InsaneJournal

Who: Holly Page & Jett Danvers
What: Rescheduled training
When: April 6th, late afternoon
Where: Gym
Rating: PG-13

Holly’s weekly schedule didn’t give her a lot of opportunity for downtime and honestly, that worked for her. She had a lot that she needed a distraction from and the recent news of an agent’s death had hit everyone hard. She might not have known Buckley, but she knew he was eighteen - he was a kid - and he had died on a mission. It was enough to shake everyone, even though they hadn’t worked with him. She felt terrible for his family; his father and twin sister were still here and she worried about what would happen when she told them. She knew Hazel and Mike had it in hand, but she didn’t know if Marshall or Rachel had ever had to experience passing on the death of someone before. Holly had, too many times. Never an agent, but she had made calls in the military, told unit members and active siblings when people had died. It was never easy.

She could have done with more than half an hour between sessions and had given some thought to cancelling Jett’s training and rescheduling it for next week but she wasn’t one to show weakness or to let it seem like recent events had rattled her. But they really had, especially with such fresh news.

She was in the large dojo, hands wrapped with tape, hair back in a high ponytail, black work-out clothes on as she rolled her shoulders and stretched out as she waited for Jett to join her.

Jett was in no way prepared for the workouts or combat training -he expected the team training, really, that made all the sense in the world to him, and to a degree, he should’ve remembered that there would be times when powers wouldn’t be everything and hand to hand combat made sense. It was the weapons training that really put him off.

Understanding Holly’s reasons for it and wanting to do it were separate things though. He could reason it all out, apply the logic to it all and be fully aware of the sense and purpose. But he still felt odd and uncomfortable about it. He’d never used a weapon, even in his small-time criminal career, he’d never once resorted to violence or weapons, and save the final incident in his freedom, he’d never consciously hurt someone.

But he was an agent now, and maintaining agent status meant doing what his handler requested, and Holly wanted them all to be able to defend themselves without their powers. Although Jett’s main concern with the hand to hand was not spawning duplicates any time a punch or kick landing and caught him off guard.

He was still sure that eventually one of his less attractive personality traits would come out full force with his duplicate and that wouldn’t go over well at all.

Arriving to the dojo, in a fairly loose t-shirt and appropriate work out gear, Jett almost had to check his watch to make sure he wasn’t late -Holly was being more than understanding and considerate, more than Jett had expected really, which meant he was doing his best to repay that with suitable behaviour and progress; tardiness wasn’t exactly good. “Am I late?”

“No,” Holly reassured with a warm smile as Jett joined her. She turned her head and faced her agent, stretching her arms over her head and then rolling her shoulders. Jett was working hard - like Raven - and she appreciated him working with her. She knew that this wasn’t an option that many had chosen for themselves and the others who hadn’t made the choice were only here because it was preferable to prison and she wanted to make sure that they made the most of their time here.

Their behaviour, how they conducted themselves was all considered as part of what would happen to them should the SEA pass. Holly wasn’t hopeful that they’d be released from the programme, but she was hopeful that they would be allowed to leave this base, that they’d be allowed some semblance of freedom, even if it was something more akin to parole. Holly wanted to be able to make sure that her team could take care of themselves but she wanted to be able to give them good appraisals.

“You’re right on time. As usual. I figured today we’d keep working on blocking techniques if that’s okay? I’m keen to help you reduce the number of duplicates you make following a hit. My theory is that if you focus on it constantly during these sessions, it should eventually be second nature and not be something you need to always be thinking about.”

Punctuality was something he’d never really bothered too much with -his mother didn’t keep track of him, his friends had never been too bothered and his jobs, well, they relied on a little bit of punctual thinking, but not too much. Made a lot easier when you could half the time with double the self.

But he was keenly aware that he was making more effort to show Holly that he was responsible, that he wasn’t wasting the chance he’d been given to not just be put in a cell, that he wasn’t just someone who blew people up. In some ways, maybe, he thought if Holly could see that he was trying, Rachel might see it too. He didn’t expect forgiveness from the handler, he knew it wasn’t in any way simple, but maybe something along the lines of acceptance wasn’t too much to ask for. Rachel avoided him, and he knew that he still left her off balance from their one encounter, even after the years.

