#I used to main pyro back when I still had a computer that could run the game

[dimpletheheck]

First time drawing pyro🪓🔥

Omg pookie bear...

I love this little freak sm

Step aside, you wannabe artists- Pyro is the next Da Vinci

[thelanternwielder]

A Visitor

This is a continuation of an idea I started all the way back in March/April. You can find it here: >LINK<

I’m calling this series “The Misadventures of Charon and Rotom”. I think it’s an appropriate name.

I hope you enjoy. Feedback is always appreciated.

“Charon…are you awake?”

The soft voice roused the exhausted scientist.

“Ugh,” he groaned, still buried in sheets, “What time is it?”

The voice crackled with trepidation.

“Charon, I’m scared.”

The scientist sat up, rubbing his eyes. Awkwardly, he felt for his glasses on the side table, found them and slid them on. Sure enough, it was Rotom.

“Why?”

It wasn’t unusual for the Pokemon to come running to the scientist whenever it got into mischief and often he would the one to haphazardly fix the situation.

But this was different. Rotom was never this frightened of anything.

“There’s a strange Gengar man…”

The scientist raised an eyebrow, “Gengar man?”

The ghost nodded, “He had the look of one: the eyes, the smile, the really, really spikey hair…”

“Right,” the scientist was as sceptical as he was concerned.

“I think he might be one of those aliens. He had a red glowing cylinder on his sash.”

Charon’s eyes widened.

One of them. In the Galactic Headquarters. In the middle of the night.

He threw his blankets to the side and sprung out of bed. In a blink of an eye, he slipped on his dressing gown and slippers.

“Where is he?” he quietly commanded his friend.

The Pokemon zipped out of the bedroom. The scientist followed behind, running.

It was frustrating that the intruder didn’t set off any alarms. Perhaps, he really was like a Gengar: a ghost that could fade away into nothingness.

The most irritating part about the situation was that no one was going to believe the scientist. He tried to inform the other commanders and his leader about the possible threat posed by these aliens called Eklipse. The commanders regarded him as if he spontaneously grew a second head. His boss didn’t emote, let alone react. He simply gave the scientist one of his intense dead-eyed stares.

I warned them that something like this would occur, the scientist thought as he raced through the base, Now, otherworldly invaders have come knocking on our doors! Of course, this happens when they didn’t listen…

Suddenly, Rotom stops in its tracks. Charon skidded to a halt with a puff. The little spirit indicated to the scientist to be silent as they approached. It snuck around towards an open door in the shadowed corridor. The scientist copied, but not before arming himself with his slippers, one in each hand.

They peered through the door.

It was the base’s main computer. Flashing lights could be seen all over the machine. The fans whirred quietly.

The scientist whispered, “Cover me. I’m going in.”

He entered the room in a fighting stance, poised to whack anyone with his shoes. Rotom mirrored him with its lighting-shaped appendages.

But there was nothing except the beeps and boops of the machine.

Rotom turned slightly to the door and gasped.

The room flashed as it discharged a bolt of electricity.

A yelp came from behind as a metal cylinder rattled the steel ground.

Charon spun around, jolted by fright. The cylinder had rolled to his foot and touched it.

He gaped slightly at what was before him.

Barely in the room, in a fitting black outfit, clasping a seized gloved hand was a very tall man. He did look similar to a Gengar with his spiked hair and wide-open eyes. Instead of a grin, he had a snarl, directed squarely at the electric ghost. His features were lit in a menacing crimson by the glowing container on his sash.

Charon briefly glanced down.

He dropped his slippers, exchanging it for the strange cylinder at his feet.

The intruder stepped forwards. Charon and Rotom moved backwards, the former springing up with the cylinder pointed at the threat. It seemed to be a rod of sorts with a handle.

The man’s snarl curled into a sneer.

The scientist demanded, “Who are you?”

There was an unnerving, high-pitched giggle from the man as his eyes flickered between the two.

