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The duffel bag of fireworks had devolved into a plastic shopping bag of explosive toys. Bottle rockets, cherry bombs, roman candles and firecrackers. A prankster's dream. It was like being a kid again, sneaking around the night, ready to cause some trouble.

Writ dressed the part too. He had hid the suit he stole from the Blacksuit underneath the dumpster, and it seemed about time to dust it off and put it in good use. Over his head was his Coyote mask. Gotta look good for the security cameras, after all.

There was a roll of duct tape and rubber bands around his wrists. He hoped Valeriu did his part of the deal. His bright eyes cut through the dimly lit alleyways of Downers as he walked towards the meeting spot.

"You've changed." Writ's voice said behind Valeriu. He was obviously still the kid that he met back at the ice cream stand, but his aura had changed. Twisted in a way, but more powerful.

Just like Writ's.

Whatever the case, if Valeriu grew, that's just more power to the cause.

"Gotta look good for the cameras." Writ tossed Vale the roll of duct tape. He'd never admit it, but the whole idea of running through the night and fighting the forces of evil reminded him of the heroes in his comic books, and if there was one thing he learned from comic books, you had to dress the part. Writ just made do with what he had.

"And no, unless you feel like setting fire to a rave party." Writ pulled up his mask, and looked thoughtful, "You wanna?"

He smiled "Just kidding." The godling pointed at Vale's bag, "Those the bricks?"

"Not building, breaking." Writ said, he put his bag down and, waving Vale over, "There's a house of glass over in Uppers, and a couple of wolves like us should go do something about it." He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and stretched out a rubber band.

"Could you hand me a brick?"

The paper message would be redundant compared to the stunt that they were gonna pull, but he figured that if the Blacksuits were as stupid as the guy he snagged the suit from, then they might need a hint.

Writ reached into his bag and gave Vale three or four firecrackers.

"We'll kill two birds with one stone, smash some windows and set stuff on fire." Writ took out a few firecrackers himself. He twisted the fuses together.

"Depends if they want to come out and play." Writ didn't mind the idea of cracking a few Blacksuit heads, that violent urge that he reserved for Ciro was, without his rival, not satisfied. But that would have to wait, it was a declaration of war, they weren't going to start kicking a** unless they had to.

"We'll see what happens, we just want to tell them we mean business. If they want to send a bunch of goons after us, bad luck for them, they're messing with a couple of god-chosen guys that aren't going to take their s**t." Writ wrapped his firecracker pack to a brick with a couple of rubber bands.

"Just like being a kid again." He chuckled, putting the finished brick on the ground and reached into his grab-bag and grabbed a couple of cherry bombs.

"Oh yeah, if those ears are what I think they are, you might want to cover them before these things go off, went partially deaf last time I lit these up."

"Aren't you already?" Writ laughed, maybe a bit too much for someone who was handling something that could blow off his hand. Valeiru was beginning to remind Writ a lot of himself when he was younger. The impatience and the anticipation in his eyes were more than obvious. It was like the first time the teenagers of the neighborhood took little Writ along to blow up mailboxes. If only everyone could see him now...

So he finished a few more explosive bricks, and stowed them away in his bag. Writ hoped that the plastic wouldn't give under the weight. People ask questions when you have bricks wrapped in fireworks.

"Time to go." Writ got up and led the way northward. Towards Uppers.

Writ figured he could mess with this kid a little.

"Well, before we started fighting, Ciro and I had a sort of 'thing' together."

He looked a little embarrassed for effect.

"We were young, it happens. I mean, exchanging notes and stuff, going to the carnival together, staying at each other's houses for the night... Knowing him, he didn't talk about it much. If everyone knew how gentle he was, nobody would take him seriously."

Writ sighed, also for effect.

"Then we broke up, well, I did anyway. Decided that a relationship couldn't last in our situation. I just wanted to protect him. Ciro was pissed though, said that the next time he saw me he'd kill me. I think he was drunk. Went on and on for everything he done for me, and how I was being ungrateful. And he just storms out the door."

"Never saw him again after that, except for that one fight. It was self-defense on my side really, I never actually wanted to hurt him... But we used to be very good friends. Very good friends." Writ tried very hard to keep himself from snickering, "And you know, looking back on that, I figured that this is the least I could do."

Silence.

Writ smiled, "Alright, you got me." He was surprised at himself for making that story up on the spot. If anything made Ciro angry, it would just pop out of Writ's mouth, lie or not. The godling could hear Ciro screaming at him from the afterlife.

"But really, I'm doing this because the game's hard enough without these guys butting into our business. I mean, you see some of the newbies around here? They wouldn't stand a chance against these guys." This was more or less true, "Besides, the only rival I have is dead, and blowing stuff up seems to be a healthy hobby. "

"So you lost a girl in this mess too?" Writ gave Vale an empathic pat on the shoulder, "Same here. To Ciro, too now that I think about it. And then I apologized to her, and I think she forgave me, but I'll never know, I never saw her after that."