Idea for a SM/DBZ Crossover

[Lord Aries Greymon]

This is shaping up to be very interesting.

[Comartemis]

It is, isn't it?

Of course, the trick is getting around to actually writing it.

[claymade]

Here's an idea; what about King Vegeta vs Endymion? Not Tux-boy, hell no, but if the Prince of Earth shows up with the Golden Crystal to defend his turf, he'll free up Moon to face Bardock or Tullece, the Tree of Might villain.

Oh, perfect! Didn't even occur to me... King Endymion vs. King Vegeta. Good call.

I'm going to remedy this by implementing Seraphim's suggestion of having Makoto mention her dreams to the other girls. Makoto's bad feeling is largely dismissed by the others, but Usagi shows more of her budding maturity by saying 'we should be prepared in case another enemy shows up', and follows up on Makoto's suggestion by requesting that the girls take up the martial arts to eliminate their weakness in CQC.

<snip>

The main reason I'm doing this is because if I don't, Makoto is going to be training rank amateurs; not even the Hyperbolic Time Chamber (or the Time Gate in this case) would be enough to help the girls then.

On further reflection, I'm not sure how much you want to frontload the training part previous to the initial appearance of the threat, for several reasons:

A) The feel of Makoto training alone semi-obsessively in preparation for a threat even she doesn't fully understand is a striking, powerful theme, one that you don't want to sacrifice for something more plain and institutionalized eariler than you need to.

B) Think of your plot in terms of its various climaxes. These are crucial to the flow of your story, providing the "high" points on the impact/excitement meter. And the initial lead-in climax is in many ways one of the more important ones.

The way you had it before, the initial climax of Goku's defeat forces the crux of the plot, pushing the other Senshi to train along with Makoto (in whatever styles you want to give them). That combination increases the impact of the change greatly.

If, however, you split the climax and the crux, you dillute the impact.

(Not to mention that really, you want to get to your initial climax in fairly short order anyway...)

C) If Makoto's visions are detailed to the point of identifying specific areas of fighting style that need to be worked on (i.e. they can tell from them that they need to work on CQC) that rather takes away from their vague and mysterious nature if you can pull such extremely concrete insights from them.

Rather than have them start early, I'd just personally suggest just playing with the time interval between the two waves to be whatever you need. Heck, look how long it took in canon before Raditz finally came to check up on how Goku was doing. You can really get just about any time period you want for them to train in--not even counting the Time Gates.

[Comartemis]

Good points all around, Claymade, however...

Rather than have them start early, I'd just personally suggest just playing with the time interval between the two waves to be whatever you need. Heck, look how long it took in canon before Raditz finally came to check up on how Goku was doing. You can really get just about any time period you want for them to train in--not even counting the Time Gates.

...I'm not sure how to accomplish this without giving it a "I'm being lazy so I'm going to fast-forward a few months" feel, especially since Kakarot is supposed to be growing and developing into a defender of love and justice during this time. On the flip side, if I drag out the training sequence over several months or a year and write about everything that happens in that year or so, the readers will lose interest long before I get to the final showdown.

How do I strike that balance?

[claymade]

...I'm not sure how to accomplish this without giving it a "I'm being lazy so I'm going to fast-forward a few months" feel, especially since Kakarot is supposed to be growing and developing into a defender of love and justice during this time. On the flip side, if I drag out the training sequence over several months or a year and write about everything that happens in that year or so, the readers will lose interest long before I get to the final showdown.

How do I strike that balance?

I'm not sure that I completely understand the question. Say the Senshi need to train X months in order to plausibly be at the level you want them to be. What does it matter to that whether Goku comes at the start of those months or in the middle? Any part of those months that you don't show will be, in effect, a "fast-forward" no matter how you slice it with Goku's coming.

Similarly, you're not (I hope) going to be doing a day-by-day, hour-by-hour real-time breakdown of the period after Goku arrives, before the Saiyans come. No matter what you do, you'll have to deal with the fact that you will have to do timeskips.

