Chapter 45:

Ace woke up the next day feeling energised, still reminiscing about last night's events, he laughed. He had wiped the floor with the others, they were not bad at poker, especially John, but they were nothing compared to Ace. He had been faking his emotions the whole time, and by the time they realised that, Ace had already won them over two major games. It ended up being that they would all try to outsmart Ace, but he simply enjoyed himself playing them against each other.

The gathering had been fun, and he had gotten the other guys' contacts, so Ace would not be surprised if they did this again. Now, Ace began his workout - albeit a lighter version as he wanted to be in a perfect state of mind for the rest of the tournament. After he finished, he took a shower and gorged himself over pancakes and waffles. He then went to boot his monitor up, and posted a message on his I-Gram, informing his fans that he was now getting ready for the finals of the tournament.

His number of followers had grown, but it would most likely gain a big spike today, as more people tuned in to watch the finals. They would have to play four games, and would have a break after the first two. They would hopefully be finished with this one time for lunch, but that was only his wishful thinking. Realistically, the event would drag on until mid-afternoon, including all the awards and interviews they would most likely want to do.

Shaking away useless thoughts, he focused on his upcoming games, there were two teams they had to be wary of, the first was RoarOfDrag's team, or as the viewers ended up calling it: Team Drag, they were incredibly strong on defence, not only did they have Drag, but they also had another player called Taua who was also a reasonably good anchor. They had managed to win every single defence round so far, but they had not come up against any of the best teams.

The other team was Team 12, three of their players were good, only the level of Harris or Juan, which meant that they could come up with some surprises. They played anchor, support and roamer respectively, which meant that they covered all bases.

As Ace saw that they would first play against Team 12, he was happy. They would have less time to review their strategies, which meant that Ace's team could play in a more relaxed state. They would not have to worry about them coming up with many counterstrategies, which could end up breaking their momentum.

As they did the random selection for the map, the map House came up, where Ace's team would attack first. They ended up going with the basic Thermite and Thatcher combo, but S1k played Blitz and Abby and Ace played Twitch and Ash respectively.

They did not know if they would select the garage as a place to defend, so Team 7 just focused on covering any potential issues, by going with a balanced operator composition. They did not select garage, which dampened their moods a bit, but instead played on the top floor. They spawned accordingly, with Ace preparing to catch out any defender that would try and peek through the main windows. This time, Ace had gotten it right, and as the defender's head came up, Ace shot it, while also grinning at his luck. The operator he had shot was a Doc, this was important as it would now negate any advantage they could have by staying close to each other.

Ace came in through the front door as the rest of the team began from the upper floor, as they made their ways to the Bomb sites, defenders died, only Juan dying after being caught unaware. It was fine since he was playing Thatcher, and the defenders were not using Bandit. When they got close to the bombs, S1k charged in with his ability and got the last two kills, which ended up winning them the round. The attacker rounds proceeded in the same way, and so did the first defender round they played.

However, they were caught off guard on their second round as defender, and their game-winning round. Their whole team rushed straight for the bomb, killing their three anchors in short succession. As Abby, who was closer to the bomb, rotated back to base in an attempt to ward them off, she died as well, not even killing one, only damaging him somewhat.

If one noticed the stream chat at that point, however, a small trickle of users began to quickly spam something in the chat: [Ace Mode], most had no idea of what it was but after the link to the original joke was sent, people began to catch on and type it in the chat.

Ace, however, was unaware of this, he slowly made his way to the bomb after checking cameras: the relevant ones had all been shot down. He peeked angles perfectly, his brain working on overdrive to give him a clue on where they could be. He came to the first site, he ran in and swiped around, but no one was there. He moved to the next one, as he looked at the site through the doorway connecting both bombs, he killed one and then another.

"1"

"2", a part of the chat going crazy and spamming the numbers, most people were watching the stream that showed Team 7's game as they were the clear favourite to win, and as they caught on to the reference, more and more people began to type it in chat.

Ace kept looking, the diffuser had now been planted, and the time began ticking. Ace was playing Pulse, so he used the scanner to try and get their location. He spotted one, but could not outright peek it as there could be other enemies on the opposite corners of the room. He continued on his slow yet progressive advance, he did not find any other, so he ran into the room and killed the guy he had seen.

"3"

However, he was spotted by one of the enemies that were outside the bombsite, he came into the room and shot at Ace, but after a quick firefight, he was killed by a bullet to the head. Ace now had 47 health remaining, and one enemy alive, with the diffuser planted.

"4"

He then came up with a quick scheme, using his C4, he placed it above a doorway where he thought the enemy was, he then began to diffuse, and concentrating on the sound, when he heard the footsteps get closer, he stopped diffusing and triggered the C4. It did not kill, but that was not the point. After it had exploded, Ace quickly ran outside of the room, and seeing an enemy that was backing away attempting to find a better position from where to protect the diffuser from, he quickly died from a shot to the chest, the C4 having done some damage after all.

"5"

By this point, the chat was going crazy, and so were his teammates, they had gone silent to let him concentrate and hear the footsteps, but as he defused the bomb, they shouted loudly into his mic. They had won the first game. It had not been a hard one, however, this round had shown them to not get complacent with a set tactic, and to always expect more. Luckily, they had won, and with that round, Ace had made history, he had wiped out the whole team and diffused the bomb by himself. After pulling off this stunt, it would not be surprising if his streaming channel gained popularity again.

People had already clipped it and sent it to him in the highest possible quality, so as they waited for other matches to finish, Ace posted the clip to all his social media, gaining an instant favourable reaction for people that had been waiting for him to post it.

People were commenting about how crazy this was, and whether he had a streaming channel. As the link to it was posted, Ace observed how he quickly gained in followers. They were not paying subscribers, but since he had no need for money, he cared more about viewership than anything else.