ER02 Cinder Burns
| ← 19 A New Divide | 20 Across the Ruined Sea → |
ER02 Cinder Burns
In an underground tunnel, Noan wakes up with no recollection of who he is. He wanders out into the city and encounters a team of Babylonian Constructs. He learns that he is also a Construct but remains clueless on his origins and identity. The Babylonians invite him to join them at their temporary base.
Upon arrival, a support Construct runs a check-up on him. She tells him that he is experiencing the aftereffects of a M.I.N.D. deviation and it is likely the cause for his memory loss. Several hours pass before the arrival of unexpected visitors, among them the Commandant needing medical attention. Seeing a first-aid kit jogs the nameless Construct’s mind—he remembers reading a book on surgery and treating others.
Hoping to remember even more, he offers to patch up the Commandant. Thankful for his treatment, the Commandant gives him a pen and some paper before leaving. The tools are familiar to him and he discovers a strong penchant for drawing. While pondering the whereabouts of his artwork, memories of his childhood resurface.
Despite Noan’s protests, his mother rips apart every last page of his art, stressing that drawing will not bring food to the table. Rather, Rachel—the head of the lower level’s Cargo Crew—will be arriving tomorrow to give the boy a “real taste of the world.”
Since birth, he has never seen his mother without her mask. He heard she began wearing the mask after a riot involving his father’s death, and that this very riot was the reason why they were now stuck on the lower level of Asslam. He knows nothing of her job as well—only that it kept them alive and drew the scorn of those around them.
The following day, he meets with Rachel who sends him to the ventilation duct for a “job.” He climbs into the duct and finds a storage of books. Enamored, he consumes book after book before Rachel’s knocks rein him back into reality. For two years, he repeats the same routine until one night the knock never comes. He returns home to find Rachel and his mother deep in conversation, discussing some sort of plan to change the status quo.
As the memory fades, Noan accompanies a Construct girl named Lillian to another medical center for better treatment. There, he witnesses a Construct explode in frustration and anger at the loss of his teammate. She had been escorting the Forsaken on a train that collapsed. The Construct’s outburst triggers another flashback, in which he remembers how the aristocrats’ policy resulted in poverty and helplessness that plagued the lower class of Asslam.
The memory ends and he reawakens in the treatment center. The technician tells him that someone has tampered with his M.I.N.D and it is a miracle that his memory data still remains intact. As he prepares to depart, an unfamiliar purple-haired girl begs him not to leave. Concerned by her unusual display of fear and the scars on her body, he decides to stay.
He overhears a conversation between several refugees. One of them brings up the name Rachel, sharing how she believed that Rachel would lead them all to a revolution someday. Unfortunately, she died getting double-crossed before the revolution could happen. The refugees blame it on a “little bastard” named Noan—at the sound of the name, his missing memories fall into place.
One day, the guards take Julie away under suspicion of tampering financial reports. Noan asks around until he finds his mother confined in a small storage place surrounded by guards.
Noan confronts his mother about her refusal to share her past. She affirms the accusations that Noan raises, claiming that everything she has done was for a better tomorrow. Noan asks if she really cared about him. For the first time in his life, Noan hears his mother apologize. She removes her mask, revealing a face full of scars. The scars are her punishment for the mistakes she made. She had put on the mask to protect Noan, but it ended up hurting him instead. Expressing a deep regret for bringing Noan into the hellhole they lived in, she urges him to grow up like “Shrek” in the book series and live happily ever after.
The guards drag Noan back to the lower levels of the train where they announce his mother’s death the same night.
Rachel takes on Noan as her apprentice, teaching him to protect himself in the hopes of freeing everyone from the oppression. One evening, Noan sees a group of high-level guards beating a defenseless, young boy. Infuriated, he chases the perpetrator away. Introducing himself as Field, the boy thanks Noan and they become fast friends.
After witnessing Noan’s bravery, the members of the Cargo Crew begin to accept him as one of their own. They tell him to stay away from Field—that his father Bancroft is a scum who snitches on others to save his own skin. Noan refuses to heed their words, drawing parallels between Field and himself.
Two months fly by. Bancroft works day and night to recover the goods his team lost, but his team blunders no matter what he does. Noan offers to help, but Field rejects him and vanishes the following night. He leaves behind a half-finished firefly toy and a notebook.
