Vegeta and Raditz could only stand there, momentarily frozen in shock as they look on at the scene that was playing out in front of them.
The thing stalking them in the dark was Broly the entire time.
Broly, their friend, their brother, flooding their senses with an overwhelming power they've never seen before as he rose up from the crater. His armored was almost completely destroyed. His body fully engulfed in a massive amount of his green energy. His eyes were glowing bright yellow and glaring right through them with unbridled fury.
"What the hell is going on?!" Raditz yelled out.
"RAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!"
Before they could even blink, Broly suddenly charged forward and landed on the ground in front of the two shellshocked Saiyans, the ground coming apart at the sheer force of his landing and power.
"Broly, wait--!"
Vegeta's words were futile as Broly grabbed Raditz by his face and slammed him into the ground head first.
"Urrgh!" Raditz groaned in pain, blood running down his face.
Seeing that talking was not an option left on the table, Vegeta charged forward, charging his energy as high as he could in the short time it took to make his way over.
"Raditz, get out of the damn way!" He suddenly yelled.
At the sound of Vegeta's voice, Broly stood and turned to face him, but all he saw were two hands that were directly in front of his face and the sound of two words being yelled out.
"FINAL FLASH!"
Feeling Broly's grip waver, Raditz quickly managed to pull away from the hulking Saiyan a split second before the blast had been unleashed.
The large yellow beam hit Broly at point blank range, enveloping his entire body in the devastating blast attack. Any normal being would have perished to this but Vegeta kept up his attack, knowing that this wouldn't be enough to kill him.
Even before this transformation, Broly's durability was higher than any normal Saiyan, so he would never be killed by this attack, but that was never the point.
Vegeta had banked on the attack to either knock Broly unconscious or hurt him enough so that he was unable to fight. However, neither of those two things had happened. Instead, what happened was that a large hand reached out from within the beam grabbed Vegeta by his neck.
"What?!"
The sudden pressure that was being put on his neck caused Vegeta to shift his focus from maintaining the beam to desperately trying to pry Broly's hand off of him. He mustered every bit of strength he had, but it was all for nothing, as he did couldn't even budge him.
"Rrrgh!" Vegeta growled as Broly's grip on his neck tightened.
Before the large Saiyan could crush his leader's windpipe, Raditz suddenly blitzed over to Vegeta's side and delivered a heavy drop kick right to the side of Broly's face.
The kick itself did little to help Vegeta, but it did get Broly to turn his head towards Raditz, his gaze even angrier than before.
"Hmph." Raditz smirked as he raised two of his fingers towards Broly's face and shot two small beams right into his eyes.
"AAAAAGH!" Broly shouted in both pain and anger as he let go of his grip on Vegeta and clutched his face.
Raditz quickly knelt down on the floor and grabbed Vegeta by his arms, pulling him onto his feet.
"We need to go! Now!" Raditz yelled.
Not even taking a second to catch his breath, Vegeta nodded and quickly flew away with Raditz. As much as his Saiyan blood loathed at the prospect of running away from his opponents, Vegeta couldn't see any other alternatives for this situation that would end with them not losing their lives.
"What was that?! Why is he trying to kill us?!" Raditz yelled as he flew alongside Vegeta at top speed, trying to wrap his head around what just happened. "And what the hell was going on with his eyes?!"
"I don't know!" Vegeta yelled back.
Vegeta thought back to those eyes that Broly had. Those yellow eyes held no other emotion other than overwhelming hatred. Whatever happened to Broly in the time they had split up made him an unreasonable berserker.
"Either something made him that way... or..." Vegeta trailed off, his gaze growing distant.
"Or what?" Raditz asked.
Inside Vegeta's mind, There was only one that that Broly's newfound power and uncontrollable rage could be. Something that brought back memories of an event that happened almost a decade ago.
"Do you remember Zyleth's confrontation with Frieza?" Vegeta asked.
"Of course I do, but what does that have to do with..." Raditz's eyes suddenly widened and his head snapped towards Vegeta. "You can't seriously be telling me that you think..."