The key to doing them effectively is just to space out the actual plot points so that it has an organic feel to it. You establish what "ordinary" is for each "phase" of the story, generalize over the parts where nothing out of the ordinary happens, and focus on the parts where noteworthy events occurr, and where things change the nature of "the ordinary."

Plus, you've got the fudge factor of the Infinite Forms' power that you can use to compress the required time period, pretty much to whatever degree you want. How much time will it take to do all the character work that you would have needed to do anyway? Use that to set your training time, not the other way around. It's the former that's really the important thing in such a story, not strict realism in terms of real-world martial arts.

[Comartemis]

I'm not sure that I completely understand the question. Say the Senshi need to train X months in order to plausibly be at the level you want them to be. What does it matter to that whether Goku comes at the start of those months or in the middle? Any part of those months that you don't show will be, in effect, a "fast-forward" no matter how you slice it with Goku's coming.

I'm just not sure how to spread out the plot points across the year between Goku's arrival and the final attack. Just saying "it had been so many weeks since whatever happened" or "Two months had passed" feels like a cop-out.

Maybe I should re-read the Harry Potter books I've got; J.K. seems to handle the timeskip thing quite well.

I just had a thought; suppose the Infinite form is the (supposedly) final evolution of the Senshi's powers, and along with the power boost comes all of the Senshi's memories of the Silver Millennium, including the details of whichever martial art style they used way back when; they'd still need to train themselves to "shake the rust off", so to speak, but they'd have the groundwork all set up to build upon; even Serenity would've trained along with her bodyguards in case she was ever attacked while they were occupied with some enemy, and this could open up an identity crisis subplot for everyone except Hotaru (I'm having Saturn be a second voice in Hotaru's thoughts. We see so little of either of them that it doesn't seem like much of a stretch of canon, and Saturn's unique nature means it's a possibility that was just never spelled out in the anime or the manga). How does it sound?

And speaking of real martial arts, I asked this a while ago on the fic research board but no one answered; does anyone know of a good glossary of martial arts terms? I'd rather not have the complexity of the girls' techniques be limited to "a flurry of strikes." I'd rather mix it up with crescent kicks, reverse punches, backhands, etc, but my personal knowledge of martial arts techniques is very limited; I'm only a white belt in Tang Soo Do karate.

*EDIT*

Similarly, you're not (I hope) going to be doing a day-by-day, hour-by-hour real-time breakdown of the period after Goku arrives, before the Saiyans come.

Nope, not a chance.

[Heaven's Deamon]

One thing you could do is to focus on the interactions while only mentioning the training, and example might be two of the scouts/goku having a sparing match, while you focus on a conversation being held by the spectators, the match is present, there are comments about it, but it is not actually shown to the reader, this shows that they are training, without getting into all of the "punch/hit/kick/throw this/that/dummy/sandbag/whatever" scenes that are common for a training montage.

[claymade]

I'm just not sure how to spread out the plot points across the year between Goku's arrival and the final attack. Just saying "it had been so many weeks since whatever happened" or "Two months had passed" feels like a cop-out.

Right, it's definitely a tricky writing feat to pull off. My point is simply that having them start this abnormal training before Goku arrives doesn't make it any easier at all.

You still have to do the same kinds of things anyway; the only difference is that it becomes less dramatic, and even harder to make it feel natural, since there's much less in the way of impetus for the adoption of this abnormal type of training.

I just had a thought; suppose the Infinite form is the (supposedly) final evolution of the Senshi's powers, and along with the power boost comes all of the Senshi's memories of the Silver Millennium, including the details of whichever martial art style they used way back when; they'd still need to train themselves to "shake the rust off", so to speak, but they'd have the groundwork all set up to build upon; even Serenity would've trained along with her bodyguards in case she was ever attacked while they were occupied with some enemy, and this could open up an identity crisis subplot for everyone except Hotaru (I'm having Saturn be a second voice in Hotaru's thoughts. We see so little of either of them that it doesn't seem like much of a stretch of canon, and Saturn's unique nature means it's a possibility that was just never spelled out in the anime or the manga). How does it sound?

