#like how to save Cruz and what effect drinking actual human blood will have

[akaluan]

Time-travel??? OwO

So this was spawned bc Ser wanted to see Valerio in a fic somehow. But, you know, the dude dies before the game even starts, so how do?

Time travel, of course!

Cut for plan:

So the idea of this one goes off of the Good Ending, where the MC and co walk through the red mist and see what's outside.

Louis says at one point that, when the red mist went up, there'd been transmissions from outside that they'd collected, all of them being cries for help.

Combined with my theory earlier today, about how the invasion cycle goes, and our VERY QUICK INTRO TO A HORROR WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF THE MIST GOING DOWN, I don't think there's jack shit outside the mist. I think practically everyone and everything is dead. I think it's a horrifying mess out beyond the red mist, and the people inside the Gaol are some of the last living fragments of humanity.

And I think that MC and co realize that pretty quickly. I think they end up finding some tiny fragments of humanity who've been running and hiding for decades now, and they bring them back into the safety of the red mist. But every time they go outside, it takes them longer to find survivors. Longer to find ANYTHING except Horrors and death and decay.

Hell, maybe there's even a true "queen" in the process of generating.

So I think, at some point, a couple months after they've started this, MC ends up visiting Io's tree with the amber bead, and tells her everything. I think he talks it all out, tells her his fears, tells her that he's not so sure they can win this, that the Horrors have just had too long to grow stronger on their own, that there's nothing left outside, if only they'd have been faster, gotten out sooner...

And Io, who is still slightly aware under it all, goes "Oh... you need time? I think... I think I can do that" to herself, and starts to reach out, gathering up her strength-- and of course this is when Louis and Yakumo and Mia and Rin and Jack and Eva and maybe even others, not sure yet, basically when everyone else ends up showing up like "Hey MC, are you being Sadface? because we don't have time for Sadface, we need to keep trying--" and then Io does her Thing and SWOOSH, everyone is caught up in it!

And they end up appearing during the early days of fighting against the Horrors, near one of the first mistle ever created, with Io in humany form at their side. This is before Project QUEEN turns into Operation Queenslayer. Before the red mist, before everything is completely lost--

And all the PCs are still end-game OP as fuck, strong enough to take on the sealed horrors in the DLC Depths maps and win.

Anyway, from there it turns into "Operation collect everyone we give a shit about, save Cruz, fuck over the Horrors, and make a better world"

Featuring MC and Io becoming essentially cats who are constantly bringing the other characters people they cared about-- here, we found and saved Cruz from experiments (and oh by the way, Mido is dead now). Here's Karen and Aurora. Louis, here's your past self, still alive and un-revenanty. Yakumo, here's YOUR past self and your entire team, hale and whole! Mia, we found you and Nicola, here you go!

(Jack and Eva peel off at one point and come back with young!MC slung over Jack's shoulder, and older!MC just slowblinks like "wtf? how did you even find past me?")

Anyway, this also features OP as fuck MC+crew slowly murderfying Lost and Horrors, while spreading mistle even further to help purify miasma.

(Because I have come to the conclusion, based on comments about "Horror extermination program" and the fact that Horrors are ALSO unkillable like Lost are, that the way to fill this plot hole is to just... work around it. Lost and Horrors are FUNCTIONALLY unkillable, because in order to do that, you basically have to spawncamp them until they become so exhausted that the parasite in them CAN'T go through dissolution anymore. OR you need to find a way to trap the particles and purify those. And no one in this time is strong enough to do so.)

(Until, that is, a group of unknown Revenants suddenly appears and starts utterly wrecking face. Think of it as... you go from immediately after the final boss battle and teleport back to the opening zone. No NG+ difficulty spike or anything, just... pure End Game in Early Game area, except this isn't early game, this is literally PRE-PRE-PRE GAME)

(Horrors don't have a fucking chance.)