A Hero's Welcome
Chapter 2
One by one they filed into the albiore with Luke coming in last.
Noelle who had fallen asleep in the pilot's seat woke to the sound of their chatter. It surprised her that they were speaking at all; the trip to the valley was silent which was perfectly understandable considering the circumstances; she had fully expected them to return just as somber as before.
Hoping to find an explanation to the sudden change in the group's atmosphere, she glanced at them trying to find anything different. Needless to say, what she saw surprised her.
"Hey Noelle! It's been a long time hasn't it?"
As soon as she heard the familiar voice she was certain she could not be mistaken however, try as she might, she could not understand how this could be. She stood there mouth agape, trying to force out words.
"M-Master Luke!" She managed to exclaim.
"Yeah, I'm back!" He said.
And the poor, confused pilot fainted.
After things had calmed down and Noelle had regained consciousness, the Albiore took off, with the kimlascan capital as its destination. The group had decided to go to Baticul to announce Luke's return to his parents and the king. The instant they were in the air the only sound in the aircraft was the low hum of its engine. Everyone, with the exception of Noelle, was looking expectantly at Luke. Understanding immediately what they wanted, he dove into his explanation.
"After you all left, Eldrant began its collapse, my fonons were already separating, I thought I was going to die…"
He cut off his explanation looking lost in thought then continued:
"Anyway, while Eldrant was collapsing, I caught Asch who fell from another part of Eldrant. After that Lorelei, who we had released, came up to me. My body had almost completely disappeared but suddenly, my fonons stopped the separation. Lorelei was directing seventh fonons to reconstruct my body, and strengthen the bonds of the fonons I had left, using Asch's body as a model. Lorelei then went into the Fon Belt leaving me to be…pretty much remade. With Lorelei gone the process took an entire year, and that's it."
The explanation left everyone speechless, even the colonel seemed deep in thought.
The craft was plunged in a seemingly never ending silence, while the group tried to understand the information. It was Luke who broke it.
"So…what's happened since Eldrant's fall?"
"This is going to be a loooong conversation…" Anise whined.
"Yes, but he deserves to be informed." Tear responded.
"Indeed, so Guy I leave it to you to explain recent events." Jade added, smiling that devious smile of his.
"You really enjoy doing that don't you?" Guy sighed.
"Enough you two, I'll explain." And so Natalia began to recount events and describe the current state of Auldrant.
It turned out that relations between Kimlasca and Malkuth had come a long way from the two countries that had once declared war upon each other. They were cooperating with Teodoro in Yulia City to try to see to the replica problems, and had come to the conclusion that in order to house the overflow of replicas they would have to build a new city as well as houses in the existing towns. The project was underway; the houses had already been completed and the city was being planned out by Auldrant's top architects, with construction costs being split between the kingdom and the empire. There were also a lot of replicas in Engave who helped with the farming so food production had been on the uptake, it had almost doubled, thereby alleviating the threat of famine.
The situation with the Score had been explained to the countrymen of both nations by their leaders. And certain measures had been taken to ensure that the transition was made easier. Among those measures were the appointment of Florian as the new Fon Master, it would make the people feel more comfortable because of his resemblance to Ion and it would help them accept replicas. Finally since people had come to understand that the replicas were in no way responsible for the dangers that befell them and that the hero Luke Fon Fabre was one of them, attacks and assassinations on replicas had lessened dramatically, from killing replicas upon seeing them, the violent reactions to replicas had been alleviated.
Luke was ecstatic when he learned of the decrease in hostility against replicas. He thought about the many things Natalia had told him until he drifted off to the land of dreams.
He would be home soon.
A/N: That took me a while; the chapter has a lot of explanations and was pretty hard to write but the next chapter should come faster. Anyway I hope it all made sense and that it wasn't too horrible.