“Wouldn’t you like to know. Say,” he tilted his head to the side a bit, regarding him, “you’re that little scientist who found us, aren’t you?”

“Y-yes,” the scientist shuffled backwards again, “The last time I checked your boss told me that he didn’t want the likes of Team Galactic to be anywhere near your base.”

He made a prodding motion with the rod, filled with an irritated disgust.

“So, why in Arceus’ name are you here?!”

The intruder emitted another laugh as he looked down, stepping back into the door frame.

His eyes flicked up, now twinkling with a malevolent mischievousness.

He taunted, “You’re going to have to catch me before I’ll ever talk.”

He raced off, leaving Charon and Rotom baffled for a moment.

They scrambled out of the room and after the Gengar man. Charon was half-skating across the metal floor in his socks, sliding into corners whenever he reached them. Rotom had rocketed past him. It could easily outfly the intruder, but, much like a spirit, he kept disappearing into the darkness and reappearing again.

He was leading them.

Eventually, the scientist and the electric ghost entered the warehouse at the back of the base.

The two scanned their dimly lit surroundings. There was nothing but crates of equipment and supplies, some stacked on top of each other.

“Oh great!” the scientist groaned, “It shall be impossible to find him now!”

Suddenly, slicing through the quiet, there was a snicker from above. They turned to the source.

Standing on top of a stack of crates, gleaming wickedly, was the intruder.

“Enjoying our little game of ‘Cat-and-Mouse’?” he asked.

“Game?” Charon retorted, “You think that you can just waltz into our base, make a mockery of our security and treat it as a game?! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!”

Rotom jerked when the scientist shouted.

The intruder’s eyes flickered with sadism.

“Dom Pyro,” he proclaimed with a snigger, “And,” he plucked the luminous cylinder from his sash, “I have somebody to introduce to you.”

The scientist and the ghost regarded him with tense confusion.

He lifted the hand with the cylinder.

“Dragonburn,” he announced with glee, “LAUNCH!”

He whipped his arm and hurled the strange container. It spun through the air, over the perplexed couple, leaving a luminous trail behind it. They watched its trajectory.

It reached the concrete ground.

Ting!

The tiny container erupted with vermillion light. The scientist shielded himself from it.

He looked back. He froze, pop-eyed.

Before him was towering red and black monster. It resembled a bipedal bat-eared dinosaur with a spear-tipped nose and crystalline claws and spines. There were lines on its body that seemed to glow with power. Its eyes were the same.

It growled loudly, flicking its tail with anticipation.

“What is that?” Rotom’s voice quivered.

Charon couldn’t reply. His mouth hung open. He had never seen anything quite like this beast before.

The intruder cackled like the madman he was.

He called out to his monster, “Pretty Pretty! I have some little mouseys for you to play with!”

In that instant, the bizarre dinosaur seemed to grin evilly.

The rod that the scientist had managed to hold onto slipped out of his hand. It rattled the floor.

The dinosaur bellowed. Charon and Rotom screamed.

The dinosaur charged. The pair skedaddled, fleeing from the snapping jaws.

The giant lizard rammed into crates as it rampaged. They crashed into the floor and walls as they were batted away with its head.

It even belched flames at its prey, igniting the surrounding boxes instead.

Its controller, still perched on his vantage point, watched in utter delight. He leapt from the crates and landed on the hard ground.

As he picked up the rod, a voice with a scathing tone hissed through his earpiece.

“What in God’s name are you doing?”

He slid the rod into the sheath on the back of his sash.

Slyly, he replied, “It’s called a distraction, Clockwork Man.”

There was an exasperated sigh from the other side.

“I hope you realise that I can hear you all the way from where I am,” the voice said.

The maniac simply chuckled, spying where his curious cylinder had skated to.

Meanwhile, Charon and Rotom were huddled behind a box that had been swatted to the side by a strong reptilian tail, desperate to not make a sound. The shaken scientist was worried that his pounding heart was going to give their location away. The little ghost recoiled as monstrous snarls and shrieks echoed above.

