Chapter 857: Regret
No one stopped Khan. No one even dared try. The news had spr everyone about the gravity of the situation. Moreover, Khan's and thoughts, limiting the reactions to simple nods at most.
Khan flew to one of the new teleport areas, and guests and sold into the oval platform. The scientists didn't even ask for the de machine, sending him to the space station orbiting the planet.
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The space station was as crowded as the quadrant, but the tele Khan appeared. The scientists hesitated before the dangerous the room, but one look from Khan made them input new coordinates.
The teleport activated, sending Khan into a familiar environment. He recognized his surroundings, but his eyes never lingered on them. His legs moved, teleporting him past the entrance and outside, bringing him to Ylaco's training camp.
The scene would have usually triggered nostalgic memories, but Khan's brain barely reacted to his surroundings. He kept moving, setting off to fly to the nearest landing area. Only two ships rested there, encircled by a small team of soldiers.
"Out," Khan whispered as soon as his feet touched the metal floor, and his words transformed into blades that killed the soldiers' lungs.
The soldiers could only hold their breath and switch to autopilot, leaving the ships and clearing the area. Khan entered one and set off in the following seconds under that
dumbfounded and terrified audience.
The event had been so short the soldiers struggled to realize what had happened. Yet, the red cape and the alien attire pointed to an obvious conclusion. They had just met the famous Prince Khan, and their phones ended up in their hands to try to make some sense of the situation.
Khan's phone buzzed as he drove the ship past the training camp and toward the slums. The layout there changed often, but he knew exactly where to go. He also knew the information currently spreading throughout the network was genuine.
Bret didn't want any support or help, but Khan couldn't leave him on his own. Khan respected his decision and wouldn't interfere with his life, but that didn't mean complete detachment. The Slums existed outside the network's reach, and Khan knew Bret's time was short. Learning about his eventual death could take months, so Khan had planted a few soldiers to check up on him. They had orders to act if Bret went missing for too long, and the time had finally come.
Khan's destination had gathered an odd crowd for the Slums. Soldiers had established a perimeter around a brittle and decaying building, keeping away any bystanders. That wasn't a problem since the Slums' inhabitants usually minded their own business, but the scene explained how the information had reached parties outside the Nognes family.
Khan stopped the ship above the building before jumping from its side doors, teleporting to the dusty road. His arrival shocked the group of soldiers, who didn't get the chance to greet him.
"Disperse," Khan ordered, firmly striding forward.
The soldiers didn't even try to argue against that directive. Their very survival instincts told them not to, so they opened a path for Khan before diving into nearby blocks. They didn't leave the area but didn't try to stay close to the brittle building.
Khan approached the tainted door and reached for its handle, but screeching sounds suddenly reached his ears. The building screamed in pain before Khan's heavy aura, threatening to shatter and fall apart.
The faint blue reflection on the door also told Khan that his eyes were still shining. He was struggling to control his emotions, and part of him didn't want to. It was his time to grieve, but the universe didn't care.
Khan closed his eyes and reopened them. They still shone, but his aura had calmed down enough to give the building a break. Some metal tiles threatened to fall apart but survived the door's opening.
An empty, dirty corridor unfolded in Khan's view, but an equally squalid living room soon replaced it. Khan saw the familiar table, broken couch, tainted walls, and dusty furniture, but his attention quickly fell on the three figures inside.
Two men wearing white medical coats stood beside the table where the third figure was sitting. Khan recognized Bret and his sleeping position, which used his arm as a pillow. However, Khan couldn't even try to lie to himself. He knew his father wasn't sleeping.
"We scanned him, Prince Khan," One of the men with the medical coats announced. "Everything points at natural causes, but we can-."
"Out," Khan ordered. The two doctors exchanged a glance before leaving the building. They also closed the door, granting Khan total privacy.
'Damned old man,' Khan thought, slowly sitting at the table. 'Whining so loudly about wanting grandchildren only to die like this.'
