New Orleans Heist

Once upon a time, a phone rang in Xavier's mansion on a Tuesday evening in October.

Remy LeBeau picked it up. The voice on the other end was Etienne Marceaux — the Master of the Thieves Guild in New Orleans — and Etienne only called when things were genuinely serious. His voice was tighter than usual.

A group of rogue thieves calling themselves the Crimson Tide had stolen something from a research laboratory on Tulane Avenue. A sealed container. Inside: an experimental compound that could temporarily suppress mutant abilities in anyone who ingested it. The Crimson Tide had a buyer — someone who wanted to use it against the X-Men.

Remy said he would handle it.

He packed simply — coat, bo staff, two decks of cards. He did not stop by Cyclops's office to explain where he was going. He would apologize for that later. But New Orleans was his city. The Guild was his history. He needed to handle this the way he knew how.

He arrived in New Orleans at dusk. The light was falling in long gold bars between the rooftops of the French Quarter, and the air smelled of coffee and river water and warm stone and the distant, perpetual sound of music coming from somewhere just around the corner. He walked from the taxi through the familiar streets, his feet relearning the cobblestones. The city felt like a coat he hadn't worn in months: still the right shape, still his.

He found Thierry — the first Crimson Tide member, a lean man he'd crossed paths with years ago during Guild work — in a gambling hall above a Creole restaurant on Bourbon Street. The room was crowded, warm, full of the focused tension of a game in progress. He did not announce himself. He did not threaten. He sat down, dealt a hand, and played cards for forty minutes. Thierry, who enjoyed talking while he played, told Remy most of what he needed to know without realizing it. The container was in a warehouse in the Warehouse District.

Remy thanked him for the game, left him a fair share of the winnings, and walked out.

The warehouse was plain concrete with a skylight above a rusted catwalk. Remy studied it from a neighboring rooftop, timing the guards' patterns. Then he went in through the skylight.

He dropped onto the catwalk silently. Below: two visible guards. A third behind a stack of crates.

He held three charged cards between his fingers — the pink-purple glow cupped carefully so no light escaped. He let them go.

CRACK — CRACK — KRAKOOM. Smoke and light. Guards dove for cover. In the confusion, Remy dropped from the catwalk, swept the nearest guard's feet with his bo staff — THWACK — the second before he'd finished turning — THWACK — and was through the smoke and past the crates before the third guard understood what had happened.

The container was exactly where Thierry had said. Remy opened the lab lock in ten seconds, confirmed the compound, and took it.

On the way out, he tucked an ordinary playing card into the collar of each guard's jacket. Uncharged. Just a card. I was this close.

He flew back to Westchester and delivered the container to Professor Henry McCoy — Beast — who spent three days analyzing and neutralizing the compound completely. With considerable feeling, Hank said he was glad it would never be used.

Then Remy called Etienne.

"The Crimson Tide has left the Guild," he said. "Permanently."

"Are they alright?" Etienne asked.

"They'll have interesting bruises," Remy said. "And a story to tell."

A pause. "You didn't have to go yourself."

Remy was quiet. Outside his window, the autumn trees were losing their last leaves.

"I know," he said. "But it's New Orleans."

He didn't have to explain more. Etienne had grown up in the same streets. He understood that the city was not just a location. It was something you carried — something that shaped what you thought was worth protecting, and how hard you were willing to work.

They said goodnight.

Remy sat with the quiet of his room for a moment.

Then he went to apologize to Cyclops, which went roughly as expected.

But the compound was safe. New Orleans was safe. And the Crimson Tide had playing cards in their collars and a lesson they had not expected from a Tuesday in October.

Sometimes, home is the best reason there is.