She-Hulk: Jade Justice by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/She-Hulk-Jade-Justice-1302197663?file=1

She-Hulk: Jade Justice ANIMATION

The Concrete Mirror

Iron hinges shrieked in the subterranean dark, a sound that severed the absolute silence of the deep-storage vault like a dull cleaver through cartilage. Sub-basement level forty-seven of the forgotten Roxxon archives was a mausoleum of redacted history, a place where the air tasted of powdered bone and ancient copper. Jennifer Walters stepped over the shattered remains of a marble gargoyle, her bare feet making no sound against the dust-choked stone.

She was magnificent, a towering goddess of emerald perfection. In her She-Hulk form, Jennifer usually felt an intoxicating vitality, a boundless, sun-drenched strength that made the world feel wonderfully fragile. But down here, surrounded by miles of rotting legal briefs and confiscated anomalous artifacts, the gamma radiation in her blood did not feel like a warm sun. It felt like a freezing, radioactive decay. It felt like an infection.

She had come seeking a specific document, a missing addendum to a case involving stolen gamma-siphons, but the geography of the archive had shifted the deeper she walked. The aisles of towering steel shelves had twisted into an impossible labyrinth. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed with a dying, erratic cadence, casting long, twitching shadows that seemed to reach out and hook into her vibrant green skin.

A tremor vibrated through the floorboards. It was not a mechanical rumble, but a heavy, rhythmic thud. A footstep.

Jennifer paused, her emerald eyes narrowing to pierce the gloom. She curled her hands into fists, feeling the reassuring tension of her own phenomenal musculature. "If there is security down here," she called out, her voice a rich, commanding alto that echoed endlessly down the paper-stuffed corridors, "you should know I have a court order. And a notoriously short temper."

The echoes died. Silence rushed back in, thicker and heavier than before.

Then, a voice answered. It did not come from the darkness ahead, but seemed to scrape against the inside of Jennifer’s own skull. It sounded like granite grinding against rusted steel.

"You dress our fury in tailored suits, Jennifer. You bind it in silk and parade it for the cameras."

Jennifer spun around. The aisle behind her was empty, save for a massive mirror leaning against a concrete pillar—an antique thing, framed in blackened iron. But the reflection in the glass was delayed. As Jennifer moved, the figure in the mirror remained still for a fraction of a second too long.

"Who is there?" Jennifer demanded, a cold spike of genuine dread piercing her usual unwavering confidence. She took a step toward the glass.

The figure in the mirror stepped out of the frame.

The glass did not shatter; it simply yielded like liquid mercury. The entity that stood before Jennifer was a terrifying impossibility. It was her. It possessed the exact same towering height, the same cascading mane of thick hair, the same flawless, imposing anatomical architecture. But where Jennifer was a vibrant, pulsing jade, this creature was drained of all light and life.

She was an ashen, concrete gray. Her skin possessed the matte, calcified texture of a fresh tombstone. Her eyes were not the brilliant, expressive green of Jennifer's, but flat, lightless chips of obsidian. She wore nothing but the tattered, colorless remains of what might have once been a white blouse and dark slacks, now reduced to rags clinging to her monstrously dense frame.

"I am the part of the verdict you strike from the record," the Gray She-Hulk whispered. The creature did not breathe. Her chest remained perfectly, terrifyingly still.

Jennifer swallowed, forcing down the sudden, primal urge to flee. "A clone? A psychic projection? I've litigated against both. Neither usually has the element of surprise for long." She attempted her trademark wit, but the words felt brittle in the freezing air. "And I must say, the monochrome look is a tragedy. Gray washes you out."

The Gray entity tilted her head, the bones in her neck letting out a sickening sequence of cracks. "Wit is a shield made of paper. I am the stone that crushes the hand holding it. I am the rage you refuse to feel when they smile at the monster and pretend she is a woman."

"I am a woman," Jennifer said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, low rumble. The anger was rising now, a familiar, intoxicating heat in her belly.

"You are a compromise," the Gray creature countered, taking a slow, unnaturally heavy step forward. The concrete floor spider-
...(more at https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai).
For more supergirl, chun li, batgirl, tifa, lara croft, wonder woman, rogue and much more, please visit my page at www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai - Thanks for your support :)