I do not own Advance Wars or any of the characters, settings, plots ect… that are associated with the game. I do, however, own the nations of Silver Sun and Golden Moon, as well as the characters Lilly, Erickson, Dove, Luke, Cordelia, and Nyra,as they are all original characters and nations of my own design.

Also, this chapter is pretty short, but that's how I write most of the time, my chapter length is always unpredictable, one could be twenty pages, and the next, two, but read and review it anyway. This will probably make more sense than the last chapter, seeing as it features characters that will be familiar to players of the game, as well as Nyra, who is an original character I created. Anyway, I'll just stop talking now, so you can read it (and please review it if you do).

Advance Wars: Alternate Reality

Chapter Two: The Snow Bunny: Blue Moon's New Girl

"Nyra! You're new in the whole commanding business, so I'm going to pair you up with a trained professional who can show you the ropes. And during your mission, don't forget that as a commander, it is your responsibility to defend the honor of our grand and noble country!"

"It will be my honor sir!"

Good, your first mission is this: there is a pocket of black hole resistance on the western shoreline of blue moon, omega land. Eliminate them. They may look small, but don't underestimate them, you might end up losing valuable troops, ammunition, etc… if you do. Do not disappoint me!"

"Yessir! It's an honor, Commander Olaf! I'll do my best!"

"I'm sure you will, lassie, now then, for your partner, though he was supposed to be here awhile ago… Grit? GRIT! GET OVER HERE!"

They both heard a scuffling of footsteps down one of the blue corridors of the military HQ on the blue moon capital city. Presently a man in a yellow trench coat and hat, with a small goatee on his chin and a laid-back yet nonetheless dependable look about him, entered the blue-walled room where Olaf, blue moon's military commander-in chief, was waiting with Nyra, a young girl in blue moon, with hair the color of glistening snow, which reached her waist. She had slightly pale skin, and was wearing the typical blue moon C.O. uniform. Grit spoke next, with a heavy Texas-like accent.

"Y'called, o bearded one."

Olaf looked flustered, for whatever reason, something seemed to be pressuring him when he spoke. "Since we're pressed for time, I'll let that one slide. Anyway, Grit, this is Nyra, she just became a commander yesterday, but you should know that, you were at her ceremony. Anyway, she needs someone to show her the ropes, proper commanding, strategies, and the like. So I'm going to pair the two of you as tag team partners, and assign you both to the task of cleaning up blue moon from those pesky straggler renegade black hole forces once and for all!"

"Grit thought to himself that he wouldn't have chosen this setup himself, if Olaf had asked him, which he never did, he'd have said he'd rather not do the cleanup work, though he didn't mind training amateurs, as long as they listened to him and didn't act too cocky all the time.

"Possum spit." He muttered to himself.

"What's that?" inquired Olaf incredulously.

"Nuthin'"

Nyra suppressed a giggle, but quickly changed her expression to a more serious one when Grit glanced in her direction. It was a rather funny thing to watch these two go at it.

"So yer my new partner? Nice t' meetcha'"

"Yessir, it's an honor, commander Grit."

Grit eyed her with a 'yup, she's a typical newbie' expression. "Look lassie, if you're gonna be my partner, you can forget the formalities, ne'er was fond of 'em myself. Drop the 'sir' and 'commander', just call me Grit."

"Uh, yes s- I mean, alright…Grit."

"Good, now that you're acquainted, would you care to move out? We don't have all day."

"Sure thing, c'mon Nyra, let's move on out."

"Um, alright…wait, now? We just met."

Grit hurried out the door with Nyra, and said nothing until they were out of earshot. He then whispered, just to be sure they weren't audible to Olaf.

"Look, missy, you don't know that bearded one like I do, he's got one humdinger of an attitude, believe me, he's under stress at the moment, best to steer clear of that one in a bad mood."

"But why's he in such a bad mood?"

"I wish I knew lassie, I wish I knew." Grit thought a moment, obviously looking for a change of subject. "So, how's cleanup work sound to a lassie like you?"

"Cleanup work? But the commander said…"

"We're finally cleaning up black hole f'good? That's just a nice fancy way of saying, 'clean up the mess the war left behind'. 'Course, I was a part of that there war, so I s'pose some of the responsibility of cleanup work should fall on me. But a new recruit like y'all? You had no part in it."

