---
"Thanks for the meal," Frost said and grabbed a fork off the dining table he was eating on. This was a day or two after they had that fight about the abomination and months before all the chaos happened in France.
"No need to thank me," the middle-aged woman sitting at the other end of the table said. "My home is your home and you can stay for as long as you want." Frost nodded and glanced around the building.
It wasn't anything grand. Just two floors, a small kitchen and a living room where she also ate. A few family pictures hung on the walls. Just pictures of the woman and her daughter.
"You seem to be taking an interest in my daughter," the lady joked.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare," Frost shook his head and tried to apologise but she stopped him.
"Her name's Stephanie and she has a temper just like your baby brother." The woman looked to her left and saw Diego, and I must say, that boy looked bad.
One eye was nearly swollen shut, the skin around it a dark, shiny purple. A split ran across his eyebrow, still seeping blood that had dried in a streak down his temple. His bottom lip was puffed up and cracked, with a thin line of blood crusted under one nostril. The lady had applied some ointment and a few bandages and Diego sat down with his arms crossed. He never looked at Frost, not even once while staring at his own food.
"I apologise if he seems rude," Frost muttered with a low glare.
"I understand. I knew someone just like him a long time ago." The woman smiled and stood up. "You can call me Stella. If you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask." Stella walked up the stairs, leaving the two demons alone with each other.
"Eat your food," Frost demanded while eating quietly.
"Fuck you," Diego hissed in response. Frost took another calm bite out of his food and stood up.
"You're acting like a child, Diego," Frost said.
"And is that why you told her I'm your little brother?" Diego glared.
"I told her that because—" Diego cut Frost off with a sharp shove that sent the food on the table flying to the ground. Frost caught himself before he fell and shoved back harder, forcing Diego to crash into a wall. The pictures hung on it fell to the ground and shattered but none of them seemed to care.
"You're a narcissistic control freak!" Diego yelled and shoved Frost again.
"And you're a delusional child who still thinks the world is all sunshine and rainbows if you believe hard enough!" Frost yelled back with a violent shove. Diego fell on the dining table which promptly broke and before he could react, Frost was on him.
"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!" Both boys froze when they heard Stella yell at them. She was coming down the stairs with a large shotgun dragged on the stairs beside her. The two demons looked at each other and quickly realised how much damage they had done in such a short time.
Frost got off Diego and stretched out a hand to help him up. Diego scowled and slapped his hand away. Frost growled and stomped Diego's chest back onto the destroyed dining table in rage.
BANG!!! The shotgun blasted a shot right between them.
Frost stood there with his boot pressed on Diego's chest for a few more seconds before reluctantly pulling away. He began picking the glass left from the broken pictures quietly while Diego got back to his feet.
"We're... sorry..." Diego said with a wince when a splinter poked at his swollen eye.
"You'd better be!" Stella yelled. "Clear up the mess you've made right now! And I don't want to see any more fighting from you boys!" Stella dragged both herself and her shotgun back up the stairs after that.
Diego and Frost stayed quiet until the footsteps upstairs stopped. They glared at each other but got back to working on the mess they had made.
"That abomination was different," Diego muttered loud enough for Frost to hear.
"It was still an abomination," Frost muttered back as he picked up one of the broken photos.
"It cared for that man," Diego said. "It listened to him when he spoke! Don't you see? It really cared about him... it wasn't just a monster. It had a heart too..."
"That abomination was stuck in that barn. Its body made it impossible to move, let alone escape the barn," Frost sighed. "That man kept a steady supply of food for it and that's the only reason why it didn't kill him!"
"You didn't see what I saw," Diego said. Frost paused for a long moment and that gave Diego an uneasy feeling.
"Have you ever heard of the Crocodile Dilemma, Diego? A crocodile steals a child and promises to return it if the parent correctly predicts what it'll do. The parent says the crocodile won't return the child. Now the crocodile is trapped. If it returns the child, the prediction is false. If it keeps the child, the prediction is true. Either choice contradicts its promise."
Frost turned the broken photograph over in his hand, studying the faces that remained intact. "Funny thing about that paradox... everyone focuses on the crocodile's promise. Nobody asks why a parent would trust a crocodile in the first place."
"What do you mean by that?" Diego asked cautiously.
"You saw that thing listening to the man. You saw it respond to his voice, and you thought that meant it cared. Perhaps it did, in its own way. But tell me, Diego... if it truly loved that man, why did he have to feed it his own family? His parents. His children. Everyone he was supposed to protect."
"That's because—" Frost cut Diego off before he could finish the sentence.
"That thing couldn't even leave the barn. It couldn't hunt. It couldn't feed itself. The man was its entire world, its only source of food. Of course it listened to him. Of course it reacted when he spoke. It had every reason to keep him alive." Frost picked up the broken photo and looked at it. For a moment, his gaze softened but then he turned back to Diego.
"And that's what frightens me about you, Diego. You see something that looks like affection, and you immediately search for the heart behind it. You never stop to ask what that heart wants from you. A creature doesn't have to hate you to use you. It doesn't even have to be incapable of love."
For once, Diego didn't have a snarky comeback. The idea had crossed his mind more than once... the idea that the man was just being used by the abomination. Frost was right.
"I'm sorry..." Frost said. "Maybe I went a bit too far when we fought."
