"Delusions of Adequacy"
(Yet Another Starlords/Dragonball Z Crossover)
by Jim Robert Bader
(Dragonball Z is not my property, I'm only borrowing the concept to express a point while including a villain of my own creation, Darcon Trevaros)
Darcon had business in the Sagittarius cluster, but while traveling from Shenlong, the Capitol World of his Multi-Universe spanning empire, he chanced to perceive a curious resonance that diverted his attention...elsewhere...
He paused while in mid-transit, hovering in the limbo-like void between worlds that some called Hyperspace (while others called it by even stranger terms) allowing his senses to shift through the conflicting waves of data that resonated with his Starstone until he could pinpoint the source of the curious waves of anomaly that he had detected. The Darkstar, Ebon stone of night, directed him to one particular timeline that was the source of these curious emanations, and with that he shifted his own mass consistancy and merged with the Timeline in question, materializing upon a scene of abject ruin and absolute devastation unlike anything which he had as recently encountered in a single human generation.
To Darcon Trevaros's perceptions the place was as barren as an abandoned mausoleum, the atmosphere quite toxic, devoid even of sinobacteria and quite effectively sterilized of any and all life. Life had, of course, flourished here, and quite recently as well, judging by the ruins of the city that surrounded him, a city now wasted by some manner of conflict that had been so devastating that the dust had barely even had time to settle. The level of violence needed to create such a scene of carnage and waste was all but unimaginable, as though the four Horsemen had stopped by for a little party and had forgotten to clean up after themselves when they were finished. There were barely even skeletal remains to indicate that people had ever even existed in such a place, some having been reduced to less than ashes by whatever it was that had caused this.
Tall and muscular, even rudimentarily handsome, Darcon's armored form was mostly obscured by the ebon black cape that he wore, which revealed only his ageless features, the jet black hair that adorned his head and the full, well-styled beard that covered his lower face. His eyes gleamed like ebony coals with dark malevolence as he swept his gaze over his surroundings. He was no stranger to carnage such as this, and yet the sheer wastefulness of it all was fairly daunting, if nonetheless quite impressive.
Satisfied with his assessment, Darcon smiled. The place had a rather cheery atmosphere to his way of thinking. Someone had been very thorough here indeed, leaving this planet as desolate as a moonscape with great efficiency and a total disregard for all life. He rather wanted to meet the chap who was responsible for this level of carnage, and in that he was not to be disappointed, for his Starstone informed him that there was one last remaining lifeform left upon this world, and it was approaching him with great haste, as if his very presence had summoned it to him.
Sure enough a figure, roughly two meters in height and only vaguely humanoid, appeared on the horizon. Darcon waited patiently as this flying form came into view, vaguely reptilian in an insect sort of way, mostly green and purple with a pasty white face and a pair of locust-like wings protruding from its backside.
This figure set down a short distance away from Darcon and smiled, then in a too-casual manner said, "Greetings, Friend, what brings you to my world?"
"Curiosity, mostly," Darcon replied, scanning the figure with his ebony Starstone before smiling at the information his senses revealed, "I take it this is your handiwork?"
"Mine and no other," the creature smiled confidently, "I am Cel, the ultimate fighting machine, the creation of the late-great Doctor Gerot, an unparalleled genius by human standards. You see before you his handiwork, a being capable of rendering this worthless planet into the lifeless, barren desert you see before you."
"Worthless?" Darcon lifted an eyebrow, "I beg to differ. Inhabited worlds supporting a thriving Biosphere come at a rather steep price where I come from. This is wanton vandalism on a massive scale, my good fellow...not that I don't appreciate the efficiency of a Bioconstruct such as yourself..."
"Efficiency is my middle name," the creature boasted confidently, "You see before you Ultimate perfection!"
"Ultimate...perfection?" Darcon lifted the other eyebrow, and then he did something that-for him-was very rare indeed...he started laughing, a little thing at first, then growing in strength until he was all but doubled over with loud guffaws and chuckles.
"What are you laughing at, Fool?" Cel snapped at him in distinct irritation.
