S5E2 — Identity Crisis — Kopy Katt v Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes

Watch on YouTube

A bag-headed identity thief met an elderly, extremely muscular professor of bloodshed in a filthy little tavern, and the fight went sideways almost immediately. Kopy Katt answered fists with phone calls: she reported identity theft, sabotaged a credit score, and phoned a man’s mother. Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes answered by throwing nearly everything in Emmery’s Tavern into the fireplace, including, eventually, himself. It ended with a changeling bartender, a borrowed face, and the most dramatic slipper in Deathmatch history.

The Story

No Naps for Imps

The day opened in the throne room of the Lord of Fate, as the Arbiter was now styled. He called for his assistant, the imp Thea, and found her asleep on a little pile of dust and straw with a lump of mud for a pillow. She called it a “power nap… like how the champions get like a power up.” He was unmoved: “You don’t get to nap. I don’t create you to sleep.”

Her clipboard turned up underneath the Lord of Fate, who was sitting on it on his throne, the only chair in the room. Thea blamed it on a chinchilla (“Those chinchillas are the absolute worst”). He walked down, held the clipboard out to her, and dropped it before she could take it. To test what color the champions might bleed, Thea gave herself a paper cut and bled sparkling blue, like glitter. He told her she was “not a real person,” which she took to mean “I am special.”

She explained where she had found this week’s fighters. One came from the Social Security Administration office, because “anybody who can put up with the long lines… surely they’ve got something to prove.” The other had been fighting space crocodiles behind space waffles. The Lord of Fate worried about the optics of elderly people being beaten up in the arena. Thea asked for a raise and learned that she wasn’t paid at all (“Do you think I got paid as the Arbiter?”). Her meal the day before had been “just to keep you alive,” since if she died he would have to go back to doing everything himself. When she claimed she had studied seat formations in college, he reminded her, “I created you a week ago, you didn’t go to college.” Thea said she had done the accelerated program.

Two Champions, One Voice

Two bright pink portals swirled open, and the first champion stepped through with a paper bag over her head and an opener: “Do you want to give me your social security number?” When the Lord of Fate objected that he was not wearing a bag on his head, Kopy Katt repeated him word for word. She repeated every line after that too, right down to his test phrase, “Banana Earthworm Smoothies.” Thea couldn’t tell the two apart, so she asked them what color her blood was. Kopy Katt answered “Blue,” and Thea promptly declared her the real Lord of Fate.

Professor Cervantes walked in calmly with a leather suitcase, set it down, and took a deep breath. “I’m actually very familiar with your combat here. I’m quite a fan,” he said. He introduced himself as “a professor and a student of Bloodshed.” He was rather elderly. He was also jacked. The Lord of Fate noted that this was exactly the kind of elderly person he had meant to keep out of the arena. The Professor assured him he was “young in spirit,” drank his milk, and said his bones had “endured quite a bit, and they shall endure more.”

Last Orders at Emmery’s

Thea had picked a tiny tavern with a giant skull over the fireplace “to inspire the monstrous fight.” It belonged to Emmery, who brewed exactly one drink, ale number two. Because of all the talk about bones, Thea made both champions enter through a second portal that poured a waterfall of milk over them. The Professor basked in it. Kopy Katt basked identically.

Inside there were stone floors, a warm fire, and gentle music. A sad man lay passed out at a table, leaking “vomit or blood or something else.” Kopy Katt helped herself to his wallet, ID and credit card, bringing her collection to 68 identities. The Professor politely ordered a number two from Emmery, who kept wiping one worn spot on the bar and confided that sheep dung was the secret ingredient. The Professor downed it through a straw, to protect the mustache, and ordered another. Kopy Katt mirrored him glass for glass. The ale turned out to be “not completely liquid… there’s some solids in there,” and both fighters started the match a little worse for it. “This is the most business I’ve had all year,” said Emmery.

Then Kopy Katt tapped Thea on the shoulder wearing “the most terribly made mask” of the Lord of Fate and ordered a number two to be brought to “my throne.” Thea marveled at how fast he’d gotten down there, ordered four more on the Lord of Fate’s tab, and toasted the impostor. From above, the real one sighed: “I’m up here.”

Towels, Clippers and Fraud

The Professor opened the fight by throwing his full glass at Kopy Katt. She fumbled it and ended up gulping down yet another ale, and she felt ready to vomit into her own bag. He snatched the bag she was puking into and threw it back in her face, revealing a purplish face with no eyes, nose or mouth, only a red-marker smiley that looked like a three-year-old had drawn it. “Show me your capacity for violence!” he demanded. She echoed him. Then she declared, “I do not speak for myself. I speak for many,” pulled a card from her book, and put on a papier-mâché mask of Thea.

As “the original Thea,” she blew a whistle and summoned a stampede of Chinchillas carrying towels. These were unionized chinchillas with health care, free gym memberships and a stocked kitchen, which made them very jacked. They towel-whipped the Professor, who went pale. In all his research he had “never encountered a creature as fearsome as a chinchilla.” When she ordered them to shave him, his mustache moved itself out of the way of the clippers. It was sentient, a souvenir of a tribe he had visited where “the chief had the nose hair who could write poems.”

The Professor tried to throw the passed-out patron at her and discovered the man was alive (“I’m sorry, sir. I was really counting on you being dead”). The man still landed on her. The man’s table went into the fireplace because “it felt like it was getting cold in here,” and Thea rewarded the Professor’s thoughtfulness with three more ales.

Kopy Katt fought back with paperwork. Posing as the bartender, she checked his ID. Then she called social services: “I would like to report identity theft.” The Professor’s bank accounts were closed and his flights cancelled, and his credit took the hit. He protested that he had just reached 850. “I enjoy being stabbed. This is just rude,” he said. When she warned him about medical bills, he replied, “Joke’s on you, I’m not American.”

Next she phoned his mother while pretending to be him. She told the old woman he hated her and had signed her email up for home improvement magazines, and that he had “some crocodiles to wrestle that are way more important than you.” His mother wailed that she had chosen him over his siblings. The real Professor was distraught, but also pleased: “I knew I was the favorite.” In the end the mother refused to believe it: “Not my little fighter boy. He would never. He must be drinking.”

