This was also the time where my sister started to take up ARC semi-regularly, using the name Gorbash1, and was looking to join a clan.  I didn’t really want her to get caught up in the ARC scene and the whole clan business, but soon I found out that she did join a clan.  It was XX.  So she started playing on the name XX-Gorb. I was checking out some of the clan members on my 486, and noticed they were a bunch of loud-mouthed newbies.  They didn’t seem to possess much organization within the clan. 

Eventually, my sister caught the eye of another new clan, called XON.  Jester was the leader of this clan and recruited Gorbash, calling her the best XX skill-wise.  My sister was invited for a tryout for XON.  She had to duel a guy named XONHavok, supposedly one of XON’s best at the time.  I was watching my sister duel the guy and the match seemed pretty close, Havok seemed to have a slight edge however.  My sister asked me to play a life for her, so I went a round against Havok, and killed him with most of my life left and gave it back to her.  She won the duel 5-4, causing Havok to give a melancholy speech about how bad he is playing ARC at the moment and that he should leave the clan.  Jester was busy trying to talk him out of it, saying how much he owned and that XON really needed him.  Havok stayed and everything turned out just fine. 

My sister was accepted into XON and she made the name, XONDragon.  She chose Dragon instead of Gorbash because she didn’t want the XX people to think that she left the clan.  The XX people were basically growing in inactivity, so I didn’t think it would have mattered.  My sister didn’t have an email address at the time, so Jester would sometimes send emails regarding XON to me.  I would then find a way to relay it to her.  Even though XON had nothing to do with me, I was starting to get to know the clan more and the clan got to me know me as Gorbash’s brother. 

The first season of APL was coming and the website was finished with all the rosters of every clan participating.  It was like an online sporting event, and I was browsing through the site during my Computer Science class like the bad student I was.  I noticed every division looked to be pretty well balanced with one elite or very good clan in each division.  I wasn’t too sure about one division though.  This was the division that had uFo in it.  I went to scout out uFo on my asdf1 name and noticed some uFos on one team dominating the opposing team.  Moonsocket was cleaning house with his fragging and Andy Atlas was doing good as well.  Yea, they were the team to beat in their division.  So with what looks to be a well distribution of talent for the divisions, the APL season was about to kick off! 

I was going home on the weekend of our match and we were playing Area51 for our season opener.  That meant I was actually going to play a game and see the action without having to go through the slide show experience.  When I got home and tried out ARC on my Pentium II, I basically laughed out loud when I saw how smooth everything was.  I had gotten used to looking at my 486.  Everything was silky smooth, I went up to an opposing ARCer and hit him with every single laser shot of my stream, and he blew up.  Now this is what I’m talking about.  The game seemed so easy now.  

I remembered Area51 from Hfront.  All of a sudden a lot of them were popping up, but I didn’t think they were that skilled so I didn’t pay much attention to them and brushed them off as a new clan.  Some Area51 members claim that they are an older clan than CO, but who knows.  CO members were better in skill though.  So anyways, I went to a madwars map to scout out an Area51 and see where he and I stood competition-wise.  I basically repeatedly charged his base and unloaded on him and blew him up, observing his dodging and firing skills.  Satisfied, I left the game.  Hopefully the rest of the Area51s are about the same skill level.  If so, we should be able to win this game.  

That was basically how our season went.  There was about a 40% chance that we were able to field four people for each game.  We had one of the most inactive rosters in all of APL.  The old Cougars that were on the roster were basically no-shows for the whole season besides a couple.  I was starting to expect the clan to forfeit or play undermanned for each game.  It was frustrating, but the APL was so fun I wasn’t going to miss it.  APL was also the time where I would actually see Cougars on ARC.  We were that inactive.  Only time I would hear from Cougars is through ICQ or email.  Grumm would give everybody Cougar News through email to keep everyone informed. 

We played the Kam clan, but we were only able to field three players.  It was Osiris, Solaran (Khaladan), and myself.  Kam, I believe had, Shaggy, Wuggy, Chogall, Bilbo, or something very similar.  Despite only having three people, we were able to hold off their first flag attempt.  They were beating us badly in frags with a four vs three advantage but they kept failing to get the flag out of our base.  We were able to kill off whoever got near the flag and their cover.  It was a good thing they weren’t coming at us as four people.  Instead whoever spawned for them just went forward to our base.  All three of us just defended the base and gave the opposing team one failed offensive attempt after another.  Finally, they started getting smarter and overwhelmed us with numbers.  They capped on us and we lost this game.  The Kams had scores of low 20s and high teens while the Cougars were all under 10.  Some of the Kams started bragging about the scores they achieved in this game.  The four Kams reached the top 10 in points per game.  This is when I realized that points during a game can be an inaccurate gauge of skill.  I believe we would have won this game if we had four people, since none of them really gave me much trouble individually, and they had such a hard time flagging on three people with four. 

