Plot Bunnies to a good home (May be rabid)

[Wraith5]

But how would Anakin handle being, to the best of anyone's knowledge, the last remaining Council member? How would the Order deal with it? Does Ahsoka find the situation so amusing she reappears to laugh at her former master?

Not too sure how Anakin would handle it, but I'm pretty sure Ahsoka would at least send a message. 50/50 chance of her actually showing up, I think, but definitely at least a message.

[Dechstreme]

Ahsoka:

"Hey, Skyguy, so I hear you are in charge now! Enjoying the perks?"

[Phht]

So, I started watching RWBY and came across a fic or two involving Jaune ending up a professor instead of a student based on his forged transcripts. Naturally, the thought eventually slid into my head....

Spoiler: show

A brunette walked up to the cliff edge as the last of the students faded into the distance. She exchanged nods with the two teachers already there. “Sorry I'm late, I found a Deathstalker nest off east of Vale and lost track of time dealing with it. Then I had to stop by Vale to update my play list options for the semester, and I nearly missed the transport up. You know how it is. Did I miss much?”

Professor Ozpin, the gray haired headmaster with a near omnipresent cup of coffee in hand, simply took a sip and smiled. The other teacher, Professor Goodwitch, sighed at his action and answered. “We just sent the last group into the forest. At this time, the estimates for teams passing are three to six, Professor Takamachi.”

“You could call me by my first name, you know. No students around to over hear.” Nanoha raised her scroll and Goodwitch copied over the data on the initiates. It only took a few minutes of looking over the data and watching before Nanoha spoke up. “Teams RWBY and JNPR for my class.”

Glynda's gaze narrowed as she stared at her fellow professor. “Not everyone has partnered up yet, much less recovered relics. It's a bit early to claim teams for your 'class.'”

“And out of the five years I've been here prior to this, how often have I been wrong once I started claiming teams early?” Professor Takamachi left with a small smirk on her face.

To the side, Ozpin took another sip of coffee and watched the various students' progress.

–

Teams RWBY and JNPR entered the room for their first day of this... TACT class. It seemed a hybrid of a sparring arena and a classroom. Well, a second glance pointed it to being more of a sparring arena that happened to have a few desks and chairs dumped into it haphazardly.

“Um... we did come to the right place, right? Maybe we should check the other rooms?” Ruby looked at the rest of the group, confused.

“No no, this is the right room. The furniture is just for today. Now, every sit. Today we'll discuss what the class is and the rules of the class. Tomorrow...” Both teams did an admirable job of not jumping too much at the answer coming from next to them, where a female professor in a mostly white dress stood, and moved to the provided seats. The low chuckle at the end, however, did nothing to help their nervousness.

The professor moved to the front, standing on the raised sparring area. “You likely noticed that your teams do not have the regular combat class, or perhaps rather, the sparring and training block that is overseen by Professor Goodwitch every couple weeks. This is not the slackers course. I choose which teams will take my course, and that choice is based on the potential of the team.

“I am Professor Takamachi, and I teach Advance Combat Training. We will have two types of sessions: sparring sessions – where I will critique and possible even mock all involved in a spar regarding their mistakes – and the much more frequent speed, reflex, agility, analysis, and command training – but most students call those sessions... bullet hell.”

As both teams shifted worriedly in their seats, she continued, “Now, as for the rules. Rule one: do not refer to this class by anything other than its acronym 'TACT,' because it amuses me and it amuses Professor Ozpin. Rule two: Do not discuss what happens in this class with anyone outside the class. Rule three: If a team member fucks up, the team leader may be punished. Rule four: If the team leader fucks up, the team may be punished. Rules three and four are not mutually exclusive. I can and have punished a team leader for a team member's screw up, then promptly punished the entire team because of the team leader's punishment. Continuing on....”

Spoiler: show

Now, I'm largely thinking of Nanoha from a more lethal force acceptable reality, such as a XCOM Nanoha or WH40k version, somehow ending up at Beacon (randomness of the Warp?). And yes, she trains her students in pattern analysis, reflexes, non-verbal communication (as if they say orders and information regarding patterns where she can hear, she'll promptly change the pattern on them) by utilizing the bullet hell concept with her magic. Punishment with her is not detention or anything like that. It's tougher practice in class, or getting stuck attention mandatory practice sessions after dinner or before breakfast, etc.

I'm of two minds regarding auras and her magic. On one hand, I'd like that her magic is not related to auras at all, and thus she could technically unlock her aura and get a semblance. OTOH, auras and semblance could just be an adaptation of humanity on this world to needing power and only having, say, E-rank magic power in a person. In which case, Nanoha's normal magic abilities are godlike compared to what Aura users of Remnant are capable of.

She typically picks 2, maybe three teams out of a year group, though she has also only picked one team from a year group. Incidentally, I like to think Team CFVY is the only team she selected from the previous year's crowd.

The reason I said 3 to 6 teams possible pass is simple. You have gold/black rook, knight pieces. Toss in gold/black bishop pieces and we get six sets of pieces. Also, in ep 9, we see ~18 students in a show of Professor Port's class. Given 4 people to a team, that would mean likely ~20 people in the class. Possibly 24 if JNPR was off screen is all the class shots rather than being four of the shadow students. So three teams at a minimum because of canon, up to six teams possible because of the class size.

