Chapter 2

The Soul Collector

Far away from Earth or the solar system, far away from galaxies or the universe lied a being that existed beyond such frivolous matter filled constructs. Being far away from light, it's impossible for even himself to make out his physical features. But know this. He's laughing. Laughing so hard that if he had lungs he would've broken them.

He seized his laughter and watched what was happening below him.

"This is going to be interesting."

Timeline 809

When the matter realigned itself, it looked as if they had never left their universe. Fire stretched out and over the city like a blanket, covering Trunks's entire field of view. Even the water in the park nearby looked as if it were on fire. Those who were able to get out in the initial destruction fled as fast as possible. Even villains like Gorilla Grodd scoped out the fight in the park and foreboded the victor, leaving in the quickest fashion possible. Initially, the police physically intervened the battle with guns but quickly realized how ineffective they were and used all their power to coordinate a big leave out of the city. The people panicked anyway, leading to many deaths that weren't even directly caused by the bio-mechanical android.

Cyborg's energy cannon attack earlier had inundated the flow of the city's electricity and practically made the city's power unusable, even though he only tapped into half of it. The unstable power of the city led to hundreds of more deaths as the Justice League would be unable to receive communication from Central City, giving loads of time for Cell to absorb countless of individuals. Most fires in the city weren't even directly caused by Cell either, but an odd chain of events that started from a few blasts that Cyborg narrowly dodged, but landed into buildings instead. And without reliable firefighters to help, it ended up burning at least a quarter of the city by now.

"What happened…" Trunks said while looking at the destruction below him.

"I don't know. Maybe the androids arrived early?"

Trunks looked at the central park. There seemed to be two people fighting in a one-sided battle.

"Mom... do you think you can land the ship in the outskirts of the city?"

"But-"

"Just look outside mom. I don't want you to get hurt."

Bulma didn't even hesitate to move the machine, taking less than a minute to touch down upon a seemingly abandoned highway. It only stretched for so long, however, like a hundred feet away from them was nothing. A section of the road was blown apart by presumably the fallen skyscraper nearby. And to make matters worse, it won't take much longer before the flames reached that part of the city.

Trunks switched open the dome-like hatch and jumped off, leaving Bulma helpless inside the machine.

"Just stay here, okay? The ship has enough air to last you a long while, and it's much better than breathing the air out here."

Bulma looked at her boy with a strong heart.

"Trunks?"

"Yes?"

"I love you. Don't die on me, please."

Trunks gave her mother a smile to relieve her pain, as his white aura surrounded him before he took off. Unlike every other time he did that, she was uncertain about his safety. She didn't want to tell Trunks, but something about the place made her believe that this isn't the Earth they knew at all. In these dark times, she could only look up at the smoke-filled sky and talk to Vegeta for comfort.

An eruption not only interrupted Trunks's flying momentum but pounded his eardrums, being as big as it was loud. Fortunately for Trunks, it helped him get closer to finding out what's wrong. He flew at top speed to the location of the eruption, cutting between ruined buildings and flying through the burning flames. However, a falling building stopped his approach, causing him to fall into the streets with the weight of the broken building on his back. The mass on top of him was incinerated in the blink of an eye, as he blasted the building into nothing with a blue blast. He got back up, stretched his back out, and continued to fly to the set location. The only thing stopping him now is the odd fact that there are hundreds of clothes littering the streets, each one with a single hole somewhere throughout it. Had it not been for him inspecting this then he might have saved Cyborg's life.

"I'm not gonna lie to you Cyborg, that stunt you pulled back at the park hurt. Had your friend not restrained you then I might have had to retreat. But that's all in the past now, isn't it? You're the one in my clutches now."

Cell held Cyborg's neck by his tail, squeezing the life out of the man. The embarrassment of having so much trouble with a mere human was embarrassing enough for Cell, even if he was superhuman. It was even worse earlier, as an ally of his showed up and literally tag teamed him. Just the thought of being almost killed by humans was enough to drive him mad. The only thing worse in his book is being beaten to near death by an 11-year-old Super Saiyan child.

Cyborg's red costumed ally was lying a mile away in the pile of debris Cell thought he wouldn't come out of earlier. He was punched there minutes ago and had the building collapsed on him. It took him a while to regain consciousness, but it didn't take too long for the Flash to start throwing away the piles of brick and metal that fell on top of him. He could hear in the far distance the sound of Cyborg's wails.

Come on Cyborg... just hang on a bit longer!

"But before you die, Cyborg, I want to show you something."

By the time Cell finally threw Cyborg out of his choke hold, he was already battered and defeated. He would've been dead if he had not used a lot of his energy to quickly augment his muscles with energy, to help withstand Cell's attacks. His metal body clanked onto the street, his cybernetic eye flashing all the warning signs possible. The abomination scoped the city again and chuckled at what a mess he made before closing in on the superhero. His tail was poised to strike him the very moment it gets in range.

