Hello people! This is my first AW fanfic so please R+R, any constructive critisisms would be very much appreciated. Flames will be read. Please enjoy my work and tell me what you think so I can improve any future submissions. Thanks.

Wyer.

Something to Prove

Chapter 1

On the 14th of November, Orange Star lost contact with one of their geostationary communications satellites orbiting over Omega Land. After an investigation, it was found to have been caused by a "rogue celestial body" This meant a lot of things to a lot of people, mostly starting with the word "meteor" and ending with the word "accident". Those who really counted, though, knew it could only mean one thing.

One such person sat at her desk, reading the investigation report with a mixture of disgust at the ignorance of the author and dread of what may really be happening. The report had been able to reach her by a chain of mobile relay stations but their power was limited and had run down approximately an hour ago. The girl wrapped her battered black trench coat tightly around her slender frame to keep out the cold of the dank air in the barracks. She ran her slim fingers through her wild, unkempt, black hair and slammed her laptop shut. She inspected herself in the mirror before leaving. As well as her coat, she wore a black strappy top, well worn combat shorts and black opaque tights. Passable, she thought as she pulled on her boots.

Quickly she left her quarters and headed out, in a blustery blizzard, towards the main HQ building. Most of Omega Land had been reduced to an infertile wasteland during the last war by the Black Crystals. This area in particular had been turned into a snowy desert by the clone of Olaf that they had fought here. She felt a pang of regret, more for the current frosty conditions in which she had to work than the actual environmental damage. After all, she had been on Black Hole's side until they had tried to kill Hawke and herself.

"Uh… Commander Lash? You there ma'am?" The sentry at the main entrance broke her bitter reverie.

"Yeah I'm here sergeant! Tee hee!" She chirped, suddenly back in the present. "Here's my authorisation." She flashed her ID card. The sentry chuckled.

"Thank you ma'am. Guess I'm the first to catch the ferocious Mistress Lash daydreaming"

"Tell anyone and I'll break your neck!" she riposted with a giggle. The sentry nodded and Lash carried on inside. He was the first to catch her, but it wasn't the first time it had happened since Hawke's disappearance. She thought of Hawke everyday but she knew it wouldn't bring him back. She could only wait and hope.

Inside, the heating had been fixed and Lash gratefully removed her button-sleeve trench coat and let the warm air massage the chill out of her body. She turned to see a figure marching towards her. She was a blonde haired woman dressed in Orange Star uniform with an officer's cap. The woman stopped and Lash gave her a sloppy salute which was returned with much more sharpness and enthusiasm.

"Rachel!" Lash greeted her. "What can I do for you?" Rachel was the closest thing to a friend Lash had made since joining the Allied Nations and was also her superior officer. Since they had been stationed on the base

"Did you get a copy of the report?" she inquired hurriedly.

"Yes. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Lash replied, detecting the urgency in Rachel's voice.

"That it was definitely not an accident? Yes. And we've seen someone use meteors before, but I thought he was dead. I thought Hawke killed him." Rachel's voice wavered as she thought of the implications.

"Rachel, I know it's unthinkable, but the current Black Hole do not have the resources to build something to do this, plus they don't have me to design it. No traces of any weapons have been found near the impact site either. It's him, Rachel, he's alive and he's coming back.

Koal tapped his foot in time with the drips from the roof of the cavern hideout. Stalactites hung above the heads of the assembled Bolt Guard like the sword of Damocles. The three of them had been planning a guerrilla action against the Allied Nations for months. Then came the report of the destruction of the Orange Star satellite. That had put the Allies on alert and put pay to their plans.

"What I'm saying is," said Kindle, a woman who had amazingly tall red hair and wore more make up than the combined members of KISS. "If it wasn't you and it wasn't you," she continued turning to Jugger, a giant, spherical, polycarbonate man-machine, "then who was it?"

"Uh… on the news they said it was an accident." Koal hazarded, adjusting his Tengu mask nervously. "Maybe we're just being paranoid. We need more intel, that's all."

"Probability that Allied Nations HQ is at alert status… 60" Jugger droned. Koal was about to swear at him when the ground began to shake violently. "Analysis… tremor caused by artillery fire."

"WHAT?" Fumed Kindle, pulling a face that cracked her foundation. Another explosion and a hole erupted in the cavern roof.

