App for Piper 90

[kingofneworleans]

APPLICATION
Character Name: Remy Etienne LeBeau/Gambit
Fandom: Marvel Comics - X-Men
Character Journal: kingofneworleans
Canon, AU, CRAU, or OC? Canon
Canon point: The end of the 2012-2013 solo series
PB: Comic art

SETTING BACKGROUND

The Marvel Comic universe is a lot like our modern world. Except that there are superheroes, supervillains, mutants, magic users, gods, and monsters. Mythology is real. Aliens are real. Technology is sometimes far beyond what we have in the current time and is moving forward at a faster clip. The public are protected and put in danger every day by people who have powers and while there's the usual prejudice, there's also the new sorts of prejudice of people who are granted powers by their genetics and those who get them by accident. Because genetic powers are worse, somehow.


HISTORY

Abandoned at birth. Stolen from hospital/orphanage for the Antiquary. Jean-Luc LeBeau, leader of the Thieves Guild, makes a deal and regains the baby boy. Named Remy and placed with Fagan's Mob, raised as a pickpocket on the streets of New Orleans.

Meets Bella Donna Boudreaux at age eight.

Tries to steal the wallet of Jean-Luc LeBeau at age ten. Jean-Luc recognizes the boy and decides to take him in. He adopts Remy, who starts learning the ways of the Thieves Guild.

Passes his Tilling age thirteen to become part of the Guild properly. Accompanies his cousin, Etienne, on his Tilling. Runs foul of Candra, benefactress of the Guilds. Etienne dies. Remy lives.

Four months before his eighteenth birthday, goes to Paris with his adopted brother, Henri, to steal the Cheating Star. Runs foul of Sabertooth, who makes him choose between his brother and a woman in love with him. He chooses family.

Marries Bella Donna soon after his eighteenth birthday. Her brother challenges him to a duel. Remy kills Julien and is from New Orleans. He doesn't take Bella Donna with him.

Spends time traveling. Loses control of his powers. Is directed to Nathaniel Essex, who does a surgery to bring Remy's powers back under control. Remy steals information to pay his debt.

Morlock Massacre: Remy gathers the Marauders and leads them to the Morlock tunnels. He tries to stop the killing and nearly dies himself. Saves one child. It's not enough.

More travel. Saves a little girl in Cairo, IL, from the Shadow King. She is Storm, trapped in the body of a pre-teen. He brings her into his world for a time, until she remembers. Then he goes with her to Xavier's and joins up.

Genosha. Some of the kids are kidnapped to the island nation, including Storm. Various X-teams go to the rescue. Remy is key to getting them out at one point.

Meets Rogue. Decides to woo her. Bishop comes back from the future. Hates him. Bella Donna comes for his help. She dies against the Brood.

Remy and Rogue get closer. Remy is called back to New Orleans for the Tithing. Henri is killed delivering the message to Remy, who learns that neither Bella Donna nor her brother are dead. Julien is crazed because of the Elixir of Life that Candra gives the Thieves. Remy steals it to save Bella Donna's life, though she loses her memory thanks to Rogue's touch. Remy returns with Rogue.

Isreal. Rogue kisses Remy as the world ends. Then it doesn't. Remy is comatose for three weeks. Rogue runs. They meet again in Seattle where Remy offers to let her absorb his memories to know what she can't remember. She refuses and leaves. He returns to New York, eventually.

Onslaught: Makes up with Bishop. Rogue returns with Joseph. Everybody is uncomfortable.

X-Men go to space. Remy saves Rogue from the Phalanx and proclaims his love.

X-Men come back from space. Land in Antarctica. Spend some time powerless. Remy and Rogue have a night. The next day, Remy's part in the Massacre is exposed by Rogue being forced to take his memories. She leaves him behind.

Escapes Antarctica thanks to the New Son. Eventually goes back to the X-Men. Does jobs for the Thieves' Guild. Goes back in time. Has to have his powers opened up again to get back to his home time. Learns New Son is an alternate version of himself. Eventually kills New Son. Becomes head of the United Guilds.

