The large room was mostly silent, save for a few approaching echoes coming from the hallways. It was a moderately large warehouse room, but was packed with crates and a few vehicles, though they were arranged in organized rows. The silence was eventually broken with the source of the echoes, a group of eight Rothians, entered the room. They were all mercenaries, armed and armored, though they were hardly alert. Their equipment was all varied, showing that they had no sort of uniform among them, though they were all wearing basic combat armor with hard plates over vital areas and a tough, flexible material over other parts. The group walked casually towards the center of the warehouse, chatting amongst themselves. 

"All I'm saying, sir, is that it's a bit ridiculous that we have to sweep this entire warehouse because of a power failure. This building has to be the most run-down on all of Rothia, it wasn't sabotage, the boss is just paranoid. We should just go back to our game." One of the mercenaries commented. 

One of the mercs, the obviously annoyed leader, rolled his eyes back at the other merc. "For the last time Nhix, this is the first thing the boss has actually asked us to do all week. She pretty much just pays us to stand around and do nothing, so we'll just look around here for a few minutes, then, once we find nothing, you can go back to gambling away your money. Now, everyone split up into twos, look around a bit, then meet back here in five. Nhix, you're with me."

The group dispersed throughout the warehouse as ordered, lazily glancing through the numerous rows of boxes. The room was dark, with the only illumination coming from the moonlight that cast itself through the few windows near the ceiling, and the lights mounted on the mercenaries' rifles. The mercenaries carried on idle conversation as they walked through the rows, with most of them giving up and returning to the center. Even the leader came back a minute or so early. The group of six waited a few minutes for the remaining pair, but they were gone well after they should have returned. 

Frustrated, the leader shouted into the darkness. "Get your tails back here you two, we're done here." The Rothian expected to hear them sprinting back, but there was not a whisper from their direction. "Mirisna, Halax, get over here! We. Are. Leaving." This time, the rest of the group stopped their conversations to listen for a response, but the warehouse was dead silent, and they could not even see the glow of the lost mercs' flashlights in the darkness. 

The leader, now sensing danger, raised his weapon in a combat ready position and signaled for the others to do the same. "Everyone, eyes on. Something's wrong here." The group of six headed towards the side of the warehouse where the two other mercs had been, all alert and ready to fight. 

"Alright, split up three and three." The leader commanded, so the group split to cover a wider area. They each scanned the area thoroughly for either their friends, or the thing that caused them to go missing. Other than the mercs, the room was at a standstill, and as the minutes passed, they grew more and more nervous. Their minds were starting to fill with the gruesome possibilities of what could lie in the darkness; some of them were trembling slightly, while others started shouting for their lost friends in an effort to speed up the process of finding them. Eventually, the silence was broken by a sharp noise, then gunfire from one of the groups. The leader, who was in the other group, sprinted with his team to the source, but were met halfway by two of the mercs running towards them. 

"Sir, we saw, uhh, something. I...I lost track of it. We need to go, we need..." One of the mercs said quickly and frantically, with his eyes constantly darting around the room looking for movement.

"Calm down Nhix, what did you see? And where's Vehr?" The leader interrupted.

"What? I...I thought she was behind me. I don't..." The merc began, but before he finished, the group heard the sound of something hitting the floor behind them, so all five turned their rifles towards the source and fired, hoping to kill whatever monster was stalking them. The green glowing orbs of fusion energy, however, did not find their target and simply melted holes through some of the crates in front of them. 

When everyone finally ceased fire, the leader quickly pressed a button on a device attached to his armor, but was disappointed to only hear static. "Comms are down, Skral, I want you to run to the boss' office and let her know we have an intruder. Go!" 

A few seconds passed without so much as a hint of a confirmation from the merc, so the leader turned around to see a terror before him. Skral was lying dead on the ground only a few feet behind them in a pool of blood. The others were understandably stunned and overwhelmed with fear. 

"She...she's dead, by a...stab wound? One of the mercs observed, with horror in his voice at his last few words. 

"What, a stab wound? But then...by the rings, whatever it was was right behind us, and we didn't even see it! I...I got to get out of here, this...this isn't worth it!" One of the mercenaries shouted before leaving in a sprint towards the warehouse's exit. 

"Nhix! Nhix, get back here right now, that's an order! Nhix!" The leader yelled with a mix of anger and desperation. 

"Should...should we go after him?" One of the remaining mercs asked nervously, but then, almost on cue, they heard a loud scream coming from the deserter's direction. 

The leader sighed and shook his head slightly. "No need."

The other two looked around nervously, shining their lights on anything they saw as movement. "W-what should we do, sir?" One asked. 

By this point, the leader was visibly shaken. Everyone he knew seemed to be dying around him, and he was yet to even see the one responsible. He had never experienced a situation like this before, never experienced fear like this before. 

