Living Darkness

by vildtiger

Mended Souls

Note: This happens a half hour after the last chapter.

"What in tarnation are you doing here?"

Spy blinks a few times but is unable to remove his now blurry vision. Still, he does quickly get aware there soon will be a bloodbath when he sees shapes of two brown unicorns are in the room.

Engineer and the BLU Demo, both have stayed by Spy’s side as a sort of comfort in his last moments, both get on their hooves after the RED Demoman walked inside. Engineer walks over to shove that one out, not wanting a fight to happen around their dying member. "You know what will happen." He lectures the unicorn but RED refuses to leave, instead giving Engineer a calm but firm look. "Yeah, but I need to do this."

Realizing what his other wants, BLU Demo fully agrees, especially when they finally have a legit chance. "Same here." He chuckles weakly. "It might be our chance." RED nods in agreement.

Engineer hesitates, he eyes the now awake but deadly weak RED Spy. “I would prefer you did this somewhere else but… alright.” He lets RED step inside, adding firmly to the two unicorns. "But I am throwing either of you out if you try to kill one another."

"That's fair." Both Demoman says at the same time, they look at each other, chuckles weakly before BLU slowly walks over to RED, explaining. "Self-loath is what keeps us separated, Pyro said that forgiveness—" and his words get rudely interrupted when RED suddenly throws him to the ground with his stronger and way more trained magic. Engineer steps over to throw RED out but that one managed to snap out from this sudden rage on his own and ends the spell. "Shit, I'm sorry mate." He apologizes to his other. This is harder than he thought for that rage came very suddenly and gave him no real clear sense what the root of this anger was.
BLU nods and gets back on his hooves, waiting.
RED, preparing himself if another rage attack would come over him walks slowly over to BLU. He feels anger but something he can control. Not sure what else to do, he nudges his other lightly on the shoulder. Nothing happened at first but after about a moment just standing there, BLU Demoman suddenly attacks by tackling into him and pointing his horn at his throat like a sword. At that very moment, both are happy that none of them has any real weapon lying around.
It took a lot out from RED not to give into his own rage pushing on his mind. In fact, both didn't want to fight the other. "No dammit!" RED growls and BLU forces himself to back away, also struggling against whatever rage there wants him to hurt the other. "I don't want to kill myself!" BLU cries, desperately trying to figure out what is causing this.

Engineer and the weaken Spy watches with a mix of pity and admiration the two Demoman struggling against this ever-present urge to murder the other.

RED Demo tackles into BLU, forcing him up against a bookshelf with his horn glowing in a sign of attack but it never comes. Searching deep in his mind, Tavish finds the source, the reason why he is so angry at himself. It is because he was the one —out of recklessness killed his adoptive parents. He could've easily avoided it, if he had listened just a bit more to them, heard their warnings and not be so set on making such a big explosion. Because of that action, he got thrown to the worst orphanage ever made and when his real parents reclaimed him. Tavish never felt the same warmth his adoptive parents gave him. He often found himself wishing he could return back to them, then remember he couldn't because he killed them.
"I was just a child..." He whispers, knowing that because of this horrible mistake, he learned to be careful, it taught him to never take people for granted and without that skill. He never would've become friends with Solly.
Slowly, Tavish's anger against that old mistake fades, he is still upset but he allows himself to let go of that old regret. Opening his eyes, BLU Demo gaze meet his other and blinks of what he is seeing.
"Why do I see myself?" BLU asks, unable keeping his trembling voice in check of the realization he is looking through the RED's eyes. RED too is dumbfounded and quite freaked out by this, he steps away from BLU but it doesn't stop. Instead, it gets worse, now he cannot say if he is inside his body or BLU's and that really screws up his balance. Both drops to the floor, eyes wide of what is happening and both must admit they are a bit scared. That fear gets washed away by a wave of memories, Tavish whole life flashes over his eye, and when coming to where he became Demoman, he is shocked to find both RED and BLU's memories, very quickly he cannot say which one he is.

"Demo!" Engineer calls when the two suddenly collapses, however before he can run over and check what is going on, a strong orange light appears around both, they disappear in it and when the light meet in the middle, only one Demoman stands, this one with a pelt in dark brown along with his eye, his hair black and the cutiemark now shows a sword having an explosion behind it. Demo falter on his hooves before crashing back onto the floor, breathing heavily with his eye wide open. Engineer hesitates, then slowly walks over to the unicorn. "You alright?"

