Mountain, meet Endbringer | Glowfic Constellation

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Generated: Sep 30, 2023 10:15 AM

Post last updated: Mar 30, 2016 9:58 PM

Mountain, meet Endbringer

Steel in Wormverse

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The Fate who calls herself Mountain tried to convince some of her neighbors to allow the occasional mountain in their lands, for stability purposes.

"I meant no insult!" Dodge ball of lava. "I don't intend to interfere, you said no!" Dodge house-sized spear of ice. "I'm leaving peacefully, okay, so stop tearing up the tile!"

"You'll respawn at home. No permanent damage. You interrupted an important meeting, you need to learn a lesson about territory, mountain bitch." Dodge- no, fail to dodge a thrown tree, and then another ice ball. The next sphere of magma is what destroyed that form.

She wakes up, stripped of all her tools and enchantments and even clothes, and groans in pain.

red

She finds herself in a—well, it's probably a temple, though not one she recognises.

There are humans around her, wearing similar garb. They do not look like they were expecting her to appear. One of them asks something in a language she doesn't know.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I don't know this place."

...She calls up stone. Granite clothes that somehow flow with her movements. She raises her hands in what she hopes is a gesture of calm confusion. "I mean no harm."

red

They don't look reassured.

...they don't look much of anything other than confused and terrified, really, they don't seem to have understood a word.

Also, the "terrified" part might not have been caused by her, if the sudden tremor and their reactions to it are any indication. The same person who attempted communicating before tries another language, looking somewhat desperate.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Oh dear. She presses her hands to the ground and feels the structure of this part of the world. Where did that tremor originate from?

red

A-ways south, caused by the sea misbehaving in strange ways. Nothing as bad as a tsunami, but when the sea everywhere is behaving as weirdly as that, well. That affects things.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, this temple can be raised forty feet on a bed of stone as solid as she can make it. With a stairway, for people to evacuate to.

Then she flies south towards the angry ocean Fate. She's not as strong as a Fate who can screw with whole oceans, but she won't be the only one trying to stop them.

red

There aren't any Fates obviously visible, but it's severely overcast and if she flies up really high she'll see stormclouds in pretty much all directions.

And there's a lot of land. Much larger than a regular Tile.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

...The terrain here is not following the pattern. It's curving and bending everywhere, and there are weird zones where it's not obviously Plains or Hills or Mountain or Forest. That's... Vaguely worrying.

You know what, she doesn't have an ocean subtype for nothing. She's not nearly as good with water as stone, but the rain can just go on and clear out for about a quarter of a tile around her. And she armors up as she flies, repeatedly calling up random chunks of stone, separating them, and pushing the unneeded parts back into the terrain, until she gets enough heavy metals and gemstones to protect herself.

She fortifies a few other buildings as she passes, lands to suppress another tremor, and keeps flying to the coast nearest the disturbances.

red

The clouds around her obligingly clear up, though given how much more clouds there are they will probably not remain clear for very long.

And the coast is quite far. She's hit by heavy (and heavily unnatural) storms long before she reaches it.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She plows straight through the storms. The great thing about wearing seamless stone and metal and gemstones and a clear diamond visor at the front of her helmet is that it's pretty waterproof.

It does take her something like half an hour to suitably armor up and get to the site of that thing's rampage, but she makes a beeline for the epicenter of the destruction once she's close enough to feel it.

There's a lot of destruction, much of it underground. She would have thought that this tile would have crumbled already, but they don't use tiles, do they?

red

Nope! Not by a long shot. In fact this seems pretty massive, and to go on and on...

Anyway. There's a creature, yes, though even the armor and the diamond visor don't make the torrential rains between her and it be any less blinding. The silhouette of a—something, thirty-feet tall, can be seen. And it's fast. It moves this way and that with blinding speed, even as tiny specks—flying people? Other Fates, perhaps?—fight against it with the strangest magic.

At no visible command from the giant creature, the water that's invaded the land starts receding.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She throws herself into the fray. Her primary strategy is to hammer the beast with fallen pillars of concrete, boulders she created, to mess up its footing or drive it into the air by shifting the ground around it. If she can keep it busy and/or still it will give everyone else more chances to strike or flee.

She takes some solid hits, obviously. But that's what armor's for. Raw physical force alone isn't enough to break her. Yet.

The water that left is going to come back in a big wave. She keeps half a mind's eye on it, and dashes coastward to raise a tall and thick wall - directly through some former buildings - when it starts to come back. Breaking up the wave's momentum won't stop the area from flooding, but it will help.

red

The beast shows no signs of surprise—or of any emotion, really—at her sudden appearance, but the other people do. Not for very long, though, they start incorporating her into unspoken strategy as is.

The wave does come and hit the wall, and as expected its momentum is broken up—though not nearly as much as it by rights ought to have been. The beast looks at it for a second and then—vanishes.

A ridiculously fast trail of destruction along the coast might serve as a clue, but even the fastest amongst the other fighters isn't as fast as the beast. Some of them vanish into thin air, some vanish other people, but most have to move very fast.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She chases after it, but her flight is not that fast.

...It's not just messing with the ocean on the surface. It's messing with the entire giant not-tile, digging through and causing steadily worsening earthquakes. She stops chasing it, lands, turns porous water-filled rock (why does it go on so deep and then melt) into solid-packed stone of the most durable kind she knows. She holds a section of the landmass several tiles' radius around as steady as she can.

red

Other than the sea still being controlled by the beast, there's no sign of it within that radius. The harder rock suffers much less from the attack, but it's still not nothing, and the rains persist.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

After a while she chases after the beast then lands to reverse its damage again.

red

The beast is focusing on damaging (killing) people and interrupting various evacuation efforts. The evidence suggests a tidal wave has recently made an appearance as well.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She can evacuate a few hundred people (she does try to move people to safety when it's convenient), or she can keep an area the size of dozens or hundreds of tiles from collapsing completely, bringing plural cities with it. She keeps up the fly-after-it-strengthen-and-reverse-damage routine.

red

The beast is relentless. It seems to be simulating something like guerrilla tactics, causing a lot of damage and then springing elsewhere, sometimes even further inland.

And there's so much land, and so much water, and it's soon clear that not even the tidal waves are limited to where the beast is, but rather just periodically wreck more of the landmass. Her help is greatly appreciated, however, and the damage would be clearly far worse if she weren't around.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Why are people trying to talk to her when there's a monster rampaging around? Evacuate already! Not that anyone understands her screaming at them, but hopefully they'll get the tone.

She's getting tired. Manipulating whole islands is not trivial even for a Fate of the Mountain. She switches to evacuation, which is more attention-intensive than power-intensive. She doesn't ask people whether they'd like to be evacuated, she just grabs them dozens at a time and carries them to hastily made plateaus.

red

There aren't really any people who wouldn't like to be evacuated. As for why they're talking to her, well, just one of those things, isn't it, weird otherworldy culture, who knows.

The beast suddenly zaps farther inland and north, not paying much mind to being stealthy for now, and is soon out of view again. The water doesn't seem to have noticed its master has left, though.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

There's really not much else she can do. Alternate between evacuating people and hitting the monster, then reverse or limit some of its damage to the island after five minutes of, not rest, but somewhat lower activity.

red

The monster dodges most hits and tanks the rest, and it's really resistant. While it does, it cuts off as many evacuation efforts as it can.

...at one point it climbs to the top of one of the Fate's plateaus.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

When it's halfway up, she grows a flash-fast spar of stone around all its limbs except the tail. And then starts emptying the top of that particular plateau, because it's going to get free.

red

It's barely even slowed down by the stone, quickly smashing its freedom in a few seconds, and reaches the top before she has completely emptied it.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She punches it in the face with a diamond spike. This predictably does little to save the rest of the people there.

red

Predictably! And predictably does little to hurt the thing, too, though it does lose balance and fall. It uses its tail to crush as many people as possible before it does, though, because there's no such thing as a gracious loss.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

And Mountain is just about tapped out now. She flies somewhere (relatively) safe, one of the locations she'd been evacuating to with all the red tents, and pretty much collapses, still in her armor.

red

The beast is anything but.

It continues wreaking havoc and causing mayhem and other such expressions, going a long way north.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

When she wakes up, perhaps two hours later, she can't detect it. She finds someone not busy being badly injured or helping people who are, makes a stone caricature of the monster and points it in various directions. Where did it go?

red

The person shrugs, says something in the second foreign language the first guy used, and points to a certain direction.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She nods and flies that way, fixing a few roads that have visible amounts of stuck traffic but otherwise saving her strength. She follows the path of destruction until she finds the monster or the path ends, meaning it was killed or gave up.

red

She definitely does find the monster—

as it heads back the way she's coming. Through the rain-caused darkness she can see quite a lot of destruction there as well, and the creature doesn't stop to greet her. It stops for a second to topple a building, and she'll be able to notice it's visibly injured, but that doesn't seem to be affecting it in the slightest.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She untopples the building. Then starts trying to slow it down again. She's visibly slower and less powerful than when she fought it before, but she's still damn well going to try. Who's doing the most damage to it, so she can prioritize protecting them?

red

There are apparently a handful of people who seem to be capable of dishing out the hurt: one human male in a green bodysuit with metal armor who's throwing lances made of energy at it, one in a blue-and-white bodysuit who can shoot lasers with various effects, and one female who can seriously pack a punch. The one in the bodysuit teleports himself and the other two whenever the monster gets too far out of range, and they don't seem to be needing much protecting.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She should go back to trying to hold it still long enough for the three big hitters to get a blow in, then.

She can't do much more big, expensive manipulation like strengthening the island's rock underlayers or making plateaus to evacuate to, but growing hills around the monster's legs is nowhere near the same scale.

red

She can do that! And it will trip if she times that well, with quite a lot of momentum behind it. The big hitters don't even stop to thank her and just continue, well, hitting!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

An excellent division of labor.

She's not afraid of getting smashed, whatever sent her here instead of to her own temple besides. But seriously, what the hell is that thing? If this was her home the entire continent would have crumbled into the abyss by now.

She keeps doing her best to immobilize it, getting angrier and angrier at the pointlessness of its rampage by the minute.

red

Lots of people agree! There are more people arriving and hitting as well, some using strange contraptions and bombs and other such things. The creature runs south again, and this time the human with the green suit teleports her with the other two since she was so useful at stopping it.

And there's... someone there? Hard to make out from a distance, but they look... taller than a regular human, if still shorter than the beast. And the silhouette doesn't look... quite... human...

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She really wishes she still had all her enchantments active. Burning Blade especially. But one makes do with what one has.

Is that person one of the fair folk? It looks a bit like an Ignivore, what with all the fire. Eh, no time to think about it. Monster's head, meet that diamond spike again. But it manages to grab and crush and throw her after that blow. Ow.

red

The water's too restless, and tidal waves have become more frequent—too frequent. The human in the green suit and armor has stopped using the lances made of energy and is throwing huge balls of light that do shallower but wider damage, burning the creature's skin. Others with a variety of powers continue pummeling and burning and sitting in a cacophony of light and sound as they are teleported or move closer and join the fray, but there are less people than when the fight started. And none of them dealing nearly as much damage as the three.

One tidal wave hits the building the fiery stranger was on, and they disappear for a moment before emerging again and charging for the monster.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

That is not an Ignivore. It still has a defined form, as opposed to being a shapeless being of all-consuming blue fire. At any rate she stops trying to fight the monster directly. She'd just get in the way, at this point.

But this... Giant not-tile... Is more and more damaged by the minute. The monster is shaking it to pieces. Well, she knows stones. Earthquakes, go away you are not welcome here.

red

There's only so much she can do, here, since the earthquakes aren't really due to seismic activity, it's just too much water being moved.

The human with the lasers and the human that throws giant balls of light stop doing that when the... other thing... starts hitting the monsters. Okay, now there are two monsters and nicknames may start becoming necessary.

The big one throws the little one away, though, and the two humans start shooting it again. Oop, new tidal wave!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's not really aware of anything but the slowly, slowly failing structure of this place's ground. She pours everything she can manage into keeping it stable, barely noticing that she's making a miniature mountain in the process, with ridges radiating off for miles in all directions. She can't afford to try to keep what's left of this city in one piece if she wants to try and save the rest of the island.

red

The fight nonetheless continues to happen, though its details don't affect the sea at all. Apparently the bigger monster can multitask pretty well.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

I am the mountain. The sea will not break me, and it WILL NOT break this island.

red

Well, at the very least it is breaking less than it would otherwise have been.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

That will have to do.

At some point she falls unconscious, mostly embedded in her shiny new mountain.

red

The fight goes on for a while.

Eventually the smaller monster hurts the bigger one enough that it flees, but not before half that island has been reclaimed by the sea. When it leaves, the weather starts evolving according to more sensible physical rules.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She digs herself out of the mountain. She drinks some water pooled on the mountainside, then flies down to investigate the devastation.

red

There is... quite a lot of it. The southern island (island, pff, it's far huger than any Tile she's ever seen), with the exception of the plateaus she raised, is pretty thoroughly destroyed, and the southern half of it sunken.

...someone is following her from a distance as she explores.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Now is a more appropriate time to figure out the language problem.

She approaches and addresses that person in the four human languages, two Fair Folk tongues, and the one merfolk schoolsong she knows.

When it's clear she still doesn't have a common language, here, she tries to mime eating. She's hungry.

red

The person—Mountain may recognize her as the one who had been hitting the monster with her fists—looks progressively confused and worried when she doesn't recognise any of the languages the Fate's speaking. She nods when Mountain mimes eating, and touches her ear and says something, holding a hand up in a 'wait' gesture.

Then, a fairly high-tech... flying... thing... comes from the distance and hovers high above them. The woman asks something, hovering and pointing at the thing. Maybe she wants Mountain to come with her?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She shrugs and follows into the flying thing. There's not much point in talking when they can't understand each other, and she's not quite sure where to begin learning an entire new language without the benefit of translations.

red

They enter the flying thing, and the flying thing... flies. Really fast.

There are comfortable seats inside, and apparently the lady informed someone Mountain wanted food, because there is food waiting. She points at herself and says, "Alexandria." She gestures expansively at the food on a table there and says, "Food."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Communication crystals in their ears are not weird to her.

"Food." Nod, nod. Pointing to herself, "Mountain." It sounds more like "Celtana" in English, of course. Then the helmet breaks cleanly from the rest of her rock armor and she starts eating with impromptu utensils made from stone, if the kind of food this is calls for them.

red

There are non-stoney utensils available with the food, but if she wants to use hers Alexandria won't object. She does find it fairly odd that Mountain doesn't seem to care about her secret identity, and doesn't take her own mask off, but doesn't comment on it otherwise.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

While eating she makes a crude stone statue of Leviathan. "Monster." She moves it to the other side of the room. "Ran away?" Then she smashes it. "Or dead?"

Then a statue of the other one, the fire-monster. "And the other monster?"

red

Alexandria does a so-so gesture to the first question, and nods at the second statue. She points at Mountain and herself and says, "Human." Then she points at the fire-monster and repeats, "Human." Finally, she points at the place where the remains of the rock statue and shrugs, shaking her head. Unknown if human?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

So they're all Fates..? That doesn't seem quite right. Alexandria gives off a vibe of 'Hills' more than anything else, but it still doesn't fit.

No, they're probably not Fates, but something else entirely. This place doesn't even have Tiles. She swears softly and makes another confused gesture. "Alexandria human, Celtana not human. This is pointless until we share more words."

red

Alexandria tilts her head. Celtana thinks they're not the same kind of thing, which is odd since she's seen her fight Leviathan. Maybe the universe she's from has very different castes with parahumans? Because Alexandria is currently pretty certain Celtana is from another universe, and the way parahumans might be treated elsewhere can be arbitrarily different.

She sighs and shrugs. She'll try to see if the Protectorate can get their hands on someone with a power useful for translation.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She finishes eating, then tries to carve a rune of Cold into the back of her helmet with a diamond pick.

When the rune is complete, nothing happens.

Calamity. No magic. Not that she would have been able to do anything particularly impressive, without access to materials from her world. At last the facets of her essential to being a Fate still work.

red

Alexandria watches this curiously, looking at the handiwork. "That reminds me of Myrddin's runes," she says, even if Celtana won't understand.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"They don't work. Nevermind." For the same reason. She smooths it over with her hands.

She's quiet for a long while. But as the ship passes over the Northwestern Passages of Canada she frowns, points down and mimes shaking.

red

Alexandria frowns and speaks into her ear-crystal thing. There's quite some conversation there, then she says, "Now I'm really impressed." And mimes/expresses that using what's visible of her face and body language.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Shrug. "I'm a Fate. We feel the health of the world. Though I'm not sure why I'm even saying anything, since we don't understand each other."

red

Alexandria reacts about as well as one would expect to after hearing such an extended sentence in a completely unknown language, but she does recognise a few of those words from other things she's said—eidetic memory and supersmarts—and repeat them to her, slowly.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Vocabulary lesson on things-easily-pointed-to then.

red

Alexandria repeats them with very little in the way of an accent, and asks about more things, getting pencil and paper to draw things and ask about them, too.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She solicits the English versions of her words but doesn't remember them quite so readily. Grammar is a bit trickier than nouns and verbs, though.

This could cover the rest of the flight time quite easily.

red

So it could. And, lacking any objections, so it will.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She does object eventually, asking for more food. "Fight was hard."

red

More food is definitely available.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She keeps asking about other kinds of people, and is surprised that it's only humans.

She goggles a bit at the scale of the city, when they arrive. "...How many humans?"

red

Alexandria has presumably taught and learnt how to both write and say numbers. "7.43 million, approximately."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"A lot... Farms on other-" something. "No. You don't have-" the same something.

red

"What are—" something "—?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Vague gesture. "Squares of land. Home, land is always square or triangle... But not here."

red

"...squares in all directions? Not sphere?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Not spheres. And no... Melting, below. Square just ends. They fall sometimes. Fates like me, make more squares. Can't make squares above or below, won't attach to... World cloth?"

red

That is far beyond what Alexandria would have expected of normal variance between worlds. "I see. That means I understand."

The plane slows down as it approaches the Protectorate headquarters, and enters the protective forcefield to land.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I don't understand. But staying still not understanding, not helping."

red

She nods. "This is the Protectorate's temple," she says, approximating headquarters. "The Protectorate protects people from monsters and other things. We will try to find someone to help communicate."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Capes are organized. Good. I hope you fight less. Fates fighting can make hundreds of squares fall."

red

Pause. "We fight more but we are less powerful."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"...Okay. Good overall. And this sphere is not as unstable as the squares, that helps. You want me to join the Protectorate? I might be willing, until this form dies and I respawn in one of my own temples. I hope whatever error sent me here is a one-time mistake. Need to learn more about both things..."

red

Alexandria doesn't recognize some of those words, but infers from context. "We would be very glad to have you with us, but your power is perhaps not good for small things."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I can do small. Roads, buildings, statues, pulling useful things from my stone." She taps her helmet's visor. "Diamond. Hardest rock. I prefer to build than fight, anyway. You don't build, just fight?"

red

"Some build, most powers are geared towards conflict or work best in such a situation."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Annoying. Fates source: Do big magic, don't die doing big magic. Magic didn't work when I tried it, though. Capes source?"

red

Shrug. "No one knows. I will show you the place."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'm not really used to workplaces so... Crowded. If I work with the Protectorate, I want to live on one of my mountains."

red

Pause. "On one of your yous?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Blink. The paper from earlier is fetched, squeezed between two pebbles, and she draws. "This is a mountain. My name is also mountain, because that's what kind of Fate I am. It wasn't always my name, I used to be called Jeda."

red

"I understand. Do I call you mountain?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes, please. And about 'my mountains,' I will listen to advice on where they ought to go, but there will be at least one. I'll go back to that island I only saved half of, if nothing else."

red

"Can you use a mountain that exists—past?" She doesn't know how to say 'already.'

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I would tunnel into it, but yes, that will work."

red

"Then this is a problem that can be solved." She leads mountain into the building, and various uniformed people ask her various questions and she types in passwords on keypads by doors to get in.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She understands nonzero amounts of English by now, but doesn't really try to put this knowledge to use. She idly shapes a hunk of iron in one rock-armored palm into various things, instead. Pure metal is tricky, and so is detail work, it's a good focus exercise.

red

She leads Mountain to a room where green-suit and laser-guy are. "This is Celtana. She claims she is not a parahuman, but something called a Vela. I am inclined to believe her, since apparently her world consists of an infinite plane of uniform terrain squares floating above an empty void."

"...are you certain she didn't lie to you?" asks laser guy.

"I am certain she believes everything she said."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I could make a square. Though there is the problem of where to put it."

red

Alexandria translates this.

"How large are these squares, exactly?" green-suit asks.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"About fifty to a hundred of this temple would fit. But it would be a mountain square, possibly with forest or plains in a couple of slots. And mismatched terrain types create... Problems. I'm not sure at all what it would do here."

red

"I don't think we should do this anywhere inhabited," laser-guy says.

"We could do it on somewhere uninhabited and large like Antarctica," green-suit proposes.

Alexandria shakes her head. "That might cause seismic or weather problems anyway." She pauses to translate all of this, explaining what Antarctica is as best she can, and naming the other two Legend and Eidolon when referring to them.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She nods at the names. "I can avoid it. I probably should learn more about this... Sphere, but I'm going to need to sleep for a couple days soon, to get back to full power."

red

"Alexandria probably can explain better than any of us, she's more likely to remember details of physics that you'd find relevant," Legend says.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"And you are all powerful. That means busy. I was imagining learning to read more and hovering in a library."

red

"If you need book detail, then yes that might be better," Alexandria says. "But now I am the only person who can speak a little of your language. We are looking for someone that can help, but that might take time."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I want book detail eventually... I am lost. Not forever, probably, but I am lost. Now, nothing is certain, like an earthquake of my life. Something to do would help."

red

Alexandria is slightly frustrated about being unable to get the kind of detail and nuance she would like in language, but she'll cope. "I learn very fast, most others don't, and I don't have time to translate books. You may stay here and try to talk to people in English—" the word 'English' is actually in English "—and we will get a person who is good at languages—" because 'linguist' is not a word she knows "—to try to decode yours if we don't find a parahuman—" human with powers "—that can do it."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She switches over to English completely. "English, yes. Thank you. I will wait and practice a power."

red

Legend looks worried. "Where?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She holds up the glob of metal in her palm. It turns into a somewhat crude rendition of an unfamiliar animal. "Control."

red

He relaxes and nods.

"Would you prefer to meet other people and be shown around, or do you want us to find you a mountain?" Alexandria asks.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Back to her own language. "I'd prefer to find a mountain and rest before doing much else. Fighting that monster was... Tiring."

red

"Very well. How... quiet can you be when entering a mountain?" Discreet is not a word she knows.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"No louder than the flying thing. I will take care not to cause tremors."

red

"I meant more as in..." She does a vague flashy gesture. "Visual and sounds and people see."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"You want me to hide?" She covers her sculpture. "Hide rock. Hide me? Why?"

red

"Mountain nearby is public. Not allowed to alter or live in, need to convince the right people."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hm. Ocean public? No ocean people in this world. Can make mountain in ocean. Can hide in public mountain now, want own mountain later."

red

She thinks about it and nods. "Will be far from people, though. But ocean here is very big."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good... Will that monster come back? I want to." She switches away from English. "Kill it for daring to try and destroy hundreds of tiles. Or try to kill it at least."

red

"I am happy to hear that. Yes, it will come back, but will take time. At least 16 weeks, we think 24."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I wish magic worked here. That would be plenty of time to redo my enchantments. I think Burning Blade could have hurt it, but I lost them all when I somehow came here."

red

"Yes, that would be useful." Alexandria doesn't mention she has informed certain people of Celtana and her universe, and that these people are looking into ways of going to it and failing. That would not be useful.

