Chapter 176 - 176. Flawless

Laura realized very quickly that this obstacle was not about speed. She pushed off the first little platform and swung holding the rope. Her hand was quick to reach out and grasp at the next rope but she missed it due to her speed making her too early.

"You need to slow down. The ropes aren't as fast as you." Art shouted his slight encouragement. He wanted to also get the timing down in his head before he tried this himself. If he managed to speedily make it through the course on his first try he would claim himself king of this obstacle.

Laura struggled to slow herself down but was easily able to make it to the second section of the ropes. This was a diagonal beam connecting two posts near trees. The branches let the leaves just barely fall in line with the ropes making it feel that the one swinging would hit them. In actuality, there was more than enough room.

Laura was feeling the pressure and after the fifth rope of the second diagonal section she slipped down and rolled on to the ground. "Come on! I should have had that one." She yelled at the ropes while trying to get the leaves out of her hair from her fall.

"Try and focus more on how slow the ropes are moving. When you swing you are just grabbing out. You need to do this." Art was already swinging and had even made it to the same spot that Laura was prior to her fall.

He was swinging smoothly and at the very end of his swing from one rope, he would reach out and grab the next. This was when he was nearly weightless and the gravity from his first rope would cause him to swing on the second. He was flawlessly swinging from one to another.

"Are you counting?" Sammy could hear Art counting the second between each rope. This was his trick to a flawless swing each time.

His focus couldn't be broken easily so he had surpassed the diagonal portion with ease. However, that was the last of his luck. "One, two, three, fou-" Art was about to grasp the next rope liken he had been before. But instead of being right in his palm the rope he tried to grasp only grazed his fingers.

He fell having already released the other rope. There was no way to go but down, the only lucky part was that he instinctually fell in to a roll from all his previous training. "What the heck was that!?" He was stunned that his strategy had failed.

Dia was smiling evilly while she stopped the stop watch. She had changed the distance slightly to trip up strategies like this one. She was not going to a tough course, she was going to the hardest course she could build. This meant diagonal movement, different speaking, and even slightly different heights.

"Alight, my arms might fall off but if they do I get to go on a real vacation." Sammy was the least excited to get on the course because she would rather be understanding her super powers or relaxing her sore arms. But since Laura and Art had already given it a try she was not going to back out. She also wanted the extra points for completing it.

She copied Art's strategy making him bite his tongue in frustration. He wanted to give it another try but knew that it wouldn't be fair and that his arms were already too stressed to do well.

Once Sammy reached the same point as Art she made some test swings, once she felt out the difference in spacing she grabbed the next rope. She needed to do this for the first few before she was able to get back into a rhythm. "Come on make it to the end!" Laura started to cheer Sammy on seeing that she was making great progress.

"She's getting to the different length ropes. Should be interesting." Art watched as Sammy grasped at a shorter rope and barely managed to catch the end. It was just slightly too far away for her arm length but with some extra swing, she made it.

'The length is a little too short on rope thirty six. I will adjust it.' Dia was keeping track and typed the note in to her phone. Se became much more focused on how Sammy was swinging since she was the smallest out of the three.

"Come on!" Sammy used as much force to swing herself to the next rope but still was too short. She had fully released her hands and ended up missing the next rope. It had been just a little too far for her to grab. She fell but managed to swat her hand down and make a slight breeze to slow her fall. Art and Laura both stood on the ground and helped her stay standing. Art had told Laura to help since Sammy hadn't learned to roll when she fell yet.

"I was so close!" Sammy looked and only saw that there were six ropes left.

"Well, no one completed it but Sammy is in the lead for distance. Want to see how you measure up?

Dia said this while standing at the start of the swinging ropes and had her finger on the start button on the stop watch. The three watched as she pushed the button and went all in on the course.

Dia didn't hesitate on any swing. She was more agile than a monkey and moved rope to rope. There were times she held on to nothing but the air in front of her before the rope seemed to meet her hand like an old friend. The first two sections did not stop her at all and the third was being beaten with ease. She had reached the last part with no rouble and was inches away from stepping on the end platform when she dropped down.

"And from here I have to decide if I want to add some form of tire roll or maybe a balance beam." The three just stared at her like she was an alien. They couldn't believe how easily she had just gone through the ropes. She wasn't even breathing heavily.