Chapter 1 – Encounter
Trevor smiled as he crept quietly through the specifically chosen pitch-black night. The stars, obscured by a mass of cloud, put in no appearance, which resulted in the dark taking on a strange intensity like a mass of heavy blankets. This worked in Trevor's favour as the depth of the darkness seemed to absorb his quiet movements and shield him from prying eyes. As he reached his target his eyes lit up – good, the shop was empty.
Opening his eyes as wide as it was physically possible, he spent a couple of minutes observing the building, despite the fact that his view being incessantly interrupted by long strands of his vivid orange hair. It was as he was seriously considering buying some sort of hair clip that he noticed a flicker of movement in one of the upper windows, movement soon followed by a flicker of white light. Trevor felt a sort of hollowness as he realised what this would mean. Confrontation.
He willed his legs to move forward and, after a few moments coaxing, they decided to obey him. Gathering all his strength, he picked the lock on the door and sidled into the almost deserted game shop. Almost deserted as his plan to lure the old man out of his nest had failed and, as a result, he was going to have to take care of him. Moving silently over to the display cases he started picking yet more locks, however, these were more difficult. He laughed silently to himself "So the old man doesn't mind if you rob him of all his earthly possessions or even decide to kidnap him, just so long as you don't steal his precious trading cards." He breathed a sigh of relief as he slid away the pane of clear glass atop the display case – it was safe…or so he thought. Only as he plunged his hand into the case did the deafening alarm go off. "Darn it all" He complained to himself. "So close."
As the lights in the room flickered on he pulled the sharpest item he possessed from his toolkit and wrapped a cloth around the handle so the murder weapon wouldn't be traced directly to him. Nevertheless, as the old man doddered forward he felt his resolve waver; the poor guy looked so frail and helpless in his one-piece pyjama suit with his purple eyes heavy from sleep. No! He was not going to let this old man stop him from achieving his goal…his destiny. This card shop contained some of the rarest cards in the world, cards people travelled all the way to Domino City just to witness. He'd even heard a rumour that it possessed a Blue Eyes White Dragon card! Such a card was surely worth getting his hands a little dirty. So it was thinking of this precious card and gripping what was left of his fading resolve that he finally brought himself to lunge at the old man who, strangely enough, continued to stare owl-like at him in the too bright white light. The man's large, purple eyes stared curiously at Trevor as he brought the weapon down over his head. However, just as the weapon was about to connect, Trevor felt a force as powerful as a small explosion push him off his feet.
"Gaaaah" Trevor cried, as he fell into a rather undignified position at the feet of the old man. He felt his orange eyes widen as another man strode confidently into his sight, ascertaining the well-being of the old man in a deep voice. On closer inspection it appeared that it wasn't a man at all but a tall youth with wavy black hair and serious brown eyes. Seeing the brown eyes connect with his own he felt a surge of fear as he heard that commanding, deep voice instruct him to stay where he was. But that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was that the voice sounded only in his head while his ears where still ringing from the sound of the blast. Panic gripped him in its suffocating grasp. "First sign of madness, hearing voices in your head. No, wait, that's talking to yourself. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's pretty high up on the list!" As this newly heightened sense of terror threatened to consume him, it was if rational thought decided to abandon him. "Ahhhhhhhh" he screamed and launched himself at the dark haired stranger.
"Careful sonny" cautioned the old man, but the stranger needed no such warning. Within the same second a dark blue shield was shimmering around him, preventing Trevor from coming any closer. At least, it should have, had Trevor been in his right mind. As it was, his overwhelming feelings of rage and fear caused all rational thought to desert him, resulting in his vision being consumed by a bright red light and him crashing headlong into the shield. From the expression on his face it was obviously a rather unpleasant experience. With great force he was thrown back against the shop wall where he decided to remain, slumped and trembling. Moving purposefully towards him, the stranger confronted the frustrated and rather terrified Trevor.
"Why are you here?" asked Phillip. Trevor twisted his hands into his vibrant orange hair and curled himself tightly into a ball,
"Why can I hear your voice in my head? What was that strange blue light? What are you going to do to me?" Trevor inquired of the man. Phil sighed, he hated being asked so many questions, preferring to leave straight away whenever possible. However, now was not one of those times. Sighing, he decided to call on another part of his power, the power to read minds. However, as he could only glean that which was at the forefront of one's mind, it was, at this moment in time, less than helpful. The only thoughts swirling around in this man's vacant brain were mostly incoherent and could have been easily deduced from the look of pure horror visible on his face. Oh well, it looked like his option only left was the old fashioned method. Questions.
As the tall, dark stranger approached, Trevor felt himself cower in fear, expecting the man's glistening shield to force him away again. This was not the case. As Phillip walked forward the shield seemed to evaporate until it was nothing more than a few blue glimmers. He looked down into Trevor's orange eyes, eyes which had been enlarged by his intense dread. Once again that deep voice penetrated his mind, "Why are you stealing cards?" Trevor trembled yet more intensely as he began to mutter his story, stumbling hesitantly over his words as he reached its climax.
