Lucas Ventura

"I may have started dueling the wrong way, but I did it for my family. We needed that money. The move drained us almost everything we had. My parents had to sell their wedding rings just for the extra money."

- Lucas Ventura

Lucanio Ventura, better known as Lucas, is a first year Ra Yellow Student and duels with Plant-type based deck known as "Predaplant". He is the younger brother of former professional duelist, Galia Ventura, and a former Underground Duelist.

Prior to coming to Duel Academy, Lucas participated in illegal underground duels, using the alias Leonidas DeLuca, in order to help his parents get the money for them to move to Domino City so Galia could get the treatment she needed.

Physical appearance
Lucas is a tall Italian young man with shoulder-length dark, midnight-purple hair and light purple eyes and a somewhat very pale complexion.

He doesn't generally like the Uniform rule and would much rather wear his black leather jacket, but he listens. He wears the Ra jacket over a dark shirt, black jeans, and black sneakers, the usual attire he wears. He also wears black fingerless gloves and a snowflake-pendant around his neck that used to belong to his sister. He also wears a black belt with a dark blue deck cased attached.

Personality
Before, Lucas was a kind and carefree young boy happy to help people. But, as he dueled in the illegal dueling arenas, he learned he had to keep his emotions to himself to make sure no one knew what his next move was. When he showed his emotions, that caused him to lose a few duels. The change wasn’t a good one since he ended up not showing his emotions even to his parents or sister. Since leaving the underground duels, he’s slowly been reverting to his original self. But even in the legal duels, he still keeps his emotions in, so it makes it harder for his opponent to see his next move.

Lucas is not afraid to voice his thoughts, even if might hurt someone. He only states the truth and thinks that rather than fake something, someone should tell the truth. While it might hurt a friend, telling them the truth might help push them forward.

He is very protective over those he cares for and loves, especially his cards which were given to him by his sister. When he was doing the illegal duels, Lucas kept his cards protected, even though it could be seen for a possible weakness.

Skills

 * Dueling proficiency: Lucas is a very skilled duelist, despite having participated in a number of duels in underground tournaments, where rules and regulations were virtually non-existent, and methods were much harsher. His dueling has changed since he quit the illegal dueling and joined the legal dueling tournaments, but old habits die hard.
 * Multilingual: Lucas is able to speak and write in Italian.
 * Technical building: Having done many Illegal Duels, Lucas has to learn to repair his duel disk so he wouldn't get caught. He's built up the skill to take care of his own custom-made Duel Disk.
 * Parkour: Due to the situations that Illegal Duels were put in, Lucas often had to escape quickly to avoid being caught. Lucas is highly athletic and has developed a skill for parkour and can climb over fences and other structures quickly. Since turning away from Illegal Duels, Lucas still ends

Equipment

 * Duel Disk
 * Custom-Made: Lucas possess a Custom-Made duel disk, one he designed himself.

Background
Luca was born and raised in Rome, Italy with his parents and older sister Galia. He lived a normal life and cheered his big sister on when she competed in the local duel tournaments. However, Galia suddenly fell ill one day and the medicine in Italy just wasn't doing it. With no other choice, Lucas and his family moved to Domino City where there was better medicine for Galia. The move ended up draining much of the Ventura's money along with treating Galia, but they pushed on. With his sister unable to duel, Lucas took her deck and used it in the illegal underground dueling rings to gain money. It wasn't what he wanted to do, but it was the only way to do so. The illegal dueling, unfortunately, changed a bit of him, turning him from that happy little boy his family loved, to a cold and distant. Lucas didn't like himself, but he had to keep his family safe from what he was doing. He didn't want them to find out.

After almost being caught by the police more than once, Lucas decided to not risk it anymore. While the money was amazing, he didn't want his parents to see him behind bars. So, he started doing legal tournaments. Though it was a tough change, he was able to get through and make it the semi-finals of a few. He continued dueling and earning the money for his family to the point where his parents could rent a two-bedroom apartment not far from the hospital. Lucas didn't stay with his parents and continued dueling to both improve himself and earn more money. He didn't want his parents to worry.

One night, while leaving a tournament that he won, he came across a flyer for Duel Academy. He had heard of it while in Italy but didn't consider it since he was still young. But, he is worried about the cost. Sure, he made money from the duels, but would it cover his intuition?

He could only wait and see.

Deck
Lucas uses a Plant-type based deck known as "Predaplant", which focuses heavily on aggressive Fusion Summoning to inflict huge amount of damage and destruction.

Name Etymology
His first name Lucanino is an Italian name deriving from Latin Lucianus, patronymic of Lucius ("Light"). His last name, Ventura comes from the Italian surname Bonaventura meaning "good fortune".