The oppressive surge of dust and dirt continued to contaminate the midnight air of Vampa. The moon could only barely be seen through the heavy, swirling blanket of sand and grains of stone, and most rock features were featureless silhouettes when put up against the dark blue sky. But if the sounds of the furious storm were to be removed, there likely would be little other noise for miles except for the crunching and stomping of Broly's boots against the rocky surface of the planet.
The Saiyan had rapidly entered a new routine. He would walk straight forward, his arms shielding his eyes from harmful dust. Every other minute, he would briefly lift his arms away from his face to see the silhouette of Paragus walking away before Broly in turn would continue to follow. Every so often, he would cry out to get his father's attention to no avail. This repetitive cycle had already been going on to where Broly was unable to keep track of the time anymore. He had rarely been forced to endure the violent nighttime dust storms like this. Even with all his strength, he was exhausted by the painfully slow pace he was forced to go at as well as by the bombardment of the dust pellets. But in spite of this and his father's soul-crushing silence, Broly continued to brave through the weather. There was simply too much he wanted to say to Paragus since the incident on Earth to give up at this stage.
As he continued his trek, however, something began to change. While it was a slow change, the dust storm was becoming less violent: With every step he made, Broly could feel slightly less discomfort and was able to move slightly faster. In addition, when he opened his eyes, he could see his father leading more clearly each time he did so. Eventually, after a bit more walking, Broly could feel the storm fully settling. He lifted his arms and opened his eyes one more time. Paragus was still in front of him, but he was the closest and most clearly visible he had been since Broly saw him that morning. Broly could still see the storm was still active around their little circle: It was as if there was an invisible bubble protecting them from the bad weather. Nothing could seemingly interrupt them as Paragus turned to face his son, his armor and pink robe identical to the ones he had been given by Frieza, as well as being in perfect condition aside from a single small hole in the armor near the elderly Saiyan's heart.
Many miles away, Cheelai and Leemo continued to hastily sprint through the night. While they were able to go slightly faster thanks to the aid of their goggles, they had no clue where they were going, being forced to follow the rapidly disappearing footprints of Broly. As they walked, their trail became covered by more gravel, blocking out the prints they needed to guide themselves.
Cheelai suddenly stopped in place. Leemo followed suit in confusion. Before he could ask what was going on, he immediately caught on to the incoming sound of rapid scuttling. Cheelai slowly and silently drew her blaster while Leemo yanked his out of its holster. Cheelai fired the first shot, which pierced through two of an approaching large spider's legs, hampering its movement and giving the former criminal an opening to finish it off with a few more shots. Leemo was temporarily distracted by this scene before he turned back just in time to see another spider pouncing over him. He leaped out of the way with not a second to spare, landing on his back. The spider continued to scuttle towards him: Leemo took Cheelai's idea and shot at its legs in a panic. He got off 5 of its 6 appendages, but the spider was already directly in front of him and tried to crawl the remaining distance. Leemo yelled before bashing the spider's head in with the butt of his blaster.
The orange alien got up after wiping his battle suit clean of a few big drops of the spider's thick yellow blood. He didn't have much time, however. During that whole exchange, Cheelai had been continuing to hold off a swarm of spiders approaching from over the horizon. The spiders were nimble, however, using the cover of various stone pillars and formations to shield themselves from the blasts, on top of swarming their assumed prey from various sides. The two knew that even with fully charged blasters, they would eventually fall to the pack's guerilla tactics, and they soon continued to run down the trailer, haphazardly firing shots behind and around them as they did so.
The estranged father-son duo stared each other down, the dust storm stirl roaring all around them. A wave of emotions was hanging over Broly, and he was having great difficulty conveying them. As such, it ended up being Paragus who spoke first.
"First off, do not ask how I came back to life. It's a long story which I'll explain to you at a later date."
"Son… ...I'm disappointed in you."
This sentence alone stung Broly to his core. He knew what Paragus was likely referring to, but it nonetheless shook his already anxious heart.
The old man continued.
"The battle on Earth confirmed something to me: You're a loose cannon, Broly. You have zero natural control over your own power. And even with its vastness, you still couldn't kill Vegeta..."
Broly was now on the verge of tears. He felt wretched: His wild, unkempt strength had resulted in his own father's death. He had let him down, the one who had taken care of him for all those decades. In that moment, he totally forgot the stern lectures Cheelai had given him while he was still laying sick in his bed in the days immediately following the battle against Goku and Vegeta about how Paragus was an evil, abusive man, and let the grief wash over him.
