Act 56: Breached Bastian
"Wow... Ominous" Ranii comments upon looking at the tall walls and keep. "Question is, how do we get inside?"

"Let's head in through there." The Lucario points to the open gate. There are some dead pokémon from both sides around there as well, so there was some fierce fighting there in particular. And there are also dead flying-type pokémon half buried in the sand, those are definitely dead too.

"Yeesh, Elec wasn't kidding when they said they needed help." Ranii remarks as she heads through the gate quickly with Luca.

There are more signs of combat, Luca can feel that there are mons in the buildings, they must be civilians hiding...this also means that the Grove must not have bothered to evacuate them to a safe place and just focused on preparing for the fight. 
They easily find where the battle is the thickest right now, in the center of the town. Aceo's forces seem to have gotten themselves surrounded...

Ranii readies her spear. "Let's not waste any time boys! Let's get in there and save our lads!" She shouts to the reinforcements behind her, pointing her spear forward. "FOR SANDSTONE! RAAGH!!" She yells as she throws the spear into the fray, the spear's magic doing its duty to seek out a Grove target to impale itself into...

Ranii's spear stabs a Fraxure in the head, killing it. Meanwhile Luca and the others are charging into the fray, with the Lucario using his swords to cut his way through some Snivy and Deerling until he could make his way to Aceo in the middle of all this fighting. 
"How did he get to this?! I thought you had a plan!" The Lucario yells to the Glaceon general. 
"We kind of had, and it was working!" Aceo replied back, shouting over all the noise going on around them. "But suddenly the Grove started knowing exactly where we were going!"

"The heck?!" Ranii yells, narrowly dodging a razor leaf attack from a Bulbasaur. "No matter. It looks like-"
She stops mid sentence when she spots something. Way in the back of the Grove crowd, she spies a Cacnea, attempting to look like it's participating in this fight, but is throwing attacks in clearly missing directions. What catches her eye though, is a red band on their arm.
She suddenly remembers the note from that 'date' she had... what? A week, a few ago? 
'Wait... could it be?' She suddenly thinks. 
She also sees a few more grass, water, and normal type mons with similar red bands on their arms, similarly in the surrounding mons, but trying to stay out of the battle itself.
She clears her throat, and with a shout, yells out the code phrase.
"Have you prepared for Autumn?!" She yells out to them.

'Have you prepared for Autumn'? That is one word that gets their attention, those mons look at each other for a moment before yelling back "My Ivy still needs trimming!" And then these supposed 'Grove soldiers' begin turning on the other ones, it seems like those are the Wallbreaker spies, alright.
"Huh? Wait What the fuck is going on?!" Aceo is surprised by this sudden turn of events with the Grove soldiers turning on each other, to him it's something that came out of the blue.
Luca knows what's going on though, though for him it took a moment to figure out what Ranii was talking about. "They are friends of ours, i will explain it to you later, we gotta get through this alive first!"

The spear reappears in Ranii's hands, and she once again leaping onto a distracted mudkip and whacking it upside the head with the blunt side of her spear.

With the Wallbreaker's spies stabbing the grove in the back, the forces of Sandstone are able to get the upper hand and the Grove is being routed. Grass-types, dragon-types and whatever few flying types remain are surrendering, some even trying to flee but the walls that were supposed to protect them suddenly have become their prison, the only place they have to go now is that keep.
Luca was about to cut down a Pansage but it surrendered to him, so he didn't bring his swords down on the grass monkey. "Aceo, we appear to be pushing them back, what do we do?"
The Glaceon freezes a Bagon before turning to Luca. "Well let's keep chasing them until they have nowhere else to go! then they will HAVE to surrender to us! Otherwise they might die."

"Pos that!" Ranii shouts to him. She wonders what exactly they'll find in that big ominous keep. If the Noble is still there or if they have another puppet one they'll have to remove, or what they've done with the place. All questions that will need to be sorted out later.

When they get to the keep, they find the doors closed...well, this is to be expected. Some attempts to open the doors don't appear to work, they must have barricaded themselves in there.
"Alright everyone! Please calm down!" Aceo shouts to get everyone's attention. "We broke the enemies' will to fight, some have already surrendered...but let us all remember the accords, alright? We have already won, the town itself is ours. We are going to convince them to come out of there nice and easy in due time. For now I want everyone's efforts to focus on checking on the state of the town, see if any of the citizens got hurt or if there are other Grove soldiers hiding." He points to that smoke rising from that other part of town. "Also take care of that before it spreads further!"

Ranii could remove the door with her matter manipulator, but she decides against doing that in full view of everyone. Besides, it would take a while anyway. 
"Yes sir!" She shouts to Aceo. She turns to Luca. "Right behind you, partner."
However, part of her is dreading what she'll find here, as some memories of liberations of Miniknog-occupied towns flood her memories. She doubts it will be as bad as this, but still...

"I'm not good at dealing with fire..." Luca says to her as they go. It is true that fire is one of his weaknesses. As they go however, Luca suddenly feels something, a particularly distressed aura, coming from that house over there. "Ranii, I think someone's in danger."

"Alright. Let's go." She says, gripping her spear in her hand.

