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Souls Warrior
by
Michael Faircloth
Chapter 4
Back To Work
Since Bane sold his school to one of his students, he has
often reflected on the pleasure that teaching gave him. The thought of teaching
his own children was starting to excite him. He so looked forward to taking a
few years off to be with his family. His new daughter is due any time now and he
is so excited that he cannot stop thinking about it. He never dreamed that being
a fighter of evil could be so much like a regular job. He never needs money and
everything is always paid. There is always plenty of cash in the bank and he can
buy anything he wants. The Souls General sure does take good care his warriors.
If he understands everything correctly, many warriors are on his team that he
has yet to meet. When he goes away to teach, there will be a past warrior ready
to move in and take his place. He really likes the flexible hours of the eternal
job.
It has been fourteen years since Bane and Catherine were married. Bane has
battled extensively during this time. He was told that every battle he and his
team engage in is initiated directly from the Souls General, himself. Each
battle has its own purpose for training Bane, and the next battle to come will
always be much harder. Even though Bane is so new to the warrior world, his
ability to fight and learn has never been seen before in this world. The bad
guys have definitely taking notice to Bane’s abilities and have most certainly
taking steps to try to cut his first life short. Bane was bred to be the best
warrior yet, and from the looks of things, the Souls General has gotten his
money’s worth.
“Sang, my friend; what will you do when I leave to train my children? How will
you get along without your number one hitter?” joked Bane. “Bane, my very young
friend, first of all, it’ll take a few more lives to get you properly trained.
Secondly, we could all use a break from baby-sitting you. Thirdly, and most
importantly, I will miss you a lot, but it will only be a short time in our
world. We will make due, my friend. Take pleasure in your family and make us
many great warriors to fight in our battle to keep this world the way it should
be. I have a surprise for you and this seems like a good time to share it with
you.” Answered Sang.
With those words, Sang vanished for a few hours. Bane became a little concerned
and started asking a few questions. “Angel, my most beautiful and most superior
warrior friend, what do you know of Sang’s surprise and why is it taking him so
long to return?” Knowing that he would always get a fiery response from Angel,
Bane braced himself for what was to come. “Have you no shame. First, you seduced
my only true friend Catherine and forced her to marry you, there by condemning
her to her own personal hell tending to your children, when she should be by my
side fighting. Now you refer to me as ‘most beautiful’’ thinking that you would
have a chance with me. The notion makes me sick to my stomach and you should
consider yourself lucky that I have allowed you to live for your words. When I
was younger, I would have removed your genitals with a very dull rusty knife and
feed them to you while you sat in a barrel of wine. Do not ever presume that you
have earned the privilege to compliment me on my appearance or on my abilities.
When you have earned that right, I will inform you. Always remember that if you
ever do anything to hurt my friend Catherine, I promise you that your next meal
will be roasted genitals. “With those loving words from Angel, Bane totally
forgot why he even had any questions at all. He did notice his other warrior
friends standing in the corner, far away from Angel, snickering to each other as
they keep glancing over at Bane.
Much to Bane’s delight, Sang returned and with him was a teenage boy. He was
about five feet eight inches tall and around one fifty on the scales. He had
brown hair, blue eyes and an athletic build. Sang went over to his favorite
chair, sat down, and proceeded to take a nap without a word spoken. This new
fellow walked over to Bane and greeted him “I hope you got a good body this
time, my old friend.” Bane, in total disbelief, spoke” Master Walk, is this
you?” The young man replied, “Hello young Bane, it’s good to see you again. My
name is now Michael Walk Bailey, but you may call me Walk. There is no need to
use the term ‘Master’, with me or anyone else, ever again. A Souls Warrior has
only one Master and that is the Souls General, and he hates to be called Master.
Come my friend, I feel the need to make those evil bastards bleed. Let’s kick
some bad guy butt.”
With those words, Walk takes his position as team leader and begins to brief
everyone on their new mission, which just happened to be Walk’s old mission.
“Bane, remember our last meeting and that rather unpleasant lady that ran from
the pub upon your arrival? She is an evil servant to Bubacraphead. Bubacraphead
is a major bad guy with a long list of evil and misery along his path. My last
body did not have enough strength finish the battle with him. Our team backed
off from the battle, while I was waiting for my new body, so that we could hunt
him down and end his existence forever. That is one of the reasons that you are
on our team. Bubacraphead is the strongest of our enemies that we have faced,
and to be honest, we need a lot of help with this guy. You have had only small
battles up to now. This one will have a mighty toll on you and you will need a
lot of time with your family after this battle. The evil you will see will
forever haunt your soul and you will never see anything the same after we defeat
this evil that was created in the deepest pits of hell. Now, enough of that,
come my friend, let us hit the pub and have a couple of long necks; for
tomorrow, we enter hell.”
Bane sure was glad to see his friend Walk, back on the job. He figures that it
is going to take a lot of time to get use his new look. One thing is for sure;
Walk is still the same old Walk. As they sat in the pub and put away a few cold
beers, Bane shared all the events of his life that have taken place since Walk
died. Bane is so proud of his wife and children. He just could not stop talking
about them to Walk. Walk explained all about his current family and his
experience growing up in California. “It’s always refreshing to have the simple
problems of a kid, for a while. That day that you turn thirteen and your
memories return is often a sad day. There is no greater adventure than growing
up and not knowing what to expect. When you become aware, duty calls and its
time to make the hard decisions. Your innocent world quickly vanishes and the
evil calls you back to war. My current parents think that I am at a special
school in Virginia. Wouldn’t they be surprised to see me drinking beers and
smoking the bad guys? You will get use to it after you go through it a few
times. Your life is now eternal and we both have a lot of work to do.”
