History of the Frost Demons

Lila and I walk through the halls of the ship and walk into my old quarters. Looking around, I saw that everything was as it was when I had left a couple months ago. 

"So this is where you used to live" She asked as she took a look around. 

"For eight years." I said as I absentmindedly ran my finger along the edge of my desk. "And besides for regular maintenance, it looks like they left my room pretty much the same."

"Maybe they didn't have the heart to change it." She suggests. 

I look towards her and saw that she had sat down on my bed, giving it a few test bounces to see how firm it was. 

"Your bed is like a rock." She says. 

"I like a firm bed." I respond with a roll of  my eyes. "And going back to your earlier statement, someone on this ship would actually have to have a heart to be that sentimental."

"You don't think Cooler is sentimental?" She asks. 

"Oh, I know Cooler isn't sentimental." I replied. 

I walk over and sit down beside her on my old bed, laying down immediately.

"You'd be surprised." She said with a knowing tone before laying down beside me. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, turning my head towards her. 

"Oh, just that you might be surprised at how much Cooler may actually value your input." She answers, sounding intentionally vague. 

My eyebrow furrow at her in confusion before a thought occurs to me. 

"Lila... Did you go around probing inside his head when you were exchanging memories...?"

She turns her head towards me and a little blush of red lights her face, her hand then comes up and scratches one of her cheeks.

"Maybe."

My eyes widened a bit before I let out a small laugh. 

"Hey, I was giving him one of my most treasured memories, it's only fair!" She exclaimed defensively. "You would've done the same thing!"

"That's exactly why I'm laughing." I tell her before asking, "How much of his memories did you probe?"

"Um... A lot of it..." She muttered. 

She's right. That is exactly the type of underhanded and manipulative action I would do. 

I didn't think she had it in her. 

"And?" I asked. 

"And what?" She asked back. 

"And what does he think of me?" I clarified, wanting to know every detail. "You already gained my curiosity, might as well sate it."

She lets out a sigh before saying, "He trusts you. Well, as much trust as you could get from someone like him."

"So like a commanding officer and his second? I pretty much knew that already." I told her. 

"Mmm, I wouldn't say that. After all, he's killed quite a few of his Seconds." She says, causing me to look at her strangely. "It's more like... He views you as someone he can turn his back to and trust not to blast a hole through it." 

"Huh..."

Considering how Cooler is, that's actually quite  an interesting thing to know. 

Considering that we were equal in terms of strength until the golden debacle a couple hours ago, I'm actually surprised that he regards me so highly.

I don't remember anything about him ever doing anything that suggests he trusts me. Sure, we banter a bit and he sometimes rants to me about murdering his entire family, but I don't really think that counts considering that his familial hatred is kind of on display for everyone to see. 

Although I don't remember him ranting to anyone else... 

And he certainly doesn't banter with anyone in the Cooler Squadron...

Oh my god, are we... friends...?

Christ, even having "friend" and "Cooler" in the same sentence gives me a cold chill down the base of my spine...

"So what did you show him?" I asked, wanting to change the subject. 

I like Cooler, don't get me wrong, but there's a difference between liking a fictional character and actually being friends with them. 

People like Madara, doesn't mean that they should invite him over for some afternoon tea and biscuits. 

"What?" She asked, looking at me suddenly with a shocked gaze. 

"Back in the Control Room. What did you show him?" I asked again. 

Lila's expression remains for a few moments before it falls, her eyes looking faraway even though they were staring directly into mine. 

"Do you... Do you want to see...?" She asks, placing her hand on the base of my neck. 

Seeing her crestfallen face, I place my hand over hers and shake my head. 

"No."

I smile softly at her before looking up towards the ceiling. 

"What? Why?" She asks, turning her body towards me. 

"Besides, it's obvious that reliving your past memories, even for a bit, made you upset." I tell her. "You'll tell me when you want to tell me. Or you won't, it makes no difference to me."

I was only just curious as to what could've made Cooler so... emotional.

The information itself was inconsequential. 

But besides that, I found myself unwilling to push her into showing me her memories when it obviously opened up some old wounds. 

I felt Lila move closer to me and a strange but surprisingly warm sensation of something on top of me. Looking down, I saw that she had snuggled in my side, he head pressed against my chest. 

"I don't even know how long ago it was..." She starts. 

"Lila, you don't have to--"

"I want to." She cuts me off, her hand tightening on my shirt. "I trust you... I want you to know..."