They find a way to have her secretively burrow into one of the Catskill mountains to recuperate. Certain people continue machinating and trying to make plans with this new element at play.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's entirely unaware of the various parties' machinations as she hollows out hallways and rooms, doing sufficient work deep in those mountains for it to count as 'hers', then sleeps for close to two full days.

red

Machinations happen, and an appropriately distant spot underwater is picked out for when she reemerges. Alexandria has left an ear-crystal with Celtana and taught her how to use it, but warned that from within the mountain it would likely not work. They probably would have one that would after she woke up, though.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She presumably got instructions for turning the thing on. She keeps telling it 'hello?' every few seconds as she makes her way out of the mountain.

red

Eventually Alexandria's voice can be heard. "Hello. Are you feeling better?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yeah. Not at peak, that place isn't mine enough to charge me up all the way, but better."

red

"Good. We have found a person who is good at languages that might help more than I can with translating books. Do you want to come here?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes." She closes her exit from the mountain behind her and starts flying, staying low at first because of the hiding thing. "I'm flying. Be there in one hour or two."

red

"Good. Tell me when you have arrived."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's not particularly stealthy once she starts seeing buildings and roads. A flying shiny gemstoned seven-foot suit of rock-armor is probably one of the more attention-getting capes.

red

It is attention-getting! Especially because it is unusual and unheard of. But given that she is fast and the official channels are doing nothing to stop her most people don't panic (too much).

...someone starts following her. "Halt, villain!" they call.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She turns around to face them, slowing down only somewhat. She tries shouted English, what little she knows, "Hello. I do not know much English, sorry. What is 'halt'?"

The kinda-sorta-vaguely French accent probably lends credence to this sentence.

red

The person following her—red-and-white bodysuit with vague domino patterns, a cape, and a patterned mask—stops and blinks. He was not expecting this. "Uh. It means stop."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Oh, but why? I have places to go... Did you want to fight or something?"

red

"I... uh... You're not a villain?" He eyes the armor of earth a bit suspiciously.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"If villain means bad para human like I think, no. I'm going to build roads and predict earthquakes."

red

He blinks. "Okay... You with the Protectorate?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"That's where I'm going now. I don't want to keep Alexandria waiting. I can maybe spar tomorrow if you still want."

red

The cape is alarmed and impressed and surprised and very embarrassed! "Oh um. Yeah don't leave her waiting. I'm, sorry to bother."

He floats away quickly.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

So she really is famous and respected. That's convenient for fending off any further interruptions.

Shortly, "I'm at the roof, Alexandria."

red

"I will be with you in a moment."

Alexandria is soon there, and a sort plump man with glasses accompanies her. "Hello," the man says in Celtana's language, with an accent slightly worse than Alexandria's.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hello! Good, English is hard. I'm Mountain."

red

"I'm Harry. I will help understand the structure of your language and collect samples of it to help develop tinker tech to do it automatically."

He is not automatically understandable, but Mountain will find herself having much less trouble divining the meaning of his sentences than she did Alexandria's.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"What's tinker tech?"

red

"It might be best if you two continued this conversation inside?" Alexandria asks.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Sure. But I'm itching to do something useful sooner or later after I lost most of that island."

red

"You have saved countless lives and destruction would have been far worse without you." She starts leading them in and through the various scans and passwords.

"Some people's powers are to be very good at creating technology," Harry explains. "Those people are called Tinkers, and they are generally useful."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Technology..." She turns the word over, attempting to extract more meaning for a moment, then shrugs.

"But what I mean is I feel the stones around me on an immediate and visceral level. Preventing that monster from tearing everything to pieces was like watching someone swing a hammer down on your arm, over and over, and you can only block half of the blows."

She winces just remembering it. "I don't regret it, of course, I'm just trying to explain why I want to build something so badly.

red

Harry furrows his brows. Alexandria translates some of that, and Harry's power fills the rest in and he translates it back to Alexandria herself.

"Technology is things people make that would not exist without people," Harry supplies, finally.

"And I understand your desire to build something. We have found you a nice spot to create a mountain," Alexandria says.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good. But to figure out my language, should I just keep talking or should I say specific things?"

red

"I will need to take notes while we talk, and ask you to write some things down," Harry explains.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

That same slightly ragged piece of paper and pencil appears out of a slot on her back. She writes. "Well, here's the alphabet." It has sixteen letters, none of them taking more than two strokes to write.

red

Harry asks questions about how each letter's pronounced, about the presence of accents, and how words are formed from the alphabet.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Her answers are entirely consistent with a working language that wasn't made up on the spot.

red

That is good! Not that he'd been expecting something like that, but it is still reassuring.

He asks her to say things in her language, and write the things she's said, and he tries to repeat them and change them around some, and this can in fact take quite a while. Harry seems to like his job.

There will be food available when they need food.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She talks and writes and explains and eats and solicits intermittent English practice during all this.

There's a bit of a talent for languages there, probably from knowing seven (and a half, depending on if runes count) reasonably well already, but she won't be writing the Great American Novel any time soon.

red

That is interesting! Though without a power like his or Alexandria's, learning a language in one day is probably still infeasible.

Most of the notes will be sent to a computer anyway to create something that can automatically translate stuff (and be turned off when Mountain wants to speak English and practice, naturally).

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Computers sound fascinating. She compares them to a "Hundred-layer-deep golem."

red

Well, that's not a bad comparison!

Eventually Harry grabs a book in English and starts asking how certain sentences there would be rendered in her language. Not everything can be divined based on conversation and a parahuman linguist's intuition.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

This language apparently has lots of room for syntactic ambiguity. She writes two sometimes quite different versions of most sentences longer than five words. (Or maybe she's just not all that good at English yet.)

red

Well, with enough sentences and books Harry will be able to determine which is it, and hopefully help some with her English.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Mostly the second thing, apparently.

red

Okay, that's easier to help with! Apparently the active part of his power is having an easier time being understood, so if he repeats some sentences with the right emphasis most ambiguity problems should go away.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"English feels like four different languages smushed together... Valecana," (the language he's currently in the process of decoding,) "hates loanwords."

red

"Yes, English has many loaned words. Isn't there cultural coevolution of languages where you're from?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes, but Valecana is new as languages go, a few hundred years ago King Lica invented it and insisted all his ministers learn it. It was popular with everyone else because it was the 'Royal Tongue' and a few years later he had schools teach only in Valecana. Krellian gave us a few words like gata" (sickness) "But mostly just stopped existing."

red

"Most invented languages here are either from fictional universes, very old, or spoken by very few people. At one point people tried creating a 'universal' language to replace English as a language without a country but that project didn't work." He looks pretty disappointed about this fact.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Royals of Graya are close to all-powerful, and even then it took a long time for it to stick. It probably wouldn't have if he wasn't also regarded as an administrative genius."

red

He nods, looking wistful. "An invented language spoken by people would really be something."

He shakes his head. "Anyway, maybe I should grab a textbook or two to get a feel for your language's technical vocabulary?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I suspect what I call technical and what you do are very different. I tried making some of the technology we use in my world and it didn't work."

red

"Hmm, perhaps. I meant mostly physics and geography and geology, those sound like the most immediately relevant here from what I've been told."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Shrug. "I suspect I'll be confused either way."

red

"Hopefully I can help with that."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Indeed. Though I want to take a break and start on my mountain, or build a road or fix a bridge or something, soon."

red

"Start on your mountain...?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'm going to make a mountain in the middle of the ocean. Besides just wanting to, I need to rest in a place that is 'mine' to get back to full power."

red

"I... see. And the capes know this, I presume?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Alexandria told me she'd find a place. I was going to just go to... I think it was the 'Catskill Mountains,' but apparently they're public property. No merfolk in this world, though, so: The middle of the ocean."

red

"That makes sense. They told me to inform the PRT when we were done so presumably they have arrangements in place for this."

Harry goes to the door and knocks on it, and it's opened from the outside. He talks to someone there and returns. "They'll give you a waterproof interactive map to show you a good location."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good, good. Should I just fly back when I'm done?"

red

"Probably. I've been paid to stay around as long as I need to properly feed the translation program or a week, whichever's longest."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I wonder if you'd find Coral's Song as interesting as Valecana? It's a merfolk language, it's written in spirals and doesn't have singular forms of address, and you can't quite pronounce it right above water."

She listens for his response, then walks out and asks about the map.

red

"I'd love to hear merfolk language! It must be fascinating."

The map is asked about and is gotten. It's a tinker-made GPS tablet with an arrow pointing somewhere outside of the screen.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She flies out to sea, following the arrow. She practices English under her breath on the way, reviewing vocabulary and grammar.

red

Eventually she finds the spot—or rather, a circle marking an area where her actions would probably not disturb much.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The ocean almost a full tile deep here. She starts calling up stone. This is going to take a while.

But she relaxes immensely during this process. Nothing but ocean and stone for more than a dozen tiles. No monsters, barely any sea life. She can't escape the geography, but she's building something immense and strong that will last for a long, long time.

Eventually the sea starts to roil. A perfect pyramid of proud, strong stone rises from the deep. The geometric precision of the pyramid fades and is replaced by more natural contours as it continues to rise.The peak is easily two or three times as high as the towers in that city, the slopes are fairly steep and mostly regular. Each face is dominated by a slightly different color of stone.

She extracts handfuls of gemstones to replace some of her granite armor with material that is both prettier and tougher in some ways. She also pulls a few tons and iron and titanium during this process. Not much at all compared to the size of her mountain, but she might as well multitask.

At the top is a flat area, where she begins building a large structure reminiscent of Greek architecture. The inside of the mountain doesn't have any hidden faults, it's strong enough to support immense networks of tunnels eventually.

She's not any good at fertility. If plants want to grow on her mountain, they'll have to do it the hard way. It's night when she's finally done. She sleeps in an unfurnished room until sunrise, then flies back to New York.

red

The PRT has been informed of her presence enough that she doesn't need someone high-ranking with her to be waved through.

Harry hasn't arrived yet but will in a bit, and a couple of textbooks have been left for her to look at should she get there before him.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She starts reading the textbooks. What are they about?

red

There's: a geography book with various very nice pictures of the earth with many different kinds of filters to highlight different aspects of it; a geology book with the names and descriptions in English of various types of rock and explanations of how they form; an elementary physics book with Newtonian mechanics; and an elementary astronomy book explaining celestial bodies.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Newtonian mechanics are comfortingly familiar. The geology, too, is mostly the same apart from the details on how tectonics work.

The idea of celestial bodies moving around instead of just staying still is immensely weird to her.

red

Eventually Harry arrives.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She expresses her frustration at the concept of orbits.

red

He tries to explain General Relativity: A Layman's Understanding, but probably fails miserably.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Light has a speed?

Feh. They can talk about geology and classical mechanics, the versions she's familiar with are close enough to translate.

red

Yeah, alright, that works.

Geology and classical mechanics ahoy!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

During the geology discussion she keeps making references to her world's 'technology', and how certain kinds of rocks are used for this or that. It sounds more like magic than technology, but she seems to understand it just as well as an engineer knows thermodynamics. She even complains that she doesn't have her reference material.

red

Harry is not actually equipped to discuss much of this! He is only a poor linguist.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well the point was to give him a sense of the technical vocabulary, not to have a grand exchange of knowledge in physics and magic. Is that goal now accomplished?

red

Yes, much of it is. He's been typing happily away at his computer and comparing things and making comments about the roots of the words she uses and asking some questions about how they're formed and which parts were created or evolved naturally, though he has good guesses about those after a while.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

This language really likes the C, L, V, and A sounds.

She's getting bored of this. Another's excitement is only contagious for so long. She asks to switch to a brief explanation of that merfolk language, then wonders aloud whether the Protectorate has organized a list of things she can rebuild on that ruined island yet.

red

Harry isn't too disappointed that she gets bored of his excitement, he's pretty used to it. He has collected enough material for a first version of the translator to start being made, probably, and informs her and a PRT officer about this, as well as asking about things to rebuild. The PRT officer tells him something, and he tells her that Legend will be here soon.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She waits mostly patiently, looking up more English vocabulary.

Legend

red

Eventually Legend arrives. "Hello, Mountain. I heard you want to help?"

The magical feeling of understandingness Harry has is definitely absent here, even if she knows all the words.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes. I want not fighting, make a road or bridge or fix sinkholes."

Legend

red

"That can be arranged. The biggest problem will be convincing the Sentai Elite."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"So many convincing people. Most annoying part of work."

Legend

red

"You don't have to tell me about it," sighs Legend. "The Sentai Elite are saying they have a claim on you because you slept in a mountain in Japan."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Claim? Say I owe them?"

Legend

red

"No, say you belong to them, more or less," Legend says distastefully.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I made that mountain. Complain about changing the land? I saved half. Tch."

Legend

red

"Truth is they probably want you on their team and think we stole you from them to have your powers."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I can see why they think that. Take me here before I know much about what happening. I want to talk to them, fix island, maybe if they ask instead of yell at me I join. More earthquakes to stop there."

Legend

red

Legend nods. "That's actually a fantastic idea. I'm sure we'll be able to get the translator to work with Japanese as well. And since you're willing to join teams telling them that might just be enough that they won't give us a hard time if we get you there to fix their country."

...it is pretty clear that he doesn't think much of people who bicker over politics when their country has been almost destroyed by a giant monster.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Mountain has much the same opinion about politics.

"So, Japan soon. What now?"

Legend

red

"I'm not sure. I'll contact Japan when we're done here, but we need to know the scope of what you want to help with so we can properly direct you." He seems to have either forgotten she doesn't exactly speak English very well or decided that she'll learn if he just speaks.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She frowns. "Stop earthquakes, yes. Build thing, yes. Get diamond and steel from rock, yes. Stop villain? Okay, villain needs stopping. Patrol just in case? Boring. Make speech and impress people? Boring."

Legend

red

"Hmm. Well, we will definitely tell you about major earthquakes we learn of ahead of time. Getting raw materials isn't actually very hard for us, but if you're feeling bored you can help with that. I'm curious about what things you can build, and how nondestructive you can be when dealing with villains."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I can fix the... Under part, of your roads. Not the top. I can do building from stone and concrete. Can do... Pipes, but not wire. Can fix weak tunnels, easy. About villains, should I show? Spar?"

Legend

red

"We always welcome help against villains. As for the rest... much of that is done by the government, so your doing that would be actually very welcome, but it would also need permission."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"At home most of my work is making squares. Bad idea, here. Are there countries that need more land?"

Legend

red

"That would probably be disastrous in a number of ways. The climate on Earth is very delicate, and disturbing much can have very bad consequences. The spot where you built your mountain was picked with that in mind, and even then, it was because your powers can help against Endbringers much more than that was likely to affect." Legend speaks slowly, at least.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"...English isn't working."

Legend

red

Pause. "Okay. Let's call Harry." He calls Harry, who is still in the building exactly for situations like these, and who repeats what Legend said in a way that's more understandable.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I see. In my world climate is mostly stable except near mismatched tiles or edges. If I'm not allowed to do anything but fight villains, I should show you how... Calmly? I can capture someone."

Legend

red

"Very well. We don't usually go after villains in their own bases, though, they have terrain advantage and we need more planning to do that. You said patrolling was boring, but other than that, well, it might boil down to more waiting."

Harry translates as best he can, and asks a question about a word in her language at the end.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Patrol would be better than doing nothing. I'm just not used to doing nothing."

Legend

red

"Well, patrolling would be a good way for you to understand what parahumans do here, in general. I myself don't usually do it because I tend to have more administrative and PR duties than most other heroes."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Then I could patrol, yes. Probably with someone else, right?"

Legend

red

"Yes. Jetpack will be out patrolling soon, you could go with him."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Can he fly? Walking would be slow."

Legend

red

"He can fly, yes."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good. Where is he? I will talk to him."

Legend

red

"I can take you to him, though Mr. Norton," he gestures at Harry, "will not be able to come with you on patrol and your translator will still take a while to be done."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I know enough English for short patrol. Thanks for your help on that, Harry."

Legend

red

"You're welcome!" Harry looks very pleased about the whole thing.

"If you'll follow me?" And Legend leads her to an elevator that takes her down a couple of levels to a room where a man with a red-and-yellow helmet, red-yellow-white bodysuit with flame-like patterns, and donning on thematically appropriate armor is. "Jetpack, this is Mountain. Would you mind overmuch if she accompanied you in your patrol."

Jetpack looks at her and nods. "Sure, no problem."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Nice to meet you. I am still learning English, though."

Legend

red

Legend bids his farewells and departs.

"That's fine," Jetpack reassures her as he puts on his namesake. "I'll be going out in about fifteen minutes."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"You know my power? Are you a tinker?"

red

"I am, and we were all given a very vague rundown of what you can do. Flying, resistance, and control over rocks, yes?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes. Rocks and metal. I can make rock, too. And I can feel the earth."

red

"Oh, useful. Can you reshape metal?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes, but hard. Better with actual rocks, like diamond." She taps her visor. "Or on large scale."

red

"Very useful. And, no mask?" he asks, gesturing at his own face.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Shrug. "I am Mountain. I will always be Mountain. I see no reason to be someone else."

red

"Right."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Do you need some metal shaped?"

red

"Not now, but I might accept later! And we should probably get going, Fantastic will be here from her patrol soon."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Sure, I will follow."

red

Out they go! Jetpack's thing is not, as it happens, propulsion, it is gravity manipulation.

They fly around on a few predefined routes, deviating from those more-or-less at random to look for trouble.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She follows his lead, goggling at all the shiny buildings so on in a slightly detached sort of way.

red

Jetpack starts leading them to some less... reputable... parts of the city. Sticking to the shiny isn't likely to find a whole lot, now, is it?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She wouldn't know where to find trouble.

She comments offhand that the networks of tunnels below could use some shoring up in a few places.

red

Shoring up? Why, anything wrong with them?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Nothing urgent. Accumulated wear, soil shift, weaknesses in the stone that could never have been noticed. Nothing's about to collapse but some of it is probably leaking and some of it might collapse in 10 years.

red

...or earlier if the wrong Endbringer attacks a city nearby.

(Of course if they attack New York itself then it's not a question, really.)

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She fought Leviathan and got a sense of its abilities. Maybe she should tour cities and rate their sewers and tunnels for Endbringer resistance (not likely) and collateral wave resistance (less unlikely). She knows earthworks, and she likes building sturdy things.

red

Jetpack opines that governments would probably not complain if she did that, but she might have to consult them anyway in case they want to build more things through the stone she reinforces.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Yes, that's the problem in a nutshell.

She could probably go ahead and fix obviously not intentional damage like cracks in pipes. But she's going to be talking to the Sentai Elite about fixing Japan (or parts of it at least) so she can wait a while.

red

The Sentai Elite? Jetpack guesses that makes sense, they're pretty annoying about parahumans in national territory, but wouldn't the government itself want to send representatives? Although technically the Sentai Elite are under the government the same way the Protectorate is...

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Shrug. She doesn't know the politics, that's just what Legend told her.

red

Legend would probably know better. Jetpack himself mostly just likes building things and then testing them.

He's curious about her power, though. What's her range? Could she fix the obvious problems from a distance?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She pushed her influence to as much of Japan as possible at once, so 'a third of Kyushu' is probably a good guess for the maximum range of her power. But that was sheer brute force, for detail work she'd want to either see the target or at least land and put her hands on the earth.

red

...wow. A third of Kyushu? Wow.

But yeah, if she needs that much contact it might be more efficient to just focus on helping rebuild Japan.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, it did exhaust her pretty badly. She's not in a hurry to do that again.

How do tinkers work? It's probably not just 'being more intelligent,' it's focused on technology somehow right?

red

Right!

...and it's difficult to explain. Especially with the language barrier. It's mostly like... an instinct? Of what to do to create something?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Instinct, huh. Is it a 'knowing it by heart' sort of way or more like 'para-inspiration'?

red

Yes.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She'll probably never understand fully, not being a tinker.

red

Probably not, but Jetpack thinks he could do a better job explaining it if they shared more words.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'll listen, sure. You don't have to keep trying if it gets... Words. Hard, unpleasant."

red

"Okay, so, it's like seeing a... have you been introduced to Lego blocks?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"No. Have seen blocks as children's toy, though. Make things, then smash them."

red

"Right! It's sort of like seeing a building made of children toy blocks. After looking at one, you have more-or-less an idea of how to build it and what pieces you'll need for it and maybe you won't reproduce it exactly so when you build it it will look somewhat different than what you originally saw, but you don't necessarily need an instructions manual to do it. Tinkering feels a bit like that, like you see a toy blocks building in your head and you can reproduce it but you can't really explain to anyone else because it's this bizarre four-dimensional toy blocks building. But you know where every block goes."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"My power is not like that. I see the pieces some. Granite, basalt, shale, sandstone. But I could draw a map and show you exactly what's under our feet if I wanted. I wonder where the knowledge comes from. Something must make it."

red

Shrug. "No one knows. It just starts appearing. Tinkers just... know things. It's like a stroke of inspiration. And while we're working on them, it's one of the best feelings in the world."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I understand feeling happy to create, at least. Being in a place I made makes me feel at peace."

red

"Yeah, at peace is not quite it. It's more of a rush, like... do you know flow? When you're doing something you enjoy so much that you forget time passes and you can't stop doing it and forget to eat and to sleep and everything else disappears?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She looks distant. "...I think yes. That has caused... Problems, in the past."

red

He raises his eyebrows. "Problems?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"If you get too focused, you ignore danger things."

red

"Oh. Yeah I can see that. Well, Tinkers have that thing, except times one thousand. We usually have to have alarms or other people to remind us we should drink water or eat food."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hm. I would find that state of mind distressing."

red

Shrug. "It's relaxing, in a... not-relaxing kind of way. Well, very rewarding in any case. And we're very productive in those states."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"People are different than each other."

red

Nod. "That's true. Maybe only people who would enjoy this state become Tinkers."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I would not hope the world is so kind, like a child."

red

Shrug. "You probably mean to say that that was naive. And yeah, maybe, but if that's the case then becoming a Tinker makes you enjoy that state. I don't think there are any Tinkers that don't."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"No, the word I wanted was fair. The world is not fair. Endbringers prove that much."

red

"Ah. Yeah. That it isn't."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Do what we can, aye?"

red

"Yeah. I'm not much help against Endbringers myself."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Then get creative? Fly above, see things and tell them. Move strong but slow capes, or hurt people."

red

He nods. "That's what I do. Help evac, relief, et cetera."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Can you make flying things for others?"

red

"Yeah. The non-fliers of the team use my stuff."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good job then."

red

"Thanks," he laughs.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Back to quiet patrolling?

red

Back to quiet patrolling.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She starts singing softly in an unidentified language until something interesting happens, Jetpack restarts the conversation, or the patrol ends.

red

Jetpack starts some innocuous conversation here and there, but nothing of note.

Eventually the patrol ends. There is a PRT officer waiting for them.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hello. Nothing big happened. So most patrols don't have fights?"

red

"Indeed not," says Jetpack as goodbye before floating back into HQ.

The PRT officer says, "Legend wanted you to be shown to Conference Room 1B when you arrived."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Thanks for telling me. I follow."

red

The officer leads her to the appropriate room, and knocks. A deep voice—not Legend's—calls, "Come in!"

