A/N: Heyo, I'm back. This chapter and the very beginning of the next one are both from Khan's POV, because the start of the next chapter was originally just the ending of this one. Anyway, hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 7: The Present

Khan was in a coffee shop when he heard the explosion.

The coffee shop was two blocks down street from Devon Interstellar, where he'd abandoned the stolen ship. He would have gone further, put more distance between him and it, but the quaint little cafe offered PADDs for the free use of the customers; hacking and expanding the PADD's limited use would draw less attention than stealing one, so he settled down to learn of what had developed while he slept.

He looked through news articles about anything relating to the Federation. He found reports about the USS Enterprise, under repair from it's impact into San Francisco, and subsequently the memorial that had been made for those who had perished in the crash. Khan made note of it but scrolled through that information quickly; what was of more interest was the short report on the promotion of Admiral Arthur Dorrien, who had been elected to the head of the Admiralty's council- Marcus's previous position. This wasn't in itself noteworthy- a handful of officials had died or retired after Khan's failed attack on them, and those positions had to be filled- but Dorrien caught his eye. Khan dug deeper on him, trying to discern if Dorrien had also taken Marcus's place as head of Section 31, but the Augment could find no proof for or against the idea.

Khan was just considering looking up the name Laufey of Jotunheim when the sound of the explosion hit. He referred to it as an explosion only because he could think of no better word, even though it wasn't the quick sharp bang of a bomb going off, nor the thunderous boom of artillery fire. It simply happened all at once; tons of metal skidding on concrete, an ungodly amount of glass shattering, the thud of hundreds of things hitting the ground, and so in his mind Khan called it an explosion.

He was out the door before most people were to their feet. On the street, pedestrians had frozen in their places, and they erupted into shouts and panic as he darted across the street. Alarms began to wail, but the authorities and emergency responders would have had a hard time getting through the chaotic throng of people and hover-vehicles rushing away from the explosion. He had time, he decided after a split second's thought.

Khan sprinted down the street, towards Devon Interstellar while everyone else in the vicinity was scrambling away from it. Anger lended him speed and agility, though he had to hold the former back to avoid drawing too much attention to himself- a precaution Laufey of Jotunheim had obviously not taken. That was, in fact, the source of his anger. He had no doubts that this was the fault of the Jotun; it was to soon after their arrival for the explosion to be coincidence. That the man had so blatantly drawn attention to himself- and, by extension, Khan- was an obnoxious offense.

Despite his efforts to keep his speed to a human's level, Khan had still covered two blocks in barely twenty seconds. He stopped short when he saw the state of the Devon Interstellar, momentarily shocked; the spaceport's main building had been torn to shreds, the great glass wall nothing more than a sea of sharp poly-carbonate material scattered across the ground. The other walls were still standing, though just barely, and the roof had a new, ominous tilt to it.

Khan took all this in in the span of a second, and shot forward again at a dead sprint, all subtly abandoned. This was not caused by explosives, he knew, and the battlefield instinct that had kept him alive for so long had pieced together the clues; it told him that Laufey would be at the epicenter, so that was there he went. The eight meters from the edge of the spaceport to the center of the main building were covered with blinding speed, a speed that did not slow until Khan reached the Jotun a half-minute later.

When he came upon Laufey, the man was dead to the world. The fact that he sat in a slight crater clear of debris for fifty yards, surrounded by a destroyed building that groaned forebodingly, seemed lost on him. He was on his knees, doubled over; his entire body shook, and that gave Khan pause.

The Augment glanced around, ascertaining what to do. Now that he was in what remained of the spaceport building, he could see things he couldn't before. One of these things were the people. They were scattered across the ground in varying degrees of consciousness, and some were starting to stir, fixing the pair of unscathed, dark-haired men with blank gazes. Khan was very aware of how recognizable this would make them, and he looked back to Laufey.

"Get up." He commanded in his cold baritone, grabbing Laufey's arm. He jerked upwards, heaving the 'Jotun' partway to his feet. "Get up, I said." He snarled harshly, yanking again.

That seemed to bring Laufey back into reality; when Khan jerked him up, he got his feet under himself and whirled on the Augment. "Unhand me!" He snapped, wrenching free. Khan was surprised to see that the man's eyes were red-rimmed, evident of tears, but the surprise was distance, and he disregarded it almost as soon as he registered it; his annoyance overrided any sympathy.