When they get in there, they see a Drilbur standing near a doorway, she is trembling quite a bit and crying. "D-don't come...please don't come close..." She begs them. "Just go away...!"
Luca raises a brow, there is clearly something very wrong here, the way she is just standing there and not trying to move back...is she really scared of them or is it something else? "Look, miss, we are not here to hurt you. Alright? Is everything alright?"
"Y-yes! Just go away please!" She sobs and yells at them.

"Madam..." Ranii says.. "We're here to help you. Please, tell us what's wrong?"

Luca senses that it's not just the three of them in here...behind that doorway there is someone else. That is...very suspicious. "Hey! I know that you are over there, who are you?!" He demands and takes a step closer.
"Shit...!" A Quilladin that was hiding there grabs Drilbur by the neck and pulls her deeper into the house. And turns out he was using a dagger pointed at her back to try to force her to lure them away, but since that did not work he now has it aimed at her face as he walks back with her, until his back is against a wall. "D-don't get any closer or I will kill her! Y-you hear me?!" He sounds very afraid too.
The poor Drilbur cries and yells for help now, her eyes fearfully looking at the blade pointed to her face.
The Lucario followed them, growling. He really wished he wasn't thrown into another hostage situation like this... "Let her go, right now!"

"We're doing this again?" Ranii growls to herself, remembering the same thing happening in Sandstone.
"Okay, okay, we're backing up, see?" Ranii says, doing the same act as before. "I'm going to even toss my spear off to the side. Okay?"

"We got the town captured! You can't go anywhere! just let her go!" Luca says to him, trying to get him to surrender.
"Aaaaw damn it! J-just back off! or i'm gonna stab her!" The nervous grass-type holds the waepon closer to his hostage's flesh.
"Noo! please!" The Drilbur sounds more desperate as the blade gets closer and closer to her face.
The Lucario growls and reluctantly steps back.

"Alright, I'm tossing it the spear over there, see?" Ranii throws the spear off to the side, and just like back in Sandstone, it bounces off the wall, then  once it turns in the grass type's general direction, it suddenly speeds up and zooms towards him like a hungry shark in water.

This time things don't quite go according to plan though. The Quilladin is not distracted by pleasure, he is very much focused on Ranii and what she would do. When he saw the spear coming for his head he throws himself, and his hostage, down on the ground to avoid getting hit. "AAAAHH! What the hell was that?!" He quickly gets and runs off to another part of the house.
"Hey! get back here!" Luca shouts angrily and chases after that grass-type, leaving Ranii alone with the Drilbur...unless she wants to follow too.

Ranii trusts her partner to deal with the Qilladin. She rushes over to the Drilbur, hugging her. "You're okay, you're okay..." She assures him.

The ground-type hugs back and cries on the Avali's shoulder. It's not quite easy to make out what she is saying with all that sobbing but it sounds like she is thanking Ranii for saving her from that Grove member.

Ranii pats her on the back comfortingly. "There, there..." She pats her back. "Did he hurt you?" She asks.

She nods to Ranii. "Y-yes...he did." Though what he did is not exactly clear, at least not at first sight but her back has a bit of blood leaking from a small wound. That Grove member must have pressed his dagger a little too hard against her back at that moment when they first saw her and he was hiding on the door way.

"Let me see..." She says soothingly.

She is still on the floor, she turns around and shows her back to Ranii, that's where it's hurting.

Ranii checks her supplies, and finds a bandage. she's able to apply the bandage onto her quickly.  "I'm afraid that's the best I can do for the moment." She tells her. "If it's still bothering you, or if he hurt you in other ways, you'll have to check in with the medic once things calm down."

"Alright..." She is calmer now that she trusts Ranii since she helped her. "T-thank you..."
There is the noise of things getting knocked over on the second floor, and Luca shouting. The chase still seems to be on.

Ranii's ears immediately pick up the ruckus. They twitch as she sighs to herself. She gets up from having treated the drillbur, and pats her on the head soothingly. "I have to rejoin my partner now, but don't worry, we'll get'em."
She then leaves without another word, her hand extending to call forth her spear as she makes her way upstairs.

Ranii finds them in what appears to be a bedroom. She sees Luca holding the Quilladin by the legs and trying to pull him out of a window he is trying to escape through, or maybe it appears that the grass-type is stuck in the window? it is a rather hefty pokémon... Regardless there is plenty of angry yelling from Luca and terrified screams from the Quilladin.

Truth be told, out of all possible outcomes for this, this actually looks a bit amusing. Ranii had feared she'd come up the steps to find the grass type had gotten the better of him. But, she's glad to see that her fears are misplaced. "Need some help?" Ranii asks her partner. "Sure looks like it." She adds with a single chuckle.

The Lucario looks to his partner. "Oh, yes it would be very much appreciated." One of the grass-type's legs struggles out of his grip and tries to kick him, but he grabs it firmly again before it can do so. "This guy is so annoying!"

Ranii grabs onto the other leg. "Alright you, enough is enough!'' She nods to Luca. "Count of three. One, two, THREE!" On that last word, she pulls as hard as she can.

Luca also pulled strongly when Ranii counted to three and they managed to get the Quilladin out of the window and back in there. The grass-type slips from their hands and rolls along the ground until he hits a wall.
And before he could get up and escape again, Luca, who does not want to go running after him again, pins him down and begins punching him in the face with one of his paws.

