Season 5 - The Season of Fate

The Season of Fate is the season in which the Arbiter finally got the throne. He had pushed the Grandmaster out of power, and he spent sixteen Sundays learning how hard it is to rule the Void when nobody likes you. He named himself the Lord of Fate and made himself an assistant out of a worm. Then he watched a returning cast of oddballs (a fridge, a frog king, a Peloton instructor, a little boy with an eldritch horror in his backpack) kill each other in a growing string of rematches. It was the first season built around recurring champions, and its absurd fights slowly piled up into rivalries, found families and grudges that reached past death. Under the jokes about tuna juice and cloacas ran a quieter story: a new ruler watching his rule come apart.

Background

By the time the season opened, the Arbiter had already seized power. He had gained the tome Morir’s Cataclysm on his road back to the Dread Fortress, and he boasted that he had killed the Shadow King himself. The season before had belonged to the Shadow King, under whom even the champions who won their fights tended to end up dead. With the Shadow King gone, the Arbiter took the Grandmaster’s seat. She was imprisoned, or “laid off,” as he decided to put it, and he found himself running the Deathmatches entirely alone.

The Story

S5E1: Rise of the Lord of Fate

S5E1 — Rise of the Lord of Fate — Atlas v Killy Yesman opened on a Dread Fortress gone eerily quiet. Blue tabards hung everywhere and portraits of the Lord of Fate lined the walls. Bored and alone on Deathmatch day, he raised a worm that had drunk champions’ blood from the arena dirt and turned her into Thea, a glittery pink imp with no sense of restraint and a clipboard she produced out of nowhere, probably her butthole. The fight was held on the front lawn “old school”: the mouthless robot Atlas against Killy Yesman, a soda salesman with hypnotically bouncing pecs who promoted Double Sun Cola. Halfway through, the Lord of Fate found the Box of Chaos empty of any soul, so he tore his own shadow off the ground and threw it in to power the box. Killy eventually pried a crude mouth into Atlas’s chest port. Atlas then rolled a disaster, ripped off his own head plate and pulled his brain out with it, and it turned out his core had been running on Double Sun Cola all along. Killy drank what was left of him and swore they would “sell more soda than we ever could apart.”

S5E2: Identity Crisis

In S5E2 — Identity Crisis — Kopy Katt v Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes, Kopy Katt fought Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes in Emmery’s Tavern, a filthy bar where the house ale is smoked over sheep dung, with maybe a little sprinkled in. Kopy Katt wore a paper bag over her head and repeated every word said to her. The Professor was jacked, elderly and very proud of his credit score. She fought him with identity theft, a call to his mother, and a stampede of towel-whipping unionized chinchillas. He tore off his own sentient mustache to trade to the box. Kopy Katt gave the shadow in the box a roomier new chest to live in. Then the bartender, Emmery, was revealed as a changeling. He tagged in, took the shape of the Professor’s mother and slapped her “unruly child” back into the fireplace with a slipper.

S5E3: Eldritch Fangs

S5E3, Eldritch Fangs - Ruby Rust v Robbie Clark and the Hunger took place on the Voiceless Mountaintop. Thea also pitched other names for the peak, including “Cold nipples,” because the peaks look like nipples that have gone hard and pointy in the cold. Ruby Rust was a constrictor snake and software coder who drank java through a beer helmet. He faced Robbie Clark and the Hunger, a cheerful boy adventurer who, with the backpack fused to his spine, planned to assimilate all life into “one unified, wonderful flesh sack.” The Lord of Fate complained about the optics of an old man one week and a child the next. Ruby fought hard: he cut off his own tail, pulled Morir’s Cataclysm from the box, and wrapped Robbie in his signature Big Squeeze. In the end the Hunger unzipped like a cocoon, Robbie stepped out spotless, and the tentacles sucked up Ruby’s biomass. Ruby’s last thought was of the website he would never finish.

S5E4: Chaos in Chinchilla Forest

In S5E4 — Chaos in Chinchilla Forest — Tormiir v Granny Edith, Granny Edith and her rolling pin met Tormiir in the Chinchilla Forest. Tormiir was a warlock minotaur who still drank his own mother’s milk and claimed he loved killing old ladies, until he admitted he had never actually killed one. The fight became a slow, affectionate pileup of fatigue that included a kiss cam, two Lords of Fate smashing metal chairs, and a portal full of udders that Tormiir, Thea and a denture-less Granny all latched onto and suckled. A final chaos event filled the air with the smell of each champion’s favorite food, and Granny gave in and died dreaming of her great-grandma’s bread and butter pudding. She got one last roll “just for flavor,” the pun “Life is what you bake it,” and it killed Tormiir from the grave. They fell together in “an accidental spoon,” promising to have tea in the afterlife.