"I did not take you for an imbecile," Khan snapped loudly, "But it is a mistake I will not repeat. You have managed to single-handedly advertise our location to every enemy within the quadrant, if not the whole system. They will be closing as we speak. And y-"

"How fortunate, then, that your enemies are none of my concern." Laufey spat. Khan lunged forward and grabbed the collar of the man's suit, no longer trying to restrain his anger.

"Are you truly so thick!?" He roared in the other man's face. "They have seen us escape together! They may not separate you from me or accomplice from tool!" He shook Laufey violently. "They are descending on us, and you have summoned them!"

"Unhand me, you raving ape!" Something punched Khan hard in the chest, though Laufey's hands had not moved, and the Augment stepped back in surprise as much from the blow. The Jotum himself didn't move, though rage stormed across his face. Khan watched his fingers flex, opening and closing into fists. "Let them come." He added in a growl.

Fool. "They will not come alone. How many can you kill, before you are buried beneath the tide of bodies? Not that one cares for the numbers when they are dead."

"I will not be killed so easily. Viler creatures have tried."

A phaser shot exploded the ground two yards away, and Khan turned, drew his phaser from his waistband, and leveled it with dizzying speed. His hyper-tuned mind had found the targets before he was evenly completely facing them, and he fired. A blond man peeking out from behind one of the ruined walls fell, blood spraying the ground behind him; Khan had never had much use for the 'stun' setting.

Here are your viler creatures, Khan thought with contempt.

The man's body had barely hit the ground when another person's arm swung around the corner of the wall and threw something fist-sized at them. The grenade never landed; as it arced towards them, Laufey made a jerky motion with his hands, and a piece of rubble hurled itself into the device's path. The grenade bounced off the scrap of debris and exploded harmlessly in the air over their heads.

Khan was moving before the shockwave had died out, sprinting to the wall the last man was hiding behind. He crouched against the wall, listening; he had to be sure how many there were. On the other side, he could hear the breathing of only one person, which was a small relief. When this one person reached around the wall to throw a second grenade, Khan grabbed the man's forearm and yanked it towards his chest with all his augmented strength. The bone gave way audibly, snapping against the wall a few inches below the elbow. The man attached to it screamed shrilly.

Khan picked up the grenade next to the man's hand and threw it straight upward, not giving it a second glance as he strode around the corner and crouched in front of the screaming man. The brunette fumbled his phaser-pistol out of it's holster, but had no sooner pointed it point-blank at Khan's chest than the hand holding it was swept aside, the phaser yanked out of his palm and tossed away.

Khan pressed his own pistol to the man's forehead. Out of the corner of his eye, the Augment saw Laufey round the corner and lean against the wall, towering over human and super-human both.

"Who sent you?" Khan asked calmly, ignoring the ever-loudening sirens of emergency services.

The man choked his reply out between a sound that was half sob and half moan."No one sent me, there was a bounty, a hundred thousand a piece-"

"The chance that Section 31 would advertise their failure to the universe is nonexistent. Has Samuel Dorrien taken the place of Admiral Marcus?" He could not help but snarl the name.

"I don't know what-"

"You are an abysmal lier, agent. Who is the new Warden of Section 13? A name will suffice."

"I told you, I don't-"

Khan took the phaser off of the brunette's head and pointed it to the compound fracture in his arm. "I tire quickly of being lied to." He said, voice low but calm.

The man's expression changed, took on a harder cast. There was still pain in his eyes and the twist of his mouth, and his chest still heaved, but the panic and fear had fallen away, replaced by loathing. "Go to hell, Singh." he said, with bravado that the Augment could tell wasn't completely false. "You're not getting anything outta me."

"Oh, agent…" There was heavy condescension in Khan's voice, "I am not a man you should challenge."

Khan pulled the trigger; the man's forearm exploded in blood, and he screamed. The scream was almost louder than the wailing of the ambulances that had arrived on the edge of the airfield, but the Augment was too focused on the current task to care about them. He moved his hand just slightly to the right, so that the pistol was still aimed on the length of the broken arm.

The human's screaming petered off after a moment, and descended into gasping, sobbing breaths. It was a pitiful sound, but it took on a deranged cantor as he began to laugh through his choked sniveling.

