Author's Note: This is the second story in a ten (or possibly only five) part series. 10 Women Remy Lebeau Never Married was partially inspired by five things lists, which I've seen done in other fandoms, and partially by the question, "What if Remy had been engaged to someone other than Belle?" This story and the first contain arranged marriages but they will go in very different directions. The only pairings I've decided on for sure are Remy/Anzhela, Remy/Yukio, Remy/Jubilee, and Remy/Rogue, so let me know who you'd like to see him with. Not all pairings will occur due to arranged marriages and at least one will be a Vegas wedding and one a stereotypical fairytale wedding. Not all stories will take place in Evo-verse so check my profile or the other X-men pages if you want to read the full series. Some will occur in varing degrees of AU.
Yukio is not an original character. You should be able to look her up on Marvel or X-men websites if you do not know who she is. This story is an extreme AU. The X-men will be the same as they were in X-Men Evolution but Remy will not meet up for with them for a while and his connection with Magneto will be changed. If you know your X-men history you should be able to to guess which X-man is likely to play a prominent roll in this story after reading the chapter below. Invisible, intangible chocolate chip cookies will be sent to whoever guesses correctly.
Remy closed his eyes and fought back tears, his hands clenched on his thighs. It wouldn't do for anyone from the clan Yashida to see that he'd been crying. He wondered when he'd become a commodity. Memories from his early childhood threatened to surface; memories of a time when he was much more literally treated as a commodity, something to be owned and sold. He ruthlessly squashed the memories. This wasn't the same. It wasn't. Jean Luc genuinely cared about him. …It was just, why was he doing this?
Remy was getting married in three days. Remy didn't really understand what was going on. He tended to tune his father's ramblings about Guild politics out. All he knew was that only two weeks ago he had been engaged to Belle, his childhood friend and lover, and now he was being sent to Japan to marry the niece of some Japanese crime lord. The marriage was supposed to cement a peace treaty and the merging of two 'business ventures'. His marriage to Belle had also been intended to bind a peace agreement. The Thieves Guild and the Assassins Guild of New Orleans had fought with one another for centuries, ever since they were first founded. The marriage between the daughter of the assassins' Guildmaster and the adopted son of the thieves' Guildmaster would mean an end to the violence between the warring guilds as well as the eventual unification of the guilds when Remy and Belle assumed leadership. Jean Luc and Marius had spent four years hammering out the details of the pact. It had only taken two days for all of this, along with Remy's entire future, to change.
Jean Luc had announced over breakfast one morning that he would be in his office with the ambassador of their Japanese branch and was not to be disturbed for any reason. Remy had been thrilled. Jean Luc's occupation would make it that much easier to sneak off to see Belle. Unfortunately, Henri leaned over and whispered, "Don't even think about it petite frere. You're mine for the day." Mercy's rare silence should have alerted Remy to the fact that something was wrong. She always seemed to know what was going on, even if she wasn't supposed to. The next day Jean Luc had gone to see Marius and, unbeknownst to Remy, changed the terms of their treaty. Marius had been immensely relieved to call off the marriage between Belle and Remy. The peace pact would still stand and both men feared for the strength of it without the family bond but Marius really had not wanted to give his daughter to a thief.
It wasn't that Remy had wanted to marry Belle, he was sixteen, he didn't really want to marry anyone but he had known Belle for years. She had been his friend before he even met Jean Luc and had remained his friend despite their families' strict orders that they never see each other again. In some ways Belle was more of a best friend to Remy than Lapin. They grew up and their fathers had found a way to use their relationship 'for the good of the Guild'. With the onset of teenage hormones their friendship had grown a new dimension and Remy, who had never really been exposed to other girls his age, naturally turned his affections towards his blonde friend. She had returned them eagerly, although Remy suspected he hadn't been the only boy in her life. For one thing, Belle was two years older and had grown up first. Still, however ill prepared Remy was for marriage, he had at least had the vague notion that he wanted to spend his life with Belle.
Now he was sitting in the limousine that had collected him from the airport on his way to his new home and wondering how everything had fallen apart. …Well, to be honest, he knew how everything had fallen apart, he just didn't seem to comprehend it. It was like his brain simply refused to accept what was going on around him.
The Japanese branch of the Thieves Guild was in trouble. Although, in all fairness, the Japanese branch was always in trouble. The Thieves Guild was an international organization, but its individual branches generally operated as autonomic factions. Some were large and influential. Guilds such as the Russian Guild, the Parisian Guild, the New Orleans Guild, and the Egyptian Guild tended to carry the most weight when it came to Guild politics. However, the Japanese Guild was one of the weakest. It had never been able to properly establish itself and flourish due to the fact that there were already two large criminal organizations ruling the Japanese underground; the Hand, a group of assassins, and the various undertakings of the clan Yashida. The ambassador from the Japanese Thieves Guild regularly spent time in the Guild Seat, pleading for aid they rarely received. The Guild Seat was located in Paris, where the Guild Council met periodically. The Guild Council technically held authority over every branch of the Guild and could regulate any of its affairs but they rarely got involved in what they deemed 'local disputes'. The problems of the Japanese Thieves Guild were considered local disputes.
