The Ace - Chapter 82

Ace spoke with his friends for a few minutes, simply waiting for the events to take place. He understood what his grandmother wanted him to do. Regardless, he had his own way of doing things, and so he waited until the right time. And that time came soon.

“Samantha Goldsign! I demand you come here!”, a short man marched to the centre of the room. He was fat, almost looked like a wall, with a few thin strands of hair in a balding hair. He had definitely not been blessed in the looks department.

Ace stepped forward, matching the man’s stare, but looking down on him too, a basic tactic, the goal being not only to assert his dominance over the other party, but also make it so that the people watching would feel as if he was stronger and more reliable.

“How can I help you?”, he asked in a polite yet firm tone of voice.

The man, however, was having none of it, he shouted, “Get out of my way you brat!”, and tried to push him out of the way, ‘This is way too easy’, Ace sidestepped lightly, and even a barely noticeable motion stuck out the tip of his shoe, it met the man’s, and due to his frame and the momentum from the push, it caused him to lose his balance, and almost fall to the floor. People laughed.

“How dare you! You dare hit me! I will have you incarcerated!”, the man shouted and pointed at him

“Of course you will, I did not do anything, but it is a simple thing to check, should we check the CCTVs to see what truly happened?”, Ace asked with a calm and appeasing smile.

People around the room smirked and grinned, it was clear that Ace had tripped him, however, it was also even easier to see that the man had attempted to assault Ace first, nothing had happened, but the intent was quite clear, and furthermore, if you considered the fact that Ace was a minor, while the intruder most definitely wasn’t Well, no lawyer could help you with that.

The man blanched, his bluff had been called, “Bah, I have no time to waste with brats like you, I have a document for Samantha Goldsign! She is to sign at once! I demand that she does!”, he seemed angry, turning around on the spot wildly.

“You are no one to demand anything here, if you have matters to discuss, request for an appointment, this is a private party, and you have intruded, who do you think is at fault here?”, basic stuff, for now, he had first caused an embarrassment so that people would take him less seriously, and now taken the moral high ground, which meant that anyone who supported the man’s argument would be considered to be on the ‘wrong’ side.

“Who are you to demand anything? This is private property, and you have stormed in here without any respect for all the people here.”, unite them all on a common front, and”I could have you arrested for this, but I understand your plight, so I will not, please just leave, I will ensure my grandmother hears you the earliest possible. I give you my word on that.”, hammer the nail on his higher moral stance.

As of now, no one was supporting the man, he had ruined all of their fun, everyone here had been disrespected, and most of these people had prides the size of their wealth, which amounted to a whole lot.

The man realized that he had nothing to gain here, and promptly left, without saying anything else. Mission accomplished. It had ended even better than he expected, the man had not even had the chance to talk about what he was ‘suing’ her for, which meant she did not lose a single bit of face, but instead gained a great bit of respect from her peers.

Everyone soon went back to their own thing, the situation had been diffused, and people would now have enough to gossip for a while, from the ‘foolish’ man, to that masterful way Ace had gotten rid of him.

“Congratulations, it seemed that you were prepared.”

“Of course, it was evident what you wished to pull, although I am quite curious. Who is it that thinks you are getting weak?”, Ace was genuinely curious, he did not think that “No one is that stupid, I just wished to remind them of the fact that I have an heir, and a quite capable one at that. None of them could have dealt with this any better than you did. Well done.”, with that and a smile, she walked away to some guests.

“Damm, Ace, you sure as hell are your grandmother’s family. The way you dealt with that? Amazing. The trip up was just hilarious.”, John came up to him and slapped him on the back, the others following him and giving him smiles of encouragement.

“That was impressive, I suppose you must have been prepared after the warning, huh?”, Allison said, to which Ace nodded and gave a cheeky smile. “Well, that should give everyone enough things to talk about.”, Kristina said, “Yep. Everyone is now praising the Golden Boy.”, Sophie grinned and mocked Ace.

He winced, “Seriously? You could not do one better?”

“What do you mean?”, Amy said, “It’s perfect, pretty much describes you, from your surname to your personality. I mean, I don’t think anyone in the young generation has donated so much to charity. From what I hear, you are making pretty good money from the streaming and all of the merchandise and stuff, and since all of the profits are going to charity”, Kristina said, while giving him a thumbs-up, she approved of his actions.

