Sandbar rescues his friends

School seemed like nothing more then a distant memory, or maybe a nightmare considering the events that had followed. Sandbar had always figured that upon leaving school, all his non pony friends would stick with him and they would all have forged a bond that would last a lifetime. They almost had as well, but fate had not been kind to the first ever students of a mixed race school.

Their faces still haunted him to this day, even though ten long years had passed, he still remembered it like it was yesterday. Yona had been the one he was closest to, a yak of all things. To start with she seemed like a really block headed creature with a mind for only destruction, but within she had contained a startling amount of intelligence and one of the nicest personalities that he had ever met.

Gallus, Ocellus, Silverstream, Smoulder, a griffon, a changeling, a dragon and a hippogriff. All of them together almost sounded like the beginning of a bad joke, but it was far from a joke.

Just a few years after all of them had finished school and were preparing to move on with their lives, everything had gone wrong. The other students in his group had gone missing, all of them apart from him.

Now of course this was bad enough. But the fact that he had been left behind led to the suspicion that it was the government that had allowed it to happen, or even worse, caused it to happen.

Of course this was really stupid, there was no way that the Equestrian government would allow such a plot to happen, and there was no way that they would fuck up the plot that badly even if they did.

Non of the non pony races cared about this however, fuelled by the loss of their children, they had all declared war on Equestria. Nothing Celestia had been able to do had calmed the situation in the slightest.

Now on top of losing one of their children, the other factions in the war had lost thousands of men and women, and Equestria had lost thousands upon thousands of ponies.

And all of it felt like it was his fault. He did not know exactly how it was his fault, but he should have done more about it.

Because of that, it had also meant that his name had been changed, and that he was technically in hiding as a lot of ponies and other creatures likely wanted to kill him.

Non of that mattered now however, worrying over the past would only get him so far, and he needed to drag himself out of bed and get ready to face the day beyond.

The once calm and collected light olive stallion had since become a nervous wreck in the ten years since his graduation, his cyan and sea blue mane was a mess, no longer two toned, just a wild mess of hair that somehow had stayed attached to his head.

His dark green eyes peered tiredly into the mirror, trying to ignore the mess of a flat that he now lived in. Everything in the earth ponie’s life had gone to shit and there seemed to be no end to it. Even with the massive need for jobs thanks to the war effort, he never seemed to be able to hold down a job for more then a couple of weeks before the effort crumpled him like a tin can and he retreated back to the darkness of his flat to have a breakdown and hopefully fix himself once more.

There were many things that had gone right however, Equestria was advancing faster then ever before in order to try and stay ahead in the war. That, and his room mate was a fucking sky pirate. Not a normal pirate, a SKY pirate. Well, technically he was a privateer, but it was basically a sky pirate.

He moved around his room in a slow fashion, his whole body felt like it was going to give up on him at any moment. He was still a stallion in his prime and yet he awoke every morning feeling like he was about to keel over at any moment.

Thankfully, there were things that could fix that, and as he slowly made his way through the mess that was his flat, he soon found himself stood within the kitchen, before the magical substance known as coffee

Coffee made everything better, Coffee would make the dark thoughts go away and return him to feeling something like a normal pony. He turned on the stove and begin to heat up a pot of water above it, then moved over and dumped himself a number of cereal flakes into a bowl.

Breakfast went off without a hitch, the bowl of cereal helped calm his stomach and the pot of coffee helped him feel like he was a normal living creature that was not about to die at any moment. He had a lot of things to do today, such as trying to find a job and a lot of crying when this eventually failed.

He hated going outside, he hated seeing what this war had done to his once amazing city and he hated how it was all most likely his fault.

Thankfully, he did not have to dwell on all his dark thoughts for long, as his flatmate suddenly came stumbling into the room, smelling strongly of whisky.

Where Sandbar had grown up into an emotional wreck of a stallion, Pipsqueak had done quite the opposite. He was now easily a head higher then Sandbar and was covered in a thick layer of muscle from the challenges of keeping a boat running and the effects of prolonged combat in the skies.

“Sea… Sea Breeze.. You gotta come quick… it’s Fuckin’ Emergency you gotta… Get up… I’m- you gotta check this out.”

Sandbar blinked a few times trying to make sense of what his friend was saying, but he did not have long to dwell on it as Pipsqueak quickly moved over and begin trying to push him from out of his seat. He did not know what was happening, but he climbed out of his seat and looked to his friend, who was currently wearing a rather fine looking suit that looked like it should belong on a prince rather then an overly drunk sky pirate.

“I-I was down at the… Black market and...” He suddenly paled, then clutched at his belly “Ho… Hold that thought.” The stallion rushed over to the sink, lurching forward as a thick stream of bile suddenly poured from out of his mouth, wiped away a moment later on the sleeve of that suit.

“W-W-wow. I don’t remember drinking or eating any of this.” He commented, before turning back to his friend as he rubbed at the space between his eyes.
“Fucking… I just found… Found some… Those friends you keep talking about… I think… I maybe found them.”

Sandbar looked at his drunken pirate friend and a deep frown spread across his face as those words sank into him. His friends, his friends who he was sure had been killed off at this point, there was a chance that they might still be alive?

Just the thought alone begin to reopen old wounds within the mind of the stallion, feelings and ideas all flooded his head, threatening to overwhelm him. For just a moment, it seemed like the thoughts were going to overwhelm him and he was going to drown in them, and then suddenly all of that came away and was replaced with a deep and unceasing rage.

Suddenly he was up on his hooves, and faster then he thought he could ever move before he had Pipsqueak pressed up against a wall, his hooves grabbing at his friend in the fancy suit and attempting to lift him up, of course, he had not worked out in several years and therefore did not have enough muscle to be able to lift the pony up, instead simply holding as his green eyes burned with a ceaseless hate.

Pipsqueak was too drunk to care however, the brown spotted white stallion simply staring at him in a confused fashion. His brown mane was a mess and despite the neat suit that he was wearing, he still smelled strongly of vomit.

Also, it might have had something to do with the fact that he was a head taller then Sandbar and covered in so much muscle that he could have likely crushed him if he needed.

Sandbar realized that this was not him, that he was being far too aggressive, and slowly he backed off, his grip relaxing on their suit as he stumbled back to the kitchen table.

This was not him, this was not who he was and that whole situation had been massively out of character for the normally collected stallion. He slumped down in his chair as a dark frown spread across his face. What was he even doing thinking about this? Of course if there was a chance to save his friends, he was going to take it.

Maybe he could finally put the mistakes of the past right. He slowly climbed to his hooves after a few seconds of trying to steady his thoughts, looking towards Pipsqueak with a soft sigh. “I’m… Sorry, I have no idea what just came over me. I was so angry… I just… Sorry. Where is this black market, and how do we get to it.”

Pipsqueak was staring down at the floor like he expected it to jump up and swallow him whole at any moment, but he steeled himself as he stared at the stallion that had just slammed him into a wall.

“Ish Alrught,” His words were slurred, his thick Trottingham accent making them even harder to understand, but Sandbar could do little more then give a polite nod. Already his heart was racing and his hooves were starting to shake with excitement and fear.

He was going to do this.