Framed for murder in Australia. Cleared by Storm's team. Kidnapped to Madripoor to become a battery for a world gate. Nearly dies. Rogue pulls him back but both are powerless. Go off to live a life together.

Returns to thieving. Helps Storm. Gets powers jumpstarted. Returns to the X-Men. Gets blinded. Gets jumpstarted again to return eyesight. Does some jobs in New Orleans. Zombies. Goes back to the X-Men

Telepathic couples counselling with Emma Frost. Mystique infiltrates as one of the students. Ends up breaking Remy and Rogue up.

Becomes Death out of wanting to control things from the inside. Doesn't work out. Escapes the defeat, rejoins Sinister and the Marauders.

Is involved with Mystique uses the baby Hope to reset Rogue's powers. Respects Rogue's desire to be alone. Eventually does go with Xavier to see her when Xavier gives her control of her powers.

Returns to X-Men and teaches. Gets cats. Does thieving occasionally. Tries to steal Excalibur. Helps a woman end her cursed existence. Helps an old friend stay alive. Nearly dies. Becomes the head of the international Thieves' Guild.

PERSONALITY

Remy LeBeau is a difficult man to get to know. He has spent his entire life as a thief or gambler of some stripe, throwing in the occasional con on top of it. Most people only see what he puts out in front of them, the devil-may-care attitude with a grin as wide as the Mississippi Delta, one that rarely reaches his eyes. Sometimes they get to see the man who carries the weight of a world and a lot of expectations on his shoulders. But few get to see what lies beneath his masks as he plays most things close to the chest.

Though he prefers to be somewhat underestimated and will pull the 'dumb bayou boy' act, Remy is actually a very intelligent. He has a head for mathematics and maps, able to keep up in mind twists and turns when it comes to being led through a building. He can fairly quickly find his way through unfamiliar territory and then find his way back out by memory.

And while he's very good at finding information and doing research to get what he needs, Remy prefers improvisation to making a plan. It tends to make things easier for him when the inevitable happens and things go wrong. If he's part of a team and there's a team plan, he'll follow that. After all, he didn't make it. But he's always ready to be able to change direction at the drop of a hat. Or, at least, when the best laid plans of mice and men go to shit.

Remy tends to jump into situations without looking. A habit that gets him into a lot of trouble and often in over his head. But he does it because there are people who need a hand, who are in trouble and need the kind of help that a thief/hero can provide. This occasionally gets him into even more trouble and has sometimes meant that he ends up being used. Remy doesn't like to admit the soft spot that a guy like him has for damsels in distress. Given the number of times it's nearly gotten him killed, though, it's understandable why he'd keep it quiet.

For all his joie de vivre, Remy can just as quickly be hit by bouts of melancholy and depression. He's had more than a few rough spots in his life and done more than a few things that he regrets. The Marauders and the Morlock Tunnels are mistakes that come to haunt him sometimes, with Antarctica on their heels. His deal with Apocalypse to become Death weighs heavy on him, even though originally done with good intentions. All of which tend to feed into his general Catholic guilt and that feeds into the self-loathing that he keeps as hidden as possible. Very few of even his closest friends know how deep that goes, though he has tried to release more of it recently. However, he spent a lot of his early years being blamed for other people's troubles. It left a mark.

It's partly because of these feelings of guilt that he doesn't actually consider himself a hero, despite all the good that he's done with the X-Men and on his own. He wants to be the hero that people look up to, that deserves the spot on the Avengers that was recently offered to him (though he did find the file and found out what was being said about him -- that was rough), but he's a thief at heart. He enjoys the thrills of the heist and the adrenaline rush of the chase to ever be comfortable as the hero. He's a scoundrel and most of the time he even likes that. He just happens to be a scoundrel with a heart of gold and a soft spot for women and children in distress.

