Metcalf accepted the challenge but first she needed to take a break.\u00a0 The push drill was short, only thirty seconds, and it didn’t require her to move.\u00a0 The extreme effort was there none the less.\u00a0 She was sweating quite a bit.\u00a0 Her armor wasn’t very good at letting heat out so she’ll be sweating for quite a bit longer.\u00a0 She made a mental note to modify it later.<\/p>\n
On her way to the water tank, students took notice of the push drill area.\u00a0 It rarely used this time of year.\u00a0 As such, the sudden air stagnation was new for most of the students there.\u00a0 Even those used to the push drill would be surprised this time.\u00a0 The air stopped enough that it was getting hard to breath.<\/p>\n
On her way back from the water tank, there were students gathering around the pit to watch the next challenge.\u00a0 Word spread pretty fast as always.\u00a0 It was also hard to watch this drill from the bleachers.<\/p>\n
The river stones were quite heavy.\u00a0 Replacing one was a chore for motion skill classes.\u00a0 It would usually take a team of students to remove an old one and bring out a new one.\u00a0 This stone had seen a lot less abuse than most.\u00a0 There was however that new crack down the center.<\/p>\n
In years past, it was her trick to break a weakened stone into several pieces then push the pieces in different directions towards her opponent’s zone.\u00a0 Dividing ones attention among separate targets was difficult especially for male students.<\/p>\n
There was now a considerable audience at the motion drill pit.\u00a0 She disliked showing off but Lance was much stronger than she expected.\u00a0 She needed a better plan than last time.<\/p>\n
Metcalf reached her platform.\u00a0 To her surprise, all of Lance\u2019s criteria were set already.\u00a0 As always, if the stone reached the wall the match was over.\u00a0 But this time, a greater proportion of points were given if the stone reached the wall earlier in the match.\u00a0 She accepted the terms and their second round began.<\/p>\n
At the bell, she pushed as hard as she could expect the same effort from Lance.\u00a0 There was none, instead the stone moved quickly into Lance\u2019s zone.\u00a0 The screech was quite loud.\u00a0 It seemed like Lance wasn’t doing anything this time.\u00a0 She knew better than to check the other platform though.\u00a0 She needed to be focused to win as many points as possible.\u00a0 She may even hit his wall.<\/p>\n
At three seconds into the match, the crowd was acting strangely.\u00a0 They were all focused at Lance\u2019s platform.\u00a0 Then there was a thud.\u00a0 Right after the thud the stone stopped cold.\u00a0 In an unexpected turn, Lance had jumped down into the pit.\u00a0 He endangered himself to push the stone by hand.\u00a0 There was no rule against that but it never happened, ever.<\/p>\n
To her surprise, the stone started moving quickly towards her zone.\u00a0 She was using motion skills to push just even harder than before.\u00a0 The stone refused to respond in the slightest way to her commands.\u00a0 It kept pace with Lance’s walk as though the stone was on wheels.\u00a0 With Lance pushing, the stone reached her wall in just under eight seconds.\u00a0 Still, there was no stress on his face.<\/p>\n
A defeat like this could only be devastating.\u00a0 She calmly checked the platform pad for the amount of points she lost.\u00a0 She was upset but strangely calm when she realized the truth.\u00a0 She had lost all but a quarter of her points.\u00a0 She was almost finished at Spear Mint Academy.<\/p>\n
Right there and then, she decided to make the best of what time she had left.<\/p>\n
#1<\/a> \u2013 Lost and Found #15<\/a>\u00a0– Lost and Found #17<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Metcalf accepted the challenge but first she needed to take a break.\u00a0 The push drill was short, only thirty seconds, and it didn’t require her to move.\u00a0 The extreme effort was there none the less.\u00a0 She was sweating quite a bit.\u00a0 Her armor wasn’t very good at letting heat out so she’ll be sweating for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[75,26,97,92,87,2,58,170],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lance-da","tag-metcalf-luo","tag-midterm","tag-motion-energy-skill","tag-push-drill","tag-sons-of-sword","tag-training-center","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=489"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":507,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489\/revisions\/507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonsofsword.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}