Kelly and Albert, sporting their new looks, strolled downstairs and were met with a dead-quiet villa.

  Had Panther not gotten the job done yet?

  “Hey!” a raspy female voice hollered.

  Kelly and Albert swung their heads around to see Billy Jean and Michael Joke kicked back on the sofa, sipping tea like they owned the joint.

  Their laid-back vibes were enough to make you think they were home sweet home.

  Kelly and Albert’s faces twitched.

  If these two could sit there as cool as cucumbers and the place was deserted, it meant Panther and his crew had bitten the dust.

  Quick as a wink, Kelly masked all her emotions and flashed a saccharine smile.

  “Miss Joke, did you sleep tight?”

  She was still playing the part of the sweet, considerate hostess, like nothing was amiss.

  Billy Jean, eyeballing Kelly’s fresh face, was revolted and let out a snort.

  “Old… hag, stop painting the barn red and pretending to be young. Doesn’t it make you wanna hurl, wearing someone else’s skin every day?”

  Kelly’s smile froze up, then her face contorted and she screeched like a banshee.

  “Who you calling an old hag?!”

  She had a major hate-on for being called old, and Billy Jean’s jab sent her right over the edge.

  “Wrinkled as a prune, saggy as a deflated balloon, and smelling like mothballs. Am I wrong, old hag?”

  Billy Jean taunted.

  Fuming mad, Kelly hollered,

  “Ahh… I’ll rip your trap wide open!”

  “You cheap tramp, asking for trouble,”

  Albert growled.

  Seeing his sweetheart getting pushed around, he lunged at Billy Jean without a second thought.

  His metal arm balled up into a fist and shot forward, aiming to smash Billy Jean to smithereens.

  “Clang…”

  An axe met his metal fist head-on, sparks flying like the Fourth of July.

  “Crunch…”

  The axe head splintered.

  The metal fist, full steam ahead, kept on coming.

  Michael Joke yanked Billy Jean to the ground, and they narrowly dodged the blow.

  A wicked glint flashed in Albert’s eyes as his metal fist morphed into a sledgehammer, coming down hard on the two sprawled on the floor.

  Michael Joke, clutching Billy Jean, rolled out of harm’s way.

  “Boom…”

  The sledgehammer crashed into the floor, leaving a crater the size of a small pool and shattering tiles like glass.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Michael Joke’s eyes were dark as a storm cloud, and fury crackled in them.

  He juiced up his fist with enough electricity to power a city and slammed it into the ground.

  A web of electric threads zipped towards Albert.

  Albert’s face went white as a sheet as he backpedaled, but the electric threads were faster than a speeding bullet.

  Before he could blink, they’d wrapped around his feet and zapped into his body.

  It was like getting hit with a bolt of lightning.

  His body jerked like a fish on a line, and foam bubbled from his mouth.

  Soon, he was out cold, stiff as a board, with the odd electric thread still twitching through him.

  Kelly’s face turned uglier than a mud fence.

  She couldn’t believe Albert had been taken down in one fell swoop.

  She cursed, “Loser.”

  “Old hag, if you’re not happy, come get some,”

  Billy Jean dared her.

  Kelly’s venomous gaze zeroed in on Billy Jean and Michael Joke.

  “Hope you don’t live to regret this,” she Roared.

  Her eyes suddenly lit up like green fire, and the expressions on Billy Jean and Michael Joke’s faces went blank, like someone had wiped the slate clean.

  They looked like zombies, all numb and lifeless, as if their souls had been sucked right out.

  Kelly cackled like a madwoman,

  “Haha… Nobody escapes my soul-snatching mojo.”

  She strutted towards Billy Jean and Michael Joke, eyes wild with glee.

  She stroked Billy Jean’s cheek like it was a prized possession.

  “So pretty. This face is mine now. I’ll slip into your perfect skin and keep living the high life in this apocalypse. It’s an honor to be my next skin.”

  She then swung her gaze to Michael Joke, and her eyes were filled with pure, unadulterated lust.

  “So handsome. Let me take care of you.”

  She puckered up and tiptoed to plant one on Michael Joke’s lips.

  Albert, flat on his back, felt his heart shatter into a million pieces as he watched his beloved about to kiss another guy.

  “Kelly, don’t.”

  Just then, a shoe came out of nowhere and intercepted Kelly.

  Her lips smacked into the sole of a shoe that’d stepped in God-knows-what.

  Before she could react, she was kicked to the ground and then pummeled like a punching bag.

  “Fuck, I can’t… hold it in anymore. fuck it all...”

  Billy Jean cursed, throwing punches and kicks like a wild woman.

  No matter how young Kelly’s skin looked, she was still an old biddy underneath, and she didn’t have the strength to fight back.

  She was getting the beating of her life, wailing in pain and scrabbling around for her teeth.

  Twenty minutes later.

  Billy Jean finally stopped, sweating buckets, but still not feeling like she’d gotten even.

  She snatched up a nearby chair and swung it at Kelly like a baseball bat.

  “Boom…”

  The chair exploded into splinters.

  “Pffft…”

  Kelly spat out a mouthful of blood and crumpled like a rag doll, barely hanging on.

  “F… I’m… beat,”

  Billy Jean dragged over a chair and plopped down, fanning herself like she was on fire and trying to cool off the rage boiling inside her.

  Kelly lay there, moaning and groaning, every inch of her hurting like hell.

  She couldn’t wrap her head around what had gone wrong.

  Why had her soul-stealing superpower fizzled out against this chick?

  It had never let her down before.

  No matter how tough the opponent, they always caved under her spell.

  She screamed in disbelief,

  “It’s impossible! No way! Nobody’s ever slipped through my fingers. It’s the strongest!”

  “Hehe…”

  Billy Jean gave a devilish grin.

  “What a shame… I’m… not… human.”

  She whipped off her sunglasses, revealing eyes that glowed like hot coals, bloodthirsty and wild.

  “You’re a zombie,” Kelly squeaked in horror.

  “Hehe… Bingo. I gotta… reward you. The reward is…”

  Billy Jean’s face went cold as ice, and she struck like a cobra.

  The next second, Kelly’s scream ripped through the villa.

  “Ahhhhhh…”

  Billy Jean looked at the pair of bloody eyeballs in her hand and smirked like a cat that got the cream.

  “Reward… a pair… of eyeballs.”

  Kelly, clutching her empty eye sockets, thrashed around on the ground like a fish out of water.

  “Ahh… My eyes, my eyes…”

  Michael Joke watched Billy Jean with a twitch of his lips, not finding her scary at all.

  In fact, he thought she was kind of cute.

  Especially when she’d just given that repulsive woman the what-for, that side of her was downright adorable.

  With her eyeballs gone, Kelly’s power fizzled out, and the faint green light in Albert’s eyes blinked out.

  He stared at the woman writhing on the ground, his body turning to ice, his limbs shaking like leaves, and his pupils filling up with red veins.

  “Who are you?”

  His voice was shrill, full of fear, horror, and despair.

  This wasn’t Kelly.

  Even though she had Kelly’s face, he knew it deep down.

  He suddenly went ballistic, jumped up, and grabbed Kelly, shouting,

  “Where’s Kelly? What’d you do with Kelly? Give her back to me…”

  Billy Jean didn’t have the patience for their soap opera drama.

  “To hell with both of you.”

  She lunged like a leopard, her claws aimed at Albert’s neck to finish him off pronto.

  But just then, a blood-red blur shot out and tackled Albert to the ground.