Logan recently commented that, "There are people you count on to be there. And there are people you count on to be there when it matters." And Remy is definitely in the latter group. He's the king of thieves, a son, a best friend and a sometimes boyfriend. He often has too many balls in the air, too many people who have demands to be there for everything. But, at the end of the day, he is the one you can depend on to be there when someone is in need.


CANON POWERS

BIOKINETIC FIELD - Remy's body produces a biokinetic field that allows him to set off a domino effect in non-living objects he's touching, causing the energy to become highly volatile and explosive on contact. In other words, he makes, "No, easily thrown objects! My one weakness!" into a thing for everyone. He can also delay an explosion for a short amount of time, but it requires a lot of concentration. The field also grants him heightened agility and creates a static interference that shields his mind from telepathic detection and intrusion. Some of the interference seems to be inherent, though, as Remy has proved resistant to mental control even when without his powers.

EMPATHIC CHARM - A form of empathy that allows him to exert a subtle influence over sentient minds, compelling them to believe what he says and agree with his suggestions. It doesn't work on people who know about the ability.

NOTE: Remy actually already operates at a much lower power level than he was born with. His full power template allows him to charge any object, living or not, within his line of sight to cause them to explode. He could manipulate biokinetic energy to cause various effects, such as burning, molecular discomfort or incineration. And he could also use the biokinetic energy in his own body to augment his strength, agility, endurance and reflexes for short periods. He even had a healing factor and could fly. Basically, Remy is fucking OP at full power. Most of these powers were cut off by Nathaniel Essex when Remy was in his late teens, after he sought help for his powers going out of control. He had to have that part of his brain taken out, though he had the bit replaced later on in order to do a bit of time travel. (Because he wasn't OP enough before that.) A fight with himself from an alternate universe with worse fashion sense burned out those powers, but his brain is intact. There's no telling what could happen eventually.

POWER SELECTION

CANON POWERS

I'll be sticking with Remy's canon powers at current levels. The general biokinetic field is a power that is always on and, as such, puts Remy's metabolism higher than normal. He needs a fair number of calories in order to keep his powers at even these levels. He's also limited by time and ammo itself. While he prefers small, throwable items because they only need a small touch of power and a little concentration, larger items require longer amounts of time and much more concentration to keep the explosive cascade under control. He COULD charge a Mini, for example, but it would take at least an hour and he'd be exhausted by the end of it. In a straight out fight, he could probably throw cards or other small items for half an hour before he needed a couple hours of break and a full meal.


ABILITIES

Remy is a master of bōjutsu, a martial art that focuses on use of a staff as a weapon, as well as being trained in several other martial arts including savate. He's an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, putting street fighting skills and acrobatics into use. He also has some skill with a rapier. At least enough to have killed Julien Boudreaux in a duel.

The ability to throw things that find their mark every time isn't actually connected to his mutant powers. It's a skill that he practiced and perfected from his childhood, though he didn't pick up the cards as his weapon of choice until he was fifteen. He's also incredibly good with a deck of cards in general, able to make it proverbially walk and talk, as it were. He's also a master of card tricks. There's a reason the X-Men don't let him deal on poker nights.

He is a master thief, one of the best in his world. He has shown low-level hacking skills, the ability to change his accent to fit in for at least a short amount of time, and the skills to break into even Tony Stark's home to find his armors. He has also shown the ability to remember building plans and to reproduce them with the skill of an architect. He's also never met a lock he couldn't pick, so long as he has the tools, though there are always alternative ways to get through a door.

Whether it is entirely a learned skill or partly due to an unknown facet of his empathic abilities, Remy is incredibly good at reading people. A skill he often puts to use while playing poker or other games of chance.

Remy is an excellent cook, a skill he picked up at home and during his travels. He even worked as a short order cook for a time in Arizona. His specialty is apparently gumbo, but there's little he can't cook with access to a recipe and the ingredients. Though someone may have to hide the cayenne pepper. And be prepared for leftovers.

