Turning Point - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Syvan Coyne
Last updated: 01/02/2007 02:01:11 AM

Chapter 3

Somewhere just outside the Antartic in an unmarked airplane

Sinister sat pondering his prisoner and the comment he had made to the former X-Man back in the underground complex where they had found Remy Lebeau. It was not his nature to act impulsively, yet for reasons he didn't care to delve deeper into, he had blurted out that he would tell Remy about his past. It had all happened back around a conversation about Remy telling the X-Men the truth. Sinister had found himself latching on to that word. Truth. Of course, even then he had manipulated Remy and what Remy was saying to serve his own purposes by asking whose version of the truth Remy had told.

As far as Sinister was concerned there was no such thing as the 'absolute truth' no matter how hard one tried to make it so. There was factual truth, that could be supported by physical evidence. Moral truth and personal truth, which are governed by personal morals and beliefs and biological truth and perceived truth, which are generally outside influences that have a strong influence upon a person. Along the lines of family and media and society. All of which any individual would swear to be the 'absolute truth' depending on the person who was asked and the situation they were asked about.

Sinister had been toying with telling Remy Lebeau some of his past for some time now. More seriously since the Seattle incident, but had somehow always found a reason or an excuse not to. He wanted the boy back working with him. As much as the boys independence annoyed and hampered Sinister's plans for Gambit, Sinister was secretly proud of Remy for standing on his own two feet. Though of course this heroic do-gooder group Remy had fallen into was a weakness as far as he could tell.

Blast it! Sinister thought. Of all the mutant groups Remy could have fallen in with, he had to pick the X-Men. It was because of HER of course. After the girl had left Mystique, Sinister felt his chances of gaining access to her were miniscule at best, then Remy had to stumble into things and in a temper tantrum of moral outrage had taken off as well. Sinister again made a mental note to check to see if there was such a thing as a 'hero' gene. It certanly kept poking up in Remy's family. Annoyingly frequently. Getting back on track of his original thought, Sinister had the feeling that Remy had some how crossed the girl's path and had devised some way to hook up with the X-Men just so he could keep an eye on her. Be close to her. Win her love. Romantic fool. The worst part of it, Sinister thought sarcastically, was that he really did want Remy to be happy. But Sinister wanted Remy to be happy under his conditions.

Sinister decided he was going to tell Remy about his past. It would be delicate work for certain; but, this may be his best chance to get the boy back under his control, and hopefully if he controlled the information properly, Remy would stay with him of his own accord. Or as close to it as possible. The big question was...could he weave the tale properly enough to make this plan work. Sinister pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He was acting so unlike himself. What was his problem. Ever since they had set out after Gambit he hadn't felt like himself. Sinister always prided himself on his plans and arrangements. He never acted rashly or on impulse, yet since discovering where the boy was, he had been acting completely at odds to his normal self. He felt out of sorts. Could it be that this situation was truly a challenge to him? Could it be that he was anxious about the outcome, maybe even a little scared that he could lose? And that it would be his own fault if he did lose? Or was he actually looking forward to the coming confrontation with anticipation? Sinister suddenly opened his eyes. He was doing it again. Letting his mind wander to insignificant things such as feelings and emotions when he should be concentrating on developing the best plan on how to feed the information to Remy so that Remy perceived the story in the light best suited to Sinister's ends. Sinister smiled. He was going to tell Remy the truth. The odd thing was, that he was going to have to mix in a few half-truths to ensure Remy believed the real truth and the hidden self-serving fill-ins. Maybe months or hopefully years from now he could again remind Remy of this dicussion and of what brought it about.

'Truth'. Maybe after all of this Remy would understand what Sinister had meant when he asked which version of the truth Remy had told the X-Men. Getting his thoughts in order, Sinister sat back down at the table that was bolted to the wall of the plane and started to flick some switches on the built-in computer that was attached to the table.

In the cockpit of the airplane

"Look. The light is back on again." the co-pilot said, pointing at the small red flashing light on the control panel.

"It's for the landing gear. The doors probably didn't shut properly in the cold. Tell the boss that we're going to lower and retract the landing gear again and see if that fixes the problem. Unless he wants us to ignore it." The pilot responded, tapping on the console to see if it were a short with the light itself.

Under the airplane

"Ah sure hope they decide to do something soon, sugah. It's gettin' a might cold out heah." Rogue gave a delicate shudder to emphasize the point.

"They will, and we have to be ready for it. They'll either drop the landing gear fully and then retract or they'll do a quick release just to check if there was trapped air." Logan replied.

