After Grovyle retreated, the path deeper into the dungeon was completely cleared.
The battle seemed to have broken some kind of seal. The massive gear that had been blocking the way slowly ground aside, revealing a corridor leading to the innermost reaches of the dungeon.
Yancy collected herself and directed her team forward.
This time, with Volcarona at the helm, her confidence was on an entirely different level.
She couldn't guarantee they'd make it to the dungeon's lowest floor, but pressing on a little further seemed perfectly within reach.
Following the map's guidance, they soon arrived at the P2 floor.
Volcarona's stats appeared to far exceed what any Pokémon at this level should possess. They cleared out the wild Pokémon on P2 quickly and arrived at an ancient stone altar.
The space here was vast and open. Ancient murals covered the surrounding rock walls, all depicting legends of the sun and sacred flame. At the very center of the altar, a dazzling sphere of golden fire floated in the air.
This flame was nothing like the dark-red magma around it. It held none of that scorching, destructive heat. Instead, it radiated something warm and almost sacred, like winter sunlight breaking through the cold.
So this was the Power of the Sun that Wartortle had mentioned.
Yancy stared at the flame, a strange longing stirring somewhere in her chest.
She guided Volcarona forward.
As Volcarona drew closer, the wing markings on its body began to glow, as though responding to some unseen call. Yancy took a slow breath and tapped the Collect button.
Light converged.
The golden flame dissolved into a small, crystal-clear red gem and drifted gently into her bag.
You obtained an item: Solar Flame.
The item appraisal window appeared immediately:
[Name: Solar Flame]
[Rank: S-Class Special Hold Item]
[Effect: When held by a Fire-type Pokémon, Special Attack increases by 30%. In sunny weather, resistance to status conditions is significantly enhanced.
Fire-type moves gain a "Solar Power" burn effect, dealing sustained high damage. Fire-type Pokémon with Fire-related Abilities receive a proportional boost to those Abilities.]
"S-Class?!"
Yancy let out an involuntary gasp.
In the game before this, getting an A-Class item had already been a rare stroke of luck. An S-Class item was something she had never even seen.
"We're rich! We're actually rich!"
Wartortle saw the item description and erupted, waving its little claws wildly, spinning in a happy circle and shouting, "This is amazing! An S-Class item, Captain! We're rich, we're rich! We're going to be the wealthiest Rescue Team in the world!"
Dragonair circled in the air, eyeing the gem with a quiet nod — but the quiet nod it gave the gem said everything. Clearly, it understood as well as anyone that with this hold item equipped, Yancy's strength would climb to an entirely new level.
Yancy looked at the glowing Solar Flame in her bag, then at Volcarona standing tall on the screen, then at her two beloved partners beside her.
She took a deep breath. Something firm and clear settled in her eyes.
The gloom from before had lifted completely.
"This is only the beginning."
She spoke into the microphone, her voice bright and full of life.
"Wartortle, Dragonair, we are going to become the strongest Rescue Team there has ever been!"
---
Meanwhile, over in Iono's stream.
The entrance to the Elite Four's corridor.
A solemn, almost ceremonial weight hung in the air here.
This was the final gate for any challenger, the only road that led to the Champion's throne, yet within that heavy atmosphere, Iono sat in front of her computer, fingers flying across the keyboard with crisp, rapid keystrokes. The screen cast its glow across her focused face. She was running one last check on the team she was about to field.
"Party configuration... yeah, looks good."
Iono studied the six Pokémon displayed on the screen and gave a satisfied nod. Standing at the front of the lineup was a fearsome beast wreathed in crimson flame: Entei, Level 70.
This was the first Legendary Pokémon Iono had ever caught, and in her first run, it was the single most powerful force on her team.
Behind Entei stood her Electric-type core, a lineup she had carefully raised across the region: a Level 56 Manectric, a Level 55 Luxray, and a Level 56 Raichu, along with her very first starter, a Blaziken that had grown all the way to Level 63.
The level distribution told its own story about how each team member had actually been used throughout the run.
Basically, Entei had just been annihilating everything.
"All right... this should be fine."
Iono took a slow breath, adjusted her posture, and let a flicker of confidence cross her eyes.
"Entei's level hard-counters every Elite Four member, and these Electric-types cover my blindspots for any type matchups I'd otherwise struggle with. The Elite Four should be... doable, right?"
She said it lightly, but that instinctive, white-knuckle tension that came with any final stretch made her grip the mouse a little tighter.
Dark Phantom's difficulty had dropped noticeably from the midpoint onward compared to the original Emerald, but the memory of how brutal that game had been never fully faded, and a small part of her kept bracing for the other shoe to drop.
Just as she was about to confirm her party and step her character through the Elite Four's doors, a red superchat blazed across the screen.
[CabbageLover: I've been buried in overtime all week and missed the stream entirely. I just walked into the room completely lost. What on earth happened in this game? The story feels totally different from what I expected.]
Iono saw the message and paused, lifting her hand from the mouse.
This was one of her longtime regulars. Might as well catch them up.
She turned toward the camera and started ticking points off on her fingers.
"Okay, Cabbage, you really missed a lot. Short version: some Team Rocket code fragments showed up and started causing trouble; then this guy called Giovanni appeared, also a personality code, and he tried to use Rayquaza.
Luckily, Colress also used a personality code and self-destructed alongside them, solving the problem."
She pulled up the game's replay function as she spoke and pointed to a particular segment.
"After that, the story follows the same track as Emerald. Groudon and Kyogre started going at it again in the Hoenn region, but I won't spoil the details. Seriously, go watch the VOD. The three-Legendary showdown is incredible. You'll regret missing it."