Sounds viable. If you wanted them to use more esoteric stuff, then that'd be a good way to justify it. Of course, you couldn't rely on real-world arts as anything more than an inspiration in that case.

And speaking of real martial arts, I asked this a while ago on the fic research board but no one answered; does anyone know of a good glossary of martial arts terms? I'd rather not have the complexity of the girls' techniques be limited to "a flurry of strikes." I'd rather mix it up with crescent kicks, reverse punches, backhands, etc, but my personal knowledge of martial arts techniques is very limited; I'm only a white belt in Tang Soo Do karate.

Well, you gotta consider your audience--anime/manga fans not unlike yourself. Which raises the question: if you don't know a technical name for a martial arts move, then there's a good chance that a fair percentage of your audience won't either, and thus if you pull said term out of a glossary, you may end up obfuscating the matter instead of clarifying it.

Generally speaking, beyond a certain level of technicality, it's often better just to straight-up describe what's happening rather than relying on terms that may or may not be known.

[Nekomata-sensei]

One thing I might consider thinking about is watching Nanoha for inspiration. Once the Senshi all fly, which I assume they can do in these 'infinite' forms since the Sayajins fly, they probably not just need unique martial arts styles but to extend their unique magical styles furthur. I can see Venus learning more advanced 'binding' techniques, Saturn, Moon, and Mercury creating 'barrier entrapment feilds' to keep battles from affecting civilians and their enemies from escaping or calling in for reinforcements, the mercury computer and the Ginsuzishou working similar to inteligent devices, and each of the senshi having some sort of device/weapon in their 'infinite' form the outer senshi allready having theirs.

Also for each character's fighting styles, I have some ideas:

Moon: Drunken Boxing/Clumsy Princess style + Aikido + Tai-Chi-Chuan = Moon has a tendency for clumsy saves in the anime (or at least fannon) but it might be interesting if she actually had a style that _looked_ clumsy on purpose from back in the Silver Millenium that she has instinctive knowledge of simmering in the background, she could have a style like drunken Kung-Fu, along with some more redirecting style attacks from Aikido or Tai-Chi-Chuan. Her magical skills could be some of the more versitle but slow, with the Ginsuzishou behaving somewhat like an inteligent device, her fighting style would be slightly deceptive, causing oppnents to think her weaker than she really is, and making her movements hard to predict, but have a lot of power, especially spirit and determination behind them.

Tux Boy: Kenjutsu and some sort of staff style= To use his cane or sword, he also has his roses, what he should focus on is speed and accuracy, feint attacks, sneak attacks, and cancel/interrupt attacks like he does normally, but on a higher level, perhaps have him have some invisibility spell and ki disrupting techniques.

Saturn: Focus on her glaive, and her current power and healing style, but throw in some variations of her silence wall. All she needs is a fighting style for her glaive, no unarmed combat is neccesary, especially if she has poor stamina in this.

Mercury: Someone mentioned the gentle fist and pressure points, I think this is a really good idea. The mercury visor could perhaps allow her to see energy flows to allow her to do pressure points even on strange aliens, I think it might be a good idea to also take some inspiration from the Roman God Mercury and give Mercury a speed focus, her attacks wouldn't have a lot of strength behind them, but she could combine insane speed with presise, disabling, or possibly leathal strikes to an opponent's energy system. Like Sailor Moon, she should have versitle magic, but without much powerful healing or direct attack magic, instead, perhaps, she could have lots of interesting support spells. I think it would be cool for her to use a fog only she can see through using her mercury visor and strike at an opponent's pressure points from within the fog at insane speeds, then finish them off once disabled by freezing them from the inside out by channelling ice magic through their energy flows, and with a single weak tap, cause their body to shatter once frozen.

Mars: Shokotan Karate = Mars is a very direct person, so a direct striking and blocking style like Shokotan Karate would suit her. She should focus on various offensive magic powers and possibly some sort of binding spells or status curing spells to support her priestess role, although not actual healing magic. The main aspect of her spells would be how focused and powerful they are, and how they are targetted or delivered. Perhaps she could have a state similar to the Human Torch and her entire body could light aflame to add a fire boost to her attacks and she could control the fire and heat directly while flying around like a jet? Also, given her divination powers, some sort of 'spider sense' might be good, sensing attacks and what to do without logic or current normal observables and senses returns involved, just pure intuition.

