The Winter (snow) Ball fight: 2017

Community story telling attempt. "----" = change over from writer to writer.

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"I don't think so!" said Delilah, pummeling Deelette with snowballs, still clinging to the book. It was enchanted to interfere with any of her succubus illusion powers and couldn't blend in the white floors and wall. But she had to get away before her rival weakened her to the point where the fortress' magic wards would ejected her out without the tome!

Deelette staggered about, realizing Delilah backed her into a corner. "It's over, Deelette. I win. You can't escape, you're out of time, and your friends aren't here to help to you." She pointed to the large window showing the orange sun halfway-fallen below the horizon. Deelette cowered and crouched down, watching Delilah scoop and roll a snowball before tossing it in the air above her. Suddenly, her twin blond curled pigtails started spinning like a vortex and surrounded the levitating snowball; holding it in suspension, charging up a shot. Delilah wanted to make this count.

"Any last words?" Delilah asked.

Deelette could only hold the book up as an impromptu shield as her only defense against what would be the finishing blow, quaking in fear.

*Record Scratch*
*Freeze Frame*
"Yup, that's me." Deelette narrated. "You're probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. It all got started when I mistakenly trusted a rival of mine. She stole my secret diary, but the exciting part was trying to get it back."

*Fast Rewind*

----

It’s a cold day, the sun is high in the sky and snow blankets the area. The sole object breaking up this sea of white is an ice tower looming in the center of a divot surrounded by snow mounds. From one of these mounds something is shining, reflecting the sunlight. Our story begins here.

Lying down on the mound we find a group of kids spying on the tower, on of them, a tall young centaur, is watching it through a pair of binoculars.

He pulls them away from his eyes and squints, “It kind of looks like a pe-”
He’s interrupted before he could finish the thought “Don’t hog the ‘nocs, bro.”

Tibe passes the binoculars to Erik, the young ogre kneeling next to him, he uses them like a spyglass instead of on both eyes. The ‘nocs then get passed to a girl tightly bundled in a sweater, then to a kid so bundled he looks fat, then to a girl with green tentacles for hair.

“So what’s going on, Deelette?” asks Janice, the girl who was bundled.
“Delilah took something from me,” Deelette puts the ‘nocs down and narrows her bespectacled d eyes “and we’re gonna go get it back.”

She spins around and slides down the hill as Aggie the harpy girl makes a soft landing and says “Yeah, there’s no way to get near it without them seeing us, it’s totally out in the open. Looks like Jake got held up for a bit too.”

Deelette straightens up and brushes the snow off her pants before addressing her friends “OK, here’s the deal, today is the big party all the adults are going to so they can’t help with this. We’ve got until sunset to get back what Delilah took and we win. If we don’t then she wins.”

There is a collective aside glance from most of the kids present at the mention of Delilah winning, as if the thought of it causes them mental fatigue and irritation.

Aggie chirps in “OK, but how are we gonna get near it without getting spotted? They have A LOT of snowballs. What’s the plan?”
Deelette holds up a finger and says “For that I’ve called in an expert. I’d like everyone to meet code name Quest Boy and Madison.”

Deelette steps aside and reveals two redheads, a boy and a girl. The boy is wearing a cooking pot on his head with a pair of panties stretched over it and the girl is wearing a sweater dress with a large wrapped tube strapped to her back. They’re wearing matching scarfs.

The boy waves and laughs “Hi, I’m ‘Quest Boy’ pfft.” he can’t help but laugh over what Deelette called him.
The girl waves and smiles saying “And I’m Madison, just /i/-tan for short.”

Quest rolls out a blanket and /i/-tan puts down a map with the tower, drawn suspiciously resembling a horse’s fifth leg, and the ditch with some X’s and lines on it. Tibe looks at and thinks “I’m not the only one who thought so.”

Quest then looks at the group and begins “So here’s the plan: Tibe Aggie, and Erik will be decoys, you keep their throwers occupied. Keep to the mounds, dart into the ditch sometimes, keep them guessing.” He then points to the dotted lines going to the tower “While you do that the rest of us will sneak up to the tower and get in from under it. Deelette has told me a little about you guys, but not a lot. Janice,” she looks up suddenly “how good are you at digging?”

Janice looks a little offended until /i/-tan adds “It’s very important.”

Janice stands up, takes his gloves off, and loosens her sweater a bit before breathing in deeply and exhaling; focusing all her concentration her hair begins to stand on end a little, her fingernails begin to grow and tun black as pads appear on her palms. When she’s done she has wold ears and a tail too. With a flurry of snow she vanishes and reappears a good five feet away in under a minute.

The group all “oohs” collectively and softly clap, to Janice’s slight embarrassment.

Quest then stands up “All right, so once we get close to the tower you can dig down and get us inside of it. Then we can take out the throwers and you guys can get closer.”

/i/-tan also stands up and undoes some of the wrapping on the tube she’s carrying before pulling out a large white sheet, only it’s not a sheet, it’s a drawing canvas the same color as the snow. She grabs a corner and says “Everyone under. This is our cover.”

The group nod and split. Tibe, Erik, and Aggie address their strategy.

Tibe points to the other side of the ditch “I’ll circle around and approach from the opposite direction of the infiltration team. Aggie, you circle from above and keep them distracted. Erik, pick whichever side you want and” Tibe pauses and thinks before grinning “See if you can knock the tower down with a snowball bigger than anything they can make up there.” Erik smiles and puts a fist in his hand.

After a short gallop, Tibe has circle around to the other side of the divot. He’s up on the mound trotting in place, getting ready to dodge when it gets dark all of a sudden. Tibe puts a hand up to his eyes to look up and says aloud “Clouds?” before realizing the snowballs raining down from the tower have blotted out the sun “Not clouds! Not clouds!” and begins a full run.

----

Spying a fallen tree in the distance, Tibe makes a break for only shelter in sight. The salvo of snowballs was getting closer by the second! The shadow around was growing darker and darker around his hooves. His jacket and ushanka was not going to save him from getting buried in snow. He gallops closer and closer, his centaur body granting him the speed to finally make a dive under the tree, despite the deepening snowdrifts. Just when the snow missiles seemed to be only 10 feet above him, Tibe shuts his eyes and awaited the inevitable.

Meanwhile........
Erik took a more direct approach. He simply trudges and weaves through the moguls, undoubtedly catching the eye of more throwers up above. But the ogre wasn't worried. Unlike the rest of his squad, he can tank a lot more hits before succumbing. Approaching the ditch, he crouches down and started to make snowballs. Lots of them, to shake the aggro off him for a little bit before coming out again. In the corner of his vision, he spies a discarded plastic tub not too far away. It gives him an idea, walking up and running to the tub; unaware of his exposure.

Above, a tiger-striped paw loads a snowball into a steel, scoped slingshot. A cat's eye aims down the scope and released the projectile as Erik's head passes over his crosshair.

