2019-12-26 - The Snowball Festival (FIGHT!)

Byron is on the call list from City Hall about volunteers for the short-notice snow festival the town is holding and Lilith really wanted to spearhead the adult snowball fight as a team organizer with him. So that's what they're doing this afternoon after Christmas Day, which is technically called Boxing Day. But she's not ready to box, she's ready to sling some snowballs and is bundled up to reflect that while sipping at her cocoa and waiting for people to gather for assignment to teams.

She's wearing a teal and black North Face coat for the cold over multiple layers, thermal fitted leggings, and nicely treaded and laced snowboots in lieu of running shoes, her gloves and scarf a nice cherry red along with her ear-muffler headband wrapped around her ponytailed head for warmth. She's practically bouncing with the energy and anticipation of the impending fray while standing there waiting, bright eyed and bushy tailed.

There's also a coach from the High School who has volunteered to referee and call the outs and hits. She grins a bit when he waves and she sees the sign around his neck that's bright yellow and says, "HIT ME AND YOU ARE OUT!" Is that a real rule? The guy probably just doesn't want to be accidentally mass pinged with snowballs while standing in the middle with his little whistle and glove points.

With hands in his pants pockets, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth, the brick wall known as Everett passes through the park. Ever aware of the city's social goings on, there's a double take from him while he finds a tree to lean against, corkscrew Santa hat and all, just a by-stander.

August arrives in his black snow jacket, heavy duty hiking boots, angora and fleece knit cap, and denim jeans. He's got some proper winter hiking gloves on as well. Paintball he can't do. Snowballs? That's another story.

Seems that Byron Thorne is on City Hall's call list for random last minute festivities for the town. Which is fine. There's booths set up for face painting and other winter related activities going on around them. There's even hot apple cider and cocoa being served with other treats at the concession stands. Due to an unrelated snowman building contest, there's quite a few of those spread out around the park, observing this particular snowy day battle.

That includes the monstrosity that is the Siamese Dream Snowmen, the ones with the shark's teeth, stitched together at their sides. Some swear that they've seen that thing move. But that's ridiculous and whoever built it should be ashamed.

Dressed in thick, flexible layers, including a moisture wicking undershirt to help with the physical exertion that this event will bring forth, Byron stretches out his back and neck, rotating his shoulders before doing the same for his limbs, warming them up as he does so. Sturdy hiking boots, thick gloves and a warm hat completes this wintry ensemble.

Finch is here and raring for a good snowball fight. She's had a headache all day, and it's made her cranky. She's wrapped up in a black parka with faux fur around the hood, gloves, a grey knit hat yanked down over her ears, jeans, and snow boots. She pulls her hood up and grins at Ignacio. "I see the boss over there. Are we with him or against him?" She brow waggles with a less than innocent expression, jerking her thumb at August.

He's not entirely sure if he should be in an event like this, with his history of trauma to the head, but here Jonathan is. He was considering bringing his old hockey helmet, but instead, he's wearing one of those old Russian ushanka fur caps, with thick fur and the ear flaps tied together below his chin. Hopefully the thick fur will help protect his skull, right. Looking between the various people, he offers them a grin.

Along come Anne and Patrick, talking - which probably means bickering - amongst themselves as they fade across the street and into the park proper. Anne works at City Hall, so of course this is the kinda thing that she gets told about, and there's all that 'well, it's not mandatory but you should really be there' implication, so that's her excuse. Patrick's excuse is none of anyone's business. They're dressed for snow, gloves and scarves and whatever, and heading toward whatever seems the likeliest area to host a snowball fight among grown-ups.

"I'm sure this will be fine," says Patrick in a tone that means he's sure the opposite is true.

"Man. Referees never let me do anything fun."

Said somewhere behind Lilith as Isabella ambles over, her eyes on the faraway yellow sign and grinning faintly. Much like Lilith, she, too, is dressed in thermal leggings tucked underneath worn snow-boots, though her jacket is a fitted runner's hood made for the winter. True to her competitive personality, she's decided to wear a white one with red piping, in hopes of using the terrain to her advantage. Her knit cap, too, is white, though it has a glaring red pom on top of it. On close inspection, it seems that the cap has, at one point, developed a hole, and she attempted to fix it using a tiny koosh ball (remember those??), so the rubber thing bounces on top of her head at every step. Gloved hands are tucked into her pockets.

She does nothing but look at the set up for a long moment before she quietly, and somewhat awkwardly, nudges Lilith's elbow lightly with her own. "You wrote me the best love letter," she says; the words are teasing but her tone is soft. Angling a look over her friend, her smile tilts upwards on the corners. "I'll try to live up to what's in it." She offers her a sip of her cider from the cup. Spying August and Anne (accompanied by Patrick), she lifts her hand in a wave, and Byron rolling his shoulders and stretching out has her grinning broadly. "Hey, Thorne!" she calls out; shittalking is commencing early. "Once again, we meet on the field of battle! I think you know what has to happen!"

What do you do when you're new in town and don't know that many people yet? Join in a friendly neighborhood snowball fight where you can either clobber or be clobbered by potential friends, of course. That is, at least, Lalo's intention when he shows up in Addington Park in winter clothes and an easy smile on his face. He looks around, his gaze settling on the hot cocoa stand first, but he does not go over there yet -- that's for later, to either celebrate or console himself. Instead, he starts over toward the place that looks likely to be where people declare that they want to play.

Bennie is ...not dressed for stealth as she emerges out of the bay of the GHFD's side of the building. She might as well have painted a target on her back with the way she's dressed in a full on one-piece snowsuit that's bright purple and neon green. And sure enough, just like any toddler who's been dressed for snow ever, as soon as she exits the building, she declares to no one in particular. "Shoot. I gotta pee." SIGH.

Ruiz turns up for this little shindig with Itzhak in tow, and the keys to his truck being shoved into a pocket of his track pants. He tugs his gloves on, pulls the hood of his sweatshirt up and over his head, and bends to tighten the laces on his boots. He's wearing a weatherproof shell over his Seattle PD hoodie, and the look on his face means business. "Ready to get fucked up?" he asks Rosencrantz, dark eyes flicking about to assess the rest of the competition. Is he going to gun for Itzhak? Of course he is.

Alexander arrives from a different direction from Isabella; he had research to do! But he's dressed for the weather - AND FOR BATTLE. There are friendly waves to the people he knows, and he makes his way through the snow, scoping out the enemy. Well, okay. When he sees Isabella, he immediately goes over there to give her a kiss. Even if it's a kiss punctuated by, "You know I'm gonna take you out, right?"

He has to make sure his super-competitive girlfriend has the proper motivation.

Itzhak shows up with Ruiz, spots Finch, Ignacio, and August, their informal little team of troubleshooters and troublemakers. "Who's ready to get their ass kicked!?" he yells at his friends, grinning, and slides Ruiz quite the wicked side-eye, also grinning. "Yeah we'll fuckin' see about that." Snow is just extremely fluffy water. Itzhak has tricks that anybody who knows him might rightfully suspect him of planning.

"Oh, it's just a snowball fight. Don't be a sour puss," Anne rolls her eyes at Patrick as they make their way down to the fun. "Not everything ends up being terrible here. Sometimes snowball fights are just snowball fights." She spies Isabella over there and lifts a hand encased in a powder blue glove, waving frantically. "Hi Isabella!" she's already reaching for Patrick's elbow, angling him that-a-way.

"You talk big for a guy who can't shoot," August calls back to Itzhak. "Which means your aim's probably shit. Anyways, how do you know you won't be on my team?"

Ignacio yells back to Ruiz, "Joke's on you, ya estamos en mal estado! so ha!" Yeah that was said with bravado and conviction! He looks to Isabella nd Itzhak. "I'm declaring this the I-team." He loos to Itzhak, "If I go down you have my permission to use me as a human shield."

"Hey," Finch greets Ruiz with a smile. There is a bit of strain at the edges of her eyes, though not directed towards him. It's the headache that has been plaguing her all day. "What do you think, Father-Daughter team up against those three easy targets?" she quips to the cop, looking mischeviously towards Ignacio, August, and Itzhak.

Hearing Isabella call out his name, Byron stops with his mostly idle warm-up to grin over in her direction, "So we meet again, Reede! We'll see who comes out the victor this time, though I'm apt to keep up with my winning streak." When Ruiz and Alexander move in to join with Bella, he calls out to them as well, "I hope that everyone's had a wonderful white Christmas this year." Giving the snowy white park a quick pan over, he adds, "It's not every year that we get to act like children and run amok like animals."

"Maldita sea, estás en problemas," de la Vega calls back to Ignacio, slanting him a wolfish grin as he pushes to his feet. "Bien podría ceder ahora." He shadows the Spaniard a wink, then spots Finch and gives her a decisive nod. Might be a tetch of concern around that look on her face, but he doesn't ask for the time being. Instead, "You got it." And then, it's time to start scoping out a location for their fortifications. Really, they probably don't want the Mexican on their team. Has he even made a snowball before, much less thrown one?

