Location: the Ether's ship and capital city, New Charity. The Hierarch's chamber. Date: October 20th 2552

Someone walks in wearing a red and gold robe, he bows down before a woman with hair white as snow and eyes black as coal wearing some sort of armor sitting in a metallic chair suspended by ropes of what appear to be some sort of black energy. "Great Hierarch, we have news of the traitor." the Hierarch looks up at him and scratches at her chin, "Good, tell me everything." the man looks up still bowing, his face wrinkled and his eyes dim "It appears that after he jumped from that planet he didn't plan where he was going, the rift he left behind was random and unpredictable. It was unfortunately too unstable and we had to destroy it." the Hierarch looked at him with a cold angry glare. "You what?" the man felt a cold twinge of fear course through his heart as he looked up. "W-we shut down the rift because it was too unstable and might have caused a dimensional vortex" the Hierarch pondered this but ultimately decided that she truly didn't care. "So you mean to tell me you destroyed the only thing we had that might have led to the traitors location!?!?" the old man covered his face as he started crying "P-please!! M-most noble H-hierarch you must understand! Had we not destroyed it so many of our men would have been l-lost!!!" He was shaking violently with fear and his heart threatened to beat out of his chest "I CARE NOT FOR YOUR SMALL INSIGNIFICANT LIFE!!!! WE NEED TO FIND THIS BETRAYER!!!" the mans blood was ice as he collapsed in front of her hugging onto her legs "Please! D-don't kill me! I-I beg you!!! Take my wife or children! J-just don't put me in the machine!!!!!"

The Hierarch looked at him with a face of anger and amusement "You would turn in your loved ones just to avoid your own death?" the man stared at the floor breathing shallowly ".....Yes" the Hierarchs lips curled into a cruel smile "And would you yourself put them into the machine?" the man looked up at her with a face of pure disbelief "Never!!!" the smile faded from her face as she stood up and walked over to him "What. did. you. say?" "I couldn't do that! I lo-" his sentence was cut short as her hand wrapped around his fragile neck and lifted him off the ground. "YOU ARE WEAK!!! COWARD!!!! WHAT MAKES YOU BELIEVE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIVE IN THE BASTION OF ETHER POWER!?!?!" "Please!!! Kill me this way!!! Don't put me in the machine!!! I want to die this way! Just don't put me in the machine!" "Why should I be so merciful? We are Ether! We are cruelty, power, and death incarnate! Guards! Put him in the machine!!!" two great iron colossuses materialized on either side of him and tried to grab him but he started trying to run, instantly they were right in front of him and before he could move he was beaten over the head with a steel club and dragged away.

"Time to watch the show..." a screen lowered and the Hierarch watched intently as the man was strapped into the machine and smiled as dozens of little sharp pincers swiftly struck him each time pulling out a little bit of his flesh over and over for hours while he screamed a blood curdling cry until he was nothing more than bones with a few organs and little bits of meat left over. A chute opened and the carcass dropped through it into the incinerator below. The Hierarch smiled warmly at her sadistic creation and the only thing she ever truly loved. "Wow! That was a juicy one! Well now that that's done time to do a surprise visit to my good friends in the war room." she stood up and raised her hand, her gauntlet glowed a cool cobalt and fired a bolt of energy at the floor and a orange swirling portal opened before her and she stepped in.

The war room was perhaps the biggest section of the ship, it was miles long with a high vaulted ceiling with screens depicting various planets and star systems that they were going to destroy. On the east wall a large mural depicting the Hierarch standing on a mountain of bones with large bold red letters saying OUR ENEMIES SHALL FALL.Several engineers, generals, and visitors walked about. Everyone stopped and looked as a portal developed and instantly everyone bowed down when they saw the mad sadistic leader step out of the vortex. "HAIL TO THE HIERARCH OF THE ETHER!!! ALL MUST BOW!!!" they all said in unison as she walked toward one of the generals.

"As you were." Everyone stood up and resumed what they were doing as if nothing had happened whatsoever. "General Crow, good to see you!" she said in a cheery voice " I take it your preparing your men for deployment onto the planet's surface?" Crow looked at her with a smile on his face, he had dark and deep set eyes with blackish blue circles under them that looked like they were constantly tired, his hair was dark red, combed, and kept neat. His face gave him an eerie look like someone who had mental problems. "Yes ma'am the planet's atmosphere has been tested and should be breathable if we use low grade respirators, nothing too toxic. The temperature get's up to 112 degrees at it's hottest during the day but stay's at an average high of 80 to 85, but come nightfall it drops rapidly to an average of -12 degrees but we should be fine so long as we make sure to give the boys their scarves and mittens." He chuckles "So is there anything that might be too dangerous that we call off your men and just nuke it from orbit?" "Well the lesser creatures inhabiting the planet are very skilled in combat. There are several different races including a feline like species of humanoids calling themselves Khajiit, reptilian humanoids known as Argonians, and unfortunately Dragons." the Hierarch looked at him in alarm. "Dragons!?!? Here!? Damn!!!" Dragons....the only other race capable of inter-dimensional travel that had the combative skill and numbers capable of seriously damaging their society, she remembered the last time they encountered them back on that world called Middle Earth and remembered how they were able to kill roughly 345,000,000 of their troops and destroyed even more of their Combat and extermination androids or CAEA's. Funny, that was the same year they stopped production of the V12.5's due to the Traitor, no more AI's capable of becoming self aware and growing a conscious. They were a hundred times more effective than the remote control V13's but purity MUST be maintained within the Ether society... she thought more about how one of their greatest enemies had found another planet to protect and decided she wanted to be there to kill them herself to teach them a lesson. "Have a stealth carrier with a supply of weapons, ammunition, armor, A-10 Combat Bikes with fuel, and cloaking gear ready for departure onto the surface at cosmodrome 23." "Ma'am!?" Crow said with a clearly surprised tone. She looked at him not pleased at being questioned "Is that a problem General?" "N-no! Of course not I simply did not expect you to lead an attack personally." She smiled "Well let's just say I really want to say hello to those scaled fools who think they can protect these lesser life forms infesting the many dimensions in reality." she clenched her hand into a fist "They fight for justice, I will show them the justice of the grave..."