Alexis walked around the cafe tentatively, searching for Aster. She was relieved to see that it looked mostly empty this time. There were only a few students scattered here and there among the tables, and they looked busy either reading or going over their decks.

When she finally spotted Aster seated by the window (and she could have sworn it was in the exact same spot where they had been last time they were here) with his laptop open in front of him, Alexis couldn't help smiling.

"Hey. Hope I'm not late. What do you have there?" Alexis greeted Aster casually as she pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.

"Don't worry; you're right on time to see a duel of the century. Well, as soon as they're ready to start streaming this," Aster reassured. He gestured towards the screen for Alexis to pay attention.

A moment later, Alexis watched as the screen changed to a view of inside the Kaiba Dome. She realized that this must be live Pro League footage.

"How are you getting this?" Alexis asked in amazement.

"Being a top member has its advantages," Aster answered breezily.

Used to Aster's lack of modesty by now, Alexis simply changed the subject. "So, what's so special about this duel in particular? I'm assuming there must be someone of note here since you invited me to see it. Otherwise, I could have just watched it later after it was recorded on the Pro League channel."

Aster smiled at Alexis's observational skills. "You're correct. This isn't just any duel. The world champion is in this one, and I figured you might want to see that."

Alexis's jaw dropped at Aster's news. "The world champion, Kyle Jables!?"

"That's right," Aster confirmed proudly.

Alexis watched in stunned silence as the duel was announced. She couldn't believe that she was getting a look at such a high-level duel so easily. Usually, the champion didn't get all of their matches aired on TV for viewers.

The announcer gazed around the stadium excitedly as he grasped his microphone. "And tonight, we're proud to announce this very special duel featuring the world champion of the Pro Leagues himself! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Kyle Jables, the D!"

Alexis looked on as the champion took the stage. In terms of appearance, the man was unremarkable. The D had dark hair and a beard smoothed down in a simple style and was wearing a basic, yet expensive-looking suit jacket and pants along with a black shirt underneath. The only thing that stood out seemed to be his eyes, which were narrowed in an almost suspicious manner behind his framed eyeglasses. His posture and expression didn't look haughty or overly ambitious like she'd seen on a good number of other pro duelists. But there was a certain air of pride about him that made him appear confident enough in his own abilities as a duelist.

The announcer turned towards the other side of the arena as the D's opponent took the stage. "And here to face our champion, we have Mr. Carlton Dais, also known as, the "Aerial Ace!"

Even without being compared to the D, Carlton's style was still very flamboyant. He was sporting ripped cut-off blue jeans and a brightly colored tie-dyed t-shirt with the design of large angel wings spread out in the center. Under his messily cropped light brown hair, he was wearing sunglasses, which was a well-known amateurish tactic in the Pro Leagues of an attempt to have opponents not be able to read facial expressions as well in a duel. But in Carlton's case, one could say it was more of a direct nod to his duelist theme of facing the sky. He waved ecstatically to the crowd, seemingly unworried about facing the champion himself.

"Heh, this is gonna be almost painful to watch," Aster said lightly. He didn't seem at all worried about the D's chances.

"Hey, dude! I've been wanting to take you on for awhile now! This match is lookin' fly already! Just hope you don't have any hard feelings once it's over, cuz I'm gonna sweep the skies with you! Now let's duel!" Carlton exclaimed excitedly.

"And we're off! And since this is a challenge to the champion, he gets to make the first move," the announcer began the match.

The D-who had appeared unfazed by Carlton's opening words-looked at the hand he had drawn silently, wearing an unreadable expression. "I end my turn," he announced simply.

"What!? How can he just end his turn like that without at least setting a facedown card!? Surely his hand can't be that bad!" Alexis said in disbelief.

"This is how he always opens. I guess it used to be a way of luring his opponent into a sense of false security, but now it's become more of an intimidation tactic since he never loses despite the handicap," Aster explained.

Alexis could only gape at Aster's explanation. To never lose while putting yourself at such a disadvantage was unheard of in her book. D was either the luckiest duelist in the world, or there was something else going on here that she had yet to understand.