He can drive both cars and motorcycles. He has had lessons in piloting the Blackbird, but it's probably not something he would do unless it was an emergency.

Remy is fluent in English and French, both Cajun French and the standard form. He also speaks a fair amount of Japanese (though his accent is terrible) and Spanish. He also knows American Sign Language.

He's actually pretty good with children and teenagers. Some might say that it's because he's still a kid himself. At least, maturity wise.


SETTING/SUITABILITY

➤ How do you expect your character to respond to the setting? Even if they plan to rebel in the long term, will they be able to at least obey enough to not get shocked to death?
While Remy's got beaucoup issues with authority in general, he does prefer to stay alive. So he'll absolutely help to rebel and he'll do stuff that is sneaky as much as possible. But he's good at toeing the line. Or, at least, looking like he does.

➤ What do you hope to do with your character long-term?
Remy's in a generally good place, though he's been having a bit of a crisis at the moment. Questions about where his life would be if he weren't a thief, if he hadn't been brought up the way that he was. And also wondering if he can be the king of thieves and a hero at the same time. He needs to come to some peace with the disparate parts of his life, perhaps enough to accept them both fully.

➤ Does your character currently have skills that would allow them to adapt, survive, and do the heroic things being asked of them? If your character doesn't, do you think they'd have the capacity to learn quickly?
Even if he didn't have his powers, Remy would definitely have the skills to adapt and survive. That's basically what he's been doing his entire life.

➤ If they're not used to cooperating with others, what makes you think they'll be able to adapt to cooperating with the group?
Remy works just fine with a group as he does on his own. He's been an X-Man for a good few years now, after all.

➤ Will your character have long-term plans to rebel against Jorgmund? If so, how? Will they betray the other PCs and cooperate with Jorgmund? If so, how do you plan to handle the negative CR that might arise?
He has every intention of rebelling against Jorgmund and helping out with plans to get everybody out and home safely. Did we mention that he's not much on authority?

SAMPLES

Network Sample

[When the camera comes on, the subject isn't even looking at it. Instead, he's turned to the young woman putting the blood pressure monitor on his arm. The microphone only picks up a low murmuring, soft and amused. The woman, however, is smiling, a light blush across her cheeks before she steps away with a squeeze to his upper arm and a giggle.]

[It's interrupted by someone clearing their throat, managing to put a good amount of irritation into that sound. The man turns, leaving the camera with the impression of disheveled reddish-brown hair and a grin along with...laser eyes. Like when a cat looks directly at the flash. It takes a moment for him to glance away, revealing the red isn't a trick of the light but his actual eyes.]

Sorry 'bout dat. Forgot you'd have dat on by now.

[Another grin as he settles back. The man behind the camera makes another irritated sound, picking up a paper. "This won't take very long, Mr. LeBeau. Just answer a few questions, if you would.]

Bien sûr. Ask 'way. [A wider grin as Remy spreads his open hands apart.] I got nothin' to hide.

[The lie detector keeps scratching along normally and the woman at it, the one Remy had been speaking to, glances up to nod. "Very well. We'll start simple. You're on your way to your best friend's wedding and your boss calls and says a client needs something. What do you do?"]

Well, dat's simple 'nough. Ain't no way dat I'm de only one dat can do what de client needs, but I AM de one on my way to a weddin'. An' I wouldn' be 'bout to let Ororo down like dat. So I'd have somebody else lined up dat could help de client instead and pass my boss on to dem. Job's a job. But I don' disappoint my friends if I can avoid it.

[There's no hesitation in the lie detector's movement, nor any sound but the scratching as the woman makes a few marks on the paper. "What is your biggest regret and why?"]

[There's no change in the smile, though the eyes flicker to the camera and away in a moment.]

I ain't been home in a few years. Ma tante, she's gonna give me one hell of a talkin' to de next time I call an' I jus' know dat she's gonna get on my case 'bout findin' a nice girl t' settle down wit'. [He glances over to the woman again. She blushes again.] 'Course, might jus' have to tell her dat I been on a grand adventure an' found my heart stolen 'way. [An expansive shrug as he goes back to the camera.] You know how family is, neh?

