Not that it mattered either way.
If she had actually managed to beat that terrifying Mega Blaziken, she probably would have felt too demoralized to do anything else and gone straight back to grinding levels before returning. At least things had worked out somehow.
In the game, May seemed to have recovered a little. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a feather that shimmered with a soft, gentle glow, then held it out to the protagonist.
"This is... the Lunar Feather." May stared at it, a distant look flickering through her eyes. "Just now... something made me hold onto it, but I had no control over myself at all. Now, I think you should be the one to keep it."
The protagonist took the feather, and the system chime rang out.
[Key item obtained: Lunar Feather!]
Iono let out a long, slow breath as she looked at the feather sitting in the item slot.
Good. She had it. That was all that mattered. The whole sequence had been nothing but emotional torment, but at least she had come out of it with the item she needed.
May looked at the protagonist with a slightly guilty expression. "Sorry about earlier. I almost hurt you. And... you should watch out for Wally. I have a feeling he ran into the same thing I did, wherever he was."
"He should be at the Forest Manor right now."
Wally?
Iono felt her stomach drop.
That little sister character... she had been corrupted too?
"Got it. I'll go check on her."
May gave a small nod, then turned and walked out of the cave.
Iono kept the protagonist standing there, watching May disappear into the distance, turning things over in her mind.
So this was how it was going to be. The second playthrough was ramping up fast, and Wally was probably the game's way of putting her in her place, a warning shot to let her know things were about to get serious.
She looked at the hard-won feather in her hand, then at the five Pokémon in her party, every single one collapsed in near-fainted condition, and her expression went complicated.
She had honestly expected to coast through the second playthrough the same way she had the first. Apparently, that was not going to happen.
The chat was already reacting.
[Don't feel too bad, streamer. That was a Mega Evolution. Losing is the normal outcome there.]
[Mega Blaziken looks so cool, I love it.]
[The game mechanic is actually pretty clever, letting the player progress through the story even after a loss. At least they gave you a way forward.]
[But Wally's probably going to be rough too. Stay sharp.]
[Streamer, have you thought about trying to get a Mega Stone?]
Iono read through the comments and took a breath, resetting herself.
"Hey, it's fine! After everything Green Version put me through, my mental fortitude is basically unbreakable at this point!"
"Honestly, harder is more fun!"
"That said, if May was already that strong, I'm not going to assume Wally is any easier. I need to go heal everyone up and stock a lot more items before I go anywhere near that place."
She opened the menu and used a Max Restore, bringing her whole team back to full health.
The Forest Manor. Wally.
She repeated the name quietly to herself and offered up a small, silent prayer.
Please, please, please, no Mega Dragonite. No Mega Steelix. Anything but that.
She guided the protagonist out of the Cave of Changes and took off.
First stop: Slateport City.
In a flash of white light, the protagonist appeared outside the Pokémon Center in Slateport City.
Iono did not go inside right away. She walked a lap around the city first, converting every last coin in her wallet into support items and healing supplies.
Max Restores... ten. Revives... five. Antidotes. Burn Heals. Stat-boosting items.
She muttered to herself as she stocked up.
"In a situation like that last one, if I had a Defense Up item ready, I could have at least tanked one extra hit. Might have opened up a little breathing room... okay, probably not much, but still."
"Regardless, I'm filling this bag to capacity before I go anywhere."
"I've got a feeling there are some brutal fights coming up."
Once she was satisfied with her supplies, she guided the protagonist toward Petalburg Woods.
The walk to the Forest Manor was quiet. Iono said nothing for a while.
She watched the character weaving through the trees and felt her nerves building with every step.
May had Mega Evolved and was more than ten levels above her party. So what was Wally going to be like? He had to be at least on par with May, right? Iono thought back to the first playthrough, where Wally had already been a roadblock boss with genuinely solid strength.
So how was she supposed to fight that?
She exhaled slowly, opened the menu one more time to triple-check her items, confirmed everything was in order, and then steeled herself and walked through the entrance of the Forest Manor.
The Forest Manor had always been one of the most unsettling locations in the Hoenn region. Right now, the atmosphere inside was so oppressive it felt like the air itself had weight. There was no music, only the sound of the protagonist's footsteps echoing through the empty corridors.
