"Sounds like a good use of it," Bruce says as he follows along.

So they head into the team’s downtime area with little closed off cubicle rooms for each of them.

There is a female figure with short velvety black fur all over her body and long legs coming out of one of the rooms. When she notices someone approaching she turns to face both of the newcomers. On closer inspection her ears are also wide and pointed and sort animal shaped, her face is subtly muzzled and her green eyes are bigger than a normal humans. She also is wearing nothing but a tanktop and gym shorts and doesn’t seem to mind Jason eyeing her up appreciatively as he approaches.

”Hey Jason who’s the new guy?.” She motions with her head towards the masked form of Bruce.

Bruce joins in the appreciative eyeing. "I'm, uh, Omnitool. Just picked it. And, hi. I mean, what's your name?"

Her brow narrows slightly at Bruce’s eyeing but it relaxes when it’s not at her nonhuman attributes and when he opens his mouth and his harmlessness is made clear. “I’m Echo. No secret identity for...obvious reasons.” She wiggles her unique ears. “And good on you for not staring at all the monstery bits.” Even if she did totally notice Bruce looking at other places.

Bruce thinks her "monstery bits" are quite nice, but he is not going to say that and is instead going to be glad he's wearing a mask. She is a coworker, Bruce, Jesus. "So, what's your power? I can store stuff in a pocket dimension and pull it out again."

“Neat, I can echolocate, yes my name is very original, and act as my own sonic weapon. Can even shatter glass if I concentrate and have a few seconds.” She nods at Bruce and gives a more knowing friendly look to Jason. “It was nice meeting you but I was just about to head down to the gym. See you later Omnitool.” And she heads off.

Jason being her coworker doesn’t seem to stop him ogling her as she walks away.

"She seems cool. Does everyone patrolling with her need earplugs, or is she really directional?"

“Mostly directional, but our comm systems also let us shut out outside sounds if we need them to. Good for if a villian decided to use flashbangs.” Jason has a bit of a goofy grin after seeing Echo, guess someone is infatuated. He opens the door to one of the last cubicle rooms.

”This one is yours, you can put a bed in here just requisition one using the forms in the holder inside the door. We have a laundry service too if you need it. And the vending machine down the hall is free to use if you don’t abuse it. The funds for restocking the vending machine are limited.” Jason shows Bruce where the forms are and motions to the rest of the room. It has a desk, a computer and a dresser for clothes.

Jason doesn't look half bad himself; Bruce wishes him luck. "Speaking of comms, what's being on the comms like?"

He does take the bed form. He probably isn't going to move in here significantly, when his apartment has a private kitchen and this place doesn't, but it will be good to have a place to crash after working too late turns into working too early. Much better than sleeping on the armchair in the corner of his old lab.

"Mostly it's you relaying important information to each squad, playing navigator, sending info to relevant authorities if they are on the scene, sometimes running any tinkertech that can be controlled via cellphone tower, that sort of thing. Also so so so much paperwork." An apologetic smile on his face.

"When we don't have newbies doing it because of newbie-ness we take turns or have a PRT officer do it. Though obviously then you have to be careful on comms if there's anything you don't want some officer to hear while if it's one of us on comms... you won't get written up for swearing on the job or cussing out the higher-ups for example because everyone on the team gets how it is in the field. But if you need help with the paperwork load I won't mind helping you out a little." Jason clearly puts a lot of effort into being a good leader.

"I appreciate it. Any of that paperwork I should be doing now, or am I good to go check out the gym? Oh, and I hear there are various training classes; how do I sign up for those?"

“No paperwork right now, you good for the gym. But I have the forms for the classes ready in my cubicle!” Jason rushes into his room and grabs a bunch of forms from his desk. “Got them ready just in case anyone on the team want’s refresher courses or extra skills. Nobody ever asks for them.” A wry smile from Jason as he hands some forms to Bruce.

”These are the required set of classes, but there are so many supplementary ones for extra training and skills. Oh though here is also the firearms training ones because you’ll probably be carrying some nonlethal firearms.” More forms. “And some PRT trooper gear classes for containment grenades and flashbangs and stuff like that. Uhhh maybe...” Leafs theough more forms. “And these ones for protocols on using tinkertech gear...and I think thats it.”

Well, that is a lot of classes. Good thing Bruce is being payed to take them.

Bruce fully expects to get compensated three times: one in money, once from his power, and once from finding the classes enjoyable in themselves. He's going to be making out like a bandit, really. He says his goodbyes to Jason and fills out all of the class request forms. Yes, even that one.

