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Chapters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
 
 
 

Betrayal - REVIEW THIS STORY

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

Chapter 3

Morning came far too early, at least as far as Remy was concerned. Cyclops had this awful habit of scheduling practice sessions at seven a.m., somehow believing that it was good for people to be about at that hour. Night owl that he was, Remy tended to go to bed just before dawn and sleep til noon or a little later if he could get away with it. Cyclops' bright-boy schedules meant his nights got pretty short sometimes. Still, he was in the danger room at seven sharp, head aching, wishing he felt half as awake as Bishop looked. He knew perfectly well Bishop couldn't have gotten any more sleep than he had, but he certainly didn't show it.

The exercise was for both teams, so everyone was present. Professor X was up in the observation booth, watching them. As the holograms began to coalesce and the robots emerge from their cubbies, it became obvious that this was a multi-enemy, mult-target scenario. That was all right with Remy. Lots of action and not too much thinking suited him just fine this morning.

Within moments, the danger room dissolved into a whirwind of motion, lanced with beams of bright colored light, flying projectiles and fast moving bodies. Remy leapt into the midst of a flight of missiles to avoid the snaking metal coils that were trying to ensnare him. Twisting mid-air, he made certain that he did not cross any of the missiles' flight paths. They passed him harmlessly and continued on toward their original target--Archangel. He landed easily, charged cards already flying. The metal coils were reduced to scrap in a matter of moments. It was easy and, in a bizarre sense, fun.

Momentarily out of opponents, Remy expanded his less-obvious mutant power. He was aware of the location, speed and direction of every moving object in the room. It was the gift that made his agility seem so uncanny. He checked on each of his teammates, making sure that none were in a mess they couldn't get out of, and then jumped back into the fray. Bobby and Storm were teamed up against a couple of the new sentinels the X-men had been running into with alarming regularity lately. They were holding their own, but it looked like they could use some help. Remy worked his way towards them. His powers were definitely operating on "high" today, despite the long night. His senses felt preternally sharp, making him aware of anything that approached long before it could become a threat to him. Too bad his powers didn't behave this way all the time. Sometimes the spatial awareness simply failed him, though never completely, and he ended up either in trouble or making a fool of himself, depending on the situation. Luckily, his kinetic energy power didn't falter like that. It, at least, was well behaved.

He had often considered telling Rogue, to let her know that he did understand her frustration, at least a little bit. But it seemed so insignificant next to her problem that he had finally decided it would just sound patronizing.

He let fly at the sentinel that was pressing Bobby and Storm. The glow of his cards was nearly lost in the bright streaks of lightning that rained down around it. The new threat was enough to distract it from Iceman, whose ice began to creep up its legs. Before, it had been successfully breaking the heavy sheets of ice before they could cool the metal to dangerous temperatures. It was a very old tactic against the sentinels, but still effective. Eventually, Bobby brought the temperature down to the necessary point. He signalled Storm, who shattered the knee joint with a brilliant burst of lightning, and then she and Gambit finished it off.

The other X-men were finishing off the remaining opponents as Ororo settled to the ground beside Remy. She always looked like a butterfly, he thought as he watched her. She smiled as if sensing that he had been admiring her. There was still an undercurrent of sexuality to their relationship despite the fact that it was, and always had been, platonic. Remy was often surprised that he no longer had any interest in pursuing that aspect. And it wasn't entirely because of Rogue.

*Maybe y' jus' growing up,* he told himself.

"I think I will be quite ready for breakfast," commented Storm.

Remy shrugged. "I ate a couple a hours ago."

Storm's eyebrow arched in interest. "Long night?"

He shrugged again. "You used t' keep dose hours too, Stormy."

"Indeed." She began to move away. Throwing him a teasing look over her shoulder she added, "But I wised up."

He acknowledged the gentle chide with a smile and followed her. Several X-men had gathered around Bishop, who was wrapping a makeshift bandage around a short gash in his forearm. His glowering expression said that he was unhappy, probably because he still saw it as a failure to be injured in a training exercise. But the truth was that they all got tagged from time to time.

