Plot Bunnies to a good home (May be rabid)

[Phht]

Crazy idea time~

The Takamachi family has been thorns in the side of the League of Assassins and DEMON numerous times, knowingly or not. As such, the organization decides to eliminate the threat. A car crash results in the deaths of four of the Takamachi, with Nanoha (age 9, post-S1, pre-A's) surviving with barely any injuries due to her magic, though very dazed. Intrigued, she's "rescued" by on scene DEMON members and ends up being raised as Talia's loyal bodyguard. A decade or so later, the little inconsistencies in the story lead her to go digging (using her boss's security access, because Talia was a bit lazy with such things) and discover the truth of what happened to her family. She bides her time a bit, then kidnaps Talia while starting to put into motion a plan to wipe out DEMON, destroy every Lazarus Pit on the planet, and once all his dreams and plans are ashes, kill Ra's al Ghul.

So Talia's kidnapped just before a meeting with Lady Shiva, League/DEMON bases in major hero cities are getting wiped out before progressing to more "remote" operations, and Cass went gone missing about the same time of the kidnapping. The catch is... Nanoha was responsible for all of the training Talia's personal guards/handmaidens went through, which means that -- at the point she went rogue -- Talia's guard is actually completely loyal to Nanoha. That's a decently sizable force to kick things off. Plus, it's entirely possible that Cass went through some/all of her training program and might actually have significant loyalty to Nanoha.

Bonus points if Nanoha's head for advanced math somehow translates into being great at stocks, and at some point she actually bought Arkham Island and everything on it before allowing things to continue as usual there. If Arkham Asylum/City plot points are planned in the future, she might make changes to ruin Ra's plan.

As for the Book of Darkness... I kinda feel like it occurred several years later. Admiral Graham made a deal with Ra's regarding caring for Hayate, and Nanoha got training from his familiars in return. She floated an idea of how to fix the BoD instead of the somewhat silly plan of Graham's, and takes Hayate under her wing as she grows up. Result - when the book's ready to activate, a very strong willed Hayate does so on a planetoid and exerts enough control over things to excise the defense program (as in canon). Graham has the program destroyed... possibly along with the planetoid. Not that the TSAB is aware of any of this, as the Admiral kept the whole thing very off the books. So as far as the TSAB knows, the Book still exists somewhere, and Nanoha died in a car crash at age 9. And Admiral Graham probably died of non-magical (totally natural according to TSAB forensics!) causes at some point between Nanoha's training finishing and her going rogue.

Hayate lighting up DEMON operations with the Tome might draw TSAB attention. Would there be a meeting between Nanoha and Fate at some point after 10-15+ years of separation~?

[jgkitarel]

Now this is interesting. A Nanoha who's a knight in sour armor at the best, more likely an anti-hero or villain protagonist, and trained by one of the most dangerous, if not THE most dangerous, criminal masterminds in the DC'verse? Hoo boy.

Here's a question, though. How will she react to the heroes of the DC-verse? Will there be respect? Or will it be a case of two clashing ideologies? Or a combination of both?

[Tempest Kitsune]

[MEKristian]

Here's one shamelessly stolen from TFS Plays:

A Shounen story where more power equals more clothes.

[Phht]

Now this is interesting. A Nanoha who's a knight in sour armor at the best, more likely an anti-hero or villain protagonist, and trained by one of the most dangerous, if not THE most dangerous, criminal masterminds in the DC'verse? Hoo boy.

Here's a question, though. How will she react to the heroes of the DC-verse? Will there be respect? Or will it be a case of two clashing ideologies? Or a combination of both?

In a very general sense... (keeping in mind I'm not too knowledgeable on DC heroes)

Overall respect (highest to lowest)

• Heroes overall
• DEMON/League/Shiva-trained heroes (including Cass)
• Superman
• Batclan (minus Cass)

Superman and Batclan are largely at the bottom due to how they handle guys like Joker or Luthor. The whole "throw them in jail, they get out, more people die, they get thrown back into jail, cycle repeats" thing with people that have triple digit (or higher) body counts. Batman is lower because he "should know better" due to the training he received. If we mostly just consider skills, take the previous list, spin it 180, move Cass back to the Batclan, and shift Wonder Woman up to Superman's bracket. The general heroes bracket would likely be broken into skill level groupings.

Other things... Nanoha met Hugo Strange once. He tried to hypnotize her and she put him through 3 stone walls. Ra's stopped her at that point, and Talia/Nanoha were kept out of close contact after that.

Cass.

Spoiler: show

I would say she spent more years than canon in training, and less time wandering the planet homeless. Nanoha slipped a tracking spell onto Cass during training and never removed it. So when Cass has her first kill and runs, the tracker is still in place. It takes a while before Cain fesses up that Cass did a runner, but Nanoha checks the tracker and heads out to have a word with the girl. At the end of the conversation, she gives Cass a choice. She can make her way to where Nanoha trained her and go back to working for DEMON, or if she wanted to save lives instead of end them, then head for Gotham and the Bat. Pass her some money for food/transportation, and Nanoha leaves. She intended for the move to cement Cass's loyalty and trust in her.

Skip forward to Nanoha planning to destroy DEMON. About the same time she was making her move against Talia, Hayate likely paid a secret visit to Cass in order to bring her into Nanoha's service. The question becomes... where did Cass's loyalty lie at that point? If Nanoha truly had her loyalty, then Cass could've gone with Hayate. But if her loyalty had changed to the Batclan... Hayate would've left after being turned down, but would Cass simply report the encounter to Oracle/Batman, or would she decide that she needed to stop her former mentor before they did something they'd regret?

Either way we have an off-the-grid Black Bat and the only one that really knows whose side she's actually on is probably Cass herself. I actually like the idea of Cass journeying to try to save her former mentor from their course instead of her being one of Nanoha's minions.

