Earth-0902: Remy's NOLA Underground

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Quantum Leap: Earth-0902

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The World

It’s 2025 in New Orleans’ French Quarter, the seat of the Mutant Underground. All mutants in the world belong to either the Thieves Guild or the Assassins Guild.

• In this glossy, nocturnal, and dangerous alternate Earth, all mutants belong to a secret underground society of criminals and must conceal their supernatural nature from humans. The characters are centered in NOLA’s French Quarter, which is the seat of both of the major mutant Guilds.
• The Thieves Guild is led by the disreputable LeBeau family, and currently headed by Jean-Luc LeBeau. Thieves tend to be creative, stealthy, flexible, and conflict-adverse. They work in teams.
• The Assassins Guild is led by the aristocratic Boudreaux family. Belladonna Boudreaux has been the heir apparent of the Assassins since she was 10 years old, and Mystique rules the day-to-day operations for her as regent. Assassins tend to be direct, lethal, level-headed, and efficient. They work independently.
• The two factions are bound by a magically enforced contract called the Guildpact. These supernatural laws dictate the behavior of both guilds, and its edicts include maintaining secrecy, fulfilling any verbal bargains made with other guild members, and not conducting business on neutral territory. Violating Guildpact law results in a “kill order” being placed on you. Kill orders come with hefty bounties, and anyone with a kill order on them will be relentlessly hunted down by guild members.
• The only neutral territory in New Orleans is the historic Hôtel Tête-à-Tête, which is the venue for the wedding. Except under the most extreme circumstances, no violence is to be enacted between Guild members on hotel grounds, offering a reprieve for anyone who may be the target of a kill order or other scheme.
• Additionally, any official contracts signed in the blood of the negotiating parties are magically enforced, and the parties involved will be involuntarily compelled to complete any actions dictated by the contract.

The Incident

Everyone bound by the Guildpact knows about the Wolverine, an undying master assassin capable of fulfilling any contract. A Bogeyman invoked on misbehaving children and cursed upon enemies alike, Wolverine was an active member of the Assassins Guild for, allegedly, over a hundred years. However, fifteen years ago, he fell in love with the thief Jean Grey, and signed an open-ended Bloodoath with the Boudreauxes to buy his freedom from the Guild.

Shortly after this document was executed, Jean Grey was killed by the Assassin Prince Julien Boudreaux. Wolverine killed many members of both guilds in the resulting rampage – by some accounts, as many as 700 Assassins and 300 thieves in the space of a week. Amongst his victims were all the Boudreauxes save for their 10 year old daughter, Belladonna. After exacting his revenge on Julien, the Wolverine vanished, and has not been seen since.

His legacy is shrouded in rumor and urban legends. Some say that he has been cloned perhaps dozens of times in a twisted effort to create the perfect weapon. Others say the blood oath he signed for the Boudreauxes is still blank and held in the family vault, itself an invaluable artifact which would allow anyone who possessed it to summon him.

• Kurt Wagner was once spared by the Wolverine during an encounter.

The Wedding

Through Mystique’s machinations, a marriage was arranged between Belladonna Boudreaux and Remy Lebeau when they were eleven years old, just a year after the Wolverine incident. They are compelled by the Guildpact to go through with this marriage. To break the engagement would cause all-out war between the two factions.

However, nobody actually wants the wedding to proceed: if the two were married, and then one of them was killed, the surviving individual would assume control of both guilds, giving them an unprecedented level of power and control over the mutant population. Each faction is working to undermine the wedding in their own convoluted but Guildpact-abiding way.

• Thieves are trying to steal Wolverine’s Bloodoath contract to compel one of his clones to kill Belladonna Boudreaux.
• Assassins are simply trying to kill Remy Lebeau before the wedding takes place.

The Complication

When Remy arrives ahead of the rest of the 367 crew, he has only a few hours to settle in before he is accosted by Rogue-0902. This assassination attempt on him is meant to be a failure. However, due to his unwillingness to hurt her, the altercation goes on much longer than it was meant to, and is interrupted both by Jean-Luc Lebeau and Rogue-367’s arrival. Ultimately, Rogue and Remy kill Jean-Luc when they were not meant to.

