Different swat team members yelled directions at me.

"Put your hands up!"

"Get on the ground face down!"

"Do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around, that's what it's all about!" I said, doing a goofy dance. "You guys better not shoot up my apartment. I'm still paying the landlord back for when the oven went out."

"Hold on. You're not supposed to have to pay your landlord when something breaks. That's illegal," one of them said.

"John, you're not helping!" the leader said. "Now listen to me and only me. Get down on the ground and put your hands behind your back!"

I got down on the ground like he said and put my hands behind my back. He cuffed me. "Now stand up!"

When I tried to stand up, the cuffs broke. "Oops," I said, showing them the broken cuffs. I guess I had super strength now too. I might need to hold back a little with these guys or they could get hurt.

I ripped the cuffs off my wrists and looked at their gear. They had multiple sets of cuffs just hanging off their bodies. I grabbed a pair off the leader and grabbed his wrists gently like I would a kid and cuffed his wrists together. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't cuff a kid. I'd just be gentle with them if I was grabbing their wrists. This is just sounding more and more wrong. I'm going to stop talking now.

The leader said, "Hey! You can't do that! Uncuff me this instant!"

"Where are the keys?" I asked.

He tried to pull them out of his pocket and dropped them on the floor. So I picked them up and hurled them through the glass sliding door that led to the tiny balcony that barely qualified as a balcony. They shattered through the glass and sailed off into the night, never to be seen again. Probably.

"Hey! How am I gonna get these off now?" He said.

"I'm sure back up will have keys," I said. "I just need you restrained enough to let me leave without you shooting up the place after I disappear."

"What?" he said, confused.

"Get on the ground, please," I said, kicking his feet out from under him. He tumbled to the floor. I grabbed another set of cuffs off him and cuffed his feet together.

Then I did the same to the rest of the squad. Keep in mind, they weren't just standing idly by while I cuffed their squad leader. They were beating me with batons and zapping me with tasers, but they had no effect on me, so I barely noticed. I just walked through them and they fell over. I didn't even have to try to trip them. I grabbed their cuffs and keys and systematically cuffed them all and threw their keys away. When I was done, the entire swat team was restrained on the ground.

"Ok, I want you all to listen to what I say and watch what I do. Just leave me alone from now on. I am no longer on your radar as a human being that needs the law to be enforced on him. It won't work, you'll simply get in the way of me saving the world. Ok? Have we listened good? Nod your heads if you've listened good," I said, nodding my head. I leaned down and picked Azrael's sword off the ground. Lucifer must have set it down before he left.

They all nodded their heads back. "Good. Now I'm going to disappear in front of your eyes to show you what you're dealing with. This is not a trick. I am the new administrator of Hell and I have divine powers given to me by God. I'm not crazy and Hell is not a code name."

I strapped the sword around my waist and cinched it tight.

"I mean, I literally run Hell now. You would be wise to share your body cam footage with your superiors and get them to start cooperating with me in the future. I am not your enemy. I am here to help you. Now I'm going to go stop the antichrist whose name is Steve from destroying Reno like he did in Vegas. Bye!"

I waved before snapping my fingers. I didn't disappear. I snapped them again. Still nothing. I imagined teleporting to Reno, Nevada. Then I was in Reno, Nevada. Huh. Snapping didn't do shit. Lucifer was full of shit. He didn't have to snap to activate his powers. He just did that for fun. What a sneaky butthole. Oh well. I had bigger things to worry about. Like finding Steve in this huge, well, not huge, but large enough city to be hard to find someone in.

Wait. He was probably on the news since he destroyed Vegas. I needed to find somewhere that was playing the news. One of those shop windows with a bunch of TVs playing the news would be great right about now, but those didn't exist anymore. I don't know if they ever existed. They might have just put those in movies as convenient plot devices.

A sports bar would be my best bet. I could just change the channel to the news. I walked around looking at the many casinos, looking for just a regular bar, but everywhere I turned it was either a casino, a hotel that had a casino, or a "video game" parlor that was just another name for a place that had slot machines.

