The Forge

Ethan stretched his neck as he stood from the three-legged stool. The small of his back ached, the first sign that the adrenaline of the day was beginning to fade. To be fair, it had been an eventful one; a day full of shock and change. He set his brush onto the tray, careful to keep the bristles out of shimmering gold paint. Ethan had been in the forge and the paint shop for the past few hours, working on his disguise? Disguise didn’t feel like the right word.

Uniform? No, too formal. Most of the folks in Freedom City, at least the people on the news, called the clothes superheroes wore costumes, but the mass of shining metal on the rack was more like armor. “Superhero. I can’t believe this is happening.” Ethan picked up the welding mask as he spoke to himself.

Tommy’s excitement had kept the buzz going in Ethan, but being alone with his thoughts in the silent shop was causing him to sober up. How did this even happen? One moment, he was on the bus and the next he was moving things with his mind, like some kind of Jedi. No not like a Jedi, he could only move metal.

Ethan groaned and put the mask down. He grabbed his forest green duffle bag and started loading it with armor pieces. His thoughts drifted away to the conversation with his father that morning. Somehow that was only a few hours ago. His dad wouldn’t even let him switch his major, how would he react if he found out about the whole Crucible thing? Tommy said that he should have Ryleigh help him with his alter ego, but she’d just run and tell his dad. No. His parents and/or their spouses couldn’t find out yet.

There was also the matter of the others: Marshall, Glados, Ice Princess, possibly even the scary robot octopus. Were they like him? People caught up in whatever gave him his powers, or were they something else? Wait, did the octopus get super powers today too? How did that happen? Was there a sushi restaurant down on Yellow Brick Row with a busted aquarium? It didn’t matter, they all worked together to stop those rampaging lunatics, and that was… Well it was something.

Ethan didn’t know how to get a hold of any of them, but Tommy would probably have some ideas. Tommy was probably going to have a lot of ideas in general from now on. He lugged the heavy duffle up by the straps and looked around the shop one more time. His eyes rested for a moment on Raina’s most recent piece: a framed illustration of a supervillain. She looked unsettling with patchwork skin and a spooky wooden mask. Marionette was written on the frame. He wished he knew the inspiration for Raina’s style. He wished he knew a lot of things about Raina.

Ethan sighed and flicked the light switch off in the shop. He had to get back to Tommy and figure out their next move.