Act 65: Capital Assault

When the next day came it would turn out that the Grove is the one cracking under the pressure, their morale looks like it's going to tumble any second now...so it is clear that it's time to start moving. But before that though, Stic is going to be given a speech to the troops regarding the upcoming battle, so all the soldiers are gathered in rows, while the meowstic is standing in front of them.

Ranii and Pixie stand amongst the crowd to listen to the speech.

Luca is with Ranii and Pixie too. He pats their heads and smile. "Well you two...today's the day."
"We have come a long way..." Stic has began his speech. "We have all come a long way in our quest to better our land, and wrestle it out of the control of the nobles, and most importantly...from the Grove invader. As we speak the Grove's advance is all but halted, we are going to storm the capital and begin sweeping up any Grove soldier in our way." The psychic cat pauses for a moment and takes a breath, for this next part he is going to have to be clear about what's going to happen to Lord of Sand and his nobles, and he is sure some here are more than eager to kill them. "As for the Lord of the Sand, we shall be his downfall! However, i understand the sentiment of hatred against the Lord of Sand and his court on the count of them being what they are...nobles, but you must all remember the accords. We must follow the accords even for pokémon as vile as these, we must be the bigger mons and offer them a chance to step down quietly, or be swiftly destroyed. Make no mistake, i too harbor great hatred for the nobles, but this is not the time to make mistakes in a moment of passion." And with that out of the way, it's time for him to finish the speech and leave rest to his generals. And now for the ending note to hype everyone up. "Now, let us go secure our future! a better future that for the Sands! Where society can prosper without tyrants smothering it under their decadence! TODAY WE FINALLY SEVER THE HEAD OF THE NOBILITY OF SANDS."
There is cheering, much cheering indeed. Everyone is looking forward to get this over with to bring a new, better era to the the Land of Sands.
"YEAH!! LET'S US FREE OUR LANDS!"
"DOWN WITH THE LORD OF THE SANDS! DOWN WITH THE NOBLES!"
"FOR THE NEW SANDS REPUBLIC!"
And well, a certain Lucario in the crowd near a certain not-pokémon and a vulpix also gets in on this, raising a paw up into the air like everyone else. "FOR! THE! REPUBLIC!" 
Even Mattias, far away from all of this in a sandy dune listening in with a long-range microphone, can't help but go along. ""FOR THE REPUBLIC!" Heh, shouting this feels nice..."

Ranii and even Pixie erupt in cheers at this. Ranii summons her spear in her hands, and pixie, not seeing that spear at the moment, looks to the sky and blows the biggest flame she can with a howl!
"YEAH! LET'S GET'EM!" She shouts.
She then notices the spear in Ranii's hand.
"Oh, hey, where did that come from?"

"Oh believe me, Ranii here is full of surprises." Luca said to Vulpix. Then he lowered his head closer to hers so he could whisper in her ear. "It's a pretty long story, but the gist is her spear is...'out of this world' and can teleport to her hands."
Now the Meowstic is stepping aside to make way for one his generals, that being Elec.
The Electric Pokémon waited for a moment until the cheers began dying down before trying to grab everyone's attention. "Alright, listen up everyone!"

"This is going to be our strategy: The old Sand's guard is going to be exhausted from all the fighting, but it's worth remembering that the Grove did not manage to pierce their defense, so we shall get behind them. We will lull them into a false sense of security by being their supposed 'reinforcements' meant to save them, they should allow us in the outer wall of their palace, to help fortify it further...but that's when we will have our the carts in our hand and we can put into motion their arrest or destruction." He points to some row of soldiers. "These 6 first rows on the left, you are going to go with general Aceo to secure the town, there is plenty of ground to cover in there so stay on guard. The rest will be coming with me straight to the palace, we shall make contact with the Old Sand so they allow us into their palace, and if everything goes to plan we will have this done smoothly and with least possible difficulty. Now let's get going." By the look of things, Luca, Rani and Pixie will be going with Elec to the palace.
Now without further ado, the New Sands Republic's army begins marching towards the capital, post haste.

"Right behind you, sir!" Ranii shouts as she takes her place at Elec's side. Pixie stays behind her.
"Wow, I can't believe I'm actually going to witness this!" Pixie says. "I knew rejecting the Grove's job was the right choice!" 

"Just be careful okay?" Luca says to the both of them. "We can't let our guard down in there, i want to get through this with both of you..." Feeling so close to others like this to such an extent, he wonders if this is kind of how it feels to be in a 'pack' that Avalis usually have.
As they approach they can see that the capital was the site of a pretty heated conflict, the Grove seems to have destroyed a whole section of the wall to make their entrance, those 'explosion' moves were likely involved, it's through this breached wall that the forces of the New Sands Republic uses to go into the capital. Inside there are signs that a lot of fighting has taken place, with not just Iron but powerful moves, corpses and damages to structures of the town are plentiful.
As per the plan, Aceo takes a portion of the NSR army to begin sweeping the town for Grove soldiers or people that need help. Meanwhile the rest with Alec begin approaching the palace which seems to be built in the middle of the river that goes through the town, the only way in on foot through a drawbridge that is currently raised.
At this point it's likely that they have been spotted by the many mons in the outer walls of the palace, the NSR general leading them tells them all to halt so it doesn't look like they are trying to storm the place, he himself is going to be stepping forward to speak to the mons guarding the drawbridge...

Pixie and Ranii both follow close behind, both of them at the ready.

