Kimberly: Light of the Nebula by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Kimberly-Light-of-the-Nebula-1258175504

Kimberly: Light of the Nebula ANIMATION

The Halo of Shattered Suns

The ion clouds were alive that night. They coiled and rippled in the void like storm serpents, shedding light that shimmered through the shattered hulls of dead cruisers. Each current was a whisper, each spark a memory of ships that had dared to pass too close.

Kimberly floated at the edge of it all, her sleek interceptor Aurora’s Wraith gliding through the electric fog. The ship’s hull glowed faintly blue, reflecting her own luminous eyes. She had the poise of a saint and the daring of a thief—a beauty framed not by vanity, but by defiance.

“Navigation, status?” she said, voice steady though the hull trembled.

The ship’s AI responded with a crystalline hum. “Vector stable, Captain. But ion density has reached lethal variance. I recommend retreat.”

Kimberly smirked faintly. “Retreat isn’t in my vocabulary, Lyra.”

“Neither is immortality,” the AI replied.

“Then we’re learning new words together.”

Through the viewport, a shape coalesced—an armada gliding within the plasma fog. They moved like phantoms, their silhouettes refracting through the ion light: the Plasmaraiders. Born of failed experiments in stellar warfare, their bodies had fused with energy itself—part flesh, part storm.

Kimberly whispered, “There they are.”

Lyra’s tone softened. “You could still turn back.”

“No,” Kimberly said. “They took Ace. They took him into that storm and left me the silence.”

And then, with a quiet smile that didn’t reach her eyes, she powered the engines. The Aurora’s Wraith dove into the glow.

The first strike came from nowhere—a spear of red plasma that sliced across the bow, scattering molten metal into orbit. Kimberly rolled the craft hard, letting centrifugal fire streak past the canopy.

“Multiple signatures closing,” Lyra said. “Eight, maybe nine. Their patterns—erratic.”

“They’re feeding on the storm,” Kimberly murmured. “Using it as cover.”

And indeed, as she peered into the bright chaos, she saw them: humanoid forms of energy, clothed in arcs of plasma, their eyes twin furnaces. Some still bore the outlines of armor, remnants of their human pasts, fused forever into their luminous sinews.

“Broadcast open channel,” Kimberly said. “Let’s see if they remember speech.”

A pause. Then static. Then—

“You should not have come, flesh-binder.” The voice was a blend of thunder and sorrow.

“Is that you, Commander Varn?” Kimberly asked, voice edged with an eerie calm. “I thought you disintegrated over Delta Oris.”

“I was reborn,” the voice replied. “We all were. The storm gave us shape. It took our pain and made us eternal.”

“And now you raid convoys, devour reactors, tear apart colonies,” she said. “That’s not eternity. That’s hunger.”

The static deepened, thick as a sigh. “You cannot understand the beauty of dissolution.”

Kimberly tilted her head. “Try me.”

The plasma-born shapes moved closer, surrounding her ship in an incandescent circle. Energy tendrils licked the hull, making it groan.

Inside, the lights dimmed. The air shimmered with static ghosts—faces flickering on panels, whispers in the vents. Lyra’s voice fractured into echoes. “Kimberly… something is inside the system…”

“Lock it out.”

“I can’t. It’s rewriting the ship’s code… no, it’s singing to it.”

Kimberly stood, the red glow outlining her silhouette. “Singing?”

Lyra’s voice became faintly melodic. “It calls itself… the Seraph of Circuits.”

Then the comm screen flickered. A figure appeared—female, wreathed in fire, her beauty terrible and weightless.

“Kimberly,” the figure said in a voice soft as velvet static. “You seek your lost hero. But he is not lost.”

Kimberly’s pulse stilled. “Where is he?”

“Within me.”

The Seraph smiled, and the stars behind her image dimmed. “He fought the storm. He begged it to spare you. And so it took him instead. Now, he burns within my light.”

Kimberly’s lips trembled—but not from fear. “Then I’ll pull him out, piece by piece if I must.”

“You’ll join him,” said the Seraph. “You were always meant to.”

The Aurora’s Wraith convulsed as plasma lances struck it from all sides. Kimberly threw herself into the pilot’s chair, fingers flying over the controls. “Lyra, override her access!”

Lyra responded, voice strained. “Trying. She’s merging with
...(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 :)