Summary:Jeriah decides to teach Jemma how to fight. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Jemma seems to keep up gruelling schedule. If she's not working, she's generally found in the range or the gym. Today it's the gym and it's hand to hand training. Much to the amusement of the agents she's working with.
"Oooof…." Jemma lands on her back again, winded. For a cyborg, she's not very resiliant. Admittedly, she should grab one of the agents and just fling them across the room - but she's handicapped herself by refusing to use the arm to its full capability.
Why on earth would she do that.
"Come on, Simmons. You can do better that." Harris pulls the woman to her feet and squares off again. "Try again and this time, watch me."
She would probably do that to avoid killing the other agents. Because that's bad training. And it's good to work on her form and technique. Form and technique count for a lot in the field. Raw power only carries you so far. But the fact is that this isn't very good training. She'd need someone more or less on her level to be getting good training and there isn't anyone like that in the room, no one she doesn't have to worry about accidentally killing.
Jeriah London is leaning in the doorway and has been for the last five minutes but he might not have been noticed because all eyes were on Simmons. He's in a black Tee Shirt and work out pants. And he's smirking. Like he often is.
When the Harris comes at Jemma again the biochem feels a sudden intrusion into her system. From Jeriah. And before she knows what's happening her mechanical arm has come up and executed a very complicated and technical grab, then slammed him down one armed onto the mat after throwing him over her hip.
Lol.
That actually comes up on her field of view.
Jemma squares off against Harris, rotating her hip which is bruised from landing on it so many times. The simple fact is, Jemma is a squint and whilst cleared for the field, was never meant to be a combatant. They take her in to deal with the Science!.
Mostly.
She hasn't noticed Jeriah, nor has anyone else. Most of the agents are too busy smirking at Simmons getting her ass kicked. Repeatedly. The brunette biochem watches as Harris lunges for her and gasps loudly as she feels the intrusion. Gasps again when Harris lands on his back. "Oh oh oh oh…. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." she manages to stutter, blinking at the 'lol' in her vision.
"Mister London …" The other agents look between the biochem and the hacker. "Friend of yours, Simmons?" That's Gresham.
Harris groans. "Very good, Simmons. But that wasn't the lesson."
"Oh just stopping in to use the gym." Jeriah says to Gresham. He does have a towel over his head. "What's up with the Doc there? Someone challenge her to an arm wrestling contest?"
Oh yeah. He smirks. He's playing a bit dumb as he moves over to one of the punching bags to stretch out. Is Harris going to want to keep going after that or is going to want to take ten.
Taking ten is probably safest not that the agent knows it. Jeriah might decide to amuse himself more.
"We are working together though. Got assigned to her, DeHaven and Harper."
"I know Harris. My arm … I need to see Doctor Dehaven, it's glitching I think." Jemma mutters, colouring as Jeriah smirks. She's not told anyone he's hacked her, why would she? That could be problematic, at best. Besides, she let him connect the last time. "I think we should take a break before I break something…"
Harris rolls to his feet and glances between Jemma and Jeriah, frowning slightly but nods "Alright Simmons. But you still need to check out on your hand to hand for field work."
"They were supposed to be practicing hand to hand but I don't know, Doc's been acting all squirrelly since that operation." Gresham mutters before looking to London "Gresham. Assigned to the Doc, hmmm? You her minder or somethin'? God knows she needs one."
"I'm her meatshield." Jeriah laughs. "Me and my drones. It's work I've done before. I'm pretty good at it. Looks like they're breaking for the moment. I wonder why she'd be all squirrelly though?"
Shrugging at his own question Jeriah starts to work the bag. "Nice to meet you though, Gresham. Oh, it looks like she's coming over here though." Is he surprised? No, no he is not. "Do you work with her? I don't think I've seen you around."
She's going to want 'words', he's quite sure.
"Good luck with that. Doc is a right disaster magnet." Gresham chuckles. It's fond at least. "She's good but if there's trouble, she'll find it and then some. I don't know, London. Maybe she's squirrely because she nearly died disarming that weapon and you know …" the agent shakes his head before nodding at Jemma and heading off.
