Lamp Entertainment presents…

Chapter 5: This Means (Snowball) War! Part 2

"Yeah, we were just about done over here, how about you?" Bismuth yelled from across the field, a wide grin plastered on her face. "Are you ready, or do you need a minute?"

"Why you cheeky little…" Pearl muttered through clenched teeth.

"We're as ready as can be!" Steven shouted back. To his team, he whispered: "Pearl, as we discussed. Stay here and guard the flag. Garnet, Amethyst, you keep them busy while I go for the flag. That sound good?"

"Yessir!" his team whispered back.

"Alright then, let's go!"

With a mighty battle cry, the Crystal Gems core team charged into battle as they had done so many times before. They had faced many difficult challenges together and come out on top, but this one might just prove to be their toughest yet.

At the sight of her frenemies charging towards her, Bismuth laughed madly and jumped from the tower. She landed like a small meteorite and stirred up a large cloud of snow. Like a wild rhino, she rushed forward. She transformed her hands into large ice cream scoops. She scooped up some snow and launched two big snowballs at Amethyst.

Amethyst swiftly dodged and countered with a snowball of her own. Smaller, but with more precision. It hit Bismuth in the chest with a small "poff."

"Aw shucks!" Bismuth cursed, sounding none the more disappointed. "Well, I did my best." With her head hanging low, she started walking slowly towards the tree to the side of the field.

Steven shot a look back to Pearl, who was peeking out from behind the wall. They nodded towards each other in understanding.

He turned his attention back to the fight in front of him and not a moment too soon. A massive volley of snowballs was sailing towards him through the air. He managed to jump out of the way, narrowly avoiding the hailstorm with only a few millimeters to spare.

"Nyahahaha! Behold!" a certain green space dorito laughed and exclaimed. Peridot was balancing on top of her large cannon, hovering high above the field. "The latest achievement of my genius! The Snowcaster M1 1000!" She hit a button with her foot and the cannon fired another volley. "It is called that because it's casts snow, is the first model, and can fire up to one thousand snowballs per minute!"

While Steven was sure the technical aspects of Peridot's snow cannon were very impressive, at that particular moment, he wasn't all that interested in hearing them. He was more concerned with not getting buried under a hundred snowballs.

He jumped to the left, took a step backward, weaved to the right… then he slipped and fell!

"Nyehehehe… Now perish!" Peridot yelled. She then giggled and looked very pleased with herself. "Get it? Perish? Peri-sh? Cause my name is Peri-dot?" She looked around and saw that no one was impressed with her peri-puns. "Whatever," she muttered and hit the button. The cannon fired once again and sent a hundred snowball towards the defenseless Steven lying on the ground.

At the last second, he was pushed aside by a familiar purple shorty.

"Meh, five out of ten pun," Amethyst said, dusting some snowflakes from her hair. She threw a snowball towards Peridot.

"Ha! Your futile attempts at attacking me are, er… futile!" Peridot yelled. She waved dramatically. "Behold my invincible magnetic shield!" Several trash can lids danced around in the air. Amethyst's snowball hit one of them with a pathetic "poff."

"Steven, go," Amethyst mumbled to her teammate. "Get to the fortress and take the flag. I can handle her."

"A-are you sure?" Steven asked, eyeing the enormous snow cannon.

"Yeah, I got this bro," Amethyst said confidently. "Now go!" She pushed Steven in the direction of the B-Team's fortress.

"If you say so," Steven said and started running.

"Hey, get back here!" Peridot yelled from above. "I'm not gonna let you get away from me so easily!" She aimed her cannon towards Steven.

Amethyst took her chance to throw a snowball at her… only for Peridot to casually block it with her trash can lid shields again.¨

"Hmph. Very well then," she said, turning back towards Amethyst. "If you so wish to fight me, then I shall comply. Be prepared to meet your doom at the hands of the Snowcaster M1 1000!" she yelled and stomped her foot down on the firing button. The large cannon coughed and sputtered for a second, dropping some bolts from the underside. "Um… it's a prototype," Peridot mumbled and pressed the button again, a bit more gently this time.

A volley of snowballs flew from the cannon and towards the ground. Amethyst jumped out of the way. She ran in a zig-zagging pattern, trying to avoid the next few volleys Peridot fired while cackling like a mad gem.

"Muahahaha! Run! It's the only thing you can do!" Peridot laughed, stopping her constant snowball barrages to gloat. She was having a blast blasting snowblasts from her snow blaster cannon.

"Oh yeah? How about this!?" Amethyst yelled back and threw a single snowball as hard as she could. It sailed past Peridot uselessly. She didn't even bother raising her trash can shields.

"Oh wow," she said, a bemused look on her face. "That wasn't even close. Were you even trying?"

"Try this!" Amethyst retorted. She rolled up into a ball and spin dashed around the battlefield, right through the piles of snowballs left by Peridot's cannon. The snowballs were launched back up into the air, right back at their creator.

"Ha! Clever!" Peridot said. "But not clever enough! Luckily, my invincible magnetic shield will protect me!" She waved wildly, summoning her trash can lids to her.

That was when something hit her in the back.

"W-what!?" Peridot yelled in surprise. "I-impossible!" she stuttered, teetering on top of her cannon. Her arms spun around as she tried to regain her balance. However, for as gifted as she was in other fields, balance was not one of Peridot's stronger attributes. She fell from her cannon and landed face-first in a pile of snow.

"Gah!" she gasped as she pulled her head from the white snow. "How!?" she demanded.

"You got hit, dude," Amethyst said. She nodded towards the snowball that had hit Peridot in the back.

Peridot muttered angrily and picked it up. It felt… off. She crushed it in her hand and found something hard inside of the soft snow. A metal bolt.

The event replayed in her head. While Amethyst was running around before… she must've picked up one of the bolts the cannon dropped and put inside the snowball. When she threw the snowball, she made sure to intentionally miss. When Peridot was summoning her trash can lids to shield herself, her magnetic powers pulled the snowball with the metal bolt back towards her.

"Hey! Cheating!" Peridot yelled. "That doesn't count! You didn't hit me, I hit myself!"

"Eh, that's fair," Amethyst said with a shrug. She lackadaisically chucked another snowball at Peridot. This one hit the green gem right in the forehead, covering her gem and visor in snow.

Peridot cursed violently. Well, violently by gem standards. To a human, it probably sounded like she was just listing of various geological jargon. She started walking towards the tree while trying to wipe half-melted snow from the visor with her scarf, which only made it worse.

"Hot dang, I sure am awesome," Amethyst verbally patted herself on the back. It was at that moment a dozen snowballs hit her and sent her flying back. The last this she saw before her vision was obscured by blinding white snow was a flash of blue.

"Lapis Lazuli!" Amethyst cried as she crashed to the ground.

The water witch smiled. Now it was her turn to have some fun.

To Be Continued…

AUTHOR'S NOTES

"She was having a blast blasting snowblasts from her snow blaster cannon."

I let myself have way too much fun sometimes.