Charlie finalized the blueprint and willed the creation process to begin. He watched as the blueprint before his eyes faded away, and magic began flowing from the hand holding his Memorandum. Thin tendrils of metallic, shimmering grey reached out toward the materials on the ground at a measured pace, light pulsing their lengths in tandem with the pulses of his Memorandum. He watched as they wrapped around and, with seeming great effort, melded into the metal. The magic seemed to be avoiding the other materials for now.

Charlie could immediately feel a drain on himself in a way he had never felt before, as if attacked by an unfeasible weariness. It felt as if instead of his muscles or his mind getting tired, it was his very soul. He could rather quickly tell that he wouldn't recover with a simple coffee or even with just sleep, but he ignored the feeling. It was an issue for a future, more robotically accompanied Charlie to worry about. And so, he focused on the metal in front of him. For whatever reason, despite the fact the metal was now saturated with magic, nothing was happening. He looked to Penny for assistance.

"Ay! Penny! What do I do now?"

Penny looked back and forth between Charlie and the Metal before swallowing what was in her mouth and responding. She was incredibly helpful and astute in her observation and advice.

"I dunno."

"What do you mean 'I dunno'? You can't tell me anything?"

Penny gave Charlie a downright filthy look.

"I mean I dunno. I'm not an expert on magic. Did you think I was?"

"No, I just figured you might know something. You knew that I should be holding my memorandum."

"That's just common sense. This," she gestured to the magic whisps in front of her, "I know nothing about. I've never even really seen magic outside my own! So, the best I can answer your question is I dunno."

Charlie stared at Penny as she stuffed another piece of bread in her mouth. Just how much bread had she eaten? Nevermind. Not important. He refocused his mind on his new predicament. Staring at the steel bar sitting on the ground, he considered. What would make the most sense? He came up with three possible solutions. First, he shook his fist at the metal and shouted,

"ABRACADABRA!"

Finding that it didn't work and feeling slightly embarrassed that he ever thought it might, Charlie moved on to the second option. He moved closer to the pile of metal and leaned down next to it, coming to a knee. Slowly, he brought forward his Memorandum and pressed it against the nearest bar. Surprisingly, not only did it not work, but he felt a chill move down his spine and settle somewhere in his chest. Something he thoroughly did not enjoy.

At his final option, Charlie dragged in a deep breath and held it, preparing himself. On top of not being positive if it would work, he was pretty sure this next part would hurt. Slowly he brought his hand up into the sky and brought it down as hard as he could, directly onto the steel bar. He felt a flash of searing pain in his chest and blacked out.

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Some lingering pain and what he was informed was only a small amount of time later, Charlie stood over the piles of junk, frustrated. Try as he might, he just could not figure out how to get the magic to work. He went over everything he knew. First, no magic words. Second, direct contact did nothing. Third, never again bring his Memorandum into contact with anything with any amount of force ever again. Finally, he was completely lost. He tried considering every facet of his power to try and figure something out.

Charlie began pacing in a circle around the pile, thinking about everything he had done up until the point where his work froze. He was missing something vital, and he could not figure out what. He brought up his blueprint in his vision and looked over it. He hadn't even realized, but it had become a complicated thing, with pages upon pages describing its construction. It had been more of a schematic in the beginning, but by the end, it was practically a book. If he hadn't built it, it would take him hours to decode the damned thing. Of course, it wasn't helpful, as he was building the robot out of magic. What was the point of all these steps if he wasn't going to use them?

Charlie smacked himself in the forehead, hard. He was an idiot. He was relying too much on the magic to assist him. Of course, he would have to build it step by step; what would be the point of having his expertise if he had the magic to do all the work? It was already bad enough he was using magic to fill in the blank he was pulling on the power mechanism. Was he really expecting it to do all the work of putting it together?

