The fic is finally complete at 16 chapters. I thought it would be simple to finish, but it turned out to be a bear... As I believe I said before in the ANs for another ToA fic on the site, I have no idea where this Lorelei muse came from.

"I can keep it out. For now, at least." The windows and doors of this base were far from airtight, so the fact the air in this room was clear proved that Lorelei spoke the truth.

Van almost asked why Lorelei would bother. Everyone here had either accepted that they would be dying for the sake of the new world or, like Dist, had a replacement body waiting. From his experience, a little miasma wouldn't affect their ability to perform enough to matter, not when there was so little time remaining.

Then he remembered that unlike him, most of those here had either had their replica data extracted, which weakened their bodies and left them vulnerable to the miasma, or simply weren't as powerful a seventh fonist as he was. He'd probably absorbed enough miasma to kill a normal human several times over, searching for survivors after the fall of Hod. Not to mention operating the passage rings.

No: it would be inconvenient if his troops started to die now. Most of them had replicas among the guards of Feres, but it would take a few precious days for the Big Bang Effect to let them take control of the programmed bodies, leaving him without their expertise.

It would be difficult for Malkuth, which had more of an army left, to launch an assault against Feres: losing both Hod and Sheridan had cost them their navy, and it would be difficult to coordinate the use of Kimlasca's landships. And that was if anyone had the presence of mind to use their hyperresonance detectors to discover where Luke had kept vanishing to and from. Even if they did, Feres was already a reasonable distance from its previous location.

Of course, soon the location of their new base would be obvious. To those few left to look up and see it.

"'For now' is all we need." After all, the core of Eldrant would float where Hod once had, where it had been on the surface of the Outer Lands before it was destroyed and the rest of the Outer Lands were lowered. "If I may ask, where is the Score still being read?" Had Peony and Ingobert actually been able to forbid it in their lands? The idea was ridiculous. If Lorelei hadn't made it unnecessary, Van would have sent Sync to join the other Scorers, some real, some mere charlatans milking the Score's cattle, to gather enough replica data for a sustainable population. His ancestress had been a 'scientist' and had made a point in her notes about the need for a large gene pool as opposed to just creating enough warm bodies, among all the other details necessary in order for Eldrant to succeed.

Of course, it was quite hypocritical for Yulia to warn of the dangers of inbreeding when there were several reasons she had so few descendants. Hod's Fende family, concealed as mere servants of House Gardios, and Yulia City's ruling Grants line were not so much a family tree as a family ladder, constantly intermarrying and thus preserving the power and the blood of Yulia. After all, the more similar they were to Yulia, the easier it would be for them to think like her and use her hymns.

Mystearica's resemblance to Yulia would have been astonishing if he hadn't known better than to think coincidences existed in this Scored world.

He had to wonder: was it simply Yulia's blood and power that her descendants had been bred to keep intact, or something else?

He could guess at the answer, but he didn't want to know.

"Daath missed the last service." Everyone was surprised at that, not just Lorelei. Surely Mohs would have found someone to do it. He had that spare Ion replica, after all. Even if a mob overran the cathedral, he still had plenty of fonstones hidden away.

Van smiled: perhaps an accident had befallen the Grand Maestro. Such a pity.

"Legretta," he said, turning to the woman he had read of in the seventh fonstone long before he met her. He was Scored to have an affair with her until she carried out her plan to murder him in their bed. Her son would have been put up for adoption, and with all the records destroyed in the plague, no one would have known to keep him from marrying Mystearica's daughter. Normally that was a little too close a relationship even for their family, but Teodoro had only had one daughter, all the other Fendes had died with Hod, and there was no one else to carry on the family line. And with Mystearica scored to marry Mohs, who wasn't even a seventh fonist? Drastic times called for drastic measures, and how more drastic a time could there be than the end of the world?

Even knowing all of this, even though he had been the one to send her brother to die as the Score decreed, Legretta still couldn't control her feelings. She still loved him, even though he'd been as cold to her as he could and maintain a working partnership. "Yes, Commandant?" Normally Legretta's reserve was impeccable, but there was always something brittle about her when she was in the same room as Lorelei, as thought she was trying to restrain a shudder. Everyone here knew the cruelty and inhumanity of the Score, but Legretta knew better than anyone here but him just how insidious it could be, how tightly it gripped the minds of everyone on Auldrant. How laughable the idea of winning free of it really was, as long as it existed.

"How long until the replication machines are fully operational?" The lift fontech machines were already ready to go, but until the replication machines were ready there was no point. Eldrant's defenses would need replicated ammunition, for one thing. It would be foolish to tip their hand too soon, and once Eldrant rose, soon it would engulf Yulia City. Then, the only place on Auldrant free of the miasma would be Eldrant itself, and surely desperate nobles and Maestros would try to flee there, even though that would be certain death.

"Forty-six hours, Commandant."

