[Alex's POV]
Alex breathed a sigh of relief now that he could finally make his way to the Great Oak Tree without any distractions. He landed right in front of it and put both of his hands on the bark.
The connection to the universe was instant and welcomed him as if he was an extension of it.
"What would you like to do?" he heard the portal ask in a soft, barely audible humming sound. Alex thought about it for an instant. Originally, he only wanted to create beacons all over the universe, like the one in the Field of Reeds, but that was until he'd noticed the state of the Earth.
Now that he was connected to the universe, he could see the Earth for what it really was: a spinning pebble that was slowly being pulled towards the sun, just like Venus and Mercury. No wonder the planet had been heating up! They were slowly drifting towards the sun! They barely had a few hundred more years left until the ecosystem as it now was would go up in flames.
A part of Alex thought: "That is this world's faith, I shouldn't meddle with it." But another part of him realised that it wasn't just the planet that would burn. The humans on it would die too.
Alex doubted for another moment before he sighed disappointedly with himself. He shouldn't care about this world's faith, and it wasn't his place to save it, but maybe another four thousand years were in order for the people of earth to realise what was happening. So he moved the three planets closest to the sun just a little bit further away again. Exactly into the position they had been four thousand years ago. And while he was at it, he might as well refuel earth's energy. After all, it would be no good if the planet itself died before it would be absorbed into the sun.
He looked at his little adjustments and smiled. Good enough.
Then he turned his attention back towards the rest of the universe and thought for a minute.
What would be good spots for his beacons? Which would be the least conspicuous for Grace? Where was he going to start? He couldn't help but think that, whatever he did, Grace would always know where to find him.
That meant he just had to decide on what he wanted to do. Place the beacons from left to right? Fill areas counterclockwise around the centre of the universe?
Alex growled in frustration as he was starting to drive himself crazy with trivial matters and decided to just create the beacons in random places in the universe. Each of them would contain an equal amount of energy.
Sadly enough, if he kept the beacon in the Field of Reeds into account, the amount of energy that he'd judged back then as the absolute maximum amount of energy that could safely be left alone, now didn't even amount to one percent of his total power anymore.
If he wanted to spend 80% of his current power, he'd be busy for a while.
Talking about the beacon in the Field of Reeds; he suddenly felt regretful that he hadn't added a pair wings to the statue holding the diamond. So he did. Soon, a pair of big, glittering, bright white wings were added to the otherwise black statue and then he started spreading copies of it all over the universe.
He chose the planetary systems near fading stars. With those alone, he managed to place a little over a hundred beacons.
But that wasn't the only reason he'd chosen places near fading stars. This way, he had an excuse to refuel them. Grace would have a hard time spotting the source of the enormous amount of energy that was being poured into the dying stars. Not only was his own presence masked by the universe itself while he'd created the pinprick-like beacons, they acted as the source through which he fed the stars.
Alex was barely ready with pouring his excess energy into the universe, when the one thing he feared happened: the energy in the universe started to move on its own. That could only mean one thing: Grace had noticed something was off.
Within seconds, the system that had welcomed his excess energy so generously, felt like it was trying to smother him. He felt like a virus that was being attacked by the host's immune system.
Suddenly, he felt really stupid for giving away all that precious energy. He could have used it to protect himself.
For a split second, he felt the urge to take it all back and defend himself, but then he remembered who he was and why he'd come here.
He didn't want to act like the virus Grace was making him out to be.
What mattered most was that she wouldn't get a lock on his location. He had to get out of there, before she realised he'd fooled her.
He quickly retreated back to the Great Oak Tree, back to his body, quickly pulled his hands from the bark and prayed that Grace hadn't caught his scent yet.
An ear splitting cry made the universe shake and Alex knew she'd lost him.
Once the terrible noise had finally stopped, Alex sighed a breath of relief and looked around. He was glad to see that his vision had returned to normal. No more bright light, no more floating lights, no more ghosts. Everything was back to normal.
Well, "normal" probably wasn't the right word, since instead of seeing the quiet park he'd expected, he was surrounded by fully armoured men, all pointing their gun at him.
He spotted his dad, Otto, Jasper and even Thomas, behind the line of guns, trying to convince the policemen that Alex wasn't a threat and that they didn't need to arrest him, but to no avail.
"I surrender!" Alex said loud enough for all the policemen to hear and slowly started to raise his hands.
"Turn around! Down on your knees! Put your hands on the back of your head!" the nearest policeman shouted and Alex complied.
As he turned around, he saw Otto burst into tears, right before the policeman that had shouted the standard commands grabbed his arm roughly and cuffed him. Then he roughly pushed Alex to start walking into a certain direction, but Alex halted and glared angrily at him.
"Touch me that roughly one more time and it will be the last mistake you ever make," he said threateningly. The policeman didn't seem to be impressed.
"Of course it will," he said sarcastically. "What are you gonna do, tough guy? Glow at me?"
Well, he'd asked, hadn't he? So Alex showed him. He showed him how bullets couldn't hurt him, how cuffs couldn't keep him, how easy it would be to kill the police officer without even touching him.
At the end of the vision, the policeman had turned ghastly pale and was shivering so badly that he could hardly hold his gun anymore.
"I want you all to know, that I'm voluntarily coming along with you and that I do not appreciate the rough handling," Alex said to the other policemen who looked rather confused until one of the policemen at the back of the group sighed and made his way to the front.
"Yes sir, please forgive the officer. He's known for his rough habits," the man said. "Would you please follow us to the vehicle? We'll need to file a report for all the damage you've caused."
This time it was Alex's turn to look surprised. Had he caused damage? Now he mentioned it, he remembered Otto saying something along those lines as well.
"Ok, lead the way," Alex said and so did the officer.
On his way to the police car, Alex was surprised to notice that a crowd had gathered. Of course there was. He bet a lot of people had seen him with his wings and they had all came to see what was happening.
There was nothing Alex would rather do than make everyone forget what had happened, but there were A LOT of people who'd seen him. And brainwashing every single one would ask a considerable amount of energy. Energy that he was not willing to spend at the moment.
If he wanted an easy way to make everyone forget about what had happened today, he'd have to change the fact that he'd walked around town like a ticking time-bomb. But he personally liked the way things had turned out, so he'd rather not change that.
He decided to wait and see how things turned out for now. He could always brainwash everyone when things turned for the worst.