This post is a bit of a read and is for my more dedicated fans but any gamers will appreciate it

PROLOGUE

I, (Mastermind475) hereby affirm testimony that the story in this newgrounds post is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me god

on July 26th 2008 my best friend, gamer-tag (CanadianSucubus) and I played an online match of the Xbox video game, Halo 2 that we will remember for the rest of our lives

the match began at 9:32 PM the game-type was Assault on the map Terminal under the Big Team Battle match-list

BACKGROUND

both "CanadianSucubus" and I are highly skilled at Halo 2

during the golden age of Halo 2 we held monthly LAN parties of up to sixteen people, during which I was the king of Halo 2, or at least the king in my hometown of just over 60,000

I am a very modest person and rarely, directly say I am the best of something, and "everybody and his brother" will say they are the best at a shooting video game, but at this point in my life I will genuinely say, without hesitation or any hint of arrogance that, I was UNTOUCHABLE at Halo 2, I easily could have "gone pro" but I chose not to, due to my opinion that "professional gaming" is at best, a joke

At the peak of my Xbox live "career" I would occasionally play match games where upon a random person would say things like, and I quote from an actual case

"Oh Shit!... it's G Force! Yo I herd bout this cat from my peeps and they said this n***a is UNREAL!"

G Force 001 was my Xbox live gamer-tag, I created the name many years before the movie about the "tactical hamsters" which I curse on a daily basis (DAMN THOSE HAMSTERS...)

reputation aside, I generally dominate FPS games, especially team oriented game-types

I think my skill at Halo 2 is due to the combination of natural ability, and my superior strategic mind

it's hard to describe, but I feel the majority of my skill comes from a sense of understanding human nature; I suppose the best word would be "instinct" ; it works in a similar manner, so I will use that word

without thinking, feeling, or being informed in any way, I can generally predict actions of people in strategic scenarios, it's similar to a hunter chasing prey and knowing where they will run to

regardless, Halo 2 is one of my favorite video games and I play it often

my favorite singular weapons are the "Energy Sword" and the "Human Sniper Rifle" or as I like to call them "sword and snipes" both are weapons that I am infamous with and weapons with which I caused heaping amounts of fear and destruction on the fictional battlefields of Halo 2

my favorite two weapon combo is a combo that was considered by my peers to be my trademark; the "Battle Rifle" and the "Plasma Pistol" a combo I called "Bread and Butter" or if I was in a situation where I needed to "talk some smack" I would use the combo as a verb, such as " I'm gonna butta yo bread"

although I was the best in my town, "CanadianSucubus" had just gotten Xbox Live and was new to online, but he had already been a veteran of FPS games as well as a solid Halo 2 player, and was getting better at the game very rapidly

"CanadianSucubus" and I were in the same room, both with our own Xbox's and televisions

it was an unusually cold summer night, with frost forming on "CanadianSucubus" roof which made it very slippery (the steep angle of the roof didn't help either)

"CanadianSucubus" did not have Internet, which is required for Xbox Live (duh) so we ran a gigantically long, jerry-rigged ethernet cable attached to an Xbox wireless router across two of his neighbors roofs (a span of well over a hundred feet) and then set the router on his neighbors roof that had unencrypted cable internet (I swear I couldn't make this up if I wanted too, we still get a good laugh out of it)

GAME TYPE

the way this game-type works is a team will try to move an object (a bomb) from a post in the offensive teams starting area (garage) and move it to the defending teams starting area (hangar) then after a brief period of time (arming the bomb) the object will explode and that team will score a point, if the bomb is ever dropped and not picked up after twenty seconds have elapsed then the bomb is reset to the offensive spawning point

the game goes to the team that achieves a score of three

if no one scores at at all, the game will go to sudden death after two rounds of both offense and defense

each round is three minutes long

if sudden death occurs the bomb becomes neutral and can be armed at either post

PRE-GAME

in the pregame lobby there were two guests on the red team (OUR TEAM) and only one guest on the blue team (THEIR TEAM)

(SIDENOTE) guests on this particular game are generally looked down upon and normally don't contribute in any great way (except getting killed easily which helps out the opposite team)
one guest is usually not a big deal, but if a player has three guests (the maximum possible for a single gamer-tag) then that team is guaranteed to lose. Player ability is one thing, but when your player screen is one fourth the size of the television, even the greatest Halo 2 player doesn't have much to work with, although that in itself is a fact, anyone that has played Halo 2 on Xbox Live knows that only poorly skilled players have three guests to one gamer-tag

I could already tell that the red team was pathetic from the get go, as "CanadianSucubus" and I were the only people on our team with microphones (mikes), whereas the majority of the blue team had mikes

(SIDENOTE) players on Halo 2 with microphones are almost always better players, although it is not guaranteed, people with microphones have the ability to communicate, which in team games is essential to coordinate strategy, in a hypothetical situation where two players of equal skill and ability are chosen for a game, one with a mike will always be picked before the other mikeless player

