Thick as Thieves - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Valerie Jones and Lori McDonald
Last updated: 01/02/2007 02:01:11 AM

Chapter 22

As a street smart punk growing up in the gutters of New Orleans, Remy LeBeau had learned that if you killed, it came back at you. You got a reputation. The law, the tougher punks, the corpse's friends... they'd all be after you, and the killing would never stop.

As a thief in the New Orleans guild, he was taught to use discretion. If you had no choice but to kill, do so quietly Cover your tracks, make it look like an accident. Don't get caught and don't start wars.

While with the X-Men, Gambit was drilled with the idea that there is no excuse for murder. No one, regardless of who they are, ever deserved to die, and to kill was the most reprehensible of acts.

Remy knew all these things. He believed.

But still the cards he threw at Michael were meant to slaughter.

A trio of energized playing cards exploded against the spider legs that were scrabbling to pull their owner out of the hole in the floor. They withstood the triple explosions, but his next cards blasted into the flooring they held onto. They vanished into the lower floor again with a crash as Remy darted across the uneven floor to a column that had once supported the roof, but now listed weakly over the gap in the floor.

His hands touched marble and the power spread. A tingle from his chest down his arms, pumping into the stone with a pink glow that hummed and growled and screamed as he charged the column to breaking. Leaning his weight against it, he pushed and dove the other way.

"Brace y'self!" he yelled to Bobby.

The explosion rocked the building. A detonation equivalent to a thousand sticks of dynamite blew out all the windows on the floor below the penthouse, sending glass and rubble out twenty feet and more into midair to rain on the street below. Dust blasted everywhere, coating everything as the structure creaked and whined, then collapsed downward, falling to crush the floor beneath. A hundred tons of reinforced concrete and steel, vaporized in the explosion, erupted from the cracks in the dying building along with a wail of released energy.

Coughing, Remy raised his head to see he was still alive. Bobby, still crouched in his bubble of frozen air, whispering icy reassurances to his beloved as he tried to coax life back into her frozen form. The building creaked around them, but it held. They were lucky it hadn't all collapsed from what he did.

Didi Tyre. Didi. Diedre. How the hell could he have been so stupid? Remy coughed and tossed the dust and plaster out of his hair. Why didn't Bobby wait fourty eight hours? Then Michael would have been in jail and he could have loved her freely. Now... Himself, he'd always avoided Didi Tyre. Young, beautiful, trapped. Everything he'd always wanted to fall for and save, conveniently married by Michael a few months after he arrived in New York. Sometimes, watching her, he'd wondered how much of a trap she was, laid for a Master Thief who could only be legitimately killed for a crime like stealing another man's wife. Briefly, he wondered if he would have stepped into that lovely trap if Rogue hadn't been around to steal his heart instead. Now, Bobby was the one caught.

"How she doin'?"

Bobby looked up. "Alive. Michael?"

"Don' know."

"After that??"

He grinned. "Don' know," he repeated and closed his eyes, concentrating.

Dust, falling from the ceiling; bits of plaster tumbling. The gentle fall of shattered crystal from what used to be a china cabinet, the spark of electricity threatening to become fire in the devastated walls. The creak of the ice pillars Bobby used to keep the roof from falling on them all. People, screaming and yelling outside, running away, or running to. Sirens. A butterfly, too stupid or brave not to want to dare the dust laden air, alit quivering on a strut of metal just outside. His own heart, beating in his chest, the creak of ice around Bobby and Diedre. The spider leg coming straight for him.

Remy dodged.

Pain tore along his arm and then he was rolling across the broken floor, wishing he was wearing his armour as glass and stone cut into his back and arms and Michael's exoskeleton legs tore up the floor right before his face. Coming to the end of his reach before he came to the end of the room, Remy sprang to his feet, whirling to face his enemy.

Michael glared at him from across the devestated penthouse, his spider legs spread wide and his body encased in blackness that flickered with red. Ignoring the blood that poured down his arm even though he knew he had to do something about it soon, the Cajun grinned.