With the help of the Cargo Crew, Noan searches all over the train for the missing boy. Bancroft returns from his mission and realizes Field snuck his way into the recovered goods to identify who had been stealing them. Bancroft immediately departs to find his son, and Noan never sees either of them again.
Noan regains consciousness in the present. Another fight is happening—the angry Construct from before is threatening to defect and become an Ascendant. It is then that Noan remembers his own experience with the Ascendants. After being thrown off Asslam while escaping from the Unidentified Twins, he was turned into an Ascendant by someone under Vonnegut. Disagreeing with his creator’s actions, he rejected the offer to work together.
A wave of the Corrupted closes in on the Medical Center. As the concentration of the Punishing Virus rises higher, Noan offers to leave and bring back reinforcements. He makes his way through the city, saving other Constructs along the way. While defending one Construct, he discovers he has the power to command the Corrupted. Noan volunteers to stay behind while the Constructs aid the Medical Center.
Lithos—the purple-haired girl he met earlier—emerges unexpectedly to bandage his wounds. Through their interactions, Noan realizes Lithos was the Ascendant who turned him into what he is now. Lithos has undergone countless “deaths“ and “rebirths“ in different bodies, with his original gender being male. The Ascendant tells Noan to come with him, but Noan refuses, having yet to remember why he turned down Lithos’s offer the first time. Lithos reveals he has reset Noan’s memories four times now—each time he refused to accept him and lost control of his Ascendant powers. Despite this, Noan still asks Lithos to return his missing memories.
Lithos obliges, and Noan finds himself back in Asslam, sitting before Rachel and asking her why she chose to work with Ashlar. She tells him there was no other way—the Cargo Crew was a mess and she needed the backing of an upper-level aristocrat to help people. The backing came at a price, including the lives of Noan’s mother and father as well as other innocents involved. Now all of the hidden weapons they accumulated will give them the fighting chance they need to free themselves from Ashlar’s control.
The next day, a squad of over thirty upper-level guards charge into their carriage–a traitor leaked Rachel’s plans to the aristocrats. While the Cargo Crew initially fought back, Asslam’s guards crush them with their superior technology. Having been separated in battle, Noan eventually finds Rachel heavily injured and near death. She implores Noan to surrender and bid favor with Ashlar so he can become the new leader of Cargo Crew. This way, he could give them a fighting chance another day. Noan refuses, but Rachel takes his hand and turns the gun on herself.
The guards capture Noan and bring him to trial in an assembly of aristocrats, citizens, and representatives from Babylonia. Noan speaks up against Ashlar—but the aristocrat remains unperturbed, turning Noan’s words against him until he is shot and thrown off the train. Under Princess Jamilah’s orders, Changyu rescues him and takes him to a hidden medical base.
Departing the base, Noan teams up with a Scavenger named Bella, who is trying to locate her missing mother. The pair reach City 075, where Field disappeared years ago. While Bella tracks down her mother, Noan discovers that a tree had sprouted from where Field died. Seeing the tree allows him to move on from his friend’s death and carry on his legacy. He resumes his journey with Bella, who has discovered that her mother passed away in Asslam’s dark corridors.
After Bella’s death from an ambush, Noan joins the Forsaken as a merchant. He continues to help save lives along the way, up until his confrontation with the twins in the outskirts of City 210.
Awakening in the present, Noan rushes back to the medical center to save the people there. Unfortunately, he is too late. Weighed down by the guilt from his failure to save those dear to him, Noan staggers into the forest seeking death and runs into the Commandant instead. The Commandant convinces Noan to come with them to Babylonia, but Lithos reappears and whisks the Construct away to an old lighthouse full of the Corrupted.
Carrying on the hopes and legacy of his departed loved ones, he fights past them and escapes.
Noan arrives just in time to defend the Commandant from a lethal blow. He rejects Lithos and bids farewell to his past one final time. The Ascendant relents and retreats with Vonnegut’s assistance. After assisting the remaining survivors, the Commandant sets course back to Babylonia with an injured Noan in tow. When they ask for his name, he replies with “Noan” instead of “Shrek”—signifying his acceptance of the past.
Noan joins Dark Aries under Commandant Simon. He begins a new life as a fighter for humanity’s future, fostering a friendship with the Commandant and Gray Ravens. Around the same time, Liv also wakes from her slumber, having recovered from the aftermath of using the Empyrea frame.
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