xp_logs | Logs: Remy/Pete, Remy/Sarah

Pete takes a moment to drop by, proving to Remy that there is always a better spy out there.

There was always a checklist. Over fifteen years of field experience had
proved to Remy LeBeau time and time again to continue with the process
he'd learned. Each item needed, gone over twice and struck off the list
before any job. In those years, Remy had never been compromised by
forgetting anything he'd needed for the job. With this job especially,
he had to go in perfectly ready.

In a way, it was almost a relief. Going back to the old habits, the
planning, buying the equipment for each stage and caching it. He kept
pushing away the guilt from his decision, focusing on his choices.
Belladonna would have to go second. Arcade was more public, easier to
reach. After him, it would be the Assassin's Guild, which was rapidly
shaping up to be the most dangerous. Luring Belladonna out would be the
only way. Then, the rest of the Hellfire Club's Black Court, which would
cause Emma Frost some concern but would take a major player against the
school out of the game. That was the other checklist, not of equipment
but names. How far was he going to survive to get through? The errant
thought amused him as he sat in his apartment and made final
preperations.

Pete rapped on Remy office door, then let himself in.

"Evening squire. You got a few minutes? I've been going over a few
things I've been hearing, and I can't make them add up. I could use
another perspective."

Remy looked up and tossed the list into his in-tray. Obviously Pete had
something for the team to do, which would make life a lot easier if they
were occupied when he started. "Grab a seat." He reached back to pour
two cups of coffee, and slid one over the desk to Wisdom.

"What's de situation?"

Pete picked up the coffee, and took a sip.

"Cheers. I'm hoping it's nothing critical, but I'm hearing rumours of
someone building up caches of weapons and equipment, and some worrying
rumours about what they might be planning. Figured you might be able to
shed some light on it."

"Someone from our list?" Remy said distractedly. "Haven't gotten much
information on any of my networks 'bout our existing threat board
ramping things up. Dis someone new?"

"No." Pete leant back in the chair. "It's you. I mean, I can guess
what's going on, but I thought I'd come and ask you what the score was
before I jumped to any conclusions."

That was the trouble working in intelligence. Neither you or your co-workers ever really stopped doing the job. Remy had hoped Pete would be too busy to notice. Obviously that wasn't the case. There wasn't much point in lying, either. Remy was very good at hiding things, but Wisdom was even better at finding them out.

"Remy going to do a little independent work over de next few weeks. What we doing isn't going far enough, not wit' de people on our radar right now. I'm going to even de odds a bit."

"Shit. I was hoping you had a better reason than 'I've lost the plot'."
Pete sighed. "You know how I found out what you've been doing? Doug
and Angie both complained that they'd already dug up something for you
that I was asking for. Wanted me to at least compare notes with you
before bothering them. You know why I'm not doing the same thing you are?"

"Remy can't tell you how much dat I'm dying to know." LeBeau said sourly. He shouldn't have gone through the office for this, but there hadn't been much choice. There was just so far his private contacts could do in the timeframe he had, and using the resources of the centre was his only other option.

"Well, for one, it's suicidally fucking stupid. For two, there's a
serious risk that some bunch of bastards will feel the need to stomp on Snow Valley
as a result. For three: I tried a similar thing a few years back, and
it nearly fucking killed me. And the clincher, for four: I keep
remembering the sort of shit you tried to pound into my head back in
Chicago, just before that thing I mentioned. |Every time I start
planning a idiot stunt like that again, and I get this annoying Cajun
accent in the back of my head reminding me that I'm being a fucking
idiot, and that there are other ways to get shit done."

"Dat only applies if it's the truth, Wisdom. I did it de other way, and dat turned into 'manda getting carved up like a stuck pig and half de mansion stuck in some kind of deathtrap. De situation is different." Remy retorted. The difference was significant. "Arcade's feud is wit' me. Belladonna's feud is wit' me. As for de Black Court, once I've taken de other two down, it will be extremely obvious dat I'm operating on my own, and frankly, dey don't need more reasons to hate you in order to fuck wit' us if dey feel like. You were targeted because dey wanted to hurt de school. Dis time, everyone else was targeted because dey wanted to hurt me."

