A few messages drifted across the chat:
[This is the difference between a miniboss and a regular mob, huh? Fighting Wally felt like fighting a final boss, but these three feel like fighting Slimes.]
[Streamer's damage output was maxed out that whole time. Guess all those potions weren't wasted after all, at least she had the momentum going.]
[These guys just had high levels. Their movesets were garbage, they couldn't break through her defense at all.]
Iono let out a short, satisfied snort, fully expecting Colress to say something complimentary as she tucked away those two hard-earned feathers. But then the screen went black.
A cutscene played.
The three Plasma Grunts who should have been flat on the ground somehow dragged themselves back to their feet, wearing the slimiest grins imaginable. "Heh heh heh... thanks for showing us exactly what your Pokémon can do."
The lead grunt in black pulled a dark orb out of nowhere and used it to suck the Solar Feather and Lunar Feather clean out of Iono's bag.
"Now that we've got the feathers, we're out of here!"
And just like that, all three vanished in a flashy teleportation effect, like they'd never been there at all.
Iono went completely still.
She stared at the empty item slot in her bag display, sitting rigid in her chair, eye twitching.
"...Huh?"
She couldn't hold it together anymore.
"I WON and they still ROBBED me?!"
"Does this game have any sense of fairness left? Any decency at all?!"
"I spent all that time grinding through Wally, burned through every potion I had, and you're telling me I can win the fight and still get jumped? What was the point of any of that? Was I just putting on a show?!"
The chat exploded:
[LMAOOO you win the fight and still get robbed!! What kind of plot ambush is this!!]
[This is peak villain strategy. Can't beat her? Just steal and run. Absolutely flawless.]
[Streamer is LOSING IT. She got done dirty by her own victory, what do you even call that?]
[Don't be upset, this is just how the story goes. That's literally the whole point of New Game Plus, they're not just going to let you keep your items that easily.]
Colress pressed a hand to his forehead with a pained expression. "Damn it. I didn't expect them to have a device specifically designed to pull items off a Pokémon trainer..." He looked up. "Iono, the feathers are gone, but I managed to lock onto their energy signature just now!"
Iono slumped back in her chair, staring at the screen with glazed eyes.
"Alright, where are we chasing them this time? Hell? Is that where we're going?"
Colress shook his head, expression grave. "No. They've escaped into the World Rift. You'll need to lie down on the lab bed and use your dream abilities to enter that dimensional space, then track the feathers down."
Iono sighed. "Fine. Sleep. Again." She walked her character over to the bed in the corner of the lab.
—Is this protagonist secretly Sleeping Beauty? How does every single problem in this game get solved by taking a nap?!
The screen faded to black as an eerie sound effect played.
When the light came back, Iono found herself in that familiar hollow white expanse: the World Rift.
Fragmented data streams and drifting particles floated all around her, and in the distance stood several massive doorways, each glowing a different color.
This was the same place the protagonist had entered at the very start of the first playthrough.
Colress's voice echoed in her mind: "Feel around for it... there, a red energy signature! Quickly, go through that red rift!"
Iono sprinted her character across the void. Not far ahead, a crack in the air pulsed with deep crimson light and pushed out waves of scorching heat. The moment her character stepped through, the whole scene changed.
She was inside a cavern of dark red magma and black rock, the air thick with sulfur, the ground occasionally bubbling as lava pockets burst with low, rolling pops.
She hadn't taken more than a few steps before three familiar silhouettes appeared ahead.
"You actually followed us here?!" The three Plasma Grunts clearly hadn't expected her to close the gap so fast.
"Fine, then. Don't say we didn't warn you! Let's go!"
Same three Pokémon as before: Absol, Houndoom, and Spiritomb.
This time, Iono didn't give them a single moment to breathe.
One minute later.
[Victory!]
Iono locked her eyes onto the screen and refused to blink, fully bracing herself for another cutscene where the feathers somehow got stolen again.
Thankfully, the game showed a little mercy this time.
