Epic and Atari owning it
Chapter 7: Rough Seasons
So, that was the start of our first official season. In our first two matches, we had a team member killed, and Bjorn destroyed beyond recognition. Bjorn obviously wasn't ready to just hop back into competition after that experience, and he sat out the remainder of the year to rehabilitate his senses, and to try to cope with the physical and mental trauma that he had to have been suffering. With Bjorn out the rest of the season, our team was just a loose cannon. Constant arguments as to who should take charge left us way lower in the ranks than we should have been. Arielle and myself managed to gain some kind of a leadership role as the season went on, the only real issue we had with Blake, the damn guy kept thinking he should have been in charge, and his damn ego cost us more matches than not since the idiot never listened to a damn order... kinda glad the guy died a few seasons later… what? Did you think that jackass would actually live to see retirement from the tournament? We lost matches that by all accounts we should have had in the bag in comparison to skill, but we were not organized and always fell apart midway through a match. Anyways, we didn't even see the semi finals that year, we got eliminated in the quarters by Thunder Crash, who went on the win the team aspects of the tournament, and Malcolm made it to the finals, but this Liandri robot, Xan… damn that thing could fight, it made short work of Malcolm and claimed the title of champion in the first season. Yeah, I know I left a lot out of season one, but seriously, it's a season I'd rather forget. Our second season didn't go much better. Bjorn was still unable to compete, Arielle and I tried to lead a team that was going nowhere, but we didn't do too great. The season went similar to the previous, several casualties, a few fatalities… it got to the extent that if you were around long enough for the fans to remember your name, you were one of the luckiest people in the tournament. Ophelia set a record that season that still to this day has yet to be broken… most fatalities in a single match by one competitor. The crazy bitch killed six of our eight opponents, when the other two saw her coming they surrendered, problem is that they were a little TOO slow to react, she wound up killing one of them anyways, and last I heard the other guy is still alive, but his legs haven't worked since that day. Outside the tournament, Ophelia just seemed to be getting worse and worse. She still would sit in her private chamber, strapped into a wheelchair facing out a window and fed through an I.V. Arielle seemed to be the only one that could reach her, and even she rarely ever got so much as a word or a visible acknowledgement from Ophelia. The doctors that always checked up on her, some quacks from some asylum for the criminally insane, kept saying that she was "sinking deeper", whatever the hell that meant I don't know but it could not have been good. They upped her dosages on drugs and tranquilizers, I swear there were days at a time she would go without even blinking. I began to feel angry for Ophelia, instead of trying to help her, the doctors just kept her sedated and hoped she wouldn't survive the next match we dragged her into. Our second season ended horribly, we didn't even see the quarter finals that season. The Iron Guard won the season that year, and Brock had the chance to take on Xan. Sadly, Brock had about as much luck against Xan as Malcolm had, and Xan became a repeat champion.
The third season started off in much better fashion than the previous two. We received word that Bjorn was in fact almost ready to make his return, and we had no doubts in our minds that he would at least lead us to the semi finals that season. After three matches, Bjorn returned. He had dropped the codename "Eagle" and told us all that we would no longer go by silly codenames, but that we were human beings that deserved to be called by our names. Bjorn had returned with an intense fury, and all season we dominated. Thunder Crash even had difficulty handling us, yours truly even managed to put Malcolm on the shelf for half the season with a leg injury. That season was also the début season for android teams and a team composed of the usually pacifistic race, the Nali. We sadly lost Ramirez that season, an android solider named Virus blew a hole right through his chest with a shock rifle, a new weapon introduced that season. Ramirez died how he would have wanted to though; it was an assault match, the final objective for that match was to bomb a section of a base and as Ramirez' body went to sleep from the lack of blood, he took the bomb and dove headlong into the heavily guarded sector that required detonation, taking the base and the entire android team down with him. The heroic act took the award for play of the year amongst other awards… too bad the poor bastard never lived to appreciate them. But Ramirez' sacrifice bought us a spot in the quarter finals, where we wiped the floor with a team called the Crimson Guard. We never saw that team again, sadly, but that's the sport. The Semi finals saw us pitted against the Necris. They were far more coordinated and skilled than when we previously battled them, but Bjorn had a huge chip on his shoulder and damn near single-handedly took care of them in our assault match… I still kinda chuckle when I think of how he ran right into their entire team by himself and crippled many of their competitors with his link gun. We saw the Iron Guard in the finals, we wanted it so badly and this was our chance to overthrow the last season's champions. Regrettably they managed to win the capture the flag game we were competing in, but our season finish was a hell of a lot better than the last two, so we had little regrets. Lauren, the co-leader of Iron Guard, went on the face Xan, damned if she nearly didn't beat the bastard to. She gave him the best run for his money he had seen to date, but he still managed to edge out a victory… a lot of us began to wonder if Xan could EVER be defeated.
Yeah, I am kind of rushing the in arena action along, but honestly what happens in the arena only makes up about a third of the story, don't worry it will be getting better.
