The way the communications and links between Luke, Lorelei, and Asch plays out in the game is interesting. We have descriptions of how Luke's link to Asch and Lorelei feels from his perspective, Asch described how it felt when Lorelei tried to contact him and it's clear that talking to Luke isn't painful for him, but I wanted to consider Lorelei's experiences of those links, in particular Asch's. Asch described his mind sort of getting overwhelmed/subsumed, so it seemed like an interesting idea to have contact with Asch, while it's happening, affect Lorelei's personality a bit, in the sense that Asch is (partially) part of him.
"Anise, herd Guy this way!" Jade grabbed Tear and Natalia by the backs of their clothes and started to drag them towards the warp.
"Guy, if you don't come with us I'll drag you too!"
"Gah!" Guy looked at Anise, the abyss, and back, wanting to stay despite the threat but there was nothing he could do.
"Jade…" Tear protested, or started to protest, voice trailing off.
"There is nothing we can do! We have to get to the Albiore, we can't lower the land without Luke and we have to do what we can!" Although what could they do, who could they save with only a single airship?
Someone appeared in the warp they were heading towards. "Natalia!"
"Asch! What are you doing here?"
Clearly a large part of why he was here was making sure that Natalia was okay, but it looked like the person Asch had come to see, or yell at, wasn't present. "What happened to the replica? He was babbling something about Van."
"You have been able to get in contact with him?" Jade asked. He wasn't the only one to start talking.
"Oh, Asch, it was horrible! We defeated Van and then he grabbed Luke and flung them both into the core! Please tell me that Luke is alive, please!" Natalia wanted to cling to him, but this wasn't the same Luke she had known when they were both little children, and they weren't little children anymore.
The one that grabbed him was Guy. "Hey, Tear, you and Luke were able to teleport with hyperresonance, right? Do you think you could use this guy to go find him?"
"Let go of me!" A sword appeared in Asch's hand, although since Guy had his arms pinned down Asch couldn't hit him with it. Asch stared at the sword and they all stopped, wondering what it was and why it grabbed his attention. "The Key of Lorelei… How did that dreck get the Key of Lorelei?"
"Wouldn't we all like to know." Jade knew he would.
"He said 'Here!' and I felt something, but it must have absorbed into my fonons." Asch focused and the sword vanished, reappearing an instant later.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. The contamination effect can cause insanity. Oh, yes, you're Asch. Never mind then." That, Jade thought to himself, was weak. However, everyone else was close to flying off the handle and therefore comic relief was required. "Is Luke still alive? Is Commandant Grants?"
"I don't know." Asch frowned, disturbed. "I don't know. It's like staring at the sun." He stared at the sword. "Lorelei is in the core, so… Perhaps that dreck got himself absorbed."
"Don't call him that!" Tear protested.
"Why not?"
Guy released Asch by spinning him around, Guy's fist catching his nose when it came into range. Luckily Guy had some restraint left: breaking the nose the correct way could send bone up into the brain and kill instantly. It was almost certain that Guy knew that. As it was, there was just blood and Jade caught Natalia's hands to keep her from healing it while Guy caught Asch by the collar. "Replica or not, Luke is my friend, which is more than I can say for some people! Sure, you and Natalia were friends as children, but you never forgot that I was your servant, did you? And what kind of man lets his girlfriend go find corners to cry in because her love had something happen to him so horrible that he turned into a baby who doesn't remember her while he's really fine and dandy, huh? You, you disgust me." Guy let him fall to the ground and stalked away.
When he got to his knees Asch looked at Natalia. "You…" You cried?
Natalia looked away.
"We all thought he was you inside, and all we had to do was get you to come out of that shell, wake the hell up and stop hiding from what happened to you. We told Luke we didn't want him, we wanted you all of his life." This time, Guy punched an archway and stood there, not looking at any of them. "He's not dead and we're getting him back."
No one was inclined to argue. This was Guy?
Jade, for one, agreed that Luke was most likely alive and that it would be foolish to leave him in Van's hands after what happened the last time. He also knew Gailardia's history better than anyone here. He wasn't going to get between the orphan and the only living person he regarded as family.