S5E5: Frigid Fedoras

S5E5 — Frigid Fedoras — Kyle Stoddard v Frigidoom opened with the Lord of Fate turning Thea’s bedroom into an office stuffed with complaints about her. One came from a farmer who claimed she had tried to steal his pig’s feet. She relocated the match to an asteroid in the orange rings of an unvisited purple gas giant. There, Kyle Stoddard, a fedora-wearing devotee of Princess Sakura, fought Frigidoom, an irradiated fridge with a mouth of rotting pizza and casserole inside its door. The match went from a ceremonial Mountain Dew toast to rainbow-magnet vandalism, a mechanical bull and a heroic dose of Mountain Lightning. The final chaos event dared both champions not to piss themselves. Frigidoom rolled a disaster, pissed and shit himself, and died on a sixth fatigue. Kyle mourned him with dignity: “Frigidoom has been isekai’d to a better place.”

S5E6: American Amphibian

S5E6 — American Amphibian — King Man Frog Bofus v Richard Knottley began with protesters outside the Fortress waving signs about the Grandmaster being in prison. Thea rented the Crimson Keep “really cheap because apparently other people keep dying here,” and farted open the portal to get there. King Bofus, a British frog king in a hand-sewn mask, fired volley after volley of frogs at Richard Knottley, alias Dick Twist, a disgraced Peloton instructor convinced the chinchillas run a secret government. Richard drew one of the Arbiter’s rings from the box, and the Lord of Fate demanded it back afterward. Richard’s last trick was a heroic surge of lightning pedaled out of his Peloton. It struck both of them; Richard died of a coronary and Bofus died of fatigue, so there was no winner. Richard’s dead man’s switch then played to the arena, revealing that “every snowflake is a microchip from Santa” and offering anti-tuna juice for $37.99.

S5E7: Ducks of Death

In S5E7 — Ducks of Death — Robbie Clark & the Hunger v Bob the Barbarian, Robbie and the Hunger returned to face Bob the Barbarian in the Duck Village. Bob was a relentlessly friendly Florida man in jorts. The fight started as nipple tornadoes, an alien probe up Bob’s ass that left him permanently sharting, and a gator who insisted her name was Hannah Montana. Bob fed the box a scrap of his jorts and received the Blade of Shadow, which held a piece of the Shadow King’s soul. The Hunger fed it Robbie’s memories of his own birthdays. Then the fight changed. Bob told the boy “I could be your dad in a different world,” the Hunger fought harder to keep its grip, and in the end Robbie reached out and took Bob’s hand. The Hunger melted into ichor, and the two Florida men rode off on a rusty fan boat.

S5E8: Graveyard Grudge

S5E8 — Graveyard Grudge — Granny Edith v Teddy Oso arrived a month early for Halloween. Thea wore the Lord of Fate’s Egyptian cotton sheets as a ghost costume. Granny Edith, revived, faced the zombie hunter Teddy Oso in the Midnight Mausoleum. Teddy carried his late grandmother’s head as a keepsake and gave it to the box in exchange for a poisoned Granny Smith apple. Granny gave the shadow cookies and milk, which no one had ever done before. “I’m a piece of a soul trapped in a box,” it told her; as the Lord of Fate had put it, the box “contains part of my soul.” After laxative corn dogs that sent the Lord of Fate running for the bathroom, and a lava floor, Granny toasted bread rock-hard in the molten rock, then hurled a boulder-sized loaf that knocked Teddy off his tombstone into the lava. He sank with a final thumbs-up.

S5E9: Patriotic Punch Up

S5E9 — Patriotic Punch Up — Bob the Barbarian v Richard Knottley (Dick Twist) brought Bob back against a revived Richard Knottley, who was now running for president on the Peloton party ticket. They fought on the Fortress’s front porch. There was a tricycle race, and the Lord of Fate’s chaos lightning blew Richard’s beloved bike to pieces. Then Richard revealed his insurance policy: his people had captured a remnant of the Hunger, and it would eat Robbie if he died. Bob sacrificed the “Jort Daddy” friendship bracelet Robbie had made him and drew Dolly for his trouble. He answered by unleashing the Denim Gator, spinning inside full-body jorts with two gators clamped to his hands. A stacked final strike killed Richard, Bob stuffed Publix chicken tenders into every orifice of the corpse, and the live feed on Richard’s dropped phone showed the Hunger swallowing Robbie. “Victory always comes at a loss,” Thea observed, eyeing the pile of chicken tenders.

