Vantage Point

by Thunderous

3. Sandbar

5:00 p.m

The party at Twilight's Friendship School is booming with ponies and creatures alike. Sandbar and the rest of his friends are chatting about at the foods and drinks table, enjoying the party as well as everypony and creature is.

"Yona like this party! Party is loud and fun! Like back home!" Yona smiles brightly as she dances about in place, making her other friends laugh.

Smolder stops laughing first, as she goes to grab a piece of ruby from a bowl filled with them by the table, eating it. "Okay, this party is pretty cool and all, but it's not that cool than the activities we dragons like to do back home. I'd give this party... maybe a seven out of ten score?" She shrugs, as she grabs another ruby, looking at her friends, who had stopped laughing at her dancing yak friend, now glaring at her. "What? I mean, we dragons like to do awesome and crazy stuffs! This party's pretty awesome, but it's not that crazy..."

Sandbar shook his head, as he walks over to the table, grabbing a cup of apple cider. "Well, sorry to break it to you, but it's an awesome and crazy party! Like, almost all of Ponyville came over to celebrate this party, even the Wonderbolts came!" Sandbar took a sip from the drink, and puts the cup on the edge of the table, as some of his other friends nodded in agreement.

"Okay, okay... but I still think it's not that crazy..." She rolls her eyes, as she grabs hold of the bowl of rubies in her claws, still munching on bits of the rubies she had eaten just now.

Gallus flapped his wings, as he hovers above the rest of them all. "Y'know, I might go head back to my room early. This party really tired me out, even though it's been about an hour ago since it started..." He yawned, covering his beak with one of his claws, as the rest of his friends looks up at him.

Ocellus, Yona, and Silverstream, as if on cue, yawns afterwards. "Yeah... I think I need to lie down... this is really tiring me out..." Ocellus heads over to the exit first, followed by Yona and Silverstream.

Gallus starts to fly after them, but stops, looking back at Smolder and Sandbar. "You guys coming? Or are you gonna hang around a little bit more?" Sandbar and Smolder looks at each other for a second, before looking back at Gallus, nodding at him. "Heh, I thought so. Well, see you two tomorrow then at classes. Don't stay up too long, Professor Egghead's gonna teach us some important Loyalty lessons tomorrow morning." He turns back to the rest of the now tired-looking friends, and flew after them, heading to the exit.

Smolder glances at Gallus and the others leaving, making sure they're far enough, before letting out a long and exhausting yawn, causing Sandbar to snicker at Smolder. "What? I didn't want to show any signs of me getting tired just because of a lame party..." She rolled her eyes, tossing another ruby into her mouth, crunching on it.

Sandbar walks over to Smolder and hits her in the shoulders with one of his hooves, not too hard, smirking. "So you were enjoying the party, huh? Just admit it, Smolder... this party is awesome and crazy, eh?”

Smolder’s cheeks flushed with red, flustered, before shaking her head at Sandbar. “O-Of course not! Us dragons don’t -“ She yawns again, covering her mouth with her claw. “- don’t... Okay, fine! I’m tired! You happy, Sandbar? Sheesh!” She crosses her arms, pouting a bit.

Sandbar laughs out loud, placing his hoof around Smolder’s shoulders, standing on his hind legs barely. “It’s alright, I won’t tell no pony.”

Smolder, now smirking, nudged Sandbar off her shoulders. “Oh, you sure...? How about a... oh, I don’t know... a Pinkie Promise?” She starts chuckling, as Sandbar stops laughing, glaring at her.

“Oh, horseapples. You’re kidding me, right...?” He sighed, as Smolder shook her head, still chuckling. “Fine... Cross my heart and hope to fly -“ Sandbar flaps his arms around, mimicking flapping wings, “- stick a cupcake in my eye...” He places a hoof on one of his closed eyes, and sighed, rolling his eyes. “There. You happy now, Smolder?”

Smolder stops chuckling, nodding at him. “Very. Now, I’m gonna head on outside and probably sleep in a tree or something. See you later, Sandbar.” Smolder starts flapping her wings, waving goodbye at Sandbar, as she flew over to the exit.

He chuckles, as he grabs his cup of apple cider on the table, and chugs it down. “I hate that dragon sometimes...” He shook his head, as he refills the cup with apple cider, looking around at the party room, seeing ponies and creatures dancing and chatting with each other.

He smiles as he saw Professor Twilight and the rest of his teachers at the middle of the room, dancing on the dance floor, having fun. "It's good to hang back and relax instead of studying... my mind needs some rest from learning too much..." He chuckles to himself, as he took another sip from the cup of apple cider.

Though, suddenly, the lights in the room suddenly cuts off, panicking most ponies who were beside Sandbar. "What they hay? What's with the lights?" He looks up, not panicked, but confused as to why the lights suddenly switches off.

Then, a few seconds later, a beam of light - a spotlight, is seen in the middle of the room. Sandbar looks at the spotlight, seeing Guidance Counselor Starlight Glimmer and Professor Pinkie Pie standing in the spotlight with a humongous cake with a sign saying 'Happy Birthday, Twilight Sparkle!'.

Sandbar pondered for a moment, before stomping his hoof on the ground, gasping. "Oh yeah! Today's Professor Twilight's birthday! I forgot all about it!" He looks back at the cake, as he notices Professor Twilight now hugging both Guidance Counselor Starlight Glimmer and Professor Pinkie Pie.