The Box of Chaos

The Acolytes summoned The Box of Chaos, and the Lord of Fate dropped it onto the bar in a column of pink and yellow fire. Out crept his own former shadow, now the soul fuelling the box. Kopy Katt copied the shadow, which told her to stop it and shut the lid on itself.

Stripped of his money and his family, the Professor made his offering. He ripped off his whole mustache, which held its shape in the shadow’s palm. In return he received his favorite snack, a salad covered in Worcestershire sauce, and ate it “in the most gentlemanly and educated way.” The shadow lounged on the edge of the box wearing the now-white mustache and smoking a cigar. Refreshed, the Professor pulled a long spear from his suitcase and hurled it home. “Good thing I’m also a lawyer,” he said. Thea pointed out that his ID had said Esquire.

Kopy Katt tried a softer approach. She apologized to the shadow for copying it (“I got a condition, you know. Doctor says… I’m going to therapy”) and gave it a brand-new red chest, three times the size, with hidden compartments, all supposedly paid for by the Lord of Fate. “This never happens to people like me,” the shadow said. A rusty spoon flew out of the box, and the shadow dragged itself, legless and one-handed, into the new chest like a hermit crab changing shells. “He never used to treat me this good when I was his actual shadow.” The tetanus spoon struck, but the Professor had had his shots.

Paper Loses to Rock

After a break, the Lord of Fate rolled a perfect 20 on a chaos event (“Feels good being the Lord”). An old wives’ tale claimed paper could defend against stone, so both champions tried to fold paper shields. Both failed. Thea summoned the crowd: “Behold! The true power of rocks because paper always sucks!” Boulders, gravel, obsidian, “rocks named Sid” and “the shoulder boulder holders” rained down. Afterwards Thea admitted she had lied about college: “They didn’t accept worms.”

The Professor had spent all this time on a rotary phone from his suitcase, working with a credit advisor. With his score restored, he threw the phone at Kopy Katt. It missed and landed in the fire, like the table, and his attempt to clothesline her into the flames missed too. When she went after his credit score again, he was ready: “I just got off of the line with Equifax. I have legal shield right now.” Posing as his mother, she then reported him dead to the university that had granted his degree, which the operator answered as “Bullshit University.” It didn’t stick. “I have tenure,” he said.

A second chaos event put out the fire and sent a blizzard against the windows. A tiny frozen chinchilla came in begging for warmth. Neither champion helped it, and the cold battered them both until Emmery swept in and tucked the chinchilla into his armpit. His arm was so long that he kept wiping the counter from a distance. “What is wrong with you two? You’re both monsters.” Thea ordered another round for everyone on the Lord of Fate, who protested that they were on a budget.

The Gorilla and Mother

The Professor ripped the burning table out of the fireplace with his bare hands, missed, and threw it straight back in. His 80s brick phone call to the credit bureau about Kopy Katt’s “impressive record” ended when he hung up on them by accident. Kopy Katt then unleashed her signature move, an “Interdimensional space gorilla,” which secretly copied whatever her opponent’s signature move was. “I can’t be the copy when I’m the original,” she said. As a gorilla she picked up Emmery and threw him at the Professor. The bartender’s hand was still on the bar, and the two men tangled in his long arm and fell into the fire together. Emmery climbed out with his skin burning off “like a layer of paper.” Beneath it was Kopy Katt’s face, squiggly drawn eyes and all. He went back to wiping the counter, staring at her.

The Professor rose from the flames with his shirt burned away and his “old yet incredibly ripped body” on display. He announced that he had changed his secret ability during the break, then called his mother and asked her to come out of retirement. She rose from the fire “like many mothers do,” looking exactly like Mary Poppins with both fists up. “I had a gorilla for breakfast,” she declared, and tackled Kopy Katt. The gorilla threw her back at her son. Kopy Katt then snatched Thea out of the air by her tail and threw her too, and the imp latched onto the Professor’s face with “all nine fingers.” The Lord of Fate ordered her out of the arena.

Mama Cervantes ripped off her corset and hoop dress, roared in her bloomers “with pure Cervantes rage,” and landed a haymaker that left Kopy Katt barely standing. “Thank you, mother. I have it from here,” said the Professor. He leapt from the bar, his flames condensing onto one arm, and dropped the Cervantes elbow on her forehead.

Overtime and the Slipper

Kopy Katt limped to the bar and slapped Emmery’s mirrored hand to tag him in. “I am everyone and I am everywhere… I have no real identity for not one is my own,” she said. Emmery, it turned out, was a changeling. He turned into the Lord of Fate and swung at the Professor, and missed. Kopy Katt goaded the real Lord of Fate, who boasted “I killed the Shadow King!” and flew down with a metal chair. He concussed the Professor (“Don’t ever talk bad about me again”) and poofed back to his throne.

Thea demanded a death. The battered Professor threw a flying knee at the Kopy Katt the chinchilla didn’t trust, missed, and kneed himself into the fire. He then set his never-opened briefcase ablaze and swung it, and missed. Finally Emmery became Mama Cervantes. She took off her slipper, missed once (“She has two feet”), and swung again. The slipper caught the bar lights “almost like a halo” and came down “like retribution.” Cervantes looked at the slipper, looked at his mother’s face, and sighed, “I had a dream it would end like this.” He was knocked across the bar and into the fireplace one last time.

“Fare thee well, Cervantes,” said Thea. The Lord of Fate liked the kill, didn’t like the impersonation, and left. Thea whirled the tavern ceiling away so the Acolytes could raise their number twos to the victor: “You can take on anyone because you are everyone.”

Dried Blood

Kopy Katt bowed graciously, and the chinchilla that had never trusted her ran up and hopped into her arms. She was wiping the bar with one hand, though, which left everyone wondering whether it was really her. Cervantes advised viewers not to throw things into fireplaces, and to be kind to their mothers, because “a changeling doppelganger of her will beat you into oblivion.” Kopy Katt, or someone like her, offered: “don’t try and be anybody else because you are the best version of yourself and no one can take that away from you, no matter how hard they try.”

Notable Moments

• Thea named Kopy Katt the real Lord of Fate because she knew Thea’s blood was blue.
• A unionized chinchilla stampede towel-whipped the Professor, and his sentient mustache dodged the clippers on its own.
• The Box of Chaos shadow traded the Professor’s mustache for a Worcestershire salad, then moved into a bigger chest “paid for” by the Lord of Fate.
• The Professor threw a table, a phone, himself and a briefcase into the same fireplace.
• Mama Cervantes rose from the flames, stripped to her bloomers, and nearly won the match for her son.
• The changeling Emmery, wearing Mama’s face, delivered the killing blow with a slipper.

