I knew I had it in me! At least for a while. With some new tech and strats, my times are going down further (if I can stop choking on Sands and Blooper by biting more than I can chew). Still only 4 seconds shy of Vaporeon, but got the bops on Michael and Zircon. If everything goes nearly perfectly in second half, I can squeak out sub-55 (and with the insane tech that Blue uses in first half, things may approach WR territory).
This is an improvement of 1:16 over the previous PB - quite significant.
(Edited from the forum post here for the news tab):
This bounty is for the first person to take the Any% WR (NTSC) at any given point, meaning it extends indefinitely from this date onward. I (Bluekandy) may continue to run the category and update my own WR, but I am exempt from the bounty—and