The Ancient Shield

Chapter 1: Stories and Robberies

"Listen well and you will hear a story about something that happened about 5000 years ago. Angels and demons fought over the worlds, the galaxy was divided into two halves. In the center of it all was the final universe to be made into one or the other; wars were raged and the demons were winning, that is until the angels created a new life form in their image: the human race.

"The humans inhabited the world known as Darinai, they prospered and soon the planet was covered in them. The demons took this as a challenge and created monsters in their image. The angels left the humans on the planet, no longer aiding them, the demons and monsters started to take over; however, the will of man dictated that they should live, and through that will they evolved in such a way as to fight them: they developed the first primitive technology – the iron weapons.

"It was about this time that an angel and a demon found each other. The angel soon became infatuated by the demon. Infatuation led to love and they decided to have a child, so they created a race neither demon nor angel, man nor monster; this creature was called a dragon, this creature grew and learned fast, and soon was able to communicate with all of the races on Darinai. He was close to finally brining peace when a huge battle broke out. Many of the races that wished for peace were slaughtered and the dragon, infuriated at this, sewed destruction throughout the land. When all seemed at peace once again, a demon, blinded by rage that a demon would ever consort with an angel decided to murder the dragon. He carried out his plan and the dragon, first and last of his kind, vanished from the face of Darinai. The war raged for many hundreds of years, and to this day, they say that a secret war is still going on, in a way that no human can ever see.

"Well children? What did you think?" Revlahm asked. He had just finished telling a story to the children of his clients. Revlahm ran a bank business. His number one concern was the care and well being of the customer; well, that is, for his work life. His home life was a bit different; he had a beautiful wife, she was a doctor at a local free clinic. She would always stop by to say "Hi" when she got the chance. "That was a load of boloni!" said one of the boys, he usually stayed for the stories, but he always said he didn't believe. "You never know, a monster or an angle could be here in this room and you would never know." *feh* was the only reply Revlahm got.

When the parents came to do business with the bank, Revlahm would take his time to tell the children stories. Then again, even if their parents were not there, the children would stop by to listen. Revlahm was an avid story teller; he had some pretty interesting ones, like the one he had just told the children to how he had been in every war sense the dawn of time, or even how he was the only person who knew where buried treasure was, right near the bank. Some of the children believed his stories, but not many.

"Well children, it is time for you to go, I can see your parents are done with what they came to do." Revlahm looked at the doorway of the room, it was not a large room, but it worked as a room to tell stories. As it turned out, he was right, there were many parents waiting for their kids at the door. "Mr. Bank-man, is that story really true?" a little girl Revlahm saw often asked. "Only if you want it to be, Juily," Revlahm smiled as he led her to the door. Every kids in town knew that Revlahm the Bank-man told a story every day at about noon, so the kids around the town knew when to come, some of them came in groups to listen, even if their parents did not have to go to the bank.

Although it took up much time, Revlahm loved taking the time to tell stories. He considered it his "free time entertainment" to tell stories. He never told the same one twice. He never wrote down his stories, as most of the kids thought, although from the way he told them, he always sounded like he had memorized them beforehand. If a client needed him during a story, he would tell the client to "please wait just a little longer, we were just getting to the good part, thanks." He had an office, if you could call it that, on the top floor of the two story building. His office, as anyone who had visited him in it, was more like a garden than an office. He had trees, bushes and even grass growing from the floor. His bank was not a busy bank, but it was hardly starved for customers.

Many people could not imagine how he got any work done without a proper office, but whenever they would ask, he would only reply "there is a method to my 'madness'." To that end, they never got a straight answer. He never lost a document, even though they never saw a filing cabinet, and if they had tried to test his knowledge, it seemed as though he had their file memorized!

As the children left his place he headed back up to his office, he nodded to the clerks as he passed them on his way up to his "office". He noted that, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man in a black hoodie hanging out in the corner doing what seemed like talking to himself. He walked up the stairs and thought nothing more about it as he decided to take a nap on the grass.

