Bruce couldn't help being impressed by Ross' quick means of dispatching with his colossus. As the Gaian approached, Bruce's instincts tempted him to work with the idea of stabbing one of his opponent's hands. He was not, however, too keen on putting himself within reach of those powerful hands a second time, and if he was to learn as much as possible, he couldn't let the fight end yet.
Bruce allowed gravity and the shift in the floor beneath him to push his body forward and down- Ross was quick, but his height meant it would take a fraction of a second longer to grab a small target. Bruce rolled past the oncoming Gaian, first on his side, then onto his feet, sprinting past one of his three interconnected pillars.
"Iai."
Bruce slashed the base out from under the pillar as he passed it, and manipulated the material so that it twisted in midair and fell toward Ross base-first. The chains connecting it to the other two pillars pulled them in the same direction after the first one while Bruce continued booking for the opposite end of the arena.

Ross stumbled slightly, landing hard on his right foot after his attack failed to connect. He spun around and face Bruce, eyeing the chains that connected his trio of pillars for a moment, before one of the giant hunks of rock flung itself towards him. He rose his hands instinctively, cross-guarding the giant mound of stone and re-applying his stone-skin as he did so. His feet skid slightly backward, but he ground to a halt shortly after, preoccupied with the sudden block. Ross felt his torso contract as the pain from his earlier injury surfaced again, and his left leg began to tremble slightly, but he was still able to keep fighting. Ross stepped back slightly and attempted to regain his composure...

Bruce noted the lack of pursuing footsteps behind him, and sensed that Ross had been slowed more by the pillars than he'd anticipated. Briefly he considered changing course to sprint back toward the Gaian while he was occupied, but chose instead to maintain his semblance of a plan. As he passed the granite slab still situated where Ross had left it, Bruce manipulated the earth beneath it such that the side his chain was now attached to rose up. Bruce lengthened the chain to connect to the dirt he'd earlier set up on the opposing wall, and then retracted it quickly to hoist the massive granite platform onto its side.
Bruce brought back his mace, dissipated the chain, and, dictating the flow of Ki such that it thrummed at the outer edge of the weapon upon impact, sent it flying back toward Ross while he also brought a horizontal column of stone shooting out toward Bruce from behind him.

There were tons upon tons of heft behind the incoming hunk of rock. Ross turned towards it in a daze, and spun his body around as quickly as he could. With his feet firmly planted, and his arms extended, he held himself in place as both of his arms began to buckle under the weight of Bruce's attack. The granite didn't push him back this time though. Combining his raw strength with his manipulation of earth, Ross managed to stop the attack, barely allowing his feet to dig more than 4 inches into the ground. Even then, the rock dropped before him and shook the field, leaving his arms shaking from the stress. "Ok ok," Ross shouted from behind the rock, "Stop!" The man lowered himself and clasped his knees and he let out of a series of exhausted breaths. "That's good, for now.."

Bruce's body relaxed reflexively at the Gaian's instruction. The material he'd been manipulating for another attack ceased motion and crumbled back to its natural state. With a sigh, Bruce released the powers his sagely skin afforded him, and dialed back his Ki output to zero.
"Well," Bruce said, glancing up at the blue blob still on his head and the matching one sitting atop Ross as he walked toward him. "How was my performance?"

"Blup! Processing and sending result to Mikey!" Blup bleeped.

"Mikey will have more to say, but from my perspective? You acted pretty well. If you can match, or at least come close to the strength of those chaos idiots, you definitely got a chance!" Ross nodded, clutching his arm. "Can't say the same for myself. My arms are aching something fierce.."

Bruce smiled halfway, appreciative for the praise his efforts had earned him.
"Granted, I did die once," Bruce said, referring to the instant Ross had caught him by the throat. If he hadn't made a strike in that moment, his appraisal now might not be so positive. "But at least I didn't repeat that particular mistake."

