This is probably the chapter where the differences in Luke's character evolution become really apparent. What's easy to overlook is how damn smart Luke is, and how fast he/she is able to learn/adapt. To be fair, the game's characters, other than Guy in a single optional scene, don't get it either. A lot of the 'unhealthy' character traits they're trying to beat out of Luke are perfectly healthy traits in a seven year old, which makes me headdesk.

Luke is outright trying to get heroically killed to make up for Akzeriuth for the majority of the game, and having never been recognized has a hard time seeing value in himself, especially due to the age screw-up making a lot of the advice he gets utterly wrong. Children require acknowledgement to transition to thinking like an adult. Luke does not get that necessary acknowledgement until a few seconds before he dies (Lorelei). Whether or not Luke can get clinical depression (neural age or physical?) is up in the air, but no, he can't develop self-worth without other people saying that he has worth.


On the other hand, Luke will forgive in an instant things people never forgive him for. This child allows Luke to see the wrongness and hypocrisy of how she was treated since when it comes to the child she can be objective the way Luke was about Ion's death, which Anise was far more responsible for than Luke was for Akzeriuth.

The child's existence becomes Luke's validation, in essence. Once she has that validation, she stops being so needy because she's gotten what she needs. And stuff that game!Luke needs to be in denial about to avoid going outright insane she can face, and that mind gets put to actually examining people's flaws…

Guy, Natalia, Tear, and so on are no longer the best candidates for the parental figures a seven-year-old needs and Luke is no longer trying to please them in order to validate strategies. Judged by his true age, Luke's a prodigy. As a seventeen year old… He's a wonderful person, so they're all going, why don't you see how awesome you are? By the end, at least.

To this Luke, the rest of the party are equals instead of people to be looked up to and so it's her that's pointing out that the 13, 16, and so on year olds aren't all that mature themselves…

-

"You're right: these soldiers are programmed replicas. They have to be." Tear closed the knight's eyes before meeting Luke's.

"Locking the doors so that we have to kill them if we want to escape? That's just sick." Luke closed her eyes for a moment. These poor babies might even have been made only yesterday. "It's a good thing I stocked up on holy bottles. If we have an option, we run."

No one argued.

"So, Jade…" Everyone braced themselves as Dist's chair descended when they were about to enter a large building. "You finally show your face."

Luke wasn't paying attention. Dist's chair floated. That meant he didn't have to walk. If Luke had Dist's chair, that meant that she wouldn't have to walk. That meant no more of those damn squares. "I want that chair! Natalia, shoot him out of it!" The others quickly figured out what Luke had.

"Now give that back!" Dist whined when the scuffle was over, held back by Jade's hand on his elaborate collar.

"Dist, do you see these?" Luke leaned forward, grinning and giving him an eyeful. Luke had never been especially modest. He had nice abs, he showed them off. She had nice breasts, she showed them off. There was also enough of her that was 'male' to enjoy the sight of nice boobs, even if they were her own and even smaller than Natalia's due to that whole annoying not enough body fat thing. "Do you know why I have them?"

"I had nothing to do with that!"

"But you worked for the guys that did. Now, do you know why they did it?"

"To kill you, but obviously that failed."

"Oh, it failed, it failed with a vengeance. There isn't much to see yet, but look." Luke pointed at her tummy. "I am around two months pregnant. I have food cravings like you wouldn't believe, I have mood swings, I'm exhausted, and my feet hurt. Having to walk all over the place isn't helping. Now that I have your chair, I won't have to walk anymore. You will tell me how to use it so I can leave this place on it, or you will carry it back to the Albiore for me so I can take it to Sheridan and let them examine it and learn all your secrets."

Dist struggled and glared impotently. "You, you…"

"The term is bitch."

-

"Okay, I need to get it reupholstered because this is tacky, but other than that I love this chair. Love it love it love it."

"Why are you telling me? I don't care."

"Because you're a captive audience until you swear not to touch my baby. I seem to recall you abusing the privilege."

Asch couldn't respond to that except by seething.

"Seriously, what is so hard about not murdering and abusing children for you, Asch the Bloody?"

