King Cold had been able to pinpoint the planet they now occupied as Drenasha, a frozen and wild world with no sentient life to be spoken of. Ergo the only way off the backwater world was the female's portals, which she did not seem inclined to open. Indeed the dragoness still slumbered in the tree, her damp hair gathering ice-crystals as it froze into some semblance of dry.
The others lounged around in similar states, the two Ginyu Soldiers kept one another warm while the two 'royals' conferred amidst one another. The 'perfect' Cell was leaned up against one of the trees Burter and Recoome had failed to set aflame. The bark was scorched, blackened and dead, just the way he liked it.
Cell was thrown from his meditative state as a strange Kai began to build, he remembered this energy from somewhere before, but he couldn't place where. It wasn't exactly powerful, or even threatening, merely familiar, and out of place. A loud thud alerted him to the awakening of the female, and he laughed inwardly as she picked herself up from the snow.
Fell out of her tree? How quaint. Cell smirked to himself, keeping his demeanor cold and unreadable as his eyes followed the obviously tense wish-granter. Her wings were open half-way, as if she were going to launch herself into the sky at any moment, the scales adorning the muscles near her back rose like hackles and her tail quivered in anxiety. Her state spoke of escape, which was what caught Cell's attention. Is she planning on trying to make a break for freedom? At this thought his good humor vanished and a suspicious frown crawled over his features. A slight squeak sounded as he turned to face the female.
Ices jumped slightly at the sudden sound of the android's movements but remained stationary as she tried to pinpoint the exact location her portal was going to be forced open. Her frozen hair dangled limply in her face as she closed her eyes in concentration, but she was unable to sense anything past the mild surprise and irritation her males fed her through their connection.
Not for the first time she cursed herself for agreeing to grant their insufferable wish.
"What're you doin'?" Slurred Recoom whom had been awakened by the loud thump. Her eyes snapped open as she regarded the giant. His scalp was still burned and bare as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. No doubt these pups would rush into a fight should her pursuer appear, and with the power a few of these males possessed she supposed it was quite possible they would defeat the enemy with ease. The real question was; was she willing to risk being captured before her males could react to the threat? The short answer was no.
"We must leave." The female tried to keep the emotion from her voice, but still it came out as strained and almost panicked, "we must leave immediately."
"And for what reason would this be?" Cell inquired as he arched a non-existent eyebrow. He had already put two and two together and guessed that something was coming through the 'Rift' after them. Ices glanced at the android as he spoke and tried to put up a brave front, but could not keep the fear from coloring her irises. He knew that look; it was the gaze of one who knew their hunter grew closer with each passing moment. Cell was strangely curious; she was afraid of this strange and pathetically weak energy, and yet not of him? A cold feeling settled in his chest and it took him a few moments, but he finally recognized it.
Jealousy.
Why he was jealous of this off-beat energy which terrified the creature before him was something even his intellect could not fathom. Was it because he wanted her attention, unconscious or not focused upon himself? Surely that could not be it. Perhaps because it was he and not this precariously pulsing energy who deserved terror. That was it, it must be. He was perfect, after all.
"I beseech you not to argue this time," explained the female as she gathered up her own energies and opened a rift. "If you still wish to accompany my wanderings you must step through now." Ices prepared to do just that when a powerful hand caught her around the wrist. Cell imposed himself between the fleeing creature and her escape.
"What is it that you flee?" His mind swelled with rage. She would take flight from an anonymous presence, and yet not from him? All the perfection of the universe? He, who could crush her bone with a mere twitch of his fingers was not worthy of her fear? A feral growl sounded from the throat of the wish-granter and her wings flared with outrage.
"I shall explain my motives later, we must leave now!" The hard resolve in her voice did absolutely nothing to quell his irrational jealousy at not being feared. How dare she not have a tremor to her voice while addressing him! How dare she even stand up to him, and how dare she attempt to run from anything but him. His grip tightened painfully around the creature's wrist, while he was careful not to break her surprisingly fragile bones he made damn sure he left one hell of a bruise. The wince of pain on her face calmed his irrational emotions a bit, perhaps now she would come to her senses and figure out that he was the only thing she should be afraid of.
"You are to explain them this instance." He wanted to know what terrified this female so much that she would put it before himself.
"You don't unders-" She cut herself off as her eyes widened and a trickle of blood found its way from the corner of her mouth. His raging mind quieted further at this and he gazed down at her curiously. A device of some sort was protruding from her abdomen it bore a striking resemblance to a grappling hook… all at once he felt a tug, and his gaze floated to behind the wish-granter, where a long string connected to a device being held by a strange man dressed in loose-fitting, brightly colored, clothing.
Cell recognized the clothing as something similar to what the victims he had taken directly after meeting Ices the first time had worn.
"Yeah! We got the bitch this time!" In all his excitement, the human-like alien didn't notice the five villains glaring daggers at him, so it was no surprise that he hardly noticed when he died. Then again, one really can't notice anything…when one is a steamy pile of ashes.
