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"Oh." That... was more than Persi had hoped. By a lot. He'd hoped that there was one, maybe two other explosion-type mutants here. Apparently there were something a bit closer to ten or twenty, going by the 'a lot.' And Persi now had to watch out for random explosions at all times. Suddenly the hedge seemed safer. "Are they all able to... make explosions that strong?"

That made sense. Persi's ears were ringing a bit, but he'd been significantly farther from the explosion than Kaitlyn had, plus had a few distractions. As long as she was alright, though, Persi would focus his worrying on the next explosion that was apparently going to happen eventually. He got to the lowest branch, sat, and slid off; the landing shocked his shins a bit, but was pretty easy. Thankfully; Persi wasn't sure how he'd deal with falling now, when he was intentionally getting out of the tree, immediately after having managed not to fall when knocked out of it by an explosion. The irony of that would just be a little too cruel.

"So...." Persi eyed the trash can. "Should we leave before it explodes again?"

Persi shrugged. "Probably. And why not? Just say you're sick. Most of the time they'll just assume you are anyway and not even ask." At least, so he had been informed about a variety of schools. He hadn't actually tested it, since there was nowhere decent to hide in or around his school, and he couldn't stay home without actually being sick. But it made sense.

"Yeah, but I've learned the basic stuff. Calculus isn't any use, I'm going to be an artist. And dissecting old stories definitely isn't any use. They ran out of useful things to teach already." Persi shrugged. "It's only useful if you're going to go major in it, and I'm not, so there's no reason for me to go. I can learn art better from books and practice with all my time to spend on it than I can with most of my time on useless stuff."

And as for middle school... well, actually, Persi hadn't thought about whether most things were useful or not in middle school. He'd just been stuck there; something being useful wouldn't make him any more tolerant of it at the time. When he tried to think about it, though.... "Some of it. English wasn't, but who's ever going to need to write sonnets?"

...Okay, so either Aiden was back to disliking him, or he had a secret sarcastic streak. Either way, Persi nodded solemnly. "Yeah, turns out there aren't any inside. You'd think they'd at least grow them in the gym."

Persi... had not thought about class. Or about being seen in general, really. As demonstrated by his lack of an explanation. Yeah, he hoped it washed off. "It ought to. It's one of those kids' washable markers they make for kindergarten." Not that those ever cleaned up as easily as they were supposed to, of course, but they were supposed to wipe off with a paper towel, so that still left a lot of room for easy removal.

Maybe. And maybe art was not a good subject to keep talking about. Just possibly, like most things that made peoples' hands shake. Moving on, then.

"Um...." Persi didn't have a clock either. The only one he'd had was his phone, and that had run out of batteries before he even got to the Mansion, and not been charged since. It seemed safer to keep it that way, anyway. There had been one in the bathroom though, so considering how long it'd taken him to get out here.... "Maybe about twelve fifteen? Something like that. I'm not going to class, though." Climbing trees sounded nice. And distinctly lacking in people, which helped with the 'nice' part. Besides, if Persi had classes, no one had told him yet. "How much longer do they go, like a week? No one's teaching anything this close to the end of the year anyway." Persi didn't need to take these classes to know that; it was true of all the classes he'd ever taken. Even art classes aimed to be finished with official projects by now, since no one was ever done on time, and anyone who did finish was generally happy to think up another project of their own to fill the time. Free art supplies, and all.

Persi had been expecting something more like being dragged outside by his arm, not being carried, so that was annoying. The laughter... was also annoying, but pretty expected, and not exactly new. Really, it was just like being back in school. Especially gym class. Which was probably the point, after all.

That didn't stop him from glaring when he was set down, and doing the worst, most general imitation of what he remembered he could manage. Only with his arms though; his feet stayed put where they landed.

Okay, that was cheating. Persi glared after the kid who'd brought out his sketchbook, and made a note to find out who it was so he could hate them. For the moment... well, there was no way he was ever going to actually please the guy. Maybe if Persi had been an Olympic athlete, he could be impressive enough to get past the guy hating him. Back in reality, however, Persi was pretty sure that Olympic athletes got all their talent by draining it from him. And maybe other unfortunate people, but mostly him. It was the only way to explain just how much he sucked at this sort of thing.

