Perfection.
His cold steel hands gripped my jaw tightly. I felt the electricity pulsing through his mechanical veins in a rhythmic fashion. He turned my head from side to side, the glowing orange holes where his eyes should’ve been traced the open wounds on my face, as if looking for something beneath my flesh. The dark grey steel that made up the majority of his armor reflected the shattered remains of the laboratory we were in. A low electric hum filled the silence.
“Do you know why you disgust me?” His disembodied, throaty voice reverberated through my bones.
I couldn’t clear the lump in my throat to answer his question. I’m not sure I had an answer to it anyways.
He squeezed at the joining of my top and bottom jaw. My teeth began to crack under the pressure, and I failed to stifle a yelp.
“You’re weak.” His grip tightened more than I originally thought possible. I felt a strange pressure building behind my eyes and my sight began to fade to white. “You’re kind has no place in the world I create. This outer layer of flesh is soft, and imperfect. Your inners are prone to disease. You’re a fragile piece of flawed machinery. Imperfect; disgusting.”
He released my jaw from his vice-like grip, and my vision slowly returned to normal. I attempted to fall forward, but my arms were still chained to those damn machines that refuse to bend or break to give me comfort. He turned his back to me and stared out to the broken industrial complex we called home.
“Viktor, you have to stop this!” I pleaded. “You remember me, right?”
The Machinist turned to look at me. No emotion visible through the metal mask. It was a long moment of silence before he turned back to face the world outside. It was no use, my friend was gone, and the machine that stood before me was the last trace of him. I might as well of been begging sympathy from that fucking steam golem he had sitting in the corner.
“Of course I remember you. Number three seventy-three, human of Zaunite origin, attended Zaun Academy, we were…” He hesitated for a moment. “friends.”
“Yes, we are friends. I want to help you.” I saw a small flicker from behind his orange gaze. “Do you remember the day you left for Piltover?”
The orange glow radiating from his eyes dimmed to a flickering amber.
“Of course I remember.” He hesitated, his mechanical hand tightened into a fist. “Day 7132, age 19, I was invited to Piltover. Professor Stanwick.”
“Yes! Professor Stanwick took incredible notice in you. I’m so glad you remember I thought you lost-. “ I was interrupted by a mechanical roar erupting from within Viktor.
“You didn’t speak up!” He began to rush towards me, the metallic scrape of his joints as he grew faster were drowned out by the hum radiating from within his chest. “You knew he was my project. You knew he was my golem. You didn’t want me to get the credit. You wanted to kiss Professor Stanwick’s Ass!”
The small crevices between each metal plate pulsed bright red with power. As he got closer I could feel the heatwaves sourcing from his shell. He raised his fist, and my vision blurs. I remember feeling a warm fluid dripping down from the top of my head, clouding my eyes in a red haze. I vaguely remember the sound of metal colliding with metal, and before my eyes closed, I saw Viktor grasping wildly at his mask, screeching in what might have been… Pain?