Cain and Rogue, Sunday afternoon

[x-juggernaut.livejournal.com]

Just how strong is Rogue? It seems assigning her to a Danger Room session with Juggernaut might be the best way to find out.



Cain paced the length of the Danger Room, rolling his shoulders and flexing his fingers. When he'd checked his schedule, he was surprised to see his Danger Room time appended with a note to see the team leaders beforehand. And then when he heard why, it had taken a good five minutes for the smile to leave his face.

Crouching and swaying slightly from side to side, he kept his eyes on the door, waiting for his training 'partner'. Given everything he understood about her powers, this was going to be one hell of a fun time.

Rogue checked her uniform on last time before entering the Danger Room, making sure that as much skin as possible was covered. Usually, she relished training sessions and looked forward to them more than most of her fellow teammates. Today, her stomach was full of butterflies and she didn't even know why - perhaps it was the fact that she had been sent to the Danger Room without much information, but more likely it was because she hadn't trained since before San Diego and she worried that she had lost some of her edge. Now, she thought she better understood the strained look on people's faces before they entered the DR and was pretty sure she had a similar look on her own face. Taking a deep breath, she walked through the doors as soon they opened.

Smiling as he noticed Rogue, Cain stepped into the area of the floor outlined in blue. Giving a quick thumbs up to the control booth, he saw the green light come on and turned his attention to the young girl.

"So everything I read says you're one tough cookie," he drawled, looking at the two boxes that rose from the floor on either side of him. "Looks like Fearless Leader wants to test how tough. Up for it?"

He had to admit, he liked Marie. She had a good head on her shoulders, especially now that she'd put Logan out of her life, that rose her even higher in Cain's eyes. But when the bosses said "put her through the wringer", he was only too happy to oblige. Besides, with Rasputin gone, he didn't really have any sort of challenging partners to tussle with these days.

"As ready as Ah'll ever be," she said cautiously stepping into the outlined area. She eyed the large man warily, though a small part of her began perking up. So far Logan had been the only person she'd ever been able to fight with almost no holds barred. From all she knew of Cain, he could take all she could dish out and then some, as long as she stayed away from using her absorption. And with someone like Cain, who knew if that'd even be enough to bring him down? Standing tall (well, as tall as she could when compared to someone like the Juggernaut) she waited for him to make the first move.

Cain smiled, and just looked up to the ceiling. "Step one - catch!" he said, as a shadow signaled the falling of an automobile-sized weight plate from the ceiling, directly above Rogue.

Marie flinched and took a step before forcing herself to stand still and lift her arms above her head. She wanted to flee, do what any normal person would do and get out of the way. But, she reminded herself, she wasn't your average Joe. Bending her knees as the weight hit her palms, she was surprised as the floor turned spongy to help absorb the impact. "Your turn," she said as she tossed the weight at Cain.

Cain reached out to catch the weight, adjusting his stance. By his quick estimate, the ridged weight was close to five tons, and Marie had bumped it to him like a volleyball. Holding it out with both arms in front of him, he flipped it so the flat side was towards her. "Step two," he called out, "one punch. Go."

She nodded, though she was a bit skeptical. The material looked pretty strong and she had mostly used her strength against things that could shatter or break, like glass and concrete. Drawing closer to the weight, she drew back her fist and punched. She blinked her eyes in surprise as it crumpled around her fist. A gasp slipped out before she could stop it. "Ah didn't know Ah could do that."

Cain just blinked at the dent on his side of the foot-thick steel, the imprints of Rogue's knuckles visible. "Hot damn," he said with a whistle, tossing the weight backwards over his head to clatter against the floor. "Suppose you ain't never had much need to hit anything that hard before, huh?"

"Can't say that Ah have," she said as her eyes followed the weight. "Ah do lots of things here that Ah never had need for before. Gettin' set on fire, for instance." There was less bitterness in her tone then there had been previously and hardly a shudder to go along with the words. "So what's step three?" she asked.

Grinning and lowering his stance, Cain rocked his head from side to side, his neck cracking loudly. "Step three? That's simple." He raised his fists in a boxing stance. "Hit me. As hard as you can."

Oh is that all? Though at least this was something she was more familiar with...just pretend he's Sabretooth. Or Magneto. Bringing her fists up, she assumed a boxing stance as well, clenching her teeth. She took a step forward and threw a cross at his torso, putting all her power into it.

Despite bracing himself, Cain actually rocked back slightly. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! The girl hits like a pint-sized battleship! he thought to himself as he took a breath. "Okay," he said, trying not to sound like he had to suck in his stomach to keep from losing his breath, "we'll move right on to step three and a half..."

Before he finished the sentence, he swung his anvil-sized fist in a wide arc, twisting his upper body at the last minute to send a straight punch right into Marie's shoulder.