"But despite what I have said, there's still a way you can be salvaged."
This statement from Paragus piqued Broly's curiosity. He walked up closer, crossing half the distance between him and the old man. He was willing to do something, anything to win back his dear father's favor.
"Shortly after I came back to life, I was informed that there is another planet with a surviving species of Saiyans."
"But how is that possible?" Broly asked.
"It's not in this Universe, my son. Rather, there is another: Universe 6, they call it. It's right next to our Universe, which is the 7th one."
Broly was now beginning to grow somewhat suspicious. Not only had his father suddenly returned, but he also somehow knew of another surviving Saiyan species? It all seemed too good to be true. Broly himself had never really known his race all that well, and the only stories he had heard of them were always steeped in his father's bitterness at how they had failed them. But even then, he had always wanted to get to know them better, and the encounter with Goku and Vegeta had only exacerbated his curiosity.
"I thought you hated most of the Saiyans after we were exiled?"
"Oh, I still do. The thing is, these Saiyans are not like the ones I grew up along with: They are stronger, more intelligent, more advanced. The only shame is that they aren't built for, nor do they have a desire for conquest or a particular lust for battle. On the other hand, their kindness will make them easy to exploit. Once we find a more efficient way to get your power under control, we'll go from there. Speaking of which…"
Paragus briefly paused to reach into the orange satchel strapped along his waist. When his hand came out, he was holding a small metal shock collar identical to the one he had been forced to wear for all those decades on Vampa. A look of discomfort immediately appeared on Broly's face. Paragus solemnly nodded.
"I know you don't like it," the demagogue said, "but it really is the only way to keep you under control for now. As I said, when we get to the new planet, we'll work on finding another way to restrain your strength. But please… ...for now, bare with me."
Broly stared at the collar still nestled in Paragus' gloved palm. He tried to think of something to say, but he knew deep down that his father was right. He couldn't even remember what had transpired in the time frame between when he had been slain to where he regained consciousness against the blue-haired man with the yellow and black vest.
Broly gently picked up the collar straight out of his father's hand. With a heavy sigh and a gloomy expression, he began to lift it up and over his head.
The pair was startled by the sound of a blaster shot being fired. Broly dropped the shock collar in surprise. He looked towards Paragus: Thankfully, he was unharmed. Instead, there was a small, but smoking hole in his satchel that came out the other end. The old man hastily reached into the pouch and pulled out a remote with a big red button, now containing a small hole through which sparking wires were jutting out. While he frantically tried to get the device to work again, a familiar voice rang out to them.
"Broly!" shouted a distressed Cheelai, still holding her blaster. While she ran in immediately to confront the two, Leemo trailed behind, looking around confusedly at the invisible bubble protecting them all from the dust.
Before she did anything else, Cheelai wrapped her arms around Broly in a hug, rocking him back and forth. "Thank goodness you're OK!" she said in a relieved whisper. Immediately afterward, in the biggest mood swing either Broly or Leemo had ever witnessed, Cheelai's soft smile converted to a wide-eyed, furious glare as she stomped towards Paragus, hopped up and gave him a firm, violent slap across his cheek.
"Listen here, shithead. I have no idea how or why you crawled out of the putrid hole you were banished to, but that's besides the point. As long as I remain a sapient organism, I will do everything I can to make sure you are not allowed to damage Broly any further with your stupid revenge schemes. I am giving you a solid 5 minutes to haul ass off this planet. And if you continue to disobey my order, or you EVER attempt to set foot back on here for ANY reason, you won't even have a life for me to make miserable."
Paragus ratcheted his head back into its previous position before he was attacked and looked down at the livid green woman. He merely gave an emotionless grunt before responding.
"What are you going to do? Kill me?" He asked in a sarcastic tone. "Go ahead. Shoot me down now. Then you can have fun dealing with my son's wrath when his power inevitably explodes in a fit of blind rage like it did on Earth."
"I'll be honest, woman. Initially, I never wanted to put that collar on Broly. As time went on, however, it became clear his strength would get me and himself killed if it wasn't contained somehow. That crude mechanism was all that I could make with the materials I had available."
"You're not fooling anyone." Cheelai replied. "You just wanted Broly to get stronger and stronger without thinking of the consequences of what you were doing. If you really cared about that stuff, you would've stopped training him the moment you noticed his unnatural strength wasn't a fluke and worked on finding some kind of humane solution first. But you didn't, and when you began to fear that your cynicism was going to come back to bite you, you strapped that thing on him and turned him into your pet."