Hank interrupted Bishop's bandaging to check the wound. He grinned merrily, showing teeth. "In my expert opinion, Bishop me boy, it's just a scratch. Two or three stitches, at most."

"Certainly not enough t' interfere wit your love life." Remy couldn't resist that one.

Bishop's gaze snapped up to his, real anger burning there, and Remy wondered what raw nerve he'd managed to stumble on. Bishop usually ignored any and all teasing about women.

"You should watch your tongue, LeBeau. You might lose it."

Bishop's voice was cold.

"What? To you?" Remy tried to keep his response light. *Sure know how t' step in it, don'cha Remy?*

Bishop smiled unexpectedly, as if he had been joking all along. But his next words went down Gambit's spine like ice water. "Hunters in the parade, right, LeBeau? But I might just sneak up on you."

Remy knew he was staring, mouth agape. But he was just so surprised that for a moment he simply couldn't move. "Hunters in the parade" was a catch phrase for a message in guild code. It meant that whoever you were talking to was a messenger and his message was so urgent that you were to drop everything to relay it.

It meant that you had guild permission to do anything, kill anyone, without thought for the consequenses because the lives of the guild were depending on that message. Remy had never heard of it being used in his lifetime, but he had been trained to react if he ever did. Gut-level fear gripped him, an instinctive response to the knowledge that, somehow, his family's lives were on the line.

He didn't remember moving, but somehow found himself on top of Bishop with a knife at the other man's throat. His knee pinned one arm and his hand held the other. Bishop's gun was still sliding across the floor, knocked away. He was vaguely aware of the expressions of surprise on the X-men's faces. Enough time had not passed yet to allow them to react. Bishop's expression was angry and startled. Remy knew that he was lucky to have taken Bishop down. If his powers weren't at their present level, he probably couldn't have done it. But none of that really mattered to him. All that mattered was the coded warning.

"Who told you that, Bishop?!" A drop of blood oozed from around the point of his knife. Then Jean's telekinetic field yanked the dagger from his hand. Bishop seized the momentary distraction and knocked Remy away.

Scott and Henry each grabbed one of Bishop's arms, restraining him from leaping after Gambit. Remy felt slim hands fasten around his wrists. They were less giving than steel, and he knew that it was Rogue who held him from behind.

After a couple of moments, Bishop reigned in his anger. He shrugged off the restraining hands and touched the trickle of blood at his throat. "Told me *what*, LeBeau?"

The X-men were all staring at Remy expectantly. He ignored them. His attention was focused solely on Bishop. Had he been less distracted, he would have realized that his normal veneer had slipped, exposing shades of the man who had occasionally been forced into the role of cold-blooded killer. A tiny growl, a warning, escaped Logan.

"`Hunters in the parade'. Who told you that?" Remy was aware of Wolverine, and he tried to exert a little more control. His words came out at least halfway normal.

"Huh?" Even Bishop was dumbfounded. "It's just an expression."

"*Who told you!?*"

"Gambit! Calm down!" Cyclops' voice carried its usual weight, but even Bishop ignored him. The two men stared at each other across a gulf of time and suspicion. In the end, Bishop answered the bizarre question.

"You did! All right? In my time." Bishop crossed his arms as if daring Remy to contradict him.

"*I* did?"

"Yeah. I don't even know why I happened to think of it."

Remy felt his knees give way as the implications hit him. He had been frightened before; he was terrified now. If he, in the future, had used that phrase, then it was a warning of death for everyone that he cared about. Everything Bishop had ever said about the murders of the X-men flashed through his mind. Remy had survived that attack and lived to be known as the last person to see the X-men alive. That he believed, simply because Bishop didn't lie. But why? Because he got lucky? Or, perhaps, as Bishop believed, was it because he was the one who had betrayed them? That was not so far fetched as he had once believed. The questions spun through his mind.

And now the future version of himself was sending him a warning. A version of himself who *knew* the truth. But Remy wasn't sure he really wanted to know the truth.

