Jahara remained silent as she assembled with a group of dragoniods. 'Great!' she thought. 'I'm stuck with a bunch of boys.' It wasn't really that bad, only four other males, but it would have been nice to have another female with her.

She had just been in a big battle. It felt good to use her skills but seeing a castle that she had been a frequent visitor to get destroyed, losing her activator and having to take from some common warrior who had lost his life, and nearly losing her cards had made for a bad day.

All in all, it wasn't too bad. One of her teammates had fractured his wrist due to falling debris. But something about him caused her to be nervous. He seemed familiar as if they had met before, a long time ago.

The general was there long enough to tell them who he was, what their mission was, and make sure that they knew the rules as most of the group members were young. Once he had left, Jahara and the three others relaxed. They were traveling straight from the battle field to earth and there was not a single one among them who had not been affected some way that day.

"Well,"said one of the guys, "do you think that we should introduce ourselves to each other?"

"Shut up, Circus Boy! Do you think that everyone just wants to talk randomly after a day like this?" Jahara nearly yelled.

He took a step back, quite appalled at what he'd just been called. "My name's Ave not Circus Boy!"

Jahara didn't stick around very long to listen to him go cuckoo. She just went to her, locked the door, pulled her boots off, took her weapons out as well, and sat flustered on her bed.

A few hours later, there was a knock at the door. "Circus Boy, go away!" she said as sternly as she could.

"I'm not Ave, I promise," a gentle voice replied. Jahara looked up in surprise.

'That's the guy who fractured his wrist' she realized. She got off of her bed and opened the door slowly.

"Whats your name?" he asked, when Jahara was out of the room.

"I'm Jahara," she replied being suspicious of him.

"Jahara,"he repeated just to make sure he knew it. "I'm Luka."

Jahara was surprised when she heard the name. It really sounded familiar. "How is your wrist feeling?"

"It doesn't hurt as much as it did earlier but it's still annoying."

"I'll bet it is. I can't really imagine what it would be like, trying to fight with something like that."

Luka barely managed a weak smile. "It could have been worse. I've got to go. It's past curfew and the general made it clear that being out past curfew when there isn't a battle to fight is a big no-no. Goodnight Jahara."

"Goodnight Luka."

After closing her door, Jahara sighed. It had been a long day but she wasn't tired. So she reached into her bag and pulled out something that no one was to know about. A small and simple photo album lay in her hands. It contained pictures of her and her dad along with a few of her mother. "Oh, Dad, I miss you, and wish I could have said bye to you."

(Well, when I had made plans to do a story about how Luka and Jahara meet, this wasn't what I had on mind. But I like this way better than my original idea. Next chapter will be mostly from Luka's point of view. Feedback please! What did you guys think about the nickname I made up for Ave? I thought it was hilarious.)