As the camera slowly pulled back, a man in a white lab coat with disheveled hair stepped up to the hospital bed.
He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his expression a complicated mixture of relief and deep concern.
"Colress?" Iono recognized him immediately, the same man who had appeared in several cutscenes throughout the story.
On screen, Colress looked at Iono as she slowly opened her eyes and said, "You're finally awake. It seems your willpower is far stronger than I imagined."
The protagonist appeared dazed, trying to speak but unable to make a sound.
Colress turned toward the enormous monitor in the lab, which was scrolling through streams of complex data, and began to explain.
"Even though you became Champion in that world, it was, in the end, nothing more than a dream."
"Called it!"
Iono slapped her knee and jabbed a finger at the screen.
"I knew it! I knew something was off about the earlier story! All that stuff about Soul Freeze and code, it was all happening inside a dream the whole time!"
The comment section exploded.
[I KNEW IT. How could there be that many weird systems piled on top of each other? It was a dream all along!]
[So it's a dream ending? Does that mean everything we did before was pointless?]
[Okay but streamer, that was one INCREDIBLY detailed dream. She even won the Championship.]
[Exactly. If it was all a dream, weren't all those hours of effort completely wasted?]
Iono shook her head at the complaints flooding in and laughed. "You guys don't get it. This is called payoff.
Think back. Wasn't there a weird device right at the start of the game? And that whole Soul Freeze concept? Those were all hints that the protagonist's consciousness had been trapped inside a virtual world."
On screen, Colress continued. "That world was a fabricated space constructed by the Soul Freeze phenomenon and malicious code working in tandem. Your consciousness became ensnared within it, and you were on the verge of forgetting who you truly were.
If you hadn't shown such formidable willpower inside that world, defeating every fragment of code that stood against you, you might never have woken up."
The protagonist seemed to slowly accept this, and sat up from the hospital bed.
Colress's expression grew grave. "You may be awake, but the crisis is far from over. That dream world is gradually collapsing, and a fragment of your consciousness is still trapped inside it. If we don't resolve this completely, you may fall back into that sleep again, or worse..."
He left the sentence unfinished, but the implication was unmistakable.
Iono's earlier excitement gave way to sharp focus.
So this was the main quest of the second playthrough.
Colress turned and picked up two blueprints from the nearby lab table. Each one depicted a feather radiating a strange, otherworldly glow.
"To fully repair the dream world, you'll first need to recover two things in our world." He pointed to the drawings. "These are the Lunar Feather and the Eclipse Feather. One governs the opening of dreams, the other their closure. Only by finding both can I use them to stabilize your consciousness and bring this nightmare to a permanent end."
"The Lunar Feather... the Eclipse Feather..." Iono murmured the names to herself, quickly pulling up the game menu to check the quest log. Sure enough, both feathers appeared there with illustrations to match.
They sound like they're going to be a pain to find.
Colress seemed to anticipate exactly that thought and offered a follow-up.
"According to my readings, the Lunar Feather appears to be resonating somewhere deep within the Caves of Change, while the Eclipse Feather may have been sealed away by some unknown force inside the Forest Manor in Petalburg Woods."
"The Caves of Change and the Forest Manor? I know both of those places like the back of my hand!"
Iono let out a breath of relief.
With a clear objective in sight, there was nothing to worry about.
Sure, it had all been a dream, but at least her Championship team was still with her...
Wait.
She stopped dead.
A thought hit her, and her expression shifted slightly.
If she had just woken up from a dream, did all those levels she ground inside it carry over?
She quickly opened the party screen.
There it was. Her Entei, proud and imposing at level 70, sitting right at the top of the list. Manectric and Luxray lined up behind it, right where they belonged.
She let out a long breath and pressed a hand to her chest.
She had been half-convinced she'd be starting the second playthrough from scratch.
"Okay, chat, since the first playthrough wasn't too brutal, the second one probably won't go completely off the rails either, right? Our Entei should still carry us just fine."
The comments flooded in immediately.