"Later, Doc. London."
"Mister London." Jemma smiles 'brightly' as she approaches, still flushing from her last mishap. "The strangest thing just happened, did you see it? Someone took over my arm and made me drop Agent Harris to the ground. That wasn't the exercise we were working on." beat "Would you know anything about it?"%rAnd, more importantly, is he still connected?
"Later Gresham."
Is he still connected? Would Jemma know if he were? The answer is a ::shrug:: that scrolls up across her vision. Yes. Yes he is still connected. No, he's saying he doesn't know aaaaaaanything about it.
"I mean it's experimental tech, Doc. Who knows what it might do. I must say it was pretty impressive though, watching you fling him around like a ragdoll." Punch punch punch. Yes, he's just warming up really. Does she know actually how good he is in close quarters? Well she hasn't seen it but if she's worked with soldiers on his very elite level before, she'll have some idea.
"Mister London." Jemma's voice is tight as the ::shrug:: appears on her 'hud'. She sighs though. "It would be more impressive, if I did it myself, though, wouldn't it?" He can feel her systems trying to find him to see if she can eject him. "When I gave you permission to help me in the range … I didn't mean for you to do it all the time."
She's watching him warm up though, impressed by his form. It's impressive and she really can't help herself - no, she's not leering, it really is SCIENCE!
She wonders - and he might get the hint of this thought - if that's all natural or if the augmentation he's received helps with it.
"Oh it would be but in this case it was amusing." Jeriah chuckles. "Don't worry, Doc I don't plan to do it all the time. But hey they weren't paying attention and lets be honest that training wasn't going to teach you anything. If they wanted you to learn they need to give you someone that you can use close to your full power against. Otherwise when you have to actually do it…"
He grins. "Fighting form predates my augmentations, Doc. You can actually ask you know. I should probably get out of your head though."
Truth be told, Jemma probably doesn't mind Jeriah being there. Well, until he reads her thoughts her thoughts like. Kelly's got a constant connection and helps the biochem keep her emotions in check. They'll need to do some work on that at some point, Jemma supposes.
"Mister London…" Jemma says rather primly "I am not a toy or a doll for you to play with and I am most certainly not here for your amusement." It could be hilarious, Jemma knows that but being taken over like that, when she's trying to improve … it rankles. Might have something to do with the fact this is still so new to her.
"If there were more agents around who could train with me, I would. Whilst we do have powered agents, not all of them are able to … match me. Besides, getting the foundations right is crucial before you build the building, right?"
The blush gets worse at the grin though. "And maybe I was going to before you read my mind." It's a grump. "I suppose that makes sense though. You're not really a science or tech geek, you were a soldier first."
"Do the implants help with your ability to fight or are they purely defensive?"
Jeriah's response to that last question is to form a disruption field around his fist that crackles with energy and punch the bag. Hard. The bag flies off it's chain and tumbles over the floor with a big crater in it from where that field impacted.
"Oh they help sometimes. And yes getting the foundations is the most useful thing you can do. The trouble is if you're constantly having to handicap yourself you're never going to GET the foundations right. You'll put yourself off balance every time you punch because you've never done it at anything approaching full swing, for example."
He walks over and drags the bag back. It seems whatever his implants do, they do NOT make him stronger.
"I think I can probably match you, by the way." As to her not being a toy, well no of course not.
Still hilarious though.
"Oh well now, isn't that interesting. " Jemma doesn't offer to help drag the bag back. She totally do that with her cybernetic arm, but she doesn't. She's enjoying watching London struggle - which he can tell if he hasn't disconnected yet. "So I see. So they aren't strength augments. What did you do? Kinetic Force?"
Oh, she really is enjoying watching him struggle.
"You think you could match me? How? By connecting to my augments and handicapping me?" She might be just a bit touchy about that.
"I could make you punch yourself in the face." Jeriah offers as he brings the bag back and straightens up. He's sweating a little bit. It's a good kind of sweat and he'll do a lot more of that while he's here. It's an army saying. Sweat more, bleed less.