With those words just barely out of Walks mouth, Big John appears in the pub and
you can see in his face that it is not good. “Walk, Bane, come with me quickly,
we must go to a secure place, I have dreadful news.” They followed Big John to
one of the secure locations that the Souls General keeps for emergencies. “It’s
really bad Walk. Angel and Hunter are both dead. I am not sure of the details,
but I do know that it is Bubacraphead, who is responsible. Angel was found in
her home, by Sang. Her head had been cut off and was placed in her favorite
chair, then her dead naked body was placed sitting on it. A long neck beer was
sitting in place of her head. This was a message to you Walk; there is no doubt
about that. The body and the home have been purged by the Souls General and her
soul is already in transit to its new body. I will miss her. Mark my words,
exactly thirteen years from today she’ll be back and ready for revenge.”
Bane spoke up; “She’ll have no one to reap revenge on, because I vow that before
this week ends that Bubacraphead will be out of business; now, what about
Hunter?” Big John continued, “Hunter was found in an alley near your old school.
He too was naked, but his body had every bit of its flesh ripped from it. His
fingers were cut off and forced down his mouth. Worse of all, his eyeballs were
gouged out and in their place where caps from Walk’s favorite beer. Once again,
a message for you, Walk, I am sure. That mess has been purged and he too is in
transit to his new body. The Souls General has assigned Sang to keep your family
protected, Bane. They have moved to a secret location that only Sang is aware of
and you will not be able to see them until after Bubacraphead is just a big bad
stinking memory. It’s just the three of us now and we have no choice but to win,
because if we fail there will be at least thirteen years of free running hell
let loose on this part of the planet. We don’t want to let that happen, now do
we?”
Walk, with a most serious look on his face began to talk; “Now you understand
how nasty this bad guy is. I do not know how he was able to kill our teammates
but one thing is for sure, he will kill no more of us. We cannot leave each
other’s side for any reason. Bane, this part will be new to you. Until
Bubacraphead is dead and gone, you can no longer trust everything that you see
or hear. Trust only what you feel in your soul. You will need to remember our
secret training and look through the eyes of your soul to see the truth. This
level of evil is greater than anything that the Soul’s Warriors have come up
against, yet. We have no choice, but to win. Our families and friends are on the
line and if we fail, they will be the first ones that Bubacraphead seeks out. I
want both of you to remember who we are and why we were created in the first
place. As long as this world is allowed to exist, there must be a balance of
good and evil. You cannot have one without the other. The nature of evil causes
it to try to consume anything that is good and this destroys the balance that is
required for life to flourish here. If evil has its way, it would consume all
that is good and that would in turn destroy the very evil that wants to grow.
We, the good, can see the need for balance, but evil is blind to it. We must do
our duty and we must do it well. Tomorrow the new battle will begin. For
tonight, Big John, do you have any cold beer for me?” Big John, with a smile on
his face answers his ever-thirsty friend’s request, “You know that no matter how
bad things get, I’ll always have cold beer for the boss. Check the cooler in the
corner.” Walk went over and lifted the lid to see that cooler packed full of
ice-cold beer. “I knew that I could count on you; beer anyone?”
Bane, still in shock over Angel and Hunter’s murder, found it hard to believe
that his friends were drinking beer and joking after everything that had
happened today, and this hardly seem the proper way to prepare for the battle of
a lifetime. “How can you guys just sit there and drink beer and joke. What about
our friends, they’re dead. What will we do now? Surely, we should be doing
something other than this. Let’s get things moving, I have a score to settle and
I’m ready to roll.” Walk begins joking with Big John, “These new guys just take
dying too personally. Bane just might loose his head tomorrow, so maybe he
should relax a little. Big John, go and get a cold long neck for Bane so that we
can talk for a while.” Big John complied with Walk’s request and got a beer for
Bane. Bane reluctantly took the beer and sipped on it as Walk started talking
again. “Bubacraphead is about the nastiest freak that I have ever had the
misfortune to meet. When you see him for the first time, you will understand
just how wicked and nasty he is. He stands over six feet tall and must weigh a
good five hundred pounds. He has a gut on him that would put a Sumo wrestler to
shame. He has no hair on him at all, not even eyebrows. He smells like a nasty
bathroom in a gas station. He is always sweating and panting as though he cannot
catch his breath. His breath alone will kill the average person, but you would
be unfortunate enough to live through that exposure. He never wears clothes and
is carried from place to place by his evil servants. Even though he is huge, he
only has size four feet and cannot balance enough to walk for very long. He
never sleeps and is fed by his evil servants almost every hour. Now you know why
that first one you saw at the pub was so horrible and smelled so badly; they are
formed from his wicked soul. He communicates to the evil servants telepathically
within a one-mile radius. We do not know how many evil servants he has in his
service, but they are the ones we have to be careful around; they have many
tricks with which to fool you. They can appear to be anyone and will not
hesitate to kill you if you let your guard down. Now, drink your beer, for
tomorrow we go hunting.”
Bane was a little more relived now that knew how his friends where thinking. They have been through so many different lives, to them dying was simply a few days off from work. It was no big deal to them so it must be all right and the battle will begin after the beer is all gone and the sun rises in the sky. Bane was glad that Sang was protecting his family. That is one less worry for him. He would love to pop in for a quick visit with his family, but when Sang hides someone, no one knows where they are. That only means that Bane will have to flush Bubacraphead down the toilet as quickly as he can so that he may return to his family and begin training them. He also wants to be there for the birth of his new baby, which is due at any time. Bane spent this rest of the night drinking beer and enjoying his friends company.
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