The door opens to show a man in a suit tapping on a laptop's keyboard. He stands up when she walks in—tall, broad shoulders, a scar on his right cheek, with an air an Earthling might call 'ex-military'—and offers to shake Mountain's hand. "I'm Piers Reinhold, Deputy Chief Director of the PRT."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She peels back the granite armor to shake his hand. "Nice to meet you. I am Mountain. I hear PRT is like the Protectorate but not made of capes?"

red

"That's a way to put it,” he says. “We aid the Protectorate and represent the interests of non-capes, overseeing parahumans and keeping them accountable.”

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"You know I want to help build things? And I am not from this world? Also I have notes on tunnel that could use work from when patrol flew over them."

red

"I've been informed of the first two things, and the third is quite interesting," he says, taking a seat and gesturing for Mountain to do the same.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She looks at the chair. "I will break it if I sit."

red

"As you say." He gestures at a device on the table, a small earpiece. "The translation device."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good, thanks!" The helmet comes off, attaching to her back, to give room to put the earpiece on. "Does it go from mine to English as well as English to mine?"

red

"This version doesn't. Sometimes it will translate something in a way that doesn't make sense, or beep to inform you it doesn't trust its translation. In both cases you can press the button and tell it it made a mistake, and propose a correction if you want. It connects to a central server so it won't work in your mountain."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"That will be fine. I am learning English too. Practice is good."

red

"Good! So, we've managed to convince the Sentai Elite that we haven't brainwashed you and you're not going to be infiltrating them and feeding us classified information, but they want to speak with you anyway just to be sure." The translation has a small delay, causing it to be out of sync with his voice and lips. "They also probably want to make a pitch for you to join them, which you are completely free to do, of course." He does not betray any feelings about it in either tone or body language.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I almost don't want to join anyone. If I join I would say it is for a few months and then I might quit, because I don't know if I like it."

red

He nods. "That makes sense. Would you like to talk to them anyway?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes. I still want to try and fix Japan."

red

"Good!" He taps something into his computer. "They would like to talk to you in twenty-five minutes, via video-conference. They requested to speak to you and you alone, so you will have this room for yourself. And your translator should work with Japanese as well."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I will write notes on the tunnels until then?"

red

"That sounds like a fine plan to me."

There is pen and paper galore on the table in the middle of the room.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The result of her next twenty-five minutes is a rough sketch of the sewers and subways near their patrol route. A key up top indicates that triangles equal leaky pipes or tunnels, squares and circles indicate sections in potential danger of cracking or caving in.

red

The Deputy Chief Director leaves the room after twenty minutes, explaining to her how to accept the conference call, which will appear on the large TV.

Eventually the call appears. Three masked people wearing similar uniforms appear. One of them speaks, and after half a second it's translated to: "Hello, Mountain-[polite form of address]."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

In English: "Hello. I am sorry I do not know Japanese. The translator is working, so I can understand it. I hope your country is recovering from Leviathan well."

red

"We appreciate our concern, and we are very thankful for your help during the fight. Losses would have been much larger if you had not helped."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I will always prevent senseless destruction if I can."

red

"That is good to hear. We also heard you were interested in helping us recover from this disaster, and were possessed of uniquely suitable powers, yes?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes. I can create, shape, and sense stone. I have used this to build roads and bridges in the past, and to suppress earthquakes, reverse landslides, close crevasses. And I enjoy building things."

red

The three capes nod, and the one in the middle continues speaking. "We have a strict policy about parahumans entering our territory without our knowledge and control, we want to reduce the number of disasters, but we do believe you would be cause for much rejoicing."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I do not enjoy being controlled strictly. But for the good of all I can tolerate it for a while."

red

"We do not mean to control you. Only to keep track of parahumans amongst us. You understand that it is difficult enough to keep them in check without adding new ones who do not know our ways and would be more likely to hurt than to help."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I think I understand. Know that I am not a parahuman. I am something different, a Fate."

red

"That is interesting. In what ways are you different than a parahuman?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I do not know the details. I am from another world where things work very differently. Physics are different. I got my powers in a different way. All Fates have similar powers with different themes. Ocean, forest, plains, mountain. I am not human anymore, I stopped being human when I turned into a Fate. I am not driven to violence like parahumans. I believe I will never die unless all my temples are destroyed - when I arrived here my body had just been destroyed by another Fate, but I appeared in one of your nation's temples instead of my own. I do not know why."

red

The two capes in the background whisper to each other but the microphone doesn't catch enough of it to be translatable. "And thus the reason you are called Mountain. I see."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's amused. "There are enough of us that it was seen as vain, but nobody back home made an issue of it."

red

The three of them nod. "In any case, we would like to extend Mountain-[polite form of address] a cordial invitation to come to our magnificent country."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I will gladly accept and seek your help on the best way to restore things. Where and when should I arrive?"

red

"We can provide the method of transportation of choice. A welcome committee will be awaiting you at your arrival."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Okay. You should arrange my pickup with the Protectorate. I do not know much about airplanes."

red

"Very well. We are certain it will be a pleasure working with Mountain-[polite form of address], and we will endeavor to make it likewise for her."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'm sure it will be. Thank you and goodbye." And she closes the connection and walks out of the room.

red

Another PRT officer is waiting for her outside. "The Deputy Chief Director would like to see you."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Okay. I want to go back to my mountain soon, though. Where to?"

red

They lead the way to an office, and knock. "Come in!" the same voice calls. "Ah, Mountain, I see you've finished your conversation with our Japanese colleagues."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes. They said they would send a plane and meet me when it arrives."

red

The Deputy Chief Director looks at his computer's screen, clicks a few things, and nods. "Indeed, they have emailed me about it. That sounds like an excellent idea, and makes me believe the conversation was a success."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes. They seem very strict and I don't think they'll leave me alone while I am there, but they were polite at least and I still want to help even if they are going to be like that."

red

He nods, giving no other sign about whether he'd been expecting something along those lines. "You have a communication device, yes? Have you been given a phone?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"No. Alexandria gave me this but it is not a phone." She points. The radio com is stuck to the inside of her helmet near her left ear and the translator is in the same place on the right.

red

"Hmm. I can arrange for you to be given one, it's better for asynchronous communication and leaving messages without necessarily needing you to be in a position to receive them immediately."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Sure. I need to learn to use it of course."

red

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

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

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

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"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."

red

"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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

"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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

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

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

"You know about computers in general, yes?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Some. Have not practice using one much."

red

"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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

"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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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.

red

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

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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.

red

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.'

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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.

red

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.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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?"

red

The internet may or may not have advice on that; she'll have to check up on that on the plane.

"Yes, indeed. I am Aiko Wakahisa, and these are my colleagues Windfire and Blot. Let us board."

The inside of the jet is sumptuously appointed, with a red carpet and dark wooden furniture, as well as comfortable reclining and rotating chairs.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Very nice." She's made sure the thin layer of stone and melded gems she's wearing is as smooth as possible, and pays attention when she moves to avoid letting it pinch anything.

The strenuous politeness will probably get old eventually, but for now it's sort of interesting.

"If I may ask, in what ways are the Sentai Elite different from the Protectorate? I admit I do not know a great deal about either group yet."

red

"We have very different philosophies. The Sentai Elite are more strictly trained, and we do not have celebrities. The names I informed you in English are not equivalent to the ones we have in the original Japanese—we highlight the importance of teamwork and complementing abilities and skills. The entire Sentai Elite is a cohesive unit, and each individual team is more a limb of that unit. We also keep track of all parahumans in sovereign territory, as you have been informed, in order to better understand and plan for contingencies and emergencies."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I see. Is there a plan ready for the reconstruction? Will I be working closely with others or on my own?"

red

"There are plans, yes, in a hierarchy of priority. It would be ideal if you could coordinate with others that will complement your powers, but that is not absolutely necessary. There were a few details that were not completely clear. Can you work glass and metal as well as stone?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I can work metal with somewhat less skill than stone, but unfortunately I have no ability with glass. I can move water as well, but with relatively little skill and power. I do not often find it useful except as an umbrella."

red

"That is good to know. We have someone who can help with wood and someone who can help with glass, you could work with them."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes, that would be best. I expect to want to help for about a week, possibly more or less depending on how much can be done in that time."

red

"Certainly. And we would also welcome you to rest in one of our Headquarters, if you would be so inclined."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I only regain power when I rest in a place I have personally built or modified. If possible I should sleep on one of the plateaus I created to evacuate people, or on the mountain I accidentally raised while trying to hold Kyushu together."

red

"Very well. The offer still stands for other idle moments, however."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I will probably accept." Is that the end of the conversation? If so, she'll get out her phone and see if it still internets after a few seconds of polite silence.

red

As far as her hosts are concerned, it is, for Aiko Wakahisa has grabbed her laptop and started typing into it.

The two capes accompanying her are just sitting there in silence.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

So, does her Protectorate phone still have access to the internet? If so she starts scanning for advice on the PRT's paperwork. If that seems like a dead end she'll send emails to lawyers and hope they won't charge much to inform her what all those endless contracts actually mean.

red

There isn't much public advice that's not in itself buried in lots and lots of legalese. It's not wholly impossible to understand, if you're a native English speaker, but might prove somewhat challenging to her.

But lawyers that can navigate that for her are not too expensive!

...for lawyers. For her current funds, they're stretching a bit, but given that she doesn't need to pay for a place to live she might just be able to pay for one of the less expensive ones.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Can she borrow money from somewhere? She'll only need it for a month or so, and she doesn't really want to hire a cheap lawyer when screwing up with the law could be so inconvenient.

red

Her bank is willing to give her a loan. In fact, it's quite a big loan, though she might not recognize this given her lack of familiarity with American banks.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She knows how much clothes and food and rocks cost. She sees that it's a big loan.

She only needs a small part of that big loan, though. Emails go out to the bank and one of the most recommended law firms. She wants a concise explanation of what all the paperwork means for someone new to English, and probably some phone conversations about it later. She'd also like it if they can do some of that paperwork for her. She doesn't need everything finished until she's back from Japan, though.

red

One of the most recommended law firms takes a while to reply to her email, and the first thing they do is tell her about prices for online consultations and in-person visits and stuff like that.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

After discussing schedules with Aiko for a minute, she'll pay for a one-hour online consultation at a certain time tomorrow, to summarize her wants and concerns.

After that she just relaxes for the rest of the trip. It shouldn't be long, this thing is just as fast as the other one.

red

Yup, not long at all, just a few more hours.

Eventually they arrive, and the party waiting for her consists of more uniformed differently-masked people, three men in suits, and a ridiculously overdecorated reception room. With food! Quite good food, too. And tea.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's a little used to this: They're doing their very best to impress her. It's like working for Princess Avaced.

She politely greets people and has some of the food and tea if they don't immediately move to go somewhere. (She's figured out a mouth and not face revealing modification of her helmet by now.)

red

They don't immediately move. There are a few politicians and cape-sponsors that subtly (and at times not-so-subtly) hint that she could be working with them on a more permanent basis, with all those shiny things she could have (like lots of money) if she did.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Unfortunately, she thinks their philosophies and beliefs are simply not compatible enough for a long-term partnership. She'll still be glad to assist in times of emergency or on a temporary basis, of course.

red

They assure her they completely understand her position and will welcome her help in the future, in a tone she might recognise as the 'we will keep trying to more subtly convince you with even more lavish displays of various temptations' tone as opposed to the 'I respect your opinion and will no longer push the subject' tone.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She attempts to distract them from subtle prodding by asking about the history of Japan.

red

That might just be amongst their favourite subjects! They can talk about it at length, with words like 'glory' and 'magnificence' and 'joy' sprinkling the description.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

This excessively polite chitchat is nice and all, but after a while she asks whether she might get started on some of the repair plans?

red

Oh, they thought she would like to rest before, what with the differing timezones and the fact that it might be quite late for her biological clock.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Her sleep schedule mostly is not a thing. This is a personal quirk, not a power. She needs sleep eventually, but may as well stay up until it's night here.

red

Well, it's five thirty PM there, night will take a bit. If she's sure, will she accompany this attractive young man wearing a suit through these beautiful hallways towards this conference room?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Sure, sure. She idly bulks her rocksuit back up a bit along the way. It makes soft crackling noises. Not enough to hurt furniture, hopefully.

red

They have arranged for sturdy furniture to be there to welcome her.

They outline the plan, asking some stuff of her (like can she raise the rest of Kyushu back? would it be okay if she lowered those platforms again once most of the water was taken care of? can she help with macro flooding?) and presenting different parts of a plan tree depending on her answers.

It's actually pretty well thought-out and has apparently taken quite some work. They probably started this long before the previous day.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's very impressed and tells them so. Usually she has to do the bulk of the planning herself.

Raising the rest of Kyushu would be difficult. There is a huge amount of pervasive and deep damage. But it's possible. Reversing her platforms and reducing macro flooding are relatively expensive for her but possible. She likely can't make Kyushu's geography match what it once was without far more work than she wants to spend on that in particular. She'd rather be doing roads, seawalls, collapsed tunnels, etc.

red

They nod along and adapt, having prepared parts of the plans and priority orderings to match. As she builds stuff, she will be working with a Tinker that can make plants grow in specific shapes, and one who can transfer heat from one place to another and manipulate it with quite a bit of fine control over it who will be able to provide glass.

The platforms are secondary, but the macro flooding is definitely going to be one of the first things they'd like her to help with. They've highlighted a few key locations, and ask for her input on how many of those she'd be willing to help with, as well as in what order, with how much time to rest in between, and what she'd like to do otherwise in specific, etc. They want quite a few details, leaving very little margin for creativity or error during the actual implementation of the projects.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She'll do 14 hour work days. She prefers to do two things at once: Reverse flooding at the same time as repairing buildings and roads in the flooded area. She's not entirely sure how quickly she'll be able to do X or Y or Z. She's happy to plot out the course of things two days in advance, but no further than that.

red

They take that information into account and change some of the plans. In particular, they postpone actually discussing some of the plans until later.

Two things at once, however, that makes them pretty happy. They will definitely want that.

They continue ironing details out for a while more, and by the time they're done it's almost nine PM.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Before she flies to her nearest plateau to sleep, can she have a computer with the plans on it by tomorrow? She'll be on comms of course, but a reference never hurt anybody.

red

Certainly, it will be arranged.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

So she flies to the nearest plateau. She made a lot of them, wherever they are it's likely not far.

red

There is indeed one such plateau fairly close to where she is, one that raised the large part of a park, the rest of which is too destroyed to be recognized at ground level.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She dives straight into the side and sleeps in a cave of her own making.

And is up again at 8 AM, as planned. She flies back to the office place. Is her phone charged up like she asked? Is there breakfast?

red

Yes to both things, and she also has access to a laptop.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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?

red

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

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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.

red

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.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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.

red

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

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

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

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"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."

red

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

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"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."

red

"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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

"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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

"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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

...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?"

red

"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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

"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."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

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

red

"Perfect. Was there anything else?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"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.

red

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.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Lavish food is delicious.

She hopes they don't mind or don't notice the subtle creativities she squeezed into the work. Faint patterns in new stonework, shoring up foundations beyond stated specs, and so on. It helps her stay focused and interested because knowing you're doing good is only so compelling.

red

If they have noticed any of that yet, they don't let it show. Dinner continues for a while more and then the day ends.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

What, really? She could do a couple more hours' work. Deflooding only if the other two are too tired.

But if they insist, alright. What interesting stuff is there to do in semi-demolished Japan?

red

Well, the very fact that Mountain was there at the time of the attack meant Leviathan did way less damage as a whole than he could, and there are some whole cities here and there with whole city things to do: restaurants, bars, movies, parks, libraries (most of them closing by this time), etc.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's not really familiar with this place, this world, so she wants to explore. But not having any Yen at the moment and being unwilling to ask for some unless it's offered precludes her from doing some of these things. She'll walk around a park out of costume, wearing her translator. She's absorbing some Japanese just from the hearing both Japanese and its translation into Valecana, maybe she can practice it and chat to passersby.

red

There are a few passersby here and there. A jogger, an elderly couple, a young couple, someone sitting alone on a bench. She can take her pick.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She says hello to the person sitting alone.

red

The person looks at her and removes an earphone from her ear. "Hello," she replies.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She... Tries to say something equivalent to "Sorry to bother you. I have been learning Japanese and want to see how well I am doing."

red

The person blinks and furrows her brows. "You're not bothering," she says eventually, "but I didn't quite follow the rest."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Again, more carefully, paying attention to getting the word order right, "I am trying to learn Japanese."

red

"Ah! Well, that's fun," she says, slowly this time. "I am Kyou. What are you called?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The Japanese word for Mountain, or her original name? Original name, to avoid confusion. "I am Jeda. Nice to meet you, Kyou-san." Much of her phrasing is likely to be excessively formal, given who she learned it from, but she's figured out the most common titles at least.

red

"Nice to meet you too!" she giggles at the formality. "Where are you from?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"America, I suppose. My new home is there. Maybe nowhere. And you?"

red

"I'm from Tokyo, but it was destroyed by the Leviathan... What do you mean, nowhere?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I... Appeared? While the Leviathan was attacking."

red

She blinks. "Appeared?" She peers at her. "You don't look like one of them."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'm not a..." What's the word? "Cape. My apologies for the confusion."

red

"Not cape. You know, them. No memories, appear places, usually look like monsters..."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Oh, I see." She doesn't know them, actually. Something to look up later. "I should go now. I do not know know much Japanese. Thank you for your time, Kyou-san."

red

She looks bewildered but nods. "[Okay]" her translators says, though what she actually said was closer to 'Mm!'

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She goes back to walking around the park. This time she keeps to herself. After about half an hour she just goes back to her plateau and sleeps.

red

And the following day: more work!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's very cheerful and cooperative and industrious about it, but still sneaks in little creativities. That repaired tunnel being artful granite instead of plain concrete. The character for mountain left in a hundred inconspicuous places.

red

The tunnel, they notice. They politely request that she inform them when she decides to change the plans like that. The states justification is that there are several capes that can use terrain to their advantage and knowledge is crucial against them.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She explains how the little creativities help keep her focused and starts explaining them whenever she makes a significant change. She keeps them limited to aesthetic and not functional changes.

red

They don't grumble about it. Out loud, anyway. She's still too valuable a resource.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Work, work, work. How much progress are they making anyway?

red

They've been going through various coastal cities and setting up and reinforcing infrastructure for finer work to happen in the future. All in all, she's saving them months or maybe even years of work.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Infrastructure is some of her favorite stuff to build, and she's clearly helping a lot, but it's getting old faster than she expected.

After three days she informs them that the fifth is her last unless something changes. More variety, more creative license, money: at least one of the three, preferably two.

red

They can throw money at her. They're more reluctant about the former two, and would like her to elaborate on what would satisfy her there.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Never mind, money's good enough as long as they continue to grumble only small to medium amounts at the occasional engraving into a seawall or artful curve to a rebuilt building's foundations like she's been doing so far. She doesn't mention the series of hidden 山 she keeps putting down.

red

They're mostly fine with that arrangement.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She sees some more of Japan whenever they're done for the day. Restauraunts are kind of redundant since they keep feeding her what must be elite chef level food. She doesn't like alcohol in any quantity, so no bars or clubs. But movie theaters and parks and museums and libraries are interesting.

After nine days in total, they've covered every major coastal city and a few inland ones. She says that she's repaired enough for now, maybe she'll come back in three months if they hire her. One last day to finish the current city, mostly fix a rail line, and do touch-ups on wherever they want, and she'd like to go back to New York.

red

The Sentai Elite do not seem too interested in having her on their team anymore. In fact, if they weren't all incredibly polite all the time you might even guess they were glad to see her jet go.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Yeah, she kind of expected that. A subtle I-told-you-we-aren't-compatible to one of the diplomats is the last word she gives on the subject.

red

She's alone in the jet, no Legend or Alexandria or Eidolon or Deputy Chief Director or anything like that, but the jet came with a few of the documents her lawyer said he'd be sending her.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She looks over the documents and signs things once she thinks she understands them, then works on her list of power-uses.

Detecting defects in and repairing to pristine condition the following: Concrete-and-steel buildings. Concrete-and-steel bridges. Arbitrary concrete-and-steel structures. Tunnels and caves of all kinds.

Reshaping metal and stone to arbitrary forms I.E. as art or for manufacturing. Detecting the potential for earthquakes, suppressing earthquakes. Large scale hydrokinesis suitable for reversing flooding or similar applications. Mixing metal alloys or plating objects in metal without heat, electricity, or equipment.

Creating a long, long list of stones and minerals with an explanation of how making rare materials also produces less valuable but nonhazardous byproducts.

And more things that it would be tedious to list here.

red

Should she email her lawyer a list of those things, he will inform her that the earthquakes and hydrokinesis probably fall under the Protectorate's purview unless she wants to specifically sell her services as a private contractor.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She doesn't particularly want to join the Protectorate. Bureaucracy rubs her the wrong way. Can it be arranged so the Protectorate could occasionally hire her to do things but she doesn't officially join?

red

Yes, that can work. She can also be an independent hero, which would forfeit payment for those particular acts but would earn her goodwill from both Protectorate and the public.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Would it be a problem if she declares herself a public hero but doesn't hero particularly often?

red

Not at all, and given the sheer amount of time Protectorate heroes spend participating in fundraisers and making public appearances for the press, actual heroing doesn't really happen all that often.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

That sounds like the right course of action then. She can still make money doing non-emergency things, correct?

red

Correct!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

So she starts filling out the first layers of paperwork she needs to do that, at least the ones she can do on the plane.

red

She can do all of the first layer, it mostly consists of requesting evaluation and licensing of power use in non-Protectorate-related capacities.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

And after that: zzzzz.

When she arrives back in New York she starts sending the paperwork where it needs to go for the second step. With lots of back and forth email with her lawyer for the exact details.

red

Lots of back and forth indeed! The next batch of paperwork is more specific to a few broad categories her powers belong to, and she gets categorizations that are a bit more specific than those used by the PRT, since the focus isn't the same.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's really not sure what all these categories are for, but fills things out diligently and loses patience at only a moderate rate.

red

The lawyer explains that in the case of for-profit use it's because powers are so varied that it's impossible to pass legislation about each possible combination, so they create these categories in order to have broad things laws apply to. For instance: 'do not generate matter inside people's bodies without their informed consent' isn't something that needs to be regulated in powers that do not generate matter.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's not setting out to kill anyone! Ugh. How much more of this is there?

red

There's another batch of documents to sign, and then she has to schedule a day for the first phase of power testing, which will happen in the first PRT lab that's available within a reasonable distance, where she has a say in which distances are reasonable.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

ASAP, preferably east coast but she can fly; She'll go to Chicago if it's the first available.

red

Good! They will inform her when a lab is available.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Wait time, horray.

She retreats to her mountain and grows it a couple of kilometers over the first few days of waiting for a lab.

red

About a week later she's informed that a lab fairly close by will be available in twelve days.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She doesn't need money immediately. What she got from Japan is more than enough to pay her lawyers and the bank's credit, but it makes her nervous to not have a source of income.

She corresponds with more companies, telling them she's going through approval and making lists of contacts, buys a few pieces of hardware she can't just make and installs plumbing and a kitchen in her mountain (with plenty of help from the internet), and asks the internet how to find a good assistant.

red

Well, that depends on what the assistant will do, work conditions, wages, etc.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

They will organize commercial power use for a new cape: Mountain. They will also find people to do any other things she wants done and try to keep her informed.

