The journey didn't take him too long.
When Zaiko finally reached the source of the two energy signatures he had been tracking, he stopped dead in the sky, hovering silently to observe the scene unfolding below him.
Both Saiyans were in the vicinity of a cave.
From his vantage point, Zaiko watched Paragus emerge from the shadows of the cave. The old man walked with a heavy step, carrying and dragging the body of a massive, repulsive insect whose anatomy horribly resembled that of a giant tick.
Paragus's final destination was a makeshift campfire crackling a few meters from the cave's entrance.
Was he... planning to cook and eat that thing?
Zaiko felt his stomach churn. He quickly brought a hand to his mouth, closing his eyes for a second to suppress a small gag that rose in his throat at the grotesque sight.
For a few moments, the sight of that disgusting bug about to be roasted reminded him of years ago, in his youth.
He remembered his vacation trip to Thailand with some college friends, a carefree time right before he decided to drop out simply because he was too lazy to deal with exams and studying.
That day in Thailand, walking through a tourist market, he had let himself be carried away by the atmosphere and his friends' teasing, daring to try a whole scorpion on a wooden skewer from a street stall for the very first time.
The crunch of the exoskeleton and that indecipherable taste had been burned into his memory as, without a doubt, one of the worst gastronomic experiences of his entire life.
He opened his eyes, shaking his head to push the memory from his mind, and refocused his sight on Paragus, who was preparing the monstrous insect over the flames without flinching in the slightest.
Had Paragus and Broly been eating these kinds of aberrations day after day, for over forty years?
Zaiko slowly lowered his hand from his face, letting out a silent sigh.
Despite how overwhelmingly disgusting the banquet being prepared down there was to him, he couldn't help but feel a genuine, slight respect for them both.
Surviving in this hellhole for four decades, feeding exclusively on such abominations to avoid starving to death, demonstrated a truly unbreakable will to survive.
But that was when his mind almost short-circuited.
When Paragus yelled toward the cave, calling his son to help him, he saw Broly for the first time.
Except this wasn't the Broly he remembered at all!!
It wasn't the Dragon Ball Z Broly either!
I'm supposed to be in Dragon Ball Super, but this isn't the Broly I remember... He... no, I can't refer to Broly as 'he', why is she a girl?! AGHHHHH! Why did this have to happen?!
There, where Broly should be, stood a woman.
She had a wild, voluminous mane of black hair that fell untamed over her shoulders, giving her a fierce look.
Her gaze was intense and sharp, with dark, bright, piercing eyes.
Despite the years of malnutrition on the planet, her figure was athletic and muscular, with defined arms and a toned abdomen peeking out from under her tight, ragged clothes.
She wore a simple black top and dark pants, with a green pelt tied around her waist, complemented by black wristbands and, as a curious detail, a metallic, silver piece around her neck, similar to a collar.
Zaiko remained in the air, completely petrified.
His red eyes blinked in disbelief as he watched, not understanding what the hell was going on, how the female version of Broly casually crouched down to help her father arrange the giant tick over the campfire's flames.
While he watched the scene in disbelief, the Saiyan suddenly stopped her movements.
As if her instincts had warned her of an extra presence, Broly looked up at the sky and, in that instant, their eyes met.
She didn't yell or attack immediately.
Instead, she reached out and grabbed Paragus's arm, shaking it slightly, trying to insistently catch his attention while pointing her finger upwards, directly at Zaiko's figure.
However, Zaiko was too focused on processing what was happening.
It seemed he had suffered a mental short circuit upon discovering that Broly was a woman.
He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he completely ignored the fact that their eyes had met and that, at that very moment, she was pointing at him, trying to warn her father.
"Let go of me, Broly!" Paragus yelled at her, roughly pulling away. "Stop pulling on me and help me with this if you want to eat today!"
The old man ignored her completely, but Broly insisted, pointing harder and letting out a warning growl.
This only made Paragus angrier; he turned to her and yelled louder, demanding obedience.
Finally, fed up with his daughter's insistence, Paragus followed the direction of her finger and looked to where she was pointing.
His jaw almost dropped to the floor.
There he saw a man floating with his arms crossed, wearing a thoughtful expression and a distant gaze, as if he were deep in a trance.
Paragus rubbed his eyes with trembling hands, blinking several times to make sure his hunger wasn't playing tricks on him.
Realizing he wasn't imagining things, his angry expression instantly morphed into one of relief and happiness.
A spark of hope, tinged with ambition, gleamed in his tired eyes.
He turned to his daughter, with a smile that bordered on maniacal.
"Broly, look!" he exclaimed, his voice cracking. "We're saved! Finally... help has arrived!"
To Paragus, that stranger hadn't appeared there by magic; he must have a spaceship parked nearby.
And a ship... Means a way to leave this planet after so much time!
But the next moment, the figure simply disappeared.
Paragus's face went rigid, his jaw trembling as he saw the stranger vanish in the blink of an eye, as if he had been a mirage.
Panic seized him instantly.
"Where did he go?! Where is he?!" Paragus screamed, snapping his head from side to side in desperation, scanning every corner of the sky. "Broly! Do you see him?! Tell me you see him! Find him, damn it! Find him right now! Help me find him!"
Broly looked up once more, scanning the clouds with her eyes, but seeing no trace of the man, she simply shrugged.
With a calmness that infuriated her father, she gave up immediately and focused her attention back on the campfire, returning to the task of cooking the giant tick.
This finally drove Paragus over the edge.
"What are you doing?!" he roared at her, the veins in his neck bulging. "Help me look for him! He's our way out of this hole!"
Paragus kept yelling, completely beside himself, but Broly didn't share his urgency.
Having known nothing in her life but the hostile Planet Vampa, she had never seriously thought about going anywhere else.
Why would she want to leave if this was her home, everything she had ever known?
Her father had told her since she was little about Planet Vegeta, about the day they would return to exact revenge on King Vegeta.
He told her about the day he would become the new King of the Saiyans with her by his side as the Legendary Super Saiyan, his daughter and ultimate guardian.
He told her how he would rename the planet to Planet Paragus...
But she didn't want any of that.
She felt no desire for revenge against a king she had never even met, nor any longing for a planet she had never known.
She was already home; she didn't need to return anywhere.
Meanwhile, in a final act of desperation, Paragus reached behind his back and pulled out a somewhat old, dirty scouter with a cracked lens, worn by time.
He put it on clumsily, trying to locate the man's energy signature.
But no matter where he aimed it, the screen flickered, showing only the familiar presences of the planet's giant insects.
Devastated, Paragus fell to his knees on the rocky ground, his shoulders dropping.
Had his mind played a trick on him again? Had he seen wrongly due to hunger and isolation?
"No... it can't be..." he sobbed, staring blankly.
But then he heard his daughter's soft voice, speaking to someone behind him.
At the same time, a booming, deep laugh, loaded with absolute confidence, echoed right behind his back.
Paragus spun around with lightning speed, his heart hammering against his ribs... and there he saw him.
The man was right there, just a few meters away, sitting right next to Broly on a rock.
Paragus's scouter aligned directly with the stranger, but the device remained silent.
There were no warning beeps, no numbers jumping on the screen, the visor showed nothing.
Paragus took a step back, stammering in disbelief as he stared at the device's reading.
"P-power level... 0?!" he muttered to himself, a cold sweat running down the back of his neck.
How was it possible that such a weak being could be on a hostile planet like this?!
Had he come looking for death?
-----------------
Why do you guys think Paragus's scouter shows a power level of 0?
I look forward to reading your theories.