"I'm sorry...do forgive me," Darcon said between chuckles as he sought to regain his dignified composure, "It's just...you don't know how funny that is! My dear boy...if there were a weapon of ultimate perfection, as you say, don't you think that I would have long ago included one in my own personal arsenal?"
"What are you saying?" Cel snapped, "Speak sense, Man, who are you?"
"Forgive me," Darcon straightened himself out and inclined his head in a regal nod, "I forget my manners sometime. My name is Darcon Trevaros, Lord Darkstar of the House of the Black Dragon, a humble traveler seeking my way through the stars when I was drawn to your quaint timeline to satisfy a point of curiosity. It was not my intent to demean you...merely to point out that you are not quite as impressive as you seem to believe yourself to be."
"Oh so?" Cel raised an arm and charged it up with a massive power surge, "Then perhaps you would like to taste my ultimate perfection for yourself!"
"Well, if it will amuse you," Darcon replied, "By all means, go ahead."
Cel fired off his burst, but to his amazement the plasma surge veered off-course when it neared the dark-clad man, moving off to the side as though channeled away from him by an invisible funnel. Darcon hardly moved by a centimeter and just kept smiling in that irksome, condescending manner. Cel decided to fire off another burst, and then another and another after this, all with the same result that they flowed around Darcon without touching him in the slightest. At last Cel became so enraged that he fired off an endless stream of energy volleys that transformed the very ground around them into an absolute inferno. A full minute later he relented to recapture his breath, waiting for the dust to die down, then gasped in amazement at Darcon, who remained standing upon the only unaffected patch of ground in the immediate area. Not a single hair was out of place, nor was there the slightest smudge of dirt upon the ebony cape that he was wearing.
"Are you quite done?" Darcon asked in what sounded like amusement, "Exactly what did that accomplish, other than to lower your power levels by about one third?"
"You-insolent fool!" Cel cried in rage as he flew at the other man, intending to deliver a smashing blow that would drive that irritating smile from the other man's demolished face...only Darcon was not standing there when Cel lunged upon him, and as this fact began to register upon his consciousness a sudden blow to the back of his skull sent Cel crashing face-down into the very planet.
"Crude and ineffective," Darcon sighed, "Your fighting style is much too basic. I could see the patterns forming long before you were ready to commit. You rely too much upon brute force and bluster. What did you think I was going to do about it, just sit there and wait for you to strike me?"
The sound of cracking earth heralded Cel's pushing himself up off the ground, then launching a series of punches and kicks towards Darcon, who hardly seemed to move at all as the blows rained off of a strange aura that sprang up to surround him. Momentarily flustered, Cel backed off a bit to take stock of his unexpectedly resourceful opponent.
"Why can't I touch you?" Cel demanded, "How can this be?"
"My dear fellow," Darcon sounded almost kindly, "You obviously are not as well made as you imagine, and your imagination itself is truly deplorable. You are not very intelligent indeed or you would recognize the futility of employing directed attacks against an opponent whose strength is unknown to you. In short, you simply do not have what it takes to so much as lay a finger upon me, so why do you persist in the attempt?"
"Because my maker created me to be the ultimate fighting machine in the Universe!" Cel roared in outrage.
"Indeed," Darcon nodded sagely, "And where is your creator now?"
"Dead and buried under the remains of his own laboratory," Cel sneered, "A victim of his own creation."
"I see," Darcon sighed, "That's the problem with these genius types...they get it into their heads that they're somehow indispensable to the cosmos, as if the Multiverse owed them a favor for merely existing. No one listens to their most creative ideas, they start thinking that they are many times more brilliant than they are, and then they feel as though they must justify their very being by doing something extraordinarily foolish. Creating a monster that turns upon them is a rather old process, I'm afraid...and I must say, your creator was obviously the biggest fool since a chap I knew named Victor."
"You mock me!" Cel snarled.
"You mock yourself," Darcon countered, "I merely point out the bloody obvious...that you are nothing more than a parasitic life form gone awry, one designed as an ultimate vengeance weapon by a man who was clearly not playing with a full deck to begin with. Brilliant scientist, yes, no question, but a bit loose in the screws if you ask me. Why do you think it is that fellows like him never think of giving their creations an off-switch or-failing that-a mute button?"
