This story is a long one. I came across sniper-only camping servers when I was looking for a chill game mode. And there was a really popular server known as FBI. I loved it. It was a good mix of camping and having great movement. During my time there P-Lo asked to DM me. This was before Discord, before Facebook, before all of it. So we ended up talking on X-Fire. It was against the rules on pretty much all servers to recruit, because the server owners wanted first dibs. But no one picked me up and P-Lo saw promise in me.

Come to find out Peter was a co-leader for [XIS]

XiS was a freestyle team as in they had the restrictions of sniper camping servers, but you were free to move about. You don’t have to hide in a dark corner.

I’ll be honest, I kind of sucked. But the way it worked is that XiS, well Soulrain, the leader, would take the best players into matches. I don’t know how I found myself in that situation, but it was probably a mistake. I went negative in games, a lot. I was using a custom made laptop, with a laptop sized mouse, and I’d play matches on my kitchen counter. It was closer than my room to the WiFI, which was in the basement. I’d chug some Monster energy drinks, probably to my detriment, and throw on some headphones. It didn’t matter though, I kind of sucked.

But I came across a mouse, Razer’s second, the copperhead. It was great for my play style. It had rubber rails on the sides, so I could claw grip. Before that mouse most were set up for palm grip players. It was revolutionary. It also had a higher DPI than regular mice. I was for it.

I could finally keep up with the other in XiS. I wasn’t the best, but I held my own for the first time.

I did alright for myself, but it wasn’t until I got wired internet in my room. I was directly above the router, but 2 floors above. WiFi was okay, but wired internet changed everything. UT99 has no lag compensation or prediction, so I learned to aim at the right spots. For example: you can’t shoot someone side dodging, but you could aim where they’d land. EZ kill. I was getting better. It happen quickly.

Only a few weeks in and I could head shot people teleporting up to the platform I was on. All my of my practice had paid off.

But I fucked up.

I came across cheats. I never used them in games that mattered, but I remember showing it off to Fish. He was the best player in the world and a close friend of mine. We went on a couple of servers, but I was eventually nabbed on some instagib server Donut hole or something.

He happened to be a FN mod.

FN or Fragged Nation was the first org to create UT99 ladders. I fucked up. Some senseless fun turned into turmoil for us. Soul tried his best to defend me, but to be fair, he had no idea what I did. It was just for fun, but I did let them down. I fucked up.

I ended up leaving and splitting XiS. The best players followed me to what was known as h4[x]. A play on of h4x or hax, aka hacks. What else could I do, outside of taking it head on?

And I got… good. Really fucking good. I played against Fish every single day. Day in, day out we battled back and forth. It wasn’t even close. I could 1 tap basically anyone, any time. Not a good look after getting caught cheating, but it was all legit. No one came even close to my skill. We played as a group and I played a ton of 1v1s. I could beat anyone in the entire game 30-0 or 30-1 except Fish or Bear. I eventually could beat them both, but no where close to 30-0. They put up some crazy fights. Fish was a bit easier, because I played with him every day, but still I could pull out a 30-15 at best. Bear hadn’t been with XiS for awhile and it took me a few tries before I could pull out ahead, but it was a hell of an accomplishment when I did. Even cheaters like TheDarkPickle (Jay) couldn’t keep up with me.

I was the best of the best

But my reputation was tarnished. And Soul’s new team (s2n) second to none, I think, couldn’t and wouldn’t even bother challenging us. So I left. I killed the h4[x] org. No one would play us, and it was pretty understandable to be honest.

And that was it. I went from shit to the best of the best.

There’s a lot more to the story of course, but that was my best effort to condense it. I helped XiS go from barely winning to absolutely dominating by teaching them communication. That landed me a co-leader title back then. We were just kids though. I stole the idea from ACE, who thought they could beat us by playing as a team. I hacked their forums though and found all of their plans. I was a troublemaker indeed,

We were just kids. Fish was 13, Soul and myself were 16, and we destroyed the 30 year olds who had been playing for a decade. They thought we cheated, but we didn’t (except that time when I did in other random servers and game modes). They even put a “PSA” out about us that multiple teams signed. It didn’t matter, everyone knew we didn’t cheat. They were just upset that a bunch of kids dominated them and they couldn’t keep up.

Shout out to Soul, Fish, P-Lo, and Aaron.