Snowball Fights (At Least It's Not The End of The World)
Secret Santa fic for cercia!
Unsurprisingly, they all took snowball fights far too seriously. The battleground was fairly chaotic, which was understandable, given that the participants included a dinosaur, a couple of mages, and a panda. How it had all begun was anybody's guess, though Xephos' personal theory was that someone (read: Sips & Sjin) had likely thought that unleashing wintry chaos on the group would make for a good laugh.
Regardless of how it had all begun, Xephos found himself being yanked by the hand behind a thick wall of ice and snow, moving just shy of a well-aimed snowball. He was greeted by equally wild messes of blond and red hair and a pair of matching (if slightly manic) grins. Honeydew only briefly stopped the offensive to tell Lalna to explain the situation, before returning to pelting the opposing teams with snow.
"Right," he began, sliding those omnipresent goggles away from his eyes. "Sips, Sjin, and Nanosounds are at 2 o'clock. Rythian, Zoeya, and Teep are at 10 o'clock. Lomadia, Nilesy, and Panda are at...8 o'clock? 7 o'clock?" He peeked over the wall with a frustrated sound. "12 o'clock." Not entirely certain that he should blindly trust Lalna's observations after that rather glaring mishap, Xephos had his own look over the wall.
Sips and Sjin had equally amused faces that all but confirmed his theory that they had been the catalyst of this madness. Even so, they seemed to have taken a snowball or two to the face already, whereas Nanosounds looked, for the most part, to have avoided taking any hits. Of course, her newly acquired magical powers may have had a hand in that.
Nilesy was pulling himself up from the ground, wiping snow from his face and shouting something that sounded both very Scottish and rather annoyed in the general direction of the Sipsco wall. Whatever it was seemed to give Lomadia pause enough to snort at the sentiment before launching back into the fight. Panda was effectively serving as a part of the shield as well as a fairly effective powerhouse on the offensive.
Rythian was the most industrious of the Blackrock trio, if not necessarily the most accurate. Conjuring up nearly perfect spheres and passed them off to Teep for a more accurate sendoff. Zoey seemed to be mostly functioning as a lookout, that is when she wasn't trying to configure her robotic arm to fire snowballs instead of energy blasts.
Pulling his head back down from the battlements, he found a snowball being pressed into his hands. He didn't quite catch the face of the giver, but he could easily imagine the breathless excitement with which he would have been met. After all, it wasn't often that their disputes were so tame. The last one had essentially rewritten the rules of magic in the universe; one little snowball fight couldn't hurt anything much.
He pulled back and swung in one breath, sending the snowball sailing over the walls of the Sipsco team. He didn't stop for confirmation that it had hit its mark, though a faintly-heard sound of annoyance made it a moot point regardless. He turned to Honeydew, who gave him a thumbs up before darting off. Lalna was hunched against the wall running some program on his robotic arm that lit the snow with a green tinge. Whatever it was, Xephos was fairly certain it was nothing strictly within the rules of snowball fights and so he mostly decided to leave it be.
His inattentiveness was quickly noticed by the sharp-sighted Lomadia, who sent a pair of snowballs him way. They were fairly light, despite the shock of their unexpectedness, and were clearly more of a warning for him to focus than a real assault. He quickly ducked down, gathering handfuls of the nearest layers of snow and making a couple of snowballs.
Several throws, both unsuccessful and not, and a few more bats around the head courtesy of all 3 of the opposing teams, he finally became curious enough to see what Lalna was up to. Leaving Honeydew to hold the line (which he certainly did with gusto), he shuffled over to the scientist. His expression had hardly changed since Xephos had last looked at him, which either meant it wasn't working and wouldn't work or that it wasn't working and he was focusing intently on ensuring that it would.
"What-?" He was cut off by Lalna raising two fingers, giving him a look that translated to 'one sec' before imputing a series of commands to the display panel. Satisfied, he held it up to Xephos for his inspection.
"Y'know that thing Ridge does to control the weather?" Xephos nodded, clearly remembering a couple of occasions on which the surprising benevolence of the demigod regarding the weather had allowed them to avoid their unfortunate deaths. "Well, I can't do that, obviously. But, with a little bit of Thaumic magic and a spaceship, almost anything is possible."
"Exactly how many rules are we going to be breaking doing this?" Xephos didn't need to ask whether, just how much damage control he was going to have to do on this.
Lalna's smile was a bright and as dangerous as a particle accelerator. "Oh, a good 8 or so, I'm sure." Xephos groaned. "Well, hey Xeph, Sips and Sjin almost destroyed the world. I promise this won't be as catastrophic." His false defensiveness didn't exactly ease Xephos' trepidation, but Lalna knew he had the permission he sought, regardless of that.
The green glow changed to blue at the touch of a button and the roar of engines overwhelmed the sounds of snow pelting and shouted instructions of coordination. In near unison, all of the participants looked toward the approaching spaceship. They were soon engulfed by the massive shadow of the grey beast and a tense silence held over the group.
Another keystroke and the skies seemed to split open. The rain (it took a moment for Xephos to recognize it as such) that followed seemed to be tinged with an ominous purple glow the elicited particular reactions from Nanosounds and Rythian. Most notably, the rain was surprisingly warm and began to melt the snow that it came into contact with. Lalna seemed somewhat puzzled, as undoubtedly the weather was supposed to somehow win the battle for their team, not bring about a mutual lack of victory for all those involved. He muttered something about double checking the Thauminomicon next time, but Xephos payed it no mind. At least the world isn't falling apart.
"Aww, Lalna." Sips was the first to speak after the spaceship's engines transitioned from a ferocious shout to a quiet thrum. All of the participants moved across the newly exposed grass to the offending scientist. "You dingus, you melted all the snow!" Sjin shook his head emphatically at Sips' side. A sheepish expression spread across Lalna's face at the admonishment, especially when a rather wet and visibly displeased Rythian was added to the mix.
"Yeah, well, it was supposed to be much more impressive than that." Xephos' Lalna-to-general opinion translation quickly corrected that to 'more dangerous' and he quickly gave Lalna a look. "Alright, alright. How about we all go back to my castle and get festively smashed and we can forget all about this?"
Memories of past (and rather bizarre) Christmas parties at Duncan's castle elicited a general consensus that it was certainly the least that the scientist owed them. "Just when I thought things couldn't get any more chaotic." Xephos muttered, grinning despite himself. Whatever the rest of the night was going to be like, it was certainly going to be more impressive (and likely dangerous) than things had already been. Then again, it really wasn't a Christmas with their odd little group if things didn't get absolutely mental at least once.
"Alright guys, let's go." The group's assent drowned out the residual hum of the engines and, as they begun to make their way toward the castle, Xephos decided that maybe they should get into impromptu snowball fights more often.