"'A humane solution'?" Paragus asked. "And how the hell was I supposed to do that?! I couldn't even figure out a way to make Broly calm down without hurting him, let alone studying the source of his power and teaching him to control it! Broly isn't a normal Saiyan, that much is clear. What I do know is that his ability to manifest the power of a Great Ape without transforming into one is only a small piece of the puzzle. After all, such strength is good, but it shouldn't be enough to be on par with a Super Saiyan God! I saw the rest of the battle from Hell, madam. That form Broly used against the fusion… It was unlike anything I've ever seen or heard in any version of the Super Saiyan legend. There's something else brewing inside of him… Something far more sinister than just another transformation. Now tell me, how was I supposed to tame that with my incredibly limited resources without resorting to the means I did?"
Before the argument could escalate further, Broly jumped in between and raised his hands towards the feuding parties. Cheelai relented a bit upon seeing the man noticeably distraught.
"No more fighting!" Broly exclaimed loudly before turning to his father. "Cheelai and Leemo are my friends. Give me some time to think over what you have said, please!"
But Paragus did not listen. He grabbed his son's arm and began to drag him along. Right away, Broly noticed that his father's grip was abnormally strong: He never could've hoped to grab and drag him around like this prior to being killed.
"We don't have time for you to think!" Paragus yelled. "We're getting out of here now!"
"You leave him alone! What kind of way to treat your son is that, wrangling him around without considering his wishes?" Cheelai said to the old man who she was once again enraged at.
"STAY OUT OF THIS!" Paragus loudly exclaimed. As he said this, he quickly extended his outstretched hand towards Cheelai. The girl only had a split-second grace period before an invisible force coupled by a gust of wind smashed her in her chest. She fell on her knees, reeling from the blow and coughing violently.
Broly could no longer stand the scene. He ripped himself out of his father's grip and rushed in front of Cheelai while Leemo was helping her. "Enough is enough, father! You hurt my friend! I am not coming with you, no matter what you say. Now leave!"
Paragus merely looked back at Broly with an expression equally as blank as the one he had stared him down with earlier that day.
"No son, I don't think you understand. You ARE going to come with me."
It was then that Broly noticed his father's changing face. The pupil of his functioning eye slowly became slitted and vertical, and his sclera morphed from white to a bright amber. Thin, hazy threads of purple smoke began to emit from his shoulders as his whole body began to jitter.
"And it doesn't matter what state my remote is in: I have other ways to make you behave."
Paragus lifted his left hand up, its fingers twitching and crackling with electricity. Within a few seconds, a large Ki whip popped out from his hand and hung down to the ground, still sparking wildly.
Broly looked on with fear. He was nowhere near in the mood for fighting. He was tempted to try to reason further. But it was useless: That haunting, serpentine eye was not that of one who was able to reason.
Thanks to his son's hesitation, Paragus made the first strike, launching himself at his disobedient progeny with a wild swing of his whip. Broly lept back while Cheelai and Leemo hastily rolled out of the way and onto the sidelines. The weapon cracked as it struck the ground, kicking up large chunks of stone and dust. Through the smokescreen, Paragus was able to get in another lash of his whip, which Broly only barely dodged by craning his neck to the side. The younger warrior was caught off-guard: While his form wasn't quite up to par with Goku or Vegeta, the speed and ferocity of Paragus' attacks totally eclipsed anything his old self was able to achieve even in his prime.
Paragus attacked again, this time with a low swing with his unchanged arm. Broly was able to dodge this attack as well, and by balancing on his left arm, he was able to deliver a spinning kick into his father's hips, sending him flying and crashing into a tall rock formation to his right side. Broly rebalanced himself on his feet and flew straight at the downed Paragus while cranking back a punch. The old man woke up from a semiconscious stupor as he lay attached to the crater that had appeared on the side of the stone wall. Upon catching sight of Broly through the layers of dust that were now swinging around randomly from the force of their battle, he dodged to the side as the Saiyan's fist punched through the large rock, reducing the entire top half to an assortment of small boulders, which temporarily hung in the air before they began to fall. From his vantage point, Paragus divekicked Broly straight through some of the falling rocks and into the ground. As he fell on his back, Broly had little time to think before he was assaulted by numerous lashes from Paragus' whip. He rolled left and right, only barely dodging each strike as more cracks appeared in the ground from where the weapon struck.
