Brionn's test
by Alpesco



I was working in security at one of the research centers located in this part
of Arizona. My partner that night was called Brionn, about 25 and six foot one
tall, her fair hair tightly plaited behind her.

My instincts told me there would be trouble the instant the three men emerged
from the shadowed backstreet. They were large and heavy-looking, about six
foot and 200 pounds apiece. Heavily tatooed, they had clearly been drinking,
and seemed to be looking for trouble. One of them was carrying a length of
steel piping.

'Hey, wiener,' the first of them called. 'We want you - and the two-bit whore
who's with you!'

Beside me, Brionn sighed. 'I'll take care of this,' she took a step forward.

'No..' I began to object, but she shook her head. 'I said I can deal with it.'

I didn't like the look of the three men. They looked like they could hurt
someone bad, drunk or not. But I got a confident feeling from the girl. She
was tall and slim. Slim but not skinny, in fact I was sure that beneath the
taupe shirt and pants of her uniform, she was pretty much solid bone and
muscle. The talk was she'd come top in the company's self-defence course, and
I could believe that. Still.. this was too dangerous..

'Better not,' I said.

'Tell you what,' Brionn turned to me, 'I'll make you a little bet. Fifty
straight that I stop them, three in three.'

'Three in three?' I said, caught up despite my qualms. 'I'd like to see that.'

'Don't think sending the hooker in front will save you,' the gang-leader said,
swinging his length of pipe dangerously.

Brionn stepped forward easily, looking for all her height, somehow catlike,
well-balanced and lithe as he began to sway a little from side to side.

I could see what she was doing, she was good. But these were big guys. How was
she going to accomplish her objective? Suddenly the man swung. His length of
metal pipe, sweeping powerfully towards her head. The swing had been fast, as
some drunken swings can be fast, but the girl ducked beneath it, swaying back,
her knees bent, like a limbo dancer, to let the pipe whistle past, a foot and
a half above her head.

Now she uncoiled, her fist clenched, her long right arm driving it up and
forward as she rose behind the gangleader's swing. I saw the punch gathering
power as it sped towards its target like a missile.

Crackk! The sound of the impact echoed along the alleyway. I gasped at the
sheer power this slim girl had been able to generate in just a fraction of a
second. The blow struck home with astonishing force, sending the 200 pound man
hurtling backward as his jaw shattered. Unable to stop himself, he careered
back into a line of trashcans, knocking all of them over as he crashed to the
ground in their midst.

I had no time to watch, however, as Brionn swung back round to send her left
scything with even more force into the gang-leader's startled sidekick. Too
slow to evade the blow, it slammed into the side of his head with the sound of
a hardball striking a coconut, sending him crashing to the ground.

I checked Brionn's first hit again. He was lying among the trash, his mouth
running with blood, but unmoving. He was out, sure enough. The second man
seemed to have less vsible damage even though he had been hit every bit as
hard. He lay flat on the concrete, groaning and struggling to rise. But even
as I watched, the arm that had been propping him up slid frm under him and his
light went out.

Now there was only one man left. He seemed warier and, more aggressive. 'Come
on. bitch.' He beckoned, his voice slurred. 'Come and get some!'

I could see Brionn's eyes narrow, and it struck me at that moment that, big as
he was, he had no chance. This girl could hit astonishingly hard, she knew
where and how to hit, and she was devastatingly fast. I feared my money was
gone.

I was right. She waited for him to lunge forward, then stepped aside out of
his way. As she did so, she spun round a full 360 degrees, bringing her long
right arm round behind her like a scythe with all the weight of her body
behind it. The solid fist sped straight to its target, unerring and
remorseless.

Even after her first two punches I was appalled at how hard the blow hit. How
could a girl of barely 160 pounds produce so much power? The gang mamber's
forward motion was halted by the sheer force of the blow, his head snapped
backward like a punchball as the blow tore into the side of his skull with a
dull crack of bone. Then, as the inertia of his bodyweight was overcome he was
almost lifted off his feet as the impact sent him flying backwards, crashing
through lines of trashcans and boxes to halt with a solid crump against the
brick wall of a warehouse. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground
unconcious.

'That was spectacular,' I said. 'I can't believe you totalled three guys in
three hits. You win your bet.'

'I usually do,' she smiled. 'I'm a bit worried I hit that last guy a little
too hard,' she said walking over to where he lay. 'I felt a big bone in his
skull go when I hit him. He'll need an ambulance.'

'I've got it.' There was a voice behind us. I turned to see a small man with a
mobile phone. 'I saw all that happened. The Police and medics are on their
way.'

'Thanks,' I said.

'Lady, he walked up to Brionn. 'You sure can hit hard. 'I work for a professor
who's doing a lot of work in that field. If you come for a test, I'm sure
he'll make it well worth your while.'

Brionn was curioous, so an hour later we found ourself in Professor Grennick's
lab at the Mortsen Research facility.

'First of all we test basic strength,' the professor said, pointing to some
weight machinery. 'Can you squat with that 200 pound bar?'

Brionn nodded, getting beneath it and standing straight. 'How many do you
want?'

'How many can you do?'

'I don't really know,' she said. 'Let's see.' She squatted with it easily,
going to below parallel. Then did the same ten times, then another ten, then
another. She didn't even look tired. 'Two hundred's a bit easy for me,' she
said, replacing the weight and going towards a 400 pound bar.

Grennick watched in disbelief as she squatted with this almost as easily as
she had done with the 200. 'I think I can only do five of these,' she said.
She managed seven, but the last was shaky. The muscles on her long legs were
swollen and hard.

Grennick instructed her to try to clean with the 200 pound bar. She bent to
take it in both hands, then jerked it above her head in one easy motion. She
held it there for a minute or two, then began a series of overhead presses.
She did 25. Lowering the bar to the floor, she made a muscle. Her bicep rose
and swelled amazingly. A grapefruit sized ball hard and dense, appeared,
swelling and hardening into peaked definition.

