Post by Ace Watson on Jul 16, 2016 22:58:18 GMT -6
Ace Watson: Zero Gravity Champion. Every time I heard that phrase it sounded better than the time before. Finally I have something to show for the work I have put in to improve, finally I have something to silence all of my critics. This title is mine. People will argue how I won it, and they have done already. But they can't deny that I am the Zero Gravity Champion.
Coming back from a tough session in the gym, Ace returned to the hotel which he and Bianca were staying at. Two days ago Bianca surprised Ace by showing up in Ohio, and brought with her an upgraded room, courtesy of her father.
As he arrived at reception to sign in, he was given a package by the receptionist. It was a padded envelope, and Ace had a feeling he knew what it was.
Watson put his key card in the door and it buzzed open. The suite was big. It took up a large portion of the top floor. Ace walked around, looking for Bianca, until he remembered that there was a rooftop area that she’d probably be sunbathing at. Ace opened the sliding doors and stepped outside. The space was shared with the other top floor suite, which Ace was a bit worried about at first until he found out that the people staying there were elderly and had no idea who Ace and Bianca were.
Ace turned the corner, and saw Bianca lying out on a sunchair, in a white bikini and big shades. She looked up as she heard Ace’s footsteps.
“Hey, I think those prints from the photoshoot we did on Friday arrived.” he said, raising the envelope in his hand slightly.
Bianca smiled, eager to see the pictures. “Ah, bring them here then!”
Ace walked over to her, opening the envelope as he did and handing it to her once he got close. She pulled out a wad of twelve glossy printed pictures, and then looked through them. They had taken a few pictures together and a couple solo shots. Ace had the Zero Gravity Championship over his shoulder in all the pictures, and Bianca picked out one of the images of just him in and admired it for a few moments, before turning to Ace.
“That gold looks pretty good on you.” She said, putting a smile on Ace’s face.
“Thanks B, I thought so too.”
There was a pause as she looked back down at the picture, then back to Ace. She smirked, “It’s a good job we aren’t in the same company or I’d take that title from you.”
Ace looked at Bianca, not quite sure how to react. Eventually he cracked and let out a laugh. “No no no, I’d just get myself counted out or disqualified, so I wouldn’t have to hurt you to keep it. I’d want to see you as a Champion, I enjoy being one too.”
Bianca didn’t look too impressed with that, but raised her eyebrow a little and looked back to Ace. “You know you’d have to make it up to me if you did something like that, right?”
Watson laughed, “Oh yes, of course I’d make it up to you. I always do.”
===
1st of July, 2016
Dressed in a casual plain faded blue button up-shirt and some dark jeans, Ace stepped out of the Uber car onto the pavement and looked up at the office building which was VoW HQ. He was looking forward to this.
Ace pushed open the doors and approached the reception desk, but his attention was suddenly drawn away from the desk as he heard a voice call his name from behind him.
“Ace!”
Watson turned and saw a tall, thin ginger man in his late twenties to early thirties, who had just stood up from being sat in the lobby area. The man dropped a magazine to the coffee table and walked up to Ace, extending his hand.
“Hi, I’m Max, we spoke on the phone.”
Ace greeted Max’s hand with his, “Ah yes, Max with the barking dog.”
Max’s face turns slightly red as he remembers the phone call they had a few days prior, which kept getting interrupted by his dog barking at a cat in the garden.
“Yeah… Sorry about that.”
Ace laughed, “Don’t worry about it, how are you then?”
“I’m good, you?” Max replied, brightening up now.
“Never been better.” Ace flashed a grin. “So how’s my video coming along?”
Max’s eyes lit up, you could tell he was happy for the conversation to move to the subject. “Oh you’ll love it. Follow me and I’ll take you to my office.” The tall man walked on, giving a polite nod and half smile to the brunette receptionist, who Ace noticed kept her eyes on Max even after he had walked past the desk and towards the elevators. “Congratulations on winning the title by the way, I realised after I hung up that I had completely forgotten to congratulate you.” The fact he had forgotten bugged him, and everytime he watched the video he had made in the edit he was reminded of it. To Max it was one of those moments you look back on and cringe at.