"It's not…"

"She's not what? A child? A person? Because she hasn't been born yet? Because she's composed mostly of seventh fonons and could be considered a replica even if she was conceived like an original? Like I'm not a person, just your replica? Your property? Your puppet?"

"You are my replica, and that is…" Acknowledge that as his child? As a bastard, it wasn't legally his unless he admitted that it was, and then it would have a right to be a member of house Fabre, and…

"Our parents have called me their child. In my own right. And if I'm property, then wouldn't I belong to Van? He made me, after all, not you. As property you have no right to me, and as a person you've never taken any responsibility for me. You're nothing but my older brother, or step-brother, take your pick, and my baby is nothing to you but your niece. "

"I'm your original…"

"So? And that makes us what? I'm your replacement? I quit. I'm your slave? I've escaped your control, and good luck getting me back. Slavery's illegal, for one thing. And if replicas are slaves that have to obey their originals, that would mean that you have to do whatever Lorelei says and you're not. We both heard what he said, Asch."

"I'm…"

"At least you have the honesty not to say it. You're not a replica? By what definition? You're a perfect isofon of someone else but you were born naturally. If my baby is a replica then so are you. She's even got first through sixth fonons in addition to seventh, even if she's mostly seventh." Luke pet her tummy, feeling the little precious life there. She made it hard to care too much about idiots like Asch. There were more important things. "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, especially if they can't tell the difference between a window and a mirror."

Asch's frustration resounded through the link.

"Sound and fury… and now not even sound. You're just jealous. I have a life and a family and you threw away yours. Can't go back to Van, can't go back to the Order, and you won't go back to our family. What will you have when this is over? Don't blame me for taking it Asch. Although it was pretty stupid, in retrospect, how I was tricked into picking up your cast-offs. I can do so much better as myself."

"A woman's body, a child, you, you…"

"What are you raving about now?"

"My fonons are separating. They have been since Akzeriuth. It's because you were made, it's because you exist!"

"…and you're blaming me instead of Van… Why? I wasn't the one who did that to you. I wasn't even born yet, duh." Luke considered it. "You know, I might feel some sympathy for you if it weren't for the whole trying to kill my baby thing. You have no regard for other people's lives so I can see little reason to have much regard for yours. I think there's a word for this… Oh, yeah. Karma." "Hey, Jade!"

Jade had to look up at her. Sweet. "What is it now?"

"Why didn't you tell me Asch was dying?"

"Patient-doctor confidentiality."

"Oh, right. Is there anything that we can do about it?"

"Luke, I know they're big words, but there are only three of them and I've explained them to you."

"You really can't tell us?" Everyone looked at Natalia. "Well, he is my cousin. By adoption, technically. Just like Luke, now that I think about it."

"No, I can't. Not unless Asch gives me permission. Signed permission, Luke, and/or in person. And no, I can't take anyone else's word for it. My credentials are on thin ice as it is."

"What did you do, Colonel? Some freaky experiments?" Anise wanted the gory details.

"It's more what I haven't done." He didn't have time to go sit in mandatory refresher courses or courses on new developments when he was saving the world and developing most of those new developments. He'd had some time to kill in Belkend, and there were some self-study ones, but… Oh well, he could always get licensed again later. "I tend to display a certain callousness towards human life unbecoming of the profession." It wasn't like anyone actually followed that oath nowadays, for one thing a soldier certainly couldn't abstain from causing injuries.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"No."

"If you're dying anyway, and you're not telling me, then you're refusing my help. If I couldn't help the injury and I can't help fix it, then I see no reason to feel at all responsible for it if you die." Luke peeled an orange. She'd figured out that angering Asch worked so much better than sweet reason, since he was an inherently angry and unreasonable person. "Of course, Mother will be sad, and so will Natalia, even if you are a bastard to both of them and the people they love. As for Father… He tried not to get attached to us, because he knew we were going to die. He believed that he didn't have any chance of saving us, so it was just a matter of making it as easy for us as he could. If you believe in the Score, he was a great father. If you don't, then he's not, but now that he knows we have a chance now… He's trying," Luke gave him that. "He does care. You were watching when he gave Guy's sword back."

Again, Asch didn't know how to respond.

