Power Girl: Sunlit Strength by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Power-Girl-Sunlit-Strength-1252715262#image-1

Power Girl: Sunlit Strength ANIMATION

Threnody of Silver

Power Girl descended without thunder, choosing gravity’s honest hush over spectacle. Snow drifted sideways through the ruined streets of Metropolis’ Old Quarter, each flake catching the amber glow of broken sodium lamps like a held breath. She hovered just above the cracked pavement, cape settling behind her as if it knew to stay quiet. Somewhere beneath the city’s old bones, a voice had been singing. Not a song meant for ears.

The scream had arrived earlier like a migraine with intent—windows shuddering, steel groaning, the ache behind the eyes that told her this was not sound alone but something that wore sound as a mask. Silver Banshee. Siobhan McDougal. The name carried folklore like frost.

Power Girl touched the comm at her ear. “I’m on site. No visible civilians. Structural damage limited to the underground. Whoever she’s hunting, it’s down there.”

Static answered, then a distant, relieved voice. “Careful, Kara. The scream—”

“I know.” She smiled without warmth and cut the channel. Warnings were kind, but kindness didn’t blunt magic.

The old subway entrance yawned open, iron gates bent into a grin by something that had passed through screaming. She stepped down, boots kissing concrete slick with meltwater and age. The air thickened immediately, heavy with iron and the damp perfume of forgotten things. Graffiti crawled along the walls—names layered upon names, loves and curses braided until they meant nothing. The lights flickered. The song returned.

It wasn’t loud. It was intimate.

Power Girl stiffened as the sound threaded itself between her ribs, a silver filament winding around the heart. Her breath hitched. She felt it then—the way magic reached where force could not, how it spoke a language that muscle didn’t answer. She pressed forward anyway, jaw set, every sense sharpening.

“Power Girl,” came the voice, close and far at once. “You wear your courage like jewelry.”

She followed the sound into the platform, its ceiling collapsed in a great wound through which snow sifted down, glowing faintly. Silver Banshee stood at the far end, pale as a moon remembered through ice. Her hair floated as if underwater, silver-white and restless. Her eyes were old coins.

“You’re not hiding,” Power Girl said. “That’s considerate.”

Silver Banshee smiled, and the smile made the air ache. “Why hide from a woman who can break a city’s spine? I prefer honesty. It hurts more.”

The scream struck without warning—an aria sharpened to a blade. Power Girl staggered, hands flying to her ears though she knew better. The sound tunneled inward, unmaking strength, unthreading the certainty of bone and breath. She dropped to one knee, cape flaring as if to shield her.

Silver Banshee glided closer, her boots not touching the ground. “You feel it, don’t you? The way it makes your power forget itself.”

Power Girl gritted her teeth. “You always talk this much when you hunt?”

“I’m not hunting.” The Banshee’s voice softened, almost kind. “I’m remembering.”

The scream ebbed, leaving behind a ringing hush. Power Girl forced herself upright, muscles trembling like steel cooling too fast. “Then remember this,” she said, and surged forward.

They met in a collision that cracked the platform’s edge, concrete exploding outward. Power Girl drove a fist toward Silver Banshee’s center, but the woman twisted, the blow passing through a shimmer of cold light. The scream returned in pulses, staccato, each one peeling another layer of strength away. Power Girl felt heavy, as if gravity had doubled just for her.

Silver Banshee laughed, delighted. “You fight like a storm. All wind and will.”

Power Girl swung again, caught fabric this time, felt the uncanny chill of it. She yanked, pulling the Banshee close enough to see the fine fractures in her skin, the veins of light beneath. “And you talk like a ghost who’s afraid of silence.”

The Banshee’s eyes flared. The scream crescendoed.

Power Girl cried out despite herself. The sound tore into her, not pain exactly but absence—holes punched through certainty. She crashed into a column, stone shearing away. Her vision swam. For a terrible moment, she wondered if this was what it felt like to be human when the world decided to be cruel.

Silver Banshee hovered over her, hair coiling like smoke. “I could unmake you,” she said softly. “But I don’t want to. Not yet.”

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