Chapter 10: Sasha The Lonely.

“You know I never had any friends except for one,” Sasha said quietly to herself as she rubbed the soft fur of her new paw against her face. Her sad smile grew as she reminisced, “My mother always made me happy to see her, even when I was crying.”

Strong Shield and Flux both opened their eyes in shock as they turned to see Sasha standing beside them. Her arms transformed into a claw and paw, both shaking as the young girl began to cry. Strong Shield could feel the waves of magic flowing from the small human.

“How can she teleport?” Strong Shield’s horn glowed as he grasped Flux in a magical bubble and created a magical dome over the two. Flux couldn’t move as she saw the emptiness in Sasha’s eyes.

“Mother made all the bad things go away,” Sasha began to sob as the golden claw began to reach up her face and she stared at the floor through the sharp claws. “The one thing she couldn’t make disappear was father and the way he treated me.”

Sasha snarled as she yanked both her arms down and snapped her fingers in unison. The resulting flash forced Strong Shield and Flux to close their eyes, and when they reopened they say an empty space where Sasha once stood.

There was a magic in the air that made Strong Shield drop his barrier and begin to drag Flux to the door. “This magic feels wrong, we need to move.”

The pair reached the door, the books on the shelves began to shake and fly off the shelves, pages flapping like birds as they began to fly around the room, building into a swarm. The books then began to tear themselves apart and the shreds made the individual books form into one wave of paper.

“Ah damn,” Strong Shield forced Flux out of the library before slamming the door behind them. They ran down the corridor before turning to see the door crumbling. A paper tornado shredded a hole in the door before it slammed into the ground and began to advance on the ponies.

Flux took a few steps back before growling, “What do we do?”

“Find Nox and look after him,” Strong Shield rolled his neck before taking a deep breath. “I’ll deal with this thing.”

“Are you sure?” Flux asked before she noticed the storm of paper had suddenly rushed towards them. Strong Shield gave a roar before a wall of flame burst from the ground, incinerating the attack before it had even reached the pair.

“I have this covered,” Strong Shield turned his head to stare at Flux, making sure she understood before she began to gallop away. “Urgh, there were three books in there that are irreplaceable… still at least they burn the same.”

Meanwhile…

“One day, father had decided to take my mother from me too,” Sasha clenched her fists as she looked around the guard barracks she had arrived in. “He lost his temper like always and pushed mother down the stairs.”

The off-duty royal guards remained fixed to their spots as Sasha’s golden claws clicked and the various suits of armour and spears began to roll towards the middle of the room. The armour bent and the spears smashed together as a giant golden bull was made of the armour and two large, spiked horns were formed from the mess of metal spears.

Sasha snarled as the bull suddenly jerked into life and gave the sound of scraping metal as it began to shake its head around in a blind fury. “He made me so angry I pushed him down too!”

Sasha snapped her fingers again and once again teleported. Her blind fury brought on by her sudden rise in power bringing forth her long forgotten memories. Once her eyes opened from the blinding light she was standing in a wide hall, stone pillars kept the ceiling up and the far wall was just a large window that led onto a balcony overlooking the courtyard and the city.

“That was when Hank found me,” Sasha’s insane smile grew again. “He helped me realise how good that vengeance felt and how taking the lives of others make me feel better than ever!”

The young girl looked at her claw and paw before her smile turned to a snarl, “Why should they be happy when I never was?” The girl began to clench her fists tighter and tighter.

“Why should I be hated for what makes me happy?”

Meanwhile…

Odio suddenly fell silent as him and Dave argued. His normally bright red, flaming eyes turned dark and settled into two thin crimson lines. Dave stopped his yelling as he noticed the shift, “Hey are you alright dude?”

Another flame appeared below the dormant eyes, growing like a screaming mouth before the sound quickly followed along with a torrent of black sludge. Dave barely had time to roll to the side as a river of black liquid poured out of Odio’s fog and the stench made Dave almost heave his own stomach onto the floor.

“What the hell was that?” Dave gagged before holding his nose. He looked up to see the mouth had gone and two drooping flames appeared instead of Odio’s usually empowering eyes. “Dude speak to me!”

“I’ve never been sick before,” Odio burped before looking at the mess he had caused. “I feel sorry for whoever has to clean this up.”

Dave ran down the corridor with Odio in pursuit to get away from the overpowering smell. “Jeez what caused you to do that?”

“Don’t you remember?” Odio coughed as a few more drips fell from the fog. “This is just like the time you allowed me to use your hatred directly to help us attack Canterlot all that time ago and drown the streets in my fog.”

“But that was when you had energy from the element’s hatred,” Dave looked at the sludge. “What did this?”

Odio began to drift upwards and away from the black substance he was leaking. “A greater hatred… a magically empowered one.”

Dave heard a smashing of glass and hurried to one of the nearby windows to look out and see that Strong Shield was shooting flames at a giant paper scorpion. Odio chuckled before noticing the drips of blood falling from Strong Shield’s hoof.