"And they thought I didn't know how to express myself…"

-

"Guy, I as good as asked you if you wanted to be my baby's stepfather. Instead of saying yes, you get drunk with Jade and Natalia and end up catching her on the rebound. I'm happy for you, I really am, and I want you two to have tons of babies for my daughter to play with, and I'm really glad Natalia got over that bastard.

"But that night I got distracted from finding out that Jade can't sing by Asch complaining about the fact Natalia's half-naked and helping you psych yourself up to actually put those hands on her boobs on the bed across from him, and after you left the room since Natalia didn't want to risk him seeing any of what he's not getting his hands on I hear from Anise that when she and Ion came back you were both naked in the hallway and she had to cover Ion's virgin eyes."

Guy had only vaguely remembered that and had been hoping it was just a dream. His sloshed virgin near-teenage male brain cells had been mostly focused on the fact that there were boobies, he could touch them for up to fifteen seconds at that point, and they were soft, and hallelujah, he was going to lose his virginity!

Only he hadn't managed to.

"So I can't sleep with you, because that would be cheating on Natalia."

"Um, actually..."

Luke stared at him. "You broke up with her?" She was very, very disappointed in him. "Guy, if you broke up with her because she couldn't get you over a lifelong phobia in only a couple weeks I'm going to..."

"No no no no no, we're still, um, not exactly together since Natalia's a princess and..." Guy waved his arms frantically and tried to gather his thoughts. "Natalia said that since you needed another massage and Tear's busy I should try to figure out why I'm fine with you."

"If it's that you're used to me being a guy, then you're out of luck," Luke reminded him.

"Yeah, but you're safe, so if you as a girl are safe then Natalia thinks that if, um..." Oh thank Lorelei, Natalia was here!

"Natalia, are you sure you're okay with your boyfriend feeling me up?" Luke pointed at herself. "You know where I get those aches. My boobs are trying to grow but I don't have enough body fat no matter how much I eat since guys are mostly muscle, and..."

Natalia coughed. "Guy, could you go outside for a minute?"

Guy made his escape while Natalia gave Luke the noblewoman's version of The Talk.

"I don't remember it hurting." Luke frowned. "But then I might not have had a hymen anyway."

"From what I have heard it does, and it is especially painful for seventh fonists since the body regards its loss as an injury and it takes a bit of effort to remind it that it is something that needs to stay broken. Normally, one has one's first experience with someone older than oneself and experienced enough in these matters to make the experience enjoyable anyway. However, since Guy's phobia is based on those poor maids' deaths and the belief that if they touch him they will be hurt..."

"You losing your virginity to each other would hurt you and prettymuch confirm that phobia. So you're asking me to deflower your boyfriend so he doesn't freak out when he helps you lose your own virginity."

Natalia blushed a bit, but, "Yes, essentially. Otherwise it will just be a disaster for both of us."

Luke thought about saying "You do realize that since I'm keeping Asch locked up in my head he just heard all that?" but then thought better of it. Natalia knew that was how it worked, and the fact she hadn't brought it up meant she was repressing that bit because some part of her thought he deserved it.

And frankly, so did Luke. She had hormone swings, goddamn it, and she had boobs now. She might like long hair on guys, that was why his had been long when she was a guy, but she also liked nice abs (which was why he'd displayed his), Guy was hot, Luke had boobs, and she was not getting any.

Asch could just go handle himself. Only he couldn't because he was paralyzed, but it was the principle of the matter.

Guy was ushered in and Natalia ended up sitting in the corner in a strange parody of a noblewoman's chaperone. This was her... her Guy, after all, and the goings-on would be supervised.

"This will actually be my first time in my right mind," Luke realized as she undressed. She'd only done it before while the arte was controlling her.

"What should I, uh..."

Luke pointed at her boobs. "They ache. How far have you gotten with Natalia?"

"Ah, um..." Natalia was here, so this was okay, but...

"Guy, Luke is doing us a favor. And according to those biology books we've all been forced to read orgasms are marvelous for headaches and so on." Natalia waved him on.

Natalia knew that he'd stayed and watched Luke and Asch, something they didn't know (or Asch would have tried to kill him, not to mention Luke would have said something), and so her setting this up was wonderful, and evil, and probably partially because she wished she hadn't allowed her virgin eyes to force her to not watch the show.