Well, that and the idea that Nanoha achieves her goal -- DEMON shattered beyond the ability to recover, Lazarus Pits all wrecked beyond the ability to repair, Ra's al Ghul dead (and being incinerated by thermite as Nanoha watches) -- at the cost of seemingly everyone that worked for her. Badly wounded, she just sits down where she can watch the last bit of thermite cremation, dispels her barrier jacket so the wounds bleed faster, leans her head back to watch the sky, and closes her eyes with a small smile on her face. At which point Cass interrupts her ending by walking up, laying Nanoha down on her back, and starts providing medical attention while refusing the requests to just let her die.

[jgkitarel]

The fact that Nanoha knows full well that her quest for revenge will destroy her and cost her everything actually can be an interesting plot point. It can either serve as a means for the good guys to try and save her from herself, or they save her life to stand trial for her crimes.

Needless to say, in the latter case, she would break out of the mandatory cardboard prisons of the DC-verse and vanishes. Would make an interesting sequel hook right there.

Hmm...

Spoiler: show

Five years later, the Justice League gets word that some of the most dangerous supervillains who have been causing havoc outside of Ra's al-Ghoul's little band have started dying. Initially thought to be rivalries flaring up, several of the deaths indicate someone "assisting" the lethal outcomes. Notably, Lex Luthor being killed in an accident when one of the devices his corporation makes suddenly malfunctions right as he is there, and the Joker being killed in an especially karmic fashion via one of his more toxic "jokes".

Batman gets word from Oracle that there is word within the criminal world about the person. The criminal world calls this person variations of a similar theme: "White Devil", The Devil's Handmaiden, the Demon in White, et cetera.

[Phht]

You got me thinking and brainstorming on this for probably over the last half day.

Nanoha was trained by DEMON. I think she'd be knowledgeable of shell games and taking the long view. Which ended up leading me to causing a civil war among the capes. A glorious, glorious civil war. XD

Spoiler: show

Nanoha buys Arkham Island and Asylum years prior to the "DEMON War". She also picks up a good among of offshore land next to it. A year or so prior to he kicking off her plan, construction begins off shore from Arkham Island on something big. About 3.5 years later it nears end of construction, and turns out to be a modern prison facility geared towards housing the criminally insane and meta-human criminals.

In the aftermath of killing Ra's in Japan (~1 year after construction begins), Nanoha is admitted to Arkham while legal issues are dealt with. This works for the heroes because she's in prison, and it works for her because she owns the place and knows the security inside and out. While recovering from her injuries in the Medical section, she notices Hugo Strange wandering around acting like staff. She knows she never received a memo about him being hired, and she knows her Oracle-equiv didn't say anything about him being released. She passes this along to a pair of GCPD officers interviewing her, and the resulting investigation ordered by Commissioner Gordon gets Dr Strange arrested, Warden Sharpe arrested, evidence of plans to experiment on Bane, and more (Arkham Asylum/City plots). Also, over half of the staff and personnel at the Asylum had to be suspended pending deprogramming due to Dr Strange's activities. With some ground rules in place and random inspections agreed to by Gordon, Dr Young gets made temporary Warden (after she gets some deprogramming done on herself).

Unfortunately for the League, almost no one cares to pursue charges against Nanoha for her activities. A Federal Grand Jury ends up deciding there's insufficient admissible evidence to take her to trial (hyper competent lawyers + vigilantes + "fruit of the poisonous tree" = lots of evidence lost to legalities), much to the annoyance of Amanda Waller. Japan ends up with her pleading guilty to a number of lesser charges (basically vigilantism + minor things like assault, trespassing, etc), and she gets time served + 12 months. She spends her time in a Japanese prison as a model prisoner, and on being released vanishes via magical teleport.

She's next seen a year later (around the end of construction). She's made the Warden of Arkham Asylum (Dr Young returning to her previous job at the Asylum), and announcing Arkham Prison will be opening to better house the criminals that fill the Asylum. The mentally ill (as opposed to criminally insane) will be transferred to other mental hospitals. New policies are put in place regarding prisoner treatment, prison rehab (allowing certain prisoners to work on various R&D tasks, allowing them to patent any advances they make, and license the results to make money), and categorizing prisoners based on their danger level (which determines which security level they get housed in and how much force can be used against them during escape attempts). The prisoner categorization criteria was determined with the help of the DoJ, GCPD, and Arkham staff. Joker ends up making it to the Prison within a year of its opening, and ends up killed during an escape attempt a month later. Nanoha calls the GCPD in to investigate the shooting to determine if it was acceptable (and also to have confirmation that the Joker is truly the corpse in front of them, before it's cremated and ashes mixed in to batches of cement all over the place). The investigation concludes it was within regs, and Aaron Cash's promotion to form an elite guard team soon after is completely coincidental. Six months later, Zsasz gets killed in a shooting at the prison, and the guard responsible ends up arrested and charged with the murder as a result of the investigation.

With the closing of Arkham Asylum, it's renovated and becomes a historical site open to the public, including a museum section displaying demilitarized/non-functional pieces of villain gear. It becomes popular with tourists over the years.

Hayate got off without any legal issues due to 'cult programming'. During the DEMON War, she led her Wolkenritter to hit Oracle. Systems wiped and fried (Batcave systems were saved because Batman spotted the infection before it could get a foothold on his systems), Oracle left unconscious. Message left behind: "Maybe you should inhale some vapors or interpret entrails, because you can't read the Night Sky." "Night Sky" vanishes by the end of the DEMON War, before Oracle can get back to work. Between "deprogramming therapy" sessions, Hayate attends college and pursues higher degrees after graduating early.

Talia likewise got off without any legal issues due to being a prisoner and a degree of Stockholm Syndrome. She moves to Central City and uses some hidden away money to start up a corporation focusing on high tech security personnel equipment.

