neutral_omens | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Date: December 20, 1999
Setting: The grounds
Status: Public
Summary: War starts a snowball fight.

There’s all sorts of speculation on why wars break out, and though not many say it, most of it is due to boredom.

War had been bored. She had been bored in 1812 and re-fought on the sea a conflict that had already been settled on land. She had been bored in 1914, and had succeeded in getting millions of men to sit in miles and miles of pestilential ditches and shoot at each other for no good reason. There was nothing like a good bloody battle for light entertainment.

And she was bored now, and had had no way of relieving the ennui of the tentative, resentful peace in the Manor. An all-out skirmish would not be permitted, at least here, so War had designed the next best thing to ease the passage of a tedious day.

She was propped up on the edge of a tightly-packed fort on an incline on the lawn. She smiled a smile almost as cold and biting as the air around her, and her breath rose in thin tendrils of steam as she packed snow into a hard icy ball. She examined it, tossing it to herself a few times: it was heavy, sculpted into almost a perfect sphere, and about as aerodynamic as snow could be. Her smile sharpened. This baby was going to sting.

War wrapped her mink-trimmed coat tighter around her, kneeled to peek over the top of the snow-fort’s walls, and lay in wait for prey.

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War laughed as she and Famine toppled over, and she quickly scrambled on top of him, hooking her legs around his arms and sitting solidly on his chest. "Just try to get rid of me no--" she began, but was quickly silenced by a faceful of snow.

She spat some of it back out and dumped more on his face, taking particular glee in stuffing more into his coat. And she was still sopping wet.

Uriel shrieked rather non-angelically as Destruction attacked him. He tried to kick his attacker away, very unhappy. Angel wings could take a lot, but snow between his feathers wasn't nice, and a man -- or a man-shaped person -- hanging over his wings definitely kept him from flying. He was somehow staying in the air still, but it definitely wasn't easy -- or high.

At last, he decided that Destruction wouldn't let go of his wings. Therefore, he simply folded his wings, hoping to make the man's grasp disappear. As soon as he hit the ground, he rolled to the side, then glanced around only to see his ally's helpless position and the latest team of the snowball fight heading for the hill.

Now, that wouldn't do. The hill would be theirs! He waved his hand, and suddenly the remains of War's snow fortress were coming down at the two men charging up.

Unfortunately, this took up his concentration, leaving him open for an attack from behind.

Destruction landed on his stomach in the snow, but got up onto his knees immediately, panting. Aha! The angel had his back turned. And there was a conveniently deep snowdrift... right... there.

With another battlecry Destruction launched himself at Uriel's knees, knocking him face-first into said pile of snow, and landing on top of him.

Uriel would have cried out, had he been able to do so. However, being face down in snow, his mouth full of the said cold, white substance, he couldn't do that. It was really fortunate that he didn't have to breathe, or he might have had some trouble -- especially as there was a rather well-built personification of destruction lying on top of him, preventing him from getting up. All he could do was lie there and hope to get up soon -- well, that and do everything he could to get a well-placed kick through to his assaulter.

Now, this was definitely not fair. War and Destruction were letting the two newcomers get to the hill with no resistance at all!

Somehow he managed to struggle one of his daggers out of his sleeve and into his hand. With a thought he made it radiate enough warmth to start rapidly melting the snow bank around him. Well, rather vaporize -- he wasn't keen on getting any more wet than he was already, so the snow decided to skip one step of the process and go straight into mist. Uriel himself was invulnerable to the warmth. However, unless Destruction shared this ability, he was sure to get rather uncomfortable soon. All the better, that -- maybe he'd even let go.

Destruction was having fun sitting on the angels arse in a snowdrift when he suddenly realised that there was less snowdrift than there used to be. Around this time he felt an odd sensation, kind of like sticking your face over a hot mug of tea... except everywhere.

"Shitshitshit!" He cried, leaping up. "Oh, you'll pay for that." The rest of the snow had vaporised now, and the angel didn't even seem flushed, so Destruction promptly sat on his head.

Now, this was something Uriel definitely didn't like. Destruction wasn't exactly light, and having him sitting on top of your head was definitely not fun.

Angelic strength aside, it was practically impossible for him to rise with Destruction sitting on top of his head. As he was lying face down on the ground, he couldn't even try to bite the man (even though at the moment he would have really liked to).

So, he had the dagger in his hand, and he could have used that, but now that wouldn't have been very fair, would it? Considering that it was supposed to be a snowball fight.

...Snowballs... Right.

As he could not move much anyway, it was easy to concentrate his mind on something. To be exact, on the snowballs that were kindly forming themselves in the snow around. And momentarily melting, and then freezing again into nice, round ice balls.

'If this doesn't make him leave,' Uriel thought as he ordered the first ball to hurl at Destruction's head very hard, 'I really have no idea what will.'