There is some back and forth shouting between Elec and the mons on top of the bridge, after all there is some distance between them, they have to make a bit of effort to make sure each other's voices are heard. But it looks like they were convinced enough and lowered the drawbridge which allowed the republic's army to enter the palace under the guise of being reinforcements. Soon after some verbal conflict between some higher ups of the Old Sands and Elec broke out, the formers are complaining that their reinforcements were so late and should have come faster. But so far things seem to be going along smoothly, they are within the palace and the nobles think everything is turning out well for them. Though they say the Lord of Sands want to talk with whoever is in charge of this army, that being Stic, who obliges to come along as he sees an opportunity here.
As soon as the Meowstic, it was time to plan on disarming the Old Sand's forces by catching them by surprise and getting mons into position to most effectively execute this plan.
As for the Lord of Sands, Stic will be dealing with him...in a way. Since the Meowstic personally requested that Luca, Ranii and Pixie come with him to the throne room, he isn't exactly alone or defenseless.
"Well, it is almost time..." Luca whispers to Ranii and Pixie as he follows behind Stic as he is guided by some guards to where their target is. He is trying to keep quiet a bit right now cause he doesn't want to draw suspicion, but he wants to see the look on Lord of Sand's face when he realizes just how fucked he is.

Ranii and Pixie do exactly that, the two girls fully expecting something to go south very quickly once the Sand King realizes that Stic is not on his side, and that his Kingdom has been taken away from him over the last few months.

The four of them were led to a big throne room, quite spacious and with pillars that go up to the ceiling. Off to the right they can see a sword displayed on the wall, it appears to have a curved design with a big blade for slashing...but the whole weapon certainly looks like it has seen better days, it looks absolutely rusted from how old and used it is. It is probably living the rest of its existence here because if it gets used it will certainly break.
Now as for the Lord of sands...he is there sitting on his throne. He is an Aggron. "Aaah, so you are the one who brought reinforcements to us? To whom do I owe my eternal gratitude for the act?" His voice sounds strong on the count of how big he is, but he is trying to sound cordial to this Meowstic.
Stic stood where he is, not bowing or kneeling down before the Lord of Sands. "My name is Stic. You must be Gron." He eyes the area around them, he doesn't fail to notice that the king isn't alone, there is also a Tyranitar and a Tyrantrum, both larger pokémon in their own right, specially the latter. These two must be close to him for some reason or another, and it certainly must be because of their strength.
He would have preferred if this pokémon bowed before him, it is usually a necessity before talking with him... "Yes, that is correct."
Luca looks at those Pokémon besides the Lord of Sands, they don't look like they have Iron but they certainly are very powerful...feels like underestimating those two is not a good idea.

Ranii holds her spear, gripping it tighly, ready to pounce on a moment's notice. 
Pixie looks upon the big rock mon, feeling rather out of her element, and a bit nervous, but does her best not to show fear or nervousness

"Well then, Stic...i would like to thank you for coming to our aid. And as a sign of my gratitude I want to give you the opportunity to help us counterattack the Grove. I heard that you have a gift for leading such a number of mons to victory..." Already the Lord of the Sands is thinking about going on a counter-offensive so soon? That might not be a good idea with the state of the region right now.
Stic is not planning for things to go this way. But with how oblivious the nobles here seem to be, he has a feeling that they got this in the bag, because he can sense what is going on out there right now, the New Sands Republic have already put their plan into motion and are taking over the palace from within. "Gron. I am afraid that I must refuse that offer. And it appears you do not know what is transpiring right now."
Refusing his offer is already enough to make him angry...but what is this cat on about now. "What? What do you mean?"
"Allow me to explain it to you as best as I can. We might have dealt with the Grove, but we didn't do it for your sake. If you want to do me a favor, you shall surrender to us and step down from your position of authority." Stic spoke firmly while staring down the Aggron from where he is standing. "As we speak my forces are taking over your palace, with your troops exhausted and ours inside your walls already, soon this whole place will be ours."
"WHAT?!?!" Perhaps this reaction was expected from Gron, he is not happy at all with what Stic is implying. And already seeing that these visitors are not here for pleasantries, his two personal guards are already putting themselves between their Lord and Stic and the others.
"Because you perpetuate the torture of the Iron King, we are here to put a stop to you!" Now the Lucario is taking the opportunity to chew him out as well. "This whole bullshit you put us through, it's just so you and all the other nobles can live happily while the rest of us suffer!"

"So you think you can take the Sands from me?!" Angered, the Aggron gets up from his throne. "You have no right to claim these lands! The Iron King chose my bloodline to rule the sands!"
"I do not think you quite understand your position here. But if you are under any delusion that i'm bluffing...I am not. Now make your choice, or I will do it for you." Stic sees no choice but to set down an ultimatum here...
And the Lord of Sand's response to this is..."Hmpft! Kill these traitors, all of them!" He ordered his two guards.
Well, it looks like blood is going to be spilled then, Luca draws both of his swords and gets ready to fight against and finally put down the Lord of Sands himself, starting with these two that are in the way...
The Tyranitar begins by whipping up a sandstorm in the throne room, which might make it hard for their enemies to see.
Luca can sense them though, and they are coming..."Everyone! Scatter! now!" He shouted to his friends and jumped to the side. His cause for alarm is the Tyrantrum charging at them through the sandstorm!
The Meowstic decided to put himself in a safe distance, so he was out of harms way sooner than everyone as he had retreated as soon as the Sandstorm kicked up.

"The Grove has already done that." Ranii replies to his angered shout about them taking the Sands from them. "We're just taking it back for our own!"
"Yeah, what she said." Pixie replies in turn. "I mean they were ready to burn down-"
She doesn't get the chance to finish when the sandstorm starts. Ranii and Pixie both. cough in the hard to breath sandstorm.
"ACK! Where the hell did this come from?!" She coughs, trying to wave it away to no avail.
She isn't able to hear Luca's warning due to the furiousness of the sandstorm.

Failing to move out in time results in her getting hit by a fierce, head-first tackle from the big dinosaur with enough force to send her flying. "I do not need Iron to beat you all!"
"No!" Seeing that they need help, Luca decides to start dishing out some attacks of his own, An Aura Sphere against the Tyrantrum to explode against him on impact and take his attention away from Ranii and Pixie.
But wait, there is more than one opponent, right? Where is the other one? The only sign that Luca gets of the Tyranitar is a wave of sharpened rock pillars rising from the ground in his direction. And this attack he was not able to avoid and it launched him up.