The three Plasma Grunts lay beaten and battered on the ground, completely unable to move.
"We can't beat you... we give up..."
The lead grunt fumbled shakily inside his coat and set the two feathers down on the ground in front of him.
"Just take them back... please... stop hitting us..."
Iono walked her character forward and picked up the Solar Feather and the Lunar Feather.
Watching those two items reappear in her bag, she let out a long, slow breath. The knot in her chest loosened just a little.
"Good. Glad you came around."
Chat lit up:
[THAT'S what I'm talking about! A good beating fixes everything!]
[Clean sweep. That's the skill gap right there, no contest.]
[She finally got them back. That was genuinely stressful. I'm not crying, you're crying.]
But just as Iono was about to teleport back to the lab and wrap up the quest, everything went sideways.
The entire Magma Cavern began shaking violently. The ceiling cracked open above her, and a beam of purple light came spearing down from above.
"Hmhmhm... Impressive, young one."
A figure descended slowly through the beam. Blue hair. A blue-and-white uniform, crisp and deliberate. Cold, distant eyes. A red chain-like device shaped like a dagger, gripped loosely at his side.
Iono's eyes went wide.
That outfit.
That unmistakable brand of over-the-top dramatic flair.
"That's... Cyrus. The leader of Team Galactic?"
He'd made a brief appearance in her first playthrough, and she'd filed it away.
Before Iono could even process what she was seeing, the space behind Cyrus warped and two Pokémon materialized silently onto the battlefield: Banette, hands pressed together like it was praying, and Mismagius, drifting in like a ghost.
"Since you've already taken care of Team Plasma's incompetents for us, we'll be taking that item off your hands."
Cyrus extended his hand with complete indifference.
Iono barely had time to register it before the Lunar Feather, barely back in her bag for thirty seconds, flew out on its own and drifted straight into Cyrus's palm.
"WHAT?!"
Iono stared at the screen and nearly snapped her mouse in half.
"ROBBED AGAIN?!"
"Is passing stolen goods down the linefeather some kind of new villain trend now?!"
"Plasma swipes it, Galactic catches it. What is this, a relay race?! Does anyone in this game have any sense of professional ethics?!"
Cyrus ignored her completely. He closed his fingers around the Lunar Feather, and something wild moved behind his eyes. "This is it... the power to reshape the world. With this, the Spear Pillar plan will finally be complete..."
"Farewell, interesting child."
With that, Cyrus dissolved into purple light, Lunar Feather in hand, and vanished with Banette and Mismagius through the cavern ceiling, leaving Iono standing alone in the empty Magma Cavern, holding one very lonely Solar Feather, completely at a loss.
Chat went silent for two full seconds, then blew up:
[I AM DECEASED. This storyline is an absolute masterpiece. The mantis, the cicada, and the oriole. Galactic is the oriole, Iono is the mantis, and Plasma is the cicada.]
[Iono: I fought so hard just to end up as a delivery service, apparently.]
[Cyrus: Thanks for the feather, kid. Enjoy the rest of your run.]
[This game is genuinely designed to wreck you mentally. First playthrough was such a power trip, and now it's payback time.]
Iono took a long, deliberate breath, her temples throbbing.
"I'm not mad. I'm not mad."
"At least I still have one. One is fine. One is enough."
"Colress can probably make it work somehow. And if not, I'm going to track down that blue-haired guy and make him regret it personally."
She walked her character out of the Magma Cavern and selected "Awaken" from within the Rift.
Back in the lab, Colress was pacing anxiously.
The moment he saw Iono return, he rushed over. "Well? Did you get the feathers back?"
Iono's face was completely blank. She opened her bag and set the one remaining Solar Feather on the table.
"I got one. The other one got intercepted by Team Galactic's Cyrus."
Colress blinked, then looked genuinely thrown off. "Cyrus? Team Galactic is involved as well? This is... far more complicated than I anticipated."
But he didn't look nearly as defeated as Iono expected. He picked up the Solar Feather and examined it carefully, and a flicker of real excitement crossed his face.
