The Quest for the Legends

So. As you probably guessed, the "Chapter 53" posted yesterday was an April Fools' joke. If you hadn't guessed, this means you no longer have to worry if I've lost my mind. If you had, I hope it amused you half as much as it amused me.

Specifically, everything after "He wished he could help her, somehow" was a joke. What came before it was a sneak peek at the real chapter 53, designed to lull you into thinking you were just reading a normal chapter. So when will you get to see this real chapter 53? In fact, I finished it several days ago - for the first time in this fic's life, I have actually been withholding a finished chapter. (Yes! I really did finish a chapter, and a humorous knock-off of it, within the space of less than a couple of weeks!) So now that it's no longer April Fools' Day on the server, I can now put up the real thing; see the link at the bottom of this post.

For those of you who missed all the fun, the fake chapter 53 can still be read, this time as an extra to chapter 53. If you haven't read the fake one yet, I sort of recommend you read the real chapter first, but it's your choice.

Chapter 53 Extra: April Fools

With this, I also decided that it would be a shame if people could never comment on it again, so I decided to add the ability to comment on extras to the minipage, as well as moving all the comments on the fake chapter over to that comment page.

I'll be posting a bit of a 'making-of' for the fake chapter tomorrow, because I just like to ramble like that. Hope you enjoyed the joke. Thanks to everybody who played along; you all made my day (especially Negrek, who had me giggling for at least five minutes straight). Special thanks also go to opaltiger and elyvorg, who were in on the joke and also beta-read both the real and fake chapters.

Those of you who just posted to tell everybody it's a joke, pssh! Have you no sense of fun? :P

So, well, without further ado, I present to you chapter 53, for real this time. Nine pages. I'm afraid it's… a bit less amusing than its counterpart.

The Real Chapter 53: Away

I'm going to have to say it again: you are a genius. I'm looking forward to reading the making-of.

The actual chapter 53 was still shocking o.O

LOL. I love Butterfree ! xD

I'm sorry for my double posting, but I post and then read. xP

Gasp, Mark is finally taking the initiative! :D I love Tyranitar now; he's so… cute? I hope we get to see him again :D

Tyrannitar! Nooooooooo!
Well, now that I'm done with that, I wonder how the rest of the story will play out. Taylor was a main antagonist, and now that he's ____ (I won't say it because I don't truly believe it) It seems as though the plot will now focus more on legends.

I've never commented before, but this chapter compelled me to post.
Wow. Butterfree, you are brutal. For that, you are amazing. =D I think I may have nightmares…
Best chapter yet.

Maybe it was because of the polar-opposite April Fools extra, but that twist was completely unexpected, yet awesome. Just curious, did you think of doing the fake chapter after you had completed the real one, realizing you could do a foil of the real chapter?

Actually not; in fact, the fake chapter was written first, and it's been in the planning for years (though the real chapter has been in the planning for even longer). More on this in the aforementioned making-of I'm posting tomorrow.

Well, I have some idea of why you found this chapter fun and easy to write. :P

I don't think that tyranitar stepping on Taylor would actually kill him as described, though. People are actually pretty sturdy. My Googling has turned up mixed results, but it looks like it takes at least 66 pounds/square inch of pressure to break a rib, much less crush somebody's entire chest. At a rough guess, my own foot is about 30 inches square; while I don't know much about tyranitar feet, I imagine they wouldn't be much smaller in terms of surface area even if they are a bit stubbier, given how tall and heavy the pokémon is. Simply standing with one foot on top of Taylor, exerting all of its weight (445.3 lbs, maybe a bit more if Tyranitar's particularly heavy for its species), it's not going to be exerting more than maybe 20 lbs/square inch of pressure, which is enough to bust a floater rib, certainly, but collapse the guy's chest, especially all in one clean crack? I don't think I buy that.

Shouldn't be too big a deal; I imagine a good stomp would add enough force to do the trick, coming from a powerful battle-trained pokémon. Just making tyranitar a little more violent than pinning Taylor down ought to do the trick, really.

Also, I spent most of the chapter WTF-ing over why nobody seemed to find it odd that Taylor was lurking in the rocks spying on them for no apparent reason; when you explained it, it's obvious why May would be expecting him, though I would have thought Mark would have been a bit more miffed when Taylor randomly appeared. I was also a bit thrown because Taylor is being shown at the awards ceremony just as they're leaving the city… I guess I didn't get a very good idea of how long the two of them were hanging around the camp. I was thinking it was something like half an hour since they'd set up shop that Taylor showed up, which seems like not much time for the awards ceremony to wrap up, Taylor to extract himself from his "adoring fans" and make it out to the training spot. Unless he just teleported, I guess, if Mewtwo² can do that.

(And if tyranitar is all about making May happy, why did he disobey a direct order, even if May had previously said the guy had to die?)

Anyway, I imagine Rick will be a bit more important in later chapters. Maybe Chaletwo and Molzapart can handle the police, but I doubt Rick's going to take Taylor's death very well and, you know… Mewtwo² and all that.

I'm sorry, it was natural habit of mine to point out a hoax… in retrospect I would have played along.I did try to make up for it by editing my post, trying to link this with another spoof of yours from a long time ago. again i am sorry.

Chapter 53… hmm I really don't like what happened, but I understand it. The chapter was well written, I was waiting for passive Mark to yell at May for something! Good chapter. =D

Heh, I wondered if I should be looking up how much pressure it ought to take to crush him and calculating how realistic this was, but laziness won out with the consideration that "eh, Tyranitar are pretty heavy, right?" Definitely should have thought that through better.

Also, I spent most of the chapter WTF-ing over why nobody seemed to find it odd that Taylor was lurking in the rocks spying on them for no apparent reason; when you explained it, it's obvious why May would be expecting him, though I would have thought Mark would have been a bit more miffed when Taylor randomly appeared.

I did worry it would strike readers as strange, but thought the revelation of where they'd been worked a lot better afterwards, so I hoped it just wouldn't make people wonder too much before it came to that point. You have a very good point about Mark, though; he ought to be a lot more baffled there and there's plenty of time to describe it. Definitely something to add in.

The idea was that Taylor had teleported with Mewtwo^2, yes (actually to be explained in chapter 54), which was also why he wasn't followed there by a mob of paparazzi and his hatedom.

(And if tyranitar is all about making May happy, why did he disobey a direct order, even if May had previously said the guy had to die?)

His reasoning went something like this: May has talked a lot about how much she hates Taylor and how he needs to die; she seemed happy at first when I was advancing on him; she seemed very reluctant to tell me to come back and only did it because he ordered her to; meanwhile, she thought I was just scaring him so she didn't know I was planning something she was going to like; therefore, she'll still be happy when I do it and she won't want me to come back because he'll be dead so she doesn't need to follow his orders anymore.

Which is pretty effed up logic, of course, but he's pretty effed up.

Why, yes, I will have much fun with Rick.

Thanks a lot for your comments! It's always nice to get good criticism on these kinds of things. :3