Meta (from the Greek preposition and prefix meta- (μετά-) meaning "after", or "beyond") is a prefix used in English to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.

Often do things rapidly change with new developments, be they technology, nature or the beings that reside in it. The era of beyond human abilities brought about new tactics to the battlefields about the earth. Prominently, the more closed, confine quarters of urban areas so often destroyed by assaults from extra-normal "beyond human" beings of a variety of origins and abilities. With Maverick beginning, comprised primarily of mortal, they sought to be some of the first to endeavor to fight these beings with every effective and efficient means of combat possible. One of them, being close range combat.

It is almost inevitable for many a breed of metahuman, mutant, alien or (As Mavericks tend to call them) "Extra-Normals" close the distance on one, and make effective use of their close range advantages, and this has occurred numerous times, and still does occur. As a result, this lead to a development, some time in seventies to what has come to be known as A.M.M.A (Aim-a or spoken A-M-M-A) by Maverick, a martial art designed to allow a weaker stronger opponent to combat things with more abilities of the body, be they bigger, stronger, faster or tougher, the martial art incorporates a very wide variety of other martial arts into itself, to the point that every technique of A.M.M.A is far too extensive to appropriately list.

Instead, the overarching view of A.M.M.A revolves around concepts, and individual techniques themselves of dominance have eased itself into Maverick's mainstream community. However, new methods and techniques are developped every day. However, the premise remains the same, to hone the body and very importantly, the mind, to better be able to survive or even triumph in close quarters combat with something much greater, as if to slay a dragon or to hunt beasts. In this day and age, for Maverick, most of their "Dragons" are any wide variety of alien, mutant or otherwise meta human.

Aspects of A.M.M.A

A.M.M.A goes fundamentally beyond the body's fitness and to the martial art, the mind is often said to be far more important to the martial art's own effectiveness. Strength and Speed are enevitably advantages, and almost any superhuman being is capable of learning A.M.M.A as well or better than others, but the martial art is about primarily honing skill, technique, tactics and mentality in the face of superior combatants. .

Pragmatism

There is no honor in A.M.M.A.

Instinct

Psychologist Abraham Maslow argued that humans no longer have instincts because we have the ability to override them in certain situations. He felt that what is called instinct is often imprecisely defined, and really amounts to strong drives. For Maslow, an instinct is something which cannot be overridden, and therefore while the term may have applied to humans in the past, it no longer does.^[3]

One of the first things necessary to fight, period, let alone go against the likes of empowered men and gods, is instinct. It can be defined as innate or natural behavior. Most animals know naturally how to do things, often sharing a similiar structure in brains and having uniformity in how they develop. The same cannot be said for humans and many other beings of similiar sentience, which can sometimes develop lesser instincts or drives, and even change them. Not be driven solely by them.

But, they are not something necessary to be abandoned, more, the natural response one has to something must be trained. Most people do not intuitively know what to do in situations but when they think, they react. It is not uncommon for when people see something particularly "amazing" or striking, that that they will freeze. When properly trained, a user is not frozen by anything, unable to be paralyzed by fear. Instead, this emphasizes reacting appropriately. Fight or flight. Combat or retreat. The user refrains from thinking.

Mental Fortitude

"Pain is weakness leaving the body."

Training the mind to resist all that seeks to harm it's stability and all that would make the mind falter, natural or otherwise. This can include telepathic defense and a tolerance to the simulated effects of natural phenoma such as drugs, fatigue and psycological exploitation. It is not uncommon to be actually conducted by a telepath or various drugs to simulate the most dressing feelings known to man.

Another aspect of this, is bravery and determination to overcome adversity and face the unknown. It is not wholly considered necessary to be fearless. More, it is considered necessary to know how to control one's fear, and one's mind. To possess unerring discipline and unwavering resolve to accomplish any possible task put forth before them, no matter how daunting, or even accomplishing simpler tasks with an efficiency in every day life one had not known. How one trains the mind can in many ways vary with the individual. Different techniques, therapies and on sight training are used depending on exactly what type of individual that person is, and how they are best made.

Pain is another thing that varies with how one responds to it, as well as general discomfort. As such, the most unpleasant feelings possible are created and often, Mavericks are forced to fight under conditions akin to being poisoned, sick or having been attacked by any wide number of chemical weaponry.

However, the supernatural assault comes with various degrees of

• Indomitable will: The user's own drive creates a steely shield for thier mind. Enables resistance of mind control via drugs, supernatural possession or telepathic mind control, allowing the user to resist induced pain and at higher levels, resist the control of involuntary bodily functions and resist death.
• Organic Encryption: Changing the way one's mind fundamentally thinks and making it thusly, unreadable to many types of telepaths. Simple encryption can include thinking in a different language from the user, while
• True Sight: Allows for one to sense when they are being fooled and when an illusion is induced, and the user can ,through this, determine whether or not what they see is real or not.

