S5E11 — Appliance Adversaries — Atlas v Frigidoom

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Two machines met in The Chinchilla Forest with every intention of killing each other, and almost immediately started hugging instead. Atlas, a mouthless automaton freshly dragged back from death, faced Frigidoom, a giant irradiated 1950s refrigerator full of living leftovers. The fight became a deranged buddy story: acid hugs, a hamster in a ball, an orange mushroom cloud of Double Sun Cola, pepperoni nipples, and a finish nobody quite knew how to score.

The Story

The Missing Chinchilla

The night began deep beneath The Dread Fortress. Lava churned outside, but the fortress itself was cool and damp. In the caverns below its dungeons, at the far end of a hallowed hall, a gathering of chinchillas waited. Thea counted them over and over and kept getting six out of seven. She was preparing them for a sabbatical and bowed to the Lord of Fate, and the chinchillas bowed after her in a little wave.

The Lord of Fate walked in holding the seventh chinchilla by the scruff. “Why are the chinchillas running free in the Dread Fortress?” he asked. He reminded Thea that she had been put in charge of them: feeding them, walking them, unionizing them. Thea protested that they poop a lot. He was unmoved: “I’m running an entire realm. I can’t be dealing with the chinchilla poop.” Thea stomped her feet in a pout, and the chinchillas stomped theirs right along with her. She checked her notes, decided “It was only ever seven,” and collected the stray, a plump gray chinchilla holding a small cigarette.

Her plan was efficient, at least by Thea standards. The Deathmatch was being held in the Chinchilla Forest, so she would release the chinchillas there. She swore she had also finished everything on the to-do chart hanging in the fridge “that I know how to read.” Then she clapped, a big pink portal lit the dungeon, and she welcomed the night’s champions.

Cheese Products and Complaints

Frigidoom’s first question, on spotting the chinchillas, was “Are these snacks?” Thea threw herself in front of them and shuffled side to side like a small crab: “These are no snacks!” There was no pre-match meal either, because Thea had been busy with the chinchillas.

Atlas arrived staring at his own palms. “Atlas is back. I died. I saw eternity and was one with it. Hell is real even for automatons. Why have I been pulled back into this realm of pain and struggle?” The Lord of Fate’s answer: “Mostly because we were bored.” Atlas had died in his last battle, against Killy Yesman, the salesperson of Double Sun Cola.

By way of consolation, Thea stuck a still-wrapped slice of processed cheese to Atlas’s chest. Atlas has no mouth, which is a very sore spot, and she laid a second slice over his right foot as a shoe. The Lord of Fate recalled Atlas drinking a healthy amount of Double Sun Cola and wondered why he hadn’t grown a mouth. Atlas reached for a phantom mouth with a horrible creaking of metal until Thea begged him to stop.

Frigidoom got a cheese slice too, and accepted it graciously: “This makes up for the last battle where that smelly samurai cut my mustache rainbow. I accept this rotten gift.” Thea said the mustache had grown back nicely; he explained he’d had to put it back together with some old yogurt. The Lord of Fate declared himself very interested to see how two mechanical individuals would kill each other.

The chinchillas lined up at Thea’s clap. Atlas adjusted a ginger-striped one slightly to the right, patted its head and strode to the front. Frigidoom, being a giant fridge, shuffled to the back. They filed into an immense pine forest, its scent described apparently just for the Acolytes, since Atlas has no nose either. Frigidoom asked whether the forest, as green as his arms, was toxic. Atlas leaned down, consulted a bush, and reported: “your mother, this is a very toxic forest.”

Frigidoom then tried to file a complaint. Thea said they didn’t take those. The Lord of Fate pointed out that taking complaints was literally her job: “How are we supposed to make the Deathmatch better if we’re not taking feedback? This is basic level Arbiter stuff.” Thea simply glared at Frigidoom.

Thea: “You can leave a complaint if you survive this match. I hope you don’t.”

The Lord of Fate rose and flared his wings. The Acolytes filled the sky in an ethereal crowd, spilling blue slushies, starting fights and failing to chant “Frigidoom” because it had too many syllables.

A Very Violent Friendship

Frigidoom struck first, turning Thea’s cheese slice into a razor-sharp shuriken of ultra-pasteurized cheese (“My American cheese!”). Magnetic lightning crackled down Atlas’s arms and yanked him aside, and the cheese buried itself in a tree. Frigidoom admitted that was really cool. Atlas, fists raised, replied that “fridges are supposed to be cool.” Frigidoom was so smelly and gross that nobody had ever complimented him before, and he covered his face, flustered.

He decided he might have a friend, and went in for a hug. This was a problem, because everyone Frigidoom had hugged before had dissolved into the food mass inside him. “As we are both two beings made of metal, perhaps we need not meet as enemies, but friends,” he said, oozing forward on a sizzling trail. The acid only ate the grime off Atlas and polished him shinier than before. Atlas hugged back with crushing magnetic force, “mutual crushing, but it’s still very affectionate.” Frigidoom squeezed again, the rotting heart in his chest beating so hard his door nearly burst off. He felt warm for the first time in his irradiated life. Atlas answered with a shockwave that blew the leaves off the trees. On the sidelines, Thea squeezed a chinchilla until its eyes bulged, slobbering and snotting into its fur.

“Quit hugging each other,” the Lord of Fate snapped. “You’re supposed to kill each other.”

Atlas promised his “mechanical brethren” that there was another side, and that “we will chase the rainbow together.” Then he opened the fridge door and punched inside to rip out the festering thing within. His fist stuck fast in what was essentially pudding. Glowing cylinders twisted out of his forearm and burned from yellow to white-hot, and he blasted lightning straight down his trapped arm. “Are we literally trying to touch each other’s hearts right now?” Frigidoom wondered. “Is this what friendship is like?” Two attacks went nowhere. The third caught Frigidoom badly off guard and launched him bouncing across the forest floor into a tree. The smell of deep-fried rotten food was so bad that the chinchillas fanned it away with leaves and Thea vomited behind a bush.

Chaos then hit twice over. A silver saucer beamed both champions up and probed them (“I did not sign a waiver,” said Atlas; “I don’t know if this is covered in warranty,” said Frigidoom). Then Pooka Pooka, a hamster in a plastic ball sworn to destroy the world that caged him, came crashing through the trees. Atlas dodged and gave up his own move to try to save his new friend, but his fingers couldn’t grip a perfect sphere. Pooka Pooka flattened Frigidoom and rolled off into the distance. “I’ll get you next time, giant hamster.”

The Double Sun Rises

Frigidoom thanked Atlas for trying and vowed to touch his heart in return. Frozen chicken, marshmallow salad and fuzzy expired clotted cream formed a giant hand that slid between Atlas’s plates. Inside, among the gears, it found a canister of fluid, decided it was a soda can, and shook it. The canister was Double Sun Cola, “the most refreshing of colas that you can buy on this or any Deathmatch world.” Atlas’s clockwork revved, his eyes crackled orange, and a lightning mohawk sprang up. He became ten times more radical.

