Act 22: Battle for Sandstone (P3): Minding The Manor

As Luca and his partner leave, he closes the door behind them. Then it was off to the mansion, they were through the town after some more walking, then ahead of them is the mansion...it looks like some of the windows were barricaded from the inside with furniture. There is something not right though, this sound they hear coming from up ahead...it's the sound of iron clashing...coming from the entrance of the mansion!
They can see a Larvitar and a Lairon, these two are obviously guards of the mansion and they are engaged in a fierce fight against a Monferno and a Growlithe. These last two...they don't look like they are from the Grove, or any of the guilds from Sandstone...

"What ... the heck?" Ranii says. "Who are those guys?"
She looks closer, and sees a lack of badges on them. A thought begins to turn in her head.
"No... it can't be?!"
She had just been thinking about them, and oddly enough, she has never actually seen one of them here... 
Until now?
"Wallbreakers?" She says to herself.

Look grits his teeth, looking at the two fire types with a mixture of surprise and anger in his expression. "Damn it, why now?! Yes, those are Wallbreakers!" He begins running towards the fight with his swords at the ready.
"Die you Wallbreaker scum! I'm not letting you get away!" The Larvitar tries to stab the Monferno with his spear, only for the monkey to jump right over that thrust and land his feet on top of the spear's shaft. "Aaahh!" The weight of the fire type on top of his weapon forces him to the ground.
And the Wallbreakers wastes no time with putting a dagger through the guard's throat. "Hmpft! As if i would lose to noble's puppet!" He hear's footsteps approaching...seeing a Lucario in armor is coming toward him, fast. "...More fools..." He pulls his blade out of his previous victim, and also picks up the spear.
"Damn it!" The Lairon guard is not happy with the death of his friend, but currently he is trying to hit this other Wallbreaker. He has a bigger sword and is trying to swing it at the Growlithe but the smaller pokémon is using his speed to evade all of his attacks!

Ranii for a moment wonders what they should do. Charge into this fight on the side of the noble guards? Charge in on the side of the wallbreakers? Sit here and let this battle play out and eliminate the winner? 
However, it seems Luca has already made his decision, so she decides to follow his lead.

As soon as he began approaching, the Monferno thrust his new weapon at the Lucario, though using such a thing with one hand is not too ideal...and it clearly shows.
The Lucario defends himself from these attacks, either avoiding the thrust or even managing to parry them with his own weapons. Now he goes on the offensive, going for slashes with his sword.
"Grrrr..." The Wallbreaker begins stepping back, trying to avoid getting cut...he didn't come out of this without some swallow cuts on his chest. The Monferno then jumps back to get some distance from him. "Too slow!" He exhales some small flames at first, before breathing spiraling fire at the Lucario!
Luca immediately stopped on his tracks and raised his swords to defend himself...but the flames did not go directly for him. No, it surrounded him, putting him inside of a ring of fire that is preventing him from moving..."Ngh...! Aaaaaaaah!" The heat around him is causing harm to him too.

"Luca!!" Ranii screams, her arm stretching out towards him instinctually. She's now separated from Luca by that ring of fire. She panics, wanting desperately to bail him out of the flames, but being unable to do anything about it. 
Panic soon turns into rage, as she grabs her spears and hurls her spear straight at the Monferno. It flies straight at him, speeding towards the fire type like a heat seeking missile.

The fire-type was clearly preparing to throw the spear in his hand at the Lucario. In the corner of his eyes he sees a golden blur coming his way, he instinctively raises an arm to try to stop it but the spear went right through it and into his stomach. "GAAAAAHHH!!" He lets out a scream of pain. He drops the spear, the hand that was once holding it going to grip the weapon that is piercing him.
Luca swings his swords at the flame, trying to put them out, but they are still going strong. He looked to the side and saw the other fire-type climbing the Lairon's back, intending to stab the larger pokémon through the eye with his short sword. But Luca acted quickly to stop that, even if he can't walk from here he still dropped one of his swords to free a paw to shoot an Aura Sphere to knock the Growlithe off of that guard to save his life.

Ranii looks back to Luca, and sees that killing the fire type had not in fact stopped the attack. They're still around him. Ranii tries to think of something she can do.
Suddenly, she gets an idea. It's a longshot, but it's the best she has. She takes out her matter manipulator, using it to quickly dig up some sand from her surroundings. Luckily, the sand is not hard, and it dematerializes into the device easily, creating a hole in just a few moments. She aims the device at once side of the flame wall, just above the base of the flames, activating it. 
The sand she dug up rematerialized about a foot above the base of the flames, the loose silt falling onto the flames and smothering it on that side. She does this a little more till there is a hole in the wall of the flames.
"Quick, Luca, while there's still time!" She says.