"Don't be fucking stupid. They were making a power grab that we were in
the way of. They weren't aiming for you at that point. Later, maybe,
but that's exes for you."

Pete shrugged.

"Look, you're a big boy, and hell, you let me go on with it when I was
the one being an idiot. So y'know knock yourself out. I'm just saying
that I nearly had a fucking nervous breakdown after all the shit that my
temper tantrum landed me in, and I didn't have a dangerously psychotic
and sadistic past to backslide into. You be very fucking careful if you
do this."

"Dat it?" Remy said sharply. He didn't know what tipped Pete off, but he
assumed that Marie-Ange was involved. They were wrong. Gambit had killed
for all different reasons, none of them good. Remy could take that and
make it work for them. Why couldn't they understand it was the only way
he could without failing and leaving someone else to face the
consequences. "Because Remy got a schedule to keep. You take care of de
team, Pete. Dis is 'bout me."

"Just like I thought last time was all about me. And look how well that
turned out for everyone else." Pete shrugged, then stood up. "Yeah,
that's it. I'll pick the pieces up later. Just like you did for me."
He turned to leave, then looked back with a rueful grin. "Just... do a
better job that I did, eh?"

Remy paused, his voice oddly distint. "You look after dem, Pete. Tell... non, just look after them." That really was it. It didn't seem freeing, like he thought it would. Just a sick and poisonous coil of grim finality left in the emptiness he felt inside.

Unlike Pete, there are some people that Remy can't brush off, and in this case, she's pissed.

It was ready. Remy had started to put the last touches on his plans as he sat at the table, beside a mounded ashtray and a now empty bottle. he's transfered all the information he needed into his PDA, most of his equipment had been carefully packaged to be shipped, so that as he hit each area, he'd have a new cache of supplies waiting for him. The only other detail he hadn't considered was how to say goodbye, since he knew that once he started this, even if he survived, Wisdom would be done with him. It was appropriate.

Unfortunately, there are some people who can't be bothered to knock, and he looked up as his door slammed open.

The look on Sarah's face was one of utter fury. The door behind her
slammed shut equally hard, and she took two very measured steps toward
him. "You fucking son of a bitch." Her hands were red, angry and
irritated with the bone pushing from beneath it, and she pointed at
him as she spoke. "Word around the water cooler says you've been a
real asshole lately. But not in the fun 'oh, it's just Remy' kind of
way. Oh no. You've been planning something. And the more I hear,
the more it doesn't sound like you. You know who it sounds
like? It sounds like somebody I was told wasn't fucking there
anymore! What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Well, fuck.

"Remy got things to take care of, Sarah. Dat don't need to involve you or de team." Remy kept any emotion out of his voice, cursing mentality whatever luck had made her show up. "De attacks were because of me, and I'm going to make sure dat dey don't happen again. Just 'cause I'm not 'bout to let Doug and Marie-Ange pretend dat dis is X-Men Lite any more doesn't make me Gambit again."

Sarah almost laughed at him. "Right, like I'm angry because you're
being mean to my coworkers? Just gloss right over those things
you have to do, Remy." There was a bone sticking out at her hip, just
above the hem of her skirt, and she pulled it out roughly and threw it
to the floor. She'd worry about bleeding all over her work shirt
later. "Do I look like I'm completely fucking stupid? You think I
don't know what you're planning to do so these things 'don't happen
again'?"

"I'm going to do what needs to be done, Sarah. You want to judge me based on dat, fine. Remy got no more time for dis crap." He said roughly. "It's none of you business in de first place."