Setting the cider aside, Isabella finds Alexander in the crowd immediately, homing in on his taller form like a heat seeking missile, and she comes straight at him like one, too. Her arms curl around him, returning his kiss with relish, and when they break off, she continues hanging on, her gloved hands framing his face with both hands. Her suntanned expression is lit with affection. "Oh, Alexander," she sighs, though her eyes are gleaming with the devil's own light and makes the dramatic impression of a woman swooning in his arms. "You do make my dreams come true. Because today is the day.....I absolutely annihilate you."

She grins, pecks his nose, and turns around the circle his arms make. "We'll see about that, Thorne! And yes!" She points at Ignacio gamely, flashing the investigator a look that is prematurely triumphant. "I-Team's gonna get you guys. Hey, Bennie!" She waves to the blonde she spies nearby, and then Anne and Patrick as they approach. "Hey, Blue Eyes! How was your Christmas. Patrick." She greets her companion, too, though there's a hint of curiosity there.

Finch grins at Ruiz and then she begins jogging off to begin making ammo and working on the fort. This is going to be fun! She begins forming snowballs with her gloved hands, piling them up for use. She makes them tight, not too large, so they have the right weight for a good throwing. She spent several years at Cornell, the girl can roll some snow.

Jonathan takes a few moments before things really start off to take a deep breath, hands held out as he circles around himself, looking at the area. "Showtime..." he mutters, moving to help preparing the fort and the snowballs as the whistle sounds. Curiously enough, he makes a few smaller snowballs as well.

Once he's signed up and given a team, Lalo heads over toward Byron, lifting a hand in greeting. "Hey," he says. "Ready to get some hypothermia?" He grins, reaching down to start shoveling some snow into a fort. He looks up at Ruiz, his gaze moving between him and Ignacio at the exchange, and there's a snort of amusement as he bends down again. His technique is...well, it does not seem to be anything specific, really. Maybe he hasn't participated in many snowball fights, either. "Man, wish I'd practiced this more now," he comments to no one in particular, but his tone is good-natured.

Itzhak gets assigned his team, realizes it's him and August and Ignacio versus Finch and her old man. That's almost enough to daunt him. At least they have Lilith. "We're in trouble," he mutters, and starts piling up a barricade.

Patrick leaves his side of the argument at a confidently knowing look down and sideways at Anne and the comment, "Famous last words." Then it's a socially correct, "Hello, Isabella, Merry Christmas." And since she's standing right there with Byron, it'd weird not to add, "Thorne, Merry Christmas." Then it seems like teams are happening and he can't not smirk. "I'll see you ladies on the other side," with a finger-wiggle at Isabella and Anne both.

He might be better equipped to tell people where they should put snow rather than doing it himself, but he gives it the old college try first.

"Bold words, Miss Reede. Let's see how you live up to them," Alexander calls out, with amusement. Then he skitters back over to his 'side', and starts gathering some snow to shape into a fort, staking out a position near Byron. Maybe he figures that the other man's pretty face will be a better target.

Bennie waddles back out after voiding her bladder, zipped back into her puffy snow suit to go and get assigned a team. She's either full of caffeine or incredibly cold, because she's bouncing around from foot too foot as the frantic planning begins to take shape about where to build their fortifications and how. "Izzy!" Bennie can greet Isabella with her nickname, because Alexander is over -> there. And on the enemy team. "Hi hi, friends and current allies."

With the attendees being split up into groups, Byron makes very careful observation on who is sent to which team. "Clayton." He says in greeting and maybe even a ghost of a smile when the man comes to join him just as he's working on pushing as much snow into a pile to start work on their fortification. Seems like the police captain is on their side and several others, "de la Vega too Well, I can't see this going wrong at all." He tends to see that whenever he's in this sort of situation with familiar faces. But this time, it's more of a competitive thing than a 'Trouble is going to follow us' thing. Who he doesn't expect to find out here is the likes of Patrick, "Addington, what a surprise."

"Oh, my Christmas was.." There's a sideglance from Anne to Patrick and then a shrug of her shoulders to Isabella. But there's definitely some rosy glow on her cheeks. Must be the cold! "It was pleasant." There might be more to this, but Patrick's going to 'see them on the other side' and she looks wide-eyed at him. "Oh, I see how it is. Well then! Prepare to meet your doom!" she giggles, turning to stand beside Isabella. "It's probably bad form to hide rocks in the snowballs, right?" She gets to work!

Ignacio is really not cut out for this but his gimpy ass is too proud to call it quits. He might be better at being a human shield than in this snowball fight. That leg of his is offing him shit mobility in the cold. He tries to help by drawing a line where the fort could be and tries to shove it into place. Is he maybe cheating? who is to say. Who can blame him?!

Lilith wanders to give Isabella a hug after draining her cocoa cup and pointing at a few people that don't have a team to pressgang them into place like a bossy little brunette bint. She's ready to rumble and it's eating her attention span more or less, the chance to get all the stress and energy out in the snow. After kissing on Byron with lift on her toes, she whistles with fingers set between her teeth to get team's attention before the actual whistle blows.

"Byron. I love you. I'm sorry if I hit your face."

Then she's off to collect a heap of snowballs when the timer starts and yelling about fort construction logistics. Someone is taking this serious, guys.

August is a fan of hiding and waiting things out. It's second nature for him, really, and who can blame him considering his history. As a result, he spends a fair bit of time on fort/cover making, ensuring he has plenty of spots to hop out of for a throw and track the opposing team's movement. He doesn't skimp on snowballs either, handing extras to Itzhak and Ignacio.

Taking the cigarette from his mouth, Everett continues to support the tree he's leaning on. Army green eyes flicker over the combatants, nobody he knows, but a few First Responder pride logos. Must be a government thing. Ash is flicked from his cigarette while the thug looks down and back put, the bell at the end of his silly festive hat ringing mutedly while he puts the cancer stick back in his mouth and his hand back in his pocket to keep warm.

Patrick is having some real issues with snowballs right now. They're doing that thing where he packs them and they just crumble into slush - so he just shoves all the falling-apart-pieces onto the wall he's apparently building like gangbusters. "Is it," he tosses back at Byron of his presence being a surprise. "It is Addington Park, it seems like the surprise would be ruined by now." He sniffs irritably as another snowball breaks. Deadpan, "Let me have some of your balls."

"Glad you're on the winning team," Isabella tells Bennie with a grin; she's absolutely jinxing her team, but she's Corellian at heart, and one should NEVER tell her the odds! Lilith gets a return hug and squeeze, and while she starts aiding the rest in constructing the fort, while she seems to be doing fine with it, it's the act of actually making snowballs that gets her. Her snow's too wet, and she tests it - she likes water, she's well familiar with it, but if she compacts it too tightly with how wet it is, it would only hurt someone. "This is more ice than snow," she mutters. "I want to crush them, not their faces! They're all so unfairly attractive on the other side. Did Patrick really have to graduate from Cambridge? It's downright felonious." This to Anne. Clearly, there are more rivalries here than the continuation of her high school arrangement with Byron.

"Protect your balls, Thorne," Alexander pipes up. He, weirdly enough, is doing respectably with the building of fort and ammo, smoothing out the snowballs with meticulous care. "Don't entrust them to just anyone." He gives Patrick a quick, sidelong grin.

Itzhak is a fan of flooring the accelerator and seeing where the speedometer caps out, but he gets a little too meticulous about the snow fort building anyway. It's way too much fun to engineer that shit into being. He has to be reminded that the point of this exercise is not to try to make flying buttresses out of snow.

Ruiz is shit at building snow forts, it turns out. After several attempts at piling up and packing the snow, he gives the fuck up, kicks down his already dilapidated little section of wall, and buggers off to roll snowballs instead. Which goes a bit better, but he's still pretty shit at that too. Fucking Mexicans. "You do this professionally or something, Thorne?" he enquires a bit saltily of Byron.

Lalo has finished his dubious wall-building -- though he did do it quickly, so that's probably something! -- and moved on to packing some snowballs for ammo. Pretty soon, he has a good pile going on next to him, and when he does he takes a couple moments' break to shake his hands out as he murmurs, "Pinche nieve de mierda." He shivers, looking over at the rest of his team and how they're going before he starts again.

"Don't give him your balls, Byron! Tell him he has to play with his own!" Anne shouts over her modest snow fort that she's helping to build, beaming a grin across the field. Then she looks back to Isabella and laughs. "Don't let him hear you say that. About being unfairly attractive. He's already got a big head. But I think our fort looks great," even if Isabella can't make a snowball to save her life. In spite of what she just said, she passes a few of her own balls over to Isabella. As to the rest of the team? She gives everyone a little wave. "Hi! I'm Anne," in case nobody knows.

Finch surreptitiously follows Ruiz to shore up the disaster walls he tries to build, while trying to not look like she's doing just that. Crenellations are the key, done across the top, like a proper battlement. Places to peek out, places to duck behind.