A cool hand cupping his face brought Gambit back to himself.

"Remy, are you all right?"

He focused on Storm. She was kneeling in front of him, face less than a foot away from his. Rogue knelt beside her, her red hair tangling with Ororo's white. Rogue was peering at him with concern in her green eyes. It was the kindest expression she had given him since her return, and it took the edge off of cold in his bones.

Professor Xavier arrived then, the pitch of his hoverchair's mechanical hum decreasing as he slowed to a stop next to Remy.

"Gambit. Would you care to explain what just happened?" His tone was studiously neutral, with a hint of curiosity.

Remy looked up at him. "Oui, Professor." He wondered if he sounded as faint as he felt. "I jus' need to ask Bishop one more question, first."

"Which is?" Bishop eyed him warily.

"What did I-- uh, de future me. . . whoever. . .say next?"

Bishop's expression said he clearly couldn't believe what was happening. He thought for a moment and looked to the Professor, who nodded.

"You said `You should get out of the rain. Sometimes it comes down as poison.'" He paused. "It wasn't raining at the time."

"Is dat word for word?"

"Minus the cajun accent, yes. What does it mean?"

"Don' know jus' yet. It's guild code." Remy sighed. "Heck, I'm gonna need paper f' dis. No way I can be translatin' it in my head."

The man sits in silence, unmoving. He is very old, and by a casual observer might be mistaken for a rag-draped skeleton. A small sphere hovers before him, its dull glow the only light in the room. The sphere shows an image -- people, places, things past. Not as they were, but as they are becoming. There is no sound. The conversation he has just witnessed is relayed telepathically through the projection equipment that sits like an oversized toad at his feet.

A shimmering in the air in front of him attracts the man's attention. He is not surprised. The shimmering coalesces into a face. It is human in appearance, though it looks like it is made of circuitry rather than flesh. It glances at the image globe and then looks to the man.

The man does not acknowledge the others' arrival. Though he knows his opponent's name, he has never used it. There is no need.

"A very interesting move," the shimmering face comments. "A pity it isn't legal."

Still the man does not move. "It's legal." His voice is dry and raspy. He does not speak very often anymore.

"Sending a message to the X-men is a direct violation of the rules of our contest." The face does not change expression. In appearance, it is a very crude projection. The man has never discovered if that is an effect his opponent chooses, or if it is the only projection of which he is capable.

The man moves now, and turns to face the other. "The rules say dat I cannot send a person or other physical object, and dat I cannot send dem a message or signal on any kind of carrier wave or telepathically. Dat is correct, is it not?"

The face nods. "That is what the rules say."

The man does not allow himself the luxury of a smile. "I have done none of dose t'ings."

The other is silent for a long time. The man does not care. He has long since learned the gruelling lessons of patience.

Eventually, the face speaks. "Very well. The move is legal." The projection begins to discorporate. When it is gone, the man returns his attention to the globe.

A woman enters the room. The light from the hallway behind her is harsh, drowning out the pale glow of the images before him. She is tall and slim, with blond hair that falls in a perfectly straight sheath to well below her hips. She is not beautiful, but she moves with a lithe grace that many men would find attractive. She closes the door and goes to stand beside the man's chair.

"Bishop has succeeded?" she asks. There is a hint of concern in her voice, though only the man knows her well enough to hear it beneath the cold professionalism.

"So far." The man studies her profile as she watches the globe.

He is tempted to take her hand, but knows how much she hates contact. Still there is a part of him that aches for her pain.

"You should have said somet'ing to him, chile. While you still had de chance."

She does not reply and he does not press her. Shackle is a theif and assassin, and loyal to the point of fanaticism. But the man has learned that there are some things that he is powerless to change.

"I came to tell you that Mr. Solomon is here. I think he is ready to deal." Shackle does not take her eyes from the image globe until the man shuts it down with a telepathic nudge. The room is plunged into total darkness, but that does not bother either of them.

"Tell him I'll be dere in a few minutes."

 

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