Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 86: Family Matters

It was a quaint house, Isaac reflected. Two stories, small yard out front, sandwiched between the houses on either side, a thick hedge obscuring most of the lower floor save for the gate that allowed access to the house.

Isaac cast out his [Aura] to get a good look at everything from a place where he could have his reaction without being observed. There was a midsized garden behind the house, with a few toys neatly packed away in the garden shed. His sisters might be a pair of little hellions, but his mother still had them under control.

His father was in the cellar, in that familiar soundproofed room, practicing. He was an opera singer and therefore, that got a little … loud. Isaac had been maybe 5 or 6, his parent had just bought the house and they’d fought about this, a lot, until one day, him and his mother had come home from school and the house and been utterly silent.

Normally, this would have been his father’s practice time, which made it incredibly weird to not hear anything. Eventually, his father had burst up from the cellar, proudly announcing he’d managed to soundproof his practice room all by himself. The intention had been to show up just as they did … but he’d lost track of time.

Isaac chuckled softly at the memory.

His [Aura] continued to sweep through the building, finding his mother upstairs, playing with a pair of precocious six-year-olds.

Where Isaac had the same black hair as his mother Tanja and Viktoria shared their father’s blond hair, shaved down to a pixie cut. Longer hair tended to get caught on stuff or messy really quickly and, well, they were like a pair of whirlwinds, only even more energetic and destructive.

The feeling of grief hit him like a godsdamned truck, a chocked off sob escaping his throat. He triggered [Stealth], going invisible as he didn’t want anyone to see him like this.

They hadn’t been like that in the future, mellowing out from the literal embodiments of chaos into stalwartly optimistic beacons of hope, who’d managed to keep people’s spirits up even in the darkest of times, right up until the end. And then they’d died.

But now, they were right there in front of him, and he loved them, but those other versions of them, those grown up women that anyone would be privileged to know, were dead, and would always be dead.

Isaac balled his right hand into a fist, slamming it into the ground and becoming briefly visible before he re-cast [Stealth], the ground splintering like balsawood under his fist. A few drops of blood emerged from his skin, along with the asphalt shards that had found their way into his fist, before everything healed over.

He wanted to love those two little girls, and he did, but there was and would always be that other timeline hanging over his head, a constant reminder that these two weren’t the people he’d come to know, that they were almost … a replacement? And any love he felt for them would be a betrayal of the original?

… no even in his current state, he knew the latter was bunk. The idea that after losing a friend or loved one, a person could no longer befriend or love anyone else was one of the most self destructive ideas known to man.

Isaac punched the ground again, though this time, he reduced his strength to not further damage the ground. One hole In the sidewalk would be hard enough to explain, a second would be a real issue.

Yet all of that didn’t change how much this hurt. Because he would always love those two, but the women they’d grown into would always be gone.

Now that he was here, on his knees in front of this house, invisible, he realized how stupid he’d been, because he did love everyone here, even if they weren’t the people in the other timeline, because those people were still dead.

That had simply been a stupid excuse to avoid dealing with this.

Isaac squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the tears streaming down his face, taking deep breaths. These were mistakes he could fix. They weren’t dead, none of them were, and he could still make this right.

It wasn’t like he’d made massive mistakes in the other timeline, some stupid fight he’d never had the chance to apologize for, they’d simply died and he’d given up on ever seeing them again, even despite this incredible opportunity he’d been given.

No, his mistakes had been made right here and now, and that was where he’d be able to fix this … if the grief didn’t break him first.

Isaac straightened and got to his feet, surreptitiously grabbing the bloodiest of the stone shards and chucking them into the hedge. Sure, there was still a hole in the sidewalk, but now it wasn’t nearly as obvious that it had been created by someone punching it.

He reached up and wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, clearing away most of the tears, but a quick check with his [Aura] revealed that his eyes were rimmed red and his checks still glistened red.

With a sigh, he pulled up the front of his shirt to wipe away the rest of the tears even as [Hundred Faces] shifted his expression back into a form more appropriate for someone visiting their family.

