WD Spy rule two sixty three is entitled 'People burn from the inside with anger. Pyromaniacs burn outward in passion.'

Previous rule two sixty two:  Since we're already alive, the choice is no longer to 'live' but not to 'die' meaninglessly.

Next rule two sixty four: A flame of passion simultaneously burns all and nothing.

Summary page

-Short summary-

Titus and Ricca have an 'explosive' duel with the mafia, although Ricca's attitude of humans being disposable puts Titus in tight spots. Only after some time is he able to understand the true reason for Ricca's philosophy...

-Long summary-

Nathanel Titus had been considered broken for most of his twenty-one year life. So he has a fascination with fire. So he fits snugly within the pages of the Macdonald triad. His upbringing had been one diagnosis or another, and friends? Don't even go there. Even with that, he still has his core beliefs, and that is even though he loves to watch things burn, fire is sacred and shouldn't be used on dirty people. That is of course if someday that fire is what will be the instrument that will save those he cares about.

After nearly being blown to bits by Ricca, Titus gets to his feet and asks the blond bomber if she realizes that they're on the same side. She looks down at him from her perch on some rubble in the basement like one would look at a noisy puppy and shrugs. Titus fumes; he knows all too well that she doesn't like him much. The two had met when Vestige Experience and Sector Seven had a face off, and even back then he had the misfortune of having to deal with one Riccarda Miele. He's about five years older then her so to him she's still a brat, but she's twice as dangerous (maybe even more than that) than any operatives he's had to deal with in the past. She likes things such as flora and fauna, but does not hide her contempt for humanity. He had escaped their fight with minor injuries, but had it gone on longer he might not exist now. Despite that, he wonders just why she'd feel this way about humanity at her age?

Titus dusts himself off and asks how much ammunition they still have. Ricca asks him not to talk to her, but takes out her cellphone and rattles off the number of bombs she has on her personage, along with the guns that Titus has. He honestly doesn't like using guns, but the two mini flame throwers hidden in the sleeves of his jacket wouldn't last forever. After getting a run-down, the pyromaniac sums up their current weapons holding as 'having a lot of shit left over'. Ricca gasps, which he takes as an enemy incoming, when instead she reprimands him for using 'bad words'. Titus snaps and tells her to shut up. She had already said not to talk to her anyway right? So why should it matter if he curses? Ricca replies that bad words are bad words, and he shouldn't say them. The pyromaniac wonders how she can rattle off weapons of mass destruction with astute professionalism, but then throw a hissy fit over a curse word. An explosion in the next room ransacks his subconscious, and Ricca with inappropriate enthusiasm bounds off to see what got caught in her land mine trap. Titus yells that she shouldn't wander off on her own, but she's already out of earshot. He wonders once again how he got stuck with her, and remembers how everyone assumes bombs and fire are the same thing. He groans in annoyance, and begins to follow her, but something from behind causes him to turn suddenly, and the sound of an automatic pistol unloading shakes the room.

Ricca bounds into the next room excited to see her mine at work. When she doesn't see anyone in the next room, she makes her way closer to the center only to be ambushed from behind by a mafia operative. The man grabs her and she quickly tells him to stand back in Italian. Lukas had told her if she gets attacked by  someone from the mafia, she should quickly identify herself as an Italian as well. Ricca doesn't have any weapons other than her bombs which are useless at close range so being captured would be the end of her. If she is able to convince them to let her go, however she can get away to blow things up another day. The mafia operatives do seem to favor those who are of the same orgin after all.

Unfortunately, the operative that has Ricca has no intention of letting anyone live. Holding Ricca he introduces himself as her executioner, Shapiro. He does seem to be unhappy about having to kill a fine Italian woman with a body like hers, but slaughter is slaughter. Suddenly a piece of debris from the ceiling falls and clocks Shapiro in the head, allowing Ricca to push him aside. The operative is stunned, but far from out. He smiles and raises his weapon. The 'enforcers' within the mafia had been bored out of their minds, as Luciano wasn't much for the whole murder thing. So before he goes back to the base, he wants to make sure he has his fill, and he tells her he isn't the only one down here hoping to bump of stragglers.

Titus walks into the room and corrects Shapiro, revealing he had already dealt with his other 'friend'. He tosses a charbroiled corpse into the room and asks if Ricca has been hurt. She affirms she is and Titus strolls over to her and addresses Shapiro from a distance. Anyone who tastes what he's serving up will get their taste buds burned clean off, so they'd better just back off or be prepared to eat fire. Ricca notices that Titus's left arm remains limp, and prepares to ask but Shapiro's laughter stops her. He asks Titus who said he only had one partner with him? Suddenly two more mafia operative appear from behind Shapiro and fire upon Titus and Ricca. The pyromaniac opens his palms and from the mini flame thrower in his sleeve lights the basement aflame. He and Ricca take refuge in the next room while the Mafia operatives are kept at bay by the fire.

Ricca asks Titus if his arm is injured, and he replies with 'no shit'. He had been ambushed by a mafia operative when she had left the room earlier, and they managed to hit him with a shot to the arm. He was able to fry them before he became riddled with bullets, but now he's injured. More importantly, he's finally managed to ask Ricca why she dislikes humanity so much. Ricca is hesitant to tell him at first, but she finally says that it's because of her father. Although people tell her his death was an accident, she knows that it was a person who had killed him. Her dad was her world, and now a person had taken that from her. Since then she's decided that flowers and animals that remain innocent are much better than people who lie and kill each other. Titus smirks and shakes his head, replying that he's disappointed that her reason is something like that. He tells Ricca how he and Ruka met. She had acknowledged him not as a pyromaniac, or someone who is 'broken', but as a person who still has a 'potential' to meet. She said that while she isn't sure if she will be the one to help him reach that 'potential', she wants to help him, as a fellow 'person'. He flat out tells Ricca to stop running away. If she really hated humanity the way she thinks she does, Sector seven would be nothing but a continuously burning bonfire. She's just another kid who had a messed up childhood and figures that hatred and distrust is easier than change and growth.

He starts back over to the room where the mafia operatives are, and Ricca pursues him. He suddenly stops and she bumps into him from behind, and Titus tells her to stay there pressed against his back. He asks if she feels that warmth; the one 'fire' that cannot be put out. Maybe he liked starting fires so much because his childhood had been bereft of this 'flame'. Now though he's engulfed in it, and if she stays close she'll see that it's a flame that other pyromaniacs can only envy.