Chapter 65: From the Ashes
...A.K.A., the Break Through the Limit 1,000 Reviews/1-Year Anniversary Special, Part One
I'm probably being too paranoid about this after the chapter 18 and 19 thing, but when I read Bringer of Death's chapter 77, I though, "Well, crap, they're gonna jump on me for this one*." Because this chapter was already pretty much written when I read theirs. I don't know exactly when I started this, or when their chapter was released, or how many days or weeks it was before I read it, so I can't numerically prove it was impossible for me to have read their chapter before writing this, but I hope you'll take my word for it. If you've read their chapter, you'll probably be able to spot the couple of paragraphs of mine that caused me to groan inwardly upon reading theirs. The way a couple of sentences are worded, too. No, I didn't change it to remove those parts after reading theirs. It's what I wrote, and I couldn't think of a better way of putting it.
If I had to explain it, and you didn't want me to just say coincidence/I'm-being-paranoid-and-it's-not-actual ly-that-similar? I'd probably say something along the lines of the character concerned being (to start with) the same person in whatever story you put them in, and they therefore have the same personal issues the writer must deal with...
*(If they even read it. Which is not a given. I don't demand to be read by other authors or anything.)
Future timeline, shortly after the end of the Super Android 13 special...
Break sat up, sighing. "It's over..." She shook her head, still feeling the ringing in her ears.
"Sort of." Gohan strode towards her through the demolished battlefield. "We're near Dr. Gero's laboratory, right? Well, let's go blow the place. Can't have it making any more Super Androids...just that one was enough of a pain to deal with. What if it learns to mass-produce?"
Break shivered. "You're right...let's go. Speaking of androids..." Seventeen and Eighteen were nowhere to be seen.
"They left," Gohan told her. "Said it was a creepy feeling, being so close to the lab...and they just hoped we'd destroy it quickly."
"Then let's do that." Break motioned towards the broken ground where the battle had risen from underneath. "C'mon." They flew briskly towards the hole and descended inside. Once underground, Break formed an energy ball in one hand for light. "Here." A tunnel led out of one end of the collapsed chamber. They hopped over to the debris to reach it, walking for several minutes before reaching the end—where the tunnel promptly opened out into nothing at all.
"W...What?" Break gasped. "There's nothing here!" Nothing but dirt and rock confronted them.
"Hey, look..." Gohan heaved some boulders out of the way, pointing to the floor. "Tracks. It seems Gero's supercomputer anticipated this...the entire lab is mobile. It's long-gone."
"Damn it!" Break growled. "It could be anywhere by now! And it's collapsed its tunnel behind it...we'd never find it."
"What can we do?" Gohan asked—despite being the older and more experienced fighter, he found himself more and more deferring to Break's leadership these days. It wasn't just that she was the strongest—ever since she'd returned from the past, she'd been confident, decisive...almost a different person. Perhaps being the main defender of the Earth—having so much riding on you alone—had that effect on you. Whatever it was, Gohan again found himself awaiting her decision.
"We get stronger," she said firmly. "When the next android it cooks up appears, we kick its ass halfway across the planet, and we blow the lab. If it repeats Cell's mistake and takes us to the lab straight off, we do that first...if not, we make it take us there—or have Bulma take it apart looking for a tracking device once we've pulled its head off its shoulders."
Gohan nodded. "Good plan."
Days became weeks, and weeks became months. Training intensified. Bulma offered Gohan a more human-looking cybernetic arm, but he refused, saying he wanted a reminder of the old, dark days. Finally, a breakthrough—after vivid descriptions from Break of the exact details of the battles in the past with Cell and Broly, after much meditation, hard training, and his continued insistence that she fought him in her Legendary form to provide an obstacle to overcome—Gohan ascended.
It was not dramatic, or flashy. They were sparring out in the wasteland, with Break's Legendary power giving her a distinct advantage, and Gohan was knocked to the ground, not for the first time that day. Calmly, he stood up. Something was different in his eyes. He breathed in deeply, as if about to shout, then instead spoke quietly. "There." A flash of light, and he transformed. Blue lightning. Hair standing on end. Hard look in his eyes. "Let's see..." One punch sent Break's bulked-up form flying. He looked down at his hand, surprised. "So...this is what it feels like...to go truly beyond a Super Saiyan." Suddenly losing energy, he fell to his knees, powering down as Break walked back over to him. "I did it...unbelievable..."
