Project Remix: Take Two (Nanoha/Negima)

[Comartemis]

After several weeks of deliberation, continued development, and lots and lots of brainstorming sessions, I've developed Project Remix into something much more workable than the original idea was. However this new take on the crossover is so radically different from the original that I thought it warranted its' own thread, as well as another review from the locals (if y'all would be kind enough to comment) to iron out any bugs I may have missed.

As with the original incarnation, the story begins with an original character named Alexander Sciron. Originally Alex was a knight of the Saint Church under Carim Gracia, but here he's a self-taught combat mage from the (tentatively-named) Vercetti crime family, which operates out of the city of Tempe in Mundus Magicus, or Negima's magic world for those of you not familiar with the series. Alex cut all ties with the family a few years ago and took to wandering around the eastern half of the continent as a career adventurer.

A few weeks before the series begins, the Vercetti family decides they want Alex back for reasons not known to him, and send a few grunts after him with a message that he's wanted at home. Alex doesn't react well to this, and instead of returning home like a good little boy, he packs his bags and makes for the nearest gate to Earth, hoping to lose his pursuers in unfamiliar territory. He's intercepted by another agent of the family at the gate, one Marl Janus, who is now trying to bring him back by force. In the confusion, Alex makes his teleport, but the gate breaks down halfway through, and instead of winding up on the other side of the gate, Alex gets catapulted a few hundred miles south of the exit point, and emerges on to Earth unconscious and in very poor condition.

Meanwhile on Earth, it's turning into a very slow summer break for Tsukimura Suzuka and Arisa Bannings. Nanoha is in Hong Kong visiting an aunt of hers (one of the Triangle Heart characters who didn't get any screentime in MGLN), and the girls are on their own for several weeks... or at least, that was the plan.

One fine afternoon while the girls are having one of their usual get-togethers at Arisa's mansion, Alex drops in on the party, crash-landing in the trees behind Arisa's property. The magical energy from his busted teleport is intense enough to catch the attention of our beloved heroines (both of them being magic-sensitive but not actual mages just yet), who fish him out of his tree and get him inside.

Unfortunately, Alex's pursuer is able to send a few summoned minions through the gate to Earth, as well as pinpoint Alex's location. By the time he's done with this, the gate is too broken for him to use himself, and he has to travel to one of the other gate-holding cities in order to travel to Earth himself. So the good news is that the big bad for the season isn't going to be around for a while. The bad news is that there's now a small hoard of demons running loose in Uminari City, and Nanoha's too far away to even know they're there, much less do anything about them.

Alex awakens a few hours after sunset and immediately tries to leave without so much as a 'thank you', which royally pisses Arisa off. She immediately follows after Alex, demanding to know what the hell his problem is.

Alex's problem is his fear of getting innocent bystanders involved with his 'family issues', which is exactly what happens when he and Arisa are found by one of Janus's minions. Alex is in no shape to be fighting and is beaten quickly, but manages to buy himself a few minutes with a distraction and awakens Arisa's magical powers in one of several possible ways.

The first of the possible methods involves the two of them giving the demon the slip for a few minutes and engaging in a pactio, which gives Arisa a sword-type artifact. The other way is for Arisa to demonstrate an uncanny talent for dodging and fighting with an improvised weapon like a steel pipe or something of that nature, whereupon Alex whips out a second sword or other weapon and tosses it to her. Either way, Arisa defeats the demon and awakens her own dormant magical abilities.

After an intense argument between herself and Alex, Arisa convinces Alex that he's not in any shape to travel or fight and he's better off staying with her at least until his wounds heal. Besides, she's just had her entire worldview turned on its' head and she wants to know everything she can possibly learn about magic and Mundus Magicus and anything else Alex can tell her.

As the story wears on, Alex recovers his strength and Arisa begins to learn the tricks of the magical girl trade, honing her skills on the demons around town in a classic monster-of-the-day fashion. Suzuka quickly finds out about Arisa's powers and may or may not gain her own set of abilities before the climax. She'll definitely have them before the story ends, but depending on how things play out she may have them much sooner than that. Most of the in-between segments consist of character interaction between Suzuka, Arisa, and Alex, as the girls try to puzzle out Alex's backstory, something Alex is reluctant to talk about.

The middle portion of the fic is the shakiest part of the story thus far, as it's lacking in sub-plots and details of that nature needed to flesh out the core of the story. The most likely course I'll take is to insert some hidden detail about Suzuka's or Arisa's pasts and thrust them into the spotlight a little more. For instance, 'Bannings' doesn't sound like a Japanese name to me, which indicates that Arisa isn't native Japanese... so where's she from? Possibly the magic world if her true parents were mages and her current ones are relatives she grew up with.

Eventually, Marl Janus makes his way to Uminari City and takes matters into his own hands, handily defeating Alex and the girls and kidnapping one of them to convince Alex to return to the magic world with him. Marl is so far beyond Alex's ability to deal with that he resigns himself to his fate until Nanoha comes around looking for the girls and learns what's been going on in her absence. Cue the final battle, with Nanoha opening up a crate of whoopass on Marl while Alex handles Marl's chief minion.

From here we move into A's and the rest of the timeline. The rest of the Negima cast comes into play during the A's to StrikerS timeskip when the girls transfer to Mahora after graduating from elementary school. For now I want to focus on the first season--the only one I'll be able to get to work on writing any time soon--so I'll skip on going into detail on the following seasons.

[Climhazard]

IMO in Mundus Magicus only two gates that connect MM to the Earth currently exist. One that connected to Whales, and second one somewhere in ruins of Old Ostia (and currently no one even sure if this gate exists). So if you plan to destroy a gate to Earth, you messed up with Negima canon because to restore gate you need spend from three to five years.

[Comartemis]

I thought there were something like 10 or 12 gates scattered around the magic world and Fate was going around destroying them all?

If I'm wrong about that then I can just make Alex use one that's in the process of being dismantled, most likely because the Earth-side end of the gate has turned into a major tourist attraction (say the Earthside gate was somewhere on Mt. Fuji, for instance) and it's not safe to use any more.

Besides, there's a bit less than 3 years in between the beginning of this story and the beginning of Negima canon going by the timeline I've got laid out, so it seems to work out anyways, assuming you give an extra half-year for the first half of Negima to take place in.