Pluto: Staff style = She just needs her staff for a fighting style, but her attacking is another story, I'm not sure how to do it, but like Mars, I think she'd do well with some sort of sensing attacks trick, although slightly different from Mars' version preferably, perhaps somethign similar to the sharingan at 3 tomoe with seeing predictions of her opponent's moves based on the tensing of their muscles and momentum and stuff. She should also have some kind of time-ratio trick to give her high speed, slowing down time so she can act super fast, perhaps faster or slower than Mercury, but with some sort of side effect like her death if she stops time.

Venus: Kempo Karate/Rhythmic Gymnastics/Chain style/Kenjutsu= Venus would be a more direct and less powerful fighter than moon, but with similar versitility. She is well suited towards acrobatic styles like kempo karate and some sort of martial version of gymnastics, she should also train to use her chain attacks and her Crystal Sword. For her spellcasting she could focus on spells to tie up or 'bind' her opponents for herself or others to pull off big attacks against, perhaps some hypnotic or suggestion type spells given her 'Love' powers, once she finds some way to stop the opponent's movements, she can take them out easily with the Crystal Sword, all the while keeping a nice acrobatic defense for herself. Perhaps her sword style could be similar to Sung Mina from Soul Cailibur series, with lots of extra movements for distraction and misdirection, combined with avoidance, and since we mentioned Soul Calibur it might be good to look at Ivy as well for the chain attacks, other characters with chain/sword stuff are found in Nanoha A's and Bleach, for more inspiration.

Jupiter: I'd like to see a strength heavy style, rather brutal, like Muay-Thai Kick Boxing. She could take her current themes furthur for offense, throwing lightning bolts like mythical Zeus/Jupiter, and her 'oak' focus could be taken the way of the Shodaime and Yamato in Naruto, by doing plant control tricks to bind and attack.

[Comartemis]

I can see Venus learning more advanced 'binding' techniques, Saturn, Moon, and Mercury creating 'barrier entrapment feilds' to keep battles from affecting civilians and their enemies from escaping or calling in for reinforcements, the mercury computer and the Ginsuzishou working similar to inteligent devices,

I actually hadn't considered developing their powers on more than an offensive front; this bears considerable thought, but it's a great idea if I can find a way to distinguish all the separate magical styles. I'll do my best to do so, because I really like this idea of having separate magical styles along with martial styles.

Moon: Drunken Boxing/Clumsy Princess style + Aikido + Tai-Chi-Chuan

This is a wonderful idea, and I love it to pieces; in fact, I think it calls for a quote! (From "A Tale of Two Wallets" Chapter 42)

"These things do take time, Ranma-kun," I reasoned, "Don't try to rush things. So…how are you feeling?"

"Ah…other than this?" Ranma looked at us with a sheepish expression, "Not so bad…I guess that's 'cause I always feel better after spending time with cousin Usagi."

"What deal that?" Shampoo huffed, putting hands to her hips and scowling.

"Hey!" Ranma nervously chuckled, "I ain't into stuff like that! We're just friends, that's all. Back when we were little, when Pop and me used to come by to visit with the Tsukinos, Usagi and me used to play together, just like kids do, and stuff."

"And stuff?" I asked, hoping he would elaborate.

"Well…" Ranma added with a sheepish grin, "Back when we were little I used to have to protect Usagi on account of the fact that she was kinda refined and delicate, and other kids were always picking on her, so in a way I was kinda like her protector."

"That better be all is, Airen," Shampoo continued to mock-pout, then smiled and added, "Shampoo like rabbit-ears cousin. Hard believe she and Sash cousins…Sash trip over own two feet, is very dangerous be around her. She good in fight, but no let cook you meal, almost as bad as Akane!"

"Surely not that bad?" I smiled, feeling my own mood lighten considerably.

