(A/N: For this part, the song I'm using is "Forever Proud" from Radiant Historia.)
Chapter 4: Rebellion
*The kingdom of Viridian was a sight to behold. Viridian Palace was a whole different story. Built almost two hundred years by the founders of the Royal Family, the same family to which Mirania, and her father, the late King Nihilus, belonged.
Aaron, Lucario, and the others were able to see the palace from a long distance as they approached the main gates. To no surprise, they were stopped by the two guards posted there and Aaron presented the papers given to them by Raul before they left. After a moment while the one guard looked at him, he then nodded and had the gate opened for them.
"Pretty fancy place, I'll give it that," Syrenne said, looking around as they walked. "I wouldn't suppose we have a little time to stop by the bar for a quick drink would we?"
"Sorry, you know our orders," Aaron said. "Perhaps when we're done though…"
"Don't encourage her," Dagran cautioned. "She's going to be on you about it the entire night."
"Ugh, you certainly have a way of spinning things, Dagran," Syrenne snapped. "Making me sound like an alcoholic when I'm not."
"Could have fooled me…" Lucario muttered.
"Oh good, now even the quiet one has a bad opinion of me."
Aaron looked around. It was not that late but there didn't seem to be many people out. In fact, except for soldiers patrolling here and there, the area seemed completely empty. "I would have thought on a night like this more people would be outside," he said.
"I noticed that too," Dagran said. "I've heard rumors about their current queen, Vestara. Before all this, she didn't really seem to care about the state of her kingdom, only herself. And now that her reign is in jeopardy, she's going on the other side of the spectrum and rounding up anyone who may have a grudge with her." He looked down at Wrex, and the Mightyena had his ears up, constantly listening. "I think Wrex shares your concern."
They finally reached the palace gates and were suddenly stopped, again, by the Royal Guard. "We have business here," Aaron said, once again showing the papers.
"Under whose authority?" the guard asked.
"That would be mine." The voice came behind them and even Lucario was surprised not to have sensed it right away. The voice belonged to a man dressed in military attire, and judging by the medal he wore on his chest, he no doubt was a general.
"Oh, General Dresden," the guard said, quickly saluting. "You were the ones who sent them?"
"Indeed," Dresden said, smiling. "Forgive the interruption. I was the one General Raul contacted. He and I go back actually."
"I see," Aaron said. "Then you can further explain to us why we're here?"
"Of course, but let us go inside first," Dresden said.
"Uh…" the one guard seemed uncomfortable about addressing what he was about to say but no doubt he had orders. Or rather the fact that the Mightyena was staring coldly at him. "I'm afraid your… 'companions' will have to stay outside. The queen she… uh… apparently is allergic…"
"You've got to be kidding me," Syrenne said, deadpanning at him. Wrex growled slightly.
"Now, now, there's no reason to keep them out," Dresden said calmly. "Besides, they have better senses than we do, wouldn't you agree? Especially in the case of intruders."
"Well… I guess so," the guard said, even though he was not fully convinced.
"Do not worry, luckily I'm still in good standing with the queen so I can afford to take the blame this time," Dresden said. "Now, let us go inside." Once the doors opened, they followed the general down a long hallway with an equally long red carpet. Once they were in the main hallway, he stopped. "Ah, this is much better. I chose this spot because you get a view of the entire main corridor. And believe me, you can only truly get inside from this side of the castle."
"What about the balconies?" Dagran asked.
"Except for the bedrooms, there are sentries posted on every floor," Dresden pointed out. "We do have to respect privacy after all."
"True, but that leaves a rather large hole," Aaron said.
"Agreed, but while I cannot say so much for the queen, the princess could certainly put up a fight; she is rather good with a sword," Dresden said. "But enough of that, I have places to be myself." He then looked to Dagran and Syrenne. "Of course, by tomorrow I will have your pay paid out in full."
"We certainly appreciate it," Dagran replied.
"Ugh, this is going to be a long night isn't it?" Syrenne groaned.
"You never know," Dresden said, smiling and chuckling. "You'll just have to wait and see."
"Well, now that that's over, we better come up with a strategy…" Aaron thought. "There are six of us, including Ema and Wrex. Three of us can stay down here while the others go upstairs. I think it's best for Lucario and I if one of us stays down here while the other goes up."
"Sir Aaron, do you have a minute?" Lucario asked.
"Of course," Aaron said as they walked up towards one of the windows. "Something's troubling you."