*Pff*

Erik looks over at the snowball that barely missed his head. Then, he quickly glimpses at a cat-like figure staring down at him from the battlements; with a slingshot in his hand. "Kenny." Erik says under his breath, just in time to get pelted by another snowball that hit his chest. And by god, he REALLY felt that one! Erik dives into the ditch to get back under cover.

Crawling over to the tub, Erik began making his snowballs and put each one inside. After several minutes, the tub was full with at least 100 balls of ammunition. His strength could easily lift the heavy tub and carried it in his left arm. He stood up, and began to rapidly fire his stockpile at Kenny, his powerful ogre arm firing snowballs like a minigun that would've buried anyone in snow if they were close enough. Kenny cowered behind the battlements before bumping into a harpy that carried a snowball in each of her talons.

----

Up on the highest floor of the ice tower is the command center, in the middle of the room an ice cage hangs from the ceiling with a book inside of it. Seated upon an ice throne is the young succubus, Delilah.

With a hand to the side of her mouth she laughs “Oh ho ho ho~ That’s good, keep them coming Jessica.”

In the corner of the room a dragonling girl is rapidly loading snowballs into a specialized launcher, at least 50 at a time before firing them into the air.

Delilah puts up her handled binoculars and spies upon Tibe taking cover behind a fallen tree before lamenting “Oh Tiberius, if only you would’ve joined my team, but don’t worry, even if you get buried in snow” she bites one of her fingers “I’ll be sure to warm you up~”

Standing next to the daydreaming succubus is a fox girl with multiple tails with a hand up to her mouth to stifle her giggles. From the corner of her eye she catches a glimpse of something moving towards the tower, but there’s nothing moving, it’s just a small snow mound.

Down at the bottom of the tower, under the white canvas, the infiltration team has hunkered down waiting for Quest’s signal to begin moving again. With a hand sign they all begin crouch walking under their cover, /i/-tan in the rear carefully pulling a large brush behind them to cover their footprints until they reach the tower.

“OK Janice” says Deelette “you’re up.”

With another flurry of snow, Janice disappears from under the canvas.

Deelette nods “Right, Trish, do your thing.”

The kid who was bundled so much she looked fat nods and begins to glow a dim orange color, almost looking like the fruit with the same name, and follows Janice through the hole; the temperature under the canvas and inside the tunnel goes up significantly. The rest enter the tunnel while /i/-tan takes some special care to roll up her canvas and cover the hole’s entrance.

In the lowest floor of the ice tower, some cracks appear before a pair of ears pop up through the hole. “I think it’s clear.” Whispers Janice.

After the team finished exiting the tunnel, Trish melted the ice around it to re-seal it. “No sense letting them find the hole.” She shrugged.

“Yeah, good thinking.” says Deelette “But they’re gonna know we’re here soon enough. First thing we need to do is take out Kikani and her illusions, but she’s on the top floor.”

Quest cuts in “So we’re gonna be another diversion while Deelette does that.”

“But how is she gonna do that?” Asks Janice “Kikani is usually always around Delilah and she’s probably on the top floor.”

Deelette does some stretches “Watch this!” and goes flat against a wall before disappearing.

The group has a collective “Whoa.” under their breath.

“Invisibility?” asks Trish

“No,” Deelette answers, her voice coming from above as she reappears now stuck to the ceiling with her tentacle hair “I can change colors like an octopus now.”

Janice thinks out loud “But that doesn't explain how your clothes-” but is cut off by the sound of the ice doors opening revealing the stairs as two figures’ shadows are seen coming into the room.

Back outside, Tibe has opened his eyes and is looking around, there’s a lot less snowballs on the ground than there were in the air just a moment ago. He mumbles “Kikani and her illusions...”

----

Tibe canters out to the closest mogul and pulls out a slingshot just like Kenny's and rolls up a snowball ready to launch. He peers down the scope and pulls back far, concentrating what appeared to be Jessica out on the roof, squatting down and setting up sort of red-painted machine on the ground. This was his chance! Tibe releases his shot, hurtling his projectile with impeccable aim.

*POW*

Jessica feels the direct hit of a solid snowball hit her head, just as she finished setting her tripod-mounted, snow-slinging sentry gun up. She gets knocked down, and entered a half-asleep, petrified state. She can't move, and could only see Aggie circle-strafing Kenny and pelting him with snowballs until he collapses too. And just in time, as Jessica's sentry beeps and starts to hurtle snowballs at the harpy.

Tibe could see the whole thing from his scope. He yelled out "Aggie! Get out of there! It's targeted you!" as loud as he could.
But it was too late. Aggie barely had enough time to turn around to hear the colt's warning before she feels the icy sting of snowballs rapidly strike her and pin her to the ground. She, along with Kenny and Jess enters that petrified state, unable to do anything. Several seconds later, the 3 petrified victims suddenly vanish.


Kenny and Jess were shocked awake in a small room deep in within the tower, where Delilah stood there to greet them.

"What the heck just happened? How did we get here?" Kenny asked.

"Yeah! We were just like-frozen up on the roof and now we're fine?" Jessica added.

"Call it a revival." Delilah explained. "This tower and its grounds are enchanted so that after you get pelted with enough snow-or get attacked too roughly, you fall into a frozen or "downed" state. Then, you'll get teleported to this room, feeling totally fine."

"Well, I do feel better." Kenny mentioned.

"Wait!" Jessica said. "If we get teleported here, does that mean Deelette and her team get teleported in here too?"

"No. This tower will reject them, and they'll be teleported to a little alcove on the edge of the grounds. They'll have to fight their way back in here." Delilah assured them.

"At least my turret got that bird-brain." Jessica mutters, as she and Kenny exit out the room's door.

In a faraway dug-out snow shelter, Aggie suddenly woke up confused, but not cold. She flew up to see that she was back in the place where her team first met up, and in the distance, the tower's big front door was open.

----

Back in the tower, at the very bottom floor, two figures enter the room: one slithers, one steams, it’s Silva the medusa lamia and Greg the salamander.

Silvia shivers “It’s too cold, far too cold. I feel like I’m gonna hibernate at this rate.”

Greg breathes some fire “Relax, that’s what I’m here for. Just stick close to me and you’ll be fine.” He says contently.

Silvia shoots him a look “Yeah, if you don’t melt the ceiling and drench us again.” She shivers again “Why did I have to get sent down here for the resupply?”

The bottom room of the tower had powdered snow, perfect for making snowballs with a large stockpile of them already lining one of the walls. As the two grab one of the big containers they hear a scraping sound, but no one is there.

Hidden behind /i/-tan’s canvas, the group is clinging to the wall and making their way to the stairs undetected.

Greg lifts the basket full of snowballs and turns around before noticing something is off “Hey,” he asks “did you close the door behind us?”

Deelette’s group is already up the stairs and on the second level, it looks like a jail with ice bars lining the room.