Immediately, Special Forces troops began to rappel in through the gap. Instead of the Orange Star troops that Kindle thought had finally caught up with them, the invaders wore the uniform of Black Hole. The troops forced the three COs to their knees at gunpoint and handcuffed Koal and Kindle. Jugger let out an arc of electricity which stunned his captors. He was ready to take on the other guards, machine gun rounds pinging off his reactive armour. Another figure dropped into the hole, unaided by a rope. He was a huge man with muscles like thick cables. He wore an open, brown, leather bomber-jacket, rose-tinted goggles and a spiked helmet. The others instantly recognised him.

"Flak…" Kindle cursed. The giant man bounded towards the bulbous form of Jugger, the electric field not so much as breaking his stride. He pounced, and wrestled the living calculator to the ground. Stalking from the shadows came his colleague: The tall, slender, pale, almost elegant Adder. Slowly and carefully he placed a small device on Jugger's hull. Immediately, the Bolt Guard CO stopped struggling and lay still. Adder stood up straight with a swish of his long, violet hair.

"Sorry my dear fellows. Orders from the great leader of Black Hole I'm afraid. You're coming with us." His voice was high pitched and arrogant.

"Von Bolt is dead!" protested the now livid Kindle, "He's gone! There is no great leader any more!"

"Von Bolt… no more great leader… Hah hah! You are a funny woman Kindle, I'll give you that!" Adder laughed out loud. "Now as I said earlier, our great leader wishes to give you his…attention in person." It took Kindle a few seconds to work out what he had meant. When she did, she could only fight back the tears as she realised her lifespan was measured in days if not hours.

The other CO that was stationed on the base was Colin of Blue Moon. When Lash had first fought against him, she had thought he was an amateur who won only because of beginners luck. But during the last war and the one before it, she had seen him go from strength to strength, becoming more wise and independent every day. Blue Moon was still weary of her because of the damage she caused them in the Macro Land conflict. Colin, however, accepted her as a true ally in light of her actions later on in the third war with Black Hole. He sat with her and Rachel at the pine conference table. Physically, he was a man of small stature with thick, brown, intricately combed hair. He wore a blue dress-uniform complete with medals. He regarded the others with puzzlement as they explained the report and their theories to him.

"So, you believe that this wasn't an accident despite the lack of evidence. Although I-I…I do agree that it is rather convenient for the enemy that the Allies have no commsat over what is now b-basically frontier land." He stated with a stutter. It was one thing he had retained from his early days as a CO. It made people underestimate him, usually a fatal mistake. "And you believe that a meteor was manipulated s-somehow to destroy the satellite"

"Yep." Replied Lash simply.

"But who, with such little in the way of resources, could possibly manipulate a… a…oh…"

"Yeah," Lash laughed mirthlessly, "We believe that Sturm is behind the attack. "I don't know how he could have survived but he must have. No-one else has this kind of ability and meteors don't just come from nowhere."

"What puzzles me is what Black Hole could possibly want in this place." Said Rachel, "Who is attacking is not the real problem at hand here, it's why they're attacking we need to know to have any chance of stopping them."

"An interesting point, there's nothing here but snow. Either they're on to a loser or they know something we don't." Lash agreed.

"It's s-settled then, we start the investigation at dawn. Meanwhile we should increase the number of patrols to keep watch for the enemy. We can't send for any more b-backup so we must take care" And with that the three COs convened the meeting and returned to their individual quarters for the night.

As darkness fell over the snow fields, a lone shadow crept up the side of the side of the hills to the south of the allied base. It stopped again and became invisible in the blizzard. The silhouetted figure produced a pair of binoculars. The base had stepped up its recon patrols. It didn't faze him. He'd survived worse. He'd been in the mountains with little or no shelter practically since the destruction of von Bolt's HQ. A couple of jeeps with mounted machine guns weren't going to make much of a difference, were they? Above all he had to survive. He had to warn Lash about what was happening, but he had to remain hidden at all costs. The enemy could not know that he was still alive. He put away his binoculars and retreated to lower ground where there was more cover. Hawke started to limber up for the hundred metre dash between this piece of cover and the first piece of cover on the flat of the plain. No turning back now, he thought as he leapt from the sparse scrub into the open.