Tyson began getting back his composure, with only could be described as a wolfish smirk on his face. He wished he had a paw friendly camera or smartphone that would let him capture this event for posterity. Or at least to cheer himself up next time he was feeling down. Something about Jude's personality just... made him feel better, wither it was intentional or not. He couldn't remember the last time he was in a good mood, but somehow Jude managed to bring one out.

"Hrr Clearrrly," he said, trying not to let another laugh escape and garble his words. He glanced about for the gerbil, and saw it scrambling away, "Don't look now, but yourrr vicious predatorrr is hrr making a rrrun forrr it." hd said, pointing a claw it's way.

His cheeks stung with embarrassment, but Jude stuck to his hella relaxing guns. At least Tyson let him roll with his excuse. Sort of.

"Psh. I'm busy, man. Relaxing. The hot air balloon wasn't gonna work anyway, right? We'd probably just set him on fire or something, right? If we let him go, it's really just an act of mercy."

Hm. Yeah. That sounded plausible.

But then he thought about his kid brother, the whole reason why he knew about the gerbil in the first place.

"Gah. Fine, fine, you convinced me. I'll put him back." Even if Tyson hadn't said a word, his puppy dog eyes said enough. They were too much an easy echo of kid brother's puppy face.

Tyson really didn't have to do much to convince Jude apparently. That was good, it was not like he could pickup the gerbil, not without it freaking out. And that was if he could manage it without crushing or clawing it to death. He was bad enough without adding mauling of class pets to his already large list of grievances.

""Hrr, who knows, maybe you should just find Clairrre to give a demonstrrration." he said, knowing it was probably the most reliable way of getting an answer. It brought him back to wondering about his powers. He had said he was a power copier, but that opened up a whole line of questions. "Hrrr What otherrr kind of powerrrs have you copied?" he asked, curious about his experiences. Maybe he would luck out and Jude had dealt with something that could help him out with his own issues.

"Claire?" It took a tick, but he put it together. "Oooh yes. Claire. The one who has the power that you met and I have not. Yes. That Claire." Funny enough, he didn't really have any desire to meet Claire right away. Let him find another power first. Or figure this one out better. Powers tended to help him understand people a bit better and this one was just... not helpful. "Hm. Maybe later."

Jude lounged masterfully. He was made for lounging and lounging was made for him. Especially in the shade of a nice hampster-less tree.

> "Hrrr What otherrr kind of powerrrs have you copied?"

"Oh Lots. Gargoyle. Age shifter. Elementals are fun. Actually, most active powers are fun. It's the passive ones you can't control that... well... yeah. Sorry, man."

Tyson gave a brief huff, well aware of how much having powers you couldn't control sucked. He could understand where it may be fun to have a power that you control would be fun. He had seen a lot of people here who could do anything they wanted with their powers, fly, teleport, fire beams of energy from fingertips, but somehow he got stuck with one that just made him less human, hypersensitive, and a danger to people around him. With Jude he could agree, passive powers sucked a lot.

"Hrrr, did you learrrn to contrrrol any of them?" he asked,a bit uncertain. If Jude could change out his powers at a whim, then he may not have had any that he didn't like long enough to really gain control over them. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask, even a small amount of info may be able to help him understand his own limitations.

Did he learn to control any non-active powers? Jude hmmed up at the light that filtered through the boughs above them.

"Gargoyle wings, maybe. Not flying, though. That's bunk. Gliding's okay, but I was sore for ages even after ze wings were gone." And that was well before he'd figured out that he could use his power to get rid of powers. He'd had those dang wings for weeks before he figured out how to ditch them.

"Even the fun powers have drawbacks. Nobody's got a free pass for laserbeam eyes or whatever. Everything has a cost."

And that just felt too damn ominous. So Jude sat up and took a good look at Tyson. He saw muscles and fur. He's snuffled out that rodent fast enough so probably he had a sensory package to go with.

