Mercy looked at him and sighed. "I know, Rem. Like Tante Mattie said, it wasn't your fault, don' blame yourself, okay? I jus' can' b'lieve dey did dat…"
"You can'?" Remy was incredulous. "T'ink of all dey've done to us in de past…an' I ain' even been around for most of it. Dey hate us. Dey'd do anyt'ing to hurt us in some way."
"Dat's true. I guess I jus' didn' b'lieve dey'd stoop so low as to do dis…"
"In a way, maybe it is my fault…" Remy began thoughtfully. "If I hadn' accidentally killed Julian an' ticked dem all off, an' left…maybe dey wouldn' have done dis."
"I don' know, I t'ink dey would have done it whether you'd killed Julian or not. Like you said, dey hate us." Mercy replied, giving his hand a squeeze. She knew he wouldn't stop thinking it was his fault, even thought it really wasn't.
A few days before, there had been a Guild meeting at the LeBeau mansion. Jean-Luc and Tante Mattie reminded the others that the tithing was coming up and Tante Mattie made an announcement that shocked and angered the rest of the thieves. Their enemies, the Assassins, were planning on sabotaging the thieves tithe somehow so that the benefactress of the two guilds would get angry and destroy them. It had been decided that Henri would travel to New York to get Remy so that he could help them stop the Assassins. Aside from that, every member of the Guild had to be at the tithing and even though Remy had not been back in three years, he was still considered to be a thief by Candra, the benefactress, and his absence would do more harm than good.
So, Henri had left immediately and flown to New York. He went to the mansion of Professor Charles Xavier, founder of the X-Men. Remy had hooked up with them after befriending one of them two years before, and had been there ever since, fighting for Xavier's dream of mutants and humans living together in peace. Sometimes the members of the Guild had forgotten that Remy was a mutant…the only indication was his strange red-on-black eyes.
Unknown to Henri and the thieves, he had been followed by members of the Assassins, who took the opportunity to kill him as he and Remy prepared to go to the airport and fly back to New Orleans. Those Assassins had paid a dear price for killing the heir to the thief legacy; they paid with their lives. Remy's friend Logan, a mutant warrior with an adamantium skeleton also known as Wolverine, had witnessed the events and killed them. Remy had then taken his brother's body and one of the X-Men's jets and flown back to Louisiana himself.
"I don' know if they were tryin' to kill me or him, Merce." Remy commented. "It could have been either one of us."
"Remy, things have not been good between de guilds since you left. I don' t'ink dey were after you...if dey were, dey could have found you any time dey wanted to."
"Maybe," Remy sighed. "I jus' wish it hadn' happened de way it did…"
"You an' de rest of us, Rem. We all wish it hadn' happened, period. I don' know what's goin' to happen now, but it ain' goin' be good, I jus' got dis feelin'…" Mercy said sadly.
"Mercy, it sucks!" Emil complained. "He's throwin' us all together into one Guild, jus' like de prophecies have been tellin' him to do for years, an' he's leavin' us!"
"Emil's right, it's not fair." Theoren agreed. "I can see it bein' de end of one Guild or de other, eventually. Probably us b'cause dey're stronger den we are."
"He's old, guys. It's hard to remember dat b'cause he looks half his age, but dat's only b'cause of de elixir. I hate it as much as you do, mais can you really blame him for wantin' to retire an' get away from all of de crap dat goes on?" Mercy asked.
"Retirin's one t'ing, Merce. Workin' with Bel to join de two Guilds jus' b'cause de prophecies say to do it now, den leavin' us to fend for ourselves is another." Genard replied. "We're screwed."
"I'm sorry you all feel dat way," Jean-Luc commented, joining them in the living room of his mansion. He had been watching them, and listening to what they were saying, for quite some time, and it saddened him that they couldn't even pretend to be more positive about it. He didn't really want to leave them; he loved them all too much to want to cause them any pain, but he also had to do what the prophecies told him to do. And in this case, the prophecies told him to join the two Guilds and leave. Not only that, but one thing they didn't know was he had to appoint his own son, Remy, as the new patriarch of the Unified Guild.
The thieves might not have much of problem with that, although Remy would in all likelihood be harder to convince that it was for the best, but the Assassins probably would. Bella Donna would rather be the leader herself, and Jean-Luc couldn't blame her for that. She had become the matriarch of the Assassin Guild when her father died a year ago, and she was a natural leader. Just letting Remy take over would be difficult for her to swallow.
None of them had been wrong, as it turned out. Tensions ran high in the Unified Guild over the next year, and while neither Remy nor Bel liked the fact that Remy was the leader, the both accepted it. Then all hell broke lose when they realized that the prophecies had also told Jean-Luc to sabotage his own son's leadership. He did it, with the help of Theoren, and Gris-Gris, one of the Assassins, and a vote of confidence had to be held. Remy's fate as Guild patriarch was in the hands of the Guild's members and there was nothing he could do about it.
Remy himself hoped they would vote him out, so he could go back to just being in the X-Men. The vote took place while he battled a member of the legendary Neo, a group of super humans who thought they were more superior than mutants.
As the vote took place, Mercy couldn't believe what she was hearing. Half of the Assassins surprised the heck out of everyone and voted for Remy to remain leader, as did most of the thieves. In the end, it was a tie, to be broken by the last to vote, Bella Donna herself. It was Bel who really surprised Mercy. Bel, who had claimed to hate Remy ever since he accidentally killed her brother, voted to keep him as Guild patriarch.
When the vote was over and the Guild was going to help Remy against the Neo, Mercy asked Bel about her decision.
"I have to admit, Bel, you surprised me back there. I didn' t'ink you liked him."
Bella Donna sighed. "I don', really. I mean, I've forgiven him for killin' my brother, dat was an accident, and I know dat now. Do I want him to be patriarch? Not really, but…"
"But what? You could have jus' as easily voted him out an' maybe b'come de leader yourself. What stopped you?" Mercy pressed.
"De prophecies. Dey told Jean-Luc dat Remy would be de one to lead us to de Resurrection. I have to do what I t'ink is best for de Guild as a whole, not what might be best for us as individuals. We all have to do dat. Dat's why some of de votes went de way dey did. I saw you were surprised by some of dem. I wasn'." Bel explained.
"Dis past year has been so hard…t'ings are changin', aren' dey Bel?"
"Oui, an' oui. Of course it's been hard. You take two groups of people who've hated each other for years an' throw 'em together, tellin' dem they have to be one big group, an' dere's bound to be problems. But I t'ink we're slowly learnin' an' we'll be stronger in de long run b'cause of it. You'll see."
"I sure hope you're right, Bel. I'd hate to t'ink everyt'ing Jean-Luc an' Marius fought for was a waste of time."
"Me too, Merce. C'mon, we're almost dere. Let's go help out our patriarch, huh?"
"We're right b'hind you."