"…So I broke into this game shop in the hope of acquiring the rare cards I need to finally reach the amateur league."
"So you thought stealing was the right choice?"
Trevor averted his eyes sheepishly, "The cards I need to get become a professional duelist are a little out of my budget."
"You say you need these cards to become a pro but that's not the case. It's not the rarity of the card that dictates its usefulness, it's how you choose to play it. I know someone who can help you play the cards you have as opposed to just using them." With that he handed him a small white card which displayed just a name and a number. Then Phillip left the shop. Just as a small, brown haired girl entered.
As Phillip walked away his thoughts dwelled on Damon Jenkins, the name on the card. Only six months ago he had found Damon robbing a young girl in a deserted alleyway. He had used his powers to stop the man and soon discovered the reason behind his aggression. His partial telepathy aided his skill of quickly determining the motivation of the people he met. Like Trevor, Damon too was a failed duelist; however, Phillip had soon used his many contacts to obtain a place for him at the prestigious and highly sought after Duel Academy. Now Damon owed him a favour. That was how it worked.
As soon as the sky turned from black to orange to blue, Trevor decided it was finally a decent time to test the number he had been given. As unlikely as it was that the number of such a famous duelist had just been handed to him, he had nothing to lose by trying it. As soon as the phone had started to ring, his heart began to pound ferociously and, by the time it had rung three times, his heart was pounding so loudly that he was worried it might prevent him from hearing the duelist he was about to greet. And what exactly was he going to say? 'Hello. My name is Trevor. Well, I was robbing an old man's game shop last night when this tall, dark haired guy stopped me, gave me some good advice, handed me your number and left. That's pretty much why I'm ringing you now. You know, cause he was kinda scary and I felt it wouldn't be wise to not do what he said to do.' Great. All he needed was to add in the strange blue power and the voices in his head and he could forget about a future in duelling. Instead his future would be decided for him – one spent in a mental asylum. Suddenly the ringing stopped and Trevor gathered all his strength once more, "Hello. My name is…" However, a deep voice cut him off."
"You have reached Damon Jenkins, duelist extraordinaire. Please leave your name and number and I'll get back to you as soon as my busy schedule permits. Keeeeep duellin'!"
Trevor couldn't help but smile as he heard the duelist's famous catchphrase. The thought that he might actually be able to meet him was simply amazing, too amazing. What if it was all a joke, a trick? What if…with great effort Trevor tried to prevent his thoughts from going in this general direction. He failed. All the same, he couldn't help but trust the tall mysterious stranger with the deep voice and wise words. True, the way he spoke reminded him a bit of those cheesy fortune cookie messages but still, there was something undeniably trustable about him and, as much as he tried to suppress it, Trevor couldn't help but feel hopeful. That was, until he saw the newspaper headlines. Damon Jenkins had vanished last night.
Standing in the shade of a purple shop awning, Trevor scanned the headlines of every newspaper displayed. "Star duelist's devastating disappearance" screamed one headline, "Keep searching – police on the hunt for the newest missing duelist". Feeling his heart sink, Trevor decided to buy a newspaper. Perhaps the police had a new lead. Perhaps he was expected to be found really soon. Reading the paper he felt his stomach clench with disappointment. The disappearance of Damon Jenkins was just one in a series of disappearances which had started five days ago. He had been escorted everywhere since the amateur duelists had started going missing and so it was with an escort of no less than five guards that he had travelled to the park last night to meet some friends of his. Nevertheless, according to his friends, a figure had greeted them on arrival, announcing itself to be the "Phantom Monarch" then, amidst tall purple flames, duel monster spirits had grabbed them and held them tightly until Damon Jenkins and been defeated. Once the flames had fallen away, both the Phantom Monarch and Damon had disappeared.
Naturally, the newspaper claimed that they had probably been given hallucinogenic drugs to aid in the creation of such visions but Trevor wasn't so sure. Looking at the time the crime had been reported he was shocked to discover it was one o'clock in the morning, just one hour after his attempted robbery. This shock was further enhanced by the realisation that the park in question was just a few minutes walk from the card shop where he had been caught. Trevor's brow furrowed in horror, surely his wise deliverer could not have been the culprit? Then again, how many people could create strange, coloured fire? "NO!" Trevor thought to himself. That man just saved me from doing something I would definitely regret, not to mention a hefty prison sentence as well as putting me on the path towards my dream. There is no way I'm turning him in. Besides, Trevor smiled wryly, that would be pretty impossible anyway, "Er, Mr Policeman, I don't know a guy who can create purple flames but I do know someone who can create blue ones! A description? I don't really know much about him, you see I met him when I was attempted to rob Mr Moto's famous card store so I wasn't really looking at his face." Walking away from the newsstand and squinting against the fierce white light, Trevor walked back towards his house, deciding to keep last night's activities to himself.