"Gah!" Destruction cried as a ball of ice spontaneously leapt at his head. He reflexively brought his arm up and caught it. "Crap!" He yelled. "Ow! Not fair!" Where-upon he proceeded to beat a hasty retreat away from the miniature hailstorm, pausing to shove the ice-ball in his hand down the back of Uriel's robe.

"Hey, War!" He called. "How's it going? You look wet!" He understated with a saucy grin.

Now, Uriel certainly shrieked as the ice ball was shoved into his robe. Then he simply decided to not feel the cold. Rolling to the side to avoid the last of his own ice balls, he then leapt up and looked over to the hill, which one of the teams was currently running up.

Now, that certainly wouldn't do. These two had no wings to mess with -- he still thought that was unfair of Destruction -- but they definitely had legs. It wasn't much of a trick for him to gather snow around their feet and then simply freeze it, sticking their feet onto the ground.

What with all the supernatural forces at play, he didn't think the two were going to be stuck for too long. However, it certainly was long enough for him to launch a bunch of snowballs at them before turning to see how Famine was doing.

Famine was doing not very well, it turned out. Deciding to help his ally, Uriel hurried there, ordering a couple of his ice balls to fly towards War.

Apocalyptic Personifications may not need to breathe, but they did feel cold and having someone shove large handfuls of snow into one's face and coat was quite unpleasant. Famine couldn't see the angel coming to his aid, but even if he had he still would have pushed himself up enough to shove a few handfuls of snow down the front of War's shirt and into her hair.

Michael, who was not very happy at the moment, glanced out of his window. At first he snorted at the sight that met his eyes. Really, snowball fight? How utterly childish.

Then, however, something startling caught his eye. To be exact, a darkhaired form in a white and green robe and cloak. Uriel.

For a moment Michael debated with himself about whether he should go outside and try to put a stop to the fight. On one hand, it appeared like Uriel was definitely enjoying himself. On the other hand, though, it was obvious that Uriel wasn't working on his "normal mode" at the moment, and when he did come back to normal, he probably wouldn't be too happy to notice what idiocy he had indulged in.

Finally Michael came to a decision. Sighing, he exited his room to stop his fellow archangel before Uriel did something he might regret later. Providing what he'd already done wasn't enough.

"Uriel!" he called out as soon as he stepped out of the Manor. "Uriel, stop that! You're not in your right mind!"

Uriel turned his head at the sound of Michael's voice, mildly annoyed at the disturbance. "Normalcy is overrated!" he yelled, then threw a snowball at Michael. Well. At Michael's mouth. Which was conveniently open, even. How absolutely splendid.

Giggling triumphantly, he then continued his running towards War and Famine.

Michael coughed and spluttered as he suddenly found a large snowball in his mouth. As he was pretty much at his nerves' end as it was, he now felt the last bits of self-control he still somehow possessed slipping away.

Oh, heck. If that was the way Uriel wanted to play. He knew what he was getting at, pissing off the head of Heaven's army. And he would pay for it.

A quick glance around revealed two men with their feet frozen at one spot on the side of the nearby hill. That was obviously Uriel's doing. Waving his hand, Michael thus melted the ice. Anything that worked against Uriel's intentions was fine with him. "What are the sides?" he yelled, starting to form snowballs between his hands. "And whatever they are, I'm not on the same one with him!" he then added, pointing at Uriel.

War screamed as she was simultaneously pelted by Uriel's ice balls and Famine shoved snow down her shirt. She responsed by leaning closer to Famine to get out of range, tightening her legs around his arms, and shaking the snow out onto his face and chest. "Then don't be!" she yelled to Michael. "He's not playing fair anyway."

The marquis bowed deeply at the newcomer. He had been laughing at the red-haired man's attack on the angel, despite being covered in snow from the assorted snowballs and the snow fort that had hit them, despite his feet being frozen to the ground.

Well, now they were free. And most of their enemies were busy, it seemed. Things were working out quite well.

"Us," the marquis gestured toward himself and Wednesday. "The angel is on a team with him," a sweeping arm towards the man still quite pinned by the warrior woman, "and she and he," a graceful arm towards the remaining man, whose actions seemed to make him more and more familiar, "are allies."*

*...It is very, very awkward only knowing one out of six characters' names.

Pepper did not twirl. If anyone had described what she was doing as she exited the Manor as such, she probably would have punched them. She was, obviously, feeling much more like herself than she had been when she first arrived.

She stood and watched the snowball fight for a while, before moving closer to it. As she did so, she gathered up snow from the ground and began to form it into a ball. When she was approximately a meter from the fight, she glanced between the skirmishers and her snowball and swiftly threw it at War before bending down to grab more snow.