Spoiler: show

With the Arkham Prison concept decently proven, other major cities dealing with meta-criminals begin ordering Arkham type prisons, including Metropolis. A string of accidents occur over the next few years, with months between each occurrence. The first is a fatal lab accident involving Lex Luthor. Investigations into the fatal accidents leads to a pattern of the ones involved generally being villains with substantial body count and having repeatedly avoided justice. Batman and Oracle fail to find any leads on who may be behind the string of "coincidences," though a possible lead Oracle was following almost wrecked her system, leaving behind the "Night Sky" message again. Nanoha has solid alibis for each time frame, being in locations where sensors ensure she can't be faked, and no sign of hidden communications. Checking on Hayate, in case she was the actual Night Sky, reveals that she was in classes during the times as well.

When a crime is committed in Gotham that leaves Supergirl as a suspect, she turns herself in to Arkham Prison while the investigation continues. She meets Nanoha and becomes convinced that maybe Batman and the others are jumping at shadows regarding the woman. Once GCPD interviews are finished, she takes up an offer from Nanoha to do training under red sun lamps while waiting for the investigation results. The results conclude that Supergirl was not involved in the crime, and she leaves Arkham Prison. Six months later a near exact crime is committed in Gotham and Supergirl spends another 2 weeks training with Nanoha before the investigation concludes she's once more not a suspect (she actually did the crime this time, to have an excuse to train more with Nanoha). She passes along the training to other heroes that see her improvement from it, despite the disapproval of some of the older heroes.

As a result of the better than average records of Arkham prisons globally and the successes of Arkham Knight teams deployed at rare local request to capture dangerous meta-criminals, the UN charters the TYGER organization, consisting of the Arkham prisons and the Arkham Knights. The move allows the Knights to shift more into a response team role to assist when even a city's MCU can't deal with a situation. Nanoha shifts to leading TYGER, and a Dr Quinzel becomes warden for Arkham Prison. Aaron Cash turns down leading the international version of Knights, and Nanoha appoints Hayate Yagami to the position. A number of heroes and even CHECKMATE oppose the charter plan, and just about everyone is caught by surprise when Supergirl quits her team and joins the Knights. The superhero community gets rocked further over the next year as more heroes follow her lead, many of whom underwent the training Supergirl had learned. Batman's beliefs on Nanoha being up to something terrible begins getting more traction among the heroes as a result.

Waller sends the Suicide Squad off on a mission to uncover a deeper connection between Talia's company and TYGER (beyond being a major supplier of equipment), and Knight teams get called in by Central City's MCU. The entire team is killed in the fighting. TYGER investigations reveal that the villains were supposedly still in Belle Reve prison, and that Waller's movements put her at the prison prior to when the squad had to have left. Based on the evidence, TYGER is authorized to arrest Waller for further investigation. Realizing what if likely to happen, Waller get CHECKMATE teams deployed to the prison, though the Knights counter by including Supergirl's team in the force. When fighting breaks out and the prison design makes progress difficult, Supergirl takes her team outside and directly assaults Waller's office. With Waller's death and the subsequent capture of the security room, the fighting came to an end. Backlash against CHECKMATE for the events leads to its disbanding by the UN, and much of the authority it had is passed to TYGER.

The following year, Scarecrow reappears and announces his plan to deploy fear gas throughout Gotham unless the city is evacuated in the next 24 hours. After ordering the evacuation, the Knights are called in to stop Scarecrow. Batman ends up with an arrest warrant after an attack on a mounted Knight team is caught on on-board cameras, and that causes teams watching over the evac camps to redeploy to Gotham to hunt Batman. With the warrant issued, the rest of the Batclan is ordered to surrender themselves at the nearest Arkham facility or face their own warrants. Batman locates Scarecrow first, but is unable to get any real information out of him before Knight teams arrive and a fight breaks out. Scarecrow is killed in the fighting and the fear gas is deployed with his death. Unfortunately, the canisters were planted at the evac camps rather than the city.

Casual noting of members of the Birds of Prey being spotted at various camps after Knight teams left and before the gas deployed leads to media theories that maybe they were involved in a plan to try to discredit TYGER. Before any arrest warrants could be issued for them, Black Canary surrenders herself at Arkham Prison and cooperates with the investigation into the fear gas canisters being at the camps instead of Gotham. While the investigation is ongoing, the GCPD and TYGER announces that they have cleared the field elements of the Birds of Prey of any involvement in the incident. When Black Canary joins TYGER less than a month later along with the other Birds of Prey, most of the remaining superhero community is unsurprised. No Batclan members ever surrender themselves, so Nightwing, Red Robin, Black Bat, Batgirl, Robin, and Oracle have arrest warrants issued and their civilian identities revealed. Oracle manages to evacuate the Watchtower ahead of a GCPD raid, and Wayne Manor is abandoned ahead of a Knight raid.

With media and public opinion turning further against vigilante superheroes, a number of the heroes retire while others start trying to figure out how to counter these efforts. Power Girl, as head of the JSA, meets with Nanoha. What's discussed is unknown, but she soon quits the JSA and joins TYGER. A few months later, she reappears leading a task group hunting Oracle. Cass decides that she needs to permanently stop Nanoha before things get pushed even further, but the conflict between stopping Nanoha and not killing others causes her to hesitate, leading to her defeat and capture. The security footage is used to increase the threat classification for Batclan members and implement harsher laws against vigilante superheroes.

Superman runs afoul of the stricter laws and is captured by teams led by Supergirl. More superheroes go into retirement, and those that can go offworld to continue being heroes start to do so. Batman uncovers evidence from over the past decade of illegal actions Nanoha has taken or ordered taken to nudge events and opinion her way. While many don't trust the evidence, enough do that Nanoha's vision and goal start to slide into doubt due to her increasingly obsessive focus on eliminating vigilante superheroes, including targeting retired heroes for various crime committed in the line of duty. Cass realizes what's happening and exits her cell (Nanoha had her coded as a legit people to open the cell door) and makes her way to Nanoha's office. Second confrontation occurs, starting with an argument over what Nanoha's doing versus her vision and turning into a battle ("Will you hesitate this time, Cass?" "I believe Arkham Knights' unofficial motto 'If necessary, end a life to save lives' applies."), and Cass's question of "Would you have your black ops Knights target a retired hero that you consider a threat and write off the hero's family as necessary collateral damage?" stuns Nanoha long enough for Cass to drive a sword through her. Nanoha manages to tell Cass, "You have always been my best student" before dying.