“Thank you, but the rumours will begin soon I presume, people don’t want to believe that someone would give everything to charity, without it being a scheme and/or a scam. Honestly, I can’t really blame them.”

“What about making a charity? I mean, some problems would still exist, but if you showed people what you were doing, and had full transparency, I think it would be good.”, Sophie proposed the idea.

“Hmmm, it could work, although I think I can one-up you.”, Ace said,

“Oh, how?”, Amy asked

“Easy, we made that our project for the second year.”, during the second year, the main focus, apart from clubs and academics, was also to build their own business, foundation or institution, and grow it as much as they could. Most people took that as growing their profit margin, but if they could pull something off with a charity, it would be interesting. It would not be the first time, but it did not happen every year either. It would be a hard endeavour, and a lot of connections would be needed in order to have tangible results within a year’s time. Furthermore, they would only have a budget of one thousand dollars, to begin with. Of course, they could not use any of their family’s funds, and only funds gained from the profits could be used. Anyone caught cheating – and they were, would be expelled, and blacklisted, it would ruin your career, and your future was pretty much dying in a ditch.

“Well, sh*t, that might actually work.”, Sophie widened her eyes, her mind racing through the probabilities.

“Ok, I think this could work. It might be a bit early for planning, but we are going for the win, so we might as well start now.”, she walked to a spare table, and sat down, all the others following her.

They spent their whole evening there, waiters and waitresses refilling drinks and plates of food every time they were emptied. They all had a speciality, so they could work together. Of course, John and Allison would not be involved, but they helped anyway.

Ace would, of course, be the frontman, he had the influence to get the money, he would also be in charge of building the website, server maintenance and so on, meaning that Alfred would be doing it.

Amy would handle the marketing side of things, as well as all the PR and so on. Sophie had the connections, and Kristina would deal with the diplomatic aspect of things. Sophie, once connections were established, would also work on the legalese, and deal with all the documents they would need to operate. Once some more profit was established, they could hire people to help with finances and so on.

It would be risky however, most groups had at least 7 people. This was because people would still have to keep their grades up and even improve, which meant that they would have to work even harder, since the topics covered got harder as well. This along with the clubs meant an increased workload, so the more people you had, the more it could be distributed. It would also mean that the points they gained at the end would also be distributed with more people.

Doing this with only four people would be risky, very risky, but they had a key strength: Ace. He did not have to focus much on class, only doing the bare minimum work, and would still be getting the highest scores on tests. Anything less than 100% was a fail. He would instead work on devising outlines and study plans. He would give them each individualised work plans and outlines to work with.

This would maximize their output, while also reducing the amount of work they had to do. They trusted in him and his outlines, it would help them get better grades, while working less. This would leave more time for clubs and the project.

The more they worked on it, the more positive they felt about their choice. They already had a rough business plan, and a way to operate. They would also share all of their details with Ace, so that he could begin to work on their study plans. If he got them done before the summer, they would be able to get a headstart as well, which would only have positive aspects.

Most people noticed them, they were each hunched over their own tablet, which they had requested to one of the butlers, they would talk and so one while they took notes and wrote on a shared notepad. Allison began to brainstorm on how their art and what their mascot would look like. They could not have her work on the project once it was started, since she was part of Amy’s family, but if she gave them a good idea, Ace could finish it himself.

They were discussing it, when Sophie shouted, “I got it! We should just make him a pillow, everyone loves pillows right? I mean, they are comfortable and soft.”, they were in agreement, when Ace commented, “Actually, I have a request, could I be the one to design the mascot? I know that it is a big thing, since it will be what will make us recognised, but this is meaningful to me, and there is an idea I want to try. If you do not like it, we can, of course, use the pillow, I am fine with it.”

They looked at each other, curious about what it was that would make him feel so strongly about something. “Uhh, sure, I mean, this would only work with you so it’s ok, I talk for everyone when I say that we trust you, whatever you think of will for sure be sick.”, Kristina said, and Sophie and Amy nodded in agreement.

“Thanks, this means a lot.”, then with a barely perceptible tear in his eye, ace wrote on his personal notepad: “White Shadow.”