It takes a moment for Demo to intercept what Engineer have said, thanks to his tangled memories and his body feeling like he has been thrown into a tub of hot water after having been outside in the cold for too long. At first, it hurts but slowly, exactly like when a cold body gets warmed up, his start to relax of what feels like years of being trapped out in the snow. Slowly the pain is replaced with a sense of ease as if he has just gotten rid of aches he did not know he had. "Y-Yeah." Demo nods up to Engineer, still quite shaky after this intense experience, but good god was it worth it. He feels stronger and clearer in the head than he has for years, must say that being whole again feels really good. Getting back on his hooves, Demo notices his pelt has become stronger in color, must say he like this better than the former. "That was intense." He smiles up to the bird/horse. "And boy could I need a drink right now!" He laughs, more so when Engineer rolls his eyes yet unable to smile.
Turning to Spy, Demo's grin fades seeing an aggravated look on the RED Spy's face. Now knowing the trick to this, Demo tells him; for honestly, he did not fully forgive himself for what he did to his adoptive parents. "If you cannot forgive whatever you did to cause you this self-hatred, then at least try and see the better in yourself."

Spy turns his head away, still looking quite sullen that Demo succeeds becoming whole. Demo and Engineer eye one another, worried that Spy won't give himself a break in time.

***

When the others— except Miss Pauling came both to check on Spy but also say their goodbyes, Medic notices right away the changes in Demo, so the one-eyed unicorn explains everyone that he managed to become whole. That gives Medic an idea. "Recall that whole experience, bitte."
Demo raises a brow but does as asked, Medic activates the tracer spell on him and gets the data he so desperately needed for how to fix Spy rapidly fading health. He must admit the emotions is quite intense, but nothing a memory spell can't handle. However, there is something about what the spell is telling him he does not understand. "Making peace with yourself was the trigger." He explains Demo and everyone else in the room, turning to Applejack he asks as he has an idea what truly caused the union of the two Demoman. "Did you feel anything unusual lately?"

Applejack blinks but does answer him honestly. "Yeah, it was weird alright. It felt like when we activate the Elements of Harmony." And from the gleam in Medic's eyes, it seems he has expected this which does confuse her a bit, "Don't leave us out, doc."

"What you felt proves my theory correct!" Medic laughs, turning to the other mercenaries. "The Elements of Harmony is the key to our problem! With us connected to it, we can use its magic to become whole again!"

"Darn," Engineer says, turning to Demo who can't help but stare dumbfounded at Applejack. "That explains the light when Demo became whole. It was orange like the Element of Honesty."

Twilight is happy they have come one step further to the human's split soul problem, but that can wait for unlike some, they still have time. "Don't get me wrong, but can we think about this late when Spy isn't... well..." She turns to the more comatose than conscious Spy. She fears he doesn't have much time.

"Oh right." Medic shakes his head as if getting rid of the excitement he got from the news. He walks over to Spy and with; "A memory spell should fix this." He taps Spy's head with his blue glowing horn. For a moment nothing happens, then Spy's eyes spring open and to everyone's shock, he starts to whimpering of what can easily be mistaken for pain. Medic stops the spell, giving the still pain-struck changeling a startled look. "Well, um... okay this is pretty bad."

"What's wrong?" Twilight asks worriedly.

Medic turns to her, shocked of what the memory spell told him. "He has too many bad memories. I need to go deeper into his mind to find his happier moments but I highly doubt Spy would like I invade his mind like that." The spell he did only makes the one casted on to relive their memories. But because Spy has so many nightmare inducing, then this spell will not work. Medic will need to see Spy's memories but even for his loose sense of morality, Medic thinks that is stepping the line. He wouldn't like anyone see his own memories, so he very sure Spy— who loves his privacy would get quite pissed if he did it.

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Applejack asks, it isn't Medic there answer her, instead it is Twilight. "Well, if we can't use Spy's own memories, then we can try and uses our own memories to remind him the good in himself."

