Chapter Text
Broly does not have a firm memory of it, but he knows that before the screaming, there was some kind of peace.
He was warm, safe, protected - he didn't have a concept of happiness as such, but he was content.
Then they took him out of his pod, and placed him next to the loudest, unhappiest Saiyan infant that ever drew breath.
So the other child cried, Broly cried, making the other's crying somehow louder, and they lived in this unpleasant feedback for what seemed like eternity.
When they take the other child away, Broly knows relief for the first time in his short life.
Then, there is an unbearable, impossible heat. An awful light that swallows up the whole of existence.
Broly's first death - or the first he can remember - is maybe one of his favourites.
It's not nearly as complicated as the others.
Sometimes, on this go-round (how many?), people will come round his crib to talk about numbers.
They talk about numbers so very often it almost drowns out the crying in his ears. Almost.
The crying drills into his brain, colours everything in his short life with its sound, makes him wish for the terrible light that had torn the world apart.
It makes a pretty good backdrop for getting stabbed, from an objective viewpoint.
This is the first time Broly becomes truly aware of his father - another presence in the desert as they both slowly die, slow enough that they see out the end of the planet together.
Again and again, this is how Broly and Paragus spend their last moments.
If there's one thing Broly loves his father for in these moments, it's that he's quiet.
Whether it's love for his father or frustration at their situation that finally saves them, Broly isn't sure. Saiyan memories go back a long way, but he's limited in what kinds of things he can understand at the time, muddled by his unique experiences. Love is not exactly a natural emotion for Saiyans, but then the myriad frustrations of time travel and repeatedly dying are also (at this point) uncommon for their kind.
Whatever it is, it comes up from within him, from the wound he has received what feels like ten thousand (they are always talking numbers at him) times, and shelters him and his father in a green light.
They die a few times that way too, actually, in the vacuum of space.
It takes him a few tries to get it right.
For an infant, he really does quite well.
Broly's first life off of Planet Vegeta is a happy, simple one.
They train, and eat, and plot revenge on everyone who has ever hurt them, for they know that some Saiyans have survived the destruction of Planet Vegeta, and the race as a whole deserves punishment for abandoning such loyal and powerful sons.
He loves his father, who dotes on him in a traditional, Saiyan way - with a harsh and grueling training regimen that brings their power to dizzying heights and makes them the undisputed kings of wherever they set foot (Read: A long way away from the Planet Trade Organisation's territory).
Eventually, Father declares that he is strong enough to take their revenge on Vegeta, son of the Vegeta who would have had them both killed.
...they're not crazy enough to take on Freeza. That would be beyond stupidity.
So they bring themselves back in to areas of the universe where they will know what is happening, listening in on scouter transmissions and torturing PTO soldiers in their noble quest.
Eventually, they find Vegeta and Nappa - Father hates him too, almost as much, for standing by with the other cowards while the King gutted him - have taken a mission upon themselves, far away from any civilised corner of space, away from Freeza's reach.
Perfect.
Broly and his father head to this 'Earth'.
It's the first time Broly experiences being a 'hero'.
With Vegeta and Nappa dead at his feet, Broly is introduced to another hero, who Father first calls 'Bardock', and then 'Kakarot'.
"Hey, I'm - !"
The Earthlings have some other name for him.
Kakarot is...nice. Happy and excited to meet him like no one has ever been.
He offers to 'spar'.
Broly finds he likes sparring - not quite fighting, maybe a bit like training.
He's not good at it though. As much as he tries to hold back...even Father hasn't dared to 'spar' with Broly for years and years.
He watches Kakarot's limp body fall to Earth, and there's...
A scream, horribly and hauntingly familiar.
A bright, burning light.
It's embarrassing that Broly's bad dream (?) delays their pursuit of the Saiyan traitors. As harsh a taskmaster as Father is, he's not going to confront the Prince of All Saiyans with his weeping son at his side. Think of the optics.
When they land on Earth, Broly doesn't get to kill a prince, but he does make a friend.
"Wow, you're really strong! We should train - "
"Not now -!"
The friend gives him a strange Earth name.
But Father says his name is 'Kakarot'.
