1 The Despair of a Certain Piece of Scrap Metal

"Oh, hey it's that disgusting scrap metal again!"

"Pfft"

These are the remarks given by my schoolmates every time I enter homeroom. Not that I blame them, I mean, my father technically made me out of the stuff he could get from the landfill right across from our house. As I walked into the classroom, someone raised his leg causing me to trip and fall.

"Pfft! As expected of a loser!"

"Diaosi! Diaosi! Diaosi!"

I tried to stand up but I realized my leg caved in.

"Sigh."

I pumped my leg full of steam for a while before it finally returned normal again.

"I wasted a few grams of coal again, I wonder if my dad is going to scold me."

"Get seated everyone!"

At that moment, a shiny looking gold mechanical unit entered the room.

"Wow, Chen-laoshi renewed his metal plates again!"

"Not only that, but he's upgraded his engine to an oil burner engine!"

"So envious! I'll definitely ask my dad to upgrade me once we get back home!"

"Quiet down, quiet down!" Chen-laoshi shouted, obviously looking satisfied. "As you can see from my attire, I have recently upgraded from the Foundation Establishment stage to the Core Formation stage."

"Hoooohh!" The kids gasped in admiration.

"As you all may know already, unlike physical human beings, our bodies are without a soul. Therefore, to create our soul, we would need to go through a change in our hearts – our "engines" – in order to understand the universe as sentient beings.

The Steam Condensation Stage is where our heart condenses the steam in our bodies into liquid form.

The Foundation Establishment Stage is to refine our liquefied steam back into coal, turning us mechanical units self-sufficient.

The Core Foundation Stage is to refine the coal in our hearts into a higher form, such as iron, silver, gold or platinum.

Through our psychological enlightenment and further refinement, we can turn these higher form metals into the philosopher's stone, a stone that can grant us life!"

The kids in the classroom all started cheering, except for myself. I gloomily stared outside the window, looking at the multi-colored skyscrapers sprawling through the city. There are many chimneys protruding through these skyscrapers, painting the whole sky grey. Occasionally, an airship would fly by, parking onto the skyscrapers' top floor, unloading the wealthy passengers as they continue on their day.

"A person like me being put together with only scrap metals has barely enough strength to pump steam into my own body, I won't even have enough steam left to liquify!" I thought despairingly.

"Remember, to liquify your hearts, you must…" As the teacher started blabbering on, I started daydreaming to get away from my pain. Sometimes I wonder what the point of living is. But then I pictured my father's smile as he used a towel to wipe my whole body from stains, and delicately put grams of coal one by one into my heart to let me relish the "food". Even though Father spent almost all of his money just to get that coal and left nothing left for himself.

As I spent more time reminiscing about the past, the school bell rang, signalling that it's lunch time.

"Okay, class remember what I taught you today since it's going to be in the test next week!" The shiny teacher smirked before leaving.

"Oh sh*t!" I cursed. "You should have said that sooner."

I sighed. I reached down towards my compartment located in my stomach and opened it. Reaching in, I grabbed a small container. The container should be my coal supply for the day. I opened the container and looked inside.

"What is this?"

Different from all of the previous days' lunch containers I ever had, the container is currently only filled with a drop of black liquid and a note. I gasped.

"Is that what I think it is?"

I looked around, making sure no one was looking at me, before taking out the note and closing the container, leaving it in my stomach. I closed my stomach and immediately headed out of the classroom. I ran down the hallway and down the stairs – as fast as I could without breathing out too much steam. I stopped on the side of the staircase and looked at the note.

"Hello my son, I'm sorry I couldn't get anything for you during your birthday, but I got you this instead! It's the crudest oil you can find in the market, but it's betting than nothing I guess. Anyways, happy late birthday! ~ Father."

I started getting really emotional and tried my hardest to keep my steam tears within my glass eyes, since releasing more steam means burning more coal. After I calmed down, I thought, "Phew, it's lucky I didn't reveal the container to anyone in the classroom, or else they would've stolen this from me!"

I immediately opened my stomach, grabbed the container and was about to pour the drop of oil into my heart but suddenly –

"Ooh, look what we have here!"

Someone grabbed my hand really hard, crushing the metal, causing the container to drop. Another person came in and took the container before it falls to the ground.

"Wh-What are you doing!"

"That's what I wanna say to you, you d*ckhead!"

