Lamp Entertainment presents…
Chapter 7: This Means (Snowball) War! Part 4
Steven had finally made it. He ignored the sounds of the battle going on behind him and focused solely on the goal in front of him. The flag. He had to get the flag.
It was time to end this.
He jumped into the air. His floating powers made Bismuth's steep ice walls useless. He landed on the edge of the large tower. There were piles of snowballs strewn about on the platform. The flag was sat proudly at the opposite end of the tower… alongside Connie.
She was sitting down, her legs crossed, eyes closed and her back against Steven. She was meditating before the fight.
"You finally made it," she said, not bothering to turn around. "Took you long enough." Despite her best tries at sounding stoic, there was still a twinge of playfulness in her voice. She was having a lot of fun, which was good.
"Oh, I ran into some trouble on the way," Steven said casually. "No biggie."
Connie snorted. She stood back up with slow, deliberate motions. She stretched her arms and legs. It would have been considerably easier if she wasn't wearing a thick jacket and ski pants.
She grabbed a snowball from a pile on the floor. Steven did the same.
The two of them stood there as several long moments passed by. They eyed each other, waiting for the subtlest motion from the other to betray their next attack.
Connie broke the silence.
"Hiyah!" Instead of throwing the ball in her hand, she kicked one on the floor towards Steven! When Steven dodged, she lunged forward, holding the snowball in her hand outstretched towards him. Panicking, Steven reflexively grabbed her arm and used her own momentum to flip her into the air; much like she had done on multiple occasions.
In other circumstances, this might've not been such a bad move. However, in these circumstances, it was a very bad move. Steven was still standing close to the edge of the tower and he suddenly found himself almost throwing his own friend from a high tower.
Steven fell over and was nearly dragged down from the tower with Connie. Thankfully, his not inconsiderable bulk kept him from being dragged down. He gripped Connie's hand hard to prevent her from falling.
"S-sorry!" he yelled.
"No biggie," Connie yelled back.
"Listen, I'm gonna lift you back up," Steven said. He grabbed a snowball with his free hand. "As soon as I've thrown this snowball at you!"
He didn't get the chance to throw the snowball, however. While he was reaching for the snowball, Connie reached for a pocket on her ski pants. She pulled out a knife and stabbed it deep into the wall above her. With a grunt, she freed her arm from Steven's grip and swung herself back up on the tower.
"Hey that…" Steven started saying something before he interrupted himself. "W-wait a minute, was that a knife?"
"…yes," Connie said, standing back up slowly. Steven jumped back up on his feet as well.
"Were you carrying around a knife in your pocket this entire time?" he asked. Connie winced.
"…yes," she said.
"Why!?"
"…in case I need to cut some fruit?" As far as bad excuses went, it might not be the worst one, but it was up there.
"Do you have any more knives on you?" Steven demanded.
"No!" Connie said, before hesitating a little. "Well, I… do throwing knives count?"
"Yes!"
"Oh. Well, I got two throwing knives in my boot," Connie said, taking the knives out of their special sheaths Pearl had helped her sow.
"Anything else?" Steven said suspiciously, eyeing Connie for any more hidden pockets.
"No. No more knives," Connie said, which was technically true. She didn't have any more knives on her. Really.
"Good," Steven said, massaging his temple with one hand. "Becau- hyah!"
He suddenly threw the snowball he was holding at Connie, who easily blocked it with one swift hand.
"You'll have to do better than that," she said with a small smirk, taking a martial arts stance. She then glanced out on the snowy field below. Her smirk grew wider. "Although I suppose it really doesn't matter," she said, smug as a can be. "Cause the B-Team's victory has been all but guaranteed!" she said triumphantly.
"Oh, you mean the tunnel?" Steven said while pretending to examine his nails (purely for theatrics; he was wearing gloves).
Connie's world shattered around her.
"W-what?"
xxXXxx
Meanwhile, over at the Core Team's fortress… or rather, underneath it…
"And that makes fifteen meters," bismuth whispered to herself. According to Peridot's calculations, she'd be directly beneath the spot where the Core Team most likely kept their flag.
Connie was one clever girl, coming up with this brilliant plan in such a short time. Bismuth made sure she got tagged first. Then, while everyone was distracted on the battlefield, she'd dig a tunnel from the punishment tree to the Core Team's fortress. All she had to do now was burst out of the ground, hit Pearl, take the flag, and make it back to the B-Team's fortress. Easy peasy.
"Huarg!" Bismuth burst from the ground like a violent spring flower. She lobbed a snowball towards Pearl… only there was no Pearl to hit. There was no flag either.
Something cold hit Bismuth in the back of her head and she heard Pearl giggling smugly.
"Nice try," she said, prancing into view from behind Bismuth. "Better luck next time."
"Darn it," Bismuth muttered.
xxXXxx
Currently, at the B-Team's fortress…
Connie cursed something fierce. Well, fierce for a character from a cartoon show aimed at kids anyway.
