"VJ," Marco yelled across the room.

Chicco's cousin VJ had just returned from the restroom, and was making himself a drink of lemonade and tonic.

"How are you feeling," Marco continued.

He waved his palm side to side.

In a more gruff voice than what Sinclair was expecting from the well dressed and smooth mannered man, he answered as he walked over to them, "Aside from my stomach twisting up on me, I'm feeling better."

Sinclair wondered what was up with him in both demeanor and health.

Marco patted VJ's back, with emphatic vigor.

"Alright, cousin, I'm going to need you to help me clear out the corridors of vermin before core team handles the dragon."

VJ slid the pump forward and slotted five 3" magnum rounds into the Mossberg 500's chamber.

"Will do," he smiled and offered Sinclair his hand to shake. "So, we finally meet. Vicente Javier, second cousin once removed by marriage from the Family Sala. I am the Walk-Around-Guy."

Sinclair affected her most girlish giggle at his simple charm.

"Very pleased," she said with a nod.

Marco turned toward her.

"Ms. Sinclair, if you would oblige me, I'm going to need you to stand at that door and be prepared to open it when I yell 'now'."

Marco aimed his carbine dead center on the door. He flipped a secondary trigger forward that lit up a device to the side of the scope. A blue light pulsed back and forth just under the front of the sight line.

A small holographic virtual display rose up and spread out from a plexcurve mounted beneath the front sight of his gun.

"Ha," Marco exclaimed. "I figured they would put another one of those fuckers in that same spot you encountered one. Localized tactics don't tend to change much with nanospore behavioral patterns."

"VJ. Set a flashbang to molt."

In only a few seconds VJ affirmed with, "ready."

Marco cleared his throat. "Sinclair, now!"

She opened the door, and held it tight. VJ lobbed the flashbang above her head and pass her.

A muffled eruption that bore an oddly liquid tinge popped off from the other side of the door Sinclair held. She felt the whoosh of heat rap her knuckles.

Marco pointed his gun towards the ground, and he shot thrice at the floor. The door shielded her from ricochet.

One of the worms flopped beside Sinclair as it squirmed in its death throws while still gnashing rows of jagged teeth in her direction. With a double tap that lit up its skin with sizzling white phosphorus, Sinclair dispensed with the nasty worm.

On the floor lay two more dying worms, and what she assumed was one of the spherical feathered things. Not much of it was left, as a swirl of chemical molt turned it into a quickly dissipated plasma.

It was an efficient little operation that the three of them carried out compared to what she and Chicco similarly accomplished. Less than 10 seconds, this time.

Marco nodded, "to both of you, that was quite satisfactory -," he glanced at Sinclair, "- I have got to hand it to you. You really don't freak out easily."

She blushed once more, as the crew that gathered around the bar took note of Marco's words. That must have been why he was doing this, making her part of the crew's actions. Rebuilding the Family Sala facility was going to take quite a bit of time and effort, and he needed her to be a respected and accepted member of the extended family for that to occur with minimum trial.

She glanced back at those faces, all bearing a similar resemblance, a collection of cousins. She was not entirely honest with them. The Encapsulation Project also had quite an investment in successfully capturing the dragon.

When this was over, she needed to clarify to them her own stake and interest in getting it accomplished.

Marco waved her over to huddle closer in.

"VJ, I need you to go up in front of us by five spaces up the corridor. Hold your ground if you're not attacked. I'd like to get some target practice in for Sinclair with my 10 mm. I can't have her going in the server room with just that sweet little pea-shooter of hers.

"Be on the lookout for flechettes. Tell me when you are ready."

VJ nodded before he scurried into the hall. One loud, ringing blast was soon followed by a second one.

He yelled "clear!"

Marco nodded once more and led her out the door where he leaned against the wall facing the corridor, and he encouraged her to join him.

Stolen story; please report.

"Ms. Sinclair, when I was in boot camp, the theory to our training was that students tend to concentrate their attention while engaged in live fire, and better retain what they learned."

Marco glanced up the corridor.

"Hold fire," he commanded VJ.

Worms gathered down the hall passed a large grounded dehumidifier that sat approximately 12 meters away. For Sinclair the worms were frighteningly close to them.

They could make the span of the distance between them within a few seconds.

"Now listen to me," Marco looked her straight in the eye. "Hold your hand out tight. Ball it into a fist. Slant it downward as if you're holding a gun. Let your pinky lead."

He put his large fist wrapped against her own.

"Try to prevent me from bending your hand."

She resisted his push against her hand, but she could not prevent him from bending it. Finally, her wrist gave out.

"Alright, this is what you are doing wrong; you see how I have my hand folded? I'll do it again. Notice, how I roll my fingers into my fist, together as a unit, letting my pinky lead?

"That is where all the stability is placed in your hand. Now roll it like I showed you. Lock it downward into your pinky, move forward your top knuckle. There, let's try it again."

This time she resisted much more effectively. It took him some real effort to bend her hand.

"Now," Marco began, "let's do the same exercise with your left hand, 'cause you are going to be holding it with both, no doubt?"

She laughed at that suggestion, as if she had any other option.

"I can barely hold the Magellani with one hand."

She tried the exercise, and it took her several step-repeated attempts to get it right with her left hand, but Marco was patient.

When she finally did it correctly, Marco urged, "Now try that with my gun."

