Duke Devlin

"What are you, Ryou Bakura?"

- Duke Devlin, The Others: The First Year, Chapter 19

Duke Devlin (b. Sunday, February 28th, 1999), also known as The Prince, is a Normal that attended Domino High School between the years 2013 and 2017. He later became a member of the Resistance after the death of his friend, Tristan Taylor. In the years after the war, he will marry Serenity Wheeler and have at least two children with her.

Initial Creation
Magic originally planned for Duke to become an Other, though changed his mind at the last moment.

Early Years
Duke was born to Mr. and Mrs. Devlin on Sunday, February 28th, 1999. Their family was incredibly wealthy, due to his parents' ownership of a sugar company that had many of its workers employed on plantations in the Caribbean. Duke never agreed with how those people were treated, often calling it slave labour.

He was educated in a private elementary school were he achieved good grades, though decided to transfer out and attend the local public school. This was against the wishes of his parents; they often referred to Duke's decision as 'slumming it' or 'having fun with the commoners.'

At one point in his life, his family sat down to dinner with the Princetons. This is the first time that Duke meets Chazz Princeton, a man who would one day become his fellow fighter in the Resistance.

Ninth Grade
In the year 2013, Duke enrolled in Domino High School and started to attend classes there. He was immediately noticed by several people, as he was quite attractive.

Several months into the start of term, Duke attends a physical education class where he meets Ryou Bakura for the first time. When his teacher, Mr. Titus, suggests that they play dodgeball, Duke is picked to be on the opposing team to Tristan Taylor's (one that included Bakura). Duke throws a ball that Bakura and bloodies his nose. Duke is one of the many students who then gang up on Bakura and chase him around the gym. Out of retaliation, Bakura throws one of the dodgeballs back at him and is cracks a few of his ribs.

Duke is taken to the hospital by Joey Wheeler, where he meets Serenity Wheeler for the first time. They sit and talk for several minutes and that is all it takes for Duke to fall madly in love with her. As Serenity is recovering from an eye operation, she is unable to see what Duke looks like. This forces him, for the first time in his life, to rely on his words rather than his appearance to make an impression.

The next day, he meets Amane Bakura in his science class. He notices the look that she gives him and realizes that 'cashing in his V-card' is a very real possibility.

When Serenity is released from the hospital, Duke meets up with her on the front steps of the building. He takes her to Domino High School on his bike so that she can watch her brother play a football game. After Domino High becomes victorious, Duke is invited by a group of senior girls to come to a party that night.

Sometime during that party, he meets Amane and ends up loosing his virginity to her in a one night stand. Duke tries, throughout the entire time to both imagine that he is with Serenity and not say the girl's name aloud out of fear that Amane would put an end to things. At the same time, he realizes that Amane is trying to do something similar and wonders later, rather fleetingly, who 'Ryou' is. He seems to regret that entire night with Amane and wishes that it never happened.

After returning home, he calls Serenity and asks her to simply talk to him. She does, for about an hour, before the two of them establish that they are going to be very good friends.

Tenth Grade
Duke is a witness to the incident in which Bakura stops being a voluntary mute. He observes Joey attempting to ask Amane to a school dance, though the conversation turns to Bakura. Joey asks if Bakura is into necrophilia, which results in him getting punched in the back of the head. Duke hears Bakura speak for the first time ever. After Joey kicks Bakura and sends him flying into his sister, he hints that Bakura actually wants his sister. He watches as Joey beats Bakura up. For a month afterwards, Amane doesn't speak to him.

Duke notices several things about Amane afterwards, like how she is getting into nowhere relationships and is spreading all of the rumours about her brother. He also comes to the conclusion that Amane and Bakura are twins, which is something that he'd failed to notice before.

Duke also spends many of his days after school walking Serenity home from school. Sometimes, she catches him looking at her funny.

Eleventh Grade
On the first day of term, Duke talks with Serenity and introduces her to Amane. He then walks her to her class.

Duke, along with his friends Joey, Tristan, and Tea, somehow manage to get their hands on some chloroform and proceed to knock Bakura out. They strip him naked and tie him to a soccer goal post. Tea takes a series of pictures and sends them to everyone on her call list. What Duke remembers distinctly about that moment is that he can count several of Bakura's ribs through his skin and realizes that his parents aren't feeding him.