Cass lowers the body to the floor and recovers her breath. Eventually she walks over to the communications terminal and calls Hayate. She informs Hayate that Nanoha is dead, and Hayate wonders if a black bat will be replacing the white devil. Cass says a black bat won't, but maybe a black devil will. Hayate smiles and says she'll inform the organization of the leadership change before ending the call.

Things to note:

• Arkham style prisons expand to Stryker's, then national, then INTERNATIONAL.
• Arkham Prison's elite guard force uses power armor. Think about what that means for how the less elite guards are geared.
• WayneTech is not used in the prisons, and red sun lamps are installed in key areas by default.
• After Arkham Knights expands beyond guard force, it starts acquiring ships, planes, and armored vehicles.
• Supergirl duplicated the first crime she was suspected over, in order to spend time at Arkham Prison for more training. She's aware by that point that Nanoha had the first crime staged in order to meet with her.
• All heroes working for Arkham Knights gets a uniform change to bring them in line with the Knights color scheme. Supergirl's new uniform looks startlingly like that worn by her evil clone from when a Black Kryptonite energy beam was used on her.

Timeline

Spoiler: show

0 - "DEMON War" ends, Ra's is dead.
~0.5 - Nanoha finishes recovering from injuries, pleads guilty to various charges in Japan and goes to jail.
~1.5 - Nanoha vanishes after release from prison.
~2.5 - Arkham Prison opens, replacing Arkham Asylum. Nanoha is Warden.
~3 - Joker arrives in AP, is killed during escape attempt.
~3.5 - Zsasz killed in guard-faked escape attempt.
~4 - Arkham Stryker's begins construction. Aaron Cash's elite team gets coined as "Arkham Knights" due to the power armor design.
~4.5 - Lex Luthor has fatal lab accident. Investigation rules no foul play. Other high body count villains world-wide that escape justice die in "accidents" over next 3-3.5 years with several months between each accident.
~5 - Supergirl spends 2 weeks in AP. She spends most of the time training under Nanoha under red sun lamps.
~5.5 - Supergirl spends 2 weeks in AP receiving more training from Nanoha.
~6-8 - Supergirl's continued training on her own gets requests from various heroes to pass the training on to them after seeing how it has helped her.
~8 - UN charters Arkham prisons and to-be-separated Arkham Knights as TYGER organization. AK given wider authority to deal with meta-criminals (like a SWAT team for a city's MCU).
~8-9 - Supergirl joins Arkham Knights, to the surprise of most superheroes. Many other heroes follow her lead.
~9 - Suicide Squad mission gets Arkham Knight teams called on them. Interviewing injured Squad survivors gets Waller as their boss. Survivors die of injuries shortly after. Investigation shows the various Squad members were incarcerated at Belle Reve, where Waller has been prior to and since mission start. UN authorizes Knight teams to arrest her pending further investigation.
-- CHECKMATE forces at Belle Reve defend it against AK teams. Fighting ends after Supergirl breaches exterior into Waller's office and kills her. Checkmate's presence at the prison results in their disbanding in the fallout, while TYGER's authority expands more.
~10 - Scarecrow threatens Gotham with fear gas if it does not evacuate. Gotham calls in Arkham Knights to deal with the situation while it evacuates.
-- Batman assaults a vehicle mounted Knight team while searching for Scarecrow, trying to find out Nanoha's plans.
-- The attack is caught on camera, and is used to get Batman declared a fugitive. Knight teams keeping the evacuation camps secure redeploy to Gotham to go after Batman.
-- Batclan ordered to either check in at an Arkham prison and accept Knight minders or have arrest warrants issued for aiding and abetting Batman.
-- Batman catches Scarecrow, but Scarecrow is fatally injured in battle with Arkham Knight forces. He deploys the fear gas, which was actually planted at the evac camps.
-- Presence of Bird of Prey members at camps prior to gas attack and their connection to Batman via Oracle allows TYGER to blame the fear gas in camps on Batman and the Birds of Prey, and casts a shadow on whether the rest of the League was involved in the planning. Batclan members have arrest warrants issued.
~10.5 - Cass attempts to take out Nanoha but fails. Laws tighten down on heroes in response.
~11 - Superman is arrested.
-- Batman uncovers and reveals evidence of black ops Knight operations, illegal activities triggered in a way to direct opinion, and more.
-- More oppressive policies concerning heroes and retired heroes begin being discussed, even as public opinion of TYGER begins wavering.
-- Cass confronts Nanoha and kills her in battle. She then takes over as head of TYGER.
~11.5 - Under Cass's leadership, the warrants for the arrest of Batclan members other than Batman are dropped and anti-vigilante policies are modified to not be so oppressive. A number of heroes arrested under the old policies are released, including Superman.
-- Black Ops section of Arkham Knights is officially disbanded, but Cass has Night Sky form the operatives into a new organization under Talia's leadership called DEMON.

Have more to write, but going to sleep now. :D So, while reading on DC wiki, discovered that fragments of Anti-Life Equation grant limited mind control. This does a fantastic job of explaining how Nanoha's training programs cause such loyalty and trust in her from those that go through it. No more need to handwave how it happens now. Though the question becomes, is it Nanoha or her Device that has the fragment? :D

Also, OMG. This thing has been open in an edit window for probably half a day because I got distracted by 3 years of backlog for a webcomic. And a bit of distraction reading stuff on DC wiki. But mostly webcomic backlog distraction.

[jgkitarel]

That is absolutely brilliant, and a good way of showing the "(S)he who fights monsters trope."

Spoiler: show

That Nanoha here was never a hero, as someone who has all the traits of a hero, but one who has spent the majority of her life fighting monsters and losing that spark at a young age. It also allows you to have her serve as an object lesson to the other superheroes, especially Batman, who is the most vulnerable to falling into that trap. Yes, he knows full well the line he straddles, but Nanoha will serve as a brutal reminder to him just how fine a line it is.