“I am so pumped up and ready to open this fridge and open up a can of whoop-ass that you’ve got right inside you, brother,” rad Atlas announced. Frigidoom shook harder and Atlas overloaded, popping a few bolts and losing a pinky. “Don’t worry about it, man! It’s just a finger!”

Then Atlas let the cola flow through his entire body. The mohawk evolved into a lightning mo-mullet. “Have you tried Double Sun Cola, baby? It’ll make you a new man!” he whispered. His chest opened to show two blazing suns and a soda bottle, and he held Frigidoom in a loving embrace: “Feel the sun, brother.” The hit cost Atlas some of his own strength and landed with enormous force. An almost nuclear blast of orange fluid rose over the canopy, staining the clouds and raining orange onto the trees.

Frigidoom stood in the crater with his pastel-blue casing shattered. Inside were soaked fizzy bits, a tiny beating green heart and a couple of Cheetos. He drank in the cola and became something new: a fizzy, Tang-orange muscle man. Atlas hauled him up by the arm like a wrestling champion: “Welcome to the rad side.” Thea ran about licking the orange mist off the leaves and the chinchillas, shrieking, “I want two suns! I want to be rad! I want to be so fucking cool too!” The Lord of Fate leapt up applauding: “This is perfect!… You get it! You have to kill him! You have to kill him dead!” The mist had also reached the stands and turned every Acolyte into a ripped, mohawked, mulleted mess, so he called a break to let them cool off.

A Chair, a Box and a Very Rad Chinchilla

After the break, Thea complained that she couldn’t remember the show she’d watched. The Lord of Fate conceded that he “didn’t design it much for remembering,” which was really his fault. Thea wondered aloud whether blaming him made her more powerful than him, and another star faded from her forehead (“Not again!”). When she then hid behind Atlas’s leg and declared him her champion, the Lord of Fate folded up his metal chair, stopped time, and appeared behind her. “I didn’t want to do this. You’re embarrassing me in front of all of the acolytes.” He beat her into the ground with the chair, unfroze time and sat back down.

From the Thea-shaped hole, three tiny fingers rose: “Round number three.” The Box of Chaos, giant and pink, fell from the sky like a meteor straight onto Thea, crushing her deeper into the earth. Pink and red flames poured out, and a shadowy hand emerged.

Frigidoom spent a moment basking in his new form and grew even more magnificent: veins, sunglasses, a mane of golden spaghetti hair, a Speedo, frosting-trimmed wrestling boots and two pepperonis for nipples. Somewhere a Geiger counter ticked out of control. He realised he looked like a pizza and leaned into it, swinging a stuffed-crust arm marked with five peppers to show how hot it was. Atlas blocked it at the perfect moment with a natural 20. “Nice punch, pepperoni nipples,” the Lord of Fate called. “These Scovilles aren’t done yet,” Frigidoom shot back. His radioactive sweat withered the grass into a wasteland, so the chinchillas would need a new home. The next cheesy punch landed with the sound of a gong.

Atlas turned to the Box. Asked whether he was a solicitor, he replied, “I am soliciting nothing but pain for my opponent.” He had left his wallet in his other mechanical pants, so he offered the most radical chinchilla ever seen instead: novelty “2000” glasses, tattoo sleeves, snap bracelets and forty limited-edition pogs. The figure with yellow eyes accepted. The chinchilla climbed onto its shoulder, and the lid shut.

Out floated a gloriously tacky plastic cup, and a waterfall of blue slushy poured from the sky to fill it. “I do not have a mouth! God damn it, every time!” So Atlas lifted the Box off Thea, shoved the cup into her arms, spun his torso like a cyclone and hurled them both into Frigidoom. Thea lodged halfway through him, coated in radical slime. The blue slushy mixed with his orange and turned him pukey green, the exact colour of Thea’s earlier vomit. “What? Little lady, what did you do to me?” Atlas tried a clothesline, reworked it into a high five, and fumbled it badly. Frigidoom turned the high five into a handshake and then an arm lock.

Still wedged in the fridge, Thea said it was better than the car wash the Lord of Fate had put her through, which led to a sudden argument over whether Thea is people. “I am people!” she insisted, brows furrowed. The Lord of Fate blamed hot dogs: “don’t ever let them eat hot dogs because then all of a sudden they think that they’re people.” Atlas, who has no mouth, was declared “the best kind of people,” and Thea sat cross-legged in the middle of the fight wearing her thinking face.

Hot Dogs and the Double Sun Nova

Frigidoom, who had only ever had off-brand sodas, now craved the Double Sun at Atlas’s core. “Now Frigidoom’s a junkie,” the Lord of Fate observed. Two hot dogs shot from Frigidoom’s palms, linked by toxic mozzarella into ballpark nunchucks. He would have preferred Nathan’s, so Thea scoured the crowd for a small child named Nathan, then snatched another hot dog from someone named Judy to make the nunchucks longer. With twenty peppers now blazing on his biceps, Frigidoom gouged open Atlas’s chest and exposed the shining cola core.

Atlas sagged, arms limp, then lifted his head and gestured to the Acolytes, who chanted his name. His core soaked up the habanero heat and turned the cola bright red. He announced a brand-new product from Double Sun Cola: “Then let me give you a taste of the sun. As it goes Nova, baby! Double Sun Nova punch!” It landed. “Hot dog, hot damn,” Frigidoom gasped. “Reminds me of when I was just a tiny little toaster,” Atlas told him, before vowing that “Atlas is unbreakable.”

He anchored himself, coiled back and hurled himself headfirst into the ground to detonate a cola geyser beneath his foe. Frigidoom didn’t run. He opened himself wide and drank the whole thing, turning neon and glowing almost like a sun. Atlas, emptied out, lost his mohawk and was suddenly his old logical self: “I feel funny. Why am I in the dirt?” Told that Frigidoom was right where he’d left him, he answered: “Unsettling. Then come, let us finish this.”

Thea traded her half-eaten hot dog to the Box and got a blade holding a piece of The Shadow King’s soul. Each strike would heal its wielder but weigh heavily on their mind. The Lord of Fate had no idea how it got in there; it was from his private collection. Thea could barely lift it, swung once, and tossed it aside: “Stupid Shadow King blade, I think it’s dumb.”

Rad Never Dies

Frigidoom saw that his friend was no longer radical, and decided that had to be fixed before anything else. “Atlas, stop acting like you don’t have a mouth and speak from your heart.” From somewhere deep inside the automaton came a strained “brother,” and an ethereal hand reached out to be tagged in. A newly radicalized Thea, with blonde hair, sunglasses and a thick mustache, whipped up the crowd: “Hey there, brother! Do you want Atlas to become rad?” The Acolytes chanted “Rad! Rad! Rad!”