Carlton looked unnerved, but still tried to act confident. "Heh, you won't scare me; I know all about your little trick! I hate to break it to you, but your luck is bound to run out sometime when you keep playing nothing every first turn just to show off!"

"Then by all means, make your move," the D said in a tone that had just a hint of iciness under the gracious words.

"Alright, you asked for it! I'll start by summoning Sonic Duck (ATK 1700 DEF 700) to the field! And I'm giving my feathered friend here a nice little power boost with the equip spell, Power of the Guardians! So, since you got nothing to protect yourself, it's time for a direct attack! The best part is that Sonic Duck gains five-hundred attack points when attacking with Power of the Guardians on it! (Sonic Duck ATK 1700-2200)" Carlton declared.

D didn't even flinch as Sonic Duck slashed him mercilessly, despite the fact that he had just lost over half his life points in one attack. Alexis was starting to wonder if he had ice in his veins.

"And that's not all that Power of the Guardians can do. With each attack, it gains one counter. And whenever the monster equipped with it is about to be destroyed by an attack or effect, I can remove one to save it! Pretty handy, huh!? But just in case, I'll play one facedown card too before ending my turn. So, let's see what you got, tough guy! You're gonna have your work cut out for you getting past my defenses!" Carlton bragged.

Carlton LP- 4000 D LP- 1800

D smiled coldly at Carlton's confidence. "Is that truly all you could muster? I'm disappointed. It looks like this duel will be over before I've even had a chance to savor it properly…"

That same uneasiness appeared in Carlton's expression. Except that now it was even stronger than before. However, he quickly tried to regain his composure by switching to annoyance. "Whatever, buddy! Just go already!"

"I will start by using Mystical Space Typhoon on your facedown card," D said calmly.

Carlton watched in dismay as his trap card-Floodgate Traphole-was blown away by the fierce winds of D's quick play spell.

"Now, I summon The Agent of Creation-Venus in attack mode (ATK 1600 DEF 0). And I'll use its effect to pay five-hundred of my life points each in order to special summon one Mystical Shine Ball (ATK 500 DEF 500) from my hand or deck, so I'm bringing out two in attack mode," D explained, his life points dropping gradually (LP 1800-800)

Carlton looked bewildered by D's action. "You know, at first I was worried what with you being the champion and all. But now I know better. You're just plain losing your marbles wasting even more of your life points to bring out those weaklings, especially in attack mode!"

D smirked at Carlton's reaction. "That's because you're too naive to see beyond the obvious! For I play the spell card, Creature Seizure! Now each of us must choose one of our own normal monsters to exchange with each other! And of course, I choose one of my Mystical Shine Balls. But for you, I'm afraid there doesn't seem to be much of a "choice" now, is there!?"

Carlton froze in horror as he realized what this would mean for him. "No! My Sonic Duck!"

"That's right. And now the stage is set. I will start by attacking your Mystical Shine Ball with mine," D said casually. The two identical monsters then crashed into each other, destroying each other on impact.

"And now, it's time I ended this pathetic excuse for a duel! Sonic Duck attacks you directly, and with the help of the Power of the Guardians you so kindly gave to it, it's enough to take out the rest of your life points! How fitting that you ended up being betrayed by your own servant," D gloated.

Carlton LP- 0 D LP- 800 Winner- D

Alexis barely even noticed Carlton's reaction as he lost or the words of the announcer and the loud cheers erupting from the audience in the stadium. All she could think of was how precise and calculated D's move was. And it wasn't just that. She couldn't put her finger on it exactly, but the way he dueled with his plays and interactions with his opponent seemed familiar somehow…

"So, what do you think!? Incredible, huh!?" Aster prompted Alexis excitedly, his eyes gleaming with nothing but admiration and respect for the display they had just witnessed.

"Well, I'm impressed for sure, but no offense Aster, you had told me I'd be watching a duel, not a slaughter!" Alexis replied, her expression half-amused and half still in shock.