As her explanation wrapped up, the chat exploded into discussion about the plot.
[The story content is way bigger than Emerald's. Feels like the author used Emerald as a foundation and built something much larger on top of it.]
[Now that you mention it, it does mirror Emerald a lot with the Groudon and Kyogre stuff, though here it all plays out inside a dream.]
[Dark Phantom feels easier to play through, though. And the lore is richer. That whole "soul freeze" mechanic was a really interesting touch.]
[Still feels like we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.]
[We're about to clear the game and I still have no idea who the real villain is or where all those Team Rocket personalities even came from.]
[That soul freeze thing sounded so deep. Did you actually understand it, streamer?]
Iono read the chat scrolling past, and her brow furrowed slightly.
"Hmm. Now that you mention it, something does feel a little off."
She looked back at the screen, something thoughtful moving through her expression.
"The gameplay was fun and the story moved fast, but it does feel like things weren't fully wrapped up. The soul freeze concept got introduced without ever being fully explained."
She shook her head and pushed the thought aside for now, reaching for her mouse again.
"Whatever. I'll worry about it after I take the championship. Maybe there's extra content after the credits."
A small smile, then she squared her shoulders.
"Let's go!"
With a quiet, decisive command, her character pushed open the heavy doors and stepped into the Elite Four's chamber.
The battle was about to begin.
---
The first member of the Elite Four was Sidney, a specialist in Dark-type Pokémon.
Against Iono's team, her resistance barely registered.
"Entei, Flamethrower!"
Iono called out the command with calm composure.
On screen, Entei opened its massive jaws and unleashed a torrent of roaring fire that swallowed Sidney's Ariados whole the instant it appeared.
Ariados has fainted!
Red damage numbers floated high across the screen. A fully healthy Pokémon hadn't even survived one move.
"Honestly... is this actually easier than Emerald?"
Iono watched the battle unfold and felt the tension slowly drain out of her. The corner of her mouth turned up.
What followed was less a battle and more a one-sided extermination.
Facing the signature Pokémon of the Elite Four's other members — Salamence and Gengar among them — Entei dominated without question.
The Level 70 advantage, combined with a base stat total of 600 and favorable type matchups, meant nearly every move, whether the special-side Flamethrower or the physical-side Flare Blitz, resulted in an instant knockout.
When a difficult matchup appeared, usually something Water-type, Iono smoothly rotated to Manectric or Luxray and let the Electric coverage do its work.
"Thunderbolt. Clean it up."
A final arc of golden electricity crackled across the screen.
Champion Wallace's last Pokémon, Milotic, let out a cry and crumpled to the ground. The scene cut away, and the music swelled into something triumphant before the staff credits began their slow roll across a black screen, finally settling on the massive letters spelling out
"THE END."
Iono let go of the mouse, stretched her arms wide above her head, and sank back into her chair with a long, satisfied exhale.
"Finally. Done."
She looked at the ending screen, but the expression on her face wasn't quite triumph. It was something closer to wistfulness.
The run had been enjoyable. But the difficulty...
It really had felt like mowing a lawn.
"Compared to Emerald, this was basically beginner mode."
She picked up her water bottle, took a sip, and stared at the credits, already running through her options for what came next.
"That cleared way too fast. Didn't even feel satisfying. Since I'm still live, maybe I should go back and pick up Emerald again."
"Actually, now I think about it, Dark Phantom was a blast, but Emerald is where the real challenge is. Might be nice to go back to a run that actually pushes me. Or I could check out that Mystery Dungeon game you all keep mentioning."
She was already talking through her options and moving the mouse toward the window toggle, when the chat suddenly erupted. Messages were scrolling faster than she could read them, blanketing the screen.
[Don't switch! I don't think it's over yet!]
[There's definitely a second run. Emerald had one too.]
[You only just finished the first playthrough, right?]
[There might be more story. Didn't you just wake up or something?]
Iono froze. Her water bottle stopped halfway to her lips. She sat back up slowly, eyes locking onto the screen, something startled flickering in her expression.
"Wait. Three colored cores? I thought that was just a normal story branch..."
She quickly turned the decision over in her memory. There had been a segment early in the game about choosing a core, but she had assumed at the time that it was just a side mechanic that affected item drops or some minor side content.
Iono set the bottle down and reopened the game window.
"If that's actually the case, then it all makes sense. No wonder the story felt like it just... stopped. The real payoff must be somewhere beyond this point."
As she spoke, the ending animation was already playing through.
The image on screen gradually dimmed. The triumphant music softened, then faded completely into silence. The enormous "THE END" letters hung there in the darkness, still and absolute, as though declaring the end of everything.
Then, almost imperceptibly, something shifted.
The frozen title screen began to ripple, as though the image itself were disturbed water. Then the screen cut to pure black, sudden and total, like an old television losing its signal. A long second passed. Then another.
"Wait. Why did it go black?"
Iono blinked, and instinctively checked the game's status. "Did it crash? Or is this some kind of special ending effect?"
The chat ignited instantly.
[Don't touch anything! This is story content! It has to be!]
[Just wait and see!]
While Iono was still working through her confusion, a line of white text began to appear on the screen, character by character, accompanied by a rhythmic beeping like a heart monitor.
Then the image gradually brightened, not into the familiar bedroom, but into a laboratory drenched in science fiction atmosphere. Precision instruments lined the walls, and pale blue light drifted through the air like luminescent mist.
The camera angle slowly descended, finally settling on a hospital bed at the center of the room.
Someone was lying in it. The player character. Iono's avatar.
"This is... where?" Iono leaned in, scrutinizing every detail of the environment. "This place looks familiar. Isn't this... that research facility? The one in... Oldale Town?"
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones