STORY TIME WITH COLTIN ^^

Title: The Iron Knight: Rise of the Skull

After Sarah died, the world stopped making sense.

She had been waiting for him outside the café — just a quick meetup before her flight. She never saw it coming. No one did.

The explosion tore through the plaza in downtown San Diego, killing eleven. A statement from a radical terror cell. Names and threats scrawled across their manifesto like some sick ideology wrapped in fire and steel.

Collin watched the footage for days. Over and over. Her final seconds replayed on his phone screen, burning themselves into his mind. The officials offered thoughts and prayers. The terrorists vanished into the cracks.

He stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. His grief turned to something else — cold and sharp.

So he disappeared.

Collin drifted down the coast until he reached Baja California, Mexico. The further he got from people, the less he had to pretend he was still human. The beach where he finally stopped was desolate — cliffs rising like broken teeth behind him, waves gnawing the shore in endless repetition.

On the third night, he heard the voice.

“Boy. You there. Yes, you.”

He froze. Looked around.

“Down here.”

Half-buried near the rocks was a skull — bleached and cracked, the hollow sockets seeming to glow faintly in the moonlight. Its jaw moved, dry and stiff, and the voice rasped like wind through a crypt.

“I am the Skull Knight. Once Sir Caldus of Ashmere. Cursed for centuries to wait until one worthy of vengeance heard my voice.”

The skeleton was fully encased in ancient armor, rusted and shattered in places but still formidable. The crest on the chestplate — a black sword piercing a crescent moon — felt like a symbol carved from forgotten nightmares. The black stone pendant at his throat pulsed faintly, like a dying heartbeat.

“I watched you,” it said. “I felt your rage. The world gave you no justice. But I can teach you how to take it.”

Collin didn’t speak. He just knelt and began digging the Skull Knight free.

For weeks, he trained. The ancient knight taught him blade work, endurance, control — not just of body, but of fury. Rage is a weapon, Caldus said. But only if you sharpen it.

Collin rebuilt himself. Forged a suit of black steel, light but brutal, angular and jagged like his pain. His helm bore no symbol, only darkness. His blade was forged from a broken machete and the iron shards of the Skull Knight’s armor.

He became The Iron Knight.

And as he struck at the shadows of the criminal world — trafficking rings, warlords, rogue mercenaries — he sent a message:

“I am your judgment.”

But all of it was prelude. Training. Preparation.

Because he knew who planted the bomb.

He hunted them across borders, through shell companies and private militias. He gutted their networks piece by piece, leaving calling cards etched in blood and steel. Always one step closer.

And then — he found the leader.

In an abandoned oil platform off the coast of Venezuela, the Iron Knight arrived like a specter.

The footage leaked later was grainy, shaky — captured by one of the guards moments before the lights went out. Screams. The grinding sound of metal. And a single frame, burned into the dark web:

A knight in black armor, visor glowing crimson, standing over the body of the terrorist leader.

But no one ever found the body.

Only a recording.

A voice, distorted and venomous:

“This was never justice. This was wrath. And I am not done.”
The screen cut to black, followed by a symbol:
A sword through a crescent moon — smeared in blood.

 
Back on the beach in Baja, the Skull Knight sits alone in the shadows of the cave.

The fire crackles. The wind howls like it knows what’s coming.

He turns slowly toward a figure in the darkness — not Collin.

Another.

“You heard the voice too,” the Skull Knight says. “Good.”

He chuckles — dry and hollow.

“The world doesn’t know it yet... but the Iron Age has begun.”
To be continued...

Title: The Iron Knight: Curse of the Blood Knight
Part II of the Iron Knight Chronicles

The moon bled red the night Collin met her.

It was supposed to be just another night. Another grim dive bar in Mexico City, tucked between shadows and old churches. He wore a hoodie, hood up, trying to disappear into the cigarette smoke and tequila fumes. But Taliya saw him.

She slid onto the barstool beside him like she belonged there — leather jacket, piercing green eyes, a look that didn’t ask permission. She ordered a drink, then glanced at him sideways.

“You look like a guy who’s either lost everything or about to lose something else,” she said.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t respond. Just stared ahead, broken and tired.

“You want to dance?” she asked, unfazed.

Collin shook his head. “I don’t dance.”

But she took his hand anyway and led him into the dimly lit floor where a slow, haunting song played from an old jukebox. And somehow — for just those few minutes — the armor in his heart cracked.

She made him feel… human again.

They danced. They talked. He didn’t tell her everything — just enough. That he had lost someone. That he had no peace. That he didn’t know how to stop the storm inside him.

And she didn’t push. She just said, “Then stay in the eye of it. Let the storm pass around you.”

The Skull Knight saw the change. He warned Collin.

“Love is not your salvation,” he rasped from the dark. “It is a blade you hand to someone else. And you pray they never turn it against you.”

But Collin didn’t listen.

Then came the Blood Knight.

The ancient warrior emerged from the shadows not as an enemy at first, but as a teacher. The one who knew what it meant to lose everything. The one who had burned in the fire of vengeance for longer than time could remember.

“I was a man once,” he said one night, as he and Collin trained under a crescent moon. “A knight who sought justice after my kingdom was slaughtered. I traded my soul for power… and was cursed to walk the earth, empty. I thought vengeance would fill the void. It didn’t. Only love can.”

Collin listened.

The Blood Knight taught him how to fight smarter. How to read the enemy. How to master his rage instead of letting it consume him. And slowly, a strange bond formed. A brotherhood forged in fire and grief.

But behind the cracked helm and the hollow voice, the Blood Knight was lying.

Taliya became his anchor.

They began seeing each other in secret. She never asked too much, never pushed him to give up the war. But she saw past the Iron Knight. She saw Collin. And he clung to her like a man holding onto a ledge in a rising flood.

She was the reason he began pulling back. The reason he started questioning the path he was on.

And that terrified the Blood Knight.

Because he had seen it before — the love that leads a warrior away from the blade. He couldn’t afford to let Collin walk away. Not when he was so close. Not when Collin's soul was the only key to ending the Blood Knight’s eternal curse.

The betrayal came the night they struck the last terrorist stronghold.

Collin had tracked the final piece of the cell that killed Sarah to an offshore fortress. Taliya begged him not to go alone.

The Blood Knight offered to fight beside him one last time.

“We end it tonight,” Collin said, his voice hard. “No more ghosts. No more nightmares.”

But the moment they reached the heart of the base, the Blood Knight turned.

He struck without warning — drove his blade through Collin’s side, sending him crashing to the ground.

“You were never meant to live, Collin,” the Blood Knight growled, his voice shaking with fury and desperation. “You were meant to die so I could be free.”

Collin gasped, bleeding, vision fading as the Blood Knight loomed over him.

“Your soul... it’s the last spark I need to end my curse. I trained you. I gave you purpose. And now I will take everything from you — like everything was taken from me.”

He would’ve died that night.

But he saw her face.

Taliya. Crying. Screaming his name from the shore. Running toward him through the chaos.

He felt her hand on his chest. Her voice in his ears. Her warmth in the cold.

“Don’t you dare leave me,” she whispered. “Not like this. Not again.”

And something ignited in Collin.

Not rage.

Love.

With his last breath of strength, he rose.

The Iron Knight and the Blood Knight clashed beneath the burning sky, two forces shaped by tragedy. But Collin wasn’t fighting for revenge anymore.

He was fighting for her.

He didn’t win.

But he didn’t lose either.

He drove the Blood Knight into the ocean with a final strike — both of them crashing into the deep. The fortress erupted in flames above. Silence.

Taliya waited for him on the shore.

Hours passed.

Then — from the black waves — a figure emerged, limping, broken… but alive.

Collin collapsed into her arms, bleeding, breathless, shaking.

She held him.

And for the first time in years, he whispered something he thought he’d never say again.

“I’m not empty anymore.”

But somewhere, beneath the ocean...

A black helm sank into the abyss.

And a pair of burning eyes opened in the dark.

"I am not finished."
 
To be continued...

Title: The Iron Knight: Shadows of the Depths Part III of the Iron Knight Chronicles

The ocean never gave back what it took. But sometimes, it left behind something darker.

Collin had survived the betrayal. Barely.

Weeks passed. He and Taliya vanished into the quiet of the mountains, far from the cities and ruins of his past. She helped him heal — not just the wounds torn by the Blood Knight’s blade, but the ones that had been rotting inside him for years.

They danced again. In empty barns. On the roof of old motels. In silence under stars. And sometimes, he even smiled.

But peace is a fragile thing when you wear a mask made of iron.

Far beneath the ocean, a new threat stirred.

The Blood Knight had failed. But the darkness did not die with him.

From the cursed depths of time, another figure emerged — older than legend, forgotten by men, cursed by gods. His name lost to history, but to the few who whispered it in fear, he was called only The Hollow Warden.

Once a king. Then a knight. Then a monster.

He had been cursed to live forever — a walking soul without rest. Before even the Skull Knight had drawn breath, the Hollow Warden had already buried kingdoms.

And now, he had awoken.

He followed the scent of old magic, drawn to the broken pieces of the Blood Knight’s curse. He tracked Collin like a shadow. Not to kill him.

But to take what was left of him.

"I have walked for centuries," the Hollow Warden said to the darkness. "And I will not walk one more step without a soul."

Collin and Taliya didn’t see it coming.

He had let his guard down. He thought the ghosts were behind him. But one night, while they slept in a cabin tucked high in the Sierra Madre, the past came crashing through the walls.

The fight was brutal. Collin, unarmored, fought with nothing but instinct and rage. But the Hollow Warden was different. He didn’t bleed. He didn’t speak. He just hunted.

It was Taliya who saved him — again. Firing from the shadows, dragging him into the woods when he faltered.

They escaped. Barely.

But something had changed.

The Hollow Warden had touched him.

Not with blade, but with ancient magic. And from that moment forward, Collin began to see flashes — visions of long-dead battles, of burning castles, of a throne built from bones. The curse was trying to root in him.

Desperate, Collin turned to the only one who might understand.

The Skull Knight.

He found the skeletal mentor buried once more in the dunes of the Yucatán coast, just as before, armor rusted and bones sun-bleached. But his eye sockets glowed with cold fire when Collin approached.

"You should have left me buried," he rasped.

"I need your help."

"You always do."

The Skull Knight listened. Then cursed in a tongue older than empires.

"You face something worse than death, Iron Knight. The Hollow Warden does not want to kill you. He wants to wear you."

Training began anew.

But it was Taliya who taught him the most.

"You think you're losing yourself again," she said, touching his chest. "But I know what’s in here. You taught me to see it. Now let me teach you to fight for it."

Her love became his shield. Her presence, a fire in the dark.

Together, they hunted the Hollow Warden across ravaged towns, storm-battered coasts, and blood-stained battlegrounds. Each clash left Collin weaker. The Warden was feeding off the curse — growing stronger.

And then, finally, it happened.

Collin fell.

Trapped beneath a crumbling temple in the Andes, struck through by a cursed blade. The Hollow Warden stepped forward to take what he had long been denied — a living soul.

But Collin didn’t beg.

He smiled.

Because Taliya was behind the Warden.

She had come with fire.

The final battle was short, savage, and personal. The Skull Knight arrived with the rising sun, wielding relic blades from lost wars. Taliya fought like a storm.

And Collin, on the brink of death, did the one thing the Warden never expected.

He let go.

He gave up the curse. Poured every piece of it into his sword — and shattered it through the Warden’s chest.

There was a scream that cracked the sky.

And then silence.

When the dust cleared, the Hollow Warden was gone. Nothing remained but a cracked helm and ash.

Collin collapsed, barely breathing.

Taliya held him. Kissed him.

And in that moment, he knew the truth.

He didn’t need vengeance anymore.

He didn’t need armor.

He just needed her.

But far away... in a vault of shadow sealed beneath the earth...

The remnants of the shattered curse stirred.

And a voice whispered:

"There will always be another knight."
 
To be continued...

Title: The Iron Knight: Rise of the Forgotten Blade Part IV of the Iron Knight Chronicles

The morning sun crept through the mist, bathing the cliffside clearing in golden light. Taliya stood barefoot in the grass, a simple training blade in her hands, sweat trailing down her temple. Before her, two ghosts of war watched.

Collin — no longer just the Iron Knight, but a man reforged — moved first.

"Step again. Left foot. Pivot."

Taliya grunted, blade swinging, form sharper than the day before.

Beside him, the Skull Knight stood silent, arms crossed over his rusted armor, cloak dragging in the wind like a banner from a forgotten age.

"Too high," the skeleton rasped. "You’d lose your head against a real knight."

"I’m trying," Taliya snapped, catching her breath.

"Try harder," the Skull Knight replied without venom, simply truth.

She reset her stance.

Weeks had passed since the Hollow Warden was banished. The cursed blade was shattered, its remnants buried beneath layers of magic and steel. But the war wasn’t over.

There was something coming. They all felt it.

So they prepared.

Taliya learned quickly. Her body was strong, her instincts sharp. But more than that — she believed. In Collin. In what he stood for. And in herself.

Each night, as firelight danced across the stone walls of their safehouse, Collin would trace the scars on her arms and smile.

"You’re better than I ever was."

She’d shake her head. "I just have better teachers."

The Skull Knight chuckled once. "The best students know when to surpass their masters."

But peace has a short memory.

A message came from the north — a village razed in the Canadian wilderness. Survivors whispered of a single figure: a knight clad in emerald steel, his eyes burning with silver fire.

They called him The Verdant Blade.

Not a man.

A legend.

Older than even the Hollow Warden.

The Forgotten Blade.

The Skull Knight grew quiet after that.

"I thought him dead," he said one night. "Long before I was bone. He served no kingdom. He served the Balance."

"Balance?" Taliya asked.

"He killed kings who rose too high. He destroyed armies that dared tip the scales. Light or dark, it did not matter to him. Only order did."

Collin frowned. "Why now? Why return?"

The skeleton stared into the fire. "Because you’ve done what none before have done. You broke the curse. And that changed the scales."

They didn’t wait.

The trio headed north, tracing the Forgotten Blade’s trail — a path marked by the ashes of warlords, zealots, and cults. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t just. He was corrective. Ruthless order dressed as judgment.

And he was coming for Collin.

They met in the ruins of a stone monastery hidden in the Rockies.

Snow fell like ash. The trees stood like watchers. And the Verdant Blade emerged from the mist, a towering knight in green steel, his blade humming with ancient energy.

He spoke only once.

"You carry an imbalance in your soul. You must be undone."

Collin stepped forward. "I carry pain. I carry love. That is not imbalance. That is human."

"Then humanity must be corrected."

The fight shattered the mountain air.

Taliya joined the battle, her blade singing beside Collin’s. The Skull Knight circled from the shadows, striking with cold precision.

But the Verdant Blade was too powerful. Each blow he struck echoed with the fury of forgotten ages. Collin faltered. The Skull Knight fell to his knees, armor cracked.

And then — the Verdant Blade turned on Taliya.

She held her ground.

"You want to erase love? You want to kill what makes us human? Then you’ll have to kill me," she snarled.

The knight raised his blade — and in a flash of green light, slashed across her chest.

Taliya dropped to the snow, bleeding, gasping.

"NO!" Collin screamed, throwing himself at her side, catching her before she hit the earth fully.

"Stay with me... please, stay with me..."

His blood-masked hands trembled over the wound, trying to stop the flow. "Don’t leave me. Don’t..."

For the first time in centuries, the Verdant Blade hesitated.

He stared at the scene — the Iron Knight, broken and begging, the woman still trying to smile through agony. He saw not a threat to balance, but something pure. Something he had forgotten.

"This... is love?" he asked, voice like thunder behind a dying storm.

Collin raised his eyes, red with tears. "It’s the only thing worth bleeding for."

The Verdant Blade lowered his weapon.

He stepped forward. Placed a hand over Taliya’s wound. Ancient magic — deep and old as time — flowed into her. Her eyes fluttered. Her breath steadied.

"Then I... misunderstood," he said.

The green light dimmed. The towering knight stepped back.

"I will watch. From afar. Should balance falter again, I will return. But now... I see your side."

And like mist in the rising sun, he vanished.

Taliya healed. Slowly.

Collin never left her side.

The Skull Knight stood vigil. Silent. Watching.

They buried the old fears in the snow. And for a moment — just one — the world was still.

Until the message came.

A blade — old, rusted, etched with the Verdant Blade’s sigil — was driven into the wood of their cabin door. A scroll wrapped around the hilt read:

"The old kings stir in their graves. They rise not for vengeance... but for dominion. An army of the dead marches from beneath the Black Vale. Balance is no longer a matter of choice. It is a war."

Collin looked to Taliya. To the Skull Knight.

There would be no peace. Not yet.

To be continued...

Title: The Iron Knight: Crown of Ashes
Part V of the Iron Knight Chronicles

Snow gave way to ash.

The trio stood before the charred gates of the Black Vale — a place where even the trees bowed in silence, where the wind carried whispers of the damned. Collin, Taliya, and the Skull Knight knew this was no longer a battle of swords and shields. It was war against memory, against kings who ruled death itself.

Taliya’s blade was new — forged from fragments of the Hollow Warden’s core, blessed by the magic of the Verdant Blade. She moved like fire in the dark, her scars now part of her strength. Collin watched her with pride and fear. She had become more than a student. She was hope incarnate.