After not showing up in school for a week, Bakura appears out of nowhere. By the time lunch rolls around, the kick has been in three fights. Duke is witness to one of them, which took place in a classroom and the teacher sat back and watched it occur.

After school, Duke searches the school in order to 'finish him off.' He finds Bakura in the boy's change room near the gym and sees his magic heal a mark on his shoulder (though Duke doesn't understand what it is that he sees exactly). Bakura turns and confronts Duke. Somehow, Duke realizes that Bakura came into the change room to kill himself and is shocked that his actions caused someone to get that close to the edge. He tells back to go home and leaves.

Duke becomes increasingly worried that Bakura may have killed himself in the days afterwards, as he does not attend classes for two days. On the third day, Duke becomes incredibly relieved to see that he didn't. This is also the day that Duke realizes that he doesn't know Bakura's name.

That night, he calls Serenity and tells her about his actions. They talk about how they find it difficult to treat Bakura as a human being, though they don't understand why.

Twelfth Grade
In the first few weeks of October 2016, Duke takes his SAT test. As he cannot see the low grade illusion that covers one of the options, he is not admitted into Altantis School for the Gifted.

After listening to Amane rant about her brother getting accepted into Altantis, he engages in a fight with Bakura. Though he won the fight on a physical stand point, Bakura revealed to the entire school that Duke was in love with Serenity. This ruined his playboy reputation, made him the laughing stock of several people, and made several of the girls that he was involved with 'dump' him.

A few days later, Duke finds himself in the Domino City Park. He is confronted by Bakura and demands an apology from him. Bakura turns it against him and asks where his apology was for three years of hell. Eventually, Bakura calms down and gives Duke some of the best advice he's ever been given before. Duke says that he's sorry for what he did and the two come to a truce.

Acting on the advice that Bakura gave him, Duke goes to Serenity's house. He tells her that he's in love with her and asks if he can have a second chance. She gives him one and he swears that he will make it up to her. He stays the night, camped out on her couch.

After Bakura returns to Domino for the first time, Duke mentions to Serenity that he would like to apologize for fighting with him.

When Amane sprained her ankle during gym class, Duke helped carry her home. After Bakura treated her injury, Duke learned his name and started to believe that the two twins were in an incestuous relationship with one another. He also noticed that Bakura had done something to Amane's ankle, as it healed far too fast.

In order to settle his debt for the advice Bakura gave him, Duke stood up to their history teacher, Lynn Madusa, when the woman tried to give Bakura a detention for not doing his homework while blatantly ignoring everyone else who didn't do theirs either. When he attempt to punch Madusa, he is shocked that Bakura was able to move from the back of the class to the front so quickly. Duke also notices that when Madusa tripped into the desks, there was no obstruction on the floor.

He later discusses his confusion over why he can't understand why he's scared of Bakura to his friends, though none of them seem to get it.

A month later, Duke observes Bakura accidentally use magic to make a light explode over Joey's head and set the school's sprinkler system off. He notes that Joey always turned on Bakura whenever something went wrong, whether or not it was actually Bakura's fault.

After searching for Serenity afterwards, she finds him and asks to talk about anything. He quickly finds out that she's bothered by the fact that Bakura thinks he's a monster for some reason. In order to calm her down, Duke kisses her in the library. Serenity kisses him back and begins their relationship together.

Duke throws a party and invites several of his classmates, as well as some other people that he knows (including Keith Howard). It is unknown if Serenity attended as his girlfriend or if she stayed at home. This party would be the last place that Howard was seen alive.

Duke is one of the many people who observe the change in the relationship between Amane and her brother. When Bakura asks if he will watch over his sister while he is away, he agrees. He has a difficult time doing this, as Amane becomes a social recluse.

Amane comes to his house a week after Bakura leaves and tells him about her worries over Yugi Mutuo (an alias for Atem). He calls over Serenity and she explains how Bakura saved her from Howard attempt at raping and possiblity murdering her. Later that night, Duke realized that the reason that Howard hadn't returned was because Bakura killed him.

He reports back to Bakura about what Amane had been up to, all the time observing him for any hint to whether or not he knows Yugi Mutuo, who is currently on the FBI's Most Wanted List. Figuring out that he does, Duke begins to think that Amane and Bakura are in a relationship together and Bakura is being turned into a super-soldier by Atlantis School for the Gifted.