“I like your spirit, Omnitool! Welcome again to the team. I am sure you will be a very useful member with all these skills you will pick up. I actually have to go run a close combat class soon, but see you later? Just ask a PRT trooper to escort you anywhere you need to go.” Jason waves a little wave and heads off down the hallway.

Well, Bruce is done for official duties for the first day. He can go check out the training areas for parahumans and the other training facilities for the troopers, like the underground swimming pool and firing range and gyms. He could also go see Dr Barker for more power tests just for the fun of science if he feels like it. There are plenty of resources to check out in a building hosting superheroes and a paramilitary organization.

"See you around!" Now to check out the parahuman gym and see if he can squeeze out another point of Strength, or for that matter Dexterity or Constitution, on equipment designed for his power level and way way beyond.

So a trooper (Not Pvt. Jenkins) leads Bruce to the parahuman gym. It has the normal sorts of equipment you might find in a high-end gym. Then a lot of pulleys attached by what looks like threaded steel cables to high-tech looking machines about the size of two vending machines side by side, presumably the exercise machines for Brutes.

There is also what is clearly a treadmill but very long and with warning signs all over it saying: "For Mover Parahumans only, use by regular staff may result in injury and fines that may exceed $700."

The gym also has various combat dummies, some of which have articulated joints and arms so maybe they fight back?. It is a really big gym. There could conceivably be any sort of exercise you might think of to be useful in grinding stats.

Cardio is a good way to grind Constitution, which is his worst stat right now, but that particular treadmill looks intimidating enough that he'd rather see someone else use it first, and maybe not even then, given his lack of a mover power. He'll parkour all over the gymnastics equipment for a while, then experiment with the sparring dummies. Might as well pick up more points in free-running and hand-to-hand while he wears himself out.

Jumping and doing parkour over the exercise machines is not exactly how they were meant to be used but... it still works Bruce out. The combat dummies spin so their articulated joints slap their arms at him and he has to block!.

Free running goes up a whole percentage point in the short time he practices it. Hand to hand goes up only half of a percent. It took him weeks and weeks of lessons to get up to 30% progression for his next skill level and it is only a few hours of work and without a teacher no less.

The system has not been stingy with statpoints so the next level in a skill must be a huge milestone to take so long. Especially since his doctorate is only equivalent to Biology II.

But he does earn: 

|For stressing your body you have earned +1 Constitution!|

He does feel a little sore after all that jumping around and getting slapped in the forearms by dummies.

Some teenage girl with blonde hair, blue eyes, a pink streak in her short pixie cut hair and a pierced lip walks in just while Bruce is finishing up with the combat dummies. She notices his mask. "New cape huh?"

He blocks the current dummy just hard enough to cancel its momentum and bring it to a stop. "Yup! I'm Omnitool, pleased to meet you!"

She looks him up and down sceptically. "I'm Allison, Melting point. I'm in the wards, graduating to the full protectorate team in a month. So what is your deal then? You know, what powers."

Well, this girl certainly is the classic rude teenager.

Eh, the skeptical look is fair, it's not like he was doing anything cool. "My main thing is a pocket dimension," he retrieves and restows his gym bag to demonstrate, "but I'm also a cut-rate Brute, hence the gym. Do you spar? And what's your power, heat stuff?"

"I can melt anything down to a fluid state then resolidify it." She suddenly looks interested in Bruce when he does the inventory trick. "How much can you carry? Because asphalt and concrete aren't that useful. They take longer to melt and we get billed for city damages if I use roads and sidewalks as material."

She does seem more friendly when she realises something. "You okay with sparring with a teenage girl? Nobody ever goes all out with me besides Echo. It gets old."

Oooh, Powe synergies! "I can carry thirty kilograms. A lot of that is going to end up being gear and weapons, but if and when we go out together I can probably allocate some to whatever you work well with. And I'm definitely okay with sparring--you've probably been at this longer, so I suspect it's more likely to be you needing to take it easy on me." He gestures at a mat. "Shall we test that empirically?"

She snorts. "You sound like Dr Barker. And yeah if you can carry sand and tungsten filings that would help. I can melt ANYTHING so molten tungsten is a great way to make most things be on fire, and glass is versatile."

She takes a combat stance on the mat. "Normal rules? If it was a real fight I'd be going for the nuts to incapacitate." Hoping to make him uncomfortable and give herself an edge.