The guide said to hug the left wall the entire way through.
Iono moved carefully, keeping the character pressed against the left side as she navigated the layout.
Honestly, this maze design was miserable. One wrong step and you fell straight through the floor.
She stayed alert, watching every corner, until she had wound her way through the loops and finally reached the center of the second floor.
Someone was standing there.
Wally.
He was dressed in his sharp, cool outfit, back turned to the protagonist, completely still, like a statue waiting to be looked at.
Iono swallowed and slowly guided the protagonist toward him.
"Wally..."
As the protagonist drew close, Wally turned around.
His eyes were exactly like May's had been. Cold. Blank. Empty of anything recognizable.
Right. She had been taken over too.
Iono's heart sank. Her palms were starting to sweat.
Without warning, the battle screen cut in.
She locked her eyes on the screen, heart hammering.
Please, no Mega Evolution. Please, please, please.
Wally sent out His first Pokémon: Altaria.
Iono immediately checked the level.
Lv. 65.
Lv. 65...
But that was not even the most important thing. The most important thing was this:
No rainbow light burst across the screen.
Iono let out a long, shuddering breath.
Okay. Okay. No Mega Evolution. Thank every legendary in existence.
The level was a little above her team, but that was manageable. That was within the range of something she could actually fight.
As long as there was no Mega Evolution, she had a real shot.
The sight of that empty screen, no bursting rainbow, no dramatic transformation, hit her like actual sunlight.
The battle began.
Manectric leaped forward, electricity crackling across its fur.
The opposing Altaria was faster than expected and struck first with Draco Meteor, a blue wave of energy slamming into Manectric and cutting its HP down significantly.
"Hold on! Manectric, Thunderbolt!"
Iono called the move without hesitation.
A bolt of gold lightning connected cleanly with the Altaria.
The damage readout appeared, and the Altaria's health bar dropped by more than half.
Yes! One more hit and it's done!
Manectric ended up going down too, but Iono switched in Luxray and finished off the Altaria without too much trouble.
First one down.
Her confidence surged. Wally was tough, but not on May's level. If she played carefully and methodically, she could do this.
That confidence did not last long.
Wally's second Pokémon was Typhlosion. Its Special Attack and Speed were both terrifyingly high, and a single Fire Blast nearly one-shot Iono's Luxray on the spot.
She was forced to rotate constantly, hunting for type advantages wherever she could find them, because brute-forcing her way through was not going to work.
The weakness of her team's composition, which had felt luxurious and well-rounded during the first playthrough, was starting to show against opponents at this level with this kind of build. That feeling crystallized when Wally sent out his third Pokémon: Gardevoir.
Also Lv. 65. Also well above Iono's team.
The moment it appeared, Gardevoir fired off Psychic and left Iono's Entei hanging by a thread.
That's it. No more clean plays. Time to brute-force it with items.
Iono gritted her teeth and started throwing supplies at the problem.
Max Restore on Entei. Revive on Manectric. Sp. Def Up item.
The battle dragged on, vicious and grinding. Iono watched her bag drain at a visible rate.
Almost there. Just a little more.
By the time Wally was down to his final Pokémon and Iono was left with a full-health Entei and a badly wounded Manectric, her hands were actually trembling.
She gave the last command. On screen, Entei went off one final time, scorching flames swallowing the opponent whole.
[The opposing Pokémon has fainted!]
[You have won the battle!]
The victory jingle played.
Iono slumped back in her chair and gasped for air like she had just sprinted a mile.
She won. She actually won.
She stared at the victory screen and felt like she had just crossed a marathon finish line.
But winning by burning through an entire bag of healing items felt deeply strange, like something she had never actually had to do before.
The chat flooded with reactions.
[That was solid play, streamer. You used a ton of items, but a win is a win.]
[Wally's team was no joke. That Gardevoir was disgusting.]
[See, no Mega Evolution makes everything more manageable. If that had been a Mega Gardevoir, streamer, you might as well just uninstall lmao.]
[The contrast though: Wally's loaded team starts to crumble while the streamer chugs potions and seizes victory!]
Iono wiped the sweat off her forehead and let out a tired sigh.
