Inez and Cain: Test Your Might!

[x-desperado.livejournal.com]

Inez finally meets Cain, and gets to test her strength in a most unusual manner.



Cain looked up over the edge of the newspaper. One of the kids, one he didn't recognize, had been watching him ever since dinner. He turned the page, folding the newspaper slowly with huge fingers, continuing his reading as he drank his coffee directly from the glass carafe. Lorna would have flipped her emerald-green lid, but then again, she'd headed off to California. For a few months anyway, Cain figured, given how long people's "absences" tended to be.

"If you're waiting around for the comics," he drawled, raising his voice to carry across the large dining room, "one of the little kids took off with 'em."

Inez coughed and leaned around the corner. "No, um... you're Mister Marko, right?" She'd been told that he was supposed to be helping her test her strength, but was she supposed to come to him? Wait for a note? Get ambushed on the way to class?

"Yup," Cain said, finishing off his coffee. "You're the new girl, right? One of 'em. Agnes?"

"Inez," she corrected, folding her arms across her chest. "I got told to see you about some testing."

Cain stood up and jerked his head towards the hallway that led to the basements. "Come on then," he ordered. "So they tell me you're stronger than you look, huh?"

Inez balked for a moment as the groundskeeper stood up. He was easily the biggest person she'd ever seen, even counting some of the big unsavory types that her Dad worked with. "Um, are we going outside?"

"Nope," Cain answered, sliding a discreet panel out of the way and keying in the code to the sub-basement corridors. "If you want to do something right, might as well use the expensive stuff. Besides, you don't get to play in my quarry unless I know you ain't gonna hurt yourself."

Inez rolled her eyes but followed Cain anyway. "Hurt myself. Suuuuure," she drawled. "I didn't just wake up like this yesterday, you know. I've practiced."

Cain looked over his shoulder and just raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," Inez corrected, "I've practiced some."

"And now you're gonna practice more," Cain said as he walked down the smooth metal corridor, then stopped and waited for the circular door to slide open. Walking through, the glowing blue grid of the Danger Room surrounded them. "Welcome to the world's most expensive rumpus room," he said with a slight smile.

Walking over to one of the walls, he slid a panel open and pulled a large metal ball off a rack, hefting it in one hand and tossing it underhanded to Inez. "Catch," he said.

Startled, Inez scooted to catch the ball. "We're going to play catch?" she asked before she caught the ball, and promptly fell flat on her back as the breath was knocked out of her. "...holy shit!" she yelled, gasping for air. "What the hell?"

"Hundred-twenty pounds of solid steel," Cain laughed, pointing at the ball. "Throw it back. We're gonna play catch."

Inez narrowed her eyes, getting to her feet and picking up the ball. This guy was already getting on her nerves. "Catch!" she shouted, windmilling her arm like a softball pitcher and throwing the sphere back at Cain.

Cain scooped the ball out of the air effortlessly, picking up a darker one from the rack with his other hand. "Two-fifty," he announced as he flung it her way.

Inez was ready this time, darting to her left like a star shortstop catching a line drive, this time bracing herself for the impact. She was strong and tough, true, but even still she was catching something that weighed about a hundred pounds more than her. She tossed the dark sphere from hand to hand, smirking at Cain. "This is what the big bucks are for? A glorified P.E. class?"

Scowling, Cain reached into his pocket, slipping his X-Men communicator over his ear and keying the mic. "This is Juggernaut," he spoke into midair, "activate training program Delta Oscar Foxtrot Papa."

With a flash of lasers, the walls of the Danger Room seemed to fade away, replaced by scenes of a ruined city, buildings in flames and the sounds of chaotic battle audible in the distance. Next to Inez, a series of explosions toppled a wall, the echo of shock waves carrying through the scene.

"Holy fucking shit!" Inez yelped, leaping out of the way and staring around her. "Oh my God, is this real? Where are we?"

"We ain't gone nowhere," Cain said, circling Inez and watching the young girl's reaction. "This is where the big bucks go. Four hundred, comin' at you."

The next projectile was a block of stone, tossed from behind Inez. She turned and realized that she wasn't going to catch something that big in time. Instinctively, she stepped into the path of the block and swung her fist at it. The punch connected, and the boulder cracked into pieces, falling to the ground around her in a cloud of dust. Surprised, she looked at her knuckles. "Not a scratch," she said quietly, barely believing it.

"...help me!" came a barely audible noise from behind a building. Inez looked around, but couldn't see anyone else in the scene, not even Cain.

"Mister Marko?" she called. "Who's there? Is that you?"

"Please! Help me!" the voice was louder now, sounding panicked. Curious, Inez worked her way over an uneven pile of rubble - where did that come from? she wondered - and moved around another collapsed building. When she saw the source of the noise, however, her hand flew to her mouth in surprise. An upside-down car was pinning a young boy against the ground. She couldn't tell if it was oil or blood beneath him, but she ran to him anyway.

"Are you all right? What's your name?" she asked.

"...help me, please..." he coughed, not moving.

Inez looked around for Cain, standing up to try and see the big groundskeeper. "Mister Marko!" she yelled. "There's a kid hurt here! Shut this off!" When she heard nothing in response, she looked down to the boy. She didn't recognize him, but he had to be one of the younger students, she figured. He'd probably wandered in here and gotten hurt. What kind of school WAS this?

"I'm going to get you out of there," she said as calmly as she could, reaching down to grab the car by one of the roof pillars. "Just stay still."

Her first attempt at lifting it just shifted the car, and she could feel the strain in her arms. The boy's strangled screams echoed in her ears, though, and she tried harder. With a sound of wrenching metal, she lifted the car completely off the ground, turning and tossing it aside. "I've got you..." she called out as she turned to the boy-

-only to see that the lower half of the "child's" body was steel and wires, dotted with blinking lights. "Help me..." the recorded voice played again. Slowly, the sounds around her dimmed and the buildings flickered and faded as the room lit up, resuming the earlier appearance with the blue grid marking the walls.

Cain stood leaning against one of the walls, clapping slowly. "Eleven hundred pounds," he said with a smile. "And you did that without using anything for leverage. That's pretty impressive, I gotta say."

Inez just blinked, then walked over to Cain. Without a word, she reached back with a fist and then punched him in the stomach as hard as she could.

Unlike when she'd hit the stone, however, this time it hurt.

She heard her knuckles pop, and felt the jar all the way up to her shoulder. She cried out and jumped back, shaking her hand. "You asshole!" she swore. "I thought that kid was really hurt there! What the hell kind of test is this?"

Cain laughed, brushing the front of his shirt with one hand. "One'a my favorites," he replied. "You did good."

"I want out of here," Inez insisted as she stomped over to the door. "Your test sucks."

Laughing, Cain walked over and punched in the code to open the door. "Tuesdays and Fridays," he said. "Two days a week, you're gonna work with me and we'll see how strong you really are. And if you take it serious and don't fuck around, I'll teach you how to really use that power you got."

Angry but intrigued, Inez folded her arms defensively, standing her ground and looking up at the giant. "Use it how?" she asked.

Cain smiled and turned back towards the room. "Computer!" he called out. "Roll call!"

The hologram lasers flashed again, and a group of people dressed in familiar black leathers seemed to form out of thin air, walking across the Danger Room floor. Next to Inez, a flash of flame rippled up Cain's body, and he looked down at the girl from under the black iron helmet of the Juggernaut.

"Lemme tell you about the X-Men..." he began.