Sidhe V. Human: Pointless Exposition.

[SirNitram]

Hey, when you're making up a world, you sometimes get a flash of inspiration and have to dump out an infodump.

Five Styles Of Gunplay.

"You can't be serious." SeanEric said, folding his arms as he paused at the door. His father was already inside, and the room was revealing itself, under the bluish-white glow of the Manor's bizarre, sourceless lighting, to be a padded chamber marked out for fighting practice. "You want to teach me by squaring off against me? With live ammo?"

"I promise you, if you ever need this.. And we always wind up in situations like that in this family.. You won't face opponents with blanks. Besides, this room's got one of Nitwit's temporal-spatial-anoma-whatsits. I could blow my head off and I'd be fine. Your mother would throw a fit, though, so I won't demonstrate." The elder Tahalshia said, removing his nearly ever-present jacket. A cross-holster held the single forty calibur automatic he now used, his favourite guns long since bequeathed to his son.

"I was thinking more targets.. But maybe that's the point." Gears were turning. "This is stuff to be used against living opponents? Like ones that a gun can't take down on it's own?" SeanEric raised a brow. "Never heard of gun-magic."

"Oh, you find a big enough gun, anything that's not a god is going down. You can also blow nicely-sized chunks out of the physical shells of the gods, but that doesn't really earn you brownie points.." Blackthorne smirked at some memory. "Alright. You know there are five elements, right? Not talking science. Talking spirituality, stuff like that."

"Yes, dad." SeanEric sighed. "But it's four. Earth, air, fire, water. Yeesh, even cartoons get it."

"No, there's five. Fifth is a little nebulous to define; religion always butts in. Spirit, soul, life and death.. They all get close though. Fifth element is the mind, the thoughts." Blackthorne grinned. "Each has with it fighting styles associated."

Comprehension dawned, albeit with a bit of a time-delay. "Yea, I think I remember. Tai Chi goes with water, certain aspects of Kung Fu with Earth... But you were talking about gunplay, not outdated hand to hand."

"Anything that makes a fist deadly makes a firearm devastating. Now." Blackthorne pulled out the pistol he had in his holster, holding it out. "Show me the elements."

A blink, then SeanEric tilted his head. "Earth in the metal of the casing, I guess, but you mean in it's operation. It's just Fire, though. Aggression, direct, and an explosion."

"Very good. A normal person would use only that aspect of it. It is inherently tied to Fire, and while that can be ramped up, there's a tendency for explosion and fouling the barrel. We'll focus on the other four."

Blackthorne wove a hand through the air, causing a potted plant out in the hall to extend it's leaves and limbs into the room, twisting and condensing into a target.

"Air. Redirection and avoidance. Offensively..." Blackthorne aimed to the side, away from the 'dummy', and fired. SeanEric's senses barely registered something wrong, then there was a definate hit from the side of the dummy as the bullet penetrated. "Twist the bullet around. But you can do the same defensively with enough practice, but you're only gonna have one chance."

SeanEric gulped, but nodded gently. "This is like that bit you taught me about adjusting the flow of air to avoid carrying the sound of my footsteps?"

"Right! All druidic magic emanates from the five, though the fifth we draw on is Terra herself. The Sidhe's druids pull on Gaia's mind. Obviously, this requires more speed and timing."

"Alright.. Fire would enhance the bullet's explosive start, and air lets you redirect it in flight. What's earth? Rooting the enemy in the ground?"

Blackthorne shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "Of course not. Earth combat styles have always been about standing your ground and hitting back alot harder. Shoot me."

SeanEric double-took. "You're bloody stupid. Mom would kill me!"

"..No, she wouldn't. Besides, I've got the damned vest on." Blackthorne sighed, opening the button-down shirt to reveal a bulletproof vest of superior manufacture than most militaries, far lighter and more concealable than anything of equal protection on the market.

SeanEric still didn't budge. "No way. Noooo way. This gun-style-martial-whatever may work, but there's no way I can shoot you."

"Fine.. The principle's the same, defensively, either way. I know you can throw a punch at my jaw." Blackthorne stuck his face out. "C'mon, let's get on with it."

SeanEric's face went red; he had swung and clocked his father one once before, in a particularly heated argument. It hadn't done much. Still, after a moment of internal debate, he swung and hit from an unexpected angle, trying to hit Blackthorne's cheek from the side.

