PROLOGUE
Are You My God, My King, the Bow to My Arrow of All-Truth?
Are You My God, My King, the Bow to My Arrow of All-Truth?
A beautiful, vibrant-shining Duel Monsters card stared at him with determination; Black Luster Solider - Envoy of the Beginning. Even with a calm expression like the cold steel blade he slung over his shoulder, Jacques could sense a warm camaraderie. This wasn't just another card — this card was his ally. At the young age of eight, he couldn't even really tell why either. It felt alive between his fingers, like it wanted to speak to him. Instead, he heard his mother's voice, off in the kitchen.
"What were you thinking?" she asked in a hushed whisper. His mom had been mad for the last week or more, though all her anger seemed aimed at her dad more than anything else.
"Master Pegasus said it was okay," Jacques's father, Martin, tried to calm her in a matched whisper. "He really liked the work we did for those two. Did you know he gave the other one to Seto Kaiba?"
"And so why is our child holding the other one?" instead of sounding impressed like Martin had hoped, Marie sounded as furious as ever.
"Because it is a children's trading card, Marie, my God—" Martin sounded at wit's end.
"Oh don't you dare "my God" me, Martin Demais," Marie snapped, her voice kicking up a decibel or two. "You remember those freaks all over that Battle City tournament a couple years ago! People go crazy over this stupid game nowadays. Do you want insane thugs hunting your son because you gave him cardboard?"
"Don't be dramatic, Marie," Martin sighed, exasperated. "Besides, Master Pegasus said they'd print a few. It's not like there's only one copy. I don't even know if the other one is going to get printed more, so—"
"You're just making excuses, Martin, please," Marie was begging now. "We've been trying to get out of this business, and now you've got Pegasus's ear and you want to stay? He's not even offering you a damn raise you fool."
"Now who's being dramatic," finally finished with the argument, Jacques could hear his father's stomping feet turn around, and the jingling of his keys. "I need to get some air."
Martin crossed over the threshold into the living room, where the young Jacques studied the card as though it were a homework assignment; even at that age, he was pretending not to hear Martin and Marie's more-and-more frequent arguments.
"If I find out you took that card away from the boy when I get back, I'm not gonna be happy, Marie," Martin warned, not even looking at his wife as he walked over to his son, stooping over to pat the kid's scruffy, black hair. "And if you don't listen to your mother, that card won't be yours much longer—even if she's telling you to put the thing down. That? That's your allowance for the next month, got it? And if it turns up missing or damaged, it's your allowance for another month. Say yes, papa."
"Okay dad, yeah." Jacques said, finally looking away from the card to acknowledge the one who'd given it to him.
"Alright, later then."
Having grown up around Duel Monsters almost all his life, the young Jacques had always half-stepped between interest and disinterest. Part of him wanted to learn the game because he liked the designs on the cards, and he thought it was awesome that his parents worked at Industrial Illusions helping to design cards for Maximillian Pegasus. But he could see the strain it put on his parents. They hadn't been happy with their profession for a few years, and of course that disillusionment and frustration carried over into home life. And even at that age, Jacques's eyes saw quite a lot more than most adults would credit him for.
However, Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning acted exactly as that — envoy for the beginning of Jacques's growing interest in Duel Monsters, as an escape from the ever-rising tensions of his home life. And he was good at it, as it turned out. But even talent and genius couldn't keep Jacques out of trouble in school, and for that reason exactly, his story started on the margins of civilized life, veering toward squalor and destitution.
That day, the card looked to Jacques for leadership; it looked to him as if it were pledging its sword to his banner. If BLS was the mighty knight, Jacques would be the one who wore the crown upon his head. Together, they would bring the forces of Light and Dark alike in line. Not that young Jacques could articulate all of that—but a feeling is a feeling, and he knew even then that that was what he felt.
Two months later, Martin Demais left home after an argument with Marie, got into his car, drove off, and never returned.
