spot on his side, where he was stabbed. He was thankful that it had healed up, but he could feel a scar under his coat; an indentation in his skin.

He could clearly recall the memory as if it were yesterday, but something in particular had popped up in his mind, that he hadn’t noticed much before, he may have killed them in his rage. His eyes widened to the size of saucers, at the realization, but he dismissively shook his head the very next second.

‘I-I couldn’t have killed those stallions, the worse I did to one of them was... was... oh dear Luna...’

He remembered fatally stabbing one of them who had approached Fluttershy when he was down. Although he couldn’t remember much further, he could recall doing this, despite the significant blood loss. When he thought about it, he didn’t seem so ashamed of killing him, since it was more of an act of self-defence than anything else, as well for the protection of Fluttershy. He would then pass off the pain he caused to each of the other stallions, thinking that these acts of violence were non-lethal, and that he wasn’t a bad pony.

But then he remembers what he did to one of the pegasi...

As he tries to fly away, Dusk grabs his wing and breaks it with an audible *snap*, causing the stallion to howl in pain.

Hearing this, Dusk simply says “That howl is annoying.” when he bucks the second stallion into unconsciousness.

‘I’m a monster, I am a bloody monster...’

In his mind, there was no justifying this cruel deed. He knew that he could have done something a little less crippling to him, but no, he went for one of the most painful options. It was his Red-Eye that made him think like this. He realized something. While the Red-Eye basically made him stronger physically, this was not the case mentally. While he could still come up with rational thoughts, his judgement was clouded, meaning that he could make terrible, terrible decisions at times.

He then made himself feel even worse when he remembered the diamond dog incident. While he thought a majority of the deaths/injuries were justified, one of them stuck in his mind. Their leader, the one that he killed in cold blood. He tried to rationalize this by remembering that the whole town was in danger because of the dogs, but this failed, when he remembered that all of those diamond dogs probably had some kind of family and friends. He knew how horrible it felt to lose-

You saved lives, you know why you did this. You should go back to Fluttershy's.

'My sixth sense? Why would it act up now? It's not like Fluttershy would be in any kind of- no...'

"Why do I always make bad things happen to Fluttershy. No more..."

He had jumped onto his hooves and then started to fly towards Fluttershy’s home. He had begun to panic, as he flew at a much faster pace with his bad wings than he should be. There was a look of utter determination on his face, which overcame the feeling of fear that slowly washed over him. His eyes were focused on what was ahead, but his mind was thinking of the worst possible things that could happen. The Sixth Sense never lies. If it told him to do something, he learnt that he would damn well do it, and that freaked him out. He was uttering silent prayers under his breath, hoping that Fluttershy would not be hurt when he got back.

Then, after a minute of two of hard flying, he saw her cottage in the distance, which seemed to almost be dead outside. There was a single rabbit, hopping around the side. When he approached the house, he did not slow, and he continued to fly towards the door with his body tensed...

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Fluttershy was in the kitchen, creating some new feed for some of her animals. She had a half filled sack on the side, which was intended for all of her plant eating animals to eat. Inside, she had filled the sack with the best food she could get for her animal friends. While she was chopping up one of the ingredients, she felt a light poke on the side. She turns, and sees Angel Bunny holding a carrot towards her with a bored expression. She smiled, and expressed gratitude as she grabbed the carrot, to get ready to-

*CRASH*

‘Oh no, what was that?!’

The two had heard the loud crash from inside, and both of them were immediately filled with feelings of fear. There was an intruder in her house. She instinctively began to do the first thing that came to mind, she hid. She hid inside the pantry, hoping that this intruder wouldn’t find her. She had brought Angel inside as well, to keep him safe from whoever was inside the house. She was shaking in fear, hoping that they could just go away.

Then she heard them yelling, “Fluttershy! Fluttershy, where are you!?” It was Dusk, and there seemed to be desperation in the tone of his voice. Once she knew it was him, Fluttershy exited her hiding spot and started looking for him. She could hear more and more calls from him, which slowly became more sad, more hopeless. He sounded like he was upstairs, and so she quickly walked up the staircase to see him.

When she had reached the top, she could see Dusk’s back faced towards her, and he had called her one more time, before hanging his head down, and smashing the ground with a loud thud.

“...Dusk? A-are you okay?”

He heard the familiar voice behind him, and turned to see Fluttershy looking at him. His frown immediately turned into a big, and relived smile, before he fell onto his haunches. He was extremely relived to see her. “Oh, thank Luna you’re safe Fluttershy.”

She was concerned as to what he meant, “Safe? Why do you say that?”

“Don’t worry about it Shy.” He was smiling, genuinely happy that she was safe. “I... just over-reacted a bit. It was nothing...”

She felt a little bit uncomfortable with the situation, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” He muttered thankful words to himself before saying, "I'm good Shy..."

Author’s Note: Bloody hell, it’s felt like ages since I last updated the chapter. While I may still be on hiatus, I will still be slowly updating the story, as well as rewriting it. By the time that Opportunity of a Lifetime will be finished, the newer version of this will have fully updated.

Also, the order of important story events will have changed slightly. The Dusk-Blizzard-Cloud subplot will be changed, and the main story  will be slightly altered as well. (Less rushed and done in a better order.) Also all the new chapters and the rewritten chapter will be in the past tense. I'll slowly get to the rest. Next Chapter: Chapter 72: Knowledge, or Lack Thereof Estimated time remaining: 5 Minutes