“No Pain No Gain” is episode five of season four of Warehouse 13.
In the previous episode, “There’s Always a Downside”, Brother Adrian revealed to Artie that he knew he was not being honest about Magellan’s astrolabe, and gave him one last chance to undo what he did. Artie refused, and explained why, but the brother wasn’t having any of it. Instead, he said that he was going to dismantle Artie’s life’s work – and that plans were already in motion. The marbles that Hugo had received by FedEx had already been bagged, tagged and stored in the Warehouse, but someone had removed them to cause trouble. But who? Only a few people have access. Jinks had also revealed to Myka (but no-one else yet) that he and Claudia were linked by the metronome, and he has asked Artie to keep him close to home for the moment. Jinks being in the field puts Claudia at risk.
This episode opens in Kyoto, Japan. It looks like an artefact – a deadly feather – is being sold for a large amount of money. Myka and Claudia are in the room posing as geishas, and disrupt the sale.
Back at the Warehouse, Myka and Pete are going to Toronto, after an ice hockey player magically heals an arm after a tackle. Then knocks an opposing player out of the rink through the glass. Claudia has received a message from Mrs Frederic – inviting her to lunch. Mrs Frederic wants to discuss the succession of the Warehouse with her, and what it involves – in “Buried” it was mentioned that Claudia would be Mrs Frederic’s successor as the caretaker of the Warehouse.
In Toronto, Myka and Pete pose as representatives from the league, and the hockey player starts flirting with Myka. At first. Until Myka reacts badly to him. Then they make up again. At which point Pete starts making fun of her. The player does actually have a broken arm – and several other broken bones – but he is up and walking around, supported purely by his muscle. Myka and Pete can’t find the artefact though – it doesn’t look like the player isn’t using it himself. He also isn’t doing too well when he’s playing away from home. Then things get a little weird for Myka.
At the Warehouse, Artie is going around seeing which other artefacts have been stolen by the Brotherhood. Jinks sees that Artie is lying about what he is doing, so follows him. So Artie tells him what’s going on. Artie doesn’t want Claudia’s help (he doesn’t quite trust her at the moment; Claudia saying about the weird things she’s been feeling – because of being tied to Jinks – doesn’t help matters either, given that neither Artie nor Claudia know this). So he and Jinks go checking to see what is taken – it seems to be all the artefacts that Artie himself snagged. The question is how the artefacts were stolen without Warehouse security detecting it.