Impostors (7)

From the crowd's point of view, what Lazar had done was nothing more than brutalize a girl who had confused him with someone else...

But, of course, no one was going to openly express their indignation out of fear; everyone was aware that it would go against their survival instincts to oppose him after they had caught a glimpse of what he was capable of.

And yet... although they knew this, they seemed surprised at their own collective cowardice as everyone was looking around shamefully, wondering why no one had yet stepped forward to help the young woman who had just been knocked unconscious.

In Amandla's case, although she believed that Katelyn deserved what just happened to her and that she was willing to admit that seeing her wallowing headfirst on the grass had given her a certain satisfaction, in her opinion, it was still a bad move on Lazar's part.

"It's the stupidest thing I've ever seen you do." She told him, looking at him with an amused expression and a serene smile on her face indicating that in spite of this she wasn't more worried than that.

Indeed, even though she was well aware that Lazar had scared everyone and that what he had done would have negative repercussions, she was already knew that wouldn't prevent them from completing their task; now that the survivors were all gathered in one place, no one would be able to escape from her.

"I... panicked." Lazar said with a tone of voice far too pleased for Amandla to believe in his justification.

She snorted, "Nonsense, you totally knew what you was doing, you..." As Amandla was about to tell Lazar that just because no one had the courage to stand up to him doesn't mean that everyone was going to be cooperative, she stopped talking because she felt something she was both expecting and dreading, 'Looks like some people are already trying to sneak their way out.'

Thanks to her ability to sense presences, Amandla immediately felt among the several hundred of survivors present, that a few dozen were slowly detaching themselves from the others, taking advantage of the crowd effect to go unnoticed, 'They aren't leaving me any choice.' She deplored, knowing that she was going to have to resort to a drastic method.

"You'll thank me later." She said to Lazar without context before turning to the crowd and making her bow appear.

Having kept in mind what happened after Lazar made his weapon appear, when the crowd witnessed a bow appearing in Amandla's hands, everyone was now convinced that those two weren't here for peaceful reasons.

However, by the time those who were already planning to escape thought it was necessary to do so more quickly and the very thought of running away formed in the minds of others, it was already too late.

'Slow.' Judged Amandla when she saw that no one had yet reacted, 'At least I will not have to spend too much energy.' She thought as she was concentrating her energy in her left hand which was gripping tightly the string of her bow.

As Lazar saw four arrows surrounded by a white aura with a concentration of energy far greater than anything he had ever seen before form between Amandla's fingers, he didn't made any comments because he was thinking that whatever she was going to do would be in their best interest... and actually, he was even quite eager to see what she was going to do.

In the moment which followed, Amandla shot two arrows one after the other, both in a trajectory going way behind the crowd but in two different directions; one to the left and one to the right.

Seeing these arrows flying in the air was a wake-up call for the crowd.

"AHHHHH!!!"

"RUN!!!"

People started running everywhere in disorder, even though it was obvious that no one was going to be hit by the arrows.

Lazar, who was enjoying his position as a spectator, understood what Amandla was doing only when she shot her last two arrows a little behind them to their right and to their left and that all the four arrows were now planted in the ground, 'The positioning of her arrows is surrounding everyone...'

In the place of the four arrows, four pillars of white light about 6 meters high formed themselves, and of course it didn't end there. Walls of white light formed themselves to connect each pillar one to the other thus forming a semi-transparent rectangle enclosing everyone and whose only apparent exit was the top of it.

While Lazar was admiring all the resourcefulness that Amandla had bragged about in the truck yesterday, he understood when he heard her jerky breathing that her energy wasn't limitless and that she had spent a lot of it if it wasn't all of it.

He then felt her hand on his left forearm and when he turned towards her, he saw her covered in sweat and realized that if she had her hand on him it was because she needed him to stay standing.

"You have... five minutes." She told him, struggling to speak.

For Amandla, who was more or less expecting Lazar to take her hand off his forearm and let her fall to the ground like a shit before rushing towards the crowd to search one by one those they had to evacuate, it was disconcerting to see that instead he had stored his weapon in his inventory to use his free arm to gently wrap her waist so that she could rest on him even more.

As she was beginning to glimpse at the delicacy that he could demonstrate, Lazar showed her with his next words that there was room for improvement, "Did you have to show off this much?" He stated sarcastically.

'It was a perfect moment until he opened his mouth.' Regretted Amandla who was almost touched by the gentleness with which Lazar had treated her, "Don't you... have something to do?" She asked, thinking that Lazar was wasting a lot of the seconds of the 5 minutes she had given him to take care of her.

"Don't worry, it'll be quick." He answered her confidently while helping her to sit down on the grass with the same delicate touch as before.