Maya sat on a tree on the school grounds, watching the sunrise.
It was the perfect setting. The sky was snow-grey, with hints of glass green, gold, and pink around the edges. It was also cold, but not freezing - the thick layer of snow took care of that. It had been snowing almost all night, and this early in the day her footprints from the Mansion gates to the tree were the only ones on the fields. The tree she chose as a vantage point was leafless, with icicles dangling from the branches, and covered in white, like something out of a fairy tale. The school grounds were empty, silent, and knee deep in snow.
Yup, it was a perfect setting for a half-date-turned-death-match.

Maya was prepared. She wore thick layers of clothes, enough to keep her warm but still let her move around freely. She also wore a headscarf, tied behind her head like a bandana, and thick gloves to keep her hands from freezing off. She was perched on the lowest and thickest branch of the tree, about six feet above the ground.
She was also hoarding snowballs in a neat little pile at the junction of the branch and the tree trunk.
Oh, she was well prepared.

It wouldn't take extra tracking skills to find her. The set of footprints were clearly visible, and a girl in a green jacket on a white tree was not exactly low profile either. But she had the advantage of height, and she knew that even if a certain someone happened to be using her sneaky abilities, she would be able to notice a second set of prints approaching the tree.

Snowball fight to the death by exhaustion.
Maya smirked behind her scarf.

Bring it on.

As soon as she had seen the snow falling outside her window, Twyla had gotten very excited very quickly. This excitement carried her through until the next morning--a fresh layer of snow would be a wonderful addition to the planned battle. The idea of having a snowball fight had been an exciting prospect in itself, more snow just made things all the more fun. Twyla had prepared the night before by laying out her warmest layers and scoping out some advantageous battle sites. It seemed a little ridiculous, but the blond knew that if she was excited, her foe would be as well and Maya was trickier than she was. She woke up early, eat breakfast, and then dressed in her pile of pants and tops. Growing up in a place where winter was taken very seriously, Twyla knew how to dress so that she wouldn't freeze but she wouldn't sweat too much either. Once she had donned her gear the girl left the mansion through the back door and scoped out the grounds.

A hunting we will go...a hunting we will go... The girl almost sang to herself as the song played in her head. When she found the fresh footprints she stopped and followed with her eyes the path they led to a tree in the middle of the grounds. Sure enough, a speck of green could be visible in a lower branch. I am not climbing a tree. she thought to herself. Twyla herself was just as noticeable as Maya, her coat had been her older brother's hunting jacket and it was printed in forest camouflage (her life would have been so much easier if Nate hunted later in the winter and had Arctic camo). Now, what to do about the girl in the tree? She'd see her soon enough so the question was: walk in her range or somehow lure the other girl somewhere that was more of a level playing ground. Silently she wished she'd thought of being out a little earlier--Maya had a good advantage.

Twyla took her sweet time walking within shouting distance of the enemy's base of operations. A smile (that wasn't visible through her ski mask) played across her lips as she came close--but hopefully not close enough to be shot at --to the other girl. "Wonderful morning, isn't it?" Her voice carried across the (until that point) silent grounds easily although it was a bit muffled by the fabric in front of her mouth. Hopefully Maya would recognize her, but if the voice didn't give Twyla away the blond and pink ponytail sticking out of the hole in the back of her ski mask should have been a good clue.

She waited for the girl's response (whether it be a warning shot or a verbal one) and thought to herself: Let the games begin.

>>"Wonderful morning, isn't it?"

Forest camouflage. Maya's eyebrows arched as she turned towards Twyla. She was either this confident in her snow-ball-fight skills, or she decided to leave it all up to her abilities to win.
She was also out of her range. Barely.

"I'm glad ya like it" she called back, standing up on the branch "took helluva lot of time to magic it this way. Ya ready?"

She could have stayed up on the tree, but that could soon turn out to be quite boring. Of course, Twyla could lay a siege upon her hq and wait till she starves or freezes, but that's not a snowball fight is usually about. They needed to start somewhere.
"... steady, WAR!"

Maya shook the branches around her as hard as she could, and disappeared in a veil of falling snow. By the time it settled, and left the tree clean and somewhat naked, the mirrorwalker was nowehre to be seen.
That is, because she was behind the tree, leaning back against it, snowball in each hand, waiting for her prey to forget about caution and approach her hiding place.

Maya grinned to herself. Just because this idea started out as a date it didn't mean she would let the girl win.

