Post by Juggers on Sept 3, 2006 6:59:31 GMT -5
The confrontation with Callisto had left the Juggernaut feeling unsettled. The woman was an arrogant ass, but she was a fast arrogant ass. Actually laying hands on her wasn't the easiest thing to do, though she could batter away at him all day to no effect. He would get lucky sooner or later. The X-Men had after all, and they weren't particularly good at fighting.
The Juggernaut shrugged. Stupid woman.
He'd finally got around to asking Python about the machine shop and the lanky engineer had manager to find a gap in his busy schedule of maintaining the plane and eating to work on the little project Cain had come up with. Hopefully there would be something to show for it before the day was done.
That left Cain with nothing to do.
He casually scooped up a girder and swung it like a club, overturning one of the mangled vehicles that littered the area. It always felt good to smash something.
Hands stuck in her pockets again, Angie kicked up a cloud of dust in boredom. There wasn't a whole lot to do around the base, and the slightly interesting event of the alarms going off had finished and brought the base back down with a crash that seemed to Angie to go to an even lower level of boring.
She was wandering around outside, thinking of taking a walk into the jungle or something - though the idea of getting eaten by a snake or a lion or something wasn't overly appetising. She didn't even know what was in the jungle.
Her thoughts were distracted by the sound of crunching metal and tinkling glass, and her face brightened. While most people would have been horrified by such a sound - the kind of thing you heard when there was a car accident, though without the screams - she'd come to associate the sound of destruction with the Juggernaut, and she was fast coming to like him. The big mutant was easy to like. Uncomplicated. Her feelings about him were easy to understand.
She wandered over toward the sound, calling out as she went in case he was about to throw something in her direction. "Hey hey!" She had no doubt that a run in with the Juggernaut would leave her broken and bleeding, if not worse. She was amazed that Callisto had even thought to try.
Cain launched the girder like a spear and it sailed the length of the yard before skewering itself through the remains of a wall. "Hiya," he greeted, "how you doin'?"
The Juggernaut had come to like Angie during her short time on Genosha. She was sweet natured, had the right sort of mutant ideals, was bloody good cook and seemed to be very good for Pyro. The last point seemed particularly valid given the majority of the female population living in the base.
In short, she made him feel all big-brotherly.
With a smile, Angie watched Juggernaut's version of the javelin and wondered if they let mutants compete in the Olympics. Maybe they needed one of their own.
"I'm good, how're you? Having fun?" She pulled a hand out of her pocket and gestured vaguely at the wall, which now had a great hunk of metal skewered through it. "Is this your version of darts?" She gave him a big happy smile. Angie could just picture Cain doing it in a pub somewhere. Mind you, it'd be an expensive game, but not many people would argue the point with someone like him.
Cain grinned, "yeah, Magneto used to say it was good to practise with ya powers, 'elped you discover stuff you didn't know about." Not that there was much to discover about the Juggernaut. He was strong, he could break things, things couldn't break him. Thus far that had been about the extent of it.
Not that Cain was dissatisfied with his lot; there was always an abundance of stuff to break.
He tried to imagine an immense dart board with a pile of pointed girders to throw. The idea had a certain amount of appeal.
"You'd need a damn big pub for a board that size," he chuckled, "an I'd 'ave to 'ave someone to play against," he rolled another girder over with his foot, "wanna try?"
Laughing, Angie shook her head. "Don't think I could manage, but thanks for the offer." The fact that he could roll it over with a foot when she wouldn't be able to push it an inch with all her strength, in all likelihood, was telling. "I'll take you at normal darts sometime though." His darts would probably stick right through the board and into the wall.
"Not many chances for me to practice with my powers, hey. Unless you want to beat someone up for me." She grinned cheekily. "Pity Callisto heals herself, right?" Angie had gotten the distinct impression that the woman wasn't overly popular with the group, but Gill hadn't really detailed why. She hadn't really been overly friendly from the get-go, and the young Australian wondered if she'd been like that before as well.
The Juggernaut smirked, "yeah, she ain't made 'erself too popular around 'ere, always was an arrogant cow, gettin' killed ain't done nothin' to improve 'er."
"You could probbly beat 'er up yeself if you wanted," he said, "one of the X-Men managed it, just need to keep 'old of 'er. Course, it's the gettin' 'old that's the problem."