Kakarot wants to 'spar'. But he's too injured right now, so they'll have to wait.
Why is that a relief?
Broly likes Kakarot, though he finds his voice grating for reasons he can't quite put a finger on.
Kakarot is a Saiyan, but an 'unimportant' one, which means Father doesn't hate him so much.
Kakarot talks to him about training, about the way Vegeta fights, about how once he's better they're going to fight.
Kakarot admires his strength. Broly finds he likes being admired.
Kakarot's wife cooks for him, because he's quiet, apparently - how the two things relate he doesn't know - and that makes him like Earth even more.
Broly and his father leave with Kakarot's son and friends to Namek, because if Vegeta has failed to get these 'Dragon Balls' here, then that's where he'll look for them next.
Father doesn't really approve of their new allies, but they could do with the help, and these humans have many strange and interesting ways of fighting.
If nothing else, Father is confident that if Vegeta was almost killed - "though he'll be stronger now" - by this group, Broly will have no trouble doing the job for real.
Namek is interesting and exciting - the fact that Freeza is on the planet scares his father though. Broly doesn't like his father being scared.
Killing Vegeta seems to settle Father's nerves for a while.
There's an old Namekian who can make him stronger, strong enough to protect his father from Freeza and his men.
The Old Namek puts his hand on Broly's head - Broly can feel his fear in the way he trembles, and he can feel something inside himself, something that tastes of the desert and blood in his mouth and -
Green.
He doesn't remember much after that.
His father lying dead on the ground, clutching a Dragon Ball.
An alien creature, bone white features twisted in pain and rage.
A golden warrior with Kakarot's face driving a fist through his old scar.
It's a little embarrassing, but Broly had basically forgotten he was immortal. His many deaths as a baby had turned, for him, into a hazy memory into a sort of childhood fever dream/nightmare.
In this next life, he is a little quieter, a little more reserved, but things go much the same way they did before.
This time, he doesn't take the Old Namek's hand, and though his father and his allies protest, the decrepit creature itself seems to understand.
The Ginyu Force is...kind of amusing. He mows them down, then somehow the short, squat one has driven a sharp stick through his eye.
'Blind rage' is a pretty apt description for what happens next.
When he can see again, everything is in black and white.
There's someone with white hair - like a shape cut out of the world, that's what catches his attention - who stops him.
For the first time, Broly doesn't wake up in his crib, but he can hardly appreciate it, because he's on the ship to Namek, still thinking he's fighting the white-haired Kakarot doppleganger.
It's embarassing, after all this time, to be killed by the vacuum of the space again.
For reasons he can't properly articulate, Broly kills the little (cheating, time-stopping) nuisance the moment he sees him.
That means he can relax, casually knocking the Ginyu Force down when they try to pile on him.
Until their Captain arrives.
Broly does not like having horns or purple skin, he discovers.
It's also not exactly great that Ginyu has managed to choose the exact same spot he'd been stabbed in as a baby to wound this new body.
Broly considers ending things then and there, so he can start over, but -
The screaming. The pain. The years and years to -
Kakarot gets him out of trouble, tricking the Captain into giving him his body back.
...there's something unsettling about watching Kakarot fight his body.
Kakarot is disappointed he's killed Vegeta and all the others - how will they get stronger for future fights? Broly doesn't like Kakarot's disappointment.
Then Father takes the Dragon Balls.
It makes sense, of course. If Father and Broly are immortal, they can't get hurt again. Father is just doing what's best for them.
Kakarot and his friends don't see it that way.
Freeza, perhaps, understands. He certainly wants that particular wish for himself.
Enough to kill Father for it, certainly.
Broly's love for his father, his frustration with the others for not understanding, his resentment for...everything, it rips itself out from somewhere within himself, and tears Freeza to pieces.
With no Freeza to torture, there's just the planet to vent his anger on, which Kakarot objects to.
When Broly bats him away, Kakarot's son attacks him in a rage that looks entirely too familiar.
It's different to the rage Kakarot brings to bear when his son is dead, the rage that turns his eyes cold and blue.
The rage that drives a fist through his abdomen, through that same damn scar.
Broly almost manages to stay quiet this time, but when his father decides it is time they follow Vegeta, Broly begs him not to.