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Charlie stopped pacing and turned toward the piles. He put his fist forward and once again focused on his Memorandum. This time, when he pulled up his blueprint, he focused on the parts index while he moved his mercury-like tendrils toward the metal. As he felt the magic take hold, he imagined the shape of the part he needed to begin construction and watched, transfixed, as the metal started changing shape to match that of the part in his mind. It vibrated in place, shedding the excess steel off and onto the ground in the rest of the pile. As it finished, taking only mere moments, he reached down and picked up the part. It was cool to the touch, as if nothing had happened, with no signs of damage or wear. Absolute perfection. It was part of the arm, a piece of the protective casing that would go on the forearm. He placed it back down and began shaking with excitement. A moment later, he was shaken out of his elation by a voice behind him.

"Is that a robot? It's a lot smaller than I expected."

"No. This is one of thousands of pieces, all of which will be connected together to make a robot."

"Oh. How long is this going to take?"

"Not long, now that I know what I'm doing. Watch this."

Charlie flexed his figurative muscles and got to work. A dozen shimmering tendrils shot out from him and sank into the pile of steel as he brought up the image of a dozen different parts. Rapidly, they appeared as a new pile on the ground. A pile of usable parts. Even as he made them, Charlie could feel that he could handle more, so he sent out more tendrils to dig into the pile of brass and copper, with a single one landing on the pile of primitive insulators. He felt as he churned out parts by the dozen, watching as they piled up into an organized mess. He stood, shocked, as he watched the natural rubber curl around thin strips of copper, providing him with wiring, and stared as it coiled itself and placed itself on the ground, ready to be used. Dozens of screws and rivets fell to the ground, fountaining out of the end of a single bar. In only fifteen minutes, the parts were almost all produced, sitting neatly on the ground before him.

Charlie cracked his knuckles as he prepared to work on the next bits, those that he deemed more important to work on personally. He watched as the closest approximations to plastics he could find came up and melded with copper and glass, making circuit boards and processors, along with sensors of all sorts. He was astounded by his own feats happening before his very eyes. Gobsmacked, he finished his construction and stared at the piles before him. It had taken merely 20 minutes total, and he had everything he needed to achieve his dreams.

It didn't, however, escape his notice the slight shimmer all of the electronics gave off, a slight magical energy emanating from them. As much as he may have wished he could do it all himself, there were powers at work here he didn't completely understand. The parts before him were much more advanced than anything you could find on earth; a prospect that both excited and depressed him. As far as he had gone, he could not match what was in front of him one for one. The positive side to this, however, was that he could learn from his own creations. A prospect that brought him endless joy. Just looking at the parts, he could almost feel the remembrances he could find by researching them.

Charlie stared down at the piles and blinked. Only now, he was beginning to feel the draw all that work had had on him. He was tired. But there was still work to do, so he got to it. He looked at his blueprints and, step by step, began piecing the robot together. He observed as his magic held parts flush and screwed parts together with inhuman precision and speed. Wires corded themselves neatly into built-in compartments within the casing, and circuit boards clicked seamlessly into place. The chest, in a million pieces, came together like building blocks, each part going precisely where it was meant to go.

Soon enough, Charlie stared up at his finished project standing before him. It. Was. Glorious. At about seven feet tall, it towered over him, bringing a much more intimidating presence than intended, which was ok. It was a little bit thinner than he was as the shoulders, though wider in its stance. It looked straight ahead with an empty, powerless visor. As he stared up at it, grinning, he heard Penny come up next to him. He glanced down at her. She was standing there staring, mouth open, eyes wide. She looked from it to him and spoke.

"Is that a robot?"

"Yes."

"You didn't say it would be that big! This thing could punt me!"

"Yup."

"What does it do?"

"Whatever I tell it to do, probably. Just gotta turn it on first."

"How do you do that?"

"Not sure yet."

Charlie stared up at his creation and tried to figure out how he was supposed to finish his project. He had remembered something about needing to give it part of his soul, but he wasn't sure how to go about doing that. Not knowing what he was supposed to do, he did the first thing that came to mind, and pressed his Memorandum up against its chest. Instantly, he was punched in the gut with the most painful sensation he had ever felt in his lives, like his insides were being torn in half, before going completely numb, completely losing all feeling in his body for a few seconds. He then stabilized and felt relatively normal, sparing the feeling of terrible loss. He considered what this could mean for a moment but completely threw the thought process out the window when he saw the robot's eyes flicker on with an easy blue. This was going to be awesome.