"Is there something about your power you don't control?" Besides the looks, that was. Jude hoped that was implied because he couldn't handle a sad werebear right now. Or probably ever.

Tyson fell a bit silent when Jude asked about his own powers. From what Jude had said it didn't seem like he had experienced what Tyson was going through at the moment. He could definitely agree with his statement though, everything had a cost. And it seemed sometimes the cost outweighed any benefit. Still, he was a bit hesitant to confide everything with Jude, even if he had managed to pick up his spirits immensely. He had a lot he hadn't said to anyone, the people he had mauled and attacked. He was always avoiding that, even if he let people in on a few of the difficulties that came with his form. "Hrrr I... have instincts I can't contrrrol," he said, which was basically as much as he had told anyone before, "Hrrr Things set me off, smells and sounds arrre hrrr strrrong. I don't feel safe arrround people."

That was what is boiled down to, he really wasn't a safe person to be around, and his grasp on his own mind seemed to be slipping more and more these days, despite attempts to keep it under control. People kept saying he could get control over it given time, but it felt like the more he fought for control, the harder it became, and the more fiercely his instincts tugged at him. And with his nights filled with what seemed like omens of impending doom in his dreams, he didn't know how much longer his sanity would hold out before he finally lost it and became some sort of monster out of his nightmares.

Instincts? Jude's eyes widened a bit. He was glad that he was sitting down. But as Tyson continued to explain in the vaguest terms possible Jude eventually came to the conclusion that Tyson was not talking about the birds and the bees kinds of instincts. Because. You know. Things could have gotten real awkward there.

And having something like instinct drive you? Jude could see that being a real problem. Nobody liked to be driven. He sorta knew that one from experience as well.

"Have you ever found a safe environment to let loose before? Is this a thing that'd be, like, a get it out of your system thing? Or is this a hard to come back from sort of feeling?"

Since this was a serious issue, Jude treated it as such.

"Or, like, a pack thing? Like you need to hang out with other animal shifters? I think we have some of those."

Tyson wasn't sure how to answer that one. He hadn't ever tried 'getting it out of his system' mostly because his lapses in control often had unintended consequences. Eating raw meat, becoming overly territorial against others, mauling and attacking people. Honestly he was afraid to let go like that, he didn't know if there was any coming back from it if he just let go of his control. When it happened it wasn't something he was aware of consciously until after it passed, it was like he was there but not there, no lapse in memory, but unable to see the animalistic behavior. There was still too much he didn't know about himself to risk it. He didn't want to think of himself as an animal, but it was obvious to him that that was what he was now to an extent. He had been around a wolf shifter, but as far as he knew there was nothing 'pack-like' about their meeting.

"Hrrr I don't know," he said, an uncertain tone in his voice, "I... I'm too dangerrrous to rrreally experrriment." It was the most honest answer he could come up with. Even if he had a 'safe' place there was no guarantee that he wouldn't do something that would change that, and he had had to many negative experiences to really trust himself. And if it turned out that letting go meant that he would be gone completely, he was too scared to even attempt it.

"Naw, man. There's a Danger Room here. And this is a school that's supposed to be a safe place for people to learn." Jude took a moment to stretch and let that sink in for a second. "If there's anywhere that should be safe to try, it's here."

Except, maybe Tyson wasn't talking about the place. Maybe the place wasn't the issue. But the instincts or whatever. Hm.

So that meant he was scared. Of himself? Or his mutation? Maybe a little bit scared of hurting someone, but that was an acceptable cover since guys didn't just straight up say they were scared and hug and cry and stuff.

"But, you know... You don't have to take that risk. If you don't want to hurt somebody. You know?" He totally knew. Tyson was a bro now. He'd understand that Jude was really trying to give him an out. If Tyson wasn't ready to confront his fear, he didn't have to.