He tells him everything - is it the first time? He doesn't know - and Father listens, and nods, and takes him to a doctor who puts a special crown around Broly's head.
The crown makes everything quiet.
His father trains this new, not-quite-there version of himself to an acceptable standard, then marches him off to Vegeta's last known location.
Namek isn't there anymore, but there's a nearby planet called Yardrat that might have some answers.
On Yardrat, the crown's effectiveness is proven - the sight of the man who's killed him twice barely makes him twitch.
Then Father decides they should rule the Yardrats, which makes sense, as everything Father says makes sense.
Kakarot...disagrees.
Kakarot beats him down until he notices that it's not really Broly calling the shots.
When Kakarot blasts the control device (and his Father's hand) to pieces, everything the crown had been holding back comes flooding in at once.
Broly can't fight the tide of green, and he doesn't particularly want to.
It's actually a Yardrat that kills him this time - teleporting its arm inside of him while he's busy killing Kakarot.
But it's still Kakarot's face that stares him down as he dies.
He looks...disappointed.
It makes Broly sick. Sick.
Sick.
The screaming. The crying. Endlessly.
Who is it? Who's crying?
Who's making that damn noise?
When he wakes up, he's on Earth, staying in the blue-haired woman's strangely advanced house.
Before he knows it, he's standing over Kakarot's hospital bed, a trail of broken buildings behind him, his fist glowing green.
Kakarot looks up at him without a single trace of fear.
He's confused. Maybe a little bit...annoyed?
"Hey, can't we do this when I can fight better?"
They find him crying onto an incredibly baffled Kakarot's bandages.
Naturally, no one wants to load him onto a ship with the vulnerable Namek-bound crew.
Vulnerable? Kakarot's son had killed -
Father waits with him for Kakarot to recover, and they train together on their way to kill Vegeta, Freeza, all of get Kakarot's son and friends out of trouble.
The first thing he does when he lands is head straight for Freeza.
He forgets that without the - WITHIN, THE ENDLESS - strange power he possesses, Freeza is still the strongest -
A feline God, a blue, ridiculous,
- being in the universe.
Freeza is also affronted that Broly can actually stand up to him.
He dies slowly, looking up at Kakarot as Father begs the other Saiyan to avenge him.
Avenge him? Kakarot's the one who -
No, it was Freeza?
He can't look at anything but Kakarot.
Solemn. Disappointed. Pitying.
The next turn, he trains.
And trains.
And trains.
He pushes himself to dizzying, incredible heights.
He's going to kill Freeza. He will be the strongest there is. Nothing will ever hurt (kill) him then.
Father can't keep up. Maybe that's why he does what he does.
It could also be that he'd lost his eye during one of their training matches.
Whatever it is, Broly finds himself crowned once again.
He spends years with the Crown. He comes to love it, in a strange way, this magical band that makes everything...quiet.
Even when it (Fa-) floods his head with pain, at least the pain has a purpose. Focus.
Kill, conquer, destroy. Life is simple and easy so long as he obeys the Crown (-ther).
They wait, until finally Father brings Kakarot the few remaining Saiyans to their 'New Vegeta'.
...Even without the many restraints on his mind, Broly doubts he could fully understand why they're going with this plan.
Somewhere under the haze of the Crown, Broly manages to spar with Kakarot.
It's when everyone else piles on, all of them golden and horribly, horribly familiar, that Broly's true self ruptures skin and Crown and sanity to bring itself into the world again.
Giving over to it is a relief. He's not fully aware of what he's doing, who he's fighting, he doesn't care.
Then he sees the ship, clear against the massive meteor.
Broly knows it's his father. His constant, loyal father, his only real ally.
Abandoning him.
It stops him in his tracks.
Kakarot is talking, of course. About how this is better for him. About how Broly is free to be the fighter he should be now, without his father holding him back and controlling him.
Everyone stops to wait for his reply.
Kakarot's son disappears in a flash of green light.
"He was holding you back," he explains.
It's the first time in all his lives that Broly has made a joke.
It, and the look on Kakarot's face, keeps him laughing through eternity.
