What NOT To Do In A Fight / Wednesday, Period III / Week 3

[atreideslioness]

After handwavily informing class to dress in clothing they didn’t mind getting dirty and to meet up in the danger shop, they were greeted by the most awesome of all things:

Paintball. Enough paintball guns of different sizes and shapes for everyone to have two, even.

"Now, we have a couple things to cover, since most people seem to learn how to use firearms from television and not actual instruction," Ghanima said. "Such as there is no such thing as a bottomless magazine - you always need to reload - and it's nearly impossible to walk, let alone run and fire a weapon with any accuracy. Learn poison instead," Ghanima suggested. "...Which is not this class."

Yet. Sadly.

"Holding your gun sideways does nothing but throw off your aim unless you’ve spent all your time practicing it just like that. If you have been practicing that, there are better things you should be spending your time on." Not that Ghanima was biased or anything, except that she was. "And unless you’re not firing real guns or have the right amount of upper body strength to deal with the Mexican stand off that will come from it, don’t use two guns at once. It merely doubles your chances of missing entirely or causing collateral damage."

"Not to mention the sheer number of movies that teach you people how to use firearms fails gun safety forever," she continued. "And you cannot just 'aim to wound' or blast a gun out of someone's hand without injuring them. There's also no such thing as a flesh wound in real life. There's no 'safe' place to shoot a person, not even in a seemingly non-vital extremity like a leg or arm. So don't try it, you'll just feel guilty when you fail."

"So today, you get to have fun and not worry about any of that, or you can try and practice proper firing techniques." With one smooth motion, Ghanima pulled a small paintgun from the sleeve of her tunic and fired a pink, glittery round at a student. "All guns are already loaded, because you should always assume a weapon is loaded. Begin."

Comments

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe...had no idea what a gun was. Or how it worked. Or even what it was supposed to do. So he was staring at his in confusion--it looked very unwieldy to hit someone with and he didn't see a blade anywhere...

Was this a bludgeoning weapon, then?

Hya, stop looking down the barrel.

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

Tip quietly reached over and directed that gun barrel away from anyone with a heart beat or vulnerable spots.

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

Bless you, Tip.

Not that Hyacinthe understood why she was pushing at his gun. He tilted his head at her and raised his eyebrows in question, though he kept the barrel directed where she had moved it. "This does not even look like a weapon to me," he admitted quietly. "Other than perhaps some kind of unwieldy club?"

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

"Well. Not that people don't hit other people with them, sometimes," Tip said, because that was useful and necessary information. "But no. Does you culture have crossbows?"

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

"Yes, though I've never seen one up close," Hyacinthe admitted. "They're expensive and difficult to maintain, or so I hear." He peered at the gun again. "Is this some kind of advanced crossbow?" Because he'd checked for strings...

He was from long before even the crudest of muskets. Chin had gunpowder, but they were keeping its existence very, very secret and that would in fact be a plotpoint in a later book.

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

"By a few hundred years, yeah," Tip said. It was the easiest parallel she could come up with. "Basically it uses a tiny explosion to launch little metal arrows at people. Or, well, in this case, air pressure to launch little balls of paint." She tapped the barrel of her own paintball gun. "It comes out this end. So don't point it at anything you don't want to kill." A beat. "Or in this case cover in paint."

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

For a second, Hyacinthe thought to glance down the barrel to see, but he realized how stupid that was before his arm could do no more than flex. "And to do that..." He examined the gun again, finally noticing the trigger mechanism, which looked a great deal like one he might find on a crossbow. "I hit that and the paint comes out," he said, glancing up for verification. "This is like playing with wooden swords, then?"

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

"You'd have to try pretty hard to make it lethal, but it can still hurt a lot," Tip said. "So . . . yeah, I guess."

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

"I'll admit, I never much saw the appeal," Hyacinthe confessed. Granted, part of that was because as a child, he'd been running errands for coin or stealing food or waiting to talk to the ever-fascinating Phèdre whenever she could sneak away from the Night Court or Anafiel. "I fear this lesson may be wasted upon me."

