He awoke with a start.
Cain Marko sat bolt upright in bed as a loud crashing noise nearby shook him from his slumber. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he looked across the warehouse that he had turned into a home, and looked through the gaping hole in the wall onto the stars in the evening sky.
"Stars?! What the...?"
Instinctively summoning his crimson armour, which shimmered into place thanks to the magic of the Ruby of Cyttorak that empowered the Juggernaut, the Juggernaut strode towards the hole in the wall, noticing that it was roughly the same size as himself. Peering outside, the sight before him almost shocked him to his knees.
New York was in ruin. Everywhere he looked, he saw that buildings were shattered, cars overturned and on fire, rubble littered the street. Stepping through the hole into the chill night air, he saw the source of the noise that had awoken him from his slumber.
The World Trade Center had collapsed, the dust still settling from the mass of steel and concrete that had come tumbling down. Shaking his head as if to wake himself from this nightmare, Cain stared in awe as pieces of rubble continued to drop from the now-skeletal structure.
Carefully clambering over the debris, Cain saw bodies everywhere - men, women, and children alike, all broken and battered. Some lay crushed beneath the rubble, others burned alive in overturned cars that had caught alight. Stunned, the Juggernaut walked onward, towards Pier Four - headquarters of the famed Fantastic Four.
He sat and stared in complete amazement. Upon reaching Pier Four, the sight that lay before him was enough to shock Cain so much he needed to sit down, and did so on an overturned forklift which groaned under his massive weight.
Pier Four was ablaze, lighting up the night sky. Part of the Fantastic Four's headquarters lay part-way into the Hudson River, as if it had been torn off and cast aside. Something long and blue trailed its way out of the wreckage, bobbing up and down with the ebb of the water. Cain followed the length until he saw it - the hand at the end, indicating that this was one of Mr Fantastic's arms. He searched for any sign of life, any faint sign of movement, but saw nothing. Just the arm, stretched out, bobbing in the water.
Cain stood slowly and approached closer to the pier. Upon seeing a hint of orange underneath a mass of rubble and machinery, the Juggernaut frantically ripped the debris away to reveal the limp form of the Thing underneath. He gasped when he saw a massive hole in the Thing's chest, as if something tremendously strong had punched its way clean through the Thing. Cain could not believe it when he realised that the hole was the same size as his clenched fist.
'Nah... it can't be! I couldn't o' done this! I'd remember tearing this place apart and takin' down the FF!'
He saw another hint of blue further into the wreckage, and as he approached closer he saw that it was the Human Torch - or at least, what was left of him. All that remained was a charred corpse, showing only slight hints of the famed blue and white costumes of the Fantastic Four.
'What the flamin' heck is goin' on here?' he wondered to himself as he reached the other side of the Pier. There, he saw the body of the Invisible Woman. Her arms had been torn from their sockets, and apparently she had been beaten to death with the bloodied stumps.
"This is nuts!" he exclaimed, then thought to himself, 'I gotta find Chuck! He'll know what happened!'
With that in mind, Cain pressed on into the shattered remains if New York City.
Through SoHo he trudged, tossing aside rubble and vehicles alike. Under one building he saw a feathered wing extended out into the night, and assumed that must have been Angel's apartment. Under another, he saw another crushed form clad in blue and yellow. On closer inspection, he saw that the figure had brown hair with a white streak, and assumed that he was some member of the X-Men, but one he'd never seen before.
He passed the ruin of what was once Doctor Strange's home, which Cain had visited not so long ago.
Cain caught a glimpse of a red cloak fluttering in the slight breeze as he passed, and actually felt a tinge of remorse at the passing of the Sorceror Supreme.
(see the Strange Tales story arc from issues #4-5, also reprinted in Trade Cyberback - Eric)
Unknown to Cain, as soon as he had that feeling a mysterious figure cloaked in white appeared a short distance behind him, hovering slightly above the ground. The figure watched as the Juggernaut moved on, and faded out of sight.
Cain continued his journey, seeing nothing but absolute devastation - the kind that he knew he was capable of. He was finding fist-sized holes everywhere, and even traces of footprints the same size as his, but why couldn't he remember doing any of this?