Aster laughed lightly in amusement at Alexis' reaction. "That's just the thing, though. He's undefeated for a reason, and I'm not even sure that even I will stand a chance against him once we duel one day…" It was a rare moment for him to voice any uncertainties he had to others like this.

"But you still plan to anyway, even knowing the odds?" Alexis ventured cautiously.

"Well, of course. I owe it to him after everything he's done for me, including teaching me everything he knows about dueling," Aster said quietly, almost like it sounded more to himself than Alexis.

Alexis did a double-take at Aster's words, wondering if what she was implying from them was true. "Wait, WHAT!?"

"It's true. D adopted me not long after my father died, and even before that, he always followed the investigation and tried to bring my spirits up. He would visit me everyday while I was still…hospitalized. Without him, I'm not sure I would have found the courage to want to try harder and avenge my father…" Aster explained quietly.

Alexis nodded sympathetically to Aster. But in her mind, she was having a hard time grasping the idea that the cold and ruthless duelist she had just watched would show any kind of concern or sympathy to the degree that Aster had said he had, or even any at all.

"He sounds like he was really affected by your situation back then," Alexis answered carefully. She didn't know how to make it sound nicer, somehow.

Luckily for Alexis, Aster didn't appear to notice the hesitancy in her tone. "Yeah, I'm really lucky to have met him despite everything. I guess this is what people mean when they try comforting others by saying something really good can sometimes come out of something really bad. It's the closest I've seen to it anyways."

Xxxx

Alexis and Aster stayed in the cafe for awhile longer after the duel. There were a lot less students at this hour, so they were able to enjoy their routine of duels and deck building without nearly as many of the prying eyes and rude whispers that Alexis had started to grow accustomed to whenever she hung out with Aster. Eventually, she was able to put the uneasiness from seeing the D's duel and Aster's revelation about him out of her mind.

It wasn't until they were both exiting the cafe while still absorbed in idle chit-chat that a voice interrupted Aster and Alexis. "Aster."

Alexis was stunned to see D himself standing casually near the corridor window, as if it was absolutely normal for the Pro League champion to just drop into school whenever he fancied it. He was smiling at them, but to her surprise, Aster looked completely taken aback by the sudden presence of his adoptive father.

"D! What are you doing here!?" Aster asked in bewilderment. And maybe Alexis was imagining it, but did he sound a bit nervous?

"I came to see you, of course. I'm sorry it was spur-of-the-moment, though. My duel ended pretty quickly, and I decided I might as well try to get here while I could before my schedule manager announces anything," D explained somewhat apologetically.

At the mention of the duel, Aster relaxed a bit. "Yeah, we both saw your duel! That combo with Venus and Creature Seizure was amazing!"

"Thanks, Aster. But I was only dueling a rookie new to the higher leagues if anything. But never mind that. Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend here?" D casually shifted the topic, his gaze landing on Alexis.

Aster only just seemed to recall Alexis' existence, for he cleared his throat awkwardly before answering. "Oh, sorry about that. This is Alexis Rhodes, one of my classmates. We like to work on duel-related stuff after class sometimes."

"I see. Well, it's very nice to meet you, Alexis. I'm Aster's foster father, Kyle Jables. Any friend of his is welcome in my book," D introduced himself politely.

His words and smile seemed friendly enough, but Alexis couldn't help feeling that D's eyes didn't match the sentiment at all. Instead, they seemed to radiate a coldness that pierced right through her. She felt as if he were sizing her up, almost challenging her in some way. But of course, that was ridiculous. Wasn't it?

Trying to regain her composure, Alexis forced herself to shake off her absurd fears. "It's nice to meet you too, sir. Aster only just told me he was adopted by you after he showed me the livestream of your duel earlier tonight, so I admit I'm a little surprised to see you right now. It's an honor to meet the champion himself. And I'm sure Aster has learned a lot about dueling from you," she replied with an equal amount of politeness.