Why didn't he think of that? Medic gasps and must tell this very smart and talented unicorn. "Twilight, you are a genius!" She blushes at the praise, Medic turns to Sniper, thinking he can get her fastest. "Sniper, I need you to get Zecora." He doesn't have to explain further, from the look in Sniper's eyes, he too has figured out that if anyone has the best memories of the best in Spy it is her. Meanwhile, Sniper does that, Medic turns to the others. "I would need the rest of you think about some good moments with Spy."
The mercenaries hesitate, Medic does understand why as Spy never tried to make friends with them and was quite hard to like, he only got better when he came here.
To Medic's surprise, the first who steps forward is Soldier. "I have several proud memories about my team's spy!" He declares.
Medic decides just to go with it and since he hasn't tried such an advanced spell, he asks Twilight to aid him. "Could you extract the memories?"

She steps over, taps Soldiers head with her glowing horn and after several moments she steps away from the bit dazed pegasus and turns her horn and the memories over to the once again comatose Spy. The magic holding Soldier's memories does not cause much reaction from Spy, only a bit twitching but that is a sign the spell worked.
When done, she shows Medic how to do the spell and he steps over to the turned humans while she walks over to her friends. Rarity is the first to share some good memories to Spy. Stepping away from her bit dazed friend, Twilight turns to Medic as he finishing his memory spell on Demo. Without a word, they both give these memories to Spy, this time he twitches as if dreaming a very intense dream. "This is to be expected." Twilight tells Medic. "His mind knows they aren't his."
"Will they fade?" Medic asks her curiously and she nods, explaining. "They will in a minute or so, only leaving behind the emotions."

"I wonder if he can feed on those?" Medic wonders out loud but there Twilight cannot answers as she has no idea. They continually giving Spy the others happy memories about him, when Sniper returns with Zecora and Scout. Spy seems to have gotten stronger, but still not able get out from his comatose state.
While Twilight explains Zecora what they are doing, Medic draws out Sniper's memories to Spy. When done, he turns to Zecora, admitting. "If your memories won't do it, then there is no hope for him."

Zecora nods slowly and walks over to Medic with Twilight by her side. "It is my greatest concern my aid won't help him to return."

"Only one way to find out." Applejack says, glancing to Scout nudging the comatose Spy and does wonder if he can sense that something is not right? They have done what they could for Spy, now everything depends on Zecora.

The zebra nods to the two unicorns that she is ready. They both do the memory spell as Twilight suspected that she would have a lot more than a single unicorn can hold. It seems she was right for both unicorns begin to struggle to keep up the spell, Medic mostly but the support from Twilight gives him the aid to keep up the spell there can be Spy's only hope.

Barely able to contain what feels like an ocean of happy memories, only able because of Twilight. The feeling he has been sensing for quite a while finally gets free and he almost loses the spell when he feels a surge of some powerful magic, for a moment he feels the others before it is over and a silver necklace, bigger than the others forms around his neck, a magenta colored gem in form of medical cross appears. He eyes the just formed Element of Harmony around his neck, the color of the gem and how fast they became friends is a clear sign that he has become Twilight's partner.
Eyeing Twilight, she gives him a weak smile which he returns before both turn their full attention back to this spell there hopefully will save Spy's life.
"This has to be enough." Twilight says, like him struggling to contain all the memories Zecora has about Spy. With a nod to each other, Medic and Twilight touch their horns onto RED Spy's head. Demo has to pull Scout away when he got a bit too close to the two’s spell. The changeling starts to moves, at first he seems to struggle against the memories, then, slowly his body starts to relax.

Just as the group feared the spell has failed an ocean blue light surrounds him and the zombie acting changeling and the two lights meet in the middle. When it fades, only a single Spy stand there, having a blissful look all over his face.

"How are you feeling Spy?" Medic asks him, jumping startled when Spy very suddenly collapses onto the floor and his wings starts to glow stronger than before. Medic is quickly by his side, turning a healing spell on him, but Spy doesn't want to be healed.

"N-No, I- my body...!" Spy cries from the burning sensation crushing through his entire body from all of the light magic he has gotten. By mere instinct, his body releases the overload of magic, sending a small shockwave out from him, startling the others but none more than Spy when this released energy now forms around him and before Spy can comprehend what is going on, the magic wraps around him and everything goes black.
When he returns back to conscious, he feels... weird.
Stronger, calmer, but also very different. He can't explain how, though, only he feels like he has become another person. Spy groans and slowly opens his eyes, it takes a moment to get his sight straight, when he does he notices that everyone in the room is staring at him. "Please don't tell me I look as weird as I feel..." He muses, shaking his head in hope to get this strange sense of lightheaded away.

