- Faction: Neutral
- Super Name: The Brawler
- Real Name: Sarah Michelle Huntington
- Base of Operations: Roaming vigilante
- Age: 24
- Gender: Female
- Height: 5'8" (176 cm)
- Weight: 154 lbs. (70 kg)
- Physique: Athletic
- Eye Colour: Blue
- Hair Colour: Blonde
- Identity: Publicly known
- Date of Birth: March 31st 1988
- Place of Birth: Paradise Garden Trailer Park, Texas
- Known Aliases: None
- Group Affiliation: Currently none
- Avatar Appearance: Mockingbird, Black Canary
- Did You Know?: The Brawler was a female MMA-Champion once
- Battle Cry: "Get it on!"
CVnU Power Grid:
Agility: 3 (peak human)
Durability: 3 (trained human but unable to feel pain)
Energy Projection: 3 (power dampening field in close range)
Fighting Ability: 5 (Ex-MMA champion)
Intelligence: 2 (normal)
Mental Power: 2 (untrained but above average willpower)
Speed: 2 (Normal)
Stamina: 4 (trained human but unable to feel pain)
Strength: 4 (between 1 and 2 tons)
Certainly not the first bruises, certainly not the last...It all began with cage-fighting. That easy and that simple. Years of sexual and physical abuse had already hardened her to the point where she could not break anymore. No, breaking was not an option anymore. At times she cracked but she never actually broke and never lost that will to live on, to somehow get out of there. Punches that she received at home from her mother’s lovers or in the darkness between the trailers from those filthy white trash gangs lost their force. Or maybe they didn’t loose their force as she bled and bruised as always, maybe she simply lost her feeling of pain. But the real thing started when she hit the road after the death of her mother at the age of 17.
Leaving the shady trailer behind she tried really hard. Tried hard to make a life for herself from the scraps. Tried hard to let all of her terrible past behind her. Life did not make it easy but she chewed her way through taking whatever miserable job she could get just to earn some money. Pole dancer, waitress, dish washer, McDonald’s employee, scrubber, trash sorter, dock worker, whatever was available. For one night she even became a prostitute. But it was the cage-fighting that would finally grant her a life that she deemed worth living.
It was one of those nights. Cigarette and cigar smoke hung heavily in the air like a thick curtain. The bar was filled to burst and brimmed with activity. The night outside was cold and trucks thundered past that little place in nowhere beside some unnamed highway. Inside disappointed screams and happy cheering did not stop a minute as the customers followed the brutal spectacle inside the cage in the midst of the shady room. Two muscular men stood there and beat each other senseless with cruel persistency. No rules, no mercy in a no-break till-you-drop all-out cage match. Black eyes, broken and unnaturally bent fingers, lost teeth, all that only served to maximize the onlooker’s blood-mad frenzy. Sarah did not look. She was too busy jetting between the tables and serving the customers their whiskey and beer. The job itself was not one to enjoy. Dirty machos and chauvinists that were drawn to this place like flies to a rotting corpse sometimes thought the service included more than just drinks and had to be taught differently. The foldable baton in her bra saw its use more than once. The road had taught her more than to be just hard, it had taught her to be strong and mean as well.
Of course most of those “clients” were if not nice than at least integer and adhered to the rules of the etablissement. The violence was more interesting than a pretty waitress and as hot as Sarah was month- if not life-long banishment from this bar was not worth it. It was their modern Circus Maximus where a new kind of gladiator celebrated the old ways of survival of the fittest. They appreciated it more than the short intercourse with a woman could ever have pleased them. Out of those one was still special.
Strange encountersTo the present day she does not recall his face, just that he wore a long black leather duster and was “special”. How long he had sat there she could not tell. He ordered beer after beer after beer and after every third beer a whiskey but that massive amount of alcohol did not seem to impair him a bit. He simply sat there and enjoyed the fights. It was after his tenth whiskey that he suddenly turned towards Sarah and said:
“You know, I always wanted to participate in those fights as well but somehow I don’t have what it takes. Looks like I have to be content with discovering new talents. Somehow a shame. Say… Do you have what it takes?”
Then he did something that was normally forbidden. He grabbed her by the arm. No, not grab, rather touch her. It happened to fast for her to react and reach for the baton in her bra but on the other hand it was nothing aggressive, it was rather… casual. A soft touch like a wind breeze caressing her skin for a moment before it was suddenly gone. Shocked and puzzled she looked at the stranger. Only to notice that he wasn’t there anymore. Disappeared from one second to the other, a few empty glasses being the only thing that spoke of his former presence. As if he would have existed for a few minutes only. The effect it did have on Sarah was tremendous though. She felt electrified, agitated to the border of hyperactivity. The temperature inside her rose and filled her with an energy unknown to her before. Her course of action was clear. With indescribable clearness it tore through her mind like a scalpel: She had to fight.