Getting hit by the Tyrantrum really does a number on Ranii. She can barely see, she can barely stand. She shakily rises to her feet, and throws her spear into the storm, hoping desperately it will find its mark on SOMETHING.
Pixie tries to blow a flamethrower into the storm, though she knows it won't do her much good, as she's way out of her element. Truth be told she'd hoped she'd have been fighting grove baddies, not these earth and fire types.

Given the nature of Ranii's spear it does end up hitting something, as there was a scream of pain from within the storm of Sand, maybe this was because of Pixie's flames too.
The Meowstic won't just sit idly by though, he decides to get a little bit inventive to try to give some help for Ranii and Pixie, as it looks like they need that the most. He begins telepathically giving them information on where exactly they are in the room and where their enemies are. The Tyranitar seems to be hanging back, while the Tyrantrum seems to be mostly using the Sandstorm to attack them while they are blind and confused.
Though at least it looks like the three of them get some breathing room at this moment, as no attacks go their way. Luca takes this opportunity to go back to the side of the girls.

Pixie, now filled with the information in her head about the enemies whereabouts, launches a blast of fire at the Tyranitar, just to knock him off his game even though she knows it won't do much.
Ranii still has to wait for the spear to reappear in her hand before she can do anything, and she's still suffering from the injuries from that attack. 
"L... Luca?" She coughs as she senses someone come next to her.

"Yes, it's me!" He says to her. He then grasps her by the arms, he will explain why he is doing so though... "Look, I don't think we can come out unscathed if we try to fight this guy head on. I'm going to throw you up so you can attack him from above."
The Tyranitar doubled down on standing his ground to take that blast of fire to protect his lord who is behind him. But he is forced to attack from a distance to maintain his position, so he picked up a rather large chunk of the ground under him to use as a thrown projectile in his Rock Throw move against the Vulpix.

The Vulpix doesn't see it happen, and gets knocked with it.
"ACK!!" She screams. And unfortunately, a rock against a fire type is very effective, and being a royal honor guard, he managed to one-hit her. 
Ranii doesn't notice this happening with all the noise, and excitement.
"Y... Yeah, let's do this!" She says to Luca. She gets ready to get picked up as the spear reappears in her hand.

As soon as her spear appeared in her hands again, he knew it was time. The Blue Jackal picks up Ranii and throws her straight up. And then he looked forward and saw that dinosaur pokémon, chest bleeding from a spear wound, and he managed to clamp his jaw's down on the Lucario's shoulder and even a portion of his chest! "GRAAAHHH!!!" Luca is screaming in more fear than pain as this pokémon begins trying to Crunch him with his teeth...Might be a good thing that the Lucario is wearing armor.
Stic acted quickly to get the fox out of harm's way, hoisting her over his shoulder to bring her out of the storm. Turns out that the Meowstic came rather prepared too, he pull out a reviver seed and touched it against Pixie's forehead, the item's mysterious-but-sufficiently understood powers easily heals all her wounds and brings her back from unconsciousness. And after that it became but another plain seed.

Ranii isn't able to hear his scream over the swirling sandstorm, even the hearing of the avali is not that good, as the storm is messing with said hearing. That said, she stays on target. Luca threw her high, high enough that she's able to turn to touch the ceiling with her feet. She uses it like a springboard, the gravity and added speed from the spring causing her to drop like a missile. Her spear is on target with the Tyrantrum's head, and as fast as she's moving, there's nothing he can do to stop her even if he did spot her.
"W... wha?" Pixie comes to, rubbing her head. "Ugh, I feel like a tauros stampede over meh..."

The Avali's spear pierced through the T-rex-wannabe's brain and all the way down through his head.
Luca could see it in the mons eyes that he had died instantly from that. He proceeded to grab the dead dinosaur's jaw to force it open so he could free himself before he had a whole dinosaur fall on top of him.
"Don't worry, you are alright, I gave you a reviver seed." Stic said to the Vulpix.
It would also appear that the sandstorm is dying down now, at last. It became easier to see for everyone. For the Lord of Sands who was expecting to have seen his enemies dealt with, seeing that he just lost one of his best warriors left him seething with rage.
The Tyranitar, looking a little bit winded from maintaining that sandstorm for as long as he did, is not too happy about his comrade's death either, he looks like he is really itching to get some revenge now...

Pixie gets back on her feet, ready to join the fight once again, even though she's definitely of the wrong type to do this.
Ranii pants, her wounds still hurting from the attack. She has managed to fall onto its back and ride the beast down to the floor without being on the wrong side of it. She tries to yank the spear from its resting place, but she quickly realizes she has not the strength to free it. So she lets go and lets it disappear into thin air. However, she is once again vulnerable while she waits for it to reappear in her hand...

Another rock was thrown, this time in Ranii's direction while she is vulnerable...But Luca doesn't let her come to harm. He launched an Aura Sphere at the incoming attack, the fact it doesn't miss its intended target and the possible type advantage means Luca's move only almost grazed the Avali and hit the stone projectile, easily blasting it to bits.

Pixie launches another flame attack at the large beast, not that it'll do much.
The spear reappears in Ranii's hand, and she twirls it around, ready to strike out the last remaining enemy.

Said last remaining enemy was preparing to advance against them but got distracted when Pixie blew another flame in his direction.
Luca might be the perfect matchup against this pokémon though, so he is already planning to hit him hard, he just needs a good opportunity.

"RAAAHHH!!!" Ranii yells as she rushes towards the remaining enemy, her spear in hand. 
Pixie plays her part by launching another flame attack, aiming for the beast's eyes. Although she is not under any delusions that it will have much of an effect, she hoping it at least provides the distraction her friends need.