"Yeah!" Break grinned. "No android's gonna stand up to that..."
And because in some things, a person will generally think the same way, no matter which version of them you take, the next words out of Gohan's mouth were, "Let's see...I think: 'Super Saiyan 2'?"
"Sounds good to me."
As it turned out, this new burst of power registered on instruments far, far away, on distant stars. Curiosity was aroused. Unmanned probes were launched. Energy was measured—the energy of a sparring match between a Legendary Super Saiyan and a Super Saiyan 2. Results were read. Jaws dropped. Reports were filed. And some, sitting at the top of the heap, grew uneasy.
And so they arrived. The would-be conquerors. Eager to eliminate competition and prove themselves #1 in the universe. First the saiyan Turles, then the Namekian Slug, and finally Bojack and his gang. None returned. None could defeat Earth's warriors, and all were too stubborn to let themselves be taken alive. Gohan and Break, for their part, relished the occasional workout.
Meanwhile, Bulma had kept herself busy. In order to speed up the hunt for the laboratory—and hopefully make a pre-emptive strike rather than simply reacting to the next attack—she'd been working on a scouter-like device that could detect the kind of energy given off by Dr. Gero's androids' power sources, but so far without success. Whenever they asked, she'd shrug and say, "Sorry, it's not picking up anything at all," or "It's only giving one reading—and it's reading a higher energy output than any machine could physically have, so...yeah, still broken."
Things seemed to settle down after that. No more hopeful tyrants made attempts on the Earth, no sign of any new androids emerged. With Gohan's help, Break unlocked Super Saiyan 2, describing it and the Legendary form as two branching paths leading off of basic Super Saiyan—hard as she tried, the twin reservoirs of power within her remained stubbornly separate; she could find no way to use all of her power at once.
Exactly two years after after Break's return from the past, the three of them were all sitting down for their annual celebration commemorating the defeat of the androids and another year of freedom—already a worldwide tradition—when Bulma frowned, an alarm ringing on her phone. "Huh?" She flipped it open. "Oh...satellite dish's picking up something. Large object, approaching Earth. Not a ship..."
Gohan nodded. "Now that you mention it...I do sense an approaching ki..."
Break stood up. "Yeah, it's huge. But...dormant, somehow...not quite suppressed or hidden, exactly...I don't know how to describe it."
"I know what you mean." Gohan headed for the door. "C'mon, let's go check it out." Break followed, pulling on her Capsule Corp jacket over her armour and taking off as soon as she reached the door.
"Think this is another invader?" Gohan asked.
"I don't know..." Break replied, frowning. "This energy...it's familiar, somehow..." Her eyes widened. "No way...how the hell did he get here? And on his own!"
"Who?" Gohan asked urgently. "Who is it?"
"Broly," she said grimly. Gohan grimaced—he'd heard his cousin's account of the nigh-invincible saiyan's rampage.
"But...we should be fine, right? I mean, we're both stronger than he is now, yeah? You said a Super Saiyan 2 beat him easily, so two of them should have no problem...right?"
"Let's hope so. I don't sense his father with him...not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, Paragus would probably just order him to kill us, but at the same time, he's kind of psychopathic anyway..."
They landed on a hilltop a few hundred yards from the crash site, now seeing the object for what it was—a large chunk of ice, having somehow survived re-entry largely un-melted, presumably something to do with the metal protrusions sticking out from the ice at all angles, antennae whirling, lights blinking. A cloud of steam rose into the air and water began to fill the impact crater as the ice finally started to melt. At the same time, a round metallic object detached itself from the whole apparatus and zipped swiftly through the air towards them. It halted just in front of them, beeping for a couple of seconds before projecting a hologram of a familiar figure—Paragus.