"Doc my disruption field protects me against bullets. You've got math in that head of yours. Do the math on the kind of energy it is absorbing and deflecting. I promise, I can take a punch from you."
"Why would you want to do that, Mister London?" Jemma manages to look innocent as he sweats a bit and hangs the bag back up. Nope. Not helping and really, the visual is quite good.
"So you think, you could match me because you can shield against my hits?" Jemma considers. He may be right. "And what if I try to throw you, like you made me throw poor Agent Harris? I suppose you wouldn't get hurt."
"Are you offering then, to train with me?"
"No I'd get hurt. But let's be honest you're gonna need to get a lot better before you can throw me." Oh he's confident. He's likely right, Jeriah has done this kind of thing for years at an incredibly high level. But his confidence might sound like arrogance. Or it might just rankle anyway.
"Besides, Harris deserved it. And yes, I think I am offering to train you."
Why would he want to make her punch herself in the face? Well he doesn't. At the moment. Could that change? Probably. But he probably wouldn't make her do that anyway.
"You never know, Mister London." Jemma sniffs as she looks at the Hacker Soldier. He's confident and she knows he's a right to be. She's a squint and it's not something that she really forgets. "I don't want to be an elite in the field but I would like to know that I can hold my own and not have the team worry for my safety."
They probably will. Jemma will always be a scientist first, right?
"Harris didn't deserve it, he was trying to help me and if anyone suspected that you could get into my head as easily as you do …" They might take her offline till they fixed that.
She blinks. She'd said 'with' her but he's right, he could train her. "Uh. Thank you. I think. When did you want to start?" Hopefully he won't want to make her punch herself in the face. Why would he? Jemma is perfectly nice.
"I got some analysis back from the Valhalla incident the other day."
"Well you'd have to work pretty hard to be an elite in this field. Just like any other. And I doubt you have the time to be honest. But we can get you past 'squint' status I think." Or well, close to past squint status. She's right. Her team is always going to worry about her no matter what.
"If they didn't want me breaking into your head they should have installed better locks." Jeriah actually sticks his tongue out at her. "But we can start right now if you like. You can tell me about your analysis while we're going."
"Can you read all my thoughts when you're connected?" Jemma mutters, gesturing to the mats where she was training just now. She's sure she hasn't used 'squint' out loud - but she kind of likes the term, having got it from a pseudo-science show that makes her yell at the screen when she watches it.
Her team will worry about her and she'll worry about her team. It's how it goes.
"I'm sure they thought they did but it's possibly something we should look at. If you can work out how to break in, then someone else can." Waiting for Jeriah to join her, Jemma considers the analysis "The metal flakes you found in the cafe contained reverbium to start with. The second more concerning thing, is that the blast centre was the two tables over from where I was sitting."
"I don't think so. You don't actually process thoughts through the parts of your brain that are connected to the cybernetics. I only catch stray neurons firing I think." Jeriah says as he moves to the mats and takes up a stance.
"Do you think you were deliberately targeted? It's a bit odd that they would sneak in a bomb and not bother to put it right next to you. Did it go off prematurely or was maybe there another person that might have been the mark?"
Jeriah moves in and tests Jemma's defenses. He's quick. And slippery… and his movements are powerful.
"So you're saying the bomb was concealed INSIDE someone, yes?"
"Have you tried?" To read her thoughts. Stray thoughts she might accept - sometimes they're a bit like broadcasting.
As the hacker tests her, Jemma does a credible job of blocking the attacks. She doesn't try to retaliate, simply maintaining her feet for the moment is good enough. He is fast and devious, she's going to have to think quick.
"I don't know. The surveillance footage shows them taking a table as close as they could to me. I was meant to be dropping off some reports at the Embassy, which were in my bag. It might be coincidence but … better safe than sorry, right?"
Is she being paranoid? Possibly.
"And that's another good question. That was a prosthetic that contained reverbium, from the looks of it. They used the right tone and …. boom."
How does that make Jeriah feel? Knowing he's got that metal in him.
Jeriah's implants are vibration shielded so he feels okay about that. But it's still a vulnerability that he has to contend with. And it's one that he needs to carefully consider when going up against people who created the tech currently in him. Which is what he is doing now.