Pixie does has the Tyranitar distracted and somewhat blinded, so at least she will have some chance to avoid the Payback he will try to inflict on her by throwing his whole weight at her. Luca, swords in paws, is also rushing over to go engage the Tyranitar. He plans to coordinate with Ranii so they can deal with this pokémon as quickly as possible, he expects her to attack first.

Ranii does indeed attack first, she grabs her spear, and leaps upon the Tyranitar, spear aimed straight at the enemy, the fire blast being the destraction she needs to get in close enough for a jab.

Upon stabbing this pokémon, Ranii can feel that these green scales are very thick, this is enough to somewhat allow protection even against weapons like this, it might be enough to have drawn some blood but she would need to stab at the same place twice to start hitting anything beyond muscles.
And then comes Luca with that true and tested tactic that work against a hard-shelled opponent, punching the golden spear right in the shaft to hammer it into the Tyranitar who let's out a roar of agony as the weapon pierces through his insides, and most importantly his heart. With large armored reptile dealt with that's the last of the best fighters the enemy could provide, all that is left now is...
Stic looks to the throne now, wanting to look at the last Pokémon that they have to kill but...he isn't there? Didn't took much to find him though, just a glance to the side and he could see Gron going for that rusted, borderline unusable sword displayed on the wall...seems like he is very desperate. "The Lord of Sands is right over there, end him." He points to the Aggron.

"Like, right now?" Ranii asks Stic, still panting a bit from both her previous injuries and that last kill. "I'd do it, but shouldn't he stand trial before his people or something first?"

"..." Stic closes his eyes a bit and takes in a breather. He might have almost let his wrath for the nobility get the best of him here, the accords, he must follow the accords... "I take that back." He said before stepping forward to talk with the Lord of the Sands again. "Gron, it is over...you no longer control the sands, your forces are all subdued and your best fighters are dead. Wasn't there been enough bloodshed today?"
"NO! I will NOT surrender to you! The lands of sands belonged to my bloodline for generations, i will not let some lowly cur have it...NOR WILL YOU HAVE ME!" It would appear that the Aggron wants to die fighting, going out with a bang.
This would mean that Stic might be fully within his right to just order them to kill him, but perhaps restraining his rage and thinking of not giving him what he wants, he gives instructions to Luca, Ranii and Pixie with telepathy. 
<Destroy his sword and beat him unconscious...if possible.> 
The Meowstic then observed the Lord of Sands again, doesn't look like he is much willing to make the first move. "It would appear that there is no way to convince you to lay down your weapon..."

Pixie uses blows a Fire Blast At the opponent, while Ranii maneuvers in to knockt he sword out of his hands. She intends to use the hilt of the weapon to knock it from the top. She also realizes that as long as she can keep him at spearpoint she'll have the advantage if it comes down to this...

The Vulpix's causes some decent damage to the Aggron, turns out she has doesn't have a type disadvantage against him! "N-no! I won't let you win...!" While weathered in flames he tried to swing his sword around to swat it away but doesn't do much, and almost get his sword to slip out of his hands when Ranii tried to hit the brittle weapon with her spear. 
While he was distracted trying to get a better grip on his sword, the Lucario came rushing at him to slam an Aura Sphere on his chest, which thanks to overwhelming type advantage knocks the air out of him and pushes his back against the wall.

Ranii and Pixie both watch him hit the wall with a thud, and slump to the floor, the consciousness clearly left him for the moment.
"Well..." Ranii says as she 'tosses' her spear aside, letting it disappear into the air with a poof. "That's that, it seems."
Pixie looks on as she seesthat happen, and whistles to herself.
"I have got to get me one of those." She says to herself.
Ranii looks at her. "Yeah, good luck with that." She says. Suddenly, pain shoots through her arm, and she instinctively grips it. The knock from earlier has finally taken its toll as the adrenaline has wore off. Pixie runs over to her and holds her up.
"Yeesh, that guy must have done a number on ya." She says.

Luca looked back at his Avali partner for a moment, worried. But of course the Lord of Sands wouldn't let this opportunity slip because he isn't quite out just yet, but the Lucario is not stupid enough to fall for such things like this anymore. Gripping his one his swords with both of his hands, both he and Gron proceed to swing their swords at each other with all their might.
Like some sort of metaphor, The Lucario's more modern sword cleaved right through the rusting old curved sword that was passed on for generations. Luca's blade lands against the Aggron's face, cutting right through his 'helmet'. "GRAAAAAAHHHH!!" That last roar of pain signals the defeat of the Lord of Sand, who falls to the ground clutching the wound in his head, he might have even lost an eye to that.
"...It is over." The Lucario sternly said, looking down at him with disdain before going to check on Ranii now. "A-are you too injured?"
"N-no....no...! I can't be...!" Gron's spirit is as broken as his weapon. He would have considered turning his sword on himself too, maybe cut open his own throat to not give them the satisfaction of imprisoning him and watching him die slowly...but with what he is holding right now even that is not possible.
With the fighting over, Stic steps over to Ranii as well to help hold her up. "There, don't worry, it's over now. We won..."

"Nngh..." Ranii groans  as she leans on Luca for support. "I can manage, but I don't think I can take another battle today." She groans.
"Never thought I'd see the day when the lord of the sands, or any of them, were laid low like this." Pixie comments as she looks at the pathetic, sniveling, now ex-king. "Sooo, what happens now?" She turns to Stic and asks him curiously.