S5E10: BoneBound Brawl

S5E10 — BoneBound Brawl — King Bofus v Bone Daddy (and Darcy) sent King Bofus through a pom-pom-hat portal to a snowy mountaintop to fight Bone Daddy and his skeletal companion Darcy. Bone Daddy was a returning champion whose full name turned out to be Bonald Daddison. The family drama piled up fast. Bone Daddy’s ex was the Tooth Fairy, and Bofus’s own ex fell through a portal into the stands: Craig, Bone Daddy’s father. From the box, Bofus drew Morir’s Cataclysm and one of the Arbiter’s rings, while Bone Daddy awakened his inner monster. Bone Daddy’s heroic surge, a tidal wave of bone with his parents riding on his shoulders, tied with Bofus and brought both champions to their fifth fatigue. Before the wave fell, Bofus pulled off his mask to reveal a tiny frog head on a man’s body and told Craig he had always loved him. The bones piled into a mountain-sized monument.

S5E11: Appliance Adversaries

S5E11 — Appliance Adversaries — Atlas v Frigidoom returned to the Chinchilla Forest for a match between two machines who had never had a friend. The revived Atlas complimented Frigidoom (“fridges are supposed to be cool”), and the fridge, who had never been complimented in his life, answered with an acid hug. When Frigidoom shook Atlas’s Double Sun Cola heart, Atlas became “10 times more radical,” grew a lightning mohawk, and blasted his new brother with an orange soda explosion that turned Frigidoom into a glowing, Tang-colored wrestler. In the second half, Frigidoom poured his own radness back into Atlas and shrank into a small green blob. Atlas bottled him and placed him beside his own heart, promising to rebuild him.

”…Rad never dies and that the fridge is always filled with leftovers for next time.” (Atlas)

S5E12: Imitation Game

S5E12 — Imitation Game — Kopy Katt v Ragu found Thea in four Halloween costumes at once. Doug the Pug was magicked into a sloth onesie, still in shackles. On top of the Crimson Keep, Kopy Katt, now holding 420 stolen identities, fought Ragu, a nunchuck-swinging, squat-loving, “professional string dodger.” Ragu fired a lactose-intolerant Thea at her as a fart cannon; the first blast came out liquid, all over Ragu’s own head, and when he threw Thea, her butt hit Kopy Katt in the face. Kopy Katt turned an album of embarrassing baby photos on him and on the Lord of Fate, which set the crowd chanting “Free Doug.” Ragu backhanded off her mask and revealed her true face: purple, blank, and drawn on in marker. She confided in the shadow in the box and left him a microchip. She drew the Grandmaster’s own bow from the box, fought on with a giant can opener, and finally tripped on her own boot and brought the can opener down on her own not-face. Her fail-safe fired a laser into the sky and returned all 420 identities to their owners. In a final scene after the credits, the shadow sat alone in the rain, waiting for the coffee she had promised.

S5E13: Bone Rust

In S5E13 — Bone Rust — Ruby Rust v Bone Daddy, Ruby Rust came back wrong. He had been rebuilt by Thomas the Goblin, who “eats paint chips,” and he glitched into an eldritch snake who begged to die. He fought Bone Daddy in Emmery’s Tavern after being promised he would be restored if he won. The horror escalated through bone cages, a morning coffee that made Ruby poop out of his cloaca, ground-snake meatballs, assimilated tavern patrons and a dentally confused Thea. Finally Ruby swallowed Bone Daddy whole and crushed him into bone dust, though a single finger bone of Darcy slipped away to find its way home. When the swollen Ruby turned on the hosts, Thea fed him a chinchilla. It restored him too well: he became an ordinary, adorable python, and Thea released him into the Void to hunt mice in peace.

S5E14: Froggy Style

S5E14 — Froggy Style — Kyle Stoddard v King MAN FROG Bofus opened with Thea discovering more than 10,000 unanswered emails. In the Duck Village, Kyle Stoddard faced a King Bofus who had been revived so many times that the only prize he wanted was permanent death. Bofus fought with a frog-loaded shotgun he called his tag-team partner. Kyle poked Bofus’s butt in a Naruto-style “oil check,” and Bofus paid him back by sending hundreds of frogs up Kyle’s butthole. Kyle tried to recruit him into the Simperi, Princess Sakura’s devoted fan order. Kyle eventually transformed into Princess Sakura herself, and even the Lord of Fate found it unbearable enough to hand Bofus a power-up. Bofus aimed at Kyle’s head, rolled a disaster, and the misfire blew his own frog head clean off.

“At least I didn’t die a nerd.” (King Bofus)

Kyle wore the head as an accessory, and Thea bowed to be welcomed into the Simperi.

S5E15: Cosmic Collision

S5E15 — Cosmic Collision — Teddy Oso v Ragu began with the Lord of Fate firing Thea for napping on his throne. She was put on probation for one last match, held back on the asteroid rings of the purple gas giant. Teddy Oso, whose zombie tally had now reached “the 30,000 range,” fought Ragu. A chaos event hurled a metal chair at both of them, and Thea offered the winner a 1998 Chevy Impala; Ragu immediately climbed in and started admiring the 8-track. Teddy sliced off and pocketed one of Ragu’s nipples, which Ragu stole back and sewed on, chinchilla hair and all. In the ninth round, the furthest any fight of the season had gone, a spinning roundhouse cracked Ragu’s jaw off its hinges. He drifted frozen into orbit, asking someone to tell his wife Prego that he tried. Teddy won the Impala, and Thea kept her job, mostly because it was too late in the season to replace her.

