Coach Kain
Coach Kain, Back Story By Eric Viets
He moved through the flanks of the enemy like a bat out of hell. His rapier flew threw the air severing limbs and making irreparable wounds. On his face he wore a mask of blood and dried spit. Along his chest were reopened wounds and scars from battles long since fought. His massive forearms punctured the chest of a lone infidel and wedged itself on the innards of the heathen scum. His arms muscles strain to release the blade from its new scabbard to no avail. He spits into the face of the soon to be dead warrior and takes the mans blade from his hand. He continues on his warpath of death and destruction, spreading the word of God and his teachings as he goes, trying to free the promised land from the heathens that inhabit it.
I watch as the man lets out a scream and opens up another wound on his right arm. Its not a scream of pain though, but a scream of anger. The wound was caused by a long sword stabbed through the top of his arm. A treacherous deed even in times of war. If you fought, you should fight with honor, or at least that was his perception of war. But these were not the honorable men with which he had trained and grown-up with, these were the godless heathens blaspheming the word of his God. These were not men of honor, they were merely dogs waiting for the slaughter.
The army of the enemy begins to retreat as they are overrun by the crusaders forces, however, this man, the man they called Kain, could not accept so cowardly of a withdrawal. He scream for his forces to gather around him, but only a hand-full obey. Kain had pushed us hard, harder then was necessary in the weeks leading up to the crusades, and because of his, had caused an incredible lack of moral within his forces.
"Cowards!" He screams in his gristle elderly yet powerfully booming voice. He makes us all line up single file and prepare to persue the enemy. He walks in front of us, barking out orders and saying how the day of reckoning is at hand. He tells us that God is with us, so even if we do fall in this world, we shall be blessed with eternal happiness in the next.
At this time, he commands us all to kneel and give praise to our lord and savior, and ask for his divine protection during the upcoming battle. We all knell as instructed and recite the prayer that we were taught during training.
"For the Glory of God
For the Glory of Christ
Give us Strength
And give us Protection
Amen"
We all rise and prepare ourselves. Commander Kain gives us all a final look down and calls for a sword, him having lost his in the earlier skirmish. I offer him my blade but he only gives me a scowl, stating that a lowly legionary such as myself should cherish his weapon and not be so quick to give it up. I ask for forgiveness but he only spits at the ground in front of me and shakes his head in disgust. "Pitiful" is all I hear him say as he walks away from me. A middle-aged man with deeply tanned skin and burns all over his arm appears baring a new blade for our commander from the armory. He examines the blade and gets a feel for the handle. He runs his tongue up the length of the blade and cuts open his tongue. He watches the blood stream down the long smooth blade, as if envisioning the blood of his enemy that's will soon be upon his weapon. He scoops up a pile of dirt from the ground and crushes it within his hand. Specks of dust exit his hand from where the dirt clump had once been, as if the warmth of his battling spirit was enough to dry the dirt into its smoky form.
Kain takes one final look at his regiment and then opens his wrinkly withered mouth and shouts for us to move out. In complete unison, we start our march. It's a silent march, the only sound is that of our boots and sandals on the moist turf below us. Around me I hear my comrades in arms chanting prayers to God, asking for his divine protection once more. Aside from these professional warriors though, I hear even more people talking in fear. I hear my friends crying and asking for forgiveness for what they've done, for the innocents they had slaughtered and the woman they had raped. I don't believe I'd ever seen so sad a sight in my life.
Why should we need forgiveness? We were only doing our lords will, if in the process we ended up killing a few of his lords followers, what was the harm, we were simply sending them to his loving hands. As for the rape, if our Lord hated it ever so much, he would stop us from doing it, and since he didn't it must have been alright.
As I look back at these last moments, I'm saddened, I spent my last moments of life reassuring myself that slaughter and rape were both sensible, and reasonable. I was just as bad as the soldiers I killed, however, I would not live long enough to regret it. As soon as we reached the top of the hill which the infidels had retreated behind, we were greeted by a flurry of arrows. Within moments, all of our training and accomplishments, are good deeds and our sins, everything, absolutely everything meant nothing… we were dead. Our corpses littered the ground, but me, I lingered on to life, grasping on by a shred of hope that I wouldn't die for a little longer then the others, and I saw "his" body rise from my fallen comrades… Kain.