They were going to need one Hell of a miracle to escape unscathed.

And in two magic words, they received just that.

“Dragonburn,” its controller commanded, “return.”

The giant reptile grunted, looking to its master, before its entire body shattered into a vibrant red aurora. It slithered back into its tiny container.

The intruder snapped the core back onto his sash and ran out of the warehouse, disappearing into the night.

Cautiously, Charon and Rotom peered from their hiding spot when they realised that the beast that terrorised them had vanished.

They were met with the site of scattered crates, some cracked open and spilling their contents onto the concrete floor. Some were smoking or even on fire. It was in complete chaos.

The scientist flinched as the chilly water from the fire sprinklers hit his face and neck. The entire place was becoming drenched from the delayed downpour.

In that moment, a thought floated into the scientist’s head, one that was a greater grievance than what was before him.

How am I going to explain this to the Boss?

[discardedmilkywaywrapperwrites]

Return to TuFort

Activating Halloween Mode was, looking back on it, a very strange and especially stupid idea. The fact that it wasn't even a full moon, and was also the middle of July, did not give TF2 spy player and steam account name "staricipant" a large amount of confidence when the vote was originally brought up a few moments ago. The vote count then jumped to 99 votes in favor, which was about... participant slides to the side as a blast of appropriately named magic rushes right by their head. 99-24, that's seventy five votes more then were on the server. And of course, Merasmus guffawed as he announced the event.

staricipant, firing and hitting a revolver shot on the damned wizard, regrets having decided that it was simply a unique update, a reward several years lacking in the past. Now they knew it was false, of course, and if they made it out alive they'd have to write up the event and post it onto a creepypasta site. Still, the idea that TF2 was being updated again would be the more unbelievable part of the tale. There's a texan yell as an engineer, (staricipant stopped paying attention to team colors about a minute and a half ago), gets transformed into a chicken and his level two sentry transforms into bird feed.

The soldier begins taking a few steps back and the pyro muffles something that staricipant takes to mean "distract the wannabe wizard". staricipant whips out their watch, a trusty strange dead ringer that doesn't seem like such a waste of cash now with their life on the line, and then charges the wizard. Merasmus says something unintelligible, and then a greenish purplish blueish redish yellowish bolt with a few other colors mixed in that comes out to a shade of grey shoots out of his staff. Closing their eyes, staricipant *really* hopes this is less painful then it looks.

---

There is a computer, with no one nearby. The steam menu is up, and although it says that TF2 is currently running, the application is not up. It's quite fortunate no one was around, at least currently. The computer shorts out, the monitor going dark and the keyboard completely unrelated popping off the two 0 keys. The screen flickers back to life, with a new distinction.

A warping effect makes it hard to read, and a monochromatic filter does not help either, but it almost seems as if the steam library has folded in on itself. If you were there, which you aren't, you could squint, and you might be able to make out some mixed names. "Fist Full of Overlords", "Darkest Mania", "Portal to Monkey Island"...

"Return of the Team Fortress" is currently running, the steam menu says, but the application is not up.

---

staricipant wakes up, face down on hard flooring. A glance around solicits a groan from the beleaguered spy main. This wasn't some bizarre dream coming from too much playing of violent video games? No, this was good old RED spawn room, alright. They quickly check their armory, still not understanding now that they've fallen into the spy's shoes how they holster a revolver without a visible holster. The sapper, the knife, the strange dead ringer...

Opening the Spytron 3000 Disguise Kit raises an alarm, however. The cigarettes removed, in their place, a second screen. In fact, the regular screen does not display the options of disguises, but a team roster in their place. Confused, staricipant taps on the new screen. The player-list is all there, all 24 of the poor sods who decided it was a bright idea to play Tufort today. Unless this sort of thing happened on other servers...