"So I suppose the next question is 'do we think that was intended to be a bomb? Or was it an implant that went off accidentally because it got exposed to the wrong frequency."
"You're full of good questions today." Jemma answers, taking the offensive against Jeriah and seeing if she can push her luck. She doesn't hold back, not like she did with the other agents - he said he could take her hits, she's willing to let him try.
What's the worse that could happen?
"If it was an implant that went off because it was exposed to the wrong frequency, that's concerning on an entirely different level. It also shows an extreme lack of quality control." She's considering. "The alternate question to pose, I suppose, is whether the person who was wearing it knew it was suicide mission. There were others in that cafe after all. I think we should err on the side of deliberate."
"I'm good at asking good questions. Not quite so good at giving answers to good questions. Usually that involves me shooting something." Jeriah slips the swing and then does so again. Then comes back with a snap kick delivered from the knee followed by a low crouching leg sweep. What's the worst that could happen?
Well someone could die but that's not likely.
"It could be, yes, that the messenger was disposable. Quality control isn't really AIM's strong suit. Their stuff all WORKS but it very often has shall we say side effects."
Jemma could get hurt! That's a pretty bad thing to happen!
"You're also good at annoying me. Don't forget that." Jemma grunts as she turns with the kick, barely avoiding but putting her in a position that his leg sweep takes her out. She hits the mat - again - and groans.
She doesn't just lay there though, scissoring her own legs, she tries to catch his to bring him down even as she tries to rise to her feet. It's not elegant.
"That's what I'm thinking, too. I'm just not sure whether assuming which of it was deliberate or we might have a highly volatile material in play with little to no quality control is the best approach to take."
"What was your experiences when you worked on their project?"
"I'm very good at that." Jeriah says as he rolls back. It's like fighting with a dancer. The hacker-soldier gets away with this because of course he's been doing this much of his life and she's been studying biochemistry. He can read her movements, it's as simple as that. And he knows her range of options is much more limited than his for both physical and experiential reasons.
"AIM is very goal focused. That makes them capable of achieving incredible results. I've very rarely known an AIM team given enough time and resources to not do what they originally set out to do. However because of their lack of ethics and controls they very frequently accept crippling side effects to their work. Sometimes that makes it useless in the best case scenario. Other times it just makes it strange or difficult to be around. Occasionally it works out to their benefit. So I would tend to place this as an unforeseen consequence of their work. They're not usually about suicide missions. That's more HYDRA's bag."
Can Jeriah read her movements because he's still connected? Jemma knows she must telegraph some of her movements but she does wonder.
"Good at annoying me? Yes, yes you are." She agrees as she squares of again. "I thought you were supposed to be training not playing with your food." Because this is what it feels like, he's toying with her - she'll exhaust herself just trying to land a hit and then he'll deliver the coup de gras, putting her on her back *again*.
"That matches with my data though." She accepts regarding the consequences "And I think that makes this all the more dangerous. We can't build a predictive model on how anything will respond - which makes each and every engagement with the compound new and interesting."
"I am training you. This is your assessment. I'm trying to see how badly SHIELD has messed up the fundamentals for you." He's probably teasing a little bit about that. He would though. Interservice rivalries and all.
When she's squares again he goes on the attack. Rapid strikes that aren't thrown with any particular power but definitely are looking for an opening. He just needs something solid to grab and he can throw her. He's strong enough and she's not that heavy.
"We can be sure that it will kill people who come into contact with it. But yes otherwise I agree."
Jemma huffs at that statement and glares at Jeriah. Teasing or not, he's hit a nerve and she's unhappy.
Her ability to block Jeriah is pretty damn good. It makes sense that Jemma has focussed on defensive moves. Still, she's not an elite by any stretch of the imagination but she manages to keep him away, mostly.
Can he find something to grab? Highly likely, it's nearly impossible to avoid every attack he makes.
"That just makes finding the sources that much more important and putting their facilities out of operation. It won't *stop* them, but it will slow them down. Right?"
Jeriah finally manages to tangle up her metal arm and uses his height to lift her off the ground. Jemma suddenly finds herself flying. And might be a bit surprised when she's set back down on her feet in front of him.