[You're getting cocky! This is the SECOND playthrough!]
[Come on, you're being way too paranoid.]
[The Caves of Change? Isn't that just Psychic-types and Normal-types? Streamer's been there before.]
[Exactly. With Entei leading, sweeping through the second playthrough should be a walk in the park.]
While the comment section debated, Iono guided the protagonist out of the research lab.
Where to go first? The Caves of Change were closer, so she'd head there for the Lunar Feather.
She pulled up Fly without hesitation, and in a flash of white light the screen shifted. Moments later, she was stepping into the familiar cavern.
The cave was just as dim and damp as she remembered, with patches of moss along the ground casting a faint, feeble glow.
"Same as always in here. Nothing's changed. So the layout stays the same for the second playthrough?"
She kept the protagonist moving and chatted idly with the comment section as she went.
"I remember the path to the back of the Caves of Change. The feather should be somewhere around there."
She navigated around the obstacles with practiced ease and quickly reached the deepest part of the cave.
Then she stopped.
Standing near the edge of a cliff, her back to the protagonist, was the silhouette of a girl in red clothes. Just standing there, perfectly still.
Wait, was that... May?
Iono blinked.
What was she doing here?
Was she going to hand over some item? Or was this leading into a new battle?
Iono moved the protagonist toward her to trigger the interaction.
The moment the protagonist drew close, the lighting around them abruptly dimmed.
The cave's background music, which had been perfectly ordinary, began to distort into something harsh and unsettling.
May slowly turned around.
Iono's breath caught in her throat.
On screen, May's eyes were blank and hollow, her pupils flickering with an unnatural violet-black glow. A visible dark aura coiled and writhed around her entire body.
She had been corrupted?
Iono's stomach dropped.
Something was very wrong. When did May become a villain?
Before she could process it, the battle screen slammed into view.
No dialogue. No buildup. No warning whatsoever. The screen just cracked open and dropped her straight into combat.
Across from her, May's expression was cold as ice. And the first Pokémon she sent out was...
Blaziken?
Seeing that familiar Fire-type, Iono actually relaxed a little.
"Oh, it's just a Blaziken."
"You scared me. I thought she was going to throw out a legendary or something."
"Even if the second playthrough bumped up the levels a bit, my Entei can definitely handle..."
She never finished the sentence.
The screen erupted in a dazzling cascade of rainbow light, followed by a fierce, triumphant cry that rang with raw power.
The brilliance was so intense it seemed to bleach the entire display.
Iono instinctively narrowed her eyes, trying to make out what was happening.
When the red glow finally faded, her pupils blew wide and she launched herself straight out of her chair.
Hold on.
Was that...
On screen, the Blaziken that had stood there moments ago was utterly transformed.
As the multicolored light dissolved, its feathers blazed with even more vivid color. Its previously modest wings had expanded into enormous, flame-sculpted pinions. Its whole body had grown by a full size, wreathed in fire that looked capable of consuming anything. The sheer pressure of its presence was palpable even through the screen.
[Blaziken has Mega Evolved into Mega Blaziken!]
Mega Evolution?!
Iono's voice cracked with pure disbelief.
"This game has Mega Evolution too?!"
She was genuinely stunned. During her first playthrough, she had actually gone looking for Mega Stones, just as she had in Emerald, and found absolutely nothing. She had concluded that Dark Phantom simply didn't have a Mega Evolution mechanic.
And yet here it was.
Did it only unlock in the second playthrough?
The comment section had already detonated, scrolling so fast she couldn't read it.
[NO WAY. MEGA BLAZIKEN!!]
[I'm losing my mind! Streamer is losing her mind! I am also losing my mind!]
[They hid THIS in the game?! That's absolutely unhinged!]
[So this generation DOES have Mega Evolution?!]
[Check the level! CHECK THE LEVEL!]
Iono's hand was trembling as she hovered her cursor over Mega Blaziken.
Lv. 70.
Lv. 70.
Her mouth went dry.
The same level as her Entei, and it had just Mega Evolved. Was this even winnable?
