Template:Featured Articles/47-2016
 "A sanctuary?" Jean-Paul asked, skepticism showing through still. "For - what? For people like me? Pah." He shook his head. "J'men calice! I have no, how is the word - I have no options." He half-gestured with one hand, an attempt to convey just how much he didn't care, but he stopped because it hurt. "Marde," he muttered. "For people like us," Angelo said calmly. "So you can have some space to think and work out what options you really have got." "Oui, let us go. I care not. Only that I am not here any longer looking at this wall." Jean-Paul knew he would need to change but also that he would need to find Raymonde. He did not think the older man would appreciate it if he came back to the hospital room and found Jean-Paul simply gone. The apathy was a bit worrying, but not too unexpected at this point. "All right, then. You good to walk?" "Did Raymonde not tell you?" Jean-Paul asked, sarcasm permeating his lowered voice as leaned forward. "Apparently, I can fly." Angelo positively beamed at him. "See, that's so cool. I always wanted to fly." The enthusiasm caught him off guard. This man obviously did not know what it meant, that he was a mutant who could fly. Jean-Paul simply shook his head and pushed himself slowly off the bed. "It is not so good. I cannot do it whenever I like." "You'll learn," he said with confidence. "It's been what, a day or two? And that's one of the things we do in Westchester, powers training. And... let me show you something." He moved to the door, closing it and pulling down the blind. Stopping halfway off the bed, Jean-Paul watched the other man somewhat warily. "Oui?" The only thing Angelo did, without moving towards Jean-Paul, was turn his image inducer off. One moment the man before him was normal, the next he was grey. Jean-Paul blinked. "This is what you do? You turn grey?" "My skin stretches," Angelo said calmly. "The grey is just a side effect. I brought a bit of tech to hide that, for obvious reasons - I can be a normal colour without it, but it gives me a headache." "Huh," Jean-Paul said, standing up properly now. It was only his arms that he'd injured when he... landed, he supposed. Pushing that thought aside, he asked, "Can you make other colors, also?" "No." He grinned. "Wish I could, but it's one or the other. When we get back, though, we've got a purple girl and a guy with blue skin and a tail." "What do the colors mean?" Jean-Paul asked. "How long does your skin stretch?" "Luck of the draw, except they're both teleporters." He raised his hands and glanced at Jean-Paul. "Want to see?" "Oui, yes, please." A small voice in the back of Jean-Paul's mind muttered that he probably shouldn't encourage the strange mutant, but then, he was a strange mutant now, himself, and there seemed to be no harm. Angelo nodded and stretched his fingertips out as far as they would go. "It's not just my fingers," he explained, "it's all my skin, but it's easier from an extremity." "It has... purpose?" Jean-Paul asked. "It is... mutations, they have purposes, oui? They are... adaptations?" Angelo made a face and a 50/50 gesture. "It's more useful than it looks, but they aren't always. Some kids get really unlucky." Jean-Paul was twenty-one. He could think of plenty of uses for a mutation like that, he just didn't think it wise to mention anything because he was supposed to make a good impression on these sanctuary people. "I am a lucky one, non?" "It might not feel like it right now," Angelo said with sympathy, "but you really are. You're going to be okay, Jean-Paul."
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