"Today we're visiting the hospital and the lovely doctor that took such excellent care of Xander when he got a face full of bad tea." Rory announced a few days later. "This is so she can get a base line of all of you on your current health. While she will not be involved in the actual conditioning that we will be doing today, as that would violate her Oath as a doctor, she will be monitoring the effects on your health. If she has even a hint that it's causing a problem we will stop."
"What's this conditioning, Uncle Rory?" Jesse asked.
"It was actually inspired by your experience, Jesse. It's a practice called mythridatism and is practiced in a variety of forms. It's purpose is to build a tolerance to the poison by introducing tiny amounts of it. Jacine is so deadly to humans that even that sip you had could have killed you, but there are other poisons that introduced in tiny amounts that can teach your body how to handle it without the dying part. This is not an exercise that any of you will be required to participate in, but you should be aware that the specific poisons we will be using are naturally occuring to several kinds of Wesen."
"Which ones?" Tika asked. "So we know what to look for?"
"One is the Cracher-Mortel whose tetrodotoxin may have been used on Buffy. At full strength it makes the basis of the zombie myth, a condition that is curable, thank goodness. The Huntha Lami Muuaji, a flatworm Wesen, no Grimm that I'm aware of has ever managed to kill a female of their race, only males, which is odd because as far as we know, mates are inseparable until death and can't be far apart from each other. But no one has ever recorded seeing the female anywhere in the vacinity when the male was killed. Konigschlange, King Cobra Wesen and let's not forget the Manticore, although they're big on Honor and are often soldiers, but if you do meet a bad one, they're incredibly fast, strong and vulnerable to their own poison and not even old age slows them down."
"And that's not even a full list." Faith added. "Because if it exists, it can also be a Wesen."
"Very true." Rory agreed. "We're also going to work on a few other things." Rory continued. "When we were at the American Warrior gym I told you that learning to fight with your senses disabled with blindfolds and earplugs can teach you to compensate for the loss and create a situation where your body adapts, Grimms rapid adapt, but the rest of you can also adapt, just not as quickly or to the extent a Grimm can. Doesn't mean it isn't a useful thing to push adapting even for the rest of you."
"How are we going to do that?" Buffy asked, silently wondering if she already had a jump start on the others at developing a tolerance for the Cracher-Mortel's tetrodotoxin after her exposure to it. "Hey, I just had a thought, I've already been exposure to tetrodotoxin, if it's possible to build a tolerance to it than those idiots at the fight ring forgot to take that into account and sooner or later their controlled foot soldiers would have developed that tolerance and than they would have had extremely pissed off at them foot soldiers."
"If that's true, than they were even stupider than we already thought." Cordelia answered. "And we already thought they were losers."
"That's a good thought, ladies and you may be right." Rory nodded. "Anyway, back to the training. Blindfolds and earplugs only block your senses, any discomfort is purely psychological, but your environment can be used against you to cause injury to your eyes especially and learning to compensate before someone literally throws sand in your eyes could save your life one day. Marines have been known to take their gas mask off in a room full of tear gas and practice while dealing with the tears and breathing difficulties it can cause. In large enough exposure it can cause blindness or lung damage, we're not going anywhere near large, just a quick puff in your face and than trying to compensate during a mock attack. The doc will be on hand in case you have a more intense reaction and remember, it's voluntary. No one will be forcing anyone to do this."
"What did my mother have to say about it?" Buffy asked, certain Rory had already discussed it with their parents or they wouldn't even be here.
"That it's your choice and if it keeps you safer and it's done safely or as safely as possible, they wouldn't object to it." The teenagers quietly discussed it among themselves before finally deciding they were going to do it, even the ones that didn't hunt like Cordelia and Tika,
"Just because we don't hunt." Cordelia pointed out. "Doesn't mean someone won't decide to hunt us and I want a chance of surviving."
Something they could all agree on, as they silently followed Rory into the hospital for the next step in their revised training.
A/N Nick, the Grimm featured on the tv show, is the one who discovers why a female Huntha Lami Muuaji is never found after a male has been killed. It's because they're actually a three in one. Not a mated pair, but a male human side, a human female side and a neutral middle that is the flatworm part. They consider themselves brother and sister and were mistaken for mates. The male and female sides can actually carry on conversations with each other and finish each other's sentence. They share a brain, but are separate personalities, as well as physical forms. Weird. ;)