Quest darts ahead to scout out for anyone else coming down from the upper floors with /i/-tan and Janice following him. Deelette pauses at one of the rows of bars and spots a young boy with blue scales sitting on top of a pillow with a large rucksack.

“Jake?” Deelette asks.

“Hi Deelette, Kikani put me in here.” Jake answers meekly.

With some help from Trish, the bars are melted and Jake is freed, the group hurries to catch up with Quest.

----

"Dragon!" Quest cries, pulling out a wooden sword. "Trish! Look out behind you!"

"Calm down, Quest!" Trish says, making her hands glow in a blue beam of light, warming up her healing spell. "Jake is one of us. He's a friend, not an enemy."

"You got that thing?" Janice asks.

The boy dragonling smiles, taking off and unzipping the blue rucksack that was on his back. "Did I ever." Jake empties the backpack to dump parts of a blue-painted snowball-throwing machine, just like Jessica's. He began to set up the machine, fitting the parts together. "I can't believe my sister is fighting for the other team. I bet Delilah bribed her with a makeover or something. Oh yeah! Put these on!" Jake shakes the bag and dumps out several blue beanies and armbands for everyone else.

"Why are they all blue?" Quest asks, barely managing to stretch his beanie of his cooking pot helmet.

"Me and Jessie's turret can automatically detect and fire upon anybody. But mine won't fire upon anyone wearing these blue things! I brought enough for everyone, even Tibe and Aggie. Jessie's turret is the same, but with red hats and armbands."

"Your dad must be a genius if he really made that." Deelette said, dropping down and putting on her set of blue. Then a thought occurred to her. She turned white to camouflage herself with the icy white walls, masking her blue accessories. Oddly enough, Jake's sentry didn't target her!

"Oh, it probably can't see you if you're blending into the background like that." Jake concluded.

"Then......" Something clicks in Deelette's head. "Then neither can Jessica's turret, right?"

"I guess you're right!" Jake comments.

Janice felt a familiar scent enter her nose. "Uh, guys-" she squeaks out, but was interrupted by Quest, who steps forward. "Well, looks like we've got a front established. If we need to retreat, just run back here and the sentry will protect us!" Janice's eyes were fixed upon the ceiling, watching a familiar figure scale the walls and ceiling.

"I'll watch the sentry and start stockpiling snowballs for you guys while you wait." Jake adds. "This thing can, however, be taken down with enough snowballs without me keeping it together. And I can't exactly pick it up while it's active. I have to collapse it and then move it-"

Jake was suddenly cut off by the sound of turret cocking itself upwards and started to fire towards the ceiling.

*DAKAA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

"AHHHHH!!!!!" cried out a furry and bushy-tailed girl in a red beret, careening towards the ground. The cushiony snow broke her fall when she impacted, petrified.

"Bonnie's with them too?" Janice said. "I knew I smelled something familiar. Deelette, did you see any-" Janice turned around to see Deelette had run off, up the stairs while still cloaked. "Deelette?"

----

“She’s following the plan.” Said Quest “When that girl wakes up in their teleport room then they’ll know we’re in the tower so she’s going after Kikani.” He turns to Trish “You should stay with Jake, those two from the ground floor will be coming up here soon and if we freeze them then they’ll just reappear in a room somewhere above us, so keep them stalled down here.”

/i/-tan hands them one of her canvases “Here, use this to sneak attack them.”

Janice, Quest, and /i/-tan head up the stairs.


Elsewhere, at the top of the tower the automated turret is firing away at Tibe, each time is shoots Kikani uses her fox magic to create dozens of illusionary copies of the snowballs forcing Tibe to guess which ones are real and which ones he can afford to be hit by.

Delilah laughs again “At this rate they’ll never even get close my beautiful ice tower! Oh ho ho ho ho~!”

Just as Delilah looks to be celebrating entirely too soon, Bonnie comes running up into the room before slipping and sliding into Delilah’s throne.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Mumbles Bonnie before sitting up in a hurry “They’re here, they’re here!”

“What?” asks Delilah “Who?”

Deelette and her friends, they’re in the tower, they got me on the time-out floor with the turret!” exclaimed Bonnie.

Delilah is stunned before her words finally catch up to her “Where’s Greg and Silvia!? What are they doing?”

Kikani holds her hand up to her mouth and giggles “Shi, shi, shi. I see, I see, they’ve cut off our supply line.”

----

*PWOING*

*KLASH-KER-GSHHHHH*

Down below, Jess suddenly gasps yelling "SENTRY DOWN!"

She start to rush upstairs, but Delilah stops the juvenile dragoness. "Forget the outside. Deelette and her group made it in. We need your defenses down here; so pick up your turret and set up downstairs!"

"Will do." Jessica said, going back up to retrieve her sentry parts.

Back outside, Aggie joins Erik and Tibe, making a break for the closed main door. "I think I got that snow-turret down." Tibe said. "I was too far away for it to see me." Hearing the how the obstacle on the roof was neutralized, Aggie starts to fly up the roof again. "Wait!" Tibe cries out, getting Aggie's attention. "Don't enter through the roof. There could be more traps ahead. Find a window or something! Me and Erik will try to get this door open!" Aggie nods, taking flight.

Trying to spy a window or some opening, Aggie catches a glimpse of Jess back on the tower roof, gathering her turret parts. Jessica didn't notice Aggie flying right behind her, but did see a familiar ogre and centaur reach the tower entrance. She's too far away and lacks the arm for a good throw, despite having the high ground. Then, she sees the big plastic bin of snowballs she was using as a place to stockpile ammo; positioned right over the entrance. With quick thinking, she starts to tip the heavy container over the edge; unaware of the harpy girl seeing what she was doing.

Down below, Erik and Tibe start smashing and kicking the ice door open, forcing their way inside. Aggie suddenly swoops down behind them and manages to blurt out "Get back! There's a huge pile of snowballs about to fall on you!"

Tibe and Erik crane their necks to indeed see Jessica's dumped stockpile as a huge mass of snow start to fall from the top. "We are not falling for another one of those illusions, Aggie." Erik replies. "We'll get inside in no time."

Aggie's small size couldn't hope to lift or push the two heavyweight teammates out of the way in time, and could only watch as her two friends suddenly get buried in snow with a loud scream; only to get muffled by the snow pack that totally buried them, and their resulting petrification. Moments later, Erik and Tibe respawns back at the outer bunker with Aggie awaiting them, crossed wings and tapping her talon. "Told ya so!" she snaps.

Meanwhile....
Deelette hugs the wall, blended in so none of Delilah's teammates see her sneak in. Walking around the corner, she sees Silvia coming around the hallway, with Greg right behind her. Knowing how fast Silvia could throw snowballs with her snake hair, and with Greg keeping her warm, she wouldn't take them head-on. She had to keep the element of surprise of her side. "That's it! Surprise!" she thinks. Deelette now had a plan. "Hmm.....I wonder how they react from a sudden, unexpected temperature drop."