S5E16: Chaos Royale

The finale, S5E16, Chaos Royal (Season 5 finale), the first Chaos Royale (four-way), was the first four-way Chaos Royale. It was held at the skull-mouthed front door of the Dread Fortress, and the prize was a red mug. The Lord of Fate was brooding by a window he had conjured, with fake rain to match his mood: there were riots, the Grandmaster was still imprisoned, and the Eastern Outpost had been ransacked. The entrants were Tormiir; Bobby Clark, a new boy carrying the Hunger; Kopy Katt, fresh from group therapy; and Richard Knottley, so often revived that his heart was now a Peloton core and he had renamed himself “Dick Okio.” Kopy Katt talked the Hunger into ditching its boy and becoming her backpack, and the fused pair fed on Tormiir’s mother to bring him down. They then swallowed Richard, who had passed his little chinchilla Dylan to Thea for safekeeping. Copycat and the Hunger were crowned champions. The Lord of Fate didn’t celebrate. “This is just not how it was supposed to go,” he said, and stomped back into the Fortress.

Running Threads

The Lord of Fate’s troubled reign. The Arbiter wanted to rule, and almost immediately he wanted a break from it. He fretted over “bad optics” every time Thea brought him an elderly champion or a child, banned tuna juice across the Void, and refused to give Thea paid time off because she was “1099… independent contractor at best.” He insisted he had real Italian leather boots. Meanwhile protests grew outside the Fortress, the Grandmaster stayed locked away, and by the finale the realm was in open unrest. He liked people to believe he was above proving himself, yet he couldn’t resist flying down to hit a champion with a metal chair after being goaded.

Thea. Thea was born in the first episode and learned on the job. She was enthusiastic, bloodthirsty and very bad at counting. The Lord of Fate rewarded her by carving gold stars into her forehead and punished her by snapping them away. Her performance reviews got steadily worse, and she was fired once and rehired out of convenience. She insisted on her own personhood (“Thea is people!”), and he kept telling her she was not, blaming the hot dogs she had eaten. She cut off her own thumb, had her wings torn off over laxative corn dogs, grew rows of shark teeth, and joined the Simperi.

The Box of Chaos. The box began the season soulless until the Lord of Fate tore off his own shadow and threw it in, the same shadow he had separated from himself long ago. The shadow grew into a character of its own. It collected teeth, bracelets and mustaches, moved into a bigger chest Kopy Katt gave it, ate Granny Edith’s cookies, and waited in vain for a coffee date. Its offerings repeated through the season: the blue pill that let a champion survive an extra fatigue, the rusty spoon that could “serve up a helping hand of tetanus,” the Shield of the Golden King, Morir’s Cataclysm, the Arbiter’s ring, the Blade of Shadow and the Grandmaster’s bow.

Revival and rematches. Nearly every champion came back, and the show leaned into it. Richard Knottley died three times running. King Bofus begged for permanent death. Ruby Rust returned glitching and barely held together after being devoured by the Hunger, and Atlas came back reporting that “hell is real even for automatons.” Those returns built the season’s longest storylines, above all the Hunger’s hold on its boys and Bob’s fierce love for Robbie.

Chinchillas, Doug and the Fortress staff. The chinchillas were unionized, jacked from free gym memberships, employed as Fortress security, and sourced from their own forest. Richard Knottley believed they secretly ran the government. Goblins did the cleanup and the resurrections, with mixed results. Doug spent part of the season in the dungeons, which have a bathroom (“We’re not animals”), until the Acolytes chanted him back out, into a cage floating over the arena. The Acolytes themselves spilled blue slushies, ripped off their shirts (and sometimes their breakaway jeans), and stayed loyal to their favorites.

Aftermath

The season closed with Copycat and the Hunger fused into a single champion, and with a Lord of Fate who walked away from his own finale saying he had “something to do.” The rule he had schemed so long to win had brought him riots, a ransacked outpost, a jailed Grandmaster and no satisfaction.

It was later revealed that the Season of Fate was a vision that only the Arbiter lived through: a glimpse of what ruling would be like. Afterward he carried on in the real timeline under the Grandmaster, still holding Morir’s Cataclysm, which he stored in the Box of Chaos, and he told her what he had seen. The season still left its mark. Many of its champions turned up again in the Season of the Trials as the versions of themselves that exist in the real Void, and some of its creations, Double Sun Cola among them, survived into the real world.

The Black Tome

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