"Charming. I see that you're still quite the ladies' man, Aster," D teased lightly.

Aster didn't reply. He only looked away slightly, uncomfortable at the jab. Alexis couldn't help wondering what D had meant by, "still". But one thing she was certain of was that Aster wasn't behaving close to what she had thought he would from seeing his guardian like this. Less than hours ago, he had been babbling excitedly about him, as if he couldn't give him enough praise. But now, it appeared as if almost all of those sparks of enthusiasm and respect Aster had shown for him had sputtered and died. Alexis had no idea what was really going on between them, and she wasn't exactly eager to try finding out right now amidst the almost palpable tension in the air.

"Well, I should go… I'm sure you two want to catch up on things," Alexis put in awkwardly.

"Oh, um, sure. Thanks, Alexis," Aster quickly agreed.

"Okay. I guess I'll see you tomorrow then, Aster," Alexis decided. Giving a quick wave to him, she then made her way down the hall towards the entrance. She felt as if she couldn't escape quickly enough.

Aster waited until Alexis had completely vanished down the hallway before speaking up again. "I'm glad you came. I was starting to think you wouldn't because of how you felt about me enrolling here," he confessed gratefully.

"What's past is past. However, it appears that your attention seems to be more focused on other matters than your dueling," D said pointedly, his eyebrows rose slightly.

"What!? You mean Alexis!? It's not like that; she's just a friend!" Aster insisted.

"Yes, and that's how it all starts. Women can be good for a distraction, if anything. But you'll have plenty of time for that once you graduate and have gotten into a more comfortable position with your career. Anything more than that is not good, though. I've told you before that women are dangerous, Aster. They will want things from you," D cautioned Aster coldly.

But the only thing Alexis wanted from me was for me to start acting like a decent human being… Aster thought to himself in counter to D's ridiculousness. He had heard enough of it from him before and was tired of it. Sure, he had seen how shallow his fangirls could act around him and had been annoyed by it on more than one occasion. But in the end, he didn't really see how just being female was supposed to change a person for the worse like D seemed to believe.

D sighed wearily. "Look, I understand that you're a young adult now and that you're going to experience these things no matter what I tell you. Believe me, I've been there myself. All I ask is that you don't lose sight of what's really important: your career."

"Of course I won't," Aster reassured D.

"Good. Then why don't you tell me about the duels you've had recently?" D suggested with what was supposed to be a warm smile.

Relieved that D was dropping the subject of Alexis for now, Aster launched into a long conversation with him about his more recent duels, describing in detail all of the cards played and how he had reacted to them. It wasn't until he had finished talking about his duel with Zane when he realized he had made a big mistake.

Deadly silence reigned for a few moments before D found his voice again. "So, you're telling me you lost that duel." It was a statement, not a question.

Aster hastily tried to defend himself. "Well, yes! But like I told you, his cards were-"

Before Aster could finish his sentence, D interrupted him with a sharp slap across his face. "You fool! Whatever pitiful excuse you try to feed me doesn't change the fact that you still LOST!" He practically spat in Aster's face.

Aster recoiled angrily, one hand touching his left cheek, which stung painfully from the slap. "You didn't have to hit me!"

"Use your head, Aster. When you lose a duel, it reflects on me. And I especially didn't teach you everything I know about dueling just for you to go and lose to some nobody," D scolded.

"He's not a nobody; he's my friend," Aster said firmly. He knew he was only making things worse, but he wasn't going to let anyone insult Zane-one of the few duelists he respected and even considered his equal-like that.

To Aster's surprise, D didn't press the argument. He simply shook his head and sighed quietly. "I was afraid of this… You're getting soft. I knew this would happen once you'd been at this school long enough, and that's why I didn't want you to come here. Spending more time here and getting too comfortable is starting to dull your skills when you should be out there in the league full-time instead."

"That's not true! You know why I need to stay here right now! I can't pass up my chance to find that murderer and put him to justice once and for all!" Aster argued.