[MEKristian]

I'd say that that's a Nanoha-in-name-only, but since that applies to at least half of all Nanoha fanfics...

[Phht]

I did rush it a bit, since I meant to go to sleep 60-90mins before that. Canon Nanoha would have issues fitting in to the world of RWBY, I would think. She's very much non-lethal (has she ever killed a living thing, ever? ). Hence why I was just lazy and said to use a Nanoha from a crossover universe where she's more okay with lethal force against at least creatures.

Now, in the snippet, Nanoha gave a five years time frame without indicating whether it was time on world or simply how long she'd been staff at Beacon. The second half of the sentence probably imply the latter. As such, and given I never stated an age, Nanoha could've been there longer, trying to adapt to the differences in the world. So let's see if I can come up with a route to get canon Nanoha to the snippet point...

Early point, after she learned of magic. Say... end of S1 when she's on the Garden of Time.

Spoiler: show

When the Garden stared falling apart, the ground under Nanoha gave way and the Arthra failed to teleport her out before she dropped into the imaginary space surrounding the Garden. Somehow she ends up crash landing on Remnant (I'm partial to her crashing smack into Ozpin's office). Since she was 9 at the time, that gives 8 years to adapt to Remnant before she hits an age where she might attend Beacon. This also means the "no lethal magic use" idea hasn't had much time to embed itself with her views of magic. After Beacon, unknown amount of time before she becomes a teacher there.

Age 9 - Arrives in Remnant after dropping out of crumbling Garden of Time
Age 17 - Attends Beacon
Age 21 - Graduates from Beacon
Age 21+x - Becomes teacher at Beacon
Age 26+x - Snippet starts

Or perhaps a bit later, so she has more training/control in her magic. Maybe between As and StrikerS somewhere.

Spoiler: show

In this case, not sure how she'd end up on Remnant. Perhaps the mission she got injured on has some sort of relic involved that reacts to her injury and tosses her all the way to Remnant? I would say that one of the staff at Beacon saw her arrival, so a team gets dispatched out to investigate. She encounters the various Grimm and finds that her non-lethal force doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect on the creatures. The team manages to find her before exhaustion and injuries allow the Grimm to get her.

That way, Nanoha has clear evidence that sticking to non-lethal like she's been trained to as part of TSAB is not a valid stance vs Grimm. She would need to recover from her injury and, given that she's completely out of touch with TSAB, there's no reason to push herself with training before she's healed. It would also give her time to learn about where she's found herself. To keep her from doing teleport hops to planets on her way back to finding TSAB space, Remnant might be located too far from "destination" planets for her to get to safely. Since she's stuck there an unknown length of time, she trains as a Huntress and eventually ends up as staff at Beacon (maybe she got injured again?).

[jgkitarel]

Interesting idea, which you can play with some things. There is also nothing that doesn't say that Nanoha can't use Aura or Semblance if she so chooses to. She could easily unlock Aura at the very least due to its defensive properties. She's not stupid, nor is she too proud to add tools and methods to her arsenal if they will increase her own survival.


I never perceived Nanoha as being non-lethal, but using less-than-lethal force. There is a difference between non-lethal and less-than-lethal force, mostly in the fact that it takes something going horribly wrong to kill someone using explicitly non-lethal force, while less-than-lethal force operates on the understanding that while it is not intended to be lethal, it still can kill or severely injure someone. This is mostly because I just simply can't see any military organization having a complete no lethal force policy.

Of course, Nanoha can simply be that good and not have to use lethal force, but she is also the type who would do so and get it over and done with if it became necessary.

[MEKristian]

My issues are more towards personality portrayal; Nanoha is nice. Really really nice. Even when dealing with the Forwards, Vita's the one who does all the yelling, the worst Nanoha manages is disappointment.

A Cynical Nanoha just no longer feels like Nanoha, she's just an OC wearing a Nanoha skin.

[Chuckg]

Here's an idea.

In year 5, a combination between going stir-crazy in Grimmauld Place, being half nuts from Azkaban exposure to begin with, being taunted by Snape for his 'uselessness', and knowing that people like Lucius Malfoy are busy going around building support within the Ministry for Voldemort's return while nobody actually does anything leads Sirius Black to a conclusion.

He's already the most wanted criminal in Britain. He's already got a kill-on-sight order out on him with the Ministry. So what the hell does he have to lose if he actually does start murdering people? What are they going to do, send him to Azkaban?

Also, if people really believe him to be Voldemort's right-hand-man, then why not use that to convince them that Voldemort really has returned?

And so Wizarding Britain is shocked when upstanding citizen Lucius Malfoy is murdered in broad daylight by the notorious Sirius Black, who was shouting something about betrayal and lies. Clearly all of the former "Imperius Curse victims" are being culled for daring to defy Lord Voldemort! Blah blah blah.

Or: Sirius just goes "Fuck. Everything!" and starts going all Max Payne on Magical Britain.

[jgkitarel]

My issues are more towards personality portrayal; Nanoha is nice. Really really nice. Even when dealing with the Forwards, Vita's the one who does all the yelling, the worst Nanoha manages is disappointment.

A Cynical Nanoha just no longer feels like Nanoha, she's just an OC wearing a Nanoha skin.

