Aegis

Chapter 1

Date: Unknown

Location: Unknown

Name: Error

Status: Alive

The sky was ablaze with stars, the moon shone bright and the sweet smell of freshly made blackberry pie wafted through the air. She took a breath, delicately inhaling the scent as if sipping from the finest glass of wine. She turned her head towards the house just to see a girl about her own age run out of the house, smiling.

The girl reached for her and the other reached back...only to freeze, staring at two gauntleted, segmented hands. She gasped, crying out as she clenched the hands...just to realize they were her own. She looked back up at the girl just for her image to shatter and glitch as a dimly lit laboratory came into being.

She looked down at her hands again, seeing her arms restrained to the table and then free again as the hallucination came up again. She looked around, struggling to free herself as a figure in a dark lab coat came towards her. The image before her eyes flickered again and instead of a lab coated figure, a dark, threatening persona came into being.

"Look who's awake," the lab-coated man hummed as the landscape flickered back to the present.

"Who..." she started, her voice dying in her throat as a synthesized quality wove through her words.

"Don't worry," the man purred, "Now, what's your name?"

"...I don't know," she admitted, straining to get free, "Please, let me go,"

The man cursed under his breath.

"Just like the others...back to the drawing board it is then,"

"Drawing...board?" she blinked, her vision flickering back and forth between the peaceful night and the dingy lab.

He pulled out a very large syringe with slightly glowing golden liquid inside and started towards her arm.

"Don't worry, this won't hurt...much,"

The girl might not have known who she was or what was going on...but one thing she did remember...was that she hated needles. She thrashed, trying to twist her mechanized arm out of the way...but to no avail. The needle, more like drill if you wanted to be accurate, plunged into her arm, sending up sparks as it dug through the metal.

A horrific howl, something between man and machine, tore from her throat as she thrashed and the needle dug deeper into her arm. A surge of strength rippled through her body and she wrenched her arm free from its bindings. The man started backing away rapidly as she tore her other arm free and attempted to work on her legs.

"Now, now," the man stammered, edging closer as she tried to tear the bindings off her legs, "there's no need of that..."

He touched her arm and the girl panicked, she didn't want him to touch her again...she raised her hands, dimly noting that a command sequence flashed across her vision, and golden light flared about her, expanding exponentially until blasting away from her in a wave of pure, golden light

Unfortunately, the shock didn't go straight forwards and slammed her head backwards against the table. She just had enough time to realize that she was free when darkness rushed in.

"Hey, wake up!" a slightly metallic voice ordered.

Hands shook her shoulders hard and her eyes fluttered open.