One week after that, Martin Demais's body was found in the trunk of his car nineteen miles outside of Montreal.
CHAPTER ONE
Your Ace is...a Spell Card? Yeah.
Martin Demais's death remains unsolved to this day. The case was described by investigators as "cold" as early as a month after it started, though Quebecois police maintain they were actively investigating the murder up to three years after the fact. Even the high profile of an Industrial Illusions employee rumored (recently) to have taken meetings with Pegasus himself wasn't enough for the police to make concrete evidence and solid suspects appear out of thin air. Shaken by the sudden loss of his father and frustrated by Martin's strained relationship with Marie toward the end, Jacques withdrew from his mother.Your Ace is...a Spell Card? Yeah.
Although he'd taken to Duel Monsters and was quite good at it, Jacques took to skipping school, getting into fights and staying out all night even from the young age of ten with Shane Arkay - whose family had moved to Montreal from Toronto five years prior - and Shane's older brother, Cole, who was eighteen, had his own apartment, and doubled as an older brother/father-like figure for Jacques after Martin was killed.
As some sort of penance for her son's resentment for her, Marie Demais allowed him to forego traditional schooling for one focused on Duel Monsters. Jacques scored in the top percentile of entrance examinees at the Quebec School of Duel, a prominent middle school in Canada that had a high acceptance rate at Duel Academy's Western branch. So high, in fact, he was initially placed in "AP" courses. In his first trimester, Jacques fought in fourteen duels—four of which were against older students; his record was 11-2-1, with both losses and the draw stemming from his challenge to older kids.
However, Jacques's time at the Montreal School of Duel was just that—a single trimester. Twice suspended for duels dragging out into all-out brawls, a laundry list of skipped classes and missed curfews were used as cause to expel Jacques for good instead of a third suspension; then, he lasted another trimester at Montreal Academy for Dueling Boys, where he was caught rigging a duel against a teacher, although he always claimed the evidence was planted, and that the teacher "hated him"; Jacques couldn't say the same when he was expelled from the Quebec Dueling School trying to rig the hologram systems to favor his friend, Shane Arkay, who'd gotten into a really tenuous battle against a rival who'd been bullying him for over a year at that point.
It wasn't long after his third expulsion that Marie told Jacques to "get his head in the game." She denied him the chance to apply for another dueling school, instead enrolling him in a more traditional middle school. She said if he wanted to get back on the right track, he'd have to make Duel Academy's roster "on his own time." Not quite set straight, Jacques still wasn't the perfect student—but instead, his attitude changed. He used to pick fights simply because he wanted people to look at him, acknowledge him in some way. Instead, Jacques became a man of his peers—he got what they needed, whether it be physical objects or information. Jacques started to perfect his sneaking, thieving skills. He was already starting to grow in stature in a sort've pubescence, and over time found it astonishing how little most people tended to pay attention to what was happening around them. All he had to do was pick the right moments, not make too much noise, and keep his head down. Detentions and suspensions started to melt and disappear, replaced by positive comments and middling marks on report cards. Jacques started to call more people friend, beginning to realize the power of a legion of loyal allies.
At thirteen, Jacques found himself in his cards. After narrowly failing to qualify for Quebec Regionals, he all but abandoned the deck his father had left for him. Although he considered himself to have mastered it, it was clear that the strategy fell well short of what he needed to field in order to cut his chops in any sort of professional Duel Monsters setting. On Halloween night, while out roaming Montreal with friends, Jacques stumbled across a small building labeled "Fortune Teller - Abila Luongo." Ever the duelist, Jacques had kept his deck (or rather, his dad's) on him as he traveled. From a case in his backpack, Jacques felt a...vibration. But it was almost like a voice. Calling to him. Jacques pulled BLS out and stared at the card, and could have sworn the loyal soldier pointed the tip of his blade toward the fortune teller.
