by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings. I own nothing from the crossover universe either.
Iron WillAce Laborn didn't like children. Even his own. When he thought back on his life, he realized that he had never been able to put himself in any mindset in which he would be able to understand others, much less those smaller versions of humans.
Puny humans.
Mr Laborn wasn't born Ace Laborn. His name has been changed, as a mangled pun on being "reborn". His real name was Ass Paragus, and he was born on another planet… in another dimension. On this planet, physical power was revered, and you could climb many ranks in the military forces by the strength of your fists. If you were a male, that is. The women didn't care about their posturing, because they managed everything else. And since they were the one giving names instead of taking them (after kicking their owners), they often gave stupid names to those brawny no-brainers.
Paragus was strong, for his people. He wasn't necessarily smart, or he would have noticed that his strength didn't come from easy victories as they all thought, but from the direst defeats: each time one of them came close to dying, but didn't, they would become stronger. As the living embodiment of the saying "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger" – which is a lie, of course. But we are here to follow Mr Laborn's story, not to discuss philosophy. Or study germs.
As a successful man, Paragus happened to have caught the interest of one of the females of his species, and they had a son together, whom she wanted to call Brocoly… shortened into "Broly". The pregnancy was difficult, and the delivery, in that world half-dominated by savage barbarians, too harsh for the mother to survive. And Broly, as a consequence of having "almost died" many times already, in his mother's womb, was quickly discovered as quite powerful.
Power corrupts, and, as it happened before, whether in real life or historical religious scriptures, Broly was deemed too powerful for the ruling elite… and condemned to die before he could reach his teenage years. And Paragus, too, because they thought that the power came from his loins. As if.
He didn't want them to die, and neither did his son. They couldn't do much against those better-trained elite guards who shoved them into a small spherical spaceship, launched it into space, and fired at it with all their combined might.
Or so he thought. Being too young to know better, Broly simply gathered his strength while waiting for the impact… and the resulting energy was enough to save them. Or something. In fact, like some other wild use of the energy they wielded, it opened a rift in space/time. Unfortunately, it opened right behind Paragus, and just as he was pushed backwards by the power pulsing from his son. He disappeared through it, and it then blinked shut.
For Broly, it opened a long spiral into chaos and malevolence.
For Paragus, it started his life on Earth Bet.
At the beginning, he was surprised: those humans didn't value physical violence as much as he did, and some places even put him into prison when he resorted to punches to pay for things, and even to eat. Soon, however, he found ways to express his violence within the laws of the land, gain money, and live normally: he became a boxer, and was quite good at it. That led him into contact with people who liked to see men punching each other out, to the point of being seduced by the idea of being with the champion. Of marrying him. Of getting children.
As most of the men from his planet, Paragus was quite a novice in all things related to relationships. Even after having had a son already. As such, he let a woman pull him into a loveless marriage, dictate his life, ending up ending his boxing career prematurely when she asked him to start gaining more money by having a "desk job", even though he wasn't good at it. And didn't like it. And knew those two things beforehand, too.
Not seeing more money coming her way to pay for her expensive way of life (hard drugs were expensive), the wife ended up divorcing, suing him for most of what he had then, and almost everything he may have later. He was too shocked to fight – and already knew that a mere backhand from him would send her through the wall, and him in prison. He thought that, at least, his son would be fine with his mother.
Fast-forwarding ten years or so, Mr Laborn found a teen-aged boy on his doorstep, calling him "dad" and asking for recognition, and a bit of help. The older man did so with what he knew, and slapped him. That done, the two of them got into a row, getting the attention of the neighbours and then the cops. Mr Laborn ended up in jail again, while his son Brian got to the hospital.
For some reason, Brian came back once he was out. He explained that his mother was still hooked on drugs, and that he worried for his sister Aisha. Paragus hadn't known his ex-wife had been pregnant when she had left, and he didn't know what to do. The only thing he knew, from his own upbringing, was to train to be stronger. So he started to train his son: from then on, when they wanted to see each other, they convened at the gym, put boxing gloves on, and got onto the ring.
Being much stronger than his son, he beat him regularly. It didn't prevent the young man from coming back, avid as he was of getting some sort of male role model to compensate for his mother… or her "boyfriends". Besides, there was something to it: each time he was pummelled, he took the necessary time to heal, but he ended up stronger.
He almost took the same route with Aisha, except that she was a girl, and his education saw nothing for him to train her for. Besides, she was not interested in fighting… at the beginning.
It took a mugging and rape scare for her to awaken to the fact that some self-defence lessons could be beneficial to her. It was Brian who gave them, though, as he was better than his father in gauging her ability and adapting to it. If Paragus had punched his own daughter like he was used to do him, she wouldn't have survived.
For some reasons, Aisha took only minimal interest in the purely martial aspect of her new training. Instead, she found a few videos talking about self-enlightenment, and, right around one of those sessions, she discovered that she could perceive the currents of energy flowing through her body and mind. Her "Ki" or something. And rather than use it to form barriers or attacks like in those documentary videos (she hadn't realized that those were movie clips), she trained in the utility aspect of them.
It allowed her to fly, too. The first time she did was to avoid one of Brian's attacks, and the two siblings took note of that, realized that she got "powers". After a bit of coaching into feeling his own Ki and using it to attack, she made him realize that he, too, could do it.
They thought themselves parahumans. They were not. Parahumans generally had fixed powers, while the two of them pinged ideas (and punches) off each other and gained more insight on how to use them in new ways. For instance, after successfully generating beams to attack and shields to defend, they both concurred that light-based powers were too conspicuous and they trained in a way to express them in less vivid colours. Both succeeded, in a way, as Aisha developed a Ki use to make her invisible, while Brian got his super-powered shields (and attacks) to change from light to its reverse: absolute darkness.
Brian still thought that Aisha wasn't safe living with her mother, and she confirmed that their current stepfather was starting to ogle her in a disturbing way. Trying to adapt to some of the legalities required to adopt her, he bought an apartment… with monies he got from being recruited by a supervillain.
The rest, as they say, is another story, best retold by the original author.
The end of the story is a bit different, though. Taylor having drilled in everyone the need to explore all facets of one's power, Brian and Aisha taught everyone in their group to feel their ki. All became able to fly.
It was still not enough for the endgame. Scion destroyed the defenders of Earth Bet, his point of arrival, and then detonated the planet. Proceeding to jump dimensions to destroy other iterations of the same, he stumbled into the universe where Broly was, at the time, reigning supreme.
The battle was hard-fought from both sides, but the worm ended up killed… and Broly sufficiently weakened that other heroes could get him – the Sangoku wanted to give him those healing beans, in some misguided attempt at honour, but he was piled upon.
Those heroes had witnessed the dimensional shenanigans the two godly fighters had used, and convened with the Nameks to reproduce them. Getting Nameks from several dimensions together, and with the assistance of the Kamis therein, they succeeded in creating Wish-granting dragon balls powerful enough to restore the destroyed planets to their previous state. And detect, later, further invasions from other members of the space worm race. And deflect them before they could take hold.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
To be continued… when there's a willAuthor's Notes: …there's a way. Chapter's title refers to the d20 feat of the same name.