So we began the game with marginal disadvantage

GAME

ROUND ONE OFFENSE

The game began

Our team was Offense, so we spawned in the garage

upon the immediate beginning of the game, two people quit which made the team six versus eight (6v8)

not a great way to start...

we generally skirmished but could not do anything decisive

the blue team was moderately skilled, but in my words, were about halfway between noob and pro, not really threats to "CanadianSucubus" or I for that matter but any monkey with a gun can run around and shoot, especially in a team objective game, where individual ability takes second place to group ability

we did not score

ROUND 2 DEFENSE

our team spawned in the hangar upon round reset

two more people on our team (RED TEAM) quit immediately which made the standings four to eight (4v8)

(SIDENOTE) the people quitting in this instance are part of a phenomenon and\or disease that is called "glass ball syndrome" more commonly known as "GBS". It is characterized by the following. If your team does not score the first round, even skilled players abandon all hope and feel the irresistible urge to quit the game, knowing full well that them leaving, puts their teammates in a potential position of getting crushed

at this point in the game, "CanadianSucubus" and I entered "video game mode" a phenomenon that allows a gamer to become completely in tune with the game allowing the player to act and react almost instantly

we stopped casual game chatter and completely focused on the game to a degree where his house could have burst into flames and we would not have noticed

even at a heightened level of concentration, we were getting spanked like monkeys, but "by the skin of our teeth" we successfully defended our bomb post

just before the team did not score and the round was ending, one of the blue team players quit and sent the game into STANDBY mode

(SIDENOTE) Standby mode is where a blue screen appears and players cannot interact at all

this gave "CanadianSucubus" and I a chance to talk

"CanadianSucubus" : "we should quit man, we barely held those dudes"

"G Force 001" : "True, but think about it, there are twice as many of them than us, if we held them... then they suck eggs! I say we stay"

"CanadianSucubus" : "well whatever man, we've been best friends for as long as I can remember, you say go man, I'm with you...

"G Force 001" : "Lets do it"

ROUND 3 OFFENSE

upon round reset the team standings were four on seven (4v7)

the situation was grim

we tried our very best but got only three quarters of the distance to the enemy base (hangar)

it seemed as soon as we made progress, we were cut down by overwhelming resistance

it felt like two steps forward and then three steps back

at this juncture our morale hit its lowest point

as the round ended I clearly remember "CanadianSucubus" saying "shit" under his breath

ROUND 4 DEFENSE

as the round began we lost another teammate to "GBS" (Glass Ball Syndrome)

it was now three on seven (3v7)

our odds for victory were went from "unlikely" to "miracle required"

the players left on the RED TEAM were "CanadianSucubus", "G Force 001" and a no mike player named "killaram" whom had generally been doing well so far

I think this is the part where things I had no control of, began to work in our favor

the BLUE TEAM became pathetic, barely putting up a resistance, giving up valuable ground, and not controlling the dominant weapons of the map (snipes rockies sword etc)

as you may surmise, we successfully defended against the BLUE TEAM again

it was at this point that the events I will describe to you (the reader) may become hard to believe, but I assure they are the complete truth and if you so inquire I (Mastermind475) will give out my personal information as well as "CanadianSucubus" so that it will satisfy your desire for additional proof

ROUND 5 SUDDEN DEATH

(SIDENOTE) I will say that in all the games of Halo 2 I have played, I can count the number of games I have played that have gone to sudden death on my fingers and considering I have played over a thousand matches I can say with confidence it is rare >1% (less than one percent)

(ADDENDUM) up until now the round time limit is three minutes but sudden death is two minutes long and begins immediately after the end of the previous round WITHOUT RESET that is key to understand the events that are about to transpire. Our entire team were all in favorable positions over which we had access to the dominant weapons, whereas the enemy were in poor positions with their spawning weapons

the two minutes began

all three of us were in the parking garage adjacent to the garage with the bomb post, which is where the bomb laid as we had stopped the enemy from the previous round

I picked up rockets and was heading up a ramp with "CanadianSucubus" next to me

three blue team dudes surged forward and in a crazed melee' all three of them died and "CanadianSucubus" and I survived completely unscathed

"killaram" picked up the bomb and jumped onto the train track that runs through the middle of the level

