Hi guys! Sorry for a very long delay with this chapter. I've reached a point in my writing where I've reached as far as my initial plan for the first part of the story got to, and need to connect it to what I have planned for the rest.

Thank you to Vabthehobbit for your comment on the latest chapter! As always, comments are very much appreciated.

Chapter 16

Cooler watched as Hana skidded to a halt as she sprinted down the corridors. Being not too far behind her, he watched as she paused at an intersection for just a moment before pivoting on her toes and sprinting off to the right. He hadn't ever seen her tracking Ki in quite this way before, and it was amazing to witness just how precise it seemed to be. He cast his mind back to when he had first met Hana, when she had shoulder barged him from behind while he was chasing after her comrade. He hadn't known she was even there until the moment she made contact with him. As he watched her, in this moment he wondered how long she had been tracking his movements on and off the ship before she had revealed herself.

Nevertheless, if Zee was here, that meant that Freezer would have arrived as well, and the longer he could keep Hana away from his younger brother the better. "Slow down Hana," Cooler called from behind her, but she ignored him, maintaining her speed. Cooler watched as Hana pressed on skidding round a corner when she suddenly halted, panting softly and staring at something that Cooler himself couldn't yet see.

She paused for just a moment panting softly and just as Cooler rounded the corner next to her, her grey skinned friend seemed to spot her almost immediately, eyes widening in surprise. Without so much as a glance at the other figures around him Hana sprinted forward at full speed, Zee moving forward to meet her as the two collided in a solid embrace, two sets of large arms circling tightly around her small frame. Tears rolled down Hana's cheek softly as she tightened her hold on Zee. Cooler felt a pang of something unfamiliar in his chest as he watched the interaction and moved closer behind her from the other end of the corridor, lingering for a moment before his eyes quickly diverted away from the pair and onto the last being he wished to see today: his brother.

Hana appeared to be blissfully unaware, too wrapped up in the reunion with her friend to notice that Frieza was already watching her closely, a calculating and malicious glint of amusement in his eyes before he turned his attention back to Cooler, the all too familiar gleam remaining. For someone with such keen senses, Hana clearly still had a lot to learn about using those senses and paying attention to what was going on around her.

"I see that you've made absolutely no progress with training the brat on how to behave properly," Frieza sneered, throwing another look at Hana as Cooler moved closer, "perhaps if you spent less time spent in the healing tanks and more time disciplining your ward, she would know how to behave around her superiors."

Both Hana and Zee broke off their embrace to look to Frieza, their expressions were worlds apart. Fear spread across Zee's face like a wave, even provoking him to take a half step back as he stood nervously to attention, avoiding direct eye contact with Frieza and keeping his gaze fixed firmly to the ground. Hana on the other hand wore a glower that Cooler had been on the receiving end of plenty of times himself and could do nothing but hope that Frieza wouldn't notice. Although he knew that would be wishful thinking.

Clearly both noticing and appearing almost amused by the expression she threw his way Frieza continued to speak as he leaned lazily back in his hoverchair. "I mean, it's bad enough that our hard-earned taxes were stolen from right under your nose, but you fail to recover both the culprits and failed to apprehend dear Laverna? Honestly brother, is having the brat around really that distracting for you?" he turned his cold eyes back towards Hana "perhaps I should take her off your hands for you and discipline her properly." To Cooler's dismay, although not at all surprising Hana couldn't help but open her mouth and bite back, pointing a finger accusingly at Frieza as she did so.

"Fuck you! Here's a better idea: Why don't you take that shitty attitude of yours, and go fu-" she was immediately cut off when a large, chubby hand grabbed her by scruff of the neck and shoved her body backwards, clearly taking her by surprise and slamming her hard into the wall to her left.

The huge, hulking figure of General Dodoria held her firmly in place, as Cooler watched Hana try desperately to escape his grasp. Grabbing onto his large, spiked forearm with both of her hands and attempting to pull and pry him off her. Cooler didn't need to watch to know that she wasn't going anywhere. As strong as Hana was, Dodoria was by far one of the most physically powerful and capable soldiers in the entire Cold army. In a battle of brute force, Hana stood absolutely no chance against him.