Ranii, embarrassingly lands on her butt when they pull him out of the window. "Ppphhh!" She quickly gets up, just in time to see Luca punching the would-be runner in the face. She turns her spear sideways, ready to paddle him in the face with the flat side of it should it come to that.

Looks like Ranii won't need to hit him, for Luca already managed to beat him into unconsciousness.
With that dealt with, the Lucario gets off the unconscious pokémon and flexes the paw he used to punch. "Alright, I think he won't be doing anything we don't want to for a while..."

"Yeesh what a troublemaker." She says with irritation, tossing a bit of rope to Luca to tie him up. "I get the feeling this isn't the worst of what we're going to see here, though."

"I can only hope your feeling is wrong there..." He looks at the unconscious pokémon at his feet. "I will tie him up when we are outside, I don't think that mon that lives here would like to have him anywhere near her right now..."

"Yeah, me either." Ranii agrees with him.  She tosses her spear aside, letting it vanish as she grabs one of the mon's arms to help Luca carry him outside.

Once they carried him outside, Luca tied them up and this should be the end of that. Now on to other things.
Now Luca and Ranii arrive at the place where the fire is raging, it seems to be an inn. And there are mons from the Sandstone forces doing some fire fighting, the rock-types in particular, at least the best they can with their moves and buckets of water.
"How did this fire start?!" The Lucario asks out loud, he is not sure if he is expecting an answer from anyone...
But an Archen stops near and tells him what happened. "Apparently some of our fire-types were fighting some Grove here, and one of them accidentally started a fire trying to burn one of those grass-types!"
They also get to  see Lemm running out of that burning building, holding a Kecleon in his arms.

Ranii briefly looks over at the Kecleon, trying to assess its condition....

It does look like that Pokémon got injured by the flames, it could really use some medical attention...
Luca can not fight the flames directly, he can however go help get water so more fire-resistant mons can use it, so he starts doing just that.

Ranii meanwhile tends to the injured mon follows the Achen until they reach a safe distance away from the flames, she gets out some more bandages and bandages up some of the wounds, as she doesn't have anything else on hand that can treat him. 
Burn heals was not in the mission parameters, it seems like. And neither of them are really equipped to deal with this fire outside of this minor contribution on both ends.

And so, Luca and Ranii contribute the best they can in their respective ways, one helping with the water and the other helping with the wounded. It looks like the fire is starting to get under control too.
While the Avali works however, she gets approached by someone. "Hey." It looks like a Zangoose.....and he has that familiar red band tied around one of his arms.

"Hello there friend!" She greets him publicly and loudly. "How goes it?" However her voice soon is hushed. "I see you're in with our ... 'mutual friend'." She whispers.

"Yes, of course." He nods. "Our mutual friend" he is also speaking in a hushed tone. "So you are the one he is friends with huh? I was wondering when we were going to hear the codeword."

"I would have used it sooner, but we never came across you guys until now.... Ah well, what's done is done. By the way, how is he these days, if I might be so bold to ask?" She likewise whispers back.

"He has been alright, keeping an eye on the Grove. They aren't making it easy for us Wallbreakers  to operate, they are not as lazy as your average Sands noblemon. But we might have also have infiltrators in the other towns, just waiting, you never know." Now the Zangoose moves to another topic. "The Grove got rid of the nobles that lived here...but they are no different than the previous owners of the place if you ask me..."

It's good to know that John, or whatever his real name is, is doing well. She avoided calling him by that name since it's likely he uses a different one when among his own, and they wouldn't recognize it anyway.
And she should not be surprised that the Grove replaced the nobles with their own. Or that the replacements have been bad. Question is, just how bad?
"What exactly have these new nobles been doing?" She asks in a hushed tone. "What has been going on here before we arrived?"

"Hmpft...where do I even start?" By the sound of that, it looks like it wasn't better than the last nobles who were in command. "After they took over the town they set out to 'take root' on the population, that means putting eggs in females to grow the population. Let me tell you, almost everyone with a pussy in this place got an egg forced into them by those bastards."

"Oh my gosh!" She says in shock.  "I guess I know now why that other guy was so dead set on trying to escape the house at any cost." She says under her breath. If she'd known that, she'd probably have kicked the mon in the face after they dragged his ass inside. Or in the nuts. One of the two.
"Sounds like we're going to have a huge orphan problem too." She says, also in whispers. "That will need to be addressed."
"Is there anything else they've been doing?" She asks them.

"Yeah I know...right after winning they began raping the citizens." The Zangoose sounds disgusted by what the Grove did here that day. "Well, as for the nobles, we haven't seen them, I suppose they were 'dealt' with. And the Grove commander also fled when he saw things were not going the way he envisioned. I heard he can see into the future or something...so he knew when to fly away."

"Apparently not far enough, or else he wouldn't have started this in the first place." Ranii remarks to the last part. "And not consistently enough to help him win this battle, either."
She has another question on her mind, now that the nobles were brought up. 
"Did the previous nobles have any pruned among them?" She asks, remembering poor little Shrewn. A slave in all but name.

"Honestly, it's rare to see a noble who doesn't have any pruned." He says. "Even the Grove would not pass up the opportunity to have servants...so they are very likely still alive."