[There's another giggle from the lie detector and the man behind the camera engages in some hurried shuffling of papers. "One last question, Mr. LeBeau. If you could get rid of any one of the US states, which one would you get rid of and why?]

[There doesn't seem to be a quick answer for this one. Remy actually reaches up, rubbing at the stubble on his chin, eyes downcast as he considers. After a moment, he reaches for his back pocket, pulling out a deck of cards and starts playing with them. Nothing more than an easy overhand shuffle as he considers for nearly a minute.]

[The man behind the camera clears his throat again. "Mr. LeBeau?"]

I'm tryin' to decide which I dislike more. Could get rid of Georgia, but dat feels a bit wrong. I mean, it's part of de Sout', too. Dey make pretty good sweet tea down dere. An' would dat mean gettin' rid of Coke? But, it would mean bein' rid of de Atlanta Falcons.

[The shuffle switches, going back to the hand that previously held the deck.] On de ot'er hand, dere's Massachusetts. Which I ain't really got a pro'lem wit', so long as I ain't tryin' to make my way t'rough Boston traffic. Dey don' call dem 'Massholes' for not'ing, after all. But de Patriots? Definitely could do wit'out dem.

[He takes another moment, frowning in thought before he stops and shows the card in the middle of the pack. The King of Spades.]

Massachusetts, den. Never did like Brady.


Prose Sample

This post in reply to Rogue on the TDM.

ADDITIONAL INFO

Remy has a physical mutation. His eyes are very strange, red irises with black sclera. The red does glow under the right conditions, usually when Remy's annoyed or angry, though they do show up in the dark. He does that when he's trying to be spooky. They are a bit more photosensitive than average, giving him slightly better ability to see in low light but making bright light much less fun.

Remy's uniform is basically highly articulated light body armor with a high neck. The uniform when he's coming in from doesn't incorporate the headpiece of many of his older uniforms. It does have flashes of the magenta that was in his early outfits, though on black instead of blue. It also has heavy boots that come up about mid calf in black. There's a space in the belt for a cylinder, about eight inches long and an inch and a half in diameter, a collapsible bo staff made of adamantium. The metal itself doesn't react with Remy's powers, but he can slough a charge off of it in the direction that he wants.

He'll also arrive with a leather trenchcoat. Custom made so that it has about a dozen more pockets than normal. It can hold a variety of things in it. Current inventory: five full decks of cards (it was six, but he palmed one), one half deck of cards up the sleeves, a sleeve of 30 black no metal hair ties with three missing, a red bandana, two white handkerchiefs, a handful of cinnamon Jolly Ranchers, another handful of cherry Jolly Ranchers, a pack of gum, two sets of professional lockpicks, half a dozen loose bobby pins, three pairs of black gloves (two with the thumb, pointer and pinkie fingers cut off, one full set), a silver pocket watch with a heavy fox link chain, a pair of sunglasses, and a copy of The Three Musketeers in French.


FINAL QUESTIONS
The players won't know what the mods are doing with these questions until sometime later.

➤ Will your character suspect some kind of guiding intelligence has brought them to the game? Or will they think it was random or done by Jorgmund?

In Remy's experience, stuff like this isn't random. There's something behind it, whether it's Jorgmund or something else. Though, if it IS Jorgmund, he'd probably put quotation marks around the intelligence part.

➤ If they think it was something other than Jorgmund, like God or some other force of fate, what character traits do they think of that intelligence as having? Is it cruel or kind? Capriciously punishing them or doing it for good reason?

Another thing that Remy has never had much luck with is higher powers and punishment. He'd probably accept that he was brought here as punishment, but there are too many other people who obviously don't deserve to be there. I think, in the end, he'd sort of figure that God is a gambler. Threw the dice, so let's see what comes up. It's easier than believing any God would bring kids into this, after all.