Chapter 65:

Ace put down the chalk, he had been whitening certain parts of the drawing in order to give it more shade, it was beginning to look seriously good, and Ace was proud of it. It was the second day of holidays, and he was pretty happy, he had just finished his 10 placement games for ranked and had gotten gold, this meant that he would not have to climb too much, and since he already had a team, it would be easy to get back up to the top ranks. He knew that at some point, the top players that ended up playing on the top rank would begin to recognise each other, and he was hoping to form friendships with some of the younger players.

His teammates were fun, but at the end of the day, they were all at least 5 years older than him, Alex being 10 years older, and Mary being 20, while the duo were 21 and 22 respectively. He was looking forward to actually being able to play with some people closer to his own age. It was not a problem for him to get along with older people, but it did feel a bit awkward. Especially if they wanted to go out for drinks or something, he could go with them, but they did not feel comfortable having a younger kid - no matter how mature, along with them when they got wasted. It was understandable, and Ace never felt annoyed about it, it made total sense.

The solution to all of this was to go to parties hosted by members of his year-group, but Ace had a problem with seeing younger kids get totally wasted on drugs or alcohol, and doing stupid stuff. He understood that people did it, but if an adult was doing it, it gave a totally different feeling to a child doing it.

As Ace washed his hands, getting rid of all the dust and chalk, he thought over all the stuff that had been happening. Samantha had informed him that she had already made plans on how to obtain the airspace, or at least full permissions for it. Ace had no doubts she would end up getting what she wanted, but he was somewhat curious as to the tactics she would employ.

He picked up his laptop, doing a quick search and then uploading two new videos to U-Tube, he usually compounded a video with game clips, with a music video, which varied, it could be a recollection of stream music highlights, or him playing the full version of a song. This one was a compilation of various stream clips, these were usually more entertaining to watch, but his full music video usually got more views, since they were short and you could just listen to it.

He was happy with how it was all progressing, he had more than 1 million followers in all of his social media accounts, and it was growing quite a bit. Veronica had also sent him an offer from a Strike, a streetwear brand, to do a modelling stint for them. He was not sure if he wanted to take it. He had not really worn anything by them for himself, so he wanted to be sure of the quality of the clothes before anything else. It would be preferable if the clothes were not made in barbaric workhouses in Indonesia, but since most of it was shipped from the USA and Japan, he had some hopes.

Veronica had apparently received an offer from them, they had been smart enough to check out his M.O., and asked him to model for a new drop that would be coming out, 30% of the proceeds would go to charity, so Ace was feeling more and more like it was the right option.

It was not a super well-known brand, but respectable enough within streetwear circles. Ace sent Veronica a text saying he would think about it and give her a response soon, then, he booted up his PC, and launched Rainbow Six Siege. He had also downloaded various other games to play, and was looking forward to doing a poll and saying which ones were more favoured.

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In a meeting room

Coordinates Not Registered

"You know full well that I will get what I want, you might as well make it easier for me. You went for my grandson, and someone will pay for it, but it does not have to be you, and it does not need to escalate to include the whole government.", the voice of a woman ringed out placidly, there was a steely undertone to it, as if she was warning of an undiscovered danger, something that was about to make an appearance.

"You could not harm the government as a whole.", the man replied off-handedly, as if not bothering to consider the woman as a threat.

"I do not have to do so, as long as I release about 1 tenth of the dirt I have on all of the institution as a whole, it would force you to make a statement."

"It would not hold up in court, it has been obtained illegally.", the man sounded triumphant

"You are either daft, old fashioned or both. I do not have to go to court for people to find out, social media exists, and if I throw them a bone, they will chew it to dust. Releasing only a few documents would cause you to lose respect, so what do you think would happen if I released a video? You forget the fact that it is not other officials you have to convince to vote for you, but the civilians. Do you think they will vote for you if your dirt comes out? Think about it, I want my airspace by the end of the week, if I don't have it, I will be releasing things one by one until I do.", the voice ended in a light, cheerful tone, and as the woman walked out of the room, the man banged on the desk.