"Go on." He gasped. "Waste your time on me. Go ahead." His bark of laughter was demented. "It doesn't matter. They'll find you. Protocol 31-75- no limits. Whatever it takes to get to you two. They'll kill your band of mutants and shoot your freak boyfriend-" The man's head suddenly jerked sideways, blood and brain-matter spraying out the side. Khan's own head jerked around to look at Laufey; the 'Jotun' held a phaser pistol of his own, most likely the one belonging to the man Khan had killed.

"Such an ineloquent weapon." The dark-haired man said with disdain, tossing the gun aside.

Khan surged to his feet and rounded on the shorter man, fuming. "I was not done with him!"

"But I was." Laufey replied, unfazed. "Our enemies have answered my summons-" The mocking was not improving Khan's mood in the least, "-and you were still playing with your food."

"Then you should have left me to it." The Augment snarled back. Nonetheless, he glanced towards the ambulances hovering at the edge of the spaceport grounds. They had unloaded their hovering stretchers and were running towards Khan and Laufey- they had most likely heard the screams- but it would take time for them to catch up.

Khan's eyes flickered over them and then their vehicles; law enforcement was arriving as well, and dealing with them would draw yet more unwanted attention. He looked back to Laufey, glaring, and tucked his phaser back into his waistband.

"We will have to move quickly. Keep up, or be left behind." He said simply. He didn't wait for an answer; he turned on his heels and shot across the ruins of the airfield. There were distant shouts, and no doubt some of the newly-arrived policeman gave chase, but the pursuit didn't last long; Khan flew across the airfield, sprinted across several alleyways and around corners, and soon enough found himself blocks away.

Once he was sure he'd put enough distance between himself and the spaceport, he slowed to walk and slipped from an alley onto a bustling street. He lost himself in the crowds, and it was several minutes before he happened to look beside him as he strolled casually along; when he did, he saw Laufey keeping pace a half-step behind him. Khan didn't spare him another glance until he hailed a cab and the 'Jotun' climbed in after him.

An hour later, after taking several cabs in several trips that went several different, random directions, Khan finally directed them somewhere specific. When they excited the last hovercar and stepped onto the street, they were on the opposite end of the city- and not the respectable end.

The pair pushed through the doors of a motel, Khan in the lead. It was one of the nicer motels in the area, the Augment observed as Laufey rang the service bell; as they waited for an attendant to appear, he noted that there were no signs of bugs, that only one lighting panel flickering on and off above their heads, and that the wallpaper could be estimated to be from this decade. Despite it's relative quality, the worker who appeared from a backroom didn't ask for a name, and took the stolen credits Khan gave him without question, an aspect that made the place much more appealing than anything else it possessed.

The Augment asked for a room with two beds. What he ended up with was a room with a single king-sized bed, which was no less inconvenient than anything else had been so far. Both the room and the bed were of average cleanliness and quality, but passable; Khan had slept in much worse, so that at least had not gone horribly awry.

There was a table and chairs huddled against the wall, and Khan crossed to it and slipped into a seat. Laufey stood a few steps in the doorway, surveying their accommodations for the night with a sort of passive distaste.

"I would almost prefer my cell." he said dryly, though with the barest hint of sarcasm. The statement caught Khan's attention- and curiosity- but he filed it away for later; there were more important matters at hand.

Khan pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across his forehead. He leaned forward, staring intently at Laufey. They had reached a turning point, he knew; Laufey had heard the agent call him Singh, so they could no longer operate under the false pretense they had been content with thus far. Then there was the what the agent had said; Section 31 was apparently operating on the assumption that he and Laufey were accomplices, and though Khan had anticipated it as likely, it could be dangerous- for himself as well as them. And then there was Protocol 31-75; if it was as extensive as the agent had made it seem, then the Augment might benefit from having allies, and there would likely be no better opportunity to make one.

The Emperor of Indian like the idea little, but couldn't deny the logic of it. His own history had taught him that he was stronger with others. when he had had his family around him, he had ruled half the world; alone,, he had failed twice over. He could not make that mistake again, and not now, when it would be fatal; not now, when Khan had escaped Section 31's prison base and proven that the Augments were too dangerous to keep alive.

He had no dilusions of what would happen; he hadn't from the moment he awoke. If he were captured, there would be no cryosleep waiting for him, no possibility of ever being woken. His crew was alive now only because they could be used as bargaining chips; once Khan was no longer a threat, they would die.

This was his last chance; if he lost now, he lost everything. Khan was never so keenly aware of that fact as he judged the usefulness of the man before him.

Laufey noticed his gaze, and turned to face him.

"We have much to discuss." Khan said calmly.