There was a time, long ago, when the city of Las Vegas had been filled with light. It was everywhere, around every corner, extending its reach out into the desert. Oh, sure, there were a few dark places -- you can't have light without darkness - but the one thing people always remembered about the city was the lights.

Of course, that was before the war. Now Las Vegas was like almost every other city in North America - a run-down replica of its former self. The towering neon signs lay shattered in the streets, and at night, the only light came from the stars and moon.

And in one dark alley, a solitary match.

"Where the hell do you find those things, LeBeau? I thought all the fields were destroyed in the war."

Remy LeBeau, the man better known as Gambit, chuckled. "Been savin' dem for de end of de world, Bishop. Though it seems like dat already happened, non?" Gambit closed his eyes and took a long drag off his cigarette, the acrid smoke unfurling in his lungs. He exhaled slowly. "So, what does de leader of the X-Men want wit' a t'ief?"

"I need your help."

Remy snorted in derision. "Don't y' remember, homme? You asked already and I said no."

Bishop shook his head. "I'm not asking you to join me, I'm asking you to help me find something."

The Cajun's eyes narrowed. "And what might dat be?"

Bishop took a deep breath. "I was told of this object, a gem called the Momentary Princess" - Gambit's eyes grew a little wider - "with certain properties."

"Like what?"

"No one's really sure. Apparently it acts something like a crystal ball. A person can see the past and future in it, maybe even alternate pasts and futures. It's even rumored that it can be used to open some sort of portal that could be used for time travel."

Gambit gave another snort. "What makes y' t'ink I'd help you? Y' gon' pay me?"

Bishop sighed. "LeBeau, you like living here? In this land? With this war? You lost a lot of friends and family because of it, didn't you?"

Gambit tensed, his expression stony. "Oui."

"Look, I'm not making any promises, but if this thing can do what I think it can, then all this ends. The war, Onslaught, the killing - all of it stops. I can fix it, make things right"

He looked at Bishop suspiciously. "Yeah, y' t'ink?"

"I know."

Gambit thought on this for a moment. "Fine, we'll help you."

Bishop smiled. "I always knew you were a good man, LeBeau."

"Ha! Dat's jus' a rumor I started."

Bishop waved over the man standing guard at the end of the alley. Bennett du Paris, aka Exodus, walked over. He was Bishop's right-hand man and hardly ever left his side. He handed Bishop a slip of paper. "Meet Gateway here in two days. He'll teleport you to where we believe the Princess will appear..."

"Appear?"

"Yes, the stone appears every twenty-seven years, in varying locations around the globe." He held out the paper to Gambit. "These are the coordinates."

Gambit took the paper, his expression turning to one of disbelief as he read over the numbers. "Non...y' didn't say it'd be dere."

"Oh...I guess I forgot to mention it."

"Sorry, can' do it. Candra'd kill me."

"LeBeau, I need someone familiar with the area. I swear, if this works out, none of your...problems there will matter anymore."

"Y' say 'if'. Dat's not good 'nough."

"Please. Trust me."

Gambit studied the man standing in front of him. He didn't know Bishop well -- no one really did -- but he did know the man had a penchant for honesty. If he believed the gem was worth something in this world, then it was. He took one last drag and flicked the cigarette butt onto the ground.

"D'accord. We'll go to N'awlins for you." Candra was going to kill him.

Belladonna Boudreaux couldn't remember the last time New Orleans looked this warm and...peaceful. The sun was bright and the air was warm and comforting. She closed her eyes dreamily and inhaled the sweet fragrance of the magnolia trees. She opened her eyes and found herself sitting on her family's porch swing with her papa, Marius. Belladonna rested her head on her father's shoulder - when did Papa get so small? - and listened to the birds singing.

{Wouldn't it be nice if things were still like this?}

Belladonna jumped to her feet. "Who's dere?" she demanded. Slowly, everything around her began melting away into a dark nothingness.

A woman with long red hair walked out of the void. Belladonna's hand closed around her knife and when the woman got close enough, she threw it at her. The knife hit its mark, and passed right through it. Belladonna gasped in surprise. "Mon Dieu, who are you?"