"I see."
"I'm afraid he's understating what the Grove did to everyone." Ranii hears another voice join them. It's a little white and pink teddy-bear like pokemon with swirly eyes and similar swirls in their ears, a spinda. He too has a red band around his arm. "When they first came here, they broke into homes and dragged them out, gang rapes everywhere. And they never stopped." His tone grows darker as he looks down. "They even took a few of them, the most 'fiesty' ones, and tied them to stockades for 'free use'. Day in, and day out." 
Ranii has no words.
"We tried to shelter those we could. Keeping them out of harm's way. But they were persistent. We..." He hesitates with a sigh. "We tried to make a laundry list of excuses whenever our so-called 'squadmates' came around. Though, near the end, we were forced to 'share' those we'd sheltered at the risk of being exposed. Even partake just to keep up appearances. I..."
He shakes a little.
"I know you guys are most likely going to punish the offenders, and I don't blame you for doing so, but I want you to know, we had no choice in the matter, and we never gave anyone any eggs."
"I promise..." Ranii says. "For your part in this, you'll get off light, if not completely."
"Thank you." He says.

The Zangoose sighs and nods, the Spinda here told her everything without any sugar coating. "Speaking of our presence here...us Wallbreakers have a way to silently sneak out of here now that our job is done, this place doesn't need us spying on it anymore now that it's no longer Grove turf." He says. "Still, I heard that things turned around in Sandstone, and it's a better place to live. Really hope you managed to do the same here, there are a lot of people needing help after getting through not one but two invasions..." He added.

"We'll do our best, you can be assured of that." Ranii nods to the two of them. "Was there anything else we should know? Any other surprises or atrocities we should be aware of before we can proceed?"

"Well, you should know some of it by now, what with taking some of the citizens out of their homes so they can have 'morale boost' on the go...but we know where they took them, but we are not sure if they are still there or if they have already been moved." The Zangoose said. "They also saw fit to take some of the things belonging to those that live around here. And as you know with the nobles, they were dealt with...so did some of the citizens that I think tried to defend themselves, they were more interested in keeping the females alive though." Then he goes silent for a moment, as this next one is more than a bit disturbing. "And one of the Grove big shots around here has a craving for meat, it's something he keeps well hidden...Anyways, there was some shipment of meat that was supposed to arrive here some days ago but that didn't happen, he got pretty annoyed. As for where he is right now...most likely dead i wager, i know he was part of the fight, if not...who knows, maybe he was captured instead."

"So much for the slavery ban..." Ranii mutters. Not that she was under any delusion that they were following it anymore. Sandstone proved that much already. "And yeeeaah we might have had something to do with that shipment not arriving." She laughs a bit nervously.

"Well, I have nothin' else to tell you." So it looks like it would be time for them to part ways now...but. "And if you want, I suppose I could try helping you send a 'message' to our boss, you know, if you want me to keep something in mind to say to him, doesn't matter if it's important or not."
Luca is now looking at Ranii talking to those two pokémons. He can see those red bands so he can guess what it is about, but isn't sure what she is talking about with them though.

"Just ask him how he's doing and if he wants to meet again." Ranii tells them. "And tell him thanks for the code, it saved a lot of lives. Okay it looks like my partner is looking for me, so time to go."
She gives them a nod, and goes off to rejoin her Lucario partner.

The two wallbreakers in disguise proceed to make their exit, calmly walking away from the scene without drawing suspicion.
Luca approaches now, watching as those two go away. "What was that all about?" He asks his partner.

"They were telling me about what went on here." She tells him truthfully. "Would you like the short of it, or the long of it?"

He can only imagine what the Grove must have done here...but he thinks it might have been worse than he thought. "The short one is fine."

"Yeah, I don't blame you for not wanting to know the full extent of it." She sighs. "Forced impregnation, Rape, Slavery. They made off with a few of them. Robbery. The whole circus. Oh, and yes, one of the big shots was a cannibal. But I think we already knew that part. The Wallbreakers said they did what they could, but they couldn't do much."

That is all rather disturbing, and anger inducing...the thought of killing every Grove soldier, even the ones that they captured, probably is something that went through the minds of everyone at least once. "Then...the same thing would have happened to Sandstone if we failed that day." He shakes his head and sighs. "....I heard that the Grove inside of the keep has surrendered, we have complete control over the town now. I suppose we should go take a break........wanna have a look at the keep with me?"

"It seems like it, yes." Ranii says in response to the thought of the same thing happening to sandstone. The thought of Ara, those girls, everyone being lined up and raped and forced to carry an egg... it makes her shutter, partially out of disgust, but mostly out of anger.
"Yeah." Ranii sighs in response to his invitation to join him in taking a look at the castle. "Can't think of much else to do at the moment anyway." Though, she wonders what horrors she's going to find there, both from the previous administration, and from these Grove bastards.

Once they get back to the keep, they can see that Aceo has some mons rounding up the Grove soldiers that were hiding in there. They are going to have to figure out what to do with all of these prisoners, but prison is likely what's going to happen, so they will be POWs. Besides, they were promised not to be hurt if they submitted.
When they get into the big stone keep through the front doors, which are wide open right now, they see the entry hall, it's less pretty than the one in the mansion, all made of hardstone, but it's substance over looks as it looks like this place could probably survive anything, well...anything other than high-tech methods of attack such as bombardments and artillery that the Avali can use, those would crumble all of this as if it was made of paper.

Of course, the Avali have already said that they won't use such measures, unless absolutely necessary.
"Well.... so far so good. Or at least as good as 'good' can go in all this." Ranii comments.