Blood pored out of everywhere on his body. Where there had once been a man, now was a waterfall of red blood, pouring out of everywhere. This monster of blood and gore though, he was not angered, not in the least, in fact, I believe I heard him laugh. He laughed in his last moments and shouted a curse before he died. "War is eternal, and so am I! The crusades may end, but I shall return, and I shall lead my forces to victory once again." And then, death and darkness, the eternal oblivion of death surrounded me forever more. All that remained was my consciousness, left to contemplate my life in purgatory for eternity...
Present Day
"Leg Lifts!" He screams out with an intensity unparralled to anything else on earth. He walks through his rank of soldiers, barking out orders and instructions as he passes by. With each step he takes he kicks up clouds of dust and debris. The sad part is, were on concrete, and that for there to be clouds of dust where he steps is inhumanly possible. He sees one of his older veteran soldiers talking with one of his soldiers in arms and instantly gets in the veterans face. He screams at him if asking if now is the time for glib conversation? Does he believe he is skilled enough to take on the opposing forces by himself?
The boy cringes in the face of the powerfull man and sheepishly replys no. The man gets back into the face of the veteran and screams at him "No, what?"
"No, sir!" screams the boy at the top of his lungs.
This man, the man barking orders at us all and treating us like an armed regiment is Coach Kain. Our coach is a man of unparralled determination and with extremists training methods. His body is sculped like that of a dwarf from modern folk lore. His body is stout and quite round, but with well defined muscle running all throughout him. A collection of veins throb from his neck and remind me of a train station, where all the tracks intertwine and end. His face is tight and gristled, covered with skars and surgery marks. When Coach screams, the wrinkles surrounding his face seem to come together to form the face of a banshee. His hands are coarse and callused from what he tells us, his days in military service, though for which branch of the government, were never told.
Coach's wardrobe is never changing. On his head he wears a dark golf cap, hiding his entire scalp. Underneath the rim of his hate lay to souless eyes covered by a dark visor. The coach wears no shirt, all he wears is a black windbraker zipped all the way up to his strained and throbing neck. For pants he wears a similar windbreaker like material. For shoes he wears cleated sports sneakers, though why, I couldn't tell you.
"Sit-ups!" He bellows from deep within his gut. He turns his back to us and waits for complete silence before starting the count. After the last of the freshmen finish getting on there back he screams "1," and instantly, everyone is off the ground. He remains silent for about 30 seconds. He waits in anticipation for the first persons arms to give out, but to his dismay, everyone's arms are able to withstand the strain. He pivots on his right light and turns back to us as he shouts "Down!"
He starts walking the columns between the people on the team and continues the count. Every couple of people he stops to whisper something demotivational. As sweat trickles down my brow I look out the corner of my eye to see him lean down next to my friend Curtis. As if in slow motion, I watch Curtis's face go from straining pain, to flushed, to pale white. His arms quickly give out on him and he hits the ground with a resounding thud. As Curtis falls to the ground I see Coach Kain mouth the word's "Worthless."
Deep within myself I feel fury building up, the rage of seeing one of my friends humiliated. Normally I would laugh at such an occurence, but to see my friends tormented by the relentless antaganism of this man day in and day out is too much. I use this anger to give me strength though. I know if I speak out in front of the team it will accomplish nothing. Aside from getting yelled at in front of the entire squad, I know that the entire team will be punished for my impertenance.
I let out a deep breath and continue the reps of sit-ups, ploting the day that I will finally get my revenge on Coach Kain. As maniacal thoughts of violence and destruction run through my mind, I let out a grunt and a small hex against the Coach under my breath.
"WHAT WAS THAT!?" Kain bellows in my ear. Apparently getting so caught up in my plans of vengence, I never noticed that Coach Kain was next to me the entire time. I quickly reach up one ear in a vain effort to shield myself from the scream. I try to balance myself in the air on my one arm but find it impossible and quickly tumble like Curtis to the ground. "Do you dare speak against me, Shin?!"