Her instincts as a veteran player kicked in through the panic, and she forced herself to calm down. She pressed the voice button.
Forget it. Just throw damage at it and see what sticks.
"Entei, use Flamethrower!"
Mega Blaziken was blindingly fast.
In the very instant before Entei's flames could even launch, Mega Blaziken's silhouette blurred into motion.
A streak of red and black flashed across the screen, and Mega Blaziken's blazing talons came down with devastating force, slamming into Entei with the weight of something catastrophic.
[Mega Blaziken used High Jump Kick!]
A terrifying red damage number floated up.
Iono watched, frozen, as her Entei's full health bar vanished in an instant. It hadn't even gotten to move. It just collapsed, out of the fight completely.
One-shot.
My Entei just got one-shot?!
Her mind went blank and her grip on the mouse nearly gave out.
What kind of damage output was that? Entei's bulk wasn't supposed to be weak either!
And Fighting didn't even hit it super effectively! How could the numbers be that astronomical?
The comment section went absolutely nuclear.
[OH MY GOD. Entei just got DELETED!]
[Streamer, where's your Mega Evolution?!]
[Who was it that said the second playthrough wouldn't be that bad? Who said that?]
[Use a defensive switch, wait no, it gets one-shot even without a type disadvantage, so what's the point of switching lmao]
The prompt to switch Pokémon appeared on screen and jolted Iono back to reality. She scrambled at her controls.
Switch out. Switch in Manectric.
Her Manectric leaped onto the field.
"Manectric! Thunderbolt!"
She was counting on Manectric's speed advantage to salvage something.
Reality had other plans.
Mega Blaziken was even faster than Manectric.
[Mega Blaziken used Flare Blitz!]
Another column of flame crashed directly into Manectric.
It didn't survive even a single hit. One-shot, same as before.
"There is literally no way to fight this thing!"
Iono's voice had taken on a faint, desperate edge.
She couldn't match its speed. She couldn't survive its damage. The numbers didn't make any sense for a level 70.
This wasn't normal Lv. 70 stats. There was no way.
The next few minutes were, for Iono, nothing short of a massacre.
Luxray? One-shot.
Raichu? One-shot.
The last two Pokémon on her team never even got to see the field before the ones before them were already down.
On screen, the protagonist crumpled to the ground. Her vision blurred and bled to black and white.
She had lost.
Iono sat there in silence, staring at the screen.
I... I got wiped out completely?
It was the first time she had ever suffered such a total, crushing defeat in all her time playing Dark Phantom. No counterplay. No answers. Just pure, one-sided domination.
How was she supposed to get past this?
She buried her face in her hands.
Mega Evolution was absolutely broken. Same level, completely outclassed in base stats, and somehow even faster than her. What were you even supposed to do against that?
Did she have to go grind more levels?
She reached toward the restart button, ready to reload her save.
Then the screen changed again.
There was no Restart option. No Return to Title Screen.
The black-and-white image slowly faded back into color, returning to the cave.
The protagonist lay on the ground. Across from her, the dark aura around May was quietly dissipating.
Mega Blaziken reverted to its normal form. The feral intensity drained from its eyes, replaced by confusion and pain.
Wait.
Iono stared.
She wasn't dead? She didn't have to reload?
On screen, May looked down at the protagonist lying at her feet, her eyes gradually clearing. She pressed a hand to her head as if in pain, then slowly knelt down and helped the protagonist up.
"What just happened?" May's voice was weak, but the eerie, controlled quality was gone. "I feel like I was having a terrible nightmare..."
Iono's jaw dropped.
She could lose the fight and still advance the story?
And then it hit her. That battle hadn't been designed for her to win. It had been designed for exactly one purpose.
To beat the living daylights out of her.
It was a scripted loss. A story-mandated beatdown.
Iono put a hand over her face.
Honestly, this was starting to bring back some very unpleasant memories from certain moments in Emerald.
How did the second playthrough of this game manage to pick up the same bad habits?
Are they even going to let me play this thing?!