Eventually, it occurred to me to GPS the closest bar on my phone. When I looked it up, it said it was a 20-minute walk. Ugh! Then it occurred to me I could probably just teleport there. I looked at the picture of the bar and imagined myself in front of it. Then I was.

"Whoa! That's really going to take some getting used to," I said, as people stared at the guy who just randomly appeared. Then they started clapping. Huh? What the hell? Oh wait, they probably thought I was a street magician. So I bowed before entering the bar. The name was Tony's Super Cool Sports Bar.

When I entered the bar, everyone looked at me like I didn't belong. It was like literally everyone in here knew each other except me. I walked up to the bar.

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The bartender looked alarmed to see me and then walked up and said, "I'm sorry buddy, but this is a member's only bar. You gotta get outta here."

What? I was started to get creeped out by how people were staring at me. Everyone in there was dressed real nice. They either had suits and ties or at least dress shirts and ties. Some of them were wearing sunglasses or hats at night. Those fancy fedora hats that you never saw anyone wear anymore because they were so old-fashioned. They looked like they were about to kick my ass or stab me, and then throw me out to bleed on the ground outside.

"Look, man, the closest bar to this one is 3 miles away. I just want to see the news," I said. I knew I could teleport and be at the next bar in seconds, but this was an emergency and I knew they couldn't do anything to me.

"Pal, you got about 10 seconds to walk out of here or we'll throw you out," he said, while washing a glass.

"I'm not leaving," I said. "There isn't a person in this bar who could throw me out either, so just change the channel to the news and turn it up, would you? It's an emergency."

"I'm sorry, pal. No can do," he said and put down the glass. He looked at someone behind me and nodded his head. Someone put his arms under my armpits and attempted to pick me up, but nothing happened. That was strange. Even with super strength, he should be able to pick me up, unless I got heavier somehow. Or maybe it was some kind of stonewall authority thing. Like I couldn't be knocked over or picked up unless I allowed myself to be.

I tried that. Allowing myself to be picked up. I imagined he could pick me up, and then he finally did. He was so surprised that he fell over and I fell on top of him. Then I tried to reengage the standing up with authority power and my body just rocketed back up to a standing position. It was really surreal. It happened so quickly, the guy behind me didn't let go and he slammed his face into the back of my head and I heard something break.

"Ah, fuck. Tony, I think he broke my nose. How does it look?" He said, walking around me and up to the bar.

Tony, the bartender, looked at the guy and slapped him. "It looks terrible, but that's not what I pay you for! I'm paying you to remove this wise guy and you ain't doing it!"

"In his defense, no one in this bar could remove me if I didn't want to be. And spoiler alert, I don't want to be. Actually, Tony, why don't you remove me if you're such a tough guy? Show your bouncer how it's done," I said.

I don't know why I was defending the bouncer who attacked me, but it didn't seem right the way Tony was treating him. Like I got, this was some sort of mob mafia situation, but you treat your employees with dignity and respect. You don't slap them around when you're angry things aren't going your way.

"How about I do this instead," Tony said, pulling a shotgun out from behind the bar and aiming it at me.

"That's probably not legal, considering I haven't displayed any hostility, but I'll allow it," I said, crossing my arms.

"What, are you some kind of cop or something?" Tony said, still aiming the gun at me.

"Not exactly, but I do have a level of authority that you're not prepared to deal with. So how about we make a deal? If I can still stand after you blast me with that thing, you turn on the news and let me watch it? Is that a deal?" I put my hand out to shake his. I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing, but this felt right.

I don't know if it was me or some new power I had, but Tony reluctantly shook my hand. "Alright. I'll blast you and if you stand back up, I'll let you watch the news. You're not wearing a vest, are you?"