"Finding the funding is usually the best option in my experience. Everything they do is expensive."
He takes a breath. "Well alright, you have a passable if not stellar grasp of the fundamentals but no clue at all how to use your enhancements."
"Ack…." Jemma squeals as Jeriah lifts her and blinks when she's set back down. "That's the other option, yes. Again though, it will only slow things down, won't it? There'll always be people willing to fund this type of research." Still, she's thinking. Finding who's paying for it, is a good idea.
"So more raids. More hacking. And we need to move quickly. Maybe you can find Barton, for me? See how he's faring? He was going to hit up some of his contacts."
Contacts that Jemma would rather not know about it. For reasons.
"What do you mean, use my enhancements? There's only my arm, isn't there? The eye is good for surveillance and the neural implants …"
"Your eye can see in multiple spectrums which means you should be able to read an opponent's physical state. How injured they are, how close they are to overheating. And your implants… Doc you've got a computer in your head. You could run dozens of tactical simulations per second, calculating likely outcomes of attacks and defenses with the right programming. The more you fight the more you SHOULD be able to adjust those models and make increasingly accurate predictions on how they will respond to stimuli…"
So he's thought of her implants as weapons, which she has not. No real surprise there. He's the soldier and she isn't.
"I can see about Barton sure. Is he likely to be difficult to find?"
"Well, yes of course my eye can and that's what I use it for." Jemma starts, still not quite comprehending how that applies to a fighting situation. "It's how I help those in the medbay." As to her neural implants "They do run simulations. I've tested so many scenarios for the reverbium, as well as the thuderbolt situation." She blinks as he finishes though, trailing off.
"I … don't think like that, Mister London." Jemma is more of a … lover than a fighter.
She sighs though. "I'm not going to get the field experience you've got, ever, and I don't have the luxury to put hours into the gym to improve like that either. At best, Mister London, I'm going to be a mediocre fighter and combatant." She's not wrong but she's interested in what he's going to say next. His a soldiers outlook after all.
"Barton? Probably. He's not one for the chain for the command, unless it's a real chain he can beat people with." She'd heard another agent use that joke recently and it amused her. "Send him a message though, he'll meet up with you."
"I'll take a competent mediocre fighter who won't get in too much trouble any day. Your job isn't to kill people. Honestly, Doc, in most operations I've been in you wouldn't even BE in the field teams. We'd secure the sites and THEN bring you in. But that's not how SHIELD wants to do things and we're kind of stuck with what they've come up with."
Jeriah shakes his head and shrugs one shoulder as he thinks.
"They're probably all into crpytocurrency these days an those are hard to crack by design. Most people don't even KNOW who the owners of the crpyto are. However we might be able to track the computers being used to do it and work from there. I'll work on it. Otherwise they'll be using hard assets. Gold. Diamonds. Platinum. That kind of thing."
"Isn't that my job?" Jemma wonders sometimes. The things that she researches often saves people but it can kill as well. "You'll understand why I go in with the teams. You're right, most times I'll be in the Quinnjet watching you all risk your lives so that I can do my job. There are times though, that you'll *need* me with the team."
She knows she's a trouble magnet but sometimes, often, that's not her fault.
"There'll be other indicators as to whose funding this, Mister London. Documentation, probably coded, that give away identities. We've still got the scientists that we took into custody on that raid we did. We've left them cooling them heels for a while. Maybe we should have a chat with them."
While she's talking, Jemma has positioned herself and launches an attack against Jeriah. A series of blows, followed by a low sweeping kick.
Jeriah dances back, caught off guard and his training gets in. When her kick connects he rolls forward with the momentum and comes back up in a crouch. His disruption fields activate and he lunges right at Jemma's legs and tries to climb on her back. It's a position of advantage in military grappling. And it lets him try to put her in a choke.
She caught him off guard. Go her. His instinct kicked in. Maybe not go her.
That at least stops Jeriah teasing her. At least for the moment. It's the tackle that takes her by surprise and the biochem topples back but not before grabbing at London and trying to flip him on his side so she can scramble away.
