Hi guys! Sorry for a long wait for this one, I've been hugely busy and struggled to find time to get this chapter finished off.

Thanks to Varjotin and SuperSaiyajin4Vegeta and for reviewing the previous chapter. I'll not delay any further, and I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 14

Hana was hugely relived to find herself alone when she woke early the next morning. Disoriented and groggy, the coldness of the room was reminiscent of her old home as she stretched her arms upward, hearing a familiar crack and pop in her back. Despite having slept fully clothed, she was still absolutely freezing.

Rubbing her eyes, she didn't feel well rested at all, and had spent much of the night drifting in and out between consciousness and sleep. If she hadn't been thinking about Zee, and various aspects of their past, she had been thinking about how utterly bizarre it was to be sharing a mattress with the eldest Cold sibling. True to his word, he had stayed well and truly on his side, his back turned to her the entire night while she tossed and turned, desperately seeking sleep. She had no idea if she'd kept him awake or not, but by the fact he hadn't moved a muscle she assumed she hadn't disturbed him too much.

Making her way through the gap in the top of the door Hana walked slowly towards the front of the ship, shivering as an icy gust of wind blew through her hair, chilling her face. She arrived at the front of the ship to find Cooler already there. He had seemingly managed to get some of the electrical components of the ship up and running but if the lack of any noise was anything to go by the engines were still shot.

"I've managed to send out a distress signal," Cooler said without turning around, "hopefully my father received it and is sending a vessel to pick us up. I've also been down… up, to the cells... Granite isn't in a good way. I've had to put him in the cryo-pod, but without a functioning healing chamber on board I'm not sure how well he'll do. There's a chance he won't survive the journey back. Assuming we get rescued in good time"

In all of the chaos, Hana had all but forgotten that they even had the rock creature on-board. She probably should have gone to check on him after dealing with Cooler. At least Cooler had remembered… "Oh," she said blankly, "that's a shame?"

"It's a problem" Cooler corrected as he turned to face her. "If there is one thing that's important to my father, it's 'setting an example' of those who oppose him in any way. He can't do that if both of them are already dead."

"Surely dying in a ship crash is as good an example to set as any?" Hana questioned. There's no way it would make a huge difference. Dead is dead, no matter how he got there. Cooler didn't seem to agree with her statement judging by the grimace he made.

"I highly doubt my father will see it that way." Cooler stated coldly.

"Why do I get the impression that you don't always see eye to eye with Cold?" Hana questioned, raising an eyebrow and leaning against a nearby wall with her arms folded. Cooler glanced at her, clearly mulling over what to tell her before he sat down on a pile of debris.

"You could say that." he started carefully, "Personally I find my father's methods to be... a little extreme at times."

Hana cocked her head to the side as she moved a little closer, sitting herself down across from Cooler on the floor, leaning her back into the wall behind her as she hugged her arms around herself to keep warm.

"And here I thought you were all just cold-hearted bastards" Hana said sarcastically, throwing a glare at the open window as another gust blew its way through. Cooler chucked at her comment and apparent anger at the weather and continued.

"Heh, my father would probably be pleased to hear you say that. It is the reputation he has strived for our family to have for years. He'd be thrilled to hear his endeavour has been successful"

"So does that mean that your brother is like you? Does his villainous reputation make him sound like something he isn't?"

Shaking his head Cooler played ideally with a piece of debris on his hands, a sharp shard of metal, most likely from the outer protection of the ship, that he threw back and forth between his hands as if it were a blade.

"No. If anything Frieza is far worse than the reputation you'll know," he took on a serious expression and glanced back up to Hana, "you need to be very wary of him Hana, his cruel, sadist nature aside, he can't be trusted. He'll say and do whatever he needs to get what he wants."

Hana nodded slowly, surprised to hear Cooler tell her that his own flesh and blood couldn't be trusted. Or tell her anything about his family at all for that matter. She briefly wondered if there was a story behind the words. Had Frieza betrayed Cooler in the past? Or was he just going off common knowledge.

"What about you?" Cooler asked switching the subject before Hana could even think to press any further, "so, do you have any family back on C23?"

Stiffening when he mentioned her home planet Hana pulled her knees close to her chest and turned her face away.

"No. My family were killed the night I met Zee.." fresh as of it had only happened that day, the memory of that night surged through her mind before she could stop it. She'd got so good at burying the memories away, it almost felt like they weren't even hers any more.

"I'm sorry" Cooler said after a brief pause, his voice softer, "that must have been hard for you, losing people that love you at such an age"

"It's…. Complicated. I don't really remember much of them. I loved my uncle, but my mother…. She was always terrified of me. She barely went near me. If it hadn't been for my uncle, she'd have probably got rid of me."

Cooler frowned slightly as he met her eyes. "Wouldn't go near you? What do you mean?"

