Live A Live-Quest For Light is, as implied by its title, a Live A Live fanfiction written by Flare-Fox-34 on DeviantArt. Its premise is that Oersted manages to reach out to Alethea at the last possible moment... and from there, everything changes.
The fic can be found here
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Since the protagonist is canonically a Walking Spoiler, unmarked spoilers for Live A Live ahead.
- Adaptational Heroism: Oersted's tragedy went as far as it did in canon because of his and Alethea's Fatal Flaws, namely Oersted's desire for validation and Alethea's shallowness. It's easy to miss with Oersted due to how heartwrenching his story is, though not so much with Alethea due to her Spiteful Suicide being the final nail in the coffin of Oersted's sanity. Here, because they actually bother to talk things out, they realize their selfishness and strive to become better persons.
- Adaptational Karma: Due to Alethea being talked out of committing suicide, the truth about what happened to the king is revealed. As a result, Oersted is declared innocent and Streibough ends up villified as the Lord of Dark. Streibough's villification is by no means undeserved; see Adaptational Villainy below.
- Adaptational Skill: When Oersted arrives in prehistory, he teaches the members of the Southern Tribe how to speak. Even then, Pogo still invents the word Love.
- Adaptational Villainy: Applied to both Streibough and canon Odio, the latter who is referred to as Odio-O.
- While it's clear that Streibough planned to ruin Oersted's life due to being fed up with being Always Second Best, it's unclear in canon whether he genuinely loved Alethea, or merely lusted after her. The ambiguity is removed in the fic, showing that Streibough merely desired Alethea's hand to obtain a position of power, and would have eventually disposed of her. Furthermore, after being revived, he instantly takes on the mantle of the Lord of Dark, becoming Odio-S.
- Odio-O is even more warped in his beliefs than in canon, believing that Virtue Is Weakness and condemning Oersted and Alethea for talking things out. Possibly justified; at that point, he was nothing more than an Empty Shell. Each victory over the heroes in the Dominion of Hate path increasingly stripping away what remained of his humanity, and further allowing the original Odio's will to fill the resulting void and corrupt him even more.
- Adaptation Expansion: You know those dungeons in the Dominion of Hate that you have to enter with one particular hero? There was an eight one meant for Oersted, but Alethea's suicide in canon rendered it permanently inaccessible. However, saving the main Alethea will allow the alternate Trial of Light to be accessible after the others have been finished. Though the Dominion of Hate version has been permanently altered into the Final Trial.
- Allohistorical Allusion: Even before encountering Odio-O, Alethea thinks that if she had gone through with her suicide attempt, all life in Lucrece would be dead. This is exactly the origin story of canon Odio, who is called Odio-O by the fic.
- Alternate Self: Odio-O to Oersted. Or rather, Oersted to Odio-O.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's clear Odio-O is nothing more than an Empty Shell, but did he always remember his past life as Oersted? Or did he forget it, and was merely reminded of it by his incarnations when he asked them to give him a new challenge? It should be noted that he does recall that Streibough is the one responsible for his fall from grace, but he doesn't see it as Streibough ruining his life (in fact, he blames Alethea more than Streibough for it).
- Artifact of Power: The Amulet of Lucrece, which can only be wielded by a true hero.
- Back from the Dead: Streibough is revived by Odio-O to serve as his "brother-in-hate".
- Came Back Strong: Accepting Odio-O's proposal, Streibough becomes Odio-S.
- Bad Future: Oersted interrupting Alethea's suicide turned the Dominion of Hate into this.
- Big Bad: Odio-S, also known as Streibough. He goes to try and ruin Oersted's life wherever (and whenever) Oersted goes.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Odio-S seems to form one with Odio-O, aka canon Odio. However, it's clear that between the two, Odio-S is the more active threat, and Odio-O still keeps to his role as a Greater-Scope Villain.
- Big Good:
- After Oersted triumphs over his own hatred, the spirit of Uranus ends up taking this role.
- Oersted himself time travels with the purpose of becoming this to the heroes across time.
