[ManolisV]

Judge Name: Nick!
Player Name: Manolis Vamvounis
Character Name: Lord Mastermind (Lady No More)

Chapter 7: "Cajun Spice"


“You were actually referring to yourself as the “Ragin’ Cajun”? I see I have my work cut out for me.”

The tall dark man let out a chuckle before moving to his white plastic seat, opposite the restrained man. The ‘Cajun’ was hunched in a corner of the padded white room. His arms were tied behind his back with a straightjacket. His hair was an untidy mess, his face dirty with weeks’ worth of grime, and the white of the suit tarnished with stains whose origin a wise man wouldn’t delve too deep into.

“Gambit goes by many names, mon ami. Remy LeBeau, the Ragin Cajun, le Diable Blanc pour ze femmes. T’at’s bahrely hahf of ‘em. Alors, who might you are den?”

Remy was trying to mask his fear, but the truth was he had no recollection of the events that led him in his current situation. The man pretended to adjust his jacket sleeves, failing to mask another chuckle. He was in his early 30s, long curly hair framing his well-trimmed beard and sideburns. He looked regal and mischievous, in his period suit and goth jacket, a man out of time.

“Ah, they had warned me about the accent, they sure weren’t kidding around. Charming, just like those misnomers. Kids could be so cruel in your hometown. To answer your question, Remy. My name is Doctor Reginald Dirt. I’m the psychiatrist assigned to your case. I have a specialisation on violent and intrusive hallucinations, I hope we can make some progress together.”

“Un docteur? A shrink? Remy LeBeau’s not insane, monsieur!”

“Talking in the third person, as well. Ah, let’s talk about you, Remy. Do you know why you’re here?” The doctor jotted down on his notepad, with a faint smirk.

“Mais non! I, I’ve ‘ad a bad ‘ear, I made beaucoup de wrong choix, mais... Insane?”

“Let’s pick it up from the start. It’s interesting to me how you’ve appropriated all those names for yourself. You’ve taken all the childish taunts and made them into an... armour. Take ‘LeBeau’ for example... ‘The beautiful one’? Don’t you think that’s a cruel name for a boy with your... condition?”

“You hahv a problem wit’ me bein’ a mutie, monsieur docteur? Es-tu racist?”

“Listen Remy, there’s no easy way to break this to you. All these illusions you’ve created to shield yourself from your dark secrets. You will need to face them here. Tell me. Why did they call you Le Diable Blanc? The White Devil?”

“I was a pale boy wit’ bright red eyes, n’est-ce pas? De kids, dey were ahfraid of me.”

“Yes, yes, red eyes! According to your file, you thought this was also a trait associated with your ‘special gifts’.”

“Spit it out, docteur! What you sayin’ to de Cajun?”

“See for yourself, Remy. I’ve brought you this mirror” Dr Dirt took out a pocket mirror from his jacket pocket, bringing it close to the annoyed Remy’s face, “The red eyes, the pale white skin, Remy. It does have to do with your genetics, but it’s not associated with some poorly-imagined power to charge throwing cards or charm the ladies. That’s all an elaborate ruse you created with your childish imagination. You were born with a condition referred to medically as Albinism, Remy.”

Remy hesitantly crawled towards the mirror while the doctor was explaining. He took a brief glance into his face and threw it away from him in disgust. His pigment less face, bright shining red eyes, long white hair-- a stranger looking back at him. He ran his fingers on his face, trying to remember the familiar features now gone.

“My foot! Non, I-I had white ‘ahr when Apoc’lips turned me into ‘is ‘orsemahn, mais, I-“

“You what, Remy? You got better? The history –the fake history- you dictated in our files is full of inconsistencies like this. One week you would be transformed into this white-haired dark-skinned monster-- revealing one of your true aspects, overcompensating for another. Then you’d disappear for a few weeks and return to normal with no explanation. Like you were pushing yourself to wake up to reality.”

“T’ese ahr all lies, docteur! Gambit is a real Cajun! Stop t’is game!”

“’Gambit’, yes... I reckoned the fake accent came from your need to cover your speech impediment -- after the Gumbo incident that earned you the ‘Gumbit’ moniker. Still, it’s too comical to fool anyone. Almost as if you’ve never actually listened to a real New Orleans accent before, but only read about it in comics. “

“T’ere’s people who know me. Contact de X-Men. Call ma Cherie, Rogue! I’ve done so much to her, mais she will still tell you...” Remy was refusing to believe the truth of the situation that was presented to him.