"Um, of course not Coach, why would I ever do something like that?" I reply with great uncernatity and obvious fake sincerity in my voice.
"See me after practice, Shin..." he whispers into my ear in a strong rhaspy voice. I guess the rest of the practice kind of blurred out after that, because the only thing I could remember was the sun going down and being alone on the track with Coach Kain. He kept his back to me as he often did, and seemed to embrace himself in the beuty surrounding the track. It when he slowly pivots his head unto his shoulder and glanes at me that I'm taken aback. His eye looks at me with an unknown essence. His eye pierces my very soul and forces me to take a knee for a moment in order to right myself. Seeing me falter before him, Coach gives a small smirk and turns his full back to me again.
"Do you know what that is Shin?" He asks me.
"No, sir" I reply as I try to stand up again.
"That is my battle aura Shin. When I enter upon the field of competition, its that intensity that gives me the edge over my opponents." He then turns around to face me. "You see Shin, not everything is strength and power in competition, there are sometimes other... unforseen elements that one most deal with."
"Yes, sir" I say, not able to tell what the old man is thinking or trying to tell me.
"I'm old Shin... older then you would think, but I still have a couple tricks up my sleeve. I'm willing to use all my power and authority to help the team, but as I learned long long ago, moral is also another important thing, do you understand what I'm saying Shin?" Coach stands above me and firmly grips my shoulder with his large hand. He must have strategically placed the hand, because he obviously hit a nerve. My entire body begins to go limp as I quickly try to squirm from his grasp. I fail in trying to do this and quickly find my face shoved into the dirt surrounding the track.
"I will not tolerate insubordination under my tootalage Shin. Back when I was younger, you would have met a quick and painfull end... that is, you would quickly be removed from the team. Now though, I'm forced to deal with the likes of you, and my commanding offi... board of directors, will not allow me to remove people from the squad." At this point Coach relinquishes his grip on me and blood slowly starts circulating through my system again. I let out a sigh of relief and slowly stagger to my feet in a dizzied haze. I stumble on my feet for a second and for a second, with the sun behind him, believe I see demonic rubies for my Coaches eyes and sharp husks of horns sticking from his temples. I slap myself in the face to make the visage dissappear.
Coach once again turns his back at me and continues his speech. "Despite your personality defects Shin, you have potential. You remind me of a youth I once had under my wing. He was strong, quick witted, but had a major problem with authority. Do you know what happened to that boy Shin?"
I know as soon as I ask that the response will end up being some corny thing about the boy getting determined, straightening up, and lead an amazing track career during which worked as a stepping stone to an incredible life. Not wanting to get my coach pissed though, I ask anyway. "No, sir, what happened?"
"He died. He was cut down during the war." He then stares at me. "There is no moral Shin, I just want you to know that you could very easilly end up like that boy. Go Home." Coach then started to walk to the parking lot to his Black Excentra. There is a dark aura surrounding Coach. As he walks away the shadows around him seem to bow in reverence. The wind picks up and I almost swear I can hear the screams of people coming from some far off place. The brush at Coach's feet seems to smolder underneath his large cleated shoes, how I can not comprehend though, probabally a trick of light I think to myself. One Coach gets to his car he opens the door and what seems like a rush of energy of some sort comes out at him. His hats rim seems to slowly be physically pushed backwards. His dark clothing seem to come alive and meld together into a single piece of clothing. Within this new dark article of clothing seems to be an inhuman pitch of black that even while looking at your not sure how deep your seeing.
I convince myself that this is all just the blood rushing to my head and I rub my forefingers in my eyes. Once I open my eyes again, the car, and Kain are gone. I look around to see the car exit, but can't seem to spot it. I'm certain that my eyes were closed for only a second. For him to get into his car, start it, and drive out of sight would take at least a minute. I continue to contemplate these strange occurences until I notice the sun and look to my watch. 7:00P.M. Shit... Mom is going to kill me...
End Part 1
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