Not a good thought. staricipant scans over the player list. Twelve on each side, all of them greyed out, even their own username. Instead of having the pings of each player, there is simply grey text saying "unknown". How strange. staricipant exits the new screen and returns to the old one. It does not seem like they can disguise, but they test it anyway, tapping on the Heavy Weapons Guy. It zooms in on his face, and a piece of text appears next to the icon. "[?], a Red Heavy, [?]". How helpful. What does any of this do or even just mean?

staricipant gives up, closing the disguise kit and pocketing it. Revolver out, although they're not sure how much good it'd do if Merasmus or any of those other beasts came back. The spy opens up the resupply cabinet, pulling out a few small med-kits and pocketing them, and then leaves the spawn room. Sure, it'd be faster to jump down off the balcony, but staricipant wasn't that confident in game mechanics to risk an injury. Better take the stairs, just in case.

It's still a relatively short walk to the bridge between the forts, and staricipant is glad they didn't pick soldier or heavy when this started, seeing how slow the two walk. staricipant's walking speed itself comes to a halt as they stare down at the charred corpse of a scout. They recognize them, of course, they're... staricipant's virtual eyes widen in worry. What happened? No, they're a scout, obviously, but what was their username?

The spy closes their eyes. They remember... well, their life before a madman wizard who may or may not even be real sucked them into the hit FPS, and they remember getting shot by that wizard and waking up here, but... what happened between those points? They knew they checked the list before, and they were here for the fights... where did they even fight Merasmus? This bridge? The intel room, and if so, which one? Was it outdoors or indoors? They never had memory problems before, and certainly none like this. staricipant feels more like a ghost then a real person right now, and they aren't technically wrong.

As they step around the poor scout, their pocket vibrates. staricipant takes a step away, and it stops.  A step back, and it vibrates. staricipant decides not to stick around and continues on into the BLU fortress- the doorways are barricaded. Resupply cabinets and tables block unwanted access. Counterintuitively, this gives staricipant hope. "Bonjour?" An annoyed cough. That's what they get for possessing a frenchman. "Hello? Anyone in there?"

But it's as silent as a ghost town. Only the wind answers, and it's not a very understandable source of information. staricipant looks at their other options. Not being a soldier, or a demo, or even a pyro, there's no way they could get to the balcony from here. The sewers were an option, and not even an unfeasible one. Just... yes, staricipant realized how stupid it was as they berated themselves, they were a bit scared of water over head height. And the TF2 mercs didn't swim as much as spam the spacebar to quickly hop back out of the water. Jumping in was a no go, at least, and since time did not seem to be of the essence, the spy turned to enter the sewers from RED base.

They don't make it very far, though. In fact, they stop almost immediately, glaring down at the corpse of the scout that dares to make their pocket vibrate. Finally, they pull out whatever it is... it's their watch. A lovely gold, and a bronze shimmer floats over it occasionally. It cost about a dollar and ten cents trading refined for it, but it was worth it. staricipant flicks open their watch and this isn't their watch. It... it shows the time, inside. It has an hour hand and a minute hand. staricipant isn't an expert in watches, or even in non-digital clocks, but they'd hazard a guess and say the time is 1:30, although on day and night they would have no idea.

It is still vibrating. The Dead Ringer, as much as staricipant knows, does not normally... ring, let alone vibrate, but what do they know? Maybe this is a common reaction to corpses that the Spy knows of but isn't important to the player. A unique piece of lore, maybe? Something to update the wiki about. Could it stop shaking, though? It's going to fall out of their hands- and it does. staricipant, still getting used to wearing fine gloves, flubs their chance to catch it, and it falls, rattling, onto the dead scout's ankle. The world goes dark, and video game player staricipant gets a killer headache.

---

"Med down! Oh ey, you want some too?" "Try! You idiot, get back here!" "I can take'm oh god oh I am on FIRE help me hel-"

---

staricipant stares, dumbfounded, at the flaming corpse of the scout. The voices in their head seemed so lifelike, and yet everyone in this scene is as motionless as a statue. The scout, falling over, was attempting to flee a pyro down the bridge, as a sniper in the direction the scout was running pulls an arrow out of the quiver for their bow. A spy stands next to the sniper, whiffing a revolver shot on the pyro. staricipant realizes that something is very off.

