Lamp Entertainment presents…

Chapter 6: This Means (Snowball) War! Part 3

"Amethyst, no!" Steven cried, watching his friends go flying through the air.

Lapis laughed mercilessly.

"Hehehe… Too easy," she chuckled evilly. She was hovering high up in the air, carried into the sky by her water wings. There was a mad grin on her face as she raised her hand, and along with it, two dozen snowballs. "And now it's your turn! Snowball Splash!"

She blasted the snowballs towards Steven at a terrifying speed.

Garnet jumped in, blocking the snowballs with a series of rapid punches with her gauntlets.

"Steven, run!" she yelled. "Get the flag!"

"Garnet, you can't take Lapis on your own!" Steven said desperately. "She's too powerful, even for you!"

"GO!"

"B-but-"

Without saying another word, Garnet lifted Steven by the scruff of his jacket and threw him towards the B-Team's fortress. And so, for the second time since this war started, Steven was forced to leave a friend facing insurmountable odds alone. Steely resolve filled his soul. Their sacrifices would not be in vain!

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Lapis tutted. "You intend to take me on alone?" The blue gem hovered above Garnet, looking down on her both literally and figuratively. "Even though Steven was trying to warn you so desperately, like a student frantically trying to answer the last question on their exam the minute before the chime? Despite his pleas not to, you still intend to face me alone?

Garnet smiled.

"I'm never alone," she said.

Lapis lifted a pile of snow into the air. "One, two, or a hundred," she said coldly. "It doesn't matter how many. This is my element. No gem can beat me here." The pile of snow quivered and several snowballs shot from it, going faster than most humans would be able to see. Not faster than Garnet, however. She blocked every snowball with her gauntlets.

"Take it from someone who can see the future," she said with a smirk. "Just two gems will be enough to defeat you." She threw a single snowball towards Lapis…. who easily stopped them with a gesture.

"Pathetic," she said. She spread her arms and flicked her hands upward. The snow beneath her obeyed and two snowbanks exploded into volleys of snowballs flying towards Garnet from each side. Garnet jumped into the air, flipping over and around to face the third volley of snowballs Lapis launched from behind her. The fusion grunted as she struggled to keep up with blocking them all. It was a close shave, but she managed to destroy them all, creating a cloud of fine snow dust that briefly obscured her.

Suddenly, a snowball flew from the cloud, moving with deadly precision towards Lapis' face!

Lapis easily stopped it the microsecond before it hit her square between the eyes.

"Useless, useless," she said with a smirk. She let it fall back down, where it landed at Garnet's feet. The cloud of upset snow had settled now. Garnet looked small to Lapis from high up in the air, though she didn't have any difficulty spotting her. All that red really stood out against the white snow.

"As fun as it would be to watch your feeble attempts at hitting me, I got a flag to capture," Lapis said. She spread her arms and lifted them upwards. The entire field seemingly erupted, over two hundred snowballs jumping up and hovering momentarily in the air. Garnet was surrounded with no possible escape. Even if she could see all of the balls coming with her future vision, there was no way she'd be able to stop them all.

"This is my final attack!" Lapis said, some of Peridot's overdramatic antics rubbing off on her. "Twenty Meter Radius Snowball Splash!"

Garnet didn't stand a chance. She didn't even bother fighting back. She just stood there and let hundreds of snowballs crash into her all at once. In only a few seconds, she was buried beneath an enormous pile of snow. Lesser gems would've been poofed under the tremendous force.

Silence fell upon the field.

"Useless," Lapis said to herself. "Now, I better get to-HNGH!"

There was a cold sensation on her back, like a hand of ice squeezing her gem. Lapis Lazuli suddenly found herself falling. As she tumbled through the air, she saw another blue figure up in the sky. Was that… Sapphire!?

Lapis landed on the ground. Her wings, frozen to ice, shattered upon impact. Sapphire calmly sunk back down to the Earth like a feather through the still air. She threw a single snowball towards Lapis, who was too discombobulated to stop it. It hit her with a soft "poff."

"H-how?" Lapis groaned, massaging her sore butt after the rough crash landing.

Sapphire smiled. The large pile of snowballs Lapis had thrown at Garnet only moments before started hissing and melting. Ruby stepped out of it. She gave Sapphire a quick kiss on the cheek before heading towards the tree.

"The snow cloud," Sapphire explained to Lapis. "Garnet threw the snowball at your face. In your arrogance, you stopped it mere millimeters from your face. While you couldn't see, I jumped into the air behind you and Ruby shapeshifted to look like Garnet."

"And then you froze my wings," Lapis muttered. She stood up, stumbled, and nearly fell over again. "Ow…" This wasn't her worst crash landing, but it was up there as the most embarrassing. She started walking towards the tree. Slowly.

Sapphire started walking towards the B-Team's fortress. She had looked into the future and saw what needed to be done. She would play her part in letting destiny play out. As long as Steven could capture the flag, the Core Team's victory was all but guaranteed.

All Steven had to do was capture the flag from Connie. And Sapphire wasn't sure that he could.

To Be Continued…

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Discombobulated is such a funny word, I love using it.