"Now we can officially start moving the Sands to a better future with the Lord of Sands now deposed. But first we need to 'clean up the mess', so to speak." The Meowstic looks to the doors of the throne, as if expecting something to happen
...And that 'something' does happen with Elec coming in with a bunch of NSR soldiers. He looks at what happened here, looks like there is a fight and there is an Aggron on the ground still alive. "Is that the..."
"Yes." Stic confirms it to him. "That is the former Lord of the Sands, Gron. So what about the rest of the palace, is it secure?"
"Well, yes, we managed to secure most of the palace but..." The Electabuzz sighs.
The Meowstic raises a brow. "But...?"
"A few of the nobles have barricaded themselves on a small section of the palace."
The Meowstic let's out a deep sigh. "I see...keep an eye where they are." He looks to Gron again.
"...Also we need instructions on what we should do about the Lord of Sand's child."
Stic froze up a bit when he heard Elec mention that, this...can be a complicated matter.
This also gets the attention of Luca for a moment, who eyes the Aggron getting detained by NSR soldiers.

"His... son?" Ranii asks with a raised eyebrow. 
"Funny, I never heard of him having a son." Pixie replies. "But then again I'm from the Snows, so eh."

The Electabuzz gives a solemn nod. "Yeah, he has a child. No doubt someone who he would want to grow up to be his heir."
"How old is he? Does he know what transpired here?" Stic asks his general.
"He is 8 years old from what we can gather. And no sir, at least not the full extend, he was hiding in his room, so he knew that something very dangerous has happened but doesn't know what happened to his father just yet."
"I see..." Well, to Stic it looks like it's only a matter of time until that boy finds out what happened, and he doesn't expect him to take it well at all. "Does he have a mother?"
Elec nods his head. "Well...in a way yes, he does has a biological mother, but it looks like The Lord of Sands was more worried about having an heir than a wife, so he 'married' one of the nobles of one of the towns to get a child and let her have town of her own to lord over. She is not currently here, I don't think the boy even knows her personally, sir..."

"You know, this reminds me a bit of the Snows." Pixie reminisces. "The king up there has a kid too. Caught a glimpse of the former once, but the latter I never have. From what I've heard, the kid is pretty alright, at least as far as royals go. though, I'd be a bit too... female for his tastes. From what I heard, they don't get along very well because of it."
"That's... interesting." Ranii makes a personal note to ask her more of the snows later. But now is really not the time. She turns to Stic. "So what are we going to do with them? The king and his son I mean?"

"Gron is going to be standing trial, most likely imprisonment after." The Meowstic said. Then he started getting a little visibly unsure when it was time to mention the son of the person in power he just deposed. "I...i don't know what to do with him yet, there many things in me conflicting about this."
"...Are you going to start living here now, Stic?" Luca asks his father figure.
"I understand what you mean but...no." He shakes his head. "A throne room just doesn't resonated with me, all this is as waste of space that i think could be used for something better. Not to mention it will take a long time to fix all the damage to the town, specially the walls. So i can't just move the capital of the New Sands Republic here just because of the fact it was the capital of the old Sands, I'm keeping it in Sandstone for the time being."
"I see..." Luca nods. "Hey Elec, is there somewhere around here that Ranii can rest?"
"Yeah, of course. We secured the barracks down there, should be a good place to lie down." Elec said to Luca.

"That would be ... nice." Ranii grunts as Pixie and Luca both hang onto her.

They take Ranii out of the throne room and start making their way through the palace. They can see that the NSR really did managed to catch the palace's guards with their pants down, there is not much sign of fighting, but there are some guards and nobles being apprehended and hauled out of there. When they get to the first floor they past by what must be that area where the Nobles are holed up, it's a door surrounded by republic soldiers, some are trying to open but not finding much success...there is even talking of using more heavy handed methods to get this open to get to the nobles hiding in the dinning hall and kitchen. But going below that is the barracks that was used by the guards of the palace, it's been turned into temporary resting spot for republic soldiers who need a breather, like Ranii.
"Alright, let's put her on a bed." Luca said to Pixie.

"Let me know how that shakes out." Ranii replies as they pass the group by the dining room door.
Once in the barracks, Pixie nods at Luca's instructions, and helps Ranii onto one of the bed. She lays on her back, face up.
"Ahhh... there." Ranii says. "It hurts a little less when I'm staying still."
"You gonna be alright?" Pixie asks with concern.
"Yeah, in about a day or two I think." Ranii replies. "Yesh that guy konked me pretty hard."

Luca sighs, it's a shame that Ranii got this hurt, but at least now this must mark the end of the war to take the Land of Sands. He pat's his Avali partner's head. "Yeah. You know, i almost can't believe we actually did it, we managed to take the capital."

"Yeah... Yeah we did. I can only wonder what happens now..." Ranii tells him as she lies there.
"Yeah, I hope this isn't the end of it." Pixie says.

"I'm sure it will be the start of great things."
Just then Dedee and Pachi come in, the latter sitting on a bed near where the trio is and whining. "Baaah...i'm beat..."

Ranii looks over to them. 
"Yeah you two were in the thick of it, weren't you?" She comments. 
"So..." Pixie goes over to the two. "Tell us alllll about it. Don't leave the juicy bits out."

Luca is happy to see that these two girls are alive too. Pachi looks to them. "You guys were with the team that came to the palace right? Well me and Dedee went with the others to the town. With had to deal with some of the Grove soldiers who still tried to fight...but that was the normal thing." She said. "Yeah..." Dedee nods. "We also had to deal with some Grove soldiers running and hiding, was a bit of a bitch to catch them." "Don't forget the the hostage situations..." The electric squirrel groaned.

"Sounds like I got assigned to the wrong task." Pixie sighs as she sits and lays back, spreading herself just a little to relax though not being consciously inviting. "We had to fight a couple of so-called 'honor guards'. Big, bruish, nasty. They did a bit of a number on Ranii there."
"Hey it isn't that bad!" Ranii protests. "... Well, okay, maybe a little. But I'll manage."

