Bast pulled on the spare shirt.
"There we go!" She brightly said, her cheer in this simple thing a direct denial and contrast to the way life had turned for her.
She turned to Junior beside her, and a bit of light magic came from her hand, soothing Junior and fixing his injured hoof.
She gently lay her head against his.
"Junior... will you help me?"
A gentle snort blew her hair wild, and she smiled.
She swung onto the brown horse, a woman with dusky gold skin and bright hair, though her hair now had highlights of red on the left side, and slit-pupils graced her amber eyes.
She sling the spear into her hand, bow on her back.
"Let's kill some bastards."
She steered Junior with light magic bonding them and her knees and the motion of her hips as she moved with him being the clues that led him to turn and gallop, her eyes scanning the woods ahead as she found the changes she'd undergone.
Kire could now sense change in temperature in the environment around him, like a bird or fish, which made sense seeing as he was air and water.
But Bast could see in the dark, as the darkest it seemed to get for her was just dim, not black.
Junior moves through the night much faster than a horse in the dark safely could, yet avoided every obstacle as he jumped and went around trees and roots, guided by Bast.
Finally the came to a familiar lower peak, with some ruins that had a puddle of black sludge and bloody gore in a corner.
'...did a poison slime not finish its meal? What the fuck? Slimes don't live around here!'
Well, whatever.
She went to a bit of ruin and used to loop of rope attached to the saddle to tie Junior's reigns to the bit of stone.
Using light magic to transmit calm warmth and peace, she began to walk away to the center of the area.
As the sun began to dip below the horizon, she raise her spear up as it lit.
And then she fired a flare.
Up, up, up it soared... and then exploded with a loud "Crack!"
"There we go."
Every minute or so she sent another flare.
And then another.
Then another.
Finally she heard the stamping of something running towards her.
She tossed her hair back, Heat shimmering just beneath the skin.
"Finally."
The first orc ran into view, a pigs snout along with tusks prominent on its face as it's green-yellow skin shone in the light of the fire covering her spear.
It charged with a crude stone hatchet, and for a moment it's image overlay with the image of the orc from the night before, reaching its claw.
Fear struck Bast, but it quickly shifted to rage as she swung her spear with fire fusion fueling her strength, and the essence of Fire was pushed into the spear, making the cracks and trails in the grain of the wooden shaft come alight as if magma cracks in a volcanic region.
The orc raised its ax in defense, but as the spears body met that of the hatchet, the power of fire exploded outwards!
The explosion blew the hatchet to smithereens, tearing the flesh of the orc from its own skull!
Then Bast began to walk the direction the orc came from, continuing to fire flares.
As another orc came she stabbed forth, shouting "PENETRATE!" as a beam of light shot out the spear like a bullet, penetrating the orc through the head.
Then she shot another flare and kept going.
Again, and again, always setting off to walk in the direction the most recent orc came from, as Bast first slew individuals, then duos and trips of orcs that came her way.
It should be noted that mages have a limit to how much world energy they manipulate, and it's mentally tiring to do so.
Meanwhile to wield inner magic as an awakened takes less effort, but is limited by how much magic you have within.
However I don't really see either Bast or Kire ever running dry considering how much there is in the Mana Galaxy...
She kept going, killing and killing and killing mentally imagining every orc was that orc, was Jonathan, and she ripped them to bloody pieces.
Some say revenge is unhealthy, unsatisfying, will leave you empty.
If you were to ask Bast at that moment, she would tell you this: "revenge is the most satisfying thing I've ever felt."
Whether or not that might change later on, it's how she felt in that moment, that night, carving a wake of death as she followed the trail of the orcs coming at her, until finally she found her true target.
A cave in the mountain side, with some faint lifeforce deep inside.
She steeled herself, whispers and memories filling the silence as she began to shake.
'No. I can do this... I'm not to blame. I didn't do anything wrong. Jonathan is just a fucked up person. I did NOT deserve that.'
She'd seen that in the dragon's mind when they'd connected.
Absolute rage at what had happened to her. No accusation, no thoughts of how maybe she'd done something to make it happen, no blame or shame.
Just a feeling of rage and injustice at what happened.
It wasn't someone telling her, or meaningless words.
It's was genuine, soul to soul told. Undeniable in its firm belief.
She took that step forward, into the cave as she ventured forth, slinging the spear on her back for the bow.
As she turned a corner she saw an couple of orcs ahead waiting in the dark, smiling to themselves at how stupid this human was to come in with no light or anything.
Bast smile stop herself at its stupidity. The darkness didn't hide anything from her eyes-
Darkness hides from sight.
Jonathan.
And then she saw the bulge in the lead orc's loincloth.
It was EXCITED thinking of what easy prey she seemed to be.
If she were unable to see, how easily could the orc overpower a normal human female in the dark? What would he do, that just the thought of it made it erect.
Jonathan. Darkness hiding from sight.
An orc excited at the thought of doing that to her.
Bast went apeshit.
Later she wouldn't even remember what she did, but legends were told of her among the orcs after this night.
She stepped forward, and light magic created needle of light which shot out to stab into the orc, in his wrists and shoulders, and the transformed into hooks INSIDE his flesh to yank him towards her.
And as the other orcs in the ambush group flinches in surprise, he was already before her, elevated off the ground by the magic stabbed into him.
She held out her hand... and a thin, concentrated cylinder of flame shot out, almost a laser with how tight the flame was focused.
Aimed right at his balls.
It is said that at that moment, every orc in the world held their crotch in sympathetic pain as this one felt as a hole was melted straight through its crotch and out the rear, destroying the entire section of its body between its legs.
All of it. Burned away.
Ouch.