The Iron Knight

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**The Iron Knight** is a side story.

## Synopsis

> *Lands and countless lives were lost due to the Administration Failure and the Great Purification War. This is a story about another nation that tried to avoid the end of the world.*
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## Appearances

* Gerard Curian
* David Rashford
* Ella
* Curian
* Watt
* Peter
* Warden (as soldiers of Royal Border Guards)
* Vivian Rashford
* Minister
* Medius
* Shena (Mentioned only)
* Maestra Nequitia (Mentioned only)
* Hanna Anderson
* Dean Conner

## Plot

### Act 1

The Kingdom of Nordnavik is being overrun by Corrupted Objects after a Counterside Effect breaks out throughout the entire country. In the capital city of Avalon, the tower of Avalon's Gate, which had previously kept Nordnavik safe from enemy forces with its "Holy Relic" (also known as the "Key to Avalon's Gate"), is near destruction. Thus, the Royal Army's 1st Musketeer Division, headed by General Gerard Curian, is tasked to take the Gate's Relic to a safe location. The squadron retrieves it and head south for Deer's Root by train but are stopped and forced to continue on foot when the tunnel ahead collapses and blocks the railroad. On the way, they stumbled upon a burning village and decided to help evacuate its residents. While Curian's adjutant, David, escorts a pregnant woman and a group of children, the other Musketeers take down C.O.s when a mysterious woman carrying cymbals suddenly appears before them. The woman, revealed to be a Shadow, announces she is here to the take the Relic and proceeds to play her instruments, causing the Musketeers to hallucinate and kill either themselves or their own comrades. David returns but is stabbed in the chest and incapacitated by Curian, who deliriously mistook him for the Shadow. Curian vows to avenge his men but seemingly runs off instead.

Twenty years later, soldiers of the Royal Border Guards spot the Royal Army's Armored Horse carrying an unconscious man while fending off C.O.s just outside Sherwood, Nordnavik's southernmost outer castle. After the C.O.s are all killed, the man is taken to the local hospital and is treated by Captain Ella. When he wakes up, the man claims to be Gerard Curian and needs to report back to the king, but a young boy named Peter informs him that Nordnavik no longer has a monarchy; furthermore, the people of the country now view Curian as a traitor and a wanted criminal for allegedly stealing the Holy Relic.

Word gets out of Curian's reappearance, and the villagers of Sherwood demand justice be served against the General Musketeer. Curian is confused and tries to explain his situation but is knocked out by a single punch from Captain Ella— Ella then calms the villagers down and argues that the man can't be the real Gerard Curian since he was taken out so easily.

Back at the hospital ward, Curian denies he stole the Relic but can't remember where it is now. He asks if Avalon's Gate can work again if the Relic is returned, but Ella tells him that Avalon's Gate was destroyed and never rebuilt because knowledge of how to construct the tower is lost. Curian recounts what his mission was and mentions that his squadron had been eradicated by the woman with the cymbals, whom he believes is a C.O. Chief O'Neill isn't convinced but decides to let him stay and tell the other villagers that he simply shares the same name was Gerard Curian. Ella then fills Curian in on Nordnavik's history and situation since Avalon's fall, teaching him about the National Reconstruction Alliance and the Royal Border Guards.

Curian soon becomes fairly popular among the villagers when he starts repairing Sherwood's facilities and equipment in return for their hospitality. When one villager reports that some children haven't returned from outside the village walls, Curian even helps the Border Guards look for them and fight off C.O.s against the advice of the other guardsmen; he manages to rescue the children but ends up being hospitalized again after running out of bullets and charging a C.O. head-on.

Ella reexamines Curian's wounds and questions his actual nature— if he really is who he thinks he is, then Curian, as a high-grade Counter, should've either fully healed from his wounds by now or turned into a Shadow. Ella postulates Curian may have simply lost his Counter powers upon losing all his CRF, a phenomenon that has never been observed before.

Later, the rescued children come to Curian and Ella and tell them about a dimensional ship they found while they were outside the village. As the Armored Horse is out of power, Ella suggests they could salvage the generator of the ship to power the horse back up again. She also tells Curian that she wants him to join the Southern Border Guards after the search is over, and Curian agrees.

Soon after the generator is retrieved and the horse is powered, the Border Guards report that a Category 2 C.O. is approaching the border, and Curian and Ella hurry to their location. Although the C.O. is killed, several more of them begin digging underground and try to penetrate the buried portions of the Sherwood castle's walls. Using the Ironshot Cannon, Watt is able to lure the C.O.s out of the ground and allow the rest of the guards to kill them. The battle is won, but Curian passes out.

Curian is taken back to the hospital a third time, where Ella diagnoses him with Corruption Syndrome. Curian feels despondent since he doesn't think he will be able to find the Relic and restore his honor, but Ella assures him she'll keep treating him until he does. Moreover, she appoints him as the Commander of the Southern Border Guards as she assesses that he has better leadership skills than her.

