Every single word made Yancy's expression grow darker.
The stream chat had gone completely silent, as if the brutal scene playing out on screen had knocked the breath out of everyone watching.
The few comments that trickled through were heavy with resignation.
[What it said... as brutal as it sounds, it's kind of hard to argue with.]
[Larvesta really is just too weak. Honestly, without it holding them back, Dragonair and Wartortle probably would've bailed a long time ago.]
[God, that Houndoom is such a jerk. Who even talks like that?]
Yancy stared at Larvesta's nearly empty HP bar, at Wartortle pinned under that foot and twisting in pain, at Dragonair crumpled in the distance with no sign of whether it was even still alive.
"Should I... have never picked Larvesta?"
The thought rose up before she could push it back down.
In that moment, she wasn't watching a game anymore. She was inside it.
"If I weren't the one leading them... if I just stepped back... would they be better off?"
"Should I... have never brought them into this at all?"
That hollow, gnawing guilt wrapped around her like something pulling her underwater. Cold. Heavy. Inescapable.
This wasn't a game to her.
Wartortle, Dragonair, Larvesta. They weren't data. They weren't code. They were her partners, her friends, the ones who had been with her through everything, every win and every loss.
And now they were being put through this because of her.
That hurt a thousand times worse than anything that could happen to her own character.
Just as her emotions were about to give way completely, the Wartortle pinned under that foot moved.
Its cracked claws dug into the mud, its nails splitting, its blood seeping through. But it kept going. Straining to lift its head. Fighting to drag itself forward even an inch.
"L-Leader..."
Wartortle's voice was barely a whisper, the words appearing in the game's dialogue box like each one cost something.
"Just... just go..."
"Don't... don't worry about me..."
"You're... our... only chance..."
Something inside Yancy's chest seized up when she read that.
Tears spilled down her face.
"Run? Run where?"
The Houndoom let out a cold snort. The dark flames under its foot flared higher, searing Wartortle's skin. "Nobody's going anywhere today." Its jaws parted, that terrible black fire already building in its throat again, ready to finish the job.
"No!!!"
Yancy slammed both hands on the desk and shot to her feet, the impact thunderous.
"I am NOT letting you hurt it!!!"
Her voice cracked. Every bit of fog and grief in her eyes burned away in an instant, replaced by a fury she had never felt before.
"I said NO!"
She dropped back into her chair and locked both hands around the mouse.
On screen, Larvesta, which had been trembling flat against the ground, seemed to feel something. That raw, burning rage pouring off Yancy.
It stopped shaking.
Slowly. Inch by inch. It began to get up.
Its body was still tiny. Its HP bar was nearly gone.
But something was radiating from it now, something that had no name in the game's systems.
Not a move. Not an item.
Just a strange, extraordinary light.
"Oh?" The Houndoom looked at Larvesta with mild interest, something almost amused crossing its expression. "Still got enough left to stand? Fine. At least you'll go out on your feet."
It took aim.
For one impossible second, nothing moved.
And then.
The scales across Larvesta's body ignited.
Not a passive burn. An active release.
Those dull, powdery scales hit the air and erupted into thousands of golden sparks that spiraled outward from its tiny frame. A wave of heat, scorching and terrifying, detonated in every direction with Larvesta at its center.
BOOM.
The air itself seemed to catch fire.
The Houndoom's dark flames, when they met those golden ones, recoiled like they had run into something they had no answer for, driven back several feet in an instant. "What... what IS this?!" For the first time, the Houndoom's expression broke. It stumbled back a step without thinking.
On Yancy's screen, no system messages appeared.
No [Congratulations on Evolution]. No [Level Up]. No [New Move Learned].
Just pure, blinding red light, flooding every corner of the screen.
From inside that light came a single, piercing cry, like the sun breaking over the horizon.
"SCREE!!!"
The sound cut straight through the screen, through the stream's audio, as if it had reached inside every viewer and rang something deep.
And then.