That fight alone... how much of her money just evaporated?
Then it hit her. A cold, dawning horror.
All that gold she had spent an entire first playthrough accumulating. Was she really going to spend the entire second playthrough buying potions?
On screen, the dark energy faded from Wally. His eyes cleared, and he looked at the protagonist with a faintly apologetic smile.
"Looks like I lost again."
"But thank you. You pulled me out of that nightmare."
"You're really something."
Iono stared at the screen and said nothing.
Am I really something? Because it sure did not feel like it.
Wally did not say much more. He pointed toward a specific area of the manor and then turned and walked away.
Iono exhaled.
Right. Next step: find the feather.
She pushed through the exhaustion, retraced the route she remembered, climbed to the third floor, and found the staircase leading deeper into the second floor. In a room tucked away in the manor's interior, she found a transparent glass coffin.
She examined it, and the system prompt appeared.
[Key item obtained: Solar Feather!]
Finally.
Both feathers were in hand.
Iono looked at the two feathers sitting in her bag and let out a long, worn-out sigh.
She could go hand in the quest now, right?
Though her gut told her this was probably just the opening chapter of the second playthrough. Not the end of anything.
She definitely needed to grind levels before she went any further.
She left the Forest Manor, used Fly, and headed straight for the Dream Lab in Oldale Town.
When she arrived, Colress was pacing anxiously and rushed over the moment he saw her come through the door.
"You're back!" His face lit up when he spotted the feathers in the protagonist's hands. "Excellent! With these two feathers, I can finally..."
But just as he reached out to take them, the lab doors burst open with a violent crash.
Before Iono could even process what was happening, three figures stormed in and surrounded the protagonist and the professor in seconds.
Three people in strange uniforms, grins stretched across their faces like something was very funny.
Wait, are those Team Plasma grunts?
Iono blinked.
She had run into them in the first playthrough.
Why were they still around?
The one in front spoke with a cold, mocking laugh. "Acromine. Thanks so much for fetching these little treasures for us. We'll be taking them now."
Another battle triggered.
Three-on-one.
A Lv. 64 Houndoom, a Lv. 64 Absol, and a Lv. 64 Spiritomb.
Iono looked at the three shadowy Pokémon across from her and felt a headache coming on.
This game, the second she stepped into the second playthrough, had just decided to completely lose its mind.
She had burned through half her bag of supplies and had not even caught her breath yet, and now this?
She grumbled internally, but her focus snapped back into place.
Fortunately, these three were not in the same category as Wally.
The Houndoom, Absol, and Spiritomb all sat at Lv. 64, which technically made them higher-leveled than her team, but after the absolute nightmare of grinding through Wally's full rotation on healing items alone, these three read as completely standard grunts.
"Manectric, Thunderbolt on that Houndoom! Entei, Flamethrower on the Spiritomb!"
Iono's eyes sharpened.
That last fight had been desperate clawing and scraping. This one was going to be something else entirely.
On screen, Manectric flashed forward, a bolt of golden electricity coiling around the Houndoom like a whip. The Houndoom tried to retaliate, but the paralysis froze it in place before it could even move.
On the other side, Entei stood tall and unleashed a roaring torrent of flame. The Spiritomb was fragile to begin with, and it went down without so much as a cry, collapsing before it could do a single thing.
"Last one, the Absol. Let's give Luxray something to do. You've been waiting for a turn!"
Iono swapped in the Luxray that had nearly been wiped out earlier by Wally's Typhlosion.
The Absol looked menacing enough, but the Luxray did not flinch. One Crunch landed clean and true.
The Absol's health bar went off a cliff.
Second round. Done.
[The opposing Houndoom fainted!]
[The opposing Spiritomb fainted!]
[The opposing Absol fainted!]
The battle ended so fast that Iono sat there for a second, genuinely puzzled.
Wait. Did I actually get stronger?
The chat had thoughts.
[That's the difference between a raid boss and a random encounter. Five seconds ago we were fighting a final dungeon boss. Now we're stomping tutorial enemies.]
[All those potions weren't wasted. At minimum, they built character.]
[These guys just have inflated levels. Their movesets are total garbage compared to Wally's team.]