Rogue absorbs all of Jean-Luc’s memories, including the details of the Bloodoath contract heist. She also gains his mutant power of petrifying gaze.

Because of this, the 367 characters must successfully convince the residents of Earth-0902 that Jean-Luc is not dead, as well as execute his scheme as intended.

The Big Finale

Ultimately, early Saturday morning, the Thieves are able to trigger the blood contract to summon the Wolverine and his clones to assassinate Belladonna Boudreaux. At first, nothing apparent happens, but as the events of the wedding day and ceremony progress, there is a distinct sense of anticipation hanging over both factions.

The wedding proceeds as planned, Jean-Luc's absence aside. Guests are treated to a cocktail reception in the gardens of the Hôtel Tête-à-Tête, and polite small talk is made between enemies who rarely get to catch up with one another. As the ceremony starts and everyone takes their seats, the mood is civil if tense.

Moments before vows are exchanged, X-23 drops from the rafters to fulfill the blood contract and stab Belladonna through the abdomen. Immediately, the hotel's alarm system trips. Under the cover of blaring klaxons and red security lights, chaos erupts and the factions turn on each other. But the skirmish is short lived, because X-23 is not the only Wolverine who's arrived at the party...

Comments

SCENES: THURSDAY - Em(ma) & Kitty

[passingthru KITTY PRYDE]

Which is not the point, and Emma should know that. She just wants her to say a compliment again. Fool's errand. Kitty rolls her eyes as though to say obviously, and throws herself on the office sofa, kicking off her shoes in instinct born of sitting on nice couches, not this new world.

"Yes. We're invited. You're having the chicken." Kitty's on to looking at their wedding invitations. "We aren't in the wedding parties, but we're invited to all the events. There's separate bachelor and bachelorette parties tonight. You can tell me what goes on at a bachelor party, finally." She takes a break to actually look at her friend instead of the screen. "...Is it weird? Being in someone else's memory once you've been in yours?"

SCENES: THURSDAY - Em(ma) & Kitty

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Moving around to the other side of the desk, Emma flips through the datebook there, packed with various times with cryptic information. The phone in her pocket is a flip phone, likely a burner, meaning she's just going to have to piece together most of her tasks from others' minds. Or maybe she has another phone around somewhere. Regardless, it's nothing too challenging.

"I have a very packed schedule, it seems. And... I don't like not knowing things. That's really the strangest part. Well, and unexpectedly being a man."

SCENES: THURSDAY - Em(ma) & Kitty

[passingthru KITTY PRYDE]

"I think it's good for you to not know everything sometimes. Something's got to keep your ego from reaching critical level."

Kitty chirps from the sofa, watching how all the different pieces of information are laid out. A datebook. Old fashioned. A burner phone. Super shady, but she'd found one of those for herself, too, laying around in the bottom of her big purse. "I do think you're uglier as a girl, though, so that's like, an improvement for you." (This is not true, and said purely for Emma's own amusement. Sometimes it's nice to give her a little outrage to do, as enrichment.)

SCENES: THURSDAY - Em(ma) & Kitty

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Emma laughs a little, starting to pick through the drawers of the desk. Immaculately organized. She wonders if Em's bedroom is too. It doesn't matter of course, but much like her cowboy persona, she finds herself curious about this other version of herself. They have work to do, though.

"If only this knowledge ego check was at a more convenient time, hm?"

She lifts her eyes, considering, before checking a receipt that's been neatly laid out, balling it up, and throwing it at her friend.

"And I know you're jealous of my looks back home, darling, but no need to be rude."

SCENES: THURSDAY - Em(ma) & Kitty

[passingthru KITTY PRYDE]

"I guess we could use you being able to be super nosy." She admits, as though this was dragged out of her. She doesn't even dodge the receipt. "Oh my god. Jealous? Like. Can you imagine?" Kitty throws back the receipt.

"At least we know you'll be invasive enough that you'll know everything about everything by the end of the day."