"How much time will we have?" Sam called out.

"Hard to say. Depends how good a system this crate's got. Tops I'd probably say 60 seconds, to get in and out of the way of the landing gear. Probably less than that though. That's why you're going in on that side and Rogue is taking me in the other. Help clear the way faster." Sam nodded in response.

"Sam's startin' ta look tuckered. Ya think he's gonna make it?" Rogue asked close to Logan's ear.

"He's an X-Man darlin'. He'll make it. The kid's all heart, he wouldn't do anything to let you down after he gave ya his word." Logan grinned. Logan tilted his head towards the landing gear opening then quickly signalled to Sam and Rogue. He felt Rogue's muscles tensing in her arms as she held him and watched the light die from her eyes to be replaced with stone cold determination. She was a woman on a mission and woe to anyone or anything that got in her way.

Inside the airplane

"Yes, proceed as you wish." Sinister said into the intercom with slight irritation in his voice. A thought occurred to Sinister as he turned off the intercom and he quickly turned to the computer in front of him. He brought up the security system and did a quick internal heat scan of the entire plane. It brought up hot and cold areas and distinguished the individuals aboard the plane. He typed in a command on the computer and the screen shifted to a skeletal outline of the lower half of the plane. He took a reading and then saved it into memory. He then did a scan of the engines and wings of the plane. Saving those readings he waited.

He watched the skeletal lines representing the landing gear doors open and the landing gear lower, stop and then retreat back into the plane. He waited for about 15 seconds and then took some more readings of the outside of the plane and the lower cargo area. Typing in a few more commands the computer screen first brought up the original readings of the outside of the plane and then superimposed the second reading on top. Sinister noticed a temperature drop on the left hand side. There was nothing discernable on the right hand side. Nothing concrete there he decided, but wasn't deterred. He brought up the cargo area readings and again superimposed the second reading on top of the original. He had a definite heat trail on the left side, but nothing on the right side. "My, my, my, this is truly becoming interesting. I wonder if it could possibly be...."

Sinister's voice trailed off and he started typing quickly on the keyboard. The screen changed again, this time an external view of the interior of the plane filled the screen, with solid shapes and forms filling up the spaces inside the airplane. Sinister focused on the lower section of the plane and ran another heat scan.

There! He thought to himself as a slight grin settled on his thin bloodless lips. He continued typing and a small window popped up on one corner of the computer monitor. The word 'scanning' flashed on and off as he continued to watch the first window run a more intense heat scan. The second window made a small beep sound and the word scanning was replaced with 'match found'. "Well now, let's see who has come for a visit shall we?" clicking on the second screen a dossier file came up with a small picture of a blond young man. "Ah yes, I thought I recognized your heat signature Cannonball. But, you are not one to act alone....who have you brought with you? Hmmm?"

He cancelled the picture and returned to the original window. "There should be something by now. Ah, there." He focused on the slight variant of heat patterns near some storage boxes. "Odd. The size is too large for it to be one person....and yet the heat pattern is only picking up enough for it to be nothing larger than a young female.....How can that be.......Blast!....Sinister tapped on the keyboard rapidly for a few moments and then re-examined the monitor. Slowly, the shape defined by different coloured heat waves separated into two separate forms. Without scanning the heat field Sinister pursed his lips again and grumbled "Wolverine." Only he would be able to mask his own body heat or at least control it enough that the temperature outside would be more tolerable to him. Sinister grumbled about mutants and pesky healing factors and the like. He then turned back to the computer monitor and without looking at the keyboard he tapped a few buttons and the second window reappeared on the moniter with the flashing 'scanning' word again. A few seconds later 'matches found' appeared and accessed the files. The first to appear was the X-Men's resident wildman Wolverine just as he had thought. Now, who brought him? Sinister thought. The weather witch or....Yes! to have her this close again. The chance to finally bring his greatest experiment to completion made him actually want to drool. Sinister thought about how those who knew of his experiments believed him to be fixated on Scott Summers and Jean Grey; but if they had any idea of what he planned to accomplish with this girl..... Sinister tilted his head back and laughed a full, deep, shoulder shaking laugh. Hitting the delete key the picture of Rogue disappeared from the computer screen.