"Greetings," the recording said as the half-saiyans watched intently. "If you are watching this, then my probe has been successful in tracking down saiyan life signs, somewhere in the galaxy. Perhaps it took years, or even decades, to reach you. I may even be dead by now. You will find near you an ice 'capsule' which should even now be thawing out. It contains my son, Broly. He has grown too powerful, and too restless...I cannot control him anymore. Therefore, I leave him to you, wherever you're hiding. Have fun with him." His face twisted into a snarl. "Broly is the mightiest being in the universe! Prepare to meet your end, traitors! This is the price you pay for stabbing me in the back—" his image vanished as Break vapourised the projector drone with a wave of her hand.
"Excellent," she said. "We're dealing with Broly completely unrestrained here. This can only end well."
"Hold on...it's opening," Gohan warned. As one, they turned Super Saiyan, anxiously watching the ice as it cracked and split. Finally, it shattered, shards scattering in all directions.
"Haaagh!" Broly, wild-eyed and dripping wet, dropped weakly to the ground in the rapidly-filling crater. He lurched to his feet. "Gaah!" He shook his head, spraying water from side to side, and clambered up the dirt incline, muddying his hands and flopping over onto his back on the other side, sliding down the grassy slope. At the bottom, he stood again, seeming to regain some strength, and gazed up at the sky. "FATHER!" He screamed. "Why did you abandon me?!" He almost stumbled, but remained standing proudly upright, taking in heaving breaths. "I have served you all my life...what have I done to deserve this? All I wanted...was a little freedom...WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME HERE?!" Receiving no answer from the heavens, he fell onto his hands and knees, going quiet again.
The half-saiyans observed the whole episode curiously. "Huh..." Break mused. "That doesn't seem like him at all...then again, the only time he wasn't under his father's control, he was in his Legendary state...maybe we just never got to see more than the mindless killer?"
"Oh, I'm sure he's still that," Gohan decided. "He's just confused right now. What should we do?"
"You stay here."
"What?" Gohan started to protest. "You can't—"
"I'm going to talk to him," Break insisted, powering down. "I have to. I've never had the chance to talk to someone who...understands."
"You mean, being a Legendary Super Saiyan?"
"Yeah. Even Super Saiyan 2...mentally, it just doesn't come close. Every second I'm in the Legendary form, I'm one step away from going completely berserk. He's the only person in the universe who knows what it's like, and I'm going to talk to him."
Gohan rubbed his forehead, shaking his head. "This is insane..."
"Yeah, it is. Hold my jacket, will you?"
"Hey."
Broly looked up, seeing someone standing over him. A girl not too far off his age. Wearing armour that seemed a little familiar. "Who are you?" he grunted.
"A saiyan, like you."
"No, you're not," he snorted. "No tail. Blue hair. Don't joke around with me." In saying this, he conveniently overlooked his own lack of a tail.
"Well, look who thinks he knows everything." Break smirked. "But I'm more like you than you realise." She turned Super Saiyan. "Look familiar?"
Shaking his ragged hair out of his eyes, Broly stood up unsteadily. "A...Super Saiyan...?" He transformed as well, with slightly more effort. The transformation filled his body with new vigour, and he straightened up. "Like this?" He pointed a finger at her. "Just who are you? I'm supposed to be special. Nobody else can do this..."
"Well..." Break shrugged. "Guess you're wrong. Any saiyan can, with enough effort."
"Is that so?" Broly ground his teeth together. This girl was starting to get on his nerves. As if anyone in the universe was his equal. Fine...maybe, then, I'll show her what made Father so afraid of me... "Well, can they do—this?!" Yelling, his body expanded around him, swelling into the monstrous Legendary form, waves of green energy rolling out from him.
"No, not usually," Break admitted. "But boy, are you unlucky. You're talking to the one other person who was born, let's say...a little different."
"Shut up already!" Broly threw a punch, but to his surprise, Break caught it. He looked up, seeing her muscles expanding, her hair standing up on end, her aura becoming bright green, her eyes change to blank white.
"Told you...I'm more like you than you think."
"Wha...that's impossible!" Broly protested.
"And yet." Break let go of his hand, and the two Legendary Super Saiyans glared at each other—while Broly's unrestrained use of the form and lack of training led to him being much larger than Break (who even now wasn't much bulkier than in her regular form), their ki was unmistakeably identical.