Duke asks Serenity to prom, which she accepts. He also attends her sixteenth birthday party at his cousin's all-ages night club. There he witnesses what he believes to be proof of Amane's incestuous relationship with Bakura, though in reality, Amane was kissing Magic who was impersonating her brother. He is told by the bartender later that night the Amane and Magic had left early.

He discovers soon after that his parents had hired a PI to investigate Serenity and her family to see if she was dating him for his money. Angry and confused, Duke asks Amane for assistance. She tells him that one day he is going to have to choose between his parents and Serenity. He also tells her that he's known about her feelings for Bakura all along.

Duke sees Amane and Bakura getting very touchy-feely and confronts Bakura, telling him that they need to be more subtle about their relationship because not everyone is going to be as 'accepting' as he is. He finds out that the twins are going to prom together, but mistakenly makes the connection that that means that they are going to become open about their relationship. Bakura confirms that the two of them are not in a relationship, which confuses Duke greatly. Bakura also hints at his Other status, which only seems to terrify Duke more.

Duke confides in his worries about Amane and Bakura being in a relationship to Serenity who mentions this to Joey. Joey teams up with the rest of the football team and starts a fight with Bakura. Duke finds out and holds Amane back as she tries to help her brother, but lets go when she bites him. Duke sees her get knocked out and then is witness to Bakura as he takes down everyone that stands in his way between her and him.

While Joey is in the hospital, Duke offers money to the Wheeler family to help them pay for his medical bills. Joseph Wheeler turns him down, though it earns Duke a few points in his good books.

That night, he receives a call from Tristan telling him about how Joey was released from the hospital. Tristan tells Duke about seeing Bakura and how his eyes were glowing and he had weird tattoos on his skin, then describing how he escaped by jumping out the window.

The day of prom, he takes the entire day off of school. He picks his friends up in his family limo and tips the driver. Upon entering the building, Duke starts to feel quite ill, describing it as an aching in his bones. That ache draws him to Bakura. Bakura reveals some information about his life as an Other before attempting to heal Duke. Unknowingly, Magic has used Fate on him in order to pass on a message to Bakura in order to warn him that the Orichaclos has sealed him off. Immediately, Duke feels better.

After dancing with Serenity to the beat of a slow song, he rejoins his friends and dances with them. He spots Bakura talking with a girl that he doesn't know off to the side. This girl is introduced as Danni Green (an alias for Atem). Duke thinks that she's from Atlantis and is therefore like Bakura, something that he gets confirmed.

After Atem senses the Orichalcos in the area, Amane ushers Duke and her friends out of the line of fire. Duke doesn't understand what's going on, but follows her instructions as he's never seen either her or Bakura so terrified before. Soon after, he is witness to several men dressed as police officers entering the building and shooting at the crowd.

After the shooting stops, Duke's gaze it drawn to Tristan's body. This is the first time he's ever seen a dead body before and its one of his friends. As the main police officer removes his helmet, Duke recognizes him as Amane and Bakura's father. When the man threatens to kill people if Bakura doesn't turn himself in, Duke acts as a shield for Serenity in case this does happen.

He watches as Bakura tries to talk his father down and fails. Then he sees Amane standing beside her twin in the face of certain death. When fighting breaks out and one of the walls collapse (the Resistance blows it up to create a door), Duke is evacuated onto a truck that is driven by Chazz Princeton. When Bakura climbs onboard to protect them, he keeps asking for an explanation as to what is going on.

After the bomb explodes and the truck's engine overheats, Duke and the rest of his friends are given AK-47s to defend themselves against the Orichalcos. Duke becomes aware of magic as they begin to travel towards the Resistance's safe house. Duke sees his first bit of combat as Bakura faces down a pair of Converts. He then fights a Gigas, taking control when Chazz is injured in the fight.

After Bakura takes the Gigas down, Duke and his friends make their way into a cinema to hide. But, upon realizing that the Gigas is still alive, Bakura seals himself off from them and tells them that he's going to buy them some time. He gives his last instructions to Duke, telling him to get everyone safely to the safe house. He also asks Duke to pass on a message to Atem so that she wouldn't believe that his death was her fault. Bakura's last words are, "Try not to make me look like too much of an asshole in my eulogy."