"To my calculations, you're about 75% metal. That still leaves about 25% percent of you to drink. Not a lot, but definitely something I can take before I make my leave. Now... time to-" Cell drew his attention completely on the opposite direction of himself, as a being with strength far greater than the two he just fought was closing in on him.

"Hey, androids! Learn to pick on someone your own si-" Trunks stopped right where he was in the sky, looking at the unknown creature with confused eyes. The creature as well looked at him with a confused face, which locked for several seconds until Cyborg gave out a painful moan.

"Impossible... I thought I had absorbed you Trunks!"

"Absorbed me? I don't even know you! And how do you know my name?"

Cell put his brain into work and accessed the millions of bits of information he collected through absorption. Cross-checking with both foreknowledge of people he absorbed in this universe and his own to determine why the hell Trunks is still alive. And due to such a mass of information, he collected he deduced this in the mere matter of seconds. The being slyly folded his arms and raised his tail once again to its striking position, all while staring down Trunks the entire time.

"Just give me a moment Trunks, you'll have your answer." The creature replied nonchalantly, before striking the tail into Cyborg.

It was quite a feat to not only strike the humanoid part of the young man with precision but to do it without even turning around. Nevertheless, he faded into nonexistence before Trunks could even react, leaving behind all his metal parts.

"No... you're far worse than the androids…" Trunks gasped out, mesmerized at the event. He watched as the creature's aura slightly changed to an even darker shade of gray.

The true change was Cell's intelligence. With Cyborg's extensive knowledge of the world, he was almost instantaneously able to confirm that this universe was indeed nothing like the world he expected to arrive to. There were hundreds, if not thousands of superheroes that are in league and even above Victor Stone, with around the same number of villains to match. Cell is hardly interested in such frivolous things, only taking a second of his thinking time to label them all nuisances to his sole goal. To make matters even worse, there's a great chance that they might not even exist in this universe, which enraged Cell to no end.

"No! I have to leave this universe!" Cell yelled out loud, completely disregarding Trunks as he flew down to the park.

Trunks, even more confused and angry than before, flew at break-necking speeds to close in on Cell, who had noticed his approach. Cell fired a few blasts at the boy to stop his approach but was easily dodged as he had little time to give accuracy to his shots. Each of them blew up a portion of the city, with one even managing to get close enough to Bulma's time machine and startle her.

Trunks inspected the creature and the outcome of the forthcoming battle. To be on the cautious side, he transformed into a Super Saiyan to stay afloat strength wise.

"So, judging by your hideous looks, you're certainly not some series regular to these people. Mind telling me why you're killing hundreds of innocent people before I kill you?"

"Oh come on! I know you know nothing about me but you're literally the tenth person that asked me a question today!" Cell procrastinated in a rant whilst stomping his feet on the ground.

When he saw how stern Trunks looked, he charged up his power just to show how frightening he could be. It was only a quick flare of his strength, one that shook the park for a moment. Even after Cell briefly powered up, Trunks continued to stare down the creature with a passive aggression. Instead, Cell decided of another method to provoke Trunks.

"Aaaah, that look again. You made the same one back in my universe when we fought. Now that Trunks is a part of me."

As much as Trunks looked at the abomination in seriousness, he was just as much terrified. Cell made it clear from the beginning that his purpose here was to wreak havoc.

"My name is Cell, and to be honest, I'm not about to explain myself to you. You're going to die in the next few minutes anyway. Just do what the last Trunks did and relax..."

"I may not know much about you Cell, but I know that a Trunks would ever back down from a fight!"

The teenager leaped at the creature and jabbed his fist into his stomach, causing Cell to spit out a slimy ball of saliva. He did it twice to ample to the effect, jumping to the creature's back to hitting him with his foot. Cell was smashed into the concrete flooring by it, skidding several yards away. The boy took no time to rest, instead flying towards Cell to give him a kick in the abdomen if he even has one.

"That's enough!" Cell hissed, grabbing the boy's incoming leg and slammed him into the ground. After he picked the Saiyan hybrid from his mini-crater, he threw him like disposable waste into a faraway building.

The building wasn't a building at all, more of less a large bundle of debris from what might have actually been a building of some sort. He wasn't alone, either. He was actually on top of another guy that wore red and gold, save for the piece of a brick wall that divided them.

"Kinda squishing me here..." The costumed man was able to gasp out before Trunks slid out.

The man had spent the last few minutes clawing his way out of the tons of debris that made up this building, deciding that his end must be far more dramatic than that. The two eventually met face to face once the brick wall was removed, confused by each other's presence.

"What are you doing here? You need to evacuate." The two said in unison, before the conversation became, even more, weirder.