With a chinchilla named Concordae at his side, Frigidoom poured everything he had into Atlas’s core to make him permanently radical. “You tried to save me from that hamster, and I’m going to save you from yourself.” Atlas resisted (“No, stop. This is not sensible”), then gave in completely (“Yeah, baby! Yeah!”) as the lightning and mo-mullet roared back. All the neon drained out of Frigidoom until he was a little green blob. Atlas knelt and scooped him up: “I’m here, brother, I’m right here.” Frigidoom asked him to win for them both and to kick that weeaboo samurai’s ass for him.

Atlas poured one out for the homies, poured his friend into a bottle of Double Sun Cola, and placed it inside his chest beside his heart. Then he began gathering up the fridge pieces so he could rebuild him. “Don’t worry, brother. What the folks at home don’t know… is that Rad never dies and that the fridge is always filled with leftovers for next time.”

The Lord of Fate was briefly lost for words. Was it technically a win? Thea settled it: “We have the technology! They can rebuild him!… It’s a win for Atlas! It’s a win for the Acolytes! And it’s a win for being rad!” She sent a glitter bomb spiralling up to the Acolytes, then announced a refrigerator donation drive for leftover fridges, which the Lord of Fate approved (“We like a Lord of Fate that recycles”).

Dried Blood

Frigidoom’s final words came from inside Atlas’s chest: “Pour one out for your homies.” The advice that came with it: do it outside to save on cleanup. Atlas’s last word as champion summed up the whole affair: “Friendship is unbreakable.”

Notable Moments

• Frigidoom’s attempt to kill Atlas with an acid hug only polished him.
• Shaking Atlas’s heart revealed it was a canister of Double Sun Cola, and Atlas became ten times more radical.
• An orange near-nuclear cola explosion dyed the sky and forest and gave every Acolyte a mohawk and mullet.
• The Lord of Fate stopped time to beat Thea into the ground with a folding chair, and the Box of Chaos then landed on top of her.
• Atlas paid the Box with the most radical chinchilla ever seen.
• Instead of killing him, Frigidoom spent his last strength making Atlas permanently rad, and ended up bottled in his friend’s chest.

Memorable Quotes

• Atlas: “Atlas is back. I died. I saw eternity and was one with it. Hell is real even for automatons.”
• Atlas: “Fridges are supposed to be cool.”
• Frigidoom: “As we are both two beings made of metal, perhaps we need not meet as enemies, but friends.”
• The Lord of Fate: “Quit hugging each other. You’re supposed to kill each other.”
• Atlas: “Have you tried Double Sun Cola, baby? It’ll make you a new man!”
• The Lord of Fate: “Nice punch, pepperoni nipples.”
• Thea: “I am people!”
• Atlas: “Rad never dies and that the fridge is always filled with leftovers for next time.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Atlas (Dag / DeadAussieGamer). A huge, lumbering automaton with grey metal plating. He is logical and formal when sober and a wrestler-voiced “brother” when radical.

• Body:
  • No mouth (a very sore spot) and no nose.
  • Gears and cogs inside; his heart is a canister of Double Sun Cola, which flows through his body.
  • Magnetic lightning bolts run along his shoulders and arms, and a power gauntlet holds glowing cylinders that overheat for energy blasts.
  • When the cola is shaken or released he becomes “radical”: a lightning mohawk that evolves into a lightning mo-mullet, orange-crackling eyes, and a sun-and-bottle emblem on his chest.
• Lore and history:
  • He died in his last battle (“I saw eternity… Hell is real even for automatons”) and was brought back “because we were bored.”
  • The Lord of Fate recalls him drinking a lot of Double Sun Cola.
  • Was once “a tiny little toaster.”
  • Has an assistant: a tiny paperclip that sasses him.
• In this episode:
  • Lost a pinky.
  • Traded the radical chinchilla to the Box of Chaos.
  • Was made permanently radical by Frigidoom’s signature move.
  • Won. He now carries Frigidoom bottled in his chest next to his heart and is collecting the fridge pieces to rebuild him.

Frigidoom (Kyle / KidCalrissian). A giant, irradiated retro 1950s pastel-blue refrigerator full of a living, gelatinous food mass.

• Body and habits:
  • Green jello arms and acidic tendrils.
  • A rainbow mustache, which a “smelly samurai” cut in his last battle; he glued it back with old yogurt.
  • Leaves a sizzling trail. Smelly and gross, and had never been complimented or hugged before.
  • Has had off-brand sodas like “Doctor Lightning,” never Double Sun Cola before this fight.
• Transformations this episode:
  • His casing was shattered.
  • He became a Tang-orange muscle man, then a pizza-like wrestler with spaghetti hair, pepperoni nipples, a Speedo and frosting-trimmed boots, radioactive.
  • The slushy turned him pukey green; then neon and sun-like; then he drained to a green ooze, now in a bottle inside Atlas.
• Grudge: wants Atlas to beat “that Kyle… weeaboo samurai” and his princess wife (“Princess Sokka,” “uwu princess wife”).

Thea (Caustic Phoenix). The Lord of Fate’s small assistant, with tiny pink feet and three tiny fingers. She flies.

• Duties:
  • In charge of the Dread Fortress chinchillas (feeding, walking, unionizing, poop).
  • A to-do chart on the fridge, which she can’t fully read.
  • Taking complaints (“basic level Arbiter stuff”), which she doesn’t do.
  • Arranging the pre-match meal, which she forgot.
• Stars on her forehead: the Lord of Fate takes them away; she lost two this episode, “not many” left.
• The Lord of Fate: says he “designed” her and didn’t design her for remembering, and that she is “not people.” She insists “I am people!”; he blames hot dogs. He once put her through a car wash.
• In this episode:
  • Beaten into the ground with his metal chair, then crushed under the Box of Chaos.
  • Thrown through Frigidoom by Atlas.
  • Got the Shadow King’s blade and threw it away.
  • Radicalized: blonde hair, sunglasses, mustache.
• Watched “Bessie and the Cowdettes” part one at 20× speed.

The Lord of Fate (Mudcat). Rules the Deathmatch from a folding metal chair; has wings. “I’m running an entire realm.”

• Powers: can stop time and step through portals. Summons the Box of Chaos through Thea.
• Keeps a “private collection” that includes a blade holding a piece of the Shadow King’s soul; he doesn’t know how it got into the Box.
• Sided with Atlas after the big hit. Approves of recycling.

The shadowy figure in the Box of Chaos (Mudcat). Has yellow eyes. It accepted the radical chinchilla, which now sits on its shoulder, and ate Thea’s half-eaten hot dog.

The chinchillas. Seven of them, kept in the Dread Fortress caverns and released into the Chinchilla Forest for a “sabbatical.” They mimic Thea.

• A plump grey one with a cigarette.
• A ginger-striped one.
• The radical chinchilla: “2000” glasses, tattoo sleeves, snap bracelets, 40 limited-edition pogs. Given to the Box.
• “Concordae”, who helped Frigidoom.
• A group is “a herd” (stated with confidence by Atlas).

Pooka Pooka the hamster. Rampages through the Chinchilla Forest in his plastic ball, swearing “to destroy the world that caged him.” He rolled off into the distance.

