Chapter I

With sleepy eyes little Aster ate the bowl of cereal that was in front of him. He could smell the freshly made coffee inside the white mug with a childish writing that read "Best Dad", a gift he had given to his father for his birthday. This mug was not bought, instead, Aster had taken a plain white cup from the back of the cupboard and decorated it with paint. Despite the huge mess in his room with purple, black and green paint all over the floor, his father was quite pleased with the gift. Aster's dad always enjoyed watching his son doing crafts and painting.

Aster was eagerly waiting on his seat to tell his father about the ideas he had for new cards. Once his father sat in front of him, the man smiled tiredly. He had bags under his eyes and his grey hair was messy. His father usually stayed up very late creating new monsters for Industrial Illusions. Aster had warned him about how staying up so late would get him sick (besides, why Aster had to go to bed early, when his father did not follow such command?), but his father replied that inspiration came to him mostly at night, and that he prefered spending the day with him.

"When you are a moody teenager, you will kick me out of your room!" his father had warned him, "I want to enjoy your company while I can".

"I would never do such a thing!" Aster complained in his childish high-pitched voice.

Back at the kitchen counter Aster finished his food very quickly. The rule of the house was not talking about work before breakfast. His short legs were balancing on the chair and his face was getting warmer while his father very slowly drank his coffee. He was definitely doing it on purpose, Aster thought to himself. Didn't his father want to hear his super-amazing-and-awesome idea?

"DAD" Aster screamed once his father sipped the last drop.

"SO-WHAT-ABOUT-HEROES-AND-THERE-IS-A-DOG-AND-A-VERY-BIG-GUY-AND-"Aster was speaking so fast that his father thought he might fall from the chair.

"A new set of heroes, huh?" his dad asked him, as it was the only thing he could understand from what he said.

"YES AND A VERY BIG GUY, AND A DOG AND A GUY WHO HAS LASERS, AND ANOTHER GUY-"

"Hmm, perhaps we could work something out" his dad interrupted him with a smiled.

After breakfast the Phoenix family (which was just Aster and his father) headed to the park. It was a warm summer weekend, many families were outside enjoying the day. Aster run towards a small girl around his age who he saw had a deck on her hands. Meanwhile his dad sat on a bench keeping an eye on his son and sketching some ideas they had talked about during breakfast.

A man sat beside him.
"Good to see you, Elias" the man was a coworker of Aster's father at Industrial Illusions, whose speciality was designing water-type monsters. And just like him, he had a small sketchbook.

"Keeping an eye on the kids?" the man said while he pointed with his head to the spot where Aster and the girl played.

They both laughed.

"You are the only person with a deck around here!" Aster told her. "It's as if you were asking me for a duel!"

"Yes! Im testing some cards my daddy designed" she answered back.

Aster's face turned to a surprised expression.

"Your father? My dad designs cards too! And he is making a super awesome deck for me"

The girl giggled, "Well I would love to duel you with your new deck", she placed a face down.

"Your turn" she said.

Aster's deck consisted of dragons and wizards. Mostly, he relied on strong defenses, and counter effect trap cards. Meanwhile the girl's deck was based around mermaids and water type monsters. She mostly choose to attack, bearly using the defense position. Aster was patient, waiting for the right moment to reveal his ace card, a fusion monster, which gave him the victory over the girl.

They both ran to their fathers and to their surprise they were chatting like long time friends. Aster's father smiled at him and introduced the man and his daughter:

"Miles and Jade"

.

Aster realized that he was so wrapped in the duel that he never asked the girl his name. Embarrassed he introduced himself and apologized for his rudeness. Jade giggled as she shook his hand.

"It was a good duel, Aster"

They all decided to go for ice-cream, which the kids did not mind. Jade had told Aster that she hadn't eaten sweets for months after a very bad toothache. Aster could feel her excitement and found it cute. It was the same excitement he felt when his dad showed him a new card design.

At four o'clock both families separated. Aster didn't want to tell his father that he hoped to see Jade again soon. Once at home, he kept rambling about his duel with her and her cards. He told his father that Jade was using a deck created by her dad, and he wanted his own special deck as well.

"Well" his dad said while showing his son his sketchbook "I sketched some ideas".

Aster saw a rough sketch of a big muscular man with long hair, chained from both feet and wrists.

"What's his name?" he asked pointing at the drawing.

"Well, I still haven't figured it out…" his dad shrugged. He then showed the animal companion he had been sketching. It looked more like a robot cat, its eyes were not visible and instead, it was covered by some sort of metal mask.

Elias Phoneix wanted to create a special deck for his son. He had noticed that he seemed to be quite above the level of intelligence for an 8 year old child. First, his excellent grades and fast comprehension of mathematics and grammar, and later while dueling his very different strategies. Aster seemed to control his deck as if it was an extension of himself and he thought his son might be successful in the world of Duel Monsters…

However, now wasn't the time. Despite seeing infinite potential on his son and Maximillian Pegasus was eager to meet him, after what Elias had told him, he wanted to spare his son a few more years before helping him to become a professional. Aster was still a child, a very emotional and creative child. Elias would not force him to grow up to enter the world of professional dueling. Once he reached 10, he had told Pegasus, Elias would allow Aster to begin his training. But still, he wanted to enjoy his son and his innocence while he could. In his eyes, Aster was a pure child. His blue eyes shone with excitement and wonder whenever he introduced him to a new hero. Pegasus had told him it was a rather selfish action, inevitably Aster would catch the eye of any pro duelist beside himself.