As his son whimpered and held his hand, Blackthorne shook his head slowly. "Doesn't matter the angle; punching solid metal is punching solid metal. And punching someone whose learned to harness metal's nature is about as effective." The father sat by the son, and placed a hand on his. He hummed softly, letting the soft glow of healing envelope the wounded hand.

Several moments past, before SeanEric bite down the pain as his hand.. Broken in several places.. Slotted itself painfully back together. "I think.. I remember a guy whose skin was like stone. This was worse, though! Like punching steel!"

"Because old styles haven't evolved. He learned up to a point when his style entered a point of stasis. Metal is just a refined and enhanced form of earth, in the five. Takes alot to pass the hurdle into using it, a mental sort of block. But once you do, you can plant your feet and gunfire becomes as useful as it is against a tank. Sure, some guns will penetrate, but most baddies don't invest in anti-material rifles."

"That's defense. Offense?" SeanEric wiggled his fingers, and was releived when they both did so, and didn't explode into pain. "...Wait. Fire is all offense. Is earth all defense?"

"Not normally, but in gunplay, they might as well be. Oh, you can erect a barrier of flames or lightning, or imbue a bullet with the force of a boulder, but that's hard to do on the fly, compared to the other possibilities, and never as efficient for your effort. This is shooting, life or death stuff. Not brick-breaking for a crowd."

SeanEric slowly pushed himself to stand up, nodding. "Alright.. Two elements left, then, and then I presume I'll have to start practicing." A silenced, but present, groan. "Water? I've heard a bit about water element fighting. You redirect and turn power against it's wielder. No way to do that with a gun."

Blackthorne shook his head. "Nope. Always a way. There's alot of energy bound up in a bullet; hell, one can hold as much as a beer can moving at highway speeds. The trick is learning how to exploit the loopholes where you don't get the momentum immediately applied to, say, your spleen. Very painful."

SeanEric shook his head. "I've.. Learned a thing or two there. Like the time I fell off the top of the school and stored the momentum until I found a handy jackass."

"I remember that.." Blackthorne grinned. "But again, split-second timing. Or learn to generate a constant effect when people point guns at you." A wink.

"And discharging?" SeanEric raised a brow. "It's got to be discharged sometime, or the sums don't add up."

"I tend to grab a knife, aim, and let fly. No one expects a knife at that kind of velocity." Blackthorne grinned, and mentally began counting down.

"Fire is the gun. Air redirects the bullet, offense or defense. Earth makes you armoured. Water stores and discharges the energy of the bullet's flight; it's a defense and an attack rolled into one. But this.. Soul-spirit-mind-thought element isn't here. What, do we make the gun think? Sounds dangerous."

"It is. Technomagic. Forbidden and banned throughout the world. Ask your uncle Phil about how to make it work, he's better than I am." Blackthorne said, managing, somehow, a straight face through almost all of it before cracking the grin.

"That's not the trick though, is it." SeanEric raised a brow. He thought on this, as he looked at the collection of moves. They were all effective as hell, but unless you were going to store them and keep them going, you'd need reactions no human could ever acheive unassisted.. It clicked.

"The mind aspect is foresight, isn't it? Because it's the only way you could do these for any length of time. You'd know the shot was coming..." SeanEric asked, tilting his head.

"Correct. Combat precognition. Know your opponent's move before they do.. Well, to be precise, know the most likely outcome. I've seen only one who can know for certain, and I'll be happy if I never have to see it in the state where it could again..." Blackthorne shuddered.

SeanEric sighed. "And this is where we get to the dull, repetitious practices that will grind this into my brain until I do it easily."

"See, m'lad? Your precognition is already shaping up." Blackthorne grinned as he began to instruct..

[Xon]

An interesting take on gun-fu.

"Oh, you find a big enough gun, anything that's not a god is going down. You can also blow nicely-sized chunks out of the physical shells of the gods, but that doesn't really earn you brownie points.."

Rofl.

I like to maintain with a big enough bang it is posible to cook a classical fire elemental. It might take near-big bang energy densities todo it, but the sucker is going to burn.

[Ford Prefect]

That was rather good. Interesting, and kind of fun too.

[Vehrec]

Have you been watching Avatar? A lot of your talk here about the elements reminds me of the various bending disciplines. And your talk about martial arts, specificly the static nature of most of the tradtional arts, was a very nice touch. Its all too often true that most of the people doing these things, teaching these things, never get into actual fights outside of maybe some free sparing with advanced students.

[LadyTevar]

Amusingly enough, Vehrec, I happen to know that Nitram saw the Avatar episode where Uncle Iroh was teaching his nephew the lightning-bending tricks.