He'd try to practice proper firing techniques, but it wasn't like he knew what those were to be trying them.

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

"Hey, you never know when you're going to have to suddenly pick up a weapon from an unfamiliar culture and use it to escape a crashing air-bus," Tip said. ". . . I guess that probably doesn't actually happen that often, huh."

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

"..I can honestly say I've yet to experience such a thing," Hyacinthe said with a chuckle. "Though, on this island, I'm certain my odds have become much higher."

RE: Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

"I haven't seen any air-buses here yet." Tip said. "But I've only been here since May, so who knows?"

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

"I will let you know as soon as I see one," Hyacinthe told her, trying not-very-hard to keep a straight face.

RE: Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

"Out of curiosity, what do you think an 'air-bus' is? Just guess."

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

Hyacinthe hadn't the faintest clue. That was hardly going to stop him, however.

"A...giant tree, native to the sky-forests of this world," he said airily. "Though since they root in clouds, they have a tendency to fall over and down to the Earth. Their wood is excellent for creating lighter-than-air furniture, in case you wish for a bed that floats or a charming dinner table."

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

Tip laughed. "That sounds like movie concept art waiting to happen," she said. And she might end up trying to draw it that night. "Do you know what a bus actually is?"

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

"Not in the least," Hyacinthe admitted. "Nor what concept art is." Movies, he slightly understood, since he'd now seen a few, like in history class. Though he'd yet to see any that he would call 'art.' "I may have to add them to my list of things to look up 'ere I fall asleep tonight."

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

"Okay, but you know what art is, right? Like, drawing?"

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

"Drawing?" Hyacinthe asked, eyes comically wide. "What sprcery do you invite now, making images upon paper? Witchcraft!"

He couldn't help but mess with her a bit. Asking a Terre D'Ange had art was like asking La Serenissima if it had brackish water!

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

Which would be a . . . bad thing to do, right?

"Hey, there are whole religions who think it's a blasphemy. And you haven't recognized much of anything else I've been talking about, yet."

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

Enh, more that it was a fact of life for both of them.

"My religion, such as it is, does not condemn making art," Hyacinthe told her, still grinning. "It celebrates it; even the most mundane of items is given a decorative flourish to brighten it."

Granted, other countries often said that D'Angelines were so enamored with beauty they would buy flowers before bread, but...they also weren't entirely wrong.

"I knew what crossbows were," he reminded. "'Tis anything you mention that was created after...a thousand years after the crucifixion of Yeshua ben Yosef that I am uncertain of?" Since he doubted that she would understand the date based on the meanderings of Blessed Elua.

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

Tip was reasonably sure she could guess who her culture's equivalent to "Yeshua ben Yosef" was, at least. "Yeah . . . my education didn't really cover what was invented by a thousand years ago," she said. "And I'm mostly used to trying to explain things to space aliens."

So she defaulted to "I might have to explain this" no matter what she was talking about.

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

"I assure you, art was," Hya teased. "It has been found in caves, after all. And we are slightly beyond that." He tilted his head at her. "What sorts of things have you needed to explain to space aliens thus far?"

Re: During the Lecture

[intotheout]

"Eating," Tip said. "Not, like, different foods but actually why humans eat things. Or family. Like, the whole concept of having a mom and wanting to see her again." You see where she was perfectly prepared to explain what "art" was. That wasn't even a basic biological function.

Re: During the Lecture

[vrajna_kralis]

"You were separated from your mother?" Hyacinthe asked, teasing forgotten in the wake of sympathy. "I can imagine how frustrating that must have been, both the separation and then having to explain it to someone." He ran his fingers through his curls, brushing them away from his eyes. "I miss mine. This is the first time I have ever left home for longer than a few nights at a time. I worry for her, of course, in my absence, but mostly I just miss her."