And the Nanoha can still be the nice girl we all know and love. At the same time, she's also in a world where the risk of dying is far higher given the line of work she and those she works with are involved in, which would make her slightly less nice while training people. Also, without Vita there, she doesn't have someone to play the bad guy, so she has to pick up some of the slack.

It depends on what the catalyst for her cynicism is, and how cynical it makes her. She can still be nice, but can turn it off as needed.

[Phht]

Interesting idea, which you can play with some things. There is also nothing that doesn't say that Nanoha can't use Aura or Semblance if she so chooses to. She could easily unlock Aura at the very least due to its defensive properties. She's not stupid, nor is she too proud to add tools and methods to her arsenal if they will increase her own survival.

I left it in the air as to whether Aura was magic/mana same as Nanoha uses, or if it's something slightly different. Let's say it is the same.

Spoiler: show

The defensive effects of Aura use make it like a very primitive version of a Barrier Jacket concept. Glyphs look and act somewhat similar to magic circles. Some of the Semblances could be grouped as Mana Conversion Affinities, or perhaps instinctive creation of specific spells. Ruby's speed Semblance is similar to Fate's Blitz Action or Sonic Move, or Nanoha's Flash Move, or Tre's Inherent Skill Ride Impulse. With this in mind, if Aura users are all F-D or even E-C, then imagine Nanoha at either AAA untrained or power limiter to A on Remnant. She'd be massively more powerful than anyone else. And if her power limiter broke and she had gotten up to S-rank by that point?

In a similar vein, if Dust is used to power attacks and the like, then couldn't that mean that Dust is a form of naturally occurring crystallized mana? Or, given the forms they're found in, naturally occurring crystallized elementally converted mana. If that's true, then the Schnee family has essentially formed a system of magic. You have a unique magic circle for the system (glyph) that, combined with the use of Dust, enables them to cast spells above what their mana capacity class in a variety of elements rather than a single one as possible with Mana Conversion Affinity.

And actually... if Dust is a naturally occurring form of crystallized mana, this might be why the Aura users would only be F-D or E-C. Something in the world of Remnant drains mana from inhabitants starting at birth, resulting in the creation of Dust. The side effect is that all inhabitants of Remnant would be to some degree much lower in mana capacity than they ought to be naturally. Carrying the line of thought further, perhaps the Grimm are a part of this mana "ecosystem" as well. Grimm exist to keep the native human population from stressing the capacity of the Dust creation system. This would be why cities and villages outside the four major ones are under regular threat of being overrun, and why Mountain Glenn ended up like it did.

I never perceived Nanoha as being non-lethal, but using less-than-lethal force. There is a difference between non-lethal and less-than-lethal force, mostly in the fact that it takes something going horribly wrong to kill someone using explicitly non-lethal force, while less-than-lethal force operates on the understanding that while it is not intended to be lethal, it still can kill or severely injure someone. This is mostly because I just simply can't see any military organization having a complete no lethal force policy.

So I checked the nanoha EN wiki, and the only method of "lethal" anywhere on it is on the Mass Weapons page, and no "non-lethal" mentions anywhere. Of course, given that the lethal capable gun device of Runessa's needed special permission.... From the fact that pretty much any non-magic weapon including a "live ammo gun" seems to be grouped (for now) as a "mass weapon," it seems implied that non-lethal is default for magic in conjunction with the relative lack of deaths at the hands of magic in the franchise.

Might be headcanon, but there is a good fact... how many people or creatures were killed by magic in Nanoha?

Spoiler: show

There are 21 characters on the wiki that are listed as dead - 3 Ancient Belka era, 2 Unification War (Claus Ingvalt, Olivie Sagebrecht), 3 pre-series (Clyde Harlaown, Rynith, Alicia Testarossa), 1 MIA season one (Presea Testarossa), 2 As era (Defense program, Reinforce), 2 pre-StrikerS (Tiida Lanster, Quint Nakajima), 4 StrikersS era (Due, Regius Gaiz, Zest Grangeitz, TSAB High Council), 2 Sound Stage X (Tredia Graze, Mariage), 2 Force era (1 killed by Claw Grab, 1 killed by self-destruct).

Even given the limited sample size possible from the series, it certainly seems like no one tends to use lethal force if they can help it. Even the Wolkenritter in As weren't killing people or creatures when they drained the mana. The only time we've heard mention of deaths seems to be when dealing with wanted criminals (excluding the case of the Wolkenritter or Fate), who would probably not be that fussed to use lethal force in order to get away.

My issues are more towards personality portrayal; Nanoha is nice. Really really nice. Even when dealing with the Forwards, Vita's the one who does all the yelling, the worst Nanoha manages is disappointment.

jgkitarel has a good grasp on where the difference comes from. The realities of Remnant and the Grimm would make it harder for her to keep the level of niceness and caring that we see in canon.

Spoiler: show

Mountain Glenn keeps coming to mind as important to Nanoha's time on Remnant. There's not much hard detail on time frames, other than the Great War starting 80 years pre-series. So, what if Mountain Glenn's surface fell while Nanoha was at Beacon (or soon after graduation), and she was involved in missions in it after graduation? There's two ways this could go. One, she could find out between missions about the city (falling back underground, and/or) falling due to the cavern of Grimm, or perhaps she's in the city at the time and works to buy time for evacuation.