He chugs the apple cider he was still holding in his hooves, and places the cup back on the table, as he sings along the 'Happy Birthday' song with the rest of the crowd, accompanying Professor Twilight approaching her birthday cake. As she cuts the cake, Sandbar stomped his hooves following the rest of the crowd as well, excited for attending Professor Twilight's birthday. "Gosh, Gallus and the rest are totally missing out on this awesome special event! This is gonna be a crazy story I can share with them tomorrow morning!"

Though, as he was talking to himself, he could hear a feminine voice yelling overhead in an alerting tone. “EVERYPONY GET DOWN!” Suddenly, a beam of green magic beam passed by next to him, and hits the birthday cake, causing it to explode and surprising everypony and creature in the room, making them run in panic. Sandbar looks back at where the magic beam came from, and he sees a mysterious unicorn mare wearing a dark robe trying to make her way out of the room.

He pointed at the unicorn, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Hey! Get back here!" The unicorn turned back to him in surprise, looking at him directly. The mare had a light green coat with green eyes and have an orange striped mane drooping over her face. The unicorn immediately turned to the door, shoving ponies and creatures away, as she breaks into a gallop out of the room.

Sandbar took off after her, carefully galloping over the shoved ponies and creatures, and gave chase. As he exits the room, he sees the robed unicorn mare running down the hall, and galloped after her, passing by ponies and creatures who were still panicking from the explosion. The hallway splits into two, and the mare turned hard left, and continues galloping.

Though, as Sandbar turned hard left as well at the split, the unicorn mare stood in the middle of the hallway, blasting a magic beam at Sandbar. Luckily, Sandbar was quick on his hooves, and managed to jump over the beam. Though, he was suddenly tackled mid-air by the mare, knocking him back onto his back, painfully.

The mare slowly approached Sandbar, smirking at him. "Stay away from me. You ponies don't want to mess with me." She turned around, as she broke into a gallop and turned another corner down the hallway they were in.

Sandbar tried to stand up, but he was too tired to stand up. "Gotta... chase after her..." Panting, he still struggled to stand up.

Though, he then heard a familiar voice from the hallway he came from. "Sandbar!" He turned his head to the hallway, and he sees the professors galloping towards him, followed by Scootaloo. "Are you alright?" Professor Twilight helps Sandbar up, who was still panting hard.

Sandbar looks up at the rest of them, then back to Professor Twilight. "I-I tried to chase the pony who blew your cake up, Professor Twilight! I-I was chasing her, when she had tackled me down!"

Professor Twilight gasped, surprised by the fact the unicorn mare tried to harm one of her students. "Okay, this is getting too out of hoof." She turned back to the rest of the professors, not including Professor Pinkie Pie, as she finishes helping Sandbar up. "Applejack, Fluttershy, you two go back to the party hall and try to calm everypony and creature down, while the rest of you search for students throughout the school and maybe try to find clues to where this mysterious unicorn had gone to. This is getting worse every second, so go now!" The other professors nodded, as Applejack and Fluttershy galloped back to the party room, whilst the others split up and went their separate directions to go find the students.

Professor Twilight, still worried about her injured student, went back to help Sandbar, as Scootaloo walks up to him. "It's alright, Professor Twilight. I'm alright... I managed to evade her magic beam, but she tackled me as I evaded it. Though... something was amiss about that unicorn mare, Professor..."

Scootaloo titled her head, a bit confused. "What do you mean? I mean, she's just a wicked unicorn mare who had ruined Twilight's birthday cake. What's amiss about that?" Professor Twilight lets go of Sandbar, and walks over to Scootaloo, wondering the same thing.

Sandbar shook his head, as he sat on his flank. "No no... it wasn't how she acted... it was what she said... She said 'You ponies'... Professor Twilight, why did that mare say that...?"

Professor Twilight placed her hoof on her chin, pondering about that thought. "Hmm... I have no idea, Sandbar... though, what's important at the moment is catching that mare..."

Suddenly, a loud knock came from a window, accompanied with a muffled voice that can be heard, a mare shouting from outside. "Hey, Princess Twilight! Over here!"

Professor Twilight looked over to the window, and saw a blue-mint coat unicorn standing outside the window. She immediately recognizes who the mare is. "Lyra? What're you doing out there?" She walks over to the window, pressing her hooves against it.

Lyra pointed over to the second floor of the school, and as Professor Twilight turned her head to where she had pointed, she saw the mysterious mare gallop across the hallway on the second floor. "The mysterious mare is over there! I've been spying where she was heading to! Now, let's go chase after her!"

Author's Note:

So... yeah, I’ll be putting this on Hiatus for now... I can’t seem to find any ideas on the next chapter, and I have no inspiration to continue it too... I’m really sorry, guys... But as soon as I find some ideas, I’ll be continuing the story as soon as I can!

Comments

[EverfreePony]

9406480
You are welcome!

Hope you'll enjoy the next few chapters! I'll come back out of hiatus real soon!

Glad to hear that Also, thank you for the follow!

[EverfreePony]

"No no... it wasn't how she acted... it was what she said... She said 'You ponies'... Professor Twilight, why did that mare say that...?"

I think you are making the guessing too easy, repeating and highlighting this to make sure everyone will notice As long as you don’t have some sort of plot twist coming up, this does not seem like a good strategy to keep the mystery a mystery.

[Thunderous]

9408853
To be fair, I had written this part months ago, and right now, even I’m confused at what my past self was thinking The hints are getting a bit too obvious to the readers, so I’m guessing my past self was going for the characters gathering up the clues with everypony else... So, yeah...