As they keep exploring the place Luca feels a strong smell coming from somewhere...it must be that room there on the side of that hallway. This smell can be familiar for them though, it's the smell of sex, but it's very strong. They come upon the source of it though, it looks like a bedroom that got turned into a, for lack of better words, sexroom with pillows and beds stained with a liquid. There certainly must have been a lot of intercourse here, much, if not all of the non-consensual nature.
Suffice to say Luca is disgusted from seeing this, and smelling this too.

Ranii ends up flicking her tongue. Big mistake. 
"Ugh." Ranii comments. "What in the name of-"
She looks upon the room. Seeing its cum-stained... Well, everything. 
"Ugh, guess they didn't clean much here. she says, trying to keep her mouth closed to keep herself from smelling the old cum any further.

"Yeah I think I know what this here is for..." Luca rubs his nose a little. Through them he notices something surprising. There IS someone here trying to clean the place.
There is this Furret walking about with a bucket, getting some of the dirty pieces of cloth and pillows and putting it in a basket that is looking pretty full. This pokémon looks to be a rather old female, and that jacket she is wearing must mean she is a pruned. And despite how disgusting cleaning all of this is, and how much time it's going to take......she is doing it all with a smile on her face.

Ranii looks at the Furret, which she somehow didn't notice before. Must have been the sudden input from the dried cum and ... other fluids. "Mam..." Ranii tells her. "You know you don't have to do that right now."

"Huh?" The elderly Furret looks at Avali and the Lucario. "Oh, are you the new owners of the Bleached Keep?" She enquiries, speaking as if nothing is wrong.
"I...suppose so?" Luca said, his tone is a little awkward. "Who are you? Why are you still here?"
"I am Erret. I have been a maid for many different masters of this keep, they were mostly sand nobles. I just...come with the keep." She then tilts her head a little when she sees that Luca is looking at her with some uncertainty. "Are you unwell, dear? Do you need me to get you anything? Some water perhaps?" She sounds worried for him.
"No, no...i'm fine." Luca shakes his head. Though he is wondering why she seems to be unscathed considering the Grove took over, maybe they knew that she was too old to bear children...and probably would have preferred someone younger than an old mon anyways. "You know you are free now, right? You can leave if you want."
Now she looks a little sad. "Leave? But I can't leave...I can't abandon my duty as a maid. There are so many more rooms to clean. The Bleached Keep is rather large, and in need of tidying up."
Luca looks at her in silence for a moment. He figured that there might have been something up with this Furret, not anything bad but it seems like her long time here must have done something to her. "Ranii, I don't think she is quite okay..." He whispered to his partner.

"Yeah. I quite agree" Ranii whispers back to him.
"Anyway, madam, as he said... you don't really need to stay here. Go take the day off. Or quite a few, really." Ranii says awkwardly. She really doesn't know what to say to this person. What abuses this person has undergone in her lifetime. It's one thing to care for a fresh victim, it's another to care for someone that's been under it for a lifetime. That's well beyond her expertise.
"Actually... wait." Ranii suddenly thinks of something to ask. "Has this room..." she scrunches her face. "... Been in use... as of late?"

"I'm sorry dear but I can not rest right now, I really need to clean this place." Erret insisted on not taking a day off. "This room? Yes, it was very used day in, day out by the last occupants. Now that things are calm around here I decided it would be a good idea to clean it up."
"Do you work alone? Could you use some help?" Luca asks her.
"There hasn't been another maid here besides me in ages. But don't worry a bit about little old me, I can take care of the place." She gives a smile to reassure him. It's clear she is tired though, these last few days with the Grove must have been quite busy.
"Right then..." Luca will be sure to get her some help anyways, she didn't exactly say no...and besides she looks like she really needs the help. Who knows, maybe when the place is clean she won't have an excuse to work herself further.

"Where are those that were.... used?" She asks, trying to pick her words carefully so as to not upset or trigger the old furret while still getting vital information on the matter.

The old Furret thinks for a moment. "Well, there was that big commotion today..." She probably means the battle that resulted in Bleached Bastion being taken over by the Sandstone's forces. "It all got quite hectic in here, but I think they are probably still around here somewhere if they haven't left."

Well that's not exactly helpful, but Ranii supposes that's the best she can get here.
"Well..." She briefly considers trying to convince her to take the day off, but decides against it. "I... guess we'll leave you to it. Possibly get someone to help you." She tells her.
"We should check the dungeons." Ranii whispers to her partner.

Luca nods and the both of them leave that dirty room, also leaving the old mon to go back to her work of cleaning all that mess. He is now wondering why Ranii asked her all of that. "Are we looking for someone in particular here?"

"Just looking for any hostages they might have had." Ranii tells her partner.

"Ah, I see. Yeah, let's go check the dungeon."
To get there they had to find some path that was to lead down, dungeons are often built underground after all. When they get there they see that it's bigger than Sandstone's dungeon, so it could hold more prisoners. And speaking of which, it looks like there are prisoners in there. If they are to look through the small hole on the doors to look into the cells they should see that it looks like this is where the Grove keeps the females they really liked, some of them look pregnant already...