"That's what Trainin's for," Ross said happily, "Now, I've gotta get to a bed. You might want to get back to your own personal training, if ya need it. Jeff's supposed to be dropping by with Mikey soon for the next session." Ross quickly made his way towards the door, but before he could, Jeff and Mikey had already arrived. "Oh, shoot, there they are!"

Mikey waved at Ross and pushed forwards, "Finished up?" He asked, "Just in time."

"Ah, yeah. I'm just on my way to-"

"Actually, I need to talk to you for a sec. Jeff, wait here for a sec, would you?" Mikey cut in, pulling Ross towards the exit.

"Oh, uh.. Alright?"

Bruce noticed Jeff wandering in after Mikey and nodded in his direction. After Ross and Mikey left, he made a point of striking up conversation to cover his question.
"I hear I missed out on a group exercise against Mikey," Bruce said, keeping his voice loud enough to be heard out in the hall as he approached. "Sounds like it could have been fun."
Bruce lowered his voice to a whisper once he was within Jeff's earshot.
"Did you get the bomb finished?"

"Uh.. Yeah.." Jeff muttered thinking to himself as thought back to the group training session once again and let out a sigh. "I have a lot I need to get perfected with battle tactics still. I think I got plenty on the technique side, but I'm still a tad messy when it comes to using them all to there fullest potential."

Jeff then turning his attention to the question about the weapon he had been tasked in making for him and nodded once more. "You don't have to worry about that." The scientist whispered back to the earthly sage before giving him a thumbs up of approval. "Those kinds of weapons are pretty much a cakewalk for somebody whose created nanobots which are each and individually been enchanted with sage and white fire magic. Given, I'm still curious what you plan to do with such a device... or well.. how you plan to use it..."

Bruce balked a bit at Jeff's query. His intentions for the bomb had changed pretty drastically in the days since he'd requested it.
"To be honest," he said at a whisper. "I had planned on using it on myself to prevent Ada from taking over my body- if the need ever came up." Bruce spoke hastily, trying to prevent Jeff from making any sort of sudden exclamation that might bring unwanted attention. "I'm telling you now because I no longer plan to use it for that, but I am sure that it will come in handy in some other way, given who our enemies are."

Bruce made his best effort at a placating smile, encouraging that Jeff leave the matter be after that. He stopped speaking in hushed tones, returning to the subject of the testing all the heroes were being subjected to.
"It's kind of reassuring though, isn't it?" Bruce said. "Mikey's been telling us how much latent strength we have- if he can do that with his power, imagine what we're capable of. We've come far as individuals, we just need to figure out our roles as a larger group."
Bruce pointed a finger at Jeff.
"I think you, given the particular abilities you possess, could be our wild card."

Jeff frowned upon hearing the original intent for the weapon of his. He wanted to be angry that his tech would be even thought for being used in such a way, but deep down he understood the reasoning. Dacer had been a problem for awhile now cause of that damned Ada and he really would rather that nobody else would have to become under her control. "I actually designed some nanobots for that ocasion which have been injected into my body and are designed to paralize it if it were to become undercontrol of somebody like her. I could get you thr same setup if your that worried about it." Jeff said noding to Bruce. "They release you from it the second your free so its a good setup."

Jeff then turned his attention to Bruce's words on Mikey and did his best to hold in his own negative thoughts about it. 'for you guys maybe.. but for me it seems to just be a reminder of how despite everything I come up with, I still tend to find a way to screw things up.'
Jeff sighed as the thoughts echoed in his head and did his best to ignore it.
"Wild card huh? I'm not entirely sure about that, but it's food for thought. Anyways we still need to see if we can find a solution to the lack of earth inside the tower. Part of me thinks you learning to bend metal could be a nice addition if its possible."