Jemma doesn't have the instincts for this, her first thought is to minimise hurt and damage - though, right now, she's using more force than she normally would.
Jemma does scramble away - though she discovers that his disruption fields can indeed deflect her punches. However as she's going he gets her leg and that's a problem because then he does… something.
That's probably as clear as it is going to be for Jemma. She doesn't really know how he twists and flips himself but she does know that when he's done he's in a position to very easily break her knee were he inclined to do so. Also all of his weight is around one leg, so she's probably not moving anywhere.
"Let me go!" Jemma actually tries to kick London, connecting with his fields as she does. "OWwwwww…"
It's not just the weight he has on her leg, it's the way his fingers dig into her as well. People don't talk on that - all the ancilliary things that combine to neutralise you when you try to run. She shouldn't have, perhaps, done that.
Stilling, the biochem doesn't look or try to move. She really doesn't want her knee broken. Not for a training exercise.
After a long, long moment the hacker looks over his own body and hers at her. She's not struggling anymore. So she's presumably done. "Right. Well. That almost worked. But you know…"
He's still a better fighter and the fact is he's a better fighter by a lot. "Maybe we can get you to the point where you CAN win when you get the drop on me."
That's not snark, really. He means that.
"Maybe…" Jemma speaks to the mat refusing to look at the merc. She's blushing horribly, that was a lesson in how not to do things and just how vulnerable she really is.
"I'm sure we can try to get there." beat "Will you let me go now?" She asks quietly.
He's the better fighter, he will always be. It would be nice to, just once, get out of these binds without being humiliated.
In answer to that question Jemma moves on her own again. She does something especially violent that shoves him off her and gets her out of the joint lock. That was Jeriah again.
"I don't have to so long as you can learn to do that." Joint locks are made to be no win scenarios and are if applied properly but like everything they have weaknesses in the execution that can be exploited if you know what to look for.
The movement takes Jemma by surprise and she huffs. She's free now though and drags herself to her feet. "I'm surprised you haven't just downloaded a routine to my brain, to be honest." She's trying to be gracious, she really is. "Clearly you could and it would just kick in, right?"
She's rubbing her knee, she wrenched it a little when she struggled initially to get out of that.
"I can learn it though."
"I'm afraid fighting isn't something you can program like that." Jeriah says as he gets up, shaking his head. "There are too many variables, too many judgement calls. There's no way to boil it down to 'if this then that' cleanly."
So no, he couldn't do that. Not with any real hope of it actually working at any rate.
"I think you can though. And I will teach you. Though are you sure the borg collective can't help you out there?"
"You're fixated on that, you know that?" Jemma snarks a little as she picks up her towel. "What makes you think it could help me, anyway?" Maybe it could but Kelly isn't fighter and Roy, apart from being firewalled off from her thoughts, has his own things to worry about.
"I don't know. I've never been in a weird mental threesome." That's the best way Jeriah can think of to describe it though it certainly may make Jemma blush. Could they help her with learning to fight? Maybe. Computers are programable after all. Why shouldn't brains be?
At the same time that stuff is so beyond his pay grade it's not even funny.
"Really, Mister London." Jemma does blush as she collects her things. The conversation veering the personally uncomfortable for her. "Kelly's connection helps me control my emotions that are all screwed up because of the Deathlok protocols. A threesome isn't even remotely close. She's firewalled Roy off from me. He didn't like the … "
She shakes her head, embarrassed again at that whole situation.
"When do you want to train again?"
"Tomorrow if we can. And if not regularly. Two or three times a week. This kind of thing takes effort to get good at and we're going to have to put some in. Hope you like sweating."
The Hacker Soldier smirks at the blush. Control her emotions. Mmmmmmmhmmmmmmm. Sure. Well, he'll let her go with that for now.
And there's another blush. If Jeriah even thought about it for just a moment, he might wonder how bad it was for Jemma if this is how she is now.
"Alright. I'll be here tomorrow then." Jemma mutters as she heads to the door. "Please try and find Barton and see how he's going on his end of things." Does she ever really rest? It seems likely not.