Nine Swords

"Yes, explosive shaped charge, to be exact, dear" - automatically responded Venator, already on his feet and ready to catch anemic Jenn, before she drops.

Drawing out a pistol, he used built-in gadget to summom a tiny first-aid drone, ready to pump adrenaline and glucose into Jenn's system.

Tom didn't shirk away from whatever it was that Jenn had planned, though that was probably more out of him just being dumb than anything else. He blinked several times at the red film that appeared around him in a bubble, it looked like blood, but it didn't leave anything on his fingers when he reached out to touch it. In fact, his hand just seemed to pass right through it. A neat parlor trick, but he wasn't sure what kind of useful applications it might have.

He did panic however, when Jenn fell towards the case of high explosive ordinance. Common sense and Tom's knowledge of mechanical engineering dictated that the shells would be inactive until fired, but that wasn't the kind of thing you wanted to put to the test.

He de-tensed when there was no room shaking bang, and walked over to take a look at the drone. "Looks like an orochi product," he commented. "Nice bubble by the way, though the side effects seem a bit... offputting." He opened the book he had picked up earlier and flipped through a couple pages to see if there was anything about red bubbles, but it was all Greek to him. Actually, latin probably, Templars and their damn tradition.

Jenn went from leaning on the box of shaped charges to leaning on Venator, then back to the crate, then Venator... then she managed to stand on her own two feet. “Thanks...” She watched the drone circle, and got dizzy all over again.

“Can we use those in here?” she asked Venator, fascinated by his lovely box of explosions. She caught a glimpse of Lethe in the corner, doubled over laughing at her. She muttered, under her breath, “More importantly, can we use them on the instructor?”

As the drone replaced the missing vital fluids and Jenn returned to having an appropriate level of oxygen reaching her extremities, she also noticed something else. “Really? You're reading Tom? I'm all for a good novel, but... now?”

"Mmm"- hummed Venator, looking at his drone, then at box of warheads, then at Jenn and finally at Tom. Lethe managed to disappear again in some dark passage, which was only good, as he could surmise from the way Jenn's eyes were flashing with rage - blood loss clearly could not temper her fighting spirit.

"I think you can try, just try to point towards the target area, I am not sure how powerful these are."- answered Venator to Jenn's question, after deciding that she is steady enough to put up with recoil. - "Although maybe you should hide your grimoire first, before Tom summons some Assyrian demon here, so that it could eat away our faces?"

Glad of the distraction the others provided so that he could avoid any more of Lethe's 'helpful hints', Wes went back to deftly cutting and thrusting. He tried to imagine that the thing in front of him was a side of beef hanging on a meathook rather than some foul beast from the lowest depths of hell. It wasn't easy to concentrate with the others making such a racket, so he set his sword aside and pulled out his trusty iPod. As he tried to tuck the earbuds into place, he discovered that the cord was, of course twisted, which only added to his frustration. The carrion hunk in front of him lisped a gurgling, hissing chuckle at his expense.

"Blast!" Wes barked in irritation. Just at that moment, an arc of superheated air jumped from the end of his twisted iPod to the training dummy causing its leathery flesh to twist and blister. Wes blinked a couple of times in stuporous contemplation and then turned to where the others were playing with the heavy ordinance. "Did...did I do that? "

Another arc of energy seemed to be forming at the base of his iPod...

Tom looked pointedly at Venator and ran his finger down the page of the dusty tome in his hands. He managed to mutter several brutally mangled words, and thought he felt a bit queasy, but then he gave up. "Not sure I could summon anything if I tried Venator. The most I'm getting out of this thing is a stomachache." He shut the book and set it on a nearby table, he would use it as some light bedtime reading later. Or, you know, as a coaster. That was probably more likely. He did have a few other ideas up his sleeve though.

"I noticed you managed to do that bubble thing without hitting anything first," he commented to Jennet, bringing his arms up and his hands together. The other times he had managed to fire off his blood magic had been when he was angry, so he tried to focus that anger and make it take shape between his palms. Blood seeped from his pores and formed a ball in his hand, which he sent spiking into one of the demons with a flick of his wrist.

He immediately noticed the dizziness, but took it on the chin a bit better than she did, only taking a step back to steady himself. "Hoo, that's a bit of a rush."

"Oh, listen to Mr. Tough Guy. Bit of a rush, he says. Nearly knocked me flat on my... Wes?" Jenn's eyes widened as she looked over Venator's shoulder. "Wes... maybe you shouldn't point that iPod at the crate." That said, she said the only other thing that came to mind, in a very small voice...

"Incoming?"

"I really want to try my new toys before something irreversable happens."- stated Venator, as he pulled out his rifle. Grabbing a case for crate, he stuck it into underbarrel grenade launcher. Carefully circling around sparcling and humming Wes, Venator aet up his position at a long and dark passage, serving as a reinforced rifle shooting range.

"Ohoh, hope it won't crumble the ceiling and bring Madame Juliet on our heads..." - with a decisive move, he rised the barrel and pulled the trigger. With a loud "Boooh" grenade flew straight out and owards chained demons far down the passage. Venator grew pale and ducked under the stand, as the grenade reached it's destination. Deadly rain of concrete, iron and wood splinters came down the passage, raining down around the beginning of the shooting line.

"Hm, at least the ceiling still stands!" - commented Venator, as the smell of deep-roasted bacon started spreading from the tunnel.

"Uh..." Wes murmurs as Ven skirts him. "Anyone know how to turn this off?" Wes hums as sparks arc and dance across his hands and face.

The heavy, sound-proof door started closing behind the petite woman as she was walking to the bar, a briefcase in hand. She has gotten used to the racket in the last year; she gave a quick glance around to see who was doing what and where. "Another puncher" she said to herself, noticing in the distance a man furiously beating a demon as if it was his archenemy. As she closed in on the bar, she noticed a few other people. She walked around the counter and bent down to the cabinets, hoping to find the ingredients for a White Russian. "...Drat. Locked."

She rose up with a sigh and went to the table near the melee practice zone to set down her briefcase. She opened it, lifted the top section to reveal her claws and the engraved disk she carried on her back in battle. The trinket has been many things over the months: an oriental mask, a Norse carved roundel, an engraved disk... She shouldered the strap across her chest, the trinket resting against her back before pulling out the claws from the briefcase. She closed and locked the lid, then slid her hands in the claws, her fingers and knuckles easily finding their way out of habit.

She turned around to look at the fighting range when she noticed a large crate full of boxes. "Hmm, Lethe brought new toys for the gunners?" she muttered. It then occurred to her. "Where is Lethe?" She walked down the stairs to the practice area, scanning the room. Lethe was nowhere to be found. "Odd..." She shrugged and moved to left where the melee weapons were, hoping to find a spot not too close from the other practitioners. The claws were rather long.