Note - To everyone, the original idea for this story is by Pen, but due to a lack of a plot, it was discountinued until I adopted it to play with. This prologue was written mostly by Pen, and I only edited and added parts to fit into my plot. This story is an AU and could be viewed as a rewriting of Slayers history/story.
"Tell me a story, a story of how you and mom met," the little red headed child demanded. This could be a bedtime story, but since the rest of the room was in shadow, and the only illumination was a floating globe from a lightning spell, one couldn't really tell. So, given that the child was obviously in a bed, and the storyteller was sitting in a chair beside the bed with a large, opened book in front, we could safely conclude that this would be the somewhat cliche setting for a bedtime story. The storyteller yield to the demand of the red headed child in bed and began to read from a book.
"Once upon a time, in a land far, far.... Wait a moment." A gloved hand flipped the book to its cover and read the flaking gold leafed title, Fairies Tales for Children. "Sorry," the right hand waved in apology. "Wrong book." The hands negligently threw the book into the shadowed room; the book hit something solid a few seconds later. Perhaps, a wall?
"Since the book isn't here, I will tell you the story myself, a very special story." The storyteller took a dramatic pause to wait for the tension to build up.
The little boy rolled his eyes and waited patiently for his story to continue, the storyteller would begin the story in his own time. Instead he used the time waiting to study the storyteller before him as if he were a stranger; he might as well practice today's lesson while waiting.
A dark shadow shrouded the storyteller keeping its face and body hidden. Only the white-gloved hands could be seen. The hands themselves were neither overly large nor delicately small. Just your average sized pair of hands. From the voice of the mysterious storyteller, the little boy guessed to be perhaps a young male ... or a young female with alto voice. But then, most females have an alto range voice in his experience. Of course, he has only met five females in his entire life and so he couldn't be absolute, absolutely, certain that....
"What?"
"..." 'Keep your prey guessing', the boy thought.
The hands disappeared under the shadow for a moment. "Hum... A tough audience, eh?" The right hand returned. "Well, like I said, I'm going to tell you a special story. An expository." The voice paused again before picking up where he left off. "Expository. The word comes from experience and story. Thus, it's a true story, if you will. But unlike other true stories, I have personally seen this tale unfolding so you can think of expository as above a regular story but below a biography. After all, a story has to have some misleading facts in there to make it a good story." The storyteller took another dramatic pause, if he does it one more time, he's going to be eating some fire arrows.
The little boy snuggled deeper into his bed and mentally went over the spell for fire arrows, just in case the storyteller decides to take another dramatic pause.
"In the beginning, as everyone knows, the Lord of-" The storyteller began.
"Wait a minute, I thought this is a story of how you and mom meet."
"Shush, it will be. I'm just telling you the background information first."
The little boy eyed the storyteller suspiciously. "...if you say so..."
*Ahem*
The Lord of Nightmares created this world along with Cephied and Shabranigdo. She also created the humans and dragons. However, it was Shabranigdo who created the Mazoku. Maybe that's why they didn't receive the same gift L-sama has bestowed on the humans and dragons. Of course, a gift is only a gift if the receiver likes it. When the receiver doesn't, well ... it's more commonly known as a curse.
You see, L-sama liked to spy on the Gods and Goddesses of other universes. Why not? It's a useful occupation and the rewards can be pretty valuable, like good blackmail material. Anyway, while spying on this one God on some distance universe whose occupants calls it "The Universe" -great name, ne?- She came across a new form of managing the children.
The management system was efficient, had more chaotic elements to it, and most importantly of all, drastically cut down on the number of prayers and petition to the God or Goddess in charge. The God of that universe called those management people Guardians. The children of that God however called them by a different name: Angels.
The structure was quite brilliant, and even L-sama was surprised on how balanced the system can be, seeing as how a barbaric God ruling over a block of space only 1/10 the size of Her universe invented this great system.
In that God's universe, there was a potentially hazardous creation that called themselves humans. To balance them, he created the equally hazardous Guardians. For every human, there is Guardian. And for every Guardian, there is a human. However, only the Guardians can contact directly with God and only the humans can directly change the world both creations lived in.
Thus, only when the Guardian and human worked together can something devastating happen, such as the destruction of God's universe and other things like that. Hence the name Guardians. Guarding to keep the humans from talking with their God and convincing Him from doing destructive stuff.
But there was one catch; humans cannot see or hear the Guardians, only share their Guardians' feelings. Those humans are rumoured to be really crafty because some fruit they ate a long time ago from some 'Tree of Knowledge' or something. Needless to say, most humans don't listen or know their Guardian very well. And the potential for disasters was greatly reduced, almost to zero.
