InsaneJournal

OOC; Profile
Full Name: Remy Etienne LeBeau
PB: Taylor Kitsch
Fandom: X-Men
Age: 24
Affiliation: Mutant

Occupation: Thief, Gambler, Hustler, Freedom Fighter
Residence: New Orleans, LA, though currently on the run
Family: Having been abandoned as a baby, Remy's only family is his adoptive one, and he's fiercely protective of them: Jean-Luc LeBeau (foster father), Henri LeBeau (foster brother, deceased), Mercy LeBeau (sister-in-law), Theoren Marceaux (cousin), Etienne Marceaux (cousin, deceased), Emil Lapin (cousin), and Tante Mattie (aunt of sorts).

Personality: He is something of a charmer, even now; it's a survival mechanism. Remy flirts with anything on two legs--women, men, and actually legs just might be optional. His charm makes him sensitive to others and the Cajun is drawn to people even if he has trouble trusting them.

He’s very good at acting cocky and aloof, but Remy is actually a sensitive soul. Once he allows himself to care for someone it's usually forever; in this way, he's assembled something of a ragtag group of people he considers as close as family. He's willing to please those he cares about in order to validate his own worth, regardless of the cost, but tries his best to hide that fact behind a laissez faire attitude and a lot of sexual charisma, never letting anyone see too deeply into him. Because of his past, it's easy for him to feel inadequate as a person of worth in comparison to those around him--part of him will always be just a filthy streetrat with demon eyes--and that pushes him to do dangerous things just to prove his value to himself. He'd rather let everyone believe that he’s a dumb redneck or an adrenaline junky than actually admit that he feels that way. So, while he is very sympathetic and understanding to other people's emotions when he wants to be, the Cajun can also be cool and aloof, hiding behind the guise of a loner.

Despite the occasional bout of low self worth, he's okay with leading people to think that maybe he's shallow or not as intelligent as he really is; after all, there's no such thing as not having enough aces up your sleeve. There's no arguing that he is a fickle creature. The greatest accomplishments and greatest downfalls in Gambit's life always seem to come when he has let his emotions override his instinctive cunning and wits, since those are the times he risks everything. Despite that, Gambit loves both people and games of all kinds because risk is his great addiction. Thankfully, Lady Luck seems to have a fondness for him and is often on Gambit's side.

Because he is an excellent athlete and has a high energy metabolism associated with his mutation, Gambit has a need to be on the move and doing things continuously. As such, he does not do well in confinement, and isolation can send him into a downward spiral, but he is above all else a survivor. Despite being capable of terrible bouts of depression, rage, regression, and low self worth, he also has the knack for compartmentalizing and shoving those feelings to the side in order to focus on just getting through. So, while he has his unstable moments, they seem to pass quickly and he is relatively mentally stable so long as he has a goal to focus on.

His biggest strengths are being charming, daring, loyal, protective, and cunning, while Gambit's biggest flaws are being fickle, superstitious, addicted to risk, and difficulty in letting down his mental/emotional walls.

Physical Description: 6'1" and 160lbs, there's a sense that he could easily carry another twenty pounds of muscle and still have a lithe physique (weightloss courtesy of his incarceration). Remy moves almost like he has muscles that humans don't, graceful even in the worst situations. His flexibility is both a result of training and his mutation, and Gambit's agility is something that has to be seen to believe because 13 year old gymnasts are less limber than he is. As a living generator of bio-kinetic energy, he possesses physiological attributes adapted for constant motion. As a result, his mutation has sped up Remy's metabolism and increased his body's innate physical qualities (speed, reflexes, stamina, agility, flexibility, dexterity and balance) beyond the limit of natural human capability. He has startling red on black eyes, which gave him his nickname Le Diable, and he wears his reddish-brown hair long, sometimes pulled back into a messy ponytail but usually loose to hide his inhuman eyes.

History: Identified as a mutant at birth due to his eyes, Remy was born in or around New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was abandoned at Charity Hospital and where his very distinctive red eyes caught the attention of the Antiquary, a power in the New Orleans criminal underground who dealt in the stealing and selling of children. Considering Remy a work of art, the Antiquary put pressure on the local crime syndicate to kidnap the child for him and because of his political sway it was done. Refusing would have meant an internal split in his organization, and to prevent that Jean-Luc LeBeau, the best thief in New Orleans, stole the infant from the hospital. However, he was disturbed by turning over the child to a known pedophile and when Jean-Luc rose to power a few years later, he had Remy taken from the Antiquary and placed on the streets of New Orleans where he could keep an eye on him through his contacts.