"I don't know, just...just let me think!" He said, his voice filled with anxiety. His breathing was rapid and his heart rate through the roof; his mind was so muddled with fear that he couldn't think straight. It should not have come to a surprise to him when something appeared above his two remaining men from a sort of black mist. The being literally fell upon one of the mercs and hit him in the back of the head with enough force to kill or incapacitate him immediately. The other mercenary tried to respond, but the fast acting attacker, who the leader now saw clearly as another Rothian, grabbed the arm holding the rifle and twisted it hard enough to break it at the elbow. The merc screamed in pain, but his cries were cut short when the attacker brought the merc's head down onto his knee.

The leader initially had his rifle trained on the attacker, but he was too afraid to fire, too afraid to run, and too afraid to speak. He backed away as the mysterious Rothian slowly walked towards him. If the obvious skill of his attacker was not intimidating enough, the long glowing blade in her hand could cut through his armor in a second. After a few tense seconds, the leader dropped his rifle and backed further away with his hands in plain sight. 

"This isn't worth it, I...I surrender." He cried before tripping over a small crate and falling to the ground. He looked up at the Rothian, who was still slowly approaching. Her face was mostly shrouded in darkness, which made her red eyes all the more menacing. "Please." The leader said in a soft, strained voice. The last thing he remembered seeing was the the Rothian suddenly moving for a kick, then his visioned darkened as he slipped out of consciousness. 

Rareth looked down on the mercenaries with disdain; they were hardly a challenge for one such as herself. Most mercenaries on the planet could scarcely be considered professional as they often had little more combat training than the average citizen, and they only stood out because they were willing to fight for money. They lacked honor, discipline, and, most importantly, loyalty. It was rare to meet one that wouldn't accept a bribe, not that it was ever really necessary to pay them off. 

After shrugging off her scorn, Rareth moved towards the exit of the warehouse and toward the building's offices. She had already disabled the automated defenses, and with all of the building's mercenaries either dead or incapacitated, there was nothing left to get between her and her target. 

Rareth walked calmly through the offices past rows of abandoned rooms towards her intended target. She had scouted the area before dealing with the guards, so she knew that the office she was looking for was, predictably, at the end of the hall. Though she kept her senses attuned to detect the presence of any possible threats as a precaution, she knew that there was only one other conscious being in the building. 

Upon reaching the end of the hall, Rareth found a door that, unlike every other door in the building, was not only functional, but had impressive security features: including an advanced holographic lock and a thick metal frame. It was blatantly obvious that this was where her target chose to hide, since the door alone probably cost half as much as the entire building. With a slight chuckle, Rareth disappeared into a black mist and reappeared on the other side in a display of teleportation that rendered the expensive security measure laughably obsolete. Inside, there was a single Rothian sitting at a desk across the room, though she nearly jumped out of her seat when Rareth appeared. She was wearing formal white business attire with simple colored designs, but the fear and anxiety in her eyes made her seem anything but professional. 
The Rothian grabbed a handgun on her desk an pointed it straight at her assassin, though her hands were shaking uncontrollably. As Rareth calmly started to walk towards her, she tightened her grip on her weapon and almost pulled the trigger, but then sighed in resignation and put down the weapon. "I know I can't kill you, so I will make you a deal. I don't know who hired you, but I will pay you double to leave me alone, I don't care if..."

The Rothian's offer was interrupted when Rareth approached the desk, not because her target spoke, but because she simply sliced her blade across her neck, completely decapitating her. Rareth had never been one for speaking to a target before a kill. 

Rareth sheathed her blade in the scabbard on her back, knelt down to the headless corpse, activated a device on her wrist, then held it close to the corpse's scales. A few holographic sensors scanned her for a few seconds to check both her DNA and vital signs, then sent confirmation of the kill to Rareth's superiors. 

Normally, Rareth would attempt to recover the corpse for a proper funeral, but there were still a few guards active on the exterior of the base. Hopefully, at least one of the mercs would care enough to deal with the body. Rareth stepped over to the window and lookout out over the courtyard in the front of the building. The guards seemed to be working to restore power, so they were adequately distracted to allow for her to easily escape. 

Rareth teleported through the glass and quickly grabbed onto a small ledge, then scanned the area above her. Fortunately, there were plenty of pipes and other edges she could grab on to, so she was easily able to scale the building without having to expend the energy to teleport to the top. Once on the roof, Rareth pressed a button on a device on her forearm, which immediately activated a holographic display. She quickly cycled through a menu and called her ship to her via its autopilot programming. In under a minute, her ship, which was a fully armed Rothian military dropship, flew directly over the base, much to the surprise of the guards in the courtyard. Several of them fired on the vessel, but its shields were easily able to absorb the small arms fire and allow it to safely land next to her on the roof. She entered the ship, took the pilot's seat, and sped away from the base before the guards could organize any real response. 