Off-screen characters:

• Killy Yesman: the Double Sun Cola salesperson Atlas fought before (Dried Blood, out of character).
• Judy: someone Thea snatched a hot dog from (unclear).
• “A small child named Nathan”: a joke.

Places

• The Dread Fortress (surrounded by lava, cool and damp inside): its dungeons and, lower still, caverns with a “hallowed hall” where the chinchillas are kept.
• The Chinchilla Forest (“we return to Chinchilla Forest,” per the YouTube blurb): a lush pine forest.
  • After this fight it is stained orange.
  • Part of it is decayed into a radioactive wasteland by Frigidoom’s sweat, so the chinchillas need a new home.
  • Pooka Pooka knocked down trees, and there are two craters (the blast and Atlas’s geyser hole).

Items

• Double Sun Cola: “the most refreshing of colas that you can buy on this or any Deathmatch world.” Its new spicy variant is “Double Sun [Savice?].”
• Kraft-single “cheese product” slices (Thea’s gifts), including the cheese shuriken.
• The Box of Chaos: a giant pink box with pink and red flames that trades random items for something of value.
• The rad plastic cup: blue and pink triangles, green squiggles; it summons a blue-slushy waterfall that clears fatigue when it gets inside you.
• The blade holding a piece of the Shadow King’s soul: heals per strike but adds fatigue; from the Lord of Fate’s private collection; discarded by Thea.
• The ballpark nunchucks (hot dogs linked by toxic mozzarella).
• The bottle holding Frigidoom, kept in Atlas’s chest.
• The Lord of Fate’s folding metal chair.
• The fridge to-do chart.

Lore statements

• Double Sun Cola is sold “on this or any Deathmatch world.”
• The Lord of Fate says he designed Thea.
• Chinchillas live in the Dread Fortress; Thea is to unionize them.
• The Acolytes drink blue slushies in the stands. They were turned into mohawked, mulleted, ripped versions by the orange mist.
• “Rad never dies… the fridge is always filled with leftovers for next time.” (Atlas)

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — the chinchillas in the Dread Fortress caverns

1. 0:06:10 Caustic Phoenix narrates: in the Dread Fortress, with “the hot, hot lava splurging all around,” the fortress itself is cool and damp. Deep in the bowels of its dungeons, lower still in the caverns, at the far end of “this hallowed hall,” there is a large gathering of chinchillas.
2. 0:06:38 Thea counts the chinchillas over and over and keeps getting six of seven. She is preparing them for their “[four?] sabbatical.” She bows to the Lord of Fate, and the chinchillas bow after her in a wave.
3. 0:07:11 The Lord of Fate walks in holding the seventh chinchilla by the back of the neck. “Why are the chinchillas running free in the Dread Fortress?” Thea says she was collecting the ones “signed up for sabbatical this particular month.”
4. 0:07:29 He reminds her that when they got the chinchillas, she was put in charge of them: feed them, take them out, “unionize them.” She protests that they poop a lot. He replies: “I’m running an entire realm. I can’t be dealing with the chinchilla poop.”
5. 0:07:52 Thea pouts and stomps her feet, and the chinchillas copy her, kicking up their own dust. She checks her notes (“Was there supposed to be seven or eight?”) and decides “It was only ever seven.” She flies over and takes the plump little gray chinchilla, which is holding a small cigarette.
6. 0:08:33 He suggests gates or small doors to keep them in. Thea explains she is doubling up on chores: since the Deathmatch is in the Chinchilla Forest, she’ll release the chinchillas there.
7. 0:08:57 Thea swears she cleaned the floors and did “everything else on that to-do list chart that’s hanging in the fridge that I know how to read.”
8. 0:09:14 She claps, and a big pink portal lights the dungeon in pink. “Help me welcome two amazing champions, Frigidoom and Atlas!”
9. 0:10:08 Frigidoom: “Are these snacks?” Thea gets in front of the chinchillas and dances side to side like a small crab: “These are no snacks!”
10. 0:10:24 No craft services. The Lord of Fate asks whether Thea set up a pre-match meal (“One last meal for one of you”). She had to take care of the chinchillas.
11. 0:10:46 — Atlas returns. Atlas is staring at his palms: “Atlas is back. I died. I saw eternity and was one with it. Hell is real even for automatons. Why have I been pulled back into this realm of pain and struggle?” Lord of Fate: “Mostly because we were bored.”
12. 0:11:17 — The cheese. Thea sticks a Kraft single, still wrapped, against Atlas’s chest. (Caustic Phoenix, as narrator: “I thought we weren’t using those anymore because they’re not real cheese.”) Atlas has no mouth, “a very sore spot.” Thea lays a second slice over his right foot “as a shoe covering.”
13. 0:11:48 The Lord of Fate: “I seem to remember you drinking a healthy amount of Double Sun Cola. Didn’t you get a mouth?” Atlas reaches for a phantom mouth with a straining, creaking-metal noise. Thea: “I don’t like that. Please stop that.”
14. 0:12:20 Thea slaps a cheese slice onto Frigidoom like a magnet: “it’s a cheese product. I’m sorry, here’s your cheese product.”
15. 0:12:38 — The mustache. Frigidoom: “This makes up for the last battle where that smelly samurai cut my mustache rainbow. I accept this rotten gift.” Thea says it’s grown back nicely. “I had to put it back together with some old yogurt. It’s dried up into a nice paste.” He rubs it proudly with his green jello arms.
16. 0:13:06 Thea: “They’re not lactose intolerant, at least… who wants to be killed by milk?… Stronger than dairy.” The Lord of Fate is “interested to see how two mechanical individuals are going to kill each other.”
17. 0:13:44 — The line. At Thea’s clap the seven chinchillas form a strict line. A ginger-striped chinchilla catches Atlas’s eye, so Atlas picks it up, moves it slightly right, pats its head and walks to the front. Frigidoom, “obviously a giant fridge,” has been told the chinchillas can’t go into “the contents of his guts.” He goes to the back because he’s slow.

The Chinchilla Forest

19. 0:14:52 They file through into an immense, lush forest; pine fills the air. Caustic Phoenix asks whether either of them can smell. Atlas: “I have no nose either.” Caustic Phoenix: “This is for apparently just the acolytes that I’m describing the [smell] for.”
20. 0:15:28 Frigidoom: “This forest looks as green as my arms. Is this a toxic forest?” Thea: only if you’re allergic to the outdoors. Atlas leans down and asks a bush, and reports: “your mother, this is a very toxic forest.”
21. 0:16:04 — The complaint. Frigidoom wants to file a complaint. Thea: “We don’t take those.” The Lord of Fate: Thea is the one people submit complaints to, and she’s supposed to bring them to him. “How are we supposed to make the Deathmatch better if we’re not taking feedback? This is basic level Arbiter stuff.” Thea: “But I don’t care what they think.” It was on the to-do list she didn’t read. “I promise you’ll forget all about this.” She glares at Frigidoom: “You can leave a complaint if you survive this match. I hope you don’t.”
22. 0:17:18 The Lord of Fate stands from his chair and flares his wings. The Acolytes form an ethereal crowd in the sky, spilling blue slushies, starting fights, and failing to chant “Frigidoom” because it has too many syllables. “Acolytes! Are you ready for some blood? … Are you ready for some mechanical components?”
23. 0:18:08 Thea objects that a “flat d20” isn’t flat (“20 flat sides”). Frigidoom wins initiative (17 v 5).

