Whatever was happening the man needed to concentrate and when he lost focus Alex dropped to the ground.

Everything had been happening too fast, but if they wasted more time the men who were on the other side of the building would come back and things would get worse.

After Alex threw his improvised shield at the man he dropped Alex to focus on the shield but he was able to focus back on him before he was able to get away.

"Are you seeing this?" Alex asked, as the man pushed him even higher than before

"I am, but I don't understand" Paul said as Alex continue to ascend seeing the top of the building "The shuttle can't detect anything except for you somehow floating in the air"

"It looks like he needs to be focused on me to work" Alex started to say but before he finished he felt himself dropping, but this time he was being pushed down with an even more force than gravity could manage, it seems the man had decided to crush him.

When he hit the ground, he tried to throw himself to the man but he had bad footing and all he could manage was to throw himself a few meters forward, but when he reached the ground after his mini jump he tried to take off running toward the man and maybe ram him, but again he was caught before accomplishing it. The man was able to react fast to everything he tried.

Alex loosened his helmet while telling Paul "come down here making a lot of noise, and turning on the external lights, it might be enough to distract him for a couple seconds"

Alex didn't take the helmet off waiting for Paul's arrival.

When the shuttle arrived, it was like a noisy flying comet, Paul had decided to be even more distracting by blasting music and switching the external lights on and off with a rhythm. Alex fell down on the ground, but, expecting it this time he landed on his feet.

Not waiting anytime he started running toward the men taking his helmet off in the process. The man didn't have armor on, he had let go of Alicia when he tried crushing him. Hoping he was the only one with these weird powers, Alex, ignoring the feelings of guilt of what he was about to do threw the helmet like a cannon.

The helmet streaked out toward the man, but unfortunately one of the other men was somehow not completely distracted by the incoming shuttle and moved to intercept it. Alex's breath stopped seeing everything happening in slow motion and unable to stop it. It was their only shot at running away, but he realized that things could go very wrong. The man who intercepted was wearing armor, luckily when the helmet hit him it pushed him toward the other man throwing both of them through the open door.

It was not Alex's plan, but it might buy them some time. by the time they were on the ground Alex was already close, the strange woman who had approached them had also not been distracted with the comet and used the opportunity to disarm her captor and use his sword to pierce his neck. By the time he got there she had also dispatched Angela's guard.

He was stunned by how brutal and efficient she was, he had never seen anyone die in front of him, much less killed in a very brutal, clean and methodical way. She moved in a way that didn't allow for their blood to touch her clothes, and she hadn't hesitated or allowed the man to make any noise, and it took less than two seconds.

With the noise the shuttle was making drowning out everything else the three of them were frozen for a split second, then he noticed the man with the impossible powers trying to push the other man off of himself. When they locked eyes, Alex moved to get out of the way and grab Alicia who had fallen to the ground as quickly as possible before he could use his powers, the anonymous woman jumped in front of him and grabbed the door handle. He felt the force pushing them away before he could even get to Alicia, but since the woman was holding the door handle the heavy metallic door was pulled close as well following the woman.

The force they were feeling suddenly cut off, the rest of the men were on the other side of the building, probably distracted by the shuttle.

It had probably been less than five seconds since he started running, everything was happening too fast and he was mostly reacting to things as they came.

The woman grabbed his hands and pointed toward the war-horses, her message was clear. He grabbed Alicia and went to pick up Angela lifting them both and running as fast as he could toward the horses, but he knew that they were not going to make it before the man got up.

He dropped them halfway there, turned back and ran back as fast as he could, picking up his improvised shield on his way back. He grabbed the other woman and pointed toward the horses while he took her place facing the door. He believed he had a better chance than her facing whatever those powers were, if had tried to crush the girl like he tried to do to him she would be dead.

The girl hesitated for a second but went toward the girls. He remembered seeing her riding a war-horse the first time he entered the city, so, he assumed she knew how to get on top of one and to ride.

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He saw the door opening and wanting to keep it closed he jumped to grab it, but before he could close it back he felt the now familiar feeling of gravity changing its direction and quickly grabbed the doorframe, he looked inside the room and realized that the man who had been behind the door had been thrown toward the wall opposite it, but it was not the one with the freaky powers, he was nowhere to be seen but was somehow still using his powers on him.

The force was pulling Alex toward the room, he was horizontal with his feet on the air inside the room grabbing the doorframe to keep himself from falling into the room. Whatever force was pulling him was stronger than gravity.