A string of curse words erupted out of her lips as Cain made contact and she flew throw the air. Marie left a dent as she crashed into the wall and the moment it took her to rise to her feet was more from shock than anything. As soon as she stood, she felt her blood begin to pump the way it always did when she was in the thick of things. With a rush of adrenaline, she rocketed back over to Cain but instead of landing, she aimed her feet firmly at his chest.

Before he could get his feet planted, Rogue's dropkick knocked Cain completely into the air, and he hit the ground hard, flat on his back. Swearing, he kicked both feet into the air, rocking up to a standing position and dashing forward, fists flying in a series of jabs and uppercuts.

The girl was quick, he would give her that. So much speed and power in suck a small package, plus she could take everything he was dishing out. So far, Cain thought, he was impressed.

He was impressed even more when she switched stances on him, countering a shoulder block with an elegant hip toss, sending him tumbling once more. "Huh," he said as he rose to his feet again. "Looks like you picked up some of Logan's moves. Not bad, not bad."

Though tempted to bask in his praise, she had learned better when sparring with Logan. Too much talking and not enough awareness usually led to her soaking out bruises in the hot tub afterwords. Instead, she simply nodded as she circled around, keeping her distance from Cain to see where this exercise was going to lead. She was pretty impressed that she'd been able to land half the punches she had and wondered if he was holding back. "Not too shabby yourself," she finally offered.

"Not too shabby," Cain repeated with an expression of mock offense."The kid barely out of Girl Scouts tells me 'not too shabby'. All right then," he said, matching her circling motions, "try this on for size."

He faked a lunge to the left, then dove around Marie's right side, one arm sweeping past her legs in a wrestling takedown, his other encircling her torso, pinning her arms to her sides and letting his weight rest on her shoulders. "How quick are you when you ain't got leverage, huh?"

She struggled futilely for a few minutes before realizing she needed to adjust her strategy. Furrowing her brow as she concentrated she simply pushed her arms out and away from her body. She would have broken most people's holds on her, but with Cain she just barely loosened it enough to slip through his arms and out from under him. "Don't gotta be quick," she retorted as she pushed down on his shoulders to drop him to his knees.

Flying up, she hovered out of his grasp and crossed her arms. "Not bad for a Girl Scout, eh?" she teased, though she was careful to continue watching his every movement.

"Not too bad for anyone," Cain responded, walking over to one of the large boxes. Reaching in, he hefted up what looked like a large tube onto his shoulder. "And the fourth and final step. Let's see just how tough you are after twenty minutes of pushing yourself."

Flipping the small red safety lever with his thumb, Cain aimed the tube at Marie and very calmly pulled the trigger on the bottom.

He didn't want to know WHY Charles had a rocket launcher "for training purposes", but he wasn't about to question the fun once he saw the sudden look of surprise on Rogue's face.

It can't hurt me, it can't hurt me, it can't hurt me. It was like a mantra she repeated to herself as she saw the rocket grow closer and closer. She couldn't help squeeze her eyes shut as the rocket was inches from impact and waited for the explosion. Instead, she felt something like one of Cain's punch and it was over. Reopening her eyes, she was surprised to find herself (and the room) covered in purple sticky goop. She tried to contain her laugh and she looked down and saw that not even Cain had been spared the explosion of goo.

"Shoulda known you wouldn't really try and blow me up," she said, though a small part of her wondered if Cain had known what the rocket was filled with...and then a part of her began to wonder if she could withstand a regular rocket.

Cain, for his part, was looking at the empty rocket tube with a hangdog expression. "Dammit, I shoulda known Chuck wouldn't spring for a REAL bazooka."

Wiping some of the tacky goo from his face, Cain reached up to his collar and keyed his communicator. "Okay, end session recording," he said loudly, "I think the official evaluation's probably along the lines of 'pound for pound, she's the toughest little cuss here', or something like that."

As soon as the green light turned red, Marie set down on the ground and finally allowed herself to relax. "Ah think that's one of the best work outs Ah've had in a while," she said while wiping the sweat from her brow. "How 'bout next time Ah shoot the rocket launcher at you?"

Cain pondered that for a moment. "Been a while since anyone's done that. Lemme think..." he stared into space, mumbling to himself, "...machine gun... set on fire... caught a bus... No, no, I don't think anyone's hit me with a rocket in a while. I'll see if I can't put in a request to get us sent somewhere with rockets next time there's an emergency, how about that?"

For the life of her, Marie couldn't figure out if Cain was joking or serious. She decided that maybe there was a little of both in his words. After a few moments of shock, she simply nodded and said "Sounds like a plan" though she wasn't sure she really wanted to be sent some place where she would be the participating in target practice with rockets and her as the target. "How 'bout we head to Harry's and you tell me about some of those stories?" She looked back down at her uniform and grinned sheepishly. "After we clean up, that is."

Smirking down at Marie's goop-coated uniform, Cain nodded. "Step five, showers."