Learning Control
Black Widow: "Concentrate on your breathing; just focus on one thing at a time and ignore everything else."
Hawkeye: "(Messes with one of his trick arrows) And remember, if you can't do this, then you have to do a hundred more exercises."
Jake sat in the middle of the cluttered room full of weapons and "acquired" assets. These two probably hid in some long-forgotten area of the helicarrier; either that or this was their own personal living arrangement that has since been turned into a warehouse for their stuff.
What Jake was learning to control was shifting between his different symbiote forms without actually changing his symbiote form in order to do so.
The reason he was trying so hard to access all his symbiote forms is that it takes about a second or two whenever he wants to use any of his other abilities, and while it may not seem like much, it could potentially be the thing that screws him over in battle.
Jake has been doing this training for about a week straight after returning from his mission and cleaning up the mess he and all his squad had made in the mess hall after one of the other squads tried to flirt with someone who didn't want any of his attention.
Deep inside himself, Jake has been trying to make out the room that dwells within him, as apparently everyone has something like that that represents themselves. Black Widow, if her word was to be believed, had a soul room like that of a classic spy, with what she believed to be her greatest achievements being plastered and sealed in pictures all over the place.
Hawkeye, meanwhile, said that he finds a flat plane with nothing but a farm and the most important things and people in his life littering the ground as far as the eye can see, which is kind of commendable and more trustworthy, as he seemed to be almost sending himself there as he talked.
While this should help Jake control his symbiote powers more, its main purpose for everyone else, however, was to be a safe space for the agents if they ever needed a place to decompress from the missions or to seal away their humanity.
Nick Fury of the past: "Remember, we aren't heroes, nor are we villains or anything like that crap. What we are are the protectors of mankind, and our one and only mission is to make sure we don't eradicate ourselves from the universe."
Jake thinks: "It's such a heavy thing to say to a bunch of kids that are at minimum just barely the legal age to drive."
Ekaj: "Better than giving them the false hope that they'd be remembered as heroes or that they won't be villains to another country just like we are if we're ever found out."
Hawkeye just "lightly" taps Jake with one of his arrowheads; he could tell Jake had stopped concentrating on the task at hand and was thinking about something else.
Hawkeye: "Careful, mess up one more time and you're going to be exercising all day again today."
Jake sighs but sits back down and gets back to imagining himself in a dark void with countless floating abstract image lines made of varying different colors with an outer white line surrounding Jake's body.
Reaching out, Jake grabs the knob on an old radio dial and tries his best to tune into his soul room, and it took an entire week for Jake to figure out that one dial just isn't enough, so he just sees or realizes he might need two as he begins dialing everything into place.
As in the real world, Jake sweats enough to competently soak his uniform. Deep inside himself, Jake finally managed to tune everything into the grey light strings, which circled around Jake for a bit before flying off towards what soon became one of the corners of his soul room.
It didn't take a genius to realize what that symbolized; especially when looking inside the mirror, Jake saw a pure and bloody mess of himself wearing a pure white outfit that looked like S.H.I.E.L.D.'s training uniform.
Staring into the mirror, Jake sees everyone he loves dead and surrounding his feet as he appears to be standing on a pile of disfigured corpses that were missing limbs or their heads.
Jake looks down at his hands as everything around him quickly shifts to the mirror's realm as Jake sees the mountain of people he's killed over his short life, with two feminine spider-woman black-suit-looking assassins slowly and sultrily walking over towards Jake.
In the real world, Jake was grunting as the black symbiote started forcibly emerging from his body as Jake softly grunted in massive pain as he tried to hold back the darkness that was quickly enveloping the private training room.
Back inside Jake's soul, he was curious as to who the woman might have been, but something deep inside told him that if he let them get any closer, then something permanent might break, and when it did, there'd be no turning back.
Turning around, Jake wakes up wearing the black suit, only for him to force himself back inside his soul realm as he begins falling and then landing onto a giant white hand with the black symbiote trapped inside and struggling to get out.
Walking over towards the black symbiote, Jake can see it try and possibly make puppy dog eyes at him, but Jake didn't care, as he knew not to trust a single one of them, as he's seen what they could do to those that can't make them submit.
Jake: "(Rolls up his sleeve) I know you're trying to take control of me, but I need your power, so (shoves his hand inside the black symbiote) LET'S SEE WHOSE DESIRE REIGNS SUPREME!"
The black symbiote smiles as it quickly envelops Jake in its dark, gooey form as Jake sees himself in a dark void that feels like the darkest abyss and toughest sea as Jake struggles to just begin moving his body into a swimming position from his spread-out form he arrived in.