Vital Strikes

Striking at where an opponent is much more vulnerable to increase the effectiveness of one's attacks.

This can be attributed to any number of points on the human body which can be struck and assaulted in a wide variety of ways. Was is often commonly thought of are pressure points and strikes towards the nervous systems. However, these are not always effective and can prove unreliable. Opponents can often adapt to live with damaged brains and nervous systems. Moreover, correlating durability might make any strike a human or even an enhanced human might be capable of doing, utterly irrelevant.

However, this doesn't necessarily exude weapons. Knives and other blades, guns and even explosives can be used to exploit weak points of the enemy. Though healing factors exist, muscles need nerves and they need to be connected. Ways to render the effects of healing factors less relevant or even to exploit healing factors do exist, such as lodging foreign objects into wounds, using toxins and grainly objects such as dust and gravel to slow it down, augmenting weapons or fists with additional effects of electricity.or heat or using explosives to exploit "fracture points", flaws and other vulnerable areas aside from their hides to get the better of them.

Reading the Opponent

The luxury of having a file one you fight does not always exist, so the better one can known their opponent, the more likely they are to fair well against them and strategize.

This skill allows for users to read body language. A basic move taught is to look at one's stance and to see exactly how well they attempt to protect themselves. Opponents with no stance will very often have ability that makes them difficult to harm, be it super durability or super speed. The clenching of fists and narrowing of eyes, or the "aiming" of hands or palms in their general direction can be anticipated to be a projectile attack. Words from one's mouth spoken lowly can mean a casting a spell. Larger enemy's tend to be slower, but can also easily possess a speed belaying their size. Glowing eyes often indicate the activation of powers, an attack coming from the eyes or even People have different movement capacities.

Equally important is the Psyche of the enemy, and how they think or function as a fighter. Superhuman does not necessarily equate to unskilled, while other superhumans can grow arrogant or otherwise think little of what a human being can do. This can often easily lead to them being exploited.

Reading a person's habits, psychology and body language is something that can be taught but to many of the best, it is intuitive and natural, and further training serves to advance it. However, this is one of the most complex aspects of A.M.M.A and is by no means absolute or uniform, making it difficult for many to utterly master.

Use of Leverage and Momentum

Just because something is larger and stronger, doesn't mean it cannot be moved. Not every opponent needs to necessarily be killed but when going up against the likes of metahumans, the redirection of momentum and use of leverage are key, but highly dangerous and difficult to master.

"Wilder" less skilled metahumans tend to be easier to lift, but one must still be wary of the strength that a metahuman possesses. Often, someone who weighes perhaps 100 pounds might still be well capable of exerting multiple tons of force or even hundreds of tons, and be thus hazardous to attempt deflecting or lifting, particularly if skilled.

However, some methods of superhuman strength can be used, and Mavericks who used Exos might be able to lift roughly a ton, are equipped to fight across a multi-tude of spectrums outside their weight classes. While excessive strength is not always necessary, it is useful as long as it is remember that the premise is not necessarily to overpower the opponent but to functionally use their own weight, strength and even speed against them.

However, as a general rule of thumb, this become increasingly less effective the heavier and more massive the opponent is (although weight is relevant) the harder it becomes. For instance, one can use techniques such as these to throw and shift humans who weigh 100 pounds, but lift one hundred tons. But would encounter difficulty against deflecting a 400 pound gorilla that weighes far more. More over, a skilled and in peak form superhuman is likely to know what one is going for, and shouldn't be fought directly often times. For these techniques to be effective against such enemies, one must often take steps to remove skill from the equation.

How this is done is up to the user.

Techniques from this aspect tend to draw heavily from Aikido , Judo and Aiki-Jujitsu. Certain techniques from Greco-Roman are possible.

Roll with the blow

"Never take a blow full force."

A simple but effective technique when evasion is not an option.

A glancing blow from a human fighter can be a crippling attack from a metahuman, but it is an attack dampened non the less. An attack weakened and made less effective by a basic premise of rolling with the blow and never taking it full on. Mastery of this aspect can allow armored humans to survive grievous attacks. Attacks equal to hundreds of tons reduced to impacts of seven for example or even a few hundred pounds, depending on the blow and proficiency of the user in the use of this in itself. The addition of armor and other protective apparatus further augments this, to the point that many men go comfortably toe to toe with men capable of bench pressing trains.