“Thank you, it feels good to finally be a VoW champion.” Ace replied. It was then that the elevator doors opened, and the two stepped in. Max pressed the “2” button and the doors closed behind them.
“I appreciate you coming down here, but you do know we could have gone over the video online, right?” Max asked, curiously. Though it was likely he was testing how tech-savvy Ace was.
“Yeah I know, I just wanted to do it in person.” He answered.
The lift stopped, the doors slid open, and Max led Ace through a corridor and an office space to a small edit suite which had two desks, one with three Mac computers and a sound system and one with a coffee and tea station. Max gestured over to his chair, “Take a seat.”
Ace sat down and looked around. This was not the sort of environment he was used to. It all felt too closed off and secluded for his liking. He could not imagine having a job which would involve being locked away in a room alone for hours on end.
“Tea or coffee?” Max asked, walking over to the drinks station.
“Tea please, Max. You probably should have guessed that one, I am English.” Ace said with a chuckle. He didn’t drink coffee often.
Max laughed, “How many sugars?”
“Three please.”
“Three sugars?” Max was surprised.
“Yeah, I like my tea sweet. Lots of sugar.” Ace didn’t like asking for three though, it often felt like he was making people go to a lot more effort than they actually were when they made him tea.
“Okay, gotcha.” Max started making the teas, “If you move the mouse and the computer will wake up from the screensaver, then press the spacebar and you can watch the video.”
Ace reached over and wiggled the mouse, prompting the image of the New York skyline screensaver to fade out and the confusing interface of an editing software to appear from behind it. He pressed the spacebar and the video started playing. Ace watched it to completion, it was the first time he had watched the footage from his title win and it felt amazing. That glorious feeling was soon replaced by laughter as the video showed Tristan Ambrose and Katie Moicelle’s reactions to Ace walking away with the title.
Max turned round, two mugs in hand, he placed one on a coaster next to Ace and one on the desk while he pulled a stool out from underneath a cabinet for him to sit on.
“That… was amazing.” Ace said, trying to hold back his laughter.
“I’m glad you liked it, anything you’d like to change?” Max asked.
Ace held the thought for a few moments, looking at the screen which still had the final shot of Katie’s sad face in the top corner. He scratched his beard, then nodded. “Yeah I think you need to make the bit of Katie at the end longer, and maybe zoom in a little closer too.” He laughs again, the thought of how she, and the fans, will react to seeing the video running through his head.
The red-headed man smiled, glad Ace was happy with his work, and he was also enjoying feeling more involved in the wrestling world than he normally did as an editor of highlight packages for the VoW website.
The two spent another twenty minutes making small adjustments to the video, and Max had a few audio issues which he wanted to fix.
The two chatted wrestling as the video saved and exported, and when it was done, Max stood up. “Looks like that is finished. And you’re sure you were happy with that?”
Ace nodded, a smile creeping back on his face as he thought of the reactions that video may get again. “Yeah, it’s perfect. No doubt it will get people booing me louder than they have before, and that’s exactly what I want.”
“Awesome, glad you like it. It was fun making that for you.” Max replied, with a smile.
“I might have to come back here in a couple weeks time, I could do with your help with cameras and editing things.”
“Sure thing man, any time. Just drop me a call, I’ll try to control my dog next time.”
The two shook hands again and Max lead Ace back down to reception. They both said goodbye and Ace headed back outside to wait for another Uber to arrive to take him back to the airport.
===
It was getting late, and there were only so many reruns of “House” Ace could watch. Bianca had gone to bed ten minutes earlier, though he knew she’d be catching up on Twitter right now before she’d go to sleep. Ace switched the TV off and walked through to the bedroom.
He opened the door, and saw his girlfriend lying in bed under the covers, the light from her phone spotlighting her face in the dark room.
“Hey, boo.” she said, sleepily.
“Hey.” he replied, equally as tired sounding. Ace put his phone on the bedside table and climbed into the bed beside her, making sure not to take too much of the covers. He moves up next to Bianca, and placed a kiss on her bare shoulder. She turned her attention away from her phone for a moment, throwing Ace a slight smile, then went back to her phone. Ace saw this as a test. He kissed her shoulder again, and again. Then he started working his way up her shoulder and towards her neck. Bianca closed her eyes and let out a breath, placing her phone on the other bedside table beside her.
