[center][i]3000 years ago, a battle between Light and Dark unfolded. One noble pharaoh sealed his soul with both, which a new vessel would unlock the secrets of to renew the struggle between Light and Dark.

Through the effort of the vessel and the pharaoh, the Darkness was repelled. The pharaoh returned to the afterlife after completing his mission, leaving the vessel by himself. He would create his own story from that day forward, no longer acting in the shadow of a man long dead.

While that world now knows peace, the battle between Dark and Light still reigns in many realities. Many mirrors of the same universe, all with one uniting element: Games.

The most common among those games is Duel Monsters. A game binding the embodiment of mankind's darkness to cards, battling with their feelings and thoughts on the line. A game who's fate is linked to an evil presence, the Shadow Games.

One world in which Duel Monsters is played has reached a new stage of evolution, the Virtual World. This is the story of two friends, who would both become that world's avatars of Light and Dark.[/i][/center][hr][color=#EF581A]"Boooored."[/color]

The only son of the Tsunemori household, Ren, laid spread open on the floor of his room. The pose he was in looked like he was trying to make a snow angel out of all the scattered tech, books and clothes scattered messily around his room. Ren wasn't a particularly great role model when it came to keeping your life organized, but he did well enough in tests to have his parents get him a new game that launched a few minutes from the point he was at: Digital Monsters. It made use of brand new VR technology, a little band you'd snap around your wrist, to send your conscious into a whole new, digital world. There, people would start a new life as one of many duelists playing Duel Monsters, another game Ren was fond of.

Ren rolled over on his side, looking at the deck of cards he'd been holding in his left hand. [color=#EF581A]"No, bad deck. I can't take you with me. It's against the rules,"[/color] he said to the inanimate object. It's true; you couldn't take your real deck into Digital Monsters. Everyone would need to start from scratch, working together or against each-other, in order to build up a complete collection. The game hoped to attract newcomers this way, to have everybody on the same playing field. Ren picked his phone up off the floor and looked at it to count down the last precious seconds before the servers went live.

[color=#EF581A]"30... 29..."[/color] he muttered and muttered. Right before the countdown ended, Ren opened up his most recent contact. He typed out [color=#EF581A]"[i]See you there.[/i]"[/color] and sent it. In the next moment, he heard a little beep from the console on his wrist. Ren rolled onto his back again, held it up in front of him and said:

[color=#EF581A]"Connect: Digital Monsters!"[/color]

In the blink of an eye, Ren's vision went dark. In the next blink, rays of light entered his sight as he felt himself floating down from the sky. Floating text surrounded Ren, as if he was in some kind of glitched environment. As he gently felt himself lowered onto some kind of solid-but-not-visible ground, a solid black ball of... something appeared in front of him.

[code]Running protocol: Avatar.
Welcome, Tsunemori Ren.[/code]

The black ball changed its shape into a copy of Ren, mirroring his real-life appearance.

[code]Please create a custom Avatar different from the one before you.[/code]

Sliders and buttons appeared all around him, parameters to tweak and clothes to pick out. Ren hadn't bothered to create an account ahead of schedule, so he was busy creating his character for longer than it had any reasonable right to take him. After going through more confirmation windows than one man knows what to do with, the Avatar protocol finished.

[code]Running protocol: Eraser.
Please enter a custom name different from the one before you.[/code]

The name in question was, as one might expect, Ren's full name. He erased it and entered something new that he thought would match the avatar he'd created: Blazing.

[code]Eraser protocol complete.
Running protocol: Root.
Welcome to Digital Monsters, Blazing.[/code]

A flash of light blinded Ren after the robotic voice welcomed him into the world, and the next thing he knew, Ren was sat in a horse-pulled carriage alongside several other people. Once everyone inside it had opened their eyes, the driver at the front looked back to start an automated speech introducing everyone to the world. The players on the cart all had different looks; some had gone for a beastman-type appearance, others had wings on their characters. The opening speech all placed them as travelers going to the city of Radix, the root of all journeys. In order to enter Radix, all of them had brought their own decks and duel disks, that registered them as citizens. He pointed to the roaming monsters off the road, saying it was dangerous to explore these lands, which is why all citizens needed their cards to protect themselves.

'Blazing' stepped off the cart as soon as he could and stretched himself as the gate closed behind him- presumably permanently- leaving the rest of the game world to be explored. He looked around, seeing some people immediately dash off to explore while others stayed in this spawning area to talk to each-other. Everyone mostly seemed to be ignoring him, though.

[color=#EF581A]"...Come to think of it, I didn't ask her what her name was going to be."[/color] Ren suddenly said to himself. He looked to his left, then to his right. Then he took a deep breath. [color=#EF581A]"Chiiiihaaaaruuuuuu! Wheeeeere aaaaare youuuuuu?"[/color] he said with a raised, though not shouting voice. When his first attempt failed to find him his friend, he started going around asking each and every single female player getting off the starting cart. He'd ask [color=#EF581A]"Are you Chiharu?"[/color] and when the inevitable answer was "no", proceeded to completely ignore the person and move onto the next.

'Blazing' was well on his way of making himself out to be the resident weirdo of the game.