Confused, he pushed onward, past another toppled building that sported a large sign from under which emerged a pair of legs that bore a pair of red, spider-web clad boots. Cain sighed - Spider-Man was seemingly gone too. The runt might've gotten on his nerves the times that they clashed, but he had always admired Spidey for showing the guts to try and stop Cain.
As he passed he saw the sign that had crushed Spidey bore two words, only one he could make out - 'Marvel'.
Crossing 34th Street and on the outskirts of Hell's Kitchen, Cain found the remains of the hero Daredevil - half on one side of Sixth Avenue, half on the other. Whatever had happened in New York had happened recently, Cain noticed, as the blood from the torn apart corpse was only just starting to cake on the road.
Continuing on, Cain found himself standing before where the Daily Bugle building used to be, now nothing but a smouldering crater. Wondering what had happened to the Bugle building, Cain pressed on until he reached Four Freedoms Plaza, where the answer to his question awaited.
There, resting across a reduced-size Plaza building, was the Daily Bugle building. It had been thrown all this way, and with seemingly unerring accuracy, had sheared Four Freedoms Plaza in two. Bodies littered the surrounding area - some clad in flashy costumes, others just ordinary people. Those costumed ones he passed bore a stylised lightning bolt, all bar one whom Cain recognised to be the ex-Avenger Hawkeye, impaled on his own bow. Hawkeye's trademark arrows were missing, and as a passing thought Cain wondered where they were.
He realised that these had been the Thunderbolts he had read about once, or were they the Masters of Evil? He could never keep track of all the costumed characters in this city.
The stench of decay was almost more than he could stand, and he pressed onwards, past the remains of the Latverian Embassy, past what was once an imposing building that bore a signplate with the word 'Hellfire' on it. Deciding to investigate the fate of the Avengers, Cain headed towards Central Park and Avengers Mansion.
It was no different. The Avengers mansion also lay in ruins, the body of a butler lay mangled underneath the twisted remains of the wrought-iron gates. Cain stepped through where the main doors were and into the mansion proper. The first thing Cain noticed was that the roof was completely missing. Much of it had collapsed down into the mansion itself, and everywhere he looked he saw bodies... costumed bodies.
Earth's mightiest heroes apparently weren't as mighty as everyone thought. Cain found fragments of Iron Man's armour scattered about the mansion, some of them containing body parts still in the armour. He found one of his greatest enemies, the thunder god Thor, decapitated by Captain America's shield which was embedded deep in the wall above the headless corpse.
Captain America himself lay dead nearby - his body twisted as if someone with massive strength had bearhugged him to death. A young woman, who he assumed was Firestar, hung limply from the wall, suspended there by dozens of purple-shafted arrows that appeared to have been thrown with much force.
A mangled Quicksilver, a broken-in-half Justice, a squashed Wasp, a crushed Falcon - the Avengers were most definitely no more.
Time passed, and Cain was growing more and more disparaged. Everywhere he looked, not a building remained intact, not a person could be seen alive - costumed or not, villain or hero. Doctor Octopus had been strangled with his own mechanical arms, the Wrecking Crew had been utterly wrecked by Thunderball's ball & chain, Deadpool riddled with bulletholes so as to resemble Swiss cheese - almost as if his gunfire had ricocheted off something invulnerable.
As he continued his trek, the white-cloaked figure once more appeared a street behind Cain and gazed in the Juggernaut's direction for a fleeting instant before fading away again.
Through Harlem and across the Harlem River, through the Bronx, through Manhattan, and finally, as dawn was breaking on the horizon, Cain arrived at the mansion of his step-brother, Professor Charles Xavier. Stepping through the gates, which were surprisingly still intact, Cain approached the front door of the mansion. A sense of déjà vu swept over him, as it was only recently that he had been here to make peace with Charles.
(in issue #10 - Eric)
A splash underfoot surprised him, and he looked down to see a puddle of water... a puddle that still bore an arm!
"Iceman..." mumbled Cain as his hopes sank. Whatever had happened in New York had also struck here at the mansion. Clinging to the hope that his step-brother was somehow alive, Cain swung open the doors to the mansion, and gasped in shock at the sight that presented itself before him.
