Ironworks

* Default/Mark IV
* Mark I
* Mark II
* Mark III

## Inspirations

### Music allusions

Paint It, Black (Rolling Stones)Mr. Roboto (Styx)Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson)Iron Hand (Dire Straits)

## Appearances

### Debut

Episode 1: The Chain!

**The Ironworks** is a sentient robot fueled by Nightmare Fuel. He’s a towering, metal behemoth made by Dr. Styx to collect Monsters and crypts for his own gain, but has gained his own free will due to the very source of fuel that powers him.

## Appearance:

Ironworks is a large, tall and humanoid automaton. There have been many variations to his design but the constants to his incarnations have been his head which has no mouth, usually one eye, a brain case that’s reinforced with metal braces with bolts, broad, sphere shoulders with a sharp metal plates, thin and slender legs, huge metal arms connected to red, muscle like upper arms, and giant coils connected to the upper chest to his lower back, and long back hair. In his Mark IV form, he has a much more demonic appearance, now with two yellow eyes, black, thin but sharp horns, his hands are now pure nightmare fuel and claw like.

## Personality:

Before his A.I. began developing and mutating due to the Nightmare Fuel, he was subservient and loyal to Dr. Styx. When his A.I. began to evolve through its programming and the nightmare fuel transforming his body, he began to become more sardonic, aggressive, cold hearted as well as having a penchant for back talking his superiors. His speech pattern throughout it all though has been odd, having a sort of text to speech pattern to it as he describes what his emotion is at the end, the punctuation used, etc. He’s observant, as his programming designed him to be, but it’s allowed him to analyze and study any subject quickly and create a profile of them in mere seconds.

## History:

### Past:

Created by Dr. Styx as a retrieval unit, he was designed with a learning A.I. that was designed to observe, and learn from previous mistakes and encounters with any opponent to aid it in future missions and captures, as well as being powered by Nightmare Fuel. Starting off, he had no prior weapons besides its giant hands, strength and speed. After it was complete, it made successful captures of crypts like Barry, Toma’s father, and soon found Ben and Fleetwood, taking them to Horror Show.

### Heart of Gold:

When Ben and his grandfather tried to escape, Ironworks was sent in to subdue. The newly augmented Ben was able to stand against him, but only briefly. Fleetwood managed to distract the beast, allowing himself to be captured by the metal monster. Presumably, Ironworks was thought to have been killed along with Styx by the explosion Fleetwood detonated. However, the three survived, with Styx creating a new body for the metal beast. After some time, Ironworks resurfaced, coming to observe the fight between Ben and Barry. When Barry lost, Ironworks intervened and took him back, using an escape smoke and tranquilizers to detain Barry before he tried anything.

## Abilities and Skills:

### Learning AI:

Due to his programming, Ironworks can quickly learn about an opponent’s fighting style and abilities and create a profile about them to counteract them.

### Metal Skeleton:

Ironworks is built to be able to go toe to toe with powerful and dangerous crypts. As such, he was designed with an actual skeleton made of metal, and his overall body was made to be resilient against most physical trauma and attacks, as well as incredible strength.

### Nightmare Fuel:

A more recent discovery, Ironworks has learned how to manifest and control the “blood” of his body for various attacks.

* **Devil Pike:** Ironworks creates a spike of nightmare fuel, and can elongate and shoot it out.
* **Nightmare Cannon:** Fires a blast of Nightmare Fuel like an energy beam from his mouth,
* **Dark Luster Buster:** It was never fired, but this was a revolver he formed, mocking the Iron Ranger when he started a duel between the two.

## Trivia:

* Ironworks at one point was a cyborg like Ben in earlier concepts, as his human appearance was later used for Barry’s design.
* Ironworks’ "cyclops" designs from Mark I-III were based off the cyclops from Castle Crasher.
* He is based off of Grendel from the poem Beowulf, and serves as a complete contrast to Ben.
* In earlier concepts of his designs when he would take the “Grendel” appearance had him starting off as more lanky and skinny, almost comical in design to make him seem not like an immediate threat.
* According to Monsoon, vampires had attempted to make something like Ironworks in WWII, but tests failed as at most they were drones that couldn't do much. Due to the supernatural nature of the vampiric blood, Ironwork's artificial intelligence placed inside his head case transformed into a brain of sorts and continues to evolve.
* The song Paint It, Black inspired both him and Styx’s corruption and transformation due to their use of Nightmare Fuel.