Hi guys! After a late night of writing, I've managed to get Chapter 7 up on time!
Thank you again to PrincessShotgun and Varjotin for your reviews – you are both 100% right, and as we've learned so far, doing as she's told is perhaps not within Hana's skillset!
Anyway, I shall not keep you, lets get on with the chapter :)
Beings of all shapes and sizes parted quickly as Cooler stormed through the vast corridors of his ship, a fierce glare plastered over his face. He was sure his father had assigned the brat to him purely to inconvenience him. He probably found it hugely amusing.
Why else would he have been ordered to look after her? Her 'focused training' could be done by literally anyone. Her attitude so far had made it abundantly clear that she was going to be nothing but a pain to deal with, and yet, he didn't have much of an option, not when it came to his fathers orders.
Perhaps he could send her to the front lines so he didn't have to deal with her, but he knew all too well there would be repercussions from his father, plus no doubt she'd still find some way to be a pain. He'd just have to find some way to deal with her. Maybe if he put up minimal fuss and took the amusement away his father would eventually take her on? If she was as strong as his father seemed to think she might be, he would no doubt want her as part of his own forces soon enough.
His wandering was brought to a rather abrupt stop when the wall just in front and towards his left exploded with a crash, the metal shredding to pieces as it was blasted apart followed almost immediately by the wall directly opposite, towards his right. Debris littered the corridor in front of him as a cloud of dust clouded the air.
He froze, stunned for a moment before leaning forward and peering through the hole to his right, to see that a large being with stone like skin had smashed into one of the mess hall benches and was laying upside down, head on the floor and body on the remains of the table, a dazed look of shock plastered over his face.
"What the-" he didn't have time to finish his sentence as he leapt backwards, avoiding a second body that flew past him to collide hard with the first one, winding both and sending them tumbling to the ground in a heap.
For a moment Cooler stood there, mouth agape, as his brain tried to process what exactly he had just witnessed when a familiar silver haired figure emerged from the rubble to his left. She hadn't noticed his presence yet and was glowering at the two semi-conscious figures in the canteen.
"What am I gonna do about it?! I'll fucking show you what I'm gonna do about it!" She screamed, storming forward before her step faltered and she paused, turning her head slowly to face him, an almost sheepish look of surprise on her face. He could have sworn he even heard her mumble the words "oh shit" under her breath.
"YOU?!" He bellowed, absolutely fuming. First he's forced to babysit her, and now, before she's been here so much as 24 hours she's fighting the crew and blowing holes in his ship!
"WHAT are you doing?!" He yelled at her seeing her jump slightly when a further section of wall collapsed behind her, producing yet another plume of dust to billow into the air behind her.
"What am I doing?! They started it!" She yelled, pointing accusingly at the two soldiers, who were still stacked haphazardly one on top of the other.
Never in all his years had he ever had anyone have the gall to so much as look him in the eye when he was angered, and here this girl was back chatting him. He glanced down at her slender frame and felt even more anger bubble up within him when he observed her clothing. She was wearing the purple bodysuit she had been provided, but had swapped out the boots for what appeared to be her own, and had seemingly disregarded everything else entirely.
"And what are you wearing!?" he yelled, gesturing a hand up and down her body in dismay.
He could tell by her expression that she knew she was in trouble, but as she stood straight, arms crossed across her chest and a frown plastered firmly over her face, it was clear she was going to be stubborn regardless.
"Oh come on," she retorted angrily "what I wear is hardly the end of the world. Besides.. I'm wearing most of it"
"I didn't tell you to wear most of it! I told you to wear all of it!" he yelled at her in dismay.
"Actually... you weren't quite that specific" she retorted, lifting a hand to seemingly inspect her fingernails, "besides, why does it fucking matter anyway."
Cooler was rather aware that their argument had started to draw the attention of many passers by. Beings were lingering in the corridors to listen in, and a few were even peeking their heads round the doorway that led to the cafeteria. Her insubordination was one thing, but it was another when she did it in front of his other underlings. He needed to get this... situation, whatever it was, under control.
"It matters, Hana, because whether you like it or not, you are working for me. And when you are working for me, you will do as I say," he hissed crossing his own arms as they stood at a stand off with each other.
The stone figure that had been blasted through the wall first had stirred, knocking his comrade off of him and he moved slowly to his knees, mumbling obscenities under his breath, presumably about the silver haired nightmare in the hallway.
Cooler watched as Hana snapped her head to the side to face him, anger creeping back over her face again as she begun to storm forward towards him. Moving quickly, Cooler cleared the gap between them and blocked her path through what had once been the cafeteria wall. Hana made to duck past him, but predicting her move Cooler grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and thrust her backwards into an intact sections of wall opposite.