More importantly, it should be made abundantly clear to all of them that she did try to do good, and managed, despite the events that happened, to create a more peaceful Earth than all of them combined managed to.

Now, to add more fuel to the fire, dying was Nanoha's intent. She wanted to take out the threats, which she did, but she is fully aware that even if she won, there would still be one last threat to Earth, herself. Now, for her, who better to be the one to kill her than her finest student, the one who was most like her, but hadn't lost that spark of heroism that she had, and one who would better be able to straddle the line.

If she survived all of that, she still took care of all the other threats and can easily "retire", though suicide wouldn't appeal to her.

Either way, she wins.

[Phht]

Actually, we can stretch this out another full story arc.

See, there are basically 4 ways the second confrontation can end. Nanoha Wins, Cass Dies; Nanoha Wins, Cass Lives; Cass Wins, Nanoha Lives; and Cass Wins, Nanoha Dies.

So instead of the last result, let's say the first result occurs. Nanoha blames the superheroes for killing Cass and the shit hits the fan. Vigilante supers start suffering "accidents" and outright assassinations, other vigilante supers just vanish without a trace (including Oracle). Twenty years later, the world kinda resembles that of Marvel's Days of Future Past future, except with TYGER instead of Sentinels and supers/meta-types instead of mutants. With TYGER tightening its coverage, the remaining free heroes and the various super/meta-criminals that avoided prison (or, as they changed into, "rehabilitation centers") are running out of places to hide their resistance forces. As a result, they come up with a plan to send one of them back in time to change the past and erase that future. Developing a time travel device and a form of temporal shielding to protect them from the changes until things are fixed, they pin-point a number of points they feel are critical to stopping events.

And they send someone back. The person returns back, foiled or nothing really changed. New point selected, new person sent. Same result occurs each time, and no one can figure out how things keep getting stopped or not changing things. The idea of sending Zatanna back and mindwiping Nanoha at some point is tried, but a power surge in the system badly injures her when she was getting ready to pass through the portal, shelving the idea for the foreseeable future. Eventually someone suggests just going back and taking out the White Devil before she was found by DEMON operatives. Despite a number of protests, enough people support the idea to give it a shot. Time's running out for them, so desperate times and all. The person comes back, badly injured and having not accomplished the task. But they did discover why at least some of the attempts to change the past were being blocked, and as a result, learned of the fate of one of the long missing supers.

Spoiler: show

TYGER was sending their own operative into the past to counter them, and that operative happened to be a female shapeshifter alien named M'Gann.

Yep, TYGER loyal Miss Martian. M'gann, being a Martian, turns out to be one of the most independent TYGER operatives Nanoha trained. Tell her to deal with a politician, and she might find a way to subtly ruin the guy where most other operatives would probably stage a robbery, a boating accident, or a hunting accident, etc. And since no one knew that she had joined TYGER, there was no consideration that anyone needed to worry about shapeshifter operations.

They eventually make the connection between Nanoha and Cass, and realize that the event that decides everything is that one last confrontation between the two. So instead of trying to alter a specific event on their own, they work to change the outcome of the fight while avoiding their shapeshifting hunter. They succeed, and this time Cass wins and Nanoha dies. Things seemed to start thawing out and getting better, but the trauma of her second kill being her former mentor ate at her and she blamed the superheroes for putting her in that situation. End result was the same despite the dark times starting five years later than before.

Their next try was an attempt to keep either one from dying. Cass failed to find her conviction to go for a kill, and Nanoha wins. If anything, this was a worse result. Where Nanoha struck from the shadows, Cass learned to wield public opinion and the media like a master. She played and manipulated the world while her mentor used "accidents" and assassinations to give just the right nudge to make Cass's efforts more effective. Humanity hid in TYGER built mega-cities instead of massive fortress walls, but did so happily and fully supporting TYGER's operations and actions. The two were all but ruling the world in a decade, and the people thanked them. Things had gotten lopsided enough that TYGER had taken note of the temporal shielding in a remote area, and had spent several years trying to see what was inside.

Now almost completely out of time, they made one last effort. This time Cass wins and Nanoha lives. Nanoha is taken into custody to stand trial. While the legal matters are being taken care of, Cass has a new security system devised and installed to handle Nanoha's imprisonment. The trial ends, Nanoha receives multiple life sentences, and is introduced to her cell that was designed to avoid any backdoors or other methods of leaving. Cass continues on to fix the various parts of TYGER, but the damage from the trial is too much, and the organization is disbanded, with the various prisons being taken over by respective countries. Nanoha dies of "mysterious causes" soon after. Night Sky uncovers what really happened for Cass, and Cass rallies the slowly disbanding Knights to her as DEMON. The resulting second DEMON War ends with the Earth in ruins and no winners anywhere.

Then one night, someone powers up the device. Everyone scrambles to the room on hearing the alarm, and see one of the group inputting coordinates. The person changes form, revealing themselves to be Knight M'gann. She takes advantage of their surprise to race through the portal before power overloads fry the system, rendering it unusable and bringing down the temporal shielding. In the past, Knight M'gann tweaks various events and training over the years. Confrontation comes, and Cass wins. Nanoha seems to die, but the body disappears while Cass is giving the news to Hayate. Cass is perplexed by the turn of events, but investigation declares Nanoha dead due to the blade path and the amount of her blood in the room. Cass begins working to fix TYGER and bring it back to its actual vision instead of a slightly DEMON twisted version and works to fix relations with the various vigilante supers.

A few weeks later, she gets a picture. It shows a wheelchair bounded Nanoha on some advanced planet, at peace and smiling a bit while talking to a blonde woman next to her. Cass smiles, and hides the photo away before returning to work.

Spoiler: show

As for what happened to Oracle in the original future... Well, let's just say that she was without any trackers, communication devices, or anything of the sort, and she finally got to learn who Night Sky was at the meeting. And it's entirely possible that "Stuck in the Middle with You" was playing in the background.

