Serrated Blade

About a week later, in the X-Mansion

Nick was lying in a bed with his eyes closed. Various machines were around him and measuring all of his vitals as well as infusing various nutrients into his body. When Emma and Nick's mother got there, they were able to get him to calm down. The stress of the event caused him to pass out, not even a word escaping his mouth before losing consciousness.

Standing over Nick was a beautiful woman in all white. This was Emma Frost, one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet. She currently had one of her hands touching his forehead as she was trying to figure out what was wrong with Nick.

Besides the two of them, Nick's mother, sister, and brother were all sitting around the room, waiting to see if the youngest of their family would wake up soon. Their names were Mei, Alexis, and Hector respectively.

After keeping the telepathic connection for a few minutes, Emma released her hand from his head. As soon as she did, Alexis jumped from her seat and appeared next to Nick.

"How is he? What's wrong? Did you fix it?" Alexis asked her questions rapidly, never taking her eyes off her brother

Mei and Hector wanted to stop her or reprimand her but they were also worried about Nick. Both looked toward Emma to try and get some answers from her.

Emma shook her head before nodding and then shaking her head again. It was hard to explain but she knew she had to in order to calm them down as much as possible.

"Nicholas should wake up in a few hours. He has gone through a traumatic experience. Not only the killings that went on in the room but he also has psychic damage. Whether he did it himself or it was someone else, I am unsure but his current mind is a mess.

His psychic shield was broken down and reshaped through his mind. Going through his mind is already bad enough but the fact that the shape changed while it was going through his mind makes it even worse," Emma explained

"What do you mean?" Mei asked

Emma held her hand to her chin as she thought about how to explain it.

"Think of it like treating a serrated blade wound versus a straight blade wound. A straight blade is flat so the damage is predictable but with a serrated blade, the damage is more substantial because the smaller blades cause more and more trauma.

Nicholas's mental wounds are even worse than that. The 'blade' was morphed while going through his mind and is still inside of it. This has no doubt caused a large amount of damage and trauma but may have even altered parts of his mind permanently. And worse still, it is nearly impossible to fix. To remove the fragments of his mental shield would most likely cause more damage if they were to be moved. At the very least, it would take years of telepathic surgeries to see some changes."

Emma looked at the unconscious teen and felt her heart ache for him. However the process happened, it had to be extremely painful and the results were something that he would have to live with for the rest of his life.

The others also understood just how terrible of an experience Nick had gone through. At best, this was done by someone else. At worst, he was at such a low point that he was willing to cripple himself just to get rid of the memories of what happened.

When the blue furry known as Hank McCoy walked into the room, he saw the depressed expressions of everyone in the room.

"Is his condition that serious?" Hank asked, nervous for Nick's life

"He will live and wake within a few hours," Emma told him, "But the effects of what happened will be with him for life most likely."

Hank didn't understand the exact damage but he also knew that Emma would not be looking for upset if she could fix him easily.

"Well... I have some good news," Hank wanted to divert the topic to get everyone out of the mood they were in. "I ran some tests on Nick's blood. The boy has awakened both his mutant and Inhuman DNA. His Inhuman gene seems to be depressing the X-Gene but it looks like his X-Gene is slowly overcoming it. I'd say his mutation should fully develop within the next few years."

NIck's family was surprised. After Alexis and Hector each only got one of their parent's alternate genes, Mei and her ex-husband both expected Nick to also be a single species member. And when he underwent Terrigenesis, neither of them thought he would have any chance of his X-Gene activating so they didn't even think about it.

"So that means that Nick is an actual Inhuman-Mutant hybrid unlike me and A?" Hector asked, his voice tinger with confusion

"Correct. I mean technically, all of you are hybrids since you're your parents' children but Nick will be the only one to get abilities from both sides."

The others stayed in the room and went over Nick's situation for a few more minutes before leaving so that he could sleep in peace. As soon as they were out of the room, Nick's eyes shot open.

'Finally, they are gone,' Nick thought to himself while lying in bed. He didn't move his body at all. His sister had enhanced senses so she would be able to hear him if he made any big movements.

Nick tried to recall what happened the previous night but there was something that blocked him. He knew what happened but the details were vague. As if he had gone through his daily routine so many times that the process on certain days became impossible to recall since it was all during auto-pilot.

He then tried to recall every memory with his former teammates but they were all blurry. He could recall the feelings of each of those memories but the exact images and sounds from them were foreign. They were blurs.

Nick let out a comforted sigh when he realized this.

'Good. It worked. I don't need those nightmares my entire life.'