Remy LeBeau

Player: Jace

Player:
Jace

Personality:
On the surface, Gambit appears to be shallow, cocky, and charming. Even without the mutant charm-enhancement, he can quickly build rapport with others, and appears to fit in and be at home in nearly any situation. He flirts with anyone attractive, is full of one liners and playful comments, and is usually the first to acknowledge his own attractiveness. It’s not all for show - Remy is hedonistic, a pleasure chaser and takes what he can get and what he can get away with. He’s  the first one to make a joke in a serious situation, much to the frustration of more straight laced personality types.

Thanks to training from the Thieves Guild he is equally at home in high class society and in the streets of the poorest ghettos. This is because, generally, he can create a feeling of being close without having to give much away about himself. It makes him a cunning and manipulative con man, allowing him to see people as marks and not anything more, but also allows him to be surrounded by people without needing to be emotionally vulnerable.

To this end, the charming persona is a barrier to protect Remy and others from getting too close to him. In reality, there is a lot more to Gambit than simply the ‘cocky, flirty guy’ that you first meet.

He was abandoned as a baby and has experienced losses ever since. No one stays forever, they can’t. So Remy tries to protect himself by making his connections fun and replaceable. This doesn’t always work, however, because behind it all he loves fiercely and strongly. He’s loyal to a fault and will fight for those he cares about.

Having been a street child, he has a massive weakness for looking after kids. Whilst he usually looks after number one above all, this overrides that instinct.

Due to his tumultuous and at times violent upbringing, Remy carries a lot of guilt for the blood that’s been shed that he feels he should have prevented somehow. His pragmatism keeps him from losing himself to it, but the poorer decisions he’s made still haunt him.

His morality can be a very gray area though this allows him to also be very logical in the face of danger. This is largely because his only schooling growing up was the Thieves Guild, so his opinions on thieving, lying, violence etc aren’t always the same as societal norms. He never does ill to children or animals, but any adults are fair game to take for all they are worth.

To Gambit, his moral code makes sense and he stands by it. To anyone else, it’s often difficult to predict where the cards will fall and where Remy’s allegiance will lie.

Once he is loyal to you though, he’ll generally stand by you no matter what. Only his own desire to live is stronger.

Powers
Gambit has the ability to convert the potential energy stored in an inanimate object into pure light kinetic energy.

This charges the item with highly explosive results.Usually he favours playing cards and other small items that can be thrown, however the touch does not need to be from the hands. For instance, he once was held with a knife at his throat unable to move and so he charged the gum he had been chewing and spat it in his attacker's face.

He favours the smaller items because they take a shorter time to charge but they therefore have diminished explosive powers too. A charged playing card explodes with generally the force of a grenade, the larger the item the bigger the boom but also the longer it will take to charge.

Gambit can also use his mutant abilities to accelerate an object's kinetic energy instead of converting its potential energy; for example, he can charge his Bo staff with enough kinetic energy and power to level a house.

Gambit's ability to tap into kinetic energy also boosts his strength, speed, reflexes and reactions, agility, flexibility, dexterity, coordination, balance, and endurance as his body  constantly generates bio-kinetic energy and so is perfectly constructed for constant motion. This gives him an added edge that he has used to his advantage in both fights and his thieving line of work. The ‘extra charge’ gives him exceptional abilities but not quite super human.

The constant bio-kinetic energy in his body creates an invisible barrier of kinetic energy around him that creates static interference keeping telepaths out of his mind. Xavier has even failed to access his mind completely. It’s a very uncomfortable battle for both parties to force their way in and even then, he couldn’t get a proper reading on his thoughts. Xavier likened it to trying to grasp at snakes in the water, too slippery to hold on to. This static interference also destabilizes touch based abilities.

The kinetic energy cannot affect organic matter, he can’t just charge a person to explode.

Remy is an omega level mutant but at this point he hasn’t discovered even half of the scope and power of his mutation, partly through not wanting to go too far and partly from having no idea what else it might do.

Additionally Gambit has a hypnotic charm. This is an unusually strong and irresistible hypnotic charm that allows him to exert a subtle influence over sentient beings, leading them to believe what he says and agree with his suggestions. This charm is so strong and powerful that if given a chance, Gambit could even charm the Shadow King himself.. The hypnotic charm does not work on those who know about it, and some stronger minds are immune entirely.

While he doesn’t have a healing factor, the kinetic power that flows through him allows him to heal quickly compared to the average human. He does not heal at a superhuman rate like Wolverine, simply faster than the average man.

Talents

 * He is extensively trained in martial arts particularly Savate (french kickboxing) and the staff style art Bōjutsu.
 * He is a master thief and grifter.
 * Excellent poker player.
 * Excellent accuracy when throwing items be they cards, balls, darts, bolas, rocks, whatever.
 * A great chef, he especially loves to cook Cajun cuisine
 * Multilingual, he’s fluent in English and Cajun French whilst being passable in Japanese.
 * Dancing- The Thieves Guild taught him to pass in upper society from etiquette and speech to the formal cotillion dances. Whilst he finds those stuffier dances too formal, he is good at them all. Remy would rather go to a downtown club with live music and dance that way though. It’s freer and more passionate, which appeals to him greatly.
 * He is incredibly charming, even without the mutant enhancements, and can quickly build rapport with others. When in a new place, he appears to fit in and make himself at home quickly whatever the environment.