Round 1 — friendship

24. 0:18:28 Frigidoom: “If you have no mouth, how can you speak?” Atlas: “the same paradox… as to how you are able to think without a brain.” Frigidoom: “I feel like I’ve just been damaged.”
25. 0:19:02 — The cheese shuriken. Frigidoom’s sticky arms turn Thea’s cheese slice into a razor-sharp shuriken of processed, ultra-pasteurized cheese. He whips it like a Frisbee “made of lactose death.” Thea: “My American cheese!” It misses. Magnetic lightning bolts run from Atlas’s shoulders to his wrists and pull his bulk sideways, and the shuriken slices into a tree.
26. 0:20:33 Frigidoom: “I’m not gonna lie, that was really cool.” Atlas, fists up: “fridges are supposed to be cool.” Frigidoom covers his face, flattered. Kyle explains that he’s “so smelly and gross,” so he has never been complimented.
27. 0:21:05 — The hug. Frigidoom thinks he may have a friend, and goes in for a hug. He “knows how to eat… how to grapple.” Anyone he has hugged before has “dissolved into the food mass that is his inner self.” Thea watches sadly. He drags his gooey body, leaving a bubbling, sizzling trail. “As we are both two beings made of metal, perhaps we need not meet as enemies, but friends.” It’s an acidic hug: good intentions, but still an attack.
28. 0:22:37 It fails (a dirty 20 to defend). The acid eats the filthy organic matter caked on Atlas and polishes his chassis shinier than before. Atlas hugs back with magnetic lightning: “mutual crushing, but it’s still very affectionate.” Frigidoom: “Oh, this kind of tickles.” He sounds like a walrus because the magnets are messing with his ice-machine motor.
29. 0:24:02 Frigidoom doubles down. The organic food matter that has “become a beating heart” inside his retro-50s cooling chest beats so hard the fridge door threatens to burst off. “He feels warm for the first time in his irradiated life.” The second squeeze also fails. Atlas narrates a shockwave of pressure that blows the leaves off the trees. Frigidoom: “I appreciate all of this friendship so much.” Kyle calls it a “Mortal Kombat friendship.”
30. 0:26:02 Thea squeezes a chinchilla far too tightly, its eyes popping; it squeaks like a squeeze toy and bats at her face while she slobbers and snots into its fur.
31. 0:26:25 The Lord of Fate: “Quit hugging each other. You’re supposed to kill each other.”
32. 0:26:34 — Atlas’s reply. “Despite being separated by death, by fate, and even by manufacturing lines, we have been forced to this place to do deadly battle. Rest assured there is another side, my mechanical brethren. And I will show it to you. And we will chase the rainbow together.” He opens the fridge door and punches into the mass to rip out the festering thing inside. It misses: his fist clogs in “Play-Doh,” and the mass shapes itself around his joints and seams. He is “stuck in pudding.” (Dag: “a non-Newtonian fluid.”)
33. 0:28:42 — The energy blast. With his hand stuck, glowing yellow cylinders twist out of Atlas’s forearm and overheat from yellow to orange to red to sizzling white, then slam back in. All his lightning is pushed down his fist for an energy blast inside Frigidoom. Frigidoom: “Are we literally trying to touch each other’s hearts right now?… Are we tickling each other now? Is this what friendship is like?” That attack misses too. Thea: “tickle him harder.”
34. 0:30:15 Atlas keeps the energy flowing; his fist is white-hot. On the third attack Frigidoom rolls a natural 1 to defend (“It’s not going to be a repeat of the last fight, is it?”). The gel inside him bubbles and liquefies, and the blast launches Frigidoom bouncing across the forest floor into a tree. “Oh, my stomach doesn’t feel so good.” The spent canisters eject from Atlas’s hand like a shotgun being cocked.
35. 0:31:52 The deep-fried, super-cooked rotten food stinks. The chinchillas grab the biggest leaves they can to fan it away (“office nightmare kitchen… somebody microwaves fish”). Thea hops behind a bush and vomits: “I need a drink of water though, for sure.”

End of round 1 — double chaos

37. 0:33:42 — The silver saucer. Frigidoom rolls 8: “zip, zap, zoom from the depths of outer space,” a UFO beams both champions up. “Roll to avoid being probed.” Atlas: “Oh no, I do have that orifice.” Both fail. Atlas: “I did not sign a waiver.” Frigidoom: “I don’t know if this is covered in warranty.”
38. 0:34:32 — Pooka Pooka. The Acolytes had already triggered a chaotic event, so the round deals double chaos. Atlas rolls 5: “Pooka Pooka, the hamster, the invader of the chinchilla force, has escaped,” crashing through trees in his plastic ball and swearing “to destroy the world that caged him.” (Caustic Phoenix: “He’s like Armstrong. He only has one ball.”) Atlas passes. Frigidoom fails.
39. 0:35:53 Atlas gives up an action next round so Frigidoom can reroll with advantage. Thea: “You’ve got a chance to develop friendship, you loser!” Atlas grabs at the ball, but his fingers can’t grip a perfect sphere, and it runs Frigidoom over anyway. Frigidoom: “Everything is so fried and now there’s a giant hamster. None of this makes any sense.” Pooka Pooka rolls off into the distance. “I’ll get you next time, giant hamster.”

