Neptune crossed her arms. She squinted her eyes. She tapped her foot impatiently. She swayed back and forth like a tree. She got on the ground and made angry faces. She jumped into the air and made a pose.

"Nothing? How come...?"

No matter how many annoyed or cute idle animations she went through, nothing happened. She still wasn't loading back into the story. She had always hated the stupid loading screens between chapters, but this one was getting out of hand. In fact, she was pretty sure that something needed to be reset if she didn't appear in the new chapter soon. Seriously, what was going on? Was this a glitch? Was there an error in the system? Had... Had Planeptune been hacked? What was she going to do if that had happened? Would the story have to start over?

Neptune gasped as something else occurred to her.

There was always... that possibility.

"What if the world ended and we're getting rebooted? Or we got canceled? Or there's a time loop? Or alternate dimens- Wait, no, we already have those, don't we?" Neptune tilted her head. She supposed that one probably wouldn't effect her too much if that was the case here, but... Reboots or time loops? Those were big trouble! "After all, tons of people are into that these days! Maybe the story is starting over because of some super evil mastermind who wants to change little things about the story to fit their devious plot! All the kids are into that now, right?"

She had to find Noire! After all, if that was what was happening to them... Then their whole relationship might not even happen! Forget that, everything as she, Neptune of The Proposal, knew it might not even ever come to exist! What if this reboot led to someone else stepping in to marry her? What if it led to Nepgear and her switching places? What if it led to her not even existing...?!

What she had thought of as a mere loading screen between chapters, perhaps another data crash like when she and the others had just started releasing Part 2 to the waiting people of Gamindustri... This could be so much more...! What if she would be the only one in this new world who remembered anything?! What if she eventually became emotionally scarred and super angsty and traded in her super sweet lovable self for an emotionless brick that was only known for throwing trucks at people and tilting her head funny?! She didn't even have a license for head tilts like that!

"Neptune, what are you doing?"

The CPU blinked. Slowly, turning away from the window, she found herself looking at none other than Noire herself. Relieved that she wasn't the only one stuck in this strange time loop reboot cancellation warp... thing, thrust from the constant line and sense of the main story, Neptune let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been keeping in, not at all concerned to be reusing such a tried line to express said relief, and laughed.

"Golly, Noire, am I glad to see you. Can you believe this? We got kicked out of the story!" As if to make her point, Neptune waved her arms around. Sure enough, though they were still, at a glance, in Planeptune's Basilicom, something was definitely off about it. There was a lack of... logic in the air. The lines of continuity were growing thinner by the moment. They were definitely no longer in The Proposal, at least not as they knew it. "I guess there's no helping it... If it's just us, Noire... We're going to have to repopulate the world all by oursel- OWMPH!"

Shocking no one, Noire had grabbed the nearest object she could get her hands on (a Lowee Remote of all things) and thrown it straight at Neptune's face, knocking the smaller girl flat on her back while the little thing stuck out of her mouth.

Despite herself and her furious blush, Noire smirked at the sight of Neptune's current situation. Bulls eye. Sadly, time was short, and she couldn't spend the bit that she had gloating.

"Neptune, don't you pay attention to anything? This is one of those... You know." Seeing that Neptune not only did not know, but was now in the process of pantomiming something ridiculous, Noire rolled her eyes and walked over to her wife, yanking the remote out of the girl's mouth. She eyed it for a moment, and after making sure Neptune was too busy coughing to be paying attention to her, she blushed guiltily, an even guiltier look on her face, and pocketed the saliva covered device. Neptune would be none the wiser after all. "A-Anyway, this is a spin-off. A spin-off, Neptune. We already have games like that in the... Well, the 'real' series. It's not 'canon'. It's... For fun, I guess? We're still in the regular story, this is just for nonsense on the side. Surely you of all people can understand a silly thing like that, right?"

As her coughs began to subside, Neptune sat up and nodded slowly. She looked at Noire, about to offer a grateful smile for easing her concerns about getting canceled or whatever after only two seasons (they hadn't even introduced a final boss! or a rival love interest! no one had been kidnapped! there was no sixth ranger! they hadn't had a beach episode or a brainwashing episode yet! how could they possibly end things here?!) when she realized she had gained a strange new ability.