Concealment

Superior strength and Speed are often of little use if one cannot actually find or even hit their opponent. Thus, the use of stealth, cover and concealment is heavily emphasized wherever possible.

Many types of metahumans and mutants have some form of enhanced senses, or even additional ones. There are a number of means to disrupt them. Such as using bright lights to disrupt enhanced sight, loud or false noises to disrupt sound, caustic gases in air. Masking or disrupting the enemy's senses ultimately is an ideal way to disrupt their

Adaptability

In a world of gods and monsters, where seemingly anything is possible, adaptability is absolutely necessary for survival. This means being able to train and combat foes with otherwise unorthodox fighting styles or differing fundamentally in methods of combat. This can include fending off animals, fighting large monsters, opponents with psyiologies lacking in the same weaknesses (or lacking weaknesses period.) Some enemies even lack muscle and are comprised of materials not unlike liquids, requiring the use of different techniques to effectively block and disable them (such as dis-limbing and noting shapeshifting capacity.) Some enemies have multiple limbs. Some enemies project energy and render the area around them hazardous. Others can create spikes and tendrils. The amount of things one can face in this world is functionally, endless. Beasts, gods, Mutants, Metahumans, Aliens, Kaiju....

Ultimately, while Maverick attempts to simulate and train their soldiers against as many types of enemies as possible, not all of them can be covered, and it is up to the user to possess the ingenuity to overcome any foe.

Weaponry

Users of Maverick's own iteration of A.M.M.A. are taught to train with weapons to the fullest extent possible.This mean combating and defending against weaponry.

Combating bladed weaponry has become extremely important and a great emphasis is placed on being able to combat opponents who use medieval weaponry of supernatural quality and knives. More advanced techniques covers how best to go about intercepting any number of weapons such as spears, axes and improvised weapons that might be used against them, such as cars, rocks, boulders and common heavy objects used as weapons by metahumans.

Due to it's roots in modern military, weapons in use by Maverick are often guns and knives, although for recent attacks by infected, the undead and otherwise horde like enemies where Ammo is better saved for deadlier things, the corporation has since taken up use of a variety of established weapons (sometimes in tandem with powered armor). A vast majority of training is done with weapons as a gun or a knife is what the soldier will possess 99% of the time. Thus, learning to block or otherwise fight with these weapons. Fighting close range with guns is often affectionately referred to among Maverick's slang as gun-kata or gun fu.

However, the newfound prominence of melee weapons stresses a greater degree combating such weapons using one's own skill, weaponry and gear, with basic disarm techniques still finding use among vibranium knives, many premises remain the same, revolving around not necessarily blocking blades, but to parry, deflect or otherwise impede the blade without direct contact, due to the unpredictable and often extreme cutting power behind these weapons.

Improvising

Use any and all tools all around you, even things that are not meant to be weapons. Use sand to disrupt keen eyesight and slow down healing factors. Use cars and heavy objects to otherwise emulate attacks of superhuman force. Use the environment itself to make items less effective. Swords have many advantages over a knife for instance, but can become detrimental in close quarters and tight spaces. This is amplified ten fold with long weapons and in fighting large overbearing opponents, forcing them to weave through the larger environment while the smaller human can more fluently move through it. Lure them into disadvantagous situations.

These are but one in the few examples of what one can do to make surviving or even thriving in an attack against a metahuman all the more easy, using their own ingenuity and cleverness to even at times, overcome seemingly more intellectually superior adversaries.

Survival, Evasion and Escape

Sometimes the fight can be won, and sometimes, a mere man is not enough to overcome the threat presented before them.

Either way, the of the largest aspects of A.M.M.A is simply to survive, as the mission is seldom able to be accomplished dead. Able to go hand and hand with concealment and stealth, this teaches a variety of evasive techniques, maneuvers and tactics to survive close range against the bigger, badder, stronger and faster. Drawing from numerous martial arts, from fencing to boxing, the user is taught how to be fluid and agile with their movements, and to use the physics of their individual bio-mechanics to their advantage. Skilled users are swift to dance around metahumans they can never hope to fight hand to hand to distract, escape lure or corral attacks from multiple aggressors, large overbearing monsters and freakishly fast opponents.

OOC

• Constructive criticism is welcome. If you see an inaccuracy or even, just plain think the thing is stupid, than I won't get mad if one does say that.
• This is somewhat of a work in progress and often subject to change.
• Though devised by Maverick, some of it is taught to militaries around the world and can be seen in use by enemy factions. Making the concept relatively open to being used and innovated by others.
• It is meant to be broad, vague and not too specific. Why? So that there is more to do with it and more to make.