The Guardians' lives on the other hand were, well, I've heard the vacation agencies are really, really huge in the Guardians' world and the number of applications for a vacation even larger
After figuring out the details of this new system and observing it working in person, L-sama immediately went back to implement the system in one of Her worlds. This one. However, since the Mazoku weren't her creations (directly) and old Shabby has been sleep for several decades by then, She decided that the Mazoku doesn't need a Guardian. A Mazoku is its own Guardian. It wasn't very fair in my opinion but then, who listens to us lowly soldiers. The humans and dragons each got their own Guardian.
L-sama figured that those humans touched by Cephied are already too confused to curse... err bless them anymore with this extra baggage so to say. Like the original system, only Guardians can directly contact L-sama while only the other races can directly change their world. Also, the Guardians cannot be seen or heard, only felt- except for the Mazoku's special case.
This system might have worked out very well if L-sama didn't like chaos so much. She didn't give Guardians to any of the non-humans or non-dragons. The dragons, of course, completely ignored their Guardians since they only wants to talk to Cephied's generals, not L-sama. Consequently, many of the dragon's Guardians applied for rebirth and become elves instead. As far as I know, no dragon over 100 years old has a Guardian around him or her. Couldn't blame the Guardians. Stuffy creatures. One even had the gull to call me Namagomi, what I wouldn't do to kill that one slowly and painfully....
"Ouch!" The storyteller looked down to where the small discomfort originated and found a dagger imbedded in one of his hands. The blade has gone clean through, and after turning his hand this way and that, looking at it from all angles, decides he rather likes the affect and kept the dagger in place.
The little boy glared dangerously at the storyteller and held up three more sharp daggers in his right hand.
"Humph... If that's the way, you feel about it. I'll just end the story right here!"
The boy narrowed his slit pupil, amethyst eyes in a near-perfect imitation of his father when his father wants to threaten some being or other.
"...or I can continue right away..."
The daggers disappeared without the slightest sound. Pulling the fallen blanket around his shoulders, the little boy hid a secret little smile. He had practiced on "that look", as his sister calls it, for hours. It seems to be quite effective. And if father goes off on another tangent, there is always mother's way that he could try.
Anyway, back to the expository. Where was I? Oh yes, the elves.
Very interesting creatures. They couldn't make a single decent machine that didn't go right back and start attacking themselves but they could invent spells to call upon the powers of L-sama Herself with a little help from the people touched by Cephied's knowledge. Of course, they didn't have the handicap of Guardians like the humans in creating the spells but still .... When L-sama found out about the spells- hey.
Why is that so hard to believe? Most of the casters died before the spell was completed so L-sama didn't notice. Too busy spying on the other Gods and Goddesses, I guess.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" A thunderbolt suddenly crashed through the roof of the house and into the little dimension to hit squarely at the storyteller. The storyteller promptly fell to the floor, and a delicious cooked smell waft through the air. "Gomen L-sama. Your Divineness." Xelloss coughed as he passed out from too much electricity.
The little boy didn't look afraid at all. Instead of going over to his father asking him if he's all right like a ordinary child might have done, he climbed down from his couch-chair to land lightly on his little feet. Clutching his blankets around him, the little boy ran to the door of the darkened dimension/room. He reached on his tipy-toes to turn the doorknob. Opening the door, he placed his head into the living room and shouted, "Lacy! L-sama zapped daddy for bad mouthing Her again. Do you think hitting daddy with a Mono Volt would wake him up so he can finish my expy...exposi...tory?"
"No, you silly boy." A little girl who looked almost identical to the little boy replied arrogantly. She ran to the little boy who reluctantly stepped aside and allowed his twin sister to squeeze through. The siblings closed the door together with a soft click.
"Just whisper in his ear that mommy found out about he did to her largest stack of treasure." Lacy said confidently.
"WHAT!?" There was a started exclamation followed by a loud thump as Xelloss hit his head from jumping too high in his show of emotion.
"See?" The sister said as the siblings walked to the couches where their father is now in full view.
The boy only looked sourly at his twin. "Why are you here? This is my story."
"I wanna hear too." Lacy complained.
"Now, now Lacy, Len. Share and share alike." Xelloss said with his usual smile on his face. "That doesn't apply to personal business though," he added.
"Yes daddy." The two children chimed in union as they climbed into bed.
Xelloss winced, he knew he shouldn't have let Lina raise their children. Look at all the bad habits they've picked up.
There was a brief fighting over the blanket until the little girl pulled another blanket and a big fluffy teddy bear from what appeared to be a black hole. The little boy scowled at his sister who smugly hugged her teddy and wrapped comfortably in her favourite soft purple blanket. Not to be outdone, the little boy pulled his favourite bunny from his personal pocket dimension to cuddle. There were now two red-haired children with slit pupil, amethyst eyes all snugly warped in their respective blanket and hugging their favourite toy in the bed.