Bruce didn't miss the flash of anger Jeff's eyes betrayed. He understood- using one of his inventions as a method of kamikaze would be a bastardization of its intended design.
"I might take you up on that," Bruce said, referring to his method of negating Ada's particularly devastating ability. "But I'm growing more confident that won't be necessary."
Bruce frowned, his mind focusing, or rather, returning to, the matter of the tower's interior. He'd been muddling over it for days, bothered by the sheer number of unknowns involved. The matter of the possibility that Bruce might be left without any way to use his earth powers left him feeling more vulnerable than the magic he and Jenso had encountered on their last mission together.
"I've thought about it- and come up with a couple ways to try compensating. One's pretty unpleasant for me personally, and the other two might not be viable. I've tried manipulating metal before, but I can only sense things that interact with it, not control it."

Bruce caught the discouragement Jeff tried to hide and chuckled inwardly.
"It's easy to focus on what we can't do- but that only limits our imaginations, and that just restricts our potential." Bruce said, smiling a bit as he thought on how much he'd actually enjoyed practicing work with his Ki since his chat with Ross. "Mistakes are how we work toward success, if we learn from them."
Bruce tapped Jeff's shoulder with a closed fist.
"Don't be so quick to dismiss your role in the team. You can do things no one else can, and you've got a unique type of Ki- the things you could do are limited only by what you can think of."
A genuine smile crawled across Bruce's face.
"I can work with you during some of our off hours if it would help?"

Jeff smirked from Bruces words before nodding to him once again. "Yeah, perhaps you can give me more pointers on how to weild a blade seeing I've started to use a nano one to enchance my wind slices." The sage then stuck his hand out and let the nanobots custer around his arm and hand before forming a fancy blade with a glowing blue center. He then proceeded to have wind energy form around it as well to increase the sharpness and power overall.
"Hopeing to get good enough with this thing that I'll be able to slice Rajaka to bits with it."

Bruce smiled.
"Of course. Even beings born from infinite energy," Bruce said, flashing his Ki into his hand to make his sword appear briefly before cutting the circulation back to zero. "Are vulnerable to the edge of a blade."
Bruce glanced behind Jeff toward the hall to see if Mikey was returning, then leaned toward him with a lowered voice again.
"I don't know what Mikey's been teaching you individually, but I think what he and the others want to see us all improve on is precision," Bruce said. "We'll make a point of showing the scale of our powers to the Order when we knock on their door. It's incredible what comes to my mind even for your powers. Air vacuums, wind tunnels too wild to escape from, and a razor sharp enough to break down the molecules we breathe."

Bruce leaned back, his gaze unfocused, picturing the rest of what he wanted to master in the days they had left. "The atmosphere itself is your weapon, Jeff. That, not even the Order can take away."

Jeff pondered the ideas Bruce layed out before him in silence for a moment before muttering a couple of ideas to himself and finally speaking back to Bruce. "Well to be fair, my power has its own limits too, but there are some ideas that come to mind from it. Well that and the question of if that tower is capable if messing with the atmosphere or not. I'm probs gonna have to make us gear just in case."
Jeff then nodded once more as the ideas inspired him to try once more. Perhaps combined with technology some of those things that were not capable normally could be acomplished with technological assistance.
"Anyways I am feeling a little better so thanks."

Bruce patted Jeff's shoulder.
"The limits are all in your head," Bruce said. "And if the tower doesn't have an atmosphere, we'll have bigger problems than a lack of powers. Don't place a cap on what you can do, just because there are things you can't."
Bruce nodded at Jeff, shrugging off his gratitude. Bruce had no motive for improving Jeff's mood, but he wanted everyone to be at their best when the critical moment came.

Mikey came back into the room and clasped his hands together. "Alright! Bruce, we'll be using this room, so.." He hinted.

"Right", The wind sage nodded to Bruce back still debating some things, but overall it was true. His mind was his limit and he would need to stop letting it hold him back.

As Mikey returned into the room Jeff once more turned his attention to the training that was at hand, he wasn't entirely sure what Mikey had planned for him today, but between him and Bruce's talk he was feeling a tad better. "We can talk more Bruce later today, thanks again."