“Hahaha, you want me to talk to that skunk?”

“She’s NOT A SKUNK! She’s mon amour, mon destinee!”

“No, Remy, she IS a skunk. As in, an actual animal. Our records list her, your childhood pet. You were keeping her secretly as a boy, on the grounds of the Xavier school.”

That jolted a memory in Remy’s head. He could suddenly remember himself as a boy playing with the small animal he had found inside a tree stump.

“Non, eet cahn’t be vrai. Not true! But, you said the Xavier School! Eet exeest!”

“The Xavier School for ‘Special’ Children? Your father had you committed there as a child, claiming he couldn’t control your kleptomaniac ways.”

“Mon papa. ‘E was de leader of de Thieves Guil’, ‘e raised me. I joined de school as an adul’. We were all mutan’s, protectin’ a worl’ dat hate an’ fear us.”

“More absurdity. If it’s any solace, I believe your father, Dr Milbury was trying to cover both his own albino heritage, as well as the Marauders scandal when he sent you away to the school under false pretences.”

Remy’s head filled with more rediscovered memories. His real father, Nathaniel Milbury, covering his white skin with make-up, trying to blend in. He remembers the day his father and his friends dragged him screaming to the school gates, and handed him off to professor Xavier, a stern bald man in a wheelchair.

“De Marauders? T’en you know about wat I did for Milbury? Pour meester Sinister?”

“Mister Sinister. It’s marvellous how your mind coped with the reality of your situation. Imagining your father as a sadistic albino geneticist, with that cheesy name. I know the truth, Remy. ‘The Marauders’ is what the newspapers called them: your father and his group of influential friends. Professor Xavier, the Bishop, the Canadian couple Howlett and Creed, all those others. They had no right forcing you to do the things you did, at that tender age. And then as you grew too old for their tastes... They would make you go and talk to younger boys, lure them in the dark abandoned sewer tunnels and then guide them there to meet them.”

Remy was screaming at the top of his lungs: “Stop! Shut up! It’s lies!”. But he was only trying to convince himself at this point. The memories were so vibrant in his head, as if someone had just freshly prepared them and planted them there. He couldn’t deny his traumatic past any longer, and he couldn’t stay here either. He jumped on the doctor, knocking him on the floor. The mirror fell on the floor, breaking into shards, all reflecting the face he now knew was his true visage. He cut open his straightjacket and fled out into the corridors.

His real life was flashing before his eyes. He was an English boy, James Milbury; he was an albino; he was teased as school and taunted; his father and his friends were savages; his girlfriend wasn’t real; his wife was really a fat prostitute named Big Bella Donna; there were no mutants, no X-Men

. The orderlies had called for reinforcements, and they were ganging up on him now. He was trying to explain to them, but no one could understand his indecipherable accent. He felt inside his sleeves and was surprised to discover... a pack of cards! He started desperately throwing the cards at the guards, but they would simply flutter in the air and fall on the floor or float back to him. He never took into account the lack of actual aerodynamics in his choice of weapon.

Suddenly, the door behind him gave way, and he found himself walking backwards on a parapet, the sounds and smells of his Cajun country mysteriously coming from below the floating corridor. The guards were closing in. He had one card left. Focusing on it, he was surprised that it started glowing, charged with the explosive kinetic energy that was his mutant gift. What was the truth then? He threw the card at them, but it too failed to fly straight, instead landing at his feet and exploding with a loud bang, sending him flying into the gap beneath and inside a gigantic vat of boiling... soup?

Unable to swim, arms flailing wildly, his skin burning off, Remy - gasping for breath- called out his love’s name one last time before surrendering to the boiling inferno, his lifeless body disintegrating into the pot.

Dr Dirt walked through the door, laughing loudly, followed by a silent one-armed woman. The scenery flickered and dissolved around them. For a moment the doctor returned to his real form –Regan Wyngarde, the villainous illusionist Lady Mastermind- before again returning to her/his newest guise as Reggie Dirt. He walked over to the body of Remy LeBeau, knocking him to one side with his boot. His heart had stopped beating when his brain believed he had fallen into his boiling doom. He bent down and licked Remy’s open mouth.

“Mmmm, you were right, Mary Bandit. My Gumbo did need just an extra pinch of Cajun spice.”