The doctors didn't touch anything, so the table had bottles of unfinished booze. Khan seized them, indulging in long sips while his eyes lingered on the corpse before him.
'I wanted you to see the wedding,' Khan thought, 'At least. Even getting drunk together one last time would have been fine.'
Khan knew he wasn't to blame, but regret accumulated inside him anyway. He had been too busy with too many things to visit his father. He had actually left him alone for a long time, focusing all his efforts on Baoway and getting stronger. That had been the right move, but Khan still considered alternatives.
Baoway had long since obtained teleports, so Khan could have easily traveled to Ylaco's Slums to visit his father. The trip didn't even need to last entire days. He could have spent the night there and returned to his planet in the morning.
The visit would have ended in a fight since Bret didn't want Khan to waste time on him. Yet, Khan couldn't help but regret missing out on those discussions. They were better than nothing, especially now that they had become impossible.
Memories filled Khan's vision as he stared at Bret. Even with the restriction, his father had taught him much. Khan had survived many tragedies thanks to the canny social education inherited from Bret, and his teachings didn't stop at their life in the Slums. Bret had also cleared Khan's last doubts about the Nak's mutations, offering as much as his knowledge
could provide.
'All those years spent doubting, hating you,' Khan recalled, growing angry at himself. It wasn't his fault, but he could have done more. Time wasn't on his side, but he could have stolen hours, minutes, or seconds. Even the latter felt valuable now.
Nevertheless, the reality of the situation was undeniable. Those seconds were outside Khan's reach now. Even his incredible expertise in multiple alien arts couldn't defy death. Bret wouldn't even want that in the first place.
'Damned, stubborn old man,' Khan cursed in his mind. 'You had to stay here, didn't you?'
Khan respected and agreed to Bret's request because he understood that type of love. He even recognized himself in it. Yet, that development felt unfair, and much of the feeling fueled Khan's self-directed anger.
'I guess things were going too well,' Khan mocked himself. 'Who am I to think I could take a break and do something good?'
The bottle exploded in Khan's hand, spilling glass shards and its remaining booze everywhere. The simple tremor in Khan's aura had destroyed the container, sending some
debris on Bret.
Khan stood up, leaning forward to remove the glass shards from Bret's ragged clothes and messy hair. Still, as soon as his hand touched him, his senses sent a more realistic and undeniable update. Bret was truly dead. Khan's fingers were resting on a lifeless body.
'Old man,' Khan thought, sighing as he returned to his seat. 'You did exactly as you wanted, didn't you? You died where my mother died. I hope you were happy.'
Khan retracted his gaze, leaning on the chair's back and closing his eyes. He had suffered through too much death and loss to cry, but his mind was in disarray. Sadness, anger, and regret tried to overwhelm him while an all-devouring void spread from his chest.
'He was free,' Khan concluded. 'In the end, he was free.'
Khan reopened his eyes, forcing himself to look at Bret. He couldn't see much from his position, but his inspection didn't waver. Khan committed every detail he could find to memory while his mind continued its internal war.
'A selfish bastard,' Khan thought, 'But free.'
Khan placed his head into his palm, occasionally shaking it. He didn't know what to feel or
what to do. He only knew he was in no condition to be in public. Khan needed time to face and accept that loss before returning to his life, but the universe probably wouldn't grant him that
chance.
That realization fused with Khan's recent mood and the other conclusions reached while watching Bret. For all his power, Khan was far from free. Each step he climbed surrounded him with more annoying parties. Even the Nak had joined the fray, throwing him in the middle
of a universal threat only he knew about.
'You compromised less than me,' Khan thought, looking at his father again and smirking. 'So much for the chaos element. I guess pure freedom wasn't my path.'
Creaking noises echoed throughout the building. Khan was losing control, but his sad smile
remained on his father.
'Don't worry, Dad,' Khan said in his mind. 'I'll be fine. Everyone will be fine. Your ungrateful brat will save this dumb universe.'