Gym Times are Fun Times

Gym class was not exactly Jude's idea of a fun time. It wasn't so much that he didn't like physical exertion (because a lot of the times he did), but instead that he was still trying to adjust to having two arms again. Two fully functional working arms. It had been almost two years since Jude had two fully working arms, and the adjustment was not nearly as fast as he'd liked.

He didn't normally take phys ed--he'd basically graduated out of that being a mandatory requirement--but in light of him trying to adjust, he'd been temporarily placed in one, with a special focus on things involving the arms. It was exhausting and he was awkward and no amount of overall physical fitness would match the fact that he couldn't quite figure out how arms worked.

So he distracted himself, and the teacher he'd been paired with was a good distraction. Jude could see a person's powers as clearly as anything, and it was hard not to peek. Hard not to focus on them. Hard not to, say, stay after class and hang around, hoping to talk with him.

Sometimes Jude saw reflections of people who were gone in the people on Manta Carlos.

He wasn't the same person... probably. Technically speaking the possibility did exist that the teacher in front of him was the same person he'd known back in Halcyon City. He had an equivalent in this world, and it stood to reason that almost everyone from Halcyon had their own equivalent.

But there were a fair number of differences with Mr. Bradshaw's powers, and Jude was... well.

It was kind of hard to compare, wasn't it?

"Oh," Jude said when Mr. Bradshaw abruptly seemed to notice him. "Sorry. It's not something important or anything, I just... wanted to talk."

It made him feel young to say that, like he was a child asking a teacher for permission to get a snack or something from their bag. He didn't have anything particular in mind, but it felt like a comfortable sort of normality to be talking to him just the same.

"If you don't have any plans. I could help with cleanup, if you'd like."

Jude was not the kind of person who was intimidated... well, at all. Even if he hadn't lived with Big-Angelo (six three and built like a brick house), he'd grown up around his dad (six one and terrifying beyond all human reason). He had a hard time feeling intimidated of anything less than someone waving a weapon at him. Leeroy seemed... nice. Relatable. Nice and normal and not at all intimidating, in Jude's not-so-biased opinion.

"Seems like the sort of things student's should be helping with," Jude said as he started to pick bits up. "And it's, ah, Angelo actually. I haven't finished the paperwork to update it, but I'm going to be changing my name... uh, back."

Technically he was Angelo all along, but it had been a bit too confusing.

"Jude's fine if you'd prefer that. I answer to both either way." Some people still liked Jude. Some people were just used to it.

"I actually knew someone who had a power like yours," Jude admitted. "Have you ever met someone with a power like yours?"

"Technically his was worse," Jude admitted, letting Leeroy handle the mopping while he handled the rest. "But pretty similar. His power was that any time he went unconscious--like being knocked out--he exploded. Then he regenerated perfectly the way he'd been pre-explosion. Super powerful stuff."

Really, really powerful. Jude almost never saw it actually happening, after all. It was too dangerous.

"I'd never met anyone else who had something like that--unconscious explosions--until you."

Well, technically speaking Leeroys weren't entirely subconscious. Not like the ones he were used to.

"His trigger was a lot more volatile, and a lot more, uh, risky. He couldn't exactly have an ordinary life back at home."

Realistically speaking? Jude should have known better. He knew Leeroy's power set. He knew what set him off. And he knew that getting him worked up meant he was liable to explode... literally.

And somehow he'd still thought it was a good idea to go up and have a serious conversation with the guy about something that was probably, at the absolute bare minimum, pretty damn traumatizing.

Oh, right.

Jude went pink, looking good and embarrassed. He didn't step back though. He knew that much from dealing with Leeroy's doppleganger. He didn't want to... to ostracize him. To make him think he was scared. If he was that out of control, he wouldn't be a teacher, right?

Riiiiight?

"Sorry," Jude said, "I realize it's probably a... sensitive subject. I was just excited to meet someone who had so many similarities. It's not exactly a common power set."