So I really love and enjoy this quest. And I am in love with this kind of quest in general. As a result I may have brainstormed a few different ideas for such quests, but realistically I'll probably never get around to them for various reasons. Even still, I did make an 'opening post' for one of them, and since it's DVV related, I thought I'd share this as an Omake. Noncanon for reasons that should rapidly become obvious.
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Noncanon: SeekerQuest Opening
Inspired by DoofQuest
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A small girl in a faded red shirt huffs as she runs down a dark alleyway in New York. She looks over her shoulder, brushing her long, messy black hair from her eyes. No one was there, but she wasn't fooled by the apparent safety. She continued to run as she looked for a way out…
Only to run headfirst into a thug. The girl falls into the alley mud, obscuring some of the Hawaiian print on her clothes. The thug chuckles as his buddies go to surround her.
"What do we have here? I thought only old men wore tacky Hawaiian shirts, and yet here's a runt showing up in our part of town wearing the tacky thing."
He reaches down to pick her up by the shirt, and she begins to squirm and snarl.
"Lemme go!"
The big men laugh at her troubles as another grabs her bag. He dumps it out onto the ground as the girl screams for him to stop. He frowns when no money falls out- just some schoolbooks and a green, homemade doll. Not one to be deterred, he picks up the ratty patchwork straw doll and shakes it.
"NO! DON'T-"
The thug holding her covers her mouth the moment she really began cutting loose with her lungs. "Now now, can't have you attracting the wrong kind of attenti- YEOW!"
He drops the girl, now sporting bite marks on his hand. She somehow manages to grab the doll on her way down and goes to run, only for the third guy to give her a swift kick to the sternum. The guy who had been holding her turns to the guy who had her doll.
"Does this look infected to you?"
His buddy thumps him upside the head for his stupidity and turns to the girl as she struggles to get up. He chuckles darkly as he grabs her by the hair.
"Well now, aren't you a feisty one," he grins an unsettlingly crooked grin. "What should we do with something like you? We can't have just anyone trespass in our territory. People might get the wrong idea."
Tears come to the girls eyes as she cries out. "HELP! SOMEONE HELP!"
She stops with a yank of her hair. Then the guy raises his hand, a snarl now on his face.
45 + 17 + 10(Element of surprise) = 72
40 + 12 + 14 + 5(Familiar territory) = 71
Bare success
That's when your sleeve grabs his arm. Startled, the group turns their attention to you. The man swiftly breaks from your grip, but in his distraction his grip on the girl's hair loosens. It'd have to do.
"I think that's quite enough," you droll in a dull monotone. "Then again, I suppose the darkness festering in your hearts thrive on this sort of thing."
"Who the fuck are you, you Halloween freak!?" One of the thugs steps up to you, using his looming height to tower over your hunched, robed form.
"That is of no concern to you," You dismiss them simply, turning your hood towards the girl.
Even now, her eyes burn brightly with a curious mixture of Light and Darkness. A sense of purpose strong enough that you wouldn't be surprised that she could become a Nobody, should the worst happen.
You feel your body get shoved backwards, then briefly turn your attention back to the thugs. They were screaming about you interfering with their business. You no longer cared about that sort of thing, and dismiss the ravings as irrelevant. You turn your hood to the girl again, and then shift your sleeve in a subtle motion.
'Get ready,' you subtly tell her without words. She nods in affirmation.
The one holding her hair notices the movement and turns towards her. "What are you up to you little shit?"
However he is unable to do or say anything more before you engulf his limb in Dark Fire. A trivial effort, but effective enough. Since it was his arm that was set on fire, he screams and tried to back away from it.
The girl is able to slip away, with the grip now loosened.
"What the hell!?" The other two whirl on you, but it's far too late for them.
"Close your eyes and ears, young one."
The girl hunches over, eyes squirmed shut and hands pressed against her head as you take care of business. When you lay your sleeve on her shoulder, there is no trace of the men left - aside from some scorch marks and the lingering stench of Darkness.