"That's true, but you mustn't let yourself get complacent either, Aster. And in regards to the Cyber Dragons, they're not new exactly. The deck was used in a local tournament about ten years back. The owner, Eric Truesdale, had inherited it from a dojo dedicated to learning the style. It's in the family, passed down to each new generation now. And that's part of how they keep it under the wraps a bit more. I suspect you'll only hear about it every decade or so," D explained.

"Well, sorry for not knowing about a deck from ten years ago," Aster said sarcastically.

"You would have if you had done your research better," D said pointedly.

"Okay, okay. I'll be more careful now," Aster said wearily.

"Good. I have to go now, but we'll have another little "talk" eventually. Until then, I hope you'll be getting better results for me than today at least. Good night, Aster," D said simply.

Aster watched in frustration as his foster father left, giving him a last wave before turning the corner. As grateful as he was to D, Aster hated how unpredictable the man's moods were. There were times when things were great between them and he'd listen enthusiastically to Aster, taking him on short vacation getaways or staying home on leave longer, enjoying seeing sights and staying up late to practice duels and analyze details endlessly. Then there were the times like this where he'd be gone for long periods of travel only to return either annoyed or disinterested with Aster's "lack of progress", as he called it. Aster felt as if he were trapped in a vicious cycle of highs and lows that never seemed to stabilize in their relationship. And it only seemed like it had been getting worse ever since D had kicked him out to live in the penthouse on his own when he was fourteen.

It's not his fault. He adopted me because he was doing a good deed and trying to be kind, not because he was really looking to be a parent. He wasn't used to kids, and he didn't have to take me in. Aster told himself again what he always did whenever this happened. But his reassurances were only beginning to feel more and more like excuses as more time went on…

AN: This chapter was originally supposed to be longer because I had planned to include a flashback scene from when the D kicked Aster out of his house going into all that drama. But it ended up being too long, so I'm waiting till I get to season 2 to devote a chapter to that since we'll go into D much more then when he's the main villain. Right now, he won't appear anymore in season 1 until briefly around the end. For me, I believe this character was a great big missed opportunity in the anime and in fanfiction with how little both really have explored him. Personally, I find the idea of him as the main villain in season instead of Sartorius a much better fit since I believe that unlike Sartorius, he's already driven to evil without the Light taking control of him, and it's much more consistent to have a villain doing things because of his own agenda and not just because of a greater force manipulating them. Would D have still killed Aster's father without being possessed by it? We don't know for sure, but I believe he was already power-hungry enough with being starved for recognition as a good duelist enough to already drive him to want to obtain more for himself either way. But instead, he was just thrown into the plot way too late with them only just letting us know suddenly that he was Aster's legal guardian. And for all the orphan plots used in GX fanfiction, I have always been puzzled why there is so little focus on the canon orphan himself, Aster. So, I'm trying to flesh out his history with D and just what it could have been like since the anime left a lot to our imaginations, sadly.

Anyways, this was in place of another filler episode, and I hope you all enjoyed it. Next up, I'm doing one of the few canon filler episodes that I still chose to include: the copycat episode. However, it won't be Yugi's deck on display, but Joey's instead. There's a reason for this besides me just trying to give it a different twist, but I won't reveal what that is here. Just know that it's important for Aster.

Thank you for reading, but please do not just give me reviews along the lines of, "I couldn't enjoy this because of the pairing"/"The pairing ruined the story for me" etc. I don't care if you give me some lame excuse like, "Oh, well it was 3 AM, so I couldn't see the pairing brackets" or whatever. I've given plenty of other big red flags as to what this is, so I know that someone will just be leaving those to be obnoxious instead when I see stuff like that in my inbox. Look, I get that the pairing and Aster himself are not popular here, so I don't need anyone to tell me what I already know. That's not the kind of input I'm looking for. If you don't like it, then you can just go find almost any other story on here right now. Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get that off my chest. I'll see you all next time. BTW, I'd like to say thanks to Aisa Belvard for the awesome fanart she made for me here for the new story cover image! Your art and stories are beautiful and only keep getting better!