A smile spread over the woman's face. "My name is Jean. I need you to help me."

"And why d' y' want dat?"

"Because if you help me, I can help you."

"Oh, and how y' plan on dat?"

"By helping you destroy the one person responsible for all the pain and misery that's happened in your life, Belladonna."

Belladonna's eyes narrowed as she hissed one word. "Remy."

Back at the warehouse that served as headquarters for the Thieves, the rest of the Guild waited for Gambit to come back from his meeting. Candra, former Guild benefactress and Gambit's current lover, paced back and forth, chewing her nails. Every five minutes or so, she would walk to the security monitors and check to see if he was approaching. When he wouldn't appear, she would sigh and resume her pacing. She was slowly driving everyone nuts.

"For the love of hope, Candra, would ya cut it out?" Jamie Madrox yelled. He was quickly hit in the face with a rag.

"Give her a break, Madrox. She's just worried and nervous, like the rest of us." Jamie glared at Vanessa Carlysle. She stuck her tongue out at him and went back to her cleaning.

Candra crossed her arms over her chest and was about to give Jamie an earful when Remy walked in. She ran over and hugged him fiercely.

Gambit hugged her back, an amused expression on his face. "Hey chere, miss me?"

She kissed him on the cheek. "Every second. So what did Bishop want? Did he ask you to join his X-Men again? Gambit shook his head.

"Non, not exactly. He asked me t'do a job for him, steal some sort of jewel."

Allison Blaire raised an eyebrow. "The high and noble Bishop is asking us to pinch somethin'? What next, Holocaust gonna organize a bake sale?"

"He says he needs it to fix t'ings, or somethin'. He's sendin' Gateway to take us dere in two days."

"Take us where?" asked Angelo Espinosa.

Gambit looked slightly uncomfortable as he tried to pull away from Candra. "Uh, to where de jewel is." She eyed him suspiciously.

"To where, Remy?"

"Ummm, N'awlins."

Candra's face went blank and she stepped away from Gambit. "New Orleans? Can I talk with you, privately?" She grabbed Gambit's arm and dragged him into their room. She shut the door, and began yelling at him.

The rest of the Guild looked around at one another. Allison walked to the door. "I'm going hunting. Anyone want to come along?" Allison, nicknamed Dazzler for her ability to transform sound into light, often went out hunting to ease her nerves. It just so happened that her prey could be anything from a jackrabbit to an unlucky person, depending on her mood. No one in the Guild went out with her more than once. They all declined. "Suit yourselves. I'm feeling lucky tonight." She grinned wickedly and bounded out the door.

Angelo shuddered. "That chica creeps me out sometimes, vato." Jamie nodded in agreement.

Vanessa snorted. "Yeah, well, I'd like to see how either one of you two would have turned out if you had been thrown into one of those HRM camps and been beaten and raped almost every day." Ange and Jamie looked at each other sheepishly. Jamie shrugged.

"Yeah, well, okay, she's got issues," he said.

She glared at the two of them and left, muttering something about insensitive men under her breath. Jamie walked over to Ange and slung his arm over the youth's shoulders. "Eh, women."

"Got dat right, homme." Gambit stood behind them, running a hand through his hair.

Ange gave him a sympathetic smile. "Candra's not too happy, is she?" Gambit shook his head.

"Nah, but who is in dis place, eh?" Gambit walked over to the window and stared out into the night sky. "Who is?"

Two days later the Guild was walking through the streets of New Orleans. Since the war, New Orleans had become something of a mecca for the criminal underworld. It was a dangerous city before the war, but afterwards, it became something even more...deadly. If there was a Hell on earth, it was located in New Orleans.

Gateway had dropped them off in an alley off of Bourbon Street, about two blocks from where Bishop believed the gem would appear. Gambit had decided that it would be a good idea to survey the area first, make sure no one would be around when the Princess appeared. As the Thieves' spread out, though, someone watched them from above.