"Really? i'm kinda envious of you guys coming here, sounds much more exciting then chasing after mons." Pachi says. "There was some weird ones too." The other electric rodent nods. "Yeah uuuh...i don't know if he was having a breakdown or something but there was this leafeon who seemed out of his mind saying he is going to put his seed in everything. So he tried to rape whatever females he could find, with us trying to chase him down...i don't think he was pretty good at sex because he seemed orgasm pretty quickly but that means he could run away quickly too."

"I dunno." Ranii suddenly pipes up. "That sounds a bit like a drug or something. Which one? Couldn't tell you."
"I have to wonder if he would have tried to go after me if I was with you guys." Pixie wonders aloud.

"What's a drug?" Dedee asks. If she doesn't know then it's probably a sign that chemistry is not a big thing.
"Well, who knows I guess? He ran away from us all the time so we knew we were trouble for him. We thought about trying to show our asses to lure him into a trap. But he ended up putting his knot on someone and got stuck...that's when we managed to get him." Pachi tells the rest of the crazy tale.

"Ha!" The two girls can't help but laugh at that last part.

"Yeah, crazy, right?"
"Yeah, pretty crazy." Luca confirms, also finding that, puts a bit of a smile on his face.
Someone begins approaching them, it's a Patrat that is one of the republic soldiers. "Uuuuuhh...Excuse me. Captain Luca?" Seems like he is asking for someone here.
Luca, of course, replies to this. "Yes, that's me, is there a problem?"
"There is a bit of a situation with those nobles barricaded in the dining hall right now, sir..." The soldier said, sounds like he is not bringing very good news.

"What kind of a situation?" Ranii asks. She isn't sure if she can handle any more combat at the moment. "Yeah, what's going on?" Pixie asks as well.

The blue jackal places a paw on Ranii's head, reassuring her that it's alright for her to rest, he is needed somewhere nearby it's just a short distance away after all. "Please explain more." He requests.
"There appears to have been a struggle in there, we heard noises and cries for help coming from the other side of the door. And after that...nothing." The Patrat seems disturbed just describing it. "So we though about asking if you were available to go in there."
The Lucario sighs, he assumes this got pushed on him because of his fighting capabilities and bravery.
"Geesh, really?" Pachi pipes up.
"What sort of noises? like running? Stuff getting knocked over?"
The soldier nods. "Y-yes...and some roaring of sorts."

Ranii tries to get up, but pain shoots through the bone where she got impacted earlier. She lets out a hiss as she falls back onto the bed.
"No no Ran-ran" Pixie tells her soothingly as she places a paw on her chest, to put her back on the bed. "LuLu and I've got this."  She turns to Luca. "I'll come with" Pixie announces.

And here Luca thought he would need to ask Pixie to come with, it looks like he was just about to do so too, but he just nodded to her instead. "Yeah, don't worry Ranii, we got this. You just rest okay. Alright Pixie let's go." He decides that they have to get moving right away, so he is already walking to the direction that leads to the stairway so they can go up.

"Take care, you two!" Ranii calls from her bed. 
Pixie follows close behind Luca, following him to the place where the situation is occurring.

And here they are again, near the dining room's entrance which still has soldiers surrounding it. Luca told the soldiers around the door to step back. "I suppose this is why i was called as well, because i can sense what's on the other side." He didn't try to before because he was occupied taking Ranii somewhere to rest rather than focus on aura sensing, but now that he is here he does just that. ".....There is...just one pokémon in there?" He sounds utterly confused by this, so do the soldiers that hear him say.

"Are you sure about that?" Pixie asks. "Because it sounded like there was more.

"I can only feel the aura of living things, so if there is only one pokémon alive in there then..." This can not be a good sign. The Lucario sighs and takes a step back. "We are going to have to breach this door." And it looks like he is preparing to do that with his fists.

Pixie nods and stands back. "I got a bad feeling about this." She sighs as she waits for him to break open the door. "Just don't break your paws on that thing."

"Don't worry, i got this." The Lucario proceeds to start hitting the door with Power Up Punch multiple times, not just on the same place, he had to punch it in different places trying to find some weak spot on it until he punched a whole on the lower part of the doors, punching a nice big hole in it. Luca gets down to have a look at this hole, looks like they can crawl through it and go under a table that was put against the door on the other side, other than that he can't quite see much in there just yet...but something doesn't smell right in there. "Hhmmmm..."

"Well, whatcha see?" Pixie asks as she sees Luca inspecting the hole. "And... ugh... what is that smell?" She whines as she holds her nose. Yeah, something definitely doesn't smell right.

"I can see that it's not dark on the other side, so there is that. And this smell...it doesn't smell like blood, more like food gone bad." Well, they won't find out if they just remain in here, and it seems safe enough to go in without fear of a possible ambush so Luca begins crawling into the dinning room, getting in there without any issue. He tries to take a look around to see if he can locate anyone, there were pokémon here right? But he doesn't see dead bodies or anything of the sort...but he can hear the noise of some heavy breathing and chomping.

Pixie follows in after him, close behind, just in case he needs backup.
"Ugh, reeks in here." She complains, holding her nose for a bit. "Okay, where's the culprit? Let's deal with them and get this done with"

"Let's proceed..." He decided to follow that sound, which leads him to the center of the dining room, and that's where they find the culprit...it's not someone easy to miss, really.
There are plenty of long tables around filled with food that must have been out for a while, so the smell is coming from the rotten food on the table, really. There is also a big pokémon sitting by one of the tables, it looks to be a huge, fat, dark blue-green bear who is wolfing down food like there is no tomorrow. He is pouring bowls of berry soups directly into his mouth, shoving berries into his mouth before swallowing without even chewing, and using a small sword like fork to stab an apple with the tip of it to bring it up to his mouth. This is a Snorlax noble that looks like he doesn't care that some of the food he is eating has gone bad, he is eating it with gusto...and very messily of course.
The Lucario is left frozen by the scene in front of him, just...what the heck is going on here? Who is this? He was so shocked that all he could do was stare until that gluttonous bear made eye contact with him.
"You...! You are here already huh?!" He growls at the both of them, doesn't look like he is all that right in the head right now. "Well too late, you invading Grove scum! I'm already having the time of my life here! ALL THE FOOD IS FUCKING MINE! YOU HEAR ME?! MINE! NO ONE ELSE'S!!!!" He yelled before starting to chomp down more berries and bananas, glaring at the two pokémon like a metaphorical dragon guarding it's metaphorical hoard.