Like watching a butterfly tear free from its cocoon in slow motion.
That small, plain little larval body split apart and rebuilt itself inside the light.
Six enormous wings burst open.
Across every wing ran golden patterns, hot as molten lava — patterns that moved and flowed across the surface like something alive, radiating something powerful and almost sacred.
The dim labyrinth lit up in an instant, bright as noon.
The heat was so intense the lava in the surrounding ravines began to bubble.
The red light faded.
A Pokemon, massive and breathtakingly beautiful, hung in the air.
Wings of the deep blazing red of the sun itself. Enormous antennae radiating warm golden light. Six wings beating slowly, each sweep sending fresh waves of heat rolling outward.
Volcarona.
No system fanfare. No cold notification text. Just the raw reality of something reaching an entirely new level, and the surge of fierce emotion in Yancy's chest.
This was what evolution actually meant.
"This... this is..." Yancy stared at the screen, tears still on her face, but the corners of her mouth had already started to curl upward without her realizing it.
In the stream, three full seconds of total silence passed.
Then.
[HOLY S!!!!!!]
[WHAT IS THAT?!]
[IT EVOLVED!! IT FINALLY EVOLVED!!!]
[Oh my GOD that animation, no system message?? Is this some kind of secret evolution?!]
[That aura just now, I literally felt the heat through my screen!!]
The chat exploded. Messages were scrolling faster than anyone could follow.
On screen, the Houndoom stared up at this massive creature that had appeared from nowhere, and for the first time, real fear showed in its eyes.
"How... how is this possible?! How does something like you — worthless, pathetic, barely alive two minutes ago — turn into THIS?!"
It was panicking.
It wanted to fall back. It wanted to run.
Too late.
Volcarona's compound eyes locked onto it. Cold. Utterly without mercy.
What you just did to Wartortle, I'm giving it back to you ten times over.
Nearby, the Ursaring sensed an opening, bellowed, and lunged in for a cheap shot.
Bad call.
Yancy's eyes went sharp. She scanned the new stat panel and acted.
"Ability activate: [Flame Body]!"
The fire surrounding Volcarona exploded outward, forming a blazing wall.
Before Ursaring could even make contact, the heat scorched it on the spot.
-120!
[Ursaring is badly burned!]
Ursaring shrieked, its movements slowing immediately.
"Bug Buzz!"
Volcarona beat its wings.
This wasn't the weak, trembling hum from before.
This was a visible wall of sound.
THRUMM. BOOM!
A massive sonic wave laced with golden fire crashed straight into the Houndoom before it could recover.
The Houndoom felt like its skull had been split open. The dark flame it had been charging shattered mid-cast. It coughed up foam and was hurled backward through the air.
-145!
Critical hit!
"Now, Quiver Dance!"
At Yancy's call, Volcarona swept through the air, every movement precise and deadly.
As it moved, the thermal energy around it flooded back into its body.
The status panel lit up in a cascade:
[Volcarona's Sp. Atk rose!]
[Volcarona's Sp. Atk rose!]
[Volcarona's Speed rose!]
Volcarona was at its peak.
"Last one, for Wartortle!!!"
Yancy roared.
"[Fire Blast]!!!"
Volcarona threw its wings wide. From its mouth erupted a massive pillar of fire, brilliant as the sun at its height.
Every ounce of rage. Every drop of power. All of it, right there.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM!!!
The whole labyrinth shook.
A towering column of fire swallowed the Houndoom completely. It tried to push back with its own flames, but against Volcarona's fire, it had nothing. A candle trying to stand up to the sun.
-140!
-215!
-233!
Three damage numbers floated up one after another.
The Houndoom didn't even get to scream. It was launched off its feet, smashed into the labyrinth wall, and slid down it like a rag doll, every ounce of fight gone.
The two Ursarings nearby got caught in the shockwave and were knocked out instantly, dissolving into white light and disappearing.
Battle over.
From Volcarona's evolution to the last hit, under a minute.