Having been abandoned at birth, Remy does not remember his real parents; his first memories are of growing up on the streets (if he remembers the Antiquary, he doesn’t speak of him), memories that are of being mostly alone and mostly on his own. Even as a young child, he took to stealing, among other things, to survive. Remy doesn't like to talk about his life then, but even today his childhood is still evident in the distrust he holds for the world around him; there's a sense that he's always waiting for an expected kick to the teeth regardless of the situation. During this time, he was partially in the care of a disenfranchised thief named Fagan, living the life of a street urchin (picking pockets, etc.) in order to eat, but Remy early on learned that the only person he could rely on to care for him was himself. It's all too easy to imagine the fate of a child on the streets of a city known for its debauchery, and Remy will not argue that his view of the world as a result isn't normal or even moral.

When he was around 11 years old, Remy bumped into Jean-Luc on a street in the French Quarter and tried to steal his wallet; naturally, the master thief caught him. Remy’s potential at the trade was evident to Jean-Luc even then and the boy’s charm made him want to help him. Having orchestrated so much of Remy’s life up until this point, and in spite of his mutation, Jean-Luc decided to adopt him as his own son and brought him into the ranks of his criminal family.

Remy has no formal schooling. The formative years of his early childhood were spent on the streets of New Orleans where learning was measured in being able to survive--and let there be no doubt that the Cajun's survival instinct is immense, he's quick, has more lives than a cat, and doesn't lack the determination to do whatever is needed to make it another day. As a teen he was home schooled by Jean-Luc and the rest of his adoptive family, but he wasn't very content sitting and learning from a book even if he was gifted with a quick mind. He had a flair for arts and languages (he speaks multiple ones, though English and French most often) and thievery (a result of being adopted by the patriarch of a New Orleans thieves’ guild), the latter of which has made him good with computers and high-tech security systems and how to get around them. He's great with skills that require the use of his hands: art, theft, throwing, cooking, fencing, mechanics, etc, and doesn't mind spending any amount of time perfecting his techniques provided that he's not stuck thumbing through a book.

While in his care, his adoptive father saw to it that Remy received training in both fencing and multiple martial arts, particularly savate, and as a result he is best in hand-to-hand situations, meshing both street-fighting techniques and acrobatics. When fighting, his weapons of choice are a telescopic metal staff and playing cards, but with the powers at his disposal he’s really good at improvisation, too, and he's an excellent strategist as a master thief. His experiences growing up were by no means conventional, and maybe his family consisted of thieves, liars, and whores, but Remy has a deep and abiding love for them. After living on the streets, they gave him something he couldn’t have even imagined, they gave him a home, which Remy firmly believes to be a treasure more valuable than any other.

In his teens, the last of Remy’s mutation to manifest was his ability to generate kinetic charges. At first he tried to control the power on his own, taking throwing lessons from his cousin Lapin and learning to dispel the energy that way. However, eventually, Remy's mutant abilities became so powerful that he was unable to control them, and while before he might have slipped beneath the notice of the powers that be that became much more difficult when things around him began exploding simply due to his presence. The path of destruction that followed the young man brought him to the attention of the government, and despite the fact that Jean-Luc’s wealth afforded him the best in medical care and an experimental operation that led to better control over his gifts, he was already on their radar by then. While it was hard to catch someone as slippery and skilled as this thief, a year later the Cajun left one evening for a poker game and never returned home.

It takes a hell of a lot to catch him off guard, but even Remy wasn’t prepared for the unexpected tazers and tranquilizers that met him as he left the casino in the early morning. The agents charged with the unfortunate task of capturing him though weren’t prepared for how quickly he would shake off their sedatives either. When he came to, in a blind panic and thoroughly pissed, Remy charged the van they were trying to load him in, setting it off like a car bomb and killing one of his captors. In the fight that ensued afterward, even sluggish and hurt, and though they subdued him in the end, he critically wounded two more. Let’s just say that his attitude toward the government hasn’t improved much since then.

Remy spent two years in the care of the government, trapped in medium-level internment. His metabolism as much as his mutation was of particular interest to the scientists who discovered a stabilizing factor in his cells that allowed them to handle the enhanced energy running through him. It also enabled them to stabilize the powers they were trying to implant into their super soldiers, making Remy one of their favorite toys. He spent two years in hell, two years of being poked and prodded and experimented on, two years of spinal taps and surgeries and being the government's walking guinea pig, two years of torture and desolation.