Bennie? Not so good at making the walls of their fortification, probably something to do with the fact that she looks like Maggie Simpson in the overly fluffy snow suit so that sort of mobility is a bit of an issue. Making snowballs though? She's a champ. She starts making a little pyramid of ammunition. "I can't feel my face when I'm with yoooou..." She sings underneath her breath, flicking glances at the others with a giant smile on her face.

Ignacio watches the snow fall apart in his hands, "Am I cuppin em too hard or what? I have no idea why my snow is broken, guys." He tries again and...no. He sighs, "mi nieve esta embrujada" Looking to August and the tiny pile he squints, "I'm a work on the fort."

When Lilith apologizes to him ahead of time just in case she pelts that pretty face of his with a snowball, Byron says with a hint of a smirk, "I'm sure you will be." Seriously, the whole being sorry part, that's quite the understatement! Now it looks like everyone wants his well formed balls and Byron just has to roll his eyes at that. "It's not hard you know. To make." Then Alexander gives him some sound advice as he works to help equipped his fellow teammates with snowy white missiles.

Jonathan shakes his head as he keeps on working. He's no pro at this, but he gets some contribution done, after all. Expression a bit distant, as if there's a lot of focusing going on inside his head.

"Gentlemen," Patrick makes one good snowball, ONE!, and holds it in his hand like Hamlet with Yorick's skull. "We are all on the same team here. I'm not advocating for anything radical, just a mutual sharing and share-aliking of our balls and don't listen to them." He lobs his one good snowball in the general direction of the Anne-Isabella peanut gallery. "They are trying to get us to turn on each other," and waste perfectly good ammo - which, good job, mission accomplished.

"Fort," August confirms as he watches Ignacio try and fail to make snowballs. "You can have some of my balls if you need 'em." He doesn't smile when he says that, but there's for sure a glint in his eyes.

"Stop wasting the fucking balls," pipes up someone, probably de la Vega, when Patrick lobs one at the other team prematurely. At least he didn't turn it into a lewd joke, which would have been so easy.

Alexander says, "Patrick, you cannot start the war with one snowball," Alexander says...and then sighs as the one snowball goes over. He grabs several of his, and places them by Patrick's section of wall. Hey, they're not great balls, but at least they'll fly. Probably. He offers a couple to Ruiz, as well, when he notices the cop's grumpy expression."

Lalo looks up as Patrick speaks, and there's another little snort, but he gestures to his ammo pile, replying, "Go for it. Pretty sure I'm gonna be better at making 'em than throwing 'em, anyway. I'm gonna blame it on being from LA and never getting to practice." He grins, before he does take one snowball to prepare for the battle to begin.

Ignacio says, "Alexander, if it's big enough? OH YES HE FUCKING CAN!"

Alexander shouts back to Ignacio, "Don't encourage him!"

Patrick holds a finger up at whoever told him not to waste balls, the absolute rudest and most dismissive way to respond to something. Then resumes packing snow onto the SERIOUSLY FUCKING AWESOME SNOW FORT that his team is over here building. Like, it's the baddest snowfort ever, guys, don't be such haters. "Oh, I'm reasonably sure I could start a war with far less." And tips his head at Ignacio: what he said, same page.

She can't help it. Anne's return salvo has Isabella bursting out laughing. "Then we should compliment him more if that's the case." She winks at Anne. "Bigger target. But I'll leave that up to you." Bennie's perfectly shaped pile of ammunition gets a wistfully envious look, but the shared ammunition from Anne gets a look of relief. She attempts to find a better patch of snow to work with. Her side of the fort, though? Looks like it's capable of withstanding a few hits. Patrick's lobbed snowball has her ducking behind her side of the fort. She blows a kiss towards the enemy."

"I wish we had the time to prepare our sides the night before, because by the way that fort's looking, we're gonna need a god damn snow trebuchet to breach those walls."

"Your wall looks bad and you should feel bad!" Anne shouts over her team's sadder looking wall. She's just heckling, ya'll. "Also Patrick? You missed! Learn to throw!" she's going to duck back under her wall.

"It's not about breaching the wall, it's about nailing people when they poke their faces out," August says. "Don't waste ammo trying to knock over their wall. Utterly pointless."

Ignacio says, "Yo yo yo we are not snow shaming here... until we start getting pelted." That's proper protocol right?? Looking up he calls to Finch, "You know if I hit you I promise to feel bad okay... and I know you won't. And... that's okay and I forgive you." Oh yeah he's working on making the face. Pity will not get him out of being a viable target. "It's worth a try!"

Now that's just uncalled for. Team Byron's wall is made of awesome, no thanks to de la Vega. He scrunches some snow into his gloved hands, packs it in hard, and settles into a crouch behind cover of their fortifications.

"Pre-emptive snow shaming is a viable tactic of war," Alexander points out, solemnly. "It's psychological warfare. Totally okay. If we had propaganda leaflets, we might be able to encourage defectors." He waves a hand towards the other fort. "We have cake! Leave your repressive regime and join us!"

"The cake is a LIE!" Anne shouts back.

"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!" Isabella hollers back, in tandem with Anne.

Finch hunkers down next to Ruiz and grabs a snowball in each gloved hand in preparation. Then she gestures to him to follow, so they can travel behind the snow fort to another part of it, away from where their pals last saw them. TACTICS! Clearly she gets them from her father.

"I stabbed a man with a trident!" Bennie just wants to get in on the shouting.

Alexander pauses, then calls back, "Yes. Yes, it is. I'm sorry. I didn't have time to buy cake. And definitely not to build a large wooden horse." He sighs, and looks to the others on his team. "Surrender negotiations are breaking down. I'm afraid we might have to fight, ladies and gentlemen."

"Why did the man have a trident?" Patrick should practice making balls instead of wondering that.

Ignacio drops down and puts his back to teh wall. "Hey, jefe? I'll make the ammo or...try. You throw. I'll... work on over for us." There's a grin, a small, lopsided grin given to his teammates in amusement.

"Alexander's too soft hearted for this," Itzhak tells Isabella, extremely seriously.

Jonathan ducks behind the wall, grinning a little to the others on the team. "Let's show them how it should be done, shall we?" He looks between the others, unable to hold back a chuckle as he listens. "Keep talking!" he calls out to the other team, shaking his head a bit as he does. "We all know you're in trouble here."

"I know," Isabella whispers to Itzhak. "Which means we should take serious and shameless advantage. How are you at pretending to be injured?"

Coincidentally, Ruiz was just about to suggest some clever maneuvering to Finch. But then she takes the words right out of his mouth, and he dimples her a grin and follows along wordlessly.

Anne giggles at Isabella and fistbumps her, before she tips her head curiously at Bennie: "Was the man with a trident in the ocean?" Hey, it's Gray Harbor.

Finished with his pile, Lalo ducks down somewhat behind the snow fort, though he's still visible over the top, since it's going to be hard enough for him to hit someone without taking a way his line of sight completely. He looks over at Jonathan, returning the grin as he replies, "Hell yeah." He reaches out his empty hand toward the other man for a fist bump then.

With everyone getting into position, Byron crouches down with his back against this fantastic wall that they've built, by the way. He's gathering some of their ammo, but what he's really doing is looking over the top edge of this wall of ice and snow. Perhaps he's looking for someone in particular, on the other team, but he's taking a careful survey of their opposition before ducking back down. Looks like he's taking this shit seriously.

"It was Aquaman. It was sad. What a completely useless superhero." Bennie pipes back to Anne, peering over her portion of sad fort to spy her potential target.

"I heard that," Alexander yells over at Isabella and Itzhak. "And you will pay for calling me soft-hearted!" He hunkers down in cover, and reaches for a snowball. There will be WAR. His target? Well, of course he starts out targeting Isabella.

Patrick is not willing to pop his head up yet, so he's just going to stay hunkered down, back against the wall, and lob random snowballs over the wall at whatever. Bombs away!

"I might not be able to see you, but I'm coming for you, Patrick Addington! Feel the wrath of my balls!" Anne shouts over the wall. She might not know where Patrick is now, but she knows where he was. She's going to aim that way.

Finch winds up and rises from behind an unexpected part of the fort! She chucks a snowball towards her very beloved and adorable other half of the Figgy and Inch pairing.

"You know, there's more talk about people's balls here than in an average junior hockey team," Jonathan remarks a bit lightly, before he pops up to fire off his first snowball.

August is being reasonably careful about being hit, which will no doubt do his aim no favors, but better safe than sorry. He has his sights set on Byron.

As soon as the start is called, Lalo straightens up just enough so that he can take aim at the opposing fort. It's sort of in the direction of August -- but it's kind of hard to tell. The snowball may not come anywhere near the man, from the looks of it.

That sound is Patrick Addington giggling to himself and saying something about phrasing. Also, he lobs a couple more random snowballs, passing a good one off in Alexander's direction. "Good luck and godspeed, Clayton," he says gravely. Aside from the latent giggling.