He kept kissing at her neck, his hand reaching down towards her thigh, when she suddenly sat upright. Ace’s expression was a perfect image of “What did I do wrong?” Bianca turned, and looked back at Ace, an unimpressed look on her face.
“Someone called me evil today.”
Ace released a sigh of relief, glad he hadn’t been doing anything wrong, but still disappointed that she had stopped him.
“Am I evil?” she asked, quizzically.
“Not to me.” Ace replied, quietly.
“Hm.” she laid back down. “Didn’t think so.”
Ace was left in a state of not quite being sure what to do, was he meant to pick up where he left off or? He questioned it in his head for a few moments before eventually deciding the moment had gone, and layed back down. There was a long pause of silence.
“You know you could have carried on…”
Ace rolled his eyes at himself then slid up next to Bianca again, but just before he could start kissing her, his phone went off.
Bianca sighed, as Ace moved away and grabbed his phone, pressing the green button and putting it to his ear.
“Hello?”
Upon hearing the voice on the other end, Ace suddenly seemed to wake up.
“I can’t talk right now.”
He pulled the phone away and hung up, then put the phone back on the table. He let out a big sigh and then tried cuddling up back to Bianca.
“Moments gone, Ace.”
===
“Is it rolling, Max?” Ace said to someone to the right and behind the camera.
“Yeah? Good.”
Ace stands in a studio his title over his shoulder. A dark red curtain backdrop and spotlights make everything bright and professional looking.
“So where do I start? Well, I’ve been booked in what is arguably the biggest match of my VoW career, against Ryder Blade, the man who has had multiple shots at the World Title. The man who, much to the distaste of everyone else, has been at the top of the company ever since he arrived here.”
“So this is a big challenge, especially for my first match as Zero Gravity Champion. It’s a challenge that I was not expecting. A challenge that since it was announced I have been putting in the hours in the gym and in the training rooms to make myself ready for.”
“But most of all, it’s a challenge that should I succeed at, I will prove myself to be not only worthy of this title… But even more as well.”
Ace started off the video in a light hearted way, he was still feeling conversational with Max from before the camera started rolling. But now, he was serious.
“Many people have told me I’m not a worthy Champion. That I won it by luck. That I didn’t even pin the now former champion, so I shouldn’t even have the belt. So if I want to prove them all wrong, this is the chance to do it. And I can tell you now… I am ready. I have everything to prove and I am ready. When I won this Championship I felt like I had done it. I felt like I had nothing else to prove. But I have everything to prove. Especially considering I agreed to face Katie Moicelle at Heatstroke in a rematch for this title. And even after I beat her for the third time I’ve still got others wanting to challenge me, and a couple that already have. I win this match, and I’ll make them regret they ever uttered Zero Gravity Championship.”
Ace looked deeply into the camera. The focus and intensity in his eyes was powerful. He calms himself down though eventually, and regains his composure. He looks to the ground, thoughts obviously buzzing through his head. A small smirk appears on his face.
“Ryder can’t be feeling too good after missing out on the World Visionary Championship. I don’t believe anyone could be. So if he gets distracted for even a moment, I’ll be ready to pounce. Just like I have done countless times in this company. I will seize the oppourtunity, just like I did when I threw Katie out of the ring and pinned Ambrose. Just like I will continue to do until the day I hang up my boots. Which I can guarantee you all, won’t be any time soon”
Ace transitioned back to his more serious tone as he spoke again.
“Once again I’m the underdog. Once again no one will be expecting me to win, no one will be rooting for me. But that environment… is where I thrive. I live off of it. I live for the boos, I live for the disappointment you all feel when I succeed.”
There was a long pause, where Ace’s mind buzzed with thoughts again.
“There is nothing I would like to see more right now, than your faces when I pin the guy who’s been at the top since the beginning. When I pin the guy who has won countless titles in this company. When I pin Ryder Blade.”