The woman standing there watching The Mountain getting blasted flailing into the air under his own power was surprised despite herself when I spoke up, “He does look rather funny, doesn’t he?”

She jumped up and whirled around, the walking stick in her hand leveled to use as a weapon, which I quite ignored, eying her attire and Aura professionally. “What’s a Tribal Druid doing out here?” I had to ask, tilting my head at her. “We aren’t that much fun to watch make fools of ourselves.”

The Native stared at me for a long breath or two, definitely wondering if I was going to make a move, and slowly exhaled when I did not, although my very inappropriate blouse, mask, string tie, and bodice for the environment certainly was interesting. But then, she was in buckskins and feathers and embroidery and stuff, so there was that.

“Who is that?” she demanded after a moment. “He’s pulling the Earthpower around like a rubber band. I can feel it for miles!”

“That is The Mountain. He’s likely an Avatar for the Earth Element, so that shouldn’t even be a surprise.”

“Oh. I thought some Geomancer was playing with the Ley Lines and I was going to have to call in backup to talk some sense into them.” She stuck out her tongue at me, looked me up and down, and turned back as The Mountain launched himself into the air a few hundred yards away once again, flailing mightily as he did so. “What is he trying to do?”

“Learning how to Jump Good.” Apologies to Master Jack.

“Oh. He’s practicing.” A plume of sand billowed up as he hit the ground awkwardly. She glanced at me. “Avatar of the Earth, huh?”

“Of Earth. Dirt. Stone. Not the planet.” I crossed my arms to watch him pick himself up, dust himself off, and get into a crouch again. “Doesn’t even know it... or maybe he does, and just ignores the implications. I don’t pry. He’s far more powerful than he thinks he is, but because he’s already so strong he doesn’t think about it.”

With a trembling release from the ground, he was launched into the sky, flailing once again and trying to keep his balance. He was definitely getting better at it.

“And you are... learning to fly?” the young shaman pressed.

“More learning to power-glide, but sure, call it flying. I imagine it’s going to be hard to Commune with nature with us bouncing around and everything, but since we didn’t interrupt your Meditation, just fly on back and tell your seniors it was an Avatar of Earth bouncing around, no harm, no foul.”

“You are making light of our Traditions?!” she demanded angrily.

“I make fun of my traditions, let alone yours,” I sniffed in reply. “You wanna take offense at that, you go right ahead. Offend me, now, and things are gonna get painful.” I cracked my knuckles way louder than was appropriate, and she jumped a step back despite herself. “There, see? If I wanted to be offensive, I’d totally be up in your shit, little Aspirant.”

She flushed at my accurate judgement of her power. “You are familiar with the Shamanic Order?”

“Are you aware that people outside the Order know things about it?” I answered in kind, meeting her gaze levelly, and she blushed again.

“These are our protected lands! Answer the question!” she demanded.

“These lands are nowhere and free. Grow up,” I replied carelessly. “And don’t say your next sentence, because you’ll have to be alive to make it true, and that probably won’t happen.”

Her mouth opened, closed, and then stayed silent as she retreated another step.

“See, there’s wisdom. You’re not dealing with normal folks, now, nor Cored people. You’re dealing with Powered. Specifically, that guy over there can throw a building at you. Me, I can toss a playing card, bury it in your skull, and then blow it apart, leaving a headless corpse behind.” I flicked up the two, three, and four of spades in my hand. “Or three of them. Are you absolutely sure you want to try something you aren’t going to live to regret?”

“You have no idea of the power of the Shamans. It’s not wise to get on our bad side!” She also took another prudent step back.

“Another ten steps, and you’ll have enough time to morph into an owl before I can get to you and rip your head off.”

Her eyes got a little wide, and she continued backing up. “Keep going,” I advised her calmly, as the Cards in my hand began to crackle a bit. “And next time, remember that being polite and forthcoming is a two-way street, or it may be the last time you threaten someone without even introducing yourself.”

With a blur of motion, she transformed into a pigeon and beat rapidly for distance away from me. I watched her go, shaking my head.

Well, manners, manners, manners...

A few seconds later, there was a whump and a crash as Mr. Hill landed about ten yards away from me. He got up, dusting himself off, and looked off in the same direction. “Watcher?” he asked shortly.

“Tribal Shaman. Initiate thinking she could push me around.”

“Meh. They won’t do anything unless you’re totally fucking up the landscape, and then they prefer to do it sneaky and nasty-like, bedevil you for months, maybe years, until you apologize and promise not to be stupid again. Things like waking up with spiders crawling all over you and your house.”