"So, Noire, uh... Whaaaat are you gonna do with that remote?" Smiling sheepishly, Neptune stood up, acting as though she was talking to a loose cannon ready to go off rather than her wife. Considering what she had 'seen' Noire do and how she had gone about it? Darn right she was gonna be a little wary! The other Noire and Plutia were probably into this kind of thing, fine and good for them, but she sure as heck didn't need her Noire going stalker on her!

"H-H-How do you...?!" Noire could barely speak, her mouth opening and closing as her cheeks began to burn a bright red. Her eyes widened as she 'saw' something herself. "I-I am not going to go anything on you! And I thought we already talked about stalking once before in the story anyway!"

Rather than react in a "oh no, I'm caught!" way like Noire was, Neptune at least had the sense to point dramatically and start playing uplifting and victorious theme music (in her head).

"That's not fair! Even I don't know what's going on in my mind half the time, so you're definitely not allowed to read it!"

Noire stomped her foot in frustration. She had not read Neptune's mind! She had just...

"Wait... It wasn't there that time. There was a little, but not the same..." The black haired CPU frowned, her blush starting to fade. Genuinely curious, and not at all simply commenting because she wanted a distraction from her "crime," Noire looked around the room, as if expecting "it" to appear again like it had before. But... There was nothing. "Neptune, do that again."

"Ha! I won't fall for that! You can't distract me from the real issue, you mega perve-"

"Stop!" Noire thrust both of her arms out to her side. For once in her life, Neptune actually listened and stopped talking... and sure enough, Noire didn't see anything. Yet... Neptune had? If that was the case... Then there could only be one possible explanation for it...

"Well? What is it?" Neptune titled her head. She couldn't very well decide if Noire was trying to just divert her attention or not if Noire didn't actually tell her, now could she? "Hurry up!"

Lastation's CPU grinned confidently, ignoring her wife now that her suspicions had been confirmed. For "it" had appeared again, and whether or not she was trying to divert Neptune's attention was a moot point now. She could see things so much more clearly now.

"Since this story isn't 'real', we're totally free from the already pretty thin boundaries of the fourth wall and 'canon' since it's just for fun." Noire held up a single finger, a pair of glasses suddenly appearing on her face, and she looked for the world like a brilliant teacher explaining something incredibly obvious to the dumbest student on the planet. Not all that unlike her current situation, really. "So what's going on here? We can see the narration. It's not like we even have that in the games anyway. And what's strictly 'in character' gets a little blurry here too. Think of it like special bonus material from an anime or TV show, like when they have the serious character act too serious for the sake of a joke or make the ditzy character really flirty for one. We're not going that far, but, um... B-Basically, it's scripted, so it's not quite bloopers or anything, but it's... You know... Still a thing... I-If that makes sense. O-Oh, and it's obviously going to be assuming you've read the most recent chapters too, so, you know, consider this a 'spoiler warning' here."

Neptune blinked. That last line had seemed kind of jammed in there. Actually... A lot of that had been... Ehhh, really, wifey? Had there been no more natural way to get it in, Noire...? Well, nothing they could do about it now, she supposed.

"I... think I get it now, Noire! So this is basically just a dumping ground for offshoot junk that isn't a part of the story in any way, but is still tangentially related to it?" Neptune paused as she went over what she had just said. "Holy guacamole! I just said 'tangentially'! And I don't even like tangerines! It's already starting, Noire! My brain is changing!"

With a poof of smoke, just like that, the glasses on Noire's face disappeared. The CPU rolled her eyes at Neptune's antics, but even though she felt a bit better about things now, there was one thing that still bothered her about this... strange situation that they found themselves in now.

"You've basically got the idea, yeah... I just hope no one will get mad at us or anything for this..."

"Why? ... Oh wait, I get it. Because, in other words... What you're saying is... Whatever we end up putting in here is all pretty much pointless fanservice and has no bearing on the main story at all?"

"Pretty much."

"Sounds fun! Let's get started."

The Proposal;The Special Stages

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