But in that single minute, every person watching felt their pulse spike.
Yancy stared at the screen, now quiet and still, and felt the energy drain out of her all at once. She sank back into her chair.
"We... we won..."
She looked at Volcarona hovering in the air and a wave of disbelief washed over her.
Just like that... it evolved?
After the fight, the flames around Volcarona slowly pulled inward, becoming warm and soft. It drifted down, gliding over to where Wartortle and Dragonair lay, and immediately started working through the recovery items in the bag.
The cracks across Wartortle's shell began to close. Its HP bar climbed steadily. Dragonair stirred from unconsciousness and slowly, unsteadily, pushed itself back to its feet.
Wartortle blinked. The first thing it saw was that enormous, breathtaking figure hovering above it.
Its eyes went wide. Its jaw dropped open.
"You... you are...?"
A second passed.
"L-Leader?!"
It tried to jump up in excitement but its legs were still shaking, so it just lurched forward and wrapped itself around Volcarona's lower body, pressing its face against it.
"Leader! You're SO COOL! I always knew you were the best! Waaaah..."
Dragonair floated over too. It looked up at Volcarona, surprise clear in its eyes, and gave a quiet, steady nod.
The chat had completely lost it.
[That comeback hit so DIFFERENTLY. I was suffocating before and now I feel like I'm floating]
[Why did that evolution look like THAT?? Wartortle's and Dragonair's weren't anything like this. Is there a hidden animation??]
[THIS is what a real leader looks like!! Who was saying Larvesta was useless?! Come out here and answer for that!]
[Wartortle clinging to that big leg has me crying and losing it at the same time, it's too much lmaooo]
[Wait, is Volcarona kind of ridiculous right now? Those numbers were HUGE. Houndoom is Fire-type too and it just got one-shotted??]
[To the person above: did you already forget how close to dead it was two minutes ago?? Seems pretty fair to me.]
[Exactly. The tighter the ceiling, the bigger the payoff when it breaks.]
Yancy looked at the chat. She looked at the warm, gentle scene playing out between the three of them on screen. And finally, she smiled. A real one.
This feeling — of standing at the same level as the ones you care about, of actually fighting alongside them — was incredible.
But just as the high of victory was settling over everyone, the stream camera, knocked off-center by the shockwave from Volcarona's Fire Blast, swung briefly out of position and for just a moment swept across a shadowed corner high up in the labyrinth.
A tall, slender green silhouette stood there.
It was only a flash. But the sharpest viewers caught it right away.
[Is that a Grovyle??]
[Wait, was it up there the whole time? Has it just been watching??]
[The way it's looking down... that's a rival character, I'm calling it now. Yancy, heads up!]
[Houndoom and those Ursarings were probably working for it, right? Is another fight coming?!]
The chat went off again.
And at that same moment, the game's camera shifted, cutting straight to that spot.
High above, standing on top of a massive gear.
The green figure stood there, its cape snapping in the waves of heat rising from below.
It looked down at Volcarona.
In those cold, calculating eyes was a flicker of something genuine. Surprise.
"I expected them to die here. I didn't think... something like this would show up."
It watched Volcarona tending to Wartortle below.
"Volcarona, huh..."
The figure held a single fresh green leaf in one hand. As it stared, its fingers tightened, barely perceptibly.
The leaf crumbled and scattered through its fingers like dust.
"You passed. So you'd better be ready for what comes next."
It turned away, voice dropping low, almost like it was talking to itself, though the words felt aimed somewhere else entirely.
"That warmth of yours — when things get truly desperate — is going to be a liability."
"The moment you hold back because you can't bring yourself to leave someone behind... that's when you die."
With that, the silhouette melted into the darkness, leaving nothing but a fading shape for the viewers to stare at.
That presence, that weight, left no one with any doubt. This was an enemy in a completely different league from the Houndoom.
Every viewer had the same thought.
The boss of the next chapter... it's this one.
~~~
- fixed some wrong names in past chapters sry