"I'm guessing you're not just some ordinary civilian are you?" The Flash deduced, scratching the top of his head.

"And you?"

"Of course not! I'm the Flash!"

"Fools!"

Cell, who was now much closer to the building gathered enough concentrated energy to wipe out the entire planet if he wasn't concerned about his primary goal. Trunks may be able to survive the blast by a thin thread, but the Flash would be obliterated by it. They only had mere seconds left to say their prayers.

Luckily, the abomination wouldn't even have the chance to kill the two.

Similar to the way the flash entered the scene, a blue and red streaked blur flew straight into Cell and knocked the wind out of him, blowing the creature at least a mile away. And in that blue and red blur was a man that Trunks would find all too similar to a particular man in orange and blue gi clothing. To Flash, he was his buddy.

"You two okay?"

"We're fine. But how did you manage to come here? I thought Cyborg for sure screwed up the electricity in this city."

"The fact that there was no electronic communication from the city made me stop by here. Once I saw the fire I called for nearby cities to quell the flames and evacuate struggling citizens. I saw Cyborg battling Cell earlier, he might need help." Superman's attention was pointed to the teenage boy that stood across from Flash.

"Are you a civilian, son?" Superman pointed at the turquoise-haired boy, glancing towards Cell's direction to see if he might return.

"I'm not some ordinary boy, and that's certainly not an ordinary villain you guys are used to seeing. But first," The boy brushed the two aside and blasted at the direction of the park, the energy blast colliding with Cell's time machine and exploding it to bits.

"That was pretty impressive. But what was that for?" Superman questioned, pointing at the now dust cloud. That blast gave Trunks all the respect points he needed from the Flash.

"He was going to use it to travel to another universe, more than likely to cause even more destruction."

"Good thinking then," Superman replied, as he started once more in the direction Cell was blown back to.

"I'll tell you more about what happened when I'm done dealing with green bug over here."

"His name is Cell," Trunks snapped back, pointing his finger at the blue and red costume man.

"Right."

Superman flew away from the building and headed straight in Cell's direction. When he couldn't find a trace of him, he began to search around the vicinity. Cell was far too impatient at this point to let a plan like that sustain this long, so he flew down to confront Superman, having been high in the atmosphere where Superman couldn't previously see him. This plan of his failed miserably when he punched in the jaw by the Kryptonian that detected the monstrosity a nanosecond too early.

Cell flew from the force of the punch into a building that was mostly untouched by the fire and was slammed straight into its brick wall. Superman used this as a perfect opportunity to get retribution for what Cell has done, as he repetitively pounded the creature with his fists and feet. One punch eventually broke the wall itself and flew Cell inside what would appear to be an office building. While Cell was flying in, Superman beamed the foe with strong heat rays, easily making two holes in the monster's body.

Superman wasn't even close to being finished. He flew once more to the bio-android to continue where he left off, only to get a fist from Cell in response. The fist was grabbed by Superman and pulled aside as he kicked Cell through the remainder of the long building and had him burst through the other side, Superman following close in pursuit. Once in range, the superhero brought his two hands together and slammed his fists into the creature, causing a massive dust cloud and a broken street. He touched down and blew a mighty breath at the street below, evaporating the dust cloud in seconds to see his enemy clearly.

Superman stared down at abomination with an intensity that made Cell shudder. He didn't have a personal grudge with a villain he just met minutes ago, but what he's done to Central City is more than enough to play rough with him a little while. Cell took a page from Trunks and concealed his emotions. Unlike Trunks, though, Cell can become a cocky bastard at times.

"Lucky shot Superman. Yeah, I know your name. Cyborg told me all about it when I killed him!"

"You WHAT!"

Before Superman could lay the beating of a lifetime, Cell sent a quick blast to Superman point-blank to his face, creating an explosion that was even bigger than what Superman pulled off earlier. The biomechanical android flew himself out of the resulting dust cloud and coughed a bit from it, still keeping his cocky smile the entire time.

"What a fool. All that strength yet was beaten by a mere blast. I can only hope this blast didn't kill him so I can absorb him. It's the least this universe can do for not having the androids." Cell cooed, before adjusting himself to a sumo wrestling like stance. He had the perfect idea to end off such a battle like this.

"Ka...me..." The creature cupped his hands while rocks from the destroyed street started to rise up in reaction. The Earth itself felt like it was trembling in reaction.

"ha...me..." Cell's hands began to emit a ball of blue radiant light. After a few seconds, this ball of energy became so large that Cell had to condense it. The ball of energy excitedly bounced with electricity. It was ready.

"Ha!"

