In The Absence Of Heroes
Tragedies happen when the tropes are hungry and the heroes are in wrong goddamn story.
Good thing they aren’t heroes then.
Anon, this is very clearly a Disney’s Descendants fic in which the four Lost Kids end up in a different universe. I really don’t want re-use previous brainstorms because that seems a little unfair, but this would work PERFECTLY with that “Lost Kids in Naruto/DoS ‘verse and placed on the Konoha Twelve genin teams (to make Konoha Sixteen)” which is still, bizarrely, one of my favorites that I know for sure I will neeeeeever write.
Check out the link if you’re curious, since that would be my number one offering for this fake fic title/summary, but I guess I can come up with a runner up of sorts?
Hm let’s see…
Ugh, this is hard. Because, see, the great thing about the “Lost Kids in Naruto/DoS ‘verse” is that it really is a place without heroes. Or, rather, that heroes are relative there. Of course Naruto is the hero but he’s the hero of a society of mercenaries. Morality is different. Naruto doesn’t like killing and maybe it’s never been definitively shown that he has killed (I legit forget), but I’m pretty sure he has, at the very least, committed manslaughter via collateral damage to innocent people.
And this weirdly grey morality is something that I did get into in the brainstorm, but it just really fits for this prompt. I had, alternatively, considered more of a “In The Absence of Heroes… The Villains Step Up” type of direction but that seems almost too much of a stretch unless it’s–again, like another previous brainstorm Once Then Always – a world and a plot specifically crafted to turn them into heroes. And that itself has its own “morality is relative” sort of vibe. By getting rid of the White Witch the Lost Kids are, by default, the heroes regardless of their motivations or their process or what they do afterwards.
So what I’m saying is, this is still definitely a crossover but I’m not sure which morally ambiguous ‘verse to throw the Lost Kids into…
… A Song of Ice and Fire?
But I don’t think they’d go anywhere near the calamity that is Westeros–there are already far too many factions and subplots that if anything they’d just be a mere drop in the ocean, even though Mal is literally the daughter of a dragon–and there’s no real impetus like in the above mentioned brainstorms that would drive them towards any of the dozens of relevant primary protagonists.
Maybe Star Wars, but then comes the issue of when, where, and who. Like, okay, maybe Tatooine after Obi-Wan has brought Luke to the Lars couple but before the actual events of Episode IV. After he’s established himself as that weird hermit Old Ben, and time and the desert have worn away the worst of the hurts but not the entirety of his compassion.
Imagine Obi-Wan, about five to ten years into his self imposed exile, nothing but sand and his thoughts (and those pesky Tusken Raiders who are only now beginning to understand that he is not someone to be messed with) for company. Imagine him stumbling upon these four horribly ill-prepared children in the desert who might very well die if he doesn’t, at the very least, give them some water and point them in the direction of the nearest civilization.
Except three out of the four of them are, to some extent, Force sensitive. And he’s wary about letting them close, about caring–because look what happened to the last Force sensitive child he cared for, he went off and became a Sith Lord–but he’s also been living through the echoes of dying Jedi and he knows that these kids are as good as dead if he doesn’t, at the very least, teach them to hide their Force presence.
Obi-Wan is not actually that good at doing the very least.
The problem is, I like the contained plot of Obi-Wan finding the Lost Kids and training/teaching/raising them to varying extents (Carlos, despite not being Force sensitive whatsoever, is probably his favorite) and maybe that jump starts his mentorship with Luke? (Because now weird hermit Old Ben is now weird teacher Old Ben, and more connected with the “community.” And Obi-Wan thinks it’s not really fair to give these strangers nothing and not do the same for the boy that in a kinder world might have been his nephew of sorts).
But I don’t actually like what would logically follow next: the Lost Kids joining the Rebellion. Because they would. They would have to. They were trained by one of the last Jedi and they definitely do not agree with the Empire (though their issue might be more a chaos vs conformity thing than a good vs evil thing).
… unless they join Saw Gerrera’s Partisans?
Which does seem in character–if the reason they leave Tatooine is because they’re becoming adults who want to do more and think Obi-Wan isn’t doing enough by just waiting on this desert planet, then I can very well see them joining the Rebel Alliance and thinking that they’re not doing enough, and so they split off and join the Partisans–though I’m not sure of the timing of everything. When did the Partisans split off? Would the Lost Kids being raised/trained by Obi-Wan help/hurt their cause? Etc. etc.
A foil to the Rogue One crew, I suppose.
I might also consider them appearing in Episode VII on Luke’s old Jedi temple planet, but without knowing how the following episodes will unfold, I’m hesitant to make any predictions there.
Hm… so yeah–here’s the runner up.
I have some more thoughts on this if anyone’s interested, but they’re more just random headcanons of this ‘verse as opposed to anything necessarily relevant.
JackSGreyson Says 