Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 164: Hell, literal Hell

‘Oh, what did I do to deserve this?’ Isaac sighed, and he’d have either put his head in his hands, downed several bottles of Everclear in under a minute, or just banged his forehead into the nearest available solid surface.

Except he couldn’t, because he needed to watch, there were children present and there was nothing to slam his head against.

However, the question remained: what had he done to deserve this?

Sure, he’d made deals involving illegal materials, with major criminal organizations. He’d committed several (vigilante) killings. There was a whole hospital full of cultists he’d maimed. A certain serial killer had a powerful ability he really should have warned people about but hadn’t. And if someone had ever thought to write laws about it, using time travel to “cheat” at work and on the stock market would definitely have constituted some kind of fraud.

All of those things were terrible unless given the right context, yet even discounting said context, even all those things combined shouldn’t have earned him this terrible punishment.

“AND WHY THE HELL DID YOU GIVE MY SON A YELLOW CARD!” the frumpy, beer-bellied father yelled while jabbing his finger in Isaac’s face.

That’s right, he was currently playing referee at a children’s soccer game and seriously regretting it. He’d let himself get talked into it as an apology for not visiting or even talking to his family on the phone and figured that watching over a few kids while they played with Tanja wasn’t going to go too badly. He’d fought demons, serial killers and murderous cults, just how much trouble could children be?

As it turned out, quite a bit, especially when they’d been raised by people like the grease-stain in front of him. It hadn’t taken long to figure out just why there’d been trouble finding someone willing to referee.

“Your son kicked my sister in the shin. In full view of me, you, and literally everyone else.” Isaac said with the best “You’re an idiot” voice he could muster.

“Bah, the little bitch might as well be made of stone, she didn’t even …”

Isaac closer so quickly he might as well have teleported for all this bastard would have seen, leaving their faces barely five centimeters apart, then continued talking at a far higher volume in his best customer service voice.

“See, this is about the principle of the thing. For one, there are children present, kindly moderate your language, sir. In addition, it does not matter how badly or even if the person who got fouled was hurt, but that a foul was committed. Just because my sister did not get hurt does not mean the next person won’t be. Or are you under the impression that kicking other people is accept-“

“You sancti-“ the man just him off, finger poking into Isaac’s chest. It wasn’t the first time he’d pointed at Isaac, but it was the first time physical contact had been made. Big mistake.

Isaac’s right arm flew into the sky and his hand fell back down with all the inexorability of a meteor streaking through the sky until it landed heavily on the jackass’ shoulder. Then, he slowly but inexorably extended his arm, forcing lord entitlement to take a few steps back or risk getting pushed over.

“That’s assault!” beer-belly squealed.

“Technically, any unwanted physical contact can be considered assault. However, you are the one who poked me first, sir.” Isaac continued, customer service voice all the way “You are, of course, free to escalate this as much as you want, but please keep in mind that at some point, this will transition from ‘technically assault’ to ‘actual assault’ and garner an appropriate response.”

Isaac continued to walk forwards, slowly but inexorably, still keeping a death grip on his foe’s shoulder.

“So how about you get off this field and then the kids can keep playing, m’kay buddy?”

When beer gut was finally outside the field, Isaac spoke up once again, not bothering to release the iron vise that was his hand and keeping eye contact with this guy. Of course, his “victim” had long since started looking away, but Isaac just continued to stare right at where the other man’s eyes used to be, utterly uncaring of the clear discomfort being displayed.

“From now on, there’ll be a new rule introduced: Any child whose parent enters the pitch will immediately receive a yellow card. Any child whose parent starts yelling insults at either the referee or one of the players will receive a yellow card. And any parent who does both will earn their a red card for both their offspring and themselves. This is the children’s game, there is a pitch for any adults who want to play right over there.”

With that, Isaac finally let go, turned, and started the game up again.

Things went well from then on … for about five minutes.

Then the next parent got up and charged right up to the pitch, at which point Isaac teleported in front of her, still facing the pitch, far enough away that she could stop in time and not run into him.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, he did startle her enough to spill her slushy down her front.

And to finish out the response, he very slowly reached up and stuck his fingers in his ears. She slunk back with her metaphorical tail between her legs, not having said anything or stepped onto the pitch.

The next challenger received the same treatment but took the time to swear at Isaac before returning to the bleachers, which earned his kid a yellow card.

It only took one more person, and then the message finally was received. Blessed peace.

Once the game was over, Isaac swept up Tanja and placed her on his shoulders, then slowly flew towards the nearest kebab store.

“I’m proud of you, you know.” He said.

“We lost.” Tanja said, barely managing to avoid sounding pouty.

“Yes, you lost. Because you played fair. You didn’t use your powers, which none of them had the chance to earn yet. This was supposed to be fun for everyone, not a competition. And you made that happen. So heck yes, I’m proud of you. And now we’re getting a couple of kebabs for us, and some cake to share with oour sister when we get home.”

“Can we get donuts instead?” she asked.

“Of course.” Isaac told her “But only if you can wait to eat them until we’re home.”

“I can.” She protested.

Isaac just laughed.