These two Battles wrap up the plotline that I think earned me a reputation for convoluted plotlines and also contains an extremely long battle indeed.
Battle 51
Battle 51 has a straightforward premise - Narratra returns. I like the small gag about HP in Pokémon capping out at 999. I think I'd have done a bit more with the speed of light gag now.
I'd also probably switch the player to Davis once Dave died now, though I do think the start of the battle benefits from having it be a Dave from the reality with a good Narratra as the initial player.
Battle 52
Battle 52 is long enough that I felt compelled to stick it into a word counter starting off - It's actually only a little over 3000 words, which for prose is incredibly short, but for PokéBattles? Well, for comparison, Foxfire 163 is about 500 words long. Modern Sandy 34 - the climax of the first arc - is around 1000 words. Modern Sandy 65, the climax of the second arc discounting Narrator is Missing, is a little under 3000 words. It's a bit shorter than Shadowstein - Modern Sandy 88-90 - was, which is about 5k words between the three battles. Though the fact that I wrote a three part climax to an arc that's less than twice the length of this is... This is a lot for one Battle. Length isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it will definitely be interesting if it feels justified while rereading it.
...Honestly, I adore what I was attempting with that opening segment. I'm not sure how well it works, but the subtle indication that they're not speaking English via the chevrons is fun.
The second segment is quick and gets its job done. The lack of a Narrator at the start and lack of story mode switch sticking the two in place is also cute. I actually think there's some decent drama - if clearly self sacrificial - in a player interrupting a Narrational entity to challenge it to a battle.
Quick dialogue between the SVWebmasters has some light humour to it, but mostly seems present as both a status update and a bit of exposition about what they're actually up to.
Missing an 'if' in the line from the mysterious entity. I'm not sure how needed this bit is, but I can definitely see why I did this at the time.
The next segment is the weakest for me so far. It's doing a bit of necessary leg work for giving characters information, but it's not really doing anything beyond its strict narrative purpose. I'm not perfect at getting scenes that I need for doing additional things today, but that's definitely a flaw with several of these segments in this.
The following conversation between Narrator and Anti-Storymode, on the other hand, doesn't feel particularly necessary but does contain a gag that made me laugh - Anti-story mode doing a flowery metaphor for the lifeforce of Sandy Version which the Narrator undercuts by misinterpreting (Would likely be funnier if the Narrator had thought it meant the stakes were smaller than they are rather than larger, mind, but I'm not sure at this point in this plotline there's a natural way of doing that).
I like the bit of prose in the temporal portal, with Detcher travelling forward in time. I also enjoy the characterization of hoping the other Detcher was headed into the plotflow.
The next part seems to be present purely for foreshadowing and doesn't seem to do anything else. Which is a problem.
Dan's battle with Narratra is as quick as to be expected, there's something resembling a joke in here but my sense of humour has shifted enough in the past 20 years that while I see what I was going for, I no longer find it funny.
A lot of death in this next scene. Hauntra's motives aren't as clear as I'd like them to be, though there are some amusing bits (and very stretched puns), but the following scene between haunter_uk and Narratra inside Hauntra's mind does something to clarrify Hauntra's motives, while being a fun scene. There's also something approximating pathos in this sequence, so while there aren't really any jokes, I like this sequence a lot.
A Veemon arriving at the SVWebmaster build site is the next scene, all plot no real jokes. As I said, this happens a fair bit in this Battle.
I don't mind this third sequence with the mysterious figure as much as the second. It's clearer to me why it's here, and... Again. While there's no jokes here, having an attempt at pathos is... Not something I would have expected to see me attempt at this point in my writing of PokéBattles.
Meanwhile, this next scene with Davis does literally nothing - Even the plot relevent stuff it's doing is inferred by context - and probably should have been cut.
Meanwhile, this next scene between the ENH and Narrator gives a surrealistic image that has me chortling reading it now, all while advancing the battle's plot.
Unlike the Davis making his way to Newtown Pokémon Center scene, the scene with Dave making it introduces a complication to his journey, which makes it work for me.
Detcher being active in killing Detcher rather than letting it happen is a nice touch, I think.
Hyphenating webcomic is... Painful. The scene with Detcher in the 'real world' is cute, I guess? But the scene doesn't really do much else.
And establishing that the mysterious figure is 'above' the 'real world' is also cute, but, again, nothing much happens with it.
...I... Have no idea what to think about the second scene between Narrator and Anti-Story Mode. The villain calling the Narrator a pet and then turning it into an 'ickle puddy-cat' has got real 'Ghirahim licking Link's ear' energy to it in terms of me not being sure what to do with it, emotionally, upon reading it.
The scene of Davis arriving at the ship being built is cutely done, and there's a humour to it, but I wish there were more actual jokes.
The mini-battle between Dave and Methtolo is decently done, and ending with ENH's death is actually a bit of a surprise. Nothing I really dislike here, but nothing stands out either.
Undercutting something that might have been dramatic with an incredibly silly joke about text colours was just... Perfection for me. As is how little drama there is to the prose portion of them launching.
My instead of me is annoying in the next sequence, but I do like this cutaway to the mysterious figure aside from that.
The sub-battle between Narrators was a bit underwhelming for me, but ending with the complete destruction of Sandy Version definitely has its perks.
I don't know if Anti-Story Mode's use of 'explodingness' was meant to be a joke, but it definitely amused me reading it now so I'll take it. And the Narrator randomly using 1337 is also somewhat amusing.
Opening the next segment with a joke about Veemon naming the ship is cute. And I have zero clue what word I wanted to go with about the emotional response to the destruction of a universe but mortified definitely isn't it. I do like that the one who was worst impacted is also the one of the three who got everyone else in fighting spirit rather than needing the pep talk.
Hoping for a matter anti-matter reaction between story mode and anti-story mode is a cute gag, but I'm glad I didn't go for it for the resolution. The idea of any non-standard colour having reality warping powers in the plothole is also cute, but I'm not entirely sold on it being Dave's plan. I do like him not having told it to anyone else due to an assumption they were being spied on, mind.
The chain of godmoding a series of unlikely events with the girder is quite funny, and I actually quite like the casual nature of the Narrator's death in the sequence, and ending with the ship getting destroyed and then the mysterious figure commenting on how... Bad a decision it was for Davis to narrate the ship being destroyed, before Dave comes in with a reality bubble and restoring Story mode.
I think the description of it as "A yellow furry creature of pure evil" is the first hint that the mysterious figure is a Pikachu - or even a Pokémon -rather than a human. This part feels a bit DEM to save the author's pet characters but in context? I don't hate it.
Nor do I particularly hate the 'destruction of the real world' sequence - Nothing stands out, but I don't particularly dislike it.
Same with the immediate stating of 'No hope of Sandy being revived' to 'I'll recreate Sandy' - It's a bit... Odd... but it has a certain... Charm, I suppose?... to it.
And then another scene in the real real world (Allegedly. I was not that melodramatic about the whole thing.)
All in all, I don't hate the pacing of this one, but I think it probably would have worked better as multiple battles.