But finally, he slipped. Broly made one more roll, but his momentum was temporarily disturbed by a sharp stone embedded in the dirt, causing him to wince for a moment. This was all Paragus needed to deliver a firm strike of the whip to Broly's back.
The pain was not immediate. Rather, Broly yelled progressively louder as the electricity slowly stung his back and spread across his body, coating in a blue wave of electricity as it did so. Before this wave even dissipated, however, Paragus delivered another brutal strike, this time closer to his head. His son yelled more and more and more: Every use of the shock collar he had ever experienced paled in comparison to the agony he was feeling at that moment. It did not fade either, for Paragus continued to lash at his downed son, seemingly unphased by his increasingly high-pitched, hysterical wailing.
Eventually, however, the bronze-eyed Saiyan tempered his assault. He let the whip lazily hang at his side at he looked down at his son. He appeared as if he had been lobotomized, laying on the ground with his eyes hanging open, his only movements being minute twitching across his body, as well as occasionally blinking and letting his chest expand and contract to breathe. Paragus looked on at the pathetic display for a little longer before he reached down to grab Broly's leg.
It was then that Paragus felt a small burst of pain. He looked behind him to see that a small chunk of the back of his armor had been shot off, the wound sizzling and the pieces of the damaged suit having dropped to the ground. He turned around, and this time it was Leemo who was wielding the smoking gun that had fired the shot, Cheelai's face looking over his shoulder and acting as support.
Paragus seemed to temporarily forget to take care of Broly. He left his son to lay on the floor in his vegetative state as he marched towards his only two allies. Leemo fired a series of shots at the approaching man, but they were all deflected with ease. Before he could even reload, Paragus lashed his whip out, letting it extend before smacking the gun out of the orange alien's hand, smashing it into pieces as it did so. He tried to run, but Paragus picked up the pace, and before he knew what hit him, Leemo was slapped to the side by the Saiyan, his face dragging across the ground as he did so. While he lay face-down and let his suit gather more dust, Paragus approached Cheelai. She too tried to unholster her weapon in a panic, but Paragus grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and tossed her to the side, where she landed right next to the semi-conscious Leemo. After recovering from the toss, she looked up to see Paragus was already towering over her. The man looked at her before he began to raise his whip.
While this situation escalated, Broly stayed down, staring blankly at the dirty sky. He didn't need to look forwards to know his friends - the only ones he had ever known aside from Bah - were in grave danger. He was painfully receptive to the sounds of the useless blaster shots and Cheelai and Leemo's fearful whimpers and yells.
Everything was so backwards, and he couldn't hope to comprehend it. It was supposed to be easy: He was supposed to reconcile with Paragus, he was supposed to get him to warm up with his comrades from the Frieza Force, they were supposed to live happily together. And yet here they were, with his friends on the edge of death, with his father under the influence something. Broly's primitive mind could not understand what that "something" was, or even conceptualize a theory.
With great effort, the gentle giant stumbled onto his feet. The scene proved even more dire than he had envisioned: Cheelai and Leemo were both on the ground, the latter face-down, and Paragus was rapidly approaching. Only then Broly was once again overcome by despair, for he realized that there was no longer any way for him to have the companionship of the alien pair and Paragus. Even if he was somehow able to stop their conflict, he knew that Cheelai would likely never fully forgive him for the assault on their lives. This already difficult decision on who to side with was only made difficult by another factor, for while Broly wasn't fully aware of it, his immense latent power was bubbling up rapidly. Already a faint green outline was flashing on and off around his body, his irises fading from black, to gold, back to black, over and over again.
Paragus began to crane his Ki whip back, preparing to strike Cheelai down. Broly desperately wanted more time to think, but he knew that this was his last chance to make his choice, but he couldn't think straight anymore in these traumatic circumstances.
And so, for the next few seconds, the last of Broly's self-awareness slipped away, and the decision was left to the raging Great Ape inside of him.
Before Paragus could launch his attack against her, Cheelai's hair was ruffled by a sudden gust, and her vision was obscured by a muscular man's backside. In the blink of an eye, Broly had inserted himself between the two opposing parties, preventing his beloved father from causing any more damage.
The old man didn't even get a chance to act confused. His final sight before being engulfed by the scorching light was a neon green ball of Ki tucked in between the upper and lower jaw of the enraged Broly.