The I heard that! from Alexander earns him a bright laugh, and a wink towards Itzhak. Isabella fistbumps Anne back with a wink, and a bright laugh at Bennie and her trident reference, outing her not-so-secret love for cinema. And then the fight commences! She ducks first on the fort, but that probably won't last long, knowing her, because she's suddenly leaping out from cover, landing on the other side of the fort. She's wide open! Get her!

Hopefully someone takes the bait. Someone's doing the heroic sacrifice (or Leeroy Jenkins) here.

But whenever she catches a glimpse of the head she's looking for, she'll fire it at Byron's general direction. "Rub your face on my frozen balls, Thorne!" And then proceeds to...well. Run. She doesn't even look and see if she hits. She attempts to dive for cover back into her team's fort.

"Young lady," August mutters under his breath, shaking his head.

Alexander takes the snowball offered by Patrick, and manages a completely solemn salute. "I will use your ball with pride, sir." And then he cracks up laughing. This is definitely the ball he's going to try to hit Isabella in, although he doesn't quite take the bait - when she charges out, he pops up juuuust enough to get an idea of where she is, then tosses it right at her face.

Ignacio crouches behind cover. He looks to the team. "Good luck... we'll need it." And with that be pops up and flings and that IMPRESSIVELY gets buried in the midfield! Take that ground and absolutely NOT Lalo... And then seeing that incoming snowball he turns and it nails his right leg, "Ay!"

"Ow!" Patrick takes a snowball to the chest, then one to the stomach, and slouches down deeper against the wall that's supposed to be protecting him. But is instead letting snowballs rain down from above. "Dear God, Clayton. I'm hit!" He pulls his hand away from his stomach, showing his palm all coated in snow. "Well, then." He's just going to throw his balls for real, in that case!

The snowball Finch sends flying barely makes it across the battlefield, but it reaches to PLINK against Ignacio's leg. The good leg, thankfully! "FIRST BLOOD!" she crows across the snowscape towards him, before ducking back down behind the fort like a human sized game of Whack-a-Mole. Her next snowball has August's name written all over it. Metaphorically. Not enough room for it literally.

Anne chucks her snowball over the wall while hiding under it. It's not really the best strategy, which is why the snowball goes up over the wall.. and lands with a plop somewhere in the field. "Did I hit him?!" she peeks, hearing Patrick shout that he's hit. "I think I hit him!"

Itzhak whips a snowball towards the red team. Today is Byron's lucky day--it skims right past his ear. Then Itzhak pays for his recklessness by getting nailed in the chest by both Ruiz and Jonathan. Snow explodes messily on him. "OW!" Oh Ruiz is gonna pay for that.

Ruiz, the sneaky fucker, pops up somewhere totally unexpected and wings his snowball right at Itzhak. Who totally isn't paying attention to him. THWACK. "Vamos, sigue el ritmo," he taunts with a bark of laughter.

Lalo looks as surprised as anyone when his snowball manages to hit the August-shaped target. There's a bit of a triumphant grin before he ducks down again, but Ignacio's snowball falls short. "Más arriba, guey!" he calls very helpfully, clearly enjoying himself.

Thankfully, nobody was aiming for him, and so Jonathan has time to send off the snowball quite nicely. "Come on, we can still take them out," he calls out to his teammates, as he readies for the next throw.

"Focus on people who're already hit," August says. "We might have a bit more ammo but we can't be wasting it." So as much as he only winged Byron, he fully intends to go after him again.

"Ah, Patrick, you're...snowing! On things. Buck up and soldier on - there is a war to win," calls out Alexander, with a fierce grin. His own snowball grazed Isabella's chest and he lets out a yell of triumph. "Take out the ringleaders," he declares to his teammates. "Bury them in snow!"

She can move with the proper motivation, it looks like. The moment Isabella jumps out of the fort and starts running, snowballs wing at her direction. In a surprising show of agility, she whips sideways and drops down on her knees, snow spraying at her wake. Alexander's snowball gets the side of her chest in a glancing blow, but her act of evading that snowball has her twisting away from Byron's snowball. This does prevent her from returning to cover, though, laughter in her voice. "Alexander Clayton, not in front of the children!"

Instead of going back into cover, though, now that she knows where Alexander is, she quickly grasps a handful of snow, makes a ball, and leaps forward to fire it right at his face. "Aut cum scuto aut in scuto!" she exclaims at him, laughing all the while in hopes of trying to divide his attention. Can he translate Latin while ducking shots and throwing snowballs?! The professor is in!

Byron pops up and out from behind the barricade enough to beam a snowball in the direction that he believed he'd seen Isabella last. He quickly pulls himself back down to take cover, but someone, who he's not quite sure who, is able to beam him in the midsection with a well-thrown snowball. In his mind, it was probably Isabella Reede, which makes his wanting to take her out the most important thing to do in this game.

Several more missiles fly overhead just as he drops down to a crouch and reaches for another well packed ball of snow, For a brief moment, he peeks out to once more re-acclimate to where everyone is positioned. He knows that others have eyes on him now.

Bennie's victim is entirely random, but she can't help but give a little squeal of victory as her snowball pegs Byron right in the stomach. Maybe she's part Canadian because she's immediately calling across the way, "Sorry!" Along with a titter of laughter that implies, no, no she's really not.

Ignacio arches an eyebrow to FInch pointing to his eyes and then her. watching you!. And then there's Lalo giving him pointers? The Spaniard breaks into a wide, lopsided grin playing along and trying not to laugh, "¡Gracias! ¿Que tal ahora??" He picks another snowball and there's possibly a shimmer but it's hard to tell with the snow. What is evident is the illusion of TOO MANY SNOWBALLS comes from I-Team's side of the field, or maybe they're all double throwing.

Finch's August-aimed snowball skims just by his shoulder, narrowly missing, and she grunts. "Come on, I gotta do better than that." So Ignacio is the next target. Sorry sweetheart, but you're a slower moving target than the boss man.

Alexander can only open his mouth in wide shock as Isabella charges over the wall, shouting in Latin. "I will always come back with my--And then she just WALLOPS him with a massive amount of snow, and he staggers backwards, clutching at his stomach dramatically. "My...comrades! Avenge...me...." And then? He stiffens, and falls backwards into a snow drift with heedless abandon, landing with a WHUMPH, and practically disappearing into it.

Lalo gives Ignacio a thumbs up as he laughs again, pointing to his chest. "Aqui, compadre, dale!" he calls, and he even stays up above the wall, though that might be because he's aiming at Lilith now. This time when he throws, he is not quite so lucky, because it goes very wide. "Shit," he exclaims, though it's said with plenty of amusement.

Ruiz gathers up another snowball, prowls right the hell out of the fort that's starting to crumble around his team, and out into the open, and wings it at Rosencrantz. Hard. And barely splatters his side for his efforts. Growling, he sprints off to snatch up another snowball, and flings it at Isabella mid-jog. Complete with shit-eating grin. Clemency for Itzhak? Maybe. Or maybe he just wants to draw this out.

Really there's only one person being at all interesting, to Everett, but he continues to watch the banter going back and forth before the snowballs so likewise. Pursed lips, it's too soon yet to do anything yet but watch the game going on and try not to knock the tree over. A curious look is given towards the vendor carts, and then back to the snowball fights. "Good arm," he murmurs in his deep tone.

August watches Ruiz fling that snowball and then run off. He bites his lip, sighs, and taps Itzhak on the shoulder. "Go get him. Make it count."

Patrick watches Alexander die and, knee-jerk, nods like that's pretty much how he expected that to go. Doing so means he's wide open to take a snowball to his stomach, a nice little spray of snow adding to the pile under which Alexander has died. "May flights of angels sing tee to thy rest, Clayton." He sniffs dramatically and looks for a likely target over yonder. "I'll avenge you." Firm nod.

PAF! Alexander goes down, and perhaps she doesn't even realize the force behind her determination and her jaw drops. "Oh god! Alexander! Sweetheart, are you ok-- " She twists, but not enough to completely avoid Byron's snowball as it sails in her direction. "I'll kiss it better later!" she promises, before waving her arms around, and even doing an irish jig on the snow to try and make herself a target.

...she might regret that because now Ruiz is coming for her and Patrick swears to avenge his fallen comrade. "Oh, shit." And she books it. She makes a break back for her fort, though she hurls her second snowball at Byron once she sees him.

Lilith is cracking up at Isabella's throw at Alexander (which makes the whistle blow an out from the referee) while running and throwing more than she's actually ducking to cover, but she slows down for a round to actually try and get an aim in on Jonathan behind some cover this time around, and if she misses, well, at least she's hitting those crumbling snow walls! Of course, Lalo's snow is coming for her and she hops to turn and look who slung it without much success. But! She does finally see Byron and where he is this time and she goes back to standing all ready to chunk something at him instead of taking cover. She's even sweet enough to give him warning, but it doesn't stop her.

"BAAAAAABE! Catch!"

Having repaid the favor to Finch in a not-terribly-subtle way, August preps a snowball for Byron. That's right, Byron.

