A/N: Unless you've read one of my (CP) fics before, be sure to read the author's note carefully. :D

This is part of a challenge/competition at the Digimon Fanfiction Challenges Forum called An OC for All Occasions. The idea to an OC in a main setting that serves as its "canon" material, and then be able to spin off it much like fanfictions do with canon characters from the series. Which is a bit tricky when, at the same time, the main story is in progress, but part of the challenge is how well we can portray our OCs when little is known about them and how that changes once we begin to write the main context.

This ficlet is for one of the monthly competitions on that thread: "Your OC is meeting their Digimon for the first time! How do they meet? Or, if they've had them since they were babies, how did they start to get along? Must be at least 500 words". My OC is Mari Harumi. She will be one of the main characters in the Chess Pieces Series, and the main character for most of the Queen sub-series. This fic is set before Queen's Move, the first official book in the Queen's sub-series. Some (the pre-final test stuff) of it is before the prologue book (what I've affectionally dubbed book 0 but is technically called Queen's Opening) and the rest during.

The [CP] at the beginning of the title just annotates it to the Chess Pieces series – because I also write fics with chess stuff in its title for No Game No Life, so I don't want to get those two mixed up!

Hope that's not too confusing for anybody. Enjoy, and stay tuned for the main series!

First Meeting

Every loss was a strike against her record, but her handler just said she hadn't found the one best compatible with her. And then introduce her to a new PawnChessmon to take the old one's place.

That didn't take away the feeling that she was doing something wrong.

But she was still there, so she must have been doing something right as well.

She remembered that. Back when the world was just a tiny little box and all her tests were done through the terminal. Back when failing to meet the required scores meant termination, and losing one's partner meant losing quite a hefty chunk of points.

Of course, that wasn't as bad as losing one's avatar. That was instant death.

Or so she'd been told. She wasn't dumb enough to actually try it. She wasn't dumb enough to fail on purpose either to find out if their threats of termination were true. It was better to just work on that assumption. Work to continue living. Continue working.

And then, finally, she passed the final tests and entered a bigger world.

And that's when she finally met PawnChessmon Black properly. Or, rather, XXIV-III Black. XXIV was her number. III referred to the number of PawnChessmon Black she was on. Her third; she'd gone through two already. And if they hadn't been spaced out sufficiently, she wouldn't have been able to salvage her score.

Luckily, she was good at completing her tests and that gave her hefty bonuses.

But it was strange meeting XXIV-III Black in person for the first time. There was no computer screen between them this time. No barrier. XXIV-III Black had just as much freedom as she did. To think. To speak. To act.

The PawnChessmon that she'd had, through the terminal, had, besides being monitored for their basic needs, obeyed her instructions.

Before Mari stepped on to the field for the first time, she'd received her own instructions. And it wasn't exactly a vote of confidence. "Just remember that rookie level digimon are weak. If she shows any signs of attacking or betraying you, you're more than capable of taking care of her."

So their introduction didn't consist of anything memorable.

Not that it should have. The both of them had been similarly raised. Being watered and fed and cleaned so their basic needs were taken care of, and then trained and tested every other waking moment of time. Their relationship was a purely professional one – and she'd lasted over a year with this PawnChessmon.

So, really, their first "meeting" had really consisted of her reiterating her handler's words and watching her partner's reaction. Surprisingly, an "of course" was all she'd gotten – but considering she'd never heard a word out of any PawnChessmon Black's mouth that she hadn't put there herself, still a novelty.

In fact, she mightn't have thought that being present in person as opposed to over the terminal would matter at all. But it did. She found herself glancing at XXIV-III Black more often and she was sure XXIV-III's weren't always on task either. A level of awkwardness she hadn't had to deal with while at the terminal. It wasn't so much a concern over being attacked by her – really, that had been a worst case scenario she was simply being warned about – but an uncomfortable situation that was taking its time in easing up.

But her handler's PawnChessmon – a PawnChessmon White – followed him like a shadow and never made a move he wasn't specifically told by his partner to. So she supposed things would go back to the way they used to be soon enough. Once the novelty wore of. Or she sacrificed her partner for a mission again and got her points slewed because of it.