- Canon Welding: Flare-Fox always intended for a Streibough-based Odio to be the Big Bad. After the release of the remake, the Streibough-based Odio was retconned into S. Odio, from the game's crossover with Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent.
- Cerebus Retcon: Flare-Fox took note of a certain detail in the tournament: Oersted's opponent in the semifinals, Armstrong, can return later as a random encounter, implying Oersted spared him. Meanwhile, Streibough's opponent was that time period's Watanabe father. And the Middle Ages chapter can only played after all previous chapters were cleared, including the Near and Distant Future chapters, where Watanabe's Butt-Monkey status is not Played for Laughs. As such, what happened to the Middle Ages Watanabe father was probably meant to foreshadow that Streibough was Evil All Along.
- Chekhov's Gun: The statues of the game's heroes that Oersted finds in the Trial of Light. After Odio-O announces to Lucrece his intent of using his seven incarnations to declare war to humanity across time, Oersted figures he could use the statues to find the persons depicted by the statues and help them fight off Odio-O's incarnations.
- Clear My Name: The first half of Chapter 1 focuses on Oersted taking on the Trial of Light to free himself from the Lord of Dark allegations.
- Console Cameo: At the orphanage, both a Super Nintendo and a Switch can be played. These are the two platforms that canon Live A Live released on.
- Crapsack World: Odio-O comes from a reality where hate is triumphant and love fails. Starting from when Pogo, Beru, Zaki and Gori were devoured by Odo as a result of Odio-O altering history, hate has become the most dominant emotion. Hate being omnipresent led to the South winning the Civil War and the Axis winning World War II.
- Dead Alternate Counterpart: In the reality Odio-O comes from, the Odio incarnations won, meaning that the counterparts of the Heroes Across Time and their companions are dead in that reality, as are the population of Success and all of Lucrece.
- Demon of Human Origin: Odio-S is essentially Streibough, but he was consumed by his disdain for Oersted to the point he took the mantle of the Lord of Dark. Odio-O also counts, for well-known reasons.
- Different World, Different Movies: Undertale doesn't exist in this story's world because Live A Live was a huge influence on Undertale, and the story is a Canon Divergence fic of Live A Live.
- Due to the Dead: During Alethea's sidestory
, Queen Alethea visits the graves of Hasshe, Uranus and her father before resolving to help Oersted and join his party. - Died Happily Ever After:
- The King of Lucrece is encountered by Oersted in the Trial of Light. After Oersted reveals to the king Streibough's betrayal and that Alethea is alive and well, the king passes on to the afterlife, leaving Lucrece in Oersted and Alethea's hands.
- Watt of Nabe Sr. passes on peacefully as well, after Oersted refuses to strike him down, requesting Oersted to teach Watt of Nabe Jr. to become a noble knight and to keep him away from Streibough.
- Averted with Hasshe. Because of his misantrophy, Hasshe ends up in the Trial of Heart (the dungeon in the Dominion of Hate that can only be accessed with Akira), though he does so with the comfort that Oersted will be a Superior Successor.
- Dies Differently in the Adaptation: Watt of Nabe Sr.'s death was left ambiguous in canon, as it's unknown whether it was Streibough, Odio-O or the Death Prophet who killed him. The other losing semifinalist in the tournament for Alethea's hand, Armstrong, was killed by Odio-O in his rampage. Here, both Watt of Nabe Sr. and Armstrong were killed by Streibough.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Downplayed, as it is the ending of the Medieval chapter from the game that ends happy at first. Oersted and Alethea manage to talk things out between them and make amends, but even then, the things were far from over. The two still have to deal with some sort of curse placed by the Past Lord of Dark, which led to Odio-O arriving from a Bad Future, seeking a challenge. Oersted and Alethea still have to fight against the incarnations of Odio-O, as well as the revived and vengeful Streibough, now known as Odio-S.
- Evil Knockoff: The Trial of Light creates some of Oersted and Alethea for Oersted to fight.
- Good Counterpart:
- The statue room in the Trial of Light is arranged in the same way that the statues in the Archon's Roost are, and depict the Heroes Across Time.