Now, if Nanoha has a damaged linker core from the drone incident, it's possible that the linker core hasn't actually fully healed yet, so Nanoha pushing herself to her limits could "reopen" the injury and worsen it. Also, pushing herself so hard might damage any power limiter on her, which could be bad if she's gotten to S-rank by that point (or was going to test soon after the mission and officially become that). Thus, Nanoha nearly kills herself buying time for people to evacuate, and goes into teaching afterward to avoid doing further damage to her core (and lessen the chances of breaking a power limiter out right).

I kinda think Nanoha went into teaching because she's running from the death present in doing Hunter work in the field. Doesn't want to find out about teams being lost or friends/coworkers dying on mission, or people dying from Grimm attacks in the Wilds, so she hides from it by teaching at Beacon. And that's why she selects teams with good potential, so by the time she's done with them and they graduate, she'll hopefully never hear that they died on a mission. And why she takes a more stern, stand-offish facade with students - she doesn't want to get close to them, just in case.

Not that she'd admit to any of that. Rather, she's wanting to teach to make teams better prepared to survive in battle. The bullet hell training is there to work situation awareness, communication, reflexes, and analysis. Can't kill what you can't hit after all, and devising communications that the other side can't hear or understand helps out. Things like Rule 3-4 are there to encourage and foster greater responsibility and teamwork in a team. If a team member screws up a lot, it reflects poorly on the team leader for not doing something about it. If the team leader screws up on stuff, it reflects poorly on the team and could cost lives in the future.

Also, she teaches because of the fear that if she uses more of her full magic potential again, it could escalate things (maybe not with Grimm, but plots among the humans/faunus). Though she'd more likely claim she didn't want to risk further damage to her linker core.

We didn't really see much of Nanoha's personality in the two snippets (as an aside, Nanoha stocks up on new music for a term with new first years because she uses the music to pattern her attacks on initially to make it easier to spot for students, though also harder, as she listens to the music while nonchalantly smacking teams around with her attacks to the students' frustration).

Spoiler: show

Nanoha comments on possibly mocking people regarding their mistakes, but she actually saves mockery for when someone did something so mind-bogglingly bad that there's no other way to get across how bad the mistake was. And when she hands out more than faint praise or backhanded complements, it'll be because the person earned it. Rule 1... well, only being able to say you're in the tact class means all kinds of amusement because people aren't necessarily thinking it's an acronym. Rule 2 kinda carries forward rule 1, because if you explained what you actually did in the class, other students would realize that it's not actually a class on tact and less amusement would be had. Rules 3-4 I covered above.

There'd be a rule in the list (not given in the snippet) regarding upholding Beacon rules and her rules in class, that would (combined with specific rules being missing from matches) encourage students to figure out the limits of rules and their loopholes. Like never stating that other team members couldn't jump in when one member is going through bullet hell training, or that a team couldn't jump in to help another team in trouble during one of those sessions.

Something that might help with fleshing her out would be the bullying arc. The staff might not want to step in directly to stop bullying despite not liking it, because they're teaching future Huntsmen and Huntresses and can't fight all their battles for them. Doesn't mean they won't step in if a line is crossed, but they're watching to see how the student and their team handle it. In Nanoha's case, she feels like JNPR is violating rules 3-4, and ups the difficulty of their training sessions and gives them the mandatory tutoring sessions as punishment. Jaune is screwing up as a leader by his actions regarding the bullying, and the team is screwing up by letting it go on instead of taking action. She'd call them in (and probably CFVY at the same time) a few days after the Forever Falls incident to discuss why she had been punishing them and what they could've done. Like ask a teacher to set up a match between them and CRDL each time CRDL bullied their team member.

[jgkitarel]

The Wolkenritter didn't kill in A's because they specifically swore not to, largely due to the fact that while they were already disobeying Hayate's orders, they knew full well that she wouldn't take them killing, even if it was to save her, well at all. Well, that and if they did, it would make things harder on Hayate when they turned themselves in.

As for Nanoha deciding to become an instructor so that she doesn't have to face the harsh reality facing hunters and huntresses, that could be a part of it, but neither Ozpin, nor Glynda are likely to accept her for that reason alone. If anything, they would keep her from being a huntress, since being one means accepting that you, or your team mates might actually die on a mission. If Nanoha wants to become an instructor in order to run from that fact, then she isn't suitable to being one for that line of work. She will have to have proven herself in terms of skill and needed experience.

Nanoha's being somewhat distant from her students can be more professionalism on her part. She's their teacher, they're her students, so she has to have a certain distance from them. At the same time, if they have problems, they can still approach her for advice, which she would give. Given the harsh reality facing potential hunters and huntresses, she has to be a bit harder on them. So, she's sparing with compliments, ready to tell them exactly what they've done wrong, criticizes when necessary, but also doesn't mock or harshly tear her students down unless they seriously fuck up. Even then, she will do the latter in private.

This Nanoha is more a professional soldier preparing recruits to fight a war. It also helps that her recruits are older and have grown up in a harder world.

Of course, the two she's going to be hardest on are likely to be Jaune and Ruby. Jaune, due to the fact that he is better than he thinks he is, despite his creative way of getting into Beacon, which fooled no one. Ruby, because she reminds Nanoha far too much of her younger self.