I lifted up my shirt to display my rock hard chiseled abs. "Nope," I said. That was also weird. I was skinny. I didn't have chiseled, well defined, rock hard abs. Huh. Another new perk, I guess.

"Alright, sonny. Here I go, and here you go. Away I mean," Tony said, pulling the trigger.

The shotgun blast was deafening. My enhanced hearing hated it. My ear rang and my ear drums screamed in protest. That feeling quickly went away, though. Apparently, I didn't have invincible eardrums, but they seemed to heal or adjust quickly. I felt the pellets hit me in the stomach and fall to the ground. I checked my shirt in a panic. There weren't any holes in it, were there? I couldn't have anymore holes in my "Beans" shirt. Not now.

Nope, nothing. I was good. I looked back up at Tony, whose jaw had dropped wide open. I slowly leaned forward and pressed up on his chin to close his mouth for him. "It's not polite to stare," I said. "Now, how about that news?"

The surrounding crowd erupted into yells and screams. Not because Tony had fired a gun in an enclosed space, but because I was still standing.

"I don't care what I said. I ain't turning on the news for some scumbag who can take a few bullets," he said, pumping the shotgun, ejecting the spent shell, and loading a new one.

I grabbed the end of the shotgun and pinched the barrel closed. Then I smacked it out of his hands. It clattered to the ground harmlessly. "Actually, you are," I said.

It wasn't a command. It was an observation. His hand had already grabbed the remote and was changing the channel to the news. Then he turned the volume up. He grabbed at his arm like it was betraying him, but there was nothing he could do. He had made the deal, so he had to deliver his end of the bargain. I knew it in my heart like I knew water was wet. It must have been part of the ability that allowed Lucifer to bargain for people's souls. The contract was binding both ways.

"How did you do that?" Tony asked.

"You won't believe me, but I'll tell you anyway," I said. "I'm the new administrator of Hell. I'm Lucifer's replacement."

"No way. Prove it," Tony said, crossing his arms.

"Ok. Make me an offer," I said, looking past him at the news.

"Hi, Stan. I'm standing in front of a pile of rubble that was once a thriving a casino and hotel. It appears the man who decimated Las Vegas has made it here to Reno and is trying to do the same to our fair city. He goes by the name, "Steve." Nothing else is known about this man. The police cannot identify him. He doesn't seem to exist, and yet we have footage of him shrugging off bullets and smacking away missiles like they're nothing," the newscaster said.

"He claims to only want to pleasure himself, but he is causing untold devastation across the city. However, he has never initiated an attack. He simply responds to attacks against him with such overwhelming force that entire city blocks are being destroyed by the wave of his hand. Physical power of this magnitude should not be possible, and yet we're seeing it unfold right in front of us. The is Nancy Palamay, NBS 2 News. Stan, back to you in the studio."

The TV abruptly turned off. Tony had turned it off. "Ok, you got to watch your little broadcast. I'm not done with you yet, though. You said you're the new guy in charge of Hell. Now I believe in God and the Devil, so I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility, especially since I saw you bounce a shotgun blast off your abs, but how do you explain that? Did you kill Satan?"

"Ok, good. You're finally speaking my language," I said. "I don't have the time to explain right now, but how about this? You treat me with hospitality and friendship, and I'll tell you all about it. I'll even take you to visit Hell if you want. Just to visit, of course."

"Ok, deal. I'll show you hospitality and friendship, including but not limited to free drinks, and you tell me how you can shrug off bullets," he said, grinning not in an evil way but not in a nice way, either. He shook my hand, and I felt something like electricity run through me into him and back into me.

"Sounds good to me," I said.

"Before you go, what's so important that you can turn down free drinks?" Tony said, still grinning.

"That guy on the news. Steve. I have to find him," I said.

There was a rush of wind behind me that fluttered my shirt.

"I heard you were looking for me?" A familiar voice said.

I turned around to face Steve with a rather hostile look on his face. I guess our confrontation was going to come earlier than I expected. I tightened my fist, getting ready for a fight.