Chapter 176:

They talked until they got tired, refilling drinks over and over, and decided to leave once they had eaten, spoken and drank their fill.

"Ok, so Ace, are there any cool parties today?", Sophie asked, and Ace nodded, "I knew you would ask that question. There is a fireworks one in the beach, with a bonfire and all. Now that there are more people on the island, things should be kicking into high gear.", Ace said with a small grin, directing it at Sophie.

Igor laughed, "Well, I guess we know what we are doing now."

***

Half an hour later, Ace had a girl in his arms, and was watching the fireworks, and sat on a towel on the cool sand. The firework show went on for about half an hour, before Ace stood up, as it ended, and smiled at her, "I'll go get us some drinks.", she nodded and smiled.

Ace went off to one of the coolers, picking up two beers, before thanking the guy that was just bringing some new cans, and helped him put them inside the coolers.

As he walked back though, he spotted a scene that kind of ticked him off, he saw three guys trying to hit on June, the girl he was just with. She was clearly uncomfortable about it, and was motioning for them to leave, but they clearly don't care about the clear message.

"Hey, Is there a problem?", Ace said, looking towards June, she was about to speak, when the guy that seemed to be the ringleader spoke, "Actually yes, you are clearly making her uncomfortable, so why don't you leave?", he said this, and the other two snickered.

Ace sighed, "Please just leave man, I want to have a peaceful night.", he said, as he made sure to show his face. He was tired, and had no interest in getting into a fight, so he hoped that just by showing his face, they would realize who he was and just back off. Unluckily for him, or luckily for the onlookers who had now crowded around, they were either too drunk to notice, or did not seem to care.

The guy in the lead came and tried to push Ace away, "Get out of here, idiot, unless you want to get your teeth kicked in.", he looked at him with what he probably thought was menace. Ace just sighed again, "One last time, just leave.", at this point, both Amy and Igor had come, and she was about to tell them to move, when Igor stopped her with a grin.

'You son of a…', Ace thought, as he glared at his friend, who just laughed as he motioned for him to get on it. "Ha! You think we are leaving, oh no, you are mistaken, friend.", he said, before he laughed and punched at Ace.

He saw it coming miles away, clearly telegraphed, and without any real technique, 'What is this dumb*ss doing?', Ace though, as he used his momentum against him, before kicking him in the back, and pushing him away, whilst also causing him to fall to the sand.

He stood up, fuming, and was about to signal for his goons to attack, when he realised something, the guy looked calm, as if he was not worried about three to one odds. That combined along with the previous exchange, let him know something was off. He was rash, and kind of a d*ck, but he was not stupid, he knew when something was up, and so motioned for his guys to leave, "Bah, I'll let you off, but I assure you, there will be no next time.", he said that and left, wobbling along the sand, still trying to pat his clothes in an attempt to make them look presentable.

People cheered, as Ace thought, 'Well, at least he was not totally stupid.', as people dispersed, he looked at June, "Sorry about that, but hey, wanna drink?", she laughed, and grabbed one of the cans off his hand.

***

"So, how was your day?", Samantha asked, and Ace replied, "Quite well, I got to meet Igor's sister, she is definitely intense, but nice anyway.", "And what about your night?", his sister asked, as she laughed at Ace's deadpan look. "Ok, ok, no more questions, but still, way to go on those guys, I am sure she was certainly happy to have such a dashing knight by her side."

"Please,", Ace groaned as his sister smiled, "Just stop.", she laughed and nodded, "Ok, ok. No more.", she picked up a glass of juice and drank, a smile still dancing on the corner of her lips.

They finished breakfast, and then Ace went straight to his room, it was still early, so he could play for some time still. He loaded into CSGO, and instantly queued up a ranked game. He was playing a few minutes later.

His teammates greeted him, they recognised him, and he did some of them as well. Once it got to the higher ranks, it was normal to end up playing with the same people, especially if you played within the same time frame every day. This meant that there were people he had played with before, some of them he knew quite well. Instantly, they went into a Discord voice call.

"Are you streaming?", "Nah, I'm on holiday, just relaxing, but I felt like playing a few games", Ace explained, "Well let's hope you did not get rusty, and we have to carry you.", another said, and they laughed, detecting the sarcasm in his voice.

Even if Ace was to get 'rusty', he would still be miles better than any of them, by a longshot too.

The selected their chosen loadouts for the first round, and began.

***

"Nice warm-up, huh?", Ace said, as the others in the voice call laughed, "Yeah, yeah, shut up.", Ace laughed again, before saying goodbye, and leaving the call.

They ended up playing another four games, winning them all except for one, where they were placed against a pro-player five stack, who were most likely warming up before scrims. They all played well against them, and Ace even got MVP of the match, but they were unable to come out ahead against their tried and tested tactics. The truth was that while Ace was better than them all, the rest were worse, at least when it came to terms of individual, mechanical skill. This meant that if they picked individual gunfights, they would most likely lose them, leaving it to Ace to carry the team, and clutch the round.