Memorable Quotes

• The Lord of Fate: “I created you a week ago, you didn’t go to college.”
• Kopy Katt: “I would like to report identity theft.”
• Professor Cervantes: “I’m sorry, sir. I was really counting on you being dead.”
• Professor Cervantes: “I enjoy being stabbed. This is just rude.”
• The Box of Chaos shadow: “He never used to treat me this good when I was his actual shadow.”
• Emmery: “If I didn’t need the money, you’d be out of here, but I do. So keep buying drinks.”
• Thea: “This is the weirdest place I’ve ever brought any champions before.”

Professor Cervantes: “I had a dream it would end like this.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Kopy Katt (Kat). A copier with no identity of her own: “I am everyone and I am everywhere… not one is my own.” Called “a changeling of sorts” by Mudcat (Dried Blood).

• Appearance: wore a paper bag over her head. Underneath is a purplish, featureless face with a red-marker smiley face drawn like a three-year-old’s. She puts on terrible masks (the Lord of Fate, papier-mâché Thea).
• How she copies: repeats others’ words exactly and mirrors their actions. She keeps a book of cards to pick personas. Carries 67 IDs, 68 after robbing the patron “J”.
• Recruited from the Social Security Administration office.
• Abilities and tricks:
  • A whistle that commands the unionized chinchillas.
  • Phone calls (identity theft, credit, the fake death report). “Your identity is everything.”
  • Her signature move copies the opponent’s (here a gorilla). She claims “a condition… I’m going to therapy.”
• Relationships: gave the Box of Chaos shadow a new red chest, supposedly paid for by the Lord of Fate.
• Partner: tag-teamed with Emmery.
• Federal agents are reportedly tracking her for her “impressive record.”

Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes, Esquire (Rogue). Elderly but jacked.

• Profession: professor and student of warfare, combat and bloodshed; also a lawyer, with tenure. His degree is from “Bullshit University” (per the operator).
• Background:
  • A fan of the show.
  • Found fighting space crocodiles behind space waffles. Not welcome at a Waffle House near crocodiles.
  • Not American (implied from the Mary Poppins exchange, but his country isn’t named).
• Body and habits: eight toes, bad aim and balance. Drinks milk. His favorite snack is a salad covered in Worcestershire sauce.
• The mustache: sentient. He once visited a tribe with sentient hair, where the chief’s nose hair writes poems. He sacrificed the mustache to the Box of Chaos.
• Possessions: a leather suitcase holding a spear, a rotary phone and more. Also carries an 80s brick phone.
• Money: credit score 850; values money most of all.
• Family: estranged from his mother, whose favorite he is. He has siblings, and his mother has a husband.
• Death: died slapped into the fireplace by Emmery-as-his-mother.

Mama Cervantes (Caustic Phoenix on the phone; Rogue once summoned). An “incredibly ancient little old lady.” She is retired, looks like Mary Poppins, and is the one he “learned everything from.” She calls him “my little fighter.” She rose from the fire, fought the gorilla, and stripped to bloomers in a muscled rage.

Emmery (Mudcat). Owner and bartender of Emmery’s Tavern.

• Brews the number two ale, smoked over sheep dung; it’s the only drink.
• Wipes the same worn, dented spot all the time. Has an extremely long arm.
• Needs the money. Saved the frozen chinchilla in his armpit.
• A changeling: he took the forms of Kopy Katt, the Lord of Fate and Mama Cervantes, and delivered the killing blow.

The Lord of Fate (Mudcat).

• Thea: created her a week ago and doesn’t pay her (“Do you think I got paid as the Arbiter?”). Keeps a performance report on her.
• Concerned about optics and PR. Says “we’re on a budget.”
• Claims “I killed the Shadow King!” (speaker inferred).
• Entered the fight once with a metal chair, then poofed back to his throne. Says he could stop time.

Thea (Caustic Phoenix). The Lord of Fate’s pink imp assistant, created a week ago.

• Says she was a worm (“They didn’t accept worms”). Lied about going to college.
• Bleeds sparkling blue glitter. Has nine fingers and lost a thumb when she “chopped it off.”
• Pink portals, an arrow tail, a credit score around 20.
• Was thrown as a weapon and face-hugged Cervantes.

The Box of Chaos shadow (Mudcat). Formerly the Lord of Fate’s “actual shadow,” now fueling the box.

• Legless; drags himself by one hand.
• Took Cervantes’s mustache and wore it white, smoking a cigar.
• Has used the rusty spoon in many knife fights.
• Moved into a new red chest three times the size, with compartments.

The chinchillas. Unionized (health care, free gym, stocked kitchen) and jacked; they towel-whip on command. Thea blames them for things. A lone frozen chinchilla came in from the blizzard and wouldn’t trust Kopy Katt.

The passed-out patron (“J”). Alive, and robbed of ID and credit card. Thrown at Kopy Katt: “Hey, hey, hey.”

Places

• The Lord of Fate’s throne room: a single chair, the throne.
• Emmery’s Tavern: small and dirty, with stone floors, a fireplace with a giant skull over it, and a worn spot on the bar. Its ceiling vanishes for the Acolytes at the end.
• The Social Security Administration office; space waffles / the Waffle House with crocodiles; Bullshit University (all mentioned only).

Items

• Ale number two. The milk portal.
• The Box of Chaos, and the new red chest.
• The rusty spoon (tetanus).
• Cervantes’s mustache. The Worcestershire salad.
• The suitcase, spear, rotary phone, brick phone and briefcase.
• Kopy Katt’s card book, masks, whistle and 68 IDs.
• The metal chair. The slipper.

Lore statements

• The Lord of Fate was once the Arbiter and wasn’t paid then.
• The Lord of Fate’s former shadow now fuels the Box of Chaos.
• The Acolytes can summon the Box of Chaos.
• Thea was created by the Lord of Fate about a week before this match, and was once a worm.

