"Appreciate the thought, Damon...but if you knew what I tried to do when I lost them, you might not say that. I was...kind of a different person back then."
He flashes back to the training sessions with Naze...old and outdated as the man's notions of the world were, at least he didn't hit Forge, or curse him out, or call him worthless. Not like his uncle.
"You see, I never knew my parents. I was raised by my uncle Greycrow..he had the same power as me, same knack for building things, but he only cared about using it to make firearms. He kept it secret so they wouldn't try to make him learn magic like they made me...he saw shamanism as a waste of time, a hippie nature-worship thing that wouldn't do any real good in a fight."
Forge chuckles mirthlessly as he scrubs himself down, leaving angry red marks on his pale skin.
"Used to beat me up so bad when I snuck out to get trained in magic. All I wanted was to build things that helped people...to make the world a better place, like those futures you see in the old comic books. I wanted transporters, warp drives, flying cars..."
He looks at his feet, suddenly feeling very naked and cold indeed.
"What I got were orders to build bigger, badder guns and thirty kinds of grenade."