To Kill Gods or Die Trying

Chapter 50-Snow Day

March 18th, 2305

The horn sounds loudly, signaling commencement.

Our guild, divided into two groups rushes at each other—Essej leading half, me leading the other. With battle cries, we scoop up snow as we sprint forward, and compact them tightly.

"Let's give em' hell!" I cheer, leading the charge. I can see Essej and his army running towards us in the distance.

The rules of snow war are simple: no Elementals, no abilities, no armor. We all wear our casual clothes in the cold of our battlefield that has zero cover. The goal is to push the enemy back to their starting point.

We both run at each other with victory on our minds. When I see the look of determination on his face clearly from afar, I spin around for momentum, rear back, and hurl my snowball as fast as a pro baseball pitcher.

As Essej performs an aerial flip, dodging my initial attack, I grab a mound of snow, compact it in my hand, and duck in anticipation of his attack. My head down, I don't need to use my eyes to feel the ball of ice whizzing over me, leaving a cold streak of air behind it. I stand up and chuck my snowball at Essej who leans to his side, letting the ball graze his chest, then spins around—his body low and one leg out to trace a circle around him in the snow.

I grin. Just like him. At this time, the two forces collide around us. Spheres of cold white replace the sky as our armies commence in a battle royal.

Snow is brought up everywhere from his sweep kick, creating a translucent white blanket in front of me. I dive into the cloud as Essej tries to flank me, then roll over, avoiding the snowball. Anticipating another attack in my vulnerability, I scoot back on my butt as another smacks the ground between my legs.

I quickly scramble to my feet and compact a handful of snow. Essej already has his ready. We stare into each other's eyes, circling one another, then begin laughing.

"Not bad, Ben," he says with a grin.

"Not bad? I'm gonna kick your ass!" I jeer.

"Let's go mate!" he replies running at me. I sprint forward in reaction. It feels like slow-motion as I slide on my knees across the snow, firing upwards, and Essej flipping over me, firing down. We grab snow, spin around, take a fraction of a second to aim, and chuck. And miss.

I have to one-up him.

As Essej quickly collects snow, I fall back to give myself time and space for my attack. In my throwing hand, I hold a compacted snowball and in my other hand, I hold uncompacted snow.

Aggressively, Essej sprints forward and I stand my ground. In range, I commence my attack. I throw the snow in his face—that is, as he punts snow into mine. There's no time to lose! I've gotta beat him!

I thrust my arm forward and jam the snowball into Essej's face through the obscurity of the snow. As soon as I make contact, my mouth, agape, fills with cold snow.

We both fall the ground, study each other, then begin laughing. I look around at the laughing players of the guild we created and grin. Most of us grown adults, yet we play in the snow like children. This is not that bad.

Sometimes amidst all the chaos and shit storms of problems and complications and emotions, I guess you just have to take it easy and detach from it all. I'm definitely lucky to have the friends that I do and support from so many-

Snowballs nail me in the head and chest, stunning me with the cold before I look up at the aggressor.

"Hey, broski! Quit dozing and start throwing!" Sess jeers retreating into his crowd.

Margot and Pranav come to my rescue, Nav shielding us from the enemies and Marg helping me up to my feet. I can't help but notice the huge grin on her face.

"C'mon Ben. Let's kick some ass!" she cheers. We bump fists.

"No one snows how long this battle is gonna last so you might as well go ball-list-"

A huge snowball clobbers Pranav to the ground where we see Mack with his evil sneer from afar. Everyone around us laughs.

Yeah... I'm pretty lucky. It'll all work out, as long as I have them.