It was not a pretty future.

[jgkitarel]

In other words, the only way to win was to take a fifth option, something the other Supers couldn't figure out. It isn't surprising that the attempts to change the past would backfire on them, badly. To really drive the nail home, at a later time, to the supers, M'gann was operating under Nanoha's orders the entire time and obtained the result, with a lot of effort, that both wanted.

Nanoha wanted out of it, but had gone too far down her path to stop. She also wanted to leave Earth intact and a better, or at least more peaceful, place.

And now, the White Devil is the TSAB's problem, even if she is enjoying her retirement, occasionally volunteering to train some TSAB soldiers, she makes many of them nervous. Nanoha, while not telling them everything, still gave them the Cliff Notes version of the last decade of her life.

[MEKristian]

And once again disrupting the Nanoha and possibly-DC crossover train;

Ron and Hermione loose contact with Harry over a summer (Anywhere from before 4th year summer to before 6th, I think works best), and when they do run into him, he seems a little different; more like some heroic figure from one of those imported shows or something.

But, when a real monster that isn't any magical creature anybody knows, Harry reveals that over the summer he has become a warrior against them, a Super Sentai! Now he must gather together four other brave souls to do battle against the forces of evil!

Random notes:
-The people of Hogwarts are allowed to treat it like a joke... but they have to come around to cheering the team on by the end.
-Harry must take it completely seriously; use a flashback to show him getting his power after the story's well under way, if you want, but for the majority, Harry must take the entire thing dead serious.
-Probably a better idea to make up your own team rather than inserting one of the existing ones. That way you can control themes and such to a better degree.
-The team should probably be the Gryffindor Five, with Luna appearing as the Sixth ranger. Luna can also be totally into everything from the beginning.
-Sentai, not Power Rangers. There is a difference.

[jgkitarel]

Interesting idea, especially if it is Super Sentai. Yeah, I know the differences between it and Power Rangers, with darker themes overall, but somewhat cheesier due to the values dissonance between the two cultures (Super Sentai - Darker and surprisingly softer, nost of the time; Power Rangers: Lighter and Edgier, again most of the time). The two are hard to compare, considering the values dissonance involved.

Doesn't even have to be a fusion of Super Sentai, just the thematic elements from the Sentai genre would work well here.

[MEKristian]

The best place I've found to see the difference is the first appearances of ShinkenRed versus The Red Samurai Ranger.

Generally the same scene, but with totally different characterizations.

[RavynousHunter]

What if owning (or being the rightful owner of) all three of the Hallows didn't just make someone the master of death...but made them death itself? Think about it, what's a simpler way of becoming the master of death than becoming death?

Spoiler: show

What if Harry decided to keep the Elder Wand and Resurrection Stone after the Battle of Hogwarts?

[jgkitarel]

I think that concept has been explored a few times already, though I can't think of any particular fics off the top of my head right now. Don't let it stop you, though. "It's been done before is not an excuse not to make any attempts, or let someone else do it."

[Phht]

One a Pale Horse
Dumbledore does the "summon a hero from another dimension to fight Voldemort" thing... and gets Harry Potter. Or rather, they get Death, the being formerly known as Harry Potter.

There might be others, but that's one that I could think of in short order. :)

--

I know MEK said not Power Rangers, but I couldn't help but imagine a team and Harry's explanation to other Hogwarts students as to why each person is a certain color, given that nearly all the colors happen to be House colors. Harry is Red, fits well enough because he's Gryffindor. Hermione is blue, which is linked to Ravenclaw, but she's pretty smart so she at least has attributes associated with the house. Lavender and Parvati are Black and Yellow (in no particular order). Harry views Hufflepuffs as unassuming, but dangerous. After all, out of all the entrants for Hogwarts, it was a Hufflepuff that was made the school Champion. So while they don't seem like they'd fit, get them into the fight and it's a whole different story. Luna is Green, because she's wanted to ride a dragon since watching the First Task and this would likely be the closest she'd get to that legally. Also, she called dibs. And Ron... is Pink. Completely unintentional, but there just wasn't a better fit elsewhere for him. Unofficially, Harry remembers how Ron's acted at times over the years, like when Harry's name came out of the Goblet. I don't think I need to explain that more. :D

--

Amusing fact about the DC/Nanoha crossover idea - for a short time after the successful time trip, there were actually 3 different versions of M'gann in the same time period.

Spoiler: show

"Days of Future Past" M'gann was doing deep-cover infiltration of the resistance, and then received a slight orders update directly from Nanoha when the White Devil took to the field in light of the time travel shenanigans in the works. The DoFP TYGER got their own temporal shielding/travel team up in time, but made a mistake and got overwritten by timeline changes early on. Before the shielding gave out, they dispatched the schematics, mission reports, etc back in time 10 years to TYGER. We'll call this "Timeline 2" TYGER. This temporal team picks that timeline's M'gann as part of the team. At some point, the two run into each other in the past and end up trading a bit of info. Once the resistance time travel threat is gone, the T2 temporal team sends the schematics, mission reports (T2 and DoFP), etc back to "present day" TYGER, before dropping their shielding and being overwritten. And so we have infiltration specialist M'gann from the "original" timeline, and her 20 years younger self. Can't help but think both M'gann work at TYGER post-story.

As for how TYGER handles jurisdiction with places like Atlantis or Paradise Island.... TYGER treats them as sovereign nations that fall outside their jurisdiction. they won't pursue someone into the borders of the nation, but this "neutrality" can be lost if criminals/fugitives use the nation as a base of operations to strike from. Any citizen from the nation has to obey the laws of the country they're in if they travel outside their borders.

[jgkitarel]

In other words, with Atlantis and Paradise, Nanoha observes the legal fictions of sovreignity. Since Atlantis and Paradise are sovereign nations that operate outside the purview of TYGER, Nanoha's authority stops at their borders. At the same time, she probably gave their leadership some word that while they can be a safe harbor, they would be wise not to allow their nations to be used as bases of operations, or Nanoha will send operatives in to take said groups out, sovreignity be damned. She will not go after those who flee there and are living peacefully there, however.

