"Are you ready, Aegis?"

Bright was bouncing up and down in place as her oversized goggles on her head threatened to fall down over her eyes. She held her hands together over her heart and her face was full of anticipation.

"I - I guess?"

I was lying on a rusty iron metal mesh table, my torso and right arm strapped to the cold metal. Just below me was my bottom half and legs. They were so close I could "feel" them touching. It was a very odd sensation. I could almost pretend I had legs again. I felt like I was in some kind of black and white Frankenstein movie.

And Bright was playing the mad scientist to a tee.

"I still don't see why you have to bind my arms. I'm not a monster." I said dryly.

Clarissa looked down at me with a half-smile. I was reminded of that moment when I first saw her, looking at me, that moment I awoke. I felt a little uneasy.

"I guess that makes you Igor..." I said, carrying the Frankenstein analogy to it's absurd end.

"Igor? Who's Igor?" Clarissa looked around, confused. Her blonde hair whipping around.

"Never mind. I was just reminded of someone I saw in a movie once. " I replied.

Clarissa arched an eyebrow.

"Sometimes you say words, Aegis, but they make no sense."

She paced nervously - holding a device with two large buttons, a glass covered gauge, and a thick wire that led down to the floor and over to a machine that was making a decidedly loud whooomp whooomp sound.

The table I was lying on was at the far end of the bridge that led to the Source, the pillar of light that seemed to be flowing down from the ceiling in a cascade of coruscating color and sound. I kept thinking about a movie where a programmer had been caught inside a computer and had to face an evil artificial intelligence. I felt I had a lot in common with that guy. I even had glowing arms and ... legs perhaps. Was I in some kind of computer simulation as well? Greetings programs!

"I'm so excited, Aegis!" Bright moved up to me on the word "excited" and her eyes widened.

"I get to fulfill my Purpose. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for you?" Bright tittered and came around to the front of the table, by my head, closest to the Source column.

*System Alert: Aegis consciousness may experience unknown levels of discomfort during this process. Reconstruction on this scale has never before been performed. I may not be able to block all the sources of ... discomfort.*

"In other words, this is going to hurt, right?" I said out loud.

Bright's face fell.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. I've never really done this before without Kenny. Just that first time ..." She drifted off, looking upward wistfully.

"I hope you know what you are doing" I cautioned.

My body jerked downward slightly as Bright tugged on the table - it was on wheels and she was starting to pull me toward the Source. She was back lit by the bright column of light, and struck a very slim figure in the contrast. I closed my eyes. I needed to stay focused ... or something.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Clarissa yelled over the increasing hum that was coming from all around the room.

Bright made an exaggerated frown and shrugged her shoulders, lifting her free arm for a moment in a "who knows?" gesture.

"That's reassuring," I said.

She stopped pulling the table for a moment and pulled her face close to mine and whispered "I've never done this alone. I'm kinda scared, really. I hope I don't mess this up. I hope Kenny didn't make a mistake creating me like this."

I looked into her eyes. I was scared as well, and worried that this was going to be the end of me. But I had looked death in the eyes before - every day in that hospital it was the shadow in the corner, the silence between the beeps on the machine. And I was ready for that. I was willing to risk a lot to be whole again. But there was one thing...

"Bright, you said that light is ... you. The Source. Is this going to affect you too?" I asked nervously.

I did NOT want anyone else getting hurt because of me. If I somehow cause another person harm ....

Bright looked at me blankly.

"Gee, I don't know. Maybe?" She grinned and started pulling the table again. She was surprisingly strong for such a small looking girl. But then I remembered she was neither small nor really a girl. That closed off some stray thoughts in my head. My tension increased. We were getting closer.

"Remember 'issa! Hit the green button when we get in the Source! Look at the gauge! When it gets to the red line, push the red button! Okay!" Bright shouted - talking as if Clarissa was some small child.

"Yeah yeah! Okay! I'm not stupid! Green to start. Red to end!" Clarissa waved the box in her hand to show she was holding it.

Oh boy. My life was in the hands of two girls who may or may not like me, and may or may not like each other. I gritted my teeth.

"Okay!" Bright stood right next to the roaring column of light. Her hands were at the edge of the table. I looked up to see the wildly excited look on her face. She was really enjoying this.

I smiled despite myself. Her enthusiasm was infectious.

"1, 2, 3 -- In we go!"

Bright pulled hard on the table and suddenly we both disappeared into a thunderous wall of light and magic. Energy flowed over me like the pounding weight of a waterfall. All around me was light, and sound. My whole body began to tingle. My WHOLE body! I could begin to feel my legs!

The table was shaking uncontrollably, under the incredible assault from the raw magical energy tearing into it. Suddenly I was vertical. Bright must have rotated the table upward. I faced out into a brilliant expanse of energy. For some reason, even though the light should have been blinding, my eyes adjusted. I felt like I was staring into the sun.

Bright walked around from behind the table. It was Bright, but NOT BRIGHT.

She still had the form of a woman, with her short cut hair, almond shaped eyes, and upturned nose, but her eyes were twin coals of blue light - like sapphire stars. Her body was enveloped with a cloud of rainbow colored shapes that turned and twisted in phenomenal patterns that would make fractals weep from their complexity. She stood tall and straight, almost exultant. I was awed by the sheer power I was experiencing all around me, as well as the look she was giving me. Not like love, or even something as warm as friendship. It was like seeing the other part of one's soul. She looked at me with an open admiration that caused me to blush. I was essentially naked, but I'd never felt more exposed than I did now, not even in the hospital when nurses would have to help me undress when I felt particularly weak that day.