- Holy Trail is the heroic counterpart to Odio-O's Archon's Mark, summoning a holy-looking dragon to defeat Odio-S in Chapter 1.
- Heel–Face Turn: Chan and Lin join the Xin Shan Quan after seeing Odithea kill Xian in front of them.
- Interrupted Suicide: The fic starts with Oersted stopping Alethea's Spiteful Suicide.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite Oersted and Alethea changing their reality's history for the better, some people who die in canon still die.
- The Prehistory Watanabe still falls to his death in the crocodile-filled room, causing Oersted to set out to try to spare as many of their descendants as possible.
- After the battle with Ou Di Wan Lee, the Shifu passes from his injuries and being exhausted.
- Living Emotional Crutch: After Alethea deconstructs this, Oersted becomes a straight example to her, because said deconstruction caused Alethea to suffer of self-hatred after Oersted stops her suicide.
- Mirror Universe: Each victory that the Incarnations have over the counterparts of the heroes shapes history in Odio-O's reality to be a dark mirror of Oersted's reality where hate is the most powerful force in the universe. The South won the Civil War in Odio-O's reality while the North won in Oersted's reality.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Closer to "My God, What was I About to Do?" but after being talked out of committing suicide, Alethea realized that her intent led her to betray Oersted for no justified reason. Her guilt intensified upon encountering Odio-O, as it drove her to realize that, had she committed suicide, she would have doomed all of Lucrece.
- A straighter example comes from Minister Albert, who apologizes to Oersted for branding him as the Lord of Dark on behalf of all of Lucrece.
- Mythology Gag:
- Alethea's mother is named Alicia, which was the name the fan translation of the SNES game called Alethea.
- Much like the fan translation, Pogo shouts the word "LOVE" at the end of the Prehistory chapter.
- The Xin Shan Quan techniques are rendered in romanized Chinese similarly to the SNES game, even if some of them also have the remake's English translation after their Chinese names.
- Named by the Adaptation:
- The Minister and the kid who refused to believe Oersted was evil are both given names: Albert and Christian, respectively.
- The Shifu is named Wen Xin Quan, while Yun's grandmother is named Ming just like in Defier of Destiny.
- Point of Divergence: The fic diverges from canon when Oersted interrupts Alethea's suicide and reveals to her that Streibough was the true villain.
- Related in the Adaptation: In the Prehistory era, Pogo and Beru are Alethea's ancestors, and Zaki is Oersted's ancestor.
- Renamed to Avoid Association: In-Universe, The full-heal version of Saint Alethea was retconned and renamed to Alicia's Light to avoid sharing a name with the ultimate technique of Pure Odio and Odio-S.
- Shout-Out:
- The names of the Prehistory NPCs are taken from Defier of Destiny, a major inspiration for the story.
- The heroes trying to heal the Shifu after he dies is a reference to the scene from Final Fantasy V where the Light Warriors try to heal Galuf after he dies to no avail.
- Shared Universe: Quest for Light has a collection of side-stories that take place in the same world that are also found on the author's Deviantart. Odio's Darkness likewise explores Odio-O's reality.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- Everyone in Lucrece that was alive after Streibough's death, including Alethea but excluding Armstrong (who was later killed by Odio-S) is alive because Oersted had the courage to stop Alethea's suicide attempt.
- Yun and Hong survive the Indomitable Fist's attack on the Shifu's house thanks to the interference of Oersted and Alethea.
- Chan and Lin survive the events of Imperial China due to their Heel–Face Turn, and end up training with the Successors.
- Spirit Advisor: Uranus takes on this role to Alethea, researching the eras and people in them as a soul.
- Time Stands Still: After Oersted begins traveling through time, most of Lucrece is frozen in time except for the castle and the Archon's Roost.
- Time Travel: After Oersted begins his quest, he ends up traveling through time to stop the Lords of Dark, beginning at the start of humanity in 333,000 B.C.
- Villain World: Odio-O's reality is one where he used the incarnations to win against the Heroes Across Time in the reverse boss rush, creating a world where hate is triumphant and love fails.