They can see, but there's no color anymore. They can't even tell which team the scout is on, or the pyro, or the sniper, although they can guess the pyro isn't on this team's side. A glance behind the pyro shows the dead body of a medic, assumedly the cause of this "Med Down" call from the scout. There's no one else around, really. But the entrance to the BLU base is unblocked, now! A sneaky way around a problem, and staricipant didn't even need to get their shoes wet. They proudly march inside, and stare at a black void. They touch it, and it repels them like a trampoline. How helpful.

It also hurts their head, again. Great. They walk back outside, staring up at a white sun. Something vibrates in their pocket, and they check the watch in their hand. Wait, no, that's not it. This time, the disguise kit is to blame. staricipant flips it open, anger slowly creeping under the ski mask. What now? Both screens are empty, but when it's open, that quickly changes. The right-hand screen begins... typing.

[24 names met their fates here, in these fortresses.] [It is your solemn duty to put name to face, and face to fate.] [Accomplish this, and you shall be set free.] [Fail, and remain stuck.] [Good luck.]

"Good luck?" The spy snarls, anger having been replaced by rage. "I get trapped in some bizzaro TF2, and the message is GOOD LUCK?" The disguise kit is slapped closed and shoved violently in their pocket. staricipant sits down suddenly, grumbling. "Oh, isn't this just magnifique. Magnificent, damn it all to hell. Fine, I'll solve a stupid puzzle. Just so I can stop being french."

[tcarroll777]

PYRO JUNKIES GO TO HEAVEN

Tom Carroll | July 4th, 2017

I hope you don't see this until tomorrow - the 5th - or later. I hope you spent all day visiting with friends and family - attending parades. Most of all, I hope you were witness to a great fireworks show.

Here's a ramble from sometime back - a reminiscence, offering a perspective most are not fortunate to be part of. A story of The Fourth of July from a Pyro's close up view, our dance with fire. Fire destroys. Fire sustains life and brings people together. And sometimes, fire ignites imagination!

As a very young child my transcendental intuition was literally ignited by fire on Independence Day. In small town, Lakeview, perched on Oregon's high Desert, residents came together for a community picnic. Later, the fireworks displays were held at a drive-in movie theater.

I was three, no more than four years old when following the films, (most here remember that there were always two back then), I watched as an aerial shell rose into the air on a column of purple fire - a comet tail tracing an ariel shells accent until the moment it broke – exploding across the sky with such beauty that this memory continues to burn the retina of my mind’s eye. Long before I knew the word or its meaning, I’d seen the Transcendent, and with near missionary zeal, wanted others to experience what I had. Which is probably why, years later I operated a display fireworks business. When asked, I’ve always said that I believed it was all because of that purple comet.

For years, on the fourth of July I sent out crews of “Highly Trained Professionals,” loaded with all the fireworks and shooting gear needed to put on a show for towns around the area. It’s a wonder we never killed anyone. Yes, we were trained and had years of experience. But we were just a bunch of overgrown kids, thrilled by the idea of all those fuses to light – all the smoke, flame and concussion of shells lifting into the night. It’s one of those experiences that defy explanation - a great big rush and you got paid to do it… sometimes. Once a year we did it for free. And gawd… was it fun!

Early on the morning of the Forth, drivers converged from towns all around the area. After checking all the paperwork – being sure everyone had a clipboard full of it, enough to satisfy city, county, state and federal cops, even the United Nations – no kidding! Permits were handed out to the lead pyro’ and case after case of shells were transferred to this rag tag fleet of trucks and canopy protected pick-up beds.

Each truck had to display four, big bright orange placards announcing that you were hauling 1.3G Explosives. Given the time of year - the day..., they might as well have said, "FIREWORKS ON BOARD!"  While on the road, the real danger faced was other drivers staring - causing them to steer whatever they were driving right at us.

