Timon: Waaaait, wait wait wait, hold on a second.Three? What's with the three? No, no, no, the three hasgot to go. Pumba: Timon, you can't use Two! There's already been a Two! Timon: Mmm, you've got a point there, big fella. It's not a sequel, anyway. Pumba: Yeah, more like a Behind-the-scene-quel! Timon: A what-a-who-quel? Pumba: Oh, you know, an Inbetween-quel! —The Lion King 1½ teaser.[1]

Also called a Midquel, this is, quite simply, when a new entry in a series is a sequel to one existing entry, and aPrequel to another, or alternatively takes place during aTime Skip in an earlier entry rather than continuing the story. This device is often used to expand a portion of the story only touched upon in other entries, or if more story is desired but there's no logical place for it either before the beginning or after the end. Happensa lot inVideo Games, since story has only recently become a major part of design. A more cynical creator might use it to cash in on a franchise without having to advance theStory Arc.Not that we want to name names, or anything...

ComparePrequel,POV Sequel.

Anime and Manga

• Cowboy BebopThe Movie is set sometime during the last third of the TV series and features the team at the high point of their arc before things all start coming apart.
  • Specifically, it occurs between episodes 22 and 23, judging from background details ("Cowboy Andy" in the samurai getup he adopted after 22, the events of 23 not yet happening).
• The second season ofSuzumiya Haruhi rebroadcasts the episodes of the first, with new episodes inserted in between, in the correct chronological order.
• One of the manga adaptations ofDarker than Black is set between the two seasons, as are the side-storyOVAs to be included on the second season DVDs.
• Getter Robo manga has two.Shin Getter Robo was made becauseKen Ishikawa wanted to explain how thigs went fromGetter Robo G to the shape they were inGetter Robo Go and answer such question as why Ryoma was scared of Getter Rays inGo or what happened to Benkei. Then there'sGetter Robio Hien: An Earth Suicide, based on Ishikawa notes, set betweenGo andGetter Robo Ark.
• Gundam is full of those, most notably withMobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, set between the originalMobile Suit Gundam andMobile Suit Zeta Gundam, explaining the origins of Titans, antagonists from Zeta. There are also severalsidestories taking place during first Gundam.
  • Gundam SEED on similiar note hasGundam SEED Astray manga, which takes place during events of SEED and tie several of it's loose ends. Which itself has two interequels, who were published at the same time as original manga -Red Frame manga andBlue Frame novel, focusing more on the pilot of titular mecha, overlaping with Astray at several points.
• One Piece has been known to placeFiller Arcs within mainstream arcs, which make these arcs in the anime this Trope for the manga. The first was the Little East Blue Arc which came out during the Impel Down Arc, and the second was the Cidre Guild Arc during the Wano Country Arc. Both these arcs are plot elements for the movieOne Piece: Strong World (Slated for release in November 2013.)

Comic Books

• All of theFirefly comics, apart fromFloat Out take place between the end of the series andThe Movie.
• The "Spike" comics take place near the end of the last season ofAngel... sort of. They're not exactlyCanon, which islampshaded.
• The Arrival takes place between and during episodes of season 1 ofTransformers Animated, except the last issue,Rise of Safeguard, which takes place between the third and seventh episodes of season two.
• Disney used the term "inbetweenquels" for all the "B" (and in one case, "C") chapters ofDon Rosa'sThe Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.
• Some of the Gargoyles comics have references to episodes, giving a rough idea of where the comics fall into the continuity.
• Marvel Comics producedAmazing Fantasy #16-18 in the 1990s to bridge the gap between Spider-Man's debut inAmazing Fantasy #15 andThe Amazing Spider-Man #1, where his adventures continued due toAmazing Fantasy being canceled.