I look at her, but she doesn't look up at me, choosing only to press her face into my chest more. 

Seeing as how this was important for her, I wrap my arm around her and give a small nod. 

"Okay."

I feel her tense at my touch, but it quickly fades as soon as it came. 

"It was a long time ago... Before the very nature of your existence could've possibly been thought of..." She starts. "Back when I was a still just a Kai-in-Training, I had made my first planet. Everyone was so proud of me... They even threw me a party to congratulate me..."

"That was nice of them." I whispered. "What did you end up naming it?" 

"Arcosis..." I couldn't see it, but I could tell that she was smiling at the thought of this planet. "After that, it was then time to create a whole new species to populate the planet. And eventually I did. After days of painstaking trial and error, I finally created my first species... and they were beautiful... They were so beautiful, Zyleth..."

"These people... They were the Frost Demons?" I asked. 

"The were called Arcosians back then..." She whispered. 

I nod and rub her back some more before asking, "What happened next?" 

"I... They..."

Her grip on my shirt tightened and her voice broke a bit. I quickly wrap my arms her, letting her know that I was right here. 

"You don't have to continue..." I tell her.

"No, it's okay..."She shook her head and sniffles a bit, "A few hundred years after their creation, a spacefaring species came and attacked them... They... They slaughtered them all... Every last one..."

Her voice cracked once more and I carefully move onto my side, cradling her into my embrace as she started to cry. I wait as long as it took for her to calm, her cries cutting through me more than any attack that I've ever had to deal with. 

Her cries eventually subside and I feel her nails start to dig into my chest. 

"I killed them all..." She said suddenly, the anger in her voice on a blatant display. Even after all these years, she still loathed those who had taken the Arcosians. "I killed the ones I could that came to Arcosis and then I tracked down the stragglers and destroyed their planet..."

"Good..." I muttered. 

Those words cause her to finally look up at me, her eyes wide. 

"Really? You're not going to tell me that what I did was wrong?" She asked. 

"Have you met me?" I asked with a raised brow. "I'm not one to give out lectures. Especially when it comes to revenge. I could say that revenge will leave you feeling nothing but emptiness, but it doesn't. It's satisfying."

She buries her face in my chest and I hear the sounds of her muffled laughter.

"Daikaioh would've hated you..." She says. 

 "I'm guessing he's one of those "revenge is wrong" kind of people?" I asked. 

She nods and says, "When I returned to the World of Kais, he stripped away my title and didn't allow me to work on anything for years..." 

"Figures." I mutter. "Did you ever regret it?"

"Not even once." She said with no hesitation. 

We lay there for a few moments, the comfortable silence reigning over the room before a question comes to my mind. 

"Wait, if the Arcosians were slaughtered, how are they still around?" I asked. 

"The moment I was allowed to create life again, I returned to Arcosis and recreated them. But I was so afraid that their extinction would happen again, I... I made some alterations... So much so that they couldn't even be called Arcosians anymore..." She answers before letting out a big sigh. "And so I renamed the planet... and the people I once cared for so deeply..." 

So that's why the Frost Demon's have so many names. It's also what caused Cooler's earlier outburst. The Frost Demons were literally remade and created over the corpses of their original Arcosians ancestors... 

"And the power? Their Golden form?" I asked, curiosity now plaguing my mind. 

"I didn't want what happened to the original Arcosians to happen again, so when I made the changes, I made a few very special changes in a very few family lines..." She answered. 

"And I'm guessing that Cooler's family is one of them?" I asked. 

She nodded, "It seems like his family are the only ones of the original few that are still around..."

Shit. 

Leave it to Cooler to win the genetic lottery...

I mean I knew that Frost Demon's were broken, but I didn't think they were this broken. Doesn't this mean that they were the first transformative species ever made?

"So... how do they like... Uh..." 

Lila looks up at me with a raised brow, "Seriously?"

"Listen, I know fuck all about Frost Demons and Cooler isn't exactly the most forthcoming source of information. Forgive me for being inquisitive." I rolled my eyes. 

"Wow, that's a big word for you." She teases with a small giggle. 

"Oh, fuck right off."

She laughed a bit more before saying, "Well, if you must know, they reproduce asexually. There are no female Frost Demons."

"No women, huh? If only such a nirvana existed..." I muttered under my breath. 

She smacked me in the arm and I let out a little chuckle. 

"Alright, so what else can you dish out?" I asked. 

"Are you asking about them because you're curious or because you're trying to make me feel better?" She asks back. 

"Bit of both."