Soon war was commencing, in a flurry of shaking branches Maya descended from the tree and went...well, she went somewhere. Twyla liked how things were beginning–obviously she was in for a fun day or at least one where she’d have to think on her feet, Maya was tricky. Her smile beneath the ski mask widened and the girl bent down and scooped up some of the pack-y, white snow. In a moment she had a two perfect snowballs, one in each hand.

Maya had to be somewhere...Twyla decided the best way to find out her location was to slowly make her way towards where she’d seen the girl last. Slowly, and as quietly as she could with all the crackling snow, Twyla walked towards the tree. Through all the powder around the base of the tree, the girl couldn’t see around it. If she hadn’t been in range from the tree before she was certainly in snowball range as she walked.

Maybe Maya had begun to circle around? Or maybe...It was hard to tell. The other girl had to be somewhere and that was all that Twyla could guess. What she knew was that playful nerves akin to the one she got when she played hide and seek as a child were fluttering in her chest as she walked through the snow, each step elevated her heart-rate.

((Feel free to pellets the Twyla as she in unaware of Maya’s location ^_^ ))

Maya stood still, listening to the crunching of fresh snow under her opponents's feet. She suspected Bubblegum would be camouflaged by now, but if she listened hard enough and let her come close enough she might be able to hit her with a snowball anyway.
Seconds felt like hours as she held her breath. You can't be too careful.
The steps sounded closer. Any minute now...
In the moment when Maya decided the enemy must be close enough, she spun around, stepping out from behind the tree, hand already raised to send the snowball on its way.
What the...
Twyla was there. Well, she knew she would be, but she was there there, not using her abilities. For a split second Maya hesitated, taken by surprise that she could actually see her opponnent - then it all disappeared in a huge grin behind her mask, and a war cry, followed by two snowballs hitting their target.
She knew more than to linger to see where she managed to hit Twyla. Duh. In the next moment she was behind the tree again. Her hiding place was busted, but at least the trunk offered some cover from the snowballs that were soon to respond to her attack.
"That's a 2-0 for me, Bubblegum!" she yelled cheerfully, looking for an opportunity to run without being shot in the back.

Twyla smiled as she walked, she had a purpose–to find Maya. A second after she got close to the tree the girl in question flew from behind the tree and stood for a moment like she was confused. The blonde was confused as well, why wasn’t she getting pelted? A split second later it seemed as if the other girl regained her cool because there was a loud cry followed by two impacts that could only be from twin snowballs hitting her square in the chest. The thrower soon disappeared and yelled that she was two up. The blonde was still smiling. Maya was still behind the tree.

This was an interesting phenomenon, usually snowball fights involved multitudes of people (usually high schoolers) all converging in one area in teams. Twyla had never actually gone one on one in something like this, usually it was half her grade against the other half or something else that included a lot of people in a park or a corn field or on school grounds on a snow day. What they were doing was significantly harder, if Twyla wasn’t a mutant with major camouflaging powers.

It was time to pretend to be invisible.

Quickly, the girl relaxed as much as she was able in order to let her powers do their thing. In a moment she was covered in the colors of the grounds and she used that slight cover to her advantage as she slunk around the side of the tree. It took a lot of concentration and more than a little luck in order for the girl to remain quiet. The roots of the tree supplied some easy footholds as she crept along, flush with the tree. Soon her foe was clearly visible and the ski mask in front of her mouth tightened as her grin became even larger.

Ready. Aim. Fire.

She slipped as she threw the first snowball, and went down into a pile of snow before she could see if she hit her target. Apparently the roots that had been so helpful were covered in a thin layer of ice that was very hazardous to the casual sneaky teen. As soon as her face hit the snow, the girl was back up and running, giggling like mad with her camouflaged form only half visible in the brightening light of the morning.

If Twyla hadn't been doing her thing before, she was definitely doing it now. Maya leaned back against the tree, listening to the footsteps that got more quiet as they came closer - the Enemy was getting more cautios, and probably invisible too. At least that was what Maya would have done, if she had a little chameleon in the mix.
Unfortunately, she didn't.
And no sharp senses either.

The snowball hit her behind her ear and created some annoying ringing inside; the ringing matched the giggling and the noise of a body rolling in the snow. Maya laughed out, leave it to Bubblegum to face plant in a middle of her own sneak attack.

"Ow!" she yelled, more for show than real pain, and pushed herself away from the tree, watching the footprints in the fresh snow miraculously appear out of nowhere.

"Hey Bubblegum, that gigglin' kinda blows your cover ya know!" she yelled, sprinting after her with snowball in hand. She couldn't really aim at an invisible person, but she could pursue her until she got close enough to hit blind.