Full Round-by-Round

Every beat of the episode, with timestamps (click to expand)

Opening — the Lord of Fate’s throne room

1. 0:05:33 “The sweet sounds of death ring in the air as the Lord of Fate awaits Thea in his throne room.” He calls for her. Thea has been asleep on a little pile of dust and straw, with a small pile of mud for a pillow. She calls it a “power nap… like how the champions get like a power up.” The Lord of Fate: “You don’t get to nap. I don’t create you to sleep.”
2. 0:06:36 Remembering it’s deathmatch day, the imp zips around looking for her clipboard. It’s underneath the Lord of Fate on his throne. She blames it on a chinchilla: “Those chinchillas are the absolute worst.” He walks down, holds the clipboard out, and drops it before she can take it. Thea: “I love picking stuff up from the ground.” He: “Good, then it works for both of us.” Caustic Phoenix notes there is only one chair in the room, and it’s his.
3. 0:07:53 Thea glows with a pink aura. She has found two worthy champions and wonders what color they bleed. The Lord of Fate says blood is “mostly red… I’ve seen a lot of people die.” Thea gives herself a paper cut with her notepad and bleeds sparkling blue, like glitter. “Does that mean I’m special?” He tells her she’s “not a real person”. She takes this as “I am special.”
4. 0:09:04 — Where she found them. The first champion came from the Social Security Administration office: “anybody who can put up with the long lines… surely they’ve got something to prove.” The Lord of Fate: “Did you bring me an old person?… We can’t have people beating up elderly people in the arena… The optics are not good… We’ll get the PR team on it.” The second she found fighting space crocodiles behind space waffles. They said “hell yeah, or something. I didn’t actually listen, but it looked positive.”
5. 0:10:35 — Employment terms. The Lord of Fate praises her “don’t ask” attitude. Thea asks for a raise and is told she isn’t paid at all: “Do you think I got paid as the Arbiter?” Yesterday’s meal was “just to keep you alive… If you die, I have to go back to doing everything myself.”
6. 0:11:17 He fixes his robes and settles into the throne. Thea critiques the cushion (“a little more firm on the right side… better butt pressure”) and claims she studied seat formations in college. He replies: “I created you a week ago, you didn’t go to college.” Thea: “I did the accelerated program.”

Champion entrances

7. 0:11:57 — Kopy Katt. Thea claps, and two bright pink portals swirl open and grow as she flaps her wings. She announces “the portal of dangerousness, which is not really its name,” and the imp bows low. The champion’s first line is “Do you want to give me your social security number?” Thea offers that Vythorn “has one somewhere.”
8. 0:13:16 — The copying begins. The Lord of Fate objects (“I’m not wearing a bag on my head”), and Kopy Katt repeats every line he says word for word: “Why are you copying me?” “Why are you copying me?” He tests her with “Banana Earthworm Smoothies,” and she repeats that too. Thea can’t tell them apart, so she asks what color her blood is. The champion guesses pink. Kopy Katt answers “Blue,” and Thea declares her the Lord of Fate. “This is a hoot and a holler.”
9. 0:14:39 — Professor Cervantes walks in calmly with a leather suitcase, sets it down and breathes deeply. “I’m actually very familiar with your combat here. I’m quite a fan.” He is a “professor of all things warfare and combat and battle… a professor and a student of Bloodshed.” Kopy Katt echoes him: “Double the excitement.” He is “rather elderly. Jacked, but elderly.” The Lord of Fate: “when I said don’t bring any elderly people into the arena, this is what I meant.” The Professor: “I assure you I am young in spirit.” He partakes in milk, and his bones “have endured quite a bit, and they shall endure more.”
10. 0:16:21 Kopy Katt copies him as well (“What is this creature?” “What is this creature?”). The Professor: “Is this what I am deemed to fight today?” The Lord of Fate: “Luckily, it’ll be hard to hear her from the stands.”

The arena — Emmery’s Tavern

11. 0:16:45 Thea picked a tiny tavern with a big giant skull over the fireplace “to inspire the monstrous fight.” It’s owned by Emmery, who makes a specialty drink called ale number two. Thea sells it as supporting small businesses, and says he doesn’t mind if they destroy the place: “what else are taverns for?” Nobody knows his last name (“Maybe first name M and last name R?”). She promises the Lord of Fate 50 of Emmery’s business cards and his photo ID. Kopy Katt says she has about 67 IDs.
12. 0:18:23 — The milk portal. Thea opens her portals with a second portal on top that pours a waterfall of milk, so the champions must walk through it, because of the bone talk. The Lord of Fate opens his own portal and shuts it behind him. Caustic Phoenix: “You don’t have a second portal. You have to go through the milk portal.” The Professor basks in the milk, and Kopy Katt mimics his basking exactly. It soaks “every old man wrinkle.”
13. 0:19:34 Inside are stone floors, a warm fire and gentle music. An old bartender (Emmery) cleans the bar and says every now and then, “you got to buy something or you got to get out.” The Lord of Fate: “It’s kind of dirty in here.” A sad man lies asleep, or possibly dead, leaking “vomit or blood or something else.”
14. 0:20:27 — Identity #68. Kopy Katt takes the sleeping man’s wallet, ID and credit card. “Starts with a J.” Thea: “That means you have 68 identities now.”
15. 0:20:48 — The number two. The Professor pays politely for a number two. Emmery keeps wiping the same spot on the bar, which is worn from it. He says “that’s all we have,” and then confides that the secret ingredient is sheep dung: “I like to smoke the grains over sheep dung. Maybe a little sprinkle in.” The Professor asks for a straw because “It gets in the mustache.” He says “I love an exotic experience,” downs it in full and asks for another. Kopy Katt mirrors him exactly. Emmery: “This is the most business I’ve had all year.”
16. 0:22:26 Both fail a Mettle save. The ale is “not completely liquid… there’s some solids in there,” and both start the match one fighting spirit down, though the alcohol makes them feel fine.
17. 0:24:03 — The fake Lord of Fate. Kopy Katt taps Thea’s shoulder wearing “the most terribly made mask,” which looks exactly like the Lord of Fate: “I’ll take a number two. Bring it to my throne.” Thea is amazed at how fast he got down there. She orders more, and Emmery says she has to buy four. She has them put on the Lord of Fate’s tab and leads a toast “all for the Lord of Fate” at the impostor. The real one: “I’m up here.” Thea: “This is magic. I am so impressed.”

