About
What is The Quest for the Legends, you ask? Well, it is a poorly titled, decade-old-and-counting constantly-revised but still-ongoing piece of Pokémon fanfiction, written by me, Butterfree/Dragonfree/antialiasis. I started the original version on June 19th 2002, when I was twelve years old. While some complete rewrites have taken place since that made the writing style considerably better, the early storyline still suffers from the remnants of this past. The later chapters, written when I'd grown a bit more sense in my head, are mostly not quite as headdesk-inducing (I think the last chapter that really makes me cringe at the moment is chapter 31), but it still has a rather stitched-together plot, what with it being a cocktail of ideas I had when I was twelve, my subsequent patchings of those ideas while I was thirteen or fourteen, my further patchings of those ideas when I was fifteen or sixteen, and so on. I'm still writing it because I happen to be stubborn as all hell and have come to love this silly mess of a fic out of my life; this manifests itself in my attempts to rewrite it over and over again in the hope of one day making it into a presentable work of fiction, though for now I'm going to actually finish the version that's farthest along so far before I go concentrating on the latest rewrite. Despite its messy history, constant revision and hopelessly tangled plot, however, it seems to have gathered some fans over the years. I cannot tell you whether you personally would enjoy it, but you can give it a try if you want, and I am always open to constructive criticism.
So what kind of story is it? Well, first of all, it concerns an eleven-year-old boy of my own creation by the name of Mark Greenlet and his fateful Pokémon training journey. This makes it what the Pokémon fanfiction community would refer to as an "Original Trainer" (OT) fic. Further, as his Pokémon training journey takes place in the Ouen region, also of my own creation, it features original settings and several made-up Pokémon. This may or may not be something that interests you, depending on your fanfiction preferences.
Among other OT fics, the key aspects of this one that set it apart are the heavy emphasis on the Pokémon characters (as it has always been a bit of a pet peeve of mine when the Pokémon in fics tend to function more or less like battling robots or extensions of the trainer's influence) and the fact that the badge-collecting plot ends two thirds of the way in. That would be because the actual plot begins in chapter twenty-five (approximately one third of the way in) and proceeds from there to take over as the main plot of the story, though the badge journey continues alongside it for a while.
Now, I'd like to tell you that this actual plot is something mind-blowingly original, but unfortunately it really isn't. For one it involves legendary Pokémon, and that's of course always a cliché that makes potential readers roll their eyes. More problematic is the fact it involves capturing legendary Pokémon, something many people just consider an immediate turn-off. If you are one of those people, I should clarify that though it involves capturing legendaries, this is treated as a profoundly difficult task and the legendaries are about as willing to battle for their captors as you'd expect (i.e. not at all). Nonetheless, I realize that many people don't fancy reading that, and that's okay.
Ultimately, read it if it sounds interesting to you, and don't if it doesn't. I'm not forcing you to give it a chance. However, it does have one thing going for it if you're looking for an ongoing story to continue to follow in the future: I will finish it. This fic will not end up abandoned halfway through. As long as you stick with it, you're going to see it end; I can't tell you when that will be, but one day, I will post the final chapter of this story, unless I die in some horrible accident first.