The room was somewhat spacious with a few couches on the other side, it had two doors on either side, one was closed, but looking closely to the other he saw the man hiding behind it and only peeking at him. Perhaps he really needed line of sight to use his powers, but there is no way Alex would be able to hit the man given how he was hiding, so Alex swung his feet until he managed to get hold of the door handle, and using both hands pulled himself outside with all his strength, closing the door as he was threw himself outside.

Unfortunately the force hadn't cut off like the first time, he was still standing up horizontally on the walls, even though the man couldn't see him.

Looking at the horses he saw that the three girls had gotten themselves on the horse and were taking off, luckily a war-horse was big enough for the three of them. He kept pulling the door handle until they were out of sight.

The force pulling him toward the wall suddenly cut off and he took off running toward the same direction as the girls.

Just before he reached the tree line he felt himself getting light again and jumped toward a tree before he lost contact with the ground. It helped getting him something to grab on to, he saw the man looking out the window with his arms stretched. Alex simply accepted the sideways gravity and used it to position himself better and hiding himself from view, then he horizontally jumped up to the next tree with all his strength, it was enough to leave the area of effect of the force. Looking back he still saw the effects of the force on the previous tree, so maybe he can't adjust the area of effect without line of sight.

The girl had known that line of sight had something to do with it, which is why she had jumped toward the door handle instead of away from the man. But if he had pulled her toward him she could have been in trouble.

Alex kept running following the path but keeping himself inside the tree line for a while longer, he didn't know if the man's eyesight was better than normal so, he kept himself hidden while trying to follow the path toward the horse. He tried to call Paul to tell him to be wary of that man since they didn't know what other types of powers he had, but Paul simply said he would buy them as much time as he could, He could still hear the music of the shuttle even if it was not as loud and from here not as intertwined with the roar from the engine.

After a few minutes the noise increased and the sound changed to something menacing, "What happened?" Alex asked calling Paul

"The man came out of the house and tried to rally his men, I put the shuttle over the path trying to keep them away. Its working for now, the men are backing away. They are even more afraid than their horses" Not surprising, war-horses are harder to spook than normal horses. And if whatever spooked them was in range they would pounce before running away. It also gave him an idea.

"Go to the library and search for hypnotic sounds for war-horses. There is one that annoys them, if you play it they might even drop their riders. Just make sure the girls are far away not to hear it." Alex said. Some animals had some sounds that affected them, some sounds make them calmer, but some had sounds that made them more aggressive. Since the library was the accumulated academic knowledge for his people, it would sure have it and the shuttle could play it.

"Tell me if something changes" he finally said.

"Yeah, I talked with Alicia, they are ok, and ahead of you. How far can you run like that?" Paul asked.

Alex didn't know, the booster shit had helped but he had still lost a lot of blood

"I can probably handle one more hour before needing to slow down" he said hoping it was true.

While running his mind kept wandering toward what just happened, no matter what crazy theory he comes up with to explain what happened it didn't hold water when confronted with everything he saw the man do. That was not technology, it was someone creating some type of field out nothing just by pointing his arms at someone. Is he the only one? It wouldn't make sense. If you were the only one with that kind of power in a world like this you wouldn't be hiding in the middle of nowhere manufacturing drugs.

If there are others how powerful do they have to be for this one to be a bottom feeder? Are all of them hostile or is any of them friendly enough to explain how it works?

The girl seemed to have an idea of how it works, at least enough to know a weakness. He needed to interrogate her when he caught up to them. Everything just became way more dangerous than before.

He realized that the noise from the shuttle had stopped.

"What happened?" He asked Paul.

"I decided to disappear and wait to see if they make a move, it might frighten them more if I only show myself when they if they try to rally" Paul answered

A couple minutes later he heard the shuttle again, it played for maybe fifteen seconds then stopped.

"They tried to rally again, but given their horses reaction they are even more wary now" Paul explained.

After maybe half an hour Alex was slowing down feeling more exhausted than he should have been, and he was feeling the beginnings of a headache, if maybe just the previous headache coming back.

"How far away am I?" Alex asked

"In the beginning you were gaining but now you are slowing down, the men haven't tried again, do you want them to wait for you?" He asked

"No, but see if you can find me a shortcut" Alex said. Even if he caught up with them there was no more space on the horse.

"The only shortcut is through the forest" he said. It was better than nothing

"Ok, tell me where"

The shortcut involved entering the forest and moving diagonally from the road, after couple hours he crossed another road and entered the forest again on the other side. He was able to see at night but Paul was watching everything from the skies making sure he stayed away from any big animals. As time passed he was moving slower and slower the headache increasing as well.

He took a few five minute breaks and kept going but in the end it was not enough.