The most sympathetic council member by far was Jean Luc LeBeau. He, after years spent dealing with the Assassins Guild of New Orleans, could not help but emphasize with the problems of the Japanese Guild. When the most recent and most troubling development in the Japanese Thieves Guild's struggle for survival had occurred their ambassador had bypassed the ordinary channels and appealed to Jean Luc directly for help.
The Hand had made a proposal to Shingen Yashida. They wanted to ally themselves with his criminal empire. The Japanese Guildmaster had panicked and made a counter-proposal, asking Shingen Yashida to make an alliance with the Japanese Thieves Guild instead. Shingen Yashida was not a foolish man, but he was a greedy one. He knew that the Japanese Thieves Guild was not an incredibly strong organization, but he also knew that that the international Thieves Guild was the oldest and most powerful organized crime syndicate in the world. Shingen Yashida disdainfully rejected the Japanese Guildmaster's proposal. The Guildmaster, however, heard the underlying message; if he could make some assurance to the Yakuza crime lord that such an alliance would bind the clan Yashida to the larger organization then he might be able to stop the two biggest threats to his guild from joining forces. Nori Himura then made what was probably the stupidest move of his career as Guildmaster. He made a promise that he didn't know if he could keep to a powerful and vengeful man. He simultaneously risked alienating the other factions of the Thieves Guild. There had already been talk of dissolving the Japanese Guild because it was unable to function on its own. (The thieves from Japan would be welcome to relocate to other branches of the Guild, but naturally they were reluctant to give up their home and everything they had worked to establish and protect.) Now Himura had presumed a privilege he did not have and spoken for people who wanted less and less to do with him. In short, he was screwed.
Himura had known that there were only two ways to assure Yashida that his proposal would be backed by the more powerful forces of the Thieves Guild; either Himura needed to convince one or two of the stronger Guilds to enter into the alliance along with the Japanese Guild or there needed to be a marriage between a relative of Shingen Yashida and a member of one of the more prestigious or prominent families in the Thieves Guild. It would not be possible for him to get a formal writ or trade pact from the Guild Council sanctioning the alliance between the Guild and clan Yashida because it simply wasn't done. Unfortunately, there would also be no way for Himura to convince any of the larger Guilds to enter an the alliance with the Japanese, at least not in time to prevent Shingen Yashida from losing interest. The Japanese Guild was already so far in debt to the other Guilds that they could not even dream of repaying what they owed and the prevailing feeling amongst the stronger Guilds was that they were sick of the Japanese Guild leeching off of them. So Himura had made the biggest mistake of his career and all but promised that he would be able to either find a wife for one of Shingen's sons or a husband for one of his nieces. (His daughter had been married off the year before.) Yashida had been sure to make it clear to Himura that a member of the Japanese Thieves Guild would not be acceptable and Himura was given only a couple days to find a suitable match.
To make matters worse, arranged marriages were falling out of practice within the Thieves Guild. They were far from unheard of but they were happening less and less as more Thieves felt the practice was antiquated and somewhat cruel. Even amongst the more powerful and greedy families fewer parents were willing to 'sacrifice' their children to politics. Himura had only been able to think of two possibilities off the top of his head. Nicolette Marchand was the daughter of one of the oldest and most prestigious families in the Parisian Guild, but the family had lost most of its power and wealth over the years. However it was unlikely that they would see joining a venture with the Japanese Guild as a chance to gain it back. The other had been the adopted son of Jean Luc LeBeau. The boy wasn't related by blood, which was a strike against him, but the LeBeaus were a well respected family and the New Orleans Guild was a strong guild, if not as prestigious as the Parisian or as powerful as the Russian Guild. Himura had hoped that the boy's mutant abilities would make the venture more lucrative to the power hungry Shingen. Himura had also known that Jean Luc was not above considering an arranged marriage for members of his family and that the man had always been his best support so he had tried New Orleans first. Himura had always been rather out or the loop as far as Guild gossip went and Jean Luc had been careful to keep his adopted son out of official discussions so the blundering Japanese Guildmaster had had no idea what he was asking when he went to New Orleans.
All of this Remy knew. He couldn't really comprehend its meaning or what it really had to do with him at the moment but hew knew it. What he didn't know was why Jean Luc had agreed to it. He didn't know why Jean Luc was risking his own guild's peace pact, after spending years creating it, to help some foreign guild that probably wouldn't survive another ten years anyhow. He didn't know how anyone would benefit from this. He didn't know why Jean Luc had decided it was OK to change his entire future without even telling him until it was too late to change it back. So now he was sitting in the back of a limo, by himself, in a foreign country wondering how his life had fallen apart.
Author's Note II: I know I should have finished the first story in the series before starting the second. I will try to update the first one soon.