Wages: A lot. Work conditions don't need to be particularly strict. She'd like it if they would live on her mountain but she knows that it'd be pretty inconvenient for most people. They'll have a budget on top of the wages.

red

The "Wages: A lot" part attracts a few people. How would they get to and from the mountain?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Wages: A lot is not Wages: A ridiculous amount, mind you.

She typically flies back and forth. She could buy some kind of aircraft and make a helipad, she could fly them back and forth personally, she could buy a speedboat and make a dock. This is an 'eventually' type of thing, though. Definitely not immediately.

red

Well, if eventually she creates a job posting for that there might be people interested. Given that some actually go as far as becoming henchpeople of villains, that wouldn't be too surprising.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Back to practicing English-absorbing bits of this world's culture-steadily improving her mountain.

She reads up on electricity some, designs a crude version of a hydro plant that relies on the depletion of a large reservoir about halfway up her mountain that she plans to periodically refill. Then she contacts engineering firms until one agrees to evaluate if it would actually work and tune it up some and produce an estimate. For pay of course. She'll buy the generate-y bits and hire electricians but bulk construction will be all her. She might need to take the bank up on that large loan, but the PRT will approve her to sell stuff eventually.

red

Eventually, yes. But while she doesn't, there's no law preventing her from using her powers to build stuff for herself. Her lawyer informs her that she won't be able to hire anyone to work in a structure she's built until she's cleared, though.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

These things take time. Her own personal hydro plant is probably six months to a year in the making at best even if she was already approved. She wants a steady source of electricity if the mountain is going to be a proper base and not a series of well-designed caves.

The day of the lab space arrives. She flies there in 'costume' (which means gemstone/rock armor).

red

There are people waiting for her with a few medium-sized concrete-and-steel structures. They ask her a few clarification questions and for her to confirm a few things she's said, then ask her to do a few preliminary demonstrations after she signs a bunch of other terms. Her lawyer is there with her to advise her.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She gets her lawyer to briefly summarize the things she's signing before signing.

Her powers' results are exactly what she described.

red

The people overseeing it all are glad that they are. They say that she will receive the results of the preliminary testing in a week, and then there will be more specialized forms to fill out before another round of more extensive testing.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Is there any way to speed this up? She wants to be making money with her powers sooner rather than later.

red

Unfortunately there is not, but after the second round of testing she will be pretty much done, so it's almost over!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She mutters something about understanding why villains are so common on her way out.

Her mountain gets bigger again. She tells the Protectorate she'll definitely stop before it outmatches Mt. Everest. She starts on a maze of rooms and tunnels within, not intending them for any specific purpose, just building to distract herself.

red

Well, heroes actually have to go through much less paperwork and bureaucracy in general, unless they are Tinkers or team leaders, so it's not that bad for everyone.

She soon gets the rest of the paperwork sent with a few forms and specific regulations about her particular power, in the form of a legally binding contract with some very severe consequences for being broken.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Nothing the contract forbids is something she was likely to do anyway.

She talks it over with her lawyer (who must be happy to have a client that calls on them so often) and signs it.

red

Good! There will be more extensive testing, at the same lab since they are already familiar with the basics of her power.

It will happen in two weeks.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Grrrr.

The Endbringers will hit again before she can do anything useful at this rate!

Building things to burn off frustration doesn't seem to be working this time. She asks her lawyer how illegal it would be for her to pick a fight with a villain, under various circumstances. Nonlethal force of course.

red

Absolutely not illegal at all, she can do that whenever, the regulations are only meant for profitable uses of her powers. Of course, if she roughens up a villain too much she might get in trouble that might be alleviated by an independent hero registration, but that one's really easy to get, just fill out one form and submit it, she doesn't even need to wait for it to be validated.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

So she fills out the form and submits it, and makes a big granite-handle steel-top sledgehammer to look even more intimidating than rock armor (even heavily gemstoned rock armor) already does, and starts lurking in the skies and roofs of non-New York cities, stopping any crimes she finds and hoping to find one being done by a villain.

red

Villains are typically less out-in-the-open about their villainy than one would naively expect, but she does run into one before it's time for her second batch of testing.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Excellent. What're they doing, and does their costume give any hints to their power?

red

They are apparently very casually robbing a jewelry store, dressed in a black body suit with white rewind-type arrows. The jewelry store's alarm is sounding, but no one else is inside, and the villain is casually picking stuff up with a gun lazily pointed at the shop keeper.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She doesn't recognize the significance of the rewind symbols. How unfortunate. The gun's barrel is now fused shut. Hopefully she did it smoothly enough that the villain didn't notice - the shift in the thing's balance should be minimal.

Then she falls to the street outside the jewelry store with an exaggerated thump and tries to stick the villain's feet to the floor by growing rock around them.

red

The villain notices this and—

is no longer stuck to the floor, being a couple of steps to the left. She bounces a bit, never really standing at the same place for long time, and looks at Mountain, then starts running towards her in a weird unpredictable zig-zagging fashion.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

If she's going toward the person in armor she thinks she can hurt them. She flies back up and swings her hammer as she sends a rock toward the villain.

Rock: Meet villain's gut. It's a light hit, since she doesn't know how much she needs to hold back.

red

She's definitely hit by the rock, and then two things happen in very close succession.

One: the rock returns to the position it'd been occupying ten minutes previously.

Two: the villain apparently "flickers" in place, going back to where she'd been standing about a fifth of a second before the rock hit her and continuing to run. She stops, looks up at Mountain—who is now flying, how annoying—shrugs and returns to putting assorted pieces of jewelry inside a black bag.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

This won't be a proper fight. How annoying. She can frustrate the villain at least. Dramtic gesture and smirking under her helmet! All the jewelry in that store is now gravitating to the roof.

If the villain gets sufficiently distracted by this, another rock hits her from behind, somewhat harder.

red

Oh that's just irritating! But there's already a significant quantity of jewelry inside the little black bag so she keeps it closed and doesn't lose any pieces from it. When she's hit by the rock she stumbles forward—

and she's standing exactly where she'd been before, as if the rock had never touched her. She starts jumping up and trying to boop the pieces of jewelry she can reach.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The black bag can get pinned to the ground with a reasonable amount of force.

"Go home."

Needling the villain into a stalemate is almost as fun as actually getting to punch something tough, who knew?

red

The villain makes a frustrated noise. Why a hero that can control jewelry? Why couldn't it be someone with super strength or something? She goes outside again to glare—as much as she can glare through the arrow-shaped mask covering her face—at Mountain.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I don't have it out for you, you know, I'm just burning off some frustration. But just sayin', isn't there some other way to make money with time nonsense than stealing?"

red

She shakes her head, but it's more a frustration gesture than actually replying to Mountain's question. Just out of spite, she returns to the store and starts rewinding the jewelry she stole back to their appropriate locations. Maybe if she's fast enough she'll be able to get Mountain's powers to cause some property damage.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Thieves can be frustrated all they like.

She loses her hold on each individual piece as it gets rewound, and simply doesn't grab them again if it'd cause damage. She does trip the villain again, snickering.

red

The villain throws her hands up in the air, leaves the store, flips Mountain the bird, and disappears.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She stops flying and waits for someone Official to arrive so she can explain what exactly happened.

red

A heroine with a shield, a sword, and a helmet adorned with mouse ears appears!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hello! I'm Mountain. I am not the one who was robbing the store, she ran away."

red

"Yes! I know! I've heard of you. I am the Mouse Protector!" She unsheathes her sword and points it to the air. She looks into the store. "What happened here?"

The shopkeeper starts explaining the part where the villain calmly walked into the store and touched the people there, making them disappear, before pointing a gun at him and lazily grabbing jewelry and putting it inside a black bag.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

When he's done with that, Mountain continues, "I fused the gun then tried to immobilize her, but she just flickered around it. Did not know her power then but she ran at me so I assumed she thought it could hurt me - I flew up. Then I stopped her from taking anything by moving the jewelry around and hit her with rocks not too hard until she gave up. Those people okay?"

red

"I have not found any people on my way here! That is very worrying. What were the horrible villain's powers?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Seemed like reversing time or something? She put things to where they were when she touched them. I'm not sure on the details." She draws the rewind symbol. "This was on her costume."

red

"That is very suggestive! That symbol is used on media-playing devices to indicate a command that will return the media being played to a previous point. Hmm, if she just turned those people back to wherever they had been earlier then that is not as worrying, they are probably fine, but the Protectorate should be informed at once."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hm, she'll be hard to catch if she can just go back to where she woke up or something. I have a phone, should I call them or will you?"

red

"Worry not, I have relayed this conversation to them already! We thank you for your help with this."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I probably won't do this kind of thing very much, I am just so bored since I am still not allowed to sell things. So much paperwork."

red

She nods gravely. "Yes, bureaucracy can take a while, but it is for the greater good, and to guarantee the safety and well-being of the people."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Well I think I will go home now. Have a nice day, Mouse Protector."

red

"You, too, honorable Mountain!"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Why 'honorable'? Well, it's not like she'll reject the title.

Off she flies, restlessness satisfied.

She arrives precisely on schedule for the second round of power testing.

red

The second round of power testing is, as announced, more thorough. They test her precision and fine control, then go outside to test her range and large-scale ability, first with crumbling abandoned buildings and then an isolated field in the middle of nowhere.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Her fine control is not quite down to the width of a human hair, but she can do all the tricks she listed, from merging gemstones together to pulling most kinds of metal from most kinds of ore to mixing and separating alloys.

She can totally repair crumbling abandoned buildings. Or are they asking her to topple them? Either way.

red

Repair one, topple another, there's a whole day's worth of testing to go about.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's very patient about it since it's actually making progress.

red

Indeed! They ask a few more questions and eventually are done, informing her she will be contacted again soon.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Is soon measured in hours, days, or weeks?

red

A week, two at the very most.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Yay.

She puts that rogue's assistant job ad out for real now.

Any news from the engineering guy she hired to help design her own personal power plant?

red

Yes, he has blueprints!

And some people start responding to the ad as well.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She picks out the ones who seem professional and competent based on their responses. People who just sent resumes with nothing else are immediately tossed. She calls the places they claim to have worked at to verify this and tosses any who were lying. How many sufficiently okay candidates does this leave her with after a week?

(She raises her mountain another 300m and works on the non-electric parts of those blueprints.)

red

Four candidates remain!

And she is also called and asked to come to a certain registry at her earliest convenience to sign a certain document and get her license card that proves she can use her powers in the ways listed in a certain publicly available registry.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She emails the list of companies that were seriously interested in her that she's been approved to sell her services by the PRT and they should expect follow-up communication within a couple of weeks. She doesn't actually go pick up the card until it's relatively convenient - it's not like she has any jobs lined up immediately, or that she needs money *right now*.

She emails the four candidates that they made the shortlist, when is a good time for her to have a chat with them? And updates her public announcement that applications are closed and if you haven't heard from her yet you didn't make the list.

And what are the salient distinguishing characteristics for these four candidates?

red

This one used to be a villain's henchman and claims he decided the moral issues were too much of a sticking point.

That one used to work for this fashion magazine and her boss was insane, and she'd welcome something more normal like working in a mountain.

The other one worked for the PRT for a while but decides she'd leave because of "irreconcilable differences of opinion."

And the fourth used to live in Madrid before it was destroyed, and has been working as an errand boy for various people. He claims he has a minor Mover power that helps.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

None of these people scream 'perfect assistant' at her just from what she's seen so far.

She arranges interviews and asks questions, mostly things like 'how do you organize your own schedule' and 'I want you to install satellite internet on my mountain, you have $10000, what is your approach' and 'what is your stance on this hypothetical moral conundrum'.

Does former villain henchman have sufficient business knowledge? What exactly was fashion magazine lady's job before she quit? PRT person presumably has relevant legal knowledge, right? Does errand boy want to keep working for other people? Any other insights to their personalities? She doesn't want to hire someone she doesn't get along with.

red

Ex-henchman is very pliant but uncreative. He does not care too much about what he's made to do, fumbles through a description of something that would very much not work for the internet, and is clearly fishing for Mountain's preferred answer to it. He has very little business knowledge to speak of.

Fashion magazine lady's job before she quit was basically "doing everything and anything her boss asked for, including stuff like getting her hands on unreleased book drafts for her boss' children." She is impeccably organized, has a very gather-lots-of-information-and-call-upon-her-myriad-contacts approach to install satellite internet, and has very strong feelings about moral conundrums. And in general, she seems to have a fierce, challenging personality.

PRT person does indeed have relevant legal knowledge. She's also very organized with her schedule, in a different way than fashion magazine lady but not strictly better or worse than her. Her approach to installing satellite internet is mainly figuring out how the mountain differs from anywhere else and what would need to be changed in the usual approach. She is carefully amoral about conundrums. She's very professional and doesn't express much in the way of personality.

Errand boy's power consists in being really agile and good at parkour to a preternatural degree, using some luck manipulation to guarantee he doesn't have trouble moving. He can use the luck manipulation is small amounts for other tasks than moving, and he'd probably want to keep working for other people. His schedule is somewhat messy but in a structured way, and once you get the logic behind it it's actually quite elegant. His approach to installing satellite internet is similar to PRT person's, and he also has very strong (if naive) feelings about moral conundrums. He's quite eager to please and somewhat excitable.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Ex-henchman is out. She works out an arrangement for errands with errand-boy but does not hire him full-time.

She's not quite sure about fashion lady's personality, but the pre-existing web of contacts cinches the decision. Welcome! Here's the first week's pay advance, here's the login and password for the email account I've been talking to companies with, you don't need to move to the mountain yet it's not finished (and doing that at all is still not necessarily required), here's my detailed explanation of my abilities but you probably already know that, here's some lawyery things the lawyer said you'd need, your first job is to arrange some jobs for me as soon as possible. My schedule is almost totally open, I want to work about ten hours a day weekdays and four on weekends.

red

Laura (that's fashion lady's name) thanks Mountain for the opportunity quite warmly, and the following day Mountain has a medium-sized list of various kinds of company wishing to hire her, from construction to jewelry through mining, ordered by Laura's estimation of benefit (variety, quantity, interestingness) versus cost (time spent, what she could infer about the personality of the people Mountain would be working with).

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Nice. She informs Laura about her preferences, tuning them a little. Less priority to personality except if it looks like they're going to waste her time, and a slight priority to usefulness - pick a mining-related job before a jewelry one all else being equal. Can Laura do most of the arranging companies' schedules and negotiating and contract-signing or should Mountain be helping?

red

She can do the schedules and negotiating, but Mountain will ultimately be the one responsible for contract-signing.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Great! Let's get some work lined up.

Over the next couple of days she grows her mountain to the height where it will stay for a long while. Once more stuff is installed it will be inconvenient to grow it large amounts without damaging things.

She goes over the personal hydro plant schematics with Laura and asks her to start looking into turbines and electrical engineers to put things in place on the mountain. And the Mountain Internet interview question is now a legitimate task.

"Do let me know if I start asking too much too fast."

red

"As long as you're asking me things that are actually possible, I probably won't have a problem."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good, good."

In the days, or hours if Laura is particularly efficient about it, between then and getting everything arranged with the first company to hire her she works on a shopping list for the base, finishes the parts of her hydro plant she can do herself, puts in a miniature port (just a flat area and one medium-sized berth grown vertically from the underwater part of her mountain so far), and a set of stairs aaall the way up and starts on a tunnel straight into the interior that will lead to elevators eventually.

red

She is! She is particularly efficient.

Mountain's first job is helping erect a twelve-story building.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Okay, let's do this. Best smile on for the company reps. Where's the place, is she making the material or using what's provided, where's the blueprints?

red

It's in the city, actually supposed to become a nice beach front condo. They don't have much of a grasp on her powers yet, so they've provided materials and workers.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, they don't need a crane or concrete workers or welders. They're still going to want finishers - plumbers, electricians, people to install drywall and carpet and elevators and so on.

She goes over the blueprints with the foreman and owner (if they're available) and discusses how her power can finish any concrete without an annoying drying and setting period. She can have the frame up in two hours at most. She's not completely up to speed on building conventions on Earth yet, but she can definitely follow blueprints to the inch.

red

They're definitely available, and so are blueprints. They can also give her any directions she might need about building conventions on Earth, and are very pleasantly surprised by the ETA.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Up goes the concrete-and-steel frame, all according to blueprints. She measures things almost constantly as I-beams and reinforcing rods wobble and grind into concrete pillars. She uses all materials present then makes some more, compressing the rock below the site slightly to store away the not steel-and-concrete byproducts. It takes her an hour and a half. She even makes the fire stairs - they're steel, after all.

She suggests that they could take a quick tour now to make sure everything looks right, then she'll go home so they can inspect it thoroughly and call her back for corrections and detail work. Oh, and none of the steel is rustproofed yet so they need to paint it. She's not a painter.

red

They are very impressed by and happy with her job, and are pretty sure (though they do not say it) that they have just gotten the bargain of their lives, would she like to work more jobs like this in the future?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Yes, though she's completely open about how her rates will go up once she has a proper rep for this kind of thing.

red

That's fine, they guess.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She took a few pictures during the process. Not of the blueprints, just to help publicly show that she can do this sort of thing. Do they mind at all if she takes a few more of the completed frame and publishes them like that?

red

Yeah, they're fine with that too.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Fly, picture, picture. Digital cameras are handy.

She reports completion of the building and gives the pictures to Laura and asks her to find a reporter to interview her. Hopefully someone who fought Leviathan, fixed parts of Japan, and built 60% of a 12-story condo complex in two hours is interesting enough. She wants to be publicly known for building things and making material, so her rates can go up and still leave her busy for much of the day.

red

Laura can most definitely do that, she's very used to dealing with the press.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Great, she has no idea how to deal with the press and would like some tips. Should she hide how she isn't from Earth and isn't really the same kind of parahuman?

red

...yes, she should definitely not mention that part.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She hasn't exactly been hiding it so far. Significant parts of Japan's upper level, the PRT, and the Protectorate know. Maybe a few others, she hasn't been keeping track. What's so bad about it?

red

Well, for one, it makes her look crazy. Other Earths do exist, though they typically have less parahumans than Earth Bet, and no one's ever been able to cross-over yet. She says something like that, she'll be put in the same mental bucket the likes of Glaistig Uaine are.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Which would be bad because Glastig Uaine is...?

red

One of the most dangerous supervillains, among the ten most powerful people on the planet, on par with Eidolon. She also believes all parahumans are Faerie and she is the Faerie Queen.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

...Yes, let's avoid looking like Glastig Uaine.

red

Do let's. Any other questions about things she might want to preemptively avoid telling the press?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She doesn't really know what kinds of things the press generally are and are not told. It'll probably be tricky to pretend to be from Earth effectively. She still consistently misses names and references.

red

Well, some people do have very convenient complete amnesia, though those are usually more monstrous in appearance.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She has vague misgivings about saying or implying she is one of those, but it's probably the best option on offer isn't it?

red

Yes, in Laura's opinion it is.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Alright then.

She's going to her mountain to take care of something she overlooked, and will be back tomorrow morning to see about more jobs.

She does something she should have done a while ago: Verifying that the technology of her world really just doesn't work here. She tries dozens of patterns from her library of runes, some basic crystal and potion tricks, and even tries to make a golem. She's almost thankful that none of it works - she would have felt like an idiot if something did and she had just been too discouraged by the failure of the first thing to try.

She's back in range of phone and internet service the next morning.

red

Laura has found a few press people interested in talking to Mountain. She hasn't performed any major feats of incredible prowess that are obvious to most people—preventing Kyushu from sinking completely isn't the kind of attention-grabbing headline that would land her on the Times—but there are some cape-related media that would be interested in talking and giving a source to her wikia entry.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Cool, cool. And any more work?

If not she can fly around New York to pass the time.

red

There's always more work, this is New York. There are some areas of the city that haven't been completely rebuilt yet since the Behemoth attack five years previously, even though most of it is intact. The lack of a pressing need and anyone interested in spending the money means the project's been lagging, but the government has been keeping an eye on her and waiting for the whole process to be through. Now that she's available for hire, would she like to help with that?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Cetainly. What exactly needs rebuilding?

She does want money. Much less than they'd be paying a construction firm, but still.

red

Yes, the "much less" and the "in much less time" are the clinchers.

There are, well, buildings, a few roads, a few collapsed bridges and tunnels, the whole city sort of moved to the south a bit as rebuilding efforts focused more on creating new stuff than on restoring the old.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Collapsed tunnels are probably the least pleasant kind of collapsing to her world-sense. She wants to do those first.

She meets the people designated to point her around and proffer blueprints, and informs them of this.

red

Well, she can start with those, but given that there's a general "collapsing" theme going on, she'll probably have to uncollapse other things on the way.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

This could take a while. Good.

The material collapsed around here doesnt quite add up to whole building frames, and some of it is molten beyond repair, but where she can't easily reverse the buildings exactly she can at least clear the rubble.

She does the same thing she did in Japan- little artful touches, subtle and not affecting the places' function and not present when the looks of a thing are considered important.

She doesn't get to any large tunnels, just some basic sewer pipes, by the time Laura has scheduled for her to talk to a reporter. She tells the New York authorities she'll get back on it in a couple of hours and shows up at the designated place in costume.

red

A young man is waiting for her. He's dressed primly and doesn't seem to have a notepad or anything to write down whatever they say.

"Hello, Mountain, I am Robert Harrison. It's a pleasure to meet you."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hello, Mr. Harrison. Thank you for coming to see me. How do things like this usually go?"

red

"Well, that often depends on the reporter. I like starting with a conversation, getting to know you, what you do, where you're from, what your plans are, and then moving on to more specific questions that might come up." He reaches into a pocket and grabs a recording device. "Is it okay if I record the conversation?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Sure. I reserve the right to not answer certain questions, though."

red

"Naturally," he says, and starts recording. "So, let's start with the getting to know you part. I don't want to direct you here, I'd just like to hear the things you feel are relevant about yourself."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I like building things. Something that will last thousands of years like the pyramids or a mountain is satisfying to me. I can feel the sturdiness of the stones beneath my feet. That makes destruction annoying and unpleasant. That's why I fought Leviathan, volunteered to help rebuild Japan, and why I plan to mostly make and build things instead of the more usual hero stuff."

red

He nods. "That's really interesting. If you don't mind my asking, what exactly are your powers? You say 'help rebuild Japan' in such a matter-of-fact way, but that's really incredible."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Well, they were annoying and strict about it but I helped anyway... Ah, my power. I have power over things that come from the earth. I can move them and shape and make them. It is harder the further something is from being a rock. Granite is easy, steel is trickier and so is concrete. Larger scale than most para humans seem to get too. I made a mountain out at sea." She opens the compartment on the back of her rocksuit and pulls out her digital camera, navigating to the correct picture. "There it is."

red

He looks suitably impressed. "Can you email me that? It'd be awesome to print it with the article. For that matter, can I take a picture of you, later?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Sure on both. I have picutures of the building I was hired for yesterday too. Did it in two hours. You want some little sculpture as a souvenir too? I like making stuff."

red

"Well, since you're offering!"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"What should it be of?"

red

"Oh, surprise me," he says, smiling.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She decides to make a statue of a bear. She peels a palm sized glob of dark stone from her rocksuit and stares at it as it makes little grinding noises. That's probably going to be the head, which means those are clearly legs...

