Disclaimer: Advance Wars belongs to Intelligent Systems and Black Cat belongs to Kentaro Yabuki. I own absolutely nothing in relation to either works, except for the idea to mesh them together.

Chapter One – Recruit

My name is Jake. No last names, just Jake. Being in a war strips you of your last name, for security reasons.

I'm a commanding officer of the Orange Star army. Number two in Omega land, number six out of all Orange Star COs. And that's not such a big drop, 'cause really I'm last out of the Orange Star COs either way.

So anyways, today I was just chilling out, listening to hip-hop, sipping cola and all, but I take my job seriously, so in front of me were these three reports. Actually, the reports are the one reason I don't like my job. Who wants to sit at an old desk and just look over reports and play around with the computer when you can just ride a tank or a recon outside and enjoy all that nature could throw at you? The only other CO who sorts through reports is Colin, a Blue Moon CO, and that's only 'cause he's barely over enlisting age. I suppose Rachel only put me here to keep me out of her way.

Yeah, Rachel. About her. Recently I think she's hitting on me. That could be one of the reasons she stuck me here. Well, she's pretty and all, but she's my superior and there's really no dating on work, especially not army work. And I really don't appreciate what she did to me right now. While I sort through all these papers, she gets to ride in the very borders of Orange Star territory, keeping peace and all and looking for signs of Wh –

Someone yanked off my headphones and yelled in my ear, "COMMANDER JAKE!"

"Hey, chill, Corporal Havoc. What's up?"

"Intruders! Here in HQ!"

Well, that made me regret not paying attention to my surroundings.

I grabbed my gun, a semi-automatic pistol given to me by Grit, checked it for loads, and found it half-empty.

To the next person I saw: "Private Falman! Mind getting me some ammo from the storage?"

"Yessir."

Now I started hearing repeated gunshots, and by the sounds of it they were coming from the mess hall. I checked my firearm again, and then I asked the corporal: "How many intruders managed to get in?"

"So far, there seems to be only two."

I blinked. "Only two? Then what's with all this gunfire?"

In response, Havoc kicked open the door to the mess hall, and motioned for me to peek inside, which I did.

The first impression that I got was that the intruders, situated in the far corner of the room, were only around fifteen years old, and the second impression that I got was that they were seriously owning fifty men. Then I realized that the guy, unlike the girl, was actually an adult, but seemed like a child because of his seemingly easygoing and lazy manner. Well, as easygoing and lazy as he can be while casually owning fifty, no, eighty, of my men.

Even as I watched, he hefted an Orange Star standard gun, shot at the floor and – well, the bullet ricocheted off the floor, hit the startled Private Fury's gun at an angle that sent it flying into the air, when another ricochet bullet hit it and fall neatly into the marksman's hand. He then repeated the process on Private Brosh and Private Breda, stealing both men's guns instead of bothering to reload.

And then I saw Captain Hawkeye, one of our best snipers, take aim from behind an overturned table. Nice job, I thought silently.

Except the marksman saw her too. He shot straight at her, and the next thing I knew the Captain's sniper blew up, giving her a good singe on her hair. Unless I was seeing things while under the influence of shell shock, he fired a bullet from a pistol straight into the sniper's barrel.

Whoa.

The second intruder is even more amazing than the first. She keeps on materializing decorated shields, staves and guns out of nowhere, using the staff to keep back any Orange Star soldier that tries to run up at him, blocking all bullets with the shield, and forcing the my wary men to duck behind desks with the seemingly infinite ammo in that gun of hers. I wondered where she hid those things.

Then, I saw Major Mustang, our grenade specialist, throw a can of something – from the looks of the stuff that started leaking out I guessed it was tear gas. That was pretty smart.

And then the girl's hair stretched and smothered the can and its leaking contents. In the time it took for me to blink and take in this strange new revelation the can must have disappeared somewhere, because when the hair retreated nothing was left on the ground.

And all this while, the number of reinforcements was increasing, coming in through all the other doors. There must be about a hundred of my men in the mess hall by now. And even then, the two intruders weren't even increasing the tempo they had from the beginning – at least, nothing I noticed. Whoever they were, they were good, really good.

Well, time for me to step in and lead my men.

"STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!"

That was me.

Instant silence followed. About one hundred and twenty two mostly-incredulous faces turned to me.

I coughed after my loud outburst, slightly self-conscious that some of my men were looking mutinous; one wrong move could completely undermine their trust in me. After a moment of thinking, I used the simplest method: walking up to the two intruders, I said brightly, "Yo, wassup?"

The girl rolled her eyes, her enormous shield disappearing. The man snickered, tossing aside the guns he stole from my men, and casually raised his hand. "Hey there," he said with a grin. "Nice reception you prepared."

I was almost dumbstruck into silence. From his manner, and his smile, I could tell he figured out what I was planning as soon as I started. "Look, I'm really sorry I forgot to tell my men you were dropping by," I said in a slightly more loud volume than I generally use. I could hear fairly quiet groans behind my back. "But thanks for coming. You were whupping my men real good, they could use an exercise like that once in –"

And then one of the newer recruits stepped forward. "Commander, these are intruders! One of them had a gun when he entered the mess hall! No one except –"

"Commanding Officers," I said, playing the only card I had against this, pointing to the two strangers in front of me, "are allowed to enter the mess hall with weaponry, yes, I know the rules better than you do, Private Walls."