Seeing an opportunity to escape from this blistering heat surrounding him, Luca threw himself out of there through that opening that Ranii created, rolling on the sand a few times until he was some distance away from that ring of fire. "Ngh...phew, thanks." He seems alright, despite some burns.
Meanwhile on the other struggle happening nearby, it looks like the Lairon got to smaller pokémon held down under one his paws. "I got you now you little bastard!" He sounds really irate. It looks like he is about to execute the Growlithe now, the tip of his sword pointed at his neck.
"K...Killing me won't change anything!" The fire dog barks up at him. "The Nobles are going to die! They are going to fucking die!"

Ranii quickly puts the matter manipulator away, and runs over to Luca..
"Do... do you need a heal?" Ranii asks, her focus on Luca instead of the scene over there.

Luca puts a paw on her shoulder and shakes his head. "No need, that was just a move, those aren't very dangerous." He looks at a burn on his arm, he knows the pain is going to be there for now but at least he is still fine.
"Luca! Ranii!" This is Stic's telepathy again sounding off in their heads, but it sounds slightly distorted.
"Guildmaster...the Wallbreakers." Luca says.
"Yes, I'm aware...they made it into the mansion and it's not hard to figure out why. They want to take advantage of this chaos to try and kill the nobles." Stic continues. "We can't let them take the head of the nobles, if they do the deed it will only embolden their cause...which can spiral into problems in the future. Not to mention the citizens taking shelter in the mansion might be at risk too."
"Right..." He sighs, he knew that the Wallbreakers were nothing but trouble. "What do we do then?"
"Proceed into the mansion, deal with any Wallbreakers you see, finally...find and kill the nobles, Lord Gar and his son Gaben"

"And of course, make sure there are no witnesses." Ranii adds quietly. "Can't have anyone knowing the truth of the matter. The Grove must take the blame."
It seems they both have settled on letting the Lairon deal with the Growlithe on his own.

"And one last thing. The captain of the guard, we replaced him with someone in particular of our own, if you need assistance in there, ask...him...
"Guildmaster, are you feeling alright...?" Luca voices his concern.
There is no reply though.
"..." Something must be wrong, Stic's telepath sounded strained back then. But right now they need to focus on the mission. The Lucario looks over to the Lairon, seeing that he dealt with that Wallbreaker, if that decapitated body next to him is any indication... "Hey, you."
That big steel/rock type snaps out of his thoughts and looks to the Lucario. "What? And who the hell are you supposed to be?"
"We are with the Four Eyes guild..." He points to the front doors of the mansion. "Can we go in?"
"Hhhmmm, Yeah...captain said that pokémons from that guild are fine to head in, so i'm not going to stop you."

"Right. Thank you." Ranii says to the Lairon as she follows Luca in.
Before they cross the threshold however, she turns, and puts a hand on the Larion's shoulder.
"It's all going to be alright in the end. You'll see." She tells him comfortingly. "Take care of yourself."

"Yeah..." The Larion looks at the dead Larvitar for a moment and sighs. "I will try..."
Luca puts a paw on one handle of the doors and begins pulling it open, when he did open it somewhat a spear coming from in there was pointed towards him...for a moment until the guard realized it wasn't a Wallbreaker or Grove invader. Luca still found this a bit annoying though...He then turns to his Avali partner, waiting for her to come with.

Ranii nods, and goes with him. Following the Lucario deeper into the mansion.

Now they are in the mansion, they now find themselves in the main hall, a very spacious room with two rows of stairs leading to the second floor. Compared to the other homes in Sandstone, this place looks clearly better. This is also the place where many of the citizens are taking shelter, so while  this is pretty spacious it is pretty packed with pokémon. Luca and Ranii might also be able to spot someone familiar in one of the corners, It's Ara and her girls! There is also a Flygon with them.

"Ara!" Momentarily forgetting her mission, Ranii runs over to her and hugs her. "I was so worried! We checked your place, and only that bunny was still there."
"Can't imagine that ended well." She notices the Flygon.
"Ah. Igon. Good to see you made it out too, buddy. Yeah, that didn't end well. We almost ended up being her next 'clients'."