"She…. I don't really know. All I can really remember is that she used to call me…" 'Half monster'. The words echoed in her mind but didn't leave her lips. Falling silent Hana shifted a hand up to sprawl across the lower portion of her face, hiding it from view as long buried memories slowly resurfaced.

"You don't have to talk about it," Cooler told her gently, stilling his hands as his face settled on a genuinely friendly expression.

"How did you end up working for the toad?" he asked, clearly changing the subject.

Feeling a surge of relief at Coolers intuitive nature Hana allowed herself a small smile. "It's a long story, but it was to settle a debt."

"How did you get into debt?"

"It wasn't my debt," Hana paused for a moment, once again thrown off by how friendly Cooler was being towards her. If she didn't know any better, she would guess that he was attempting to befriend her.

"After he rescued me I lived with Zee's family. His mother was… probably the nearest thing to a mother I've had, but his father had a drink problem. And a drug problem. And a gambling problem…"

"I see. So he got into debt with the toad? Gambling?"

"Someone else. It maybe wouldn't have been so bad if he'd got into debt with Bogart, he'd have at least maybe had the option to work it off on the workshop. Like your father I guess, Lobos liked to make an example out of those that didn't pay him. Long story short, Zee and I killed him when he killed Zee's family, and Bogart moved in on his territory. He approached both of us because he knew that we'd eliminated his competition and I guess he wanted to make sure we aligned with him before anyone else."

Cooler nodded slowly. "It sounds like C23 was a tough place to grow up"

Hana scoffed. 'Tough place' was putting it mildly, especially in the city. If you weren't caught in the crossfire of some kind of tuff war, the whole city was poverty stricken and breaking apart at the seams. There wasn't a single being in that city that didn't have to fight tooth and nail for everything they had.

"I suppose my family didn't help matters. My father had the Saiyan's take the planet over, probably not long before you were born. I can't imagine they left it in a great state..."

From what Hana knew, they hadn't. The Saiyan's were directly responsible for a lot of destruction in the cities and even the complete annihilation of some of the villages. Not that the planet had been in a great state before they arrived, but they certainly hadn't helped matters.

About to tell him exactly that, Hana paused as her head snapped up towards the ceiling, as if she could see something beyond it.

"Looks like your distress beacon worked, I think there's a rescue ship entering the atmosphere."

.-.

Page break

.-.

Hana couldn't help but notice Cooler was becoming more and more agitated as they neared the massive floating residence of King Cold. He wouldn't sit still, and every time she looked at him his tail was swishing back and forth. Ignoring him in favour of looking out of the large window Hana gazed up at the space station they were slowly approaching. It was the largest space station Hana had ever seen, and she briefly found herself wondering quite how many stations King Cold actually had. Probably far more than was necessary.

The vessel that had rescued them from the desolate planet they'd been stranded on landed smoothly in the sizeable landing bay and within only a few moments it was surrounded by various engineers and staff members to deal with the ship before the ramp had even started to drop.

Following Cooler down the ramp as a medical team rushed passed them to retire Granite, Hana glanced around as the pair passed thorough the large corridors before finally arriving at a large set of double doors. Hana couldn't help but think about how much had changed since they were last in this position, just before their previous audience with King Cold. Last time she'd detested Cooler more that she'd ever thought possible. If she'd had to put credits on it, she'd have said the feeling had very probably been mutual.

Now, as she glanced up at him cautiously, she realised quite how much that had changed. She would go further than simply saying that they'd learned to tolerate each other. In fact, she'd go as far as to see that they were slowly becoming friends. Sure, he still pissed her off sometimes, and she had no doubt that she got on his nerves as well, but they'd found a common ground that they both could stand on.

Turning his head to look down at her Cooler cracked a weary smile, "you ready?" he asked, to which Hana simply nodded in response. "Good. Try and stay quiet, let me do the talking." with that he pushed open the large doors and the pair stepped into the large room, centred around a large thrown that of course held the large, lounging figure of King Cold.

Suppressing the uneasy chill down her spine that seeing King Cold usually gave her, Hana kept pace beside Cooler, both coming to a halt a few feet ahead of the large throne that held King Cold, lounging around like a cat in the sun like he usually did. Chin rested on his palm Cold surveyed the two of them for a moment, his eyes travelling lazily from one to the other before he lifted his head and sat up straight.

"Only two of you... I thought I sent you on a retrieval mission, and yet you appear to have come back with no more numbers than you left with..." he leaned forwards in his throne, resting his elbow on his large thigh as he surveyed them coldly.

Cooler took a half step forward, moving a little to the right so that he was stood slightly in front of Hana. "Yes, father. When we caught up to Granite, we found that he had met up with Laverna. She proved a little difficult, but we apprehended Granite and-"

"And you apprehended Laverna?" Cold interrupted, his eyes narrowing as they focused on Cooler.

Hana glanced at Cooler as his body noticeably stiffened and his tail twitched, but he continued on, his tone unchanged.