His ideas formulating into a plan rapidly; Sinister went to a locked cabinet near the back of the plane. He returned moments later with a syringe and two small viles, one filled with a clear liquid the other filled with a pink coloured liquid. He filled the syringe with the pink liquid and tossed the remaining next to the computer. The vial with the clear liquid disappeared into his costume. Leaning over the unconscious form of Remy Lebeau, Sinister jabbed the needle into the young man's neck, just above the collar bone. Sinister stood quickly and went back to the computer terminal. He accessed the communications screen. A schematic of the airplane popped up. Sinister activated all sections of the plane watching as the computer turned the 'activated' sections from blue to yellow, and then announced to the entire crew that he was going to be conducting some experiments on his 'guest' and didn't wish to be disturbed until they reached their destination. Grinning, he tapped a few buttons and highligted sections of the airplane turned blue, until only the section he and Remy were in and the undercariage of the plane where the three X-Men were, were yellow. Sinister then said calmly "Security, please stand by in case my 'guest' becomes 'troubled'." Sinister grinned knowing that only he and the hidden X-Men had heard the transmission as he had planned. He also knew that the X-Men would assume that the communication system was left 'on' for the security crew and not because he wanted the X-Men to hear what he was going to tell Remy.

Sitting back down at the computer Sinister leaned back, rested his elbows on the arm rests and steepled his fingers under his chin. He nudged Remy with the toe of his boot, and watched with satisfaction as Remy bolted awake for a second or two before his eyes started to droop again. Knowing the sound of Remy's voice would capture the attention of the X-Men in the under-cariage. Sinister flicked his boot at Remy again. "Mon Dieu, Remy ain't never 'ad a 'angover like dis before....eh?" He glanced around at the blury and warped shapes around him. "Where am I?"

"With me boy." Sinister replied calmly.

Remy felt awake yet couldn't seem to focus and had trouble keeping his thoughts in order. "Sinister! What do you want? Should'a killed me when ya 'ad de chance ya know. Soon as I get free of de fancy gloves ya gave me, you're 'istory." Remy grumbled as he twisted into a sitting position and glared at a lumpy dark shape he hoped was Sinister. After all Remy thought to himself, you should at least look at the person when you threaten their life right?

"Don't make threats you are in no position to act upon. Nor before you hear your host out. You see, I've got something you want. In exchange for some information, I'll see that you get it." Sinister smiled pleasantly at Remy.

"You don't 'ave anything Remy be wantin' Sinister."

"Tsk, tsk, Remy. You, better than most should know that I have a great many things that many people want. And, that I do not offer those things lightly. Trust me my boy. You're definately going to earn it should you prove helpful."

Remy stayed quiet. It wasn't because he couldn't dispute what Sinsiter said but because he had lost track of what Sinister had been discussing. He blinked his eyes a few times trying to clear his vision. When that didn't work he shook his head and a question jumped into his thoughts which he felt he had to ask, no matter what. "Why you keep showin' up 'round me?"

"Ah, I see you feel well enough to ask questions of your own now. I shall answer your question in a rather round-about manner I'm afraid my boy. You see, my own questions will bring your question an answer."

"What question?" Remy asked sounding rather confused and suspicious.

Sinister chuckled without humour. The drug he had given Remy appeared to be a bit more potent than he had anticipated. He would have to proceed slowly so that events continued to unfold as he wished.

In the under-carriage of the airplane

Wolverine held a finger to his lips as he looked at Sam. Silently he moved to a speaker that was mounted to the wall of the plane. Logan popped one of his claws and worked the screws loose. Removing the cover carefully, he peeked at the wires and grunted softly. He put the cover back and retightened the screws. "Okay, we're clear. I wanted to make sure these things didn't transmit as well as receive."

Rogue nodded her understanding. Sam looked slightly shocked. The idea had obviously not occured to him. As if to prove his uneasiness, he said in a voice only slightly louder than a whisper. "Sinister was talkin' about 'tests' on Remy. We better high-tail it up there and save him."

"Not yet junior. I hate ta say this, and ain't it a kick in the butt this is comin' from me but, it could be a trap. Sinister's no slouch at manipulation. We could be walkin' right inta his hands if we go runnin' in half-cocked." Logan glanced at Rogue. "You okay with this?"

"Ah guess ah haveta be. Ah sure as blazes don't like it but, ah know it's the right thing to be doin' right now." Rogue struggled to smile at Logan to show she supported him.

"Hey guys, it's Gambit. But he sounds kinda strange." Sam continued to whisper.

The three X-Men turned their attention back to the speaker box. After listening to the dialogue for a minute or two Logan turned back to Rogue and Sam and said. "Sounds as if Gambit's runnin' on some sort'a truth drug."