It was as if Bright and I were two halves of a whole that was greater than either of us could imagine. She reached up and touched my cheek. A thrill of energy coursed through me like nothing I had ever felt. Like being struck by lightning, but the bolt continued to pour energy through my body.

And then, there it was ... PAIN.

There was a SNAP as the bonds holding my arms and legs broke away. Pain sliced me in two as Bright held my eyes. I could not look away. The metal of the table melted under the intense energy and began to flow down around my sides. I screamed as a pain so intense it burned into my soul.

Blinding, searing, all consuming pain ripped me apart and put me back together again.

The metal of the table was being weaved into my body. Bright moved impossibly fast - turning and manipulating light, magic, arcane symbols, and SHAPED me. Every segment of my golem body was pulled apart, examined, and reformed. This was NOT what I was expecting. I was thinking I'd feel some pain when I got "reconnected" but I did NOT expect to have my whole body, mind, and soul to be RIPPED APART and rebuilt from scratch.

The necklace at my chest dissolved under the onslaught of magical energy pounding my body. The orb glowed with a fierce blue energy that matched the frightening blue stars of Bright's eyes. It drifted in the air in front of me for a moment, then Bright bent down and kissed the orb once again. My body shivered. Never in my life had I experienced anything like this. Raw power, complex magic, the sight of this entity looking at me as if I completed her.

The orb drifted back to my chest, then with a flash it EMBEDDED itself into my chest above my heart. Blue lightning played across my arm, chest and legs - burning and etching across the surface of my skin in impossibly complex patterns. The runes that had been there before melted away before these new, far more ornate symbols.

My body was heating up. The metal was was beginning to glow a dull yellow. The pain was climbing higher and higher.

Clarissa!

Bright looked at me with fear in her eyes. She turned to try to leave the Source. To contact Clarissa. To stop me from turning into a slag of metal on the bottom of some pillar of magical energy.

*Warning! Heat exceeding safe limits. Aegis. We must complete this process and exit immediately.*

"I can't move! Aghghgh!!"

I saw Bright bite her lip and start shouting at me. The noise was too intense for my ears, I could only hear roaring. The heat was rising higher and higher.

Suddenly - like a giant hand - a huge piece of metal swung in from somewhere and struck me on the side - I went flying . An instant later I was out of the Source and hurling toward the wall of the dome-like room.

I hit the wall with a crash and slid down to the floor. My body was glowing an intense red - as if I were a hot coal in a blacksmith's fireplace. The remains of a bookshelf were around me. The parts of the wood touching me burst into flames.

*Engaging temperature reduction measures. *

Between screams, I heard Interface. I opened my eyes.

Before me was a scene of chaos. Clarissa was standing on the side, her eyes wide and her hands to her face. Next to her was Argent, wielding his immense sword. It was glowing with heat. Steam was escaping from valves all over its body, and it turned to look at me. Something must have gone wrong with the device. Clarissa had probably run all the way back to Argent to get his help. Her face was red and she was panting with exhaustion.

Bright appeared from the Source. She looked beautiful and fierce and deadly all at the same time. She looked at Argent, then at Clarissa. She did a 180 in the air and turned to me. Her face made an OH and she arced across the room to me.

"Aegis! Are you ok? Did it work?" She looked over me like a worried mother - poking and prodding in places all over and shaking my shoulder.

I looked down at my body. The glow was fading. Instead of a brassy sheen with odd, angular runes everywhere, my body was black and dull - like scorched wood. But, pulsing in my chest was the blue orb. Every few seconds the orb would grow bright and the light would play like a spiderweb all over my body - flowing from the orb down my chest, arms and legs and fade away. Like a magical blue tracing of a frozen lightning bolt.

Wait. My. Legs. MY LEGS!

I stood up shakily - I was pretty tall, I guess. I looked down at Bright who was now about up to my chin. She gave me a big grin.

I turned to look at Clarissa. She was bent over, her head down, her hands on her knees, panting.

"Clarissa!" I walked shakily over to her and put my hand on her shoulder.

That was a mistake.

I was still scorching hot!

"Oww! Don't touch me!" She yelled and fell backwards onto her backside with a thud. Her shoulder was smoking.

Bright ran over, a concerned look on her face. She was back to wearing her sundress. It must have been her default appearance.

She pulled Clarissa into a tight embrace. She placed her hand on Clarissa's shoulder and the smoking stopped.

"Ohh! Thank you so much Clarissa! You did it! Although I have to say enlisting Argent was a bit of an unexpected touch!" Bright laughed.

"The golden haired one called to me. She said your device failed to work." The brass knight turned to me with his glowing eyes.

"I hope I did not injure you, young master Aegis."

"No, not really." I looked down at my body, and my legs. Everything seemed to be in working order. Better even. I felt an immense power flowing through me. Like a cool, rapid stream under a bridge. It was calm now only because I was not directing the flow. But the potential was beyond anything I could have imagined. The space where my left arm should be was closed off. No longer exposed wires and gears. Would I ever be completely whole again?

*System Alert! Upgrade detected. *

Bright let Clarissa go and Clarissa blushed.

"You saved me. Again" I said to Clarissa. She smiled briefly and looked down.

"You look ... different" Clarissa said.

"Oh, he's more than just different, 'issa. " Bright chirped.

"He's better. " Her eyes glowed briefly. "Much better."

*System Alert! Update requires system wide reset. Reset in 5 ... 4... 3...*

My eyes widened "Wait - Interface!" I called out and raised my hands helplessly. I took a step back.

* ... 2 ... 1 *

The world turned black.