"But…with all due respect, I think I should be starting out with easy missions, and work my way up, ideally, I mean, so perhaps it makes some sense what commander Olaf's doing. Although I feel sorry for you; an experienced commander like yourself must hate having to do these overly easy yet tedious missions."

"Y'all can say that again. But ah don't mind. 'sides, I get to do what I do best."

"What's that?"

"Showing the ropes to all the new kids; why did you think I worked at the training camp at peacetime? So anyway, what's your area of expertise, in combat I mean?"

"Me? I'm just a newbie, but I have noticed that I seem to handle harsh weather conditions like rain, sandstorms, extreme winds, snow etc… especially snow, a little better than my peers do."

"Sorta like our commander, but not just snow. Interestin' so what's your C.O. alias?"

"Huh?"

"Y'all don't know what a C.O. alias is? Well, y'know, like mine's 'gunslinger' 'cus my area of expertise is long range combat, and they call Colin 'rich boy' 'cus funding's no problem for him, and then there's Sasha, she's 'snow flower' far as I can remember, can't remember why though. It's just a name, usually given to you by your peers and friends, that represents your commanding preferences."

"Um…my peers all called me 'snow bunny' because apparently I have the unique ability to heal units, both my own and allied ones, whenever it's snowing, in addition to my ability to cancel out bad weather effects, however minimal it may be."

"Snow bunny? Interestin'. I like it. And by the way, ya'll don't have to be so modest all the time. Ya'll have no idea how necessary proper commanding can be in bad weather, 'specially in fog and rain. If you can do it properly, that's a skill we're defiantly gonna want to train up. And that's my first lesson to you as your new mentor, once you find your specialty, as you have, stick with it, and train it well."

They continued down the hallway until they reached the airport outside of HQ. They found the designated VIP commander's jet that was to be taking them to the battle front blue moon HQ on the west coast of Omega land. They both stepped in and examined their surroundings. Grit looked around with a neutrality of emotions. Nyra, however, seemed overwhelmed with curiosity.

"A VIP jet? For me? Are you sure we're on the right plane?"

"Huh, the VIP treatment's standard issue f'all us commanders."

"Oh that's right…please keep in mind, this is my first mission."

"Right, ah'll keep it in mind. Don't worry though; it'll be easy, I'm sure, that bearded one's only got us on custodial service after all."

Nyra giggled again, she had begun to take a liking to her knew mentor/teacher/commanding partner/whatever you want to call him (just call him sensei/sempai). She had studied him, along with just about every C.O. you could think of, and all their respective strategies, tactics, units of choice, capabilities, etc…. For she was quite the studious one when she had a reason to be, and finding her specialty, as well as improving her strategic maneuvers, was a good reason for her. Good enough, in fact, to spend the many hours necessary to examine them all, and the many days necessary to go more in depth with the ones she liked. Then, she tried to use their strategies as a base, and come up with ones of her own. But now that she had teacher to guide her through these processes, she had and idea that her studies would go much faster, more smoothly, and yield better results. Also, she was quite excited to be going on her first mission, however tedious it might be. All this coupled with the excitement of flying in a VIP jet for the first time made her seem on edge and anxious (in the good sense), though she made bad attempts to conceal her excitement, for she was trying to keep in mind that it didn't exactly suit a commander.

"Y'all right? Y'seem nervous."

"Just excited, I know it doesn't suit a commander, but…"

"S'okay, ah don't mind, might want to watch that in front of your s'periors though."

"But you are my superior."

"Ah mean yer other s'periors, the ones who do like to be constantly tied down by formalities, unlike m'self, they do mind if a commander shows excitement, nervousness, or do anything that reflects any sort of emotion whatsoever."

Nyra tried and failed to suppress a chuckle, remembering that that didn't suit a commander either. Grit didn't seem to mind though.

"Y'all can loosen up when it's just me, ah've ne'er liked being like the stiff military types, with all due respect for my s'periors o'course. Hey, ah'm thirsty, ah'm goin' back to get somethin' to drink, you want sumthin'?"

"Hm? They have drinks and stuff on this jet?"

"You betcha'. You want anything?"

"Wow…I don't suppose they'd have decaf coffee?"

"Sure thing, I'll just be a sec'nd."

Nyra sat down on the surprisingly comfortable padded circular bench which ran all the way around a small round coffee table positioned next to the round window looking out on the right wing of the plane. As she admired the view out of the window, she wondered how her first mission would go. It couldn't be that hard, she thought. But if only she knew what was coming, if only she knew….