Power Girl: Unyielding Star by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Power-Girl-Unyielding-Star-1252714808

Echoes in the Marrow

Frost crusted over the golden aglets of Kara’s cape as she descended into the subterranean darkness of Sector 4. LexCorp’s abandoned genetic silo smelled of copper, ozone, and something distinctly sweeter—like lilies left to rot in a closed casket. The walls surrounding her were thick with lead, an intentional architectural choice that effectively blinded her X-ray vision. For a woman accustomed to seeing through the curvature of planets, the inability to pierce the next steel door felt profoundly suffocating. Kara floated an inch above the grated floor, her boots silent, her muscles coiled like high-tensile wire. The distress beacon that had lured her to this frozen tundra in the Yukon was not a standard radio frequency. It was a rhythmic, pulsing broadcast of her own bio-electric signature. Someone, or something, was singing her body’s unique song into the void.

The heavy blast doors at the end of the corridor had been peeled backward, the thick titanium torn like wet tissue paper. Kara touched the jagged edges of the metal. The tear was fresh; the molecular friction had left the metal warm against her fingertips. She stepped into the cavernous laboratory beyond. Shattered glass covered the floor in a glittering carpet of ruin. Colossal cylindrical vats, easily three stories high, dominated the room. They were drained of their amniotic fluids, leaving behind a sticky, bioluminescent residue that cast long, sickly green shadows across the steel. Surgical tubing dangled from the ceiling like the severed veins of a gargantuan beast.

"I wondered how long it would take you to hear the music," a voice whispered.

It did not echo from the far corners of the room. It resonated directly inside the acoustic chambers of Kara's ears, a perfect, crystalline mimicry of her own voice, though devoid of any warmth. It was the sound of Kara speaking from the bottom of a deep, frozen well.

"Luthor’s toys usually come with a self-destruct sequence," Kara said, her voice steady, projecting confidence into the gloom. She kept her eyes moving, tracking the subtle shifts in the air currents. "I assumed he abandoned this place when the authorities raided his Metropolis holding companies. What are you? A leftover security measure?"

"I am the measure of all things," the voice replied. The sound of bare feet stepping onto broken glass echoed through the chamber. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. There was no wince of pain, no hesitation in the footfalls. "Lex was obsessed with the architecture of a god. He did not want to merely kill the Kryptonians. He wanted to forge one. To own the blueprint of divinity. But the canvas of humanity is so desperately fragile. The human genome collapses when you try to force the power of a yellow sun into its marrow."

A figure stepped out from behind the largest of the ruined vats, stepping into the dim pool of emergency lighting. Kara felt a cold dread pool in her stomach, a primal revulsion that her invulnerability could not stave off.

The woman standing before her was beautiful. She was a flawless, pristine mirror image of Kara herself. The same golden hair cascading over broad, powerful shoulders. The same striking, celestial features. The same piercing azure eyes. But the beauty was entirely uncanny, stripped of all humanity. Her skin was the color of bleached porcelain, unnaturally smooth, lacking pores or the subtle flush of blood beneath the surface. She wore no costume, yet her modesty was preserved by the way her flesh seemed to seamlessly calcify into smooth, white, armor-like ridges over her chest and hips.

But it was her movements that birthed the terror. As the clone tilted her head to observe Kara, the angle was too sharp, the neck bending a fraction too far. Her joints articulated with a fluid, serpentine grace that no humanoid skeleton should possess.

"You are a tragedy in a test tube," Kara said, holding her ground, though her instincts screamed at her to unleash a torrent of heat vision and scorch the apparition from existence. "Whatever memories he implanted in you, whatever pain he stitched into your cells, you don't have to fight me. Lex is gone. You are free of his design."

The clone smiled. It was a terrifying expression. The corners of her mouth stretched too wide, revealing teeth that were perfectly white, perfectly square, and entirely too numerous. A second row of incisors rested just behind the first.

"Free?" The clone chuckled, the sound layering over itself like a choir of one. "Freedom is an illusion constructed b
...(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 :)