Pleased to meet you. Only not really. [Aadyn]

"Aren't you excited, Kaiden? You're finally meeting your Sacrifice," some other student at the Academy asked Kaiden. Apparently the other Breathless had been found and Kaiden was going to meet her today.

"Oh yeah," Kaiden replied unenthusiastically. Getting to meet the person who he was supposed to serve the every whim of. Getting to meet his personal slave driver. He was so excited.

When it came time, he took his time going down to the office where he guessed the meeting would take place. No one was there. Was he just supposed to wait for her to show up? Why couldn't she already be there or something? He sighed and flopped down in a chair, one of his cat ears twitching irritably. He was so not looking forward to this.

Aadyn walked down the hall slowly. This was a once in a lifetime thing, meeting ones fighter unit. In fact, for most people, it was a never in a lifetime thing. Because this meeting was so special, Aadyn wanted to get it right. She was a little nervous, she had to admit, what if he didn't like her? What if he thought she was ugly? What if he was mean?

Aw, with all these sad thoughts Aadyn's ears drooped a little. With a sorta-frown on her face, Aadyn walked into the schools office.

After what seemed like forever the office door opened and a cute girl who still had ears walked in looking, well, not too happy. Not that Kaiden looked very happy himself. In fact he looked downright pissed off. He didn't want to follow orders for the rest of his life.

He looked at the girl long and hard. "So, are you my Sacrifice?" he asked without pretense. No 'hello' or 'my name is Kaiden!' He just wanted to get it over with. Not that it would ever be over with because this 'bond' was eternal. Weird. He didn't really know what the bond was supposed to feel like. He did kind of feel a...a pull, or something. Was that it?

Aadyn looked up, startled when a boy spoke to her. Amazingly, the initial worry she had felt as she walked down the hallway disappeared as she saw him. A smile lit up her face, "Yeah!" she said cheerfully, looking him up and down. He was very pretty, even if he did look a little annoyed about something.

"I'm Aadyn, it's so nice to finally meet you!" She flounced down on the chair next to him and looked into his eyes. It was so exciting to meet your other half.

Nice for her, maybe. Kaiden looked back into her eyes. For just a moment the pull feeling became more of a tug, but he quickly ignored it and looked away. "I'm Kaiden..." he muttered unenthusiastically. He figured she was enthusiastic enough for the both of them. He looked back over at her. At least she was pretty. It would really suck to be bonded to an ugly person for eternity. "So...I guess we're stuck together now..." he said at a loss of anything else to say.

Why did he seem so sad? Aadyn wondered to herself, confused. Why wasn't he excited? D:

"Yeah, I can't wait to learn about you. I'm excited for you to learn about me. Like, when's your birthday? What's your favorite color?" she rambled on, asking more questions that she had thought about for ages, not giving him a chance to answer.

"We're going to be good friends, Kaiden, I can already tell," she said, smiling. As she said his name, she realized something. "Wow, I hadn't noticed before but, our names rhyme! See, we were meant for each other!"

Kaiden looked at Aadyn with a very unamused look on his face. Then he realized their names did rhyme. Huh. "I didn't notice that," he commented. "But I don't think we're meant for each other because our names rhyme. I think it's because of this--" he pointed to her name, Breathless, then his identical one. "See?"

He said it all patronizingly as if she didn't already know that their names matched and wasn't just kidding about the name rhyming thing.

Aadyn smiled, "Oh! Can I see?" she asked before reaching over to touch his Breathless mark. It amazed her that somehow she had been chosen for this strange world. It amazed her even more that there was someone she was destined for, someone who shared her name. Breathless.

She tilted her head a little to the side. "I'm excited for us, Kaiden," she said simply, the smile still on her face.

"I'm...not," Kaiden said bluntly. "Don't get me wrong, the whole spell battle thing is awesome, I'm just not to keen on the fact that in order to be any good I have to do everything you say." Kaiden had never shared his resentment of the purpose of Fighter Units before, and here he was sharing it with the girl he just met. He was already more comfortable with her than he was with anyone else. Maybe that was what the bond felt like.

"O, oh..." Aadyn said slowly, taking in what Kaiden had said. "I, I'd never order you around!" she insisted, being truthful. She had hoped they could work together. "Listen, I don't want to be the boss, we'll be a team."

Kaiden looked up. "Really?" he asked hopefully. Then he frowned. "But my teachers always taught me, 'the Fighter Unit obeys the Sacrifice. Otherwise they won't be able to battle effectively.' I mean, what if we disagree on something?" Some of the teachers at the school openly showed favoritism towards the Sacrifices and treated the Fighter Units like tools. 'But that's how Fighter Units are supposed to be treated,' they all said. It wasn't fair. Just because he wasn't a Sacrifice didn't mean he wasn't human.

"What would we disagree on?" Aadyn asked, thinking. "I mean, we'll be in the battle together. Hopefully we'll both be able to understand why the other wants to do something. I promise, I'll always ask before I say something. If you do the same, we'll be the best team there is."

She thought for another minute. If they worked together, instead of one always barking orders, hopefully they'd be able to see the other side of things. This way they'd be covered on all sides, not just the side of the sacrifice.

"Has anyone ever done that before?" Kaiden wondered out loud. He kind of liked the sound of it. The only problem was, he had a feeling he'd probably forget to ask her about things first and just act on his first whim. He tended to be kind of impulsive like that. It could cause some issues for them.

Well then, they'd just have to practice until they found a style that suited them both! That couldn't be too hard...right?

"You know what, I think I like you after all, Aadyn!" he decided, throwing his arm around her. They got to be the best team ever and he didn't have to constantly follow orders. It was the best of both worlds. "This'll be the start of a beautiful friendship, I can tell."

(Yeah genius, she's been telling you that since the beginning.)

Aadyn smiled wider when Kaiden hugged her. This was how she had wanted their meeting to go, she wanted them to be friends. "I'm so happy you feel that way," she said as they pulled away from each other.

"We'll be unique, me and you. Maybe someday everyone will do it. Until then, it'll be our own secret method. It could give us a hand."

"Maybe," Kaiden agreed. "We should go battle someone and see." He was uber-eager to start the actual battling. He had had a few solo battles that were more like practices just to learn how to do it, but now that he had a Sacrifice he could do it for real.

"Sounds like a plan, but..." Aadyn had promised her friend Adellia that they would be each other's first real battles. "Would you mind if we waited a few days?"

She really, really wanted to battle, but she also wanted to wait for Adelle. Although, if Kaiden really wanted, she would battle now. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to say no to him, he was already so important to her.

"I don't care," Kaiden shrugged. Though just a second ago he had wanted to battle ASAP, now it didn't seem so important. He didn't even realize that he had probably unconsciously changed his mind because she wanted to do something else.