The recoil from his mouth laser began to push Broly back, but not before allowing ample time for Cheelai to grab Leemo and run out of the way. His feet dragged across the ground as he let the furious energy wave escape until he couldn't even see his father's silhouette anymore. It travelled far and far, obliterating rock ranges and entire packs of spiders as it did so. Giant green Vampa beasts were able to see the monstrous blast from miles away. Eventually, the beam flew out of the atmosphere and trailed off into the vacuum of space, vanishing in a small flash.
By the time the blast finished, Broly took a moment to put his hands on his knees and pant heavily. Cheelai and Leemo came back to his sides, supporting him back to his feet. They were able to do this with ease, for the dust storm that was characteristic of Vampa's nighttime had seemingly faded.
Broly looked up to the sight of overwhelming clumps of smoke partially covering the incredibly long and wide crater that had been created by his exhausting blast. The brutish Saiyan was so drained from the attack that he second-guessed himself upon seeing a humanoid silhouette buried within the layers of smoke. One look at the aliens supporting either of his shoulders revealed that it was not an optical illusion, for they too saw what he was seeing good and well with appropriately concerned expressions.
Broly began to walk towards the familiar figure. As the smoke cleared, his alien friends' tense states slowly lifted upon realizing that Paragus was in zero state to fight. His armor had been totally seared off and his pink robe was horribly tattered. His exposed upper body was covered in smoking burns and profusely bleeding gashes, the flow of which ran all the way down to his hips. Worst of all, however, was his face, the entire left side of which was covered in one huge burn, the blinded eye once again oozing blood. While Cheelai and Leemo calmed down, however, Broly accelerated his pace, yelling for his father, clearly disturbed by the state he was in. Meanwhile, all Paragus could muster was a feeble, stilted walk.
As the two got closer, Paragus allowed himself to collapse onto Broly's shoulder. The feral Saiyan would feel his father's breathing, which was heavy and labored. He struggled to imagine the sort of pain he was experiencing: The pain which he had induced on him...
Broly began to tear up as he cradled Paragus' dying body across his shoulders. The raging sensation from earlier was already starting to flare up again: Already he felt was on the edge of losing control again, stronger than ever.
"No, son," Paragus weakly whispered as he tried to pat him on the back with his right arm. "No crying. If wouldn't be good to lose control now. You wouldn't wanna hurt your little friends, would you?"
This got Broly's eyes to widen and to think a little more. He looked back to see Cheelai and Leemo, who were curiously staring at the scene, no hint of malice or contempt on their expressions. It was slow, but for the first time ever, he was able to suppress that latent power and keep it up from coming out in full force, continuing to hold the bloodied, beaten Paragus as he did so. In exchange, he began to let more tears flow.
"I'm sorry dad. I didn't mean to hurt you. It's just that you were hurting my friends, and then I got all scared and mad and..."
"Stop it!" While it wasn't overly booming, the relative amplitude of this command from Paragus compared to his present, feeble state surprised Broly. "You know full and well that I'm the one who has failed you, and the fact it has taken me getting killed, being revived and slowly dying again to realize that is a symbol of my frivolous will. However you decide to bury me will probably be a far more dignified death than what I deserve."
"I didn't get my sudden boost on my own, son. I made a deal with someone while in hell. I didn't actually see them, but all I know is they were a very bad woman: A witch, even. They revived me in exchange for bringing you to them. They wanted me to bring you to the Universe 6 Saiyan planet: Sadal, they called it. Just like the original homeworld of our ancient ancestors."
"I had no plan for what to do should I have successfully retrieved you. All that time I was trekking across Vampa to get to you, I just wanted to get you to follow me, to obey me again: Not once did I stop to think why I was trying to get to you, nor if that was what you really wanted. Knowing me, it was probably just to fulfill my stupid revenge fantasy, deep in my subconscious."
"Just one wish, my son. One more wish, and you'll never have to see or think about me again."
"Someday you're gonna die, Broly. Hopefully you'll go to heaven for being an infinitely better man than I ever was.
"But whatever you do for the rest of your life, my son..."
"Don't die on this planet."
As soon as his speech concluded, Paragus' breathing grew progressively slower and fainter. Broly clutched him tighter, and even lightly shook him in a desperate attempt to keep his pulse from fading. The attempt at resuscitation proved fruitless, however. And like a scene out of an ancient book of fables, Vampa's orange sun rose just in time to illuminate the closing seconds of the tragic life of Paragus, his endlessly loyal son holding him right as the proverbial clock ticked down to zero.