Jake plants his feet on the ceiling and stands his ground as he begins walking around the place that slowly begins transforming into a dark and stormy alleyway, and as the place gets more detailed, Jake realizes the place is Death Alley as his entire family lies dead in front of him in a very gruesome fashion.
Dropping to his knees, Jake grabs hold of the fake dead bodies of his family and just hugs them as best he can before suddenly turning around and stabbing his father straight in the chest as everything had come to a full loop.
Dad: "Ugh, (coughs up blood) why... Son..."
Turning towards his mother and sister, Jake, without hesitation, grabs both of his loved ones and slowly chokes them to death with tears in their eyes as they struggle to plead with him to stop, but Jake never does, as that wasn't Jake.
It was the dark symbiote trying to show him the darkest thing it could possibly attempt with his own body, as Jake was locked deep inside himself and was being puppeteered by the black symbiote into doing whatever it wanted in order to break his mind.
However, this didn't work on Jake, as while this was the worst thing that he could ever imagine, he had already lived in darkness with his entire family disowning him and hating him along with every one of his friends.
So, to say he was used to the dark thoughts that lingered in his mind would be the understatement of the year, as while it hurt to see a dark doppelgänger kill his family in the farthest corner of his heart and mind, he knew it wasn't real, which was what saved him from being swallowed by said darkness.
Dark Symbiote: "(Sounds very demonic and a much deeper Jake's voice) DO... YOU... SURRENDER!?"
Jake: "(Bangs his hand on the invisible glass as he's forced to continue watching himself kill everyone he cares for.) No! And I hate your taste in film. I mean, I'm fairly certain I've had nightmares with this exact premise before."
The dark symbiote began laughing as it slowly approached Jake, trying to consume him whole, but just then Jake woke up and, without any hesitation, grabbed one of Hawkeye's arrows and stabbed himself straight through the neck.
This greatly shocked both Hawkeye and Black Widow because they were in fact the dark symbiote trying to mess with Jake's mind, as he wanted to have Jake live in a fake world much like his real one but just slightly off.
And it was that little discrepancy that had Jake take his own life, as the clues that gave it away were the place being just a bit darker, Hawkeye wearing goggles instead of glasses, and Black Widow having her suit completely zipped up instead of having a bit of her cleavage showing.
Shadow Jack: "(Demonic but slightly higher pitched than last time) How... just how did you even realize, and why did you kill yourself!?"
Jake: "Because I know what everyone looks like, and even if I didn't, you could say I have a sixth sense for these sorts of things."
Jake slowly walked over towards the dark symbiote embodiment as it shivered and shrunk; in fear, Jake recalled how no matter how little he knew of the place or could tell, not being able to hear Ekaj's voice of "reason" would always let him know that things aren't real since he never shuts up.
Absorbing the dark symbiote, Jake truly woke up this time and was faced with Hawkeye and Black Widow getting pinned to the sides of the room as they just stared at Jake as, in the real world, he had just gone completely dark, then slowly shifted to white, then sat back down and slowly went back to being normal.
Safe to say they let Jake do whatever he wanted for a couple of days after this, as they all needed time to get things ready for the next time he tried to do something like that since it became very obvious that he was anything but quiet when trying to control his powers.
Meanwhile, in Nick Fury's office, he had five reports from Jake's team, which were all the "problem children," if you could call them that, as they were the ones that either struggled the most with Control or unleashed something when they tried.
Nick Fury: "How much funding do you think would be needed to turn them into our best agents?"
Agent Coulson: "Probably as much as both our and Maria's salaries combined, sir."
Nick Fury: "(Strokes his goatee) Yeah, I figured that... call it. Give their handlers and caregivers as much money as they need to train them to the best of their abilities."
Agent Coulson: "But sir... if we do that, then we won't have as much money for all your other projects."
Nick Fury: "(Turns his chair around and just stares at Coulson) Excuse me, son. We have more than enough money to make sure everything we need to save the world is safe and secured no matter what may happen. I'm fairly certain that the budget is no issue, especially once we process everything they all got us and actually make it useful."
Agent Coulson: "Only half of what we got is even usable."
Nick Fury: "Then give whatever we don't have to Stark, Richards, or even Bruce if we have to and either ask for monetary compensation or have them help us speed up our research."
Agent Coulson just bows as he leaves Nick Fury's office as Nick Fury scoffs at how ridiculous Coulson was being as he continues to stare at his promising recruits, all without knowing that a certain group in the shadows is piggybacking off them and creating their own projects.
Well, for anyone else it might have been the case, but the only things Nick Fury keeps in his office are things that are hard to hide, while everything he truly wants to keep secret is only by word of coded mouth, as everyone involved in their research and development goes old school.
Nick Fury's thoughts: "Come and get me, you krout-eating—"
And that is all for now hope you all enjoyed and until next time stay safe and peace!