"This energy...you can't be..." Broly held his head in his hands, shaking it from side to side. "No, NO! I am the strongest in the universe! I AM THE LEGENDARY—"
"Mm-hm. Legendary Super Saiyan. Invincible warrior. I know, I know."
"Do not take me lightly..." he growled, clenching his hands into fists. "I'LL KILL YOU!"
"Go ahead and try! I haven't had a workout today, anyway!" Break raised her guard as Broly charged wildly at her.
Sitting on the hilltop, observing events, Gohan sighed. "This isn't going to be pretty...neither of us get to really cut loose very often, and she's not very good at dealing with pent-up aggression. I'd hate to be in Broly's shoes right now..."
Half an hour later...
A missed swing. An arm grabbed. Leverage on the ground. Flipped overhead. Gasping, Broly crashed to the ground, forming the latest in a series of craters made by his many floorings over the course of the fight. Finally, it was too much; energy reserves exhausted, he returned to his normal form, grimacing as he felt his incredible power leave him.
Once more, Break stood over the fallen saiyan, arms folded. She relaxed into her regular Super Saiyan state. "There, you see? You're not the strongest, not by a long way. That wasn't even my full power," she added, knowing full well that the fight would have been even easier had she gone Super Saiyan 2.
"How...how did...?" He breathed.
"Simple. Same power source...one of us has trained, the other hasn't. Amazing what some martial arts'll do for you." She sat down next to him. "Still, though...that was pretty fun. Haven't had a fight like that for a while...you're a tough one, y'know." She grinned. "Plus, it was cool seeing that look in your eyes. The one I knew must be in mine. You, and you alone, alone know what it's like...the roar in your head, the fire behind your eyes..."
Broly was silent for a long time. "I...always thought I was unique. But...that's exactly it. That's how it feels..." He paused, sitting up slightly. "I've never had to work that hard, fighting someone...or really work at all. It's always been so easy...and I enjoyed it. Having power over others, even if I knew, in the back of my mind, I was really under someone else's power...still. Being the greatest, I've always loved it. But...this was different. For the first time, I...I was excited to fight. It wasn't just a thought, a flick of the wrist. I was putting everything I had into it...it was exhilerating." He was rambling, talking as much to himself as to her.
Break nodded, smiling. "Good. You're a saiyan...you're supposed to love fighting. What you've done all your life wasn't fighting, it was pest control. I'm the only real opponent you've ever had. I saw something, though...you were surprised at what you could do. For the first time, you discovered just how powerful you really are, and it startled you."
"But...it wasn't enough...!" Broly growled. "I won't just accept this! I'll beat you next time!"
"Sure you will." A sly expression crept onto her face. "But you'll need somewhere to stay while you recover. And, y'know, you aren't gonna find much to eat out here."
Broly understood the implication. "...Fine." I've never fought anyone I couldn't beat...even if this one is different...she'll be no exception! Yes, finally I feel it—the fabled saiyan battle-hunger! I will never be defeated!
Since Korin Tower, home of the magical healing senzus, was long destroyed, and no Namekians remained alive, healing had to be done the old-fashioned way; though saiyans did heal quite fast anyway. Broly, as expected, wolfed down any food put in front of him, and spent the rest of his time exercising. It wasn't quite training—not in the martial arts sense. He just threw physical challenges in front of himself to try and accelerate the recovery process. Sometimes, it backfired, he fell off a mountain or emerged spluttering from the bottom of a waterfall, and his recovery was actually set back a little; but there was no discouraging him.
Finally, he seemed fully healed. The morning immediately after his recovery, he walked over to Break's bedroom and kicked her awake. "Get up!" He growled. "Today's the day you're going to die!"
"Are you...smiling?" Break asked, rubbing her eyes. She climbed out of bed, changing quickly. "You really are looking forward to this."
"Of course...I can't wait to avenge my defeat. I've thought of nothing else since I came here!"
"Mm-hmm. I doubt that."
"Huh. Like I care what you think."