So, yeah, boobs.

"How are they?" Luke asked, a big self conscious.

"Smaller than Natalia's." Guy realized he'd messed up immedietly afterwards. "They're still nice! Just Natalia's are nicer." Natalia was his sort of girlfriend, so he was supposed to consider her the best. He was saved!

Luke grumbled. "I need to eat more..." Luke had seven percent body fat as a male. A female needed at least fourteen percent, and sixteen was better even outside of pregnancy. No body fat meant no joint padding and no boobs, among a host of other problems.

Luke frankly looked like a bit of a stick, in her opinion, and she'd been decently vain as a man.

So, Guy knew, he should kneed them so they felt better, and he'd gotten up to putting his mouth on them.

"Keep doing that!" Luke grabbed him and he didn't flinch. This was Luke and Luke was safe.

Luke was also already wet.

He was not a horny teenager, he was a horny early twenties virgin and he'd raised Luke from functional infancy and he was going to make this good for her since her only experience had been essentially drugged rape and he knew Natalia was watching which meant he'd be in major trouble with both of them if he messed up and was ungentlemanly but Luke was also really, really hot, and so were Luke's hands.

"It's the grabbing thing that's the problem, right? Natalia, how far did you get?"

"He could touch me, but it was a bit of an effort to even manage to stroke him for a bit. It was terribly onesided." Natalia sighed.

"Let's see if we can work on that." Luke pumped him expertly: after all, Luke had been male until recently. "Hey! Who said you could stop!"

"Uh, sorry." Guy started moving his own hands again.

"Dammit..." Luke grumbled. "We can have more orgasms, right?"

"Yes," Natalia confirmed.

"I want one first, then." Luke pressed Guy down, the way Asch had been positioned, and the memory made him twitch. "He stops moving whenever I start doing anything and it's frustrating."

-

Luke grumbled under her breath.

"What is it now?"

"If you promised not to touch my baby then you won't have to know or care."

"…Just tell me."

"I want to cuddle someone. My baby is already inside me, but I want to hold her in my arms. And I want to have someone to show her off to. I wish Lorelei could wake up again." Lorelei understood. Would Lorelei think of her baby as a grandbaby or what Luke was to him? Did it matter? "The baby books say that prenatal development is important. I could have her be born already, like replicas are, but it's not good for us and it wouldn't be for her. So I have to wait and I want to hold her. I can listen to her, and sing to her, and I think if I were Lorelei that would be enough, but I'm human too and I want to cuddle. It's your fault, you know."

"How is this my fault?"

"If you weren't a jerk Natalia wouldn't have dumped you and hooked up with Guy. I can't randomly grab someone else's guy for cuddling purposes."

"I thought you liked Tear?"

"I was a little boy who wanted a mommy, or part of me was, and part of her wants someone to mother. You know how she is about cute things. But she's so focused on suppressing that instinct that the potential teased me and the temptation teased her. Now, though, I'm the one who has someone to mother, and that means I want a," Luke hesitated. A father for her child? Her child had one, and she did not want to give Asch the mistaken impression that she wanted anything to do with the jerk or that he would be allowed anywhere near her baby. "A partner. Or, now that I think about it, more like a minion. Guy's generally the one who does stuff for me, but I can't order a manservant to get over here and let me cuddle him. That's sexual harassment. Hmm."

Ion was still a child, and he was Anise's. Or, really, Anise was the minion there but she was also the bossy one. Luke wanted to be the non-minion and bossy one. So, she needed someone who wanted to do stuff for her.

Tear? Was non-minion and non-bossy. Jade was… nope, total personality and priority clash. Non-minion and bossy. Guy was minion but non-bossy, Natalia was non-minion and bossy, which might be why they were getting along so well now…

Ion would be non-minion and non-bossy, Anise bossy minion, of course.

Boy-Luke… minion and bossy. Which was why he had fit with Tear. Van… non-minion and actually non-bossy. He didn't so much try to order people around as make them want to do what he wanted them to. "This is an interesting way to classify people. Hmm… You're a… minion and…"

"Don't call me a minion!"

"Hey, I admitted I was one. Think of it terms of wanting to please others or wanting to be pleased, and wanting to control others or... Hmm."

