When Altair left the crumbled supermarket, he did not immediately go to Ozz but instead returned home. It was only then that he realized he had not even worn his costume when going to collect the supplies in Hzat.
"Yeah, that was too risky. Let's avoid that in the future." He muttered.
He looked at the time and it was still the middle of the day in Stockar city.
'With the time difference with Ozz being close to 9 hours, it should be around 7 p.m. there right now. I'll just wait a little longer before going to drop supplies, just in case.'
'For now, I should go and evacuate more people from Hzat.'
With these thoughts in mind, Altair used the inventory and changed the clothes he was wearing.
He wore his full costume, the Kevlar suit and pants, with the formal-army-shoes, as well as the balaclava, finishing with the overcoat, without forgetting to cover his head with its hoodie, and wear gloves on his hands.
< >
He teleported back to Hzat and started moving around with teleportation, looking for people that were in large groups.
He soon found a good number of people and immediately looked for a hiding spot where he could keep them in his sight.
'Wouldn't it be appropriate to call what I do now, abduction?' He mused inwardly.
Before he spotted a destroyed building that seemed to have been a multi-storied building before.
He crouched at a high spot on the building where he could easily see people while being mostly out of sight.
Whenever he found the chance to, he teleported near some stragglers and took them away, slowly but surely reducing the number of people he would have to teleport when night came.
He kept doing this for the rest of the day until the sun was about to set.
It was at this time that he noticed something odd.
When there were signs of the sun setting, just as he expected, the people started gathering together in anticipation of the night. However, before long, they spread out again.
Too many people were absent and because of this, the remaining ones started looking around to find them.
Unlike in normal circumstances when different people lived in different houses, the situation in Hzat, well, the place Altair was currently at, was very different.
With houses destroyed all around, and many people having lost their homes, they grouped together in shelters when night came. This made it easier for them to realize that many others were missing.
They called out names and kept moving around searching without success.
Obviously, they could not find anyone but that just made them more agitated.
There was no way Altair would just walk to them and start telling them that he had teleported the people away, so instead, he resumed with his activities.
At first, they all spread out so that they could search more places.
From time to time, Altair appeared near one or 2 people and just teleported them away without talking to them or asking for their opinion.
He still maintained his opinion that wherever they were in the world was better than the warring environment of Hzat. After all, the news reported the same thing, that Hzat was now the most dangerous place in the world to live in.
Each time Altair left his vantage point on the building, he appeared on the ground close to the people and placed a hand on individuals to take them away.
The number of people there kept reducing, and they also noticed it every time they grouped back together to report their findings.
From an onlooker's perspective, looking from a very high location, even higher than the building which Altair stood on, it would appear that some dots gathered together, spread out, reduced and came back together. Just to spread out and reduce again, before gathering back together.
On the ground, the remaining people became a little restless and more agitated, judging from their mannerisms.
They seemed to be panicking from where Altair watched them.
Altair was becoming burdened by their behavior and started wondering. 'Maybe I should stop this.'
This thought came very shortly however before he discarded it. A quick look around would make it clear why.
'If they stay here, they'll die, in a war that has nothing to do with them.'
'Besides, won't they just live in worry if they never know of what happened to the others. I can't also just let them talk about what happened here when they leave…'
When he thought about it, wouldn't people be more likely to believe that they all somehow escaped from Hzat rather than believing that they were teleported out of there?
Even if they all said it, people will just believe that they are lying together, rather than believe in some random person or entity having teleported all of them out of Hzat right?
With this reasoning, Altair continued in his activity, teleporting more and more people slowly, until the sun set completely and places became much darker, with even the moon being obstructed by the dusty atmosphere and the smoke-like clouds in the sky.
Each time, Altair had enough time to teleport them all away, and from his lookout, he could clearly see all of them without much obstruction since most of the things that could have covered his vision like houses, had crumbled from frequent explosions.
"Why don't we just stick together." One person suggested, holding a flashlight in one of his hands, the agitation barely discernible in his voice.
"Yeah… maybe you're right." Another replied, the trembling in his voice less hidden.
"I agree, whatever it is, we can just face it together."
Voices of agreement quickly spread in the crowd of people, as more and more of them were in favor of the idea of not dispersing anymore.
The place was originally very quiet, since it was night time, and the people had to almost shout to build up courage, not only for oneself but for the others as well.
It was thanks to these that Altair heard them and figured out what was going on.
He could have stopped here, and maybe he should have done so, but the little sadistic side of himself found this whole thing somewhat funny.
Since no one was harmed in this, he thought of enjoying the situation.
Suppressing a slightly evil chuckle, Altair resumed with the evacuation, his mood now less downcast.
'Am I actually a villain for finding fun in this?' He only wondered briefly before pushing the thought aside.
He watched them very attentively and when he saw a side towards which the lights were not pointing, he teleported there and vanished with one or two people, depending on how many he could touch at once and as fast as possible.
The teleportation was very silent, and Altair only appeared for about half a second before disappearing right after.
Both of these contributed in making that those he took away, did not have the time to alert others of what happened or was happening to them.
In fact, before they even had the time to shout or scream in fright, they were already in Oz.
.
As the group was searching around, moving all together, and talking among themselves, one person suddenly noticed that the people he was talking to did not respond.
"Ali? Walid?" He turned back in the direction where Ali and Walid should be and searched around with his flashlight.
"Come on this is no time for this kind of thing" He first started talking in a normal conversational tone, with a semblance of joking in his voice.
His voice however, slowly started trembling when he called out a second time, but he still expected it to be a joke from them.
"Guys, come on say something…"
Still not getting a reply he signaled to the others.
"Guys, Ali and Walid have gone missing."
His situation was not an isolated case and the behavior of the others around was somewhat similar to his, so when he said this, unsurprisingly, other people started raising similar complaints to his.
"I don't see Razan and Joud either."
"Jamal and Ziad also aren't replying."
"Samir! Tariq!"
"Hey, Hassan! Khaled!"
More and more people noticed that those around them went missing, and with this, their restlessness became more apparent.
Everyone was now very agitated, the earlier cohesion of choosing to stand together not so apparent anymore.
Altair also noticed this and it made him lose interest in playing his somewhat sadistic game. He found it much less funny.
He regained his serious attitude and decided to hurry up with taking the remaining people away, even if they had a glimpse at him.
Something he soon realized was not such a smart idea.
Back on the ground, as the people got back together, they stated quiet for some time, all of them very nervous.
Soon enough, one person finally suggested.
"Should we just return to the camp?"
No one responded, all of them still with nervous expressions.
"Maybe this is all just a bad prank and when we'll return to the camp, we'll see them there."
After saying this, he paused and looked at the others to assess their reactions.
Just like before, no one responded, but this time he saw some change in their expressions.
They were all scared and did not want to stay in this place any longer. His words were like what everyone wanted to hear in their scared and tired state.
Most of them wanted to believe this was just a nightmare and that once they slept and woke up for real, this will just be a bad episode behind them.
Not wanting to think about or consider another possibility, they started agreeing.
"I- I agree. Even if they are not at the camp, right now we can't really see much without having the moon. Let's return for now."
"Yes, it's better to search in the morning with daylight. There isn't really much we can do in our current conditions."
With more convincing going on and more people agreeing, it took almost no time for even the most reticent ones to follow."
This time their conversation wasn't as loud and Altair could not hear what they were saying.
He observed them as they arranged in a way that they were all looking around.
They formed small groups of 4, with each group looking around in all directions.
Altair looked at them and wondered.
'What are they trying now?'