He placed the RIA 10 mm in the palm of her right hand.

"Wrap it around just as I showed you. Nice. Notice how you hold your thumb back? It isn't necessary. That works well with revolvers because you are avoiding discharge on your hands, but it is counterproductive with repeater pistols, especially high caliber ones. Place your thumb upward bent on the receiver, that will counterbalance the rest of your hand. Yes, just like that."

"The worms are starting to take an interest in us," VJ yelled back to them.

"Alright, soldier, stand towards your left, and walk it back to us. Sinclair, grip the gun with your left hand then spread out your right hand as you roll in your fingers just like this."

She got her palms tightly wrapped against the thickened grip, and her fingers dug into the front strap.

"Good. You see that one worm that's nudging up against those other two? He's the bull worm. You take him out, it'll slow down the other ones."

Sinclair clicked on the laser, and a green dot appeared up the corridor. She centered her aim on the bull worm that was turned towards them.

He was indeed larger than the other two, and possessed a dark striped pattern along its sides. She shot a hollow point center mass. The worm's upper stomach cavity split into two halves.

Viscera spilt from the cavity wound as the worm writhed on the floor.

Sinclair smiled to herself with great satisfaction.

The gun definitely had recoil, but she handled it much better than that which Sinclair expected she was capable.

Marco spoke gently behind her.

"Follow up with two more rounds into the bull, and then do the same with the other two worms."

While she did as requested, Sinclair felt exhilarated by the experience of going so far beyond her personal measure that she let out a spontaneous, "whoop!"

"So how did that feel?" Marco ask.

"Honestly," Sinclair said, "it really is the best option for me isn't it? I mean, I would not want to be in a gunfight over an extended period of time having to trigger it until my hand got completely numb. But one-on-one, unloading a magazine into something that's coming for me, there is really no better option, is there?"

"True. With the RIA, you could take down a panther, easily, if you find yourself in that situation. Not so much with that sweet little Magellani you have on you. And the best part about it, with practice, your tolerance for the recoil only gets better and better."

Sinclair giggled again; she became over excited, causing her lungs to collapse. Recovering quickly, she snorted loudly with a phlegmy backwash that she quickly spat on the floor. Marco looked at her funny, not expecting that from her.

"Hey, quiet you two for a moment," VJ insisted. "Did you hear that?"

Sinclair crouched, and the two men followed suit.

"That's the sound of flechettes being roused into action," Sinclair said, plaintively. She had heard them before in an abandoned barn on one of her escapades with Edward.

Marco put a hand on Sinclair's shoulder, and addressed her.

"If flechettes come down that corridor, I want you to do something. Switch out your white phosphorus rounds with your rippers. When you see flechettes coming towards us, shoot up into the ceiling at a ricochet angle. You will create a better Gaussian distribution on the spread and likely pick off more birds that way."

"Gaussian?" Sinclair said, curiously, while trying not to sound condescending.

Marco shrugged with a grimace.

"From my soldiering days when I had to deal with mortar fire. The only way not to be scared shitless in those circumstances is to find out everything you can about them. Pretty typical subject matter for a soldier to pick up on out in the field."

She switched out the RIA 10mm for her Magellani 22LR, and did as he requested, taking out the five remaining rounds of white phosphorus tips.

It caught his eye that she was able to replace the white phosphorus rounds by using a conventional clip that she fed into the double chambers from a slit between them.

"Well, I'll be damned. No moon clip necessary. Giuseppe must have really liked you to come up with that design."

"Spotted," yelled VJ.

He raised up his 12 gauge and splayed out three rounds along the ceiling of the corridor. Two flechettes were shredded.

Sinclair saw a sway of movement caught in the downward rain of pellets. She emptied the Magellani and spread the ripper rounds out to bounce against the ceiling.

Another creature, momentarily appeared to be too elongated to be another flechette, got caught in the hail of ricochet. It plopped on the floor, and its body unwrapped in a tangle of smokey threads.

A second wave of flechettes flew down the corridor. Marco caught them in a spray of pellets. As Sinclair fed a clip into the Magellani's under-carriage chamber slit, one of the birds smacked up against the ceiling from the force of Marco's magnum spread and flung against her jacket with such violent force it knocked her gun out of her hand.

She felt its sharply beveled razor wings tear into her jacket, and for a moment she panicked as she felt her skin being sliced into on her right forearm.

VJ dug the 10-in barrel of his shotgun carbine between Sinclair's jacket and the flechette. He used the barrel as a lever and popped the bird up into the air, where Marco caught it with another shot from his Mossberg 12 gauge, and blasted the shrieking little demon out of existence.

Sinclair squelched her desire to scream.

Marco said, "go ahead let it out."

"Can't. I have to remain calm and in control, you saw that little asthma attack I had. That shot was fucking nuts though."

She chortled with a machine gun like laugh.

"Then breathe in, heavy and slow, in and out," Marco commanded.

Several seconds passed before Sinclair continued speaking.

"No, I'm all right. I'll be alright."

Sinclair took off the jacket, and Marco inspected it, his lips pussed up in a tight little frown.

"Let's get back inside there," Marco suggested, "we'll have Laredo treat your wound. That laceration looks a bit deep."

He squeezed her left shoulder, as VJ covered their return back into the bar, and whispered, "You did good."