Mountain, meet Endbringer | Glowfic Constellation

"It should be easy enough to figure out, you will get an instructions manual with it to consult."

"Yeah, most things here have been easy to use. It's good. Did you have someone look at my notes on the tunnels?"

"I have sent them to some people, but they have not had the time to look at the notes yet."

"Okay. So I think I am done with things here today. Can I get some money? I will work for it if you want. I want things for my mountain and I can't just wear rocks forever."

"I believe that can be arranged. While your circumstances are highly... unusual... you can be said to have become homeless after an Endbringer attack, and we have a relief fund for Endbringer victims."

"Don't need too much. Not enough for a house, I made one. Oh, I could sell stone! Or is that illegal too?"

"You would normally need a mining permit to extract stone from the earth, but if you do it from international land such as Antarctica or from the bottom of the ocean in such a way as not to compromise weather stability, you shouldn't have a problem."

"I'll look into this later. Find someone who knows people who want things from the earth."

"Your phone will have access to the internet, you should be able to find them easily."

"I don't know about the internet yet. What is it?"

"You know about computers in general, yes?"

"Some. Have not practice using one much."

"The internet is the name for the international connection between them all. If a computer—or a phone—connects to it, it can access a number of virtual 'locations,' called websites, hosted in other computers around the world. There are websites dedicated to buying and selling several things, including stones."

"Oh, that sounds good. I will have to learn to use it. Thanks for explaining. Is there anything else I should do now?"

"I don't think so. Thank you very much for all your help. You will be given a phone and instructions on how to use it as well as the bank account where money from the Endbringer relief fund will be deposited."

She's confused for a moment - what has she actually done for them? Leviathan was trashing Japan. But of course, international cooperation is a thing here.

She says bye and leaves and collects her phone and finds some out-of-the-way place to play with the internet for a while.

Eventually she receives a text message asking if tomorrow afternoon is good for her.

Sure, why not, tomorrow afternoon is fine.

She figures out how to use email and sends a batch of emails to various possibly relevant companies in only slightly broken English explaining that she is a new cape ('cape' being different from 'parahuman' and thus not a lie) who can make and manipulate large amounts of stone and other earth-sourced things. Her name is Mountain, the Protectorate can verify her existence, and she'd be interested in selling services and materials.

Then she flies to one of the relatively cheap clothes stores she found on the internet. She's dropped most of the outer layers of her rock armor because it's too bulky (she can always make more after all), but is still pretty clearly a cape. She keeps her helmet because people seem surprised whenever she doesn't.

Yeah, it's kinda weird when a cape appears without a helmet. It's actually still pretty weird when capes walk around civilians at all, but yeah.

A bunch of those companies reply asking her about various things like rates, speed, what exactly she is offering, etc. She's not the first parahuman to go Capitalist but she is fairly rare in doing so and still identifying as 'cape.'

Until she has a better idea of the market she'll make raw material for 5% above bulk market price. The benefits are no shipping cost and almost no delay between ordering the stuff and getting it. She can make many thousands of tons of things like sand or limestone in minutes, but significantly less of things that don't occur naturally pure, like iron or titanium. One example of something she could do with stone-shaping is repairing cracked concrete foundations so you don't have to demolish that nice building. She can also do sculpture. She throws out a fairly high number for this kind of work - she can always change it later if everyone thinks it's too much.

She tries on clothes for a while, shedding her rock armor in the changing rooms, before buying a few simple outfits, packing them away, and flying to her mountain in the sea for the night.

She will find quite a number of people willing to both buy her products and hire her services. She will also receive an email from the Protectorate saying that to sell her services as a parahuman she needs to get a certain license and fill out a bunch of forms regarding safety and accountability and responsibility.

The following day, once she has signal, she will also receive a text message with a more precise location (the PHQ's roof) and time (4:30PM) for her to be escorted to Japan.

Fine, fine, forms and paperwork. Until 4:30 PM. Is she done with the forms and paperwork by then?

Oh, most definitely not, she's going to have to visit some places and possibly get a lawyer to sift through the tons and tons of legalese paper. Or she can just sign it all, but in any case she has to visit some places and personally hand some things in and demonstrate power use. There's quite a bit of bureaucracy.

At 4:30PM, there's a jet, two Sentai Elite, and one Japanese woman in a crisp formal dress waiting for her. "Good afternoon, Ms. Mountain," she says in heavily accented English. "It is our utmost pleasure to escort you to our glorious country."

She doesn't have a lawyer. She never needed one back home, and she probably doesn't have enough money for one from the Endbringer fund. Does the internet have (consistent, coherent) advice on the PRT's paperwork?

(She replies to interested parties that she's still arranging things with the PRT and will be doing repair work in Japan. They should expect to wait a few days/weeks.)

"Good afternoon. I hope my visit will be productive and interesting. Shall we board?"