"You will learn to respect Lord Frieza you little twerp or I'll crush you like a bug!" Dodoria yelled directly into Hana's face, a small amount of spittle landing on her cheek, making her jaw clench tighter as her eyes narrowed dangerously at him.

"Not without a fucking fight you won't you fucking bag of shit!" tightening her grip on Dodoria's large forearm Hana changed her stance as best she could while he still had a tight hold of her. Planting her feet firmly on the ground she continued to pull, her anger and frustration building. As it did, air and dust quickly begun to whip up around them. Starting slowly for a moment, but quickly intensifying into a strong gust that rushed past the pair in a circular motion. If her Ki had been detectable via a scouter, no doubt those wearing one would have seen the numbers rising rapidly as a glow begun to form around Hana's knuckles, slowly engulfing the immediate area of Dodoria's forearm. Dodoria grit his teeth, a confused look spreading across his face as the glow slowly started to intensify and he continued to pin Hana to the wall.

Frieza continued to watch, an amused curiosity spreading across his face as Cooler quickly realised that things would quickly get out of control if he didn't intervene. "Enough!" Cooler yelled firmly, grabbing Hana's arm with one hand and pushing Dodoria away with the other, who begrudgingly obliged without protest.

As the pair separated a disappointed look spread across Frieza's face, quickly turning into a pout. "Always spoiling the fun, brother" Frieza chided coldly as Dodoria stepped closer to his master, rubbing his unmarked forearm, as he threw a slightly bewildered look at Hana.

"Hana and I have other matters to attend to" Cooler snapped, his hand still gripping onto Hana's arm as he started to pull her way. Briefly catching sight of Zee's expression towards him; an expression of intense dislike, firmly overshadowing the fear that had previously been there a few moments ago.

As Cooler and Hana walked away down the corridor, neither noticed Zarbon step forward and mutter something quietly to Frieza, who narrowed his eyes and pushed a button on the side of his scouter, a thoughtful expression crossed his features as he watched the numbers that appeared on the screen.

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"What did I tell you!?" Cooler hissed as he continued to drag Hana down the corridor, "I'll do what I can to protect you Hana, but if you start picking fights with Frieza and his generals you're going to get yourself killed" realising that she hadn't answered, he turned to look at her only to see her staring at her hand, a strange look across her face.

"I feel strange" she commented, seemingly having ignored everything Cooler had said to her. A tingling sensation that had started at her fingers have quickly engulfed her entire body. It wasn't unpleasant per se, but it was certainly peculiar.

"What do you mean you feel strange?" he sighed, letting go of her arm and turning to face her and Hana continued to turn her hand over in front of her eyes.

"I don't know…" she dropped her hand to her side and looked up at him, her expression giving the impression she was trying to remember something important. "Just… strange."

Cooler wasn't sure if she was simply trying for some kind of diversion to change the subject, although it would be very unlike Hana to do so. They had a few hours to kill before they were expected to be present for the dinner his father had insisted they attend. Frieza would be there, and Cooler couldn't think of anything worse than having to sit at a table between his and Hana. Especially if his father would be there as well. Frieza was always worse in the presence of their father.

"Come on," Cooler sighed as he gestured for Hana to follow him, "we have some time to train before our audience with my father tonight,"

"Should you be training already?" Hana cut in, turning to gaze up at him. Genuine concern written across her face. She wasn't wrong, he hadn't been long out of the healing tank, but the presence of Frieza on board had thrown him off and he desperately needed to clear his head.

"I'll be fine," he assured her as he ushered her further down the corridor and toward the communal training room.

Hana knew that seeing his brother had thrown Cooler off, but that didn't do anything to curb her own distraction. As much as she had been relieved to finally see Zee, she couldn't get their meeting out of her head. When she'd hugged him, something had felt different. He'd obviously been training, and it felt like he had more dense muscle on him than he had before, but that wasn't it. Something had been off with him. Something wasn't quite right.

