1. After Xmen unlimited #18, Gambit wakes imprisoned at Galactor base. Hey, they left him wide open in that issue, the guy who found him could have been a rep for anyone. Also he was delerious for the half the issue, he could have wondered through any kind of warp.
2. Gambit speaks at least some Japanese; he was there for Wolverine's aborted wedding to Mariko. He does however speak it with a Cajun accent.
He woke to relative warmth and a fleeting hope that they had come back for him - that she had come back for him. That hope died with the realization that he was in a cell and a cold instict for survival kicked in. No restraining coller, so his hosts were probably not any kind of high budget, anti-mutant group, or even Sinister. Body slack in a pretense of sleep, he reached out with his power feeling for motion and presence and found none. He slitted his eyes and scanned for surveilence; searching for a possible camera eye or sound pickup, the room appeared clean. He silently rose and inspected the small cell that held him. It was a grey cubicle just large enough for mat he had been laying on and a toilet. The door was a smooth piece of metal, thickness and strenth unknown, tapping on it would tell him a lot about it, but might also alert someone posted outside the door.
His own condition wasn't optimum, the cold had taken a toll. His legs and feet were o.k, his uniform had protected them, and his hands hurt but had been protected from too much damage by running a weak charge through them. His face though - there was not mirror but there were painful spots on it that felt almost as bad as open wounds, his lips were cracked and bled at any movment and his eyes hurt. Gambit sighed as he thought, "Out of de fire, but I wonder what kind of fryin' pan I'm in now"? Thoughts of escape ran through his mind, but he was still tired and his head felt fuzzy, like it had been stuffed with cotton wool. He decided to sleep a little more and then find out where he was now. Making a move without enough information would be dangerous.
He lay down and brooded for awhile on his situation. He'd been abandoned again. It had happened before but it never stopped hurting; his forgotten parents, the thieves' guild, and now the X-Men. Wallowing in self-pity he could almost understand them kicking him out. He had always felt that they would if they knew the truth about what he had done. That was the reason he had never told them about his involvement in the Morlock Massecre in the first place. He couldn't understand though how they could have abandoned him in the Antartic without even a shirt. A death sentence. They hadn't even layed that penalty on Sabertooth who had actually been part of the kill team. Sighing he abandoned his brooding and slipped into the nightmare world of his dreams.
The sound of the lock and the swing of the door roused him out of sleep this time. Two men in green jump suits, masks, and tinted goggles approached, grabbed him up, and snapped restraints on his wrists. They dragged him roughly from his cell and shoved him down the hall ahead of them. The taller of the two commenting in Japanese on how fun it would be if they were allowed to break him. Dis not good. When they reached an interregation room he allowed his cuffs to be fastened to a hook above his head and he was suspended almost off the ground in the middle of the room. Dis not good a'tall, but I need infomation. The taller guard reported to an intercom that the prisoner was prepared for interegation and the guards stood at attention by the door. Gambit asked them where he was and who they were but they would not answer him. Soon one of the tallest women he had ever seen swept in the door. She was around seven feet tall, blond, masked, and in some indefinable way she reminded him of his ex-wife Belladonna. She walked slowly around him, examining him from every angle; taking his chin she tilted his head up and examined his eyes.
"What are you"?
"What you t'ink, Chere"?
"Punish him", she hissed at the goons, "until he understands that he must show me proper respect."
The goons fell to their work with a will, applying shock prods to his ribs, belly, and kidneys as Gambit screamed and twisted helplessly in pain.
"Enough", the woman ordered, watching in approval as her prisoner shuddered in his fetters. "What are you, who are you, who do you work for"?
"I a mutant, Madame, I' called Gambit, I don' work for nobody".
She turned to a goon and smiled viciously, "Something more damaging this time, but not too much, this might take a while and S'sai X wants him to last until our questions are answered".
The goon pulled a crop whip out of a grey cabinet in the corner of the room and layed a pattern of welts across Gambits back.
"What department of the ISO do you work for", Demanded the woman, "Why were you spying around this installation"?
"I' not a ISO anyt'ing, I work strick'ly on commition. I wasn' spyin' on yo' base if dat was the case I sure wouln' have been out dere wit no quit'ment. I was dumped dere by my ex. She wa pissed at me an figured a hike in de An'artic wi' no shirt be a nice revenge."
"And what do you do on commision", she asked, her hot suspicious eyes boring into his.
He met her eyes coldly and said, "I a t'ief, Madame, a ver' good t'ief".
Just then a goon rushed in to the room and saluted the woman, "Gel Sadra-sama", he said, "The Swallow Ningatai Gatchaman has been captured. He is being brought in and should arrive within the hour".
"Send this one back to his cell, I'll deal with him later. Put the base on alert, and prepare an interigation room for the Gatchaman", she laughed evily, "I must inform S'sai X". She swept out of the room in a billow of cape.
Back in his cell Gambit took stock of his situation. He still didn't know where he was. He didn't know who was holding him or the layout of the facility. Getting out of his cell wasn't a problem, the lock was a flimsy looking electronic model a charge through the wall behind it should activate it but if that failed the door itself wasn't very thick. At last resort he would just blow it using the mat Merde that would hurt his ears, but better deaf than dead. Another interigation was not anything he was going to stick around for. The guards had had about three minutes to leave if they were going to so… et viola…the door slid open and Gambit slid out into an empty hall and moved swiftly down it to a large vent screen. He would leave invisibly if possible out the vent system aquiring needed supplies as he went.
