SNOW PLAY SHOWDOWN #2

Pepper was too perceptive to be caught with her proverbial pants down, as odd a saying as that would have been in a world where ninety-nine point nine nine percent of the living and dead population did not wear pants. That was something of an issue for pants related idioms and common sayings, and while nobody really did think about it that much, it was something that had come up surprisingly often for a world where that turn of phrase couldn’t have had it realistically speaking. Mainly because for the entire length of living time from a human’s perspective, the slice of time where people would have used that phrase would have been microscopic compared to how many dead humans would have become Scarfoxes across all of the Scarfoxes that were around.

Point was, Pepper would not be caught with her pants down. It was impossible because she knew that Clover was coming and she had heard the sounds that Paprika had made. It was like death but more. More death. Extra mega super hyper death, and she wanted nothing to do with it.

“How am I supposed to deal with him?” Pepper asked Opal, who was still playing dead.

“I don’t know,” Opal replied. “I’m supposed to be dead now.

“This is only the first game. Aren’t we supposed to be doing this more than once?”

Opal shrugged, ruining the start of his snow angel fox. “Beats me. I wanted to be on your team from the start, but I guess everything is going wrong today.”

Pepper took a deep breath. “I guess that is one way of putting it. I guess I better go kill him now.”

Opal didn’t have enough time to reply before Pepper had run off, making a ball of snow in her hands as she did so. He was far too considerate to think that Pepper meant that in any other way than metaphorical, but he was too busy being defeated and making a snow angel fox to give it much more thought than that. After all, Pepper was a fine fox to be around. She would never hurt a fly.

“How were you so easily defeated?” Pepper asked PAprika, who was digging himself out of a mound of snow and ice chunks. He looked tired and hollow, devoid of every ounce of life that he had once had. He had seen the Devil and the Devil was his brother.

“You must hide,” he said, listless and empty. “He will not be merciful.”

Pepper arched a brow, somewhat misunderstanding the point of a game. This was a life or death situation and she had been approaching it all wrong. “I think you are exaggerating a little bit. I haven’t seen him yet.”

“He is coming. And when he is here, you will perish much like I have.”

Pepper cocked her head to the side. “You seem fine to me.”

“I’m not getting up. There is ice in my soul.”

“Fine.”

Pepper scooped up more snow and PAprika melodramatically laid back into his icy tomb to lament how his life could have ended in such a shrill and unexpected manner. By his own brother! The audacity of it all. The humanity of such a lawless land to take him from the world while he was in his prime.

Clover was on the hunt, just as Paprika had mentioned before. He knew his opponent would be small and fast. Andwhile he had the height advantage, Pepper would undoubtedly be speedy. She was often undetectable until it was the right time for her to appear, and he had a basket of snow with her name on it. With Paprika out of the picture for now, Clover had been able to put in extra effort to prepare, and years of housework had made him powerful. He could weave a grass basket in a matter of minutes, and it was already full of snowballs. Pepper would never see it coming so long as he could get the jump on her, and as soon as he had seen his opportunity, he pounced.

The two of them flung snowballs at each other in such rapid succession, there was legitimate fear from the other foxes around them that they would not be able to see because a blizzard was rolling in.

The two of them ducked and dodged, barely clipping each other with snowballs, the magical afflictions rendered useless. A wind filled snowball would not knock over an opponent if the tip of the tail was hit. The rocks and ice chunks were ineffective if they grazed the shoulders or ears.

They were evenly matched, and as the time dragged further on, the stake grew higher. Clover only needed one good hit in to bury Pepper in snow. And Pepper was fueling the rage that lived inside her heart with every near miss. Two powerful forces opposed only by each other. Neither would give in so easily.

Their tactics also grew more and more warlike as time went on. Soon the balls would stop flying in favor of snow traps and camouflaging drifts. Even when Clover had finally chanced upon Pepper in a compromising moment, He could only partially bury her before there was an avalanche of distracting snow pellets raining from the trees above them. And when Clover had thought that he had succeeded in his war, Pepper had disappeared, and pellets of ice and wind barraged him like a swarm of angry bees. He’d have to retreat for the time being, only to have the heat come down upon him in unrelenting and biting balls of snow and ice.

Pepper was ruthless, but just as she thought she had had the upper hand, she had fallen into a snow sinkhole, with snow coming in from all sides like an avalanche, Clover standing triumphantly at the edge.

“I have you surrounded,” he would say with a vicious grin. He knew he had won this round, there was no doubt about it.

Pepper pulled Clover’s leg and he tumbled unceremoniously into his own trap. “Iight, bet.”

Opal and Paprika high fived over the hole. “They defeated each other! We are free to negotiate!”

Clover and Pepper looked at each other.

“They were plotting against us this whole time?” Clover said.

“We should betray them,” Pepper replied.

“Agreed.”