Burning. Everything was alight. He tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. Heat. Sweat coated his hands as he jerked them away from the smoldering knob. Pain. An ominous creak echoed behind him before a blinding flash rung through his skull as the supports gave out. Then, darkness.
Broly was jerked from his slumber, heart pounding. 'What was that?' he thought. It felt so real. He panted, trying to make sense of such a strange dream. 'Why was I burning? I don't remember that ever happening to me...'
He stood, rubbing his forehead. When he brought his hand down, he saw it was covered with soot in the dim light. 'Huh?' Looking down, he realized he was covered with the substance. 'I'm at a serious loss right now. How did I get this filth on me?' The ground became black as he flared his ki to return himself to the unsoiled state.
It was so dark. The sky was starless tonight, much to his dismay. There was just one more thing to do...
'Hello?' he called into his mindscape. There was no answer. 'Hello?' he tried again, extending the 'o' sound. Feeling around in there, he found that couldn't sense anything. 'H-hello? Are you there?' A shiver ran up his spine. 'I-I see how it is. Fine, I'll do this myself.' Still nothing.
Muttering to himself about unloyal spirits, he summoned his energy, creating a sphere in his palm. It acted as a flashlight, illuminating the surrounding area. He inhaled sharply when his eyes adjusted.
At first, he thought there was a blackout at Capsule Corp or something. The trees surrounding him told a different story. 'Uhh...' He tried to pull up an explanation for this, but nothing was responding. 'Trees...forest...' his mind mumbled to get a grip on this massive relocation.
These weren't large trees, either. It was like an army of toothpicks surrounded him. Despite this, the green light only reached the borders of the clearing, as if it feared going beyond that point. 'Alright...get yourself together. It would be ashamed of your behavior if it...if it...' His expression drooped a bit. 'If it cared enough to speak to you...'
Quickly, he shook off those thoughts. He had to hold his head high for this one!
A path lay at his feet, much how he wished Goku would. Speaking of him... 'If he had a part in this, Earth will be less than space dust!'
Gold boots made their way down the trail, his senses on high alert. There were no foreign or familiar energies anywhere around him. It was like all of the planet's inhabitants just dropped dead while he was out. 'There's still something here, though. I just can't see it...yet.'
The trees were withdrawing from the natural walkway, giving him a better view of his surroundings. There were no specific landmarks in his immediate sight, but he only just started his walk. He could wait.
Slender peeked from behind a tree. 'So there's a new plaything in my woods.' The newcomer wore the strangest garb and had a mysterious green object in his hand, but he looked weak enough. From the current distance, he seemed very thin for someone with his frame, an easy catch. If the monster had a mouth, it would be stretched into a wide grin. 'This is going to be fun.' Now all he had to do was follow the man to the pages.
A twig snapped behind Broly. He whipped around, arm ready for throwing. There was nothing there, though, nothing but the broken branchlet. A small Eraser Cannon formed in his free hand and was launched towards it, vaporizing any traces of the stem. 'Maybe this will do something to...whatever it is that's on my tail, despite it being under my sash.'
His gaze lingered on the forest behind him. The original clearing had been swallowed by the darkness, signaling his progress. Turning around, he kept walking, ignoring the fresh chills weighing on his neck.
On his sides, the vegetation was letting up a bit, leading to another glade. Instead of his prone form, though, there was a giant birch. 'How strange a tree of this size would be here amongst such smaller ones...' He began inspecting its surface for anything that would help him leave this place. His searches produced...a note.
Lowering his hand to the paper, he read the scratchy lettering. 'Follows,' he read. This was joined by a thin figure and a tree. Since the man was almost as tall as the tree and had the same figure, Broly deduced that the creature being portrayed might be him. His lips quirked a bit. 'Someone wrote a note about me? I'm flattered.' He looked ahead. 'Am I following someone?' Something in his mind told him that if he indeed was following someone, they wouldn't have had enough time to make such detailed drawings. That was ignored in favor of swooning over the memo. 'No one has ever written about me like this!'
