"We called this the Pyrovision. It will allow you to see the things you used to see, based on what you described to us...It...Well...It's your choice to go back any time you want..."

Pyro gazed at the googles she had in her hands. She felt them calling her. Come on, Pyro, come play with us. Balloonicorn and all of your friends are here, waiting for you, we didn't forget you. Things will be much better with us. There are no problems here, you will see no blood or feel no pain.

After a moment of thought, she put them back to the box and left it inside of her wardrobe.

It was very tempting, she couldn't deny it. The idea that in a couple of days she would have to kill people and she would probably be killed herself in numerous ways, all of them really painful and gory, made the idea of escaping, of turning off her conscience, very tempting.

Then she told herself that she had spent most, if not all of her life living in a fantasy and it was about time she came into terms with real life. The chance to go back to Pyroland was there. She would do it from time to time. But that was not the moment.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Don had placed one in the room, and made some more changes as well, turning what seemed like the cave of a monster into a decent bedroom for a sane person. She was fine with the changes, really. She just added a few things.

There was a pile of books on the table Don had brought too—the original had been burnt as soon as she occupied the room for the first time, years before—, which would allow her to keep practicing her reading and writing in her free time. Demo said, while they finally sat to drink the bottle of scrumpy, she was doing fine, and dared her to read and understand the instruction book of the fridge. There it was; Pyro was determined to show him. She went back on decorating the walls too. They used to be strange, bizarre, disturbing even, the smoke from the frequent fires she started made them fade. Now she had the chance to make something pretty and bring a little of Pyroland to her everyday world so it didn't feel so cold. Green meadows, candy vegetation and happy creatures filled the walls now. Her technique was not the best, she knew, but it was her own work and she was proud of it, and it helped the room look less of a cell, since it had no windows. Next to her bed she had painted something else which was not fantasy: a family composed of a mother, a father and two girls, one older than the other. She still didn't know what they were like and supposed she would never know; she painted the image created in her head of what they were like, taking what she had seen on television, in the streets and her own features as a model. Her mom, with a dress and a beehive, her dad, with glasses, a respectable mustache, a pipe and a suit, and her sister with a pink dress, ponytails and a big smile. That way she would have them close to her bed when she slept—she talked to them often, still with regret, but also to tell them about her days, and what she was becoming. For what she had been told, people who died were always close, watching and hearing too.

At least she felt was becoming something. Ever since she removed the suit and was left in Teufort, she felt like no one, nothing. No name. No friends. No possessions. No skills. No past. No present. No future. Even when she got that job, gave herself a name and thought she was becoming a useful member to society she felt like nothing at all. But those days had been left behind.

She knew most of what she had now was a lie. She knew her birth name was probably not Mabel, her family probably looked different from her drawings, had an approximate idea of her age because she didn't even have a precise date, the place she found comfort in did not really exist. But at least now she was aware that it was all a pretty, comforting lie. It was a lie of her own choice.

And there was something real: her teammates. Whatever happened, there was just this one thing she couldn't doubt about: she had someone who actually gave a damn about her, didn't expect anything in return or cared if she had some issues. At the end of the day, who could say he didn't have them? Which of them could claim his mind was perfectly fine and sane? They were a bunch of weirdos. But weirdos understand each other.

She had their support. To stop giving a damn if she killed someone or she was the one killed. To convince herself that the civilians out there committed greater and less honorable crimes than they did. To think that it wasn't so bad, not remembering one's past or not having one which was worth remembering. To build a future, an identity without the uniform, to look forward.

Spy, once again, talked privately to her about this. Pyro hadn't realized before of how well they could understand each other, maybe because she didn't have her mental faculties in order as she did now. She guessed masked mercenaries had something the others couldn't even understand. Forgetting about yourself. Not letting people know. The manipulation. How you present yourself. The secrets. She still had those conversations with Medic with the purpose of exploring what was in her mind—at least now the doctor was sincere about his intentions—but the longest, deepest conversations were now with Spy. He never talked about himself, but he liked to hear her guess what her life was like before her passion for fire, her delusions brought her there, why it was so hard fitting in the real world, imagining what life would have been if Mann Co. had never found her. There were times when she saw Spy wanted to expose his own experience but ended up silent and just let her talk. Perhaps one day he would finally trust her the way he asked her to trust him or lose that fear to talk about himself.

There were still traces of Don wherever she looked. In the team too. Scout was happy to have her back, but it was evident she would never share the complicity he had with Don. Don was so sure of himself, he was charming, ruthless and professional. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't, that's what she guessed her partners thought sometimes, the reason why the boss readmitted her. She didn't care. She knew she was not like them but would do everything she could to go back to her monstrous Pyro self, or at least be at their level. She would work hard. Take deep breath, hold her guts. She was positively sure she would find it funny after some time. It felt mighty good breaking Linda's face and burning Brad alive. It was just a matter of habits.

She was not like Don, she said to herself, looking at the big eyes, the short hair—Soldier helped her find a haircut which was more appropriate to the battlefield—, the face so many people had described as pretty. She didn't care about money. She was home. She was with the people she loved the most in the world. She wasn't as cocky sure of herself, or charming, or relatable, or funny or friendly as he was. She didn't have a past to talk about. Her mind was a mess and controlled her more than she controlled it. But she knew where she was going. Her name was Mabel Lee, she was thirty-five, and she would go wherever her eight partners went and die for them in the battle which was about to take place and always.

THE END