First appearance: S4E16, The Dragon and the Spider, Ricky Red Dragon v Traxton (Spider) · watch it on YouTube
Traxton, who would much rather you called him Spider, is a self-described “coolest elf from my part of the woods.” He was pulled into the Void for the Season 4 finale to fight Ricky Red Dragon. He arrived as a 45-year-old emo kid whose voice hadn’t broken and who had no muscle to speak of. He left as a man, a champion, and then, thanks to The Shadow King, a tarantula. His match is a coming-of-age story told through crossing fireballs, a magic dick-shaped rod and a great deal of unresolved teenage angst.
Story
S4E16, The Dragon and the Spider
Spider stepped through the Grandmaster’s blood portal into The Dread Fortress beside Ricky Red Dragon, a “red dragon” cursed into human flesh. He wasted no time: “I’m sorry about your stupid skin.” He explained that his mom called him Traxton, which is “not very cool.” He went by Spider, one word, “like Seal.” The Shadow King had already been grumbling that the Grandmaster kept bringing teenagers to die in the arena, and on hearing this he decided Spider could die after all. The two champions were sent into a forest clearing the Shadow King had been building as a venue for the next Coachella. It was full of glowing purple ritual circles, and the sky was crowded with the screaming faces of The Acolytes.
Ricky opened by teleporting up into a tree and T-posing to assert dominance. It worked a little too well, and Spider was rattled. He answered by smothering Ricky in magical darkness. Ricky turned out to be “terrified of the dark” and fell out of the tree ass-first, though Spider never noticed and kept yelling insults up at the empty branches. When Ricky tried to banish him to another plane, Spider snuffed out the spell. Ricky’s attempt to snuff out Spider’s spell in turn failed. The Grandmaster took pity on Ricky and “banished” Spider into the Dark Circle, which was simply Spider’s own darkness, still hanging there. “I said I wasn’t afraid of the dark,” Spider admitted. “I may have been lying.” He eventually dropped the darkness, spotted Ricky and hurled a javelin of pure psychic angst at him: “That’s called teenage angst, bitch… You ever heard of My Chemical Romance?” He then dabbed on the haters. The Grandmaster threw her whole carton of buttered popcorn at his head, and a goblin wrote a new arena rule on a notepad: “No more dabbing in the arenas.”
The fight drifted between violence and friendship. When a gigantic chinchilla, named Chin Dragon by the Grandmaster and Chinzilla by the Shadow King, came charging through the forest, the two champions agreed to team up against it. It simply rampaged past them, hitting them both on its way out of the arena. “Our peace treaty was short-lived,” Spider said. A glowing circle then turned him into a fuzzy fruit bat with a blonde tuft of hair over one eye, and the Grandmaster named him Bat Boy, “because you haven’t hit puberty.” His bite missed, Ricky complained about his breath, and Spider replied with dignity: “It’s called halitosis, and it’s a medical condition.” Ricky gave him a whole tub of mints. When The Box of Chaos arrived, Spider asked the tormented soul inside for one thing: “If you have any extra puberty in there to give, I need it desperately.” He traded it the favor the Acolytes’ cheering had earned him. Puberty hit, and it hit hard. The box added a wooden immovable rod shaped like a dick, holding a single fireball. “This is what manhood feels like,” Spider declared, and he offered to teach the younger Acolytes the lesson he had never been taught.
Spider fired the rod’s fireball while running away, and Ricky answered with one of his own. The two blasts met tip to tip in the air and exploded over both of them. Ricky took the worst of it and collapsed, playing dead. Spider was fooled completely, including by an illusory Acolyte assuring him “Look, he’s dead,” and he wondered aloud whether killing another man made him a man. He tried to high-five the illusion, which didn’t work, and then stood straddling the “body,” flexing with the rod in hand. That was a mistake. Ricky threw up a wall of force between Spider’s legs and launched him into the air. To everyone’s relief, his newly dropped testicles survived (“They’re still down”). Furious, Spider unleashed a destructive wave of leftover teenage angst that poured out of his mouth like Banshee from the X-Men, and Ricky crumbled to dust. Ricky’s dying words included a confession that he wasn’t really a dragon. Spider picked up Ricky’s sunglasses and gave his victory speech: “Stay cool, cool babies.” The Grandmaster told him he had “grown in more than one way.” Then the Shadow King appeared behind him and offered to help him “truly look the part.” He shrank Spider into a tarantula and kicked him out of the arena.
Personality and Abilities
Spider is a Gen Z soul in a 45-year-old elf body. He insists that’s young for an elf, though the Grandmaster later put him at 46. He is emo to the bone, a devoted My Chemical Romance fan who shops at Earthbound and not Hot Topic, thank you very much. He ordered a salad at the steakhouse where the Grandmaster found him and is proudly pro-vegan: “It’s healthy, and I’m gonna nutritionally kick your ass.” His dad loves “Sweet Caroline.” He has a past in student politics. He won class president on the slogan “feeling forward” by cheating in the vote and held the job only briefly, and his classmates answered with the hashtag “feeling betrayed.”
He fights with magic and attitude. In his one match he cast darkness, snuffed out an enemy’s spell, threw a psychic lance of angst and finished with a destructive wave. He spent part of the fight as a bat and carried the Box of Chaos’s dick-shaped rod with its single fireball. His insults are enthusiastic rather than sharp (“Idiot Dragon Man”). He is also easy to win over: he is trusting, quick to compliment Ricky’s sunglasses, and happy to take a truce when a giant chinchilla shows up.
Relationships
- Ricky Red Dragon: His opponent and, by the end, something like a cool uncle. They traded insults, mints and fireballs, and Ricky took credit for being “part of this man’s awakening” while playing dead, not long before Spider killed him.
- The Shadow King: Wanted Spider dead almost on sight. Spider couldn’t get his title right (“Shadow Man… Shadow Guy”), and the King’s reward for the victory was turning him into a tarantula.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Pelted him with popcorn for dabbing, but was the one person Spider trusted (“As long as you say so, I trust you, lady”). She was openly proud of his growth.
Memorable Quotes
- “I prefer Spider. My mom called me Traxton. It’s not very cool.” (S4E16, The Dragon and the Spider)
- “It’s called halitosis, and it’s a medical condition.” (S4E16, The Dragon and the Spider)
- “If you have any extra puberty in there to give, I need it desperately.” (S4E16, The Dragon and the Spider)
- “I’m going to give the younger Acolytes out there a lesson that I never was taught. This is manhood!” (S4E16, The Dragon and the Spider)
- “I still have all my angst left over from my teen years, and I haven’t dealt with it yet. So, fuck you, man.” (S4E16, The Dragon and the Spider)
- “Stay cool, cool babies.” (S4E16, The Dragon and the Spider)