Cel balled his fists and snarled, "You won't stop me from destroying you! I've bested Goku, Trunks and Vegita, I've even dispatched that little pipsqueak, Gohan..."
"Yes, yes, that's all very fascinating, whoever those fellows are," Darcon waved a hand in a deflecting manner, "But so far you have not demonstrated to me a single talent in your arsenal that could have the slightest effect upon me. Do you think strength alone is all that is needed to win your battles, or do you like talking your adversaries to death? Try something original and think for a change...what are your intentions regarding yourself? Any plans for the future?"
"Why...no," Cel replied, "Other than to destroy this worthless wreck of a world and to move on in search of other worlds to conquer..."
"I see," Darcon replied, "And what will you do when you have conquered them?"
"Destroy them and move on," Cel replied, "I am ultimate perfection, all other beings are weak and unworthy of me, while I shall live forever!"
"Well, I wouldn't know about all other beings," Darcon replied, "The Cosmos is a very large place, and if you live for as long as I have you will come to understand what a very small fish you are in a very large ocean. Your creator obviously didn't have the slightest clue what he was doing in your manufacture, and to fill your head with such nonsense is positively criminal. As for the forever part...I am afraid I cannot allow that."
"You?" Cel sneered, "Why not?"
"Because the Multiverse isn't big enough for the both of us, my dear boy," Darcon replied, "And since you don't have the first clue of what it truly means to govern an Empire, I'm afraid your ego is going to have to make room for one who does know exactly how much is needed to dominate even a small portion of this galaxy. Blowing up worlds may make for good sport, but they can't pay you in taxes and tribute when they're rubble and dust. Far better to dominate through fear, terror and oppression, especially if people don't even know that you exist and can't rebel against your sovereignty. That is the way it's been done since time itself began."
"What are you babbling about?" Cel snarled, "Just who the hell are you?"
"Someone who has been in this business for well over ten thousand years, my dear Boy," Darcon replied, "Someone who commands the allegiance of many thousands of inhabited worlds, and yet my influence is rarely noticed upon the surface. Someone who knows intimately what sort of construct you truly are, and where your weaknesses lay, and how best to defeat you."
"Defeat me?" Cel snarled, drawing back a fist, "NEVER!"
He started to move his fist forward, attempting to lash out at Darcon, but in doing so his body tensed up and he started to convulse as weaves of agony overtook his system.
"W-W-What...have you done...?" Cell collapsed to his knees, "It feels as if...every cell in my body...is on fire...!"
"An accurate enough description, I suppose," Darcon sniffed, "You see...I know that you are an artificial creation who absorbs the mass of your victims to store them in your own pocket dimensional fold, thus allowing you to regenerate yourself from even a single cell in your body. I also know that you have the ability to regenerate damage at a tremendously accelerated rate, that even severed limbs can be restored within minutes, and that you have used this ability to put yourself back together on more than one occasion. I also know that your body stores and records the memories of your previous fights, that you become stronger and more efficient in the use of your personal energy the more fights that you have been in, and that you have absorbed the abilities and collective memories of everyone whose genetic imprint was incorporated into your construction. Given all that, defeating you was relative childsplay."
"W-W-What...did you do?" Cel put a hand over his mouth as the urge to vomit overcame him, and all at once his mouth expanded to ridiculously distorted proportions as a humanoid body was ejected out of his body.
"Curious," Darcon mused as he saw a humanoid android get discharged from the larger construct, "You really should be more careful what you swallow, it might prove to be more than you can digest."
Cel began to change as his body lost some of its finesse, reverting to a more primitive state a few moments later as he croak out the words, "What...have you...done...?"
"Ah, that," Darcon seemed to recall himself from his visual examination of the other android, admiring her construction on more than just a physical level, "I've introduced a retrovirus into your system, my dear boy..."
"A retro-virus?" Cel gasped.