Film

• The Fast and the Furious series has done this. A short film released on theTwo Fast Two Furious DVD set chronicles police officer Brian's journey from Los Angeles, as he's become a wanted man for helping Dominic (Vin Diesel) escape at the end of the first film. He ends up in Florida, which is where the sequel begins. In addition, part of the fourth installment,Fast and Furious, takes place between the second and third films in the series, chronologically.
  • The fifth installment,Fast Five, is also an interquel and the direct sequel toFast & Furious. Going byThe Stinger inFast Five, the sixth movie too will also be an interquel.The Fast and The Furious Tokyo Drift (the third film) is currently the final chronological installment.
• The shortRings, available on theThe Ring Special Edition DVD, chronicles the journey of the deadly VHS made to get into the hands of the unlucky victim inThe Ring 2.
• Saw IV takes place at the same time as the bulk ofSaw III.
• Paranormal Activity 2 takes place mostly before, partly during, and immediately after the first movie.
• As with the ongoing TV series,Star Wars: The Clone Wars is set betweenAttack of the Clones andRevenge of the Sith. Which themselves are interquels betweenThe Phantom Menace andA New Hope.
• L: Change the World is a variation of this. The bulk of it doesn't take place between the twoDeath Note movies, but between two scenes of the second movie.
• TheDirect to Video film,Marley and Me: The Puppy Years is about what the title says and also Marley isSuddenly Voiced.
• Although the films in theMarvel Cinematic Universe are standalone for the most part, their internal chronology makesIron Man 2 an interquel as it takes place before and during the events ofThe Incredible Hulk.

Literature

• The Chronicles of Narnia: The entirety of the fifth (or third) book,The Horse and His Boy, occurs in the middle of theTime Skip before the final chapter of the first book,The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. The Pevensie siblings are twentysomething kings and queens, and they haven't returned to England and de-aged yet.
• TheRedwall series has a bunch of these, particularly for Martin's lifetime. He was one busy mouse.
• Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are currently releasing a newDragonlance trilogy (The Lost Chronicles) that fill in the gaps between the books in the originalDragonlance Chronicles trilogy.
• The eighth novel ofThe Dark Tower,The Dark Tower takes place chronologically between the fourth and fifth novels of the series.
• Because the books in Steven Brust'sVlad Taltos (Dragaera) novels are not written in chronological order, the majority of them are interquels.Dragon deserves special mention, as due to its telling of multiple separate-but-related plots, it takes place both beforeand after the bookYendi.
• Orson Scott Card loves doing this with his books. The entire "Shadow" series (Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hedgemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant) all take place alongside/in-between Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, and Xenocide.
  • The Other Wiki has a good summary picture of theridiculous chronology.
• The Alan Quatermain books byH. Rider Haggard. The first,King Solomons Mines, introduces the character, already an old man; the second,Alan Quatermain, kills him off. Some of the other books in the series fall between them, although most tell of his younger days.
• This trope is a major feature of theDeryni portion ofKatherine Kurtz's works. Several short stories, the Heirs of Camber trilogy (published 1989-1994) and the Childe Morgan trilogy (first published in 2003 and still incomplete as of 2011) are set between the Camber trilogy (published 1976-1981) and The Chronicles of the Deryni trilogy (published 1970-1973).
• Both volumes of Brian Lumley's aptly-titlesNecroscope: The Lost Years take place during theTime Skip between the second and thirdNecroscope books.
  • Due to how heended theseries, his subsequent short stories and novellas have all been plugging into barely there gaps too.
• Robert Lynn Asprin'sMyth Adventures series got one,Myth-ion Improbable, in 2001 that was set between the 3rd and 4th books (released in 1982 & 1983, respectively).
• In a probably rare occurrence, theThe Han Solo Trilogy of theStar Wars Expanded Universe manages to be an interquel, an outerquel, and a prequel. The trilogy as a whole was a prequel to ST:ANH as it ended just before Han met Luke and Obi-Wan. But there were already books that told of Han's adventures before ST:ANH. The "Han Solo Trilogy" puts these older novels between the second and third new novels. So the third new novel is an interquel between the old novels and the movie and the trilogy is an outerquel to the older novels.
  • The Star Wars EU is packed with interquels, really.Timothy Zahn'sThe Thrawn Trilogy took place five years afterReturn of the Jedi; the New Republic was still fighting a defiant Empire, the Empire's capital world had been taken over, Han and Leia had married. When this trilogy jumpstarted the EU, and a lot of novels explored the years after that, others took on the intervening space. And there's alwaysintervening space and new stories to tell.
  • Shadows of the Empire is worth noting as a multimedia interquel designed to have every tie-in a movie set between ESB and ROTJ would have - aNovelization, a video game, a six-issue comic book, a soundtrack, toys, trading cards - without the movie. There was evena trailer.
• The Dresden Files book "Side Jobs" contains several stories that took place between one story and another and quite conveniently tells the reader exactly where they fall in the series chronology. The main appeal of the book is the story that falls in between the last released book "Changes" and the upcoming "Ghost Story."
• All theDoctor WhoMissing Adventures andPast Doctor Adventures are in the gaps between TV episodes. The finalEighth Doctor Adventures novel,The Gallifrey Chronicles, was released in June 2005, when the revival series and itsNew Series Adventures tie-in line with the Ninth Doctor had started.
• TheMary Russell series, inO Jerusalem!, goes back and explores whatHolmes and Russell did while they were hiding out in Jerusalem in the middle of the first book.
• More than a third of Bernard Cornwell'sSharpe novels were written to slot between the existing stories, often expanding onNoodleIncidents or historical events that occurred geographically and temporally close to previous novels.
• The first book in thePern series actually starts the chronologically latestArc (9th Pass). Everything since then has been an interquel between a chronologically earlier title and the 9th Pass.
• A majority of theWarrior CatsExpanded Universe is made of interquels, many of which take place betweenThe Original Series andThe New Prophecy.
• Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman is set 80 years after the second part ofA Canticle for Leibowitz, but over five centuries before the third and final part.
• The 13thHonor Harrington book,A Rising Thunder, begins one month before the end of the 12th book,Mission of Honor.
• Book four ofRanger's Apprentice has Will going back to Araluen, still Halt's apprentice. Book five skips about five years and sees Will getting his first assignment as a fully-fledged Ranger.John Flanagan said that while he was writing book six, he realised missed an entire story there, so he wrote book seven, which details Will's final months as an apprentice and his graduation. Book eight continues where six left off.