After debating about it amongst themselves, Duke and his friends decide to turn back and go help Bakura. However, they are stopped when the Gigas and it's controlling Infected, Gurimo, find them first. Upon seeing that they are in danger, Duke fires a round of bullets at Gurimo. His attack is halted and Duke is thrown against the wall.

When Gurimo has the Gigas snatch Serenity, Duke immediately offers to exchange her life for his. When Gurimo mocks him for loving her, Duke attempts to shoot him again. He doesn't pull the trigger, though, as the Gigas uses Serenity as a shield.

As Bakura makes his way to his feet, the Gigas and Gurimo throw their captives down. Duke rushes to help them. He then sees Bakura merge with Dark God and hears him kill Gurimo with an axe.

After Bakura falls unconscious, Duke attempt to stanch his bleeding injuries until he was relieved by Mai Valentine. After reaching the safe house, he offers up his family home to the Resistance to move to. Later that night, he falls asleep next to Serenity on a pull out couch.

He is awoken by Amane and Magic's conversation with each other. He realizes quickly that Magic is not Bakura and thinks that it is a trick. When Magic asks him for a charm that he can use to defend the house against the Orichalcos, Duke tells him about his father's blue eye necklace.

Magic answers their questions about his existence and that of Bakura's. Duke is shocked by the revelation that Amane is in a relationship with Magic (who is, for all intents and purposes, God) and that Joey was in a relationship with Tristan, though doesn't appear to have any objections about either.

Magic has a private conversation with Duke, Serenity, Miho, Joey, and Tea. What is discussed is unknown.

After Bakura recovers enough to walk again, Duke is overjoyed to see him alive. They walk together to go and see Chazz, who is in the make-shift hospital at his house. After reuniting with Joey, Duke attends his first every meeting with the Resistance. He is told never to speak of what actually happened in order to keep the existence of the world of Others a secret.

He and his friends are released secretly into the hospital where their schoolmates are being treated. They speak with Natsuki Bakura, Amane and Bakura's mother, and lie to her about the fate of her daughter (Amane faked her own death) and say that they have no idea where her son is.

Duke attends the funeral organized by the school and pays his respects to those who died. After it ends, he is confronted by Bakura, Amane, and Atem. Atem releases the spirits of those who died, while Bakura attends specifically to Tristan's spirit. Through his possession of Bakura's body, Tristan says his final goodbyes to his friends. Afterwards, Duke travels with Bakura to Arthur Hawkin's house in order to help the spirit of the man's granddaughter, Rebecca, pass on.

Duke watches as Atem, Bakura, and Amane teleport away and doesn't see them again for almost two years.

The Second War of the Orichalcos
It has been revealed that Duke will return to fight as a member of the Resistance.

After the War
It has been confirmed that Duke will survive the war. Two years after the war, Serenity will become pregnant with his child. His parents, not wanted to have a scandal handing over their heads, attempt to pressure Duke into getting Serenity to have an abortion. However, Duke remains strong and says that it is Serenity's choice as to whether or not she wants to have the baby. Serenity, who is not a supporter of abortion due to her religious beliefs, chooses to have the child. Duke asks for her hand in marriage and she accepts, though this results in his parents disowning him.

The two have a shotgun wedding. Bakura is Duke's best man (Duke would tell him that he was the reason why Serenity and him were together in the first place and if he thought he was just going to sit in the pews, Duke would lock him in a room with Serenity while she was having a craving). The couple would get a tonne of support from their circle of friends, who would help them in both their purchases and eventual raising of their daughter, Hope Devlin.

Bakura would become godfather to Hope. Duke and Bakura would have a laugh over it, as it was their private joke that the only reason the couple suggested this was so that Hope's god-uncle would be God.

A month before the fifth anniversary of the end of the war, Serenity tells Duke that she is, once again, pregnant. On the actual anniversary, they spend the day watching their daughter play in the leaves of the cemetery. They would eventually tell their friends about their second child, a boy that they would name Hunter. Joey would become Hunter's godfather.

Duke, later in life, would become a doctor and spend the rest of his career helping out people in need.