"Wow, so THIS is what this is all about?" Pixie snarls with disgust. "One fatass eatting rotten food? Really?" She sighs. And here she was hoping for something exciting to happen here. Though perhaps it's better that this wasn't so Exciting after all. Truth be told, when she was told about it, she half expected to find some sort of hostage situation or some noble shits about to make their last stand, or at the very least, said noble eating his own. ... Oh well. "Well, Luca, shall we just get this over with and call it a day?" She says. "I think I'm going to have to burn the rest of this food once we're done. Preferably outside."

The Snorlax almost chokes and gazes at Pixie with absolute fury. "What did you just say?!" Seems like he is not happy with that idea. "Where...where is everyone?" Luca finally says something, questioning this yet again. There are still no bodies to be found at all. And he wants this fat fucker to give him this answer, right now. "Tell me!" "Huh? Who are the other nobles and the servants?" Him ominously patting his stomach with one of his paws should give them more than a good answer to that question. "...They went down pretty easily." So he straight up ate every other pokémon here whole? That's why there are no dead bodies around? Luca thought he would be numb to such displays of depravity but this is a new low. "...What?"

"Balance Breaks!" Pixie exclaims. "I... I think I'm going to be sick just from hearing that."

Luca would have considered telling him to surrender and come quietly but he doesn't feel like doing that, this noble did some heinous things and he is going to hurt him badly for it. "You noble scum..." He takes out one of his swords, pointing it to the Snorlax. "You have eaten your last fucking meal!" Well it appears like this blue Jackal is going to stand in his way, the big fat bear is not happy. "Just try and stop me then, dog!" He picks up a plate of berries, pours them all down his mouth and then throws the now-empty wooden-plate at him. 
The Lucario simply moves his head to the side to avoid being hit by that, then he starts walking towards the noble, getting ready to strike. 

"Way ahead of ya, big guy." Pixie tells Luca as she advances with him. 
"Ya want somethin' ta eat lardass?" She growls. "Then eat THIS!!" She yells as she unleashes a Fire Blast at the cannibal Snorlax! 

Pixie's attack hits the big fat bear, making fiery explosion which makes him yell in mixture of pain and furry. "GGGAAAAHHH!! IT BURNS!!" He kept on the screaming when someone began running a blade against his stomach.
Of course Luca is the one doing this, he is cutting at the Snorlax with his swords but not going but not putting too much strength in his swings. "You are nothing but a big fat monster...I'm gonna make you suffer for what you did here!" Seems like he wants to prolong the suffering of this noble if he can.
"GRRRRR!! FUCK YOU! YOU ARE NOTHING TO ME YOU INVADING GROVE SCUM!" However, underestimating this Snorlax proves to be a bit of a bad idea, his rage hits a peak and he had sudden burst of movement that is surprising from something so big, but it was just him getting up on his feet and straight up throwing himself upon the Lucario and the table right in front of him with a violent Body Slam. The table stood no chance and was snapped in the middle and the Lucario found himself pinned under a prodigious amount of mass before he could properly react.

"Shit, this isn't good." Pixie tells herself. And there's no way she's strong enough to lift the big plot of mass from Luca.
"BOYS! WE GOT A PROBLEM! GET IN HERE!!" She yells as she unleashes a flamethrower upon the tub of lard pinning Luca in an attempt to get him off of him.

The fat pokémon was trying to futilely reach for the Vulpix before she gave him a dose of flamethrower to the face. "GRAAAHH! GET IN MY BELLY, SPICY FOOD!" He is saying that to her, of course. It would probably be hard to believe unless she were to see it with her own eyes but...it looks like this tub of lard is moving again, this time with Roll Out to roll towards Pixie to try and run her over as if he were a bolder.
Luca gasps for air and coughs now that he finally isn't pinned down under all that fat, unfortunately being hit by that move left him paralyzed so he is moving pretty slow at risk of not moving all together.
Hearing the call for help, the soldiers then decided to start moving in. The problem is that the entrance is small, so only the small ones would fit in through the gap that Luca made when first coming in. A Numel with a spear was the first one to come in, witnessing the scene. "What...what is going on here!?"

Pixie jumps to the left in an attempt to avoid the oncoming ball of fatness.
"What's it look like?!" She shouts at the Numel as she hears the fat pokemon hit the wall with a thud. "We're being attacked by lard!"

After missing its target and hitting the wall, the Snorlax ended up upside down and began struggling to reorient himself, which made him end up falling on his back. 'Nggh...Damn it!" It looks like he is having trouble getting up now, could be a good opportunity to attack. "DAMN IIIIIT!!!"
This looks like the right time to act so the Numel tries to look past the weirdness of the situation and races towards that bear to stab him on the side with his spear, the pointed tip pierces right into all that fat, but it's too much fat to get it too deep to hit anything vital on the first hit but it sure to cause bleeding, still got a pained scream out of the noble though.

Pixie rushes over to Luca.
"You alright?" She asks hurriedly, while the snorlax is still distracted. "Otherwise, give me one of your swords, and I'll end this!"

Luca is trembling in place, he is failing to move. "D-damn it...my muscles are locking up, i'm paralyzed!" He said through gritted teeth. "Yeah...here take this sword I'm holding!"
Meanwhile the small camel pokémon with a spear lands another stab into that mountain of fat, then he notices that the Snorlax is trying to Roll Out his way, likely in retaliation. "S-shit!" He exclaims before turning around and trying to run the heck away.
Next up a Rockruff armed with a sword comes crawling in through the entranced breached into the barricaded door, he noticed a mon run past him quickly and looked to the side to see the reason why, when he saw that tub of lard rolling towards him he also began screaming and running away to avoid getting crushed. 