[MEKristian]

And thus, there is really no point to it being Nanoha.

[Phht]

Side note: I've noticed that I tend to traumatize Nanoha in my plot bunnies. The WH40k crossover, the XCOM crossover, this one, the Batman crossover, the magical girl giant robot pilot one.... Bit of an odd trend there.

If I was actually writing this as a story, it'd go something like this.

Spoiler: show

Examining a downed drone and finding a relic, getting badly injured by a drone she didn't notice in her exhausted state, relic reacts and she crashes into a forest on Remnant - I'm thinking Emerald Forest or Forever Fall. She further drains herself trying to fight off grimm without using lethal force and having no real effect. She shifts to shielding herself, hoping to buy time for help to arrive. And it does, but not the help she was expecting. Team STRQ (either 3rd-4th year students or recently graduated) were deployed to find out what crashed into the forest, and find her. She passes out and wakes in Beacon's infirmary. Meet Ozpin, some discussion about her arrival, etc. Montage through her recovery period, with her taking time to learn about the place she found herself. Once she's healed up and she feels her reserves are mostly full, she goes to leave (with Ozpin watching to see a bit of how it works). An hour or two later, she gives up, having never gotten off Remnant as a result of failing to locate a world within range that counts to any degree as "safe." Given her reserves and the distances a mage can cross with that standard teleport spell, she realizes that she's stuck there until the TSAB hopefully locates her at some point in the future.

To avoid legal issues (since she'd be ~16 at this point), Ozpin becomes her guardian. She decides to become a Huntress and spends the next year or so training her physical skills and style so she's not making use of flight and other spells that should be far beyond what an aura user can do. The year is also spent with Ozpin comparing her magic to Remnant's Aura, concluding that they're the same thing, just that humans of Remnant for whatever reason are universally weak in natural reserves... and that their cores are "locked" so the magic isn't accessible naturally. She easily passes Initiation and becomes a student of Beacon. At this point, I'd do some team building/school stuff to get things laid out, then montage/time skip through her school years with scenes here and there to show how the team grows and changes through the years. Brief pause from the montage to cover graduation, then montage over their first few year or so of missions.

At which point we kick off the Mountain Glenn arc. At some point during the year or so of missions, mention of Mountain Glenn retreating underground will be made. By the time that Nanoha's team is visiting the city, the citizens have settled in the underground city that had been built prior to the move above ground and to a degree carried on with life. This wouldn't be the first time the team has been to the city. A few times previously, the city has discovered a potential cavern near them, and a team or two of Huntsmen have passed through small breaches in order to explore the space. This has allowed the city to expand out underground, though a few spots had to be resealed behind a retreating Huntsman team due to Grimm.

This particular visit has Nanoha leading a pair of teams into a potentially large cavern that could really allow the city to expand. A third team waits nearby to serve as a blocking force should Grimm get past the exploring teams. When the breach is made, it's larger than it should be (either due to too much boom, or the wall in that area is weaker), and a number of Grimm come pouring through. Nanoha's team takes the brunt of the invasion, but Nanoha drops a Deathstalker barely small enough to partially fit the hole, and uses its bulk to clog things log enough to get a shield over the breach. She keeps it up while the other two teams finish off the Grimm on their side, and engineers and citizens help make a barricade that the reseal mixture is applied to, resealing the larger breach.

With four dead Huntsmen and the barricade not necessarily sound, evacuating the city becomes the best option. Except they can't, as the Vale council ordered the tunnels collapsed after getting initial word of the breach. Now over 6500 citizens and 8 Huntsmen are stranded underground. Most of the story would focus on her time in Mountain Glenn after the tunnel was sealed. The only whole team is sent to the surface to re-establish contact with Beacon. These communication runs set up evacuation flights, where a team escorts a group of civilians to a clear area for evacuation by Bullhead. The council tries to stop it once they get word, but Ozpin ignores them. These flights manage to get out 200ish people, mainly children, when an evacuation group is apparently ambushed and wiped out. With there now being only four Huntsmen in Mountain Glenn, the flights are called off by them while a better plan is figured out. They'd like to have an evacuation path secured and just round the clock evacuate people, but the council blocks Ozpin from using anything larger than the Bullhead. He contacts Atlas about the situation, and the head of their Academy provides the aid of the Atlas military in the evacuation.

However, while the evacuation forces are en route, the walls around the barricade fail, as do the walls around other resealed breaches. With Grimm swarming in all over the city, the last four Huntsmen try to evacuate citizens to a defend-able position on the surface that they can be evacuated for. One Huntsman is killed as the fleeing citizens are swarmed on the surface, but blocks the path to the rest of the Huntsmen in the process. In the end, three Huntsmen and maybe a dozen or two civilians hunker down on a roof for rescue. Grimm get around the blockage, but Nanoha uses a shield to block the roof access despite being nearly exhausted.