She scoops and rolls up a snowball from the wall she hid on, watching the two enemies pass her undetected. Following silently in their footsteps, within arm's reach of Greg, Deelette acts. In one swift motion, Deelette quickly scoops and rolls a snowball using her tentacle hair, and uses the others to pull back Greg's jacket collar and stuff a snowball down his naked back, all while unwittingly change back to her true colors.

"YAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" Greg screams, feeling the sudden chill down his bare back feel so cold and painful as if someone plunged a knife through it. He collapses to the ground, petrified. Silvia turns around to see the exposed Deelette; now realizing that she wasn't camouflaged white anymore. Although her heat source was gone, the lamia was warmed up enough to start slinging snowballs back at Deelette.

"I got you now!" Silvia shouts, starting to pelt snowballs at Deelette, frantically running back down the hallway and turning white again. In her adrenaline-fueled need to escape, Deelette had forgone her tentacled wall-climb for something faster. But Silvia can still see new footprints Deelette made with every step; giving away her position. "Can't run from me!" Silvia cries, not stopping her barrage. She tracked those footprints so diligently, that as she rounded the corner, she neglected to notice a large lump of snow in her path.

The next thing Silvia knew, she heard a voice say "Ka-Boom!" and bury her with snow, instantly making her cold enough to be petrified. It was Janice that dug down and hidden inside that snow lump, waiting for a passerby to surprise with a wave of slush and ice upon her emergence. Deelette looked back and thanked Janice for covering her retreat.


Back downstairs, Trish sighs while practicing her warming magic on Jake, who was already pretty warm. "This is so boring...." Trish whined.

"I know...." said the dragon boy, still making snowballs. "But I've gotta stay here and keep making ammo and watching my turret. And we're not strong enough to be on the front lines."

"Yeah, but I still wish I could do more." Trish grumbles.

*Thud*
*Crk*
*Thud*

Trish and Jake heard that. It sounded like someone was trying to break through the big front door. "Anyone in there? It's us! Erik, Aggie and Tiberius!"

Trish replies back "This is Trish and Jake! We can hear you!" The two outside smiled, recognizing the mage's voice.

"Help us get this door open!" said Erik, battering the door.

With concentration, Trish casts her blue heat aura at the ice barrier. It was getting weaker by the second, as Erik and Tibe pushed deeper with every attack. A moment later, the door's lock failed and the door swings in, partially melted. The centaur, harpy, and ogre filed in as Jake handed the same blue armbands and hats, showing them his setup.

Trish looked at Erik, felt oddly safe behind the team's powerhouse attacker. She started casting her warmth spell on him, hoping he would be the perfect guard to protect her while at the same time, helping her other friends on the front line. Erik took pride in letting Trish warm him up, looking around and seeing his tub of snowballs he carried, Jake with his sentry and stockpile, Aggie taking swift flight upstairs, and Tibe pulling out and inspecting his slingshot.

"Whoa...."Erik realized. "Dude this is just like Team Fortress 2!"

"Team Fort-what?" everyone else asked simultaneously.

"Uhhh.....I'll explain another time. For now, it's team time doct-I mean-Trish. Let's move." Erik and Trish began to walk upstairs to join the rest of their teammates.

----

Quest and /i/-tan are busy staring at a wall in the stairwell between the fourth and fifth floors with Deelette keeping watch.

Quest postulates “Something isn’t right. How did the salamander and the snake girl get up here without going past the turret?”

/i/-tan is busy sliding her hand along the wall, looking for anything out of place, any crevice, any crack “Hey Dee,” she asks “how much do you know about this tower?”

“Just that Delilah had it built for her and probably done using magic.” Deelette is still on high alert, they don’t have much time and the respawn room is right above them.

“I though as much.” says /i/-tan “When I was drawing this tower something looked funny to me, it got skinnier as it went up, but there were all these bulgey things on it too. Almost as if...” CLICK, the wall /i/-tan was going over shifted and spun “...there are secret tunnels going through it, we’ve just been going up the main shaft.”

Deelette is beaming at /i/-tan “That’s so cool.”

Quest looks into the tunnel, there are a series of ladders and stairs wrapping around the outside of the main tower, but still covered by ice. “Nice work.” he says before turning to Deelette “OK, you head up a floor using these, we’ll go up with the stairs. When they’re focused on us, you take them out, then we’ll run for the top as a group.”

Deelette nods “OK,” and turns to a lump on the floor “Janice, can you tell everyone else that we’re pushing up?”

A pawed thumbs up raises from the mound before it shrinks away.


A floor below, Erik and Trish are making their way up the stairs, unknown to them, Bonnie the squirrel girl is clinging to the ceiling, watching them, tail twitching, poised to strike. As Erik and Trish reach the door to the third floor, Bonnie is already within striking range. Just as she’s about to toss a snowball at Trish, she feels something strange, like the ceiling just cracked, suddenly the part of the ceiling she’s clinging to gives way and she falls to the floor, buried in slush as Janice lands on top of the pile.

“Oh good.” she says brushing herself off as the slush pile mysteriously collapses a little “You guys are already up here. Keep going, we’re making a push on the fifth floor.”


Between the fifth floor and the sixth and final floor, Deelette emerges from the tunnel. There’s a turret perched on the top of the stairwell with Jessica keeping watch over it. Below is Delilah’s team’s respawn room where Silvia has her arms folded with her back turned to Greg who is rubbing his head and apologizing, Bonnie is also there, and she’s now heading up to where Deelete just exited.

“I can’t believe I got slush bombed again.” she mumbles before almost yelling at her team “I’m heading down to the bottom floor, I’ll catch them by surprise when they try moving up.”

As Bonnie enters the tunnel, Deelette is clinging to the ceiling above her and makes her way down, she can see the top floor, it’s so close, but almost the whole other team is up there. The fifth floor is divided  in half by a wall, one side of the room has the stairs going up and down, the other side is the recovery room for Delilah’s team. Deelette thinks “If we can just get them all stuck in this room so they can’t go up the stairs, then I can get it back.”

There’s a loud thud at the door coming up from the fourth floor before it’s knocked to the ground, standing there is Erik, his arms full of large snow balls with Trish standing behind him accompanied by Quest and /i/-tan. He shouts “Let’s do this!” taking Greg and Silvia by surprise before Greg jumps to get closer to his friend as the volley of snowballs from both sides begin.


At the top floor Delilah leaps to her feet “What, they’re already up here? Don’t let them take the stairwell! Kenny, what are you doing?!”

Kenny is firing wildly in seemingly random directions, “It’s Aggie, she keeps swooping around us now that the turret is gone. Wait… where’d she go?”

On the roof of the tower, atop the flared open air sixth floor, Aggie as perched and is tapping the roof with a talon “Nope, no roof access. Huh. Plenty of snow though.” a light bulb goes off above Aggie’s head.