(SIDENOTE) The train in the middle of Terminal is what I consider to be the favorite tool of an entity I call "Master of Game" though I would like to make an entire expose' on this mystical force I will keep it simple and tell you it is an uncontrollable force that invades everything electronic in my life and either makes things not function at all, or function in a way that taunts me and makes me very stressed. " It " is most apparent in video games, an example of this could include this situation (Halo 2) I run towards an enemy, he is moderately close to me, I throw a plasma grenade at the enemy, it sticks to the enemy, the enemy jumps in the air, away from me, and then the grenade DOES NOT EXPLODE, the enemy lands, then bashes me with his gun, killing me, as I stand still, awestruck.
it's absurd, ridiculous, shenanigans like that, that make my hair turn grayer than it already is (for an eighteen year old, I have an excessive amount of gray hair) and make me curse like a sailor at these
infernal electric picture boxes. It's also things like that, that characterize my life. I try to use some technology, it spurts weird behavior that has never been seen before and I have to fix it, at the cost of all my free time, my hair, and my sanity. Seriously, any possible situation involving something you think is true regarding anything involving computers or something working the way it should, I probably have a story where that reality (for you) did not apply to me. Regardless, it is important context considering the events that are about to unfold

"kilaram" jumped from the parking garage directly onto the train tracks where he was immediately smashed by an oncoming train

I jumped down after him as "CanadianSucubus" went to get the human sniper rifle

I picked up the sword and the bomb and went back through the garage while narrowly avoiding another train which in every other match I have played on Terminal, kills me

"CanadianSucubus" then met me at an area that is next to and above the enemy bombing area

(SIDENOTE) up until this point "CanadianSucubus" and I did not think we had even the slightest possibility of winning, we just wanted to end the game with some dignity and say to the other team that we held out when everyone else caught the "GBS"

The clock was counting down rapidly, we had sixty seconds left

events from here on seemed to slow down

like a cheesy action movie, or Max Payne style "bullet time" every second was like a lifetime looking at a clock that taunted you screaming it's clicking motion, every second was like an explosion in my mind, that marked a wasted opportunity every second was like a decision blowing up in my face telling me that I failed again...

I had rockets and sword as well as the bomb, "CanadianSucubus" had snipes and shotgun

the enemy had three of their seven team members directly guarding the base, as well as a Covenant tank and ghost

we crouch walked into the alcove and waited for a few seconds...

"CanadianSucubus" : "dude we're right there man, and they don't know were we're at, we could totally do it!"

" G Force 001 : I know, here take the bomb, I'll hit the tank, and you rush in... I'll be right behind you

I don't know why I gave "CanadianSucubus" the bomb, it just felt like the right thing to do

little did I know that, that decision would change my life forever...

to this day, I am unaware of the exact position of "kilaram" during this critical moment, but he was in a location that drew away two of the defenders and was distracting the vehicles so that they had their backs to me

I opened up with rockets and destroyed both vehicles with one shot each (their rear armor is weaker)

"CanadianSucubus" dropped down and smashed one of the defenders with the bomb, killing him

I lead the attack, charging into their base through the side door, I lunged and killed one of the defenders with the sword

"CanadianSucubus" ran to the bomb post

another defender rushed in to stop us, but instead I quickly cut him down, giving me another "double kill"

the clock was at twenty six seconds left

it takes twenty seconds to arm the bomb

with six seconds left on the clock in Sudden Death mode

we scored

the announcers voice boomed

GAME OVER

it immediately went to Post Game lobby, it is here where both teams can talk to each other

(SIDENOTE) normally if a team loses, it will leave immediately, or some of the team members will stick around and "talk smack" to other team, which will result in a private rematch

POST GAME LOBBY

the other team sat there in complete silence, but they did not leave

"G Force 001" : "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"

"CanadianSucubus" : "WE FUCKIN' WON!!!!!! .... I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!! WE FUCKIN' WON!!!!!

we screamed and yelled into our mikes as hard as we could for a solid thirty seconds, sounds and feelings of ecstasy and elation the likes of which I have never heard or felt before occurred

for the second time in my life, very briefly I felt I had reached "Nirvana"

I felt I connected with a powerful force that coursed through my body and allowed me access to infinite everything, that just for a moment, I was on a higher plane of existence

as I came down from "Nirvana" I heard "CanadianSucubus" yell "at the top of his lungs"

"CanadianSucubus" : "WE'RE THE FUCKIN' GREATEST!!! BLUE TEAM GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!! 3 ON 7 BITCH!!! "

we made so much noise that "CanadianSucubus" roommate rushed in and thought we were getting murdered

so there it is, "The Most Epic Halo 2 Match Ever Played by Anyone On The Planet"

from that moment forward, my life felt a little more complete, a little more whole, a small percentage greater

I felt that things in my life became easier, now that I looked at them from my new perspective of "hey if I can win a 3 on 7 match, surely I can complete this (insert school project here)"

below is a screen-shot that I took of the overview of the match

here is a link to bungie.net to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it happened

http://www.bungie.net/Stats/GameStatsH alo2.aspx?gameid=792204073&player=G%20 Force%20001

and though I didn't play the song in the embedded video after the event

every time I hear it, I remember...

so my message to you (the reader) is

even when things look there worst, when the odds are against you and there seems like there is no hope

remember...

3 on 7

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