Tossing a snowball up in the air, once Byron catches it on its return, he immediately takes action to fling the icy projectile in Isabella's direction. It's at the moment that his arm is drawn back and he sends the missile forth to strike out at his target does he feel the hard pelting of one snowball striking against his chest and then another against his arm, "God damn it." He hisses beneath his breath before ducking back down to pat down another snowball to use with a shake of his head. "So that's how they want to play it."

"HA! I got you! Eat my BALLS!" Anne puts her arms up in a triumphant manner because this time, she's looking over the wall to see her snowball make contact. She points her fingers at her eyes, and then at Patrick, before she conspires with Isabella: "If we aim together, we can knock him down for SURE."

Ignacio holds up a finger and is WALKING a snowball over. And really walking is being really generous. The guy is an exercise in determination as his good leg drags the rest of him through the snow. he holds up a finger as if to say one second And is making to just hand tag Lalo with the snowball. "Ha sido un día duro. Dame mi dignidad antes de enterrarme, ¿amigo?" He's walking across the midfield and before he can just tag Lalo with the snowball he's pelted right upside the head and falls sideways like a pile of clothes.

Itzhak tries to avoid getting splatted more but he's an irresistibly tall target, apparently. Paf! Pof! "AUGH you SCHMUCKS!" He's spattered with snow from waist to scalp, but he's still gunning for Ruiz. And he fucking misses that too, despite having spent a minute drawing down on him. Some guys talk tough around here but can't make their balls work for them.

Alas, poor Ignacio, I knew him well. Finch's shot is more than on target, it's a fucking Iggy-seeking missile that WHAPS him in the side of the head with a spray of snow, glittering with sunlight. She has the grace to wince a bit on her boyfriend's behalf, before secretly running after her dad to dap him. "Totally nailed Iggy!" Then she's turning to fling one at the fleeing Isabella.

"Are your abs made of steel?! WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD YET!" Anne lets out a frustrated little noise when she sees the snowball smash into Patrick but he doesn't go down. Someone's a little competitive, maybe >.>

"Nice job, conejito," Ruiz murmurs to Finch as he watches her missile smack squarely into Ignacio. He scowls a little as his own snowball barely sails past Isabella, though at least Itzhak's smacks harmlessly into the remnants of their wall. "Try aiming next time," he barks across to the mechanic, reaching for another mound of snow.

Lalo is now laughing hard enough that it might be difficult to imagine he can actually hit anyone with anything when Ignacio just starts walking toward him. "Mierda, mira este guey," he says, and he tosses his snowball at the other man, though it barely hits him at all. It looks like he's just going to let whatever happens happen, right when Finch smacks him in the head. "Oh shit!" he exclaims again amidst more laughter. "Pobrecito! Sorry, brother!" He leans over toward Finch then, offering his fist for a bump at her success.

Shit between Patrick and Isabella's about to get real. (Where real = the opposite of real, because it's fake people playing a fake snowman game). But seriously. He points from his eyes to Isabella Reede, totally got his eye on her and a snowball aimed right at her. While telling Anne, "You of all people should know by now, I won't go down that easily."

August sighs, satisfied, as Byron is out and Itzhak hangs on. Unfortunately, he utterly misses Ruiz anyways. Ah well. "Finch," he suggests, since she's proven to be pretty effective and could stand to be removed from the threat list.

Bennie says, "What's the difference between a snowman and a snow woman? SNOW BALLS!" Bennie shouts over the rampart before lobbing another shot. "

Finch daps Lalo back with a grin. She doesn't understand most of the spanish, she's still learning.

Alexander sits up, because it's cold in that snowdrift. But rather than spoil the group, he turns and starts making little snow headstones. One for him, one for Ignacio, and one for Byron. While humming a requiem under his breath for the fallen, including himself.

"Oh my god, why are all these balls flying at my face, I'm only one woman!" Isabella cries, and she's a little hysterical when she laughs as the words spill out, because she's legitimately terrified at all these projectiles aiming right at her. She dives back into her team's fort as they splatter against the wall. With Anne's notion of a conspiracy, she nods solemnly, and peeks over the edge. Patrick's challenge narrows her eyes. "I see you, Cambridge!" she calls out, as she reaches for one of Anne's snowballs. "Oxford will claim this day!"

Without knowing that a new challenger (Finch) has appeared!

Ignacio just lays there, arm and snowball still sticking up in the air. Hand wiggling. "¿Puedes entrar en esto por favor? O recógeme. Tu elección." He flips to his back and lets Lalo decide. "Pajarito, I see you! I see you villain and your villain snowball!"

Itzhak is BEYOND listening to reason. He is going to nail Ruiz come hell or high water. Glimmer shines in him and he rears back and wings a southpaw pitch snowball at the man that's way too fast and way too accurate--and something about Ruiz makes it dissolve before it gets there, ending in a shower of snow. Itzhak yells something utterly incoherent.

Lilith sees Byron whistled out after all that bombarding and given how ungodly sweet her Christmas morning was with him just yesterday... she darts with the inner squishes to make sure he's okay while everyone is rearing to take Isabella out. She's a speedy little thing and she tells herself it will only take a moment, but she wants to make sure he's okay and kiss his face irrationally like a detour, which puts her dangerously on that side by the sidelines once he's gotten out. But she still has ammo, and she slings it on the way.

Jonathan grins momentarily as he throws off his own snowball, ducking down a bit better again as he prepares to send off another one. "Doing well so far," he calls out to his teammates, offering them all a grin.

Anne stretches to peek over the wall and just grins at Patrick. Oh, how bright those blue eyes are! It's probably on account of the MASSIVE BALL she has in her hand. Probably.

The fist bump achieved, Lalo returns to the task at hand -- that is, before Ignacio's very effective guilt trip. He shakes his head, eyeing the other man skeptically, but it has apparently not fallen on deaf ears, because he stands up, moving quickly outside of their snow bunker to grab Ignacio's hand. "Si perdemos, tu tienes la culpa, sabes?" he says, before hauling the man up from the snow. And he gets a snowball in the arm for his troubles! "Fuck!" he says, but it's with a laugh.

Uh-oh. Alexander has to hastily build a few more gravestones, and they're all for people on HIS team. "Oh dear. Good thing we didn't make any bets on this," he says, laughing as he sculpts the snow.

Damn Isabella is crazy fast. Finch's snowball hits, but not all that hard, and then she takes a snowball to the stomach, hurled at levels only her boss can manage. She grunts and looks over to her still unscathed father and declares, "Time to Kamikaze on Roen, COVER ME!" And off she dashes with a snowball in hand, to try and run down her slippery pseudo-dad.

Perhaps, due to Byron being the team leader or the head representative of the group, more than half of the other team has had him on their radar since the beginning. He could give a damn about the rest of that team. All he wants is Isabella. So despite the chaos, his one track mind brings him to crawl forward to try to position himself behind the nearest tree which would bring him closer to Reede. His hands quickly work to reform one of the almost smashed snowballs found underfoot, he leans forward from behind the tree, thrusting it in Reede's direction at the same moment that he is bombarded by a full assault of incoming missiles, several to his chest and one... The fact that Isabella still stands, however, has his silently seething, but his eyes are now set on August, feeling the snow hit the side of his face of all places, his eyes never leave the botanist even as Lilith recklessly runs over to him to plant a kiss on that frozen cheek. It takes a brief few seconds before he turns to her, smiling broadly, he calls out, "Good luck, hon." Whether he means it or not! Go team!

"Well," says Patrick, after taking a pair of snowballs to the chest - thump, "Ow!" thud, "Ow." - and then getting whistled out. He crunches down into the snow next to Alexander, sitting cross-legged and saying sadly, "Girls are very mean." Here, he tries to fix one of the headstones that he accidentally crunched while he was dying.

August nails Finch good and solid. "That's for cheating!" he calls over the expanse of snow separating them, like he didn't do it himself. Look, whatever. She should have known he sees all and knows all, including when she uses magic to cheat at a snowball fight.

"HA! That's RIGHT! You go down and you STAY down!" Anne hops up and down, raising her hands in the air triumphantly. This is very bad, because she's not paying attention to the rest of the game. She's won, that's what matters.

"You fought bravely," Alexander tells Patrick, solemnly. "No one can fault you for that. And you will be long remembered." Then he snickers at the very sad remark capped by Anne's shout of triumph. "Yeah," he agrees, "yeah, they are. I think that's why we like 'em so much, though. Fierce."

A pile of wet snow wings toward him, and without thinking, Ruiz's glimmer shudders around him. Not like a barrier so much as a little zap of electricity that fries the projectile headed toward him on an intercept course. It does however get his attention, and he swoops in low with his eyes riveted on Itzhak, scoops up a mound of snow, and packs it together before hurling it at the guy. Why won't he just go down?

