Villain Juggernaut

Once upon a time, there were two boys who lived in the same house and had almost nothing in common.

One was Charles Xavier — quiet, clever, kind, always with a book in his hand.

The other was Cain Marko — loud, restless, angry at the world in a way that even he could not fully explain. They were stepbrothers. They shared a roof and a dinner table and very little warmth, and Cain never forgave Charles for being so easily brilliant at everything.

Years went by. The boys became men. Charles built his school. Cain went into the military, where his strength and stubbornness finally had somewhere to go.

Then, on a mission in a place called Korea, Cain found a stone.

A gem, actually — deep red, buried inside a small shrine in the side of a hill, glowing with an ancient light. The carving around it said: whoever touches this gem shall become an unstoppable force. A juggernaut.

Cain reached out. He touched it.

The power of the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak poured into him. He grew enormous. Great plates of magical armor formed over his body. He could not be hurt. He could not be stopped. He could walk through a concrete wall the way you walk through a curtain.

And the first thing he decided to do was go find his stepbrother's school.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Two miles away, every student of the Xavier School felt the ground shake. Books fell off shelves. Pencils rolled off desks and kept rolling.

Professor X was already watching the security monitors. He was already calm. Already thinking.

"Cyclops," he said over the intercom — in the voice that meant everything is serious but we are going to be all right — "begin evacuation. All students to the sublevel shelter. Colossus, assist."

In minutes, every child was safely underground. Cyclops directed the hallways. Colossus, solid steel when he needed to be, carried three smaller children at a time.

Juggernaut wore a metal dome helmet that sealed his mind completely from telepathy. Charles could not simply reach in and ask him to stop. He had to think his way through this.

Jean Grey stood in the front yard and concentrated with everything she had — her telekinesis held Juggernaut in place for ninety full seconds before the Gem's magic overwhelmed her. Beast tried to rip the helmet free. Cyclops blasted rubble into the path.

Juggernaut kept coming.

Professor X watched. He thought. And then he noticed something.

Cain was walking in a perfectly straight line. He was relying entirely on his armor and his helmet. He was not planning. He was just charging — full of anger, not thinking about what came next.

Charles had known Cain his whole life. And he recognized this. Anger had made his stepbrother careless.

"Lead him to the east tunnel," Professor X said, quiet as a teacher explaining a problem.

The X-Men ran — just fast enough to stay ahead of Juggernaut. Through the east wing doors. Down the long stone staircase. Into the underground tunnel where the ceiling was low and there was no room to swing those enormous armored arms.

Juggernaut followed, roaring.

Beast was waiting at the top of the tunnel's weakest section. He jumped clear.

KA-KRUNNCH.

Thirty tons of reinforced concrete came down in a great, rumbling heap. The tunnel was full. The Juggernaut was buried.

Then — a crack appeared in the metal dome.

Professor X reached through that crack, gently, carefully. He thought: rest now, Cain. You are tired. Rest.

The movement under the rubble went still.

The mansion was quiet. The students were safe.

Charles sat alone in the warm light of the monitors for a while, and he thought about a boy named Cain Marko who had once lived in the same house and been given the chance to be something different, and had chosen otherwise.

It was a quiet, complicated sadness. Not anger. Just sorrow, the kind you feel for someone who made a different choice than you wished they had.

He shook it off gently.

His students needed dinner. His school needed tending. Tomorrow was another day for building the future.

He turned his wheelchair toward the warm lights of the hallway and went on.

Goodnight, Cain, he thought. I still remember who you were before all this.

He always would.