"Try active and passive."

"That doesn't work either. Van's anything but passive."

"Honest or manipulative?"

"Ion's not manipulative. Or yes he is, sort of, but he doesn't manipulate others, he sort of positions himself in situations to try not to be killed." They were being amazingly civil, for them. "Hmm. You kind of suck at being bossy. You try to, but you can't pull it off."

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe it's plan versus inspire? I like planning, and knowing what the plan is. You can't plan, Asch. You can't get people to do what you want. You did inspire Natalia, though. That promise meant so much to her." And Asch had trampled on it. "I think you try to take the lead, like in Ortion Cavern, but you aren't that good at it. I mean, Tear stayed behind, Guy left you, the others would have been a lot more help if they'd had a clue what was going on and it's the leader's job to make sure of that… Actually, Van doesn't clue people in on the plan at all, does he. And when he finally does is generally the time people abandon him, if they do. So you're a minion who needs someone else to do the planning."

"I'm not an organizer." Asch admitted that.

"So… I want someone who wants to make me happy and needs me to do the organizing, so does Natalia, Guy's vice-versa. Anise wants someone she can make happy and needs her to do the organizing, Ion needs someone who will make him happy and do the organizing, so they match. Jade… you know, he might actually be non-bossy. The problem there, if he is, would be that he's so good at it that he's not going to let anyone else do it unless they're better. Jade's hard. He's good at hiding who he is." Luke looked at him speculatively. "He said something about me only letting someone control me if they proved they were worthy. He's right, I did a pretty good job of pretending to be a non-minion with everyone but Van."

"You're not seriously considering… He's five times your age!"

"So?" Hmm. Jade was really good at getting stuff done for Peony, and he actually hated having to be the one to explain and organize everything, given how he dumped that on Luke and Guy at every opportunity. "Oh, Professor Nebilim. And Nephry's doll."

"What are you talking about?"

"Jade invented fomicry not for himself, but to save other people and make them happy." Hmm. "One hell of a battle there, though. Unless I do what Peony does and keep it on a level he doesn't object to… But would Peony put up with that?"

"Are you saying Peony and Jade are…" Asch inadvertently sent a mental image.

"Oooh, that would be pretty. I love long hair, that's why I had long hair in the first place." That aside, "Peony's bossy. And definitely not a minion. So… What's Ginji like?"

"I neither know nor care. Could we please stop having this conversation?"

"Captive audience, remember? Unless you're willing to promise."

Luke was pretty sure that she was wearing him down, from the emotions that accompanied the silence. "So, to continue… Noelle's a non-minion and non-bossy and I'd guess Ginji's the same. Noir's… bossy as all hell, but fundamentally a minion, like Anise. She's just got an entire city of people she's trying to make happy. Um… Who else do I know that's even in the running? Well, while I'm at it… The god-generals are all as minion-like as it gets. Legretta was bossy, Dist isn't although he tries, Arietta and Sync are kids, Largo… I wonder if it's the older people get the harder it is to figure them out? Jade said something about personalities not really developing until you were forty or something."

"You say that Sync's a child and not Ion?"

"Yes. Van is good at keeping people children, isn't he? He promises us acknowledgement and never delivers." But she didn't need that. Regardless of whether anyone ever acknowledged her or not, she needed to be an adult, she knew that now. And so she would be, and there was no point in worrying about it and needing someone to tell her whether or not she was ready because she would not fail and that was that. "I think all kids are minions. They need someone to tell them if they're doing it right or not, because they don't know yet."

"So how on earth is Ion a non-minion, then?"

"Because Ion was never allowed to be a child," Luke told Asch sadly, and Asch had to agree. "My baby… I'll protect her, and I'll tell her when she's doing things right and tell her she's wrong and what to do instead when she is. I'll challenge her so she grows strong and when she challenges me and deserves to win I'll acknowledge her. I'll never lie to her."

"You seriously think you can raise a child?"

"Jade himself said I was a lot better qualified than most people. And I want to raise her, not just have her, that's part of it. I want to watch her grow up."

"I just don't get you," Asch admitted.

"You're only realizing this now? And we're reflections of each other, Asch, and that means we look the same but we're complete opposites."