Round 2 — the Double Sun Cola heart

40. 0:37:31 Frigidoom: “I’ve been overly cooked and run over by a hamster. This is not my day.” He thanks Atlas for trying to save him, and will “return the favor… and try to touch your heart.”
41. 0:37:58 The right side of the fridge bulges. Frozen chicken, marshmallow salad and long-expired clotted cream (“fuzzy little black spots”) form a giant hand that lunges for the gaps in Atlas’s plating. It hits: “You’ve touched my heart and I’m going to touch yours.”
42. 0:39:22 Inside Atlas are gears and cogs, and at his heart is a cylindrical canister of fluid. Frigidoom’s “slimy Dorito finger jelly” clogs the gears, grabs the canister and decides it’s a soda can, so he shakes it “to feel that bubbly sensation of warmth and friendship.”
43. 0:40:21 He powers up the second shake. Atlas defends with a natural 20, but Dag narrates that the shaking still works on him. “Inside of Atlas’s heart is a canister of nothing more than Double Sun Cola, the most refreshing of colas that you can buy on this or any Deathmatch world.” His gears go from logical clockwork to a revving Hot Wheel, his eyes crackle orange, and a lightning mohawk forms. Atlas “becomes 10 times more radical.”
44. 0:41:45 Rad Atlas: “I am so pumped up and ready to open this fridge and open up a can of whoop-ass that you’ve got right inside you, brother.”
45. 0:42:02 Frigidoom: “Yes, this is what I wanted. This is joy and friendship. More, more.” His third shake (“shake and bake”) hits. Atlas overcharges, the mohawk grows, a few bolts pop out, and he loses a pinky. It will make guitar solos harder. Frigidoom: “I’m sorry about the finger there.” Atlas: “Don’t worry about it, man! It’s just a finger!”
46. 0:43:29 — Atlas’s big turn. He releases the restraint on the Sun Cola flow so it pours through his body, clearing a fatigue. The mohawk evolves into a “Mo Mullet” of pure lightning. He whispers to Frigidoom: “Have you tried Double Sun Cola, baby? It’ll make you a new man!”
47. 0:44:50 Atlas’s chest opens, his shoulders swell, and two large suns and a soda bottle blaze in the middle, turning into a fire hose of Double Sun Cola. The orange fluid gathers at his chest as he holds Frigidoom in a loving embrace: “Feel the sun, brother.” Heroic surge, power-up and status effect together, plus his signature move “the best defense,” for which he sacrifices six of his own fighting spirit. The attack rolls 26 to hit; only a natural 20 can stop it. Frigidoom: “Acolytes, help, please.” It hits for nine.
48. 0:47:17 Dag zooms the camera out over the canopy and birds, and an almost nuclear explosion of bright orange fluid rises into the sky. The clouds are stained orange and yellow, and orange rain dyes the green trees. Frigidoom stands in a crater.
49. 0:48:28 — Frigidoom reborn. His 1950s pastel blue casing is shattered. Where the crisper drawer and plastic ice cube tray were, there are only soaked orange fizzy bits, a tiny beating green heart and a couple of Cheetos. He drinks and absorbs the cola and becomes fizzy, brighter, more pungent and toxic, until he resembles Tang. “I’m gonna kick you in the glass, brother. Who is the power of two suns? I’m feeling fresh. But also I feel real beat up right now.”
50. 0:49:52 Atlas lifts him up by the arm, Macho Man/Hulk style: “Welcome to the rad side.” A transparent, veiny, muscular orange arm grips Atlas’s, and “a Tang-shaped man rises up out of the ashes.” Atlas: “What do you wanna be? Tell us what you want to be, little lady, and we’ll make it happen… Two suns!”
51. 0:50:46 Thea runs around licking the orange mist off the leaves and the chinchillas. “I want two suns! I want to be rad! I want to be so fucking cool too!” She attempts her own air guitar.
52. 0:51:09 The crowd falls silent at “one of the biggest hits of the season,” then erupts. The Lord of Fate stands and claps: “This is perfect!… You get it! You have to kill him! You have to kill him dead!” He is now “thoroughly on Atlas’ side.”
53. 0:52:01 Thea points him to the stands: the orange mist has hit the Acolytes, turning them all into ripped mohawks and mullets. The Lord of Fate calls a break to let them cool off, and he’s grabbing himself a Double Sun Cola. Break cut from the mp3.

After the break — Thea and the metal chair

54. 0:53:04 Thea says she watched “Bessie and the Cowdettes” part one in nine minutes at 20 times speed and can’t wait for part two, though she doesn’t remember the details. The Lord of Fate: “Well, you know, I didn’t design it much for remembering. That’s really, I guess that’s really my fault… Next time I’m going to do better.”
55. 0:53:41 Thea: “Then I will blame you.” He says she can’t. “But what if I did blame you?… Does that make me more powerful than you?” Another star fades from her forehead (“Not again!”), and she pouts in the corner.
56. 0:54:10 The Lord of Fate asks “now that you have gotten rad,” what Thea is doing and whether there’s a problem. The lines are garbled. Frigidoom: “I think you two need to work this out.” Thea panics (“he rolled an 18”), declares “I choose Atlas as my champion,” and hides behind Atlas’s leg.
57. 0:55:04 The Lord of Fate stands, folds his folding chair and stops time. When she blinks, he is right behind her and she can’t move. “I didn’t want to do this. You’re embarrassing me in front of all of the acolytes.” He beats her with the metal chair two or three times “until you’re like an impression in the ground,” snaps a portal, unfreezes time, and sits back down. He tells her to start round three and summon the Box of Chaos.
58. 0:56:11 — The Box of Chaos. Three tiny fingers rise out of the hole: “Round number three.” The giant pink Box of Chaos falls like a meteor right on top of Thea, crushing her deeper into the earth. Pink and red flames pour out and a shadowy hand emerges. Caustic Phoenix explains that it gives a random item “of random willingness of the fate and world itself,” in exchange for something of value and an action.

Round 3 — pepperoni nipples

59. 0:57:34 Frigidoom, at four fighting spirit, takes a moment “to bask in my new glorious orange form.” He uses his heroic surge to heal, and his body becomes ripped:

• veins form, sunglasses appear, and a giant beaming smile;
• a mane of golden spaghetti-like hair;
• two pepperonis become his nipples;
• a Speedo, wrestling boots, and frosting as the fur at the boot tops;
• a Geiger counter in the distance ticks out of control as his radioactive form heats up. He is now “a full orange fizzy wrestling persona.”