A few minutes later, each having changed from casual clothes to their fighting outfits, they squared off, assuming the Legendary form in an almost leisurely fashion. Back home, Gohan was awoken by the incredible surge of energy. "What the...! Oh...they're fighting again. Eh." Sighing, he turned over and went back to sleep, completely unconcerned for his long-time ally's safety. I saw last time. Broly can't touch her.
"All right...show me." Broly lunged, and Break parried with her forearm, countering with a swift punch to the larger saiyan's stomach. He lurched away, throwing a pulsing energy ball, which she dodged. Nodding, as if this was perfectly fine, he tried attacking from a few different angles, always without success. Finally, he stopped, powering down.
"Huh?" Break relaxed to her normal form as well. "That's it?"
Broly closed his eyes. "For now. I just wanted to see...exactly how great the difference was. It's obvious I can't beat you right now. Our powers are equal, but your skill is worlds above mine."
"So...you're giving up?" she asked hesitantly.
"Of course not!" he snapped. "But I've only ever fought as a brawler. A monster...you're a martial artist. There's no comparison." Unexpectedly, he bent down on one knee. "Teach me! I want to learn to truly fight!"
Break folded her arms. "Let me get this straight. You want me to teach you...so you'll have a better shot at killing me?"
"Uh..." Broly fell silent. When you put it like that... "There is...a tradition, is there not? You find someone stronger than you...you learn from them! Every student wishes to surpass their master..."
"You can stop throwing out random words," Break sighed, rolling her eyes. "I'll train you, all right? But don't blame me if a new way of fighting causes a new way of thinking, too."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing more, only what I said." She smiled, raising her ki slightly. "Since you're all healed up...shall we get started?"
Naturally, being somewhat lacking in patience, every time Broly made a significant step forwards in his technique, he would try fighting Break again—but as she kept reminding him, she'd been doing this her whole life, and the result was largely the same. His attacks slowly changed from uncontrolled swings to measured strikes, his movements became more precise, but the skill difference between them was frustrating. He felt like a child fighting an adult. Or like he was fighting a psychic—whatever he did, she'd read his moves like a book. She'd always be three steps ahead, positioning her body in exactly the right spot to avoid his blow and counter, with maximum force for minimum effort. But he was gradually improving. Occasionally now, he'd land a hit, and it would cause her real damage—in terms of pure physical strength, they were equal.
"You know..." she said one day, observing him practicing defensive technique out in the forest, "...when you think about it, you don't really want to kill me."
Broly paused. "I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion...seeing as I've spent the last six months training to do just that." It turned out that, with a little practice, the feral saiyan could be quite eloquent.
She lay back, folding her arms behind her head. "Well, just think. If you kill me, and let's say for argument's sake Gohan too, what happens then? You wander around breaking things, like before, only with more freedom and less direction?" She shrugged. "Won't that seem a bit...dull, compared to when you had someone to challenge you? You'd never really experience a fight like this again."
He stood still for quite some time. "I...don't know what I'd do," he finally said, in a quiet voice. "I've always been quite glad you showed up as soon as I unfroze. I was...aimless, in those few minutes. I finally had my freedom, but no idea what to do with it." His mouth attempted to twitch upwards into a smile, with limited success. "I'm fortunate, really...that the only saiyans alive happened to be like you."
She nodded, deep in thought. "Well...tell me one thing. If I were to die—say I got sick, or whatever, because I honestly don't see you managing to kill me even if you did want to—what would you do, specifically, in regards to the Earth? If for some reason Gohan wasn't around either?"
"If you're thinking I'd destroy it just for kicks, you're wrong," Broly assured her. "I was actually about to say that I would...half-jokingly. But something stopped me."
"Something?"
"Well...I've been here a while. It's pleasant enough. And laying waste to it would feel...wrong, somehow. Like I was destroying all the memories here. All the ways I've improved."
"You have, you have. Physically and mentally."
The peaceful days continued. About a month later, Break was unexpectedly approached by her visitor while watching the construction sites in West City—she loved seeing the recovery progress, day by day.
"What...have you done to me?" Broly demanded.
Break shrugged. "Uh...taught you martial arts? Let you sleep in our house, eat our food? Is this a trick question?"
