Is every human truly "human"?

Now I’m sure you thought that with the way the last chapter ended, this chapter would start the next morning in my apartment.

I wish.

I ran about five blocks before he showed up. I was running down the middle of the street in the darkness of night, in a fairly dark costume, yet it was like he knew exactly where to find me. He came from the sky above, landing in front of me and blocking my path. Without hesitation, I shot off a few hundred replay kicks at the ground near my feet to launch myself to the right into an alley. I then replay launched myself up to the top of the building, although I overestimated my power and ended up having to wall jump like Mario a couple times with replay before I got to the top of the four-story building

He was already waiting at the top for me, silently hovering a few feet above the roof. As I was about to attempt another replay move, my body completely stopped moving. Well, its not that I wanted it to stop, but something was stopping me from moving even a centimeter. I could move my eyes around, however, breathing was extremely hard, as my chest couldn’t expand to bring air in. I finally took the opportunity to get a nice long look at the Imperium I assumed was doing this to me. Looked like a guy, pretty tall ignoring the hovering, and somewhat broad shoulders. He was wearing what looked kind of like a black leather wizard robe with a hood on it. Although the sleeves weren’t massive like a traditional wizard outfit, but rather fitted perfectly around his slightly muscular arms. He wasn’t wearing gloves, revealing the pale white skin of his hands.

“Ok”, he said, “this is gonna go one of two ways.” Although the subject matter was serious, he spoke in a slightly jovial tone, almost like it wasn’t serious at all to him. “Either you continue trying to run from me or maybe try to attack me, in which case I will crush you like a stress ball and filter your blood into the nearest gutter, or, you say that you will follow my orders, and you come peacefully with me back to base. So?”

I responded, “Uh, first of all… it seemed a little… unnecessary to describe all that… gruesome stuff. Second of all… I’m having trouble… breathing here.”

“Yeah, I know, in fact that’s kind of the point. Anyway, what’s your answer?”

“I’ll follow… your orders”

“Perfect.” He released me from whatever paralysis he has inflicted on me

I considered opening fire on him immediately, but decided it was probably best to at least hear him out first. He walked up to the edge of the roof and looked down at the street.

“You can survive a fall from here with your power, right?”, he said. “I wanna see it.”

He had a white mask covering the lower half of his face, so I couldn’t make out any more details than I could earlier. I had to admit that he looked cool though. I said wizard robe earlier, but it was only like 50% that and the other 50% would be like a cool leather jacket look. Plus the fitted black jeans and dark boots he was wearing, and his look was multiple times better than my sloppy get-together of random apparel I thought worked. Then I mentally registered what he said and realized that no amount of fashion sense could make up for being an asshole. Well…at least not completely.

He reached his hand out toward me and I was stuck in that same paralysis like state, except this time, he move his hand toward the street in front of him, and I followed along through the air, as if he was using telekinesis on me. I also realized that last time he did this he must have left my jaw alone, since I was able to speak. This time however, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t open my mouth to scream all the curses I wanted at him. I knew I would be fine if I used my power, but I mean, come on, it was my first day on the job and I want exactly used to falling multiple stories down yet.

His hand was in a fist, holding me over the street, but as soon as he opened his hand, I felt gravity take me into its clutches as I plummeted towards the street.