Chapter 19

“Thanks for the meal Mr. M.” Peter said with a grin as Dan and the senior left his house. The Senior, apparently, had planned early morning tennis lessons for Dan, without of course consulting Dan. Which meant Peter had made his way personally to Dan’s house that morning, to drag him from home to get more training.

Dan’s dad finished waving to them and closed the door, leaving just Dan and Peter to walk away from the house, towards Peter’s car, which was parked just down the street from Dan’s house. The pancakes had been good, and Dan may have eaten more than he should have. However, they were his favorites, and he probably gorged himself a little on them, considering his dad was leaving that night, and he wouldn’t have an opportunity to have the homemade pancakes for at least a month.

“I don’t remember telling you where I lived.” Dan said as Peter opened the trunk of his car. The senior, continuing to live up to his extremely high charisma lifestyle, apparently drove an electric blue Shelby Cobra Super Snake. Meaning the car had only two seats, and Dan barely had room to slide his tennis bag into the trunk alongside Peter’s gear. Granted, from what Dan could see, Peter didn’t keep his massive bag of spare racquets in his car. In fact, he only have a few racquets in there, in a bag that Dan had never seen before. Did Peter have a separate set of gear for when he wasn’t playing with the high schoolers?

“You didn’t.” Peter said simply as he slammed the trunk. “I could say public records and what not. But honestly, I just checked out your school record. That type of stuff is easy to get for me after all. And hey, home addresses aren’t anything super-secret.” He flashed Dan a grin. “Though, I will be able to check out your grades as well. So fair warning, coach won’t let anyone play on the team if they have anything lower than a C. So at least try to keep decent grades, yeah?”

Invasion of privacy aside, Dan got into the car. He didn’t really have a choice. Peter had been speaking to his dad prior to Dan’s father coming and checking if he was awake. The freaking tennis fanatic not only convinced his father to let Dan go with him for some special tennis training and event, but also promised Dan’s father he would watch out for him while his father was out of town. Meaning, when Dan arrived for breakfast, his fate for that day had already been sealed. Peter, it seemed, was extremely efficient at getting exactly what he wanted.

“Alright, other than the fact you could have just sent me a text.” Dan grumbled. He’d given Peter his cell phone number. And even if he hadn’t, Peter had already made it perfectly clear he had no qualms about abusing the access his father had as the principal of the school.

“Meh, this way, I knew you couldn’t give me any excuses.” Peter chuckled and pulled out a pair of sunglasses, placing them easily over his eyes as he started the car. The engine roared to life, the pure power roaring from the car causing an energy to rise up within Dan. He’d always been a fan of cars, and they didn’t have a bad one…but compared to a 1966 Shelby Cobra…well, there really wasn’t a comparison.

“Besides,” Peter continued, speaking louder as they made their way down the street, the wind already whipping around them, “you’ll thank me once we get there. Not only are you going to get in some great practice today, but I’m like, 99 percent sure Sophia is going to be there as well.” Peter turned just long enough to flash Dan his trademark smile. “So, how about a little thanks?”

“I’d thank you…if I actually knew where we were going.” He replied. Seriously, Peter was the King of Vagueness when he wanted to…and other times, such as when Dan’s privacy was involved, seemed to have a serious case of not being able to keep anything quiet.

“Just a little local tournament. Nothing official mind you, it’s more of a,” he paused as he accelerated, the sudden roar of the engine threatening to drown out what he said. Once he’d reached his goal speed, he continued, “a mixer. It’s one of those things where only people in the know get to go.”

“Uh huh.”

“And, obviously, I always need to know. Which means, by proxy, you get to tag along as well.” Peter continued laughing as they neared the interstate. He’d not yet actually said where they were going, other than it was tennis related, and was going to involve different schools. Still, Dan found himself relaxing. Peter had that charm about him. He put you at ease and energized you at the same time. The senior had an excitement that was infectious. Well…it was either that, or the 800-horsepower V-8 that the Cobra happened to have. Dan decided it was probably a bit of both.

Still, as he relaxed into the ride, and Peter put on some music, Dan decided now was as good as any time to at least check out one of his upgrades from the improvement of his powers. He had no doubt once he got his tennis practice started today, he would get to see what the Minor Skill Assist was, until then, might as well check out the improvement to his Relation Manager.

Peter Young

Age- 17

Relation- Classmate

Occupation- Student/Tennis Player

Personal Traits

Sexual Orientation (current)- Straight

Happiness- Average

Self Esteem- Excellent

Ambition- Excellent

Compassion- Very Poor

Charisma- Excellent

Physical Traits

Health- Excellent

Stamina- Excellent

Strength- Great

Dexterity- Excellent

Constitution- Great

Dan blinked a couple times, both because of the wind on his eyes as Peter sped freely down the interstate, and also because of the stats. Sure enough, he was given a larger range than before. Instead of the range split into 3rds, the new range was split into 20s roughly. Two things about Peter’s Personal Traits and Physical Traits surprised Dan.

First, the fact of just how low Peter’s Compassion actually was. Very Poor, being the lowest of the five ratings, meant Peter’s points in that particular trait was 20 or under. That and his Happiness only being between a 41-60 struck Dan as strange.

As for his Physical Traits, the fact three of the five had scores of 80 or higher completely blew Dan’s mind. Peter was only 17, how was he in such crazy good shape? There was no denying when you looked at him, and definitely when he played tennis, that he was a star athlete. But these numbers just helped shine even more of a light on how crazy of an athlete Peter already was. Dan took a breath to steady himself, and pulled up Peter’s Tennis skills. According to Syn, all of Peter’s skills had already climbed over 70, which was apparently crazy, crazy good. Dan was curious just how those stats were…and while he could only see the three that he’d learned so far to compare against Peter…he figured it was worth checking out.

Tennis

Forehand (Semi-Western) - Great

Top Spin (tennis feature) - Great

Basic Serve – Excellent

…

It took every ounce of Dan’s mental fortitude to not let Peter’s stats get to him. Every ounce of his resilience, or pure stubbornness, to keep what he’d just seen from bothering him. And still, he could feel it creeping upon him, and any second, he was certain…he was going to get that message. The message telling him his Self Esteem had dropped, and he would lose his bonus. However…he wasn’t going to let the damned system get him without a fight. He was going to-

“You alright dude? I swear, you get sick in my car, and your ass is walking home. Besides, we will be there in a few minutes. So uh, hold it in till then yeah?” Peter chuckled and shook his head. “I was impressed at how much you ate…but maybe you shouldn’t have been trying to show off yeah? Besides, they weren’t that great of pancakes.”

And with that, the worry, the fear of losing his Self Esteem point faded away. To be replaced both with a flash of anger, over Peter insulting his dad’s cooking, and even more importantly…the return of his nerves. Just a few minutes till they arrived. And Dan still had no idea what that would mean.