Battle Event: Locke and the Merchant/Officer

hey guy, me again... hopefully not another really easy one. Been working on it most of the night and have made some good progress, but just have one little issue hopefully someone has already resolved in their game, or at least someone who's in a creative mood can help me work around it.

Obviously with removing Locke from the game South Figaro after occupation is a little difficult. I managed (by digging through this site) to figure out how to make the battle script work for me to activate the event, also (thanks to Angelo's stickied post) got all of the movements to be played out by Shadow. However, he jumps, spins, and then jumps back still full ninja. When back in SF he is now a merchant, but that inconsistency is not acceptable since I'm trying to make this at least as polished as the original.

So the question is, has anyone figured out exactly how it changes battle sprite mid movement? If not, what do you guys think would make for a decent set of graphical actions to make this make sense. I wouldn't normally just ask for creative advice, but it's late and I spent most of the day hanging drywall, so I'm spent. Any advice would be appreciated, Thanks again.