“That’s actually a lot like how I stopped just duplicating in the first place.” Repeated action until there was no reaction. The goal was to make his body think it was normal by convincing his mind it was a constant. If he could focus on absorbing the energy from the blow, rather than letting it funnel through to a duplicate, he could limit the number of him he’d replicate in the field from a sudden attack. “Okay, blocking I can do.” And hopefully not land on his ass too many times.

Holly smiled, pleased with the comment. “Well,” she said, “Then you’ve got a good basis to work from. If you already worked out how to do it once, then let’s just keep working until it’s muscle memory.”

She rolled her shoulders again and bounced a little on her toes. “You remember the defensive postures we discussed last week?” she asked, willing to give him a recap if he needed them. Like Raven, a lot of this was very new to him and so Holly worked at the pace her team needed. Folk like Jo had a headstart from her short time in the military, and Danny, the newest on her team, well… he had a long road to recovery, if such a thing was even possible, and she was just weighing up the team before asking some to keep an eye on him. Jett and Raven were her current picks; ones that she’d ask to keep an eye on him when she couldn’t. She knew he had his friends, but at the same time she didn’t want him to be purely reliant on them.

She moved away, picking up some padded arm guards and throwing them in his direction. In order to push his abilities, she would need to use some force and she wanted to avoid him leaving with too many bruises. “Get these on.”

The defensive postures came screaming back to him as the arm guards were tossed over, because Jett learned the hard way that the guards on minimised bruising, they didn’t stop it entirely. “Oh yes, I remember those. I’ll do my best to flinch less this time too.” It was a light tease, although he hadn’t been entirely prepared for it the first time.

It wasn’t that Jett didn’t know a woman like Holly would be a formidable fighter, it was just that Jett hadn’t really been in a fight since he was twelve, and he wouldn’t really call that a fight (it wasn’t to say he hadn’t been hit, that happened a little too often in Jett’s opinion, but defence had never really been an option in those moments).

Which was another thing to admire about Holly; she wasn’t a drill sergeant, but she was focused and determined with it came to their ability to keep themselves alive -she might not be in the field with them, but her lessons would follow. So Jett adopted the stance she’d shown him last week, positioned his arms and remembered how to distribute his weight so that he wasn’t overbalanced one way or another. The bruises that would turn up on his arms weren’t that big a deal, least of all if he could get down from a duplication every hit to one every few.

Holly waited, watching him drop into the first of the defensive positions she had run through with him, the pride not reaching her face but she felt it in her chest, that bubble and pressure that she associated with something going well and her feeling pleased with someone was there. She cleared her throat and watched him put the pads on, protecting his guards.

“You ready?” she asked, though she didn’t wait for him to respond when she moved forward, expecting him to have his balance as she twisted on the spot and, with the momentum she’d managed to gather and her own fighting, she planted a firm kick on the right pad.

He could feel the energy from the kick work it’s way through the guards, into his arms and through his body, it was a conscious feeling, convincing himself that he didn’t need to use the energy, it could just dissipate like normal, filter out, there wasn’t a need to replicate himself, he wasn’t under attack.

It’d taken him a while to stop randomly duplicating when his powers first triggered; bumping into a table, stubbing his toe, a high five. The slightest energy going through him and another clone would dump out. Bracing himself was fine, if he knew it was coming, he could stop it happening, but the point was that sometimes he wouldn’t know it was coming.

That was the point.

While Holly got started and Jett could keep up with her attacks, almost anticipate them, he could control it. But when she got ahead of him, which was easy to do given her training and his inexperience, it was about an unconscious pressure to not do it. Hence the need for muscle memory. He was just happy to have made the last few hits with no clones, but he knew he was going to lose track soon, and wouldn’t be able to brace for the next attack as Holly shifted things up. They certainly did not need an entire gym full of him.

Knowing that Jett was watching and learning, Holly kept the rhythmic attack going in a similar fashion to what they had been doing before, a dance that he kind of knew - kicks and punches aimed at the guards - until she ducked down and dropped into a crouch, kicking her leg out to swipe his feet out from under him.

In a fight, nobody fought fair, they didn’t focus the blows on somewhere that was padded or do things that people were expecting. They didn’t take into account how someone might feel or what they might be prepared for. And so, neither would Holly. She wasn’t one for hair pulling or biting unless the chips really were down, but she wasn’t above a few dirty tricks to help her team develop their training.

