the beginning of Return is kinda identical, but Blue replaces Ria. Player, Veteran, and Noob try to warn them about Things Being Kinda Weird and that they are absolutely trapped inside the game but they both call bs (assuming they’re like dreaming or something) until a group of glitched out ghost things (with no visor cuz duh) chase after them all. PF also Coincidentally™️ shows up not too long before the ghosts start attacking and chasing them! how strange…

ANYWAY now they’re hiding out from those things and are using the stupid cleanup thing in MIRA to give them a moment to catch their breath, buy some time, and think of a game plan. The near death experience convinced Mr. Egg and especially Blue that maybe there is way more to this than they both initially thought.

PF’s a lil nervous cuz he believes Blue is catching onto him knowing more about everyone getting transported into the game than he lets on (AND HES RIGHT), esp cuz Blue has mentioned having multiple encounters with strange cultist beans over the years of playing Among Us. (Spoilers Blue does find out about PF later in the episode, but definitely dies like right after :(()

The way I see NV’s plan is somewhat similar but also different. We didn’t really know what was going on exactly in canon, but for this one the best way I can describe it is like the plot of Side Order. The NV Cult is forcibly bringing people into a virtual world in which they would be able to rule with The Power Of Hacking.

as for why the world they picked is a hacked Among Us game? Well it’s simple! it’s super buggy, and there’s only three developers (at the time this takes place that is), so anything they do will take forever to fix and update on their end. And the game being practically a wasteland to the sudden boom in popularity was perfect for bringing unsuspecting people in.

Innersloth knew something was wrong right away all those years ago, but they just couldn’t keep up with this group of hackers. The eventual solution they came up with to all the shenanigans from the cult (and others when it started getting popular) led to the creation of the Hacker’s Lobby, run by 2 (technically 3 if you count Clogsworth) Admins. This new lobby worked! …for the most part. As new cult members infiltrate the game, there’s bound to be some people Innersloth and the Admins missed…