| “ | There's gonna be some fighting soon, right?
— Kerry Loudermilk
|
” |
Kerry Loudermilk is the twin sister of Cary Loudermilk, and the child that was supposed to be born from the marriage of Ray and Irma Whitecloud, a Native-American couple. Much to the couple's confusion, Irma gave both to Cary, a white boy, and the belief that she had been unfaithful ended their marriage and led to Ray abandoning the family. In reality, Cary was simply a mutant with an unusual ability: his sister Kerry lived within him, leaving his body when she pleased, which he discovered when he was eight years old. The two proved inseparable, with Cary primarily doing the day to day activities while Kerry came out when she wanted to or if her brother needed help. This led to Cary being substantially older than Kerry, who maintained the appearance of a girl in her twenties.
Eventually, the twins befriended Oliver Bird, a mutant visionary, and aided him in his creation of Summerland, a safe haven for other mutants, with Cary working as it's primary inventor and researcher while Kerry went out on recruitment/rescue missions. Following Oliver's disappearance into the Astral Plane, the two continued to work under his wife, Melanie Bird. Some time later, Kerry was part of a team that rescued David Haller, an immensely powerful, but deeply troubled, mutant, from the clutches of Division 3, a government agency dedicated to protecting mankind from the mutant threat. Taking David back to Summerland, Kerry was witness to several of her brother's experiments on the young mutant while working with the field team to learn more about his mysterious past.
Battle vs. Nola Longshadow (by BeastMan14)[]
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein/And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others/And I salute you, brother!/Those are people who died, died!
As the tune of an old rock song made her ears ring while the scent of cigarettes burned her nostrils, Nola Longshadow tossed back another drink, then signaled to the bartender for one more. She didn’t have anywhere to be tonight, or for the foreseeable future, for that matter. Not since she’d said goodbye, hopefully for real this time, to Alex, and that piece of shit town Banshee. She wasn’t sure where she’d head next, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be there. For now, her only objective was getting drunk enough to push any conflicted thoughts out of her mind.
Her thinking was interrupted by the door to the bar flying open and a girl, no older than fifteen or sixteen, staggering in, eyes wild with fear. For a brief moment, they met with Nola, and she felt a pang of sympathy, only to be startled out of it by the bartender slamming her glass down in front of her and crooking his thumb towards the exit.
“No kids!”
The girl, seemingly lost in thought, turned towards him and put her hands together, pleading.
“No, wait. You don’t understand, I just need a place to-“
“Need somewhere to go, you can head out the back and find it, got it?”
The girl, recognizing the pointlessness of fighting, nodded, then ran out the exit, the door slamming behind her. After a few moments, the bar returned to its usual activity, music mixing with conversations straining to be heard over it, only to fall silent again as the door opened again, this time opened by three black-armored men. The very sight of them made Nola tense, her mind flashing back to Chayton’s speeches about “white demons”. As they approached the bar, the bartender sighed and set down the glass he’d been polishing.
“You fellas cops?”
The lead man chuckled, then replied, “Something like that.”
The bartender nodded, stroking his beard, then asked, “Don’t suppose you’re looking for a teenage girl, are ya?”
The leader gave a nod to the affirmative, to which the bartender pointed to the exit in reply, then bowed his head respectfully and mumbled, “Thank you for your assistance, sir,” before gesturing for his men to follow him. The door swung shut, and things returned to normal in the bar. For her part, Nola’s hand tightly gripped the glass, trying to push the image of the girl’s panicked face from her mind. For a moment, just a fleeting moment, she bore a striking resemblance to the Kinaho girl they had found butchered, whose murderer she had placed a tomahawk clean between the eyes of.
With a silent curse, she slammed her glass down, then threw her jacket on and followed the men out the exit, ignoring the bartender’s calls for her to come back and pay for her drinks.
As soon as she exited into the parking lot, the girl’s scream caught her attention, and she ran towards the sound, checking to make sure her tomahawk was still inside her jacket. As she turned the corner, her blood boiled as she saw the girl, held down by one of the men as another forcibly attached an elaborate collar onto her. Paying no mind to the smoking, prone body of the third men as she stepped over it, Nola grabbed one of the men by the collar, yanking him off the girl and planting a firm punch to his throat, sending him to the ground gasping for air. The second drew his gun and levelled it at her, but she quickly turned, drew her tomahawk, and drove it into his wrist, forcing the gun downward so it fired harmlessly into the ground. He cried out in pain, but she quickly cut his cries short with a knee to his mask, breaking his nose and knocking him out cold.
Taking a moment to catch her breath, Nola turned towards the girl and managed to pop the collar off, the girl taking a relieved breath as the pressure around her neck was removed. Nola tossed the collar to the ground, holding up a hand to silence the runaway before she could go on with the inevitable praise and thanks, and simply ordered, “Just go. Now.”
As the girl ran off into the night, Nola turned to see the man she had attacked first staggering to his feet, his hand on the radio on his shoulder, and she scowled as he spluttered out a hastened, “Requesting back-up, attacked by unknown assailant! I repeat, unknown-“
Her tomahawk pierced his helmet and embedded itself into his forehead, and he let out a pained groan before hitting the ground, dead. She quickly stooped down and yanked the weapon free, then headed towards her bike out front. If she wanted to get out of here, she’d have to move fast.
The white van pulling in front of her, and the girl wielding a katana jumping out from it, made it clear she hadn’t moved fast enough.
Two minutes earlier…
Using her thumb to push up on the guard, Kerry Loudermilk slightly unsheathed her katana, then let it fall back into the scabbard, then repeated the action while blowing a loose strand of hair from her face. When she’d been told they were going into the field to catch some sort of lightning mutant, she’d been hoping for a little more action and not just sitting in a van letting other guys do the fun stuff.