Unable to keep away, Jacques went in. He found Abila Luongo in a dark room, three decks of cards (one Tarot, one regular, one Duel Monsters) laid out on a table covered in red cloth. She said she'd been waiting for him all night. The teen boy felt a cold chill run down his spine as she beckoned he sit opposite across from her.
"Oh, yes," she said, her voice just a soft rasp scratching at his ears. "Yes, yes—you've the face of someone lost for quite a while. Tsk tsk. Such a young lad, too. And alone, by pre-destination and free will alike. Even as the masses swell behind you, alone. Can you show me your champion?"
"My...?" Jacques paused. Her words were the caustic stinging wound of someone who knew too much, more than Jacques would even be ready to admit for years to come.
"The one who channels light and darkness within him, to vanquish those who'd do harm in the name of either." Abila replied.
Jacques knew. Again, the card seemed to vibrate. Whisper. He pulled Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning from his deck and lay it gently on the table, between the splayed-out decks. Without even moving, the fortune teller observed the card. The young boy had expected her to at least try and pick it up, but she didn't even bother to do that.
"Would you mind indulging me for a moment?" Abila Luongo asked, although Jacques felt he had no choice. "First, I need a further sense of you. I need you to look to a different set of cards."
With a fluid, flicking wrist, Abila the fortune teller ran her hand across the deck of tarot cards and picked them up off the table. She handed the thick stack of ancient, heavy-looking cards across the table to him.
"Ask yourself a question—any question, but it mustn't be something the universe might lead to you," she warned. "The question, its answer? It has to be something the universe leads you, to. Then, you shuffle. You'll reveal three cards off the top, and from there, I will read you."
Giving the quick-handed fortune teller an odd look, Jacques exhaled and tried to clear his mind of anything. He figured the first thing that came up in his head might be the right direction to go in. But of course, there was only one thing on his mind: what happened to his father? But the universe wouldn't show him that. No, that was like asking for the wool to be pulled off from covering over your eyes. He sighed.
What is right in front of my eyes that I am not seeing?
He stopped, looked back up at Abila, then began to shuffle the cards like he might any Duel Monsters deck. Then, he shuffled some more. And, trying to find his breathing again, Jacques flipped up the three cards off the top of the deck in the open space where the tarot cards had previously been laid out.
The Sun, facing upright at Jacques.
The Hanged Man, facing upside-down.
The Justice, upright.
Setting the rest of the deck besides his fortune displayed on old cards, Jacques looked to the fortune teller for a third time. She smiled back at him, letting out a knowing nod.
"...Well?" Jacques asked, on the edge of his seat. "What does it mean???"
"The Sun: let your light shine, of course," one of Abila's long fingers moved over the first card to the second and to the third. "The Hanged Man, though the wrong way: don't sacrifice yourself for nothing. That would only replace meaning with meaninglessness. And Justice: you're fair-of-mind, trustworthy, and righteously so. Your past, your present, and your future. Loosely speaking of course."
The thirteen-year old fell silent, feeling a lot of weight on his thin shoulders all of a sudden.
"Now, a game," Abila moved her hand quickly past the tarot cards, flicking her wrist in the same motion over the regular deck of playing cards, scooping them up but this time transitioning into a seamless bridge shuffle. "High card wins, simple as that."
"How can I trust you're not stacking the deck?" Jacques asked bluntly.
"This is not a casino, or some game in the back room of a dark bar," Abila replied without any of her prior warmth. "If you think I were cheating you, you'd have left before I even picked up the first deck. Now, choose—"
Unfurling the deck like a flag, she held out the stack of 52 for him to choose from; Jacques didn't even think. He reached somewhere toward the middle, to his right a bit, and snatched a card. The fortune teller held the deck out to him. He shuffled the 51 cards quickly, and offered them up to her as she had to him. With a more gentle motion, Abila took a card.
"Ten of spades." she showed him, speaking flatly. He must have really gotten on her nerves when he'd suggested she had stacked the deck against him. The fortune teller's draw was quite good, though not the best.