Luca also decided to go over to check on Ara, he is happy that she is okay as well. "Yeah...about her..."
"Ranii! Luca! I'm so glad you two are still alive!" The Abra hugged her friend. Then when the talk about Mrs Fluffybun started she began to feel relief, she was thinking about her this whole time ever since they got separated. "You saw her? Was she okay? What do you mean with almost ended up as her 'clients'?"
"Hhhhmmm..." Well, gotta try to explain this one now. "Yeah we saw her out there, she is still alive so there is that but...i think all that's happening has left her a bit detached from reality and she might have...attacked us..." By that of course he means that she was crazy, but what he said might be an understatement.
"O-oh..." She isn't exactly sure what he means she knows it sounds bad, maybe seeing all that's happening might have taken a toll on that Lopunny's mind, she thinks. "And where was she the last time you saw her?"
"Somewhere around where your place is, it still pretty dangerous there though."
"I see..." She can only hope that Mrs. Fluffybun is hiding somewhere safe. "She stayed back there to distract the Grove pokémon that were coming in, If it weren't for her we would have been chased by them and i'm not sure the rest of us would have made it here in one piece..."

"Well, she certainly seemed to have done that." Ranii adds with a sigh. "Almost TOO well. We found her amongst a whole lot of unconscious, and cum-covered grove soldiers... in fact, I'm not even sure in her state, she even knows what a 'Grove Soldier' even is."

"I...I could feel that there were some things wrong in her head but I didn't know she could get like that!" Ara sounds more than a bit shocked.
Luca decides to change the subject a little bit, something on the topic of their mission. "How are things around here?"
"Well..." She sighs. "It's better than out there I guess...but things have started to get a little tense here, there is talk that the Wallbreakers are here and that's getting some people scared. But the guards are telling everyone that there aren't any Wallbreakers within the mansion, and that it's still completely safe here."

"Let's hope it stays that way." Ranii says, not the least bit dishonestly. "Stay safe, Ara."
She nods towards Igon. 
"Keep her safe for me."
She gets up, and rejoins Luca.... they still have a mission to complete. And they need to do it in a way that will frame The Grove as the assassins, and not The Wallbreakers, and ESPECIALLY not the Four Eyes...
... Something that will be quite difficult if there are no Grove Soldiers in here.

They walk need to walk past a few of the citizens to proceed. But they made it to the stairs and climb it, up here on the second floor of the main hall are more citizen, some guards...but there is one away from the bunch. 
it's a pokémon with...many pointy ends, be it from the golden, double-headed axe blade on his helmet-like head or the the two blades encircling his torso like a ribcage. This Bisharp makes Luca look very huggable by physical comparison. He also has this Orange cape on his back, which denotes his rank of captain of the guard. He is looking down at all the pokémon down on the first floor.
Feeling just slightly nervous, looks approaches him. "...Hey."
He turns his head to look at the both of them, raising his head slightly...the Lucario is glad to notice those beady eyes of his. "You made it...good."

"So this is the guy we're supposed to meet." Ranii says to her partner.
"Yes, we're here. " She says to him. "Pleased to meet you."

"So, what is the situation?" Luca asks. "Are the Wallbreakers...?" He added with a whispers.
"Yes." He gives a solemn nods. "Not just them, but some Grove too, both of them are here with the intent of going for the nobles. I thought it was best not to cause a panic so i told the guards to tell the citizens that the mansion is secure..."
"Alright then...how many?"
The Ditto taking the guise of the Bisharp looks down at the citizens once more. "There are not many for what can i tell, but they are around the mansion looking for the nobles, and no doubt getting in a fight with one another too, probably."
He nods. "What about the nobles, do you know where they are?"
"Lord Gar took a couple of the guards to go look for his son, he absolutely refuses to leave without him, so i have been misdirecting him as much as i could but it's been some time since i saw him. As for Gaben, you should look for him in his chambers, it's here on the second floor." He points to some double doors, there is a couple guards keeping it secure, as with every door that goes deeper into the mansion from here. "It's just that way, go down the hallway, take a left and you should get there."

"Hmmm do we kill Gar and Gaben together? Or seperately?" She whispers to Luca. "What's our plan here?"

Luca looks at her. "We will have to see...we have an idea of where to look for Gaben but not Gar yet, hang on..." He has a solution for that of course, and that is sensing aura. "Hhhmmm...i think i can sense him over there..." He looks in the direction that is the opposite of where Gaben's chambers are. "...He seems to be handling himself well enough for now. As for Gaben..." He looks in the direction the Ditto pointed then too, so these two targets are really spread apart right now. "Let's stick together and go after Gaben first, we can get to him before his father does."

"Alright." Ranii nods. "Let's do this." She adds darkly.
She follows Luca to where he's sensing this 'Gaben' bastard. She'd heard things about him. From her briefing, and from local rumors, but she'd never seen head or tail of the 'mon himself.