It  was not uncommon for people to try to flag a one of our drivers down, thinking that he would be happy to sell them something big. Something to blow up the BBQ and everybody standing in the backyard - “Ya, Baby!” Nice try. But not gonna happen!

With no shame, I reserved the largest show for myself and a group of friends.After all the other crews were "papered," packed and on the road - the storage bunker was still packed with cases of shells destined for Wallowa Lake or La Grande - sometimes both, as we often shot back to back - two shows in a row. Both over budget and each with equal enthusiasm.

With member of the crew coming from across the state, we gathered for this purpose for twenty years. Yes, we were friends. But we all knew it was really about all the fuse and powder. We were there to shoot shells!

These were the "free" ones. Throwing profit, and more in with the community fund - the result was a whopper show, far out sizing either small towns budget. Civic organizers probably never knew or understood. No matter. This was a worship offering - an attempt to satisfy the Deities of the Transcendent. Actually, it was an attempt to satisfy pyro lust. Never fully satisfied - we always wanted  MORE!

Wallowa's show - being a, "lake" show - was inherently, more dramatic. With all that water to receive the fall-out - we could include long duration shells - shells who's components were likely to still be "hot" when they reached the ground. Not something we could intentionally allow to happen in the middle of a field of dry grass.

So, acres of water to extinguish fallout. High mountains for a backdrop during daylight, set-up hours also served to darken the night sky - allowing less light to spill back over the horizon after sunset. And a mirror - all that water again. An oversized reflection pond doubling the effects displayed in the air.

Shot from three massive floating platforms heavily roped together. With 4000 sq ft. of deck space and the required safe distance from the crowd, we had clearance for the big ones - shells up to sixteen inches in diameter. Even so, we never shot anything larger than twelve's.

Forgive the cliche, but if ever it were true – where fireworks are concerned, size really does matter… so, of course, the bigger the better! But the wicked witch’s of Oregon bureaucracy had pledged that we would never enjoy the ultimate thrill. True to bureaucratic small mindedness, without regard for the law or their own rules, they limited our permits to twelve inch shells. They just never got it. And as concerns The BIG one - a sixteen inch'er... neither did we.

Forget the sixteens... a twelve inch shell is nothing to sniff at. Particularly, the right shells - expensive suckers made by the gifted craftsmen at Yung Feng & Co. These hard breaking beauties - each a masterful composition. An intense performance of rising effects, rich coloration, and outrageously wide, breath-talking canopies of long duration stars.

All morning and on through the afternoon we worked to position and secure the equipment. Racks holding hundreds of mortars – the tubes that contain the lift blast and direct the flight of the shells – all had to be braced and screwed to the decking, Nothing could be allowed to move when shells began to fly.

With the equipment in place, shells were lowered individually into pipes of matching diameter. Depending on it’s location in a bank of racks, an individual shell might need a longer fuse. After adding extensions, the fusing is draped and taped safely around the mouths of other mortars – bringing each end to the front where it is securing taped to the lip of the rack. A fuse running over the mouth of a mortar can result in a shell being jerked prematurely from its tube - exploding at our feet. Always exciting - potentially lethal. We never let it happen. Shells and fusing secured - they were ready for the scorching flame of railroad torches.

The set-up ran the length of both sides and down the middle of the barge. Both ends were left open, these being our access to the fire extinguisher – a lake full of cold water! With float jackets squeezed under our coveralls and a fast little boat manned and ready to pull anyone from the water, our bulky looking crew worked from end to end of the barge, repeatedly flicking glances at watches, willing the minutes to tick by faster.

By late afternoon I’d personally offended every crew member – it was part of the ritual - me telling and re-telling them things they already knew. Repeating safety instruction until everyone was totally fed up. Having done my part, everyone executed their jobs perfectly – no one ever got hurt.

