Reflections: Gambit Vs Xavier

Chapter 1: Backfire

Gambit rests on a therapist's couch, with Xavier sitting besides him. Though sitting, Xavier's presence dominates the room as it usually does.

Xavier: "Gambit, as you know you appear to be immune to telepaths. Even I have so far been unable to penetrate your mind."

Gambit: "Yeah well no body steals Gambit's thoughts."

Xavier: "However, I have never attempted to use my full psychic capabilities on you. I would like to do so today to judge if you can truly be a reliable countermeasure against hostile telepaths."

Gambit: "No problem, Gambit not scared a'nothin."

Xavier: "Good, well I was expecting to set up a future time to do this but if you are eager we can start today.

Gambit: "Go ahead."

Xavier: "Please close your eyes and calm your mind."

Gambit does as he is told. He hears a deep breadth from Xavier before he hears him say "Let us begin..."

An awkward period of time elapses as Gambit notices no change. He peaks through an eye to see Xavier with a slightly frustrated expression on his face. More time elapses and he begins to hear barely audible grunting. Xavier begins to audibly grip the arms of his wheel chair. His moans become louder and louder. Gambit lets out a yawn and suddenly finds himself no longer in Xavier's mansion.

He sees two boys in an isolated alley way filled with a plethora of junk. He doesn't know why but he knows facts about this scene that he has never seen before. He knows the small spindly eight year old boy is Xavier, and he knows the taller fatter boy is named George.

George: "Charles, I heard an interesting thing today from your brother."

Gambit is also able to read the child Xavier's thoughts. "Well looks like this isn't about trading baseball cards."

George: "He told me your one of those muteys."

"God damn it Cain, I didn't think you would be this much of a bastard to me."

Xavier starts to slowly back away from George but George grabs him by the shirt and pins him against the wall.

George: "Now I know why I made that terrible trade last week with you!"

Xavier: "What are you talking about that trade was fine, how could either of us know that card could be worth so much!" Gambit knew Xavier wasn't actually lying.

George: "Fuck you! He told me you can control peoples minds! You think you can just lie to my face too?"

Xavier could indeed control people's minds, but at this age he had extremely limited control over it, far from being able to control someone precisely enough to make a trade for a card. A part of Xavier knew though that he probably would have if he could.

George: "You know what my dad says about muteys?"

Xavier contemplates what to do and eyes a bicycle cut in half with jagged edges next to them, but George interrupts his thoughts with "They should all be BURNED."

George throws Xavier to the side of the alley, almost landing on the half-bicycle.

George stands over Xavier and seems to pause before doing anything.

Before George can decide on what to do, Xavier grabs the half-bycicle and swings it at George's face. To Xavier's slight surprise a red liquid starts pouring out of Georges head, as the bicycle penetrates his skull. Xavier though remains disturbingly calm. He begins to enter George's mind, as a just in case measure. It seems George was never going to do much to Xavier, he loved Xavier and it was the thought that Xavier could betray him that drove him to be so aggressive. His plan was just to scare Xavier, and if Xavier did something to him he would know that Xavier was indeed a mind manipulator. If Xavier let himself get beat up George would know he could trust Xavier again, he never really cared that he was a mutant he just wanted to be able to trust in his best friend again. Xavier though did not flinch after learning of George's true intentions. He attacked his mind, in a blunt undirected way. He didn't yet have the skill to simply wipe the last few moments away, all he could do was strike randomly and fiercely. He had done this once before to a kid named Alfred in his class who always outscored him, Alfred never outscored Xavier again, or anyone in the class.

Xavier walked away leaving George in a pool of his own blood, he was quite thankful that he didn't get any stains on his cloths.

The scene swirled and recomposed about a year into the future. A cop stood in front of Xavier and his father, questioning him about George. When the cop asked his father what Xavier was doing a year ago on the day of George's incident Xavier quickly implanted memories into his father's head, now much more skilled in his abilities than a year prior. However, before Gambit could learn more of this the scene dissipated in a cloud of smoke and he heard Xavier shouting "GET OUT OF MY MIND!"

Gambit was a thief, and the opportunity to steal thoughts for the first and possibly only time in his life was too good to pass up. He tried to search through his professor's mind looking for more emotionally intense memories. However, he was quickly stunned by the amount of violence he was seeing. Murder after murder flashed before him and it became too disturbing for even Gambit to continue. He could also feel Xavier clawing back control. Before he returned he wanted to see other people's thoughts. If Xavier's memories were this interesting what of the rest of his comrades. One by one Gambit searched through the minds of the current Xmen in the mansion for the one thing he cared about most, Gambit.

Cyclop's opinion seemed to be quite negative. It was along the lines of "Gambit's powers are too dangerous, he could destroy this entire planet for god's sake." "It's difficult to find a point for his existence on the team, he has comparatively pathetic combat capabilities and has almost zero utility."

Gambit moved onto Wolverine's mind. "What a pussy ass bitch. He's funny though."

Next was Jubilee, who he always felt he had a connection to. "Why does he always lose to Wolverine in duels?" "I feel so bad for him, I hope I don't end up like him when I grow up."

Rogue, the love of his life. "He is so cute, always getting into trouble. Whenever I save him its like saving a cute puppy. But how do I let him down and tell him I don't think of him like he thinks of me."

Storm wasn't too negative at least. Gambit couldn't find any thoughts or memories about himself, it seemed she had better things to think about than Gambit.

Nightcrawler was a nice guy surely he would have a pleasant perspective. "Gambit is the worst role model for the students here. He is lazy, and immoral he has even betrayed us before. Why does Xavier want him here?"

Nightcrawler brought up a good question, and this may be the only time Gambit would be able to to obtain the honest answer. He probed Xavier's mind and learned his opinion was roughly: "I can't let him fall into the enemies hands, his resistance to my mind alterations means he's one of the few people who can ruin my plans. Thankfully he is easy to manipulate even without special abilities."

Gambit had enough and he no longer wished to fight Xavier for control. He slipped back into his own mind.

Xavier: "What did you see in my mind?"

Gambit knew the best way to lie was to mix in some truth.

Gambit: "Just wanted to know what my pals thought of Gambit. Looks like Gambit's not very well liked."

Xavier breathed a sigh of relief, that did indeed seem like something Gambit would do but he would have to make sure at some later time. For now Xavier simply replied with "Well, are you surprised by this?"

Gambit lied again, "Na."