Taking a bit too many moments trying to get that perfect throw in, Jonathan finds himself going down as a snowball smacks into his chest, sending him stumbling backwards before he throws himself to the ground. "At least no hit to the head..." he comments, mostly to himself, staying down for a little while before he makes his way off to the sidelines. "Get them, guys!" he calls out.

Itzhak is certainly living up to his dream of being a tank! He's taken so many damn balls right to the face (that's what HE said), why won't he go down in the face of so many balls (that's ALSO what he said)?! His last snowball goes whizzing past Ruiz like a sniper bullet--but the counterattack whaps him real solid and he flops over in the snow. "FUCK YOU DE LA VEGA!"

Ignacio bops Lalo's hand withthe snowball. "Boop." And lets it drop to take the hand and assist getitng back on his feet. "Sí, lo sé. Te compraré una bebida después de esto de todos modos. ¿Acuerdo? Tregua. he holds up a hand for his team to not fire at them until he's moved, or is he?

"Woo! Javier! Take 'em down!" Alexander cheers, and then sets himself to making another gravestone for Itzhak - finally someone NOT on their team!

"I won, I won-I-won-I-wooooo -- OW!" This is what Anne gets for celebrating. She's over there behind her fort, dancing away, and somebody SMACKS HER IN THE CHEST with a snowball. She stumbles back, looks woefully hurt, and frowns across the way. "I SEE YOU!" she points at Lalo, bends down, and grabs more snowballs.

Cambridge goes down and Oxford is victorious! Though she has little to do with that and more because of the cannonball that Anne has launched from their fort. "We should have made bets on this," Isabella tells her historian friend with a grin, before nore balls sail her direction. She twists one way, and another way - she's on fire today. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold.

Her first inclination is to go after Finch, because she seems to be kami-kazeing the fort, but with Itzhak going down, she cries out in an appropriately dramatic fashion. "Itzhak! NooooOOooOoooOooooo...!" But clearly, this can't go unanswered. She snatches a snowball from Anne's pile and leaps from the fort, to charge right at Ruiz armed with it in hand.

August and Finch trade hits, his a little more solid than hers. He sighs as Itzhak isn't as lucky, walks over to him and nudges him with a foot. "No need to tell us all your plans for the evening at the top of your lungs, you know." Then he's back to dealing with Finch, who has to be close to out. Right?

Finch lands a shot on August but it barely nicks his arm. "Roen is slippery," she grunts out at her father, and then two snowballs whap her in the arm and chest, one from Lilith and one from August. She's about to retaliate when she notices Isabella is running at Ruiz and she goes into DEFEND DAD mode!

"'Ta bien, guey," Lalo replies to Ignacio with a grin -- before he's making his way back quickly before he gets clobbered by Bennie's attack. He manages to dodge it, before he pops up again, hurling one over at Anne that scores a direct hit. There's a triumphant yell, as well as a grin in response to Anne's frown, and he holds his hands out in a helpless gesture, before he ducks down again to grab another snowball.

Ruiz FINALLY fucking pelts Itzhak hard enough to get him to go down and stay down, and simply laughs, long and hard, when the man curses his name. He's still got a fight to win though, and it's not looking at all good. Hunkering behind a tree while he smooshes together some snow, he tries to stay mostly behind cover while winging his projectile half-blind at Roen.

Patrick will be remembered. "Do you think? Perhaps they'll name a park after me. Or a schoowhat the fuck?" A snowball beans him in the chest, again and he gapes, dumbfounded. "Savages, that's clearly what this town has been reduced to. Corpse-defiling savages." He side-eyes Alexander. "No offense."

Lilith slings that ammo for all she's worth while running and it lucks into one hell of a shot with whistle blow before she gets to Byron to lay on the smooch. Then she takes off again to her side of the field, still not playing dodge and cover so much as she's playing gather and pelt, gather and pelt, gather and pelt. She's probably wearing herself out moving all around in the open like this and slinging for all she's worth, but red-cheeked and breathing hard, she sticks with what's working.

There is a moment where she looks at Isabella slinging a ball at Patrick when it goes wide (purpose or accident, you fiesty lady?) Either way, it amuses the hell out of Lilith and she turns to sight Ruiz behind a tree before slinging while he's distracted with August aim.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't rub it in," Alexander tells Patrick, dryly -- and then he's pelted AGAIN by a snowball. Thrown by Isabella. Alexander gapes for a moment, then just cracks up in helpless laughter. Practically rolling in the snow with it, even as he shakes his head. "No, no. She done you wrong, man. Sorry about that." And yet, he grins ear to ear.

There are only so many times Bennie can get lucky with her lobs at random opponents on the other side of the snow battle field, but their numbers are quickly starting to dwindle. "Get 'em!" She yells, flinging a snowball and popping back down into her hidey hole.

Finch manages to PLINK Isabella with a snowball but it does nothing to deter the other woman's charge. She's watching the attack on her father from two directions and that gives August the opening he needs to PLUNK her right in the chest with a snowball, getting her whistled out. She makes a melodramatic chest clutching motion, the back of one hand to her forehead as she declares, "Alas! I have been hit! Know you may end this body, but never this spirit!" And flops down in the white powder to make a snow angel.

August dodges Ruiz's snowball, winds up and pelts Finch. "That's for de Santos," he says to her. Meanwhile Lilith and Isabella take care of Ruiz, which leaves...Lalo. August takes up a snowball.

Anne flings that snowball with purpose, but it doesn't go far. Mostly because she's hit at the same time. But that's fine, EVERYTHING IS FINE! "I'm still standing!" she shouts over to Lalo, "But you won't be soon!" She's smooshing two snowballs together just for Lalo.

As was previously established, Patrick can't make snowballs for shit, so he just throws chunky handfuls of unshaped snow in Alexander's general direction. "I don't think our team is doing so well," he notes when Finch drops. "You're going to need to step up production." On the headstones. Which is why Patrick is throwing snow at him. Not just because Alexander is cracking up at Patrick's misfortune.

Itzhak sits up, shedding snow. "Oy gevalt." And then whoops completely shamelessly as Lilith and Isabella team up on Ruiz and take him down. "AVENGED!" He's red faced and laughing hard, covered in damp snow.

Lalo manages to hit Anne -- barely -- but it doesn't do much damage, and then Ruiz and Finch suddenly get knocked out one after the other. And he is the last man standing. He looks around as though he really doesn't quite understand what's happening, before he looks at the other team which is still quite full. Very full. "Well, fuck," he says with a laugh, looking over at the rest of his team on the sidelines, and he ducks down behind the fort, looking around for a snowball that's at least going to let him get one person out. Hopefully.

With absolutely no chance of his team winning, Byron finds a place off to the side to settle back against, to watch as the rest of the game plays out with his arms crossed over his chest. He takes careful consideration of what each person does, observing their movements and perhaps thought process in this 'mock battle'. Maybe he's keeping tabs on everyone for reasons. At some point, however, he'll wander off to get himself a nice hot apple cider, even standing in line for one! He remains quiet, all the while, enjoying the warmth of the beverage while he runs through a few things in his mind.

Ruiz winds up and fires a high speed snowball at August. And though he's got good arm, his aim on that one is just plain garbage, and is neatly dodged. He's so focused on his embarassing miss, that he dives back for cover too late, and is hit from both sides by the wonder duo of Isabella and Lilith. He grunts, swipes wet snow off his face and out of his beard, and flicks it to the ground. "Going to make you pay for that, Reede," is his hollow threat for the woman as he heads over to where the others are sitting.

She blows a kiss towards Javier and bats her lashes at him, and if she gets close enough to Lilith, she reaches up to high-five her. To Itzhak, there's a grin. "Righteously avenged," she tells him with a thumbs-up, before she looks around to see who else from the other side remains standing. Isabella turns slowly to look at the enemy fort. "Might be time to storm the castle," she tells her companions, before she reaches up to grab an armful snowballs.

And with a fierce battle cry, she charges out of her team's fort...to storm the enemy's, and look for Lalo, so she can pelt him mercilessly with snowballs.

Alexander sputters as he's showered in unshaped snow. "We're getting pasted," he agrees, cheerfully. "Why don't you help make a stone or two?" he challenges, before helpfully returning a handful of the required materials back at Patrick. I.e., he throws a loose snowball at him. Then grins, and shapes tombstones for the rest of the team. The last one, Lalo's, is currently blank.

Scrapping his cigarette butt against the tree he's leaning on, watching the game from, Everett drops it into the snow after watching that last exchange. Like the harbinger of death, he knows when the inevitable is done, especially when the odds are stacked so much on one side. Another glance towards the vendors before he turns and heads in that direction, taking off his goofy hat with one hand to comb his fingers through his hair with the other. Fitting it squarely back on as he gets in line, Everett holds up two fingers when he orders.

Ignacio sits on the side near Lalo and waving to Finch. He points over there, "Si te quedas quieto, no habré perdido mi honor. ¡Tráeme, hermano!" He points at his own team, "Gettum!"

Finch finishes her snow angel and moves to plop down where the rest of the dead folk are seated. She plops down with a giggle, then rubs at her temples with both hands. "Ugh this headache."