Hate to break it to him, but; "You look as weird as you feel." Sniper says, like the rest barely able to comprehend what just happened to Spy. One moment he was trembling on the floor and the next he got wrapped into a magical cocoon and came out like... this. He still looks bug-like, but his colors and body shape have changed. His hooves no longer have holes nor are his body black, now it is royal blue, with the underside of his body darker blue- almost black while the back is a warm orange. His before puny bug wings have become bigger and looks like they belong to the wings of a dragonfly in their golden and sparkly color, his tail looks very much like the wings. The same golden color is around the base of his neck. His horn has gotten bigger and has a smaller spike in the front. Spy turns to him, showing his eyes no longer are that ghostly blue, but red and darken where the white should've been in a human’s eyes.

Almost fearing the worst Spy looks down at himself and realizes his own changes. "The hell?" He muses, turning around himself and stops to stare at his now bigger wings. He's not complaining though, he looks way better— his thoughts get rudely interrupted when Scout suddenly tackles into him, crying his eyes out. Not only seeing it but also feeling how scared his boy was from this whole ordeal and how relieved he now is. Spy smiles weakly and nuzzles his head against the crying kid. "I'm alright now." He ensures Scout softly. His boy hugs his neck tightly, as if afraid to let go; Spy doesn’t judge him, it must’ve been scary for his young mind.

He sure is, Sniper thinks and has a feeling that this form is just how a whole Spy looks in this world. Although: "Compared to Demo's simple pelt change, yours are bloody ridiculous." Sniper remarks to the way more colorful Spy.
The new in form changeling shoots him a glare, Sniper notices that there isn't much anger behind them. "I'll try not go overboard the next time you morons decides to overload my body." Sniper chuckles of that combat, it's good to know Spy is back to normal—although the new form needs some time getting used to.

The overload was not fun but in all honesty, that pain was all worth it. "Thank you." Spy tells everyone in the room, if it hasn't been for them, he would've died. "You saved my life, and for that; I am forever in your debt." Something he hates to be but Spy thinks he can deal with these people and ponies who gave him a second chance in life. A life he is certain he can enjoy now.

Engineer just can't help but roll his eyes of Spy's last words. "You're not in our dept. We're a team and that's what a good team does." Heavy besides him nods in agreement, saying with his deep rumbling voice. "Not in dept, but you forever stuck with us." Spy rolls his eyes but does say with a small shrug. "Figures I need to be a bit nicer from now on."

"Don't strain yourself." Medic grins, which earns him a glare from Spy, but all that does is making everyone, including the mares, laugh.

Spy groans loudly but does quirk a smile, it does drop slightly when his red eyes find Zecora. He hesitates for a second, then walks over and she strokes her head up against his now royal blue neck. He smiles, more so when both RED and BLU Spy in his mind agrees on this choice. He kisses her once before he turns to the now very cheerful chatting crowd. He gets the attention and must tell his team of a choice he made some time ago. "I won't return back with you."
Several of them give him a confused and startled stare.

Demo is one of them not surprised hearing this from Spy. He has seen how much he loves that zebra and figured this would happen, hell he too is highly considering staying but he needs to look after his mother. "I figured you would say that." Turning his eye to the pair. "Maybe we should tell Miss Pauling you didn't survive."

Sniper thinks that is best if Spook really wants to stay here and also give them the chance see their families again. "It will be easy making her think you died. And save us the trouble with the Administrator why you didn't return."

"I'll be sure staying off the radar until your departure." Spy replies, once again greatly grateful for the others support.

"What about Scout?" Engineer asks, eyeing the child now chattering happy random at Spy's hooves. The changeling eyes Scout, his eyes pained. "...Hopefully, this age spell will be gone before your departure. I would like to explain him properly." Engineer and the others nod they understand.

Author's Note:

and there you have it! the way for the mercenaries to become whole again. about time this would happen huh?

before I leave you, I would like to know if any of you readers happens to be good making song text. I made a quick lyric in a future chapter but I must admit that I am not that good making songs. so any help on that department would be nice.