Okay, so he wasn't getting the sketchbook back. Damn the guy, but Persi couldn't really fix it, so. No sketchbook. Fortunately he was pretty sure he could just go get another. Possibly several more, so one could be his real sketchbook and he could hide it, and the others would be decoys for the guy to steal. He'd have to draw in them some for that to work, but he could manage that.

They'd see just how good this guy was at finding him. Persi could be very good at hiding. He'd be guaranteed to get in trouble, of course, but it would also annoy the guy. And as for the last thing.... "No, not really." What in hell was a danger room, and why was it in what everyone kept telling him was a school? Because seriously, Persi had been joking about a scifi Hogwarts. He really was not going to be pleased if that turned out to be any more accurate a description than it already seemed to be. Not that he was pleased now.... "Is it also forbidden and on the third floor? I'm pretty sure the point of that sort of thing is that I'm not allowed there."

"Everyone knows that one." Mostly for being so sappy everyone started giggling upon hearing it, but everyone knew it. And the lyrics were a conversation, which would be much easier than trying to turn a regular song for one person into one for two.... "Sure." Jude could sing whatever part he wanted. It wasn't like one was less embarrassing than the other.

Persi stared at the jazz hands suggestion. Then blinked, looked down at what they were singing, and shrugged. "Sure. It's not like we can be more embarrassed. Basically the only chance we have to win is to be so shameless they forget everyone else, anyway." Put into that context, jazz hands actually sounded kind of restrained. "Can you think of anything more ridiculous?" Persi generally tried to not draw attention or publicly embarrass himself, but considering Jude was willing to drag someone completely random and possibly half his age onto a stage and claim to date them, Persi was guessing Jude was a lot more shameless than he was.

The offered hand got a similar response. Persi stared, then sighed and took it. He couldn't be more embarrassed....

...You know, except when a few minutes later they were on the stage, and people were staring at him. That was a bit embarrassing. Whatever, though; it didn't matter. He didn't know any of them, and they didn't matter. He repeated that to himself while the song started. And, because why not at this point, leaned toward Jude when he started singing. "Beneath the stars, the world has changed, but in the sky, it's still the same. Ages come, they pass and die, but we're all beneath the same dark sky."

"Oh." Well that was disappointing. Persi had really liked the idea of not going to school. He supposed he could always just skip; it wasn't like it was going to matter either way. For one thing, he was a mutant now (well, known to be one, which was the part that mattered), and for another, he wanted to be an artist. What degrees you had really didn't matter either way for that. So art classes were good for ideas and practice, but otherwise, school was a waste of time.

They ended up stopping by a basketball court. It took a second for Persi to figure out what was going on and be able to keep track well enough to get any sense out of it, but once he could it was impressive. And... kind of like nostaligia, only instead of reaching back for a really nice old memory, it was reaching back to a painful old hole. Persi had never been athletic, he didn't want to be anymore. That didn't make watching what he couldn't do a whole lot easier, or remembering how he'd felt when he had still been trying to be as good as Ace.

...Well sports were stupid anyway. They were fun, but they didn't achieve anything. And if he didn't have fun there wasn't even that to make them worthwhile. So it didn't matter. Persi looked away, and could see trees nearby. The forest was a bit far, though visible, but there were nice maple trees nearby, and he could probably reach the branches of the nearest one. He wandered over, kicked his shoes and socks off, and began climbing. That required a jump to get ahold of the first branch, which was always annoying, but he managed.

That wasn't a reassuring silence. Or a reassuring smirk. Sure, Persi hadn't expected reassurance, but still.

"That... would be useful." Would have been useful, too, if he'd known about it. And maybe he could have avoided being grabbed by a hedge. That would have been really nice. "Why no kids, though? If they don't make you go to class...." Persi was pretty willing to consider a lot of things if it got him out of class.