/\/\/ Moshinas the Thunder /\/\/

Moshinas stepped back into the house and sat down on the nearest chair. The mugs of hot chocolate were still sitting out on the counter, but he didn't feel like dealing with them just now. In fact, he felt like dealing with very little just now. But something in him said that if he continued along this path - merely sitting around, waiting for things to occur and only reacting to them instead of acting upon his own volition - then nothing would ever be accomplished.

He mumbled a string of curses to himself, then went into his bedroom and opened up his drawers, from which he began assembling his work uniform. He had an overnight shift tonight and he wasn't going to raise suspicion, nor was he going to allow himself to become poor and homeless, by blowing off his job. Not right now, anyway.

I'm going to figure this out, he vowed to himself. They're not going to get the best of me this time around. They don't have anyone they can hang over my head now. All they have is my sword, like that was ever the real weapon I used... it shouldn't matter that much.

...But perhaps I should at least go and find out what they have to say. What's the worst that could happen?

--

"Hey, Merrimack, get a move on, kid!"

Moshinas had to restrain a scowl from forming on the face he wore; he looked up at the manager heckling him, a stocky, mustachioed man in his late 40's whose hairstyle was thirty years out of date. Said manager was leaning against a forklift with a cup of coffee in one hand and a clipboard in the other, and Moshinas wasn't entirely certain the man even had any important documents on that clipboard... he would have almost put money on the likelihood that they were printout comic strips from the Internet.

He shoved his long line of pushcarts back into the receiving rack and let out a sigh, forcing himself to say, "Sorry, Greg."

"Bet you are," the manager muttered - it would have normally been quiet enough that Dylan Merrimack would never have heard it, but Moshinas the Thunder's hearing included the snapping of electric impulses in his nervous system, and that gave him information he would have otherwise missed.

Moshinas felt himself flare up at the jab that hadn't been meant to be heard. He straightened up and looked at Greg more fully. "What do you need me to do next?"

Greg rolled his eyes, as though the answer to that question was the most obvious thing in the world. "Boy, you're just not on the ball tonight, are you, Merrimack?" He gestured with his coffee hand - the cup seemed permanently glued to his fingers. "Go stock up plumbing, we're running low on elbow joints, sink aerators, God knows what else."

"Okay." The word felt alien in his mouth, but he managed to let it out anyway, and started to head back towards storage. His fingers were threatening to curl into fists - on today, of all days, the man was deciding he wanted to push a few buttons to get him to work harder? At this menial, dead-end job where he was expected to just stand aside and let himself be picked on whenever someone else wanted to feel good about themselves?

He had barely taken ten steps when he heard another under-the-breath mumble.

"Sheesh, the idiots we're deciding to keep around here..."

He came to a stop. His eyes closed, and his fists balled.

Strike three.

When his eyes opened again, they were flickering with energy. Raw power that could hardly be restrained... too much power for a mortal. His fingers uncurled, and he began walking again, a static charge snapping at his every step. But instead of moving towards storage, he took a right turn and stalked down four aisles. Another right turn and he was moving along one of two carpentry aisles, in the middle of which he was just able to make out the forklift that Greg had yet to stop leaning against.

Moshinas knew that the cameras in the area might have made an attack upon his manager quite obvious, were it your standard assault and battery. But a grin threatened to split his face - this would be assault with a battery.

He traced his finger across one of the steel support rails in front of him, the ones used to support the shelving, and he felt the power begin leaking out of him and into the structure. His gesture was subtle, simple, as though he were simply searching for a piece of equipment... there would be no indication at all of just what, precisely, he was doing. He let his awareness flow into the energy itself, which flooded more and more into the steel, creeping and crawling around the entire surface of the shelf, until it was hovering just next to the forklift and the moronic, power-hungry man standing against it.

It would have to happen all at once, faster than the blink of an eye.

He closed his eyes, and pushed in everything he was prepared to release.

A loud CRACK echoed through the warehouse, as if the gods themselves were snapping their fingers within the giant metal building. Several screams punctuated the noise, as did the faint thump of a body to the concrete floor, all sounds that were momentary music to his ears. He backed away from the shelving and made for the scene of the anomaly, just as he knew everybody else would - nobody would notice him if he was doing exactly what he was expected to do, but they would notice if he wasn't.

It had worked even better than he could have hoped for. Not only had the bolt jumped through the forklift and into its intended target, there had been enough residual energy left over to crawl its way around the fuel tank and snap against a nearby corner. A spark had flared, and now the lift itself was beginning to smolder from the inside. The tank was on fire, but the only reason it would not explode was because someone had carelessly left the cap off the tank.

He did his best to keep the smirk off his face, and instead he ran over to Greg's limp body on the ground. The man was unconscious, that much was clear... and with one hand on his hairy wrist, Moshinas could sense the chaos of electrical activity within his body, trying to correct for the phenomenon. Most especially, the bottom of Greg's heart was quivering with uncontrollable impulses.

He remembered something hazy from one of Dylan's college classes: "Ventricular fibrillation. It's always a medical emergency because effective pumping of the blood comes to a halt... this is a type of cardiac arrest, or more commonly known as a heart attack, and an individual suffering it won't survive without CPR and immediate defibrillation."

His eyes scanned the craggy, mustachioed face of Dylan's boss - and his shoulders lifted in the slightest of shrugs. Well, what do I care?