Sensing his twin’s boredom and frustration, Cary, his back turned to her in favor of listening to a large radio set-up, said, “If you’re bored, you can just go back in.”
She shook her head, continuing her habit of fidgeting with her katana, and replied, “Nah. You’re not getting rid of me that easy, old man. Besides, they might need back-up.”
A ghost of a smile crossed Cary’s lips, then was replaced with a look of surprise and confusion as a pained, “Requesting back-up, attacked by unknown assailant! I repeat, unknown-“ cut through the static. The call for help was cut short by a distinct slice, and the twins shared a look of alarm before Kerry grinned and pounded her fist on the window to the driver’s seat. The driver took it as a cue to get moving and slammed on the gas, the van peeling out of the alleyway and towards the back lot of the bar.
It pulled to a stop in front of the apparent assailant, a surprised woman holding a bloody tomahawk, and Kerry eagerly drew her katana and leapt from the van. As she turned to close the door, Cary, eyes full of worry, called out, “Please be careful!”
Kerry simply responded, “I’ll be fine, you just be careful yourself,” then slammed it shut and turned towards Nola, who tensed as her new opponent took a fighting stance. The van pulled away, leaving them alone, staring each other down and circling back and forth.
After a brief silence, Kerry moves first, stabbing and swiping with her blade as Nola cautiously sidesteps each attack, waiting for an opening. The younger girl overextends, stabbing a step too far forward, and Nola brings her tomahawk down, driving it into her shoulder. Kerry cries out in pain, and Cary does the same as he feels the pain on his own body, but her cry is cut short as Nola pulls her forward and hits her in the jaw. Before she can hit again, Kerry drives her knee into her gut, then kicks off her, forcing Nola to let her go.
She uses the new opening to pull the tomahawk free from her shoulder, hissing in pain before tossing it to the ground. Now disarmed, Nola curses as she’s forced to fall back, avoiding Kerry’s attacks, only to become distracted by the sword, leaving her open for Kerry to follow the momentum of a missed slash and land a spinning kick to her chest. Her stumble is stopped only by her back meeting a car's side-mirror, and she quickly sidesteps and opens the door, swinging it open just in time for it to catch Kerry’s katana as it stabbed forward. With a yank, she slams the door shut, pulling Kerry directly into a palm strike to the nose, forcing her to let go of the sword.
Blood dripping from her nose, Kerry smirks, then settles into another fighting stance. This time, Nola moves first, throwing an easily dodged punch then narrowly ducking to avoid a kick to the head. Whoever this girl was, she was a lot faster and stronger than her skinny frame suggested. Even Hood couldn’t fight like this. Turning to face her, Nola blocks a strike, gritting her teeth as the force nearly knocks her off balance, then brings her hand to Kerry’s throat and choke-slams her into the hood of the car. Pinned, Kerry moves her head to avoid a punch, then fumbles for the hand around her neck, settling on grabbing Nola’s thumb and snapping it backwards before using the distraction to kick Nola off her.
Nola stumbles back, holding her broken thumb, leaving her open for Kerry to punch her in the jaw, then follow up with a roundhouse kick that sent her tumbling to the ground. Trying to get an opening, Nola drags herself away, but Kerry follows, hoping to finish her off, only for Nola to smirk viciously as her fingers wrap around the hilt of her tomahawk. She turns and swings it, the blade connecting with Kerry’s gut, and she manages to drag it halfway across her stomach until Kerry grabs her hand, stopping her, and shoves her back down to the ground, with Nola managing to roll to her feet. Kerry squeezes her eyes shut, ignoring the pain as she pulls the tomahawk out and throws it to the ground. Nola dives for it, grabs it, and throws it, but Kerry manages to move her head in time to avoid it.
The momentary distraction buys Nola time to close the distance, trying to land a hit on Kerry as she fell back, blocking and dodging each punch until she hits her in her wounded stomach. Kerry grimaces, bending over, and Nola grabs her by the hair and smashes her face through the car side-view mirror with enough force to snap it off entirely. Dazed, Kerry can’t fight back as Nola spins and slams her into the side of the car, and she falls weakly to the ground as Nola lets go and stumbles back, trying to catch her breath.
Kerry staggers to her feet, glaring, as Nola charges forward, hoping to end things with a final punch, only to gasp as her foe catches the hit with one hand, then pulls the katana free from the car door and stabs her through the chest with it. Kerry uses the grip on her wrist to pull Nola deeper onto the blade, staring into her eyes as blood begins to drip from her mouth, then pulls the blade free, letting her crumple to the ground.
Nola’s vision fades as she tries to stand, and through a mixture of pain and tears, she can see Alex, Chayton, her own father, each looking at her with disappointment one last time, and she manages to get up to her knees and mumble a pained, “I’m…I’m sorry,” before Kerry brings her sword down, decapitating her.
As her fallen foe’s head rolls away, Kerry smiles, victorious, then lets her sword clatter from her hand and collapses to the ground next to her corpse before passing out. A short distance away, Cary does the same, and the van’s driver grumbles to himself as drives to collect the other twin. Hopefully, putting them back together should fix this.
Expert’s Opinion[]
Kerry’s mutant physiology proved to be too much for Nola to overcome here. While Nola was in many ways a solid counter to her opponent thanks to her more cautious, pragmatic fighting style, Kerry was simply stronger and capable of withstanding far more punishment, which, combined with a superior weapon, enabled her to win this brawl by simply powering through whatever Nola could throw at her.