New Beginnings

[Sovereign Crescent]

Critical sat at the edge of a bar stool, downing the remnants of a glass of whiskey. He pushed the empty glass to the bar mare. "Fill her up." The bar mare filled the glass halfway before pushing it back to him, Critical quickly pushed it back. "I said fill her up." The bar mare pushed it back. "You've had enough already." Critical glared back at the bar mare pushing the glass back to her. "Look sweetheart, you're here to pour drinks and look pretty." Before Critical could finish what he was saying the bar mare splashed the glass over his face. "Why don't you get the hell out of my bar?" Critical stood up from the stool, taking the bottle in his hooves and walking away. "Nowhere to go..." He muttered, a stallion bumped into him as he walked away from the bar. "The mare asked you to leave." He said, Critical kept walking until he was grabbed by the stallion. "I said the mare asked you to leave." Critical quickly pulled the hoof of the stallion, bringing him to face him, Critical slammed his head against the table and lifted the bottle of whiskey about to smash it over his head.

 

[Tenzo NZP]

Flashback, Acyclovir, Age 15

"It's a terrifying prospect, really; Our rule being crushed, and our dreams of a new world order being destroyed. For the past decade, we've been losing ground, literally. All we have left is this island, and that isn't even truly noteworthy. Even the queen, your mother, lost her life in our defense. Our army is only decreasing in size, and the enemy is planning their final strike on us." "I am already aware of this, father." "I know. I simply wanted to remind you of this, because I too will eventually pass, our army will fall, and this island will be taken. Therefo-" "No! Let me and the rest of the island fight! We cannot let them do this to us!" "What do you expect to accomplish by doing that? You as well as most of this island are horribly trained, if at all! I'm not going to let you get yourself killed, and waste the lives of what ponies we do protect." "Is there anything we can do?" "All we can do is stand guard and wait." There was a brief pause, then he spoke again. "This is why I called you here. We will fall, and I don't want you to be with us when we do. I want you to leave this island, and take refuge in a ghost town a couple hundred miles from here." "What?" replied Acyclovir, softly. "I have ordered about 20 of our soldiers to accompany you. Make sure you make as little noise as possible as you go, and ensure that nopony tails yo-" "No! I will not leave and let you and this nation fall!" Acyclovir yelled, tears in surplus. "You have no choice! If you were to stay, you would only be ensuring our demise! At least if you escape, we would still exist and have some chance of once again flourishing! Now go, while they still aren't here and cannot track you!" Acyclovir sat down, hanging her head and quietly sobbing with the thought that her family and army would be nearly completely wiped out. She soon arose, running up to her father and hugging him tightly. "I love you." "I love you too." replied her father, before shedding a tear himself. After that, she left the castle with the other soldiers, heading off in the direction her father had told her. They moved quickly, only stopping once for unimportant reason so that Acyclovir could look at the island she lived on one last time before saying goodbye.

End of flashback

Tenzo had been wandering Equestria, as usual, after leaving Cloudsdale. After awhile, he managed to come across the aforementioned ghost town. He decided to look around to see if anypony was there, and as expected it was devoid of life. That is, others than his, of course. Most of the buildings were in poor condition, some seeming to be ready to collapse. There was even a small dust storm in the area. "Hmmm..." he said to himself, being his mischievous self, looking at one of the buildings with malice. He decided to walk into the building and have a look around, looking for the support beams specifically. Once he found them, he bucked them as hard as he could and fled the building, having enough time to leave and get a good distance from it before watching it collapse. "Beautiful. Just, beautiful." He then walked off, and continued his wandering.