Wolverine's skeleton was pressed into one wall. Bits of flesh hung from the frame, and Cain noticed that some of the bones were scorched as if burned by fire, or maybe charred by lightning. Impaled on Wolverine's claws on either hand were Gambit and Storm, whose bodies lay slumped together as if resting. Near the base of the stairs, Cain could just make out patches of blue fur in what was nothing but a mass of blood and intestines - the Beast had been pulled inside-out.
Walking up the staircase and down the hall, Cain's foot struck something metallic and it sailed across the floor until it struck something that lay across the hallway. The Juggernaut bent down to pick it up and saw Jean Grey's body, crushed almost beyond recognition. The object Cain had kicked was actually Cyclops' visor, and after seeing part of Cyclops' face still attached, he threw it away in disgust!
All through the mansion Cain found the bodies of the X-Men - some battered, some broken, some crushed, some torn apart. Almost ready to give up hope, Cain entered Xavier's office, and behind the familiar desk he saw Charles sitting in his hoverchair.
"CHUCK!" exclaimed Cain, as he rushed to his step-brother's side, then sank to his knees as he saw that Xavier's head had been crushed.
A cry formed in the Juggernaut's throat, building in rage and fury until he cried out a resounding "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"This is all your own doing, Cain Marko," came a voice from behind him. Whirling around, Cain's eyes were dazzled by a light brighter than any he had ever seen. As the light reduced to a soft white glow, Cain could see a figure clad in a white robe standing before him, hovering slightly above the ground.
"Who the hell are you?!" Cain demanded.
"I am called Sayge", the figure responded, "and I am the living embodiment of the truth."
(remember him from New Warriors (1st series) #11-13 ? - Eric)
"The truth, huh?" grumbled Cain. "Well spill the truth about what's goin' on here!" he roared.
"The truth is, Juggernaut, that you are responsible for this destruction."
"Yer outta yer gourd!" Cain cried disbelievingly. "I just woke up and found New York like this..." he swept his arm around Xavier's office, which was in a state of disarray not seen since the Onslaught.
"I am the truth, Cain Marko. I am incapable of deceit. It is my task to make those who have been selected by destiny to see the truth of what is to come for them."
"What is to come? Ya mean none o' this has happened?"
"Correct. What you have seen here is a glimpse into your future. It is your destiny to succumb to the power of Cyttorak and destroy everything and everyone in sight. Gomurr tried to warn you once about this, but since you chose to ignore him this premonition was necessary for you to witness what you can still avoid."
(back in X-Men Unlimited #12 - Eric)
Cain was flabbergasted - all this was nothing but a dream? It seemed so real - he could actually smell the destruction that surrounded him.
"Avoid..." he pondered. "How?"
"Continue on the path that you are on, Cain Marko, and it may be possible to avoid this tragedy from occurring."
"So, what yer sayin' is all I gotta do is stay on the straight an' narrow, and none o' this will happen?"
"That is correct. Your reconciling with your step-brother, Charles, was but the first step on a long road of many reconciliations and restitutions that you must make if you wish to avoid this," Sayge swept his arms wide in an all-encompassing gesture, "from ever coming to be."
(issue #10 again - Eric)
Cain's eyes fell once more on the corpse of his step-brother, and he sighed deeply. "Yeah, yer right... Chuck's too good a guy to deserve this. Heck, a lot o' the heroes in this burg are too good to deserve what I saw happened to 'em..."
"Then my task here is complete. Consider yourself forewarned, Cain Marko, earthly avatar of Cyttorak..."
With that, Sayge vanished in a blinding flash of light, and Cain found himself once more sitting bolt upright in bed, the images that he had seen still burned on the surface of his mind.
Looking over, Cain saw that the hole in the wall he had seen earlier was no longer there. Rushing outside, Cain saw that New York was intact - the lights from the city cast a glow that brightened the night sky. Taking a seat outside his warehouse home, the once-villainous Juggernaut stared at the skyline, basking in its neon glory as he pondered his uncertain future.