### Act 2

A year passes, and Sherwood sees a greater harvest of potatoes than before thanks to Curian's newly-built humidifier. As a result, the quality of life in the village significantly improves as the villagers now have more to eat and even sell. Still, Ella remains cautious about Sherwood's situation and even reprimands Curian and Peter (now a Border guard as well) for using surplus potatoes to make ale.

One day, the Southern Border Guards receive a visit from Vivian Rashford, the technician officer of the National Reconstruction Alliance, accompanied by a Jehuty Biotech researcher named Hanna Anderson. Vivian informs them that Jehuty officers are here to investigate the Corrupted Area outside Sherwood in search of the lost Relic and arrogantly tells them not to intervene in their objective. But during their search in the Corrupted Area, Vivian and Hanna are chased by C.O.s, and Vivian's Corruption ray analyzer is damaged in the process; Curian and Ella, having known that they would need help, arrive alongside the other Border Guards and rescue the two. Curian then requests to accompany Vivian and Hanna on their investigation as he too wants to find the Relic, and Vivian agrees to let him do so. Everyone soon returns to Sherwood as it is becoming too late to continue for the day. Later, Curian takes Vivian to the lost Ship to find replacement parts for her broken analyzer— unfortunately, he passes out inside the ship, forcing Vivian to carry him back to the village hospital. There, Ella determines Curian is suffering from late-stage Corruption Syndrome and suspects he will transform into a C.O. very soon. She gives him an intravenous inhibitor in case he feels his life is in danger.

After finishing her suppertime meal at the cafeteria, Vivian informs Ella that the investigation will resume tomorrow at dawn and questions her if she really thinks Curian is really the missing traitor. Ella states their is no way to definitively prove that he is since Gerard Curian's records have been erased and his face has never been publicly revealed. After Ella leaves, Vivian is reminded of how she chose to become the Chief Technician in order to exonerate the Rashford family from her father's involvement in a scandal.

Three days later, the search for the Relic is ongoing. The investigation team establishes a observation network at Deer Root and look for any possible artifacts in the area, but the search is practically fruitless as no one knows what the Relic looks like (its shape and form of the Relic was never revealed to prevent it from being stolen; only the Musketeer Division's commander was permitted to actually see it). However, Peter and Watt stumble upon the corpses of the 1st Musketeer Division, and the analyzer detects a corruption ray signature emitting from the pile of bodies. Hanna picks up what appears to be the Relic, though Vivian finds it strange that whoever killed the Musketeers over the artifact would just leave it behind. Suddenly, a Tyrant Sword ambushes the investigation team. As they are fleeing, Hanna privately tells Vivian that she noticed that the Musketeers appear to have been shot rather than mauled by C.O.s and suspects a traitor is among their group. While everyone else retreats Curian and Ella lure the C.O. away to a closed-off mine while Watt steers a bomb-filled train and uses it to strike and bury the C.O. into the mine— all three survive. With the supposed Relic in their hands, the investigation team returns home and celebrates with a large banquet. Meanwhile, Hanna leaves to go to her room so she can examine and safeguard the Relic.

Curian heads off to the workshop to fix his gun and is followed by a slightly inebriated Vivian. He gives her back her pendant, a device Vivian had been using to ward off C.O.s (she had dropped it earlier in the battle), after upgrading it to amplify the effect's radius by a hundred meters. Vivian then asks him if he can remember how the corpses of the Musketeers could have ended up the way they were, but Curian says he can't remember. However, he recalls stabbing his own adjutant and starts to wonder if he truly betrayed his own unit. Vivan assures him she does not see him as someone who would hold his own men in contempt and vows to uncover the truth behind the massacre. She also invites him to the capital city where he can find a way to treat his Corruption Syndrome, but Curian politely declines. Vivian continues drinking with Curian until she becomes fully drunk and goes on a rant about how she has been how her father, David Rashford, had ruined her family's honor just because Curian (his superior) was branded a traitor. She soon passes out, and Ella comes in and takes her to her room.

On the way, Vivian wakes up and receives a phone call from Dean Connor, President of Jehuty Biotech. Dean reports that Hanna Anderson was found dead at a beach, shot and killed likely on the day she was deployed for the investigation, earlier this morning and cautions her that a possible saboteur is within in her team. Confused, Vivian rushes to Hanna's room and confronts the person who has been claiming to her partner the entire time. The woman, now out of her suit, is revealed to apparently be the Shadow who killed the Musketeers twenty years ago, though she continues to maintain her identity as "Hanna." Hanna's imposter not only reveals that the artifact is not the Relic but a pair of musical cymbals but also that she knows where the real Curian, who is still holding onto the real Relic, is buried. She proceeds to play the cymbals and causes the Royal guardsmen outside to hallucinate and slaughter each other. Ella hastily barges in and fights Hanna but is incapacitated by her. Curian also arrives with Hermit and rescues Vivian and Ella before they are killed, but Hanna's imposter quickly catches up to them and surrounds them with C.O.s. To stall her, Curian shoots her with a signal light, allowing unaffected guardsmen to fire their cannons on the Shadow. With Ella down, Curian tells Vivian that their current plan is to rescue and evacuate as many civilians as they can.

