C420 Hair
Khan could remain lucid during his nightmares, but his thoughts failed to enter the scenes triggered by his interaction with the Nak's hand. Only his consciousness reached the memories of the Second Impact.
The fire, the corpses, the smoke, the crumbling buildings, and the scorching crater didn't fill Khan with the usual desperation. He was still watching everything from his perspective, but a sense of peace invaded his mind.
That peace was odd, almost inhumane, and a coldness that didn't allow the presence of other emotions soon joined that sensation. Understanding dawned upon Khan at that point, and he hated to be unable to feel disgusted.
Khan couldn't think, but his mind still worked, so he could connect the dots. He knew where that inhumane coldness came from. He shared the same mental space as the Nak's hand, so he could experience its perspective.
At first, Khan hated that emotional detachment from the scene. Yet, as the memories flowed, a positive side to the matter appeared. He had been on many battlefields but had never reached that level of inhumanity. He was still different from a Nak.
Of course, those realizations happened on an almost subconscious level. Answers became clear without ever turning into thoughts. Khan could only watch, and interesting details eventually appeared.
The Nak's perspective added a new layer to the nightmare. Everything happened as Khan recalled, but the sensations that enveloped those scenes were completely different.
It turned out that the inhumane coldness had something more than mere detachment. A faint sense of duty filled the whole area. Khan felt nothing because his attack had a higher purpose.
Khan wasn't too surprised about that discovery. He had long since suspected that the Nak's attack had been more than a mere invasion, but the nightmare didn't go past those faint sensations.
The nightmare moved forward. The Nak came out of the crater and ravaged its spaceship, but Khan couldn't focus on that scene. His attention had fallen on the alien's eyes as soon as they became visible.
The Nak's eyes had always been the most vivid detail of the nightmare, and the new perspective added value to that feature. The intense anger, desperation, and fear carried by that gaze turned into bright lights that conveyed confused meanings, and Khan couldn't help but fall prey to their glow.
The target of the Nak's anger was easy to spot. The spaceship had something to do with it, hinting that a malfunction had happened. Maybe the crash had been a mistake, or perhaps the vehicle had something to do with that solitary attack.
The desperation was harder to explain, but Khan couldn't miss it in his current state. The Nak was alone, stranded on an alien planet. Its species was nowhere to be seen, and it seemed to know that reinforcements wouldn't arrive.
As for the fear, Khan could only experience it without understanding its reasons. He felt terrified about something, but he couldn't explain why, and that emotion left a deep mark in his mind.
The sense of duty returned when the Nak noticed Khan and pointed its finger at him. Azure shades invaded the scene, and the mutations began. Still, the new perspective added something surprising to the event. Khan heard words while under the effect of the Nak's mana.
"Potential... Hosts," A deep, hoarse voice resounded among the nightmare.
Khan's mind went blank. He could accept that his connection with the Nak's hand had automatically translated those words into the human language, but their potential meaning left him speechless.
Suddenly, countless hypotheses formed and branched out to transform into vague scenarios. Khan had collected various clues throughout his life. Many involved a deeper understanding of the mana, but his old questions and Raymond's explanations could give birth to something unbelievable.
Why did the Nak attack Earth? Why did the Nak assault various planets? Why did they apparently lose most of those wars? Why did they disappear afterward?
Similar questions had afflicted Khan for a long time, but he had always left them in the back of his mind. He simply didn't know enough to come up with reasonable ideas.
However, a seemingly solid hypothesis came to life when Khan put everything together. He had already found something odd with the First Impact, but now he had a potential explanation. The Nak's intentions probably involved their element.
The chaos element was unique, and the Nak's mana could easily infect beings without control over that energy. The mutations were violent and often deadly, but someone was bound to survive, and others would even pass those alterations to future generations.
Raymond had explained the importance of those mutations, and they gained even more value due to the peculiar situation of the Nak. Those aliens were the embodiment of mana. They might have reasons that went beyond what ordinary minds could comprehend.
Nevertheless, that conclusion generated more questions. The Nak might have attacked to spread mutations and chaos, but their purpose remained unclear.
Khan couldn't help but focus on the Nak's eyes again. The fear they radiated was almost unreal. He couldn't understand how such a powerful creature could be so afraid, but that gave birth to a new guess.
Bret had stressed how humans could surpass the Nak, and that couldn't apply only to one species. There had to be others with higher potential, and the mutations could be the key to unlocking it.
'The Nak can't be so selfless,' Khan cursed before realizing something else. 'Wait, I can think now.'
The nightmare had almost turned entirely azure. The solar system was about to appear, and Khan's memories would restart from the beginning afterward. He hoped to wake up before that, but he didn't have a choice in the matter.
Yet, when everything turned azure, the solar system remained hidden, and that blinding color slowly dimmed to reveal surprising scenes. Metal debris became clear, and Khan held his breath when he saw the Nak's hand held tightly in his grasp.
Khan noticed that the hand had gone dark before his body started to convulse, forcing him to crouch on the floor. Retches rose through his throat as his muscles and organs shook, and a scorching sensation invaded every inch of his flesh, leaving him powerless.
For some reason, Khan found himself unable to calm down or let go of the Nak's hand. Meanwhile, his body continued to burn and shake, and pain soon joined the process.