That stupid little [Skill] was going to end up with one hell of a screwed up Level 20 evolution if he kept using to hide his true feelings from his family, wasn’t it?

He pulled out his keyring, something he hadn’t needed to use in months, and unlocked the front door, covered the few steps to the front door in a few steps and opened that as well.

“Hi, I’m home!” he called out.

… it took less than ten seconds for a pair of little, blond, bottle rockets to slam into his midsection.

Laughing, he put a single foot back to prevent himself from falling over while he swept both of them up in his arms, easily holding both of them in his arms.

“Isaac, you’re back!” Tanja chirped.

“The lady on the TV said you’re a superhero now!” Viktoria added.

“Maybe. But are you two supposed to be watching the news? Those are awfully grim, you know.” Isaac commented dryly.

“We are! We are! Now let me down!” Viktoria grumbled, squirming in his arms and he dropped both of them, ready to steady them at a moment’s notice if it looked like they were about to fall.

These two were about to go into first grade and currently in the middle of their ‘I’m in school now, I’m grown up and too much of an adult for hugs’ phase … but he only knew that from the other timeline.

A fist of grief grasped his heart in an iron grip at that thought and he choked back a sob.

“Isaac, are you alright?” his mother asked, having come down the stairs at a far more sedate pace.

“Yeah.” he gasped, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve “I’m just so glad you’re all alright.”

“What happened out there, at that lake?” she asked.

His eyes flicked down to the twins and she understood immediately.

“Girls, how about you go tell your dad that Isaac is here?” she suggested and they were off at speeds that frankly boggled the mind.

“What happened there?” she asked softly, quietly enough so the pair of six-year-olds wouldn’t hear.

“Nothing. I … I wasn’t even there for most of the time, I was at the university, babysitting one of or projects, I only went there at the end to clean things up.” Isaac sighed “But I got a front row seat to learning just what crap people are capable off … I’m just so glad you’re all alive.”

“Alive?” she asked, surprise and sadness swinging in her voice in equal measure. Yep, that had been a very bad way to phrase that.

“A lot of people aren’t.” he replied grimly, finding himself wrapped in a hug a moment later. He jumped in surprise, and she let go in an instant.

“You know, you’re never too old for a hug.”

“Yep.” Isaac sighed, again “I’m just a little … jumpy, I guess.”

His mother slumped, shoulders hanging low “In that case, should you keep working at that job, if it has that kind of effect on you?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But someone needs to do this. The world has gotten very dang- …” he cut himself off as the twins came rushing up, dragging their father along with them like a leaf caught in a tornado. Those two were in a league of their own when it came to force of personality.

“Hey, can you do a magic trick?” Viktoria chirped and for a moment, Isaac blanked on what he could do. Sure, he had a massive list of available [Skills], but they were all dangerous, destructive, or knife related, nothing he wanted to show to a pair of little kids.

… a few minutes from now, he’d realize that there were plenty of things he could do, but in that moment, he was unable to think of anything that wasn’t violent, save one.

“I can fly.” Isaac announced, activating [Poltergeist’s Flight] and tapping his foot against the floor to send him floating a few centimeters above the ground.

“Oh wow!” Tanja exclaimed, even as Viktoria added “ Teach me!”

Isaac chortled “When you’re older.”

In response, she made a pouty face at him “That’s something you grown-ups always say when they don’t want to deal with us.”

“But I can teach you …” suddenly, the glowing orb of an Aspect of the Specter was in his hands “… with this. But you need the [System] to use it.”

“Then I want the [System]!” Tanja cheered, raising both tiny fists towards the sky as she cheered.

“Doesn’t work like that.” Isaac told her, internally adding a ‘thankfully’. Everyone got access at around 20 at the latest, but most got it earlier, when they were at least somewhat ‘mature’. That was likely a legacy from the [System] as it had been intended, a way for humanity to grow beyond its previous limitations, complete with the appropriate security precautions, which were completely lacking in most other aspects of [System] use.