He pulled Greg away from the burning forklift, dragged him across the floor while other people screamed and shouted about the machinery and how close the two of them were to it. He dragged the manager around the corner and away from any possible debris arc that would have happened, were the lift actually in danger of exploding - but he knew it wouldn't, not as long as there was an outlet for the burning fuel. With no pressure, it was more flammable than explosive.

He let the glow in his eyes burn for a moment longer while he looked at Greg. This was the same guy who bitched others out for not doing work he himself ought to have been doing. Now he was critically injured on the job. Maybe wouldn't even survive the night.

One way or another, this guy wouldn't be coming back to work here.

"Well, that's break," Moshinas muttered.

--

The authorities didn't let him go until late the next morning. He could feel his body tiring, and he couldn't blame it; he'd been awake since very early yesterday morning with his frantic swordplay, and the subsequent encounter with Eirwyn and Nazara.

In the meantime, the "freak accident" had given him a bonus in the form of a week off with pay - trauma fee, he supposed, something they could use to coerce him to say everything had looked perfectly safe to him and Greg was the last one to touch the forklift. Whatever. It didn't matter. At least he wouldn't have to look at Greg's ugly mug anymore.

A cop drove him home - though work was within walking distance, the police station was across town - and so it wasn't until he got in the door and turned on the radio that he had any idea whether Greg had even survived the night.

"-this morning left at least one man dead. At 2:23 am, a forklift burst into flames during operation by an employee. Greg Cantril, 48, of St. Tesara, fell away from the burning machine, and though authorities will not confirm whether he had sustained injuries from the accident, Cantril later passed away at Memorial Hospital."

Moshinas looked at his right hand, the hand that had touched the steel rail. All the power of a god, coursing through every cell of this miserable body, and I've been wasting time worrying about what other people think.

Not anymore.

He found himself a fresh change of clothing - a black T-shirt with a white silk dragon shirt over it, blue jeans - and then left the duplex more quickly than he'd entered it, not bothering to even turn off the radio while it droned on about traffic reports and the weather. He quickly glanced at Mrs. Grady's door, worried for a moment that she would flag him down for some menial task... but her inner door was still closed, so she had yet to get out of bed.

Good news there, at least. He didn't feel like zapping anyone else just now.

He knew the cathedral Eirwyn had spoken of. In St. Tesara, there was only one building that fit the word... a magnificent Catholic church near the center of town, amidst all the white collar industry and the dazzling lights of never-night. He had heard it was closed for renovations, not so much unlike his own home, but if the others had found their way into it anyway, he could, too.

The walk was head-clearing. He kept his hands stuffed in his pockets, his wrists chafing slightly against the belt he wore. He typically wore pants whose waist size didn't require him to wear a belt, but carrying his sword home on his shoulder might have been a little conspicuous.

Not that carrying it on your hip will be any less so, you idiot, he reprimanded himself. Would have been better to take a bicycle, but that was water under the bridge now - he was approaching the doors.

Dylan was not a Catholic. Really, he had never belonged to any particular religion, never mind factions within those religions - agnostic was a word that suited him well. Being in or near a church made him feel uncomfortable, and it was no help that Moshinas had a much greater glimmer of the truth than Dylan did. But here he was, anyway, in the home of one god while he hid from many others.

He was surprised to find the door open, despite the sign declaring the renovations, but he supposed it made sense. If said renovations were only taking place in the sanctuary, that didn't mean the whole bloody thing was down for the count. The office and daycare would still be operating, still working on bringing in revenue... not to mention the apparent labyrinthine network of hallways and rooms underground.

And, of course, the confessional.

His entry into the sanctuary did not go unnoticed, however, and a waspy-looking man wearing black with a white tie-tap approached him, fingers laced together a little too tightly to be comfortable. "Good morning, son. May I help you?"

The best lie is always sheathed in truth. Makes it easier to stomach. He dipped his head politely. "Good morning, Father. I don't know if you can, but..." He jutted his chin at the huge cross that stood above the central altar. "He might be able to."

The pastor blinked; apparently the answer had not been expected. "Oh? And what troubles do you bring here?"

Other than myself? "I was working at the Home Depot last night when the accident happened. Maybe you heard about it on-"

"On the news, yes." The father bobbed his head. "Terrible. I'm not sure I understand how the man died, though... they didn't confirm any injuries."

He shrugged. "He wasn't in the greatest of health to begin with, but... it's a shock, is all." He looked away; maybe the father thought he was trying to hide tears, though it was in fact a snicker at his own lame joke. Curiously enough, the sound of him strangling the noise in his throat was a truncated croak that could have applied quite well to either reaction.

He felt the father's hand on his shoulder, and he forced himself to straighten up and look the priest in the eye. "Anyway, I came here to just... sit for a while, if I could."

The pastor bobbed his head again. "That's fine. Just please avoid the right side of the sanctuary, we've only just put in new floorboards and a crew is to wax them this week." He gestured to the pews on the left side, near the altar. "Feel free. And come to my office if you need anything."

"Yes, Father. Thank you."

Moshinas turned away from the minister and moved to the pew indicated, as close as he dared get to the holy symbol of a religion he didn't fully recognize. He laced his fingers between his knees and bowed his head. To anyone else, it would look like a solemn prayer.

But for him, it was his means of concentrating on nearby Scions.

All right... I'm here. So what do you want?