Bear Trap started at 18:00. RIP's private group chat, callsign BT3, had been quietly falling apart since 17:05.
Death Tax went first. "Won't make BT today. Sorry." Clean, honest, no drama. 88werdna sent him off like a man boarding a ship bound for war: "May God be with you, friend." Miranda replied with a single crying-laughing emoji, which everyone correctly interpreted as her professional opinion of the entire group's attendance record.
Bob was not in BT3. Bob did not need to be in BT3. Bob had scrolled past exactly one screenshot of the chat, absorbed none of the nuance, and concluded that Bear Trap was in crisis and that RIP needed a hero.
By 17:59, HostileTakeOver had joined the exodus. "I probably won't make bear either," she typed, with the weary calm of a woman who has said this sentence in six different alliances. Beef didn't even look up from whatever Beef does. "@HostileTakeOver you're dead to me." HostileTakeOver, unbothered: "So much love in this room." Apexx contributed a skull and a laughing emoji, which was either agreement or a eulogy, nobody could tell.
This was the exact moment Bob arrived. Not in the chat — Bob doesn't do chat, Bob does presence — but at the actual Bear Trap coordinates, five minutes early, wearing a helmet he'd clearly built himself out of a cooking pot and unwavering confidence.
"DON'T WORRY," Bob announced to an empty staging area. "I WILL COVER FOR EVERYONE WHO CAN'T MAKE IT."
Nobody had asked Bob to cover for everyone who couldn't make it. Bob had appointed himself Acting Understudy for the Entire Roster, a role that does not exist in Kingshot, or in nature.
When 88werdna eventually logged in — late, having sprinted to the store before it closed, per his own chat confession — he found his march slot already occupied. By Bob. Wearing 88werdna's banner. Upside down.
"I AM 88WERDNA NOW," Bob explained, adjusting the banner further into wrongness. "I STILL LOVE EVERYONE WHO CANNOT MAKE IT TOO."
"That's... my line," said 88werdna.
"I KNOW," said Bob. "I'M METHOD ACTING."
Meanwhile, in Miranda's slot, Bob had left a note reading good point and you're dead to me, Death Tax signed simply "Miranda (Bob)." Miranda arrived seconds later, read it, and turned to HostileTakeOver with the exact same energy as her earlier crying-laughing emoji, except now aimed at a war crime.
"Why," Miranda said, "does the note in my slot sound more like me than I do."
"He's been in the chat two minutes and he's already got your voice down better than your own alliance," HostileTakeOver said. "I'd be flattered. I'd also be looking for a new march slot."
Apexx's slot was the real casualty. Bob, having read Apexx's doctor's-note joke completely out of context, decided Apexx needed defending and marched into the trap under Apexx's banner shouting a legal disclaimer he'd invented on the spot: "APEXX HAS A DOCTOR'S NOTE! THIS MARCH IS MEDICALLY EXCUSED!" The bear did not accept the note. Neither, notably, did the trap timer.
The one thing Bob genuinely accomplished: he showed up. All five of his self-assigned launches actually landed within the window, back to back, no missed turns, no relaunch failures — a personal record for a man with the attention span of a caffeinated raccoon. Someone would later note, off the record, that Bob's cycle times were suspiciously flawless for someone impersonating four different players simultaneously.
Death Tax, who'd correctly sat this one out, logged in afterward to a battle report listing his own name on three separate marches he never sent. "I said I wouldn't make it," he typed. "I did not say send a body double."
"HE SAID YOU'RE DEAD TO HIM," Bob typed back, still in character as Miranda, still wearing the pot helmet, still absolutely certain this had all gone well. "SO I HANDLED IT."
HostileTakeOver closed the chat. "So much love in this room," she muttered, and meant it slightly less than before.
RIP won Bear Trap that day. Nobody could fully explain why, and everyone agreed not to look too closely at the battle report.