Mountain, meet Endbringer

[sturdycoldsteel]

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.

Comments

[sturdycoldsteel]

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?

[peterxy]

Yes, in Laura's opinion it is.

[sturdycoldsteel]

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.

[peterxy]

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]

Cool, cool. And any more work?

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

[peterxy]

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]

Cetainly. What exactly needs rebuilding?

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

[peterxy]

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]

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.

[peterxy]

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]

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.

[peterxy]

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]

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

[peterxy]

"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]

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

[peterxy]

"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]

"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."

[peterxy]

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]

"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."

[peterxy]

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]

"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."

[peterxy]

"Well, since you're offering!"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"What should it be of?"

[peterxy]

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

[sturdycoldsteel]

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."