The Million-Dollar Heart

With a thunderous bang, Diana's gun fired, but the bullet whizzed past Vivienne's ear, barely grazing a hair.

Unfazed, Vivienne did not even flinch.

Diana, panic-stricken, stared at the figure before her, feeling her wrist trapped as if in an iron vise, pain radiating through her bones like a fracture in progress. "You... you're Sasha!"

Karen's gaze was heavy, a mix of the strange and the familiar.

She had never imagined that the story behind her kidnapping was so convoluted!

Clenching her fist, Karen threw a punch that landed squarely in Diana's gut with the force of a sledgehammer.

"Touch my daughter, and you're dead meat!"

Diana's punch could take down a full-grown mastiff, but Karen's blow could kill a full-grown bull.

The difference in strength was enormous.

Diana felt as if her insides had been rearranged, her nerves and flesh overwhelmed by pain. It was as if she was about to be ripped apart. The agony was excruciating!

Karen then slapped Diana's face repeatedly, and in no time, Diana's once delicate features swelled up like a balloon.

Diana tried to steady herself, to take another look at her adversary, but her swollen cheeks pressed so tightly against her eyes that they would not open!

Lifting Diana off her feet, Karen's fingers flew, sending needle after needle into Diana's scalp.

"Ah!"

Diana fell to her knees, screaming in torment.

The pain was unbearable!

on the ground, Diana banged her head against rocks as if the blunt

her head was bloodied and bruised, Diana

the anger boiling inside Karen was

Karen had already neutralized the poison

side, who was still bound, and settled her against a tree before

F-Poison was their next formidable

the display as if

if all daughters look like their mothers." Wearing Gillian's face, she sipped a glass of red wine with a smile, as if the battleground was a social gathering and they were simply old friends

silver needles

determined not

if in casual conversation, "You seem... younger than I

caressing her cheek with a soft stroke as if indulging

is all I have

a swift motion, F-Poison ripped off her mask and flung it towards Karen and Vivienne, the skin transforming mid-air into a whirling blade aimed at Vivienne's

"Frost!"

missing the skin-blade, and kicked a few rocks

the airborne stones to gain momentum, Karen accelerated, grabbing a rock and turning it into a projectile. With a burst of energy, she hurled it towards F-Poison with lethal precision. The skin-blade buried itself in the tree where Vivienne had been tied, while the rock pierced F-Poison's thigh, embedding itself in the ground and creating a small

seeped from F-Poison's wound,

Vivienne was about to unleash her poison, Karen raised a

explosion upon contact with poison. It was the reason Karen held back. "F-Poison, there's no escape

side by

clutching her wounded leg,

the smoke, Karen and Vivienne quickly traced

cleared, they saw F-Poison holding Zelda at the cliff's edge, a hostage in

really do?" F-Poison taunted, gripping Zelda's neck tightly,

you rather go up or down? Either way, I can