"Red, neh? Guess dat means I hurt you, n'est pas?"

Michael didn't answer, breathing deeply, his exoskeleton legs moving around him randomly.

Maybe not. Remy tensed as his motion power picked up how the legs were moving and where they'd be. He threw himself bodily to the side as four of the six legs struck the ground behind the Guildmaster, propelling him forward with the last two outstretched. His hand finding a piece of rubble, Remy charged it and threw it at the man's head. It exploded and Michael yelled.

"That's your last shot, Cajun!"

If he didn't get to where he had more room, it would be. And take Michael with him. Remy saw Bobby bowed over Diedre, all his concentration focused on the frozen bubble that kept her alive. Michael couldn't touch him. Even his exoskeleton would suffer in that kind of cold, but if they kept fighting indoors, the whole building would collapse.

Michael's arms pulled back to his body, preparing for another attack. Remy didn't give him the time. He charged and threw a dozen cards, blinding the man as he reeled from the force if not from pain, and Remy threw himself at him, slamming them both backwards through the broken window towards the street far below.

Bobby barely saw the battle, concentrating on Diedre. "Come on," he begged. "Come on..." She was unresponsive, her skin frozen, her blood ice, but still he could feel her life slipping away. "Please, don't leave me!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his master charge Michael, sending them both through the window. "Gambit!" he yelled, but he couldn't go to his side where he belonged. If he left Diedre, he knew, she'd die.

"Why?" he moaned. "I wanted to keep you clear of all of this!"

Unbidden, the Cajun's words echoed through his mind, repeating words he'd spoken from a rooftop while Bobby stood below and they shared a beer and some misery.

"Love wit' all y' heart, protect y' friends and fam'ly and s'vive no matter what, so long as de first two are kept safe."

So long as...

Bobby closed his eyes. "Oh, God, Remy, no..." Still, he couldn't help him, and he knew the Cajun knew it too.

Thank you, he thought, barely a whisper. Thank you...

Michael bellowed at him as they plunged out the window and tumbled out of control towards the pavement far below. "You're insane!"

"Not a' tall, mon ami," Remy grinned, taking advantage of Michael's momentary panic. His legs were outstretched, but he didn't attack with them, overwhelmed by the sudden adrenaline surge. Remy kicked away from him, freefalling apart as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device, no more than a small grappling hook attached to a box with a strap over it that his hand fit into and around. Raising it over his head, he pressed the button on the top and the hook fired, arcing up and around one of the gargoyles that adorned the sides of the building, trailing behind it a thin, file, high tensile wire cord more than strong enough to support the weight of a full grown man.

The hook caught and he was yanked to a halt, almost feeling that his arm was going to be pulled out of its socket by the sudden move. He swung towards the building, landing feet first, and looked down towards Michael.

The Guildmaster rolled over, legs flashing towards the building, and concrete tore with a scream as he was dragged by momentum down the side of the wall, legs digging deep trenches into the material. A continuous screech like nails down a blackboard sounded as his descent slowed, then stopped. He looked around, then hopped down the last ten or so feet to the rubble strewn pavement.

Merde, Remy thought, seeing his stand upright and brush the dust off his suit. He couldn't just stay up here. If he did, there would be nothing stopping him from going inside and trying to kill Bobby and Diedre again. Or from getting away. If he did now, he'd come back later to finish what he started. Michael was a possessive man, and regardless of his feelings for his wife, he'd be sworn to kill the man who tried to steal her from him. For Bobby's sake, he had to end it now.

Remy began to lower himself on the line, Michael standing below and smirking. He was only twenty feet above the reaching legs when he began swinging, and finally kicked away from the building and the line entirely. Flipping over in midair, he landed lightly on top of a streetlamp that had somehow survived the falling rubble from above. From there, he looked down at his adversary.

"Dere are dose who say dat a man who kill his own wife ain't no man."

Michael's chin lifted defiantly. "She betrayed me."