He continued on, leaving the note for another passerby.
The notorious stalker facefaulted. 'W-what? Why didn't he pick it up? And it's describing me, not him!' Now his plans were being ruined by his target's thought process! Telepathy just wasn't on his side today. He tapped his chin with a long finger. 'Hmm...I suppose I can kill him with only seven.'
Now the Saiyan was on the road again, seeking an exit out of the woods and keeping an eye out for anyone that may have been leaving their writings for fellow travelers. Thinking about it, he wondered if the note was the start of a paper trail out of the woods, a sort of encouragement to get the wanderers to persevere. Maybe.
Something flashed out of the corner of his eye, drawing his attention. It was an abandoned truck. Behind it was a trailer, probably empty as well.
Getting closer, Broly noticed that the driver's side door was open. Bending down, he analyzed the interior of the vehicle, sniffing for any signs of life. There were none. 'Judging by the staleness of the truck itself, this has been here for a long time. I wonder why...' He straightened his back and walked the few steps to the adjoining camper. The piece that would have linked the two was shattered, indicating a sort of crash. 'But both of them are fine. Was this on purpose, perhaps?'
The door was unlocked, so he leaned in. Inside, everything suggested that the people who owned it were very well off. Despite this, there was no scent to tell him that a wealthy human...or other creature...entered the space in what he could guess was years based on the height of the dust layers covering everything.
He closed the door and made his way around the trailer. On its side, their were more notes. 'Always watches; No eyes...oh.' His shoulders drooped a bit. So the author wasn't describing him since he had eyes. He inwardly cringed. 'Right in the ego...' He couldn't blame them, either. Not many Earthlings knew of his existence. 'But if it's not describing me, then who is it?' Questions!
Beside it, there was a second paper. 'Pick these notes up and bring them to me.' He tensed with suspicion. The writing styles were the same, but the second one...'Why would the author want them back if they put them here?' It made no sense, so he just kept following the beaten path without them. 'Onward, ho!'
A pale hand met a pale face in what was the first facepalm in Slender's long life. 'What is he?' Now there were only 6 left...
The path was now curving as the green light revealed it. Beside it, the trees were starting to vary in size from very thin to half-the-birch thick. 'Strange...why is this suddenly happening?' Were curves influential in this new place?
His stationary ki illuminated a run-down car on the side of the trail that was very similar to the previous one. Unlike the other encounter, though, this vehicle was dented and rusty. Again, there was no organic spoor, but there was another paper.
''Help me.' Help who?' Sensing around again, there was no other ki signature other than his own. 'And whatever's following me.' He could still feel the creep's presence and he was still concerned about finding an exit before the thing found him, both of which were carving their way to the top of his to-do list.
He did a 360° turn to find a possible break in the trees. Before he cleared 270°, though, he froze. 'Huh?' There was something behind the truck. It was about the same height as him and had...no face.
Before he could move towards the thing, it disappeared. Like, not flee-into-the-trees disappear, but teleport disappear.
Quickly, he went to the same spot the man was, his nose primed for picking up things beside oxygen. When he got to it, however, there was nothing stronger than the air around him. 'There was something here, though. I wasn't imagining it.'
For some reason, the thing looked familiar. It was on the tip of his tongue. 'What was it, what was it...it's in here somewhere; I would never forget someone like that...ah! He's Slender!'
While reading up on Earth's mythology, in between the Greek and Roman beasts, he found a story on the tall man. He looked deeper into this myth and found tales of him from all over the blue marble. Apparently, controversy existed among humans on whether he existed or not, but Broly never really bothered to develop an opinion since he was light years away at the time. But...since he wasn't now...and the monster just showed himself... 'I guess he is real. It's a good thing I didn't take those notes, then.'
Continuing his investigation, he found no pages, no possible leads, no clues...and no apples! Sighing, he continued forward once more.
