The Stranger I Knew
is a Cave Story fanfic that starts off in the endgame. As such, it contains spoilers for the original game.
Taking place just before the Final Boss battle against the Undead Core, the story goes off in a new direction as Dr. Fuyuhiko Date, who's human body was killed, possesses Quote instead. As the robot boy is forced to become a prisoner of his own mind, Curly Brace ventures off to save her beloved.
This fanfic contains examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: Several sections of the fic give focus to characters other than Quote, most notably Curly Brace, but also Kazuma, Itoh, and even Dr. Date himself.
- Adaptational Villainy: Minor example; Dr. Date was already pure evil in canon, but the fic makes him an attempted rapist as well.
- Attempted Rape: Date, in Quote's body, tries to assault Curly Brace, going as far as to grope her breasts and talk about how much he will enjoy violating her.
- Big Bad: Dr. Fuyuhiko Date, as in the original game, is the antagonist plotting to Take Over the World. This time, he possesses Quote and aims to use him to kill Curly Brace.
- Bittersweet Ending: Curly succeeds in killing Date, but as a result, Quote is going to die. Misery, Sue, and Santa are also dead as well. Curly decides to be Together in Death with Quote, remaining on the collapsing island.
- Death by Adaptation: Misery, Sue, Santa, and Quote and Curly themselves all die in this fic, whereas in the original game they all live in each ending.
- Demonic Possession: The premise of the fic is that Date does this to Quote, slamming his Soul Jar into Quote and overriding all his commands.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Date is given an extra motivation for his desire to Take Over the World and brutally subjugate all humans beneath his heel- he was made fun of in the past and called a nerdy geek, so he desires revenge on them.
- Fighting from the Inside: Quote in chapter 4 starts resisting Date and trying to stop him from killing Curly.
- Forced to Watch: Quote, who is trapped in his own mind, is made to witness Date use his body to kill Misery, Sue, and later Santa, and try to rape and kill Curly.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Misery and Sue meet their end this way, the former by being split in half by the Polar Spur and the latter by Date/Quote physically ripping her in half.
- Just a Machine: Date considers Quote and Curly to be mere robots who are beneath him.
- Good Parents: Momorin is shown to be a loving mother throughout, as she worries about Kazuma and can somehow tell when something bad has happened to Sue (though she is unaware of what exactly happened):"My mothers intuition is acting up like crazy, Itoh. I'm afraid something terrible might have happened to Sue. It's only a feeling I have, but I've learnt to trust my feelings a lot over the years."
- Mind Rape: Date's Demonic Possession of Quote, in which he overrides Quote's mental computer system. The process is described as horrifically painful. He later takes joy in psychologically tormenting Quote.
- Must Have Caffeine: Itoh is noted to love coffee and is introduced brewing a batch.Itoh looked up from the very weakly brewed coffee that he had made over the fire. His supplies were running pitifully low and this thin drink was the best that he could manage. Even though he was now a mimiga, his love for coffee had not dwindled.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: As if Date was not already enough of a monster in canon, here he commits Attempted Rape on Curly Brace.
- Sole Survivor: Koron is the only one of Curly's adopted mimingas to still be alive- the rest either gave in to the red flowers or died for their disobedience.
- Thou Shall Not Kill: The name of the first chapter, and references the First Law of Robotics, which Quote is unaware of but Curly is all too familiar with (and restricted by).
- Three Laws-Compliant: A major source of conflict, as in this fic, the robots are programmed with this. Quote is unfamiliar with the laws due to either his programming or his amnesia, so he has no problem killing the human Date, but Curly does, so she has a harder time. She is able to get around it by destroying Date while he is a jewel possessing a robot body, and thus not technically human.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Date's first act upon gaining control of Quote's body is to kill Misery for disobedience.