Theoretically everyone was free to go into that cage and challenge the fighter or get challenged himself. But as the cute waitress in her hip jeans and her red top entered the ring and called the fighter out the amusement was big. Slights and insults flew into the ring, whiskey glasses and beer bottles only held back by the fence around the battle arena. Sarah herself did not notice that. She was focussed on the brutal looking mountain of a fat man before her. He had just brutally beaten another man in 30 seconds. Instead of saying anything he just laughed his slack jawed laughter. As his golden teeth flashed she suddenly felt thrust back into the darkness of the trailer where the gold reflected the spare light as another body rocked back and forth above her. Her rage grew because for the first time she realized what she had done wrong back then. Never had she fought back, only endured. Hoped that it would end some day. Today would be the day. The day she finally struck back. And as his breath heavy from alcohol and cheap meat hit her she knew it was the right decision. He did not take her serious, like all those scumbags back then had not but she would teach him.
BAM!!!Her first strike came as a surprise. It hit him broad in the chest and the sheer amount of force drove him back against the fence. At first he was stunned but then the disgust rose up in him distorting his face to even uglier forms. How could a bitch like this dare to strike him? He would teach her manners. Enraged he struck out at her only to find his agile opponent not where she had stood seconds before. Somehow Sarah had sensed what he had been up to and changed position. As the big fleshy arm flew past her she hammered two short hooks into his kidneys and grabbed his hairy limb. For a moment when he realized what she was going to do his eyes widened but then she already slammed down his arm on her knee and next his scream of pain roared through the room. The audience was mad, cheering her on and tossing dollar bills towards the ring. It embarrassed the fat man further, robbing him of his dignity like he had robbed others before, like Sarah had been robbed of hers. Furious the fat man struck out with his intact arm. Her reaction was one that was met with encouraging howling from the audience: She ducked and punched his balls. Moaning her opponent bent down. Her chance. As she had foreseen it she gave him a head nut, grabbed him by the ears and slammed her knee into his face. Like a tree the man fell. The ring trembled as he hit the bottom. Sarah on the other hand had lost interest in him. She brought her arms up in a victor’s pose and was already looking for the next challenger. Given the brutal way she had just finished her last opponent no one was too eager to do this tonight. Her lust for carnage was awakened though.
It took only a few arguments and a refusingly spent night with the owner of the bar to convince him to employ her as the new “house champion”. Soon it became known that "The Brawler" was invincible and only the foolish, brave, desperate or those alien to the bar were suicidal enough to engage her on the small battlefield. Somehow she was able to instinctively sense what her opponent was up to and counter it accordingly. Her strength had also marvellously risen and served her as well as her heightened inability to feel pain. Of course it did not take long till she was “discovered”.
Her rise in the Mixed Martial Arts Fighting League was without equal. Within a few months she ranked at the top without loosing one fight. A favourite of the fans as well as a dreaded opponent she received a lot of attention with the added benefit of a lot of advertisement contracts. Not once did she see that stranger in the duster again but she always thanked him for that special first night in the ring.
Her downfall came when she agreed to participate in a charity tournament for the benefit of street children. The list of participants was illustrious, several martial arts champions, boxers, extreme sportsmen, some gangsta rappers with a tough image, even a few celebrities. The most prominent of them being a masked crime fighter with superpowers who promised to “go easy”. It was in the final round when she met him. The previous rounds had been fair game for both of them and even Sarah did not doubt that his nigh invulnerability and inhuman strength would ensure him the victory. The result proved to be pretty disturbing for both of them though.
A victory to regret...The moment he stepped into the ring he felt something lacking, something that he was very used to. He could not name it, somehow he did not feel like usual. What was lacking became clear when he attacked her. His strength, his speed, his endurance and durability were diminished to a point were he almost attacked like a normal human. With a swooshing sound his fist passed past her like back then in her first fight and she countered it with a straight fist to his nose. The audience held its collective breath as it broke. How could that happen to a man who could take a shotgun shot to the face without injury? His turn again. A kick of him that could normally tumble over cars was met without difficulties with a high block. The following hook she caught with her arm, bound him in a lock and fired two punches at his breast that left him breathless. A last elbow to the face ended that unworthy spectacle. It had been less than a minute and then the symbol of righteous vigilantism lay there in the hot light of the spotlights gasping for air, beaten and broken, his blood flowing out of his nose and forming a small almost black puddle on the floor. The audience itself was uncharacteristically silent as Sarah stood atop him and looked down at him with an expression of simple disbelief frozen on her face. What had happened here?