“They are not gonna like waking up in a grave covered in worms if they try that with me.”

That belly laugh of his escaped to the life of day once more. “I gotta say, you don’t take much lip, girl.”

“Side effect of being an intellectual ingrate, I guess.” He hur-hurred again. “You’re getting more control of the landing zone, at least.”

“Yeah, but the snap is still sending me out of control.”

“There’s an alternative, but I don’t know if it’s possible. Normal heavyfooter, no, but you aren’t using ki-based heavyfoot.”

“I’m listening.” He crossed his arms patiently.

“Can you reverse your Root, so it repels, instead of anchors?”

He blinked at me, sort of frowned, and looked away. “I... dunno. I’ve tried to push with it before, seeing if it could lift me, but I couldn’t make it work.”

“Let me show you something. Hold out your hand, flat.” He extended a big mitt promptly, curious now. I slapped mine atop it, not even half the size. “Alright, now I’m going to do a Rooting effect to your hand.”

He blinked as I stuck our hands together with Attract. He lifted it, I locked my arm, and was hoisted off the ground without effort, looking like he was waving a statue of me around.

“That’s pretty strong,” he acknowledged, setting me back down. “You can do it out of your hands AND feet?” He sounded a mite envious.

“I can do it anywhere on my body.” He blinked again. “You probably can only do it to something with a connection to the planet, based on your powers, and so you’re used to doing it with your feet because that’s what touches the ground. You should be able to Root yourself with anything touching the ground, even your head.”

“Huh. I’ll try it later.” Easy enough to do, and we didn’t need to be out here to do it. “What’s the thing you wanted to test?”

“Attract.” I waved our stuck hands a bit. “Repulse!”

He was startled enough that I actually shoved his hand away from mine, instead of vice versa. It whipped down a foot before he stopped it.

“Whoa. That felt... strange. Like a lightswitch got changed somewhere.” He stuck his hand out again. “Do that again!”

“Attract. Repulse!” He let his hand get pushed away again, feeling the difference in the change as he concentrated intently.

------

We did it a dozen more times before he moved away to try it himself.

The first time he brought his Root down, I could feel the air tremble with geogravitational force condensing around him, anchoring him to everything. This was his Weight of the Mountain, a heavy gravity field that naturally magnified the weight of anything around him. He could crank it way up, and literally flatten stuff in the area around him to a pancake if they weren’t strong enough, although the bigger the area, the less powerful the effect. When you were fighting him and weighed a hundred times normal, even your strongest Bricks tended to move a bit slower.

“Make sure to keep it low power, because if you get it right...“ I called out, and Red Eyes popped up, staring at him-

POOM!

I jumped up as the sonic shockwave hit me and sent me flying, while The Mountain went from zero to at least Mach 2, and was sent hurtling straight up into the sky like a rifle bullet.

We will now practice airborne recovery from sudden shockwave impacts, I thought, flailing around and getting my balance before pushing at the air and slowing myself down. Mr. Hill was way out of sight, and wouldn’t be coming back down for a while, I was certain.

It was better than being sent rolling and crashing along the ground. There was cacti and spiders and scorps and stuff in that brush there!

Also reminded me that I needed some form of forward magnification available. This being limited to normal visual range was for the birds...

I turned my sudden airborne status into more power-gliding, looking up at the sky for a dot coming down, and was rewarded with a dark blur descending at terminal velocity about a quarter of a mile away.

He hit in a big cloud of dust, clearing away a small crater he climbed out of without the slightest sign of injury.

---

“They probably thought someone launched a missile out here,” he growled knowingly, after I glided in next to him. “Probably should move along before we have to start something.”

He paused in a half-crouch, and concentrated.

The release wasn’t quite so bad this time, and since it went against both his feet instead of just one, he had a lot more control.

I let the air pressure jet me after him smoothly, his backdraft basically sucking me along behind him.

He had a thin smile on his face. He was going to overshoot his truck parked over there off the road, but that was fine. It was all practice.

“Increase gravity on yourself to shorten your range in midflight!” I reminded him.

He glanced over at me, thought about that, and looked down.

His arc of travel got a lot shorter suddenly, as the mass the KE was moving abruptly tripled, and down he went.

He smacked down to the ground, paused for just a moment to make sure he was steady, and then strode ahead, smacking the dust off himself. I glided down next to him, somersaulting smoothly to ride the momentum into a walk.