"Get down here!"
"I am bound to come to the assistance of Yulia's descendants, not play punching bag for fon masters." Lorelei hovered in the middle of the vast entrance hall of their Feres base, out of Sync's range no matter what he tried. "If you want to beat up someone up for what happened to you, could I suggest Mohs?"
"Fon Master?" Arietta asked.
"As the oldest surviving replica of Ion, Sync is the rightful fon master, not the current Ion."
"Current Ion?" Arietta asked.
"Be quiet!" Sync was in on the don't-let-Arietta-know-the-real-Ion's-dead conspiracy, supposedly on pain of pain (via Largo, who had also semi-adopted her), but also because he felt sorry for her and it was nice to know that at least one Ion had been wanted for himself.
"Come up here and make me." Lorelei put his forehead in his hand. "Ugh…" His wings rustled as Sync tried to take him up on that challenge. "My apologies, Sync. Vandesdelca, Asch is attempting to contact Luke. As he is an isofon even if he isn't a scion, he is…disruptive."
"Can you lure him here?"
"I could give him hints, yes. But other than that… Contact with him, the current Ion, Gailardia, Mystearica, Natalia, Suzanne, Jade, or Anise to a lesser degree should be avoided. Luke has feelings for them and could awaken unexpectedly. Others, including Asch's father, are safe." Lorelei had lost Luke's shoes at some point and generally let his legs dangle. He seemed to have an intense dislike of small spaces and never let himself touch the ground, walls, or ceiling if it could be avoided.
"Exactly how much do you control?" Legretta's eyes were narrow, and her guns had the necessary range, like Arietta's flying monsters.
"Control? Nothing. Contain the accurate memory of? Everything Luke doesn't alter." Lorelei's wings folded in a bit as he answered.
"You're unhappy?" Arietta could read monster body language very well. Fonon sentiences weren't monsters, but they weren't human either. Humans didn't have wings, for one thing.
"Luke was dreadfully unhappy his entire life. The previous scion was born to stop a war and the best he could do was let Yulia use him for this." The wings flared at the word 'this,' indicating the world around them. "What do I have to be happy about?" He shrugged. "Well, at least I'm out of the core and it will be over soon."
"Alright." Vandesdelca checked everything over one last time and then closed the hatch. "It's ready for the replica data of the population of Yulia City."
Lorelei nodded, cupping his hands and igniting a golden orb above them. Fonons started to stream into the room, wrapping around Lorelei and draining into the orb.
So much more convenient than sending Sync to pose as a false scorer. Not that Yulia City would let them get away with that ruse. Soon, the inhabitants of that city would start dying in droves, and with them what little knowledge of the Dawn Age remained that might be used to stop Van's plans.
The orb, complete, was gently tossed at the fon machine that took up most of the room.
"Is Luke awakening?"
"He doesn't truly understand replication and he doesn't personally know anyone there. He's deep asleep: only certain triggers would awaken him. If you were to have me destroy the city with hyperresonance, that would wake him. Causing it to die with a whimper instead of a bang won't." Yet even so, Lorelei's wings started to curl up around him until a ball of feathers hung there. "He doesn't know that what I'm doing is fatal. There are some other cities that contain individuals he has connected with. Sheridan, home of the Albiore, Jade's sister Nephry, Emperor Peony, Gailardia's aunt, General Frings, Dr. Shu and Spinoza of Belkend: you would have to secure them yourselves. If I were to touch their memories he would wake up to say hello."
"Say hello?" Sync folded his arms.
"He is dreaming, not awake and has no idea what we are up to. Only that it is of assistance to his beloved teacher and won't harm anyone. Or so he thinks, on the second part. He is quite naïve." Lorelei seemed jealous. Or sounded, at least, since nothing of him could be seen but the wings. "Guardian of memory, that was what she named me and here I am stealing body-memories and condemning thousands to death…" The wings shivered. "Those he has connected with-I doubt they would approve of your goals, but all of them wish for new futures, futures unbound by the Score. They yearn for Eldrant in their hearts, and that is why they are open to him."