"But it is my business. It's all of our business. How exactly do you
figure this is going to make any of us safer?" Sarah's hands were no
longer flailing wildly, and her voice was beginning to calm slightly.
Finally she leaned over the table, palms flat on the top. "Where does
it stop? You take out the guys you think are responsible, and then
you take out the guys who were only tangentially responsible, and then
what? The ones who might have heard about it over breakfast? I've
been there, Remy, and it doesn't end. And the more people you take
out, the more enemies we make."

"What we doing now didn't work! Nothing we did stopped Candra from nearly taking half de school and Amanda wit' her! If I had taken care of Alarune like I should have, wit'out trying to play things nice, it never would have happened! I could have stopped it dere!" Remy shot back, angry now and barely hearing his own words. "So don't you dare stand dere and tell me dat trying to do dis any other way is safer, because we've just proved dat's wrong!"

His anger didn't phase her, and she continued to keep her voice low
and measured. "Think about it LeBeau. Since when have we ever been
safe? You talk about making sure we know this isn't X-men Light, and
then turn around and talk about being "safe" like it's something we
can actually obtain. 'Safe' is being normal and living in the suburbs
with three kids and a fucking dog. What you're planning isn't going
to make any of us any safer, it's just going to get yourself killed
for being stupid, and leave us without another capable fighter when we
do get attacked."

"So we get dem first. Sarah, I know better den you how dis people think and what dey going to do, so don't think dat you going to provide me wit' some revelation dat I hadn't thought of. And you not going to scare me off of dis by trying to wave Gambit in my face. He killed because it was funny, or he was bored. Dis isn't even close to dat!"

"No? It might help you sleep better, thinking that this is different
from Gambit going in and slaughtering my family because you've come up
with some sort of romantic motivations for doing it, but don't flatter
yourself by thinking that this is anything more than a massacre you're
planning." She leaned forward, very slowly, and stared him down.
"And what do you suppose you're going to tap into when you're out
there, hunting down your hit list and making the world a better place?
I'm not the one waving Gambit around anywhere. You're the one
waving him around like a fucking banner, after all that bullshit about
him being gone, and how you weren't him anymore. After I fucking
saved your ass because I believed you."

"I AM NOT GAMBIT!" Remy all but screamed at her, his face mottled red and his eyes gone dangerously dark. People had seen LeBeau angry before, and they had seen the chillingly controled rage that he used to lethal effectiveness. But Sarah was the first person to finally see fury; uncontroled, untamed.

If he'd shocked her, it didn't show. Maybe it was the adrenalin
junkie in her that kept her from backing away, or maybe she just knew
that backing off now would cancel out everything she'd hopefully
accomplished. "Then prove it to me, Remy. Don't do this."

Sarah hadn't used his name since the day he'd revealed the truth to her. It was always LeBeau or Gambit. "Get out." He said quietly. "Just get out."

She watched him for a moment, perfectly still, and then pushed herself
up off of the desk and left the room without another word. She had
nothing left to say.

Remy sank back into his chair, staring at the closed door until he lost track how long it was. It wasn't fair. He'd tried to play the game without the brutal tactics he knew, and that had led to the disaster that had touched every person in the mansion. He'd gotten Amanda taken and nearly killed. Why did he only have the two choices; be the monster and do it right, or be the man, and watch the people he cared about hurt; watch the pain in Ororo's eyes fighting with betrayel.

Remy turned with a scream, the PDA in hand and glowing a savage purple. It blew plaster and brick into dust around him, but Remy continued, slamming his fists into the wall, energizing as he went. He needed to hit, to express, to get out even for a second the thoughts that were killing him under their wait. Bricks exploded like firecrackers, even as he broke knuckles against them. He hit and wanted to hit until thought was obliterated as well. Until he could finally understand.

With a crack, a shower of bricks parted, and finally the mutant stopped, sagging into the hole in the wall that had reached the world outside. It was the rabbit hole in reverse, the cool air promising a world that made sense. Remy grabbed the edge of the raw brick, holding himself up as he rested on the shattered bricks and gulped the stale breath of the city. The pain cleared him, at least a moment.

What was he? Gambit or Remy? He clung to the hole, and made his decision.