The laughter, crying, bouts of rage, his flagrant disregard for Paragus' will, it's natural that the old man goes to the Crown earlier and earlier.
Things proceed in much the same fashion, for a while. HIs life plays out again and again with little variation that he can bring himself to care about.
As if to make up for it, ocassionally things will get...weird.
The old man is...nice. He makes nice food and says nice things.
He doesn't even mind Broly's tantrums - seems to find them amusing.
Grandpa Gohan calls them 'good training'.
Broly (GokuGokuGoku) usually likes being carried around as well. But one day things get bumpy and he falls from Gohan's back.
His head cracks open and the real Broly comes out with it.
He spends-
The Earth's fighters-
They're so weak, how did -
It's dark, quiet, emptier even than the vacuum of space.
He doesn't know how long he spends in this prison that blasted old man (a drunk, an afterthought, one of Kakarot's lesser pets, not even worth killing) has condemned him to.
But he dies there, alone in the dark, without realising that death has even come for him.
Why can't he move?
Something in the liquid around him dulls his mind and his senses, makes him sleepy.
It's a bit like the womb, by which he means his first tank, before the noise, the screaming, the -
It's nice.
He might stay here, floating half-in and half-out of consciousness.
It would be so nice to sleep.
Kakarot's face peers in at him. Curious.
No.
No. He won't take it. Not again.
He drowns and burns at the same time without understanding why.
He's in his crib, helpless before the endless wailing.
When it...stops.
"Take him to the ship."
What?
"What?"
"I'll catch up with you."
There's the sound of footsteps, then Kakarot is looking down at him. Older, scarred, but still recognisable, the cold look of the Legend on his damnable face.
Kakarot reaches up to his scouter in a gesture that Broly is used to seeing, but he doesn't click it to see what it says. Kakarot takes it off and looks at (through) him intently with his own eyes, searching for something, or seeing something else entirely.
Broly doesn't know how it ends this time. There's Kakarot's hand reaching out, and then darkness.
He finds he doesn't really want to know.
Why can't he move?
Kakarot and the Earthlings are right there, but he can't seem to attack them.
Bizarrely, three of them are facing him, while he can see three more of them in the distance just...waiting.
They attack him, one by one, then stop.
Now he moves, aiming to wipe them out in one blow.
They live, which is infuriating on several levels, and he finds that he's paralyzed all over again.
This pattern repeats until finally he feels like he has the group on the ropes, taking out the short, bald one.
He expects to find Kakarot infuriated and golden, but instead a small feather is thrown at the bald man's corpse and he gets up again.
It takes hours to die, this time.
Broly swears to never think of this one again if he can help it.
Kakarot, Kakarot, Kakarot.
It's always him.
Sometimes, Broly swears that every Saiyan looks like Kakarot.
No, every human.
Everyone.
He's everywhere.
Everytime he dies.
Wailing in the crib next to him.
Stabbing down at him.
Standing behind his son and, impossibly, himself.
Everywhere.
Broly gets tired, eventually.
He waits quietly, obediently following Paragus' whims, then kills him during a training bout.
There's a planet called Vampa, where no one ever goes.
There, Broly lives a quiet, simple life.
No one bothers him. He has a friend, Ba, who he names after the sound the creature makes.
Ba plays with him.
He thinks it might be the first time he's loved since Fa-
Since Par-
The first time he's loved someone.
Then Ba gets sick. Then Vampa gets sick.
Broly scours the planet, looking for a cure, a solution.
He finds the cause, at least - a great and terrible tree, eating Broly's home.
Protecting the tree...
No.
No.
NO.
KAKAROT
He doesn't care.
Life, death, rebirth.
He just wants to kill Kakarot.
Doesn't matter if Kakarot kills him.
Kill Kakarot.
If Kakarot's son, or friends, or enemies (for some reason) kill him for killing Kakarot.
Kill Kakarot.
As many times as he can.
Kill Kakarot.
Forever, if it lasts that long.
Kill Kakarot.
That's all that matters.
Kill Kakarot.
His friends too.
Kill Kakarot.
Kakarot, Kakarot, Kakarot, KAKAROT -
There's nothing left.
Nothing but hate.