Everything began to hurt, especially the places where Khan had suffered injuries. His knees seemed on the verge of falling off, his left side wanted to abandon his body, and his back burnt like never before.
The process left Khan unable to do anything. He couldn't even think. The intense pain threatened to make him faint, but he remained perfectly awake. His mind was clearer than ever, but that only made him experience everything more vividly.
Khan puked, spewing out a black and smelly substance that fell on the rubble and tainted his face while he convulsed. Screams tried to come out of his mouth, but his throat didn't listen to his urges. The process was excruciating, but it quickly lost intensity, eventually allowing him to regain control of his body.
A deep breath welcomed Khan's newfound control over his lungs. He could finally let go of the Nak's hand, but his palm went on the rubble while he tried to calm down. He planted his knees on the floor in an attempt to stand up, but his eyes began to burn, forcing him to close them and crouch down once more.
The Nak's iconic azure color filled Khan's vision when he opened his eyes, but those shades slowly dimmed as the scorching sensation waned. A piercing pain located on his skull followed, and the reason behind it became clear when he managed to see again.
Azure strands fell from Khan's head and stretched until they reached the floor. Hair that radiated the Nak's color grew until it replicated what Khan had witnessed in his nightmare. The mutations were taking over, but they didn't feature the irregular patterns seen on Nitis.
Khan's condition continued to improve until everything stopped. The pain vanished, leaving him numb and confused. Something had changed, and a surprising scene unfolded when his senses returned.
The injuries had healed. Khan felt that his left side and legs were brimming with strength now. Even the rubble that had stabbed his torso had vanished.
The same went for Khan's back. He didn't feel any discomfort anymore. Actually, everything seemed to have grown stronger, but he couldn't appreciate those changes since a troublesome detail kept filling his vision.
Khan had been too confused to realize that before, but he couldn't ignore the issue once clarity returned. His hair had turned azure and had grown exponentially. It probably reached his waist, but that wasn't the main problem.
A series of worrisome thoughts invaded Khan's mind. He feared that he was turning into a Nak even if everything told him that the process had ended, and his desperation gave birth to panic.
Khan grabbed a strand of his new hair and ripped it off. Pain spread, but he didn't care and reached for another to repeat his violent gesture.
Still, a hand reached Khan's wrist before he could rip off another strand. He lifted his gaze, and seeing Jenna's warm face made him express his mental state.
"[I can't turn into a Nak]," Khan voiced as he put strength into the arm held by Jenna. "[I won't allow it]."
"[You are stable now]," Jenna reassured, but Khan couldn't accept her words.
Khan still didn't know how he felt about Bret, but he was sure he had suppressed some mutations. Yet, everything had gone to waste now, and Khan's instinctive reaction was to rip away the evidence.
Jenna put more strength into her grip, but Khan turned out to be too strong for her. He pulled her down while he reached for another strand of hair, but her fall on him interrupted the process.
Khan didn't lose his balance. He planned to rip off his hair even with Jenna on him, but she wrapped him into a tight hug, and the warmth she radiated forced him to snap out of that panicked state.
Khan ended up with a strand of hair in his right hand. He wanted to burn it to erase any trace of that color, but helplessness eventually took over him. He couldn't solve that problem through brute force.
However, there was someone to blame, and Khan's raging emotions soon made him turn toward him. Raymond was relatively close, and his curious smile added fuel to Khan's anger.
Khan hurriedly stood up to march toward Raymond. Jenna knew that stopping him was impossible, so she followed along and prepared for an imminent battle.
"What have you done?!" Khan shouted once he reached Raymond.
"Me?" Raymond feigned innocence, and his smile also vanished. "I fought the hand. Didn't you see that?"
Khan was in no mood for games, but he couldn't just jump on Raymond. The difference in power was too big, but holding back his anger turned out to be impossible.
"Stop playing around," Khan muttered. "Did you know that this would happen?"
"No," Raymond casually admitted. "I remember you not caring either."
"Enough!" Khan snapped. "What do you know about this?"
"They are mutations, obviously," Raymond continued with his pretense. "They seem stable."
"What were you even trying to achieve?" Khan asked as he took a step forward, almost bumping into Raymond.
"Lieutenant Khan," Raymond said while his voice gained a chilling tone. "Remember where you are and who you are talking to."
Khan wanted to retort, but his senses warned him about the potential danger he was in. Raymond appeared ready to kill him, and even Jenna trembled before that potential threat.
The situation wasn't ideal. The battle had scattered the audience, but everyone was still on the intermediate floor, and Khan had become the center of their attention. Anyone could listen to his conversation with Raymond.
Khan couldn't care less about exposing Raymond, but he wasn't alone. Jenna was with him, and the same went for the rest of the Nele. He also had to look for Monica, and he didn't know how far Raymond would go to keep the experiment a secret.
A snort eventually left Khan's mouth before he turned to reach the Nak's hand. Jenna continued to hold his wrist during the walk, and she said nothing when Khan stomped his feet on the alien body part.
The Nak's hand appeared virtually dead, and no mana flowed in its insides, but its flesh was still exceptional. Yet, Khan's stomp dug a gory hole in its structure, and he repeated the process until only a bloody pulp remained.
To be continued