Tyson's expression went puzzled, "Hrrr dangerrr rrroom?" he questioned, not knowing what that was. He wasn't technically a student, at least he wasn't enrolled as one. He had had a tour of the upper levels, but he hadn't been shown any of the mansions secrets. As far as he knew all the classes were just geared towards teaching students to control their abilities. His own powers seemed much to dangerous for anything like that, if he let go in a classroom, he may well maul someone unintentionally, as he almost had when he was confronted with a duck man.

He was more appreciative of the option not to take such a risk. He didn't have any idea what would happen when he lost it completely, wither it meant he would become an animal for good, or if he would just go crazy. He had no way of knowing beforehand, and if he gave in, and things didn't go well, that would be the end. It was a terrifying prospect, that you could simply stop being you and not realize it, and be gone and not know it. To be alive, but your own consciousness gone. If he became a monster, he wouldn't even realize it.

"Whoah, whoah. You don't know what the Danger Room is?" He didn't want to make the guy feel bad, but that was an often whispered about, sort of sacred place in these parts. There hadn't been a day that went by before Jude was old enough and X enough to schedule practices for himself, that he didn't want to know more.

"If you take a class with Sam you'd get to go in. Or, I've done detention there? Also, if you're over 16, you can schedule time to try it out for yourself. Uh. After somebody runs you through the lame-uh safety course." Which really boiled down to Do as we say, not as we do and also don't hog the resource.

"So. Yeah. That's probably hands-down the safest of the safe places."

Tyson still had a blank look on his face, having no idea what danger room meant other then it had something to do with 'training'. "Hrrr, not a student," he tried to explain, as his official enrollment was non existent. He imagined that was why he wasn't in on these things. The 'danger room was probably for paying students, not messed up freaks dropped off by some military group in order to keep him away from the normal people. "hrr prrrobably why I wasn't told," he said.

"hrrr, What is it," he asked, honestly curious about how exactly it would be the safest place for him. He couldn't imagine a place in the school that was Tyson proof if he ever went monster. Obviously this was something other students probably knew enough to be common knowledge. If someone assumed he was a student, they wouldn't think to mention it at all.

Not a student? "Oh are you old?" Jude wouldn't have guessed.

Tyson sounded like a kid name for some reason, but even Tysons had to grow up eventually, he supposed. Besides, even if he was old, "People still live here without having to do the school thing." Well, old people did. "And they can still use the Danger Room on request. Maybe they have to have someone go with them, though?" Jude shrugged. He'd not really looked too closely at the non-student rules.

"hrrr, What is it,"

Jude looked up from the bits of grass he was plucking idly. "It's a big... room." Lame. He tried again. "It's like an open space and it uses magic or something to make simulations." Okay, while magic wasn't real, Jude had no better explanation for how the DR flaunted physics.

"Like, in detention, they simulated desks for us to sit and be quiet in. It kinda turned into a free for all mob the teacher thing and those desks went everywhere. Wouldn't have done that in a real classroom." And, as it turned out, the teacher hadn't even been the real deal. He'd been shirking his responsibilities and programmed a replacement.

"Hrrr Almost twenty," said Tyson to the question about his age. He felt a lot older now, probably due to how his life had taken a turn for the extremely screwed up. He guessed torture and loss did that, stripped away your innocence and left you with gaping wounds in your soul that could never be healed. He was never going to get his life back. It was becoming obvious that that was the case. He may as well have died on the operating table, as what had come out of there was not the Tyson he remembered. Just a broken thing that was slowly spiraling down into whatever it was he was becoming.

Jude seemed to struggle to explain this 'danger room' concept, which did little to clear up what it was supposed to be. At best it told Tyson that is was a place for simulations, and that his ability to explain it was limited to 'magic' which Tyson didn't believe. If magic existed, he could be fixed. Whatever it was, magic wasn't it. more likely it was some sort of technology, or some mutant doing it. Still, it was something different, maybe he should look into it. It couldn't hurt could it? Well, it could, but really what else could he do? Either way he wasn't getting any better, and was slowly losing his mind. At worse he would just end up wherever he was going sooner rather then later.