Franklin's Game

For the emponymous fourth light novel, please see: Light Novel Volume 4

**Franklin's Game** was a terrorist attack perpetrated by Mr. Franklin on the city of Gideon.

## Background

After the First Knight-Machine War, opinions within the Dryfe Imperium were split on how to continue the annexation of the Kingdom of Altar. The Prime Minister's faction, in lieu of the great economic burden the war placed on the country's coffers advocated for a series of small scale attacks that would force the Kingdom into a position to be annexed, while the Field Marshal's faction agitated for a continuation of hostilities. The Imperator decided to go ahead with the Prime Minister's plan while simultaneously preparing to resume the war.

## Before the incident

Shortly before the attack, Franklin planned to assasinate Liliana Grandria, as a way to reduce the morale of the AETL Union, one of the clans that participated heavily in the war, and prevent the possible involvement of Granvaloa in the future. However, this assisination attempt was foiled by Ray Starling and Shu Starling, causing Franklin to decide to mix revenge against Ray into his plan.

## During the incident

Just after the conclusion of the battle between Figaro and Xunyu, Franklin revealed himself, having adjusted the setting of the barrier to freeze time to immobilize the pair. Franklin then proceeded to kidnap the second princess Elizabeth S. Altar while leaving a taunting message for the Masters in the colosseum, deliberately sealing the stronger Masters inside with the barrier and threatening them with the release of thousands of monsters within the city should they break the barrier whilst leaving a loophole for Masters under level 50 to leave as part of his plan to destroy the Kingdom's morale.

A group of such Masters including Ray, Rook Holmes, Kasumi, Io and Fujinon did so, fighting a group of Altarian Masters turned traitor and Franklin's handpicked Masters from the Triangle of Wisdom, aided by other Masters who was not in the stadium during the match, and Marie Adler, who made use of her stealth skills to escape the stadium and rescue Elizabeth, only to have her recaptured by Franklin.

Ray, who had previously received a hint from Hugo Lesseps, proceeded to follow the Royal Guard, where he found them fighting the Ray Starling Killer, a Pure Dragon class monster designed to kill him specifically. Ray defeated the beast, and when Franklin decided to release the monsters hidden in the city, he discovered that they had been neutralized by Marie.

Franklin then moved to the next stage of his plan, releasing 50,000 monsters from his Embryo, Pandemonium, to destroy the city. The Masters present on the scene, including those sealed in the barrier and by Cocytus, Hugo's Embryo attempted to stem the initial tide and were successful for a short time, only to be pushed back by one of Franklin's unique monsters, the Dino-Earth Giga Phalanx. At this time Shu appeared, and after revealing his identity as the mysterious King of Destruction, began destroying all of the monsters, first in close combat and then with his Embryo, Baldr. At this point Frankin, realizing his plan was doomed to failure, tried to used his final plan, the Nuclear Drag Worm hidden below the stadium beforehand, to destroy the city, only to be stopped by Fatoum, a Superior from Caldina who had been spectating and then killed by Xunyu's ultimate skill.

Ray took this opportunity to confront Franklin, who had been concealing himself on Pandemonium personally. While he did that, Marie took the chance to retrieve Elizabeth, allowing Baldr to begin bombarding Pandemonium itself. After dispatching Hugo, who had shown up to protect Franklin, Ray killed Franklin. Soon after, the Masters completely eliminated the monsters released by Pandemonium, bringing the incident to a complete close.

## Aftermath

Although the incident had been devised to destroy the Kingdom's faith in its Masters via televising the events to the captial city, Ray's defeat of the RSK and Shu's display of power served to do the exact opposite, bringing hope to the country's citizens. Most notably, Ray's display served to change the mind of the first princess, Altimia A. Altar from her previous stance against Masters.

Ray's defeat of Franklin caused the mad scientist to continue his vendetta against him, including surveilling Ray and developing weapons such as the Mechanic God Dylan to use against him.