"I can keep talking during this if you like."

red

"Oh, alright. So, where are you from? I don't quite recognize your accent."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Slight hesitation, activate question dodge. "I actually learned English from another parahuman, hoped my accent would be better by now. What's wrong with it?"

red

"Oh, it's pretty good, actually, it's part of why it's hard to pin down. There's also something about word choice there, but it's mostly that you don't quite fit any accents I know."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Well... If I told you where I'm from I don't think you'd believe me, so maybe I'd better keep it a secret."

red

"That's fair," he says, smoothly. He's probably used to capes. "So your plans from here on out are building and fixing things? I'm surprised you didn't join the Protectorate."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I find politics and bureaucracy disagreeable, and from my interactions with the Protectorate so far it seems like they have a lot of that. Even with the approval process and without their resources, I think I will do better separately."

red

"I see. And any other plans, for further into the future? Maybe doing art," he says, gesturing at the sculpture she's working on.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The sculpture is now visibly a black bear. She's working in the details of its posture and face, which is confident and curious. Then she moves on to detailing metal claws and slightly softer than most rocks fur.

"Maybe, but I don't think I could see art as a serious thing by itself. I'm doing this as a little gift and as practice, not for the sake of art itself. I'd definitely like to make the things I build artful, though."

red

He nods. "And any more specific plans for the future?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'll be cleaning up rubble from Behemoth for a couple of weeks. I'm going to install internet and electricity on my mountain. My assistant is probably scheduling me more jobs right now."

The bear is done. She sets it on the table.

red

"Rubble here in New York? That's great to hear, many people were very skeptical those parts of town would ever get properly restored."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I hope to do similar things all around the world. And I'm definitely going to throw spikes of tungsten or diamond or something at Behemoth next time it shows up."

red

"Well, I wish you the best of luck." He clicks his recorder to stop it. "Thank you very much, you were very helpful and informative. We'll probably be publishing this next week!"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good luck and have a nice day!"

Back to cleaning up bits of New York. Today was a productive day.

red

And New York helpfully remains cleaned up after she does it. Isn't it nice when giant monsters aren't attacking?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She diligently cleans up the parts of New York she's being paid to clean up.

Any task gets boring after a while. She watches the city around her while doing simpler parts of the cleanup. Anything interesting happening?

red

Well, that depends on what you mean by 'interesting.' If pigeons flying around is interesting, that's happening. People milling about, that's also happening. If your definition of 'interesting' is particularly distinct, that large robot walking through the street and scaring everyone could fit the bill, at a stretch.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

A golem, or this world's version of golems at least. Great, someone's causing trouble.

At least it's probably really stupid. It's now standing still, because metal does as she says. She flies over.

red

It's standing still there.

The robot is mostly leg, two stories tall with three hinges that would allow its main body, an angular construct of metal, to be lowered onto the street. It has four arms, with four fingers each, and the main body looks like it allows someone to be inside piloting it.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She peers at the robot. She releases her hold on it with a gesture as she says, "You're causing a panic. And I don't think this thing is street legal."

Glam

mxglam

red

Someone with a very peculiar costume emerges from a hatch on top of the robot. "It's probably not. What'd you do to it?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"It's metal. I stopped it. Could've crushed it flat, but that's mean. It should be able to move again now."

Glam

mxglam

red

It moves one leg a bit. "Cool! You got metal powers?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Not metal. Rock, and things that come from rock. You a tinker?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"That too," they say, dismissively. "Name's Glam. They pronouns, please."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"They is a pronoun? ...Guess it is. English." She shakes her head. "She for me since you said that. Are you planning to do anything unpleasant or destructive? I've got nothing against big robots, just stealing and killing and so on."

Glam

mxglam

red

"No killing. Some stealing. Some scaring people. I'll definitely not hurt anyone who doesn't try to hurt me."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Better than I thought but not great. Why even steal? You can obviously make stuff. Someone would buy a giant robot... Wait, that annoying approval process."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yeah," they agree. "Plus some other complicated stuff. As for the stealing, it's mostly for the attention. The robot, too. I wouldn't really use a giant robot if I wanted to be subtle about it."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"You can get attention doing flashy stunts in central park or shows and gifts for childrens' hospitals if that's all you actually want. Why get attention in such a negative way?"

She's genuinely curious, it's not a preachy question expecting a response she can use against them.

Glam

mxglam

red

"That's also difficult and kinda dangerous to explain."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"How annoying. If you won't stop or explain why, I'll have to stop you. Not that I don't like you, it's just how it is."

Glam

mxglam

red

"I know. But that's okay. Fighting a new hero also satisfies the mysterious unexplained things. What's your cape name, by the way? And why aren't you calling the rest of your team?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'm Mountain. I don't have a team, I'm just here 'cause they hired me to fix some of what Behemoth broke. But it's not like you can beat me. I punched Leviathan in the face, you know."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Ooh, that's cool. I made a gun that burned Leviathan, though, so I think I'm still better!"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Those two things are just stupidly tough, and even diamond is only so hard. Maybe at the next fight can you make me something hard enough to actually hurt them."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yeah! That's a good idea. We could work together on the next fight, if you want."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Sounds good... I still have to stop you for now unless you want to stop stealing things, though."

Glam

mxglam

red

"I'll stop stealing things if you take enough of my time stopping me from stealing things that I deem it Worth It."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"You can fly, right?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"...well, I wasn't planning to, today that wasn't on my powerset list, but yes, in general it is an ability I possess."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She detaches her hammer from her back and starts lazily swinging it in circles.

The robot is steadily forced 'to its knees' as in folded down on the ground.

(She tries to use her earthsense to peer into its inner working if it starts resisting this.)

Glam

mxglam

red

It does try to resist it!

...and then it disappears. Glam is left floating there.

"Aww, look what you did!" They make a techy-looking gun appear. "How resistant are those rocks to damage, by the way?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"They're just granite and ruby and diamond and so on. But I'm pretty tough by myself too. Plus I'm holding them right now, and-" At this point chunks of concrete quietly but not silently leap up from the surface of the sidewalk (behind Glam) and try to sneak up on them. "-they won't melt or accept electrons or whatever unless I let 'em. So fire away." The concrete then tries to wrap around Glam like it's a liquid, then solidify.

Glam

mxglam

red

They notice the concrete, and fly up, aiming down and shooting at the concrete with kinetically charged blasts. "Okay, firing away!"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The concrete pieces smash into smaller pieces, which get bigger again and keep flying after Glam. Mountain flies at them with her hammer...

And calls the Protectorate on her ear-comm. "Mountain engaged with Glam at-" totally a real intersection "-They outright said they were gonna steal something, tried to talk 'em out of it, they didn't listen."

Glam

mxglam

red

A very typical "not again" sigh is heard. "Acknowledged. Do you need backup?"

Meanwhile, a turret gun appears on the ground in the middle of the street and starts shooting at Mountain while Glam themself shoots at the concrete pieces and flies quite fast to dodge. Their shots also have a tendency to hit targets they oughtn't have been able to.

Wait, did that one shot actually bend?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Ugh, powers are weird. Well, Glam can outfly Mountain herself but there's enough concrete flying around that at least one chunk gets through the barrage and dodging and wraps around Glam like containment foam.

Mountain simply ignores the turret blasts. She's getting knocked around some, but rocks are heavy so not all that much. Investigating the robot popped it for some reason. Let's do the same to the turret and the gun.

"I don't think they can hurt me but I don't think I can catch them by myself either. Those guns will wear away anything I try to trap them in sooner or later."

Glam

mxglam

red

"We are sending someone."

Glam's guns disappear, naturally, to their annoyance, so they decide to try something: new turret gun, this one with a visible energy shield around it, crackling. They expect Mountain won't be able to feel it, because something something psychic barrier something. Does that work?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She looks at it, then starts trying to smash it with more concrete, so apparently yes.

Mountain grows the little piece of concrete that managed to wrap around around Glam until it starts weighing them down, all while continuing to chase.

Glam

mxglam

red

Oh but that was all that Glam needed. Another such turret appears, directly below Glam, and fires a myriad tiny kinetic lasers at the concrete, attempting to break it down without blasting Glam themself into the sky.

A third turret appears and starts shooting Mountain with actual thick blasts that are meant to blast her into the sky.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She updates the heroes on their position as the fight moves.

She throws her big sledgehammer at the third turret at a fairly alarming speed, expecting it to smash straight through the shield and break the thing. (And starts making a new hammer.)

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam glares at the hammer on the ground and makes six turrets appear pointing at it. They all shoot it simultaneously. They might also make a crater on the ground. Then Glam looks up at Mountain again and twirls the fingers of both hands together, their arms extended out ahead of them as if they were holding an invisible two-handed gun pointing at her. Except instead of a gun, a curious form of metal armor (covered by the psychicbabble field) starts appearing around both arms, joining at the hands and ending in something like a cannon.

It makes a loud noise as it charges up—purely for the effect, of course, a gun that has to charge is clearly better than one that doesn't—then shoots a thin concentrated blast that makes a 'fweem' noise as it travels the air at Mountain.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

These things look like light. Crystals refract light. The head of her new hammer is various gemstones, she angles it to catch the incoming blast and point it up. If it doesn't work as well as she hopes, well gemstones are tough.

Meanwhile, the first hammer and the crater starts fixing itself. Mountain stops throwing more pieces of concrete at Glam, though.

"Don't you think this is getting out of hand? I don't want anybody to get hurt."

Glam

mxglam

red

It doesn't work exactly as well as she hopes, but it does work some, greatly reducing the efficacy of their blast.

"I kinda need a pretty definitive win, here. I'm sure you can fix the sidewalk and road after we're done, and I won't let anyone get hurt." They point at a device that appeared on the ground, which starts making a whirring noise before a forcefield appears around them and starts looking progressively more solid.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Mountain makes a few shiny mirror disks since the first thing worked more or less. And a dozen or so stone hammers. They should be getting tired by now, right? That's a lot of stuff they've been appearing.

"There's no reason for me to let you win. All I know about you is you said you were going to steal stuff and the Protectorate thinks you're annoying. Fighting Leviathan got you points in my book, but you're being needlessly antagonistic and I can't stand that!"

Hammer time. She can't actually fly them all individually, but she can fake like that's what she's doing when they all fly in unpredictable patterns at Glam, joined by more stone fragments. She's not being as careful about damage, now, and Glam has proved to be tough so far, so she hits hard with whatever doesn't get blasted away or dodged.

Glam

mxglam

red

They purse their lips. "It's not needless, I promise. And yeah they think I'm annoying, 'cause I annoy them a lot. It's on purpose."

Glam makes another little forcefield around themself and flies around really fast, dodging the fragments. They make a new turret appear and shoot multiple times at Mountain.

Someone arrives, running really fast. He has a blue skintight suit covering a bodybuilder's physique with a red fist on his chest, long red boots and gloves, and a mask shaped like a frown, with red details on black.

"Hiya, Clobber!"

"Hey, Glam. She said you were gonna steal something?"

"Yeah, was gonna rob a bank."

He whistles. "Nice. I do have to stop you, though."

Glam shrugs. "Yeah, I know."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Clobber - I can pop her, their stuff if they forget to shield it. And I think the shields slow the making down. You got a plan?"

Glam

mxglam

red

Clobber's name becomes obvious when his fists suddenly become about as large as his torso. "Hit them until they drop? My hands are invulnerable so I use them as weapon and shield."

And to prove the former, Clobber starts punching the forcefield to try to join the battle, and even though the field looks pretty solid it still rocks and suffers under the onslaught.

Glam is getting frustrated by Mountain shrugging off their hits. Doesn't she know Tinkers? Tinker blasts aren't supposed to be reflected by mirrors, that's not how they work!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, the only tinker Mountain has ever directly interacted with was Jetpack, so her own intuition about how laser guns are supposed to work is sticking for now.

She grows a huge sheet of rock and tries to box Glam in with it, reshaping on the fly. It's harder to dodge with something so big blocking one avenue of motion.

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam really doesn't want to break character, here, but if Mountain has literally no intuitions about Tinkers this fight starts becoming untenable. Glam decides they don't care anymore, and is covered by armor made of diamond surrounded by the bullshit energy field. They fly headfirst into the sheet of rock.

In the meantime, Clobber hits, hits, hits, hits, and the forcefield breaks. He's in. Now it's about time he start punching those turret guns.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Glam can get through the rock just fine, but there's more behind it.

However, Mountain decides that, "You are annoying and I'm not getting paid for this. I'm going back to the Behemoth aftermath. Sorry, Clobber." She flies off.

Glam

mxglam

red

"Oi, come back! I'm not done!"

Except oop, Clobber's just thrown a piece of concrete at them and a diamond armor is not enough to actually absorb the hit, so they're sent flying.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

To Clobber, "Call me when it's over, I can come and clean up!"

To Glam, "You want to beat me in a fight? Give me a more compelling reason to fight."

Glam

mxglam

red

"I will, thanks," Clobber says before throwing more rubble at Glam, who shoots it to pieces with a gun.

"I'll tell you when I think of one," they say.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

And she goes back to unBehemothing New York.

red

After a while, she gets a call saying that there's a certain street that could really use some fixing.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She flies over and clears the not-glass-or-wood parts of the mess up in less than ten minutes.

Actually, she can't fix those streetlights either, she doesn't know wiring. But it's better than it was before.

She'll just finish this block of Behemoth aftermath and then be done for the day. She'd rather be fresh and alert when she fixes that bridge just beyond it.

Glam

mxglam

red

When she's done for the day, there's someone lurking there, watching.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hello, Glam. You can talk to me, I'm not doing anything that particularly needs concentration right now."

Rubble continues to rearrange and twist around and separate into types.

Glam

mxglam

red

"Hiya. Sorry for the thing earlier. I didn't end up stealing anything."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Thank you for apologizing I suppose. Are you going to steal things and pick fights tomorrow?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"Um. Not tomorrow, no."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hm." A grid of support pillars starts going up on an empty lot.

Glam

mxglam

red

"And for what it's worth, the next at least three or so times I do pick up a fight will probably be with gangs of villains."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good, good. You seem like the best sort of villain. Or solidly on the better half at least. Oh, I slipped up on the 'they' for a moment in the fight, so, sorry."

Glam

mxglam

red

Pause. "It's fine. And the villain thing is totally contingent, I try to be as little villainous as I can while respecting other constraints that mooooore or less force me to be a bit villainous."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Sigh. "I know about constraints, I guess. Plenty of stuff I'd really rather be doing and simply can't. All you can do is work with it or try and find a way around it."

Glam

mxglam

red

Blink. "Yeah. Yeah that's—that's pretty much it, yes."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I still can't just take your word about your limits. Maybe what you're doing is a reasonable response, I don't know."

Glam

mxglam

red

"I know, and I wouldn't try to convince you otherwise, because I can't tell you about them. But I do try to minimize damage and such, the only reason the street was so banged up was that I knew you'd be coming back to fix it."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I think I have some guesses. Your things are... Fake on some level. When I tried to understand how they worked, they disappeared. Guess it doesn't matter how they work if they still work."

Glam

mxglam

red

No hesitation as they lie: "They're not fake, but my power doesn't like scrutiny. I'm the only one allowed to really pay close attention to it. Usually people have to be closer to my stuff for my power to care, though."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I feel the fabric of the world. Especially stone and metal. Whatever nonsense you came up with that blocks that is- unpleasant, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that when we aren't fighting."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Sure. I don't think there's quite anyone that can do the same thing you did there so I shouldn't need it otherwise."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Very good." The top floors of that building's frame are taking shape.

Mountain doesn't quite believe they're not fake. Glam is attention-seeking, wants to beat powerful people in a fight, insistent that their stuff isn't fake. Glamours that rely on belief are a thing, in her world. A few kinds of Fair Folk can do them. She carefully doesn't believe this very hard, though. It'd be rude if she managed to make them fall out of the sky.

Glam

mxglam

red

Very rude, yeah.

"So, it's pretty cool what you're doing, here."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Well I am getting paid. But thanks."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Of course. Capitalism and such. I take it you're not with the Protectorate?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"No. They do PR and paperwork more than fighting vilains, I don't like the idea of doing that."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yet you don't fight all that many villains yourself."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'm building things. Good enough, maybe even better."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Well, you sure are fast, maybe it's better. Stuff's destroyed really quickly all around, though."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

That's a pretty good point, actually. She's used to reversing the steady course of damage caused by other things. A steady equilibrium between the forces of destruction and creation. But this isn't her world.

She gives a long, semi-depressed sigh. "If I tell you something that is slightly a secret can you avoid spreading it around? You don't need to swear to never tell a soul - just don't tell the media."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yeah. I think it's probably clear I take keeping secrets pretty seriously."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Unless there's a very good reason to tell the secret. Well, I am not from Earth. I'm from somewhere where even physics works differently. The power structures, societal norms, and technology are so different here I think I'll be confused for a decade. I might be able to go home, but this world needs all the help it can get. It's frustrating."

Glam

mxglam

red

They had opened their mouth to say something when she mentioned even the physics works differently, which made them close it again. Then they carefully ask, "Different... how, exactly? The physics, specifically."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I don't know the details. Not a scientist. Gravity isn't the same. We didn't have planets, the world is flat, I helped put it back when bit fell off. The Newton laws are the same though. And all the technology from my world I tried to bring here doesn't work at all. Not even a ridiculously simple cold rune."

Glam

mxglam

red

Slow blink. "How'd you end up here?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I died, and respawned in Japan instead of where I was supposed to."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Respawned."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes. It's a standard part of the powers where I'm from. I'm not a parahuman because I'm not human anymore."

Glam

mxglam

red

"You died and you respawned."

They seem to be having some trouble getting past this part.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Wrong word maybe. My body was destroyed, my home made a new one. If all my homes are destroyed I don't come back."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yes, that is the right word for this thing."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"...I don't know if it still works that way, though. And it's a bit strange how I'm telling all this to someone I fought earlier."

Glam

mxglam

red

"I don't think there's any way this conversation could be called anything but strange no matter the circumstances, but I understand what you mean." Pause. "So you appeared—respawned in Japan, um, and then what? Why'd you come here? And how come you speak English—or any Earthly language, for that matter?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I tried and failed to beat up Leviathan. Slowed it down some at least, held on to the earth below and suppressed the quakes. Then Alexandria brought me here and found someone to learn my language and had a tinker translator made. Learned English by listening and comparing to what the translator said."

Glam

mxglam

red

They're taken aback by the 'Alexandria' part. Somewhat starstruck? Maybe. "Okay... Alright, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but how do you know you're not like one of those... you know, how do you know your memories are true?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Well, I don't have a gemma. How do you know your memories are true and not a product of your shiny new brain structure?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"...I'm surprised you even know about the gemma, I've only heard of it from a bunch of academic papers. And, well, I don't have a discontinuity in my memories. I mean, everything's consistent, other people remember the same stuff I do, that kinda stuff. If I suddenly showed up in a world with very different physics than what I'm used to I'd definitely very seriously consider the possibility that I had hallucinated my entire past. Not having a gemma is pretty weird, though. Are you sure yours isn't just particularly small, or badly located, maybe? Those papers said that the location and size of the corona pollentia and gemma tended to vary from parahuman to parahuman."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Protectorate gave me physicals. They made a big deal about how I didn't have a pollentia or gemma, even over the other ways I don't work like a human anymore. And besides, I really really hope my memories are true. But if they're not, what's different? I'm still here, I'll try to avoid dying just the same either because it really hurts or actual fear of oblivion."

Glam

mxglam

red

"I'd normally expect fear of oblivion would instil better self-preservation instincts," they say dubiously. "Anyway, the other ways you don't work like a human anymore are all expected, or within the realm of the expected, for regular parahuman powers. Having all of that and not being a parahuman? Kiiiind of a big deal."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Shrug.

This building is done, or done-ish. She flies a few dozen feet and the next section of rubble starts sorting itself out.

Glam

mxglam

red

"I kinda have a million questions about your world, would you be too bored if I asked them?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'll stop answering if I'm doing something tricky, and might get too bored of it eventually, but a few questions would be fine sure."

Glam

mxglam

red

"So you said it was flat. How does that work? How large is it, what's under it and above it?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"There are separate continents, more of them as far as you can go. Ocean, plains, forest, mountain. In between is just nothing. At least as far as anyone where I lived could tell. The one I lived on was maybe a hundred by by a hundred and sixty tiles, irregular edges. Er, a tile... The world comes in square pieces, each square is made of four triangles pointing to the middle. They were about... Three or four miles long?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"They're... what, floating in the middle of nowhere? Where does stuff come from? Is it just endlessly generated? And why are there square pieces, what's important about them?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Yeah, floating in the middle of nothing. Vela like me, make all the stuff. Stuff is most efficiently made in those square pieces, and only square pieces latch on to the- grid, I guess, and don't fall. But Legend told me not to try it here.

Glam

mxglam

red

"You keep throwing these names around like that."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"What do you mean? It's true. I talked to them."

Glam

mxglam

red

"I know, it's just. Wow." They shake their head very quickly at if to clear it. "Anyway, what's a Vela?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Our name for our people with powers. I'd translate it to something like 'fate'."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Oh. You said you were human before...?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yeah. But when you achieve something sufficiently grand, I guess my world decides you deserve more."

Glam

mxglam

red

"So it just... happens? What's sufficiently grand, for your world?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"It just happens. Mine was a large, automated, safe underground transport grid. A bit like the subways. Some other famous examples are the stormveil, which prevents tornadoes from touching down over a few dozen squares and directs lightning strikes to harmless areas. Or the wardwall, an anti-volcano shield over an entire city. Big feats of our equivalent of engineering, which this world would call magic."

Glam

mxglam

red

"That... sounds pretty amazing. Where does weather come from? Have you ever flown below a square to see what's there? What keeps the squares up? Is there a sky?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I can't remember five questions while multitasking. There is nothing below the squares, we've looked with telescopes and scries. I've flown a few tiles down but it really is just empty. There is a sky, people have been determined enough to go visit it. Seems like there is a separate grid for suns and moons and stars a really long way up, and it's just as empty beyond that as below the surface."

Glam

mxglam

red

"A grid? How big are suns and stars? What are they, there?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Suns are pretty big. They're spheres of fire... We don't understand our world as well as people understand this one."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Are they embedded on something? What does this grid even do? How does it separate? Does it correspond to the earth grid?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"The grid is what we call whatever-stuff-sticks-to. It's not detectable except by how stuff sticks to it - no light, no physical substance. Stuff falls off grids sometimes, especially after disasters or battles, or when it was uneven in the first place. I think the two grids are arranged differently, but falling stars are totally a thing. I've never seen a sun fall, but it's said to have happened. Ancient history."

Glam

mxglam

red

"That sounds... really fascinating. I mean, it sounds so made up, but, magic, and flat lands, and stuff. I'm not even sure what I'm talking about anymore, I have a bunch of questions still but they can mostly be summarized by 'tell me literally everything about everything' which is not a helpful way to phrase it."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Ha! Not really, no. I'm about done with what I planned to do today anyway. Maybe you'll have coherent questions if you come back tomorrow. Good luck for whenever you pick a fight with villains who deserve the label more than you."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Alright, and thanks! I could call you up next time, kick some villain ass."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"If you do the work of finding the villains for me I just might do that. Try not to destroy things just because you know I'm going to fix them if you can avoid it, though?"

Glam

mxglam

red

Nod. "Alright, I can do that."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Well, goodnight." There is now another promising-looking building frame, the last one on this city block.

Mountain calls the city officials to update them on her progress, and emails that picture to the journalist, and asks Laura for an update on the internet-and-electricity for her mountain thing.

red

Coming along nicely, if she can provide transport there will be people available to start installing things on the morrow. And Laura herself has a few suggestions on transport that don't necessarily involve Mountain, though they do involve spending uncomfortable sums.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, what are those suggestions? Ships, helipads, that kind of thing?

Would she get more money from New York for cleaning bits of it up in the time she spends transporting things than it would cost, is the question.

red

Yes, that kind of thing.

