While Bruno sauntered away from the sleeping coach with his prize, something watched from the shadows. Or rather, it was the shadow watching. It grew darker, and larger. It took the form of a woman in medieval black garb. She looked at the prostrate figure of the coach.
She sighed contemptuously, "Fool."
The moment Coach Sinclair had transformed Chad, she should have had him burn the Speedo. But no, that was too easy. She had to punish Chad, she had to humiliate him to utterly destroy him. Now it might be too late.
She looked around the pool area and crinkled her nose at the smell of Chlorine. The pool didn't smell right, it was devoid of life. She waved her hand. The dark garnet gem in her ring glowed with an inner life. The pool, and natatorium were now coated in heavy green algae and black mold reminiscent of a grotto she inhabited when her son Grendel lived. She sighed. Oh, the memories, but that was ages ago - quite literally. She stood in the doorway, and glanced back. Some green moss had taken root in the coach's chest hairs. She smiled. Fitting punishment, he had allowed that young hero to steal her revenge. Oh, sure the male descendant of Beowulf was still a Speedo for now, but her revenge was far from complete. Bruno may be a cocksucker, but he also had an air of goodness or hero about him. Maybe it was just the potential of youth, but she had to be sure.
She paused, she'd been trapped by her own vengeful curse for over a millennia. She should have sought revenge on all of Beowulf's descendants, instead of just the male ones when they reached manhood. She destroyed Beowulf's sons, and their sons. But Beowulf's daughter had daughters, and they had daughters and sons, and Griselda destroyed those sons. And she thought that was the end of it. She went on to found her Dark Order, the Great Coven, the Dark Abbey. Then another male descended from one of the daughters reached manhood, and the curse snatched her away before Griselda's Dark Abbey could deal with King Arthur. She had to contend with dozens of young heroes, while Arthur strengthened his rule. Then that fool Morgana got herself pregnant by Arthur, and she set herself at odds with Dark Abbey to make Mordred king.
Griselda sighed at her own folly. She was as much a victim of her curse as Beowulf's descendants were. She had delivered Excalibur to Arthur in her guise as the Lady of the Lake, and it would turn on him eventually, but not as she planned. She had been snatched across space and time to mete out her curse on Beowulf's descendants. The moment she finished with one, she was transported 50 years in the future to contend with another, then another, and another. Humans breed like rabbits. She blamed Merlin, but she couldn't prove it. It was her curse, so she should be able to control it, but Merlin intertwined it with his own spell or curse, and now she was trapped, leaping through time and space to exact revenge on her long dead Grendel.
If the Dark Abbess' original plan had seen fruition, she would now rule the world, instead of being a prisoner of her own curse. Arthur escaped. So did the others. But Beowulf's male descendants would not.
She suspected that it wasn't really Merlin who was responsible. Perhaps he was but inadvertently, as he couldn't have known of the curse. No one did, except her. But when he battled her, perhaps his magic intertwined with the curse binding it unbreakably to her until the last Beowulf male descendant was extinguished. She sighed, as long as a female descendant survived their could be another male. She was doomed.
Griselda took a deep breath, and entered the locker room. It reeked of young men. She licked her lips, and thought of the roasted knights that she had devoured and made into stews. She almost summoned her cauldron right then and there, but she had pressing business.
She wondered if Bruno really loved Chad. True love's kiss might break the spell, and perhaps the curse, and she would be free? No. She couldn't let that happen, she couldn't let any heir of Beowulf live, even if it damned her to this existence. The locker room lights dimmed, as the Dark Abbess strode through it hunting her quarry Chad, and the young man who was probably wearing him now.
Outside the school, the gardener looked up from his power mower and cursed. Where had all that ivy come from? The whole school was covered in ivy now. He glanced over his shoulder at what should have been freshly mown lawn, and saw waves of foot high grass. He crossed himself and kissed his holy medal.
The principal heard an odd rustling noise outside her window. The daylight in her office dimmed dramatically. A storm was coming? she wondered, as she turned around her chair to look out the now ivy covered windows.
"Oh, my!" she exclaimed.