She was glad that she’d gone over safe falls with Jett a few weeks back but there was a difference between knowing how to fall safely and being able to apply that when one’s feet were abruptly swept out from under you.

She didn’t get up, rather waited in a crouched position to see if the fall was enough to jar him into creating a duplicate.

The blocks were things he could work with, it was when Holly went off script to teach him something else suddenly that Jett struggled. Like the drop and swipe at his feet. It knocked his balance, and maybe it was the surprise more than anything else that had him stumbling to catch himself.

The focus on staying up meant that he wasn’t focused on not duplicating, which meant that he only stayed up because another one of him jerked into existence and then steadied him -plus side of duplication was there was a steady supporting hand just there. Even though it wasn’t the plan.

Jett Prime was still standing, although he looked moderately dejected that he’d ended up making a clone, while the dupe himself just looked happy to be there. “Whoops?” At least it wasn’t lecherous and arrogant -Jett was exceptionally aware of numerous flaws in his personality thanks to these guys. “That wasn’t meant to happen, eh?” The dupe rocked on his feet, his own arms loose by his side. The arm guards hadn’t duplicated like Jett’s clothes on the clone, letting the dupe stand freely and loose.

Holly got to her feet when it was clear Jett wasn’t going to hit the mats and she was pleasantly surprised that he didn’t just fall. She watched as the momentum caused another Jett to turn up and for a moment she regarded the two of them, the way that Jett’s face sort of fell in disappointment that he’d failed at the main intention of the session whilst the other one just sort of looked kind of pleased that he had popped up and balanced Jett Prime.

It was fascinating to Holly - and it always was - watching how those with abilities used them, unconsciously or not.

“No,” she told the duplicate, “It wasn’t. But while you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful.”

She looked at Jett Prime and offered him an encouraging smile. “You’re doing great. One is better than the first session where we’d ended up with half a gym full of you. It’s up to you- keep him around and he can help me or you can dismiss him to wander around the base or re-absorb him.” The choice was Jett’s, but she had ideas on what she could use the duplicate for additional things to focus on would help him keep his mind on what was important: defending and not duplicating.

Thankfully, although each duplication presented their own way of thinking, it seemed like most respected Holly’s authority; he wasn’t sure if it was because of him, or because they seemed to just understand she was their handler and thus a person to respect. It was better than them thinking to hit on her.

The fact that Holly spoke directly to any duplicates as if they were just another person and not some freak happenstance of genetics was also endearing. “Well, it’s early days yet.” Because they were just getting started, and Jett had to accept that while he might be getting better at managing the blocks, he wasn’t in the least bit prepared for surprise attacks.

But if his clone wanted to hang around, see what Holly had in mind for helping out with training -the last time, his gym-full of clones mostly just sat around until he was drained to the point that he needed to reabsorb them all. “Wanna watch me get my butt kicked?” Even if they were, technically, the same person, Jett Prime was aware there were differences in each clone. It sort of meant they weren’t perfect clones but had the capability to become something else -it was just too bad that they deteriorated mentally over time.

“Sure, I’m in.” The grin was bursting and bring on the dupes face, evidently content to hang around and work with them rather than go do something else. The benefit was double the learning, since anything he learned, Jett would learn upon reabsorbing him.

Holly snorted and cleared her throat to hide the smile on her face at how interested the duplicate was in watching Jett get his arse handed to him. “Kind of wasn’t what I had in mind,” she offered, raising her fists again after pushing some stray hair out of her face. “Two bodies to guard against are better than one. Figure if he’s gotta focus on blocking attacks from two fronts it’ll be better.”

She smirked a little. “Think you can handle that, Prime?”

Jett was already aware of what his face looked like with ‘a shit-eating grin’ on it, but it was always a little odd to see it spread out on a duplicates face. “I think that means we’re up for it.”

He didn’t mind, it might hone his attention a little better, being able to pay attention to his surroundings because he had to. “But the next duplicate is on my team.” His clone was already following Holly’s example, falling into the position for basic combat that they knew -it was really just as well that they learned together as they went since the chance of Jett injuring himself was high if they didn’t know what they were doing.

He could imagine explaining that to Dani. And how much she’d laugh.

Holly lifted a shoulder and as she dropped into position again, in a brief glimpse into the notoriously private Holly Page, she offered, “Fine by me. I’ve faced worse odds.”

And off they went again, the sounds of the blows echoing through the Dojo.