“So now, you two will have to grow up a little, and then, I’ll show you a few more tricks. Can I have a little time alone with Mom and Dad?” he asked and the pair nodded in sync, then ran off. That little synchronized trick was something they’d use to freak out a lot of people in the near future, once they realized that it could be used to freak people out.

“Hi Dad.” he greeted his father, feeling another, overwhelming surge of sorrow and rage wash over him, but he’d also managed to perfect his poker face by using [Hundred Faces] while constantly updating the end result with his [Aura].

“Can we talk in the kitchen a little bit?” he asked, then headed into it and sat down at the table, pilling several glowing orbs onto it. Aspects of the Specter and Hydra, as well as four Lesser Space Elemental Cores, two inscribed, two not.

“Are those …” his father trailed off, words failing him as he saw the wealth piled onto the table before them.

“Aspects, yes, and some cores from a Lesser Space Elemental. Now, Mom, I know you weren’t sure whether you wanted to use them, but I figured I’d offer these anyway. The glowing blue Aspect is helpful because it lets you walk through walls and the other one can let you heal from almost any injury. I really want you to have some of these, I need to know you’re safe.”

“We are safe.” his father responded “We’re not about to start summoning monsters here, don’t worry.”

“It’s not about what you will do, it’s about what everyone else is already doing. Almost twenty people died because a group lunatics decided to dump a shark into a lake popular for recreation. I need to know that you have something that can help keep you alive.” Isaac’s control slipped slightly, but he managed to plaster over it … or so he hoped.

“What exactly happened there? The news said something about a group of summoners doing that, but they weren’t exactly there?” his father asked “And how did you find out?”

“The soundproofing on police precincts isn’t really up to snuff when compared to the what kinds of people the world currently harbors.” Isaac explained “And the group … they were a bunch of whackos who thought the [System] was a divine epiphany and started summoning willy-nilly.”

Convincing the various government agencies of the fact that there was some kind of mass delusion going on that lead people to pulling crap like the Stormheart Gestalt and Megalodon was something he was particularly proud of having managed. Now these agencies wouldn’t be on the lookout for specific people who’d committed crimes like this, they’d be going after the dark gods’ agents as a matter of course.

“But the Aspects are only part of what I have for you. What’s your maximum mana?” he asked, though he already knew before he’d even analyzed them that it had to be at a decent level. After all, most civilian job based [Classes] had [Skills] that cost plenty of mana, so people who weren’t manual laborers or had illusions of becoming superheroes tended to mostly invest in the magical stats.

“270.” Dad said.

“320.” Mom added.

“Well, this right here is a Lesser Space Elemental Core and you can use it to make yourself an inventory … er, that’s an extradimensional space you can use to store stuff in. If you create one right here, you’ll be able to access it from anywhere on the property.”

He ran them through the process with plenty of trepidation from them at the process of summoning anything, but pretty soon, the two of them were experimenting with the inventory.

Isaac took this as a chance to head out and play with his little sisters.

“Hey, who wants to join me up here?” he called out, balancing on his Zweihänder, which he was levitating using [Blade Control]. He was also currently weightless, which meant that, whenever it shifted under his feet, he should get catapulted off into space, but he had his Kabar attached to his belt and was using that for balance and control, firmly anchoring himself on the sword.

“Me! Me!” the two of them began to jump up and down, reaching upwards, so he jumped down, wrapped them both in a hug, and leaped up on top of the sword.

He didn’t do much after that, other than slowly circle around above the garden with them.

“You’re going to take us to school on our first day like this.” Viktoria declared, making him snort with laughter.

“I’m afraid I can’t, you’re going to have to go by car, just like everyone else.”

After that, they played hide and seek, though in this case, that meant him going invisible and his sisters trying to find him by way of the garden hose.

That was followed by a cake in the afternoon, but then, Isaac made his goodbyes.

“This was really nice, thank you everyone. I love you all.”

After the round of hugs that followed, he left on foot, beginning to run and going invisible the moment he was out of sight. That was when the tears began to flow.