I turned around and stared wide-eyed. It was Li Tianming, the bully who tripped me this morning. Even though he's a few steps below me, he still looked like a giant in my eyes due to being 190cm tall. His gigantic bronze body tiled over me as he grabbed my hands even tighter.

"Stop it, my hand is going to break!"

"Open the container." Ignoring my screams, Li Tianming directed his lackey. After opening it, he grabbed the container and took a look inside.

"Oh, not bad! I didn't expect to see oil from a rags-deep broken piece of scrap metal."

"Give it back!" I used my other hand and tried to get the container, but my arms are way too short.

"How funny. Did you think you scrap could counter my titanium alloy-made copper coated arm?"

He raised the container up high, opened his mouth. The drop of oil fell onto his throat.

"Urgh, what a low-quality oil, even the smell of human poop is better than this." He rasped, obviously looking disgusted.

"Rahh!" I tried to writhe myself out of Li Tianming's control. "How dare you, you environment-reducing, trash-generating piece of junk! Even my dad's ass can make a better mechanical unit than you!"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY!" Li Tianming cried out in raged. He dropped me to the ground and started kicking me. His lackeys followed him.

I tried to shield myself, but since one of my hands are already broken, I was helpless against them.

"What are you guys doing?!" Suddenly, a female voice came from the bottom of the staircase.

"Oh sh*t! It's Ms. Tian! Run!" Li Tianming and his lackey started running up the stairs.

"Wait a minute!" Ms. Tian tried to chase them but seeing my completely bruised body, she decided that sending me to the infirmary was more important.

"Urrgh!" I moaned as Ms. Tian carried me to the infirmary.

"We're almost there! Just hold on for another second!"

When we arrived at the infirmary, Ms. Tian immediately put me in the repairing pod and started pumping the steam, pouring a lot of coal into the machine.

"Wait a minute, how much is that going to co-?!" I whimpered but failed to end my sentence.

"You don't have time to think about that right now!"

The gears of the repairing pod started moving and these metal needles started poking into my acupuncture points, revitalizing the steam in my bruised areas, causing my body to return to its original shape. I could not bare the pain and passed out before I could protest.

When the gears in my eyes started moving, it was already afternoon. "Wake up, sunshine." A soothing voice came into my ears.

I groaned as I moved my stiff body out of the repairing pod. "What time is it."

"I'm afraid school ended already. It's already 4PM."

I looked towards the person who spoke to me. Ms. Tian – with her iron-plated body, a small-sized breastplate and wide glass retina and shiny pupils – smiled at me sweetly.

Suddenly, I realized the amount of trouble I'm in. "Ms. Tian, how much is my repair going to cost?" I almost yelped at her.

"Don't worry, I'll cover the costs." Ms. Tian slowly replied in an elegant voice.

"But-"

"No buts, everyone in the school knows of your family situation."

I tried to reject Ms. Tian's offer, but after looking at her smile, I trembled and bowed deeply.

"Thank you very much Ms. Tian, I don't know how I'm ever going to repay you!"

"Oh, you don't need to repay me. However, there's something I want to request of you."

"Please feel free to request whatever you want, Ms. Tian!"

"You should smile more."

I instantly stood up and stared at Ms. Tian wide-eyed. Ms. Tian walked over and put her hands on my shoulders. She turned me around and moved me towards a nearby mirror.

"Look at you, you may not have premium titanium-alloyed armor, gold-plated faces or oil burner engines, but you've got to admit, nobody looks as unique as you! I think such a style suits you much better than the other kids in your class."

I looked at myself in the mirror. My face is plated copper on my left, iron on my right, looking just like B*ack J*ck, a character from a manga my father showed me. My whole body is filled with patches of different metals, and lastly, my whole legs are made of solid iron. I stared at myself with my transparent glass retina and ruby irises. "Thank you, Ms. Tian… Thank you." My eyes started releasing steam while my mouth curved upwards as widely as possible.

Ms. Tian smiled back, "Good. Now run along home. Oh and don't worry about Li Tianming or the others, I've already told the principal about this incident and they won't be back for a few days. So your life will get easier now, Dior."

I walked to the nearest station and piggy-backed on the locomotive train, avoiding the conductor and inspector. I climbed to the roof of the train. As the train started moving, with the wind blowing against my body, I started nodding off.