Well, this was just great. He just had to reveal his skinny self, didn't he? And before the guy even got the third page! 'It doesn't matter. He's going to die anyway.' ...Oh? The man knew of him? How delightful. 'This makes the chase far more exciting.'
Good news: the alien wasn't alone. Bad news: his company was an infamous killer who had a taste for Legendary Super Saiyan.
'Of all the people, why him?' Anyone else, he could probably defeat, but Slender's murder tactics were far too admirable to even think of stopping. He even used them when he was younger. Part of him wanted to be taken just to see what would happen, but the survivalist part, the larger half, shut that down and honed the few senses he could use on the creature to find where it would pop up again.
And then there was a tunnel. It looked to be made of concrete. 'What purpose could this possibly serve?' Maybe to trap the target. An abandoned construction site. Other reasons he didn't feel like pondering due to the shock of his discovery.
He walked down the hollow expanse. At the end of it was a page. ''Don't look...or it takes you.' I know. I'm pretty much shaking in my boots right now.' There was a small Slender in the bottom-right hand corner. 'Adorable.' Like the others, it was left behind.
From there, he followed the adjacent curve to the next landmark.
Another one bites the dust. The tall man sighed. Well, now there was little chance of catching his prey if he was going to keep this up. 'He's something else...but I still have a way of getting him.' Yes...this would definitely work.
Out of the corner of his eye, like the most recent page, he saw Slender. Stopping, he turned to face the pale man, who stood as still as the trees around him. 'I see why they call him the tree-man.'
Both murderers stared at the other. Slowly, a jeweled arm rose...and waved. His stalker didn't wave back, he just teleported away again.
The hand fell to his side as he tilted his head. 'Is he...okay?' He quickly censored that thought. Why did he care? For all he knew, that guy was gonna nibble on his giblets once he got close enough. 'If I keep this up, I'm going to die before I reach sixty years of age!' He kept walking.
His stalker didn't make another appearance as he neared a group of 1, 2...6 giant stone pillars. Yet another construction attempt that failed...or something. The fifth page clung to the inside of the middle-left column. ''Leave me alone.' If I could, I would, but I can't find you.' There was a tree where the small killer would be on this paper. Strangely, it had a calming effect, allowing him to have some semblance of order.
Turning around, he saw the being once more. This time, he was behind the staff parallel to the note. Their gazes, or at least their faces, made an link and they had another "staring" contest.
Why wasn't the visitor flinching? Did he not see the static? 'That's it, I'm done playing games.' He visibly stepped forward. The thoughts of his victim echoed in his mind. 'So he can move without breaking...amazing.' A cotton-covered shoulder twitched at the mockery. 'Oh wait, he's moving this way. What to do...'
Slender couldn't trace the other's thought train anymore, presumably because it fell silent. He took another step. There were still no signs of fear within his target's gentle features. Instead, the giant moved a size 20 forward, towards the suede-covered pair.
They kept stepping ever closer until finally, they were less than a foot apart, separated by the Eraser Cannon. The pale humanoid found himself looking straight ahead instead of down. 'He's taller than I thought. Counting the hair...he'd be taller than me...I'm amazed.'
The legend was having his own thoughts. 'He's tall, but I beat him by a few centimeters.' For most of his life, he actually felt a bit self-conscious about his forehead, but this time, it told him that he rose higher than the fabled Slenderman, which made it alright in his book.
''Few centimeters'? What is he on? We're the same height!' This newcomer made him angrier than he'd ever been before without any pages. Considering the myth's age, this was pretty much blasphemy. First, the Saiyan intrudes on his land, then he doesn't even play the game! 'He knows who I am. There are no excuses.'
He felt a breath on the white plane he called a face. 'What?' Broly leaned closer, nose twitching slightly. In less than a split second, two feet were gone from the immediate area.
'Drat! Still nothing!' He was certain that the monster he'd been encountering were physically solid, but he didn't give the legend enough time to pick up his light fragrance. 'Very. Light. Fragrance.' Ki in hand, he begrudgingly continued his adventure.
