Desperado (X-Men - ROMY)

Chapter One

Chapter One

Logan never could get used to these meetings on the Astral plane. He was a man of power, of action, so being in a place that was purely of the mind was taking some getting used to.

"What have you discovered, Chuck?"

"Very little," Charles admitted. "The only concrete piece of information can give you is regarding a thief by the name of Remy LeBeau, also known as Gambit."

"You want me to take him out?" Logan knew that he sounded eager, mainly because he wasn't trying to hide it.

"No! No, we need him."

"You want me to sign him up?" Logan sounded incredulous.

"From what I've been able to gather, he will join the X-Men of his own volition, but by then it will be too late."

"Charles, you're talking in riddles."

"I know," he sighed. "All I can say for certain is that he will steal something that is vital to Apocalypse's rise to power and he will do so in about six months time."

"So he's working for Apocalypse? Figures. Wouldn't be the first time he'd betrayed his own kind."

"Logan, I know this is difficult to believe, but I think you may have misjudged him. He is fondly remembered in this time."

"I still don't see why I can't take him out," Logan grumbled. "That would solve the problem."

"Not exactly. He would stop him from stealing the artefact, but it wouldn't stop anyone else from taking it. Besides which, he will become the leader of the X-Men in a few years time, after you are captured."

"Gambit! Leader of the X-Men? Over my dead body!"

"Please, Logan, just do what you can."

Logan was silent for a moment before finally agreeing. "All right, Chuck."

"Thank you."

"It would help if you could tell us what this artefact is."

"I know. I have very little information at the moment but I have two leads to follow. One is a journal that used to belong to an X-Man. It is rumoured to contain some details of Gambit's life but it is kept within Apocalypse's domain and will be hard to get to. There is also talk of someone called the Witness, who used to know the X-Men and claims to be the last person to see them alive. We are trying to find him now to see if he knows anything that might help us."

"All right, Chuck, let me know what you find."

The X-men were gathered in the War Room to hear the latest news from the professor.

"You cannot be serious?" Kurt said. "He stole from us for the MRD and he crippled Genosha!"

"I know," Logan agreed. It was hard to convince your team of something when you didn't believe it yourself. "But on the bright side, at least with one of the bad guys working for us, we should be able to keep an eye on him."

"So how do we do this?" Scott asked. He trusted Xavier with his life, so he would trust him on this too. "Where can we find him?"

"Don't know," Logan admitted. "Much as I hate to admit it, he's good at what he does, he's never been caught, least not by the authorities, and when he wants to disappear, he does. The only lead we have is that he belongs to the Thieves' Guild in New Orleans. As a matter of fact, he is the adopted son of the guild leader, Jean-Luc LeBeau."

"Then let's join the guild," Bobby said.

"You don't just join the Thieves' Guild, Bobby."

"Then we'll subcontract him!" Bobby said, seemingly thrilled with his idea. "If we're hiring him, then no one else can!"