Round 1

18. 0:25:31 Thea rules that Kopy Katt doesn’t go first, because the four number-two ales she downed “basically equates to eight.”
19. 0:26:14 The Professor throws his full glass at Kopy Katt (“I was nursing that one for a reason”). She rolls a nat 1 on defense and gulps down yet another disgusting ale, compelled to keep up the drinking game. She takes damage and a fatigue. “I feel like I’m about to take this paper bag off my head and vomit in it.” The Lord of Fate: “She admitted she’s wearing a paper bag. See, everyone heard it. I’m not crazy.”
20. 0:27:21 — The bag comes off. The Professor bullies her: he grabs the bag she’s puking into and throws it back in her face. Under it is “an extremely purpley-pilled face” with no eyes, nose or mouth. Instead there is a horribly drawn red-marker smiley face that “looks like a three-year-old drew on it.” The Professor: “I have never in my days seen a creature like you… Show me your capacity for violence!” She echoes both lines.
21. 0:29:20 “I do not speak for myself. I speak for many.” She flips through her book, takes out a card, and puts on a terribly made papier-mâché mask of Thea. Thea: “I knew I had my favorite fighter!” The Professor: “Where did you get the newspaper?”
22. 0:29:51 — The chinchilla stampede. She blows a whistle and summons a stampede of chinchillas with towels. The chinchillas accept her as “the original Thea” and follow her whistles like herded sheep. “Wipe them down, boys.” They towel-whip the Professor. Caustic Phoenix explains that these are unionized chinchillas with full health-care benefits, free gym memberships and a fully stocked kitchen, so they’re jacked, and each towel tip is “just a little wet” to snap hard. The Professor goes pale: “in all of my travels and all of my research, I’ve never encountered a creature as fearsome as a chinchilla.”
23. 0:32:49 — The haircut. Kopy Katt orders the chinchillas to get hair clippers and give the Professor a new haircut. “No one’s touching the stash.” He doesn’t move. His mustache moves itself around the clippers. It is sentient: “I visited a tribe not too long ago of… people with sentient hair… The chief had the nose hair who could write poems.” Kopy Katt: “Looks like I won’t be able to ruin your appearance so easily.” Caustic Phoenix: “That was a close shave.” Thea explains the pun to the Lord of Fate at length.
24. 0:34:51 — Thea’s performance report. The Lord of Fate asks Thea for the end-of-round roll, and Thea has the “other Thea” (Kopy Katt) roll it. It comes up 3. “I want you to know that despite the fact that she rolled for you, this still reflects on your performance report.” He clicks a pen and makes a note. Thea rerolls a 14 and adds them, theorizing that “because we’re both Thea, we just got split and our energy got also split.” He: “If I let it slide, then the integrity of the whole process…” Thea offers to get him another number two. “How about you give me a round number two?”

Round 2

25. 0:36:45 — Throwing the patron. The Professor asks whether the passed-out man is a corpse (“It doesn’t matter”) and picks him up to throw at Kopy Katt. The man is alive and struggles: “Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.” The Professor: “I’m sorry, sir. I was really counting on you being dead.” The man lands on Kopy Katt and knocks her down. “He’s heavy… I’m gonna have to put on some weight.” Caustic Phoenix points out bags of salt she could stuff into her “trash bag.”
26. 0:38:20 — The table. The Professor grabs the man’s table and spins to throw it at both of them. “Unlike the man, the table says nothing when you pick it up.” Both dodge. He throws it straight into the fireplace, where it roars with heat as spilled alcohol feeds the flames. “It felt like it was getting cold in here.” Thea calls him considerate and buys him three more number twos (Emmery’s minimum), all of which he must drink. Emmery is very happy.
27. 0:40:49 — The ID check. Kopy Katt impersonates the bartender: “You ordered a couple drinks? I’ll need to see some ID.” The Professor produces about five IDs and asks for the discount. “If you show me all five, I can give you the senior discount.”
28. 0:41:45 — Identity theft. She calls social services: “I would like to report identity theft.” Asked for the last name, the Professor answers “Thea.” Thea: “Is everyone just going to steal my identity today?” Kopy Katt reads the ID instead: “Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes. Esquire.” The operator flags all associated businesses, closes his bank accounts, issues a credit alert and cancels all his flights and travel. The Professor: “I just got to 850.” It hits (“Roll to financially cripple Professor Cervantes… Identity theft is a crime”). He: “I enjoy being stabbed. This is just rude.” She: “Looks like you’ll have a hard time covering those medical bills.” He: “Joke’s on you, I’m not American.” “I hope you have travel insurance.” “That one’s more valid, yes.”
29. 0:44:44 — Calling his mother. “I said capacity for violence. Not fraud.” Kopy Katt calls the Professor’s mother while posing as him (“Mother?”). Caustic Phoenix voices the mother: “Cervantes, my little Cervantes… It’s been so long… What’s my little fighter?” Posing as her son, Kopy Katt tells her he hates her, says that’s why he never returned her calls, and says he has subscribed her email to “all manner of home improvement magazines.” (The Professor: “I actually did that and she was renovating her house.”) Then: “I never want to meet you again… I have some crocodiles to wrestle that are way more important than you.” The mother: “I didn’t love your other siblings because I chose you… I’ve got on the wrong child!” The real Professor is distraught, but also: “I knew I was the favorite. Hell yeah.”
30. 0:46:50 The roll is a tie. The mother thinks back over their life together and refuses to accept it was him: “Not my little fighter boy. He would never. He must be drinking.” Both take a fatigue. Thea tells him to write a very long apology letter, because “flowers aren’t gonna cut it this time, fighter boy.” He: “We’ve been estranged for quite some time. This is actually probably for the best.”
31. 0:48:36 Thea tries to add her end-of-round roll to the old 17. The Lord of Fate corrects her: it was a 3, so they’re at 8.