A giant Nevermore appears, and a flurry of feathers on the roof claims many of the surviving civilians. Nanoha's exhaustion causes the shield to fail as she tries to also engage the Nevermore. One Huntsman goes down as Beowolves push through the roof access, but a Bullhead drives off the Nevermore as a three-man team deploys to the roof, halting the Beowolf pack from wiping out the rest of the survivors. With the area temporarily secure, the Bullhead hovers to the roof's side, and the few survivors start getting moved over to it. The Nevermore returns and sends another flurry of feathers at the roof. A Huntress from the evac team sees a young girl out in the path of the feathers, and gets the girl out of the way. This leaves her with no time to dodge and is killed as Nanoha manages to get one shot off that knocks the Nevermore out of the sky. Nanoha then collapses unconscious.

The fallout in Vale from Mountain Glenn is incredible. The kingdom had a couple months to grieve the unfortunate loss of the city, only to have Beacon's headmaster come forth with scroll videos and survivors. The reveal that Vale's council wrote off thousands of lives on an initial report and then refused to provide any assistance in the "fool's errand" of evacuating them out a different way sparked a number of villages outside of Vale's walls to consider closing up and relocating back to Vale. The council's threat of military action to prevent such moves from entering the city then sparked unrest within the city itself. Further information coming to light about evacuated survivors not being allowed to leave Beacon for Vale, and the behind closed doors discussions regarding Mountain Glenn resulted in nearly the entire Council being forced to resign under threat of revolution by the citizens.

Only five people survived the final "breach" in Mountain Glenn. A Huntsman and one civilian died of medical complications from wounds within two months of the incident. Another civilian couldn't handle the loss and jumped off one of Beacon's airship landing pads. Nanoha herself was in a coma for four months, being moved to a high security lab following the medical complication deaths. The last survivor was a young girl with black hair that took up offers from the other kingdoms to make a fresh start elsewhere, like the other civilian survivors chose to do. One thing that had been done was the recovery of weapons and scrolls from fallen Huntsmen, the scrolls because the Huntsmen had them recording while in the field at Mountain Glenn (thus footage of what actually happened in the city) and the weapons so others would at least have something they could use to mourn their loss since bodies wouldn't be recoverable. The weapons ended up on a memorial wall remembering Mountain Glenn at Beacon - initially 10 slots filled and two empty - with one empty slot being filled soon after the memorial was built.

Time skip to one year later (or I guess 16 months later, if you go from the last scene Nanoha was in, rather than from the end of the four month coma), where Nanoha arrives at Beacon and makes her way to Headmaster Ozpin's office. This part/book would end with her asking to become a teacher at Beacon.

Part 2

Spoiler: show

I have a silly idea where Nanoha and the other abandoned Huntsmen became completely disillusioned with Vale's leadership, and as a result Nanoha is involved in Cinder's plan. In fact, she's using her class to mold and train a small army for when things kick off. I call it silly because I don't think Nanoha would ever become so disillusioned with a government that she'd plot to topple it after the leadership responsible for the mess had been forced out of power already.

The other would be more in line with what I mentioned before. Nanoha deals with the trauma of Mountain Glenn by repressing it and avoiding any mention of it, while also avoiding making any real connections with students or staff. She knew Team STRQ since they rescued her, but she never really gets in contact with them after she wakes from the coma because of a degree of guilt. Summer Rose was the Huntress killed on the rooftop (and they were a three-man team at the time because Raven had already vanished off wherever). She also avoids contacting any of them because she to a degree blames Qrow for Summer's death, because he was too hungover to be properly hustling to get the civilians out of the open, resulting in the last one being in the path of the attack and Summer sacrificing herself to move the girl to safety.

When she claims Team RWBY, she doesn't realize that Ruby is Summer's daughter (and Yang is Raven's) until the second class when she gets around to calling roll. At that point, she starts pushing the team harder than JNPR. When attempts to find out why they're seemingly being punished every class fail ("If you have time to complain, you have time to train more~"), they end up encountering Ozpin and discuss the problem. He eventually notes that Nanoha's likely pushing them harder because she knew Ruby's mom and likely wanted to drive the girl into quitting so she wouldn't end up dead on a mission like Ruby's mom. Now somewhat content with that answer, they decide to buckle down and just withstand the training, though Nanoha soon lets up. The team ends up punished after the Docks fight (because Blake abandoned her team and Ruby not only failed to gather her team before crashing the fight, but she got knocked out of the fight near immediately). A rule is added after that fight regarding notifying Nanoha if the students encounter White Fang or Torchwick outside missions. JNPR faces the punishment training themselves during the bullying arc (...no pun intended).

Ruby's description of the intruder in the CCT the night of the dance leaves Nanoha shaken, but she doesn't say why because she's not really sure if she's just imagining a connection to her past. The Breach occurs and Nanoha is not involved in the fighting. Given Nanoha's experience and skill, Ruby wants to know why, but Professor Goodwitch convinces her not to push the point. She's initially at the meeting between Ironwood and Ozpin, but Qrow's arrival sparks sniping between the two that starts at barely sorta polite and gets worse ("At least my team doesn't consider of a broken teacher, an eternal drunk, and a terrorist." "At least my team is still nearly all alive."). At some point Ruby gets fed up Nanoha's refusal to push the training harder in light of events and confronts her with RWBY, JNPR, and CFVY in tow. When Nanoha refuses to answer, Ruby decides to attack her. Ruby refuses to stay down despite how much she's knocked down, and keeps demanding to know why. Finally, Nanoha's pent up emotions get the better of her and she reveals how Summer died, and that Ruby would be better off quitting before she ended up like her mother - abandoned by one teammate, handicapped by a constantly drunk or hungover teammate, and forced beyond her capabilities to try to compensate for that. When Ruby denies that'll happen to her team, Nanoha points out that Blake already did it once, and she wouldn't be surprised if Yang one day did it permanently. After all, Yang repeated abandoned Ruby in "attempts" for Ruby to make new friends, though Nanoha hoped that when Yang abandoned the team for good, she'd at least not take after her mom and become a terrorist too. Yang interrupts that argument at this point, attacking Nanoha. Nanoha promptly puts her into a wall before leaving the room with an announcement that classes were canceled for the foreseeable future. Yang and Ruby are rushed to the infirmary for their injuries.

