144 Chapter 144:

Ace played slowly and methodically, he went when he had to bet, and folded when he had to fold. He played safe for nearly an hour, before beginning to take some more risks as he got more knowledge on each of his opponents. After two hours of playing, and doubling his number of credits, he left the table, cashing out his chips for tickets, and made his way back to one of the rhythm game machines.

'That was fun, but this is probably an easier way to get the required credits.', it was a simple premise, the game had an array of buttons to the side and below the screen, you had to press them in tandem, following the instructions on the screens, at the rhythm of the music. It got progressively faster and more complicated, and you gained tickets depending on the difficulty of the song and how long you lasted.

Ace began with a simple song to warm up, he pressed the buttons, slowly at first, but it then got more complicated, he had no issues, but to an outsider, it looked as if he was hanging on for dear life, when in reality, he was waiting for the split second where he could get a perfect timing bonus. He continued for another minute, and then, the noise began to catch the attention of people wandering about. The more you lasted, the faster and louder the music got, as of now, it was decently loud, and anyone passing by would hear a rumble of sounds, a cacophony of beats and harmonies.

Ace was now tapping the buttons fast, it was at this point, that most people who could last this long - which were certainly few, even if it was an easy song, would begin to slap and smash the buttons, and yet, Ace was just gently hitting them, barely making any noise.

He was getting progressively faster, and by now, there were quite a few people watching him play, oohing and aahing whenever he got through a particularly complicated composition. It was only after five minutes of straight playing that Ace stopped pressing buttons, and a split second later, the game displayed the Game Over message. It seemed weird to the onlookers, he had just stopped tapping at one point, even if it seemed like he could still keep going for a while more.

Ignoring the stares, however, Ace scanned his card, picking up the credits, and walked straight to the gift stop, cashing in all of his credits for the first gift he wanted to get.

It was only one other person that understood what had just happened: 'Did he just calculate exactly how many credits he needed, and just played up to that point? What is this guy?'

***

'Ok, got my first gift, now, I can go back, and farm more credits on a harder song.', Ace thought, twirling his new Onyx card between his fingers, having it appear on one finger, disappear, and then appear in the next.

***

Ace spent pretty much the entire morning there, and only went back to the hotel to have some lunch with Igor.

"So, how are your ribs going?", Ace asked, and Igor smiled, "No pain, which is very good, they are still a bit tender, but I should be pretty good for tomorrow, luckily, it was a light bruise, and they have some of the best care facilities in the world here, so the process went very smoothly."

"Good, I'm pleased.", Ace said, as he finished up his filet mignon.

They talked for some more, before Igor said he wanted to go get some sleep, and Ace picked up his skateboard again, and decided to tour around the nearby parts of the city…

***

"So, where are you from?", Ace turned around towards the voice, and as he had heard, eight footsteps, or four guys, circling him from behind, 'Oh man, this is probably not going to go well.'

"Me? From around here why?", Ace replied, calmly, as he kept doing stationary tricks on his skateboard, clearly impressing two of the guys that were to the sides, while the middle man just looked at him with scorn.

"Never heard of you, what are you doing here?", he widened his stance slightly, attempting to look more intimidating, but Ace just kept on doing tricks. Switching from one to another, as smooth as can be, he was beginning to run out, but would probably not have to do them for a lot more time anyways.

"I'm just skating for a while, waiting for some people.", suddenly, Ace got a new idea, "What school do you go to?", he asked, "Dom's, not that you should care.", he said, clearly curious as to why he asked, but now getting more aggressive by the second.

'Well, that sucks, let's just make sure first though.', Ace thought, "Ok, and you are all from there?", they shook their heads, and one of the four said, "Nah, it's only him and LJ", pointing to the two at the front.

'Ok, at least they were the most douchebaggy of the four.'

And before they could do anything else, Ace kicked his skateboard up, and gripping it with one hand, dashed towards the 'leader' of the four, he hit him in the belly with it, and then kicked him softly on the knee, only enough to drop him. He twirled, and extended his grip on the skateboard, and hit the other guy in the leg with the flat of it, as he grabbed his leg in pain, Ace kicked him in the jaw, knocking him to the floor, where he met the other guy, groaning in pain.

"Sorry for that guys, but I have a few friends from District.", Ace said, as he made a call, "Hey, Tobias, I got a few guys from Dom's here. Yeah, just skating, they came up to me and I asked. Nah, they were four, but I left the two who were not part of it alone. LJ, I think?", Ace listened, and then asked one of the scared boys that were standing to the side, "What's the other guy's name?", the boy was shocked for a second, before he quickly answered, "They call him Chain, I guess you know who that is? Wait, are you serious? Well, does not matter, just come here, I sent you the location. Cool, see you soon.", Ace hung up.

He squatted down next to Chain, and pulled his shirt up. "Son of a…", Ace let out softly. He had a slim chain tied as if a belt. It was not very thick, but it was long enough to be looped around, and if that hit you, you could say goodbye to a clean fight, and hello to a nice new scar.

***

It was only five minutes later, when a group of kids came up on skateboards, bikes and motorbikes came to the park. The other two guys that belonged to the four had already left, and it was only the two on the floor. Ace had let them know that if they moved, he would just knock them out, so they stayed there quietly.

Tobias got down from one of the motorbikes, and came up to Ace, offering a dap.

"So, what happened here?", he asked, "I was just skating, minding my own business, when these doofuses came at me, asking where I was from, we had a nice chat, and they told me they were from Dom's, so I remembered what your people were talking about, and since they were annoying me, and they were going to start something anyways, I decided to act first."

"Cool, thanks man, this guy��s a slippery eel, we never catch him, but now, we should be all good, he should probably back down for a while, isn't it?", Tobias said, as he kicked Chain lightly.

"What is all of this about anyway?", Ace asked, Tobias, looked at him, and nodded to himself, "Well, you might as well know, not that it will affect you, there were some issues between some of the seniors of the two school's gangs, so now, we are pretty much in an all-out war. It will probably end soon though, we are smashing their faces in pretty quickly.", he said, as he grinned, and took a picture of Chain and LJ.

"Well, we are off, we have a few things to do, also, there is a party going on in three days, bring your friends, I would be happy to meet them, I'll send you the details, they'll know you are coming.", they bumped fists, and then the group was off.

'That was certainly interesting.'