"I'm sorry too," Diego muttered. "You're right. I do act like a child sometimes. And yeah, I did deserve that beatdown." Frost smiled. A soft awkward one at that but it was genuine. Diego smiled back and said, "I swear I'll get my payback the next time we fight."
"I'll hold you to that," Frost grinned and went back to picking up broken glass and old pictures off the ground.
---
Diego had really pushed himself this time. He sat behind one of his ice replicas and tried to catch his breath. Making all that ice and melting it in one go really took a lot out of Diego but he wasn't going to back down just yet.
His trait, 'Orchestrator', had gotten rid of the biggest problem which was a direct confrontation with Frost but now he'd hit another obstacle. The next step was taking him out. Using the fog to his advantage was his best bet but with Frost, it was never that easy.
"You can't hide forever!" Frost yelled from somewhere within the fog.
Diego's body locked up and he listened without moving a muscle. If Frost found him, the exhaustion and all the hard work he'd done would have all been for nothing. Diego brainstormed ways to beat Frost when he spotted a small pebble in the grass beside him.
He quietly reached for it and once he had it in his palm, he activated his Halo Mode but this time, his wings weren't there. Maybe it was because of how far he'd pushed his ice but the situation wasn't completely hopeless. Missing two large wings could help him sneak around better. Diego stood up and formed a small dagger from his ice. He looked in the direction of Frost's voice through the fog and moved.
He found Frost less than a minute later. The older demon was still trying to find Diego through the replicas when he heard a sharp sound... Tap... Frost's head snapped in the direction but all he saw was a pebble hitting one of the replicas.
For half a second, Frost had no idea what was going on but then he realised what Diego was planning to do. He spun around and saw Diego right above him with the ice dagger raised high. There was no time to react so Frost lifted his arms and guarded his face. The ice came down and tore into his forearm. Diego landed and tried to pull the dagger out but Frost tightened his muscles and locked it in place.
CRACKKK!!!
Frost slammed Diego's nose with his forehead and red-hot pain shot through the young demon's nose. Diego held his nose in pain as blood poured out of it. He looked up at Frost and WHAM! Frost struck Diego's jaw with a sharp right hook. Diego fell to one knee and backed away right before Frost could get any other hits in.
"It's just you and me now," Frost scowled and pulled the ice dagger out of his arm. "No smoke screens. No decoys. No weapons. Just us."
"It's always been just us," Diego spat out and forced himself back to his feet. "Frost Wheeler. The narcissistic control freak."
"And Diego Torrez. The delusional child who still thinks the world is all sunshine and rainbows," Frost scowled.
Frost took off his bloodstained shirt and jacket and took on a fighting stance. Diego wiped his nose with the back of his hand, leaving a streak of blood on his face as he took on a fighting stance as well. Diego's Halo Mode deactivated from sheer exhaustion but his determination didn't falter. Frost was losing blood as well but an injury like that wouldn't be something he was worried about.
Frost adjusted his footing just a bit and Diego charged when he saw the opportunity. Diego swung but Frost parried it easily and delivered a crushing punch to Diego's gut. Diego felt his stomach and other organs rupture from the punch but he kept going. Frost went for another punch and Diego didn't resist it.
Diego's body curled and he vomited blood like a broken hose. Frost reared up for a third strike but that's when Diego revealed a newly formed dagger. It was smaller than a toy knife but it had to do the trick. The moment Frost spotted it, he tried to step back but his leg was already trapped in Diego's ice that had covered the foggy ground.
SHLICK!!!
Diego plunged the dagger into Frost's left eye... destroying it instantly. Frost screamed and clawed at the dagger and Diego's arm but the red-haired demon wouldn't budge. Blood sprayed out of the destroyed eye socket but Diego forced the knife deeper and deeper until Frost grabbed his arm and twisted hard! Diego's right arm snapped like a twig and turned more than 360° but he never took the dagger out of Frost's eye.
Frost twisted harder and Diego sank the knife deeper until he eventually started punching Frost's face with all his strength while his destroyed arm kept the dagger in place. Frost took hit after hit but on the last punch, he opened his mouth and Diego's knuckle slipped in. Frost bit down on it with so much force that the bones broke and the flesh tore right open.
Diego puked more blood but stayed strong throughout the pain while Frost scowled and bit even harder until the fingers were almost completely separated from the flesh. This odd standoff lasted for half an hour. The fog started to clear and that's when exhaustion finally won. Diego's arm fell slack and the dagger slipped out of the hole it was lodged in. Frost's jaw loosened just enough for Diego's bloody arm to slip out of it.
The ice trapping Frost melted and both demons collapsed on the damp grass beneath them. Frost turned his face to the right and saw Diego looking back at him. They stared at each other and chuckled but it quickly turned to loud, happy laughter.
"You'll need an eye patch for that one," Diego laughed. "Your eye's completely busted."
"You're one to talk. We're gonna need robot parts for that arm... and your knuckle," Frost grinned. "All that we need is a trip to the junkyard and—" Frost's words fell short when Diego puked out more blood.
"Guess I got my payback after all," Diego smirked through the blood.
"Guess you did," Frost muttered back. "You'll get to kill me later but for now... you're still my best friend "
Diego grinned back. "Yeah... nothing's ever going to change that..."
---
END OF CHAPTER 30
---