"My Starstone has the ability to alter probabilities and affect the flow of time itself," Darcon replied, "Considering the vast number of people whom you swallowed, it was logical to imagine that at least a few of them might have carried a retrovirus infection...fairly harmless and dormant, as a matter of fact...most retroviruses do nothing more harmful than conduct RNA molecules in the average genetic makeup. In your case I modified one type into a particularly virulent strain that has been developed in one of my own research complexes...a rather fast-acting variety that circumvents your regenerative abilities and turns off the genetic screens that keep your cells in perfect alignment. Your body is presently being wracked by a number of fast-forming melanomas, which are literally ripping your cellular construction to pieces. In a few more minutes you will cease to function altogether, at which point the vast stores of accumulated energy within your body will do the rest. I know it will be painful, but it will be over before you even know it."
Cel's only response was to scream out in agony as he felt his body mutate into hideous scabs and sores that replaced the smooth armored scales of his massive body. Already he could feel the core breach of his energy stores cracking wide open, unleashing the fire that would in moments release the full fury of his power, which would rip him apart, to say nothing of destroying the Earth itself in one last final devastation.
"Goodbye and good day to you," Darcon nodded, "It has been a most entertaining exchange, but I simply must be about my own business. I'll just take this with me for further study, if you don't mind...she might even prove useful."
A wave of his hand caused the android girl-a blonde no less-to rise up as a globe of energy began to surround her body. Darcon tarried a moment longer to listen to the agonies and death throes of his defeated opponent, then willed himself away from there, taking his charge with him back into Hyperspace, just instants before Cel exploded with the force of a minor supernova.
"Amusing chap," said the Lord Darkstar as he returned to making his way to his impending destination, "Too bad about those design flaws, he might have been useful in my own Bioweapons research program. Ah well...give a fellow a little power and he starts to think he's Galactus..."
His artificial companion said nothing, of course, but with a little creative restructuring of her core programming, Darcon was certain she would prove an amiable companion. Yes, very well constructed indeed...he just hoped that his wife never found out about this. Maniacal lizards with delusions of adequacy he could understand and cope with, but the lady Kaesevra Jadestar? Now she could be frightening! With that thought in mind, the Atlantean-born tyrant went about his ways, confident that someone would no doubt come along to clean up the mess he had left behind. It really was such a waste to leave a perfectly good timeline lying around unaltered. In the meantime he wanted to study the bioreadings that he had taken while scanning the delusional android...there were so many useful implications to be drawn and applied to his various research programs, and who knew? Maybe he had just seen the prototype for a new form of assault trooper. Surely a small squadron of the petty things might prove effective in some upcoming battle with his real enemies.
Darcon Trevaros schemed. I truly had been a most amusing and potentially profitable encounter...
Continued?
Comments/Criticisms/Why Dragonball Z Sucks: shadowmane
I created Darcon Trevaros and the Starlords of Atlantis over twenty-odd years ago for a project that I have never released called, "Starlords of Infinity," loosely inspired by the writings of Roger Zelazny. My concept was of a 52,000 year old star-spanning Secret Empire ruled by various noble houses who augmented their life force and sorcerous energies through a set of artificially created living Starstones, which grant them the power to affect time and space on a limited area. There are Four Dominant Starstones and Twelve Major Starstones, each commanded by a different wielder, and each wielder in turn controls a vast multi-dimensional empire through Shadow-corporations and a spiders-web of interlacing conspiracies. They are everywhere and yet invisible, never seen or felt until some enemy force crosses their personal interests. Darcon is one of the most powerful of the Major Starlords, the archenemy of my alter-ego, Chakar Shadowmane (who I've introduced to you in the fanfic, "An Omake to Remember").
The thing about a good villain is that they need more than an impressive source of power, they also need culture, refinement, and an inherent purpose to be truly menacing. Darcon has all of these things in spades, being the 10,000+-
year-old wielder of the Darkstar. He is the sort of fellow who can enjoy pulling the wings off of a bluebird, but he's never so crude about it that he'd do it before serving his guests a nice dinner of pheasant. Though unquestionably a villain, he is restrained in his villainy through the complex politics of the Starlord empire and so only makes his villainy known where he deems it necessary. He has style and class to balance out his inner savagery, and in his own mind he is working for a "noble" cause, which just (coincidentally) would also result in him gaining mastery over all of the Starlord empire.