While confined to bed, Ozpin pays her a visit and reveals Nanoha's history with Mountain Glenn. Ruby got out of the infirmary first, having relatively few injuries despite how much she got knocked around more, and pays a visit to Nanoha in her quarters. They have a more heartfelt discussion, though it's largely Ruby talking. This would be the point where Nanoha reveals that part of why she's not getting involved is worry about escalating a situation by being involved. Another part is that her injuries never fully healed from before she trained at Beacon and the events at Mountain Glenn undid all the healing and made things worse to the point that she nearly died on the rooftop from over stressing things, so she's worried that if she stopped holding back like she does teaching, she could do irreparable damage and die.

The main outcome of the discussion is that Nanoha ends up meeting with Ozpin and requesting a leave of absence in order to go looking for the only other possibly still living survivor of that final breach at Mountain Glenn, and see if the path leads her to the Queen they're trying to counter.

Cinder

Spoiler: show

Cinder would be one of Mountain Glenn's residents trapped there after the tunnel was sealed. She ends up a bit of a mascot for the trapped Huntsmen, managing to regularly bring a smile to them. She ended up nicknamed "Ember" after a Huntress explained a comparison between the city and a dead fire - you always have to make sure the fire's completely out, because there's embers and cinders in the ashes that could spark a new fire if it escapes to a flammable area, much like the residents in the city - and she proclaimed that she'd be an ember to burn those that abandoned them. When the final breaches occur, she's one of the few that make it with the Huntsmen to the roof top, and is actually the girl that Summer dies getting to safety. When she takes up the offer to start a new life elsewhere, Cinder decides to take a new name as part of that - Fall, as a bit of a homage to the Huntress that saved her life, and Cinder with that fire comparison in mind.

So all the plans and plots and everything that she gets up to is a result of her experiences in Mountain Glenn after Vale abandoned it.

TSAB

Spoiler: show

There's not really any mention of them after initial arc. Part of the idea is that something has rendered all planets near Remnant unsafe for travel (whatever causes the Grimm has infected those worlds and wiped them out at some point in the past, maybe), or perhaps that there are no planets within a large distance of Remnant, or perhaps there's a nebula or something blocking her from teleporting out. I would like to think that TSAB finally catches up with her near the end of the second part (with best dramatic arrival point being when Nanoha reveals her worries about irreparably damaging her linker core and dying as a result). If they accelerate her healing more, then she might be taking the leave of absence in order to wrap up unfinished business on Remnant before considering returning to TSAB.

It could turn out that time passes differently between Remnant and everywhere else, so Nanoha hasn't actually been gone decades at all but only a few years. As a non-native of Remnant, this difference could cause her to not age as quickly as time spent on Remnant would suggest she should have.

[jgkitarel]

That fleshes things out nicely, and would go a long way to explain why Nanoha has become somewhat bitter and disillusioned. As for your habit of traumatizing Nanoha, well, it fits. For all that MGLN is idealistic, Nanoha doesn't deal with personal trauma, unlike her friends, who she then comes in and helps them deal with it and pull themselves back together.

[MEKristian]

Something been rattling around in my head for a while, and even though most people won't get it, I wrote a short thing about it

Spoiler: show

There was a sort of odd peace to NLA, sometimes. Sure, there was always the risk of Indigen attacks, or the Ganglion armies marching on the gates, or the many, many, many that arise from a bunch of people all gathering, living and working together. But every so often, everything would line up and a sort of magical, awe-inspiring tranquillity would settle over the city, like a beach at sunrise back back on Earth.


“... Though, come to think of it, why did they make that anti-shock gel stuff smell like salt water...” She muses, nibbling on the strawberry chocolate-chip cookie she saved for desert during her lunch. She knows from experience that the gel does not in fact taste like salt water after one too many missed jumps and impromptu swimming sessions that end in half her team hissing and screaming at her. Still, despite all the dysfunction her team tends to show at times, she still considers them her friends.


“Well,” she says, standing up and stretching out the kinks in her body from sitting so long, “guess it's about time to get back to work.” And, as if on cue, her com device suddenly starts beeping frantically, something that's never a good sign, because it only means one thing. So, with a deep sign, she removes it from her pocket, activating it to be greeted by two cold, blue, and very angry looking eyes.


“Where are you!?” The face on the holographic screen nearly shouts, causing it's recipient to wince at both the volume and tone involved, “Were you hiding away at the test hanger again!?”

“It's my lunch break,” the other shoots back, doing her best to put on a look of disapproval, “so not only is it not your business where I am, I'm free to be wherever I want.” Her blue-eyed teammate looks far more irritated for a second or two, before taking in a deep breath and slowly releasing it.