"Hello, Sir, how may I help you?" the lady behind the counter asked, it was Juily's mother. She worked there, but her daughter never stayed, Juily was always picked up by a friend's mother after the story. "I would like to make a withdrawal…" the man said, his hood was pulled up, so his face was a little obscured. "Do you have an account with us?" Juily's mother asked. "No, I do not." The man replied, he was stern, not very polite. "Well, we can make a withdrawal from the bank you do have an account with, if you would just swipe your card and input your pin." She said with a smile. He did not move. "Sir?" "That's enough!" with that he withdrew a handgun and pointed it at her, everyone screamed. "quiet! This is a holdup! If everyone cooperates, we will have a god time, if not, people may be leaving….and not coming back…." Juily's mother, while the man's back was turned for a minute, hit the button under the counter. "oh, you think you will contact the police? Sorry, but the silent alarm has been cut. So you can hit that button all you want, no help is coming."

Meanwhile, back in his "office" a red light on the wall broke the calm feeling in the room and woke Revlahm from his nap. There was no sound, but the light was annoying. "ugh…. Why did this have to happen today…. I was in such a good mood… oh well, guess I should greet our new customer…" with that, Revlahm stood and walked to the stairs and walked to greet this intruder.

"Well, well, what have we here? A new customer?" Revlahm said as he reached the bottom of the stairs. "Who are you?" the man demanded. There was a short silence. "I said WHO ARE YOU?!" "I am Revlahm, the owner of this bank. Who may I ask are you?" "No, you may not ask, and your name is now dead." The man raised his gun, took careful aim and fired. Everyone screamed then got quiet as they saw that he had missed; luckily there was no one near Revlahm, neither next to nor behind him. "My oh my, that might have hit someone." He said, as if the round was fired at the ceiling. "What the?" the man took aim again and fired several times, every shot missed, and with each shot, Revlahm side-stepped and took a step forward. When the man had fired all of the rounds in his gun, there were twelve holes in the wall behind Revlahm, but no one was hurt. "Now really, you shouldn't play with guns, they can hurt people." Revlahm said as he grabbed the gun. "heheh, I think you miscounted, I only see twelve round in the wall." The gunman smiled as he pulled the trigger, as he did Revlahm quickly aimed the gun up so it would not hit him. "wha-what are you?!" the gunman screamed. Revlahm held the gun effortlessly up as the man tried to pry it free. "Sir, I hope you will learn from this." Revlahm then looked into the man's eyes. To everyone who was watching, it looked like a staring contest, but what really happened no one but the robber would know, the police rushed in and grabbed the man from Revlahm's grip before anyone could figure it out. "Have a nice day" Revlahm said with a smile as the police and the gunman left his bank. Everyone in the bank was dumbstruck at what had just occurred. "Now, if anyone needs me, I will be in my office." And with that, Revlahm returned to his office to lie on the grass.

Later that night, Revlahm was at home with his wife, Suki; they were both reading, though their choice in literature was very different: Revlahm was reading comics and Suki was reading a Novel she had picked up earilier on her way home from her job at the local hospital. Everyone at the book store knew her, as she would stop by there every day to pick up a new book (she finished the book she bought that night) and discuss it with some of the people there who also read it. She never missed a day of reading. She had bought a copy of just about every book in there to date.

Revlahm was deep into his comic when he fealt something was amiss. "Honey, I am going out…" He stood to leave, "Is it that feeling again?" she asked. "yes, please do not wait up, I will probably be late getting in. I will try not to wake you." With that he vanished, leaving his wife to her reading.

Author's Notes:

Revlahm here, this is my first story, i am trying to do something on my own, not specifacilly based on one manga or another, i hope you like it

On a side note, Kenmaru Kururugi is a character from Subreaper01's stories, with his permission of course. You can see his character in his story The Immortal Warrior(Inuyasha fan fiction).