Once the man had been dealt with, Frieza lowered his hand and glared at the other two brightly dressed men whom now cowered behind a living tree. The both of them along with their entire half of the forest were blown to smithereens by Cell himself whose face portrayed raw outrage. His attention was again arrested by a slow, sarcastic, clapping that sounded from where he had left the female who now sunk on her knees with her wings and arms keeping her from falling upon the crimson drips in the snow.
"Very well done." He congratulated. As if reading the murderous intent in the air as easily as one reads a book the strange man seized Ices' icy lochs and held a sharp scimitar to her throat. "Making an attempt on my life would be most…unwise." The female, even lethargic as she was from her prolonged exposure to extreme cold, managed to revive herself slightly.
"Cowards…" She hissed. The trickle of blood at her mouth had been wiped away, and had not reappeared.
"Quiet, you." Smirked the brightly dressed, dark haired man with chestnut eyes. "Its not as if we've even so much as –injured," at this point he pressed a button and the prongs of the grappling hook rushed back inside itself. He yanked it from her body and freed a river of blood, "you…much" He finished as he tossed the hook aside. He kept his eyes glued to the simmering villains as the female growled deep in her throat, but remained otherwise silent. It was obvious that while she could endure extreme heat she could not hold her own with the cold.
"No matter. It would seem a new portal lies open for me to take my leave with my new prize." He grinned from ear-to-ear, once he had imprisoned her she would make him a fortune fulfilling every wish brought to her by those on his planet. The dragoness could hear what was being said, but could not react to her environment as brumation set in and all non-vital organ functions began to slow.
Cell had had quite enough watching someone other than himself torture the near-comatose dragoness, what was the point of dragging out the death of a creature that could not even scream for mercy? The man's unrefined technique bored him to no end, and it had been quite awhile since he himself had indulged in mortal torment.
With his enhanced powers it was easy enough for the android to materialize behind the man and plant his elbow into his teeth with just enough force to shatter them, but to leave his skull intact. Immediate pleasure spread through the sadistic construct at the sound of crunching teeth. The surprised gurgle that followed was a nice after bonus as the man fell into the snow, now sporting a bloody mangled mess in place of a mouth.
"You really ought to learn manners." Cell stated in a bored tone as he planted his foot over the stranger's face and ground him none-too-gently into the snow. "Haven't you been taught not to take things that don't belong to you?" The android stomped on the not-human's left arm and shattered every bone up to the shoulder, and the screams of his agony was a symphony to Cell as they ricocheted from the snowy peaks surrounding them in the forested valley.
The intruder began to beg in an indecipherable language, seeing as his teeth and part of his tongue were now missing.
"What's that?" Cell queried as if asking about the weather, "you really need to speak up!" He accentuated his statement with a crushing weight on the mans chest. The sound of ribs cracking echoed throughout the vicinity as did the tormented screams of the victim. The android was very much enjoying himself with this sorry sack of meat. Though he lacked the essentials to know for sure, he likened the euphoria of torture to that of sex, as the act both excited and satisfied him, for a time.
"That's enough." Ices breathed from where she lay in the snow. She held no love for the hunter Cell toyed with, but she liked even less the unnecessary torment the android was putting him through. Each scream ripped into her heart and the almost orgasmic bliss coming through cells tainted black connection was enough to make the dragoness retch in disgust.
Cell frowned at being ordered around and broke another limb, just to prove to the female that she held no power over him. The sobbing mass of mangled bones beneath him was about to pass out anyhow and so Cell made quick work of lobbing off the mans head. The incision coated Cell in a red fountain of blood as he turned and glared down at the dragoness. He was only obliging because she looked like she was about to die where she lay in the snow. She was pathetic.
He grasped the female around the middle and hefted her up like a sack of potatoes under his arm. She was too weak to protest and as a result her tail and wings dragged along the ground as he carried her towards the still-open portal. He paused at the thresh hold and glanced over his shoulder to see that the other villains were surprisingly close behind. Cell supposed that his display earlier had them worried he might do the same to the dragoness. The android sent the other men a half-smirk as he thought over all the torment he could inflict on a perpetually-healing being, and then thought against it. He may have use of her yet.
Cell stepped through the portal with the dragoness and the others. It closed behind them as he held his breath in the strangely airless hall of inferno. The last time she had brought them here they had merely fallen through the floor of fire, which he supposed meant that they had descended into the normal realm. Idly the android puzzled together the fact that this creature had the skeleton key to not only this universe, but all others connected with this strange corridor of flames.
The villains levitated for a few moments as the dragoness was revived by the extreme heat. Recoom held his nose dramatically as his face slowly started turning blue from lack of air. Finally Ices pushed away from Cell and glided down the firey dimension opening a portal a few feet away and ushering the villains through.