The Marvel-verse, has long held a fondness for alternate timelines, most of them had some major differences, but timelines go on for an undefined amount of time, and therefore, the results of different actions which create alternate timelines, make the amount of timelines existing, permanent. In the following story which takes place in an alternate universe, the only major difference is that, the events of "Onslaught," don't change the Hulk, although the events happen, in the exact same manner, also this means that Gambit, is not present during Onslaught. Logan didn't lose his adamantium, to Magneto, and Joseph is Magneto.
The cold was getting to him. He could feel, the frost bite eating away at his body, the blood, slowly freezing, his system giving way under the incredible pressure. But what was happening in his body was nothing compared to what was happening to his mind. He could still remember, Rogue, condemning him to the Antarctic, throwing his heart in his face and telling him that he had no one, he had felt anguish for what had happened to him, for the longest time, he hadn't even tried to move, the pain, and suffering had led him to finally give up, so he sat there waiting for the death that had followed him to finally catch him. He had silently hoped that one of the X-men would have decided what was happening was wrong and would rescue him, but that was assuming Rogue told anyone. After a while, his survival instinct, kicked in. The years that he had spent on the street, struggling for life, told him that he couldn't give in, that it demanded of him to live for longer. So slowly but painfully Gambit had pushed forward, he had no doubts that he could escape, but to do so he would need to find an area, in which there was no wind.
It took him a while to find the cave but when he did, it was like an oasis, in a desert. Once he found it, the renewed strength, he managed, to push forward at an increased, pace. He entered the cave and collapsed in exhaustion, he was so tired that he hadn't noticed, an increased, rumbling, coming from inside the cave, until it was too late. After he had recovered, Remy got up and prepared to leave the cold wasteland. But before he could, all of a sudden, the owner of the cave, an angry, polar bear emerged from the darkness, slashing and ripping at the intruder. Normally a man like Gambit could have easily taken out such a threat as a polar bear, but in his weakened state, he was no match for it, as the bear continued its attack, no one but the great white expanse of snow could hear, Remy's cries of angony. Now with blood on it's claws, the bear went in for the kill.
Remy, bolted upright, he had been peacefully sleeping, but sleep was never an easy thing for Gambit these days, after his experience in the Antarctic, Gambit had undergone quite a few changes, he no longer saw life as a game, but rather a never ending collage of pain and suffering that he had to endure, he had long since forgot about God, and his beliefs, in fact the only thing that kept Remy going was the idea that if he was gone many, many people would pay the price.
{It's jus' a dream,} {It's jus' a dream,} his mind continued to repeat to itself. But Gambit knew better than that, his dream was, in fact, real, a memory of his trying experience in the South pole. It had taken quite a while for Gambit to escape that particular problem, but somehow, he had managed, to charge his entire body, it had been painful, as his frozen skin began to react to the heat, but slowly as his body reacted to it's charging, Remy began to float upwards. He had long ago found out that since any part of his body could release a charge, that if he charged, his very skin, the resulting warmth, equalized the gravity by heating the air molecules around him so much that he began to rise, the heat also acted as a propulsion system. Gambit's power wasn't very strong, and to focus his powers in such a manner, was quite a strain, on him, but once Remy was airborne, it was a simple matter to fly out of, Antarctica. However, he had waited too long, and as a result, his weakened condition only allowed him to make it to, Magneto's citadel.It was one of Remy's trade sayings, never show all your cards at once, although over the years, Remy had really begun to enjoy his newfound family, he wasn't sure how badly his secret would affect X-men. Gambit had slowly convinced himself that they would understand, what he had done wasn't done on purpose, and that he hadn't had a choice, and the X-men would forgive and forget, as they had done with so many others, but his fantasy world, was just that, a fantasy. The X-men had turned him out and left him with nothing, even his Love had shivered in fear at what he was, but he convinced himself that he would make it up to her, he would do whatever it would take, to make the one woman, who had crushed his heart see that he wasn't the same man he once was.
Gambit waited, for over two weeks for even one of the X-men to show up, but his empathic probes (another well hidden card) yielded nothing, when none of them even came into the area, part of Gambit's world crumbled, he had still held a hope, that even one of them would, take pity on him. But it was not to be, in the end, the only person, who even, cared enough to try and get him, was the one man he hated the most, Sinister. In the end Mr. Sinister, decided, that Remy would still be useful, to him, and had sent his Marauders, they found him weakened, by lack of food, and almost delirious with illusions of himself and the X-men. Gambit had put up a partial fight, but couldn't do very much, with his last ounce of strength he managed to kill Scalphunter and a few of the others by charging up the Citadel, with his power, the resulting explosion was enough to bury them and hurt some seriously. Sinister hadn't been very pleased with that little development, but he still got Gambit.