Live Action TV

• Two of theBabylon 5 movies,Thirdspace andThe Lost Tales, are both interquels.Thirdspace takes placesomewhere in the fourth season, andThe Lost Tales takes place between the final season's penultimate episode and the series finale (mind you, there was an eighteen yearTime Skip between the last two episodes).
• Battlestar Galactica:Razor has anA plot which takes place between the Season Two episodesThe Captain's Hand andLay Down Your Burdens, Part I, a B plot that takes place between the time of the Miniseries pilot and the first eight-or-so episodes of Season One, and a C plot that takes place during the Cylon War.
• Technically, everyPower Rangers series betweenPower Rangers SPD (taking place in the year 2025) and theactual year 2025 will be one of these.
• A twenty-minute midquel released before season 6 ofThe Shield follows up on the events of the fifth-season finale. The Strike Team attends the funeral of their colleague,Curtis "Lem" Lemansky, and reflect on his time with the group.

Radio

• Torchwood: The Lost Files was set between series 2 ofTorchwood and the miniseriesChildren of Earthexcept the last one since the teambasically ceases to exist at the end ofChildren of Earth andhasn't been reformed by the beginning ofTorchwood: Miracle Day. Also, this means Ianto can be in it.
• The Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and post-2005, Eighth DoctorBig Finish Doctor Who stories are set in the gap between episodes of theDoctor Who TV series that have already been chronicled. There's also a series of Fourth Doctor audio dramas produced by BBC Audio released from 2009 onwards.