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"Under the staircase! He is moving back! Peek now! Peek now! Yesssss!", Jo's voice came out of the headset, and Ace winced, he had used a grating voice changer for the last bit, and it sounded extremely obnoxious.

"Please don't do that, my ears will die, and I will not be able to play anymore.", Ace said this with a grin, even if they could not see him.

"No! Don't! We need you to carry us! We have played five games and won every single one of them, the climb is real!"

Ace laughed at Jack's comment, it was true that they had won five games and Ace was top fragger, but it did not mean he was carrying. The others had just as many good plays, and their callouts were the reason he got so many kills. They were solid in both defence and offence, so any round Ace died, they would still win on their own, regardless. However, it was true that the climb is real, they were now halfway through the last sub-rank in gold, and close to Platinum. They were going at it strong, and showed no signs of stopping.

"Well guys, I need to get off, I have things to do.", he had been streaming for about 4 hours, and while it was shorter than usual, no one in chat complained, he was known for pulling 12-hour streams multiple days in a row, and now that there was an extended holiday, he would be doing the same hopefully, so there would be more than enough content to watch.

"Have a good one guys, thanks for tuning in.", he switched the recorder off, and logged out from the game. He was not very tired, but he did want to work on the gift for Samantha. He promised himself he would work on it every day, and he had no plans on going back on that promise. He had finished the overall general look, and now it was time to focus on minuscule details and the tone that would hopefully make this piece so memorable. He began with the eyes, he planned to make them emotive yet stable, as if they could take on the brunt of the world. While it was a gift for his grandmother, it was also meant to be more than that, she would hopefully hang it in her office, so anyone that saw it had to be positively impacted by it.

Ace understood that it had to serve a double purpose, and he had already planned for it. Because of this, he would have to twist proportions a bit to make the observer seem smaller than the woman in the painting, but hopefully not enough that it would be noticeable. A careful balance was needed, and Ace hoped he had nailed it.

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Two pizzas, a coke, some popcorn and a movie later, Ace was ready to go to bed. His day had been productive enough for him to be satisfied, and so he could sleep with a calm conscience.

[Beep]

A notification rang out, and Ace checked his phone, it was a message from his grandmother: [The airspace will be ours by the end of the week]

Ace sighed and shook his head, excitement filling his thoughts, who the hell knew what his grandmother did to convince the Government of the United States to give up part of their airspace.

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"Good morning Ace, did I wake you up?", Amy's voice sounded out, and Ace laughed, it was 10 in the morning, Ace had woken up later than usual, at 6, this phone call had most definitely not woken him up, his morning was already 4 hours underway.

"No, no. I wake up early.", Ace clarified

"Ah ok, thank god, I was worried that you would be tired and cranky", Ace laughed again

"Nah, so, how was the test?"

Ace heard a sigh, "Better than expected, but still not perfect, I will be lucky to get 85%."

"Well, don't worry you are not supposed to get over 90% on them anyways."

"And yet, you are getting 100."

"True, and they are probably making them harder for that same reason.", Ace laughed

"You asshole.", she said grumpily

"So, what's up, I assume this was not a booty call?", Ace said in a totally serious tone, sarcasm shining for its absence.

"You wish. No, I just wanted to tell you that you are invited to a dinner party at the estate, it's in a few days, so that no one has conflicting times, so you have no excuse not to come. It should be fun enough, we will have to suck up to some adults, but you should be fine. Your grandmother should have gotten her invitation as well, in case she is thinking not to come, convince her to do so.", Ace understood the reason and affirmed it, he would not be able to go on his lonesome, he was not yet respected enough for that.

"Also, just a warning, you will receive some more invites like this one, tell your grandmother first, she will tell you when to go and when to not do so. Also, careful, you have gotten a lot of good press, so some people may be looking to take you down.", her worry was evident, and Ace thanked her for her candour and warnings, assuring her that they would attend.

Ace then sent a message to Veronica telling her that they would be attending, and she informed him that Samantha wanted to meet him so they could go shopping for clothes.

"God damm*t…"