"Y-you saw through my plan…?" she stammered.
"Yeah," Steven said, feeling the crushing guilt of crushing his crush's hopes and dreams. "Anyways, I gotta get back to my own fortress, so I'll just take this flag…"
"Oh no, you don't !" Connie yelled. She swept up a snowball from the floor and threw it towards him, but Steven punched it in mid-air. He lunged towards the flag, but Connie tripped him. He stumbled but managed to pluck the flag from where it was at.
Before he could jump off, Connie grabbed the flag.
"You'll have to pry this from my cold dead body!" she said through gritted teeth as they both tugged at the stick. Steven grabbed only the flag and broke it off the stick.
"No thanks," he said. He jumped into the air, floating slowly away from the tower.
Connie roared and grabbed a snowball and readied to throw it with deadly precision. But she never got the chance to throw it. Another snowball thrown from the ground hit her square in the chest. From that angle, there was no way anyone could see her from down there. Unless that person happened to have future vision.
"Good throw, Sapphire," Steven said as he landed next to the blue gem. "But, uh… are you sure this doesn't count as cheating?"
"Yes," Sapphire said. "Now, I suggest we run. I foresee trouble if you do not reach our fortress within the next seventeen seconds.
Steven gulped and started running as fast as he could. It wasn't fast enough.
Behind him, Connie leaped from the tower, grabbing the knife stuck in the wall and holding onto it as she slid down the icy wall. She landed on the ground and started sprinting towards the punishment tree.
"Lapis! Peridot!" she yelled while running. "Plan B! Do not let them win!"
"Aye aye captain!" Lapis and Peridot said in unison and sprung back into action.
Peridot used her magnetic powers to turn her downed Snowcaster M1 1000 towards Steven. It fired a volley of a hundred snowballs at him, too fast for him to dodge!
Without hesitation, Sapphire pushed Steven out of the way and blocked the snowballs with her own body.
"Sapph!" Ruby yelled. With an angry roar, she scooped up some snow to throw at Peridot… except she couldn't. In her rage, she accidentally melted all the snow around her.
Meanwhile, Lapis wasted no time. She ran towards the Core Team's fortress as fast as she could. Not as fast as flying, but another blue gem had recently frozen her wings and she couldn't get them to work again.
To her credit, Pearl did her best to defend the fortress. Unfortunately, her best wasn't enough. Lapis blocked the snowball Pearl threw at her and then made the entire Core Team's fortress explode into a cascade of snowballs. She grabbed the flag, turned around, and started running… only to be hit with a snowball in the back, courtesy of Amethyst.
Lapis dropped the flag to the ground.
"Peridot!" she shouted. "It's up to you now!"
The green gem swooped down, riding on top of one of her trash can lids. She grabbed the flag and zoomed off towards the B-Team fortress. She didn't even have time to boast or make a quip.
"Hurry, Peridot!" Connie yelled from the punishment tree. "Show them the power of the B-Team!"
Steven only had seconds now. Peridot was a lot faster on her lid than he was on foot, but he was closer… he just had to push forward a little more… go a little faster…
A large shadow loomed over their heads, causing Steven and Peridot both to stop dead in their tracks. So did everyone. They looked up, stunned. No one had time to take cover.
A veritable meteor of snow crashed down, covering the entire battlefield in an avalanche from the sky.
Silence fell over the field. The only thing except for snow was two small flags. A pair of enormous fingers plucked them from the snow.
"Did we win?" Blue Diamond asked hesitantly.
"I think so," White said. "But we should probably ask Steven. She reached down into the pile of snow and plucked Steven out of it by his leg. "Hey Steven, did we win this competition?"
"…sure," Steven muttered, spitting out some snow.
"Yay!" Blue squeed.
"I like this game," Yellow laughed. "It was so much fun, we should play it again!"
"…maybe some other day," Steven said, still dangling upside down. "I think we've had enough snowball fighting for today."
"Aww…" the Diamonds sighed together.
"Oh well," White said. "We could always teach the gems back on Homeworld to play."
"Ooh, I bet the quartzes would love it!" Blue said.
"Yes, but we'd have to find a way to get it to snow fir-"
"ACHOO!"
Yellow Diamond was very rudely interrupted by Steven sneezing loudly.
xxXXxx
A Few Hours Later…
It was dark outside and it had started snowing again. You could hardly see a thing for all the snow that was falling and it just kept on coming more and more and more.
The Crystal Gems' First Annual Snowball Fight ended in a tie. Steven and Connie both found themselves too sick to continue. The cold seemed to drill itself into the very cores of their bones and refused to leave. They found themselves spending the rest of the day huddled up together under a blanket in front of the fireplace sipping hot mulled wine (non-alcoholic, of course).
In a way, even though neither team won, everyone seemed strangely satisfied. Almost as if the fun they had along the way was more important than winning.
The End… or is it?
AUTHOR'S NOTES
Steven: "Let me see what you have."
Connie: "A knife!"
Steven: "No!"