When set-up was complete, I salved bruised egos, making time for everyone to tell their funniest - "Tom's an Idiot," story, They had plenty of material to work from. Now we're a tribe regathered, bonded by years of experience. No year - no show exactly the same. All the old story's were re-told and we grinned like idiots, riding a river of adrenaline in anticipation of the semi-controlled madness soon to erupt around us.

On board, we had a huge amount entertainment grade explosives – everything the budget allowed and like I said - a bunch more we’d paid for personally. Having put heart, soul and more than a few of our own dollars into the mix – everyone benefited. The sponsors were skeptical. Up until we took over the contract, they had endured a half hear-ted effort supplied by competitors. With only a few mortars - each tube  was re-loaded between shots. The shows were slow and attendance dwindled when local residents began to here about our shows in La Grande.

Having assured them that by hiring our crew this would change, I suggested that they, 'bill it" -  advertise the show as, "SHAKE THE LAKE!" The name stuck and year after year - safe to say... we shook the lake! Back to that first year - the committee chairman met us after the show, check in hand and tears of relief in her eyes. One of the few times I've made a woman cry and felt good about it.

Long before dark, the park had filled with thousands. Having believed the advertising - late comers now lined the highway and rocky shore. Blankets, coolers and kids filled every flat and almost flat spot for as far as we could see from the deck of the “SS Fire Island.” Including the lawns of hill-side and waterfront homes - the concept of private property was ignored - shattered, really. And all with a remarkable minimum of in-civility. You made lots of new friends if you owned a house near that lake!

8 PM.  Heavy ropes straining, the tow boat eased us away from shore, beginning the slow trip to “Shoot Central,” where anchors were lowered into one of the most beautiful, glacier cut lakes I’ve ever seen. With the barges positioned and secure we began the process of checking and re-checking fuses and equipment. The main barge held the smaller stuff – ground effects and shells up to six inches in diameter. This was the part of the show that we lit by hand with those railroad fusee’s. It’s safer to do it all with an electric, now computer driven system. But we were there for the rush – a proximity thrill. Meaning that more than approximately, shooters stood next to the action. When you hand fire a show, you’re standing in a shower of sparks and burning debris - nose to nose with towers of flame. Over and over, the body absorbs the shock as lift powder ignites, accelerating each heavy cylinder to a couple hundred miles an hour in fractions of a second. Did I already tell you it was a rush?

Yung Feng shells deserved particular attention, and that’s what we gave them. With a heavy throat-ed, low note, the larger of those special shells lifted. This was a signal for the crew to stop everything and watch. In silence, eyes following the orange glow of an ignition fuse tumbling, end over, as a shell rises to altitude. What happened next varied according to the specifics of the shell in the air. But it was always great, These were the ones we remembered and talked about later and the year after that. Particularly if it happened to be a Nishiki Kamuro. We’ll talk about them later too

The big shells were on a smaller floating deck anchored an extra hundred yards away – an eight by ten foot platform dense-packed with racks and stand-alone, steel mortars – hold overs from the bad old days, back when everything was shot from steel pipes. Over the course of twenty years we got smart and fabricated light weight, high-density, polyethylene mortars. But for the big shells – anything with a diameter of eight or more inches, steel was still the material of choice.

Even this small barge was an awesome sight. Particularly for those who knew what they were seeing. With ropes attached, each heavy shell was lifted to the lip of its mortar and gently lowered into place before attaching it’s fire wires to the panel. Comets fans and low altitude, finale boxes ringed with racks of four and six inch mortars - an assemblage of pyro pave’ rigged and ready fire with radio gear – each shot just a button push away – we towed it into position and dropped anchors before inserting the arming key on the firing panel. Watching the indicator lights - feelings of relief settled over the crew as the ready signal - a green LED began to flash.