"That man… something seemed off," Lucario said.
"How so?"
"I don't know exactly… I can read you, Syrenne, or Dagran just fine but him… something wasn't right."
"Now that I think about it, his last words were odd, and he said he was friends with General Raul," Aaron said. "Hmm… I wouldn't worry about it right now but let's keep it to ourselves for now."
"Oi, are you just gonna sit there and chat?" Dagran asked.
"Apologies," Aaron said.
"I'll go upstairs," Lucario said.
"Me too," Syrenne said. "But uh, I think Ema wants to stick with me."
"That's fine," Dagran said. "Wrex and I will stick with you then Aaron. How about every hour we switch stairs?"
"Sounds fair enough," Aaron said. "And if anything happens, we'll let each other know."
"Alright tough guy, upstairs it is," Syrenne said. They then split up as Lucario, Syrenne, and Ema went to the upper level. "Say uh, Lucario was it?" Syrenne then asked. "Look, just so you know, I'm not picking on ya or anything. It's a normal thing for a girl like me. I only say this because I'd hate to say the wrong thing and send ya off."
"I know you don't mean it, and I promise I wouldn't attack you," Lucario said.
"Good, cause I probably wouldn't want to brawl with you," Syrenne said. "I mean, even if I had Ema on my side it wouldn't probably do much." Ema glared at her. "Hey, it wasn't an insult!"
Lucario looked out the window. Everything seemed quiet enough. He had nothing better to do so he could at least get to know his companions a bit more. "I see you carry two swords. That's a hard technique to master."
Syrenne grinned. "Nothing too hard for me, I always say." Then to demonstrate, she pulled out both swords, which she held at the grip but both swords were pointing backwards. She then flipped both swords in her hands. "It was a technique all of us in my village learned. Probably didn't mention this but the majority of the villagers there were female, and most of them were fighters too." She then sheathed them again. "Yeah, it requires a little more wrist work but because not many familiar with it, it gives me a bit of an advantage."
"So what happened to the men?" Lucario asked. He had to admit the story sounded appealing.
"Oh, they stayed with us, fought alongside with us," Syrenne continued. "We didn't kick them out or anything. We had to keep the village going. They probably felt like the lucky ones, with all the ladies they could hook up with if they wanted to. Eh, sorry, you probably don't want to hear that part. Anyway… the rest I already mentioned but eventually I left the island and smuggled onto a ship, which came here. That's where I got into the mercenary business."
"You never went back?" Lucario asked.
"There was nothing to go back to," Syrenne asked. "I know Ema's family may have survived but they probably had to migrate elsewhere. Me, well, I was taken into the village as an orphan so I never knew my parents so, like I said, I have nothing to go back to."
Lucario was about to say something when something caught his attention. No one else save Aaron would have noticed, but he felt three presences enter the castle from one of the back doors in the next hallway. "It seems we have company after all," he said.
"What? I didn't hear anything," Syrenne said.
"Of course not, they were pretty good about being stealthy," Lucario said, already heading in their direction.
"Hey wait, shouldn't we-?"
"I already told him." Lucario quickly opened the door and with his eyes closed he quickly tracked the intruders down. They were downstairs, clinging to the shadows, but what were they after? There was no time to wonder, only act. Once they got close to the edge of where Lucario crept above them, he quickly jumped down and landed on two of them.
"What the hell-ow!" The two were probably stunned from the sudden attack but the third one was behind him and he quickly found him, but the third man did not draw his sword.
"What are you doing, get him off of us!" one of the men snapped at the third guy.
"Wait!" the third man finally said. "We mean you no harm."
Lucario heard someone drop to their feet behind him, already knowing it was Syrenne, who didn't seem too pleased.
"You know, you could have waited for me to- oh… what do we have here…?"
"Ugh, good job Marcus," one of the two men said as Lucario finally got off of them. "Now you're alerting the whole group."
"We're not here to attack them," the third man, Marcus, said. "We have our orders and they need to know what's going on."
"'What's going on?'" Syrenne asked. "If you mean trying to assassinate the queen then sorry, I'm not in that department."
"You misunderstand," Marcus said. "There's a trap about to be set off and if we don't get out of here now-"
The doors behind them then opened. "What's going on?" Dagran asked as he, Aaron, and Wrex made their way in.
(A/N: For this next part, the song I'm using is "Blue Radiance" from Radiant Historia.)
*"Did you hear that?" Syrenne asked. "They say a trap is about to be set on us, Dagran. What a wonderful story."