'16 inches going on seventeen' she said. holding the muscle and allowing it to
relax into her arm.

There was a leather pad on a nearby wall attached to an electronic display

'This is the machine.' Grennick said. 'I've tested hundreds of people on it.
It measures the power of a punch or a kick. The women's average for a punch is
85 units. I'm told your punch is quite impressive. The best woman scored 128.
An athletic man can reach about 125. Boxers average about 180. I had a top
heavyweight in here two months go. He got the dial up to 260.'

'Okay', said Brionn standing on the marked area of the floor.

She launched a jab. It registered 74.

'Good' the professor nodded. 'Most respectable.'

Without warning she launched a flurry of six jabs at the pad. all landed
within the space of two seconds. I gasped. These were only jabs. She wasn't
hitting at anything like full force, but the numbers were going up and up with
each hit, 78, 82, 83, 86, 89, 95.'

'Very impressive,' said the professor. 'You're way above average.'

'I haven't started yet.' Brionn smiled. At once she landed a really big
straight-armed punch. The prof gasped as the dial swung round to 153.

'There must be some mistake...That exceeds the record by..'

'No mistake,' she said easily as she drove two more big punches into the pad,
both impacting within the space of a heartbeat. The display registered 160 and
165.

'But that's harder than nearly all the men have registered!'

'I've not finished yet,' the girl said, 'Not nearly.' Four more huge punches
crashed in, one after the other. The numbers were 167, 172, 179, and 190.

'I just love this machine,' Brionn grinned, her long arms pumped, the sleek
muscles glowing as they flared and grew.

She hit again and again. Each time the numbers got higher. Both of us watched,
astounded as those huge punches kept crashing into the pad and the numbers
kept flashing up. 193, 194, 201, 211, 214, 216, 223, 231, 235. The noise was
incredible. She just kept on and on, hitting harder and harder. She didn't
seem to tire.

Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated on throwing the punches in with what
seemed the entire power of her body behind them. The noise was tremendous now,
the crashing of the blows echoing through the room in a growing crescendo. 240
read the dial. Another huge blow hammered in. 253 flashed up. With the next it
hit 262, then 268, 275. We watched mesmerised. 280, 285, Then there was a
tearing, rending sound as the display went out and the pad fell from the wall.

'Oh. Its broken.' Brionn said, disappointed.

'The display readings must have been wrong.' The professor said, looking
relieved. 'The machine is damaged.'

'What about this pad?' she asked, turning to a bigger one on the far wall.

'That's to test kicks.' The best I've recorded is over 400.

Brionn walked up to it, and unleashed a solid sideward kick. The display
registered 450. She kicked twice more: 507, 553. her next brought up 589.

'Now I'll go for the big one,' she said softly.

She drew up her leg, and blasted the heavy pad. The noise was like a clap of
thunder. The whole wall shook. The dial reached the 800s and flashed out. The
pad buckled with a groaning and tearing of metal, and dropped from the wall.
Brionn looked at the wall. A jagged crack about an inch wide ran diagonally
through the brickwork where her foot had struck.

'I think you need some stronger equipment, prof.' she turned to face him. 'I
can kick a lot harder than that if I have to.'

'The wall,' he said, 'you've cracked the wall! I don't believe it.'

'Believe it.' Turning, she threw in another massive kick, aimed at the spot on
the wall where the pad had once been. There was a huge crash followed by a
deep rumble as the brickwork caved in around her kick, leaving a jagged, three
foot wide hole in the wall.

'You have a lot of raw strength,' the prof said, 'but those scores are
impossible. The power you're getting in those blows is incredible. If those
scores are right, somehow you're focussing every last reserve of bodypower
into your punches. Very few people can concentrate enough to use even half of
their muscle fibres at once, or co-ordinate their movements enough to focus a
quarter of their potential power output, maybe you can somehow do that.'

'Maybe,' Brionn said. 'But I have to go get some rest.'

It was as we emerged from the lab block that the final event of that night
unfolded. The lab was just outside town and we saw a man riding towards us
across the scrub on a bay horse. We thought he'd just ride on by. But he drew
the horse up net to us and spoke.

'You the two who beat up three men real bad in town a couple of hours ago?' he
demanded.

'What's that to you?' I said.

'One of them is my brother,' the rider said. 'He's in a bad way in hospital
with a caved-in skull. I've been looking for you for some time.' He drew a
long barrelled shotgun from a saddle-holster.

'Look. They attacked us..' I began, but Brionn silenced me.

'Put that gun away!' she said.

'I don't think so.' the rider urged his horse back a step as he began to point
the weapon towards us. 'There's two of you and one of...'

His words were cut off in mid-breath as Brionn launched a sudden huge sideward
kick to the horse's shoulder. Brionn was standing three feet away, and her
right foot travelled the distance from ground to shoulder in less than the
blink of an eye, but the impact was devastating.

The horse gave a scream of startlement as the thunderous blow struck home. The
crump of the impact was identical to when Brionn had used the same powerful
leg to kick down the professor's wall, but this time her heel hit not bricks
but flesh. And the sheer force of her blow unbalanced both horse and rider. I
gave a gasp of astonishment as her powerful kick knocked the startled animal
completely off-balance, sending it crashing to the ground on its side. The
rider cried out too as he smashed into the ground on his right, his right leg
trapped beneath the flailing horse.

Leaping the fallen animal before it could rise, Brionn bent to drag our
assailant free, pinning his arms tightly behind him with her own. He was in a
shocked state. Watching in disbelief as his horse struggled back to its feet
and ran off into the desert. He offered Brion no further resistance.