"Holy shit!" Michael jumped back as a picture began to play before them.

Katie stood in an observance facility, three steel walls surrounding her, the fourth, final was, was of some clear material, Plexiglass, Maria assumed, though later she would think otherwise. The keeper stalked anxiously around the room for a moment before a voice came through from somewhere beyond the vision's reach.

"Well, well, if it isn’t the little keeper, without her charges I see," a laugh, "shoddy workmanship if I do say so."

Katie glared at the source of the voice, "Fuck off Topolsky," she said harshly, ceasing her endless pacing.

"Now, now, little one," the agent laughed, finally stepping into view. "None of that."

Katie laughed, it was hollow and mirthless, disquieting. "What're you going to do, do an alien autopsy on me? I can tell you now it won't do you any good."

"Oh no, nothing like that," she said, shocked, "I intend to torture you fully before I watch you die."

Katie's laughter erupted again, and tears tingled in her eyes. "You," she gasped between fits of laughter, "torture me?"

"Don't be so shocked, I have the only thing that you hold dear."

With those words the seemingly young girl froze. "And what might that be?"

"You know full well," the annoyingly smug agent said, before holding up a small locket. "I hold in my hand the fates of your fellow keepers. The last two that now reside in your body."

"You hold nothing but a locket," Katie replied, much calmer than the panicked girl she had been only a moment before. "Their fates are held within my heart, along with their souls. Do what you will, I doubt it will matter much."

"How's this for torture," the blonde smirked, she passed a hand over the surface of the glass and there, superimposed, were faces. Five, to be exact, Michael, Maria, Isabel, Max, and Liz were all staring at the girl, who stared back.

She shrugged. "Big deal, I have to look at weird faces. I've had worse," she sighed, tired.

"How about this then?" the agent smirked, though her cocky tone was fading.

Searing heat touched Michael's flesh and he screamed out, dropping to his knees, the sound echoed throughout both the small kitchen and the vision's scope. Katie looked at the faces, and saw Michael's twisted in agony.

Her eyes flashed with hidden fury and she screamed wildly, "You will not touch them!" she shrieked, "I have never ONCE lost a charge to the stars, and I don't intent on losing one now, especially not to the likes of you!" She walked up to the glass that separated them, her face inches away from the surface of the barrier. Topolsky laughed merrily, her eyes dancing, while Michael's scream still lingered in the air mingled with it to make a melancholy sound. "Torture enough for you?" she laughed, "being helpless is new for you, isn'tit?"

"Don't tempt me," Katie growled, a purely animalistic sound. "So help me I'll tear this earth apart just to have the pleasure of killing them if you so much as touch any of them again."

Topolsky laughed, "like this?" Maria's cry of pain could be heard everywhere it seemed, as the sharp stabbing pain shot through her wrists. Blood seeped from the wounds and she screamed in prefect agony as Michael and Isabel hurried to bind the wounds.

"Heathen," Katie hissed.

Topolsky shrugged, "She is your messiah, shouldn't she bear the wounds of one to prove her worthiness?"

Katie could do nothing to hold back her fury, "I will kill you," she murmured, over and over, in a mantra, as she moved away from the wall. She placed her hands together, palms facing towards the glass, fingers cupping something invisible gingerly.

Suddenly a blinding blast of silver light flashed from her palms, colliding with the barrier with an incredible force, smoke furled and cleared, and, to her infinite dismay, the barrier still stood.

"Your parlor tricks can do nothing here, keeper," Topolsky laughed as she turned and walked away.