He looked around the training yard, filled with rubble and the mangled hulks of vehicles. It was fine for the more physical mutations; strength, speed, energy projection. Some of the more uppity mutants had snorted at such a crude facility but it got the job done and for the Juggernaut it was perfect.
It was no use to Angie at all though.
"I wouldn't know how, I've never hit anyone in my life." She smiled when she said it, though it was a bit of an odd confession for someone who'd joined a group of international mutant terrorists.
"I do want to learn though. Guy grabbed me in Baltimore - the one with the icy hands? I couldn't get out, don't have a hope being my size." Angie was of the belief that being small, she couldn't make any difference. Maybe if she'd known anything about fighting, though, or just basic self defense, she'd have been able to do something.
"Ain't got nothin' to do with ya size," the Juggernaut shrugged, "though it does 'elp."
Having grown up fighting as leader of his own gang, Cain Marko had learned a thing or two about self defense. It wasn't pretty, it certainly wasn't elegant but it was brutally effective. It was the sort of fighting that aimed to hospitalise, all damage and very little showmanship.
"Next time someone grabs ya, thump 'im with ya elbow," he pointed to the centre of his torso, just below where the ribs joined, "right 'ere, or if ya can," he extended his middle knuckle slightly and punched the fist into his palm, "punch 'im in the throat like that."
The Juggernaut nodded sagely at his own words of wisdom.
"Ain't nobody I know that won't let go right quick after that," he frowned, "'cept maybe that tin man."
Nodding, Angie imitated the way he'd punched his palm, feeling a little silly. It was an entirely different matter punching your palm than actually punching a person, but this was better than nothing.
"Under the sternum, right. What about you?" She grinned cheekily. Angie had no hope of being able to hit Juggernaut there - she was the wrong height entirely - but she doubted that it would make a difference anyway. And she had a snowball's chance in hell of reaching his throat.
"I tried to elbow this guy, but he had my arms pinned behind me." She shrugged. He'd let her go in the end, but she'd had to heal her mother for that to happen. She wondered what had happened to her, but realised that she really didn't care. It had meant that she was weaker than she would have been, though, and that had annoyed him.
Yeah, I'd like to punch him in the throat next time I see him.
The Juggernaut nodded, "if ya get your arms pinned use your feet."
He stood up and wandered a couple of steps away, "like this."
He raised one leg and kicked directly back with his heel and then stomped directly downward. The ground shook slightly. On a normal person the heel would have connected sharply with an attackers knee, removed a nice long strip of skin from the shin before crushing the bridge of their foot. At Cain's height it would connect with an attackers hip and probably kill them.
Not that it was very likely that the Juggernaut would get pinned.
The idea remained the same however.
"That'll make 'im think twice an you can use ya head as well!"
Cain demonstrated by quickly throwing his head back.
"Even if 'e's taller than you you'll give 'im a good smack in the jaw."
"Ow."
Angie's hand went to the back of her head instinctively, rubbing at a phantom pain.
"Wouldn't it hurt though?"
She'd noticed the slight rumble in the ground when Juggernaut had stomped, and wondered if he'd left a ditch. His mutation was pretty simple, but there was no denying that it had impressive results.
Wandering over to a bit of rubble - possibly the remains of a wall, whatever it was seemed to have a few bricks in it, Angie sat down.
"I really need to practice this kind of stuff, I was totally useless at Baltimore."
Well, not totally useless. She had gotten them all out of there except for Dead Man, but there'd been no hope for him. Still, she felt horribly ineffectual not being able to actually contribute to the fight.
"It'll 'urt them more, an your 'ead is alot 'arder than their face," this was almost universally true.
"You could probbly get Python or Pyro to practise with ya, maybe Aurora, I dunno. You're a bit little to practise on me, or I'm a bit big, dependin' on how you want to look at it. I can tell you 'ow to do it though."
Cain picked up a chunk of brick and tossed it absently into the air a few times.
"An I wouldn't 'ave said you was useless, 'ealed everyone up right good, even some of 'em that didn't deserve it," Cain still didn't see Mystique's adventures into the NovaTeX building as terribly necessary, "an you stopped me from snoozin' in the sewers. It ain't all about fightin', least ways not all of the time, an we need you around to fix Pyro up when 'e gets broken."
The Juggernaut gave her an amused grin.
"Yeah, I might talk to Aurora, see what she thinks." At least she'd be able to heal any damage that she did. There was no way that Angie was going to speak to Pyro about letting her try to beat him up, although Python might help out. "Thanks for showing me, though." She grinned up at Juggernaut.