The flight back home would only took roughly half an hour, due to both the speed of the dropship and the relative proximity of her target to her home in the city of Threria. Normally, an operative as skilled as a Datius would not be assigned to such an easy mission, but since the target happened to be located so close to Rareth, it only made sense to send her. Rareth found no pleasure in the assignment and was glad when she finally saw the city on the horizon. The lights from the skyscrapers and vehicles flying through the city made it like a beacon in the night. The entire city was situated atop a small cluster of mountains in the area, which caused it to absolutely dominate the landscape. On a clear day, Threria was visible for miles in all directions and was considered one of the most scenic cities on Rothia. Due to the uneven terrain on which it was built, most buildings completely lacked a ground floor, and everyone in the city either flew from place to place, or walked along the various bridges and walkways that connected most buildings. It was no surprise that Threria was known as "The City of the Sky."

Since Rareth had governmental priority, she was able to avoid standard lanes of traffic and make it back to her home quickly. She lived in an upscale apartment on the top floor of a skyscraper in the center of Threria, complete with its own private landing pad, and it was all provided and payed for by the Rothian government as long as she remained under their employ. She stepped out of her ship and up to the apartment's entrance. The small camera above the door scanned her for a moment, then automatically opened the door once it had identified her. 

"Welcome home, Master Rareth." A voice said as soon as she entered. 

"Thank you, Thavrin." She responded unemotionally before heading towards the living room. "Thavrin" was the name she had given her apartment's central computer. While not a true A.I, it was programmed with its own personality and could respond much like a Rothian. Many homes had such programs, though Rareth's was particularly advanced. It helped not only to manage her affairs, but every bit of technology in the apartment as well. 

On the way to her living room, she was stopped by a small, floating, three-armed machine that served to keep her appartment clean. "Would you like me to take your armor to be cleaned, madam?" Thavrin asked.

It was at that point Rareth noticed that the front of her combat suit was stained green with dried Rothian blood. She had not payed attention to it before, but it was now at the front of her mind; a reminder of the lives she had taken that day. She was proud to be a Datius, proud to serve the Rothian people, but of everything she did, killing was the one thing that she could not take pride in. Although she had always been told that the lives she took would in turn save countless more, that her work helped to keep all of Rothian space safe, she still had trouble justifying the act of taking a life that would not have otherwise ended. Some of the people she killed were thousands upon thousands of years old and had certainly not always been the threats they were now; surely there was some way to return them to being law-abiding citizens? Rareth only ever killed when she absolutely had to and used non-lethal takedowns whenever possible. There were a few guards she had been forced to kill because they resisted in a way that directly threatened her life, and she regretted each death. 

"Madam?" Thavrin asked again, causing her to quickly snap back into reality. 

"Oh, yes. Thank you, Thavrin." She removed her armor and gave it, along with her weapons, to the machine, which immediately carried them away. She quickly returned to her thoughs, however, as she entered the main room. There were several tables and chairs, along with a single couch on one side of the room. The walls were shiny and white, though there were paintings of wildly different styles scattered about on the walls. There were also displays protecting swords and other melee weapons from different cultures and species, dating from many different points in history. One side of the room had large windows stretching from the roof to the floor that looked out over the city, separated by a few support struts. Her apartment had far too much furniture for one person, the best technology money could buy, and other luxuries she never had before attaining the rank of Datius. Granted, most of what she had was paid for by the government, but she still purchased some of the nonessentials herself. Still, she saved most of what she earned, so she would have plenty of money once she retired from the life of a Datius. 

Rareth slumped down lazily on her couch, which faced one of the large windows. For a while, she simply looked out across the city, watching cars racing through the sky, watching people enjoy Threria's night life. Even the rings of Rothia seemed to be brightened by the city lights. It was certainly a spectacular view, but she had lived in the apartment far too long to be impressed by it anymore. It was now simply just another feature of her life. 

Rareth sighed, wanting to distract herself from such melancholy thoughts. "Thavrin, bring up the entertainment center." She ordered. Immediately, a large holographic display appeared in front of her, thanks to the numerous hologram projectors scattered throughout her apartment. It was an expensive system, but with it, she could access her apartment's computer from literally anywhere in her home. She scrolled through lists of movies, shows, and anything else she could find for a while, but nothing seemed to appeal to her at the moment. 

After closing the display, Rareth laid back on her couch with a yawn, too tired to even move to her bed. "Thavrin, cut down the lights."

"Of course, madam." Thavrin responded. The computer turned off the lights in the room, then activated the polarized windows, causing them to turn near completely opaque, blocking out the light from the outside. Rareth laid for a while in the dark, sifting through her own thoughts before finally managing to drift to sleep.