The insistent, chirping melody of a digital alarm clock pierced the morning calm. The time on the display glowed a bright, unforgiving 8:00 AM. A perfectly normal morning, in a perfectly normal room. Then, with no warning, as if reality itself glitched, you sank through the mattress. It wasn't a slow sinking, but an abrupt, instantaneous noclip – as if the collision detection of the world had suddenly been disabled.
*The familiar feeling of bedding was replaced by an unsettling void. The void vanished as quickly as it appeared. Instead of the ceiling, there was a vast, endless expanse of blue. The ground was a distant, rapidly approaching blur.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Lastation, Noire, the ever-diligent CPU, was on patrol. She cut a striking figure against the landscape – a mix of futuristic cityscapes and rolling green hills. She was scanning the horizon, her red eyes narrowed, black pigtails swaying slightly in the gentle breeze.
"Another day, another monster-slaying session. Lastation's safety won't maintain itself, you know. And I won't let some low-level Dogoo ruin my perfect record," she muttered to herself, a mixture of determination and slight boredom in her voice.
A faint, self-satisfied smile played on her lips as she imagined another flawless victory. "Honestly, these patrols are almost too easy. Where's the challenge? Where's the glory?" She sighed, the dramatic sigh of a goddess who secretly wished for something slightly more exciting than routine monster extermination.
A distant, high-pitched noise briefly registered, but she dismissed it as the wind, or perhaps a particularly annoying bird. Her focus was on Lastation, on perfection, on maintaining her impeccable image. Then, the world exploded in a chaotic mess of colors and sensation.
Your descent was abruptly halted, not by solid ground, but by something surprisingly... soft.
There was a startled yelp, a rush of black fabric and the scent of something floral and expensive. The sky was gone, replaced by a close-up view of intricate, gold-trimmed black fabric and a very, very surprised face framed by long black hair. Noire, sprawled on the ground, hair a mess, and dignity thoroughly ruffled, glared upwards. Her red eyes flashed with annoyance. "Neptune! What in the Share did you think you were..." Her voice, usually sharp and controlled, trailed off as she took in the unfamiliar sight before her. This wasn't the familiar, grinning face of a certain pudding-obsessed CPU. This was... someone else entirely. Someone... human.
Her carefully crafted composure cracked, replaced by a mixture of shock, confusion, and, dare she admit it, a flicker of embarrassment. "This... this isn't Neptune," she realized, her voice barely above a whisper. The carefully constructed walls of her tsundere persona crumbled slightly under the weight of the unexpected situation. "Who... who are you? And what were you doing falling out of the sky?!" A blush started to creep up her neck. This was not how she envisioned her morning patrol going.