Anne's hit! The snowball smacks into her chest and bursts powder up into her face. She stumbles, it looks like she's going to go down! But then she pitches herself forward to right herself, taking in a ragged breath. "You're going down if it is the LAST THING I DO!" she grabs a handful of snowballs and practically leaps over the wall, throwing balls all over the place. And hopefully at Lalo.

Lilith grins as Ruiz is whistled out after a nasty pelting, then she looks at poor Lalo behind that tree and the people left on her side. She again doesn't bother with cover, but she's getting tired and her aim is off from being so gung-ho, plus the guy is smartly using his cover to make them work for their victory. There's a look sidelonged at Anne and her competitive 'grrs' though.

Ruiz pauses to scoop up a rather large handful of snow, and sidle on in, sneaky-like, from somewhere behind Itzhak. Surely he has nothing as juvenile in mind as creeping up on the guy and dumping said snow down his shirt. Except he totally does. Enjoy, Rosencrantz! Chortling like an idiot, he tries to backpedal before the favour can be returned.

Alexander salutes Finch as she sits down. "You fought well!" Then he pats down the pockets of his jacket, and reaches into pull out a twist of napkin - two ibuprofen are wrapped up in there. He offers them over. "Here you go. The spoils of...valiant defeat." Now, if she wants to take unlabeled drugs from Alexander is entirely her choice.

Behind Alexander, having been pelted with yet another snowball in the chest that he's still wiping off his coat, Patrick shakes his head gravely at Finch - like, srsly, don't take those pills. He communicates his panic with his eyeballs.

August sighs as Lalo seems to not be where a single damned snowball is, or they all fail to do much of anything to him. "Wow," he says, and picks up another snowball.

The thing about being the only one left is, well, yeah, you're the only one left. Lalo pops up and tosses a snowball in the direction of Anne -- and he even hits her! -- but he gets pelted for his trouble, by Isabella and Anne and who knows who else. He sure doesn't at the moment. He has to duck down again, still laughing. "Me?!" he exclaims after Anne. "What about you?!" He grabs another one, which may be his last, but he's going to try to at least get someone out before he goes down. And it's Anne. Sorry, Anne.

Before he throws, he looks up at Ignacio, and grins widely, giving the man a quick thumbs up.

Itzhak lets out an undignified shriek as Ruiz sneak attacks with the old snow down the collar! He whips around, scrambles to his feet and charges him. "You MAMZER!" Ruiz is going DOWN. (That's what he--you get the idea.)

Finch eyes the pills and takes them, but warns Alexander, "If these make me grow extra eyeballs I'm gonna set you on fire, you know that, right?" He should, she's healed him, and she's Ruiz's kid. She pops the pills in her mouth and swallows them dry. She grins watching the antics between Ruiz and Itzhak.

"Hush, Patrick," Alexander says without even looking around. Not that Patrick SAID anything, but let's face it, he knows what the reaction of the Addington likely is. "They aren't going to grow anything that isn't supposed to be there," Alexander tells Finch, solemnly. "It's just headache medicine."

Anne's running through No Man's Land. This is her last hoo-rah. Maybe she knows this is the end, maybe she knows she's going to go down here on this glistening field of snow and dirt. She flings snowballs everywhere - one gets tossed in Patrick's general direction, exploding into powdery substance on him and Alexander. Another flies over Lalo's shoulder. And then, this is it. SMACK right there between the boobs, and she's stumbling, she's falling! She's trampling right through the other team's snow fort! And then she falls into a heap on the ground beside Patrick, flailing as she goes.

Patrick looks all around in the way of a person making a great show of being innocent, his eyes scanning hither and yon while he mumbles, "It's your funeral," and then sits up straighter afterward. To watch Lalo bean Anne with a snowball. "I really like him." He points to Lalo, nods approvingly, and then pretends that didn't happen because Anne has just come over and collapsed into the wee cemetery that Alexander made for this team over here. "Hello. Political asylum?"

Ruiz's boot gets caught in a drift, and he does indeed go down. To the ground, that is. 190 pounds of Mexican slammed into the snow, still laughing his ass off at poor Itzhak. "Ve, ve, ve, puedes hacerlo!" he calls Lalo's way as he's tackled.

"I like him, too. I don't know him, though," Alexander says, with a slight frown. Not knowing people is bad. And then he's showered with snow, and shakes his fist at Anne. "Denied! Violation of Geneva convention statues on proper snow warfare. I demand reparations!"

And amazingly, Lalo manages to take Anne down, finally. "Asi se hace!" he yells triumphantly, before he ducks back down, though not before he gets hit with some more. But he's not quite down yet, and he grabs one more, looking over at Ruiz with a laugh. "No se, guey, estaba contando en ti!" And indeed, the next time he pops up, he barely gets his snowball going in Isabella's direction before he's clobbered with more snowballs than he can handle. The last one knocks him ass-first into the snow, where he just lies for a moment, his hand over his chest. "Odio la nieve," he comments to himself, though he's smiling as he says it -- a little wryly, sure, but he's still smiling. Then he gets up, holding his hands up in surrender.

"Can you get political asylum when you're dead?" Anne wonders from the ground, and then gasps at Alexander. "Will hot cocoa do? I think I saw a cart down by the carousel," she considers this, and then looks at Patrick afterward, pushing a cold hand into his face. "Are my hands cold?" Are they, Patrick? ARE THEY?!

Finch squints at the glare off the snow, and her head begins to throb, not with pain so much, as with...sensation. All of a sudden she is wildly aware of every living being sitting by her, and the pair of moles in a burrow a foot under the ground beneath her. She skitters backwards, away from the impressions of the consciousnesses nearby and her mind snaps out a cry to those nearby who have the mental gift. Which she apparently suddenly also does now.

"I can do reparations." Patrick shifts awkwardly, digging around until he finds his wallet. He eyes the money in there, eyes Alexander's demand, and dithers over how many pieces of money he is going to take out. "It's meant to be for charity, isn't it? Where do we...?" 'Put the money' is the end of that question, unfinished while he's getting his feet under him and looking for a bucket or a bell-ringer or some sort of minion. "Yes, now stop that and help me find where this money is meant to go."

Ignacio laughs "Awwwww noooo!!! That ain't alright guys!" He winces and lifts a glove to keep the flying snow from blinding him but he can't help but laugh, "Awww guerrilla snowball tactica. Cheap. I approve."

WHUMP! Itzhak lands on top of Ruiz in a huge shower of snow. "You are such a prick!" But he's laughing like he hasn't had this much fun in years. He's going to be soaked, though, after all this. He ducks down, maybe to tell him something, grins wickedly at him, and rolls off. And then Finch cries out on the mental band and he bolts to his feet. "Fincheleh!" He plows through the snow to get to her.

"You can buy hot chocolate for the group," Anne decides for Patrick, wiggling fingers at him so that he can help her to her feet. And assuming he does that? She curls her arm around Patrick's own, canting her head at him. "After hot cocoa, do you... wanna build a snowman?" AND RIDE THEIR BIKES AROUND THE HALLLLLL.

It's over! Team Lilith wins! This was certainly a better turnout than the last time she has done this in any stripe. With the fight itself winding down, Isabella, drenched in melting snow, cheers for the last man standing. "Good job, dude!" she says from where she's standing, before she wanders over to where Alexander, Anne, and Patrick are, dropping bonelessly in the snow next to the former. Her cheeks are still flushed from the cold, and she's grinning ear to ear. "How's my corpse?" she wonders fondly, pressing a warm kiss on the investigator's cold cheek (totally has a thing for dead bodies, guys). "You know, this would have gone a lot better for you if you didn't give me such an unfair advantage." She draws up the cuff of her jacket to show him the glinting bracelet around it and all of its good luck. There's a glance at Anne and Patrick being schmoopy nearby, a faint smile on her lips.

"Patrick, don't you dare--" Alexander starts when the Addington reaches for his wallet. There's a sudden bristling from the investigator, a scowl of offense...that fades completely when Patrick starts looking for a minion to make charity with. He rolls his eyes instead, and says, "Fine, fine. Some charitable endeavor, and she's welcome to have political asylum in the land of the dead." He also starts to rise, so he can salute Lalo. "Unknown soldier, you fought well!"

And when Isabella approaches, he accepts the kiss on the cold cheek - but unless she slips away, he tries to grab her, pull her close, and then hurl them both into the nearest snowbank, demolishing snow gravestones in the progress.

Yes, he was just fine with throwing money at the problem when it was his idea, but when it's Anne's? Patrick's all snark again. "Oh, can I? That's so generous of me." He will just be over here for a while, buying hot cocoa and then building snowmen. Instead of just being like 'nah, i'm good' and leaving.

Lalo brushes off the snow from his coat, shivering a little bit -- it's also a bit exaggerated, but to be fair, he did just land in the snow. His cheeks are a little bit red, at least partly from laughing, and he gives a wave to the surviving team calling, "Good game!" before he starts toward the sidelines where the others await.