Remy grinned. "Wasn' dat de whole point? Or you just mad her tastes run t' blondes?"

Michael leaped at him, springing on four legs with two outstretched, just like before. Remy flipped over his head, reaching into his coat for his bo staff and telescoping it to full length as he did so. Rolling over so he'd land on his feet, he hit the man squarely on the side of the head, only to see the adamantium of it richochet off the exoskeleton. It was still red streaked from the earlier explosions, but too strong yet for him to break through. He cursed silently.

"You're a stupid man, Michael," Remy said as Michael slowly picked himself up from the ground, not sure if he were injured enough to make an attack under these conditions likely to work. "You use y' powers when y' shouldn', where y' shouldn'. How y' shouldn'. How long you honestly t'ink de gov'ment let mutant thieves run loose?"

"They have no powers," Michael laughed. "They can't stop any of us, and I will use what's mine."

"Dat's jus' 'bout de stupidest t'ing I ever heard." The two men circled each other. "Power ain' 'bout bein' able to pull vault doors apart. 'Bout keepin' y' people alive."

Michael sneered. "Like you would know. You have no people."

"Got friends, got fam'ly. And I do anyt'ing I have t' t' keep dem safe. Only I ain't compromisin' deir honour f' riches."

The older man smiled. "Then you'll die a very poor man."

A leg lashed out. Instinctively, Remy slammed at it with his bo staff, only to feel the leg cut through the adamantium and slash through his side, only his reflexes keeping it from hitting him dead centre. Rolling to his feet, he backed up rapidly, getting distance between himself and his enemy while he assessed his injuries. Blood was pouring down his side, the white of bone showing where a rib had been sliced in half and was jutting out of the wound. His bo staff was missing the top ten inches, sheered clean through. Adamantium? He strong 'nought t' cut adamantium?? Bleeding, clutching his side and feeling faint, he watched Michael laugh.

Gently, Bobby stroked Diedre's cheek. "Come on, Diedre, don't give up."

She was growing weaker, her flesh dying in spite of his best attempts, her breath weakening. Already his bubble had frozen through the building that held it up, shattering whatever it touched, and he'd been forced to build supports of ice, spearing through the building and deep into the ground. It groaned around the freezing shafts, cracking, but he kept filling those cracks, spreading his roots deeper, farther.

Diedre shuddered. "Diedre!" he cried. "Stay with me! Don't die!" Still, she weakened before him.

What if she were like me? he thought suddenly.

Diedre's powers were based on cold, just like his. They thrived on it, but she was only beta class. She didn't have the resources in her to do what he did. To become ice herself. But, perhaps, he could MAKE her into ice, change her where she couldn't change herself, and, once she was ice, reform her body into one that didn't have great wounds in its breast.

Bobby bent his head, concentrating as he never had before, pushing his powers farther than the X-Men ever wanted him to, trusting to his skill beyond all else as Remy taught him as he carefully, gently, lovingly, changed everything about his beloved that was flesh, all into a new form of life.

"MOVE! MOVE! RED ALERT! GET THE LEAD OUT, PEOPLE!"

Cyclops sprinted down the hall to the Blackbird hangar, surrounded by other members of the team. Storm, Bishop, Phoenix, Sam, Beast.

Even without Cerebro's monitors, they'd know something was happening in New York between Gambit and an unidentified mutant. The fight was right on CNN, after all.

What is he doing?? he thought to himself. Has he gone insane?? He'd seen enough battles to be able to recognize when one was to the death. Remy was out to kill if he could.

"This is not the way the X-Men operate," he growled as he pulled himself into the ship and made his way to the cockpit. Gambit had no excuse for such a fight. And what he did to that building! Who knew how many people could have been killed.

Jean slipped into the copilot seat. "I can't reach Remy telepathically," she told him. "He's too busy fighting and I don't want to distract him."

Cyclops started flipping switches, warming the bird up. "He intends to kill that man, doesn't he?"

She sighed. "Yes. That much I can pick up."

