Perfection!

What's the old saying? Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile. That cynical colloquialism sums it up tonight, where I had one of my best nights ever. Welcome to the Valentine's Day Massacre, and for once, I was on the giving end of said destruction.

This is the first "holiday lobby" Bungie has created since Halloween's Infection lobby. Valentine's Day is Team Doubles (what else?) and runs through the weekend. I did very well, winning all but one match. In the match prior to my "perfect" match, I went from Skill 1 to Skill 3 in one game, and ended with 5. That skill in 5 games in one night is impressive for someone of my questionable "skill".

So how did I do it? How did I manage to get a Perfection medal? First off, to get one you have to have 15 or more kills and no deaths in the game. I got the fifteenth kill with 30 seconds to spare.

There is more to the story, of course. We were Team Doubles on Epitaph, one of my better maps. Right at the beginning, one of the Blues dropped/lagged out. Now it was two on one. I know what you're thinking - "Oh I get it," you think, feeling the way you do when a magic trick's prestige is revealed to you, "you guys just stuck together and mowed the other guy down."

Actually, you'd be partly right. We did mow him down, but not for lack of his trying. Unfortunately for him Epitaph is the worst map to play if you don't control the key weapons (the shotgun and the rocket launcher). I spent the whole game cycling through the rocket launcher, getting the shotgun, and running for Active Camo every time it popped it.

The lone Blue got me a few times, but I managed to squeak out a kill before I died. I perched a lot. Perching (sitting atop a higher structure to hide and surprise attack opponents) doesn’t get any better than Epitaph, where you can sit on the flying buttresses and punish people for assuming they are allowed on the floating platform.

With a minute left, I had fourteen kills, and the Blue had just been killed by my teammate (a guy I didn’t know. I’d have played with a Geezer or Possum, but everyone I knew decided Halo wasn’t fun tonight.) I saw Blue down on the bottom level interior, trying to run sideways to the safety of the door. I fired a rocket and jumped down. The rocket splashed his shields just as he started to shoot me. My second rocket hit the wall behind him, but the explosion ended the stream of bullets that were taking my own shields down to nothing. I landed by his corpse and ran outside. I had a Killing Frenzy. Not my first ever, but I was excited nonetheless. My teammate said "spend the rest of the time hiding.” In my nievety, I assumed it was so he could get the last kill. I didn’t realize he was trying to protect my Perfection, because before tonight, I didn’t even know the medal existed!

So despite the disparity between my 2 man team and the lone opponent, I still managed 15-0 in 11 minutes in a ranked game against an enemy that didn't stop trying to kill us the whole time. My partner ended the game at 10-0.

I'll probably never see another Perfection in ranked, so I'll be sure to enjoy this one, because after all, even a blind squirrel will sometimes find a nut fifteen times in a row without being run over by a car.

- Solstice01