InsaneJournal

summary. Batting first for the rescue party today is Remy LeBeau, who decides to forego his usual cool-cat, oh-so-subtle approach to breaking and entering in favor of some good old-fashioned brute force.

Gloves to mask the fingerprints? Check.

Coat to disguise who he was? Check.

Boots that wouldn't make too noise? Check.

Ziploc bag full of small doggy bones? A man can never be too sure that a Rottweiler's not gonna jump up from out of nowhere to bite you on the arm -- so yeah, check.

Growing up in a place as unique as New Orleans had exposed Remy LeBeau to a lot of crazy things, but it was like most other cities in the world in one respect -- a bona fide mind-reader was a difficult thing to come by. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, he'd been just as surprised as everybody else to learn that there was something about his powers that made it impossible for anyone to read his thoughts. Not that Remy minded the inconvenience to those poor telepaths, of course. He'd keep his cards as close to the vest as possible for as long as he could.

He'd just regarded it as a little quirk, a funny way of nature giving back and nothing more, but tonight it was actually supposed to come in handy. Big Bird over there had not only needed someone capable of breaking into this house, but someone whose mind couldn't be messed with. Remy would have been the best man for the job without the latter condition, of course, but now he was the only man for the job. How could he turn a request like that down? Besides, he hadn't worked with a team in a while, and he was kind of beginning to miss it.

Remy even liked his team. He leered in Rogue's general direction -- she seemed unimpressed. He would change her mind, especially now that the thievin' master class was in session.

From the outside, it looked like a pretty standard job. The house had all your usual components -- neighbor-unfriendly walls, tall front gate, muscleheads hired to look menacing in the front yard. All in all, nothing that Remy, veteran of the Lower Ninth, found particularly intimidating. Normally he would have approached the task of getting into the house with more finesse, taking care to slip in and out of the house without anyone suspecting anything had gone awry. This situation was different. Considering that this was not an operation where anyone had that delusion of getting in and out unnoticed -- and where speed was probably the most important element -- he'd skip the usual subtlety and deliberation.

Instead, it was as easy as strolling up to the gate, taking off one glove, and placing it on the metal bars. There must have been a motion sensor on the bars; no sooner had Remy touched them than an intercom on the near wall buzzed loudly, an impatient voice booming out of its speaker. "Who is this?" the disembodied voice demanded. Probably some more security inside. Around-the-clock surveillance -- he might have been impressed if it hadn't been utterly predictable. "Step away from the gate and state your business."

"Oh, hello," Remy hollered back at the intercom, cheerful as could be. Better make this quick, since through the modern technological wizardry of walkie-talkies, it looked like the hired muscle on the inside of the gate had finally noticed that he was there. "Prisoner transfer from Cell Block 1138."

The bars glowed violent purple for a moment, giving him just enough time to duck behind the security of the stone wall before they exploded inward.

Again, after pulling a stunt like this, Remy normally would have waited for all the dust to settle. This was not his usual set of circumstances -- time was of the essence. He immediately whirled back out from behind the safety of the wall to assess the damage. The gate had been reduced to a smoking pile of bent metal on the lawn. One or two of the hired thugs unconscious on the grass looked like they'd caught a flying bar in their faces, but Remy figured they couldn't have gotten any uglier, anyway.

Satisfyingly, the intercom had sustained a fatal blow.

Unfortunately, not all of the security guys had been taken out, and what was left of their motley crew seemed rather angry as they charged toward Remy, all fists and firearms. Now that the main barrier had been taken down, it looked to be a fight close in -- for his part, Remy swiftly bent over to pick one of the bars off the ground, superheated metal prevented from burning his hands thanks to the intervention of his gloves.

Anger made them clumsy, and mutation made Remy faster. It was over far too soon for him to feel challenged -- a duck here, a weave there, agility exponentially enhanced by the energy coursing through his body and years of practice in the streets making him impossible for them to beat. The factor of outside assistance also complicated his opponents' task. No sooner had a gun appeared than the (other) guy in the car -- Wade or something -- who wouldn't shut up materialized next to Remy, intent on dealing with a few security guards himself. Within a minute or two, the rest of Team Steroids joined their fellows unconscious on the grass as Remy stepped away from the pile, moving purposefully toward the door.

After several paces, Remy decided to vary the method a little. After all, one hand on the front door would be even more boring than one hand on the gate. Considering that he'd just been swinging the thing at a bunch of security guards in the winter air, the metal bar in his hand had cooled enough by now that it was safe for him to touch. Removing one glove again as he continued to stride toward the door, Remy focused, charging the warm metal in his hand one more time.

A telltale flash of purple, and he hurled it like a javelin at the front door as hard as he could. Still hissing and sizzling with activated energy, the metal bar plunged into the door with a wooden crunch, flying into the corridor inside before detonating once and for all, reducing the front door and foyer au chez Bogan to nothing more than a large, blackened, angrily smoking hole.

Looked like a job well done, if a little less subtle than he usually would have liked, Remy thought to himself as he stepped through the charred wreckage of the house front. He'd fulfilled his part of the bargain. Now that he'd cleared the way, it was up to everyone else to follow.