"Belle, dey arrived. Jus' like de Prelate said dey would."

The commlink crackled and a woman's voice came over. "Good, Sarah. Now jus' sit tight an' wait for my signal." Sarah sighed and turned the link off. Ever since the day that cold-hearted bastard LeBeau had left her sister to die, she had been waiting for a chance to tear him apart. She pulled her mask over her face and concentrated on her bone structure, willing it to grow and erupt from her skin. Two pieces burst from her back and she pulled them out, the edges sharpened like the blade of a knife. The wounds on her back were already healed by the time she pulled a rag out to wipe the blood off her bone-blades. She looked down to the street, watching the people scurrying about in the darkness, and smiled.

One of Jamie's dupes walked back and forth, kicking stones out of his way. While the rest of the Guild was inside the building - an old bookstore or something - he and the other dupes were on guard duty outside. Not that he minded...much...but it was a little boring out here. He would have rather been inside with everyone else, maybe leaning up close next to Vanessa, smelling her hair, rubbing her shoulders...

Eh, what's that, he thought to himself. He walked slowly toward the end of the alley. "Hey, who's there?" A figure stepped out of the shadows. The dupe gulped. It was a very tall, very attractive Asian woman, wearing a very tight bodysuit. She smiled shyly at him.

"Please, forgive me. I was just on my way home. This city is so dangerous," she moved closer, batting her eyes, "and a woman has to be careful when she is alone." He grinned at her.

"Well, uh, if you want, y'know, I could walk you home, or something. I have to wait for my friends, but they shouldn't be long, or anything..."

She stood before him. "That won't be necessary." He felt a burning in his gut. He looked down and saw her hand tearing out his insides. He staggered backward and fell to the ground. One of the other dupes walked around the corner and yelled. The woman was startled to see an exact replica of the man she had just killed. The second dupe took advantage of her hesitation and bolted inside. "GAMBIT!! GAMBIT!! WE'VE GOT TROUBLE!!"

He leapt down the stairs into the basement. Everyone looked up as he ran into the room. Gambit stood up. "What, Jamie? What is it?" Before he could answer, there was a loud hiss from above and someone dropped from the ceiling onto Vanessa. She screamed as her back was ripped apart. Candra telekinetically pushed her attacker away. Angelo wrapped a tendril of skin around the woman, but quickly let go as a shard of bone pierced his shoulder. Gambit's eyes narrowed as he charged up a throwing spike.

"Marrow," he whispered angrily. He looked around. "Belle!" he yelled, "I know y're here. What you want?" A woman stepped out into the open, her features hidden behind a mask.

"What y' t'ink I wan? I wan' y' an' your whore dead!" she spat out. She began circling them.

"You just try, Belle, and see what happens," Candra hissed. She lunged for Belladonna. There was a loud popping sound, and both women were flung away from each other. An oval stone floated in the air where they had been standing, a blue glow emanating from it. Everybody in the room, thief and assassin alike, stared in awe.

Ange crossed himself, muttering, "Dios, is that it, Gambit?"

"I t'ink so, mon ami." Gambit walked up to the gem and placed a hand on it. Instantly his mind was flooded with visions, of both familiar faces and strangers. He saw himself holding a woman with long brown hair, a white stripe running down the centre. He saw Jamie wearing a dark blue uniform, his body wasting away from disease. There was a picture of Vanessa, before she mutated, crying and chasing after a blond man. It changed into one of Candra lying dead on the ground, a black woman with white hair standing over her. He saw himself again, underground in some tunnels. There were dead bodies all around him and he was running, holding on to a little girl. There was Allison, her hair longer, fighting alongside a man against a woman with six arms. Angelo came next, sitting in a vehicle with several other kids, gunfire all around them. Image after image came into his mind, paralysing him. Belle used the opportunity to shoot a bolt of energy towards him.

"Noooo!" screamed Candra. She shoved Gambit out of the way, knocking the stone into the path of the beam. It disappeared into the gem, and the stone grew larger, its light reaching every corner of the basement. There was a blinding flash of light and then the world disappeared.