"Yeah, I don't know... I'm not much of a fighter, guess it might be a bit weird seeing me here." She picked up a piece of brick of her own, turning it in her hands.
"I can't fix up Pyro, though. Not with the way he's been broken lately." She gave him a sad half smile, unable to find the situation amusing. Angie was painfully aware of how she felt about Pyro, painfully aware of the fact that the rest of them probably knew too.
The Juggernaut shrugged, oblivious to subtleties like personal feelings. Short of Angie actually coming right out and declaring her undying love for their slightly crazed leader, Cain was never going to notice a thing. Even if she had come right out with it he probably would have doubled up with laughter. The idea of Pyro in love was something that would never, ever occur to the Juggernaut.
"That blonde tart seems to 'ave fixed 'is 'ead up for the time bein'," he frowned, "can't say as I trust 'er much though; she could be doin' anythin' in there an we wouldn't know until 'e keeled over in the middle of a fight."
That brought him back around to fighting.
"The Brotherhood's like ... " he fumbled for the right words for a moment, not being the most eloquent speaker in the world, " ... like an idea. It ain't all about fightin' all the time, it's about standin' up for yeself, standin' up for mutants, an sometimes that means we 'ave to fight for it."
This was heavy stuff for the likes of Cain. He was trying to remember some of the stuff Magneto had used to wow crowds of mutants to his cause.
"Places like NoveTeX want us all to be like them 'cos they're scared, scared that we're better than they are, that's why they made up the cure."
He looked around, "I reckon we got somethin' 'ere worth fightin' for, even if some of us fight in a different way to the others."
He realised that he'd been getting terribly deep and meaningful and visibly shook himself.
"Yeah, anyways, 'ere's some other stuff that'll make someone think twice!"
Nodding, Angie hummed her agreement as she watched Cain's demonstration. "Yeah, my mum wanted me to get the cure." She had spoken to Aurora about it, but Angie hadn't really gotten too far into why she'd joined the Brotherhood with the rest of them. Had alluded to it a couple of times, but this was probably the most open she'd ever been about it.
"She said she was just worried about me, that she wanted me to be better... She never understood." The young Australian shook her head.
"Yeah, I reckon we've got something worth fighting for too." She nodded firmly, the matter resolved in her mind.
The Juggernaut shrugged. Stupid woman.
He'd finally got around to asking Python about the machine shop and the lanky engineer had manager to find a gap in his busy schedule of maintaining the plane and eating to work on the little project Cain had come up with. Hopefully there would be something to show for it before the day was done.
That left Cain with nothing to do.
He casually scooped up a girder and swung it like a club, overturning one of the mangled vehicles that littered the area. It always felt good to smash something.
Hands stuck in her pockets again, Angie kicked up a cloud of dust in boredom. There wasn't a whole lot to do around the base, and the slightly interesting event of the alarms going off had finished and brought the base back down with a crash that seemed to Angie to go to an even lower level of boring.
She was wandering around outside, thinking of taking a walk into the jungle or something - though the idea of getting eaten by a snake or a lion or something wasn't overly appetising. She didn't even know what was in the jungle.
Her thoughts were distracted by the sound of crunching metal and tinkling glass, and her face brightened. While most people would have been horrified by such a sound - the kind of thing you heard when there was a car accident, though without the screams - she'd come to associate the sound of destruction with the Juggernaut, and she was fast coming to like him. The big mutant was easy to like. Uncomplicated. Her feelings about him were easy to understand.
She wandered over toward the sound, calling out as she went in case he was about to throw something in her direction. "Hey hey!" She had no doubt that a run in with the Juggernaut would leave her broken and bleeding, if not worse. She was amazed that Callisto had even thought to try.
Cain launched the girder like a spear and it sailed the length of the yard before skewering itself through the remains of a wall. "Hiya," he greeted, "how you doin'?"
The Juggernaut had come to like Angie during her short time on Genosha. She was sweet natured, had the right sort of mutant ideals, was bloody good cook and seemed to be very good for Pyro. The last point seemed particularly valid given the majority of the female population living in the base.
In short, she made him feel all big-brotherly.
With a smile, Angie watched Juggernaut's version of the javelin and wondered if they let mutants compete in the Olympics. Maybe they needed one of their own.