Had the blast actually impacted Superman, it just might've rendered him unconscious or even worse. Superman's fast reaction to the attack allowed him to make a counterstrike. Superman fired a massively concentrated heat ray, evaporating the dust cloud around him almost instantaneously. The blue and red energies clashed, creating a struggle. The clash was so powerful that it formed an increasingly expanding sphere at the center. The two kept applying energy to their blasts as the street gave way to the ball of energy to expand. Eventually, the sphere became so too dense that it collapsed on itself and imploded. The two were thrown back as the power of the explosion brought the whole city to its knees. Flash and Trunks (the latter flying them to Bulma's time machine) were also blown back by the power, with the two falling down to the streets. Even Bulma, who was on the very outskirts of the city was momentarily blinded by the light, having felt earlier the tremors of both Cell charging up and the energy struggle.

Eventually, the light dimmed, and the dust cloud settled to reveal the two on opposite ends of the burning city block. Superman has seen both better and worse days, his suit torn up in specific places, with one being a diagonal cut on his S symbol. But Cell hasn't been this worse before, with so many cuts and bruises over his body that normal man would've fallen onto the floor dead. But he persisted on continuing the battle, even wiping out the purple blood hanging out of his orifice-like mouth. By the time he got up, Superman was already battle ready, even pacing a bit on the ground.

"Don't act that that didn't hurt!" Cell yelled, watching Superman not even acknowledge the blood hanging down on his own bottom lip.

There was a rational side to Cell that begged him to retreat from this one-sided battle. His cockiness and pride that he took from Vegeta made him stay and fight. Foolish, yes, but worth it in his eyes. He flew at the superhero beyond break-necking speeds, giving his left arm a boost of strength via amplifying it with ki, as threw it at Superman. The fist was yet again grabbed, creating an airwave around the two that lasted for a few seconds. He zipped around the creature's back and grabbed a hold of his tail, dragging it around in a circle. He quickly became so fast that the two became a blue and green blur before Superman threw the thing into the wall of a building.

The bio-android crumbled part of its foundation and fell on his back, completely breaking off that section of the wall. Superman stalked over the monstrosity with his eyes beginning to emit a red light. He clenched his fists as tight as possible as he prepared to do something he himself isn't ready to do.

Thoughts opened on his mind.

Should I really do this? There really isn't any point to it anyway…

"Superman!" Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter floated nearby the man of steel before descending onto the ground and walking towards his location.

"Don't do something you'll regret. It may seem like the best option to kill him now, but that could bring further negative implications that we don't know anything about." Wonder Woman explained.

"Wait, how do you guys know about him?"

"Flash told us all about him." Green Lantern replied, flying towards them with the Flash and Bulma in one of his green bubble constructs, and Trunks right next to him. He continued to float in the air while Trunks flew down next to the group.

"What's the problem with killing him? He's can't be contained, and he'll stop at nothing to wreak havoc. Besides, he's just a thing, not some being." Trunks well explained, causing Superman to look back at Cell with anger.

"Well excuse me, traveler, you don't have the authority to make such life-changing decisions. Go home," Wonder Woman snapped back.

"Life-changing? Who do you think you are? The only life-changing thing I'm doing is saving millions of lives! He will stop at nothing to kill and kill some more just to increase his power! And if the scenario in my head plays out then eventually even all of us combined won't compare to his strength! If Superman won't kill him, then I will!"

"Is this conversation really necessary right now?" Martian Manhunter chimed in.

"Yes!" Wonder Woman and Trunks said in union.

"Guys," Green Lantern began, as everyone turned to the sky to see him. "This is like the worst possible time to be having this conversation. With everyone preoccupied with this argument, he could flee at any moment!"

"Y'know, there's no point in killing such scum," Superman said while cracking his knuckles.

"He can rot in a jail cell for all I- "

Cell flew into the sky like a jet engine, aligning himself with the still setting sun.

"Solar flare!"

Cell emitted a blinding light throughout the entire city, as they were all unable to stop Cell from escaping the destroyed city for good. Superman, however, was only momentarily blinded, but by the time he could open his eyes Cell was long gone.

"Dammit!" Superman screeched, pounding his arms into the sidewalk. The man was even ready to shed a tear for Cyborg before a gentle hand was placed on his shoulder.

"The time for mourning the fallen will come as soon as we defeat Cell."

Wonder Woman turned from Superman to address the crowd of distressed heroes.

"We'll have time to prepare ourselves for him, as he'll most likely lie low for a long time with all the injuries he sustained. In the meanwhile, we'll be learning everything about him so that he won't even stand a chance."

"Let's all head to the watchtower. Batman's definitely going to want to hear about this."

Author's Note:

I was working on this for literally 2 days straight anyway to get you guys a story as fast as possible. But don't expect all stories to be delivered this quickly! Well... maybe the next one depending on my almost empty schedule for the month.

Thanks for reading and remember to send criticism down my way! The more the merrier!