Chapter 64

Dan steadied his breathing, using the moment to refocus his mind. It was his serve, once again. He was the last one to serve in the rotation, given how’d they’d set it up. Sophia had been first, and the girls had won that game. Ben had pulled through with his powerful serves, and gotten them tied at 1-1. Ashley, who was the weaker server of the two girls, hadn’t been able to regain the momentum, and had double faulted in a painful way, costing the girls that game. Then, Dan had been up, and while Auto-Battle with his serves had ensured they all went in, in brilliant fashion, he was having a hard time toggling it back off and refocusing himself in time to handle the returns. He and Ben had lost that game, tying it back up to 2-2.

Now, it was 3-4, and if Dan didn’t come through on this, the girls would be a game away from winning the set. Granted, Dan knew this was a practice match, but still, he didn’t want to lose. Not in front of Peter. Plus, he didn’t want to let Ben down. The senior was playing in fine form, and Dan could tell he was doing all he could to help cover down on mistakes Dan made. Which, annoyingly, were more commonplace than he’d like to admit.

While he’d played doubles before with Peter, an actual doubles match, was different. Peter had been able to cover everything. Literally, everything. No matter where the ball was hit, Peter was there. He was on both sides of the court, he was in the front and back. Nothing surprised him. Nothing got past him. If Dan didn’t know any better, he’d say Peter had magical powers, with how well he could predict where the ball was going.

With Ben as his partner, it was different. Ben was good, but nowhere near Peter’s skill. If balls were on Dan’s side, it was expected of Dan to get them. Figuring out teamwork, trying to get a feel for what was his responsibility to get, and what was alright to allow Ben to get, was hard. Add in the fact Dan could see where the balls were going to land, there had been a few times when he’d actually gotten in Ben’s way. Hyper focusing on where the ball was going, and trying to return it, meant he wasn’t looking at his partner, and he’d actually crashed into Ben once.

Additionally, the court felt a lot smaller, not only on his side, but that of the girls. Because it was doubles, they had two players, obviously. It felt much harder to hit a shot that wouldn’t be returned, and there was a lot less open space on the court for him to hit clearly to. Trying to avoid the girls and hit something that wouldn’t immediately come sailing back towards him, was much more difficult on doubles than it was in singles. After all, with singles, at the very least, he could just try to hit from the left corner and right corner over and over, to make the opponent run back and forth, and try to make them mess up. With doubles, that wasn’t as easily done.

On the plus side, his Stamina was doing alright. Thanks to his stamina reduction magic gear, as well as the bonus’s he was gaining from his shoes, he was burning stamina at a lower rate than normal. Which was good, considering even if he was only triggering auto-battle the moment before he tried to return a shot, doing so still consumed a stamina point. And, after six games of shots, some of which went to deuce, and consisted of rather long rallies, he was learning he needed to be even more careful about using that feature. All in all, though, he’d been learning a lot, both from just playing, and practicing using his skills in an actual game format, and from Peter.

Breathe. He thought mentally, or maybe Syn whispered the words into his mind. He wasn’t sure. The voice had actually been rather quiet this whole match. And Dan wasn’t sure if that was due to him mentally blocking out the voice, or Syn actually staying quiet. He was pretty sure he’d stopped focusing so hard on silencing the voice as the games continued, because his focus had been needed to prioritize the tennis match instead.

Dan took a long breath and bounced the tennis ball a few times on the hard court, feeling the felt of the ball in his hand. He took another deep breath, feeling the slight breeze, a faint chill in the air, pass around them. The trees that lined the fence rustled slightly, and he turned his full focus back to the court. Ben was in position, and Sophia stood diagonally across from him, acting as the wall for his first serve.

Every time he’d observed the girls playing, he’d noticed Ashley always received on the Deuce side, while Sophia received on the Ad side. This time though, Sophia had put herself on the Deuce side, and Dan couldn’t help but wonder why. She was the stronger player, and as far as he could tell, the stronger player was supposed to be on the Ad side. Why change that up now? Why change that for this match?

Then again, she’d been sure to punish his serves. Even with auto-battle toggled, she returned his serves, forcing him to react faster than intended, and keeping him on guard. And each time she had, his confidence had faltered. Which, as he looked at her, he couldn’t help but wonder if that was why? Had she switched just so she could try to keep him off guard? Or was it to try and ensure they could win the first point when the boys served? To try and give them an opening to climb ahead, avoid deuce, and win the point? Putting the stronger player on the Ad side could help drag a point out, but putting the stronger player on the forehand side, especially if they could secure early points in game, seemed a viable strategy too. A little more offensive, a little more dangerous, but, effective at this moment. Maybe, because of the skill difference, she and Ashley had decided on this plan, to take advantage of Dan.

Breathe. Dan tried his best to focus his breathing as that thought surfaced. His grip tightened on the tennis ball in his hand, his mind racing. If they were trying to pick on the weaker player, it had been working. Dan had been letting them get to him. He was already off balance with everything else going on, and having his serves returned right away by Sophia, had further pushed into his confidence. But, now, now that he realized that was what they were doing, a different emotion pushed through him.

His calm was broken by something else. A passion, a drive. He hated being the weak link. He never liked being the one bringing a team down. And while he thought he’d been doing decently, he knew he was the weak link. But if they were purposefully targeting him, and coming after him, even though this was practice. Well then, he was just going to have to turn up the heat. He made a mental decision, then and there. It was going to cost him, he knew that, but it was fine. After all, as long as it worked, in theory, it would conserve more stamina than burn it.

Dan’s smile twisted upwards into a smirk, his eyes narrowing on the court as he eyed his target. The center line of the service boxes. A powerful flat serve, down the middle, was extremely hard to return. He knew that much from Peter and the matches he’d watched. Not only was it hard to gauge if it was going to be in or out, but it also forced the person receiving to either have to move, extremely quickly, to get to their forehand side, or return the shot with a backhand.

Sophia had good shots, but a reflexive backhand was, at the most, going to come back towards them as a defensive shot. If, by some miracle, she returned this, it wouldn’t be fast, and in theory, would be a shot that could set Ben or Dan up for an easy winning shot. However, as Dan tossed the ball into the air, he could already tell, there was no way in hell Sophia was returning this shot.

Dan activated Auto-Battle and set his plan in action. At 200 percent, with his gear on, a single second drained 1 stamina point. He gasped as his body moved on its own, his body on fire, as his Stamina dropped by 17 points, his racquet moving with blinding speed, impacting the ball with an audible crack. Even as he dropped, already toggling the feature off before he even landed, the point was over. His arm screamed, his back screamed, his mind reeled, but he’d done it. He’d barely been able to see it, but the ball had blasted perfectly over the net, impacting dead center on the back cross section of the service box, and rocketed past Sophia and Ashley.

A flat serve, a skill of his that was nearing the level 30 mark, with his strength and dexterity skills at 19, all amplified by Auto-Battle set at 500%, was not something anyone playing on the court, would be able to return. It was, quite frankly, a perfect, unreturnable, Ace.