Of course she got the trophy and the whole tournament was a success, the help for street kids in America got a cheque of several dozen million dollars but the question remained. What had happened? The newspapers asked it again and again, the public frequently demanded an explanation and most of all the MMA-League was interested if it had been cheated. Almost despairing under the public pressure Sarah gave in to some examinations to clear that once and for all. Admittedly against the advice of her lawyers. As expected the result was disastrous.
The source of her powers was unclear, mysterious even but Sarah was obviously a superhuman. No magic, no X-gene, no radiation, no cybernetic alien implants, nothing could be found or even explain those strange superpowers but nevertheless she had them. She just had the vague idea that this stranger back in the bar gave her those new abilities but that did not help a single bit.
The MMA-League sued her for fraud and she lost. Everything. Her lawyers fought like lions but for naught. The process was unlike anything ever seen in that sport. The judge made an example of the poor white trash girl who the newspapers demeaningly called “The Brawler” now to remind of her degrading start in the filthy shack. The fee forced her to sell her house, her cars and everything else she possessed.
Back to the rootsIn the end she landed where she had begun, back in “Paradise Garden”. She took it like a champ and appointed herself as the “law keeper” of that trailer park teaching the gangs and the brutal bullies some manners.
Today Paradise Garden my not be on of America’s prettiest trailer parks as the unemployment rate there is still very high but at least it is a safe place. Once a year when other news is sparse a TV-show comes there to interview her on her old career and her new environment and every time they finish the interview she closes it with the same sentence.
“I don’t know who that stranger in that bar back then was but I’d like to thank him for teaching me the most important lesson in my life…
Stranger, if you hear me: Thank you for teaching me that violence is not always the answer and that even the mightiest fall one day!”
But it could not last forever. Her drive, her urge to fight proved too strong to sit still. It forced her out of the soiled caravan fortress back into the world to seek new opponents, ones that were worthy of her. Maybe super humans were suited to endure the savage beatings she dished out...
TALENTS AND SUPERPOWERS
- Hand To Hand Combat: Unlike the name suggests The Brawler actually has an extensive training in martial arts, especially in Jeet Kune Do, Escrima and Muay Thai where she achieved the 2nd grade black belt in each shortly before the league threw her out. She has some very basic knowledge of others like Karate, Wing Chun, Jiu Jitsu, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Tae Kwon Do, Krav Maga, Sambo and Capoeira but usually relies on the former three because she is much better in them.
- Super Strength: Not surprisingly she has a minor degree of superhuman strength (between 1 and 2 tons) but no other superhuman attributes though she is otherwise on the level of an excellent martial artist.
- Immunity To Pain: Though she possesses no superhuman durability or endurance she is able to last much longer in a fight than any normal human due to her inability to feel pain at any time. This of course cancels out her sense of touch and temperature as well but prevents her from falling unconscious from shock no matter how severe the wound. Theoretically her arm could be ripped of and she would not even flinch.
- Fight Precognition: Her most mysterious power is her ability to foresee what her opponent is going to do. Much has been theorized, from low level telepathy over limited precognition to some sort of bio-kinesis “reading”, but none could be certified so far. Fact is that Sarah is able to subconsciously know what her opponent is up to and can react to it on a reflexive level. With this ability she is able to win almost any fight.
- Power Negation: Her big edge in a fight against superpowered enemies is her ability to cancel out powers though. She constantly radiates a field of unknown energy that disturbs and shuts off superhuman powers of all kind and brings super humans down to a level that a person of their height, build and age should have. It works only on one enemy at a time and is useless or at least less effective against random individuals for unknown reasons.
WEAKNESSES:
- Human Physiology: Apart from her heightened strength and immunity to feel pain she still retains the body of a human (albeit an excellently trained one) meaning she has has no super human attributes. Blades, guns, other weapons and even normal bare handed strikes can easily wound her and even prove fatal to her because she can bleed to death from severe wounds if she ignores them for too long.
- Normal Intelligence: In a world where everybody is a genius or at least exceptionally smart, Sarah often feels like the dumb one. She is just as intelligent as the average joe and has never had an education beyond basic high school (and even there she did not do very well due to simple disinterest). She does not have a good general knowledge and can be easily manipulated. She is not dumb, just not the smartest person around. As a side effect she is also easy prey to telepaths.
WEAPONS:
Escrima KnifeEscrima Sticks
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