"Would it kill you to not get into trouble or start fights for one day!?" Cooler yelled at her, watching as a further glare to crossed her features. He wondered briefly if she was even capable of displaying any other emotions besides anger at this point.
"Me? I already told you! They started it!" she pointed accusingly towards the stone being and his red skinned comrade, the latter of which was still very much down for the count.
"I don't care who started it! I told you to stay out of trouble!" Cooler yelled back at her.
"I did! Until they" she pointed furiously behind Cooler "started it!"
This was insane. He'd predicated she'd be a handful, and a pain, but never had he imagined he'd be bickering with her in the middle of a half destroyed corridor over who did or did not start something. Why couldn't his father have taken her, and he have the other one? The four armed being seemed far more... placid than she was.
"Hana, I don't care if they started it" he stated, disbelieving her accusation as he began to walk forwards until he was stood directly in front of her "you can't go round just picking fights for no reason and blowing holes in.."
WHACK
Cooler stumbled half a step back, more from the shock than from the blow itself, putting his hand to his stinging cheek in surprise. Did she just... slap him!? The beings that had previously been hovering made various sounds of surprise, before the majority of them scarped, clearly wanting to get as far away from the bickering pair as possible.
"You can't just blame me because you are pissed off at Cold! I don't want t be here either you know!" she yelled at him, pointing an accusing finger directly at his chest before she draw her hand back to hit him again.
Seeing her slap coming this time Cooler managed to catch her small wrist in his hand and swung her round to smash her into the wall opposite. Whatever pecking order she thought she was in as far as strength was concerned there was one thing he knew for certain; he was physically stronger than her. Not allowing a recovery he swung his other fist in a hard blow to her jaw sending her tumbling to the ground.
Turning to face him from the floor, she had a hand pressed over her now bleeding lip as she watched him intensely. Something about the way she looked at him seemed different to their previous iterations. It was as if she was focusing intently on something specific, but whatever it was, it seemed to require some level of concentration from her.
Raising steadily to her feet she wiped her bleeding lip with the back of her hand and launched herself forward. Cooler countered with another blow towards her face which she dodged, almost ahead of time, launching herself backwards just before he had the chance to strike with his knee before she sprang back at him again.
His experience seemed to be helping him keep ahead of her from a defensive standpoint, but he found himself struggling to land even a single blow on her. It was as if she knew what he was going to do just before he actually did it. Whatever she was doing, judging by her face it was taking a huge amount of concentration for her. He couldn't help but wonder how long she could actually sustain it for. Whatever it was she was doing.
Cooler found himself recalling a discussion with her toad of a boss when they were working out how best to apprehend her. The toad had mentioned something about her Ki detection being particularly sharp, but that she could be overwhelmed if she had too much to focus on all at once. It was exactly why they had stationed various troops around the city, instructed only to power up, but do nothing else. With only him as an opponent, that must be what she was doing, and with no distractions it pained him to admit she wasn't doing badly.
Flaring his Ki Cooler upped the intensity of his attacks. Creating space between the two of them he sent a blast her way, which she blocked with crossed arms. Knowing better than to allow her any breathing room to compose herself he sent another blast her way, following closely behind it and landing a kick to her side, knocking her hard into the wall alongside her.
Seemingly unperturbed Hana launched herself forwards again, only for Cooler to side step her and allow her to overshoot, but before she could go so far as to even stumble he had grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the wall opposite, denting heavily into the metal, her feet off the ground as he held her in place. Lifting her knees upwards, she kicked him straight in the chest with both feet moving him backwards and away as she landed gracefully on the floor.
Taking a step forward she paused in her step as her head suddenly snapped to the side, her attention diverted as the stone skinned being rose slowly to his feet in the cafeteria. Sizing the opportunity Cooler blasted at her chest, which she was slightly too slow to dodge, re-opening the still raw wound across her shoulder and upper chest. A small yelp escaped her as Hana very obviously tried to hold in a scream, but before she could even move her hand to the injury Cooler was at her with a heavy blow to her jaw, followed immediately with a harsh kick to her chest making her collapse to the ground.
Sitting on her knees, with her hands on the floor to steady herself Hana coughed roughly, small flecks of blood hitting the floor below her. She moved as if to raise back to her feet but collapsed back, gasping for breath as she wrapped an arm around her ribcage, gritting her teeth. As much as he was sure she'd still try, she was far to injured to continue. Having not properly recovered from their previous fight, she'd been on the back foot right from the start. Still, Cooler couldn't help but admire her determination, even if it was absolutely infuriating.