Crawling through the ventilation ducts he was a tight fit but he calculated that it was the safest way to go. He had left the detention area and judging from the sounds ahead was pretty sure there was some kind of motor pool/ hanger in the direction he was headed. Passing by a vent he froze at the sound of approaching boots and harsh laughter. It was then that Gambit saw him. Dressed in leather bird styled suit and helmet, marking him in Gambit's mind as part of the spandex fraternity. Red-headed and skinny with a pronounced overbite he couldn't be more than tweleve, probably younger than that. He fleetingly considered leaving him but the voices of his former teammates whispered in the back of his head. Even as a footloose relativly amoral thief he hadn't been able to leave a child in danger, and he couldn't leave this one in their hands. This child looked to be even younger than Storm had been. He sighed almost silently and began backtracking through the ducts, back to the detention area.
In a maximum security cell Jinpei fought the guards as best he could in his restraints, if he took to much damage during this beating he would be in no shape to escape. He had to escape, and soon. Gel Sadra had been called away by S'sai X, but when she returned Jinpei knew that he would be killed as slowly as Gel Sadra could manage it. It terrified him. Free he was a fearsome warrior, deadly, but suspended here off the floor in restraints like this; he was just as helpless as a normal child would be. Suddenly all his senses come to high alert as he heard a scuffle outside the door, a soft pop at the level of the locking mechanism and the door slid back. Before the goons could react the limp form of the door guard hurtled through the air slamming into one of the guards. The body was followed by by a tall caucasion man dressed only in tight blue pants and boots. He took in the situation at a glance and leapt at Jinpei's attackers, dispaching them with a swift economy of motion, the sharp crack of their breaking necks loud in the confined space.
Jinpei was transfixed with gaze from eyes unnaturally blood red on black glowing out from under a tangle of red brown hair, then he promptly went to work on the cuffs picking the locks with almost as much speed as one could open them with a key. Wow, he's fast. Who is he. Jinpei's eyes widened as they took in the extent of the man's injuries. His face was blotched by frostbite, with cracked and bleeding lips, his torso was covered with welts from a whip, and his wrists were bruised and skinned with cuff marks. With so much damage to look at you could almost overlook the eyes.
While Jinpei watched he stripped th hood and tunic from one of the fallen goons. In Japanese rendered almost incomprehensable by some strong accent he asked, "You know de way out of dis place, Petite? I was unconsious when dey brought me in. I can get to a' exit but firs' hand intell, always a good t'ing."
Jinpei nodded in the affirmative he motioned for Jinpei to leave the room followed him out and closed the door behind them. Tense, half expecting some kind of attack. He saw that a cover had been removed from an air vent, the stranger stood under it with his fingers interlocked forming a step for him.
"C'mon, dis our exit", he hissed with a jerk of his head, "Hurry, Gambit don' w'an be caught here". Jinpei stepped onto his hands and the man threw him up into the vent, then pulled himself up in and replaced the grill with quick professionalism.
"You speak English, Petite, or Francios", he asked hopefully?
Jinpei looked back at him and answered in English "Some" and asked, "Do you work for ISO"?
"No Petite, don' know dem. I jus woke up here, an after samplin' de hospitality I've decided to leave. Quiet now", he said, "and lead us out of here".
Jinpei crawled silently through the vents his mind puzzling over who and what this Gambit might be. How could he not know what the ISO was? He was badly battered maybe he had brain damage, could he make it out? What freaky eyes he had. His face was all mottled with frostbite. He would need a doctor. I wonder if the vents at ISO head quarters go everywhere like this, a secret way to go anywhere. He hoped Jun and the others would get here soon, he wanted to take this base down.
They moved quickly back along the Cajun's previous exit path. In spite of the bruises he must have the boy was slithering along quickly. Gambit watched him move in the dim light with approval recognizing the smoothness and strenth of good training. He was young, but it was Gambit's guess that this kid was already well able to take care of himself. "Stop fo' a secon'. Petite, we come out at a hanger or a moter pool"?
"Yeah"
"Den we steal us a fast ride out of here, an' take you back t' where you b'long. We gonna have to move quiet an' quick. Can you drive or pilot?"
"Of course, I drive the G-5, but the others on my team will come soon I think, then we can just destroy this place and leave with them."
"If they come dat's all to de good, but if they don' den de plan is, we sneak into the hanger at a quiet moment, pick a vehicle. You get in it while I get de door open. Den you start it up head to de door an I hop in on yo' way out."
"I can do that, because I an the Great Swallow."
"Den lets go, Great One"
The path through the vents took them high above the hanger floor. Good, bad, or indifferent, people rarely looked up so it reduced their chances of being seen, but getting down to the floor without being seen would be difficult.
"Let's go", said The Swallow
"Non, dey swarming down dere like an angry hive. We wait here for t'ings to quiet down. Den we sneak out - quiet and slick."
Jinpei wanted to protest but he decided maybe he couldn't take all of those galactors alone, and this Gambit guy was probably to hurt to be much help. It's fourty feet to the floor, how can I get him down with no Birdstyle?
Gambit's head snapped up as an explosion rocked the base.
"They're here", Jinpei exclaimed excitedly, "They'll come in through the hanger to get me.
"What your team, and how many in it?"
"They're the Ninja Tai Gatchamen! How can you not know?! The Eagle, The Condor, The Swan, and The Owl. And I am The Great Swallow." Gambit watched as the boy's face hardened in a way that a boy's face should not. "We will destroy Galactor"
"Let's go den, Petite, an take a chunk outta dem"
As the hanger door burst open, and the Ninja Tai began to decimate the galactor goons on the floor, Jinpei watched in amazement as Gambit kicked out the vent screen and dropped to the floor far below landing with the grace of a cat. And promptly rolled aside to avoid the two feather shurikan which streaked through the space so recently occupied by his neck. Jinpei followed him down in a fast glide landing to block Gambit from the Condor.
"Aniki, don't kill Gambit! He helped me escape!", shrilled Jinpei.
"Swallow, you're safe", exclaimed Jun
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