"Then," Cyclops stated as he started the Blackbird out of the hangar, lifting off the ground and arching out over the ocean and into the sky. "It's up to us to stop him."

Don' pass out... wha'e'er y do, don' pass out.

Reeling, Remy blinked through the dizziness, looking at Michael as the Guildmaster approached. Stepping back, he twirled his shortened bo staff into a ready position warily. Frowning, Michael hesitated, not quite willing to commit himself to a full out attack if the Cajun wasn't as hurt as he looked.

Remy straightened up, snapping his arm that had been holding his wound downwards, flicking blood from his fingers nonchalantly as he grinned. "Almos' got me dere."

Michael smirked. "I'll have to be quicker next time then."

Still smiling, the Cajun circled with him, fighting not to stumble. "Wit' all dese witnesses?" he gestured at the people around the rubble strewn street on the sidewalk or in their cars, staring at the two mutants in terror. Distant sirens sounded as well.

"Well, when I'm done with you, I'll just have to make sure that none of them are around to say anything."

Remy went white. "You wouldn'..."

It might have been a bluff. It might have been true. But either way, the statement had its effect. Michael lunged, legs flashing, and one of them imbedded itself in Remy's leg, the other through his stomach and out his back.

Gambit couldn't even scream. Through the agony, he felt Michael lift him off the ground, grinning. "You thought you could take what's mine?" he whispered to him. "I don't care WHO you are. You're nothing but a corpse now."

Gasping, Remy vomited blood, watching through hazing eyes as it impacted on Michael's shield, though one drop fell through a crack in his armour to land on his forehead instead. Gambit grinned.

"So are you, homme."

Quickly, he braced one hand on Michael's exoskeleton, the other reaching into his coat. Not for a card. They would explode outside the shield, killing their owner and not their target. He needed something smaller. Pulling out his gun, he pushed the nozzle against the tiny gap and pulled the trigger.

The bullet was just small enough to fit.

Confused, Diedre opened her eyes. "Bobby?" she whispered.

Immediately, an icy form smiled down at her, frozen water flowing flawlessly to mimic the movement. "How are you feeling?"

Diedre blinked, feeling... strange. "I-I don't know. What happened?"

He hugged her gently, his ice as soft to her as a baby's skin. "Michael stabbed you."

Her eyes widened. "What happened to him?"

"Gambit's fighting him."

Hearing the grief in his voice, for a mentor he couldn't help, Diedre lifted her hand to touch his cheek and gasped as she saw it was a semi translucent blue, frozen bubbles trapped inside obscuring her view of the remains of the penthouse beyond. "What??" She couldn't get the word out. They were melded together, their torsos and legs merged into one mass, her head affixed to his shoulder as he held her, only that one arm free.

Any icy tear slipped down Bobby's cheek. "I saved you. I turned you to ice, you're tied into my body right now." He mimicked a deep breath. "I love you so much, Diedre."

Frozen, she smiled back at him, content, her dreams fulfilled. "I love you too, Bobby."

Gasping, trying not to fall, Remy stared down at the body. Michael's exoskeleton had vanished at his death and he looked almost surprised at the small neat hole that had appeared between his eyes.

Leaning on his staff, hearing the not unexpected roar of the Blackbird approaching, he raised the trembling arm that held the gun and emptied the clip into Michael's body. He wasn't coming back to haunt any of them.

A cold breeze touched his cheek and his gaze turned up towards the frosted penthouse. "Bobby..." Man had his woman, paid his price and won her. Saved her. Remy smiled, his knees buckling and an involuntary cry coming from him at the pain of it. The cool blood that streaked his staff pressed into his cheek as he rested against it, trying to breathe though his blood was pouring out of him. It was worth it though, in spite of the hell his indiscretion would cause the Guild, and what it looked like it would cost him as well. Finally, a man and a woman could love one another and have that love survive. For that, he'd pay any price.

The Blackbird roared overhead as he tumbled over onto his side, joining his enemy in, if not the same depths of darkness, then a darkness that might still lead to it eventually.