"Was this your plan all along?" He pressed. "I'm...different. I was planning our next fight...what I'd do differently...and it stopped. It stopped as soon as I'd won." The words tumbled out, almost a stream of consciousness. "I really...really don't want to kill you. There'd be no pleasure in it any more."
"I see...but you want to keep getting stronger?"
"Yes. Overtaking you is still my goal."
She nodded. "Is that all?"
"No, I...I think...I want to improve, because I know I can. And I know it'd be a shame to have that potential and leave it untapped."
She smiled. "You know...I think you're getting there. To the truth..."
"Truth?"
"It's not about overcoming this enemy, that enemy...I used to think like that. Getting stronger than 17 and 18 was always my only goal, and despite being so fixated on it, I never could...my family in the past showed me a better way. It's about bettering yourself...if you can improve, why shouldn't you?"
"...You did plan this." He sighed. "Why? You've destroyed plenty of other enemies, people just like me...or like I was." It was, honestly, hard to tell. He couldn't pinpoint one point in time where he'd changed; it was a gradual shift from one state to the next, not a sudden switch. "Why..." he searched for the right word. "...why save me?"
"When I met you...the other you...in the past..." she studied his face, searching for traces of the former cruel, arrogant sneer. "I'll be honest, as things went on I started to hate you. But afterwards, I kept thinking back to the first few minutes. Before you transformed...because I'm not sure if that was really you. It's easy to just let yourself become the Legendary Super Saiyan completely, isn't it? To let the beast in, hand over the reins." Coming from anyone else, it would have seemed patronising, but this was the one other person who'd felt the exact same thing.
"It took a long time for me to realise there was another way to do it," Broly admitted.
"But, while it seemed like there was a lot of repressed anger...a massive ego, a sense of deserving to be treated better than everyone else...I decided that was nurture, not nature. Not your nature. So when you turned up here...I got curious. I wanted to find out who you really were." She grinned. "I think you're finding that out, too."
"Well—" he began, but was interrupted as Break span him around by the shoulders to face her.
"Hey," she said, an idea suddenly occurring to her. "Here's something I bet you've never heard from your dad, or anybody else for that matter. A compliment. Broly. You're a nice person, or at least you could be. You're interesting, you're more than just a killing machine and—surprisingly—you're pretty smart."
"Um...what..." he began, and didn't finish.
"Look, you had a pretty crappy upbringing and I'm trying to help your self-esteem, so sue me if subtlety isn't my strong point!" She got a confused look in reply. "Right. I guess being liked as a person is a new one for you. Well, I like a lot of people. When I'm not punching things, I'm real friendly. I'm sure plenty of other people will like you too. Hey, go find out."
"Slow down!" He managed, bewildered.
"Yeah! Why don't you go meet some people? Go to one of those rebuilding sites, offer to help out...they're used to the occasional super-strong person passing by. Here's another new experience for you: do something constructive." She pushed him into motion, sending him shuffling awkwardly towards a construction site, then leaned on a nearby wall, wiping nervous sweat from her forehead. Wow, almost went a completely different direction with the whole "I like you" bit...c'mon, girl, don't be ridiculous. Relationship? He probably doesn't even know the word.
You are already teaching him plenty... a tiny voice objected at the back of her mind.
Well you know what I bloody well mean!
Even if he is a nice person and interesting and—
Oh hush, you. Shaking her head firmly and resolutely ignoring the tiny voice, she stomped back down the street towards Capsule Corp.
Well, some of these scenes had me leave my comfort zone. Hopefully it worked okay.
Oh, and when I mentioned 'casual clothes' and 'fighting outfits', I meant:
Break: Casual—varying civilian wear, very similar in style to Launch's wardrobe; fighting—her saiyan battle-suit (identical to Fasha's) without the armoured chestplate or gloves, and a Capsule Corp jacket over the top (the same one, in fact, that Future Trunks wore in canon).
Broly: Casual—just literally whatever he finds lying around the place that fits him, which admittedly isn't too much; fighting—his outfit from the movies, which he for some reason insists on wearing unaltered, jewellery and all.