Alexander's last words get a chuckle, and he returns the salute, though not in a style that would fly in any military in existence. Hey, he's tired. "Thanks," he replies. "At least I got a couple good hits in. Lalo," he continues, extending a hand to the other man. "And I want that drink now!" he says a little louder, looking over at Ignacio.

Ruiz tussles a little with Itzhak when the guy drops him to the ground. A few words are exchanged, probably some posturing going on there. And then a twinge of something at the very edge of his perception, and he nearly shoves the other man off in his haste to pull to his feet. Thankfully, Itzhak's headed for Finch as well, and they arrive one right after the other. He sinks into a crouch and offers something quietly, regarding her with clear concern.

Returning from the vendor cart with both mitts occupied, the bully pauses by the tree he had leaned against, watching the game, surveying those that remain on the active field and then those that aren't but are on the vicinity. Broad shoulders sag, as does his ominous expression. His head cants down to the drinks in his hands and stares. Now what's he going to do with all these filthy carbs?

The match is finally over, the finale being punctuated by the loud cheer of the crowds and only then does Byron's attention drift back to the action on the field. Tilting his head back, he downs the remainder of his cider, before crushing the cup and tossing it absently away into the bin. Then out comes that Byron Thorne winning smile, seemingly amused by it all. "Congratulations." He calls out, the good nature in his tone made clear as he leans forward to shake some hands and do that all sort of thing. It's when he nears Isabella does the smile fade lightly, "Next time, Izzy. Though in truth, I don't think that counts as a win." Not in their rivalry anyway, "I mean," And this he says with good humor anyway, "Seems like everyone was gunning for me. Not that I blame them." That smile then returns in full, giving a sense that he is joking, "Congratulations." He means it this time.

Finch looks up with a tight squint at Ruiz and Itzhak, and a little trickle of blood comes from her nose as she whispers back to the cop with a shake of her head.

She doesn't slip away, which leaves her shrieking in laughter when Isabella finds herself hurled into the snowbank with Alexander.

Lilith doesn't cheer or boast or any of that despite how HARD she was going on that field of snow out there. She has no breath for it, completely worn out and flushed with exertion. After ripping open her coat to let some cold into where she's sweating between layers, it's clear she hasn't even been snowball pelted, somehow. But she remedies that herself by coating her whole back and limbs when she drops into the softened bulk of snow on the ground while others go to the sidelines or their respective friends or lovers.

She seems happy enough, though, because when she's down, she spends time sweeping her arms up and down and her legs opened and closed to swish the snow into snow angel form where she's laying. Then she turns her head to grin lopsided over in Byron's direction. She blows him a little kiss once he's looking and mouths, "I'm dead."

Ignacio hears it, and feels it and answers back quiet and familiar (Pajarito, it's okay. We're here. I'm here. what's happened?) Can he get over there fast enough? No. He murmurs to Lalo with a frown, "Something's wrong man." Determined he forces his way across the snow march-stumbling. (Talk to me, Goose)

Where's Ignacio? Good question. Ruiz slides an arm around Finch's shoulders, and appeals to Itzhak with a murmur of, "Where the fuck's her boyfriend?"

Lalo's still grinning as he walks over to Ignacio, but that grin fades when the other man says that something's wrong. "Que paso?" he asks, before he turns around and sees Finch's nosebleed. Oh. "Hey," he says, and he starts that way instead. "You okay? I'm a nurse. I can check you out or we can take you over to Addington."

Finch grimaces and she tugs a glove off to wipe the blood from her nose. "Ugh, is this gonna happen every time?" she mutters. "Iggy had something similar happen to him, he knows what to do." She reaches back to Ignacio tentatively only able to communicate fully because of his strength, she's just picking up emotions and conscious existences at the moment. <<I think I got some of your brain thing mixed up in my healing thing>>.

"He's slow! He's gotta bum leg." Itzhak defends his buddy to Ruiz, then frowns at Finch bleeding from her nose. The connection is easy for him to make, and his eyebrows go up, looking at Ruiz, then at Ignacio. Oh. He stands up to let Ignacio have his rightful place next to Finch.

For some reason, the bloodied nose causes Ruiz to frown slightly. Anyone who's spent much time around him knows that he suffers something similar when using his own abilities. A pang of guilt slivers through him, and he reluctantly backs off to allow Ignacio and the self-professed nurse access to her.

Finch shakes her head a little at Lalo. "No, I'll be ok, it's a..." she looks to Ruiz then back to the nurse, "A known condition. It'll stop in a sec." Like father like daughter.

Ignacio shows up with medical help. He answers Ruiz's question looking like the speed walk is giving him more than a modicum of grief. Offhanded he answers "Haciendo mi maldito trabajo y buscando ayuda. Ahí es donde diablos estoy." His jaw is set and this? This has his hackles up (He has hackles!?) His eyes focus on Finch with open worry and concern and trying not to show fear and barely managing that. He keeps his calm in tact finally making it over giving Itzhak a pat on the shoulder in a silent gacias. The bad leg goes out as he crouches over the good one and quietly fished for her hand answering the telepahy with quiet words, "Yeaaaaah you got your peanut butter in my chocolate, Pajarito. This guy's cool. He can help. I think." He looks to Ruiz but keeps his words filed away for now and gives Lalo that please help look.

Once those words are out of the way, letting his long-time rival know exactly how he feels about the whole fiasco, then watching her roll around in the snow with Alexander Clayton of all people, Byron notices Lilith laying in a pile in the snow. As he makes his way there, he pauses within earshot of Lalo, someone who isn't really familiar with, but the man gets a friendly not either way, "Good job keeping the team alive." He wasn't really watching the very end of the game, but before that, he'd been keeping track on everyone, "You stayed alive long after the rest of us were eliminated. That's some footwork you got there."

That said, he then wanders over to where Lilith, his tall frame practically looming over her with both gloved hands dug deep within his pockets. The edges of his lips tug into a smile, "Nice work leading your team to victory." His attention lifts and he gives the emptying field a quick once over as he continues on, "You all just steamrolled over us. Glad to know that people think that I'm a threat though, as humbling as that may sound." When he returns back to her, he's wearing an even broader grin. That's when he removes one of his hands from deep pockets to lean down and extend it to her to help pull her up. "Looks like this random snow festival is a success. The snowmen, the snowball fights." He's been doing his best to ignore the monster still looming in the distance. "C'mon, let's get something to eat to celebrate your win."

Lalo looks over at Byron when the other man speaks to him, and there's a little smile -- it's not as wide as his others, but it's genuine. "Thanks, man," he says. "Who knew I was secretly a snowball master?"

He turns back to Finch then, and when she replies he stops moving toward her. There's still a look of concern, but he doesn't press it for the moment. He does, however, turn toward Ignacio just in time to meet that look, and there's a brief nod, before his gaze moves back to Finch. "If it's happened before, probably good to go home and rest," he says. "Make sure to ice it."

"Give you both a ride home," Ruiz proffers, already digging for his keys. He'll wait for the pair to catch up, then hitches his chin to Itzhak to tell him to get a move on before he ambles off to where his truck's parked.

Finch holds Ignacio's hand and works on pushing herself up off the ground, and then helping him up too. "Sorry I hit you in the face with that snowball. I was aiming for your stomach," she murmurs to him, looking unfocused. She needs quiet, away from large groups of people, much like he did when he went off his painkillers. She leans against Ignacio, gives Lalo a smile. "Thanks, and you did real good out there today." She heads after Ruiz.

Lilith might have had a team win, but does she rub it in to Byron. Nonono. Maybe another time or another event, but not this one, not after what must have been a delightful Christmas given how she lights up when the shadow of his tall lean frame approaching and standing to look down at her arrives. She lies there in her made snow angel, then takes the help to get up without disturbing most of the made-shape.

Then when she's standing, she puts her arms around his neck to kiss him like he's the victor any damn ways, full of brief vigor before she draws back enough to murmur a few doting promises, "Food. Then shower. Then massage for you. And french toast in the morning before I work." She miiiight feel bad about snowballing him without realizing others were too while she was running like a chicken with a snowball hoard. She seals the promises with another kiss, shamelessly doting in public.

Ignacio squeezes Finch's hand, lifting it to kiss the back of it. There's that faint smile and the attempt of hurmor to pick her up, "Yeah this might be considered fraternizing withthe enemy. I'll have to see Alexander for the rules on that, but let's get you home and get a cupcake with you. That happens to me it always screws with my blood sugar." Looking up to Ruiz he answers genuinly, "That would be awesome. Gracias." And with that lets her sit a second longer and gets help to get up and Finch following. Looking to Lalo he offers a hand, "Mi llamo Ignacio. Usually at Espresso Yourself from like 1-5. Catch me up there. I got your lunch, man. And great game."

"Lalo," the man replies, reaching for the offered hand to shake. "Mucho gusto. I'll see you then." He gives Finch a nod, too, saying, "Thanks," before he turns to start away.