"We are the third city so far, all this month." And it was Belkend, city of fon machines. The lab building had been given over to cots, just like Yulia City's central facility. "The death toll is higher and faster here than in Yulia City, but a little slower than in Chesedonia. I believe it has to do with the percentage of seventh fonists and potential seventh fonists instead of the process becoming more or less deadly."
"The symptoms are matching those of replica data extraction?" Dr. Jade Balfour wanted a second opinion?
Dr. Shu gave him the answer they both knew was coming. "Yes. As though everyone in the city had their replica data extracted all at once. There are a few exceptions, like myself here and Astor in Chesedonia, but there's no rhyme or reason to that either. I might be more or less running things here, since… but Mayor Teodoro was affected." Meaning that, as counter-intuitive as the idea that leaders were being spared might be, a deliberate decision to spare them weren't the reason Shu and Astor were escaping.
"Mayor Teodoro is still alive, if barely," Jade corrected him.
"Yulia City, Chesedonia, Belkend…" Guy murmured. "Taking out the people who know the most about the Dawn Age, cutting the Malkuth-Kimlasca supply line, eliminating the people who know the most about replicas… Does anyone think Daath is next? Although we all thought they would be second." Even though they'd hoped that something had just gone wrong when Yulia City was taken out of the miasma and there wouldn't be a second. He hoped it wouldn't be Sheridan.
"I haven't been able to evacuate Daath." Ion sighed. "Grand Maestro Mohs says the Score predicts no disasters for Daath, and we have refugees flooding in…"
"Don't blame yourself, Ion. It's not your fault Mohs is an idiot." Anise patted him on the shoulder. Mohs was keeping her parents in the city as incentive to get this deviation from the score fixed as soon as possible.
"Damn it! If only we knew where Van was hiding!" Asch stabbed the wall, causing sparks to fly and several present to wince. Asch was getting more and more irrational by the day. Now that he couldn't spy on them through Luke he had to travel with them, and being around Guy and Natalia, reminders of the past he had thrown away, was wearing on him. It seemed like everything he said made Natalia flinch, and Guy's own live-and-let-live façade was also cracking under the pressure. Playing servant in the home of the man who murdered your family required both inhuman endurance of irritants and very good acting skills. "If only that damn replica would wake the hell up!" Flickers, drowned in the light. "How often is Van casting that hymn anyway?"
"Hymn?" Jade looked up from a sheaf of test results.
"I just remembered. He said something about Van using some hymns and then feeling weird."
"The Grand Fonic Hymn?" Tear gasped.
"Grand Fonic Hymn?" Something else he should have been informed of? Well, at least he was finding out now, and after the Akzeriuth debacle Jade had no right to complain about others holding back vital information. Turnabout was fair play.
"It's all of Yulia's fonic hymns sung together. It's the symbol of her pact with Lorelei and singing it is supposed to bring Lorelei to your aid, if it can come. And Van was in the core, where Yulia put Lorelei!" Tear realized.
"So Van summoned Lorelei, and since Luke is Lorelei's isofon…"
Tear interrupted Jade's thoughts. "Lorelei was sealed in the Key of Lorelei! What, what if… would it work like that?"
He was reading Tear's thoughts now? "The Key is pure seventh fonon with Lorelei's fonon frequency, just like Luke. If Van used the hymn, it's possible that Lorelei moved from the Key into Luke's body, and Luke's connection to Asch caused the Key to be sent to him somehow."
"No, he chose to send the Key to me, although I don't think he knew why it was important. Instinct or something."
"If Van is indeed using Lorelei's power to accomplish this, it would explain how he can get replica data, if that is all that the fonons that leave the victims are, without any method that we can identify." How were they supposed to counter Lorelei's control over the seventh fonon? They might as well fight Efreet with fire!
"So Lorelei's under Van's control and using that replica's body to kill all of these people?" What a weakling, he would have said, if it weren't for Guy's glare and the sudden urge he felt to throw up.