His first order of business, was to save the Cajun's life, Gambit had exhausted himself to the point of dying. Sinister, administered, a strong serum into Remy's system, which gave him an immediate recovery, Sinister claimed that it was basically, a bottled, energy booster, designed specifically for him. The "stamina booster" as Sinister called it, did more than just revive Gambit, in upped his powers to a new level. Gambit, gained new abilities, that he had, never thought possible with his powers. Gambit, could now fly with ease, and carry several passengers with him at the same time, he could project a sphere, of reddish energy around himself, that, destroyed, anything, material, heading into it, but was quite weak to energy blasts, and anything he couldn't normally charge, such as water, but, probably the most impressive of Gambit's powers now was the fact that he could project his kinetic energy (with difficulty), at objects, without coming into contact with him, this meant that he could, shoot explosive energy, at targets that would explode.
Sinister, had known about the consequences to this little power boost and tried to get Gambit to help him, as he used to, unfortunately, for Sinister, Gambit still hoped the X-men would miss him, so he secretly, watched, the mansion, from a camera that Dark Beast had installed there during his stay, but the X-men, never even seemed to notice he was gone. Sinister had watched Gambit slowly lose, himself to despair, with silent humour, and when he finally, thought that Gambit had sunk to rock bottom, he asked him to do a mission. This time Gambit readily agreed, but as soon as he left, Gambit split. First he had been elated at his freedom from Sinister, hadn't come after him, but then it dawned on him that, Essex, knew, that the X-men would never accept him into their family, and he was as good as useless. Gambit's spirit, never, let him sink too low, and after, he got over the brooding, and constant drinking, Gambit, decided to go and try to get on with his life. He knew that Rogue had gotten over him, and it was time that he got over her. For about 6 months, Remy went to almost every place possible and did anything to give himself a thrill, this reckless way of living, soon got him into lots, of trouble and, subsequently, more adventures, but those stories are for another time.
One day while walking down the street, he ran into a crowd of FoH members, and, saw that they were attacking someone, Gambit leapt to action only to find that, the said persons had already been beaten to death, Gambit, fought for his life and barely escaped the clutches, of the Friends of Humanity, but it was at that point, that Remy Lebeau died. At that point, Gambit decided that his life, had, been destroyed, no one would care whether he died on the street at that point, no one would even notice, his entire life he had been a pawn, and he had lost everything because of one man, Sinister.
Over the year, he tracked, Sinister, slowly following him around, watching, him perform horror after horror, it came as a very little surprise to Gambit, that Sinister had known about Gambit trailing him and snorted at his attempts to follow him, but the man's arrogance proved to be his undoing. Gambit had not originally wanted Sinister's blood, but he did want the Marauders, unfortunately, every time he killed a marauder, Sinister would clone another one. Finally Sinister had tired of Gambit's constant meddling, and had been getting less and less work done. He decided, the cajun's usefulness had come to an end, and decided to finish it, after setting up a fake lab at an abandoned warehouse.
Gambit snuck into the complex, determined to make the final stand. But Sinister was waiting, and as he met Gambit, and confronted him, with a horde of clones, Gambit hadn't been prepared for this, little turn of events. Looking back, he realized that he was foolish to go in such a reckless fashion, but he was lucky enough to find himself with an emergency exit, created, by one of the clones. He prepared to make one final run, flipping out a multitude of playing cards (which were still his favourite weapon), he jumped, out of his hiding place, let go with a flurry of cards, they, completely destroyed the support beams, and allowed him just enough time to escape, and some well placed explosions later, Sinister was the only one to appear from the fallen complex.
If they had fought on Sinister's terms, and he would have easily beaten Gambit, but Sinister had been blinded by his rage. Sinister had brought the battle to Gambit on the Astral plane, the battle was fast and furious, Sinister, appeared, as a human version, of himself, dressed in black, he challenged, Gambit to a fencing match, and the decorum changed, to a gym. Sinister, was a superior, considering his telepathic skills, and as such was much more adept to battling on the astral plane. He soundly defeated Gambit there with his superior psi qualities, but Gambit was far from gone, what Sinister didn't know was that Gambit hadn't really been fighting Sinister, he was merely distracting him. Years, living together with three powerful telepaths, had given Remy time to build up on his skills, and one of those skills, was fighting on the astral plane. Sinister returned to his body, to find its metallic surface charged up with kinetic energy. Sinister's body was tough, it was created, by El Sab Nurr himself, so naturally it could withstand blasts, from Cyclops, any day of the week, but not an explosion, of itself at ground-zero. The only thing that kept his body from detonating was the hand which Remy had left holding on to Sinister's shoulder. Sinister had looked upon Gambit with a higher opinion of him, but before he died, he left Gambit with a piece of information, that would make the victory a loss. Gambit remembered that day well, it had changed his life irreversibly.
End Part I