As for the second question: probably, depending on the things. Internet things tend to not be heavy or difficult to carry.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Internet things can be ferried by helicopter or plane or ship. Just let her know what she needs to put in, she can probably build a landing strip and haul tanks of fuel there if that's what it takes to make getting deliveries work. When the big generator turbine for her personal hydro plant is ready she'll carry it herself, the thing is going to weigh on the order of dozens of tons.

red

Yes it will.

The main problem with the internet and electricity is actually installing it, however, not moving it. She will need to learn how to do it, or to bring people who know.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Another reason to have the helipad or airstrip working, unless there are electricians and engineers who are willing to live on a mountain for a week while they work.

red

Laura is certain she can find it with the right incentives, but those tend to be 'money.'

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Money, money, and more money.

At least New York is getting her some - probably enough for this, even if they're not paying much per unit of destruction there's a lot to clean up. And Laura's lining up more jobs after that. Go ahead and start hiring people for it, then.

red

People are hired. Jobs are gotten. Mountain will find herself a very busy woman.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Good. Busy-with-useful-things is her preferred state.

She's finishing up New York's Behemoth aftermath the day that newspaper is supposed to run about her. She picks up a copy on the way to the last of the destroyed bridges, curious how this world's media has chosen to depict her.

red

Well, it's not a huge media outlet, but some other people have expressed interest in more media exposure since she's started to work on New York's damage. This interview will probably influence that.

The paper is pretty accurate, not having cut many things she's said, and only editing around the journalist's questions themselves so they're clearer. There's a small piece at the end, however, speculating on her real motivations, her origin, and why exactly she's so reluctant to fight villains.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She'll talk to one journalist or group of journalists a day and lets Laura pick.

She leaves the speculation alone, but decides that she'll clarify that she doesn't fight villains because she doesn't like fighting in future interviews.

Bridge: Be painstakingly and thoroughly repaired.

Glam

mxglam

red

Laura will pick.

And there's someone there, watching, again.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hey, Glam. Are your questions in a semblance of order now? Not planning on anything I'd have to get angry about? I may have to give you my phone number after today. I'm about done here."

Glam

mxglam

red

"No plans. And, a few questions, yeah."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Go right ahead." Rubble is de-rivering itself as she speaks. She'll have to make extra material to redo the bridge, too much is simply gone.

Glam

mxglam

red

"Well, one at a time. First: are there other nonhumans than Velas?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes. Merfolk live in the seas, Fair Folk in the forests. There's only a few races of merfolk, a lot like different races of humans, but there are many kinds of Fair Folk. Some of commonest ones are dryads, centaurs, bralvin- no English word for that one. Think of a bipedal telekinetic deer."

Glam

mxglam

red

"That's awesome. What about society? Government? Countries? How do you deal with an infinite world? Politics?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"...Well, the humans on my continent were divided up between two monarchies and a democracy. The merfolk are very group-oriented and tribal for the most part, I don't think the merfolk language I know even has a word for 'I'. And fair folk have really low population density so they don't have governments exactly. And vela are sort of passively discouraged from getting involved in politics too much."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Don't you interact with other continents?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yeah, there's airship lines and trading companies and so on. There are maps of the known world, some two hundred forty six thousand tiles in total. I'm young as vela go so I haven't seen much of it."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Oh, I'd thought there were arbitrarily many tiles in all directions."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"No, there's nothing where a vela hasn't put tiles. The edges are always expanding. I kept telling myself that if I got too fed up with my neighbor vela I'd fly to the edge and start a new continent."

Glam

mxglam

red

"So... who made the first tile?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Now that's a question alright. The oldest known vela don't answer it."

Glam

mxglam

red

"...that would drive me up the walls."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Maybe they don't know. Maybe they do. Maybe one of them did it. There are six vela who are thought to maybe be the originals, and none of them are terribly sociable." Bridge part 1, foundations, is done. She pulls a sheaf of blueprints - actually and classically blue - out of the slots on her armor's back and looks at plans. "Can keep chatting in a couple minutes."

A couple minutes later: She starts on the truss structure. Is Glam still there?

Glam

mxglam

red

Definitely.

"How old exactly is old enough to be considered as possibly being god?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"See that's one thing I don't get about this place. Most religions. Anyway... Recorded history goes back twenty-four thousand years. They've been there at least since then. There was apparently a massive cataclysm around that time, suns falling and whole continents collapsing, so it's possible they're quite a lot older and nobody knows just how much older."

Glam

mxglam

red

"And what exactly do you mean by antisocial, in their case?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Catobpleas has a temper tantrum every time someone wakes him up from his decade-long naps. His temper tantrums involve volcanoes. None of the others are that bad, but they all have very strong preferences and react forcefully if these are intruded on."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Hmm... and there's no way to, like, catch them while they're awake or not otherwise exercising their strong preferences?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yeah, but if you do that they just refuse to answer questions. It's traditional for new vela to meet them all at some point before they're a century in, actually, but I've only met Barnacles. That's translated, by the way."

Glam

mxglam

red

"...right. And they refuse and don't explain why, I presume. That would definitely drive me up the walls."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yep. He just told me not to worry about things that happened ages ago, that they don't matter here and now. Arguing with them is apparently a pointless exercise. I tried it anyway."

"...You know, if you want more people to think your power can do anything..." Nudge nudge. "...You could put pictures or even videos of your fights on the internet. It's getting really big, apparently."

Glam

mxglam

red

...Glam is not pleased by the implications of what she's just said. They don't let it show, anyway. "Yeah, I was planning on doing that. Maybe go big enough early enough that I'll be a fixture. But anyway, do vela get more powerful over time?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'm not actually sure. Either we get more powerful or more knowledgeable and efficient. Either way, it's slow. That reminds me, vela mostly don't try to kill or permanently ruin each other, unless one of them crosses the line. I was surprised capes have the same kind of thing, but at least I'm used to it."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Well, not all capes don't. The Slaughterhouse Nine care not a bit."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"And in return I will try my damnedest to kill them if they show up near me. I suspect I might be immune to a couple of them. Most capes, most villains even, don't approach Slaughterhouse Nine levels of deserving to suffer."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Mmhm, yeah. Thank Scion they don't have Gray Boy anymore. Well, thank Glaistig Uaine, really."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yeah, Grey Boy is one of the scariest ones. That kind of power I'm not sure at all I could get out of. I'll probably smash myself if I realize something like that's happening. If it's even possible at that point."

She cringes. What an unhappy conversation.

Glam

mxglam

red

"Don't think it is. But let's maybe change the subject," they say, not insensate to her reaction.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Maybe we should spar. Someone's bound to have a picture of us talking by now, and the media will just be confused if the rogue and villain have a friendly chat. That won't do either of us any good."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yeah, fair enough. Maybe I'm trying to recruit you and vice-versa and it doesn't go well."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"That could work. If I lose I'm saying it's only because I was afraid of causing too much property damage or seriously hurting you. Which would be the truth on both counts, really."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Hmm. I'd say something like that, but there's no way I'll lose. I'm invincible."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'll let you keep believing that. Let me finish the bridge, and try to keep the damage in those four blocks? Still have to fix em, so a little more blasting won't hurt anyone."

Glam

mxglam

red

"I'm fine with that. Maybe we should act on some showdown, like you make a giant rock baseball bat appear and swat me with it, or I do something like that to you, and momentum just happens to carry whoever to said safe spot."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Alright. I prefer hammers, though. I can move 'em from any angle, and all the weight at one end gives more leverage." The bridge looks mostly done, now. She's making the concrete slabs that will be asphalted over to become a road.

Glam

mxglam

red

"Cool! You hit me or I hit you or something else?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"You shout something dramatic about teaming up, I yell 'no' then hit you? I don't like fighting generally, but a spar where we try to minimize the damage is okay."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Alright... Dramatic about teaming up... Hmmm... Suggestions?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"The real villains will flee in terror before our powers combined?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"Oh, I like that! Right now?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"One sec." The last piece of concrete snaps into place on the bridge. She points at Glam and makes a frustrated gesture with the other hand. "Okay, now. This is just to make it look like we're arguing!"

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam makes faces and various gestures. "So much arguing!" they say, snickering a bit. Their smiley-face does not reflect the snickering. And now some armor padding to deal with the impact, and a shouted: "The other villains will flee in terror before our powers combined!"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Shouted reply, "I am not a villain!" She twists around in the air and her favorite hammer goes Whack! She deliberately tries to expect it to send Glam flying in the correct direction and not actually hurt them.

Glam

mxglam

red

It's so good when expectations align! There is much dust cloud and dramatic noise when they crash into the rubble. They emerge from it, carrying one gun in each hand, and forming a large turret on the ground, all of them with the bullshit energy field around them and the turret also surrounded by a bubble-shaped forcefield.

Now, where is she?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Flying towards them, gathering rubble along the way. She does flashy twisty dodges when the shooting starts, but drops these for efficiency if something actually hits her.

If Glam doesn't move rocks and rubble are going to hit them like a wave.

Glam

mxglam

red

Well, Glam has apparently gained the ability of teleporting! Or something like that, anyway, since they vanish from the way of the rubble right before their turret shoots a ball of hardened wind at Mountain.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She charges straight through the wind-ball, but it slows her down and knocks her off-course.

The turret no longer has ground to stand on. And also has a hammer coming at it.

Glam

mxglam

red

The turret has been destroyed. And its pieces disappear.

And there's another ball of hard air coming from over there, and yet another one from that other direction, and Glam seems to be teleporting here and there to shoot.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well hard air isn't doing much but disorient her.

She feels at the holes in the world to get a sense of their location and number. Any turrets on rubble that's not too close to non-rubble get the same treatment as the one before, and she keeps trying to hit the teleporting Glam.

Glam

mxglam

red

There are many turrets appearing and dying, but only one Glam.

One Glam who has conjured a large ball of diamond with the Mountain-blocking energy field around it and has hurled it at her at a very high speed.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Giant hammer meets ball of diamond: Return to sender. She still has control over her own armor and the giant hammer, so the shock of the impact isn't too severe.

Glam

mxglam

red

Return to sender could've worked if the ball didn't disappear mid-air.

And now there are more turrets shooting more balls like those, from various directions simultaneously.

(And of course, if one appeared right behind her at a moment Glam believed her distracted, that is entirely intentional.)

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

No. That's a bit too far. Mountain attempts to believe that the diamond turrets will run out of ammo after a few shots.

While dodging, of course. And let's have a very localized earthquake, just to help them along.

Glam

mxglam

red

That breaks their stride. Only for a second, though; the turrets are entirely optional, it can just rain directed diamond at her from the sky, trying to shoot her to the ground.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well she's insanely strong. Perhaps not as strong as Alexandria, but the anti-her field stops stopping her when she's actually touching something.

Mountain mutters something about needing sensors while fighting to stay in the air.

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam eventually notices that it's stopping stopping her, and decides to be even more creative: encasing the diamond in plastic.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's getting a little tired of this. She's given a good showing, and Glam will look stronger for it. It's not like she couldn't beat them if she really needed to. One or two more things, then let Glam win.

The rock armor suddenly grows to about fifteen feet tall and starts resisting plasticdiamond by sheer size. She tries to distract Glam from their diamond rain by making large sections of rock and rubble crack simultaneously in a rather loud CR-CRUNCH.

Shifting rock around so much generates a lot of heat when she's not paying attention to making it not do that. Parts of her armor especially around the joints start to glow a dull red.

Glam can beat this if she doesn't interfere. It'll be easy, even.

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam—

kinda has a moment, there. The onslaught stops, and they disappear.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Uh. Glam? I was about to lose.

Alright. Cleanup time, then. She fans her newly huge armor into long thin plates to bleed off some heat, then pushes it into the ground, then starts working on the rubble.

Glam

mxglam

red

Huge ball of diamond encased in plastic, like ten-feet diameter, coming from behind.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Armor goes TING like two enormous glass marbles hitting, and actually breaks open. She loses her helmet and the right leg for a moment before she pilots them back. Fuck ow ow ow.

But okay, she can roll with it. "Gah, I thought we were done! How am I supposed to beat 'impossible to hit and makes stuff out of thin air' anyway?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"You don't! I told you, I'm invincible!"

I came in like a wreeeeecking baaaaaallll...

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Okay this actually kinda hurts. She bulks up again, not glowing this time, and stiffens up to deal with future blows. She uses real diamond spikes to open up the plastic, touch the diamonds inside, and get them out of the way.

How hasn't she called the PRT yet? She calls them and reports imminent defeat by Glam at such and such a place.

"Fine! You win! But I could beat you if I didn't have to hold back 'cause this is the middle of a city!" And then she lands and holds her hands up. "Just let me get back to fixing this place up and try not to give me more work, okay?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"Okay!" they say cheerfully. "You sure you don't want to join my nefarious team?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Quite sure, yes. That last thing actually really hurt by the way, if you're going for nonlethal maybe remember that I'm not Alexandria."

The rubble is in a slightly different configuration now, but overall this was a sufficiently flashy fight with no collateral damage.

She starts putting up a building.

Glam

mxglam

red

And people did see it!

Glam sees a PRT van in the distance from their vantage points and decides to say 'bye.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She shakes her head and turns away. Wouldn't do to be too friendly to the nominally-a-villain. Glam gets a finger-sized rock with Mountain's phone number embedded in it pushed into their palm from range.

Back to building, building, building. Some of the rubble is still glowing red-hot, so she dips it into the river before using it as structural elements.

red

The PRT appears and questions her about what she called them for.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, Glam tried to convince her to team up. She said no. They fought, she lost. Then Glam left, so she went back to work. She praises how careful Glam was about avoiding collateral damage, but complains that it was just impossible to hit them because apparently they can teleport now ugh.

red

The PRT is thankful for this piece of information. They ask her whether she needs medical attention or whether anyone else was hurt and how much structural damage was caused.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's slightly injured but wouldn't benefit from medical attention. She doesn't think any bystanders were hurt and structural damage was low because her opening move was to whack Glam into the Behemoth rubble with her hammer. It was already thoroughly destroyed, the fight didn't make much difference.

red

Very well. They would appreciate any information about the fight, though, including what other powers Glam has displayed.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Glam can make stuff that disappears after a while, block her earth-sense but not at touch range, fling stuff around, take a hit... That seemed to be about it, but it was frustratingly powerful. She could barely see for most of the fight through all the stuff being thrown at her.

red

That... is somewhat in line with what they've seen so far, if a bit more relentless than Glam usually goes with.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, Mountain was pretty much ignoring anything less until Glam escalated to pelting her with balls of temporary diamond. Flight and toughness make her a target requiring lots of force. She wouldn't throw a boulder at a mugger, but she might try that against a high-level 'brute', it's reasonable.

red

That's reasonable. Well, they thank her again for standing up to this villain and for her help with the city, and are on their way.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Her reputation for neutral-leaning-hero hopefully shored up, she wishes them good luck and gets back to the pile of rubble.

Time passes. Jobs come and go. She stops changing the layout of the upper floors of her mountain to let the electrical people plan where wires and fuses and so on go. She hauls the internet things, generator, electrical fixings for the base, and miscellaneous supplies to her mountain and starts paying various people to electrify the place.

How's the press viewing her a week later? Does Glam contact her at all? Any particularly interesting jobs or do they all settle into a routine of clearing rubble, raising and repairing structures, and making raw materials?

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam does contact her! And asks more questions about her world because it's just that interesting. Or because they're just that curious, the line's blurry.

As for the press, there haven't been any new pieces since then, but there's an upcoming one about the restoration of New York and how she's the one doing it. Most of the piece is about the government and Endbringer attacks, but they want a line or two from Mountain herself about the whole thing. Laura says whether she should accept it or not depends on the image she wants to have, but if she does accept, she should be careful to only answer things related to the piece itself but be agreeable about it.

And as for jobs, the people who wanted her help mining still do, but they're also grumbling about the fact that she can make the stuff they mine appear out of thin air. NEPEA-3 imposes very heavy taxes on the stuff she sells that she didn't mine, though, so they don't grumble as much.

And there is this one peculiar job...

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She idly answers Glam's questions. Sometimes she's not sure about some detail, it's starting to fade from immediate memory some. She'll accept the new media piece.

There's only one of her and Earth is big. Those mining companies aren't actually that much worse off all things considered, and making new stuff is her entire job, well, most of it, back home so she finds herself unsympathetic.

What exactly is the peculiar job?

red

Well, apparently someone wants her to help build... something... in a mountain, somewhere. It's very vague, and she'll have to sign a very strongly-termed NDA, but the pay is ridiculously good. The penalties for violating the NDA are pretty steep as well, though.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

...Is there an expiration date on the non-disclosure agreement? Even one that's a long time away and doesn't allow her to disclose the whole thing will do, but since she expects to live forever it has to exist. She doesn't explain why.

red

...is she really completely indifferent about any possible expiration dates? Like, say, one three hundred years in the future's okay for her?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well obviously 'forty years' would be better than 'three hundred' but yeah. She doesn't like indefinite promises. Call it the principle-of-the-thing issue if you must.

red

Well, from their end, three hundred years is already a compromise from 'forever,' so they'll want to keep that.

Also a few relevant details about the project is that she herself mustn't know the actual location of the construction.

Does she want the job?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

...She can do her best to avoid scrutinizing the geography while being ferried around blindfolded, okay. Mostly only because of the pay. And because this is coming through semi-official channels.

red

Good! Very good. They suggest sending an aircraft to pick her up from her mountain.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She'll have her builders prioritize the helipad then. Should be ready in a week or two.

red

Good. They'll be there, then.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

And several days later she's ready to be flown to a mysterious location.

red

The aircraft that comes to pick her up is... not quite a plane. It has rounder edges, and legs that protrude when it lands. It also has an energy field around it which is oddly reminiscent of something Glam has used.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

It muffles her earthsense slightly, not as much as she allows Glam's version to. She was never good at sensing small details in intricate metal constructions, though, so the plane remains a mystery.

She boards.

red

There are no windows, and she's informed the she won't be told plane's speed and altitude, and that the path to its destination will be modified in order to mask travel times and the location.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Yeah she was told to expect that.

She'll distract herself reading electrical engineering during the flight so she doesn't accidentally pay attention to the nearby geography.

red

And eventually they arrive. It's night, there, and it's... well, a mountain.

And some work has already started, there. There is a cave, coming from the top of the mountain into it.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

For such a secretive and well-paid project she follows the blueprints exactingly, leaving no trace that she in particular was involved except by the methods used. She makes several suggestions - things she honestly thinks would better secure the place against earthquakes etc, though she doesn't know enough about the area to be sure about what's needed.

red

Earthquakes are unheard of here, but her suggestions are accepted. The blueprints are in fact very specific about several things, and there are some parts that require as seamless and firm as possible an integration between certain metal structures and the walls of the mountain.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

It takes a decent amount of effort, but she can tie the metal to the rock wall on the molecular level by turning the mountain wall into a steadily decreasing not-quite-an-alloy that fades to stone as it gets further away. The two things are as close as she can get them to being a single object by the time she's done.

red

That's fantastic.

And eventually they're done with what they needed her for—a rather strange metal structure suspended in the middle of quite a lot of empty space—and the aircraft is there to take her back.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She keeps reading that textbook on the flight back. She pulls out a notebook and telekinetically sketches some circuit designs (graphite counts as from the earth, barely).

When they're back and the payment from someone-probably-affiliated-with-the-Protectorate clears she can finally pay the bank back for the rest of that big loan and speed up turning her mountain into a proper base/home.

She'll make a house/apartment building and fancy office area for Laura and any more people she might decide to hire with the budget - which would stretch to hiring someone, if barely - somewhere on the mountain if she wants.

Here's a thought... If she makes beaches and hotels, would tourists come? Probably not - she's not famous and even if a parahuman built it, from the outside her mountain looks like little more than a pretty pile of rock in the middle of the ocean.

red

Well, if she made something pretty out of it, maybe, but she would have to jump through quite a few bureaucratic hoops in order to get permission for that.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

More bureaucracy, she's so surprised.

The point would be to have a stream of income that doesn't involve her constantly doing jobs. Are there better ways to achieve that?

red

Well, owning property that she isn't using for tourism—and entertainment-related activities can be a good source of income, especially since she's already cleared to use her powers to build things.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Alright. Laura can handle most of the setup for that right? That's what she's getting paid a high-but-not-obscene amount for after all.

red

Yes, that is among the things she can do. Still a thing that is possible, she quite enjoys being only required to do things that are possible.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Excellent! Back to work they go.

Can she get New York to help recommend her publicity-boosting disaster cleanup services to other cities? Or possibly to hire her for future infrastructure projects like subway or sewer expansions? Municipal work, infrastructure stuff remains mostly her favorite kind of work.

red

Well, she can get some people to do that, and Laura herself offers to have this info reach other people. The government is definitely up for more infrastructure stuff in the future, when it does need to happen.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

What about other governments? Canada? Europe? Central and South America, discount rates because they kinda need it?

Maybe take a tour of Africa and dig wells and make roads. Even if she'll probably be attacked it might leave the average person better off. Or maybe it'd just invite retaliation. She's not sure about that one.

red

Most of them are tentative about accepting and worry about a suddenly helpful parahuman willing to just fix their stuff at the scale she suggests, even if she is in fact charging them—and especially if she isn't.

As for a lot of Africa, it might come to her attention that people aren't in enough agreement about what the best thing to do with it for them to have actually done anything. She may interpret that information however she likes.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Hopefully as she continues to build things and they continue to not suddenly collapse some of them will accept eventually. There's plenty of private companies that want things built cheaply and just take out a lot of insurance.

Time passes. Behemoth's going to show up soon. One day Mountain tries to find Glam, to remind them about making her something sharp enough to hurt it.

Glam

mxglam

red

"Like what? Giant stalactite? You know my stuff disappears half an hour after I stop paying attention to it, right?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I was assuming you can pay attention through cameras. If you're not going to be there yourself, that is. You said you hurt Leviathan after all. Wouldn't blame you for staying far away from the monsters, though."

Glam

mxglam

red

They open and close their mouth a few times. "I'm—probably going."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"You're powerful enough that you'll surely be welcome. Especially with the whole truce thing. But nobody ought to feel like they must fight. No humans, at least. I... May have noticed something along these lines when we had that fight in the last of the rubble. The resemblance wasn't intentional."

Glam

mxglam

red

He pauses, then sighs. "I'm kinda terrified of him."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Reasonable. I am not really good at social things, so tell me if I should drop something, okay? That said, if you decide not to or just don't work up the nerve, you can always arm me for the first few minutes 'till it expires, and fly away. Help me strike some small blow. Better than nothing."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Mm. Yeah. But physical things and solid objects tend to not be very effective against them."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"What about a light saber, from those charming Star Wars movies? Remarkably similar to Burning Blade, I'm still annoyed I can't replicate it here. Or I could levitate your anti-Leviathan gun somewhere with good visibility, far away from whatever it does. Does your paying attention extend through cameras? Binoculars?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yes to both. Light saber sounds fun, actually, I should someday pull a Star Wars themed stunt."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Being careful not to use it on people of course."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Naturally."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Have you given more thought to joining the internet crowd? It can't be too hard to make something to follow you around with a nice, durable video camera."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yeah, actually. I bought mxglam dot com, and I'm working on learning design, though I might just hire someone for that, it's so boring and I am terrible at pretty."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yeah, hiring people is great if you can find the right people."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yeah. Main problem is, there aren't a whole lot of people who do internet site design yet, and people are somewhat wary of associating with villains." Sigh. "I might just become a hero for that."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"It doesn't need to be a really complicated website. A bunch of pictures one after the other is better than nothing. Good luck on being a hero if you choose that, but I don't think it'll be easy to get the Protectorate to forgive you."

