Chapter 1: Dead Man's Hand
The last thing he remembered was the truck.
Headlights blazing through rain-slicked windshield, the sickening moment of impact, then—nothing. Just darkness and a strange static humming at the edges of consciousness, like tuning between radio stations that didn't quite exist.
Now sensation crashed back like ice water.
His eyes snapped open to red laser grids crisscrossing inches from his face. A digital countdown glowed in the corner of his vision: 00:47... 00:46... 00:45...
He hung upside down from a skylight, suspended by climbing gear he didn't remember putting on. Below stretched the polished floors of what looked like a museum, display cases gleaming under security lighting. The Louisiana State Museum, his mind supplied helpfully, though he had no idea how he knew that.
00:44... 00:43...
His body moved before his brain caught up.
Muscles he didn't remember training twisted with impossible fluidity, contorting through gaps between laser beams that should have been too narrow for human passage. His hands—gloved in black leather that felt foreign—worked the rappelling line with practiced precision, lowering him toward the floor in a controlled descent that bypassed every sensor.
What the hell is happening?
The countdown hit zero as his boots touched marble.
Alarms shrieked to life. Emergency lighting bathed everything in pulsing red. Somewhere in the building, heavy boots pounded against linoleum as security responded to the breach.
He stared at his hands—definitely not his hands. These were longer, more elegant, with calluses in places that spoke of weapon training and lock picks. When he caught his reflection in a nearby display case, a stranger's face looked back.
Sharp cheekbones. Auburn hair falling across unusual eyes—red on black, like something out of a comic book. Remy LeBeau's face, he realized with mounting horror. Gambit. The X-Men character he'd read about, watched in cartoons, argued about in online forums from his old life.
His old life where he'd died in a car crash.
"Merde," his mouth said without permission, the Cajun accent flowing naturally. "This is impossible."
The building shook as guards burst through the main entrance three floors down. His body was already moving, grabbing something from the display case—an ornate crystal that seemed to pulse with its own inner light. The Heart of New Orleans, his hands recognized even as his mind reeled.
I'm in Gambit's body. This is some kind of heist. I need to get out of here.
More muscle memory took over as he sprinted toward the far wall. His legs coiled and released, launching him into a parkour sequence across exhibit displays that would have been impossible for his original body. He vaulted over a Civil War cannon, rolled across a plantation dining table, and dove through a second-story window in one fluid motion.
Glass exploded around him as he tumbled into the alley behind the museum. Somehow he landed in a perfect combat roll, coming up running despite the three-story drop that should have shattered every bone in his legs.
Gambit's enhanced physiology, he thought, pulling knowledge from comic book memories. Mutant agility and endurance.
Police sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer. His feet carried him up a fire escape and across rooftops with the confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times. The French Quarter spread out below—wrought-iron balconies, gas lamp lighting, the Mississippi River gleaming black in the distance.
He ran until the sirens faded, until his stolen muscles finally demanded rest. Only then did he stop to process what had happened.
Somehow, impossibly, he'd died in his own world and woken up in the body of a fictional character. In the X-Men universe he'd consumed through comics, movies, and animated series since childhood. The world where mutants fought for survival against bigotry and killer robots, where cosmic entities rewrote reality on weekends, where gods walked among mortals.
And he was stuck in the body of one of its most dangerous thieves.
His pockets held keys that led him through winding streets to a shabby apartment in the Marigny district. The lock turned easily, responding to fingers that knew exactly which way to twist.
Inside, the apartment screamed bachelor pad—black leather furniture, empty pizza boxes, a motorcycle jacket thrown over a chair. Band posters covered one wall: blues and jazz legends he recognized from Gambit's canonical tastes. A bottle of bourbon sat open on the kitchen counter next to a deck of playing cards.
The cards called to him.
He picked up the deck with trembling hands, the weight feeling perfectly balanced. These weren't ordinary playing cards—they hummed with potential energy, like batteries waiting to be activated. When he touched the top card, his fingertips tingled.
Pink-purple energy flickered around his fingers.
Kinetic energy charging, he realized. Gambit's signature power. I can turn potential energy into kinetic energy—make things explode.
He set the card down carefully, then immediately picked it up again. The energy felt warm, almost alive. Like touching a live wire, but without the pain. His original body had never felt anything like this.
Focus on one card. Small charge. See what happens.
The energy built slowly, crawling up his arm with a sensation like electricity mixed with honey. The card began to glow, vibrating with barely contained force. He held it for ten seconds, twenty, thirty—
Terror spiked through him. What if I can't control it? What if I blow myself up?
He dropped the card in panic.
The explosion blasted a hole through the kitchen wall, showering him with plaster and wood splinters. His ears rang as smoke filled the apartment. Through the new hole, he could see straight into the neighboring building where an elderly woman in curlers was staring at him in shock.
"Mon Dieu!" he whispered, using Gambit's voice again. The accent felt natural, like his tongue had always shaped words this way.
He stumbled backward, bumping into a dresser. The mirror above it showed Remy LeBeau's face twisted with confusion and fear—his own emotions wearing a stranger's features.
This is real. I'm really here. I'm really him.
But not him. Not entirely. The memories trickling through his mind were fragmented—flashes of Guild training, heated arguments with someone named Henri, a woman with dark hair and deadly eyes who made his heart race. Remy's memories, incomplete and hazy like trying to remember a dream.
Meanwhile, his own memories remained crystal clear. His boring office job, his studio apartment, his Friday night ritual of reading X-Men comics while eating takeout Chinese food. The rain-soaked intersection where a pickup truck had run a red light and ended everything.
I died. And somehow I woke up here, in a fictional universe, in the body of a character I used to read about.
The implications crashed over him like cold water. If this was the real X-Men universe, then everything he'd read about was going to happen. The wars, the betrayals, the deaths. Sentinel programs designed to hunt mutants. Government registration acts. Apocalypse awakening to remake the world in his image.
And somehow, he was supposed to navigate it all while pretending to be someone he'd never been.
A business card fell out of the dresser drawer when he yanked it open looking for aspirin. Thick paper, expensive. An X logo embossed in gold.
"Mister LeBeau, I believe we have much to discuss. When you're ready, you'll know where to find us. - C. Xavier."
Charles Xavier. Professor X. Leader of the X-Men.
The card was dated today, but the handwriting looked aged, the ink slightly faded. Like it had been written years ago but delivered this morning.
He knows. Somehow the world's most powerful telepath knows something's wrong.
More cards scattered from the drawer—Guild tokens, heist plans sketched on napkins, phone numbers for fences and black market dealers. And underneath it all, a leather-bound journal filled with Remy LeBeau's handwriting.
The last entry was dated yesterday:
"Contract confirmed. Heart of New Orleans retrieved from Boudreaux collection. Henri still asking too many questions about the job, but money's too good to pass up. Something feels wrong about this whole thing. Client paid up front—never a good sign. But Guild needs the funds, and Bella Donna..."
The entry cut off mid-sentence.
He flipped through earlier pages, finding references to Guild politics he didn't understand, heist plans for targets he'd never seen, and that name again and again: Bella Donna. Sometimes written with obvious affection, sometimes scratched out violently, sometimes underlined three times like a prayer or a curse.
Gambit's past. His life. His problems.
Problems that were now his problems.
He closed the journal and walked back to the hole in his kitchen wall. The elderly neighbor had disappeared, probably calling the police. He needed to fix this, or find somewhere else to stay, or—
His reflection caught his eye again. Remy LeBeau's face, but wearing his own confused expression. Red-on-black eyes that seemed to glow with their own inner light.
"Merde," he said again, the word feeling like a sigh. "This ain't my bedroom."
But it was his now. His face, his body, his life. His powers, dangerous and barely controlled. His past, filled with people who would expect him to be someone he'd never been.
And somewhere out there, Charles Xavier was waiting.
The sirens were getting closer again.
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