Video Games

• TheStreet Fighter Alpha series is set between the very firstStreet Fighter and theStreet Fighter II series. The more recentStreet Fighter IV series is aNon-Linear Sequel set afterStreet Fighter II, but before theStreet Fighter III
  • Kinda.SFA 1 was a straight-up midquel.SFA 2 was a complete remake ofSFA 1 that also advanced the plot a little with the introduction of Sakura.SFA 3 was (pretty obviously) a complete, if clumsy, wrap-up of all of Alpha and II's loose ends taking place an indeterminate amount of time afterSFA 2. Much later,SF 4 came out as a pre-SF3 midquel and a (very ham-handed) resuscitation of the Shadaloo storyline. Of course, the console version threw the first part out of the window by tossing Makoto and Dudley into the mix. Andthen came SSF4, which introduces Hakan and Juri, both with completely new angles, revamp's Cody's (an Alpha original) storyline, and tosses in Ibuki for good measure...meaning that it takes placebefore, during, AND after SF4. Yeah, gotta figure there's a reason Capcom is notorious for this.
• Given that theCastlevania series covers nearly 950 years of time, the majority of entries are interquels of two pre-existing games.
  • Thus far,Lament of Innocence is the first, andDawn of Sorrow is the last. Given the nature of both of those games, it's likely that any future games will be interquels between those two.
• The Legend of Zelda has four interquels:Link's Awakening,Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, andTwilight Princess. TheOracle games also hold the distinction of being sequels toeach other viaNew Game+.
• TheMetroid Prime trilogy, that take place betweenMetroid andMetroid II: Return of Samus, and within that,Metroid Prime Hunters, which byWord of God takes place betweenPrime andPrime 2.
  • Metroid: Other M takes place betweenSuper Metroid andMetroid Fusion.
• Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is both a interquel betweenResident Evil 1 and2 and a sequel to2. The first half takes place a day before the events of2, but then Jill falls unconscious for a whole day after she is injected with a serum that cures her from the T-Virus. The events of2 transpire during the whole day that Jill is asleep and she regains consciousness after those events are over.
• Devil May Cry 4 takes place between the 1st game and the 2nd.
• Fire Emblem Thracia 776 (the fifth FE released) takes place between shortly before chapter six and the end of chapter eight of the previous game,Genealogy of the Holy War.
• Daxter shows how the eponymous sidekick managed to bust Jak out between the first and second games.
• Ace Attorney Investigations takes placebefore and after the events of the third game,Trials and Tribulations, and is itself a prequel toApollo Justice.
• Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2 is an interquel taking place near the end ofKingdom Hearts, overlappingKingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, and ending right before the beginning ofKingdom Hearts II.
• Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is an interquel that starts with a retelling of the first game and leads up to the events of the second game.
• The Unnkulia games had a prequel (Unnkulia Zero), followed by an Interquel (Unnkulia One Half).
• Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom is actually an interquel set between the first NES game andNinja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos. While the English version's manual does somewhat imply that the game is set beforeNinja Gaiden II, most people didn't notice it and assumed thatNinja Gaiden III was a standard sequel. The Japanese version always had it clear that it was an interquel.
• Mega Man Network Transmission's story takes place between the events ofBattle Network andBattle Network 2. The game was released afterBattle Network 3.
• Most of the Caverns of Time missions inWorld of Warcraft fit this description. The Caverns of Time allows players to visit points in Azeroth's history mostly to help the Bronze Dragonflight prevent the mysterious Infinite Dragonflight from altering the past. Of the four Caverns of Time instances, one takes place before any of the Warcraft games (Opening the Dark Portal), making it aPrequel. Two more instances recreate and expand on key campaigns in Warcraft III (Culling of Stratholme and Battle for Mount Hyjal), making them arguably Interquels or arguablyPOV Sequels, depending on whether you regard the original versions asthe real timeline or the Caverns of Time versions. The remaining one, Escape from Durnholde Keep, is definitely an Interquel, set years after Warcraft II and years before Warcraft III and featuring a storyline never shown in any released game.
• Sonic the Hedgehog CD is apparently afterSonic the Hedgehog andSonic the Hedgehog 2 (as Tails is playable in the game's 2011 re-release), which was under development around the same time asCD, but beforeSonic 3 and Knuckles.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 4 MIGHT be this, connecting the Genesis/Mega Drive games to the modern era. It may also beAlternate Continuity. There's no official word either way, unfortunately.
• Halo 3: ODST takes place DURINGHalo 2. Specifically, right after Master Chief goes through a slip space rupture.
  • Halo: Reach could possibly be considered this, as it chronologically takes place betweenHalo Wars andHalo: Combat Evolved.
• Trilby's Notes and6 Days A Sacrifice, the final two games of theChzo Mythos, are both interquels to the first two games. What is interesting is that 6 Days A Sacrifice includes a part that makes takes place after the second game, set after 6 Days, technically making it part-sequel.
• Both versions ofYs IV are set afterI andII, but beforeWanderers From Ys /The Oath in Felghana.
• God of War - Ghost of Sparta on PSP is set between the 1st and 2nd games in the series.
• In betweenDead Space andDead Space 2 areDead Space Extraction developed for the Wii and an interquel also namedDead Space for theiPhone.
• Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions has a plot which works its way between existing story arcs of the comics, evidenced by the presence of certain characters who died in their canon. Deadpool even lampshades this by askingUltimate Spider-Man where he thinks the game fits into the canon.
• Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge took place in between the two Nintendo 64 gamesBanjo-Kazooie andBanjo-Tooie.
• Forever Kingdom is an interesting example. It is aPrequel toEver Grace, chronicling the events of the main character Darius before the original game. However, those events are happening concurrently to Sharline's path throughEver Grace, which took place before Darius', making it both a Prequel AND an Interquel to the original game.
• The House of the Dead 4 is an interesting case. Although ostensibly a midquel taking place before 3, it's probably more accurate to call it areplacement for 3. Apparently big time jumps were all the rage at the time 3 came out (cf. Tekken 3, Garou: Mark of the Wolves), Sega realized that there really wasn't anywhere to go from there, and so decided to make 4 a more traditional follow-up to 2.
• The Force Unleashed provides a look at the time between theStar Wars prequel and original trilogies.
• Thethird andfourth generations of Pokémon take place at the same time asfirst andsecond generations. Thefifth one is a pure sequel, takin place a few years after Gen II/IV.

