Villain Sabretooth

Once upon a time, on a warm evening in New Orleans, in a park full of ancient oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, a young man named Beau Mireaux was having a very bad night.

Beau was seventeen years old and worked as a courier for the Thieves Guild — carrying sealed envelopes from one address to another without asking any questions. He was fast on his feet and knew every alleyway in the city. He had never, in his seventeen years, expected to be cornered against a hundred-year-old oak tree by someone like Victor Creed.

Victor Creed was also known as Sabretooth. He was very large, very strong, and very unfriendly. He had retractable claws as long as kitchen knives. He could heal from injuries so quickly that fighting him felt like fighting a rainstorm — you could not simply make him go away. He had been paid, by someone, to retrieve the envelope that Beau was carrying.

Beau held the envelope against his chest and tried not to show how frightened he was.

Sabretooth grinned. It was not a kind grin.

And then — from somewhere behind Sabretooth — there was a soft sound. The quiet sound of someone trained, from childhood, to move without making noise.

Remy LeBeau stepped out of the shadows beneath the oaks. He had his bo staff across both hands, loose and ready, the way his trainer Marcel had shown him years ago in New Orleans. He was dressed plainly, his long coat settling around him, his glowing red eyes calm in the warm lamplight of Audubon Park.

"Put him down, Creed," Remy said. His voice was easy. Almost polite. "He's a kid."

Sabretooth turned. Looked at Remy with those predator's eyes that measured everything. Then he did what Sabretooth always did when someone offered him a chance to be reasonable.

He lunged.

The fight moved through Audubon Park like a storm. Sabretooth was stronger. Faster. He healed between one breath and the next. What Remy had, instead of all those gifts, was harder to measure: he had grown up in these streets. He knew every root cluster, every low-hanging branch, every patch of shadow deep enough to disappear into.

He charged a card — pink-purple light blooming between his fingers — and flicked it left. CRACK! Smoke and sparks. Sabretooth flinched toward the sound. Remy was already to his right. Three more: CRACK CRACK KRAKOOM! A trail of small explosions lit the park, and Sabretooth roared and missed Remy by a full arm's length.

Beau watched from behind his tree root, clutching his envelope, not breathing.

And then Remy did what he had been waiting to do from the first moment. He let Creed come at him one more time, watched the weight shift forward, counted — one, two — and swept the bo staff in a wide, low arc.

Sabretooth's feet left the ground.

Two hundred and sixty pounds hit the earth with a sound that startled three herons from the nearby lagoon.

Remy crouched and placed a single playing card — an ace of spades, glowing bright pink at its edges — gently against the back of Sabretooth's collar.

"You want to finish this," Remy said, in the same polite tone as before, "or you want to walk away?"

A long pause. The Spanish moss swayed.

Sabretooth got up. He looked at Remy for one long moment. Then he walked away into the dark, without the envelope, without a word.

Beau let out a breath he had been holding for approximately four minutes.

Remy slid the ace of spades back into his coat pocket. He looked at Beau and tilted his head.

"You alright?"

"I — yeah," said Beau. "Yeah, I think so."

"Good," said Remy. "Come on. I know a place that makes the best beignets in the Ninth Ward. You look like you need about six of them."

They walked out of the park together into the warm New Orleans night, the city's music floating toward them from somewhere nearby — a trumpet from an open window, the low pulse of a bass drum — and the lights along the levee shimmered in the slow brown river.

Beau kept his envelope.

The oak trees swayed in the river breeze.

And Sabretooth did not come back to New Orleans that night.

Sometimes, being brave is just knowing which way to sweep the staff — and knowing when to offer someone beignets afterward.