Glam

mxglam

red

"I won't settle for anything not pretty! And well, I don't think I'd join them, I'd just, like, stop bothering them and stuff, maybe. The problem's money."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"If you don't want to put on shows and the like I can't help you there. Well, maybe... Hm."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Hm?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"For a moment I thought I could hire you, but I've no idea what for."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Hm. Well, I do want to put on shows, I'm narcissistic and dramatic like that."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"How fast can you fly? Doing your thing in new cities might make you more famous faster."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Hmm... haven't tested, think upwards of ninety."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Well... I should go back to work. Let me know what you decide about Behemoth. Bye for now."

She flies off. And later she sends an email to Alexandria, asking if she should be on standby, or talk to someone about anti-Behemoth strategies, or what.

Alexandria

red

There isn't much in the way of anti-Behemoth strategies, really, especially because they don't actually have a way to track him. It's mostly stay on their toes waiting for him to appear, and then trying to damage him as much as they can and drive him away, or take the hits while waiting for Scion to show up, depending on where he hits.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Mountain thinks she could detect Behemoth a minute or two early if she happened to be in the right place at the right time, but that doesn't mean it's anywhere near worth it sending her around the world looking.

She was planning on making impromptu firing platforms for tinkers and the less mobile of the blasters. She can take hits, try to slow it down, and attempt to damage it just as easily, though. Would a giant humanoid moving statue that opposes Behemoth under her control be a good morale-booster?

Alexandria

red

Yes to all.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Okay, thanks, I'll stop taking your time."

Back to work and studying and occasionally even relaxing. With an undertone of slightly nervous waiting for Behemoth.

red

A few days later, some strange seismic activity is detected in Lyon.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's in Buffalo, New York, raising an office building. She won't know about Lyon until someone tells her.

red

She's contacted by the Protectorate. She's given a location, should she choose to help against Behemoth, and asked to go there immediately if she can.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

It's time.

She leaves the steel girder she was about to put into place embedded into the ground and flies off at top speed. It takes her less than ten minutes to get to the collection point.

red

There are only a handful of capes there, and after a few minutes a teleporter appears to collect them.

They appear in New York, where a few planes are waiting.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She adjusts her rocksuit, dropping most of the bulky stone so she doesn't slow down the plane. She adds a stylized '山' on her forehead, and an 'M' on her chest.

Any familiar faces boarding the planes?

Glam

mxglam

red

Why yes! Yes indeed! A familiar face looking very nervous and fidgety.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She makes sure to board the same plane as Glam, and if given a chance insists at them, "We are going to win."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yeah. Yeah, we are," they say, sounding more like they're trying to convince themself than anything.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Have you practiced making lightsabers? I'll just go with my trusty diamond hammer if not."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Mmhm! They're cool!" Glam demonstrates, being careful not to move it around too much or cut stuff.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good." Her volume ticks up. "You said these are even stronger than the movie version, right? I wonder how deep it'll cut."

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam... never said any such thing. They also notice her speaking louder, and the consequent increase in attention.

That... that's worrying.

"Yeah," they play along. "It should be able to turn Behemoth into a limbless piece of rock."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Here's hoping." She doesn't keep talking up the lightsaber. No need to look like she's deliberately attracting attention.

She pulls out a computer and starts going over what little information is available on past Behemoth attacks.

Glam

mxglam

red

And eventually they arrive. "Want a light saber?" Glam asks Mountain.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yeah. After I make a couple tinker-and-blaster firing platforms, that is."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Oh, yeah, I want one of those for my giant Endbringer killing gun."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good firing positions are underrated. Even Scion wouldn't be able to do much from the bottom of a hole."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yeah."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Right. Let's do this thing."

She exits the plane and flies at top speed to the already-ongoing battle. Behemoth is not exactly stealthy, so it's easy to find a spot to raise a plateau where he'll be in full view for a long time.

She declares the imminent good-firing-position into the communicator Alexandria gave her and gets to work, careful not to send anyone currently near her chosen spot flying.

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam goes with her, and starts assembling a Tinker-looking turret.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She draws attention to the turret while ostensibly 'making sure nobody's going to be caught by the backwash'.

Then her firing plateau is ready. She levitates up small groups of tinkers and less-mobile blasters, makes lots of sharp rocky ammunition for one after a brief conversation, and then solicits a lightsaber.

The lightsaber is basically Burning Blade. It will cut through just about anything. She's used Burning Blade before, she knows in her gut it will work.

Glam

mxglam

red

A lightsaber is given. Glam doesn't question it when it looks a bit different than they expect it to.

And the countdown for the blast starts.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She flies off towards where Behemoth is currently being punched by Alexandria, assembling basically a giant statue along the way. It catches Behemoth's arm mid-swing. Not for very long, of course. Behemoth rips it straight off then melts it for good measure. But she just takes a moment or two to make a new one. The repeated cycle of statue-punch-Behemoth has to be slowing it down some.

Then she arrives and takes a flying swing at one leg with her Burning Blade. It... Is a lot less effective than she thought it would be. She tells herself, Repeated strikes will work and has another go, and another. Then she has to back off when Behemoth hits her with a stream of lightning. Most of it skitters across the surface of her armor, but she can only take so much.

Glam

mxglam

red

And of course, Behemoth can still heat things up, and turn them radioactive, so she might prefer to stay away in general.

Glam's weapon blasts Behemoth full on the face, making him stagger back a little but not damaging him a whole lot more than that.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The lightsaber disappears at some point. She takes a break and prepositions people and evacuates some wounded from its path and shores up the firing platform from where something damaged it and keeps up the statue-hit-Behemoth cycle and trying to pry open Behemoth's wounds with shards of crystal and stone, not that they're slowing it down, and making a wall of insulating asbestos when he lashes out with a heat beam towards a field hospital and and and...

She's very, very busy trying to keep up with the fight. There's almost no time to check up on Glam or anyone else, or even to worry about where he's going besides 'through the city as destructively as possible'.

Glam

mxglam

red

But since she came with the Protectorate and has a comm, she's informed pretty quickly when they figure out Behemoth is going after a nuclear reactor.

And boom! Another Glam hit.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's heard of nuclear power. She knows it could be devastating, but not much more than that. "Mountain here. Can I move the reactor without it exploding?"

red

"Definitely not!"

Another voice: "Can you turn the fuel non-radioactive?" Apparently someone who knows who Mountain is.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"No. Can't transmute things directly. I can... Spread the fuel out, or make shielding if something sufficiently natural counts as shielding."

red

"We need shielding and moderators, what elements can you conjure? Boron, silver, indium, cadmium, stuff like that? And do you have a way to deal with excess heat?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I can make all those in sufficient quantity. I can make a heat sink, but it might not be enough."

red

"Please tell me you're already on your way here."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Still fighting B. It's busy out here." Another statue 'dies'. She puts a boulder between B and some cape with giant cat ears on their costume, but lightning just curves around it. "Waste of time to fly there unless you think it'll work. Will it?"

red

"It has a higher chance of working and not causing a fucking explosion than anything else!"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Then I'm on my way."

She finishes her current task (moving an entire building, including the shelter under it, out of the path of Behemoth's kill radius) then flies for the reactor. The comms system is handy - she doesn't get lost thanks to a computerized voice giving her directions.

She has a medium-size pile of the requested elements in a ball in front of her by the time she gets there. She lands hard in front of the first science-looking person. "Mountain here to help clear the reactor. Clock's ticking, where to?"

red

The science-looking person looks at her. "Reactors, there are four. This way."

He leads her to the appropriate location. "You won't be able to actually look at the material, will that be a problem?" Her English is heavily accented, but understandable.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I can already feel them. The rods of stuff producing intense heat, slowly changing into something else, surrounded by water, correct?"

red

"Yes, that's right. Behemoth will probably want to create some huge reaction here and make this go boom." Dumbing it down a bit to the non-physicist, maybe?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Not the time to quibble over manners. "Okay, and the rods of cadmium and friends-" She waves her ball of alloy "-nearby the fuel, you need more of those?"

red

"Yes, several more. Behemoth will supercharge it, or something, we have no way to know what exactly he's planning."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Right. So I give it more moderators, more shielding. If I can cool it down enough too can I pick the whole thing up and send it away from Behemoth?" She is floating briskly towards the reactor buildings during this. Her ball of alloy breaks up into four chunks and starts working its way into the reactors. The control rods extend and bulk up - she asks for advice on how exactly to pattern them and follows it rigidly.

red

"If you manage to pick all buildings up and send them away without disturbing the material in any way, and then very gently drop them in an appropriate location, yes," she says skeptically.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She looks distant for a moment. "...I'm strong enough. Fine control on something as big as this whole complex would be a bit iffy. Still need the cooling though, right?"

red

"Yes, especially the cooling. Are you doing it?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Built a heat sink, but it doesn't seem to be helping. It's still only the water flow is keeping it from melting..."

She taps her comm device. "Mountain reporting. Reactor is stabilized, but not for long if Behemoth gets here. I can pick up the whole thing and fly away if we get someone to cool the interior well enough. Any tinkers or shakers think they can do it?"

red

This is Behemoth, having someone to cool stuff is par for the course. Having someone who can cool the interior of a nuclear reactor...

"What exactly will you need?" someone asks.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Brief consult with the Science People, then: "If I move this place the coolant pumps will shut off. The reactors keep making heat for a day or two even after they're shut down, just not as much. I just need the reactors to not melt for ten minutes to half an hour while I move the whole building and they start the pumps again. About eighty megawatts' worth of heat right now."

red

Silence for a few seconds, then, "Someone's coming over."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Roger." Don't Chatter On The Comms During A Fight is a sensible rule. She wants to know how it's going, but she can just listen to comms to figure out that it seems to be Not Well.

She redesigns her heat sinks, which still doesn't help that much, and puts more shielding over both the reactors and the piles of waste sitting in a big pool in different corner of the building. And she waits.

red

Eventually someone arrives, a cape with a blue-and-red costume with fiery designs on the blue part and icy ones on the red part. "I can cool stuff off, tell me where to go."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She's extended the heat sink out more, but metal can only transfer heat so fast.

"This way."

It's a grid of metal fanning out in all directions, a classic heat sink. The parts closer to the reactors are glowing red. "Here it is, tell me if you need to get closer to the center and I'll make a radiation shield. The nuclear people say alarms would be going off if there were dangerous amounts of radiation here, should be safe for now, but we still want to be as fast as possible obviously."

red

"This is close enough," he says, and closes his eyes.

...and doesn't seem to do much of anything more than that. Except he's certainly doing something, or so say the measuring apparatuses who seem to indicate heat disappearing into the Abyss.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

It's definitely helping... The core temperature is dropping, and the fuel's heat output is steadily decreasing. But the Nuclear People say it's not enough. Too risky to try and move the thing with just Freeze Guy cooling it unless Behemoth is getting really close. Damn.

She tries to extend and optimize the heat sinks more. She attempts to replace the pumps and finds that she doesn't have anywhere near enough finesse to do that. It's still not enough, and Behemoth keeps getting closer. She swears some, and asks Freeze Guy to keep it up anyway. How can this be solved? She doesn't know what kind of capes are here. What resources there are. With one exception.

She tells the comms, "Scientists think the reactors are still too hot to risk moving. Is there anyone else who can cool things or move water? Is Glam still in the fight? If so tell them I need their freeze ray."

Glam

mxglam

red

Freeze ray...?

"On my way!"

Freeze Guy says he'll soon need to discharge this heat somewhere.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Would've been nice to know that up front...

Here's another heat sink, not connected to the first. Waste heat can go there.

Glam

mxglam

red

Soon enough waste heat goes there. Less heat goes there than the heat drained, however.

And soon enough Glam appears. "'Sup?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Behemoth is heading for this nuclear plant and we're slowing it down but not stopping it. What are the odds it can make a humongous explosion if it gets here? So I'm going to move the whole building far away. Problem is, if I move the building the coolant pumps can't get water from the river anymore and explosion happens anyway. So I need a freeze ray."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Oh, wow. You need a super freeze ray." They spot the other cape. "What do you do?"

"I can store heat and dump it elsewhere, with some loss."

"Which in this case is a big pro," they agree. "Okay, super freeze ray, can I set something up to scan what you're doing and serve as inspiration?"

The other cape shrugs, but apparently his job takes some concentration so he doesn't say anything more.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"From what I can hear on comms we have about half an hour. Can I help somehow?" Other than believing as hard as she can that Glam can do whatever they want, that is.

Glam

mxglam

red

"Nah, this should be quick." They conjure a Tinkery thingamabob in their hand, which bleeps as it scans the other cape.

"Okay, now you can, I'll need you to help me assemble this, real quick."

And pieces start appearing and Mountain's help is requested.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She helpfully assembles things, being a bit showy about it. The Nuclear People still watching don't know what to expect a freeze ray to look like except 'big and tinkery' after all.

Glam

mxglam

red

It turns out not to be a freeze ray, but rather a glass ball mounted on a pedestal. Glam explains it's going to use a principle similar to the other cape's power to simultaneously draw heat from all four sources.

Buuuuullllllshit.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Powers don't have to make sense. Powers don't have to make sense. Is it working?

Glam

mxglam

red

Well, it might help more if she doesn't actually think about it so much, but of course there's no way for Glam to tell her that.

There's enough spooked physicists and hopeful capes around that it does in fact work quite well, however.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Which means she can tell everyone, "Excellent. This is going to work. I'm going outside. Keep up the cooling and hold on."

She flies outside, perches on the lip of one of the cooling towers, and lifts the entire facility - reactors, cooling towers, radioactive waste and all, out of the ground. She proceeds due north at significantly-greater-than-highway speed - certainly faster than Behemoth is managing with plenty of capes still working to slow it down.

After twenty minutes, she lands the facility a couple hundred miles north, far away from any significant towns and near another river, changing the earth around it to match. The coolant pumps come back on without a hitch, and the squad of physicists tell Glam and Transfer that they can take a break.

Is the fight still going on? Because if so, Mountain is going to throw herself right back into it. She takes Transfer with if he wants a ride.

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam comes with, and would like to know that as well. Apparently the fight is still going on, but the lack of a target has changed its character somewhat. Enough that by the time they arrive, Scion's there.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Mountain protects the rest of the city from the shockwaves and fallout of the Scion-and-Behemoth brawl as best she can. Which is only about halfway.

Glam

mxglam

red

That's quite alright. Glam tries to do the same, with bullshit forcefields and whatnot. Scion manages to drive Behemoth away, and on the whole this has been one of the mildest Endbringer fights.

"Well, that could've gone a lot worse than it did."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Mountain is still doing medevac, but can spare a moment or two to chat. "Yeah. I think they just keep getting tougher closer to the middle, like twice as tough every foot. Your lightsaber shaved off a whole leg's worth of skin but wouldn't cut deeper."

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam themself is creating floating litters to carry the injured. "Yeah. I need to talk to you later, by the way."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I figured as much."

Medevac proceeds. Mountain is asked to put the nuclear plant back where it was before and remove your heat sinks and so on now that Behemoth's gone, thank you very much. They might even be able to start it back up in a month or four. The planes to take capes back home come and go and eventually Glam and Mountain are in New York again.

Glam

mxglam

red

And Glam draws Mountain aside, which by cape standards is "floating around somewhere," and asks, "Is there something you think I'd be interested if you told me?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I know how your power works. I had a guess the first time we fought and knew for sure after that time we sparred. I hadn't planned to do anything with this knowledge, but against Behemoth you want every advantage you can get."

Glam

mxglam

red

"...I'd like it if you elaborated on that."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"In my homeworld there are several types of Fair Folk who can do - illusions that work until you realize it's a trick. Working with expectation. I had to fight some, once, and your power struck me as a very similar kind of thing. I know perfectly well that you'd be ruined forever if anyone but me figured it out, so I have no plans to tell anyone unless you go hard villain."

Glam

mxglam

red

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'm not out to get you. Perhaps I should have told you I figured it out. I didn't- I'm not good with people. Social things."

Glam

mxglam

red

"And that's supposed to reassure me?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"...Well, I know how to keep trade secrets, at least. You have to if you want to stay ahead as an enchanter."

Glam

mxglam

red

"...so you let me win that one fight, did you."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Uh. Only because I know your one true weakness, bwa-ha-ha. I was trying to act exactly as I would have if I didn't know about it. So think of it like you won against someone with my exact powerset and limitations who didn't know your weakness."

Glam

mxglam

red

They put their face on their hands and sigh. "I'm not totally sure what to do."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Me neither, really... 'Continue being nowhere near as terrible as the Slaugherhouse Nine' is a good start?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"I think you understand why I do the things I do enough to know I'm not gonna do that."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

That's some upset body language alright... "Someone I knew for ten years surprised me. You never really know."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Maybe not," they concede, "but I don't expect to become like the Nine."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"And I don't expect to threaten you into anything or give out your secret without a damn good reason."

Glam

mxglam

red

"But you do realize those are two completely different expectations, right? Out of the however many millions of people currently live in the United States, there are only nine who are, well, the Nine, whereas betraying secrets, or even letting them slip, is much more common. You have ultimate blackmail over me."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes... You have ridiculously strong potential if you keep winning against powerful opponents, and from what I've seen you're actually a good person. The world needs powerful good people. I'll be honest and say I would probably use the blackmail if you suddenly became a genuinely evil villain. But you're not and I won't."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Which still leaves me needing to trust you. Which, well, I won't have much of a choice there, will I? And you also look like a good person, but it feels awful that I never got to choose."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Sorry, I suppose. If it's any consolation I think I am really quite unusually likely to figure it out. I got hints when feeling the world and I'd encountered something similar before."

Glam

mxglam

red

They sigh. "So... Are you going to use that now and tell me to stop, I don't know, stealing stuff and humiliating the Protectorate?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"No, or not unless you start carrying it too far. But aren't there dozens of high-profile villains all over the world - in this country even - that could use humiliation a lot more than the Protectorate?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"Very much so, but unlike the Protectorate, they don't pull their punches, so I need a good enough rep to fight them. It's slow going."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I could help with one, and give you most of the credit. Have you started that web show?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"Yeah! Not much content yet though."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good for you. Camera robots? Do you have an editor and so in or do you just do it yourself?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"Myself, for now," they sigh.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"...I wonder if you could join the Protectorate. It might be good in the long run if you get forgiven for actions until now. But that has a high risk of someone knowing your power, so probably not actually."

Glam

mxglam

red

"Not to mention the fact that... I accidentally killed a guy with it. That's pretty hard to forgive, I think."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yeah."

Glam

mxglam

red

"It was meant to be a stun gun," they explain lamely.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I see... An industrial accident was my fault. Move on, do better, right?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"I mean, sure, except for the whole 'arrested for a good chunk of my life' part."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"If it was genuinely an accident, don't you think you could get them to wipe the record somehow? I admit I'm not super familiar with the law here."

Glam

mxglam

red

"The kind of accident it was was 'there were more of them than of me and they expected it to be lethal,' which to the law looks a lot like 'I ducked up weapon choice.' Not much leniency for that."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Mm. The past follows, broken, in our footsteps... The rules seem to bend around capes, though. Have you actually talked to them about it? It's not like they can ambush you while you send an email or make a phone call. Or, have you talked to a lawyer about it?"

Glam

mxglam

red

"No, and no. The law bends around capes until they become dangerous or reckless enough that they're not playing the game anymore. Murder is beyond that line."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"If you don't want to even ask, I suppose that's your decision. But I think it's a mistake."

Glam

mxglam

red

"What do you suggest? 'Hey, I know I killed a guy, but it won't happen again, I promise!'"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I'll swear to a lie detector it was an accident, I learned my lesson and am much more careful now, it can't be undone but I want to make up for it... And if they do condemn you, say the way to make up for it is prison, you have lost nothing but the time taken to ask and looking remorseful to them. And that is my last word, I need to get back to Buffalo and finish my job."

Glam

mxglam

red

"You're underestimating the power of bureaucracy," they sigh. "Good luck with Buffalo."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"You can't win if you don't try. Good luck with nominal villany." She flies off, accelerating to near-plane speeds over a minute or two.

red

Capes flying this way and that really fast isn't terribly uncommon, and as long as that's all they're doing no one will stop them.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She lands at the building site in Buffalo and resumes building. It takes an hour to finish, but her customers have left, it being night now. And her customers can call Laura if something's wrong with it, she just fought Behemoth.

This world has so many problems. She has a lot to think about and watching a quarter of a city get melted is as good an excuse for drinking as any. She sheds and buries her rock-costume leaving plain pants and shirt, only somewhat careful of being spotted, and goes to find a quiet bar.

red

And she finds a quiet bar, because those aren't actually terribly rare.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She orders a beer, 'I've had a long day just give me something to drink' brand, paying in cash.

red

And the barkeep gives her that.

"Long day?" he guesses, in the tradition of barkeeps since olden times.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Sip. "Yeah. You have no idea just how long." Sip, sip.

red

"I hear ya," he says, and starts cleaning a pretty clean glass with a towel, in the tradition of barkeeps since olden times. "You see the news? Behemoth. Tragic." He shakes his head slowly.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She smiles wryly. "Could've been worse. They say he was heading for a nuclear plant. Boom."

red

His eyes widen. "Well, I ain't a religious man, but thank Scion he didn't get to it."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hmm." She doesn't say 'something is off about Scion' but it might be obvious she's thinking it.

red

It is. "You one of 'em as don't like 'im much?" he asks without judgment and only a raised eyebrow.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"It's just... He'd be able to do so much more if he just talked to folks. Or listened. Whatever. The way he acts isn't human, humans talk." Leaving aside how Mountain isn't human either. She drains the cup. "Another, please."

red

He gives her another. "Well, I reck'n if anyone ain't human it's 'im, and who knows what goes on in 'is head? Maybe there's a reason for that. 'Least he's doin' some good with 'is power."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She wants to complain about having to punch Behemoth in the face, and watch dozens of people die in front of her, because Scion wasn't fast enough. But she's not yet drunk enough to just blurt that out. "Secrets are annoying."

red

The barkeep shrugs. "Ev'ryone's got secrets. Reck'n the most powerful man in the world's got his, too."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Not quite what she meant, but okay. Sip, sip.

red

And the barkeep has other customers to chat up and be friendly to.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She orders a third drink after a couple of minutes. There's a limit to how drunk a body that's not really human anymore can get, and she's going to reach it.

red

And the barkeep keeps providing. Three glasses doth not a troublemaker make.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Her troubles are mostly ones she can't talk about, openly at least. Homesickness, anger at the Endbringers, frustration at Scion and the whole Glam situation.

Is the bartender concerned by five glasses? Because that's about as drunk as this body can get. She leaves a $10 tip and visits the bathroom, then heads for the back alley where she stored her rocksuit.

red

The bartender is not. She may look quite drunk but still not passed-out drunk or picking-fights drunk, this is all business.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She briefly wonders whether flying drunk is illegal. Eh, probably a bad idea even if it's not, she'll get lost trying to find her mountain.

She calls Laura and informs her that she decided to get drunk, because Behemoth, so please move her 9 AM job to noon, then goes to find a cheap motel.

And the next day it's back to business as usual.

red

There aren't any laws about sobriety while flying, unless she's flying a plane. Which she's not.

In any case, business as usual happens, and time elapses.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She keeps building things, being paid, and spending money to finish her base and set up a property-holding business. Laura gets a substantial raise for managing it all.