Round 3 — the Box of Chaos

32. 0:49:22 “The Acolytes have chosen to summon the Box of Chaos!” The Lord of Fate drops it into the middle of the bar, and a pink and yellow column of fire shoots up. “His own shadow now fueling the box” creeps its hands out: “Hey, how’s it going? What is this place?” Kopy Katt copies the shadow, which says “Stop that” and shuts the lid on himself.
33. 0:50:42 — The Professor’s sacrifice. Rogue describes Cervantes as a man of violence whose finances and family bonds have been taken. He is “succumbing to his own inner bloodshed.” To the shadow: “Certainly not, my friend. She’s kind of the worst.” He offers what he holds most dear, because she jeopardized “the thing I care most about in this world. My money.” Then: “And again, I guess my mother… That’s top 10, I guess.” He winces, grabs his mustache and rips the whole thing off; it keeps its shape. The shadow palms it: “I don’t have one of these.”
34. 0:52:46 — The reward: his favorite snack, a salad covered in Worcestershire sauce. “I am an educated man. I have an educated meal.” Thea and Caustic Phoenix mangle the word repeatedly (“just a little bit of Sean Connery in there”). He eats it “in the most gentlemanly and educated way” and regains fighting spirit. The shadow lounges on the edge of the box wearing the now-white mustache, smoking a cigar: “That’s a pretty good deal… I don’t have lunch now.” The Professor: “That really hurt… it was a pleasure doing business with you.”
35. 0:54:59 — The spear. He pulls a long, plain, non-magical spear out of his suitcase. Caustic Phoenix asks if he Mary Poppins’d it. He says he isn’t American: “Where did you think I was from?” He hurls it, and it hits. Kopy Katt: “You may lose me physically for now. But you’ll be feeling pain for years to come.” He: “Good thing I’m also a lawyer.” Thea: “It said Esquire.” Rogue: “That lore was planted.”
36. 0:56:46 — Kopy Katt’s apology gift. She knocks on the box. The shadow: “Ah, fuck, what do you want?” She apologizes for copying him: “I got a condition, you know. Doctor says… I’m going to therapy.” She commiserates about feeling confined. He: “I’m literally confined to this box.” She gives him “a brand new chest… three times the size of your regular chest,” with multiple compartments and hidden storage, the red one over there. Thea: “Oh my gosh, the souls will love that.” Shadow: “This never happens to people like me.”
37. 0:58:47 — The rusty spoon. The box pops open without the shadow, and a rusty old spoon flies out. It can “serve up a tetanus” as an extra status effect. Shadow: “Listen, this rusty spoon has served me very well in a lot of knife fights.” He was packing up anyway. He crawls out with a bag over his back and no legs, like a hermit crab changing shells, dragging himself by one hand to the new chest. The Professor: “I am taking notes… Fascinating.” Kopy Katt says it’s “all paid off” by the Lord of Fate. Shadow: “He never used to treat me this good when I was his actual shadow.” Kopy Katt: “Lord of Fate’s going to see that in the next two weeks… a purchase.” Mudcat narrates it as “what I assume is a stolen chest.”
38. 1:01:12 — The spoon attack. The Professor rolls a nat 20 on defense and gains an adrenaline. He chooses to be hit anyway and look at her: “Do you really think you go the places I go and not have your tetanus shot?” She: “I didn’t read that on your medical record yet.” “And you never shall.” Thea: “the tetanus consumed by your white blood cells.”
39. 1:02:19 — Break. The Lord of Fate wants “a drink that isn’t filled with sheep shit” from the concession stands. “Welcome back, Acolytes, to the arena, to this shithole of a tavern.” (Cut break.) Thea recaps the man-throw and table-in-fire. The Lord of Fate: “it was pretty cool when he threw that guy.”

Round 4 — Chaotic event: paper vs rock

40. 1:04:10 “Despite what the meter looks like,” a chaotic event is triggered. Thea calls him “Lord of Chaos” (“It’s Lord of Fate, but close enough”). The Lord of Fate rolls a nat 20: “Ah, feels good. Feels good being the Lord.”
41. 1:05:09 “An old wives tale is rumored to be of the mysterious power of paper… The thin slices of trees were capable of fending off the strength of stones.” The Acolytes are “all supposed to bring rocks.” The champions must build paper shields. Both fail.
42. 1:06:48 Thea flies up and summons the horde of Acolytes: “Behold! The true power of rocks because paper always sucks!” They throw boulders, magic stones, obsidian, “rocks named Sid,” gravel, and “the shoulder boulder holders.” Both take damage and a fatigue. “Never choose paper.”
43. 1:08:01 — Thea’s lie. Cervantes, “a man of honor,” corrects her math. Thea wants to go to school to be smart like the Professor. “Didn’t you just tell me today that you went to college?” “I lied.” “They didn’t accept worms. As it turns out, they didn’t like us.” The Lord of Fate: “lying to management. Okay, great.”
44. 1:09:05 — The rotary phone. All this time the Professor has been on an old-school rotary phone pulled from his suitcase, dealing with a credit advisor. With his money back he throws the phone at Kopy Katt as a power-up: “I’m back at 850.” It misses and lands in the fire, like the table. Caustic Phoenix: “you’ve mapped out a trajectory.” Thea: “That’s what I do at the bowling alley… Straight to the gutter.”
45. 1:10:45 He tries to clothesline her into the fire as a status effect (“This was all part of my plan”), and misses. Thea: “Maybe college really isn’t worth it.” The Lord of Fate: “If he can be a lawyer, anybody can.” He needs a new phone; there may be one behind the bar.
46. 1:12:18 — The credit score. Kopy Katt: “you seem to be a little heated.” (“Was that the fire pun?”) She tries to cripple his credit score. Thea says her own credit score is “around 20”. The Lord of Fate: “It’s something people made up… but it has very real consequences.” It fails: “I just got off of the line with Equifax. I have legal shield right now.”
47. 1:14:09 — Eight toes. “There’s only one thing left for me to take.” Thea: “His toes!” The Professor has eight toes, which explains his terrible balance and aim.
48. 1:14:56 — Bullshit University. Posing as his mother, “Mrs. Professor Cervantes,” Kopy Katt calls the institution that gave him his degree (“Bullshit University,” Caustic Phoenix) and reports that he has passed away. The university closes his records and sends the details, at her request, to the Waffle House in the back (“Next to a couple of crocodiles,” the Professor). He: “They do not like me at that Waffle House.” A status effect to embarrass him so he can never show his face at a Waffle House fails. He: “I have tenure.”
49. 1:17:18 Kopy Katt: “There’s a process to everything. And destroying your reputation is the number one most important thing. Wounds can heal, body parts can heal, or be replaced, but your identity is everything.” Thea writes it down. The Professor notes he could replace his missing toes.