Physical Description
Duke is an incredibly attractive young man. He has dark hair that tumbles in front of his bright green eyes. He has the sharp facial features of a model. Duke is quite tall, though doesn't have a lot of muscle mass on him.

Family
Duke has never seen eye-to-eye with his parents and has, on several occasions, defied their expectations of him. He disagrees with how they make their money (through the exploitation of Caribbean workers on sugar plantations), their views on those who are not wealthy, and their strict rules. Duke would sever all connections with them after his parents disown him for marrying Serenity.

Duke is close enough with one of his cousins that they let him get into their club for free with several of his friends.

The Bakura Family
Duke becomes friends with Amane after the night where he looses his virginity to her in a one night stand. He will always have a bit of a soft spot for her, but generally treats Amane as an older sister. He gets advice from her, but also watches her back and protects her on several occasions.

Though initially the two despise each other, Duke and Bakura become incredibly close friends. Upon thinking that he was going to die, Bakura trusted Duke to lead the others to safety. Duke is the first Normal to be able to bypass Bakura's Ward and he does it through rationalization alone. In the future, Duke would ask Bakura to be the best man at his wedding and become the godfather of his daughter, Hope.

The Wheeler Family
Duke doesn't consider Joey to be much of a friend at first, though he starts to hang out with him more and more as time passes. Duke finds Joey to be funny and worth a good laugh, though he is constantly worried that if he says the wrong thing, Joey will turn on him for being in love with Serenity. After Duke starts officially dating Serenity, his relations with Joey smooth out and the two become good friends. Duke, upon discovering that Joey is gay, accepts him immediately and tells him that he would never have cared.

With Serenity, it was love at first sight. Duke fell for her as she sat in a hospital bed, unable to see him and therefore didn't fall victim to his good looks. She spoke to him as a person, instead of a 'sex object.' The two of them live as friends for three years before beginning to date. When Serenity is taken captive by the Gigas at the end of The Others: The First Year, Duke begs for his life to be taken instead of hers. The two will eventually get married and have at least two children together.

While the two of them have yet to be seen interacting with one another, Joseph and Duke do get along pretty well. Joseph knew, from the first time he saw his daughter talking to Duke, that the boy was head-over-heels in love with her and that he would most likely become his son-in-law one day (this is due to backlash from Joseph's paternal grandfather being a True Seer). Joseph helps to raise his granddaughter, Hope, in order to get both Serenity and Duke through college.

Observation
Duke has shown that he is quite capable of reading body language and interpreting the meanings in other people's actions

Leadership
When both Chazz and Bakura were unable to help them, Duke stood up and became the leader of the force that was fighting the Gigas.

Hand-To-Hand Combat
Though not his strongest means of attack, Duke can hold his own in a fist fight if needed. He uses his height to his advantage, as many of his strike points are too high for someone to land a blow properly.

Weapon
Duke has used an AK-47 to fend off a Gigas before.

Medical Skills
While under pressure, Duke is able to stanch bleeding wounds. In the future, he will become a doctor.

Behind the Scenes

 * Duke Devlin is based on Duke Devlin from Kazuki Takahashi's Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters series.
 * Duke is first mentioned in the first chapter of The Others: The First Year, though he is formally introduced in the third chapter of the same book.
 * Duke is the character who's point of view The Normals: Not Blind is seen through.
 * Duke is the main supporting character in The Normals: Hands and Humans
 * ​Duke is said to return as a character in The Others: The Third Year

Trivia

 * Duke's soul has a fire that is one shade of green off of being an Other. This is because when Magic originally planned him, Duke was to be an Other. Magic changed his mind at the last moment and Duke became a Normal.
 * Duke is the first Normal we see that has the ability to resist the Ward.
 * Despite his powers of observation, sometime the assumptions that he makes are false.
 * Duke is completely heterosexual, which comes at a surprise to a lot of people.
 * While Duke is not homophobic, he feels uncomfortable when men try and flirt with him in an attempt to bring out his inner bi-curious teenager (which is something he doesn't have).
 * Duke's pet peeve is when a person wears too much perfume or body spray, as it often gives him a headache
 * When he applies himself in school, Duke can average a B+
 * Duke's greatest strength is that he can make connections about what he observes. In contrast, his greatest weakness is he is sometimes scared of being himself
 * Duke, like his family, is a Protestant Christian.