"I trust you are unharmed?" You ask, sounding a lot less invested in her well being than you are. When she nods, you return it. "Good. Let's retrieve your things, shall we?"
You turn, but she doesn't follow. No matter. You pick up her books anyway, the mud refusing to stick to your body no matter how much your sleeves drag across the ground. Once you've gathered them all, she finally speaks up.
"Who are you?"
Memories of the past come to you at once. Of being human. Of becoming a Heartless for decades. Of being recompleted and destroyed several times over. Of finally finding freedom from your fate and being abandoned just in time for everything you know to be rewritten, and the resentment towards your former self for it.
"That… is a good question. You may call me…"
[] "Ansem"
[] "Xehanort"
"...Seeker of Darkness."
Another pause.
"...you sound funny."
The way she says it so frankly elicited a dull laugh from you, the closest thing to emotion that you've displayed this entire time. "A precocious child. Let's just say I've become a bit… stunted, in regards to how I express myself."
"Well, I'm stunted too, and I don't talk funny. Then again,
those people were stupid anyway, so what do they know."
Her face turns sour, like she had bitten into a lemon. You sense disdain, resentment, and… a deep, deep sorrow. You decide to explore this.
"I presume the ones you refer to are the ones you're running away from?" Her eyes widen in surprise, and only get wider when you open up one of the books to reveal it was hollowed out to hold some personal items. "My familiarity with books made the deception rather… obvious."
She snatched it from your hands and glared, but you had already noticed what you needed to see.
"You saw the flames on the man's arm."
It was not a question. The girl nodded slowly as she put her 'books' into her bag.
"I can do a lot more than that," You say, freezing the water in the area with a flex of your power. "And given time and resources, there is very, very little that is outside of my grasp."
Her eyes war between suspicion and awe. Eventually she put on a front of anger.
"What do you want?"
There it is.
"There is a potential in you I've only seen once before," you explain. "In a promising young lad. I sense it in you too. The desire to do everything in your power for a goal. The willingness to plunge into the deepest depths of darkness, just to see your wants fulfilled. And deeper still… a light, that refuses to go out. That is what interests me."
"So… you're going to dissect me?" Her frown was of confusion.
"Nothing so barbaric or painful. Just some basic observation for now. Despite my predilections towards the arcane, I liken myself to a scientist of sorts. Even if I have resorted to being a peddler of goods to try and make ends meet, my goal is still knowledge of the Heart." You hold out a sleeve. "Young girl, for the opportunity to study and understand you, I shall grant any one wish that your heart desires. I cannot promise how quickly it shall be granted, but if it is possible within the bounds of magic, then yours it shall be. What say you?"
The girl's expression is hard and stoney, looking between your brown cloak and your outstretched sleeve. She clutches her bag and doll tightly, then looks away. When she looks back, there is an expression of vulnerability on her face, along with a futile effort to obscure it behind intimidation.
"Do you promise?"
"I give you my word," You answer sincerely. "Miss...?"
"...Lilo. Lilo
Pelekai." She affirms with resolve as she grabs your sleeve in a handshake. "And I wish for you to find and bring back my Ohana - my family."
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AN: The idea of Lilo having been relocated to New York due to the fallout of the Stitch incident just wouldn't leave my mind, and the idea of the Billy Zane voiced and characterized Ansem teaming up with her as his first Hero Unit just felt... right in a sense that I cannot explain. And trying to do an opening where they meet justice was hard. Thankfully, the KISS method came through for me, and I'm satisfied with this hypothetical.
Lilo's starting stats would be abysmal, due to being a child, but she'd also probably have the most opportunities for situational bonuses and likely come in as a surprise starting stewardship hero. Plus the ultimate results of her questline could result in gathering together any number of heroes from Lilo and Stitch, especially Stitch himself as a Martial powerhouse.
Plus, her goal would require space travel and the chops to outmaneuver Galfed. This would provide plenty of incentive to try and build up quickly and in specific ways initially before other events unraveled to form different and greater goals. Aside from, of course, the mystery behind why the hell there's an Ansem/Xehanort in DVV and the implications/results thereof on the setting.
