Lux is trembling, her whole body shaking uncontrollably like a leaf caught in the gusts of an autumn gale, teary baby blue eyes staring forward straight into the emotionless face of the woman standing in front of her. The mage wants to wail, shout and cry her lungs out until her voice disappears and her ears start ringing by the frantic sound of her own heart-wrenching voice, but she can't, so she just stands in there too shocked and terrified to even express her despair. The young light mage can only breathe, breathe and stare, her expression one of pain and grief mixed with loss and anguish, her gaze still locked on the augmented version of the person she used to call her friend.

This whole spectacle was wrong, disturbing, boarding on plain insane and yet Fiora just stood there, deaf and blind to the young blonde's peril, examining the scene in front of her with the interest of a marble statue.

"Aaa…"

A broken sound of pain, that was the only sound that finally managed to leave the blonde mage's throat and yet her friend didn't even raise her head in order to discover the source of this choked whisper.

"F-Fiora?"

The mage's anguish finally manages to form words and grace the night air, but for all the good that did the cyborg ignores her only for Luxanna's heart to sink further down her stomach. Human beings weren't supposed to stay still for so long or have such empty, vacant expressions, no, not even Orianna or Blitzcrank the sentient robots constructed in Piltover could actually achieve that level of emotionless self-awareness and yet somehow against all odds the current visage of Fiora was one of complete apathy, a fake expression painted on a soulless doll's face.

Lux's heart aches, her wide blue terrified eyes still darting across the other woman's body, absorbing every tiny grim detail. The swordswoman's completion is pale as if drained of all color, her body stiff and motionless and the light mage can only wonder if the creature currently standing in front of her is even breathing. The duelist's lithe body is encased in iron, cold silver hextech machinery painfully sinking into her nerves and appendages, her once proud gaze now hidden behind a vibrant pink glowing visor.

Lux is now whimpering her expressive sky blue eyes still locked on the thick plastic wires disappearing under her friend's flesh and the tiny and yet just big enough to be visible circuits decorating the duelist's facial features.

That's wrong, inhuman, that creature standing in front of her couldn't possibly be her dear friend, the one she used to spend most of her holidays with and consult about her problems. It just couldn't, and yet the small black letters spelling Project Fiora carefully tattooed onto the woman's left cheek left no doubt of the cyborg's former identity.

Fiora's beautiful dark fringes were now painted a dull disheveled white, her pale blue eyes obscured by the visor now glowing with a malicious pink hue courtesy of the countless nanomachines flooding her bloodstream and judging by the stiff unflinching way the woman stood Lux doubted that the former duelist could even acknowledge her own existence.

The young Demacia light mage had of course heard about the terrible aftereffects of the experimental procedures taking place behind the birth of the esteemed Projects. Memory loss, night terrors, apathy, complete erasure of one's own identity, and all that was of course just the tip of the iceberg, but none of Luxanna's finds, not the few scoops she had managed to uncover on her own and certainly nor King Jarvan's reassuring words that Fiora was in good hands could prepare the ingenious light mage for the sight now laying in front of her.

Her friend is gone, wiped out without a trace, never to come back to her, sacrificed for the good of a corrupted nation and a greedy council full of backstabbing sycophants. What currently stood before her wearing her childhood friend's face was nothing more than a robot. Nanites and metal, circuits and dead fresh, machinery and human tissue fused together in order to create the perfect soldier, veins so pumped full of illegal chemicals that glowed and a brain full of encryption software.

What kind of madman would create such a thing and what kind of sane sovereign would permit its usage? To one of their best warriors no less, a political figure and a role model for every aspiring Demacian warrior and future duelist? None, everyone, Jarvan, the answers really didn't matter anymore. Her friend was gone forever.

The blonde mage grits her teeth and clenches her fists, her mournful wet gaze still pinned on the flickering pink visor, but the robot behind it just ignores her and Lux can't help but sigh and try to blink away her tears.

Things weren't supposed to end up this way, the Demacian projects were supposed to be paragons of good, handpicked warriors chosen to ascend into the next level of martial supremacy.

Lux could still remember the Zaunite scientist's calm reassurances, Jarvan's excitement upon finding a potential countermeasure against the infamous crimson elite force of Noxus, a way to safeguard the lives of their people.

Her brother had been skeptic back then and yet no one had really paid attention to him. Garen wasn't a strategist, a scholar or even a particularly bright individual, but a hardened warrior, brave and righteous yes, but incapable of using his head unless that meant headbutting an enemy general into oblivion.

And yet that simple kind man that thought with his sword and wore his heart on his sleeve had been right all along. The Augmentation Project wasn't the answer to end the war but the cause of Runeterra's downfall.

The Projects were supposed to be mighty warriors artificially conditioned to reach their full potential. Faster reflexes, better eyesight, improved reaction times, small but meaningful improvements in their already impressive repertoire, no one had said a word about eyecams and metal plates or cooling fluid at that point. No, those handy additions would come much, much later when Noxus' own Bioforge experiments would eventually come to light.

But unfortunately for Demacia's mightest heroes the citizens would have already become mesmerized by the concept of infallible guardians patrolling the borders by then, demanding their champions' further improvement. Everything just went to hell after that as a repeating circle of events would suddenly spring into action.

Every now and then Noxus would develop a new version of their terrifying Bioforge serum and then the Demacia council would send their mighty guardians into the Zaunite workshops and laboratories, forcing them to abandon even more of their living fresh and humanoid traits in favor of indestructible limbs and iron knuckles whist every time a new Project emerged even more gooey poisonous serum would abruptly end up in some poor unfortunate soldier's veins giving birth to even bigger monstrosities and more importantly more raw and volatile versions of the Noxian super soldier serum, and then the circle would repeat itself.

Fools all of them, Lux didn't know who to blame anymore, the decorated generals and advisors showcasing their prized soldier like caged animals or the mindless mob cheering their leaders' actions, putting their heroes on the pedestals?

It didn't really matter anymore, the whole world had already gone to hell and she and her brother were finally chosen as future participants and volunteers to join the augmentation project.

The blonde light mage can't hold back her tears anymore she hurriedly wraps her arms around the cold metalic frame of her once childhood friend and just busts into tears, muffling her sobs with the android's shoulder, and if Lux were to suddenly look behind the ashen haired Project's visor she would see Fiora's eyebrows furrowing in confusion and a single transparent tear silently slipping from the corner of the tampered woman's white eyelashes.

But the mage didn't and so Lux just kept sobbing into the crook of the cyborg's neck for what felt like an eternity and the light mage didn't even have the mind to scream or try to escape when abruptly the footsteps of the Zaunite scientists suddenly reached the blonde light mage's ears. Shady figures slowly closing in, the maddening smiles on their lips only there to forewarn the world about the birth of a new Project.