In other words, stay neutral, at least officially. Nanoha's not stupid and know full well that said nations are probably supporting several groups against her, but so long as they're discrete, both sides can maintain the fiction of neutrality between them.

Spoiler: show

Te supers are likely to respect that, and if they find that they can't just stay there and leave things be, which is likely, they will have thee grace to simply leave before resuming activities. The villains, on the other hand, won't, and find out that Atlantis and Paradise are very well capable of policing their own territory, especially with Nanoha hanging over their heads, and will quickly adopt rules to keep the villains out.

[RavynousHunter]

After Cell's defeat, an 11 year-old Gohan is the victim of a dimensional rift and ends up swapping places with a certain other 11 year-old boy living in a shack when a man the size of Broly breaks through the door and tells him that he's a wizard. The story would follow both of them as they end up receiving a portion of eachother's power (Harry gets ki [but is not necessarily a Saiyan], Gohan gets the gift of magic) and try to find their ways back home while dealing with the massive disruption in their lives.

[jgkitarel]

Would be an interesting change of pace for the norm of DBZ x HP crossovers, that's for sure. The rift actually would be right in tune with the kind of crap that tends to happen in the DBZ-verse.

[MEKristian]

I know MEK said not Power Rangers, but I couldn't help but imagine a team and Harry's explanation to other Hogwarts students as to why each person is a certain color, given that nearly all the colors happen to be House colors. Harry is Red, fits well enough because he's Gryffindor. Hermione is blue, which is linked to Ravenclaw, but she's pretty smart so she at least has attributes associated with the house. Lavender and Parvati are Black and Yellow (in no particular order). Harry views Hufflepuffs as unassuming, but dangerous. After all, out of all the entrants for Hogwarts, it was a Hufflepuff that was made the school Champion. So while they don't seem like they'd fit, get them into the fight and it's a whole different story. Luna is Green, because she's wanted to ride a dragon since watching the First Task and this would likely be the closest she'd get to that legally. Also, she called dibs. And Ron... is Pink. Completely unintentional, but there just wasn't a better fit elsewhere for him. Unofficially, Harry remembers how Ron's acted at times over the years, like when Harry's name came out of the Goblet. I don't think I need to explain that more. :D

Okay, since I feel like it, I'ma go into actual colour placement for both trios, instead of using Zyuranger layouts.

Harry, of course, is the Red Leader, possibly with a heart that burns even hotter than flame.

Hermione really has Blue or Green locked up; the "Smart guy" traditionally in Sentai layouts, though every so often you get a Yellow one.

Ronnie's Blue, Yellow, or Black; the general colours for the "Lancer", as well as the "Big Guy", both of which fairly well for him.

Nevile's where things start getting trickier; Green and Yellow are the colours for the Comic-relief-but-still-competent types. It most depends on where you put the others.

Ginny's white all the way; she'd revolt over being pink, so white's the good sort of alternative for female rangers, even though she's not really the "Chick".

And old Luna easily hits the Silver of sixth rangers, if not a title revolving around the moon, since some Sixth rangers forgo colour in favour of eloquent titles, like Kiba Ranger.

[RavynousHunter]

Would be an interesting change of pace for the norm of DBZ x HP crossovers, that's for sure. The rift actually would be right in tune with the kind of crap that tends to happen in the DBZ-verse.

Now I'm working on a third story! Damn you people and your encouragement!

[jgkitarel]

We live to serve.

[RavynousHunter]

I keep thinking of interesting crossover ideas. This latest one is between Attack on Titan, post-Trost, and Fullmetal Alchemist, while Ed and Al are in Liore. Father Cornello tries to use the fake Philosopher's Stone to summon...something to beat Ed, and ends up creating a tear between the two worlds, linking Liore with the titan-infested area outside Trost. Ed and Al end up fighting a losing battle against the man-eating giants that have invaded Liore...OH MY GOD. I actually want to write this. I might just do that. Because I'm a sucker for punishment and this is just too interesting to pass up.

[ETA]
I did write it, and it is every bit as enjoyable as I'd imagined. I have dubbed it The Greater Evil. Its dark, like good chocolate or good coffee.

[Phht]

Let's see if anyone spots the crossover before a specific year makes it fairly obvious.

Spoiler: show

The Defense System is an upgrade to the Tome of the Night Sky, that essentially copies the power level/design of the Tome and ties it back to it/Reinforce. Only problem... the Tome had 4 Guardians on it, who kinda served to spread out the burden of the power within the Tome. The Defense System lacks any Guardians and thus the full load drops onto Reinforce, resulting in power overflow/overload and bad things happening. The powered down state of the "Tome" is a short term safety feature designed to provide time to fix the problem, though this detail was lost to time.

Skip forward to Reinforce vs Fate and Nanoha. She ensnares both with the Defense System. As they realize they're in an illusion and work to break free, the system realizes that they'd make perfect Guardians for it, and proceeds to make them so. Reinforce now only has the designed burden from the Defense System (and thus will not be rampaging), and realizing that TSAB was moving in to capture/stop her, she teleports away. TSAB is unable to track her, and the apparent deaths of Nanoha and Fate at the hands of the Book of Darkness, along with the near destruction of Earth results in a more public legal response against Admiral Graham.

Time passes. Man expands into space, discovering an abandoned alien outpost on Mars, and a related alien structure near Pluto. With the leaps in technology from the finds, Man spreads further into the galaxy, eventually discovering other life when said life opens fire on science ships. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the galaxy, two armored figures become boogiemen for their random acts of destruction - entire cities and colonies killed by them, and no calls for help are heard under after it's over - for over 70-80 years, coming to a stop in the 2100-2110 range after a city wide massacre by them leaves a single young survivor who never speaks of the incident.