"Ya can run, ya can hide, but ya can't fly!" she laughed, following the footsteps; it was to her advantage, not having to break the knee-deep snow because Twyla had already done that for her. Once she was close enough she stopped and yelled "Incoming!" as a fair warning before she threw the snowball at what she guessed was a well camouflaged Bubblegum. It was still flying in the air when she was running again, hoping a good hit would show her where the enemy was.

Goofy? Hell yes.
Fun? Ya bet.

Telling someone not to do something only makes them want to do it more. Telling Twyla that her giggling was blowing her cover made the giggles intensify. She felt like a little kid and that feeling was distracting her from the fact that running+giggling=no air which was also equal to being winded very quickly. The girl wished she could fly at the mention of it–anything was better than running–especially running in snow. Soon her pursuer was close behind, close enough to fire.

At Least she got a warning before a handful of packed snow hit her. At the word: ‘Incoming!’ the running girl had ducked lower to the ground, resulting in the snowball hitting the top of her head, successfully dislodging the ponytail holder from the pony tail and setting all of Twyla’s blonde and pink (or snow colored) hair free. As the locks cascaded over her shoulders the girl realized that for the second time that day she was falling face first into the snow.

No thank you. This time the teen twisted herself so that she landed on her back. The thin layer of ice beneath the newest snow caused the girl to slide for a few feet which she used to scoop up some more ammunition with her gloved hands. When she finally came to a stop she yelled: “You’ll never take me alive!” and threw one snowball, then the other, hoping they hit their target. Her vision was a bit skewed by the messed up hair inside of her ski mask but she was pretty sure she knew the direction of her opponent. By this point Twyla’s camouflage was so confused that she mas a mixture of sky colors and dirty snow–something she didn’t notice until after she had tried to get up. Crap.

There was a wide trail in the snow as Bubblegum went down with a bad case of confused camouflage. She was white and blue and grey with occasional pink, and Maya's grin grew wide as she watched her slip after the snowball hit her.

>>“You’ll never take me alive!”

Bam. One loosely packed chunk of snow hit her square in the face; the other missed, but it didn't really matter either, the hit broke Maya's momentum and the ice took care of the rest.

"Whoa!" she did her best not to land on Twyla - because in her book it was only fair the other way around, and even that only with Gawain, because he had the stronger ribs - and she managed to twist so she missed the girl by a few inches. Bubblegum was on her way up, Maya was on her way down, and they kind of met half way, one arm catching the other, and the result was major tumbling-in-the-snow.

When the dust settled, Maya was lying on the ground, wiping snow from her face with one hand, and furiously flailing with the other, trying to bury Twyla in snow, laughing between gasps for air.
"Take this!" she giggled, scooping up one handful of snow after the other and tossing them at her "And this! And..."

Twyla heard the other girl's exclamation of surprise seconds before she heard the thud that meant that she wasn't the only one in the snow that morning and felt herself fall back down--pulled by the momentum of Maya's fall. "Uff!" The blond was tangled with the other girl's arms and before she could recover mounds of snow began to cover her form, making standing up all the more difficult. Her foe found this hilarious and giggled in a way not unlike the giggling Twyla had succumbed to earlier in their fight.

Twyla attempted to roll out from under the snow, but in her confusion she ended up just flailing wildly and laughing. "Time out! Time out!" She cried, finally rolling over so that she was on her stomach. In a sudden lurch she was on her knees. To gain her full vision back, Twyla pulled the ski mask from her head and tossing it aside--letting her hair loose in the process. She dropped the camouflage and scooted on her knees towards the other girl.

Picking up a handful of snow, she copied Maya's attack plan, tossing snow at the other girl. "No, you take that, and that." Soon her laughter was so intense that she had to stop and curl an arm around her shaking stomach. Something about the snow and the nerves and the early morning made the girl lose it and her concern for 'winning' the battle.

Laughing felt so good, but it made her throat so cold.

>>"Time out! Time out!"

"Like hell" Maya grinned, piling more snow on top of the enemy; the camouflage gave up the fight and Bubblegum appeared again, with pink and blonde hair everywhere and a serious amount of snow slowly melting as she wiggled onto her knees.

>>"No, you take that, and that."

"Wheee" Maya scrumbled back away from her, brushing snow off much slower than it was thrown at her, and soon she was covered from the waist down, sitting in a middle of the pile, gasping for air.
"... Okay, time out."

Maya's face was white from the cold, except for her cheeks that had unnatural bright red marks on them (and the bruising from two days before). The scarf was gone, lying in the snow a couple of feet away.
"Gosh.... 'gum... we're.... really... professional... 'bout this... arn't we...." she panted, between fits of giggling, staring at the other girl "Ya've got snow in y're hair, lady..."