On the other side of the forest, the seven-something child abductor leaned heavily on a tree, panting through a nose that wasn't there. 'He is insane!' Nobody could stand near His Deadliness for that long without succumbing to the sickness! It just wasn't possible. Shivering, Slender wiped his face with a handkerchief he kept in his suit to get any traces of the newly-crowned top monster off him.
'Well, that could've gone better. I wonder what happened,' mused the abandoned primate on the other side of the forest. He looked over his shoulder briefly before walking on. A few steps ahead, the dirt road branched off again, this time towards some sort of brick wall mutation. 'Okay, this wasn't a failed project, this was just a failure.'
He made a round of the thing, looking for another piece of the author's work. He found it in the third...corner-wall. He dismissed the terminology, heading for the note. On it, there were a bunch of trees surrounding Slender. 'That's not too far off, actually. If they tried, I'm sure they would make a great artist.' Said artist sneezed from the afterlife.
Turning around, Broly was met with...nothing. No Slendy this time. He raised a brow at the murderer's cowardice. 'Was it that bad? All I wanted was to smell him. Is it so wrong? I mean, I know humans would turn against the idea, but him?'
Well, whatever. He had six pages read. If the lore was correct, he just needed to find eight to leave...find, not collect, right? Umm... He sighed. Of course his mind would go out on him when he needed crucial information on how to get back to a relatively normal life! Of course!
But still...he was a bit concerned for his fellow scourge. What devil wouldn't? Then again, there were those guys from the West Galaxy that one time...he shook the memories off. 'Bad times.'
His forest trek brought him to a set of boulders just off the side of the path. Most of them were about his height, tilted in various directions. There were a few lying down, some broken, all sitting there with no apparent purpose. 'Like the rest of the landmarks in this accursed place.'
While he wanted to search for another note, he sat on one of the rocks instead. The mental strain of Slender or the stress of being put in this place was really getting to him. He leaned into his unlit palm and sighed. 'It's just a small break, that's all,' he assured himself. Black eyes gazed at the ground to pass the time as he became stationary.
As he looked down, he saw a pair of dark shoes, tinted green from his ki. He lifted his head, finding the rest of the stalker attached to the feet. The pale being stared back at him.
The Saiyan moved over, silently offering the myth a place to sit. Soon, he had another beside him. He took his hand from his face and cradled the powerful orb in it, basking in the warmth. He avoided his companion's gaze.
"How?" Broly perked up, ears twitching. He looked at the person beside him, tilting his head. Slender spoke again. "How do you not fear me?" The angle of the tilt increased greatly, a few dark locks falling into his face.
'He can speak?' That was the only thing that he could comprehend at the moment. 'He can speak?!' This was new. "G-give me a moment," he excused himself.
Eyes wide, the son of Paragus turned away from him. The Eraser Cannon was reabsorbed into his skin, only to be replaced with the legend's whole countenance. A muffled scream echoed through the trees, a sound of shock.
Sweat began to travel down the other killer's temple. Was the Saiyan okay? In his suit, he prepared a paper bag in case of a panic attack. He stretched a long arm towards his companion.
Before the pale attachment could reach the tan shoulder, however, the legend removed his face from his own grasp and created another sphere. He took a few deep breaths, gathering himself.
In his peripherals, he noticed the hand. He searched the white face and leaned toward the appendage.
What was he doing now? Non-existent eyes kept themselves locked on Broly. The sharp nose coated his appurtenance (desperate narration is desperate) with a layer of moisture as it condensed the air around it. Slender had long accepted that he wouldn't get to add this individual to his 'people-I-killed' list, allowing this treatment.
How odd...his senses couldn't pick up anything. Hesitantly, he raised his own hand. The inspectee tensed. The large fingers took one of the ridiculously thin extensions and applied a bit of pressure. It didn't give. It was real! So...why was he unable to put a smell to it, or any part of the fable even?