She hadn't missed the way he'd looked at Cooler as he'd pulled her away and had the feeling that it had little to do with their interactions back on her home world. This was something else, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Her thoughts were cut short when she realised that they had arrived at their destination and entered the training room behind Cooler.

This was by far the largest training area she'd ever seen, filled with all kinds of beings, all working and training to become stronger. Most of them wore a similar armour to those she had seen on Coolers ships, although the colour scheme was black and white. Hana noticed that a large number of the soldiers wore blue, signifying that they must be Frieza's men. Her gaze flitted around and finally rested on a particular group of soldiers, who seemed to be staying somewhat separate from the rest. All in blue armour, all with black hair, and all with what appeared to be tails wrapped around their waists. No doubt about it, they were Saiyans.

Hana couldn't help but feel a spike of hatred shoot through her as she saw the Saiyans. Whilst she'd never actually met one in person, there was a hatred for them that ran deep back on her home world, borne from the Saiyans being the main force used to invade and take over the planet, adding it to the Cold collection. The invasion had mainly took place in the years before Hana was born, and yet the hatred for the race had long remained in The Dead City. Pulling herself away from her somewhat irrational emotions Hana turned to see Cooler stretching as he walked towards an unoccupied side of the room. A few nearby being scurried away to give the pair more space.

Following behind him, Hana couldn't help but feel slightly nervous. She'd only ever trained in private, first with Zee and more recently with Cooler. As she could feel several sets of eyes upon her, she was all too aware that they had an audience. As if knowing her inner thoughts Cooler turned toward her, both of his arms stretched high above his head. "We're just going to stick with the basics today. Just some simple sparing. You haven't got anything to prove to anyone in here" he glanced over her shoulder to where she knew the Saiyans were.

"Of course". From what little Hana knew of the Saiyans they placed value only on those they deemed to be physically strong. Anyone deemed to be weak was less then to them. No doubt word of her and Zee will have made it's way through the Cold Army, so it would be no surprise for the Saiyans in particular to be curious of how good fighting abilities actually were.

Wasting no time, Hana darted forward the second Cooler indicated he was ready. She hadn't stretched, but she didn't need to as he dodged the first blow she threw at him with her fist. She quickly adjusted, planting her feet and bending her knees before she shot upwards from right underneath him. This one landed with a fierce impact of her knee straight into his gut.

That strange tingling feeling that had appeared when she'd grabbed Dordoria was still present, but if anything it made her feel stronger, more powerful than ever before. She had no idea what had happened, but whatever it was she felt like her Ki reserves had benefited a boost because of it. Perhaps too much so. She felt like she had so much that she needed to burn off this new, excess energy.

Throwing herself backwards Hana gathered a ball of Ki in her hand and threw it at Cooler, who barely dodged it, the blast shooting past his shoulder and exploding into a small scorch mark on the wall behind him. Either she was on point today or he was still a little slow from being in the healing tank, but she found that she didn't care either way. The urge to fight and burn off the excess energy she suddenly had was strong, and she just couldn't resist it.

Launching forward Hana felt warmth spread through her fingertips as she ignited Ki around her fists. Lifting a burning fist above her head she caught a glimpse of Coolers expression as she slammed her hand down towards him. He seemed… pleased? Proud? He caught her forearm and spun her round, planting his foot into her chest and sending her flying towards the floor where she barely had time to right herself before she landed on her hands and feet. Gazing up at the purple being Hana smirked at him before she flew back toward him, fists igniting again as the pair continued their now rather intense sparing match.

Unbeknownst to both of them they weren't just being watched by the beings still lingering in the training area. Zarbon soon alone in the viewing deck, knowing that neither could see him and watched carefully as the two exchanged a barrage of kicks and punches, with Hana throwing in the occasional Ki blast at Cooler.

Raising his left hand Zarbon pressed a button on the side of the scouter he wore, narrowing his eyes as he tracked Hana's movement through it. Numbers scrolled on the tiny screen in front of his eye, until she fired a particularly large blast at Cooler, and the numbers disappeared, showing only Cooler's.

"Interesting..." Zarbon mumbled to himself as he turned on his heel and strode away to share is findings with Lord Frieza.

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