Kenny is still looking for Aggie, spinning rapidly at ever clicking sound he heard coming from the roof and every bit of loose falling snow. Suddenly a lot of snow is falling off of the roof and the wind picks up into his face, not enough to freeze him, but the wind is strong and the snow is caught up in it en mass. Aggie is flapping her wings hard to make a gale to blow the snow.

“Ugh!” exclaims Delilah as a bunch of snow hits her in the face “What’s that bird brain doing now?”

Kikani passes her by “Don’t worry, don’t worry as her eyes and fox tails begin to glow.

Aggie suddenly feels dizzy, the tower is moving? No, she’s spinning, she’s lost balance in mid flight and is losing control. She quickly catches herself and lands on the roof again where she falls over “Kikani!” she shouts.

Kikani laughs again as she makes her way to the stairs “I’ll make sure they can’t even find the stairs if it comes to it.”

----

"Crud! I'm outta snowballs! Fall back with me, Greg!" Silvia cries, running away from the salvo that the 4 blue-clad kids were hurling at them. Greg retreats behind her and around the corner, with Erik leading the push. The ogre knew that as long as Trish was healing him, he can survive just about anything. If only he paid attention to the mechanical whirring of a familiar machine just ahead.

Once he turns to face the retreating red-clad reptilians, Greg and Silvia greet Erik back, along with Kenny, Jessica, and her turret. "Uh-oh." Erik mutters out before he gets absolutely pelted with frost and ice. They were all striking and weakening the junior juggernaut too fast for Trish to warm him up. Seconds later, Erik falls, leaving Trish defenseless and out in the open. She too tries to run, but Kenny quickly aims and slings a snowball right to her head, knocking her out.

Quest knows that he had no chance to assault the new defensive line head on. "Psst. Quest!" /i/-tan whispers. Quest turns to see /i/-tan standing in front of another secret tunnel carved into the wall. "Good going!" says Quest, entering the passage. "We'll flank 'em!"

The tunnel is fairly narrow, just wide enough for two kids to walk side-by side. Just up ahead is a 3-way intersection, with stairs going up on the left route. Quest and /i/-tan instinctively go left; ignoring the right path where a kid wearing a red mixing bowl for a helmet dropped down from a trap door that led to the spawn room. Immediately seeing the kids wearing the enemy colors, he charges.

He doesn't throw any snowballs, but rather moves his trash can lid shield in front of him and unsheathes his glowing wooden sword. The knight sprints faster than Aggie can fly, letting out a scream as he charges. Quest and /i/-tan turn to hear the "YAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" the boy made, and try to avoid an incoming collision. But he's moving too fast and the narrow corridor prevents them from moving out of the way!

The boy bashes into /i/-tan with his shield, and quickly swings his sword. The momentum from the charge amplifies its power and petrifies /i/-tan upon contact. Quest pulls out his sword, hoping to avenge /i/-tan with a good, old-fashioned sword fight. The attacker was already running away and ducks into a right corner with Quest pursuing him.

"Can't run from me!" Quest says out loud, making the same sharp right turn. Quest witnesses the other knight stopped still and hunched over, trying to catch his breath. A devilish grin appears on Quest's face, knowing his opponent was too tired to run-or even retaliate. "TASTE THIS!" Quest cries out; charging in with his wooden blade out and making a solid thrust into the boy's back- only to discover no resistance and what looks like a hologram of the knight warping and distorting with every movement of his sword. "What the-" Quest stutters before he realizes it's just an illusion. In the distance, he can see that kitsune with glowing eyes, focused on projecting her image, and laughing.

"Kikani! I'm coming for you!" Quest begins to make a dash for to illusionist, but suddenly felt the icy sting and pain of a snowball being pushed down his back. He falls into a petrified state, but still catches a glimpse of a fluffy squirrel tail brushing over his body.

The knight reappears behind Kikani who gives her a high-five. "Nice one. With your powers we can't lose!"

"You too, A.J." Bonnie says, catching up with the other two. "And you really proved us wrong. Forgoing ranged attacks for this sword and shield thing does have its uses after all!"

"It's not over yet, guys!" Kikani warns them. "Tibe, Janice, and Jake are still here and they're holding their line! And Deelette could be anywhere!"

Meanwhile, Deelette made it up another floor and cloaks against the ice blue walls when she sees Delilah strutting around, inspecting her defenses. Deelette's prize has to be close. But Delilah must have some sort of trap rigged ahead, and since she was right there, she could easily get from revenge right now with a snowball down her back. Even if she's exposed in the process, there was still time to get it back. Taking her chance, Deelette sneaks up to her rival and quickly shoves down a snowball. Delilah's resulting high-pitched scream tells her that she was successful. Now to see if there are any traps in the way.

Just around the corner, Kikani heard the scream. She ran and saw Deelette, who had forgotten to re-camouflage herself in her state of overconfidence. She starts to hurl snowballs when Deelette disappears, But then she makes a twisted smile and puts another illusion to work. In seconds, the solid, ice-blue wall turns into one resembling candy-cane stripes: a pattern too complicated for Deelette's rudimentary shape-shifting abilities to conceal herself against. And just in time too, Silvia also comes up to hear Delilah's scream. She sees Delilah's petrified body and Deelette struggling to match the pattern of her background. The last thing Deelette sees before the lights go out is a snowball barrage thrown by the tentacle hair of the Medusa-esque lamia.

"Kakani, you're just too overpowered." Silvia says.

"Not really, I can only do one wall at a time and I stink at doing the actual throwing." Kikani replies.

"Still, you fool everybody on Deelette's team." said Delilah, coming out of the spawn. "I owe you one. I knew I did the right thing by making you second-in-command."

Back in the blue spawn bunker, Quest and /i/-tan slump down on a bench with Deelette joining them. "Kikani?" the young shapeshifter asks.
"And AJ." The knight and the artist say in unison. "Erik and Trish went down before Trish could do that special move of hers. I think Tibe's fallen back to protect Jake and his sentry." Quest adds.

"At least I got far enough to take out Delilah. But you know, blending in with the walls only goes so far; especially with my skill level."

"Wait." /i/-tan says. "Blending in......can't you just shapeshift to look like of Delilah's teammates?"

"Believe me, I've tried." Deelette says back. "I know can do it, but I need help really visualizing their appearance. It's like I need some object I can use or even wear to get me to look like them. But it's not like I can wear a mask that says 'I'm not Deelette'!"

A lightbulb clicked on over /i/-tan's head. "That's it!" She gets up, pulls out her easel, a canvas, and starts working her artistic magic.

"Ummmmmmm......Did I say something?" Deelette asks, watching /i/-tan quickly and somewhat sloppily sketch and paint a picture of a female dragon's head. Then she takes some scissors and cuts around the painting and adds some string to give Deelette a paper mask with Jessica's face on it.

"Put this on! And try to imagine yourself as Jessica!" /i/-tan instructs.