The Skull Knight walked slower these days, his joints creaking like haunted doors. But his grip was firm, his mind sharp. He muttered old rites under his breath — oaths from a kingdom that hadn’t existed for a thousand years.

They ventured deep into the Vale, where light bent and time stuttered. The moment they crossed the final threshold, a tall figure stepped from the shadows.

The Verdant Blade.

He had returned, not as a judge, but as a guardian — the balance he once protected now stood beside him.

"This war threatens the very essence of choice," he said. "I will fight with you."

The first dead rose with little sound. Specters clad in faded crowns and tattered robes — the Old Kings.

Collin raised his sword. Taliya joined him.

"For the living," she whispered.

They fought with fury. For every king that fell, ten more took its place. But the four carved through them, driven by duty and something deeper — the knowledge that love and choice mattered more than ancient rule.

In the heart of the Vale, a throne of bone stood. Upon it, a figure draped in regal decay: the Last Sovereign. Once the first ruler of men. Now the commander of the dead.

His voice echoed like stone cracking.

"You defy the order we built. The eternal empire."

"I defy chains," Collin answered, stepping forward.

"Even love becomes a leash."

"Then I will wear it proudly."

The throne room trembled as steel was drawn.

The Last Sovereign stepped down from his throne and locked blades with the Verdant Blade — a duel of power, speed, and centuries of mastery. The force of their strikes cracked the black marble beneath them. Sparks lit the air like fireflies in a storm.

Collin and Taliya fought to protect their flanks, battling through wave after wave of undead kings. The Skull Knight was relentless, his eyes glowing with grim fury.

But then — a mistake.

Taliya cried out as one of the Old Kings shattered her guard, and another drove a spectral blade into her side.

She staggered.

"Taliya!" Collin’s voice broke through the chaos. He caught her before she hit the floor, her blood hot against the snow-covered stone.

Her face twisted in pain. "It hurts... Collin..."

"Stay with me. Please. You can't leave. Not again."

Her lips trembled, a tear sliding down her cheek. "You made me believe in tomorrow... don’t let them take it."

Her breathing grew shallow. The world seemed to dim around him.

"Don’t go," he whispered, cradling her. "You’re all I have."

The fighting slowed. Even the Verdant Blade turned, momentarily distracted. The Last Sovereign laughed, dark and cruel.

"This is why we ruled alone. Love is a wound that never stops bleeding."

But then, something unexpected.

The Skull Knight stepped forward, his bones trembling.

"No," he rasped. "Love is why we endure."

He knelt beside Taliya. His eyes — two hollow coals — locked with Collin’s.

"Take my essence. Let her live. Carry me with you."

Before Collin could protest, the Skull Knight placed a skeletal hand over Taliya’s wound.

A pulse of pale blue light surged from his core — ancient, sacrificial magic. His body crumbled, bones turning to ash, save for a single piece:

His skull.

Taliya gasped as life returned to her. Collin caught her in his arms again, his breath shuddering.

Beside them, the Skull Knight’s helm rested quietly.

Collin stood slowly. Took the skull in trembling hands. Placed it upon his head like a crown.

The Iron Knight was reborn — cloaked in grief, armored in loyalty.

The Verdant Blade disengaged from the duel, placing his hand on Collin’s shoulder.

"Then let your pain be your fire."

Together, they turned to face the Last Sovereign.

Collin’s sword — glowing with the essence of both Verdant Blade and Skull Knight — clashed with the Sovereign’s.

The duel was cataclysmic. Fire and soul. Blade and will.

In the end, Collin struck true.

The Last Sovereign crumbled. His crown split. The dead kings wailed and faded. The Vale began to collapse.

Taliya stirred, barely breathing but alive.

Collin knelt beside her, brushing snow from her face. "You’re safe. I promise."

The Verdant Blade faded, duty fulfilled.

They left the Vale behind. Scarred. Changed.

But at peace.

Years passed. They grew older. The Iron Knight laid down his sword. Taliya tended a garden where only ash once bloomed. They laughed often. They loved more. And when the end came, they died holding each other's hands.

But death was cruel.

Taliya's soul, marked by the power once used to save her, was dragged into the depths. Hell took her. Collin’s soul, bearing the mark of sacrifice, was carried to the gates of heaven.

He screamed into eternity.

But the gods heard.

And when he awoke — surrounded by golden clouds and peace — he tore the Skull Knight's helm from his grave, summoned his sword with a cry that shook the firmament, and rode again.

To tear down the walls of heaven.
To challenge the gates of hell.

To bring her back.

To be continued...