“Unfortunately your time off appears to be cut short,” she finally says, far calmer, “Commander Vandham has a mission for us. Top priority, and Team Elma is currently running around Oblivia looking for some other thing, so it's fallen to us.”


Ah, yes, the fabled “Elma” and her team, sporting the only person in BLADE younger than herself... well, unless that L guy they brought back before is, like, only fourteen or something, because of some xeno ageing thing... but mechanics was her strong suit, not biology so whatever.

“Has he given any details about what's wrong?” She asks, falling back into her usual team leader role.

“It seems that your other friend's team was sent out to that piece of the Lifehold Team Elma had discovered before those xenos destroyed it. They haven't met their check-in time, so the commander wants to send us out to finish the job, and figure out what happened to the others.”


“Jaune's team?” Well, that was a fairly important problem; Jaune was one of the few people who'd really approached her after they'd both joined up with BLADE. And Pyrrha and Ren were a Reclaimer and Curator respectively, so it would make sense for them to be sent to try and pick up any pieces of the destroyed data storage... But despite Jaune being a bit... off in terms of combat ability, between the four of them, they shouldn't have been wiped out or anything... “Alright, that means we can start our search area from the Sunlit Spring and work our way out. Weiss, grab Yang and Blake and head to point FN219; I'll meet you there.”

“Yes, oh great BLADE General Ruby Rose,” Weiss replies with a bow, “Team Ruby will head off to meet up with it's mighty leader at FN219, while said leader dithers around before meeting up with them when she feels appropriate.” And suddenly, the connection cuts off, Weiss obviously going to grab the two other members of the team.

“But I'm not even old enough to have been in the military...” Ruby grumbles, blinking at the com device, before putting it away and giving her beloved weapon, Crescent Rose, a once over. Having her time off cut short wasn't even really that bad, ultimately; Ruby would never tell anyone, not even her dear sister Yang, but going out into the wilds of Mira and slaying dangerous indigens made her truly feel a sense that above everything else, this was what she was meant to do with her life.

“Well then, partner,” she says, re-holstering Crescent Rose, “guess it's time to do some work.”

[jgkitarel]

Just an FYI, the HP x SAO idea's prologue and first chapter are now in the Writer's Workshop thread for commentary, critique, and criticism.

[jgkitarel]

This idea hit me, and while I could cross it over with the Avengers, I also realize that it isn't necessary. A good thing, considering I don't know nearly enough about that franchise to do it properly.

Basically, what if a Norse God actually helped with the development of Alfheim Online? I'm using Loki, because this is something up his alley, but any Norse God (or any god really) who has Magnificent Bastard credentials can do it.

Idea:

While the Virtual Reality Technology behind the Nerve Gear and AmuSphere were developed by humans, at least one of the games had someone who was most certainly not human behind its development, no matter how human he looked. After all, Loki has always been intelligent and needs something to do. Besides, he does think humanity has potential, even if his means of trying to draw it out leave much to be desired. He's a trickster god, after all, with all the good and bad that entails. Even without malicious intent, trickster gods are ones that mortals are wise not to draw the attention of.

Thus, he helps RCT Progress with the development of Alfheim Online. After all, a game inspired by Norse Mythology sounds like a fun idea, and being as he is a Norse God, he would be an expert on it. He also would like to see what happens. So, he works on it, gets wind of what Sugou does when SAO gets resolved, and makes a few changes to the game, changes which eventually start to be reflected in the real world. Unintended ones, but he considers them a good thing in the end, though those undergoing those changes would like to debate that matter.

Other gods catch wind of this and begin to take their own interest in things, as well as again having the means of affecting the world.

A new Age of Myths is beginning, and humanity is the clay that will shape it.

Addendum: This Loki isn't the actively malicious trickster that is his most common portrayals. Given that the most complete sources of him were created after the Norse were Christianized, the reliability of those poems is suspect, especially since older sources paint him in a more ambiguous light. Not entirely heroic, but not entirely villainous. This is more the trickster gadfly which reflects his gentler portrayals. He does things and sets them up just to see what happens. Not actively malicious, but those who get affected by his actions can be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

[MEKristian]

RWBY's Bizarre Adventure.

...

<_<

...

>_>

...

*runs*

[Dechstreme]

Classic Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency JoJo? Or Stardust Crusaders and after?

[MEKristian]

Stands fit the general things RWBY has.

[Dechstreme]

Does anyone aside from us know what we are talking about here?

[DIT_grue]

Does anyone aside from us know what we are talking about here?

Roughly. (Enough to know it doesn't interest me in the slightest - I'm reluctant to read RWBY fics even if they're by really excellent authors, and I've never read a JJBA fic despite sampling a fair few and skimming summaries of a lot more.)

[Dechstreme]

Not about reading fics, but actually being familiar with the source material, and the question was more regarding JJBA, not RWBY.

[DIT_grue]

Canon? What's that? (I can probably count the number of fandoms where I'm directly familiar with the source on my fingers. Well, maybe not, now that I think of it; but if I limit it to things I'd consider reading fanfic of... maybe.)

[Dechstreme]

Joke doesn't work because I never even use the word 'canon'.