REASON
By The Alchemist
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z or any of the Dragonball Z characters. I am not making any money off this either. That's why I have a part-time job. I don't clean up after animals after school and on Saturday's for fun.
Authors Notes: I am not Japanese. I have studied Japanese for four years and have even lived there on an exchange for a month, but I am not Japanese. The chances are you aren't either. For this reason I will be writing in English except for 5 character names. If you really want Japanese in this story then tell me and I'll write the whole thing in Japanese and you can read it that way. Other than that leave me alone.
This story takes place after the whole destruction of Buu thing.
I live in New Zealand and I haven't even seen Trunks on TV yet. Everything I know after that time comes from the internet, so I may have a lot of details wrong. I have tried my best with ages, but again I may be wrong. If so, well, you can just call it an A/U fic.
Reason transformed into prejudice is the worst form of prejudice, because reason is the only instrument for liberation from prejudice.
-Allan Bloom
Chapter 1: The Threat Emerges
The hall sat silent, listening intently to Jaques ranting. "There was a time when we were free to choose our own morals, our own future. Now we have been denied that privilege. Now we are all at the mercy of Son Goku. The time of his reign will come to an end, now we shall regain control of our own destiny." An uproar echoed through the hall with hundreds rising to their feet raising their hands high.
There was one whose exuberance was not quite so obvious. Trina stood and cheered, but her heart wasn't in it today. There had been a time when she was happy to be under Son Goku's protection, he seemed a good enough man, but now Mike had convinced her that it wasn't right for anyone to have that much power over the world. "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely," he had said to her numerous times. She had been inclined to agree with him, especially when he spoke so passionately and forcefully. But something kept nagging at the back of her mind, society would never survive if there was not a power hierarchy and Goku seemed like a more than excellent candidate for the position of protector.
"Trina, babe, what's wrong?"
Spinning about abruptly Trina stifled a gasp. "Mike, I didn't know you were there."
"So it would seem. So what's wrong? You don't seem, well, very into this tonight."
"I'm just tired."
"Right." His doubt was evident. "Do you want to go for a walk? Nobody will know."
"Yeah sure."
The air outside was so cold it almost knocked the wind out of Trina's lungs. She instinctively pulled her coat lapels closer to her throat. As they walked down the deserted street they made pleasant, yet strained conversation.
As if from nowhere, Mike suddenly stopped and turned to face Trina. "Son Goku will let the power go to his head soon, Trina. We have got to stop him before he holds the entire planet to ransom. It isn't right for one man to have so much power."
Trina let out a small sigh and watched the small cloud float away from her lips. The speech was getting old. She waved her hand in a non-committed manner. "So you keep telling me, but he hasn't changed yet. I think that if he's made it this far and stayed honest, well, I just wonder if we'd be only moving him over for one far worse than Goku."
"You still don't believe me."
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I can keep up this up forever. I want out Mike and you know it."
"Babe, you are tired. You just need to sleep. I'll take you home, then I'll call you in the morning and see if you still feel that way."
"Kay." Trina let in and rested her head on Mike's shoulders as he led her to his car. I nearly made it she thought to herself. Still, she knew that in the morning Mike would ring her up and eventually convince her that she was mistaken. She'd been through it before and was almost resigned to her fate, almost.
Back in the hall Jaques was still speaking, unaware that one of his star followers had long ago left. "After years of struggling in vain, we finally have a weapon worthy of Goku... Dr Gero's apprentice, Mr Paul Mancoff." The hall fell silent as a man in his late 50's crept onto the stage.
*
The old man sat at a computer console typing away strings of programming code. His concentration barely wavered despite the noise of the production line in the room next door. A cautious knock was heard at the old wooden door and he abruptly stopped and straightened his back from its hunched curve. He spun his chair about and opened the door to find Jacques standing before him.
"Good afternoon Mr Mancoff. How is your work going?"
"As well as can be expected under these conditions." Small flecks of saliva leapt from his mouth and landed on Jacques's face and shirt, but he pretended not to notice.
"To what conditions are you referring Sir?"
"The continual interruptions!" Mr Mancoff was becoming highly irate now and Jacques decided to choose his words more carefully.
"I'm sorry, I just need an estimate on your time of completion."
Mr Mancoff's eyes lit up as his masters had done so many years ago when he spoke of his work. "Well, with the resources available to me, I'm guessing I can have Nihyakugou, Sanbyakugou, Yonhyakugou and Gohyakugou ready in 4 day's."
"How long before Hyakugou is finished?"
"Well, Hyakugou will take the longest, solely because of his sheer size. It will take a long time to programme all the additional features. Give me a fortnight."
"Wonderful."
"You know, since I'm doing all this work to create Hyakugou you should really be producing several of them. It is by far the most superior android."
"I agree with you, but we do not have endless amounts of money and we'll need to keep some for the day of the revolution."
"Hmm, but surely instead of the other four you could have created one more to the spec.'s of Hyakugou."
"We will not make the same mistake Dr Gero made. We must not concentrate our resources into two androids."
"I hope you know what you are doing."
"I do."
"Give me a fortnight and 4 day's then."
"Very well." Jacques started to retreat quietly shutting the door behind him but just before the door was shut he added, "and thank you Mr Mancoff, the world is in your debt."
Once the door was shut Paul removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It was hard holding up this appearance, but he had to do it in Dr Gero's honour. He couldn't let such genius go to waste. "Not just yet my dear boy, Son Goku will not die easily," he replied to Jacques's statement, very glad that nobody was around to hear him.
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Please review. I'd love to know what you think.
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It's possible, no, its highly likely that this idea has been used before. I'm not a very original person when it comes to fanfiction. I did not intentionally steal anyone's idea so please don't tell me that I did. I don't really read a lot of DBZ fanfiction for the exact same reason, so nobody thinks I stole their idea. There are not a lot of possible variations on plot. Its pretty much, "Oh no, there is a new great power. I must kill it." There's the plot for about half the DBZ fics on ff.net. Mine is not excluded. Motives and origins may change, but it all comes back to the same simple basis. It may not be great literature, but it's fun.