"By the...'' She doesn't even finish the sentences as she hears the weeping, her tongue being assaulted by similar smells as the ones above in that room.
"Well, let's not stand here." She says. "We've got to let them out." She looks around. "Erm, you see a key anywhere around here?"

"I don't think we would need something like that." Luca points to something on one of the door that they can use to open it by simply pulling it.
Indeed, there is a sturdy latch made of wood keeping the door locked from the outside of the cell, every one of these cell doors has it. With the art of shaping iron being generally lost, and that's not mentioning the primitivity of whatever weapons that are made with iron, it's easy to see why mons have not managed to invent basic mechanisms such as lock and key, especially since it would need to use iron.

"Oh.... right." Ranii deadpans, in the excitement of the moment, she temporarily forgot the doors didn't even have 'locks' per-se.
"Well, let's get these doors open." She says as she goes to one of the doors and undoes the cell doors.

When the door gets open, the females inside fearfully look on at who this might be. a Purrloin and a Marill near the door cover their faces and are trembling and looking like they are about to beg not to be taken as they are under the assumption they are about to be used again.

"H-huh...?"
"What...?"
They sound confused. And also noticed that this individual doesn't look like a grass-type...but she looks like a flying-type somewhat.
"W-who are you...?"

"Ranii. Sandstone Army." She tells her. "Like I said, no one's going to hurt you anymore."

'Then we are...free to go?"
"What happened to the Grove...?"
It seems like they don't quite know what happened up there, which might be because they were stuck here during the whole time the battle was going on.

"Yes... Yes you're free to go." Ranii says to them. "The Grove's been beaten. Those who haven't died are being rounded up and taken prisoner..."
She looks over the Purrloin. A cat-like creature that she hasn't seen yet in this world. "I... I can't imagine the horrible things they've done to you." She says. Well, actually she can, but she decides that's not the best thing to say. "But rest assured, we Sandstoners have no intention of harming you or using you further."
She checks over to Luca to see if he's opened any more prison doors.

Since she is letting them walk free, they get up and proceed to get out of this cell. It's not quite easy for them though, some can not walk right and others are helping each other get up to go.
As for Luca, he has opened up some other cells to free some other sets of female prisoners that got abused by the Grove as well.

Ranii hears one of the girls trip over herself, her legs shaking from not having been used for what appears to be quite some time. She immediately goes over to help her. "I got you, don't worry.'' She says as she helps the Clefairy up, a hard task being that she's a bit smaller than the Clefairy, but she manages.
"Th-THank you" she says with a sob in her voice.

Luca and Ranii work together to get everyone here freed, and to help them out of here too.
"I think that's all of them...'' The Lucario said after this lengthy little job was done. He goes to Ranii's side. "Being a long day today, huh?"

"Yeah." She says as she wraps an arm around him. "And not a particularly pleasant one... but... I guess it's to be expected." She sighs.

"Have you ever seen worse than this when you were traveling to other worlds?" Luca asks with a sigh.

"Only a few times." Ranii replies tiredly. "And most of them involved the Miniknog."

"I see. Well...let's go find a place where we can sit down?" He could use a break right now, really.

"Alright." They wander out of the dungeon, and up the stairs, trailing behind the girls that are leaving, some of them taking their first steps out in a long time. Ranii spots a nearby bench in the hallway. "Will that do?" She asks.

He nods. "Yeah, that will do." The Lucario goes to sit his rear on it, getting his tail in a position where it isn't going to get sat on by it's owner.

Ranii adjusts her long tail feather, as it threatens to get in the way when she sits, but after a few moments, she sits down next to him.

Luca turns to Ranii and gives her a hug and a kiss on the head. "We survived another day huh?"

Ranii smiles back at him and gives him a kiss on the cheek in return. "Yeah, yeah we did."

Back in the Sandgun base a dozen hours after Bleached Bastion got taken by the forces of Sandstone...
Mattias is visiting the Avali commanders tent to talk about what was found there, and maybe anticipate what might happen next. The human has already taken his usual seat. "So, it would appear they did it. Bleached Bastion is now another liberated town that belongs not to the Grove...nor the Sands."

"Well it does belong to the Sands..." The base commander corrects. "Just not the Kingdom of the Sands, it belongs toThe Republic of the Sands." He chuckles . "I think this new faction of Sandstone's got a nice ring to it, does it not? I hear Khaako has already pitched the name change idea to Stic yesterday."

Mattias raised a brow. "A republic you say? You mean that state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives?" It kind of sounds like he is wondering why they are going with that.

"Well... yes." The commander states. "In a sense. I mean, you didn't think they were going to adopt our system, did you? A cyberocracy such as ours is still a looong ways off for them. And we've noticed that social development does have to go in a certain progression, even if we are helping... nudge, hmm?... things along a little bit. Though, we are kind of stretching the definition a little bit, as said election hasn't happened yet, and Stic remains interim leader for the time being. But then again I doubt he'll have much trouble getting reelected when the time comes."

"Ah i see." He nods. "It's better than whatever the Iron King put in place, that's for sure. And the name is good. The pokemon probably don't know what the word 'republic' even means but they will learn." He says and leans back on his seat. "You have some pretty exciting long term plans for this world and it's inhabitants. It's quite something."

"Well, we're just making suggestions. It's up to them to actually implement them." The commander tells him. "Either way, I think he'll agree that a name change is definitely in order especially now that we're starting to liberate more towns. 'Army of Sandstone' worked well enough for this one. But they need a name and idea to rally around. An idea and symbol greater than themselves or just a single city state."

