Chapter 136:

"Morning Ace, are you getting on well? Are you rested up?", Zach asked, and Ace relieved his preoccupations, "Yeah, I'm all good, all ready for the tournament."

"Good, good. Get to school by normal time, but wait at the gate, there will be a coach that will come to pick us up, and we have about a ten minute trip to the school's airspace, there, we take a jet, and get to L.A. Once we get there, we will have the day to relax, and the tournament starts the day after, but it will start late, at about 10, so we will get there half-an hour earlier, get some good spots, and get acclimated with the space.", Zach said, taking his time explaining the whole process.

"Ok, I will be there, do I need to bring anything apart from clothes?", Ace asked.

"Nope, the hotel will take care of anything, I assume your clothes were sent out earlier?", Zach asked, "Yeah, that's fine, they have already arrived."

"Good, well, see you later.", "Ok, bye, have a nice day."

Ace put the phone down, and walked downstairs, he had to ensure that everything was prepared for tonight, at the end of the day, it was his first time hosting one of these, so he wanted to make sure that it was memorable.

There were snacks already arrayed around the room, and each seat had a QR code, where the menu could be loaded from, they could order whatever they wanted straight from there, and the kitchen would make it. It was a simple system that made everything easier for everyone nonetheless. The selection of movies was already prepared, a vast digital catalogue of movies, of which everyone could be watched instantly.

After making the rounds to ensure everything was ready, Ace sat on the couch, opened his book, and got to reading. It was another classic, and Ace had to honestly say that while some classics were boring, his grandmother's choices so far had been interesting, and they all offered something of value to his life, which merely made the read that much more enjoyable.

***

"Hey guys, come on in, please.", Ace motioned them to move away from the doorway, and enter the penthouse.

Sophie looked around, and wowed, "Daaamm, your house is smaller than I expected, but honestly, it's super cool.", Ace laughed and thanked her.

'I guess it's not palace sized', Ace thought, all of these people lived in massive compounds, in fact, most of them did not even know 50% of the house they lived in. Ace, on the other hand, lived in a massive penthouse - true, but compared to them, it was probably a lot smaller than they expected. To be fair, he did live alone, but even so, this might only be the size of one of the wings in their compounds, and they did live in one of those on their own as well.

"Yeah,", John said, "It actually is nice…", he said in a low voice, then, he perked up, "So! What's the plan?"

"Well, I was thinking, a lot of food, and a lot of movies, maybe some games?", Ace asked, and the others nodded excitedly. "Ok, I can get behind that,", Kristina said, the fourth and last person he had invited.

***

They spent their afternoon eating and watching movies, but the good guy faces were over the moment John offered to play Smash Brothers, the best party game known to man.

They spent hours playing the game, at first, it was not meant to be a sleep over, but since no-one was sleeping, it was all good.

After consuming unholy amounts of energy drinks, and shouting at each other over 'unfair characters', they went home the morning after.

By the end, all the invitees were dopy and droopy, and a chauffeur took them home, where Ace had no doubt they would spend the rest of the day sleeping.

'Low-weights', Ace thought, and laughed,'I guess it's not a fair comparison, I didn't even have to drink anything to keep awake, just for the taste - which is pretty darn good, all said and told. Oh well, I still consider this event a success, they were all pretty happy by the end of it, even if their eyes refused to open, and drool was already coming out of a few mouths.

***

"You guys all excited?", Win asked, through his nervous chattering, which made them all laugh, even Brom cracked a smile.

"Relax, little boy, the tournament has not even started yet, and you are so nervous, it looks like you are about to run.", Nai said, to the chagrin of the others, 'God d*mmit, I guess she just cannot help it.',Ace thought, a feeling shared with the others as well.

Win was about to go on the offense, when Zach came, and they all stopped messing around, he was accompanied by what Ace recognised to be one of the senior P.E. teachers, who he assumed would be their chaperone for the duration of the event.

"Good morning to you all, my name is Coach R, Coach is fine though. The coach should be here soon, and you know how it will be, the usual flights usually take about 6 hours, but we should be able to get there in about five, landing including.", he seemed proud of the feat, which made total sense. 'I guess the school can probably take the fast track, and probably skip through any of the tedious checks or regulations.', Ace thought, 'Well, better for us I guess, especially for the others, that means I will take less money from them. They should be thanking the school profusely, this way, they will have a lot more spending money.'

***

The coach came soon, and they got on, no one was carrying any luggage, apart from a backpack, since everyone had already sent out their clothes a few days before, by the time they got to the hotel, it should have all been cleaned, ironed, and set in their respective places.

They drove for about ten minutes, the coach stopping at the entrance of the plane, no border or police checks necessary, they got on the plane, and after about a minute of waiting, where Ace assumed the pilots were making final checks, the plane began to move.

As expected, they spent the duration of the flight playing various card games, and to everyone's surprise, Coach was actually quite good at poker, not quite at Ace's level, where he read everyone like a book, after a few rounds of playing with them, but he definitely took more than a few chips from the others.

He was also good enough to know that there was no way he would beat Ace, so he usually played for pota when Ace was not participating. It made him susceptible to bluffs, but all in all, he came out with more money than he had come in, the only one to do so, since Zach, who usually came in about even, had also lost more, since there were now two big players.

After more than a few rounds, they progressed to playing Blackjack, or 21, where Coach played as the 'house', and dealt for everyone else. Ace won again, but Noelle was actually pretty good, she had a good idea of when to bet, and as the game went on, Ace noticed that she was actually counting the cards, but it was not perfect, she still made a few counting mistakes. Regardless, it was clever that she had learnt on her own time, and Ace found it amusing. 'Did she want to win so hard?'

As the game progressed, Ace and Noelle were the only ones that still had something tangible to bet with, but it all dissipated when Noelle said she was tired.

Everyone went to do their own thing, except for Nai and Win, the two resident gambling addicts, who were playing a dice game, slamming the table and shouting at each other more often than not.

Ace was getting worried, but the others seemed relaxed, sure that all of it would fade once they went back home. They had a deeper relationship with the two, so Ace took it in stride, and just laughed or groaned at their reactions and fixations.