"Ah thought that stuff was made up." Sam said questioningly.

"The way they portray it on TV it is. I've seen different versions of the stuff though. Some just make ya want ta talk yer guts out. Others make ya lose yer inhibitions, so ya can't tell who your friends are; or yer enemies. Yer so mellow ya end up talkin' 'bout things YOU didn't even remember you ever knew."

"Remy sounds confused. He can't remember what Sinister is talking about. Or himself." Rogue said quietly.

"It'll take a minute or two to mellow out in his system. Sinister has patience, but, I'd wager he's workin on some sorta time frame. One that needs ta be finished by the time this crate gets wherever its goin'," Logan growled.

There was a low chuckle from the speaker box again, and then Sinister's voice came through clearly. "Remy? Remy my boy? Can you hear me?"

"I have excellent hearin' you monster. What've you done ta me? Can't move my 'ands."

"They are restrained for the moment my boy. Now, look at me. Yes I know it's hard, but, you must try. Yes that's a good boy. Keep your eyes open Remy. You'll be feeling much better in a minute or two." Sinister's voice faded a little and Logan's senses heard soft foot steps from the speaker indicating that Sinister was walking to a new location. Logan heard a very soft squeak of a chair and summarized that Sinister was seated. There wasn't enough time to pass this information to the other two before Sinister started talking again, and what Sinister said effectively brought a stunned silence to the three stow-aways.

"Did you know you have your brother's eyes?"

"Nope. Remy be unique. No udder mutant's in Remy's fam'ly. Dat's why Remy be gettin' all de jeune fille's when he be growin' up." There was just a touch of arrogance in Remy's voice at the pronouncement mixed with a slight slur brought about by the drug.

"Not the pack of thieves you joined up with in your youth boy. The other family." Snister prodded gently.

Remy was quiet for a half dozen seconds and down in the undercarriage Rogue didn't realise she was holding her breath while waiting to hear this previously unknown history.

"Dey was nice enough. Dey had me kinda late in life, dey died while Remy still a young pup. Still didn't 'ave no brother or sister." Remy was quiet again for a second before he laughed. "Hah! Well how 'bout dat. Sinister ain't got all de answers after all."

"Of course I have all the answers my boy. You just haven't realised it yet. Shall I tell you some of those answers?" Sinister didn't wait for Remy to reply before continuing. "First off Georgette and Jean-Luc Lebeau are not your biological parents." He paused to let the information sink into Remy's drugged brain. As Remy's facial features changed from placid interest to confusion Sinister continued. "You see, I owed them a debt and I knew that both had regretted never having children of their own. So I gave them you. I think you should know that their deaths were irrelevant. You were never meant to stay with them for more than your first ten years anyway."

Remy felt his whole being tilt as if the very foundation of who he was or who he THOUGHT he was, was pulled out from under him. "What?? You gave Remy to...to" his drugged brain scrambled trying to figure out just what relationship he had with the old couple after hearing Sinisters story. "da Lebeau's?? Who am I den? Who de hell are you to be messin' wit' Remy's life anyhow?? How dis mean anyt'ing 'bout anyt'ing you been askin' me?" Remy knew what he was trying to say but didn't have any idea of whether he was expressing himself clearly.

The three X-Men in the undercarriage sat silently staring at each other in varying degrees of shock. "Ah sure wasn't expectin' ta hear that." Cannonball said.

"I've got a nasty feelin' we ain't gonna be liking what Sinister has to say even more." Logan growled in a low voice.

Rogue bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes waiting for Sinister's response. None of the three X-men even thought about moving.

Sinister sat for a moment not answering. Lost in his own thoughts for a few seconds, reliving the past and in particular the day he handed Remy over to the Lebeau's. '"His name is Remy. Named after his maternal grandfather. He is a special child, with a great destiny ahead of him. Care for him well."' He then turned his back and walked away. Blocking out the 'thank you sir's' and 'God bless you sir's' from the tearfully overjoyed couple.

"Yes I gave you to the Lebeau's. I felt it was important for your formative years to have both a mother and a father. Your name is Remy, and you were named for your maternal grandfather. It was what your mother would have wanted. I am telling you this because it has everything to do with why you are here now, and so that you will understand your role." Sinsiter stopped and realised that his heart was pounding in his chest. His tongue darted out to moisten his suddenly dry lips. "As to who I am to be messing with your life, that is very simple and I'm rather disappointed you haven't figured that out yet. Remy, I'm your father."