60. 0:59:01 “I thank you, Brother Atlas, for showing me this new and wondrous power. Let me give you a taste of your own fizzy medicine.” Kyle realizes he looks like pizza. His arm becomes “a giant stuffed crust of righteous fury,” with five peppers appearing on the bicep to show how hot the strike is. “You ready to taste this radical pain, brother?” Caustic Phoenix rules that from now on all attacks need a five-pepper rating.
61. 1:00:32 Atlas defends with a natural 20, gaining a second adrenaline and regaining a fighting spirit. The Lord of Fate, from the crowd: “Nice punch, pepperoni nipples.” Frigidoom: “Hey, you watch it, man. These Scovilles aren’t done yet.”
62. 1:01:36 He means to beseech the Box but instead clears his status effect. He flexes, light reflects off his chest, and radioactive sweat and Double Sun Cola spill onto the forest floor, decaying everything they touch. Grass withers to cracked, hideous dirt: a wasteland. Lord of Fate: “Really gonna have to find the chinchillas a new house.” Thea: “I just got them here.” What’s a group of chinchillas called? “A herd… A murder.” Atlas: “It’s a herd of chinchillas, little lady.” Thea: “if you just say it with confidence, I’m gonna believe you.”
63. 1:03:08 The cheesy fist hits Atlas with the sound of a gong, and cheese and bread drip from his chassis. He shakes his head in slow motion “shampoo commercial” style, lightning arcing.
64. 1:03:38 — The radical chinchilla trade. Atlas: “I see you trying to open up the box, brother, but that latch seems too heavy. Let me bust out the guns and get that for you.” The shadowy figure’s yellow eyes peek out. Atlas: “You wanna make a deal?… Can you handle this level of ratitude, my man in the box?” Box figure: “Are you a solicitor?” Atlas: “I am soliciting nothing but pain for my opponent.” He left his wallet in his other mechanical pants. Instead he offers the most radical chinchilla ever seen: “2000” novelty spectacles, tattoo sleeves on its tiny arms, snap bracelets, and 40 limited-edition pogs in its pouch. Thea: “It’s definitely not a Petco chinchilla.” The figure accepts. The chinchilla climbs up its arm to sit on its shoulder, and the lid closes (“I’ll be right back”). The box rumbles and hops on top of the still-trapped Thea.
65. 1:06:05 — The cup. Out floats an empty plastic cup with rad blue and pink triangles and squiggly green lines. It shakes and sings, and a waterfall of blue slushy pours from the sky to fill it. Drinking it clears one fatigue. Atlas: “I do not have a mouth! God damn it, every time!” Thea: it just has to get inside you somehow.
66. 1:07:41 Atlas lifts the box off Thea (“Don’t thank me yet, little lady”), picks her up and slams the cup into her arms. His head and legs stay still while his torso spins like a cyclone, and he hurls Thea and the slushy into “the bottom of” Frigidoom. It hits. Thea passes in and partway through him, covered in radical slime and slightly more “ratified”; the slushy stays inside. It clears Frigidoom’s fatigue, but orange and blue make “pukey green,” the colour of Thea’s earlier vomit, so he becomes less rad. Frigidoom: “What? Little lady, what did you do to me?” Thea: “Totally rad stuff, dude.”
67. 1:11:09 Atlas: “Brother, let me help you.” He walks over as if to help and goes for a wrestling clothesline, then reflavors it as a high five. He rolls a natural 1. Frigidoom turns the high five into a Predator handshake and then an arm lock: “you son of a bitch.” They are tied 8–8.
68. 1:13:08 Thea is still stuck halfway through Frigidoom up to her shoulders: “Get out of Frigid Doom… I need help.” Frigidoom: “You all right there, little lady?” He waves her around to shake off the sludge. Thea: “It was better than the car wash the Lord of Fate put me through.” Lord of Fate: “You wouldn’t take a bath.”
69. 1:13:56 — “Thea is people!” The Lord of Fate: “You’re not people.” Thea, suddenly serious, brows furrowed: “I am people!” Lord of Fate: “don’t ever let them eat hot dogs because then all of a sudden they think that they’re people.” Frigidoom: “Hot dogs are the best.” Atlas: “I have an assistant, but it does not eat hot dogs. It is a tiny paperclip that sasses me out.” Thea asks whether Frigidoom and Atlas would become human if they ate hot dogs. The Lord of Fate: “People and human are different things. They’re already people… Thea isn’t people… We’ve been over this!” Atlas: “I do not have a mouth!” Lord of Fate: “That makes you the best kind of people.” Thea sits cross-legged in the middle of the fight with her thinking face.

Round 4 — ballpark chucks and the Double Sun Nova

70. 1:15:23 Frigidoom feels existential and slow, and craves the Double Sun from Atlas’s core: “You’re gonna give me that double sun?” Atlas: “I’m gonna give it to you, brother.” Lord of Fate: “Now Frigidoom’s a junkie.” Kyle: he has only ever had off-brand sodas, like “Doctor Lightning,” never Double Sun Cola, “not to mention a hot dog.”
71. 1:16:17 Two hot dogs shoot from his palms, linked by mozzarella so toxic and sticky it is almost unbreakable: “ballpark nunchucks.” Frigidoom: “I prefer Nathan’s… I didn’t get my meal, Thea.” Thea scours the Acolytes for a Nathan’s: “Does anybody have a small child named Nathan? That’ll do.” Kyle: “That actually will do.” The swing at Atlas’s chest misses (“Your ball chucks aren’t big enough”). Thea snatches another hot dog “from Judy” and tosses it to him so the nunchucks are a third dog longer. Frigidoom: “Thank you, Judy. This is a whole bratwurst now.”
72. 1:18:23 He charges them with a status effect: this time twenty peppers on his biceps, “a bright red burning, bulging rod of bad meat.” It hits. The Scovilles and radiation burn the air and gouge across Atlas’s chest, exposing the shiny Double Sun Cola core.
73. 1:19:50 He reaches for the core one more time: “I need a taste of that drink.” Atlas seems knocked back, arms limp, then tilts his head forward, grabs Frigidoom’s hand and gestures to the crowd. The Acolytes chant “ATLAS! ATLAS!” He uses his adrenaline. His core soaks up the 20-pepper habanero spice, and he clears the status effect.
74. 1:21:13 “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to bring you a brand new product from Double Sun Cola, Double Sun [Savice/Spice?]!” The cola turns from orange to bright red. “So you want a taste, brother? Then let me give you a taste of the sun. As it goes Nova, baby! Double Sun Nova punch!” It hits, putting two status effects on Frigidoom. Thea crunches on a pickled hot dog while she watches. Frigidoom: “Hot dog, hot damn. I can feel the heat. Oh, but I’m not gonna let this stop me now.”
75. 1:22:40 Atlas: “You got a certain fire in you, kid. Reminds me of when I was just a tiny little toaster. But I can’t hold back because there’s only one truth about Atlas in the Deathmatch. And that is despite the results of the last battle… Atlas is unbreakable.”
76. 1:23:01 — The geyser. Atlas anchors his hands to the ground, stretches his whole body back, pulses faster and faster, and flings himself headfirst into the ground. Silence. A sweet citrus smell spreads; birds bail from the trees and the chinchillas take cover. He powers up to detonate a geyser of Double Sun Cola under Frigidoom. It barely misses (5 v 7).
77. 1:25:12 Frigidoom doesn’t run. He opens his mouth wide, opens his whole body, and absorbs it all. Caustic Phoenix narrates: “instead of taking you down, it amplifies you by a million… no longer just orange, but neon. You glow in the darkness as it begins to set in the sun. You yourself become almost a sun.” Frigidoom: “Oh, yes, this is it. Oh, thank you, Atlas.”
78. 1:26:13 Atlas’s mohawk is gone, and he is back to the traditional, logical Atlas: “I feel funny. Why am I in the dirt?” Thea helps push him out (“Your assistance is appreciated”). “But where is Frigidoom? Did I kill him?” Frigidoom puffs out his chest: “I’m right here where you left me, brother.” Atlas: “Unsettling. Then come, let us finish this.” Thea copies Atlas’s two raised fists behind him, “like a small mini you.” Both champions are at about five to six fighting spirit.
79. 1:27:53 — The Shadow King’s blade. Thea trades her half-eaten hot dog to the Box of Chaos. The Lord of Fate: “Wait, you’re not supposed to have a hot dog.” The figure shoves it down its mouth. Thea receives a blade holding “a piece of the Shadow King’s soul.” Each strike heals a fighting spirit but gives a fatigue, “as the Shadow King weighs heavily on your mind.” Thea: “I can’t even lift this thing.” Lord of Fate: “I actually don’t know how that got in there. That’s from my private collection.” She swings it once, takes a fatigue, and throws it aside: “Stupid Shadow King blade, I think it’s dumb.”