Deelette did as she was told, and focuses. After a brief moment, Deelette's body briefly disappears in a cloud of smoke and reappears taller, covered in green scales, and locks of short brown hair poking out from under a red cap: just like Jessica! If it weren't for the sparkly-blue cloud hovering over her head, Quest and /i/-tan would've confused her for the real thing.

"It worked! You look just like her!" /i/-tan remarks.

"I do?" Deelette asks. Peering down under her mask, Deelette could only see that she apparently looks completely unchanged. "I don't look any different."

"Trust us." Quest says. "You're wearing the ultimate disguise there. And are you thinking what I'm thinking, /i/-tan?"

"Yeah. With your help, Deelette, we're going to beat Kikani at her own game. Are you in?" /i/-tan asks.

"If you say so. Let's do this!" Deelette cheers. She walks towards the door, only to smack herself straight into the adjacent wall. "Ow!"

"You okay?" /i/-tan asks.

"Yeah, except you FORGOT TO CUT OUT EYE-HOLES IN THIS STUPID THING!" Deelette yells.

----

As /i/-tan is busy making some adjustments to Deelette’s new mask, Aggie comes flying down and almost crash lands, but Erik catches her, having respawned not too long before Deelette and the others.

“Aggie!” Deelette exclaims “What happened to you?”

Aggie gets up and rubs her head “Kikani used her illusions to throw off my sense of balance, I was camping up on the roof of their tower, but I needed to get out of her range.”

Quest pauses and spins around “Wait, you got up on the roof? Can you get us up on the roof?”

Aggie has taken a seat and is breathing in deeply with her eyes closed while Trish is warming her “Yeah, but I can only carry one of you guys at a time,” She opens her eyes and looks at her friends “I can’t carry Erik though, sorry. And if Kikani sees us then she’ll use her dizzy spell on me again.”

Trish finishes warming up Aggie before speaking “Kikani is playing mean, she could seriously hurt you if she does that while you’re flying.”

Quest is deep in thought “OK, I have a plan. Aggie, fly Deelette and /i/-tan to the roof. The rest of us are going back up the tower to keep their turret focused on the inside.”

As Aggie takes off with /i/-tan, who is nervously holding onto the harpy’s legs, Deelette turns to Quest “The secret tunnel in the stairs where the turret is lets out almost right in front of it, so you can get close to it fast that way.”

“Good.” Quest nods “There’s someone in those tunnels I need to have a rematch with anyway.”


At the top of the tower, on the final staircase, Tibe, Jake and Janice have advanced. Jake as redeployed his turret to their rear so they can’t be sneak attacked from below.

Tibe peaks his head around the corner and quickly pulls back as a volley of snowballs launch from the turret.

“Yep, still there.” Says Tibe

“Why do you sound so cheery about that?” asks Janice.

“Because we’ve tied up their turret,” answers Tibe “and as long as we’re a nuisance here, we can regroup.”


One floor up Delilah is sitting on her ice throne laughing as the sun is steadily sinking from the sky, she’s unable to see the harpy using the sun as cover to land on the roof.

Aggie, /i/-tan, and Deelette have safely landed on the roof.

“So what now?” asks Aggie.

/i/-tan pulls out another canvas “Now we’re going to give that fox girl a run for her money.”


A floor down, Delilah and Kikani are in the middle of the open floor, Jessica is at the turret, Greg and Silvia are right behind her as backup, the rest of Delilah's team are trying to flank.

“There’s no way they’re coming up these stairs” Says Greg in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. Another strong icy breeze blows through the floor as Aggie appears perched on one on the edges sticking her tongue out at the enemy team.

“Ugh! That bird brain is back again!” Cries Delilah “Kikani, get rid of her!”

With another huge gust of wind, Aggie disappears before Kikani could get a line of sight on her.

“Oh, come on!” Shouts Delilah “Silvia, see if you can knock her out of the sky!”

Silvia turns to Delilah “Don’t you think this is going too far? Aggie could get hurt if we make her fall while she’s in the air.”

The room goes silent, as if none of them had even considered that.

“Oh...” Delilah snaps out of it “Just keep her from getting in here then.”

Another sharp breeze blows through the room, unknown to its occupants a mysterious lump of snow had been creeping its way closer and closer to the stairs. While everyone was distracted, Deelette shoved a snowball down Jessica’s back and /i/-tan covered her petrified body with her canvas as Deelette took the dragonling’s place unnoticed.

Silvia had begun throwing snowballs into the air at Aggie with Kikani making illusionary copies again, but the young kitsune’s attention was divided when not!Jessica called out to her. “Hey, Kikani, you might want to have a look at this, they’re tying something funny down there.”

Kikani turned and looked right at Deelette, almost as if she was looking through her, Deelette could feel her heart racing, was she really disguised? Could they really not tell who she was? To Deelette’s shock and surprise, Kikani walked over and right by her to look down the stairs.

“What are they doing now, I wonder?” she said in an amused voice, her back turned to Deelette in disguise.

Deelette knew this was now or never, she clutched a snowball and shoved it down the back of Kikani’s coat, her eyes went wide with shock before letting out an “Eeep!” and petrifying.

“Jessica! What are you doing?!” yells Delilah

“Playing the game.” says not!Jessica. "NOW!" she shouts down the stairs, pulling her mask off and cloaking into the wall.

----

Erik and Trish swing into the staircase, getting the turret's attention. Then, Trish strains and concentrates, letting warming aura really start to glow bright blue. It surrounds her and Erik's body, giving them both a bright metallic sheen, and even starting to melt through the floor! The turret fired upon them, but the icy salvos melted by the time they touched Erik's body. They took no damage as the turret frantically opened fire. Kenny, Silvia, and Greg tried to help out, but it was to no avail. The ogre and junior mage were virtually invincible to to snowballs. Not even a headshot from Kenny's slingshot could stop them! "HAHAHA!! I AM SNOWBALL-PROOF!" Erik roars, quickly overwhelming and destroying the turret, as well as Silvia and Greg. Kenny, AJ, and Delilah did escape around the corner though.

Trish, exhausted under the stress of her charged magic burst collapsed onto Erik's back; the bright glow of invincibility fading away. "You did great, Trish." Erik whispered, watching his other teammates catch up to him.

Peering around the corner, Kenny caught Erik and Trish with their guard down. With Deelette's team making a push, he has the chance to eliminate their tank and healer. He rolls up a snowball and readies up for a shot aiming at Trish first. Little does he know, Aggie sees him from above. She screeches and swoops down right as Kenny releases his paw from his sling. The path his snowball intended for Trish gets intercepted by Aggie's face, sacrificing herself.

With Kenny exposed, Trish and Erik strafe out of the way, as the tiger dives back for cover to try getting in another shot. He rolls up another ball and steps out, only to get pegged in the face and get petrified. Janice pops out of the ground next to Kenny's petrified body with a snowsplosion, only to realize someone beat her to the punch. Trish, Erik, and Quest could only blink before they hear a voice cry "BULLSEYE!" and turn their heads and sees Tibe still peering down his scope. He nods and says "I'm right behind you guys!"
Erik, Tibe, Trish and Quest make their way up to the landing when they hear a cracking noise. Tibe's hooves could feel the floor feel like slush. "Is the floor melting?"