The private paled. "Forgive me," he muttered, stepping back.

Beaming, I turned back to the strangers in front of me. "Right, now that we're done with the pleasantries, we can go see Rachel now. You know, for the issuing of uniforms and stuff." Raising my voice again, I said pointedly: "Speaking of Rachel, she might wonder why the mess hall is living up to its name."

In less than ten seconds, the mess hall was empty.

"What, no one wants to take responsibility?"

"That was insane."

"I knew what I was doing."

"Did you really? What if the new 'CO's happened to be clones, or even worse, assassins?"

Behind me, the man chuckled.

"No Orange Star, Blue Moon, Yellow Comet, Green Earth, or Black Hole clones that we know of are that strong. Both of them could easily have annihilated at least fifty men by themselves. But they didn't, right? So they can't be assassins either."

"You were ready to put your life on an uninformed assumption?"

"Well, yeah. You're the one who said we 'must be ready to give our life for our country'. Just like how I'd like to give my life for innocent people. Not so different, the principle at least."

"It was still stupid!" Rachel yelled, finally losing her patience. "You want to incorporate into our forces two untested strangers and bypass the CO selection tests?"

"Isn't that what you did with me?"

"That was different! You were recommended by another CO!"

"And now, I'm recommending these guys. So no, it's not that different."

Rachel growled, a surprisingly unfeminine sound, even for her voice. "I hope you understand that if anything goes awry, it's on your head."

"Vicious, Rachel. I like it."

Finally, she took a deep breath and let it out, acknowledging defeat. From the scent of freshmint, she must've been chewing gum.

Abruptly she turned to the slightly indifferent twosome. "Names and abilities."

"Train Heartnet, ma'am," the man said, "and my friend here is Eve. What can I do? Well, I can shoot bullets from this baby," he tapped the gun strapped on his thigh, "and I guarantee a hit anywhere on the body in a two-mile radius, provided I have a decent bullet."

I winced. Judging from Rachel's mood, I guessed what was about to happen.

Rachel opened up her own personal gun and tossed him one bullet. "That's the best shot money can get around here. Now live up to your story, go to the window and shoot the back door of our current temporary campaign HQ, which is one point six five two miles north forty-two point nine degrees west."

Yow. Rachel was in a very bad mood.

Train just grinned, pointed his gun at the half-open window, and pulled the trigger.

"Bang," he said, right after the real thing went off.

A hole was smoking on the wall.

"Uh, dude, was that supposed to happen?"

Rachel just looked at her compass for a moment, and then went over to the phone.

"Sami? Can you go check the back door and look for a bullet hole? … Just wondering … Okay, thanks."

Hanging up, she turned to me and said grudgingly, "I suppose he passed."

"Sweet! High five, Train!"

"Not now!" Rachel snapped, and I drew back my open hand. She turned to Eve. "And what can you do?"

"I have nanomachines injected in my body. I can change the shape and composition of my body and anything I inject my nanomachines into."

I blinked. Rachel blinked. It wasn't every day that I met with – forgive me – a human science experiment.

"I think she's telling the truth," I assured Rachel when it was obvious she doubted the story. "When Major Mustang threw tear gas, Eve's hair stretched, covered it up, then the next second it was all gone. I didn't know what happened then, but I think now it was shredded or decomposed into individual atoms or molecules."

Eve nodded in confirmation; Rachel nodded much more slowly. As great a leader as she is, she was still unnerved by Eve's indifference to the nanomachines. I could tell she didn't quite understand why such a young child was experimented on and why Eve didn't want them out of her body. She also didn't ask whether using them so much could have bad side effects.

I was having a hard time grasping the implications myself. Who was mad enough to try to test theoretical weaponry on a child? And what was the person who conducted experiment going to do with the successful technology, what did he or she do to Eve, the success story? For the first time, I was wondering if having Eve as a CO was a bad idea. A strong child was one thing, look at Colin: but a strong child with a questionable psyche…

Nevertheless, Rachel didn't question Eve, and straightened her shoulders again.

"Very well, Train and Eve, you will now listen carefully. You now hold office in the Orange Star army, the greatest military force of the world. Each and every decision you make will change the fate of many persons under you, the civilians you strive to work for, and to a lesser degree, the entire world. You will now bear this responsibility on your shoulders, and take pride in you work with each and every day. You shall not complain for any reason, you will not slack off for any reason, and you shall never be afraid to give your life for the country. Understood?"

Generally a CO recruit would be bristling with pride by now. The girl, Eve, just nodded. The man, Train – well, he looked like he was daydreaming.

"UNDERSTOOD?" Rachel yelled into his face.

"Wha – oh, yeah, sure."

I stifled a snicker. While Rachel was rummaging around her desk for badges of office Train whispered to me, "Does she do that to every new recruit?"

"Yeah, but she's much more softer than her sister. I hear Nell's little speech takes up sixteen paragraphs."

Rachel tossed the badges to Train and Eve. Each of them caught it with almost equal altitude of grace, which I'm sure was another plus in Rachel's view.

"Take them to Hachi," Rachel ordered, "and educate them on the POWER program."