Topolsky Smiled from the other side of the clear barrier. She tapped on the surface gently, trying to evoke some sort of aggravation from the seemingly broken keeper. She still didn't have what she wanted.

"What?" The formerly pretty girl snapped cruelly.

"I thought you might want something to eat," the blonde agent smiled sweetly at the girl's bloodied back.

"Well I don't," she sneered, "what do you really want, Topolsky?" she demanded harshly, "answers? Aliens?" she shook her head and laughed bitterly. "You'll find neither here."

Topolsky frowned and slammed her fist into the wall; Katie fell forward with a cry.

"Bitch!" she shouted as the agent began a full assault on the barrier.

"Tell me what I want to know!" she demanded.

Katie coughed. "Can't you kill me yourself, weakling?" Katie stammered, her eyes flashing with a defiance Topolsky had thought was gone.

"Oh, I'd be glad to kill you myself," she seethed, losing her control. She disappeared from sight for a few moments, before a panel in the wall swung open and Agent Topolsky stepped through. She slammed it shut before advancing on the girl, who had risen to her feet.

Katie looked unsteady, balance a distant memory. Topolsky slung a roundhouse kick towards the former blonde, expecting to knock her over in a heap of screams. The cocky agent was well aware that the girl had sustained at least two broken ribs and several slash wounds now adorned her trim frame.

Katie caught the kick easily, not even a wince towards her broken ribs. She laughed, frighteningly, and Topolsky realized her mistake.

"You won't get out of here," she said, trying not to lose her balance, while the battered keeper still held her foot easily in one hand.

"Maybe," the girl said smiling, "but I'll still get to watch you die for what you've done to my charges." A glint of something buried flashed in the girl's eyes and she held out her hand. "Give me the star."

"What are you talking about?" the blonde agent asked, feigning ignorance.

"Don't toy with me, Topolsky," the girl threatened, tightening her already vice like grip on the agent's ankle. "Give me the star of the future."

"No!" the blonde agent tried to struggle free, only to lose her balance and collapse, her body hung from the ankle, the hold crushing.

"Give it to me."

The blonde agent writhed in vain before tossing a satchel to the girl.

"Good girl," the keeper grinned, shaking out the glass shard, it was a deep blue, almost black, and it glistened with millions of tiny facets. "Now scream," her eyes flashed dangerously, and she twisted the ankle in her hands violently, a sickening crack filling the stark room. Topolsky did her best to control her voice, but the shattering pain the shot through her legs from her now severely malformed ankle.

She screamed, an ear shattering, hair splitting scream of sheer and exquisite agony, perfectly formed into one long ringing note, laced with pain, fear, and desolation.

Katie smiled. "I protect my charges with my very soul, agent," she laughed, twisting the ankle further, another sickening sound of bones popping and another scream. "You shouldn't have stolen the star, or gotten mixed up in business that doesn't concern you." She sighed, dropping the woman's ankle. "But I can't very well leave until you let me out, and that mean's I can't kill you…" she trailed off, a wicked look in her eyes, "though we could see if you stand up to your own treatment," she grinned and sat back on her heels.

"What are you doing?" Topolsky asked, as Katie pulled out the star she'd just acquired.

"Giving this to its rightful owner," she said, and slowly the crystal disappeared. "Now rest up, agent Topolsky, I plan on having my fun with youyet."

"You won't get away with this, someone will come by here!"

"Like who?" she laughed, "the carriers you killed or the star that has yet to appear?"

Topolsky gaped, her eyes wide. The pain began to fill her brain, blurring her vision. With a cry, the aggravating blonde agent had slipped into unconsciousness.

Katie leaned against the wall, gazing up at the ceiling. Tears came. She was filled with so much fury, rage, and hatred; nothing that she enjoyed. She wanted to remember the love of her friends, the smile of her mother, the laughter of her brother. She was a small child inside still, despite what she appeared to be, she had never grown up. Not through the years she'd spent keeping the souls of the lost. She ached; emptiness filled the hollow of her chest, a hole in her soul. She wondered when she'd lost her heart, and if she could get it backagain. She remembered a time when she believed in magic. When she believed in a world with unicorns, dragons, and happiness. She looked down at herself, wasted to nothing, hair a disgusting dead, brown color stuck together from the dried blood. Her clothes were torn and her skin was adorned deep welts and caked with dried blood. She shuddered, quelling the urge to sob for everything she'd lost, and everything she was forced to live on without.

She looked at her hands, paler than normal, and clenched them into fists. She would protect them with her very soul. It was her duty as keeper to watch over them; instead they were coming to rescue her. She slammed her fist into the steel surface of the wall. A painful force rammed into her stomach, targeting her injured ribs.