"So," Shampoo turned back in amusement, "What else you do with cousin, Ranma?"

"Other than behave like her fancy knight in armor," I added, feeling envious that any girl but me could enjoy that privilege.

"Yeah, well, I did kinda teach her some moves so Usagi could stay out of trouble when I wasn't around to protect her. She wasn't al that coordinated, but she had a kind of grace about her that made her almost seem like a princess. I decided I'd help out by pretending I was teaching her how to play a game while I was actually using what Pop had taught me about manipulating pressure points, helping teach her body how to move in a certain way whenever she got attacked. It's called 'Drunken Fist' style Karate..."

"Shampoo know this style!" our purple-haired dynamo said brightly, "Is like Shaolin Wu Shu, only make it seem you no have sense of balance."

"That's it all right," Ranma nodded, "It mostly consists of learning to bob and weave like a guy who's had too much sake. Pop says it was pioneered by sailors who had too much to drink and wanted to avoid falling off their ships in a storm. It makes it almost impossible for an enemy to predict your moves, let alone to nail you, so I figured Usagi could avoid getting hurt because the dodge-and-weave pattern is almost an instinct."

"But wouldn't that also have the effect of screwing up her normal sense of coordination and balance?" I asked, seeing what I thought was the flaw in his system.

"Naw," Ranma said dismissively, "You saw the way she handled that Frisbee. You think any ordinary piece of plastic could have nailed me like that? She's gotta have real talent."

Shampoo and I exchanged a knowing look between us and by mutual consent decided to drop the subject.

...but sadly I can't use it. After much deliberation I've decided that the main conflict in the story should appear to be Sailor Moon vs King Vegeta (It's still going to be Jupiter vs Prince Vegeta, but I'm throwing in a few twists), and in that sort of deadly serious conflict, there's no room for Usagi's usual klutz attacks, even if they can be woven into a fighting style. If it's mostly Aikido-type techniques, Usagi can take a beating like she usually does while still fighting back in her own way.

That said, however, your ideas for Mercury and Mars are just as good *and* I think I can use them much more easily; I'd already planned on giving Venus a Capoeira-like "dance" style for her fight with Nappa, flowing like water around his attacks, taunting him ("C'mon cueball, is that the best you can do?"), and I've got a "chase" attack idea stuck in my head--Venus sends Nappa flying and rockets after him, Nappa hits the airbrakes and rights himself just in time for Venus to tuck into a ball and smash feet-first into his stomach before pushing off and resuming her attack. I think I can find a way to implement her chain and sword into that.

Another thought I had was something I've been thinking about for a while; prior to the final showdown, the Saiyans are going to send in the grunts--this is war, not an honorable battle--to battle the senshi en masse, something like 100 to 1 odds; the senshi are best known for their teamwork, so why not have them utilize it in ways that put their previous efforts to shame? Elemental Combo Attacks, boys and girls, and not just the Sailor Planet Attack.

But I need ideas. The only two attacks I've got planned out are an "Antipode" knock-off for Mercury and Mars called Flashpoint Burst, and a variation on the "pinball" attacks seen so often in DBZ; fighter 1 sends fighter 2 flying, then 1 teleports in front of 2 and knocks him in a different direction. The difference is, the senshi are knocking fighter 2 around between themselves like a game of hot potato, before sending the hapless "ball" over to Moon, who impales him on the end of a Moon Princess Halation she's been charging kamehameha-style (without assistance from her arsenal of wands/rods/scepters).

Any other ideas?

*EDIT*
Thought of another one; Tiara Blitz, multiple senshi surround their foe and execute Moon/Mars/Saturn/etc Tiara Magic from different angles, dicing up the target with enhanced tiaras (courtesy of Eternal Form, Moon just conjures the disk 'cause her tiara's gone) that look more like blazing multicolored buzzsaws instead of magical frisbees (picture Krillin's Kienzan/Destructo Disk).

[Seraphim]

This is a very good page for info on Devices and Magic types from Nanoha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Gi ... erminology


Though, I think the Ginzuishou would work better as a Unison Device rather than an Intelligent Device.