Soon the next Endbringer attack is approaching, bringing with it reminders of the Glam thing. How's Glam doing?

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam has...

actually joined the Protectorate!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

This is surprising. Mountain is surprised. But good for Glam! Probably. At least they can try pivot their reputation for villainous competence into a more heroic one, right? And Mountain just bets the webshow went up in quality and maybe also popularity when they joined, because of various peoples' support.

She writes an email, Glam, want to work together against an Endbringer again?

Glam

mxglam

red

It actually did! After a fashion.

Sure! Did you have any specific Leviathan plans in mind?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

I provide mobile firing platforms that follow him, of course. I was thinking you could try making a spike of something just as hard as the inner part of an Endbringer, have someone use it as a weapon. And if not, the lightsaber at least helped. But I'll probably be spending some of my time trying to stop or reverse whatever underground structure damage he does.

Glam

mxglam

red

How do I get enough people to actually believe that whatever I make is as hard as that, is the problem.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Email is not necessarily safe from spying! Delete this entire email chain. I will too. I don't know enough about computers to know if this will solve the problem.

Glam

mxglam

red

It won't, but in any case Protectorate emails are tinker-safe from spying, and I'm unlikely to be a target of scrutiny. But yeah you're right, deleting.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She deletes emails and starts a new thread to the conversation. I've been practicing with my ocean subtype. It's almost nothing compared to my mountain powers but I think I might be able to track Leviathan with it. Maybe. My main strategy will be erecting walls and barriers and providing well-defended mobile firing platforms.

Glam

mxglam

red

Problem with lizard butt is that underwater he's the fastest speedster we have on record.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Walls and so on then. Last time I had some success slowing it down by making hills around its feet.

Glam

mxglam

red

My working hypothesis is that the Endbringers are actually jobbing the fights, so I wouldn't rely on that.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Ugh, fucking Endbringers. We fight our best anyway, yeah? That's just what we have to do.

Glam

mxglam

red

Yeah, it's just. You know. If they ever start losing, either be on the lookout for some cunning comeback—Leviathan is particularly fond of those—or, I dunno, maybe they have special weird limits or something. No idea, really.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

No offense, but this world sucks in very different ways than mine.

Glam

mxglam

red

I hear you. Not gonna get defensive about it, this world's pretty awful.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

I'm going to catch up on your webshow. And episodes I should see in particular?

Glam

mxglam

red

Oooh, there's one where I fight this Toybox tinker and decided to just copy everything she did and then tack something new on, she got so frustrated, it was hilarious.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She watches the video, so there's a few minutes' delay before her next email.

You're right, that was hilarious. Almost like the time I fought this villain with a rewind power - she was robbing a jewelry store, so I just stuck all the jewelry to the ceiling and taunted until she left.

Glam

mxglam

red

Oh, Rewind, she actually joined the Wards last month. She's really nice and sweet, and she told me about that jewelry store robbery. She was really annoyed at you, poor thing.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, I was stopping a robbery. Do convey my apologies for messing with her a little more than was absolutely necessary for that, please.

Glam

mxglam

red

I will. I think I noticed a sort of begrudging respect, though. I'm pretty sure she'd have done the same in your shoes.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

All's well that ends well, I suppose. Good luck protectorate-ing. I should get back to work. Today's job is an artificial beach!

Glam

mxglam

red

Thanks! And ooh, that sounds like fun!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

I'll send pictures.

Three hours later: Pictures.

A few days after that: Endbringer. Where is it?

red

Naples! It's Leviathan, naturally.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

She joins the fight.

Her ability to track it works for about half an hour until it realizes what she's doing and sends fake holes-in-the-water in every direction.

Glam

mxglam

red

Glam is convinced it realized earlier and was pretending.

Pew pew!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Smash/wall/unfracture.

At least they're helping. Right?

(Is Mountain getting much publicity yet for being a highly visible rogue who shows up to Endbringer fights? She imagines the places she builds might get some tourism value from being built by a parahuman.)

red

Well, you won't find anyone saying they're not helping. And Alexandria today seems particularly vicious. Might have something to do with losing a teammate pretty recently—there was something on the news about it.

(She's getting some publicity, but not a whole lot—Endbringer fights are never recorded and it's only word-of-mouth that spreads it.)

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Now that she has a steady stream of money rolling in and a reasonably built-up base, she wants to start doing a little more heroing. It's slightly weird not to be considered a force of nature, so she wants the publicity. Laura is to either find her things to hero at in roughly equal proportion to more jobs, or hire someone to do same. Preferring things like dealing with storms and floods and earthquakes and bridge collapses than shutting down villains, though both could definitely feature.

red

It's not actually hard at all to deal with disaster relief, the Protectorate is often in charge of that in North America and given her powers she might do more good than a large number of heroes combined. The Protectorate is definitely willing to pay her for her services, and Laura can arrange the publicity.

If she wants to do actual solo heroing as a career, though, she'll need to register as an independent hero.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Uh, she already did that. Look at this form the lawyer made her send in.

red

Oh, Laura's glad of it, bureaucracy is a pain. So, yeah, she can definitely continue doing that, too.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Good, she can engage villains on a moderately regular basis between all the other stuff.

She focuses on preventing harm or recovering stolen things even if this lets the villain themselves get away, and is almost always successful at minimizing damage.

red

And doing more solo heroing and helping in disaster relief also does wonders for her popularity!

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Money and popularity all around. She makes a few villain fight videos of her own, publishes pictures of disaster-relieved zones, and so on, and pretty much settles in to the pace of the world. Occasionally she makes overtures to various non-Africa governments, offering to do infrastructure stuff like more hydro dams, roads, ports, on the cheap by reason of 'infrastructure is fun'.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

...Somewhere in western Africa, a man with the lower body of a horse appears. He looks around confusedly, mutters something in a completely unknown language, makes himself a sunfruit tree and eats one, and flies off in a random direction, trailing vegetation below him.

red

Flying kinda-centaurs that trail vegetation behind themselves tend to not be a thing, so this understandably causes observers some alarm, especially given the social understanding of what to expect when new parahumans show up.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

He does try to talk to a few people. Piecing together the language would be a good start. And some of them look awfully hungry, so this empty lot can have a fruit orchard that will do fairly well in most climates.

He considers 'killing himself' so as to respawn in a place he actually knows. But, no, the energy tells him that he would never find this place again. It's a once in a lifetime chance for something new and interesting.

Will nobody talk to him?

red

Someone will!

...well, for a definition of 'talk' that includes causing a giant boulder to be flung in his direction.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

How irritating. He dodges it. Vines and so on start to spring up near the thrower, grabbing at them.

red

The thrower, upon seeing the Vines, suddenly opens a hole on the ground underneath themself, jumping into it and closing it up after.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Plants: Have roots. He uses them to weave a large underground and aboveground cage. He also starts on a walking-tree to use as a weapon.

"I just want to talk to someone, explore a bit, is this really necessary?" Of course, they don't understand him.

red

The ground has a moving tunnel that soon encounters the roots. Shifting rocks try to tear them apart and make the person a way out.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

His roots decline to be shredded until either whoever that is surfaces, or he gets bored and starts flying away.

red

What if the rocks really insistently try to make their way between roots to pull an opening through them?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Rocks can make their way through the roots, but can't pull an opening larger than a few centimeters.

He'd just leave, but this... Person, attacked him out of nowhere and might do it again. Roots start moving inward, still in their thick multilayered weave, reducing the amount of underground space available.

red

Ugh. But there's space above them, right? The person can leave the ground if they want to?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Yes, he wants to look at them, that's the whole point.

red

Then a large muscular shirtless man shoots up like a bullet (or, well, the boulder he's standing on shoots up like a bullet) in the strange new parahuman's direction.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

...Where he hits the roots' aboveground counterparts. "Peace, strange human." The language barrier is becoming irritating.

red

The strange human falls back on the ground and looks up at him, then asks something, gesticulating wildly at him and at the roots and at the ground and all around.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I don't understand this language," he says demonstratively. He points at himself. "Tenno." He points at the stranger.

red

"...Jiwe."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Progress! He makes Jiwe a little berry bush (and an identical one outside the tree-cage, which he eats from) and points at or mimes various things, trying to get names. If Jiwe doesn't cooperate... Well, cross that bridge when you come to it.

red

Jiwe crosses his arms and doesn't eat.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I don't want to hurt anyone, you know." Munch, munch. He shrugs and starts cantering away. On his way out he makes changes to Jiwe's tree-cage until it's sufficiently loosely built that he can probably dig his way out of it in an hour or so, then attempts to get someone around here, one of the magicless ones perhaps, to just talk to him already.

red

Well, most people seem to make a point of not getting in his way, and of course he doesn't speak their language so he doesn't know what-all they're saying whenever they see him.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

This is getting quite annoying. If they already think he's evil, no harm in doing something less than polite. He picks one who seems less frightened than average and ties their feet to the ground with a tuber and repeats the I-don't-know-this-language-please-name-things process.

red

If she seemed less frightened than average before that, now she's significantly more frightened than she was before, and the words "hakuna" and "tafadhali" and "nakuomba" keep being repeated over and over.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Patience. Patience. Patience. PATIENCE. Can he get anything out of this by trying to appear calm and offering her food and miming at things in a strange language trying to get words?

red

She will eventually stop crying inconsolably if he waits long enough, and then meekly accept the food and never look him in the eyes and never say much more than two words.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Sigh. He lets her free, completely unharmed and letting her keep the fruit.

He feels around. Are there any concentrations of paper that might be books?

red

Nope.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Tenno releases Jiwe from his treecage, re-imprisons him if he attacks, and tries the same process in another few towns. More of the same?

red

Not all towns have people with magic, but the ones who do pretty much all attack him on sight if they see him flying.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

This 'unique and interesting world' is proving a lot more frustrating than he would like.

This is a dangerous place, and lawless too. He leaves food in his path, though they'll likely ignore it, flies into the wilderness a little ways, and starts on a patch of forest that will become his home. Over the next few days, does anyone approach his patch of forest?

red

Yep! A woman casually holding a stick and dragging it on the ground as she walks, backed by two thuggish-looking men.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

He's not about to come out to them. Trees are his power. He will shout in his language to clarify that he doesn't understand them.

red

They stop, and the woman with the stick asks a question in her own language.

The stick feels... weird.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

He prepared trees in recognizably humanlike forms, for intimidation. A trio of these thump-thumps their way toward them. He tries to say 'no understand'. He's reasonably sure about the 'no' at least.

red

She doesn't look intimidated, but she pauses when she hears the words. She taps the stick against her leg a bit, then asks something.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The moving trees stop well away from her. They are partly a deception, with any luck they will forget the rest of the forest is his too.

He recognized 'you'. And says 'no understand you'. Is this a chance to actually learn significant parts of this place's language? "I am Tenno."

red

"I am Jua."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Tenno himself walks out in front of his humanlike trees. The worst she could do is send him home again, and it's not like this place has been particularly interesting so far. He's wearing armor now, of course, specially grown treeflesh.

He waves and says, "Trava, Jua." Hopefully it's clear enough that's a greeting.

red

She eyes him suspiciously and greets him back in her language. Her bodyguards do not do anything, and her stick feels a little bit weirder.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

That stick is a weapon. He's positive. He makes preparations - a wall of wood between them, just underground, that can spring up in an instant.

But, visibly, he shrugs and motions at the sun. Can he get some actual language from her? Please? "What is name that?"

red

She smirks. "Jua."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Hm." Well, who is he to say what they can name themselves. He nods approvingly and motions at a tree. "Tenno." Close enough.

Can he get her to name more things?

red

Maybe. How will he try going about that?

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

By motioning at them and asking what that thing's name is. Obvious stuff like 'ground' and 'tree' at first. He makes a fruit, points at a rock. He starts drawing pictures with mobile twigs if her patience lasts that long.

red

It won't. After two words she'll get bored and ask a question, pointing at him and then gesturing around them, sounding annoyed.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

He shakes his head in as confused a way he can manage and says in his own language, "I still don't understand."

red

She groans and tries to mimic something, pointing at him again, then at her stick (which starts to glow very slightly when she does), then at his constructs, and then at the forest. She's saying something while she does it.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Time for visual aids. He makes twig drawing of a person not holding anything going into the forest and then going out the other side holding a piece of fruit. Drawing of people holding swords going into his forest and getting whacked by a drawing of his tree golems until they drop the swords or run away.

red

She seems amused that he apparently thinks he could take her on. She points at herself, then at the forest, then at herself again, and her stick is suddenly glowing much more brightly than it was. Before she's even done saying anything, she jumps towards him with the glowing stick, trying to stab at him.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

3 things happen in quick succession. His wall of wood comes up. He starts flying up as quickly as seems prudent. Trees and tree golems start reaching for Jua.

red

Her glowing stick goes through the wall of wood and the trees like a hot knife through butter. She quickly climbs up the wall of wood and tries to jump and grab Tenno before he's too high. The two thuggish-looking men are way stronger than they look, and they already looked pretty strong, and try to hold the golems.

Jua lets go of the stick before she jumps, and it continues getting brighter and brighter and brighter-

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The thuggish looking men can hold back the golems, but what can they do about non-golem-looking trees surrounding them, as well as roots and vines springing up from the forest floor? For that matter, the same attacks go after Jua. He's not trying to kill them, exactly, but he's definitely done being gentle with these savages.

Fates are fast fliers. Tenno is out of reach before Jua grabs at him. They are not that fast, so Tenno only has a few tree canopies and about fifty feet between him and the dangerous stick.

red

The dangerous stick goes boom.

Apparently the thuggish-looking men are fairly fireproof, and Jua herself touched the wall of wood and made it glow a lot to use it as a shield.

Except now it's glowing brighter and brighter again so she's running.

(Poor forest.)

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

That. Is. Enough.

The wall of wood flies after Jua as it glows. There are enough vines and wood gathered near the thuggish-looking ones that he can form a skin-tight shell. The two thugs are immobilized. Also suffocating.

red

The two thugs will definitely try to use their ridiculous superstrength to get out of the shell somehow. Jua, in the meantime, will notice the wall of wood—that was not expected—and suddenly her shoes are glowing, too, and she's running much faster than she ought to be capable of running.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The brutes will have difficulty getting out. He's holding on to the shells with his Fate power, and they don't have much leverage from the position of 'already encased'.

He tries to trip Jua with suddenly appearing head-sized obstacles, but she's moving fast enough that he might not be able to get her.

red

The brutes might start suffocating, then.

As for Jua, she's not only moving fast, she's also very agile, and dodging the obstacles is easy. But she soon has to get rid of her shoes, which she kicks in Tenno's direction with unexpected accuracy.

Before the shoes can connect, she grabs four small throwing knives from her pockets and they're soon glowing brightly again. She throws them one after another, trying to hit Tenno with at least one of them. And of course, whether they hit him or not, all of those objects detonate after a few seconds.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

When flying balls of wood and leaves fail to catch the knives he dodges as best he can. As luck would have it, the cut almost through one of his hind legs doesn't actually hinder his movements.

Jua has run beyond the limits of his prepared forest. He pursues, but without much more attention than before. It's taking effort to keep those two brutes down.

red

She doesn't have superspeed anymore, so she's just running barefoot away from him.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Oh, well in that case he can easily catch up to her enough to create dense field of a certain deep purple flower actively emitting pollen.

She should start to feel sleepy almost immediately after inhaling the stuff.

red

Zzzzzzzz

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Aaaaaand sterilize and wither all the flowers, the pollen will decay in hours at most. Dreambringers are not toys. Oh, right, he should probably do that to the brutes as well as her. They have mouth-and-nose-holes and enough space around the chest to breathe some air and a dose of dreambringer's pollen, now. It probably hasn't been too long but then again he's not that familiar with humans' exact limits.

He gives a dramatic sigh. This place is tiresome, he'd have expected it to collapse entirely years ago if it was made of tiles. He asks the stars, so to speak, if any of the three unconscious humans would (relatively) willingly help him learn the local language but it would only cause more violence.

He peers into the strings of fate once again, asking where he can find an actual civilization.

red

...well, the strings of fate seem to point at the last town he visited as the nearest example of 'actual civilization.'

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Hm. Is the entire planet as lawless? Well, Fate and Fates are inexact at the best of times. Ah well.

He deposits Jua and her goons a few miles away from his forest with a little food and water. He tailors the forest to look more menacing, expands it to the limits of his perception (only another mile or so), and places a variety of carefully-tailored chemical defenses that won't survive outside its bounds. He goes back to using most of his natural ability for seeing fate as a Centaur to try and figure out why most magic won't work here. It's vague, as usual, but he'll unlock this interesting puzzle sooner or later.

red

A few hours later, he'll sense many fires starting at the edges of his forest.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, that will trigger the foaming beans, which will slow the fires down at minimum.

He flies for the edge and makes a quick circuit, smothering sections of fire with a bounty of more foaming beans as he goes. Is it Jua again?

red

Yes, it is, and the fires are being caused by explosions! Kinda hard to contain.

She is also not alone. Four men, all of them fairly nimble-looking and capable of running preternaturally fast, are carrying various glowing items from Jua to other parts of the forest.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Killing is ugly. Explosions are uglier. POISONOUS FUMES FOR EVERYONE, delivered by alarming-looking flowers suddenly springing up near people and emitting white-orange smoke.

red

Yikes. This guy's got range, damnable capes. The four speedsters start running away, one of them stopping to grab Jua, but very soon they all start losing balance and fall on the ground, writhing in pain.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Neurotoxin will do that to you.

He gives them each some more, and grows plants through several important body parts, ending it relatively quickly. Gruesome. Unpleasant and disgusting. But pacifism simply wasn't working.

He doesn't try to put out the fires. Too hot and fierce for foaming beans by now. He retrieves some things from the center and flies around, spreading what he recognized as local forage and crops, until it's likely to have burned out.

From then on whenever someone recognizably more than human visits he attempts to scare them away just once, and repeats the poison trick if that doesn't work.

red

One short, scrawny man comes to visit, not visibly superhuman or anything, accompanied by someone who might be a body guard, but is certainly not as large as Jua's pals were.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

He can be met by a tree-golem covered in spikes. "Who is you?"

red

"I am Empower," he replies in the same language. "Who are you, and what did you do with Sun?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I am Tenno. She attacked me. She is dead. Leave or you will die too."

red

"Will you not take her place?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"...No understand. Little talk." He says a long sentence in his own language to emphasize the point.

red

...okay. "What do you want?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Learn to talk. No fire. Other things, but no words."

red

The man spends a few seconds thinking, then says, "I could help."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Send to talk to me, is learn. Give food." The language barrier might impede negotiations, here.

red

He thinks he got it anyway, and he nods. "I will send someone."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Good. I will be here."

red

So the man turns around and starts leaving, and soon his normal-looking bodyguard follows.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

And Tenno goes back to repairing his forest. Ironwood trees to resist fire and explosions, so-called bloodroot thorns, carnivorous flowers, all the chemical defenses from before and then some, guessing at the right conditions to attract local insects. It's a lot of effort, actually, and doesn't look very nice but he should have gone all out earlier.

Things might even be looking properly interesting now, if that guy keeps his promise.

red

He does! Soon someone else comes along, followed by a body guard. That someone looks sad and subdued, not exactly like they want to be here.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Tenno will just have to act as polite and friendly as he can, then. He greets them both, in person, at the edge of the forest, and introduces himself, and offers fruit.

red

The bodyguard tells the other person something, and the other person says, "Thank you," meekly, and takes the fruit. She stares at it, not eating, until the bodyguard pokes her with a finger and says something too fast for Tenno to understand.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

At the bodyguard, "No fight. I just want learn." To the other, "I am Tenno. What is your name?"

red

"...Phila."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Phila, I will not hurt. Fight is ugly." And he starts asking vocabulary questions.

red

She tries to answer them, but she's still fair spooked, and having the "bodyguard" looming over her at the edge of the evil forest isn't super good for the nerves.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

This is not maximally productive. He points at the 'guard.' "You! Go away!" He makes a significantly less evil-looking sort of imitating-a-clearing thing at the edge of his 'evil forest,' including convenient places for a human to sit. He sort of- kneels down, sitting not being practical for a quadruped. Nonthreatening as can be, given that he's still obviously very magic and she's used to violence from magic-having people.

red

"I must ensure she fulfils her duties," the bodyguard says. Phila looks between them and takes a step towards Tenno, and the bodyguard takes a step towards her.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"No. I said, go. Away." A thorn-encrusted tree is reaching out for the 'guard,' now, but refrains from actually striking.

red

He takes a step back, then shakes his head and leaves.

The woman looks even smaller than she already did, and doesn't move a muscle. Except for the shivering. That probably counts as moving a muscle.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

The tree goes back to where it was. He curses a bit in his own language, then calms down enough to ask, "Why so much fight? Is-" Irritating, wasteful, ugly, so painfully human- "Sad."

red

She looks at him like he's... an alien, or something. "They fight for power. Don't you?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Well, he is an alien, technically speaking.

Headshake. "I have my trees. I fight for- Defend? Is word?"

red

"You fight to protect your trees?" she tries.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

He shrugs and makes a frustrated gesture. "Fight is ugly. I fight to stop fight, or stop fire, or stop kill."

red

"Oh." She relaxes, some, then looks at the clearing he opened. "You fight to protect people."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"I think that is almost right. What is word for, make things look good?"

red

"...improve?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Then I fight to protect improve." Nod, nod, clearly there has been no misunderstanding here.

red

"No, no, improve is 'to make things better.' Can you give me an example?"

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Yes." Over about a minute seconds one of the trees acquires a web of vines supporting flowers near head height, varieties of blue mostly, that seem to be depicting an ocean, island, and sky. "See, it looks good."

red

"Oh. Art."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

"Art. Dead and afraid people do not art, fights- kill? People, and art." This seems to be going better, now.

red

She nods. He's making sense!

"Dead people and people who are afraid do not make art. Fights kill people and destroy art."

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Nod. "Art is not the only good thing, but I like it." Finally, someone who acts like a civilized being. He'll keep talking for a while, at this rate, wandering between topics like different kinds of art, whatever history she knows though it's probably not much, how he could help the locals (Would anyone want to live in the forest? The interior is much more pleasant, this part was made to look scary.) And so on.

red

She explains she's a teacher, and while she doesn't know all that much world history, she can explain to him what it's like there, with warlords that rarely last more than a year (Sun had been around for five months, Empower's been there for eight). She explains that other than the fights between warlords, the occasional warlord being replaced, and the general lawlessness, it's not that bad. She doesn't quite say that she doesn't trust him enough to take him up on his offer to live in the terrifying forest, but it might be obvious.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

It's really not that obvious. Not to someone like Tenno.

He - doesn't like this person exactly, not yet, (What's her name, anyway?) but he approves of her. Teaching is a relatively noble profession. If Empower gives her trouble because he ran the guard off, feel free to use his name and the fact that he beat Sun as leverage.

red

(Phila, her name was Phila.)

Empower seems to not be giving her trouble over it, and she's apparently allowed to come and go on her own.

sturdycoldsteel

Rockeye

Then Tenno learns the language and occasionally gives food and wooden objects and herbal medicines to the various nearby villages. He tries to investigate local art, but doesn't push it if everyone is still afraid of him.

And he works on getting magic to work properly here. Fate tells him there is a - blockage of sorts. A wall that keeps his world from telling this world what magic ought to do. Now all he has to do is poke a hole in it.

red

People are still fairly afraid of him, but they get less so with time. Empower doesn't seem like he bothers people much, and at one point someone else tries taking power but Empower deals with them.