Not bad, but they were so close: he was growing impatient. Looking at Dist, he said, "I assume you could cut, oh, perhaps as much as ten hours off that time?"

"Only ten?" Dist started to sputter when Van cut him off.

"Lorelei. Once Eldrant is airborne, I assume you can bring Nebilim back from the dead?"

"With your help." If Van sang the Grand Fonic Hymn and commanded him to. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to bring back someone scored to die so long ago.

Van turned back to Dist. "The sooner preparations are complete, the sooner you will be reunited with your teacher." And the sooner Van would have a sixth god-general under his command again. He'd never met Nephilim the Golden, but the assistance of such a learned fonologist would surely be useful.

And if she didn't believe in Eldrant, and replicas, she wouldn't have given her life in order to ensure all of this played out properly. There were only passing allusions in Yulia's notes to the Planetary Fonic Arte: he didn't know what it was, and he was almost certain it was too late for anything to stop him, let alone some arte no living soul could cast, but he'd rather be sure.

Perhaps Gelda could even keep her wayward student in line. He would have had Lorelei bring her back right away, just in the hope that would make Dist reliable for once, except the risk that Dist would get his foolish little heart broken and see reason for once in his life had been unacceptable. Very unlikely, there were none so blind as those who would not see, but the last thing he'd needed would have been the man who understand more about his plans than anyone but himself defecting to join 'dear Jade,' and try to save the life of the closest thing he probably had to a friend, as pathetic as that was.

Sync had been dispatched to obtain intelligence on Daath, after Lorelei had told Van about that little scheme he'd cooked up with Dist. Something would have to be done to ensure that Luke, Lorelei's replacement couldn't be bound the way Lorelei had, but only after Eldrant had safely replaced Auldrant and its survival was assured.

Once he'd solved that problem, then he could rest.

No rest for the wicked.

Largo could be relied on to stay at his post, and Arietta could look after herself. Even if Luke was able to use his powers to capture her, he wouldn't be able to find out anything useful from interrogating her. It would be too late by that point.

Since the current Fon Master Ion was both unreliable and surely falling apart by now, he might have to make Arietta a new one. Perhaps he should tell Sync to capture that one Mohs thought Van didn't know about. It was a pity the original Fon Master Ion wouldn't be able to see this new world, but he'd promised to look after Arietta. Save for Gailardia, who was his lord, not a friend, Ion was probably the closest thing he'd ever had to one. Without his support early on, he never would have gotten this far.

They would never have gotten this far.

Tuning out Dist's thanks, which had swiftly turned into random babble, he let his eyes sweep over the room. Time for an inspiring speech, not that they needed it. It was inspiring enough to have come this far, to be this close to ending the Score's tyranny and saving Auldrant from its Scored Downfall. From the wreckage of a dying world they would build a new world, a free one, a glorious one. A world free of the chains of the past, a world where there would be such a thing as hope.

A world where Asch's betrayal and defiance would be laudable instead of laughable. A world where not only would it be possible to fight fate, but there would be no such thing as fate, only the paths each person chose for themselves.

Where humanity would be free to live, and love, as they chose. Where no one would have the power to control another's mind, rule another's heart. Where they and their replica children could live as free men, not puppets.

It was his duty as a commander to tell them what they must already know, to tell them that their hopes and dreams were finally within their grasps, but all he wanted to do was throw his head back and laugh like a child. Except he'd never laughed with joy as a child. No, by the time he'd been free of Hod, the fonologists and his parents, he was still living in the shadow of Hod, with the weight of that guilt and knowledge. Mystearica, Gailardia, they'd brought him some happiness, but he'd always known that when they discovered the truth of what he'd done, when they found out what he really was, they would despise him.

And rightly so.

He felt so old, even though he'd had to grow this beard to be taken seriously, becoming Commandant at such a young age. He was still only twenty-six. Only a little over a quarter of a century living, if one could call it that, on Auldrant, and soon?

Soon this impure world would be clensed, everything made anew. Soon enough Mystearica and Gailardia would wake on Eldrant, on Hod, his lord's lands restored to him. He did have to thank Lorelei for procuring their replica data for him, otherwise he didn't know how he would have managed it. Mystearica had been watched too closely in Yulia City, their precious heir, and she only left it once she no longer trusted him. As for Gailardia, he would have wanted an explanation, even if he'd been able to get away from the Fabre household, and he'd feared that his lord knew enough about fontech to catch him in a lie. He would have had to find some way to capture them alive and bring them here, and that came with its own risks.

Soon, the Big Bang effect would draw them into their new bodies, ensuring that they wouldn't be killed by hyperresonance, as Eldrant devoured Auldrant, and that they'd be trapped within their new bodies for a few days, unable to do anything to free Lorelei or stop his plans.

It was a pity that Asch couldn't be saved, that he'd lose him, just like he'd lost Ion, but he was used to the fact that this world was a cruel place.

The new one wouldn't be.

He would make sure of that.