At this point in the battle, War was getting used to being hit, but she did stop administering snow to Famine to glance at where the latest snowballs had come from. She hissed.

"Sorry, but this just got serious," she said, pulling herself off Famine's chest and hurling a large snowball back at Pepper.

Michael nodded, satisfied with the explanation. "Would you care for another ally, then?" he asked while moving nearer to the two men by the hill, raising an eyebrow in question. "I'm defnitely not going to team with my apparently-not friend there," he pointed towards Uriel, "and I hardly think those two need any more help." At this last statement, he nodded towards War and Destruction. The two certainly could do on their own in a battle.

"...May I ask for your names?" he then asked. He noticed that the man had omitted the names of everybody. Most probably he didn't know them. Well, he could help a bit with that, being very well able to identify both the angels and personifications currently present. "I am called Michael, 'the angel' is Uriel, she's War, and the two remaining men are Famine and Destruction as far as I know."

As yet another person decided to join the battle, he added, "...Though I have absolutely no idea about her name."

Bouncing a snowball on his hand, he asked, "So, what do you say?"

The marquis nodded his head, thinking quickly over the names given and their options. "I have no problem partnering with you, but I fear that is up to Mister Wednesday." He grinned, waving a hand at Wednesday. "As for names, that is his, and I am the marquis de Carabas."

War and Destruction... well, they wouldn't need any help, then, would they? No wonder he looked familiar; Mad Hettie had introduced them, and they had spoken once or twice.

Three personifications and an archangel... and his partner, a god. De Carabas's smile widened. "What do you say, Wednesday? Is he a friend or foe?"

Wednesday sized up the stranger with one eye. "I'm not overly fond of angels. They tend to be poofy wimps, in my experience..."
A burst of flaming sword cut him off mid-sentence. He distinctly felt a bit of eyebrow smoldering. He finally recognized the bearer "... but, on second thought, the Captain of the Host would certainly be a valuable ally." He bowed in front of the archangel, an overly-serious smile on his face. "Shall we take the hill, gentlemen?"

Michael smirked and nodded, satisfied with the answer. Of course, he hadn't expected much else. He then willed his sword to disappear again -- after all, this was meant to be a snowball fight, and using a sword of fire would have kind of defeated the purpose, right?

"Oh, definitely," he said, glancing around to make sure nobody was coming after them at the moment. Glancing then up the hill, he added, "You know... Once we make it up there, it should be easy to rebuild that fortress. That'd give us even better grounds." With these musings, he then started to run up the hill.

At this point Destruction came running up. "Hey War," he said, grinning broadly and pulling her away from Famine for a planning session. "You're a trifle damp, aren't you? Seems it's us against the world, eh?!" He surveyed the area. "Now, a fortress on the hill is the most obviously advantageous position, which is why everyone's fighting over it - but as I rightly remember, wheneverr we've teamed up in the past there weren't any walls left after a while. It's kind of like playing the roll side in Snaflhnaflbaflwifl..." he paused at her expression and looked shifty. "Oh, that's right, you're not responsible for that dimension. Er, in that case, nevermind. Lets go undermine some foundations."

Uriel got to Famine just as Destruction pulled War away from him. Offering a hand to his ally to help him up from the ground, he then glanced around. Seemingly Michael was teaming up with others against him. Well, that was all fine and good with him.

With a bit of angelic hearing he heard Destruction's words quite clearly and grinned. Well, he most certainly wouldn't stop those two. Michael definitely deserved to have his fortress brought down upon him.

He turned towards the newest addition to the fight. "And on whose side are you, then?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow. And, of course, jumping to the side as soon as he'd said that, seeking the relative safety of the ground. Judging by her manner of attack, she might just as well try to throw a snowball at him as answer him. While rolling, he spared a thought to the snow, forming several nice snowballs all ready for use and making them fly nearer to him. After all, they would certainly be useful sooner or later. Most probably sooner.

De Carabas only allowed himself to be startled by the appearance of yet another angel for just a moment, before he turned to Wednesday with a grin. "Let's approach from different angles," he suggested. "Unless they work together, they can't get at all of us."

"Sounds good." He smiled at the Marquis in as fond of a way as his mouth was capable. He was quite glad that the Marquis had come to the manor. "Head up there, I'll cover your progress." He stuffed a few already packed snowballs in the crook of his arm and let them loose.
He hated to admit it, but this was quite fun.
If only there were some Valkyeries for after the battle.
Oh well.

Adam had been watching the snowball fight for some time from a window in the lobby. He was aching to participate, but telling himself that he had no right to barge into other people's fun. Plus, he felt that he was supposed to be acting mature to keep everyone from worrying about their safety. But once Pepper joined in, he couldn't help himself. He tore outside and ran to Pepper's side.

"Hey, Pep! Can I be on your team?"

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