"Yeah that's a pretty logical idea." He agrees. "Hey, you remember that time i mentioned someone i know wanted to 'make' a mystery dungeon for experimentation?"

"Ugh... yes." The commander grumbles to himself.

"Alright so...I helped him get some dungeon dwellers, which by that I mean were just some mons looking for a place to live. Right?" He raised a finger. "Okay so here is where the problem started. We design a nice living space for a community and the first thing he wants to expose them to is a bicycle that is stuck in place and it can electrocute you or inject performance enhancing chemicals to motivate you to keep paddling."

Oh for the Nexus's sake." The commander groans.

"But don't worry, none of those unpleasant functions came to pass. I made sure of that, it was just a normal exercise item." He reassures the commander. And after a moment of silence he continues. "Then he outdid himself with a berry juice dispenser spiked with heavy appetite suppressants to save food or hallucinogenic chemicals to make the dungeon dwellers happy and addicted to the stuff."

The commander just facepalms. "I am beginning to wonder why you even let this guy out of his room?" He groans. 

"What can i say, he is still one of ours...there are rules back home that exist to stop experimentation like this from being aimed at pokémon. But here these rules don't apply...but these days the trend is market science. Anyways, the juice dispenser was alright, i did not let him go with his ideas." Mattias said before continuing his rant. "My next attempt getting an metaphorically out of control truck to crash at the least important thing lead me to oversee him testing a helmet that was supposed to check the condition of someone's brain AND implant subliminal messaging straight into the it with 'experimental' methods of jolts, and it's labelled 'experimental' because messing someone's brain like that was really not a good idea."

The commander's talons remain planted to his face. 
"I have to ask... is this actually going anywhere?" He is getting a bit tired of listening to this 'scienitst's shenanigans whose original intent is starting to sound more and more like a watered-down version of the black isle or miniknog shit.

"Not really. That whole experimenting thing stopped quite some time ago..." He reassures the Avali commander. Now what's next in this carnival of bad science experimentation rant? "And finally...he wanted to introduce gambling to them with an automated poker machine. I don't know what happened exactly, i was already so done with everything there was really nothing physically harmful about that last experiment of his..."

"Yeah, because there's nothing harmful about gambling." The base commander says sarcastically.

"It was a long day, that day..." He sighs. "But anyways, that guy is now out of the picture and that 'mystery dungeon' still has a population living in it, functionally too."

"So what actually happened to that guy?"

"Whined and stormed out in a huff, basically." He shrugs. "Why? You want to arrest him?" Not that Mattias would blame them for wanting that, or would stop them if they to do so.

"Doesn't sound like it's worth it. Guy would probably end up being banditfood in about 1 week tops." The commander really does not want to deal with this nonsense anymore than is absolutely necessary

Maybe it's time to change the subject anyways. "So, the war effort. Next up there are two more towns to take over, both of these are to be attacked simultaneously. One of these is a port town."

"I see... Given what we saw at Bleached Bastian, I suspect what they'll find there is not pretty at all." The commander comments.

"It's not likely to be any better than what was seem in Bleached Bastion." He says grimly. "But the port town is no bastion at least. With how the Grove is moving it's like they believe that if they take the capital they well win the whole conflict."

"If the Grove needs to come by sea in general then we don't have to worry about them ever coming to attack again thanks to the Black Isle. However..." The human leans forwards a little. "There is a problem that is going to be rearing it's ugly head as the fighting goes...I think we can all agree that in war there are always casualties, some of them are permanent and they are inevitable. The army of the Republic of the Sands might lose members over time, now the fix for this could be to recruit from the towns under their control but training new soldiers takes time, and they need to be introduced to the accords and have discipline to follow said accords."

"Yes indeed." The commander says, as he waits for him to continue.

"So i think it's time for us to enhance the quality of the republic's army. Not with guns, and not with Iron. While it is true that pokémon can not kill each other with their moves with the exception of you and other off-worlders, i still think this is something to be considered none the less." He gets that cube device that looks like it is made of crystal, he puts it in phone-form to show him some sort of video. "I know someone who wanted to show one of your people this in person, in a sort of firing range. But we probably want to be quick about this, so..."

[In the video there are two pokémon battling, their body shapes don't match the ones from around here at all so they must be from wherever Mattias is from. One of the pokémon proceeds to unleash a very strong attack in the form a, for lack of better words to describe it, wave-motion gun that it's the target and results in an explosion.]

"Would you believe me if the list of pokémon that can do this naturally is decent...but the list of pokémon that this can be taught to is huge?"

To say that the commander is left flabbergasted is... an understatement to say the least. He's left slack jawed, at what he had just witnessed... Could these creatures... truely be capable of THIS?! "Just... what... was that?!"

Yeah he can see that he really has the commander's attention here, a pretty interesting reaction. It almost makes him smirk but he rather keeps professional and explains it. "That was a Hyper Beam, it's quite a popular move back where I'm from, a very popular product if I do say so myself. And it is all right here..." From the same place he got his phone-like device, he pulled out some sort of disk, and placed it upon the table in front of him.