The tall man pulled his hand back. From the outside, the thin mint didn't show any expression, but inside, he was wincing. 'He is strong...very strong...'
Stuck in his mind, searching for an explanation, he didn't hear the Saiyan's response. "What did you say?"
"I said that I've never had a reason to be afraid." Black eyes looked away, the Saiyan adopting a bashful expression. "I...I actually really admire your work, Slender."
This took the monster aback. "You...you do?" From what he could recall, he had never seen this person before, so he wasn't a proxy. But he enjoyed killing? If that was true, he needed a makeover; that face wasn't one of a murderer. 'Last time I checked, neither was yours.' He ignored the contradiction.
"Yes," the legend said, pride growing in his voice. "I've killed billions in my day. I can't very well teleport and get into people's heads, but you taught me the use of psychological weaponry. There were many a great slaughter when my father locked me up to keep me under control. Thank you."
Slender felt his ego bloating as a light blush graced his features. "May I ask who you are?" A nod. "I am Broly." "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Broly."
They fell silent.
'Well, this is awkward.' He looked away from his fellow criminal, searching the trees idly. What he said wasn't a lie. Back then, his teenage hormones drove him to use any method he knew of to prolong his victims' life span when times were tough, so when going through his old computer files, he found, for lack of a better term, a manual on how to enjoy your homicide to maximum capacity written by the supernatural force himself.
Many people were used for his amusement and he perfected the art of stalking, among other things. Watching them cower in fear from the unknown was hilarious. His natural ki-sensing abilities made the task so much easier, too. But then Paragus did the thing with the thing and turned him into a robot for 5+ years. The Saiyan groaned. 'Why must everything have to lead to a bad thing with me?' Unfortunately, the teachings of the pale man didn't help him learn about optimism.
Perhaps he should request an escape route. 'No, no. That would be a bit rude. Being a Legendary Super Saiyan, I can't take the coward's way out.'
Legendary Super Saiyan? What was this thing the jeweled murderer spoke of? The suited being tapped his fingertips together. Hmm...let's see...there was a zombie, a vampire, a zompire...nothing on that long-titled creature, though. 'Strange. For the many years I've been here, I've never heard such a glorifying term.'
Should he ask? 'No...wouldn't want him knowing that I'm intruding.'
"...Slender?" Broly asked.
"What?" came the reply.
"Does it ever get...lonely here?" He tossed the Eraser Cannon between his hands, keeping his gaze off the skinny figure.
A pale jawline was rubbed in thought. "Well...I suppose it does. Why?"
"Um..." he started. 'Pull yourself together! We don't need him thinking you're weak!' "Would you want to...live with me?" Immediately after, he chuckled quietly. 'Yep, still sounds ridiculous aloud.'
If the faceless being had, er, a face, it would have been priceless just then. "Come again?" he requested.
"I know it's completely absurd, but could you accept the thought of existing among warriors who defend the planet?" He held his hands up, green energy gone again. "Not me of course, but..." The explanation trailed off.
"I suppose it isn't the worst idea I've ever heard. Though...why me?" Of all the people to ask into a single living space, was the Slender of Myth really an ideal choice?
"Good question," the Saiyan replied meekly. "I don't have an answer...a reasonable one, anyway." He sighed.
"But you do have one, Broly."
The legend ran his hand through his spikes in the near-complete darkness. "It's that...I guess I'm the one that's lonely. Nobody understands the life we live, so I thought that you might fill that void." His shoulders slumped. "But if you do agree to come with me, you won't be able to kill under penalty of your own death..."
He looked into what he hoped was the monster's general direction, smiling a bit. "But you won't need to bend down when you stand, so that's good," he said.
"Hmm," the pale man murmured. "I suppose I can. But there will be no defending this place if the occasion arose." 'What am I getting myself into?' He stood. "I will lead you out of the forest."
'What have I done?' The Saiyan stood quickly. "Thank you, Slender." He cheered internally. If they got technical, they could say that he beat the game with only six pages...a new record.