Warning: High Pressure Training

Slanted tin sheets supported by narrow cone pillars topped the dirty brick warehouse. Sunlight slogged through grime caked windows and peered through corrosion holes in the ceiling.

A rusted iron door to the side of the garages slammed open. Swirls of dust kicked from the entrance. A fresh breeze from the open door cut the trapped humidity in this sun heated warehouse.

Dust caked fifty square meters of floor space. Stacks of stained carboard boxes listed in decaying piles. A gribble scurried across the warehouse. Green scaly arms stained with greasy dirt flailed about as it pushed into a crate full of metal bits with a frantic squeak.

A wheeled maintenance cart and several buckets waited.

“I never thought my employment would coincide with my plans so perfectly.”

Black leather boots made large imprints. Darius pulled the mop from his back where it rested tucked in a belt. He grabbed a bucket. A sink nearby still functioned when the knob turned. A splatter of brown water followed a spurting hiss, then somewhat clear liquid followed. Darius filled the bucket and took it back to the cart. The faucet continued running. The bucket thumped in the cart indent. Water splashed over the sides.

Darius took the dry mop and held the fabrics before his snout. A red aura formed until he snarled at it. Puffs of smoke rose from his nostrils. Four sets of hands gripped the handle, but were careful not to pierce the carved wood with their claw tips.

“You hate water, yet you hate being dry. You don’t even know what you want. If you got your power under control, it wouldn’t be such hell in there. What’s your real name, mop?”

He squeezed the handle with such force, the wood groaned as if about to snap, “Say it louder!”

Daylight moved slightly as it angled towards the maintenance cart. Darius waited, “That's a pretty name little mop. You know, most dragons think humans are nothing more than legends in ancient texts: a religious tale to scare hatchlings into proper conformists. But I’ve always known better. I’ve always understood that you humans are a real part of our history. Not that I’m entirely sympathetic to your plight. If your kind had won, you’d have done the same to us. Our species survived because we wanted it more.”

He tossed the mop and caught it with his top left hand by the tip of the handle. A few swipes released an angry red glow that faded from the air like melting wax and the sparks of finished fireworks.

“You had nothing to do with it? That’s right. You didn’t. But you’re human. Humans are forbidden in this world because they’re too powerful. Your kind are too good slaying dragons. You almost exterminated us. And that’s why you’re an artifact, a pathetic tool for cleaning our vomit.”

Silence as he pointed the mop toward the bucket.

“How do I know this? I don’t know any of this. I’m just what you might call independently religious. I don’t know it. I believe it,” A smile curled up at the end of his snout as puffs of gray smoke rose from both his nostrils, “But doesn’t your very existence confirm those beliefs?”

He waited another moment while listening to a voice unheard, “You’re an item. You can’t have agency without an owner. Your freedom is called languishing into a slow death. That stupid imp would have killed your mind and the majority of your potential. Is that what you want? No. I didn’t think so. Let’s get to work. Shall we?”

He pointed the mop towards the sound of running water, “You’re coughing quite a bit and your voice sounds ever so parched little mop. No, I won’t call you by your name until you earn it. But you’re more than capable little mop. I want you to absorb that water into your threads, compress it, and hold it there.”

The mop swung back and forth as Darius practiced with it as if using a sword until he pointed it at the water. They were meters away from the sink. Darius simply stood in place while the mop waited for him to soak it.

“No. You’re more than capable of calling the water to you when I command it. Do you want true control over your powers, or do you want to feel like you’re being drowned every time someone sticks you in a bucket of dirty water?”

Darius stood like a statue until the mop glowed. The sound of running water changed to splashing in the sink.

“This is as close as we get. You have to want it. Focus on your abilities as a mop. Think about it. What do you do? You clean. How do you clean? You manipulate water. Would you rather be dipped in water, or call it to yourself!?”

The sink bubbled. Pipes groaned. Darius smiled to let smoke plume from the sides of his snout. Water burst upward from the drain and shot back down. The sound of running water halted as if absorbed. When Darius pulled back the mop, it was damp.

“That’s it. Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re obviously talented no matter what your circumstances. Absorb more. Concentrate it. Don’t spill a drop.”

Not a drip spilled as Darius swung it about. The sink groaned. Water flowed to the mop as if going through an invisible pipe. The drain gurgled.

“Tell me this little mop. Does your human world allow the hard work of a family through generations upon generations to be stolen by some criminal enterprise with connections to people in power? Can something that took generations to build be deleted with the stroke of a pen? Does your world allow an honest family businesses to be trampled on? Does it legalize theft? Do you have a bunch of untouchables at the top who can take whatever they want, whenever they please, because they think they own it all!? Did they condemn you to being a factory janitor living on scraps? Did they trample the sacred honor of your family name so completely that your parents died in poverty!?”

The mop listed heavily. Strands hung bloated. Not a drop of water fell. Darius raised it, then swung downward until it smacked the concrete. The floor remained dry as he raised it, twirled it, then pointed at a leather doctor’s bag.

“That bag was once human too. I didn’t find it where I found you. By the time I got my claws on it, it was already cured. You see little mop. This world hates your kind. They are summoned here by the elite to become useful items, curiosities. They kidnap people like you from your worlds and turn them into soulless trinkets. It’s against the teachings of the Dragon God. But they do it anyway because they know they’ll never be punished. They legalized it for themselves.”

Darius shifted his stance toward the pile of disintegrating carboard boxes. Corroded steel discs pushed out the burst bottom of the stack, “Does that anger you? Good. Now learn to control it. When I think the command, you’ll release. Do you understand?”

Three gribbles burst out the boxes flailing with squeaky protests as they scurried away.

Whiskers flew upward as Darius raised the mop, then pushed back down as he swung it at the pile of boxes. A spray of water cut in an arc across the warehouse. The corrugated cardboard shredded as rusty metal flecks shot from the other side. A few discs flew out of the sides of the pile with such force they crunched against brick walls.

Boots splashed into a pool of murky water coated with rust. The severed discs felt cool on his scales. The cuts weren’t sharp, not so much as burr to scratch his scales. The metal had eroded away. When he looked between the gap in the broken boxes, he noticed a small crevice carved in the floor. It didn’t quite reach the brick wall.

He held the mop to the side so the mophead pointed at the floor, “Peacefully release everything you can’t deal with.”

Nothing came out of the heavy, sopping, mop. Darius dropped it in the bucket of tap water and left the handle rest on the plastic maintenance cart.

“Good job Zenobia. Take a break and consolidate your mind,” Darius stretched his arms as he walked toward an entryway with no door. A sleeping bag stretched across the dirty panel floor next to a battered filing cabinet, “We’re going to work on your control when I wake up.”