Round 5 — the rad transfer

80. 1:29:12 Frigidoom, with two status effects on him and the Box at his feet, notices his friend is “not as radical.” He adjusts his gelatinous sunglasses: “Something’s wrong here and I need to fix it before I can fix myself. Atlas, do you want to be radical again?” Atlas: “Illogical. Radical is subjective.” Frigidoom: “Atlas, stop acting like you don’t have a mouth and speak from your heart.”
81. 1:30:07 Atlas’s mohawk flickers weakly. Without making a sound, a strained “brother” is heard from deep inside him “in the heart of Frigidoom and in the heart of the fans,” and an ethereal hand reaches out to be tagged in.
82. 1:30:42 Frigidoom: “You showed me a brand new beautiful life, Atlas, and I want to make sure that you continue to have that beautiful life. Kyle, if you’re out there, I hope Princess Sokka is treating you well. I will find you again. But first, I gotta find my friend.”
83. 1:31:03 He means to punch his neon fist into Atlas’s core and pour the Double Sun energy back. The Lord of Fate rules he can transfer one fighting spirit per action, and asks the Acolytes whether they want Atlas rad again.
84. 1:32:28 Thea stands up on her tiny pink feet, radicalized: blonde hair, sunglasses, a thick blonde mustache. She flies up: “Hey there, brother! Do you want Atlas to become rad?” (The table agrees her voice was really good.) The Acolytes chant “Rad! Rad! Rad!”
85. 1:33:07 Frigidoom picks up a chinchilla, “Concordae” (spelling uncertain): “I need your help here. Are you ready?” The chinchilla goes “all right.”
86. 1:33:33 Signature move: Frigidoom restores his status effects to three, then spends all three on a permanent effect: “We’re going to permanently make him radical.” It heals Atlas for four at the cost of four of Frigidoom’s own. “You tried to save me from that hamster, and I’m going to save you from yourself.” It succeeds (12 v 6; Dag: “You don’t need to [let yourself be hit], though”).
87. 1:34:53 Frigidoom: “Feel the power of my friendship.” Atlas grabs the tendril, but his hands knead through it: “No, stop. This is not sensible.” Then: “Yeah, baby! Yeah!” The lightning and mohawk-mullet return. He sees that Frigidoom is down to one.
88. 1:35:36 All the neon, orange and red drains out of Frigidoom through his fingertips into the canister of Double Sun Cola that is Atlas’s heart. He goes sickly green, his muscles fade, and he shrinks into a strange little amorphous blob, one tendril still on Atlas. “Have you returned, my friend?” Atlas takes a knee and scoops up the ooze with both hands: “I’m here, brother, I’m right here.”
89. 1:36:25 Frigidoom: “You have to win for us both. Leave me here with the chinchillas and kick that Kyle, kick that weeaboo samurai’s ass for me.” Atlas: “when I find myself a weeaboo samurai, you best believe that he’ll know the name Frigidoom. Him and his little uwu princess wife. I say, but brother, I ain’t gonna do this alone.”
90. 1:37:07 — The bottle. Atlas takes out a bottle of Double Sun Cola and pours one out for the homies, then slams the fluid that is Frigidoom into the bottle (“Golden. Glorious.”). He opens his chest and places the bottle beside his Double Sun Cola heart, to keep his brother next to him “until we can rebuild him, his fridge body.” He starts collecting the fridge pieces bit by bit. “Don’t worry, brother. What the folks at home don’t know… is that Rad never dies and that the fridge is always filled with leftovers for next time.”
91. 1:38:28 — The verdict. The Lord of Fate is lost for words: “is it technically a win?… he did stuff him in a bottle and make him his heart.” Thea: “We have the technology! They can rebuild him!… It’s a win for Atlas! It’s a win for the Acolytes! And it’s a win for being rad!” She leaves a glitter bomb spiralling up to the Acolytes.
92. 1:39:10 Thea: “Today you saw the power of Double Sun Cola!” She announces a refrigerator donation: throw any leftover fridges into the arena afterwards. The Lord of Fate: “I’m good with recycling. We like a Lord of Fate that recycles.” Thea: “we always come back stronger! Welcome and goodnight to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

In character (canon, Dried Blood)

• 1:53:06–1:53:14 Frigidoom’s final words, “from inside the chest of Atlas”: “Pour one out for your homies.” Caustic Phoenix adds: do it outside so you don’t have to clean up.
• 1:53:30 Atlas’s final words as champion: “Friendship is unbreakable.” Caustic Phoenix plans to put both lines on shirts.

Out of character (creator notes)

• Mudcat calls it episode 11 of Dried Blood, and the fight “Frigidoom versus Atlas, the mechanical machine marauders.” “Nobody died, but still had a winner because now you live inside of his chest, at least for now.”
• The table jokes that Frigidoom is “all of the food you’ve eaten that you knew you shouldn’t have.” Caustic Phoenix admits she eats whatever is growing in her fridge (“There is a piece of Frigidoom inside of me”). Thea passing through Frigidoom is called “a little bit of an alien moment.”
• Dag and Kyle had never played together. Dag: Kyle’s reaction to the “fridges are cool” compliment (“I’ve never been complimented… people call me gross”) set the tone; “two people who don’t have an understanding of what friendship is exploring the notion of friendship in very violent ways.” Kyle: he played “a very logical automaton and this mutant monster mash building a connection.” Once Atlas went super mode, “the soda’s gotta mix in,” so Frigidoom needed “a new self.” Caustic Phoenix: “As iron sharpens iron, so one friend sharpens another.”
• Atlas’s signature move “the best defense” (“the best defense is the best offense”) burns his own hit points for an attack bonus: “to hurt his friend, he has to hurt himself.”
• Frigidoom’s signature move is “self-patented cleaning cycle.” He is “supposed to be this like super cool fridge of the future that’s absolutely like mutated and irradiated.” He gets his status effects back by cleaning himself, “but really he’s making things messier for other people.” Giving the power to Atlas was meant as healing-but-poisoning, “like an over caffeination.”
• Mudcat: the 9-point hit may be the first successful multi-stack this season. Both had 18 fighting spirit and 3 defense. This was the first use of the optional permanent-status-effect rule (all three status effects at once), and it was used to heal. Healing an opponent or tag-team healing may become a new rule. At halftime Kyle was at about 4 and Dag about 8.
• Dag’s plan for the second half was not to finish too fast: rad tricks, maybe a skateboard from the Box, kickflip battles, “stupid 90s stuff.” The heal let him play the wrestling “face/heel… frenemy rival thing”; he grew up watching wrestling.
• Dag’s previous fight: Atlas vs Killy Yesman, “the salesperson of Double Sun Cola,” in the season’s first Deathmatch (Caustic Phoenix). Dag burned through three status effects, two power-ups, a heroic surge and his signature move, “and I missed.” Dag also watched Kyle’s previous Deathmatch.
• Mudcat: absurd episodes are his favourite, and this one “went like way off the rails.”