"I'm good, how're you? Having fun?" She pulled a hand out of her pocket and gestured vaguely at the wall, which now had a great hunk of metal skewered through it. "Is this your version of darts?" She gave him a big happy smile. Angie could just picture Cain doing it in a pub somewhere. Mind you, it'd be an expensive game, but not many people would argue the point with someone like him.
Cain grinned, "yeah, Magneto used to say it was good to practise with ya powers, 'elped you discover stuff you didn't know about." Not that there was much to discover about the Juggernaut. He was strong, he could break things, things couldn't break him. Thus far that had been about the extent of it.
Not that Cain was dissatisfied with his lot; there was always an abundance of stuff to break.
He tried to imagine an immense dart board with a pile of pointed girders to throw. The idea had a certain amount of appeal.
"You'd need a damn big pub for a board that size," he chuckled, "an I'd 'ave to 'ave someone to play against," he rolled another girder over with his foot, "wanna try?"
Laughing, Angie shook her head. "Don't think I could manage, but thanks for the offer." The fact that he could roll it over with a foot when she wouldn't be able to push it an inch with all her strength, in all likelihood, was telling. "I'll take you at normal darts sometime though." His darts would probably stick right through the board and into the wall.
"Not many chances for me to practice with my powers, hey. Unless you want to beat someone up for me." She grinned cheekily. "Pity Callisto heals herself, right?" Angie had gotten the distinct impression that the woman wasn't overly popular with the group, but Gill hadn't really detailed why. She hadn't really been overly friendly from the get-go, and the young Australian wondered if she'd been like that before as well.
The Juggernaut smirked, "yeah, she ain't made 'erself too popular around 'ere, always was an arrogant cow, gettin' killed ain't done nothin' to improve 'er."
"You could probbly beat 'er up yeself if you wanted," he said, "one of the X-Men managed it, just need to keep 'old of 'er. Course, it's the gettin' 'old that's the problem."
He looked around the training yard, filled with rubble and the mangled hulks of vehicles. It was fine for the more physical mutations; strength, speed, energy projection. Some of the more uppity mutants had snorted at such a crude facility but it got the job done and for the Juggernaut it was perfect.
It was no use to Angie at all though.
"I wouldn't know how, I've never hit anyone in my life." She smiled when she said it, though it was a bit of an odd confession for someone who'd joined a group of international mutant terrorists.
"I do want to learn though. Guy grabbed me in Baltimore - the one with the icy hands? I couldn't get out, don't have a hope being my size." Angie was of the belief that being small, she couldn't make any difference. Maybe if she'd known anything about fighting, though, or just basic self defense, she'd have been able to do something.
"Ain't got nothin' to do with ya size," the Juggernaut shrugged, "though it does 'elp."
Having grown up fighting as leader of his own gang, Cain Marko had learned a thing or two about self defense. It wasn't pretty, it certainly wasn't elegant but it was brutally effective. It was the sort of fighting that aimed to hospitalise, all damage and very little showmanship.
"Next time someone grabs ya, thump 'im with ya elbow," he pointed to the centre of his torso, just below where the ribs joined, "right 'ere, or if ya can," he extended his middle knuckle slightly and punched the fist into his palm, "punch 'im in the throat like that."
The Juggernaut nodded sagely at his own words of wisdom.
"Ain't nobody I know that won't let go right quick after that," he frowned, "'cept maybe that tin man."
Nodding, Angie imitated the way he'd punched his palm, feeling a little silly. It was an entirely different matter punching your palm than actually punching a person, but this was better than nothing.
"Under the sternum, right. What about you?" She grinned cheekily. Angie had no hope of being able to hit Juggernaut there - she was the wrong height entirely - but she doubted that it would make a difference anyway. And she had a snowball's chance in hell of reaching his throat.
"I tried to elbow this guy, but he had my arms pinned behind me." She shrugged. He'd let her go in the end, but she'd had to heal her mother for that to happen. She wondered what had happened to her, but realised that she really didn't care. It had meant that she was weaker than she would have been, though, and that had annoyed him.
Yeah, I'd like to punch him in the throat next time I see him.
The Juggernaut nodded, "if ya get your arms pinned use your feet."
He stood up and wandered a couple of steps away, "like this."