"Forget this!" one of the other men said as he drew his sword. "Orders or not, I'm not going to be caught and tortured like a damn ratatta. If they want a fight, they'll get one."
"Now you're speaking my language," Syrenne said, drawing hers as well. "I've been itching for a fight anyway. Come on, I can take on both of you!"
The three of them engaged and Aaron was ready to step in to stop everything before Dagran stopped. "Wait."
"But-"
"Just wait a moment," Dagran said. "Syrenne can handle herself but she won't be the one to stop the fight, trust me." Even Marcus, perhaps the wisest of the group, just shook his head and waited.
Lucario heard a sigh behind him and almost forgot about Ema. "Normally I'd be joining her, but this really isn't necessary. Excuse me for a moment…" She then floated above the three of them and, shaking her head slightly, she then used Discharge.
The fighting ended right away as all three of them laid on the ground twitching. "Just… who's side are you on anyway?" Syrenne asked.
"Oh, I see now," Aaron said.
"Tch, a lot of help you were, Marcus," one of the men snapped.
"You obviously didn't see the electric-type she had did you?" Marcus replied. He then saw the opposite doors open "And now that you had your fun, we wasted enough time so that the guards found us all."
"Halt!" one of the guards said.
"Wait, it's alright, we caught them," Aaron said.
(A/N: For this last part, the song I'm using here is "Rebellion" from Radiant Historia.)
"We know, Sir Aaron." General Dresden was apparently with the group. "You did your job well, although I was hoping we'd find more of them. Oh well, three should be enough. Alright men, round the rebels up, and you can dispose of the others."
*"Excuse me?" Aaron said.
"Sorry," Dresden said. "Like I said, you won't be needed anymore."
Marcus then drew his sword and got in front of them. "I was trying to tell you," he said. "It was a trap all along. We came to warn you because they would've disposed of you either way. Now they have us all in one fell swoop."
"I suppose there's no point in arguing," Aaron said, his staff ready.
Syrenne got to her feet and dusted her shoulders. "When this is over, I'll make sure to apologize," she said. "But getting back-stabbed… now you really got my blood boiling."
"I'll have some fun as well," Dagran said. "Wrex included."
The soldiers then attacked. Aaron used his staff to create a barrier around them as Dagran, Syrenne, Lucario, Marcus, and the other two rebels took point. Wrex had already made his move, taking down one of the soldiers and going for this throat as the rest battled it out.
Lucario had once taken on one of the Aura Knights in a training demonstration, so he was familiar with ducking and dodging. He used Protect and then after dodging a blow, used Metal Claw to dig into the soldier's armor and pierce his skin, causing the soldier to stagger before Lucario used Aura Sphere to knock him out.
Some of the soldiers were ganging up on Syrenne, who had taken two soldiers down by herself, and she noticed the unfair advantage. "Oh, gang up on the girl will ya? Go ahead Em, teach them some respect!" Ema then used Discharge once more, and because of the armor, the effect hit them even worse as they fell to the ground, severely twitching.
Marcus and the others seemed to be fine on their own and soon the ground was littered with either dead or unconscious soldiers. Only Dresden was left.
"Apparently Raul didn't choose the best friends in life," Aaron said as the others surrounded him.
Dresden chuckled. "I must admit, you're more capable than I thought. No matter, whether you escape or not changes nothing." Suddenly, it seemed as if his voice was changing. Suddenly, he was jumping off the ground at a very high distance to the second floor and then his appearance changed. General Dresden was no longer there but instead a creature with dark red and dark grey fur. "But if you do manage… I'm sure we'll see each other again very soon." The voice was now different, a female voice instead. The creature did a small wave and disappeared into the night.
There was stunned silence. "What the hell is going on here…?" Syrenne asked.
"There's no time," Marcus said. "More guards will be on the way and we'll be done for for good this time." He then put his two fingers to his mouth and whistled. It wasn't long before something jumped in from the window, almost causing Lucario to attack. It was an Umbreon, and it stood in front of them, waiting. "He's a friend, and our way out of here."
He could sense there was hesitation because he looked at them. "Look, I know you may have heard rumors but it was all negative hype generated by the queen herself. If we wanted her dead, it would have happened already. Also, considering the situation just now and us actually helping instead of abandoning you, I think we've earned a little bit of trust."
The Umbreon looked impatient and gave a small growl. "Very well," Aaron said. "Lead the way."
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