Interests

 * Gambling, especially card games like poker and bourre. Especially high stakes.
 * Pursuit of pleasure: drinking, gambling, partying, sex, anything that feels good epecially if it comes for free
 * Flirting
 * A secret interest is educating himself. He received no real schooling, only how to be a thief and grifter, so he has gaping holes in his knowledge. He enjoys reading, watching documentaries, etc,but it’s not something he advertises since it doesn’t fit with the image he likes to project.
 * He loves scifi, Star Trek is a particular favourite that he can recognise obscure quotes from.
 * Another guilty pleasure is disney movies and other family rated G movies. Like many who are deprived of an actual childhood, he likes to indulge occasionally.
 * Training and exercise. It was a necessity but he genuinely enjoys it. Fitness, weights training, martial arts, agility training.
 * Athletic activities: Basketball, football, etc - both playing and watching.

History
Gambit was abandoned as a newborn baby in New Orleans. When he was brought to the hospital the sight of the baby’s black and red eyes caused a nurse to cry out ‘Le Diable Blanc’, The White Devil, a label that stuck for years.

But, whilst the nurses were repelled by the appearance of the child, others took interest. The infant was stolen from the hospital by The Guild of Thieves, who hoped that the child would grow up to fulfill a prophecy about uniting the guild of New Orleans. (Spoiler Alert: he didn’t.)

As a child, Remy lived on the streets in what the Guild called a ‘Fagan gang’ (after the similar gang in the Oliver Twist novel). A Fagan gang was a group of child thieves that lived rough in abandoned buildings and spent their days learning the art of sleight of hand and pickpocketing tourists. They would have a central adult that took care of them and took the spoils for the Guild. Using children for this was for two reasons: the authorities generally could do less to children when they caught them, and to train the children, picking out those who showed real promise to go further in the Guild.

Remy took to stealing naturally. Though his eyes were memorable and unnerving to most, he could still move through the crowds that flooded to New Orleans and come out of it with rich pickings and his victims none the wiser.

He was seven when the Jasper’s Warp event occurred. This jumpstarted the mutant gene just waiting to manifest in him. Already with the nickname of White Devil, Remy initially did his best to hide the new powers he was suddenly finding he had but soon the other children discovered it and, like his eyes, it had a polarising effect. They either turned on him and were scared, or were fascinated by it.

Remy was already gaining notice from some of those higher up in the Guild and this culminated at age ten when he picked the pocket of one Jean-Luc Lebeau. Jean-Luc caught the child but, impressed by the skill shown by Remy, he brought the boy home with him with the intention to train him as a second son. Remy now had a family and a surname. Lebeau.

The adoption of a promising thief from one of the Fagan gangs wasn’t unusual, all the families did it looking for those they could raise to make their family great within the guild. Remy was quickly accepted into the fold and bonded with his new family. He got along well with his new brother and siblings, his talents more important to them than fearing his strange powers. In fact, most liked those powers since they proved usual on steals and heists. Privately they helped him train not only in the art of thievery but in discovering the uses and limitations of his powers.

It wasn’t a conventional family but since he had never had one, Remy had nothing to compare it to. He loved his family but also felt he owed them for bringing him out of the slums. This meant that Remy was frequently pushing himself further and harder to make them proud of him.

At fifteen, Remy was out swimming with his adopted cousin Etienne and some other teens, showing off and fooling around. In a tragic accident, Etienne drowned, despite Remy’s best efforts to save him. Grief stricken for his best friend, Remy took Etienne’s name as a middle name so that he might live on with him.

At nineteen, Remy was asked by the Guild for a further show of loyalty. He was already working for them, taking the assignments they were giving him, etc, but ever since his birth they had believed he was to fulfill a prophecy. Remy, eager to show loyalty and gratitude to the family and Guild, agreed to marry a girl from the rival Assassin’s Guild. She wasn’t a stranger, they’d had run-ins, and he thought there was enough chemistry for them to make a go of it whilst making their Guilds proud. He agreed to marry Bella Donna Boudreaux.

When the engagement was announced, Bella Donna’s brother Julien, a long time rival of Remy’s, was enraged. He challenged Remy to a duel, and Remy had no choice but to accept and to defend himself. Julien died and, rather than unite the Guilds, an escalating war of revenges began.

Afraid of seeing anymore of his adopted family die, Remy sacrificed his home and life with them. In exchange for Remy agreeing to never return to Louisiana, the Assassin’s Guild took the bounties off of his family. If Remy ever returns, they swore they will kill him on sight.

Since then, Remy Lebeau aka Gambit has been all over. He’s made his own way in the world, and is known by those in the know as one of the best thieves in the world and a fierce opponent at the gambling table. Remy Lebeau can cat burgle, grift, con and play his way into leaving with other people’s belongings. It’s everything he’s ever known. From street slums to high society, he’s been the prince and the pauper, sometimes in the same week. He plays hard and he plays for keeps.

Generally, he’s always landed on his feet, but that lucky streak had to end, and it ended badly. He was hired to break into the Sentinel Zone, but it was a set up. He was double crossed by the partner who’d recruited him. They got out free and with the merchandise, parting with the words ‘this is for Julien’. An Assassin, likely.

Trapped inside, Gambit survived by looking out for number one, as usual. His only override for that instinct was the urge to protect children. When he saw some sentinels chasing down a group of mutant kids and tweens, he used his powers to draw attention on to himself instead. He led the sentinels on a merry chase but, finally, was caught and taken to a containment zone.

Once there, of course, Remy was looking for a way out. There was none and instead he found himself in the role of reluctant protector. He would subtly make sure that the youngest and most vulnerable mutants weren’t screwed over but didn’t make that clear so as not to advertise a weakness around. And that’s where he was until he was rescued  and brought to Krakoa.

Gambit’s not been on Krakoa for long at all but, for now, it’s as good a place as any to set up a base of operations. Since the place was in sore need of one, he’s taken it upon himself to get the nightlife started in his own way with a bar: a place that feels like he’s just stepped back into the French Quarter in New Orleans, that might one day start to resemble a home.