I introduced him here to show why I find the villains of Dragonball Z so lacking in substance. I was disgusted after watching "The Cel Games" for the third straight time and lamenting over what idiots the heroes were, and why the brutal clash of strength and raw power was only removed by a degree of absurdity over the cheap theatrics of the pompous wrestler, Hercules/Mr. Satan. I know the show is popular, and some of the cast members are even likeable, but the show itself is an insult to everything that the Martial Arts are supposed to be about. The only way an opponent is allowed to defeat another opponent is if their "Power Level" maxes out at a higher level, so the stronger an opponent is, he can only be defeated by a much stronger opponent.
The martial arts are supposed to be about overcoming the strength of your enemy, of winning by not resisting an opponent's strength, rather letting your opponent overcome himself by using his strength against him. There is a spiritual aspect to the art that allows one to tap into the deep reserves of their own Chi to make themselves stronger and more capable fighters, much like lowering the resistance level in an electrical circuit means that you can achieve more with less current. Such finesse is almost totally absent from the Dragonball series, as is any sense of balance or proportion. I wanted to make a point here that even an "Ultimate Monster" like Cel could have his own strength be turned against him if he fought the wrong sort of opponent. It is the quality of the power, not its quantity, that defines a true Master.
From the start of the DBZ series it has always been plain that subtlety has been sacrificed on the altar of brute strength, much like the World Wrestling Federation is more show than actual substance. We have Piccolo and Goku being overcome by Radix, the Earth Defense Force being ravaged by Vegita, only to fall prey to a beefed-up and resurrected Goku, everyone almost getting trashed by Frieza, then Garlic Junior, and lastly by Cel, each time nominally escalating in power levels from the absurd to the sublimely ridiculous. A one point a battle between Frieza and Super-Saiyajin Goku tears an entire planet apart, and yet the battle with Cel is supposed to be on an order far greater even than that! By that measure of scale a single punch should have torn the whole planet apart! This exponential escalation makes the Z-fighters seem almost god-like in their power levels, and yet, for all of that, they can do little else with their power besides hit things. With energies such as these at their control they ought to be able to do a lot more, but they are chronic underachievers.
And so stupid at that! The standard tactic they display is to stand around and try to look impressive, then spend about five minutes trembling and gasping in fear when confronted by a superior opponent. Often they are totally paralyzed with confusion and indecision while their teammates are getting their brains beat out. Vegita isn't the only one to demonstrate implicitly dishonorable behavior, yet even Piccolo-who is connected to the wise and venerable Kami-
seems totally clueless on occasions. Gohan is a na ve child whose carelessness should have likely gotten him killed several times over in this series, while Goku-loveable doofus that he is-thinks nothing of involving King Kai in his "self-sacrificing" gesture, then refuses to be resurrected for a second time, thus abandoning his wife and the son who adores him.
I know that there is a least a small token of acknowledgement to the spiritual aspects in Goku's training, but what there is of his spiritual learning gets smothered under the message that Brutality can win out over substance. I choose to make fun of this point at one time by creating a character named Ayame Tofu, the daughter of Kasumi and a Saiyajin warrior, who is a lot like a female version of Goku but is, in fact, a student of her "Uncle Ranma."
That being said, I am fond of Android 18, and I hope to see more of her when the Cartoon Network begins premiering new episodes in the near future. It's nice to finally have a woman who can kick butt in this series besides the ever-annoying (and Akane-like) Chi-Chi.
If you like Dragonball Z and think I'm being a bit too harsh on it, go ahead and complain. I'd be happy to hear opposing viewpoints. In the meantime the points I raised in my satirical "Great Balls A-Dragon" fanfic stand, especially the point that the fight between Goku and Frieza/Cel seemed to be dragged out much longer than last year's presidential election!
Until next time!
Jim Robert Bader April 29, 2001
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