He raised one leg and kicked directly back with his heel and then stomped directly downward. The ground shook slightly. On a normal person the heel would have connected sharply with an attackers knee, removed a nice long strip of skin from the shin before crushing the bridge of their foot. At Cain's height it would connect with an attackers hip and probably kill them.
Not that it was very likely that the Juggernaut would get pinned.
The idea remained the same however.
"That'll make 'im think twice an you can use ya head as well!"
Cain demonstrated by quickly throwing his head back.
"Even if 'e's taller than you you'll give 'im a good smack in the jaw."
"Ow."
Angie's hand went to the back of her head instinctively, rubbing at a phantom pain.
"Wouldn't it hurt though?"
She'd noticed the slight rumble in the ground when Juggernaut had stomped, and wondered if he'd left a ditch. His mutation was pretty simple, but there was no denying that it had impressive results.
Wandering over to a bit of rubble - possibly the remains of a wall, whatever it was seemed to have a few bricks in it, Angie sat down.
"I really need to practice this kind of stuff, I was totally useless at Baltimore."
Well, not totally useless. She had gotten them all out of there except for Dead Man, but there'd been no hope for him. Still, she felt horribly ineffectual not being able to actually contribute to the fight.
"It'll 'urt them more, an your 'ead is alot 'arder than their face," this was almost universally true.
"You could probbly get Python or Pyro to practise with ya, maybe Aurora, I dunno. You're a bit little to practise on me, or I'm a bit big, dependin' on how you want to look at it. I can tell you 'ow to do it though."
Cain picked up a chunk of brick and tossed it absently into the air a few times.
"An I wouldn't 'ave said you was useless, 'ealed everyone up right good, even some of 'em that didn't deserve it," Cain still didn't see Mystique's adventures into the NovaTeX building as terribly necessary, "an you stopped me from snoozin' in the sewers. It ain't all about fightin', least ways not all of the time, an we need you around to fix Pyro up when 'e gets broken."
The Juggernaut gave her an amused grin.
"Yeah, I might talk to Aurora, see what she thinks." At least she'd be able to heal any damage that she did. There was no way that Angie was going to speak to Pyro about letting her try to beat him up, although Python might help out. "Thanks for showing me, though." She grinned up at Juggernaut.
"Yeah, I don't know... I'm not much of a fighter, guess it might be a bit weird seeing me here." She picked up a piece of brick of her own, turning it in her hands.
"I can't fix up Pyro, though. Not with the way he's been broken lately." She gave him a sad half smile, unable to find the situation amusing. Angie was painfully aware of how she felt about Pyro, painfully aware of the fact that the rest of them probably knew too.
The Juggernaut shrugged, oblivious to subtleties like personal feelings. Short of Angie actually coming right out and declaring her undying love for their slightly crazed leader, Cain was never going to notice a thing. Even if she had come right out with it he probably would have doubled up with laughter. The idea of Pyro in love was something that would never, ever occur to the Juggernaut.
"That blonde tart seems to 'ave fixed 'is 'ead up for the time bein'," he frowned, "can't say as I trust 'er much though; she could be doin' anythin' in there an we wouldn't know until 'e keeled over in the middle of a fight."
That brought him back around to fighting.
"The Brotherhood's like ... " he fumbled for the right words for a moment, not being the most eloquent speaker in the world, " ... like an idea. It ain't all about fightin' all the time, it's about standin' up for yeself, standin' up for mutants, an sometimes that means we 'ave to fight for it."
This was heavy stuff for the likes of Cain. He was trying to remember some of the stuff Magneto had used to wow crowds of mutants to his cause.
"Places like NoveTeX want us all to be like them 'cos they're scared, scared that we're better than they are, that's why they made up the cure."
He looked around, "I reckon we got somethin' 'ere worth fightin' for, even if some of us fight in a different way to the others."
He realised that he'd been getting terribly deep and meaningful and visibly shook himself.
"Yeah, anyways, 'ere's some other stuff that'll make someone think twice!"
Nodding, Angie hummed her agreement as she watched Cain's demonstration. "Yeah, my mum wanted me to get the cure." She had spoken to Aurora about it, but Angie hadn't really gotten too far into why she'd joined the Brotherhood with the rest of them. Had alluded to it a couple of times, but this was probably the most open she'd ever been about it.
"She said she was just worried about me, that she wanted me to be better... She never understood." The young Australian shook her head.
"Yeah, I reckon we've got something worth fighting for too." She nodded firmly, the matter resolved in her mind.