2183 rolls around. Eden Prime is attacked, and femShep becomes the first human Spectre. First thing she does after being dispatched to pursue Saren is visit Mars on Hackett's suggestion to pick up the Alliance's foremost expert on the Protheans from where she's been exploring/datamining the Mars Archive since the early 2150s, one Dr Testarossa. She proves helpful (though not deploying into the field, as she says it'd bring back things best left in the past) on Feros and a number of other areas. The first real indication that something's clearly not quite right is when Liara first meets her after being rescued. Liara has a panic attack and Dr Testrossa rapidly leaves the room after seeming to recognize Liara. The two avoid each other and Shepard slowly pries into the reason why from Liara, eventually finding out that Liara recognizes the other as one of the people from that last massacre, where Liara was the only survivor in the entire city (she slipped away from her mom Benezia to go visit a friend in another city... the city that got slaughtered a few hours after her arrival). On the way to Virmire, Shepard confronts Dr Testarossa about what she learned (I expect the conversation went similarly to this one from Highlander the Series) and afterwards, Fate vanishes from the ship after packing her stuff.

The next time anything is heard of her is in the weeks/months after the Battle of the Citadel. Shortly before the battle, a planet out on the Terminus border went completely quiet. Investigations after the battle discovered a debris field extending one lightsecond from the planet, and every artificial thing on the planet destroyed other than a single city, and all life including plants and animals were gone. Recovery of security logs from cameras in the city as well as wrecks of ships that were partially outside the radius of death took a while to collect and go through. They eventually piece events together as such: Dr Testarossa was in a bar, and was approached by Saren. No audio was recorded, but it seemed like she didn't agree with whatever was being said. Then Saren said something as he was walking away that got a response.

Her posture shifted and she came off the stool, seemingly materializing familiar armor as she turned to face Saren. Saren attempted to hit her with a biotic attack that did nothing, and she began using what appeared to be an omniblade scythe to simply slaughter her way through the bar after Saren, regardless of whether the person under her blade was hostile or bystander. Exterior cameras show Saren fleeing in a shuttle while she mowed through his Krogan and Geth, finishing them off with a pulse of energy that killed everything in a 4m radius. A large energy circle started forming in a park nearby, and she headed that way. Six figures appeared on the circle, including one with another set of familiar armor. The seven appeared to speak briefly. Then the energy circle flared up before the energy pulsed outward, vaporizing everything organic in its path. Once the pulse cleared the city edge, all artificial constructions were destroyed as well. Once the planet was covered by the pulse, it expanded outward into space. Nazara barely got to FTL before the pulse reached it. As the energy pulse faded out, so did the energy circle, which took the seven beings with it as it faded away. The Council tried calling Shepard to get any information regarding Testarossa that she could provide, but got no answer. A day or two later, they learn that the Normandy had been destroyed by an unknown ship and Shepard was among the dead.

Spoiler: show

If I were writing that, I'd probably do the first scene from Reinforce's perspective battling Nanoha and Fate, and trying to deal with the power overload again, then the overload vanishing, and her deciding to flee instead of fight as TSAB mages closed in on her. Then brief coverage of the aftermath of that decision regarding TSAB and the progression of humanity off earth over time. Once we hit 2157 and first contact, skip forward to 2183 on Mars as Shepard arrives at Fate's office to recruit her. From that point onward, it would be from Fate's perspective. The story arc would end with the Council meeting regarding the silent planet (go for flashback sequence of events rather than a verbal report, I'd think) and end with the report of Normandy's destruction and Shepard's death.

Then we move on to 2185, where the fun begins. Hint: Shepard isn't cyborg zombie from Reaper tech, and was the second use (both successful) of a "Project Rebirth" that was first used in 2150.

Power Levels

Spoiler: show

If we consider the Tome as an S-rank power pool that Reinforce can use, then the Defense System added on would as a result also have an S-rank power pool. The system was supposed to have Reinforce + four Guardians evenly spreading the load. So Reinforce losing control of all the power dumped on her means that she's operating at 200% power instead of 120% at most like was intended . And we know at 200% power, planets can die.

Nanoha and Fate are made Guardians. They both start with AAA-rank power pools. With Guardians present, Reinforce ends up with her 20% load, and the remaining 80% gets split between the Guardians. So initially Nanoha and Fate are handling AAA power + 40% of a S-rank power pool each. Not really being prepared to handle that much extra power, they kinda crack under the load, resulting in a 70-80+ year reign of random destruction across the ME galaxy. They don't have planet killing strength, but cities and small colonies are certainly within their range. Reinforce doesn't quite realize what happened, and she + Wolkenritter are more concerned with Hayate. Eventually more in-depth discussion of what happened that day occurs, and the realization is made that there are two Defense System guardians running wild (also, that the two are Nanoha and Fate).

They start searching for the two - taking a quick break to make a two-use deal in 2150 -, and catch up to Nanoha on an uninhabited planet after that last city. She's not really in her right mind, and a fight breaks out that she ends up losing. They help her cope with the extra power and come to terms with who/what she is now. Fate, there's no sign of. She left a single survivor in the city and just dropped off the face of the galaxy. The six continue looking for her, finally finding her on that planet, where she uses the active magic circle to dump her power in an attempt to take out Saren regardless of collateral damage. They spend the next two years helping her come to terms with her emotions and issues involving Liara. By the time 2185 rolls around, they still have the strain of the extra power pushing down on them, but they have means of bleeding off pressure when needed to keep from having a repeat of before.

And for kicks, I had the idea that when they were pulling on the power from the Defense System, their arrival in a spot is lead by snippets of music (kinda like the music as you open the Lament Configuration in Hellraiser). Songs I'm kinda thinking of using for someone: Road Rage by Miracle of Sound (at the very least the first 40-45 seconds of it), Lorde's cover of Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Lady of Worlds by Miracle of Sound.

And because I want to draw this out, I'll do the next story arc bit some time after I wake up.

[jgkitarel]

Oh, that is evil, evil, evil. Nice.