43 Chapter 43:

As they finished the match, they were informed that they had gone through to the next round, and that they would be informed when the last team had finished. Ace used this time to formulate more strategies with his teammates and munch on some pieces of fruit. He was now confident in his team, he believed they could easily rank in the top 5, and had a good chance to win it. Their whole team had been watching separate matches, attempting to spot the best teams. There was one team that had managed to win 5 - 3, but it seemed that they had a talented pair, and the rest of the teammates were average at best. Ace actually recognised one of the names: RawrOfDrag. He was a defensive player that excelled on anchoring the site, Ace had played with him before, and he was one of the best defensive players Ace had had the fortune of playing with.

As a whole, however, they had not seen a team that directly screamed danger at them, and no other team had won as decisively as they had, even if they had spotted worse teams than their first opponents. It was at this point that Ace noticed how distorted his thoughts had been. He had expected most players to be worse than him, but at least on Harris' Juan's or S1k's level, good players that if coordinated properly could cause trouble for Ace. However, he noticed that it was not to be. Most of the good players had a proper team, even if they were not pro. And the reason as to why his teammates or the other skilled players he had seen did not was probably because they had no interest in going pro. Ace knew that if they put the time in, they would at least make it to a level where they could become streamers for an organisation, especially Harris, with his energetic charisma.

After having this realisation, Ace knew that the true challenge would begin once he joined or created a team of his own, and they began to seriously participate in tournaments. For now, however, they had another match to play, and it would hopefully be a more interesting one.

They were now playing in Bank, one of the more interesting maps, they were beginning on Attack again, and they all knew the strat they were going to carry out. It was actually one of the first strats that Ace had played with. It was simple, if the defenders had to defend on the bottom floor, they would go in through a tunnel, and from there make a hole in the wall adjacent to the door, from then, they would smoke the area and a Montagne would plant with his back facing his enemies. As he planted, he put his riot shield on his back, and when he crouched when planting, he would be almost fully covered against stray bullets. He could still be killed if seen, but hopefully, the smokes would take care of it. Once planted, all they had to do was wait for the attempt of diffusing the plant, and the attacker that would most likely come down the stairs that led down to the room.

The funny thing was that this spot for defence was almost always picked, this was because it was one of the most fun places to defend, and if you could have someone with a good aim blocking garage and could negate the strategy, you would most likely win. They each picked their operators, S1k Montagne, Ace Ash, Juan Thatcher, Harris Thermite and Abby played Twitch.

As expected, they had chosen downstairs as the first site to defend, four of them went down the tunnel, and Ace went through garage. His plan was to apply pressure to the defence from another direction, but if he died it would not matter. He peaked relatively fast but still carefully, a defender was usually prone on the other side of the cars, so after checking the typical corners, he swept his aim through the floor. As he expected, he saw someone, however he was not prone, he was crouching. He shot the feet, doing minimal damage as the defender quickly moved, but as the defender tried to peak himself, Ace was ready and shot him once he showed his face.

Ace waited, the others were now beginning the strategy, but a defender could come to garage, attempting to remove any potential threat first. It was not to be, however, and no one came, so Ace advanced then as he met with the barricade, he used his gadget to blow it up, along with the wall next to it. This was the perfect spot, as he could now see the two enemies that were attempting to block the strategy form happening. They had made holes on the wall and were shooting randomly. By the time they realised that the walls had been blown up and turned to face Ace, they were dead.

Then, Ace used his drone to ensure that no other enemy was on the site, no one was to be found. He informed his teammates of this, and kept his position, he had no need to move as he could cover all that was necessary with this. The two enemies that were not on the sites soon came through the stairway that Juan and Abby were protecting, and they both quickly died.

As they had the in-between round break, Harris said "Holy Shit.", Ace then asked "Hey, what's up?", to which Harris responded: "Have you not looked at your phone?"

Ace did, they only had 40 seconds between rounds and were about to start, but when he did, he repeated the words of wisdom, "Holy Shit."

Ace had effectively blown up, his I-Gram was shooting him notification of new followers, and he assumed that his U-Tube and stream were growing just as much. Ace suspected that people were now watching their matches and liked what they saw. He had no idea of the numbers as he had no more time to check, but from what he saw on his separate monitor, there were about 300 thousand people watching the stream, it was the first tournament, and most famous streamers related to the game were actually casting it. Most streamers that received high viewership counts were still not streaming as it was early in the morning, and since it was a relatively new game, a lot of hype was concentrated on it. All of this combined made the stream very successful, enough that people had noticed their game, and were now beginning to follow the members of their respective favourite teams.

"How the hell did they find my socials?", this was Juan, he had just looked on his phone and noticed the notifications, "Ha Ha Ha! The power of the internet my friend!", S1k was mocking him, but if he had socials of his own, he was probably getting the same treatment. They were all good players, some of the best int he tournament in their respective roles, and combined they shone more than any other team.

"Well boys, let's make history.", Abby said, imagining the non-existent trophy they would receive.