“Wow your dad is getting his ass kicked,” Odio hummed as Dave took a step back kicked open the windows. “Hi Strong Shield!” He called out to the tired unicorn.

“Odio? Dave?” Strong Shield glanced over his shoulder before rolling to the side to avoid being crushed by one of the giant paper pincers. “The girl Sasha has gone insane and her arms have changed!”

Dave looked at the gap between the corridor he was in and the roof Strong Shield was standing upon. “Dad what are you on about?” He called to the battling unicorn.

“She snapped her fingers to create this thing and teleport away,” Strong Shield fired a ball of flame at the beast’s stinger and the pages that made the pointed barb caught ablaze and began to crumble away. “Dave you have to go protect the princesses and Nox! Odio can assist me here!”

“I can?” Odio hummed before turning away. “Nah I don’t feel like it.”

Strong Shield stopped to growl, “You are seriously doing this now?”

“Damn straight I am!” Odio cheered. “Nah I’m only messing with you, I’ll be right BLURGH!” Another stream of hate sick fell out of Odio and he began to groan in pain. “Oh this shit is nasty.”

Dave rolled his eyes, “You could handle this alone right dad?”

“Looks like I’ll have to hold out,” Strong Shield’s horn glowed red and a wall of fire surrounded him, protecting him from the scorpion. “Go I’ll find some way to put this beast down for good!”

The human felt so guilty leaving his father and friend alone when they both clearly needed his help. He was about to turn away when he began to feel sick himself, he looked at Odio to see the fog had noticed the human’s turn for the worse.

“Damn looks like the magic the girl is letting off is actually affecting you too,” Odio shrugged. “I can supress the effects but make sure you don’t allow yourself to get too angry.”

A small clump of fog separated from Odio and seeped into Dave’s skin, giving the human a second wind. “What did you do?”

“My fog is supressing the magic and your body is supressing the hate,” Odio winked. “Scratching each other’s back but I can’t send all of my being without you being flooded with pure rage.”

“So if I get angry then Sasha’s enhanced anger will spread into me through you,” Dave rolled his eyes. “Never simple is it?”

“I feel Sasha is in the hall overlooking the courtyard,” Odio roared with laughter, his fog settling along the floor as he slowly groaned. “Please go stop that little brat!”

Dave nodded to his friend before taking off down the hall; his determination to help his friend and save his family drove him on. “I’m so stupid! I should have made sure the girls weren’t a risk!”

Pieces began to fall into place as Dave ran down the marble halls of the castle; he remembered how he had found Steven’s body missing its throat. The dragon call he had given must have had some connection to his missing throat and maybe Sasha’s power was residing in the arms and the clicking of her fingers.

Dave didn’t have much to go on as he continued to run, his attention diverted as he saw a large group of guards running from a giant metal bull that was heading in Dave’s direction.

“I don’t have time for this shit!” Dave roared as the guards moved aside for him and he ran headfirst into the bull. The golden armour that had been moulded by magic was swiftly crumpled by the sheer force of Dave’s punch.

The bull roared as the entire left side of the best was torn from its body and it collapsed to the floor, the guards saw their chance and began to attack the wounded abomination and they began to rip their gear back using magic and hoof alike.

Dave left the guards to their work as he continued with his own mission, and ran at full speed to arrive at the large doors that led into the hall. He pushed the doors open and walked in to see a sight that made the anger inside him almost boil over if he hadn’t managed to restrain it due to Odio’s warning.

Sasha was sitting on the balcony, her back to Dave as Sarah stood beside her, Nox held tightly in her arms and a bruised Flux lying unconscious at her feet. Dave gritted his teeth as he charged forwards, his hand reaching for his crying son.

But before Dave could make it across the large hall he was stopped be a dagger through his hand and a rapier through his shoulder. He winced in pain as he felt his arm go limp and a kick make contact with his stomach.

“Ow… you actually think you can try that crap with me?” Dave looked up to see another human, his emotionless eyes focused on him. Dave smirked as he used his working arm to extract the rapier from his body. “But you did manage to sever the nerves connected to my arm so you get a gold star for being original.”

Mike sighed as he snapped his fingers, the blades in Dave’s hands disappeared and a spear appeared in Mike’s hands. “I can’t let you advance any further, I’m sorry.”

“You are sorry?” Dave smirked. “Well that isn’t going to cut it I’m afraid.”

Sarah squeezed an arm around Nox’s neck, “Mike just try to make this quick, I want to get out of here but this squirt is just gonna wriggle free if I tried to fly away.”

Mike glanced at Sarah before looking back at Dave, “Sorry but we need you to move.”

“Need me to move?” Dave grew a smile that made Mike uneasy. “The only thing that is going to happen is me and my son are going home.”

“Fine,” Mike dropped low as he pointed his spear up at Dave. “I’ll just have to make you submit.”

Dave laughed, “Don’t underestimate me.”

“And don’t underestimate me.” Mike sighed in response.