Vegeta nods, his expression grim. "I do.... We're dealing with a Super Saiyan of Legend..."
The silence that came after was loud.
Raditz's mind formed thought after thought, trying to wrap his head around Vegeta's words.
Broly? A Super Saiyan?! That can't be! He couldn't be! There's only supposed to be one Super Saiyan! That's what the legend says!
"But that's impossible! Zyleth is the Super Saiyan! There can't be two of them!" Raditz exclaimed.
"Open your eyes! Our attacks did nothing and Broly is acting like a mindless berserker! Just like how Zyleth was against Frieza!" Vegeta retorted.
Vegeta could hardly believe it himself. But it was the only explanation for why Broly could suddenly outclass the both of them in such a short amount of time.
Even though he was the strongest, Broly would still have had trouble beating Vegeta and Raditz if they worked together. Their combined combat power and blasts that they hit Broly with in the beginning was more than enough to take him out in their previous training sessions.
But now they didn't seem to do much of anything. Aside from the attack Raditz had aimed at his eyes, their attacks might as well have been nothing more than big bites.
And the way that he was acting. The overwhelming energy and loathing coming from him felt almost exactly like how Zyleth's energy and demeanor was during his time as the Super Saiyan all those years ago.
There were some slight differences, but the similarities were definitely there.
Broly was a Super Saiyan.
"What do we do then?" Raditz asked, his voice growing a bit more frantic. "If Broly really is a Super Saiyan then we're doomed! You saw what Zyleth did to Frieza when he became a Super Saiyan! He won't stop until we're dead!"
"We have to leave the planet. Zyleth eventually returned to normal, all we have to do is wait around in the upper atmosphere until he calms down." Vegeta replied.
"Zyleth was beaten!" Raditz points out. "He only returned to normal after Cooler knocked him out! How do we know that Broly's going to return to normal?"
"It's either he returns to normal on his own, or we get someone who can defeat him..." Vegeta said grimly.
---
As Raditz and Vegeta were formulating their next course of action, Broly had finally regained his sight and looked around for his any sign of the two Saiyans.
Unable to find anything, Broly let out an angered roar as voices in his head started to speak to him again, goading him, mocking him.
"Poor, pathetic monkey... Couldn't even protect your playmate..."
The sight of Second Form Frieza appeared before him, his visage blurred and fuzzy, but there was no mistaking the Frost Demon's visage.
"Oh, Frieza, please don't be too hard on the little ape." Another voice echoed inside the Broly's mind.
Another figure suddenly appeared, this one taking shape as King Cold. The patriarch looked down at Broly, his face holding a cruel and sadistic smirk, just like the one his son wore.
"After all, a monkey is still just a monkey. No matter how much of a fuss he kicks up." He says.
Suddenly, the sounds of a tortured scream ripped through the air as an another figure suddenly appeared. This one was bloodied and bound. Countless holes littered his body from where Cold and Frieza's beams had shot through him.
His right arm was completely gone, leaving a bloody stump that suggested that it had been ripped from his body.
"Broly..." The figure called out as he turned his gaze upward. A deep gash ran through both of his lips, his mouth full of blood, and there were holes where his eyes should have been.
Just like the other two, this person was someone Broly knew. It was his brother, Zyleth.
"R-run..."
"Oh, no, no, no... Why would you want to leave so soon, monkey?" Frieza says as he walks over to Zyleth and points a finger at his head. "After all, wouldn't you like to see your precious caretaker become a martyr?"
Broly let out a primal roar as he blitzed towards Zyleth, desperate to try and save him, but for some reason they were always just out of reach.
The two Frost Demons smirked at the sight of the tragic creature before the tip of Frieza's finger suddenly started glow with a dark purple energy.
"FRIEZAAAAAA!" Broly yelled.
Frieza laughed, relishing in the pain-filled cry of the large Saiyan before shooting a death beam right through the back of Zyleth's head.