Now that the pair had stopped fighting, the beings that had seemingly vacated the area appeared to be present again, making it obvious that they had simply been waiting around corners or hiding in the cafeteria, wanting to see how things played out. They all hovered around awkwardly, aware that they probably shouldn't still be here, but also clearly not wanting to leave just yet.
"I need a volunteer to take this one to the medical wing" Cooler growled as he knocked Hana's foot with his own, catching her throw her standard glare towards him.
"We'll take her" a snarling voice sounded behind him causing Cooler to turn slightly. It was the stone skinned creature and his red skinned comrade, and both were throwing disingenuous looks at Hana gazed up at them, her expression hard and suborn but with an underlying concern hidden within her features. Cooler glanced back towards her, briefly making eye contact before sighing.
"Forget it. Back to your duties, all of you" he waved his hand as if to shoo everyone away, briefly catching the surprised expression on Hana's face. He glanced around the beings who still littered the corridors, "other than you," he turned towards the large hole in the wall to face a feline like creature who had emerged from somewhere within the changing rooms, where Hana had originally come from. Her skin was coated in short pale grey fur, with stripes of darker grey, giving her typical tabby like features.
"You, come with me" he ordered the feline as he grasped Hana by the wrist and pulled her up off the ground, ignoring her protest and slinging her over his shoulder. The feline looked petrified, but didn't say anything as she dutifully followed behind Cooler.
"What is your name?" he asked the feline after a while of walking, noticing that she walked a half pace behind him, unlike Hana who had previously walked along side him. She was far more consistent with how the rest of the crew usually behaved.
"Sheena" the feline answered nervously, her head down and her pointed ears slightly back.
"and what do you do on the ship Sheena?" Cooler asked, trying to keep his voice as level as possible so as not to panic her further. Having his underlings fear him certainly worked in terms of ensuring their compliance, but it was incredibly draining. Everyone on his ship simply told him what they thought he wanted to hear.
"I-I work in the medical wing." she answered nervously, as if she was worried that she was in some kind of trouble.
They walked in silence for a little while before Cooler shook his head in dismay. "I knew she was going to be hard work, but I didn't imagine she'd be starting fights on her first day" he sighed as he adjusted his grip on Hana when he heard her grumble something back at him.
Sheena glanced at Hana, looking as if she wanted to say something, but stopped herself, causing Cooler to turn his head to look at her.
"You can speak freely," he assured her, waving his spare hand casually in reassurance.
"W-well Sir, she... she didn't really start it." she played with the end of her tail with her fingers nervously, "she was defending me" she immediately dropped her head, as if she were a scolded child in trouble.
"Defending you? From what?" Cooler asked glancing towards her, although she wouldn't meet his gaze.
"Well... I'm usually a field medic and I was stocking one of the ships with medical supplies, and I saw them stealing from one of the tax collection ships. I tried to sneak away, but they saw me, so I ran. When she saw us, she followed us." she looked back towards Hana, her expression one of gratitude.
"I ran past loads of troops, they all saw me, but none of them did anything. Then when I tried to hide and those two found me, but then she was suddenly there. She saved me"
Cooler mulled over her words for a moment. The tax collection ships brought currency and various items of value in from planets under the control of the Planet Trade Organisation. Stealing from one of them was a serious crime, and would have to be addressed. No wonder those two had tried to silence the feline. He would have to remember to follow up on what she had told him. His father would certainly not be happy that his profits were being robbed from.
It wasn't long before the three of them arrived in the medical wing, to the great surprise of Dr. Jaeger who gave Sheena a confused look before then turning to look at Hana as Cooler dropped her onto one of the small beds.
Dr. Jaeger tutted as he looked over Hana's injuries, giving her a stern look as he pointed to the split skin on her shoulder "What did I tell you about letting this heal?" he scolded before turning back to Cooler. "She'll need a dressing on her shoulder, without a tank she'll need a little more time to recover, and we may need to-"
"No, just put her in the healing tank."
"My Lord? I thought you said before not to use the tank?"
"I did. But if she's in the tank she'll heal faster. And she can't get herself into any more trouble" he ignored the grumpy look she threw at him as she mumbled something under her breath.
Not hanging around Cooler left as Dr. Jaeger and Sheena fussed about preparing Hana to go into the healing pod. She would apparently be out in a few days, which at the very least meant he could have a little bit of a break before she got herself into trouble again. Although, from what Sheena had said to him, she had only been defending someone who had little chance to defend themselves.
He allowed a small smile to lift the corner of his lip as he made his way towards the control room. She was still a massive pain, but perhaps he'd judged her character too quickly.
Yes, another Author note, but I didn't want to put this before the chapter. You'll have noticed that I switched POV for this one, which was only because it made far more sense for this particular chapter, but let me know if its something you would like in the future, or if you would prefer just the POV of Hana.