Western Animation

• Disney Animated Canon
  • Most deliberately coined with the titleThe Lion King 1½- although ironically inTV Tropes terms, it's more of aPOV Sequel.
    • With a touch of Point-Of-View prequel since some of it takes place before the movie (ie section before Timon meets Pumbaa).
  • The twoBeauty and the Beast direct-to-video titles,Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas andBelle's Magical World, are these, taking place during Belle's long stay in the Beast's castle in the original film. This is likely because the nature of theHappily Ever After ending, in which everyone in the castle changes back into humans, makes sequels pointless.
  • Bambi 2 is an interquel because it takes place right inbetween when Bambi's mom dies and when it instantly shifts to happy springtime songs. Apparently more than a few people thought the first movie was a little too quick in the mood change.
  • The same goes forThe Fox and the Hound (film) 2.
  • AndTarzan 2.
  • Lilo and Stitch 2: Stitch Has A Glitch and its accompanying short filmThe Origin Of Stitch both take place after the first movie and beforeStitch: The Movie.
• BothStar Wars: Clone Wars andStar Wars: The Clone Wars occur betweenStar Wars Episodes II and III, but only the latter is really an interquel; the first one wasreleased between Episodes II and III.
• Bionicle 3: Web of Shadows takes place within the last ten minutes of the previous movie (which is itself aPrequel, making it an Interquel on two levels).
• TheDirect to Video installments of theAn American Tail series can be viewed as interquels between the first and the second movie.
• The Animatrix bridges the gap between the first and second films ofThe Matrix trilogy.

Web Original

• The Dreamer has short stories that can be read as these and asA Day in the Limelight stories.

Multiple Media

• Shadows of the Empire takes place betweenThe Empire Strikes Back andReturn of the Jedi
  • AndThe Force Unleashed takes place between theStar Wars prequel trilogy and the original trilogy.
• The two-part comicPortal 2: Lab Rat bridges the gap between the video gamesPortal andPortal 2.
• The comicTron Betrayal, the gameTron Evolution, and the upcoming Tron Uprising animated series spell out what happened between the two movies.
• The graphic novel seriesAvatar: The Last Airbender - The Promise bridges the gap between the animated seriesAvatar: The Last Airbender and itsSequel SeriesThe Legend of Korra.

• Trope
• Continuity Tropes
• Sequel
• Interquel