Then Remy LeBeau became the first to ever escape the facility.

They might have been smart enough to keep him from using his kinetic charges, but they never expected that the Cajun's charm might be something more than his quick smile. He built relationships with the guards, other inmates, orderlies, anyone he thought could help him, subtly using his power to twist them in his favor, bending their emotions toward him, and when the opportunity came, he took it. He "won" a key in a friendly poker match between him and the guards on the night shift. No one thought twice about his suggestion that they give it to him. Not even as he let others free, using his charm to nudge the angry mutants toward killing their captors as he made his escape.

A day later, the bombs hit. That's probably the only reason he made it out of Washington alive, considering that Remy isn't entirely well-- both mentally and physically-- thanks to his time in Richland. They probably would have caught him easily, so it's a good thing that the government suddenly has bigger problems to deal with because the Cajun's desperation never would have allowed them to take him back alive. Now he's on the run, not even too sure where he's going. Foremost in his mind is a driving need to check on his family, get back to New Orleans, and make sure the nuclear fallout from Houston hasn't hurt those dear to him. It's only a stopgap measure. He knows he won't be able to stay there; it's the first place they'll look for him if the government decides they want to cultivate more of the unique factor from his cells or if they decide he still needs to be in an internment camp or if suddenly he's too high risk to allow to live. But, right now, it's the only place where Remy knows to go. Home.

Miscellania: Smoker. Bisexual hedonist. Tarot card reader. Believes in both Catholicism and Voodoo. Talks about himself in the third person, a lot. Always either unbelievably lucky or desperately unlucky, rarely an in between. Has trouble sleeping through the night, but catnaps constantly, doesn't matter where he is. Hates hospitals and distrusts doctors thanks to his experiences at the facility, will avoid them at all costs. He's more scared than he'll ever admit, and that makes him very dangerous.

Abilities: Remy's primary mutant power is the ability to charge matter, both organic and not, with volatile kinetic energy, causing the object to explode on impact, when thrown at a target, or after a controlled time restraint. He's so attuned to this energy that he can manipulate it on levels as small as molecules. For the most part, Gambit has excellent control over this power and uses it in many different ways. What he wields now was once even more powerful but he required brain surgery to help strengthen his control and keep him from blowing up everything and everyone he came into contact with--Remy doesn't like to talk about that, but he does have to battle to control even his reduced powers when he is particularly upset or uptight. Ambient bio-kinetic molecules, though not usually visible, are constantly in motion around him, creating a sort of static interference that shields his mind from detection and intrusion by even the most powerful telepaths and which neutralizes any other mutant powers that involve direct physical contact upon his person.

As a living generator of bio-kinetic energy, he possesses physiological attributes adapted for constant motion. As a result, he heals a little faster than normal (but it's by no means a true healing factor though it has saved his ass a few times) and his mutation has sped up Remy's metabolism (making it something of a craps-shoot when it comes to how drugs/alcohol effect him) and increased his body's innate physical qualities (speed, reflexes, stamina, agility, flexibility, dexterity and balance) beyond the limit of natural human capability. When fighting, his weapon of choice is a telescopic metal staff and the powers at his disposal. He is also trained in fencing and multiple martial arts, particularly savate, which coupled with his thieves training and natural mutant abilities makes Remy a superhuman combatant. He is best in hand-to-hand situations, meshing both street-fighting techniques and acrobatics, and he's an excellent strategist and master thief.

He is also an empath, though you will never hear him talk about what he calls his "charm"; the final card up his sleeve, it's a power that is his most secret, and sometimes his most reviled. He always has a good sense of exactly what is going on emotionally with other people. While he can't make anyone go against their character, Remy's charm can be mildly hypnotic, allowing him to exert a subtle influence over sentient minds. It has been theorized that Gambit is able to achieve this by bio-kinetically altering the charge of neurons in the brain matter of the person he's targeting. The power allows him to compel others to believe what he says and agree with what he suggests, though more powerful minds have proven immune to it. Either way, it is not a power he likes people to know about and it is rare for him to use it. Being so keyed in to the movement of energy and emotion, sometimes such an intimate use of it can run in both directions, causing the feelings to backflow into him. Remy has learned by now that it's usually best not to know what people feel about him; he has enough self loathing without the help.


Screenname: Remy le Diable (on AIM)
Journal: le_beau_diable