### Act 3

Chief O'Neill and a group of survivors are hiding in an undisclosed location when Curian and the guardsmen arrive to evacuate them. C.O.s soon appear and flank the villagers, but fortunately Ella recovers and joins the guardsmen and fight the creatures. Vivian and the evacuees but are followed by Hanna's imposter." O'Neill attempts to shoot her, but the Shadow apparently redirects the bullet towards Vivian (however, O'Neill later admitted that he in fact deliberately target the officer)— Curian just barely arrives and takes the bullet instead, getting himself mortally wounded as a result. Looking over his body, Hanna's imposter claimed the real Curian buried the Relic right before he died alongside an elite member of Elysium that he was fighting with. Curiously, when she finally decides to discard Hanna's name, the Shadow quickly realizes she cannot remember her own. She is forced to retreat when the other guardsmen find and attack her.

Ella, Peter and Watt approach Curian's body and mourn their commander, but Ella believes there may be a way to revive him. As it turns out, Ella and Peter found some kind of weapon lodged into Curian's chest when they first treated him on the day of his arrival but did not remove it out of fear that doing so would kill him. Ella speculates that the weapon may be the real Relic, having been jabbed into Curian's body by the real Curian twenty years ago, and could bring their commander back to life if powered. Vivian, Peter and Watt take Curian to the hospital while Ella and a few some guardsmen go back to Deer Root, where they believe Hanna's imposter is running off to. At the hospital, Peter and Watt link the device in Curian's chest with a generator and try to charge it up to no avail. Vivian pronounces Curian dead, and they all leave to meet up with Ella.

A flashback scene shows that Gerard Curian indeed stabbed his adjutant with the Relic and sent him away with Hermit before resuming his fight against Medius, implying that the man who believed himself to be Curian is in fact David Rashford. Back in the present, the Relic inside "Curian" suddenly reactivates and resurrects him.

Hanna's imposter makes it back to Deer Root where the dead Musketeers were discovered and appears remorseful for her actions. However, she is soon fully possessed by Medius, the Elysium member who was responsible for the massacre of the Musketeers; Hanna's imposter evidently turned out to be an undercover operative of the Brothers Abandoned whose body gradually fell under control of Medius after she first used the cymbals at Sherwood. Ella and some guardsmen find Medius and battle her, but the Shadow easily overpowers them. Watt comes to Ella's aid with reinforcements and ambush Medius, and Chief O'Neill sacrifices himself to lure her into a bomb trap— none of their attacks are able to deal any lasting damage to her.

Medius attempts to execute Ella when the Tyrant from before awakens and begins attacking her. Medius realizes the C.O. is the Shadow of the real Gerard Curian, quickly puts it under her control and forces it to attack the Royal Guards instead. Vivian shows up and uses her upgraded pendant to distract Shadow Curian, and Peter brings in additional reinforcements to battle the C.O.s. To everyone's shock, a revitalized Curian also rushes into battle with Hermit and, together with his men, destroys Shadow Curian. Bewildered and desperate, Medius attempts to use her cymbals to inflict confusion on everyone, but the Relic in Curian's heart completely nullifies its power. As her body destabilizes, Medius then transforms into a huge Corrupted monster but is ultimately killed by Curian and the Royal Guards.

Days after the battle, Vivian returns to the capital to gives the Minister a report on not just the events that unfolded in Sherwood but also on Jehuty Biotech's human experiments. She also cautions that the Brothers Abandon poses a threat to Nordnavik and believes that the group is likely weaponizing C.O.s. For their efforts, the Minister says he will reward Southern Border Guards and give Vivian the position of Chief Technician, but Vivian states she is no longer interested in receiving a promotion— instead, she wants to be the Technical Instructor for the Southern Border Guards.

Meanwhile, the guardsmen are repairing Sherwood's destroyed buildings and adding onto the village's infrastructure while Curian, now officially their captain, comes back from deer-hunting. Vivian returns to Sherwood and informs Ella that she will be the First Commander of the new Musketeer Division, which the National Reconstruction Alliance recently reestablished to honor Nordnavik's golden age. Later, Curian gives Vivian her pendant back again, which he had swiped and repaired to its original form earlier.

## Stages

* Act 1
* Act 2
* Act 3
* Hard

Although the power can be borrowed through standardized rituals, it has been observed that if used for an extended period of time, the residual consciousness within can into the user.