Bonechill stopped walking a few meters from where he landed, staring down the rouge male with the young Junovian quivering in his arms. He raised his plasma pistol to the rouge, waving it left and right before pointing it back at the young Junovian's head.

The rouge kept walking toward them, all four of his hands outstretched, three-fingered palms facing toward Bonechill. Whether he was preparing for another attack or trying to establish some kind of parle wasn't clear.

Bonechill took the initiative and yelled, "Doesn't have to be this way."

The rouge yelled back, "Let her go. I don't want to blow you to stardust if I don't have to, but I can't let you hurt anyone else."

" 'Fraid that's not an option, son." Bonechill yelled back. If he had flesh still, he might have smiled at the notion. A target willing to negotiate with him? How many times has that happened over the centuries? Once, twice maybe. He hadn't listened then, and he certainly wouldn't now.

Bonechill briefly turned his attention to the Precog beside the rouge. It was levitating a half a meter off the ground, floating toward him at the same pace as his target. The thing's midsection rotated perpendicular to the ground, so that both sets of its arms were spinning opposite each other. Its neck coiled and twisted in odd. non-Euclidean dimensions, and its eyes were endless voids filled with the sheer emptiness of the Expanse. Not even a twinkle of starlight was there, the complete antithesis of what he saw of Aegis II.

In an instant the Precog was in front of him again, centimeters from his visor. It roared an invisible, inaudible sound, piercing Bonechill's ears and no-one else's. He lost his grip on the young Junovian and she took the opportunity to squirm out of his hold and flee behind one of the nest-structures.

So much for a hostage.

The noise perpetuated, reverberating deep within the fiber of Bonechill's being. He felt the Precog scream in his atoms, the creature's hateful wails leaving scars on the very matter that he was made of. He crumpled under his own weight, unsure of whether he was in this reality or another. The ground came up to greet the Reaper, and they became intimately aquatinted. The dirt (dust?) that blanked the ground filled Bonechill's eye sockets and rib cage. He clutched his stomach.

As Bonechill forced himself to look up, he could see the rouge Junovian sprinting toward him. He barely had enough in him to avoid the kick to his face.

Rolling onto his back, Bonechill fought his own body to stand. His knees dared to disobey, his arms were threatening mutiny, his fingers attempted to revolutionize against him. Regardless, he fought through, forcing his body to raise a plasma pistol at the rapidly approaching rouge Junovian.

He fired just in time to throw the rouge's explosion off-course. The nest less than a meter to his right exploded in a vibrant slurry of colors and horrid smells. Sulfur polluted the air, and Bonechill head the screams of civilians. He couldn't afford to look back to assess the damage, but he was certain it was catastrophic.

"What's the matter?" The rouge taunted, "Treble got your arms?"

The Precog manifested in front of Bonechill again, grabbing at his plasma pistols. He flailed, jumping back and landing on his rear. He heard the rouge laugh, or did the closest approximation to a laugh a Junovian could muster.

The rouge held one of his palms open toward Bonechill. He stood there, motionless, mocking.

"You know," The rouge said, squatting down so that his face was in front of Bonechill's, "SysCo is going to love that their pride and joy is taking initiative. Stopping a terrorist in an Outer Rim System? Ha. Maybe they'll even let me stay here, keeping this part of the galaxy safe from lifeforms like you."

Near his midsection, Bonechill saw a faint glow. It was a fickle thing at first, before it grew a bit brighter, and brighter, and brighter. The rouge leaped back, leaving Bonechill with that light.

The explosion, time-delayed. He realized what it was all too late.

The fire erupted in a fraction of a second, spreading through his space suit, tearing it asunder from the inside out. The Reaper's bones were a thousand degrees, yet still held their constitution. He wasn't sent back by the force of the explosion, no, instead he was propelled downward through the ground and into the crust of the planet.

Dirt and debris rushed passed Bonechill's face, settling only when his momentum ceased entirely. Encased in layers of planetary crust, Bonechill waited. He exhaled, floating on solid matter, thinking.

Eventually, her voice manifested in his ears. She said, "Well, what are you waiting for? An invitation?"

"No," The Reaper replied.

He felt the Woman in the Void cradle him in her arms, "You want a hand with him?"

"No," He repeated.

"He's getting away. There's no real rush, honestly. You have a starskipper, he can only use the Warp Gate. Perks of rank, I guess."

"Ah. Good to know."

"You wanna stop?"

"Always."

"Why don't you? It's been four hundred years."

"I can't. Not yet."

She sighed, "You're going to crack eventually, if you don't deal with this."

The Reaper sighed, turning his head away from her voice. His gaze fell upon the Precog, whose fiery eyes stared back at him.

"I know."

"Well," She said, "Go get him."

Bonechill dug. He clawed his way through the dirt until he resurfaced. The streets were nearly deserted. Junovians peered from the safety of their hiding places inside of their nests, staring at him, looking toward the sky, searching for any other signs of conflict presumably.

They would find no such thing, however, as the rouge had fled the scene.

The Reaper dusted himself off and started walking.