"Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I'll just- get my tray to the return."

His tray's still on the table, but his plate cracked in the shockwave. Carrots are everywhere. Morty inhales deeply, picks up the tray, and heads toward the place where trays go.

Jonthan picks up some cardboard and food crumbs off the table, adds them to his tray, and follows.

Trays duly stowed, Morty leads the way back to Twain. He's shaking a bit less now, even though he's soaking wet and outside in the New England autumn weather. The shaking decreases until it's probably only shivering.

At Twain, they're greeted by a floppy-haired blonde boy who looks like some off-brand Youtuber.

"Hey Isaac," Morty says.

"So this one's going to be sharing my room?" the boy asks breezily, in a plausibly-not-affected British accent. He extends a hand. "Put 'er there," he says, in a definitely affected American accent.

Handshake number two of the day!

“Hi, I'm Jonathan. You may like that I have literally no stuff to move in.”

"Good start," Isaac acknowledges. "Even I had a backpack full of junk food and weed when I ran away to Whateley. You left in a hurry?"

"He's from another world," Morty explains. "A supervillain summoned him here, and- actually, how did you find Whateley?"

“While I was there, having lots of no fun at all, a hero named Flare — no that's not right but the name was definitely about fire and started with F but wasn't, yknow, Fire — anyway she attacked the base and the villain locked me in a supply closet to get me out of the way, and I figured out my shiny new power and got out just in time to help out and F-whatshername very helpfully escorted me over here. On a bus.”

"There's an origin story," Isaac says admiringly. "People underestimate the importance of a good origin story. Morty, take notes."

Morty rolls his eyes. "Pass. I'm not a superhero. I'm barely super. I do not need an origin story. I only even have a codename because it's so inconvenient not to." He turns to Jonathan. "Oh, forgot to mention, you're going to need a codename. It's a pain in the ass, but there's a lot of hassle if you don't have one by the time of Combat Finals."

Combat Finals?

“Thank you, I try,” to Isaac, and “Is there a list of which names are taken?”

Isaac nods. "It's all online. There's the MID Database, there's also superwikis if you really want to know that the current holder of the Magus Force is a Gemini or something. Oh, you also have to check the name isn't copyrighted, superhero comics exist."

“And speaking of online, and consumer goods,” — he pulls out his phone — “yep no data, I'm gonna need a new everything. Can I get a look at the room and then someone can point me towards sources for dire necessities?”

"Oh, sure. I'll show you the room."

Morty waves goodbye as Isaac leads Jonathan upstairs to their room.

The room is lived-in on the left side, though there's not a stark dividing line between the halves; it's more that there's only so much living you can do in the other half of a two-man dorm room. There are posters on the left wall of various scantily clad men and women. The right side is austere; the only furniture, symmetrical to the other half, is a loft bed with a desk under it. On the desk lie two items: a small, thick book labeled WHATELEY ACADEMY STUDENT HANDBOOK, and a boxy black laptop.

Okay so they have provided some kind of computer and he will need to acquire sheets in addition to the contents of a typical suitcase and he is definitely not staring at the posters and hmm wait "money!"

Hopefully Morty didn't leave already and if he did he'll inquire with his new roommate but he doesn't want to impose on Isaac first thing.

Morty is not in the room. Isaac does his best to parse this abrupt statement. "Money, yes. As a scholarship kid, you have an account at the campus store, which starts with a fund of a few hundred dollars to get you on your feet. After you burn through that - which if you're anything like me you will very quickly - you'll want to get an on-campus job. I can take you to the C-Store if you want, it's not far."

"Okay, I was wondering if I needed to pick up a card or something. Let's do that."

"Oh, I think the card's in your handbook."

He will check the handbook for non-page contents and also see if anything leaps out at him from the table of contents or whatever introductory verbiage it has.

There's a card in there! Two, actually. One has a picture of his face on it, which is weird considering that he never posed for any such picture, and a serial number. It also has a few blank fields, including "Codename" and "Team Affiliation". The other is black with some heraldry on the front and a silver stripe on the back.

The table of contents includes RULES & REGULATIONS, STUDENT LIFE, COURSE CATALOGUE, and MISC.

...

At least it isn't a picture of him beholding Lord Paramount.

He will pocket the cards and leave the handbook for later.

Isaac leads him to the Campus Store.

The store is really big for a place that's supposed to be a school bookstore. Bedding is readily available, as are standard toiletries, with a few brands and levels of fanciness to choose between. Art supplies are available, including dry-pigment watercolor sets. There's also room necessities, such as ottomans, bean bag chairs, and Febreze. Also snacks. Also... tactical body armor, throwing knives, and handgun ammunition? A section labeled GADGETS contains micro-communicators, stun batons, and something called a "linear induction pistol" which promises non-lethality. There's a display of what looks like bricks of dried seaweed that a student is eyeing speculatively.

There's a big sale on what the sign terms "material components" - blocks of various metals and plastics, glass spheres, and small samples of more exotic materials including hypersteel, adamantium, and mithril.

Gosh, that's a lot of stuff.

He will take one of everything obtain necessities.

And stop by the display of "material components" and prod them thoughtfully, calculate a bunch of possible order totals on his phone, and spend half his starting budget on a bunch of different materials in whatever the cheapest-per-mass shape is, including ten pounds of marbles, a roll of webbing, and some of the exotic samples.

This is doable! The guy at the checkout counter scans his card and bags all the various stuff. (The bag containing the one-inch marble of hypersteel is the heaviest. Second-heaviest is the other marbles.)

Isaac notes the tone of his shopping and raises an eyebrow. "Gadgeteer?" he guesses.

"I'm supposed to go for testing tomorrow, so I don't really know, but I'm telekinetic but I can, like, reach inside and bend stuff instead of just moving it. Look —"

He pulls out three marbles, stares at them, and they flow together into a bigger, lumpier marble.

(He is showing off his SUPERPOWER. Whee.)

"Ooh!" Isaac looks suitably impressed. "Never heard of that before. So you're trying to see how you do with other materials?"

"Yeah, and I want to try putting together different materials and I think I can make, like, things, that aren't just blobs, if I practice. So, stuff to practice on."

"Cool." They start back toward Twain. "Glad you didn't spend all your money on that, though. Powers are fun, but you do also need a toothbrush."