Chaotic event 2 — the frozen chinchilla (1:18:12)

50. Thea’s 7 triggers “Chaos!” The Professor rolls the fate: 18. The fire goes out. A gigantic blizzard bursts against the windows, spreading icicles and snow. The front door opens and in comes a tiny chinchilla all by itself (the Professor backs away immediately). It begs for warmth with frozen paws, looking for a snuggle buddy.
51. 1:19:55 Both fail. They take damage and a fatigue each; Kopy Katt is at four fatigue, one away from death. The chinchilla begins to ice over, eyes glossing, until Emmery sweeps in and tucks it under his armpit. His arm is very long, so he keeps wiping the counter from a distance. “What is wrong with you two? You’re both monsters.” The Professor: “That thing is horrifying… If you’ve seen what they do.” Emmery: “If I didn’t need the money, you’d be out of here, but I do. So keep buying drinks.”
52. 1:21:29 Thea: “Another round for everyone on the Lord of Fate.” He: “What? You can’t just say that. We’re on a budget.” Thea: “don’t take back-sies.”

Round 5

53. 1:21:59 — The burning table. “If I can’t bring you to this fire, then I’m going to bring it to you.” The Professor rips the burning table out of the fireplace with his bare hands and throws it (power-up). It misses, and he throws it right back into the fireplace. Thea: “Did you just pull the table out of the fireplace only to throw it back into the fireplace?” “But it looked really cool, didn’t it?” Caustic Phoenix: “You should probably go do your lawyering instead of your fighting.”
54. 1:23:56 — The brick phone. “I shall play on your field.” He pulls out a giant 80s brick cell phone (“I’m just afraid of technology”) and calls the credit bureau to report Kopy Katt for stealing many identities. The operator: “we have several, several federal agents working on tracking down Copycat… they have an impressive record.” He shares his location and extends the antenna. Thea asks whether he realizes they’re on a different plane, and the Lord of Fate “throws you a roll of tinfoil.” The Professor: “No one can run from the IRS.”
55. 1:26:15 The agents can’t locate him (“Are you in an area with five bars of signal?”). Kopy Katt helps him find the right button. He: “I think I just hung up on them.”
56. 1:27:32 — The signature move. Kopy Katt: “I still know a whole lot about you that I don’t think even you know about.” She uses her signature move, “Interdimensional space gorilla” (“An original copycat move… it’s all mine”). Rogue: “Mudcat, I’m a little upset with you right now.” The Lord of Fate reveals that Kopy Katt’s signature move is really called “Quit Hating [Hitting?] Yourself”: it copies whatever the opponent’s is. Kopy Katt: “I can’t be the copy when I’m the original. Isn’t that right, professor?” “That is a fact.” She transforms into a gorilla, with advantage for two rounds.
57. 1:29:56 She grabs the beaten, fire-scorched table again and throws it. The exchange is not clearly captured: the Professor’s fighting spirit goes up to 14 (inferred: a high defense roll). Thea: “It’s like you’ve seen this kind of fight before.” The Professor: “that cosmic beast you’ve summoned, in order to bond with it, you have to beat it to begin with. I’ve done it many times before.” (Out-of-character innuendo follows; Thea asks for the joke to be explained. “Maybe later.”)
58. 1:31:42 — Throwing Emmery. The gorilla grabs Emmery, lifts him over her head and throws him at the Professor. It hits. Both are now at four fatigue. Because Emmery’s hand is somehow still on the bar, he and the Professor tangle in his long elbow-y arm and fall into the fire together.
59. 1:33:12 — Emmery’s face. The chinchilla hops out of the armpit (“this is enough warmth”) and drinks the gross ale in a corner. Emmery drags himself out of the fire by his arm. As he stands, his skin burns off “like a layer of paper” and reveals another face beneath: Kopy Katt’s, with the squiggly drawn eyes. He goes back to wiping the counter, staring at her. Thea: “This is the weirdest place I’ve ever brought any champions before.” Caustic Phoenix: Emmery mimics the gorilla “as if it’s like an actual mirror.”
60. 1:35:04 The Lord of Fate tells Thea to “put that thumb back on.” Thea: “I lost it the last time I chopped it off.”

Round 6 — Mother

61. 1:35:20 Thea urges him to write his name in history, “not just in some courtroom… on some TikTok.” The Lord of Fate: “You could also just stay in the fire and burn to death.”
62. 1:35:42 The Professor rises from the fire wreathed in flame. His shirt burns away to reveal “his old yet incredibly ripped body.” “As you may have copied me and my secret ability, what you don’t know is I changed it during the break.” He calls his mother: “Mommy… That wasn’t me before… it just broke my credit.” Mother: “I knew I could meet you, my fighting baby boy… I’ll sell everything. The house, my husband.” (Lord of Fate: “Don’t sell that. That would be wildly unethical.”) “I don’t need your money. I saved my money. I need your help. I need you to come out of retirement.”
63. 1:37:13 — The summons. “I’m summoning my mother… The one I learned everything from.” She rises from the fire “like many mothers do,” looking exactly like Mary Poppins, with two fists up: an incredibly ancient little old lady. Rogue plays her: “I had a gorilla for breakfast.” The Lord of Fate gives him advantage plus one for her presence. She tackles the gorilla and hits. “Mommy dearest knows how to deliver.”
64. 1:39:09 The Professor hangs out with Emmery at the bar to watch his mom beat up the bad guy. Emmery watches him watch his mom, still looking like Kopy Katt. The chinchilla watches Emmery. “It’s really unnerving.”
65. 1:39:40 Mama climbs onto the gorilla’s back and puts it in a chokehold (“Close out those breathing canals”; Thea: “Oxygen is necessary”). It fails: “My biceps aren’t what they used to be!” (speaker uncertain; inferred to be Mama).
66. 1:41:10 — “Nursing the elderly.” The gorilla throws Mama Cervantes at her son as a status effect. It hits. Emmery, right next to him: “Hey, ducks.” The Professor now takes a fighting-spirit loss each turn until he clears it.
67. 1:42:44 — Throwing Thea. “Let this tavern become a graveyard!” She spends her heroic surge to snatch Thea out of the air by her tiny arrow tail, swing her around, and throw her (“Weeeeee…”). Thea latches onto the Professor’s face like a face hugger, digging in her claws, “all nine fingers”: “I got you, you little bugger!” He’s knocked down just as he gets up from his mother. He drops to 6. The Lord of Fate: “Thea, get out of the arena. You’re not supposed to be in there.” She sulks in the rafters with the Acolytes.