Next comes an incident that I don’t regret doing, but I would never do again.  XON’s first APL season wasn’t what you call a successful one.  They were winless and they got stomped by decent clans which resulted in sitting in the cellar of their division.  They were going to play uFo, a clan that was proudly perched on top of their division, and was expecting to steamroll right through the new XON clan.  My sister would not be able to make the match and she asked me if I could play on her name for her.  I told her I would if XON wasn’t able to field four people.  It turned out XON needed her badly and were even expecting her to show up for the match.  I kept getting asked where my sister was.  I told Jester the truth and said I would only do it if they don’t have four.  XON did not have a large roster, so only three others showed up that day.  One of them being aCiD, whom I regarded as the best XON at the time.  He would actually beat me in a duel on my 486, something most of the Cougars could not accomplish.  I was going to play this game on my Pentium though, so I had high expectations of myself.  I logged on as XONDragon, and only Jester and I knew I was playing for my sister for this match.  

The game started with a confident uFo marching straight for our base, killing off some XONs.  However, it soon became apparent that it would be no cakewalk for uFo.  UFos, started dying off before they can get to the flag, and as the game progressed the uFos started complaining more and more.  My most memorable moment of the whole game was uFos one and only flag run where all of XON was killed and I was the only defender left.  I got in front of the flagger and escorts but was quickly surrounded by all four enemy pilots.  Moonsocket was literally on top of me, raping me with his three other companions who all moved close to me.  I bombed myself and killed off Moon who was on top of me and smoked a few others before I was brought down.  The match ended with a 1-0 score, clearly surprising many because XON practically lost all their matches 3-0.  After the match, the uFos started declaring that XON was the laggiest clan of all time.  However, Moon was trying to convince his teammates that XON actually wasn’t that bad. 

Jester was so impressed with the way I played this game that he gave me an invitation to join the clan if I ever left Cougar.  Although looking back on this APL match, I was happy I got to play with XON against a decent clan at the time in uFo, it’s something I’d never do again because I value integrity in ARC more than I did back then.  I also don’t believe there was any rule that specifically stated that I couldn’t use someone else’s name, however I knew what I did was wrong by sheer common sense.  I never did anything remotely close to that again for the remainder of my ARC career. 

As for Cougar, we played the Gundam clan.  They were one of those great clans in Hfront, so I knew we were going to have our hands full.  Yet again, we were able to field three players.  This time I was back in my dorm room on a 486 computer.  Grumm and Bond showed up for the Cougars and we played three vs four.  The map we played on was Fortress Wars.  Bond went off to solo flag while me and Grumm had to deal with four guys on defense.  We got raped to death in seconds and they went back and raped Bond to death for a lightning quick cap.  The rest of the match was pretty much the same, Gundam got two more quick caps.  We got our butts kicked real bad.  Later on, Grumm and I told Bond not to solo flag, especially when we were already down a man. 

Cougar wasn’t a bad clan though, especially when we were able to field four players and I was on a Pentium.  FF and AKA were some of our victims when this happened once in a blue moon.  The elusive Firestorm actually showed up for a game and it was the AKA game.  We practiced in a game before our APL match and he was indeed the best first generation Cougar that was on our roster.  Other first generation Cougars were Smeeba, Iginest, and Goose.  They were not a part of this current clan however.  Grumm, Khaladan, Firestorm and I ripped AKA to pieces.  We played the match on a relatively small vertical map and capped three times on them in eight minutes flat.  We basically went upwards, killed everyone, grabbed the flag and left.  Quick and efficient. 

The weekend of Area51 and CO was approaching.  I was back on my 486 again, and I really did not want to play an APL game on it, plus I had a crapload of homework that needed to be done.  Area51 was only able to field three players so we had the choice to force a forfeit or play them undermanned.  With all four of the Cougars who showed up busy with real life, we chose the forfeit.  CO came tomorrow but I was too busy to even attend this one.  I heard we were doing ok before Rat’s PC froze again and CO overran us. 

This brings us to our next addition of Cougar News from an email I received from Grumm: “Well, here we go.  Currently, we have a VERY small chance of getting into the playoffs but it is still a chance!  What we must do to get in: Win.

We must defeat AKA on Saturday at 5:45pm EST and 
We must defeat KaM on Sunday at 5:45pm EST
KaM has the same record as us and AKA hasn't won a single game.  I think we can win, but that's only

if enough people show up.  However! If Dog defeats Bunny, Bunny cannot win against Area51 or else we are eliminated from the playoffs.  If Bunny defeats Dog, Dog cannot win against CO or else we are eliminated.  FF may not win more than one game or else we are eliminated; FF plays GUNDAM and AKA.

BA may not win more than one game or else we are eliminated; BA plays KaM and TR. Area51 may not win more than one game or else we are eliminated; Area51 plays CO and Bunny.”  Grumm calculated all of that for us.  Isn’t Grumm great?

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