As the cold winter weather began to set in, day turned to night, Johnny and Edward stood face to face several feet apart. The tension between the two could be cut with a knife.
“Take your shirt off,” Edward instructed.
Once Johnny did, Edward took his sandals off to dig his feet into the ground under him.
“Concentrate,” Edward said as he threw several pebbles at Johnny by kicking his foot upwards.
The rocks being too small and too fast to see caused Johnny to be hit by them creating small cuts around his torso. Before Johnny could say anything or react to the pain, Edward launched another set of pebbles at him and just like last time, the pebbles cut pieces of Johnny's body causing him to bleed from several parts of his body.
“Defend yourself, remember your meditation breathing exercise,” Edward instructed as he launched more and more pebbles at Johnny not giving him a moment’s rest.
After an hour of being torn apart by the pebbles, Johnny crumbled to one knee unable to do anything against Edward. This was when a huge boulder began to form from the smaller pebbles coming together into one huge mass above Johnny.
“If you don’t do something you will die,” Edward explained coldly.
Unable to move his arms well enough to brace himself, Johnny desperately gathered as much breath as he could in his body, held it in, and closed his eyes to prepare himself to get smashed by the boulder. Edward hurled the boulder directly on top of Johnny’s head creating a small dust storm from the impact. Once the dust cleared, Johnny was still in the same crouched position as before unaffected by the boulder.
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Unable to hold his breath any longer, Johnny released all the air he held inside.
“You did it,” Edward explained.
Unable to hold himself up anymore, Johnny fell in front of Edward unconscious.
The next morning, Johnny woke up with bandages wrapped around his torso and got out of bed still in pain from last night. He gingerly walked down the stairs and began his daily morning exercise. Then once he came back, he immediately went to train with Edward afterward. Once again, Johnny took off his shirt and before Edward could take off his sandals to throw pebbles at him again, he held his breath. However this time, the pebbles once again cut Johnny reopening his wounds.
“Why didn’t it work? What did I do wrong?” Johnny thought to himself.
“Breathing isn’t that easy, remember what I told you at the beginning,” Edward said after hurling several more pebbles at Johnny.
The blood trickled down Johnny’s body as he braced for the next set of pebbles to be slung at him. He tried to remember what Edward told him.
“There must be a medium….and….” Johnny thought to himself after being cut by more pebbles.
It was time for Edward to send the huge boulder at Johnny once again, so he began to gather the pebbles that were scattered around the two and causing them to form a huge boulder that was bigger than the one from last night. It was at that moment that Johnny remembered.
“There must be a medium and an intent.”
While the final few pebbles gathered to form the boulder, Johnny took as deep of a breath as he could and held it in.
“Defend.” Johnny thought to himself.
At that moment, the muscles inside of Johnny’s body began to contract and be filled with the air that he held inside of him. He felt a sharp sensation course throughout his body as the boulder hurled toward him. Upon impact, the boulder instantly turned to dust and Johnny stood there unscathed releasing his breath.