"....." Xelloss sweatdropped. 'Did Amelia or Filia stop by while Lina was raising the kids?'
A moment passed, then three, until two threatening glares in his direction brought Xelloss back to reality. "Well, on with the expository." ' At least, they've got Lina's temper,' Xelloss thought with some pride.
So you can image what L-sama felt when a human related to Cephied's general learned and successfully cast one of the elves' spells. No Lacy, She didn't cut the spell caster into ribbons. Or turned her into a donkey, Len. Nope, not even cursed her with a terrible, unbreakable curse.
She was absolutely trilled, turns out that L-sama implemented this system not to balance out the powers and potential of her creations on this world but find humans or dragons special enough to have an intelligent conversation with. Since only the most clear and most powerful of either race would be able to contact Her within the new system, She was sure it would be wonderful talking with the Chosen.
The new system however, worked a little too well. For centuries, no human or dragon talked with Her on this world. I guess it gets very lonely now that She isn't bothered every second from thousands of her children praying to her for something. For a long time, She thought she was disconnected from everyone within this world since the She created the Guardians. But She refused to unmake what She created and thus, waited hoping some human -She lost faith in the dragons a long time ago, can't really blame her- to talk with Her. Tell her what's going with the humans. What do they wish? How are they doing? Do they still even remember Her?
Of course, She often asks us Mazoku about the state of the other races on this world since we're technically also Guardians in the system She's implemented. But for some reason, She always kicks us out after only a few seconds of chat with Her. Something about us taking advantage of the situation. Now that is just unfair, we Mazoku would never stoop that low. We were simply giving Her advise in place of our less fortunate races. L-sama didn't buy that though, there are still some Mazoku who try that and as punishment, She turns them into radishes. No, Lacy. Mice are way overrated, with the rate mice reproduce, you'll be up to your ears in your enemies' families in no time. Trust me, vegetables are much better choice.
But anyway, the most unusual thing about this magic user was that she had TWO Guardians with her, something unheard of. A small ruby flame dragon and a small flame-haired child with golden wings. The Dragon Guardian is called Flame and the Human Guardian is called Ruby. Their names very accurately described the human they guarded: the infamous Lina Inverse. The Ruby Flame. And oh, yes also called the bandit killer, the enemy of all who live, someone-even-a-dragon-wouldn't....
"Ahhhhhhhhhh! What are you two doing?!" Xelloss yelped as dozens of Flare Arrows and Freeze Arrows flew at his way.
"Mommy said to beat up anyone calling her by those names." Len replied seriously. "FLARE ARROW!"
Lacy grinned happily as she shot more spells at her father.
"But not at me!" Xelloss protested as he gamely tried to block the arrows with his cloak.
The two siblings paused in mid-casting and looked at one another. "Mommy didn't specify." They chimed in union and finished their spells.
"If you don't stop, I will not finish the story!" Xelloss shouted finally in desperation (?).
Both children stopped immediately, then quickly burrowed into their blankets, hugged their stuffed animals, and looked innocently at their father like a pair of Angels.
Xelloss nodded to himself and thought with some pride. 'They're going to be great Mazoku one day.' "Now as I was saying..."
But it's not so great having two Guardians with you, especially two Guardians whom didn't get along. I've never seen two Guardians so at odds with one another. Worse still, both Guardians had temperaments so much like Lina-chan's that I often wondered why they haven't destroyed this world yet. I still do.
Silence.
Don't believe me? Well let me tell you how I first met Lina-chan, or more accurately, Ruby-chan and Flame-kun. You'll see what I mean. Why do you think your mother can cause so much trou... err... chaos.
The two Guardians were fighting as usual one day when I err... stumbled onto them. The strangest thing however wasn't that they were fighting. I've seen too many wars in my old age. The strangest thing was that the human they guarded was no where in sight. Why that's unheard of for a human to be without his/her Guardian(s). After all, without the Guardians to keep the humans out of trouble, who knows what they could do?
So I gave the two Guardians a stern talking to and went off to help them find their misplaced human, well, we found her and that's how I met your mother.
"... and the rest, as they say is history." Xelloss smiled at his two children who were glaring at him. "What? You wanted to know how daddy met mommy, now you do."
"No we do not," Len said, "you didn't tell us anything, just how come there are Guardians in the world."
Xelloss thought back, "you're right, but it's too late now to continue the story. Your mother would fry me if she know how late I'm letting you two stays up. So good night kids." Then he left the room leaving the two children to their own devices.
"I can't believe daddy left the story like that." Lacy said to her brother, hugging her teddy.
"At least he said he's going to continue it." Len replied.
"I SAID good night kids." Xelloss' voice floated in from the outside, though it sounds more as if he was in the room with them.
"G'night daddy." The two muttered darkly and the mage light above them flicked off.