Disclaimer: Guess what! Last night, I magically came to own all of Furnace and everything associated with it! Not! I still own nothing.

Compared to the blacksuits and menacing monsters that prowled the grounds of Furnace Penitentiary, Katrina wasn't much. She rose to about 5'3, was pale, had blue eyes that stood out from the seas of silvers and blacks, and smiled at everyone as she walked by. Yet crowds were parted for her, the beasts feared her, and the guards followed through on her every command. Not only was she the daughter of Alfred Furnace, but she gave off an air of power that immediately let everyone know who was in charge. Power. That was the one thing that she had focused her life around. Over the years, she had taught herself how to recognize great potential power, how to harness power, how to gain power, and how to control power. And, being as powerful as she is, it is no doubt to anyone why she is so obsessed.

Katrina approached a tall, buff man with a gun in his holster and a mole on his face. Captain Sheldon "Moleface" Dickinson, one of her most reliable field agents. This guy could always be trusted to be sent aboveground to get a job done, and it was always done right. Nevertheless, it was part of her procedure as supreme commander to check on the status of his mission.

"Captain?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I suppose that the job I had sent you to complete has been successfully executed?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the boy?"

"Excuse me, sir?"

If looks could kill, Moleface would be no more from the look his superior was giving him.

"The boy. You know, the one you were supposed to bring me. Is he here?"

Moleface was pretty sure he had never experienced true fear in his life, but this was the closest he had ever gotten and as he ever wanted to get. Taking a deep breath, he replied:

"There were some technical difficulties, sir. The boy was wounded-"

Katrina jumped and her eyes widened. "Wounded? How badly?"

"Nothing our wheezers can't fix, sir. He should be fine." He replied quickly, hoping to save his ass from the possible punishments ahead. The girl studied him carefully, as if determining what type of soup he would taste best in, before nodding and smiling at him.

"Fantastic! You never disappoint, Captain. Keep up the good work!" Then she clapped him on the shoulder and headed toward the control, leaving an extremely bewildered and relieved blacksuit behind.

When she reached the control room, she sat down in a leather swivel chair and spun around a little before stopping the chair and looking at the screen in front of her. There were thousands of hidden cameras all around the Penitentiary and every single one fed back to the monitors that were installed in this room. Cameras in the halls, in the yard, in the cells, the showers (those were her favorite), and in the elevator. Her focus was on the ones in the elevator right now. In said elevator were four boys; one was short, plump, and reminded her vaguely of an Oompa-Loompa from an old outsider movie she used to watch; one was taller and lankier than the others, reminding her of the paper-thin edge of a sword blade; one was about average height with dark brown hair that reminded her of her favorite dark chocolate truffles and kept looking up at the cameras; one was a few inched taller than the previous with dirty not-quite-blonde-but-not-quite-brown hair that flipped up at the top of his forehead. From the way all heads were slightly angled toward him, she assumed that he was the center of the conversation they were having. She sat there, studying them in silence for a little while until the elevator stopped and they got off. Overall unimpressed, she decided that these newcomers were no threat to her and left the room to go check on her squad, knowing that they were waiting for her.

When Simon woke up that morning, he had anticipated getting his ass kicked. He and his co-officer, Ozzie, had completely and totally failed in their latest mission, and even though they were members of Katrina's ever favored hurricanes, she was still going to extremely rough with them this time. Their mission was to retrieve the body of the outsider boy that she had had her eye on and they ended up wounding him with more than just a gunshot wound in the process. This boy was very precious to her for some reason, so Simon was right to assume that they would not be let off easy this time. He was chatting nervously with his co-officer in the RR (rendezvous room) with their captain sitting on a bench and staring at the floor, too deep in thought to hear what they were saying. Sometimes when he got like that, the two boys could've sworn that if a train crashed through the room he wouldn't even blink.

No less than a moment later, Katrina came skipping into the room, all smiles and joy. It was almost enough to make Simon forget that this girl was the most feared person in the Furnace Preserves, and probably the entire Penitentiary as well until he looked at her apparel and reminded him of that fact. She was wearing all black; tall high-heeled boots, tight black jeans, a long sleeved, very fitting shirt that ended just above her belly button, and a series of handguns and assorted whips and knives that hung off of her tool belt, all giving off the same dark-and-dangerous vibe. The incongruity of her dark dress pattern and her usually sunshiny personality constantly gave Simon headaches since he couldn't decide whether to smile back and give her a hug or to stand erect and reply 'Sir, yes sir!' to everything she said. Due to the circumstances of that day, though, he decided to try and play on her softer side first so that he didn't end up as dog kibble.

"Hey, Simon. Ozzie. Scotty. What's been going on so far today?"

Simon had to hold back a sigh of relief. She was being casual today, which would make it easier to play her softer side.

"Nothing much, Kat. Just been doing background checks on the new prisoners."

"And?"

"Same old stuff. Nothing too interesting, except for the fact that all four of them strongly insist that it wasn't them who did it. Almost like they'd been framed."

Katrina scoffed. "That's ridiculous. Everyone who gets sent down here deserves it, right Ozzie?"

Ozzie tensed. "Uhh, yessir."

"Yeah, that's what I thought." She back to Simon and smiled. "Soo… How did the mission go? A success, I would hope."

Simon felt all the blood rush to his feet. This was it. He was going to die.

"Umm… Mostly."

"Mostly?" she snapped, a hideous darkness filling her eyes. It might have just been his imagination, but he could've sworn that the room got darker. He took a deep, shaky breath.

"Uh, yeah. You see, we got the kid down and everything, but we had to take him straight to the wheezers. He got kind of beat up, you know. Not just the inevitable bullet wound, but he kind of put up a fight, you see, once he gained consciousness. We kinda had to, you know… improvise?"

The silence that followed was deafening. Katrina stared at him with an expression that was a horrifying mix of shock, contemplation, and pure, bubbling fury. Her pupils seemed to take up her entire eye and he felt like the world around him was shrinking and suffocating him. Ozzie started backing up, pointing at her and he noticed that the shadows in the room seemed to be gathering around her, giving her a cruel, unforgiving aura. He was so absorbed in her anger right then that he didn't notice Scott stand and walk over to Katrina, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Katrina, don't kill them. They did what was necessary."

She turned and gave her boyfriend a halfhearted glare that had a ton of thankfulness mixed in with it, releasing the two boys from their nightmarish suffocation. "Scott, they beat up my recruit. They could've killed him!"

"But they didn't. Jo-Hansen's been taking care of him ever since they toted him down here. I made sure of that. You can go visit him in the infirmary if you want."

Katrina's muscles instantly relaxed at the mention of Jo-Hansen and she nodded. "Alright. I think I will." With that, she was off, running down the hallways to the infirmary so she could examine her new recruits to see if he was everything he had appeared to be. Simon sighed with relief.

"Thanks, man. I thought we was dead."

Said captain fixed him with a steely glare. "You were dead, officer. I saved your sorry asses. You know what expectations Katrina has for us. I suggest you don't let her down again, cuz this is a one-time thing. Don't be expectin no help from me again. Ever." He said the last word with such assurance that Simon almost believed him that time, even though they had the same conversation every other time that the two officers pissed her off. Simon shrugged.

"Sure, Scotty. You keep telling yourself. The next time our asses need savin', you'll be right there for us and you know it."

A ghost of a smile played on Scott's lips and he turned away. "Get back to training, officer, before I skewer you."

Simon smiled back and complied, dragging Ozzie along behind him as he headed into the heart of the Preserves where all of the blacksuits did their training. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad after all. If only he knew how wrong he was.