Then it occurred to Trish: That amplified burst of her warmth spell. It was causing structural damage to the tower! And with an ogre and a centaur's combined weight, never mind Quest's and her own.....
*CRACK-SMASH*
*FLOOSH*

"WHOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" The four scream out before the floor collapses under their feet. Quest, just behind them acts fast and jumps the while his legs still find purchase to push himself off and dives over the growing hole. But it was too late for the other three.

Quest still hears the cracks and growing fissure behind him, and claws himself upright so he can run to terra firma. As soon as the hole stopped getting bigger, Quest peers down the edge of the hole, seeing his three teammates sprawled out on the floor under him. "Are you guys all right?"

"I think so! Tibe called out. There's enough snow and slush down here to soften our fall! Don't worry about us! You and Janice get to Deelette and /i/-tan and help them! Delilah's on the run!"

"Will do." Quest salutes. He pulls out his shield and sword, ready for whatever would come to him. He also notices that the main respawn exit is right where the hole is. Quest may have been cut off from the rest of his team, but so has Delilah!


The red team leader made it to her throne room with AJ guarding her, and Bonny watching the book from the ceiling. She turned her head to the window to see setting sun approach the horizon. "Just a little bit longer!" she announces.

"Until when?" Bonnie complains. "I'm getting real tired of this Winter War!"

Delilah furrows her brow. "I've told you before. That book is on a time-lock. It will open at sunset."

"What's so important about that stupid book anyway?" Bonnie asks.

Before Delilah could open her mouth to retort, AJ hears a noise coming down the hall. "Girls, we've got company!"

Quest storms around the corner while Deelette sneaks in behind him and starts to stealthily suction-cup her way to the cage. "We've got you cornered!" Quest says.

"Have you?" Delilah smiles. Suddenly, her drill-shaped pigtails start to spin as she rolls up a snowball and feeds it into the vortex. The snowball gets sucked in and gets shot out the other end, high up on the opposite wall, impacting at high velocity only inches from the still-cloaked Deelette. "I know what you're up to, Squidhead! Come out wherever you are!"

As Delilah prepared another shot, Quest rushes in to stop her. But AJ blocks his path and readies his own sword and shield. Their swords collide with a resounding *CLACK*.

----

The rematch between between Quest and AJ is in full swing as the two boys struggle to topple the other with their shields. Meanwhile snowballs are being rolled and spun in every direction by Delilah’s drill hair as she takes flight with her succubus wings, she’s still a bit clumsy with them though. The suction caused by the wind funnels ice in from the ceiling, powders it, and then launches it outwards.

“Hey!” shouts Bonnie “What where you’re aiming!” as a snowball narrowly misses her.

Quest and AJ both break from their shield struggle to block the oncoming barrage of snowballs and Kenny ducks behind the throne.

Delilah stabilizes in the air and her aim and range improve dramatically as Quest is now the only one blocking leaving AJ free to continue his advance. Deelette is harder to hit due to her coloring, but Delilah is quickly narrowing in. Noticing a snow mound in the middle of the room, slowly moving, Deelette makes herself visible to draw Delilah’s full attention.

“Fine, here I am.” Deelette says, revealing herself. “See if you can actually hit me!”

Delilah’s full attention is on Deelette now, Deelette is focused on where /i/-tan is hidden, she’s about to launch a sneak attack on AJ, but Bonnie finally notices the hidden presence in the room. As the onslaught of snowballs is about to rain down on Deelette she recites a mantra “Duck. Scoop. Roll, Throw. Hit!”

Delilah easily dodges “Hit what?”

Bonnie had just let go of the ceiling to get the drop on /i/-tan when she sees it coming out of the corner of her eye. “Oh, no, not this time!” Using her bushy tail to block, she’s forced to alter where she intended to land. As she looks smug about finally not getting surprised attacked, she realizes she’s landed right at the top of the now partially melted staircase and the ground is very much so slick.

AJ had gained some ground on Quest while he was under fire, he never heard /i/-tan pull off the canvas behind him and shove a snowball into his collar. AJ raises his arms up in a panic before the petrification sets in and /i/-tan gives him a push, knocking him into Bonnie and sliding them both over the edge down to the slush pile below. /i/-tan then quickly pulls the canvas over herself and Quest again to block the next wave of snowballs.

The sun has begun to set and the cage has begun to crack.

----

Deelette makes a blitz for the cage, not even bothering to blend in with the walls anymore. The fight may be three against one, but time was running out! Delilah takes flight to take down Deelette once and for all, but Quest leaps and grabs her leg, weighing her down.

"Nnnrgh! Get off, freak!" Delilah hollers, trying to shake Quest off.

"Look who's talking, foul demon!" Quest retorts, banging his sword at the succubus into submitting. But then Delilah makes a sharp nosedive to suck up more snow with her vortex pigtails. Then she flies up towards Deelette, who by this point was touching the ceiling and headed for the cage. She aims her pigtails at her rival, ready to unleash their furious flurry when her left one gets suddenly grabbed by Quest and yanks back.

"Ow! OW! OWWWWW! ENOUGH!" Delilah screams, aiming her other vortex at her unwanted passenger while still climbing high. Knowing doom awaited him, Quest sees that they're passing next to Deelette. She could use something to help.

"Deelette! Catch!" In a toss of faith, Quest chucks his sword upwards and forwards at the very moment Delilah's slow-blower hairdo blasted him with enough snow and ice into pertrification. Quest released his grip, falling several yards and careening into the floor, but that's why he wears a helmet. Deelette swings herself to attempt catching the sword in midair, but her numbing hands made it hard to grip when it bounced in her palms blade first. After a split-second fumble, she seemed to have dropped it; but in the blink of eye, one of her tentacles shoots down and grabbs it by the hilt.

Deelette lands right in front of the ice chain that suspends the cage and her tentacle tosses it up to her hands. She gives Quest's sword a powerful swing and the weakening chain link snaps apart with a *CHK*. Without anything to hold it in place, gravity makes the cage plummet to the floor with Delilah right beneath it.

CRASH!

The cage implodes with the sound of a hundred wine glasses shattering all at once, scattering the ice bars that composed it all across the room, and even knocking Delilah's throne backwards in the process. The crash scattered loose snow piles into the air, coating the room with flurries. The other kids, just floors below, could hear it come crashing down. When the flurries cleared, Deelette brushed and pushed away at the shrapnel of the former ice cage to find the pink cover of the book in the rubble. She fished it out and hugged it to her body when she saw Delilah's snow boot stomp right in front of her. And she was so close!

"I don't think so!" said Delilah, pummeling Deelette with snowballs, still clinging to the book. It was enchanted to interfere with any of her succubus illusion powers and couldn't blend in the white floors and wall. But she had to get away before her rival weakens her to the point where the fortress' magic wards would eject her out without the tome!

