Mountain, meet Endbringer | Glowfic Constellation

Good, she goes over the first few hours of the plans again while eating. She's going to stop at 11 and have that Web chat with those lawyers if they accepted the appointment though. Did they?

Yup! They did. Everything's ready for her, the two capes who will be helping are waiting.

And so they start. She's not nearly as macro as Leviathan with her hydrokinesis, so the plan calls for making drainage channels to help the water along and then flying slowly from inland out to sea, (gently) pushing an increasingly large glob of water before her. They start placing new buildings and repairing those still standing in the now unflooded areas as she goes.

She may not be as macro as Leviathan, but she's still head and shoulders above what any other known and willing-to-help cape can do.

Two hours and two long strips of land reasonably well unflooded later, she takes a break to talk to her shiny new lawyers and have some lunch. She suggests to the planning people that they reevaluate since her speed at unflooding is slightly faster than she predicted and she probably can't multitask unless one of the things she's doing is unflooding.

How does this video conference thing work? Ugh. Maybe it should just be a phone call.

It could definitely be a phone call. A male voice answers the phone if she calls him.

"This is Mountain. Did I call the right number?"

"Indeed. And given that you pay me by the hour, we should get to business."

"I want to be selling things but all the paperwork PRT gave me is very confusing. I don't want to sign things I don't understand. I only learn English a week ago. Mostly I want you to explain it so I know the rules and warn me if any plan is illegal."

"I see. What things will you want to be selling, how will you be getting them, what plans have you considered so far?"

"I can make large amounts of things that come from the earth. From sand to diamonds. Less diamonds than sand because they're more rare. I have been sending emails to some companies asking if they want, and lots said yes. I can also reshape stone and metal and offer to do things like repair cracked foundations. I have practice building things so I am confident in the quality."

"Interesting. The rationale behind the bureaucracy is twofold: one, to make sure your powers are safe and do exactly what you say they do and no more, and two, to make sure the existence of parahumans won't destabilize the economy by making previously scarce products non-scarce too quickly for the market to properly adjust. So, most of the papers you will have to sign will in fact be tailored for your powers in specific, and you will have to demonstrate them to various people and have them tested.

"You will also not be allowed to legally profit from any uses of your power other than those stated the first time you go through this process without going through it again, so I urge you to be as creative about what you want to do with them as you can before starting the process."

"I will make a list. Does it have to be very specific? List all things I can make, list repairing tunnels and repairing buildings?"

"It doesn't necessarily have to be specific, but the more specific you are the less leeway others have to sue you and the easier it is to actually go through the whole process. It's easier to verify 'can repair buildings to pristine condition' than 'can repair arbitrary things that come from the earth to pristine condition.' If you think you will repair a large enough variation of things, though, it might be better to inform the latter instead, or maybe subdivide it into groups of things."

"Can I have you go over the list when I am done with it? Are other countries less annoying about this?"

"You can. Most countries with an economy to speak of have more-or-less imitated the US there, EU countries being somewhat stricter, and Japan being strictest of all. Some countries don't have any regulations at all, but those are mostly feudalistically dominated by parahumans and regulations are a mess in general."

...She probably should tell him. It might be a bad idea to spread it too far, but it's not like she's been keeping it a closely guarded secret. "Okay, next thing you should know. I am from an entirely different world. I appeared during the Leviathan attack on Japan and fought it, then Alexandria brought me to America. I don't know this place's culture and traditions and I don't know if I even officially exist. Is this going to be a problem?"

"Not officially existing is par for the course when it comes to capes, new ones are appearing all the time and the government doesn't require you to associate your real identity with the cape one. You will have to register an official identity as part of the process, but that shouldn't be a problem."

"Okay. You think of anything I should know and have not talked about?"

"If your concerns are only about selling your services and products, then no. I will send you some preliminary documents as well as a more legible explanation of them, but you will have to sign them with your own hand and then send them to me to have them signed as well for the process to begin."

"Okay. There is no rush on scale of days. I will be in Japan about a week anyway."

"Perfect. Was there anything else?"

"No."

Then lunch, then back to large scale deflooding and repair work. She doesn't get particularly friendly with the two capes assisting her, but she does learn the exact extent and speed of their powers and changes how she rebuilds things slightly to compensate.

Fun is had all around. Things are rebuilt much (much) faster than they would otherwise have been, and in the evening there is more lavish food.