Chapter 2

Reaper had not always been an isolated entity in Bones' head, taking control when needed. For the first three years of being on the run John Grimm had been Reaper, one and the same, survival and instinct the only things he knew and relied on. He would take lives if need be, shoot or be shot, steal food, money, ammo, not listening to cries for help. John 'Reaper' Grimm was a heartless bastard. He'd had to be.

The discovery of the Ark kicked World War Three into action in 2026, the last straw on the camel's back, especially after all the rumours about mutants. John had been three when the fighting had broken out, food had become hard to come by and he hadn't known anyone who had more than one meal every two or three days, if they were lucky. John had vowed to himself at the tender age of five that he would join the RRTS and do something to stop the war or, at the very least, make sure families got more food.

He had joined up on his eighteenth birthday and managed to delude himself into thinking he was making a difference when he killed. For years, his remaining family –a twin with whom his only communication was a stiff birthday card sent once yearly- drifted further and further away. Then his team had gone to Olduvai. C-24's existence was leaked to the scientific community, and then to military leaders, who wanted it for their soldiers to end the war in their favour. The UAC doctors that checked Sam and him over discovered his successful enhancement and in the matter of months, John became the single most-wanted man on Earth. The widest-known governmental secret never spilled to the public's ears.

John's cold outlook on the world, created after he was forced to leave his sister, Sam, and run or be captured and dissected until he broke out, killing whichever poor science team was posted at the lab he would be held in, was shattered in 2049, when he'd been hiding out in a large refugee camp in the streets of San Francisco. He had been eating the muck they called food, something he would keep for himself, not knowing the next time he might come across a food like substance again, when he had noticed a group of boys beating a woman for her food in front of her child. Normally, he would ignore such things, as little attention as possible is needed when on the run, best to be no more noticeable than cracks in a wall, but the woman looked so much like Sam that he couldn't just leave her to starve.

He would have just stormed over there and beaten the shit out of the boys, but that would mean cops and soldiers, and attention. So instead he waited until they had run off and walked over to the bleeding woman and crying child, sat down next to her, pulled her into a sitting position and handed her the bowl of muck to share with her child, all without a word. After she had taken the bowl from him, thanking him quietly, he proceeded to take care of the wound she had on her forehead. He sat with her until both her and the girl had finished the small amount of food, then got up and left the camp.

After that, John saw the suffering of others everywhere, and every broken woman's face was Sam's, the eyes of every child stared at him with terrorized accusation, and suddenly, living out his selfish existence was appalling. And he was no better than the diplomats he'd started out to stop. The chromosome had made him distant from the world, and he pushed the selfish instincts he'd lived with for the past three years into a corner of his mind. Over years, these instincts separated themselves and the resultant identity named itself Reaper. He would no longer go by the handle ID, and never let Reaper out. And in turn, Reaper became like a monster in a cage, when released, he would kill everyone and everything within his ability to reach.

Now, after watching his Jim and Spock get shot, Jim in the stomach and Spock in the chest, leg, and abdomen, only just missing his heart, Reaper ripped his way free of the mental barriers, feeding on the burning rage Bones felt festering just behind his eyes and seeping through his veins, boiling his blood. Death rained on the rebels attacking them.

Jim was burning, someone was crying out in pain, and it took him longer than he'd liked to realize it was him. Spock was lying next to him in a slowly growing pool of green blood, groaning. He couldn't see where Bones was. God, Bones, how was he going to get out of this? Transporters were out here, something about missile shielding?

Jim blacked out for a few seconds, he hadn't meant to, but as he came to, he realized something was wrong. It took his pain addled mind to realize that someone in blue was standing out in the open, Starfleet science blue presenting an easy target. Bones. He was being shot, Jim could see the holes and small explosions of blood blossoming out his back, but he didn't fall. Then, as he watched, Bones moved slowly, reached behind him and pulled out what was clearly not a standard issue phaser. That was all Jim had seen before he blacked out again.

Reaper stepped out from behind the create he had been sheltering behind and was immediately showered in bullets, the pain only lasted a few seconds, then reached around and drew out his illegal weapon –a shiv he'd made from an Olduvai mutant's bone, found protruding from his back upon returning to a dark Nevadan night. Then he was flying out the door and tearing his enemies apart.

Confusion and fear rippled through the attacking force as the man took the barrage of hot, speeding metal, barely flinching. He threw one man over his shoulder like a stuffed doll, and then grabbed the next by the throat, plunging a sharp knife in the side of his neck. He whipped the blade out, and using the momentum from this, smashed the man behind him in the temple.

Six more men attacked Reaper, shooting, but to their bafflement he managed to dodge most of the bullets and any wounds he suffered vanished in the space of time between one eye blink and the next. He attacked the man closest to him by grabbing the head of his gun, shoving it out of the way and introducing his blade to the man's brains. He then pushed the body into the remaining five men, making them stumble. He pounced, killing the men fast. A slice to the throat, a snap of a neck, broken arm and guts spilling, a blow to the head, and finally a face smashed into the ground.

Reaper stood amongst the carnage, and Bones emerged and eased himself back in control. Stunned for a moment at the speed of what had just happened, it took him a few seconds to remember. When he did, he ran.

There was blood, lots of it. Green and red mixing in a sick form of art made from the life forces of the only two beings in the universe that the soldier had the courage to care for. They lay there in his arms slipping away from him, his Captain and First Officer, friends and lovers, people whom without, his long existence would be just that: an existence.

Bones felt a stab of sheer pain rip through him as Jim's heart stuttered and he felt how cold Spock was against him, the Vulcan's usual blazing heat pooling around them. A bolt of terrifying inspiration -- he could save them, he could fix that.

His tears stopped flowing.

The monsters that had plagued Olduvai, they created more of themselves through spitting their tongues at suiting humans... He bent down to nuzzle at Spock's green smeared neck, let the instinct surface, and bit down. Spock groaned as Bones injected him with the chromosome that would save his life. He released Spock, wiping the green blood from his lips with the back of a hand, and shifted the bodies so that Jim was leaning against him to do the same to him.

Just after biting and injecting Jim, Bones stopped, a thought rising to the forefront of his mind, 'What have I done? They might turn into one of those beasts! I might have just saved them… only to have to kill them myself.'

Bones moved away from the still forms of his lovers, curling in on himself, shaking, tears starting to flow freely. 'Oh God! What have I done?'