Deelette staggered about, realizing Delilah had backed her into a corner. "It's over, Deelette. I win. You can't escape, you're out of time, and your friends aren't here to help to you." She pointed to the large window showing the orange sun halfway-fallen below the horizon. Deelette cowers and crouches down, watching Delilah scoop and roll a snowball before tossing it in the air above her. Suddenly, her twin blond curled pigtails start to spinning like a vortex and intertwine together, surrounding the levitating snowball; holding it in suspension, charging up a shot. Delilah wants to make this count.

"Any last words?" Delilah asks.

Deelette could only hold the book up as an impromptu shield as her only defense against what would be the finishing blow, quaking in fear.

"Yeah!" says /i/-tan, rolling out from under her canvas, and pulling out a large can of spray paint. "Taste blue!" Delilah turns around just in time to see /i/-tan irritate her vision with blue spray, soaking her clothes and hat in a thick layer of cobalt pigment. "Run for it, Deelette! Take this!" /i/-tan cries out, handing her Quest's recovered shield. Deelette seeing Delilah distracted and coughing gave her all the excuse she needs to high-tail it out here.

"Hey Delilah!" sounds a voice around the corner. It was Jessica, carrying the parts of her turret. "I found a way out of respawn and I'm setting-" Jessica cut herself off to see and that painter girl blinding Delilah with spray paint. Instinctively, she sets her building down and assembles as fast as possible, hoping she'd get Deelette before she runs out of range.

Deelette sprints and leapfrogs over Jessica just as she finishes and flips the switch. It starts to target Deelette mid-jump, but Deelette takes Quest's shield and flips underneath her, not just for protection, but allowing her to fly down the stairs using that shield as a sled. Jessica's sentry suddenly beeps and turns around discovering a new target.

Delilah manages to knock the spray can out of /i/-tan's hand but in her frustration, forgets about snowballs and resorts to a catfight instead. She wrestles /i/-tan to the ground, and scratches at her face. "YOU! DIRTY! LITTLE-SHE WAS MINE! YOU ARE SO DEAD, YOU-" her furious rant gets cut off by a salvo of snowballs shooting out from Jessica's sentry. Jessica panics and doesn't know what's wrong. But then Delilah looks at her blue-painted clothes. "JESS! TURN THAT PIECE OF JUNK OFF! FRIENDLY FIRE! FRIENDLY FIRE!" Those were the last words before petrification set in.

----

Deelette comes flying down the broken stairs on Quest’s shield, leaping over her friends as they’re still locked with Delilah's team, she shouts down to them “I got it!”

There’s a cheer as her team raise their arms in celebration and the others facepalm and grab their heads in shock.

Kenny growls “How could this have happened?!”

While Erik cheers “You’ve captured the enemy intelligence!”

The entire collection to kids are now scrambling to catch up with Deelette as she continues speeding down the tower, grinning ear to ear over her triumph. Greg and Silvia are in hot pursuit, but Tibe easily overtakes them, kicking snow up as he passes to keep them from lining up a shot. Deelette launches out of the base of the tower, still on Quest’s shield, Aggie swoops down to her and lifts her into the air, carrying her back to their base.

Deelette shouts with joy “I got my diary back!”

The rest of the kids pour out of the tower to see Deelette standing triumphantly with the pink book in hand back at her team’s base just as the sun sets. Greg, Kenny, Jessica, Bonnie, AJ, and Kenny all look downtrodden, Silvia is just scratching her head “All this over a dairy?” while all Kikani can do is laugh some more.

Before the losing team could get too upset they hear Deelette shout “Come on guys, hot coco on me! That means everyone!” and everyone cheers.


Back in the tower, Delilah has just respawned “Ow… wait, what?! Where is-”

She’s interrupted by /i/-tan who was waiting for her “It’s already over, Deelette got her book back.”

Delilah kicks the ground and makes a frumpy face before she notices the tube /i/-tan is putting under her “It’s paint remover, it’s non-toxic just like the paint I used, you can rub it right off with this.”

Delilah snatches the tube and fumbles it open to begin applying it. “My mom gave me this coat… She’d be mad if I got it ruined.”

/i/-tan leans on a wall and says “Everyone else already left for hot cocoa.” Delilah pouts a little “Deelette said it was on her and that everyone could come.”

Delilah rubs the paint off her face, carefully hiding any tears before walking down the stairs out of the tower.


In a restaurant that’s never too far away from anywhere, a large group f monster kids are enjoying hot cocoa and being in a warm building after an afternoon of nonstop snowball action. Kenny and Tibe are exchanging tales about their perspective, Greg and Trish are talking about how different it was keeping their team warm, Kikani is passing more marshmallows to Aggie as an apology for the dizzy spell.

Deelette is sitting at the counter blowing on her hot cocoa, the boy on the other side of the counter isn’t much older than she is, he’s wearing a chef hat and a superhero mask.

“Whoa,” says Deelette as she takes a sip of her cocoa “so they’re letting you run the shop today, Cookie?”

Cookie blushes as he prepares another cup “Yeah, while they’re still at that winter dance thing they said I could be in charge here!”

“That’s so cool.” says Quest “My big bro is also at that dance.”

“So’s my dad.” says Deelette.

Just then the door opened an /i/-tan walks in with Delilah, every head in the place turned to look at them in dead silence before the sound of more chocolate deliciousness being poured with Cookie saying “Two more cups, coming up, pull up a seat.”

With some prodding by /i/-tan, Delilah walks up and takes a seat next to Deelette who is still sipping her cocoa. The two sit in silence while Cookie is working behind the counter, another nudge by /i/-tan makes Delilah mumble something under her breath, Quest is leaning over the counter trying to hear what she’s saying while Deelette remains indifferent. With another nudge by /i/-tan Delilah finally blurts out “I’m sorry I took your diary, OK?”

Deelette finishes her cup of cocoa and puts the mug down on the counter, she then pulls out the pink book they’d spent all day fighting over and undoes the lock with one of her tentacles, flipping the pages before stopping at one of them. On the page is a drawing of Delilah, next to it it reads ‘This is Delilah, she’s kind of mean and bossy, but I don’t think she’s a bad person. This one time at her house she had all these toys and a big TV and we...’ it goes on detailing fun times they’ve had together.

Cookie puts down two more mugs of cocoa for the late arrivals which takes Delilah’s eyes off of the book.

Deelette says “I still don’t think you’re a bad person.”

Delilah pouts her face “Just you wait, next time I’ll win for sure!” and takes a swig of the hot cocoa before sticking her tongue out to blow on it. Cookie gives Deelette a refill and Delilah continues “And what’s with you knowing all the cute boys? You think you can keep them all to yourself?”

Deelette smiles and laughs as the restaurant remains cheerful and lively, filled with warmth and fun during a winter evening.

END