"He is destined for great things" Pegasus told him. "And you can't run away from destiny" he had emphasized. Perhaps Aster could not run, but at least avoid it, while he could. Elias had seen the corrupted world of Pro Duelists. Some well known even used his cards. As an employer of Industrial Illusions he had the opportunity to be in events surrounded by them.

Fakeness, money, fame, sex, the constant pressure on duelist to achieve greatness, hours of their lives just dedicated to training. But then watching Aster duel and seeing him analyze other duelist strategies, Elias knew that Aster was meant for dueling. But just a few more years, he told himself. A few more years of peace, of him enjoying his childhood, of dueling for fun with friends, of falling in love with the game, of child's play.

All this thoughts ran through his head as he kissed Aster good night.

"Love you, dad" he said.

"Love you too" his dad smile and turned of the light of his room.

. . .

As his son slept, Elias went to his working desk. He took a glance of his sketchbook and started redrawing them. A picture of him and Aster on their trip to Tokyo Disneyland was resting on the table. Aster was 4 years old when it was taken. The trip took place right after the divorce of Elias and Dana, Aster's mom. Divorce wasn't exactly common in Japan during those times, and specially, a man getting the custody of the child. Dana had chosen it that way, though. As if possessed, Dana changed her attitude from one day to the other.

It took a while to Elias to realize what happened. First, she introduced her to a man who was trying to enter the pro-dueling world, Mr. D, and tried to convince Elias to allow Aster to be trained by him. Mr. D was a regular guest on the house during that chaotic year, and took a particular interest in Aster.

Aster's first duel was against Mr. D, at the age of 4. He was the first person to realize that he had infinite potential. Mr. D had briefly explained to him the rules, and to make it simpler they just used normal cards with no effects. Aster took the hang of it pretty quickly: monster with high points attacks a monster with lower points is good, placing monster in defense means no damage to players points and only attacking directly after no monsters were in the field. Slowly, Mr D introduced the concept of trap cards and magic cards. Some would help to prevent an attack, some could increase the attack points of monsters, and so on. Aster quickly understood, and he was hooked. In his young mind it clicked. And he was smart enough to recognize some drawings he had seen of his father in the cards, which lead to the conversation of "Surprise! Your dad designs the monsters!" which Aster thought was the coolest job in the world.

However as autumn came, Dana started to avoid his son. She started changing her clothes, wearing mostly white. It seemed that she barely remembered her son at all. She talked to Elias about a much bigger project, more important than the family. And she wanted Elias to join too. However, she had seen that Aster would be a danger to that project. Elias was confused, seen, as in see the future? Was she trying to predict Aster's future? She considered that the best idea was to send Aster to a boarding school, while they could help building this bigger project.

At first, Elias thought that Dana was having an affair with Mr. D and that was it; he never knew the full story. He sensed that it was something much deeper than just an affair, but he couldn't figure it out. Eventually, divorce seemed the only option, and Dana, as well as Mr. D, walked out of their lives. Dana didn't live with Mr. D after the divorce, which left Elias puzzled. From Dana's mother he had heard that she left the country in pursuit of this bigger project.

Elias decided to protect Aster from whatever had taken over Dana, through duel monsters and being there for him as much as he could. One could say that Elias was trying to act as if nothing ever happened, as if Dana was never there. There were no pictures of her, no sign that a third person ever lived in that house; despite being a very big penthouse for just two people. Aster did not remember his mother very well, neither Mr. D, and his father choose to keep it that way.

He glanced over the electric clock which read 02:45. Usually, he stayed until 5:00 and slept till 10:00. He had gotten used to very little sleep after Aster was born as he was a rather loud baby. Besides, he found the night more peaceful and quieter. He kept thinking about what Pegasus and Mr D. had told him. Aster was destined for great things. Elias hated that word, Dana used to talk a lot about destiny, and her strong belief in it. If Destiny was actually a thing, it meant it was unavoidable. Whatever Dana's project was, Pegasus plan for Aster, it was useless fighting against it. Destiny was inevitable, but even if it was, perhaps there was a way to protect his son from it. Somehow.

He glanced back at the sketch, at Aster's enthusiasm with the idea of a new set of heroes, made specially for him. And it dawned on him.

Destiny Heroes.

Hi people! So this is my first fanfiction after...4 years? It's been a long time since i wrote a story (fanfic or not) But I re-watched Yugioh GX a while a go and remembered how awesome it was. I always found Aster a very intresting character (he was my fave!). Originally this was going to be a one shot of Aster and his dad talking over breakfast, but then i decided to connect a few things from Aster's story (Mr D, why Sartioruius approched him, the destiny Heroes and the Society of Light). And Jade is my OC :)

Hope you guys like it! See you on the next chapter :)