Pixie hurriedly takes the sword from his hand, and turns towards the Snorlax. Looking at the sword, she gets an idea. 
She blows upon it with a sustained Flamethrower while the Snorlax is distracted with everyone else, heating the sword up till it's glowing red hot. In anyone else's hand, this would cause immense burning. However, Pixie is a fire type, so she's immune to this.
Once it's good and ready, she turns towards the fat noble.
"HEY FATASS!!"  She yells as she runs towards him. "EAAAAT THIIIIISSSS!!" She yells as she leaps at the tub of lard, taking the red-hot blade in both hands, pointing it down as to stab him as hard as she can upon landing on him, hopefully in the skull or on the throat somewhere, where she'll do the most damage, and even if she doesn't, she can hopefully cut it open to directly attack the wound.

"WHAT?!?!?" When he was on the floor again after rolling into a wall, Pixie managed to stab him right through the throat. The Snorlax likely would have screamed in agony if the blade wasn't piercing his throat, or choking on his own blood if the sheer heat of the blade hadn't cauterized the wound upon entry. But in the end this was a fatal blow, the Vulpix get's to watch as the life slowly leaves the gluttonous bear's eyes and the blade he was holding falls from his hand.
The small camel and the dog who narrowly avoided getting rolled over just a moment ago look up at the Vulpix finishing off the noble.

Pixie huffs and puffs from that attack, the anger in her eyes clearly evident as she watches the life fade from his. The blade hisses as the bear's insides and blood cools it down, returning it to its normal temperature, or something approaching it. 
Pixie rips the blade out, leaving a hole even bigger than the one she caused, and leaps down, panting further before returning to Luca. 
"I'd give you this back, but it still might be hot." She tells him as she sets it down. "I wouldn't want you to burn yourself on it in addition to the injuries you already have."
She grunts a little. 
"You going to be okay? Or do me and the other guys over there" She gives a slight nod towards the small camel and dog in the room, "have to carry you back to the barracks?

"I can get up..." Luca said, he could indeed get up, carefully before his body got hit with another round of stiffness which made him hold still for a moment. "Damn it...don't worry i got this, i can still walk. I might need you to hold the sword though." It might be hot after all.
While the Rockruff goes to tell the others that the situation has been solved, the Numel comes to Luca. "What just happened in here?"
The Lucario points to the dead noble. "That guy went off the rails and ate everyone else here, and he was trying to eat up all the food?"
The camel looks around a little confused. "Wait, how?" Then he comes to the realization. "W-wait...you mean he swallowed them..."
"Swallowed them whole apparently, yes..."
"O-oh gods..."

"Wait..." Pixie says. "swallowed them whole?" She asks as she helps Luca up. 
"Does that mean... some of them might still be alive in there you think?" Her eyes go wide for a moment, only to narrow with disgust. "Though... better question is, if that's the case, should we even bother trying to bail them out?"

"No, I don't think so..." Luca shakes his head. "With how big and fat that guy looked, I'm pretty sure he must have already digested them all because I don't feel a single spark of aura from within him..." On one hand he likely ate nobles which is good, though on the other hand it is likely that there were innocent mons like servants here too. "At least he won't be hurting anyone ever again now."
The Numel looks back to the dead noble once more. "Fuck..." He silently let out, this is all really messed up to him.

"Oh. That's right. You can sense Auras." She sighs. "I forgot about that for a moment. Anyway, let's get out of here. The other guys can deal with this."

The two pokémon that came in to back them up remove that barricade to let the doors open, allowing more soldiers to come in and allowing Pixie and Luca an easy way out of the dinning room and back to the barracks since now Luca is the one who needs to lay down a little.

Back in the barracks, Ranii has fallen asleep, even with her hearing she doesn't hear Luca and Pixie come in.
"There you go big guy." Pixie says as she guides Luca to the bed right next to Ranii. "Take it easy now. Getting rolled on by a lardass with who knows how many guys in him is no hot spring bath."

"Yeah it really wasn't pleasant at all." He groaned as his body went stiff on him one more time before he finally managed to lay down. "Gonna be quite a story to tell too." He said as he looked at Ranii sleeping. Then looks at Pixie again. "Thanks for that back there."

"You bet." She says as she plops into another nearby bed. "I'll put it on your tab." She says in response to his thanks. She sticks a hand up and waves at him before setting it down and rolling over.
"Night Lulu." She says from over there.

"Yeah, good night..." He rolls over to the side a bit and smiles before finishing his sentence. "...Pix." Seems like Luca can nickname now too.

"Pix" gives no response. She must have dozed off by now.

Luca dozes off too.
Deep in the palace, walks forward as large stone door in front of him are pushed open thanks the efforts of multiple big NSR soldiers, on the other side he is greeted with the sight of mountains the poke all around, and stacks of gold bars too. This was what he was hoping for, the royal treasury...The Meowstic has plans to start putting all this money to much better use than just stacking up here in the dark.
Meanwhile up in the roof the palace is a sinister figure who watched everything that transpired through a window in the throne room through a window. This is Jovanny, he has been here watching everything for a while now that whole fight between the Lord of Sands and that Lucario and that Avali and whoever else that was. On his hands he is throwing up a small gem that glows with a rainbow-y color, it falls back down on his grasp then he throws it up again, risen and repeat. "Hhhmmmm...Well, i guess that was fun interesting, i think i could have made it better though right?" He talks to himself as he brings the gem stone close to his eyes. "Hhhmmmm...nah, i think i can think of something muuuuuch better than just wasting this here in such a boring fashion~"