Jacques felt confident. He grinned, turning the card over without even looking at it.
"King of diamonds." he said.
"A shining light, self-sacrificial and righteous—and lucky, to boot." Abila's smile returned as she sighed, shrugging and setting the playing cards aside.
The teen's eyes glanced down toward the table, and the lone, untouched deck of cards still spread out over the red tablecloth.
"You feel nervous about these cards most of all?" the fortune teller noted as he picked up the cards and shuffled them like a pro player. "The ones you've known the longest, it makes sense. Where there is light on the faces of these cards for most, you see the dark on the other side. And, so, so young still. I am not asking you to duel me—no, this is a matter beyond the simple art of dueling. This is equal measures fate and luck alike, as you might have noticed to this point."
"Sort of, I guess." he replied with a shrug.
The fortune teller Abila Luongo spread the deck of Duel Monsters cards out in front of him again, this time in the very middle of the table, now unimpeded by the other decks of cards. Before she'd even finished setting them down, Jacques could tell something was happening. Just like with Black Luster Soldier, a few cards on the table vibrated, a pulse shooting down the table and up his leg, shooting up his spine and into his ear, like a whisper: "pick me. pick me. pick me."
"You...want me to pick a card?" he asked.
"Three cards," she replied, holding up the corresponding number of fingers. "Three of the same card."
"I...that's impossible." Jacques said.
"Of course it isn't," she smiled. "Improbable, though? Wildly so, yes. Still, I think you realize what's happening here."
Three of the same card? The struggling teen looked around and then felt the whispers again, shivering like a cold wind had swept through the small room. He heard three voices, spread out evenly across the table like a thoroughly-shuffled deck of cards should. Jacques reached out for the one in the middle.
Reasoning. Spell card: "Your opponent declares a monster Level from 1 to 12. Excavate cards from the top of your Deck until you excavate a monster that can be Normal Summoned/Set, then, if that monster is the same Level as the one declared by your opponent, send all excavated cards to the GY. If not, Special Summon the excavated monster, also send the remaining cards to the GY."
He showed Abila the card, and the fortune teller gave a simple nod. Jacques reached for the whispering card to his right.
Reasoning. Spell card.
With momentum, he reached for the third and final calling card.
Reasoning. Spell card.
"What the hell?" he asked, staring at the three cards in his hands, taking BLS off the table and holding it with the playset of spells he'd willed out of the fortune teller's deck.
"Of course, of course," she whispered, knowingly. "It's not just duel monsters that call to us sometimes, did you know that?"
"Call...to...us?" Jaques repeated slowly, dumbfounded.
"It's clear you don't see the spirts. Yet," Abila grinned, wickedly. "but you can hear their call all the same. Feel their presence. And these cards I've owned for so long have told me they must now accompany you on your journey, wherever you may go."
"How did they know?" all of a sudden, he wondered what - exactly - he could do to pair these Reasoning spells with BLS, and his other, most powerful cards. Suddenly, the new deck-building process seemed thrilling.
"That I cannot tell you," the fortune teller shook her head. "The cards know far more than I could ever pretend. All I do is follow their bidding. And they bade me aid you. This I've known for several years, though I could not have given you name nor face before the moment you stepped into my shop. Of course, that's your triumph. Predestination and free will, light and dark—these things sit on either side of your heart like a scale, young boy. But don't be afraid, now. While I see a heavy weight on your shoulders, I also see you have one thing, for now. Time."
But when he left Abila Luongo's small storefront, Jacques didn't feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. He felt a weight lifted instead, like he'd found something he'd been looking for for a long time. Fate mattered little to him, instead relegated to the shadow of his excitement over the new cards that called him King. The new cards that would bring him fame and fortune as a pro duelist—those which might one day reunite BLS with his brother card. And his father? Well, maybe Martin Demais could find pride in his son, wherever his spirit happened to reside.