Intro

  “ I just wanna ball, Humpty Dumpty’s gonna fall”- Delete

  The sheets were frigid; the fluttering of bat wings welcomed the crack of dawn. Frosty slid off of his ice-cold mattress and onto the crimson carpet, cracking the layer of frost with his buttocks. Now his ass was cold.

  That wasn’t a problem for the coolest man alive. You could say he was the embodiment of cool.

  In fact, Frosty was so cold, his deceased girlfriend called him her personal AC unit.

  Here are a couple of burbs:

  “Why are my nipples hard?” — Slimy Bandit

  “Colder than the frigid embrace of death.” — Crystal

  “How am I supposed to eat this pizza now? Fuck this guy.” — Random

  Anyway, he woke up and went over to his desk in the corner of the room, half-opening the window so the hissing, burning, and turning-to-ash thing wouldn’t happen. For him, the sun was annoying. For the love of his life, it was death.

  The room was dim, lit by the soft pulse of Frosty’s monitor and the occasional flicker from the floating hologram photo over the bed—him and Crystal, frozen mid–peace sign like they were trying to sell a vacation getaway.

  Crystal herself slept nearby, curled like a vampire (’cause she was one) cat in a nest of aesthetically ominous throw pillows. Her skin had already turned that faint, icy-blue tint. She’d call it her “favorite shade of love.”

  Frosty cracked his knuckles, his neck, then his back before he sat with the grace of a retired superhero who peaked eons ago.

  The PC blinked awake.

  So did the chaos…

  The Steam Zone – VC Active:

  [YUSUKE]: “We on.”

  [SLEEPY]: “...We’re on?”

  [DELETE]: “DELETE THIS CHANNEL.”

  [SLIMEY BANDIT]: “Who tryna game and also earn rare slime tokens?”

  [MIZHA has joined the call.]

  [MIZHA has muted herself.]

  [MIZHA (chat)]: [??????] Delete if you heal yourself again, I will respawn inside your walls.

  [JOE THE HOE]: “Good morning Frostyyy!! You sleep okay? Crystal not tryin’ to drink your soul again, right?”

  Frosty blinked, sipping frozen tea like it owed him answers.

  [DM from YUSUKE]

  Yo. Hop in. joe picked support. Mizha already mad. Slimey's talkin’ crypto again.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Sounds like a good day to stay offline,” Frosty muttered, already joining the call.

  “Frosty!!” Joe chirped. “We were waitin’ on you, bud. I picked healer but I think I broke it? I can’t... un-poison people.”

  “You’re playing necro cleric, bro,” Slimey explained. “You poison with vibes, then cleanse through emotional closure. It’s simple.”

  [MIZHA (chat)]: [??????] He is lying.

  “Y’all finna… It’s ok, I gotcha’ll,” Frosty mumbled, picking “Support Healer” out of moral obligation. There was still apart of him that wanted to win despite the lackluster stats.

  Tl;dr, his friends were trash.

  The game launched.

  A bass-boosted menu theme blasted through his headphones. A screen shook itself to death. Mizha was already screen sharing some cursed setup guide. Delete was muting and unmuting rhythmically like he was coding trauma into Morse. Sleepy hadn’t moved.

  This was a mistake.

  Match Found.

  You are now entering: The Wub-War Arena: Neon Variant

  In Wub-War Arena, each team had five active and up to five inactive members—chosen from the draft screen in full view of the enemy. Pick a character, pick a role, ban a few others. Done.

  Active players were frontline: visible, mobile, and allowed to score.

  Inactives were backline: stuck behind barriers, casting buffs and throwing support tools, barred from direct offense.

  A ten v. ten match, in theory—but more like a bard battle royale where victory came from crowd approval, not kill count. Whoever got the most people screaming in chat? That team won.

  Each fighter channeled chaos through enchanted instruments, rhythm-synced attacks, or literal weaponized stage presence.

  Frosty and Joe were supposed to be backline.

  BUT… again: Sleepy wasn’t moving.

  So here he was. With her.

  The match snapped into life with a kaleidoscope of lights and a distorted trap beat that made the air vibrate. Frosty’s avatar shimmered onto the field: icy-blue jacket with pixel-snow drifting off it, headphones glowing like a frozen DJ. He carried a sleek mic stand like a scythe—untouched.

  Joe hovered beside him, dual-wielding glowsticks, his hoodie bouncing slightly as he hopped in place. His backline avatar had adorable Canadian flag patches stitched onto the shoulders. His skin was gray and his purple tongue hung idle over his lip. His role? Barely registered healer.

  Frosty leaned over the voice line. “Hey, the game started.”

  He looked left.

  Sleepy’s avatar was lying on the stage floor. Literally. Wrapped in a digital blanket, wearing bunny slippers, holding a triangle. A little idle animation showed her breathing slowly.

  “Hey!” he snapped.