"No... father. We didn't manage to capture Laverna, but we did apprehend Granite. Unfortunately, he was badly injured when the ship crashed and-"

"and for what reason," with a sweep of his cloak King Cold rose to his feet and stepped forward a couple of paces, "did you not manage to arrest Laverna?" his angry red eyes boring into Cooler as Hana rushed forwards a couple of steps, passing Cooler and moving before King Cold.

"I'm sorry King Cold, Cooler caught Granite, but it was me who fought Laverna. She caught me off guard and-" she didn't get the chance to explain any further when a massive hand slammed into the side of her face, sending her tumbling to the ground in a heap.

Raising herself up on shaky hands, Hana didn't have time to move an inch further when something large and heavy impacted into her side, sending her flying into the wall, leaving a large dent where she impacted before she came crashing to the ground. Placing a hand to her already bleeding lip Hana glanced up to see King Cold strolling slowly towards her, Cooler looking both shocked and horrified somewhere behind him.

"Failing to bring Granite in a fit enough state to stand trial is one thing," he reached down and grabbed Hana roughly by her hair, dragging her up before hurling her back towards Cooler, her knees and elbows colliding hard with the marble floor as she rolled and fell "but letting Laverna get away is very much another."

As King Cold stepped towards her, Hana felt a prickle of fear spread through her chest. Whilst she'd quickly established that King Cold wasn't the most reasonable being in the universe, she certainly hadn't expected this from him.

Rolling to the side to avoid the oversized fist that swung down from above, Hana managed to roll herself to her feet just in time to receive a hard kick directly into her chest. Flying backwards her back collided with the hard floor, knocking the air out of her and leaving her coughing and gasping for air. A split second later Cold had appeared above her, his red eyes blazing. He was fast, insanely so.

Raising her arms up to protect herself, Hana flinched as another blow came down towards her, only for it to never land. Peeking out from between her raised arms she saw Cooler stood above her, holding the wrist of King Cold.

"I was in charge of the mission, Laverna getting away was my fault, not Hana's." Coolers eye's were narrowed as his tail swished from left to right, his tone firm as his words hung in the air as a brief, but uncomfortable silence fell over them.

"You are correct my son," King Cold started, dropping his arm "it is your fault" in the blink of an eye Cooler was on the other side of the room, his back colliding so heavily with the wall that he didn't just dent it, his shoulders had partially embedded themselves into the metal wall. Cold had moved so quick Hana had barely seen it, but it was clear that the blow he'd just dealt to Cooler was far heavier than anything he'd thrown her way. Which was a rather terrifying revelation to have. He'd been pulling his punches, and she still wouldn't have stood a chance.

Switching back to a leisurely pace, Cold strode across the room towards Cooler, who hadn't moved from where he had impacted. His feet were on the ground, but his back and shoulders remained in contact with the wall. It was clear that it wasn't due to injury, he was just standing there and taking what Cold was throwing at him. For a split second it occurred to Hana that this was either a frequent occurrence or had at the very least happened before and Coolers non-responsive approach was an attempt to diffuse the situation.

It didn't take long for King Cold to reach Cooler, grabbing him tightly by his previously injured shoulder and pressing a thumb hard into the still unhealed wound, electing a small, almost completely concealed grunt of pain from Cooler, which was immediately stifled as Cold's massive fist landed hard into his abdomen.

Scrambling to her feet Hana darted forward, her face panicked, and her eyes fixated on Cooler and his father as she sprinted towards them both, determined to tear Cold from Cooler. As much as she didn't want to fight King Cold, and wasn't toally sure she was even strong enough to, it was clear that she may have to at this point.

Just as she got close to the pair, clenching her fists to ready herself, she was grabbed by a burly looking guard who bundled her up into the air, pinning her arms to her sides and dragging her backwards.

"Get the fuck off me!" she yelled, trying to kick, punch, head butt and do anything she could to free herself from her assailant. His grip was strong as he started to move backwards, hurling her towards the door and away from Cooler.

As she watched Cooler was thrown to the ground by Cold who immediately pinned him where he was and rained down a barrage of heave punches down onto his face.

"Cooler!" Hana screamed as she elbowed the burley guard in the face, freeing herself from him and darting forward. The victory was short lived when another soldier tackled her to the ground, just in time for the previous one to catch up to them.

"Take her to the guest quarters, and make sure she stays there" Cold snapped at the two over his shoulder, barely pausing as he continued to rain hit after hit down onto his son.

As the pair began dragging Hana out of the room, literally kicking and screaming she heard Cooler shout over to her "For Kami sake Hana! Just go with them!" Feeling her body freeze at his words Hana looked on helplessly as Cold continued his assault on Cooler.

As she was dragged out through the large double doors her tear-filled eyes met with Coolers for the briefest of moments before the doors swung shut.