Round 7

68. 1:45:45 — Mama’s rage. Madame Cervantes rips off her corset and the giant hoop dress, revealing old-lady bloomers, and roars as every muscle pops “with pure Cervantes rage.” She throws a haymaker using the Professor’s heroic surge. Kopy Katt’s gorilla form has just ended. It hits, and Kopy Katt drops to 2.
69. 1:47:52 — The Cervantes elbow. He stands on the bar: “Thank you, mother. I have it from here.” Excited for the “sheer violence” he’s waited for all match, he leaps. The fire on his body condenses onto his arm, Mama steps aside, and he drops the Cervantes elbow onto Kopy Katt’s forehead. She’s at 1. His status ticks, and he’s at 5.
70. 1:50:01 — Tag team. Kopy Katt limps to the bar, holds her hand out to Emmery (he mirrors it), and slaps it: a tag-in. “The thing about me is you can never kill me because I am everyone and I am everywhere… I have no real identity for not one is my own.” Mudcat: “Emmery is actually a changeling.” Emmery uses her last power-up to turn into the Lord of Fate. Thea: “you’re really easy to duplicate.” The Professor: “You do have that face.” The fake Lord of Fate throws a haymaker and misses. The real one: “I probably would have stopped time and just stabbed him in the throat.”
71. 1:52:42 — Goading the Lord. Kopy Katt: “Lord of Fate, why are you allowing this impersonator… why don’t you just take care of business?” Lord of Fate: “I could, everyone here knows I could… I killed the Shadow King!” (speaker inferred) “Maybe I will.” The Lord of Fate stands and flies down at Cervantes with a metal chair, using Kopy Katt’s last status effect to concuss him. It hits. “Don’t ever talk bad about me again,” he says, and snaps and poofs back to his chair. The Professor is at 3.

Round 8 — overtime

72. 1:54:18 Thea: “One of you better be dead by the end of this or I will murder you myself. This demands blood and soul and your life force itself. So snuff it out or I’ll do it for ya.” Emmery turns back into Kopy Katt, and the two shrug at Thea in unison.
73. 1:54:57 — The flying knee. “I’ve seen your capacity, not just for violence, but for cunning and guile. Now I wish to understand your capacity for death.” He throws a flying knee at the Kopy Katt the chinchilla isn’t comfortable with, the one that hangs near the Emmery-like one. “It knows the scent… I work with animals.” It misses: he knees himself into the fire. “That was all according to plan.” Caustic Phoenix: “You have terrible plans!”
74. 1:56:39 — The briefcase. On fire again, he grabs the briefcase he’s had all match, never opens it, passes it through the fireplace to set it ablaze, and swings it. It misses. Thea: “Your stamina is showing. Perhaps you’re a little older than you thought.” Both statuses (the nursing and the chair concussion) tick, leaving him at 1. Thea: “You should have gone into retirement. Go back and stick with the crocodiles.”
75. 1:58:24 — The slipper. Emmery changes into Mama Cervantes, still in bloomers with her corset ripped away. She takes the slipper off her foot and slaps at the Professor. The first swing misses. “She has two feet. You unruly child.” The second hits. “The slipper gets lifted, and it shines perfectly right in the bar lights above. Almost like a halo. And comes slamming down like retribution… In slow motion.”
76. 2:00:23 — Death. “Cervantes looks at the slipper, looks at the visage of his mother, and sighs, I had a dream it would end like this.” He’s knocked flying across the bar, back into the fireplace once again. Thea: “Fare thee well, Cervantes.”
77. 2:00:56 — Victory. The Lord of Fate: “Good job. I liked the way that you killed him, and I did not like as much the way that you impersonated me… You win.” He has “more important things to do” and leaves. Thea makes a small pink-dust tornado, the tavern ceiling vanishes, and the Acolytes look down on the victory, raising their number twos. “You can take on anyone because you are everyone. You are exactly what we look for in this deathmatch. Welcome and good night from D20 Deathmatch.”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

In character (canon, Dried Blood):

• 2:11:25 — The final view (Kat). Kopy Katt bows graciously, and the chinchilla runs up and hops into her arms to be petted. “The chinchilla didn’t really like copycat. So… Is that really copycat?” She is wiping the bar with one hand. “We still can’t tell the difference.” Rogue adds that the spot has a small dent in the wood, polished from wiping.
• 2:12:59 — Cervantes’s advice: “do not throw things into a fireplace. That is not good… a fire hazard. Also, be kind to your mother because she will, or at least a changeling doppelganger of her will beat you into oblivion.”
• 2:13:32 — Kopy Katt’s advice (“well, not really Copycat, maybe”): “don’t try and be anybody else because you are the best version of yourself and no one can take that away from you, no matter how hard they try.”

Out of character (creator notes):

• Mudcat’s lore drop: Emmery is a changeling character Mudcat played previously, who ran a bar where he hid out and gathered intel. Since Kopy Katt is “a changeling of sorts,” Mudcat used him in her first match so it could be lore-dropped later. Mudcat: “I’m sure we’ll be back to Emery’s Tavern at some point.”
• Rogue: none of Cervantes’s finances or backstory was planned. He planned a full-on brawler, and loved that it went the opposite way. He had “I have tenure” queued from the start, hoping she’d go for his credentials and fail.
• Kat: Kopy Katt “doesn’t really have her own identity so she takes everybody else’s.” She tried to repeat lines word for word. Once he opened with throwing things, she chose to “fight him a different way.”
• Caustic Phoenix: going first isn’t always best; it depends on the character.
• Kat expected the Lord of Fate to bring the chair down on her. Mudcat: the Lord of Fate is “not like the Shadow King… he’d like you to believe that he’s above proving himself, but compelled to prove himself.”
• Past records (speakers uncertain): someone’s “last fight I just kind of stood there and watched.” Rogue: “two losses in one win total.” Kat: “my one win, my character died at the end… because Shadow King killed my character last time, even though I had won the fight.” Mudcat: “season four, only the Shadow King really won.”
• Mudcat’s highlight was Thea trying to rip a face off.