"Now, I'm not saying I'm making a sales pitch here, I'm not doing that at all. Anyways imagine equipping a group of Pokémon with that and pointing them at the enemy"

"What..." The commander thinks about his next words, trying to get ahold of his mind. After a few moments, he finally is able to formulate the words. "What kind of collateral damage would a move like this do? Would it be capable of one-shotting a tank? A space station?"

"Well there is no doubt in my mind that if aimed at infrastructure the damage would quickly pile up. And it would be a viable anti-tank method, specially if used by a strong pokémon." The then raises a brow. "Well...as for space stations, if they are as big and advance as a i imagine from a space-faring civilization like you...I say it would not really destroy it outright, sure the explosion would be able to damage it's hull, maybe even breach it with sufficient hits or a well placed strike...i don't see glass being able to stand up to it though."

"Hmmmm..." Well, that's... assuring. "While that still doesn't look like it stacks up to the anti-ship railgun the base has, I can guess that a concentrated barrage of these things could very well be... well, devastating. We'd have to be very careful with who we hand this over to, to say the least." He remarks. 

"Yes, indeed." He nods. "It is going to have to be delivered to the Republic's army before they split up following their last victory. I don't got much else to say, if you have any questions or anything else I think I'm going to take my leave."

"Well, for starters, what else like this is there? And are there any downsides we should know about with this thing? I mean, obviously we don't see mons using this willy-nilly all over the place."

"Well there is another move that can more than rival Hyper Beam with it's destructive potential but that one has bigger risks...But first let me answer that other question. Like i said not many pokémon learn this move naturally, i can count the species that are likely to meet that do with a hand, and most of it live in the ocean. And uuuh, really should go without saying that this move spends a lot of energy, those who use it can not move for roughly half a minute, and most don't feel like they have it in them to use it a second time after the first one." Mattias says. He then starts swiping on his phone-like device again, then looks at the commander as he remember how he reacted to seeing the footage of the Hyper Beam. "You uuuh...feeling alright to see another of these?"

"So that explains why none thought to use it against Black Isle. Because the machines killed them before they could get it off." He remarks on his explanation. "Well, that and they had no idea what they were up against and didn't know they were in danger until it was too late."
"Erm... sure." He replies to the human's query.

"Alright, here have a look at this now." He shows the commander another footage.
[Now in this video there is a pokémon that is a small white and red ball with eyes. This pokémon proceeds to glow brightly before detonating like a low explosive. Then came pokemon just like that bug bigger, with it's color schemes reversed, and it has a smile. This one proceeds to denotate like a high explosive.]
"Now, this species of pokémon you will not see here, for their existence depends on something that does not exist here. However, there are some species that is not too hard to find in the land of sands that are capable of doing this naturally."

The commander is again, flabbergasted. 
"I suppose we should count ourselves very fortunate that we haven't seen this happen yet here." He says.

"Yes, I suppose. Now, i don't mean that we need to endorse explosive suicide attacks. But there is a species that we theorize that should be common in Grove territory that can do this too." He warns. "And if the Grove starts getting desperate I think they might start having the idea to use it. Again, none of this might kill pokémon by itself but it will do a lot of damage to infrastructure."

The commander is starting to wonder just what in oblivion he and his people have gotten themselves into...

The human is not sure if this silence means the commander is very confident. "Now, I understand that Pokémon might be scary, but you guys have managed to get this far with all of this. And of course i will still be here to help, if there are some pokémon problems i can show you how it's solved. And uuuh, that's pretty much all I have to say at the moment."

"Yeah... You could say this is... overwhelming to say the least. I mean on one hand... it only redoubles our determination not to let the Miniknog get their mitts on this world. Though on the other hand..."

He sighs. "Pokémon are scary with their powers, I know. But that's not all there is to it, they can be more than just weapons. They can call rain, they can make plants grow quickly and some can make for excellent doctors."

"Hmmm... If they can do all that, then it makes one wonder why they're still stuck like this." He wonders.

"Honestly...we all ask ourselves that same question back home too." He began. "Back home pokémon depend on humans like me making and maintaining machinery and electronics in any real capacity, without us things would likely end like what you see around here in likely five centuries. This is indeed odd, very odd...it is as if there is something in pokémon's 'design' that prevents them from making any real advancements like you or me, they will just be satisfied with what they have and live their lives. Unless of course an outside factor is thrown in, that is where changes begin happening but it's never because of the initiative of the pokémon themselves." 

The commander scratches his chin in thought.

"Well...if that's going to be all, I need to get going now. Make sure that item gets in the hand of the Republic's army if you want them to start using Hyper Beam."

"Right then. Thank you for your time." THe commander says, reaching across the table to shake his hand."

The human reached one of his hands over to shake the Avali's own appendage. "Alright, i will see in the near future." With that said, he gets up and leaves.

Meanwhile, In the darkness of the night, another human begins approaching the entrance of Sandstone using the dark to not be seem by the pokémon on the walls or guarding the entrance. Jovanny plans to give them something to worry about, surely they should thank him for making sure they are not getting complacent! This little 'Republic' needs to learn to face the darkness, and the Avali need a taste of what they are dealing with. in one his hands he is holding a sculpted piece of stone with a crack that goes along the middle, it could easily be mistaken by a common piece of rock to the mundane gaze.

He simply drops the odd item on the sand and presses a foot against it to burrow it in the sand. "Try this one on for size, big boy~"