Propelling a heavy shell requires a lot of black powder, creating a tremendous recoil. So tens and twelve’s were positioned as close to middle as possible to prevent flipping the whole deck. More than once we watched as lift energy shoved the small barge completely underwater - leaving us staring helplessly... wondering if the electrical system would live to ignite the next shell. Amazingly... It always did.

Ten pm - with that one-last look at the "clock," the show begins. The hands or numbers on a watch mean little with that much adrenaline surging through the body. Working our way up and down the rows of mortars – fast burning fuses flashing – shells lifting – surrounded on all sides by a fiery hot rain, concussion and dazzling light. We were transported. Fire dancers in Carhartts and heavy boots – a ballet for daemons.

As the last flights of shells lifted from the big barge, it was time for the finale. Reaching for the transmitter, I prayed that the key hadn’t fallen out somewhere in the middle of all the mayhem. Twisting the key to final arming position, a finger poised above firing switches… But wait! We need to revisit the whole sixteen inch shell thing.

Those really big shells – the ones that got away?  Like I said... forget em! We’d doubled down for the finale. Crowning it with two eight inch Kamuro’s – 8 + 8  there’s our 16! We followed these with the last of our ten inch shells – a  single Yung Feng Chrysanthemum –  a single, gigantic red flower. Following it were two more Yung Feng’s. Both Nishiki Kamuro’s. Both Twelve inch! Bureaucrats – you can’t fire them, but you can screw'em with the math. 12 + 12 = 24! Surrounded, as described with racks of smaller shells - add pre-fused finale boxes and a-hundred salutes... now you have a nice finale shot.

A push of buttons and their away. First the eights framed by multi-tubed, finale boxes.Then the Ten preceded by flights of smaller shells. And with one final flick of a switch, the twelves lifted with a roar. Beginning a long ascent – they gracefully arched away from each other before a perfect, simultaneous break. Whith shells of this size performing at altitude, time goes side-ways again, component stars spreading to some eminence diameter in apparent slow-motion as a result of the altitude.

Kamuro’s are different, their primary components being huge, long duration, glitter comets. After the initial break they develop to spherical perfection - the canopy... no gaps, no ragged, deformed edges before beginning a  slow motion decent. The glitter composition, microscopically porous charcoal infused with chemical wizardry, continues to burn - near weightless particles hang in the sky motionless to the eye as the remaining comet bodies descend, an umbrella now, still perfectly uniform – hundreds of feet in diameter – glittering, drifting to earth. Each thick, fiery tendril still vibrant and full from top to bottom. Finally, all that remains is a single ring of stars that wink out simultaneously only to reappear as a last red flash a few feet from the surface of the lake.  

These big shells are accompanied by fusillades of salutes… Heavy concussions just before that last mesmerizing performance of Kumuro glitter... and It's over. Totally, K-I-C-K Ass!

Burning embers, smoldering bit of paper littered the deck and mortars continue to smoke. Occasionally, a shell, having failed to fire but still smoldering, will lift with no warning. Nobody wanted to be near when that happened so we’d all sit somewhere out of the way, mixing the last of the adrenaline sloshing through our systems with cans of beer - the first anyone's had all day - and cigarettes - whether you were a smoker or not. Nothing could have felt more satisfying.

The tow boat guy took his time, slowly guiding the barge to shore as we floated our way back down from pyro heaven. No body stayed up there – no one got hurt. Ever. That’s the really perfect part.

At some point the father of a kid who had seen one of our shows related how his boy reacted to a particularly nice finale shell that we’d shot during some other show. “He fell over backwards with his mouth hanging open when that thing went off” his dad said. As the man continued to tell the story I could see the boy in my mind – leaning and leaning farther, brilliant stars spread as only they can from a really big shell, ever wider until they've filled your field of vision.   Finally, his dad told me, gravity caught up with the kid and he fell over backwards - though never for a moment breaking focus with that huge ball of fire. “All he said was,"Wow!”

His dad and I smiled – thinking of his boy and remembering our own “Wow” moments. Remembering a purple comet - I’m pretty sure I know exactly how that kid felt.