---
A sudden burst of energy caused Vegeta and Raditz to look back in terror, seeing that a large dome of green energy suddenly enveloping the marshy wetlands behind them, erasing everything that it had touched.
"That energy... It's..."
Raditz trailed off, not even wanting to say what was on his mind.
The energy they've felt, it was stronger than anything they've ever experienced. Even Zyleth's power during his time as the Legendary Super Saiyan couldn't hold a candle to what they were feeling at this moment.
As the two Saiyans looked at the dome of rampaging green energy, they saw multiple blasts erupt from the top. These blasts climbed higher and higher until the direction shifted from straight up to now heading straight down.
Right towards them.
"MOVE!" Vegeta yelled out.
The two broke off from each other and flew as fast as they could to escape the bombardment, the beams hitting and exploding the ground beside them on all sides like a hellish downpour of rain.
They barely managed to survive by the skin of their teeth when they suddenly felt dread wash over them like a cold bucket of water.
A very big, very powerful energy was heading straight towards them.
"We need to get to the ship, now!" Vegeta yelled, snapping Raditz out of his trance.
The two quickly flew back in the direction of their ship, flying faster than they have ever flown in their life. They knew Broly was searching for them and that he was closing in fast.
Their only hope was to reach the ship before Broly could reach them.
A couple minutes, which felt like hours to them, went by before they saw the sight of their ship over the horizon, completely untouched by the earlier bombardment.
"Hurry, we need to--"
Before Vegeta could give his next order, a green sphere of energy suddenly dropped from the sky and ripped through the ship with ease, causing it to explode into nothing but bits and pieces.
"Damnit! No!" Vegeta yelled in frustration before his attention turned towards Raditz, the latter calling his name.
"V-Vegeta..." Raditz called out, a slight quiver in his voice.
Looking up towards the sky, Vegeta saw Broly flying above them like a predator stalking a wounded animal. The sight caused their hearts to sink to the bottom of their stomachs, his hair was pointed towards the sky and glowing with a menacing green hue.
"RRRAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!!" Broly roared out in anger as his rampaging energy grew more and more in size, threatening to tear both them and the planet apart by his sheer power alone.
Broly blitzed right towards the two Saiyans, landing in between both of them and causing the ground to cave in.
"Scatter!" Vegeta yelled out.
The two immediately split off from each other in an attempt to momentarily confused Broly and create an opening.
This did not pan out how they expected, as instead of being confused, Broly yelled out in anger and rushed towards Vegeta.
The time it took for Broly to close the distance was near instantaneous. Reaching out his hand, he gripped Vegeta by the back of his head and drove him into the ground, dragging him through the ragged and tough terrain.
As Broly was about to slam Vegeta into a sharp piece of the ship's wreckage, Raditz had quickly came up from behind him and struck Broly in the back with a heavy blow.
This only managed to piss Broly off even more as he used Vegeta as a makeshift bat and swatted Raditz away like he was an insignificant bug.
"Uuurggh!" Raditz groaned as flew into a large tree.
After Raditz had been promptly removed from the equation, Broly took Vegeta and slammed into the ground over and over again before letting go and blasting him away with a large beam from his mouth.
"RAAAAAGH!!!"
Broly then turned his beam toward the sky, blasting anything and everything in sight.
The voices of the Frost Demon's echoed in his mind, driving him further and further into madness as he desperately tried to find the ones responsible for Zyleth's death.
Suddenly, the area around them was suddenly illuminated by a bright light.
"Well, well, well, what kind of mess did you three idiots get yourself into now?"
The sound of a new voice made Broly look up towards the sky, seeing five figures flying above him. He couldn't see them clearly, as the light shining behind the figures shadowed their faces.
Before he could charge, one of them suddenly disappeared from view and he only spotted them again when felt an immense pain come from his abdomen.
"Sorry, Broly, but only I'm allowed kill those two idiots." Zyleth said as his hair grew out and his body was enveloped in a black and red aura. "You'll just have to get in line."
[Word Count: 2,370.]