With that, Maya fell onto her back, staring at the grey clouds above, arms and legs moving in a pretty much failed attempt to create an angel in the trampled and piled up snow.

"Goooood this is fun." she grinned, still catching her breath "An' I win."

It was the other girl’s time to yell ‘time out’ because soon her bottom half was covered in snow and she was gasping for breath, Twyla, being the wonderful, compassionate opponent that she was (and because her hands were getting terribly cold through the gloves she had on) allowed for the time out and ceased her attack for the moment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I thought we were doing things the right way.” Her tone was snooty as the girl took a few steps back on her knees so she could grab the black ski mask that was half covered in snow. It was useless to her now, but she’d really rather not lose it until spring.

She patted her hair with a gloved hand, adding to the cold wetness that was seeping across her scalp and down the back of her coat. “This seems strangely familiar...” She muttered, watching Maya execute what she assumed was an attempt at a snow angel. Images of fall leaves and a skateboard filled her mind and she smiled at the memories.

Maya’s words were still breathy when she proclaimed herself the victor.

“Um, I think not.” Twyla crawled closer to where the other girl was laying and used the cleared snow created by the ‘snow angel’ to write her name in the powder with her little finger. “I think that since you fail at making snow angels, the winning goes to me.” She looked over at the girl next to her and grinned through the wild curtain of blonde hair that, due to the moisture, was beginning to wave and curl at the ends.

>>“Um, I think not. I think that since you fail at making snow angels, the winning goes to me.”

Maya lifted her head to glare from behind a curtain of wet hair and some melting snow.
"Hey missy, there wasn't any talkin' 'bout angels in the deal! 'tis just an extra." she pointed out. With a smile.
You can't glare at a flushed and soaking wet Twyla for long without allowing a smile.
"... not a very good one either. Maybe ya should' try."

For a moment there Maya really felt tempted to pounce and roll in the snow, dragging Bubblegum down with her, but since this not-date still started out as a date, there was bound to be some chivalry included, and that meant no pouncing and rolling. So she just grinned, and admired her enemy a little more before sheaking water out of her hair.
"Allright, Bubblegum, I don' know 'bout ya, but my hands an' face are freezin' off. So. Let's go inside before the brats wake up an' drink all the chocolate."

Scrambling to her feet, she brushed some snow off - there was penty left - and offered a hand to Twyla. Fully aware of the possible consequences.

Twyla grinned when Maya glared at her, she looked like a wet rat. What do I look like? Thinking for a moment, she realized that she probably looked the same, if not worse–she did have more hair than the glaring girl. A moment later the glaring turned into smiling and the proposition was made that Twyla should make a snow angel. “I don’t need to prove my proficiency, I did that before first grade.” Twyla shook her head, making the curtain fling about in cold, wet, tendrils that made her ears cold and sent shivers down her spine. Nothing like a few good face plants in the snow to wake you up in the morning.

Twyla was about to reply her affirmation of Maya’s idea when suddenly the other girl was on her feet, hand stretched in front of her. It was an obvious sign that she wanted to help Twyla up. It was also and invitation for Twyla to pull her down back into the snow. With a smile on her face, she gave the girl and the hand a long look before she took the extended hand firmly in hers and...

Allowed herself to be pulled up.

Well, halfway up (at which point she decided that the ‘nice’ thing was no fun and that Maya really should have known better). Letting her legs go out underneath her, the blonde pulled herself (and her foe turned helper) back into the snow. Giggling, she rolled onto her side so that she was facing the other girl on the ground. “Really? You should know me better than that by now, Maya.” Sighing, she laid her head down on the snow and watched as a chunk of snow clinging to Maya’s brown locks slowly melted from the heat of her still bruised face.

>>“I don’t need to prove my proficiency, I did that before first grade.”

Maya wrinkled her nose, looking down at the girl "Well ya should find somethin' more challengin' than a snow angel then." she suggested "How about a snow plantypus?..."

When Twyla accepted the hand Maya braced herself for being pulled down... and then she wasn't. And then she was. That in itself was confusing enough to do the trick, and the mirrorwalker tumbled into the snow, avoiding full impact once again by rolling onto her side.
Ow. Ribs. Ow.

>>“Really? You should know me better than that by now, Maya.”

Maya chuckled, propping herself up on one elbow as she looked back at her. "How do ya know I was not countin' on this?" she smiled, and trailed off, reaching out to brush some hair behind Bubblegum's ears that were almost equally pink "I was not kiddin' though, ya're really gonna catch a cold..."