"It's alright, actually. This one feather, combined with the data I've already collected, is enough."
"Enough?" Iono sat up a little. "Wait, I thought you said the Lunar Feather was the critical one?"
Colress adjusted his glasses and turned toward the large machine, typing as he spoke. "The Lunar Feather was the key to opening the channel, yes. But the true core of this process was never the feather. It's the person."
He turned back, eyes sharp and focused.
"Iono, my scans show that you have an unusually rare constitution. Your brainwave resonance with the Dream World is several times stronger than the average person's. In practical terms, that means even without the Lunar Feather, you're capable of entering the Dream World on your own with the right adjustments."
Iono blinked. "So I can do what the feather was supposed to do?"
"Exactly." Colress smiled. "Come, lie down in the machine. I'm going to unlock your access to the Second Dream World."
Half-convinced, Iono walked her character into the strange device.
The machine hummed to life, and a blue light beam swept slowly over her character's body.
A system notification appeared on screen.
[System updating...]
[New ability unlocked: Free traversal of the Dream World.]
[New quest received: Explore the Second Dream World and uncover the truth behind the world's collapse.]
When the machine powered down, Colress helped her character up.
"Listen carefully, Iono. The Second Dream World is deeply unstable. It holds this world's shadow side. To permanently fix what's happening there, you'll need to build real strength and earn real recognition in the waking world first."
"You'll need to challenge the Pokémon League again and become Champion."
"Only when you've reached the top, and formed real bonds with the most important people in this world, will you have what it takes to enter the depths of the Dream World and repair its fractures."
Iono listened, then gave a slow nod.
"So when you strip it all down, I still have to go clear gyms and beat the Elite Four."
"Sure. Fine. It's a classic setup. Done it once, I can do it again."
Chat weighed in:
[Got it. New Game Plus is just: do everything over from scratch.]
[Except the difficulty is definitely cranked up this time. Wally alone was already insane.]
[Become Champion before you can explore the new world, so this is basically just the prologue. Go grind some levels, streamer!]
Iono looked over her team: a solid roster, wildly inconsistent levels. She sighed.
"Alright. Quest accepted. Let's go."
"But first..."
She glanced over at the bed in the corner of the lab.
"I need to take another nap."
Sleeping Beauty energy, this protagonist.
Colress nodded toward the bed. "Go ahead. This time, look for the blue door. It leads to the entrance of Dreamsource Town."
Sure enough, one more nap sent Iono back into the World Rift.
This time she didn't hesitate, walking straight toward the doorway pulsing with a calm, soft blue glow.
She pushed it open, and a fresh breeze washed over her.
No more suffocating manor. No more scorching magma cavern.
What greeted her was a quiet, beautiful little town.
Blue skies, white clouds, soft green meadows. The buildings had a warm, old-fashioned charm, and in the distance, snow-capped peaks rose above a murmuring stream. The usual location notification popped up in the top-left corner: [Dreamsource Town].
Iono stood her character at the town's entrance, taking in the unfamiliar scenery, and found herself breathing out slowly. "This is actually really nice. The art style, the atmosphere. It's genuinely calming."
Let's hope the rest of it stays this way.
She pulled up the map.
It showed that this place didn't belong to any region she recognized. It was completely new territory.
"So this is what they mean by the Second Dream World?"
"But wait... didn't Colress say I should go become Champion first? How did I end up here directly?"
Feeling a little disoriented, Iono wandered around the town.
There were very few NPCs, just a handful of figures drifting around without much purpose. She tried talking to them, but everything they said was cryptic and unsettling: things like "the shadows are closing in" and "there isn't much time left."
"Yeah, something is definitely off here."
Iono walked toward the edge of town and found a road leading outward.
Beside the road stood a prominent signpost with a symbol painted on it.
The Gym badge symbol.
She didn't move for a moment. Just stood there, staring at that badge symbol, while the dread settled in like an old familiar thing.
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones