Hello everyone, it's been a while huh? I've been working quite a bit on another story as I was preparing to first launch it after finishing the last chapter of the first story arc and go into an hiatus until the second story arc would be finished. Now though, I can return to fully try and complete this chapter and I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter, since there is even more action this time around. Okay then, let's get this show on the road.


Chapter 69: The Ultimate Combatants! Goku vs Cell Part 2

Artificial Humans Saga Part 3: The Cell Games- Part 8

[Musical Cue #1: Opening- Time to Say Goodbye by Jeff Williams feat. Casey Lee Williams (RWBY Volume 2 Opening)]

[Musical Cue #2: We Are Number One (But It's Perfect), Team Four Star's instrumental cover of "We are Number One" from Lazy Town)]

[Musical Cue #3: Kisenu Dekigoto (Hellsing OST)]

[Musical Cue #4: Ending- Creeping in my Soul by Cryoshell)


[Musical Cue #1: Opening- Time to Say Goodbye]


Everyone's sight was beginning to return to them after the blinding explosion of Goku new Super Saiyan Flare technique had occurred, which none of the defenders of Earth really knew how long ago it was. For all they knew it could have been an entire minute, maybe more. Some, like the powerless human martial arts champion, the TV reporter and his cameraman were coughing from the dust that was surrounding them.

The rest of the group simply looked at the arena, which had half of it be covered in dust while the golden-haired warrior who stood in the open simply looked relaxed as he once again did a little bit of stretching and bouncing around, much to the stupendous shock of the rest of the Dragon Team, with the prince of all Saiyans even sneering as he looked away with irritation.

The tall Namekian looked over at the Earth's greatest fighter with a concerned look on his face, not know what the man was thinking if he was acting so nonchalant about the fight with the amalgamated life form. "He knows that his attack was nowhere near enough as to finish off Cell for good. How can he be so relaxed?" he asked as he looked angry and nervous at the same time.

Meanwhile the TV reported looked at the arena with a perplexed look on his face as he quickly bright the mic right in front of the face of the Afro martial arts champion. "Mr. Satan, what do you think of this explosive display that had just occurred in front of us?" he inquired in the hopes that he would get more info from the champion as to what in the blazes was going on with that group of strange people and Cell himself.

The man who had not long ago had been defeated by the bio-cyborg started to stammer and blunder his words for a few seconds, trying to find the most justifiable excuse that the public would swallow in order to make himself still seem at the top. "Well, it was obviously a clever use of a flare gun, explosives and plenty of smoke. I must say that despite this guy playing Cell's game, he's doing it pretty good." he explained with a professional and knowledgeable front as he nodded his head with what appeared to be certainty.

The reporter then drew the mic close to his own mouth as he looked at the camera. "Such splendid commentary as ever from the strongest in the world." he said with a bombastic and hammy fashion, trying to hype up the explanation even further to make things seem more exciting, not that it required his help.

On the side the tri-clops was listening to the exchange between the two and was snarling with anger. 'Why that arrogant little bastard! How dare he dismiss everything Goku worked so hard to achieve while acting like some sort of fucking expert on everything?!' he thought to himself as he was now eying the current champion of the Tenkaichi Budokai with a hateful and spiteful glare, which the former bandit noticed and looked incredibly worried about. Fearful might have even been a better word.

As the dust settled and spread away from the arena, the result of the powerful attack were finally visible to everyone in and out of the ring, with the Earth-raised Super Saiyan standing up as he entered a combat stance and smirked. "Why haven't you regenerated yet, Cell? Is making this a big show that important to you?" he asked as his body was prepared for any assault that would have come from his foe, having a muscle memory so incredible that it prepared itself with a veil of energy around the entire body to protect it from underhanded attacks, though this was his biggest weakness as well, as that shield could have easily been broken through by a condensed enough attack.

Sure enough, on the other side of the ring, Cell stood with both of his arms completely gone, blown off by the powerful red orb of ki that was Son Goku's Super Saiyan Flare. He had no arms from the shoulders down, something that the ultimate life from examined with a careful eye while smirking with grand satisfaction that was visible all over his face, which concerned most of the other Z-Fighters and Vegeta, while Gohan kept looking at the two with a confused look on his face.

"And it seems like Cell has been defeated by getting his arms completely blown off! Mister Satan, what can you tell us about how it happened?" the announcer asked the Afro martial artist.

"Stood too close to the dynamite like an amateur, Jimmy." the man responded immediately while keeping his cool facade.

"Thank you for your insightful words, Mister Satan." the announcer said as he looked back at the arena.

The bug man started to chuckle as he also winced from the pain of having no arms. He then looked at his Mastered Super Saiyan opponent and smirked with satisfaction filling his face. "Exquisite, Goku. You somehow managed to combine the blinding flashiness of Tien Shinhan's Taiyoken, the explosive power of Vegeta's Big Bang Attack and the surprising element of detonation upon the smallest impact of Radiz's Monday Bomb and mixed it all together in such a stupendously magnificent technique." he complimented his opponent as he then gave a quick shout to regrow his arms, which shocked the TV announcer, the current Tenkaichi Budokai champion and the cameraman.

The greatest creation of Doctor Gero and Doctor Wheelo then rubbed his wrists, he grinned like a madman and entered a fighting stance of his own. "Now that you showed me your technique, I suppose that we can finally have some real fun!" he shouted as he fired a powerful ki blast at his foe, who sidestepped the attack without moving his glare from where it mattered and dashed towards the amalgamated humanoid, who dashed himself towards said foe.

With a powerful and loud "BAM!" sound, the two warriors crashed into one another in a headbutt lock, a head blow so powerful from either of the two that a shockwave was created from the impact, causing wind to blow back and carry up dust with it, not to mention the fact that the two opponents intertwined in the struggle to overpower the other caused them to wince and grind their teeth in pain as they then locked hands and tried pushing each other back and forth, but none was moving an inch because they were so equal in power.

After nearly a minute of them trying to push one another, the Super Saiyan and the bug man disengaged and jumped backwards, only to dash forward once their toes touched the ring itself. This time they started trading blows between each other, their fists and feet clad in a golden glow of energy as they both focused a lot of ki to those four specific points in an incredibly short space of time. A flurry of punches flew towards the Saiyan, who blocked them all with his own hands only to then throw a barrage of fists of his own, which were all deflected as well.

As they continued the back and forth of attacks, the two eventually met at the center of the ring when Cell's right foot crashed against Goku's stomach, making him gag in pain as he felt the force behind the hit, bringing a smirk to the face of the ultimate life form. In an instant he charged more ki into his glowing foot and launched a ki blast out of it, pushing his golden-haired opponent backwards towards the edge of the arena. "So are we finally going to start taking things to the air permanently, Goku? Or are you just going to stay stubborn on staying within this small ring?" Cell inquired as he kept his leg up, channeling energy through it while his arms were being crossed in front of his chest.

Closing one eye while grinding his teeth with a large amount of effort of pushing back the power of the ki blast to prevent himself from falling out of bounds, Son Goku struggled to slow down his momentum and with a large amount of force he lifted his hands up and redirected the blast with a loud shout. "AH!" he shouted at the top of his lungs as he saw that he had managed to keep the blast going to the sky. Huffing a little bit, he smiled as he looked at his opponent, who still showed of his blue exoskeleton.

"Phew, that was quite the attack. I knew that you were holding back up until that point, and now you lowered your power again to match me perfectly. I knew I could trust all that Saiyan DNA in you. I hope that thus your choices kept you entertained, because I think I will start letting things go up a notch." he said as he had a large smile on his face.

Upon hearing this, the ultimate creation of the two doctors chuckled with amusement over what his opponent had just said. "Well, well, you actually surprise me quite a bit, Goku." he said as he started to laugh out loud with very noticeable joy in his voice, as if there was some sort of joke everybody had been missing. "You actually planned everything from the very beginning, didn't you?" he asked as his laugh got even louder. "The moment you came in to save Tien, you had already figured out everything for your plan, thinking on how to draw me in to take the bait and make me wait long enough for our final battle. You are much smarter than I gave you credit for." the ultimate life form said out loud with a large amount of amusement when he spoke.

The Super Saiyan then simply gave a single nod. "Yep. That's why I told you about the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, remember?" he spoke back with a relaxed aura around him as he entered a Turtle School stance once more and prepared to fight yet again. "Now show me more of what you can offer me, Cell, because I'm here with the expectation of a nostalgia trip." he said with a smirk plastered all over his face.

"Oh, so you know what nostalgia is? Very well." the amalgamated humanoid said as he entered a stance and an aura of ki erupted from him. "Then here's one blast from the past. Ah..." the creature started to power up and the ground beneath him started to shake very lightly, but the weaker humans in the area still were starting to lose their balance from the quaking.

"Amazing, it appears that there is another small quake in the area, folks and Cell appears to be doing something. We here at Z-TV will keep you all updated on the situation." the reporter reported as he was doing his best to prevent himself from falling, though very quickly the tall android walked to the three powerless humans and held them firm in order to support them.

The quaking suddenly stopped as then from Cell's figure more Cells started to appear, until on the ring stood four Perfect Cells, all at a quarter of the power of the monstrous bio-android. This was without a doubt the Multiform Technique that was created by the three-eyed martial artist, who just clicked his tongue at the sight of his technique being used by the humanoid being created from all of the Z-Fighters' DNA and contained data of all of their techniques.

After finishing his dramatic unavailing of the technique, Cell let out a small exhale of wind out of his lungs while he had a smirk of confidence and excitement plastered all over the faces of the four clones. "You are right, Goku, I do consider myself one for the theatrics." the Cell in the middle admitted while his smile changed into a more relaxed and content one. "But that's because I want to make things longer, live the satisfaction of combat as long as I possibly can." he continued to talk as a those words came out of the mouth of a second Cell. "Because this fight right now is the only thing I have to justify my existence! I want this fight to enlighten me to find a new purpose in this life of mine, hence this grand tournament for your beloved home!" all four Cells then declared as they shouted in unison, making it sound like an echo.

Then all four clones of the being clapped their hands once and a low bawl came out of their mouths as small bulges started to appear across their bodies, which made the Super Saiyan to tense his body and prepare for whatever his foe was planning for him. Then, with one loud "PLOP!" sound, four extra arms popped out of the backs of each of the clones, which shocked everyone in the field, with the one most shocked by this was Tien himself, astounded to see the more advanced version of his Four Witch technique, which he himself had only perfected after being resurrected by the dragon balls.

After a few more seconds in which all the four figures of the ultimate life form panting slightly while beads of sweat appeared on their foreheads, only for a confident smirks to appear a dozen seconds later. Their then straightened themselves up instead of getting into a fighting stance, which made the Earth-raised Super Saiyan to raise an eyebrow as to why he was doing so. "To start, I will give you a trip back in time to the 22nd and 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai tournaments, with my perfect presentation of Tien Shinhan's techniques. What say you?" the legion of voices said with a great amount of thrilling anticipation cutting the air through their choir of voices.

However, the immediate answer wasn't from Son Goku, but from the champion of the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai and the inventor of the techniques that the self-proclaimed ultimate life form was using. The first reaction that most of the people around had was surprise as powerful gusts of wind started to blow in all four directions of the wind, carrying massive amounts of dust and dirt as the three-eyed martial artist ignited his silver, fiery aura into life, covering the entire area with an intense pressure the made the entire group of Earth's defenders to dig their feet into the dirt.

The man looked enraged. He had seemed to completely snap from what the bug man on the area had pulled out two of his own techniques to use against the orange gi wearing golden warrior. "Cell, you bastard! How dare you use my techniques?!" he inquired furiously as he glared hateful daggers at all of the figures. "Not only do I need to listen to that man other there denying all the abilities that I've spent my entire life to perfect," he kept on shouting as he pointed at the human martial artist who sported an Afro. "but now I have to see them used for your spiteful and petty amusement?!" he continued to question the humanoid being as ground his teeth and snarled like a feral animal.

However, this reaction simply caused all the clones of the bio-android to burst out laughing out loud at the sight of the enraged man. "Yes, that is exactly right, Tien. I am doing this to make my fight with Goku as spectacular as I can possibly make it. And if I can take whatever opportunity I have to be spiteful and petty towards all you Goku cheerleaders down there, you bet your three-eyes that I will." the four bio-androids spoke in unison, their voices continuing to echo like a legion of Cells. "And just to stick the knife deeper into your back and rub salt on your wounds, I get to use them against Goku because you know deep down that you can never give him a satisfying fight ever again. Because you are just too weak." the four bio-androids on the arena kept on mocking the tall, bald, human martial artist while everyone else looked at the man with different expressions on their faces: Yamcha gave his friend and former rival a sympathetic and understanding look, Katanaji, Raditz and Bryco gave him an understanding and stern looks that seemed to say that they understood that desire, Vegeta looked pissed and finally Goku and Gohan looked completely perplexed.

At that point the silver aura disappeared and the tri-clops fell to the ground with an angry yet defeated look on his face, as if he admitted that to himself as well.

Goku, however, simply looked back at his foe and tensed his body again while a serious expression filled his face. "Cell, I've had enough of you mocking my friends and family. Stop this right now and let's start this battle while I'm still in a good mood, because you don't want to see me in a bad mood." he stated as he jumped forward, did several somersaults in the air and landed in the center of the stage, getting into a stance as he was fully prepared for an onslaught. "Alright, let's go." he said as his voice was now seemingly much more stern and less nonchalant that before. It seemed that his foe's taunts to his friend and former rival had made him upset.

Hearing this, all he Cells in the arena focused their sights on their foe as they all dashed to the four corners of the arena. "Well then, here are the last few adjustments." he said as a thrilled smirk rose to his face and al four of them entered a different fighting stances: the one on the top right took the fighting stance of the Turtle School, the one at the top left corner took the stance of the Crane School, the third one at the bottom left corner took on the stance of Piccolo's Demon Style and the last one at the bottom right corner entered the same stance that Vegeta used against the Earth's greatest defender during their fight more than half-a-decade ago.

There was a silence that took the ring, with only the howling of the wind making any sort of sound, as the two opponents, with one being split into four, all waiting for one of them to break and do some kind of move. It was a game of patience, meant to show the mental fortitude of the two warriors, but it also gave time for more calculated fighters to plan ahead a strategy, a game plan to have to use in their fight. Whether or not that plan would work wasn't the most relevant, but having one that could work was of the utmost importance.

[Cue Musical Cue #2: We Are Number One (But It's Perfect)]

In a sudden instant, all of the four Cells dashed towards their golden-haired opponent with a gleeful smirk on their faces. They moved at such speed that the distance between them and the center of the arena was closed within just a hundredth of a second, with them all throwing a barrage of strikes from their respective styles of fighting that each clone of Cell had taken upon itself to use against the golden-haired warrior. The plan was simple: to overwhelm with numbers and forcing him to adjust to four different styles all at once, which would allow them to land more and more hits on him. They had also drenched their arms and legs in ki to enhance the power and durability of their strikes and guards, since the Multi-Form technique split the user's power into quarters.

However, the Earth-raised Super Saiyan was a true master of martial arts and had wielded vast experience under the blue obi belt that he had worn around his waist. Despite the best efforts of the four clones of his opponents and the barrages of punches, kicks, elbow strikes, knee strikes and palm strikes that they threw at him, he had managed to repel the vicious and precise assault as he either sidestepped, blocked or deflected a dozen of those strikes when they came at him. He had already managed to familiarize himself with all four styles that his body had the muscle memory to know how to deflect or block every strike that came his way.

All four of his opponents threw everything that they had to offer in their incredibly skillful barrage of attacks and they also had incredible synergy and masterful teamwork. Whenever one would try to chop at him like Piccolo would, another one would try to hit him with a roundhouse kick at the same time, while also the two other clones would sent a punch and a kick of their own, all in four different styles of combat.

But Goku simply looked sternly as he sidestepped the chop while crouching to avoid the roundhouse kick. When the knee strike and the uppercut that came his way seemed to land, they went through and crashed into the stomachs of the two clones respectively as the afterimage of Goku disappeared from sight. When he reappeared he slammed a powerful flip kick into the temple of one of the clones of Gero's crown jewel, slamming it into the ground so hand that the tiles cracked apart in his face and several large splits occurred around the entire arena.

The low-class Saiyan didn't stop there, as he carried over his momentum from the landing of the flip kick and somersaulted over the other three Cells in the arena, landing behind one of them and then raised his guard up in a more of a boxing stance, his expression completely stern and serious throughout the entire exchange.

One of the three clones who were currently up while the fourth one recovered charged in and sent out a straight punch aimed for his adversary's face while the other two dashed to the man's sides and tried to flank him with a counter-clockwise spinning jump kick and a superman punch respectively, serious and exerting expressions on their faces.

Much to their surprise, the Super Saiyan bent backwards and used his momentum to carry his body away and thus dodge all three attacks. While the two attacks of flanking Cells struck each other, the third one was struck from below as a kick from the Super Saiyan reached up to his jawline and crashed into it with a loud "POW!" sound that made that clone of Cell stumble backwards while the Super Saiyan rolled a little bit more than a meter away from the clone that was straight in front of him. When he finished rolling he quickly put all of his weight on his feet while he also hadn't gotten up. With one strong push that cracked the tiles below his feet, the Mastered Super Saiyan flew towards the stumbling clone and struck a crunching, thunderous elbow strike into the bio-android's gut, sending him flying while also spewing a bit of purple blood.

The clone flew very far to the point that he reached out of the arena. However, the bio-android clone managed to regain his balance mid-air and prevented his fall out of bounds before charging once again towards his golden-haired fighter, who was now busy with the two clones whom were once more trying to overwhelm him withe the number of hits. Each of those two clones were throwing as many punches as they could using the six hands that they had thanks to Tien's new Six Wtches technique. But despite their best efforts, the blows were easily dodged and blocked by Earth-raised, low-class Saiyan warrior who was now wearing a joyful smile on his face.

Then the third clone, whom nearly got ringed out, joined in and tried to slam both of his feet into Goku's back, but the youngest son of Bardock was quick on his feet and quick with his reactions, so the two feet of the Cell clone hit nothing but solid air when it went through an afterimage, with Goku appearing behind all of the three clones.

The three Cells turned around, but this time they backed off completely with caution on their faces, which gave the Super Saiyan enough time to think now about the situation. 'Hm... maybe they finally figured out that the power gap between us was too great for them to overcome and now they're thinking about a new strategy...' he thought to himself as he got into a fighting stance and glared at the three clones. Then he noticed that the fourth clone, the one that he had smashed into the arena, had been gone for too long, forcing him to realize what was really going on. 'Or they already had a strategy and those three were just the distraction, waiting for the last one to charge a powerful attack!' he kept on thinking as his eyes widened with shock at the realization.

His suspicion was reaffirmed when the three Cells smirked with confidence and a massive spike occurred in his ki sense, which alerted him to the danger of an attack that had been charged right above his head. He looked up to see that the last clone was floating high in the sky with all of the index and middle fingers of his six hands extended with a ball of energy that was sparking with energy the same way that Piccolo's Makankosappo did. Then his eyes widened in shock even more as he looked over to his friends.

"Hey, why didn't you guys tell me about that?" he inquired with a whine as he pointed up to the clone that was up in the sky.

"Wait, you didn't notice it? I thought you were just waiting for the last Cell to use it to take out the other clones." Trunks said with a surprised and worried expression on his face. He was now more and more concerned as his assumption that Goku had the fight in complete control was not as correct as he believed.

"I didn't tell you because it wouldn't be honorable to do that during another person's fight." Bryco said nonchalantly as he explained his own reason for not warning about the clone charging the attack.

"A Saiyan should fight his battles alone. I'm not here to cheer you on, you low-class imbecile. I'm here to rip Cell apart into little pieces and then blast him into smithereens." the flame-haired prince retorted with a fair share of insults towards his Super Saiyan rival.

"Sorry brother, it's your fight." Raditz said with a cheeky tone as he had a smirk plastered all over his face while he had his hands on his waist, waiting to see how the rest of the battle would go.

However, despite how the Saiyans reacted, the Earth-raised Saiyan's two human friends who were around, as well as his son were cheering up for him, with Gohan and Yamcha were more vocal about it then Tien, even though he was smiling with approval and nodding constantly during the motivating shouts.

"Go dad, you can defeat him! Counter that Makankosappo!" the Mastered Super Saiyan boy cheered with a big, enthusiastic smile on his face.

"Kick his butt, Goku! The Multiform is making him vulnerable. Stop lowering your power and beat them all up using full power! Show him what you can do!" the former desert bandit cheered on next to the tri-clops, who was still nodding with a smirk on his face, agreeing in his own way to his former rival's statements. That was also because he was filled with anticipation of seeing Cell humiliated and defeated after the bio-android had broken his spirits earlier.

"Hexagonal Makankosappo!" the last clone shouted as he aimed all six hands downwards, aimed towards the arena and the man inside of it. The Super Saiyan looked up as he flew up to meet the attack head on, confusing most of the Z-Fighters, especially Katanaji and Raditz, who remembered that the Makankosappo was the technique that originally killed the Earth-raised Saiyan when Raditz first came to Earth.

But that was only what it had appeared to be, since Goku suddenly did a hard break and flew to the left, evading the drilling beam at the last moment before impact. Goku looked behind and smirked as he was glad to evade the attack. Then, his eyes widened as he watched the beam twist and turn several times until it returned to the same path as Goku's following him at incredible speeds.

"Woah!" he shouted as he sidestepped the beam right as it was about the pierce him through the back and then started to fly in the other direction, only to be intercepted by the three Cell clones who immediately sent bone-crunching punches across the man's upper body, which didn't do much damage, but was enough to stall him just enough for the Special Beam Cannon that was on his trail to turn around and head towards him once more, which worried him greatly.

Luckily for him, his instincts kicked in quickly as he used the afterimage technique to disappear and the beam cut through the image left behind and grazed one of the clones badly enough that a lot of blood gushed from his right side, making the Cell clone wince. Goku then appeared above the injured clone and smashed a double-axe hammer into his head, cracking his skull open and sending him flying down towards the arena.

Without saying a word or doing another movement and simply focusing, Goku used Instant Transmission to appear above the clone high in the sky which had fired the drilling beam and was still aiming it around to try and crashed a thunderous flip kick into the clone's skull, sending it as well down towards the arena, which caused the Makankosappo to disperse. He then disappeared and instantly reappeared in between the two remaining clones, shocking them. Using that shock, he smashed a powerful elbow strike into one's cheek stunning it long enough for him to send another elbow strike into the temple of the other. Then he flew down, grabbing the two clones by their Achilles tendon and dragged them down with him as he flew at high speed.

Upon nearly reaching the arena, he moved past the two first clones of the bio-android, one of which was limp and not responding while the second managed to somewhat correct himself midair. As the first clone turned into a blue light that flew back into the second clone, Goku threw the two clones that he grabbed out of the arena's bounds, a big smile of joy on his face. He then disappeared and reappeared in front of the last standing clone and kicked him so hard that he send him flying backwards spewing spit with his eyes bulging out, only to then appear above him and crash him out of bounds with a clockwise roundhouse kick to the chin.

Finally, the Earth-raised Super Saiyan flew back into the arena, landing in its center as he simply smirked with joy and satisfaction on his face. "Aaaaand done. I win." he said in a very childish and carefree tone as he ruffled his own golden, spiky hair and giggled, completely content with the fight.

Suddenly two of the remaining three clones turned into blue light, which also flew into one of the original four, which resulted in the original Perfect Cell returning once more. As he stood up he panted slightly with a grin on his face, also very satisfied with the battle that he had with his opponent thus far.

[End Musical Cue #2]

While all of that had been going on, Jimmy Firecracker had continued to try and pry commentary from the current world champion as the camera had completely focused on the fight between the fighters in the arena. Whenever the martial arts champion was asked to explain what was going on in the ring and in the air by the TV reported and commentator of the Cell Games event, he managed to save face by commenting how it was all explosions planted across the ring and in the arena, mirrors and special effects carefully hidden around so that the untrained eye could not see and so on.

If Hercule Satan had to be honest with himself, he didn't believe in all that mysticism and laser stuff that the two fighters were showing in the ring, but he admitted to himself that that Cell guy was way stronger than him and that that Goku guy was way more skilled than him. Even if they were using all those theatrical tricks, he was still very impressed from he could see, though he didn't see more than blurs most of the time. This made him realize that truth about his title: he trained hard to gain it and he earned it fair and square in the arena. But the only reason that he had it now was because none of those freaks participated in the first place. He wasn't the strongest under the heavens and knowing that fact made him bitter and sad as he felt his ego drop.

'No. I'm not going to let these freaks steal my thunder and ruin my reputation! I wouldn't be able to look into my fans' eyes and see their disappointment and anger, believing that I've been leading them astray. I want to be rich and popular! I want a comfortable life for my little girl! Even if I have to besmirch those guys, I'll do anything to be "The Champ".' he thought to himself as he steeled his eyes and a smirk rose to his mustached face.

At the ring, Cell slowly walked back to the arena, stepping back on it as he wiped the blood from his lip as a smirk remained on his face. He was also looking a bit tired from the fight thus far, but it didn't affect his power at all as he was still equal to Goku in power. He then stopped as he clapped his hand and started to laugh loudly. "Well done, well done indeed, Son Goku. I expected you do survive that much. After all, no technique can kill the same person twice, am I correct?" he stated with a huge grin on his face.

Goku simply grinned back at his foe. "Well, I have to admit that it was close." he spoke honestly as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his head.

Seeing and hearing this made the so-called ultimate life form chuckle with amusement. "Honest and humble untill the very end, aren't you?" he asked as he then started to float up in the sky slowly, much to the confusion of his opponent. "But if you think that I would except a ring out as a way to cut our battle short, Goku, then prepared to be highly disappointed." he stated as he continued to rise and entered a rather memorable stance in which both hands were cupped one palm above the other as a purple, electric aura surrounded him.

Vegeta immediately recognized the technique as he snarled furiously and grounded his teeth while a vein throbbed on his forehead. "You motherfucker! Now you're using my technique?!" he asked the bio-android with unbridled rage in his voice as his golden, fiery aura burst to life around his frame.

"Why do I have a distinct feeling that he's going to pull the same thing I did in the Tenkaichi Budokai finals?" the three-eyed human asked the scar-faced martial artist who stood next to him with an irritated tone as he frowned while looking up at the glowing mass of energy that formed around Cell.

Yamcha looked up with a fearful look in his red eyes as his whole body was shaking. "Because that's what he's about to do! We gotta get out of here, now!" he stated as he started flying away to one of the closest cliffs in the area as Tien quickly followed him, although the latter was much more calm about it.

Katanaji looked at the group of Mastered Super Saiyans and gave them all a nod. "You should do the same as Tien and Yamcha. The explosion would be devastating even if you all are in your Mastered Super Saiyan forms. I at least can heal myself using my Namekian regeneration and my magic. You can't. Now go." he told them all as he also followed the two human Z-Fighters, with the Saiyans reluctantly following, with Vegeta being the most reluctant.

Gohan, Trunks and Adrian did not follow the others. Instead they formed around the group of Mr. Satan, Jimmy Firecracker and the cameraman and used together formed a barrier to protect the three humans who were defenseless and at the mercy of Cell's attack.

Goku simply rubbed his head with his finger and seemed to ponder about something. "So is that a Tien move, a Vegeta move or a Freeza move?" he thought to himself as he wasn't even looking up.

"Galick Gun... FIREEEEE!" the amalgamated being roared at the top of his lungs as he launched one of Vegeta's signature attacks at the ring of the Cell Games which he built from scratch, all so that he could extend the fight with his Earth-raised Saiyan adversary.

The energy beam flew down towards the ring, with the Super Saiyan still standing in it and not looking up at all. He raised his left hand above his head while putting his right index and middle fingers on his forehead and smirked. He fired three small blasts of energy at the incoming beam, which didn't detonate it or visibly affect it's power at all, but it did manage to slow it down for just an entire second, which Goku used to teleport away using his Instant Transmission ability.

As the beam struck the arena, it exploded. The explosion expanded massively in sheer size and power by turning into a massive, purple dome of energy that eclipsed mountains. When it widened, it crashed into the barrier that was created by Gohan, Future Trunks and Android 16, pushing them all back as they turned it into more of a energy sphere in order to protect the weak humans inside. All six of them were pushed back with ease and went through hills and mountains, which were consumed by the energy dome itself. Surges of electricity blasted forth, frying the camera that the cameraman was holding and stopping all transmissions to the audiences across the world.

However, despite the main channel for everyone going black, Bulma's drones were hovering across the entire area with the energy scanners and cameras attached to them. Since their programming had been both of high efficiency and quality in addition to production speed, the drones were able to withstands the sparks of energy coming from the dome and moved further and further to avoid being consumed by the actual energy sphere itself, all the while transmitting a live stream to those in the Capsule Corp. building.

The skies were painted purple as they reflected the color of the energy, with electricity dancing across them. Wind waged on as the Z-Fighters, who had landed on a rather high cliff, were bracing themselves and activating their auras and closing their eyes in order to resist the push that the wind was giving all of them, alongside the tsunamis of dust and sand that were flying everywhere while the Earth was shaking violently to the point that everyone across the planet were feeling it.

It took a while for the dome to finally disappear and dissipate away and for the quaking to stop, but when it did there was nothing but dust filling the entire place, reaching heights that were above any mountain in the area that still stood after everything that was caused by the massively powerful explosion.

Slowly but surely, the massive clouds dissipated slowly, moving across the wind in a snail's pace as the two hybrids and the android recovered and picked up the three humans whom they protected and put them on some high hill that was safe enough for the three of them to stay on, only for the three to then teleport back to their group using Gohan's Instant Transmission skill that he had been taught by his father in their year together inside of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. The two hybrids gave a sigh in unison and gave each other reassuring grins as they knew that what they did was the right thing to do.

When the giant dust clouds finally disappeared, everyone was shocked to see that there was no giant crater where the arena used to be, but that the entire area around the cliffs that everyone had been standing on had been completely flattened. The area was also deeper then when it used to be, showing that the explosion did destroy much of the ground underneath it for at least a meter.

As they all looked down, they saw that Goku teleported back into the arena, looking none too concerned with the matter that the ring was gone. Above, descending slowly towards the desolated and destroyed area was the greatest creation of Dr. Gero and Dr. Wheelo, whom looked at his foe with a satisfied expression and with his arms crossed in front of his chest. There was a tension in the air that all of the warriors could feel and beads of sweat appeared on their brows and maybe even covered the faces of some of them, mostly Yamcha.

"Now I don't think that a ring out will be an option to defeat me anymore, Goku." the bug man spoke with satisfaction in his voice as he allowed his arms to unfurl and fall to his sides. "You see, I'm the one who makes the rules in the Cell Games and here is the new rule: to win, you'll have to kill me." he spoke with an ominous tone as his face became shaded, which caused all of the Z-Fighters to tense their muscles and enter a battle stance.

Goku then smirked as he started to hop around and roll his shoulders and spin his head slowly, confusing his opponent as he seemed to relax his muscles as he gently failed his arms as he rolled his shoulders over and over while hopping from one leg to another.. It took about a minute for the man to finish what he was doing only to then enter a combat stance. "That's too bad, Cell. I wanted to maybe let you live so that you could train and become an even better fight in the futer, or maybe have a chance of heart and join the rest of us." he said loudly with a melancholic smile on his face, as if he was hopeful and happy about what ifs that he was imagining inside his mind, while also feeling saddened over the fact that it was probably never going to happen.

"Of course..." Tien, Katanaji and Raditz slumped forward with a defeated and exasperated expressions on their faces, fully expecting an answer like that from the man, since he had done it before.

"Like hell I'll ever accept that bastard!" Vegeta screamed angrily as he pointed at the amalgamated creature.

"I'm with the prince on that one. I will never be able to call that thing an ally of mine, just like with the prince." Bryco stated with sternness in his voice, thought his statement pissed off Vegeta even further.

While the two Saiyans started to argue again, with Katanaji and Trunks doing their best to stop the two, Gohan simply looked up at Cell. Although his face seemed just stoic and serious, there was some sort of realization in the boy's eyes as to why his father thought about making such an offer, even if he wasn't going to. 'I've watched replays of his Cell Games announcement over and over, and I've watched this fight closely. What I felt from Cell... it's nothing like what I felt from his earlier forms.' he thought to himself as he then looked down at his father. 'Has dad realized this before I did?' he asked himself as he was now more focused on the fight.

It was then that the Earth-raised Super Saiyan finally continued his speech to the bio-android. "But just like Freeza, you are too much of a threat to my planet, to my home and to my friends. That's why I accept your new rule, and that's why I will kill you." he said with determination in his eyes as he clenched his fists and flared up his golden aura around his frame, ready to go for another round with his adversary.

This made the humanoid creature to laugh out loud with an obvious thrill to his voice as he clenched his fists and flared up his own aura around his frame as he raised his arms slightly up and aimed his palms at the direction of his opponent. "Excellent, Son Goku, excellent." he said as his body shook as a smile rose on his face. While it seemed like it was just a sign of his Saiyan instincts burning inside of the creature and pumping him up for a fight, but nobody really noticed that his smile was a bit forced, disguising the conflicting emotions of his newly gained conscience and, his own personal desires and whatever remained of Dr. Gero's programming that were blasting in his head the moment that he had started his fight with Goku.

[Start Musical Cue #3: Kisenu Dekigoto]

Then the bio-android started firing fast energy blasts at the his opponent and flew down at high speeds himself as he made dozens upon dozens of energy blasts in seconds, which was very much a part of the flame-haired prince's fighting style of overwhelming force. Goku gritted his teeth as he saw the large barrage of incoming ki blasts, so he started to fly away. But like with the Makankosappo earlier, two thirds out of the 97 blasts of energy charged directions and followed him around, much to his frustration, while the remaining third crashed into the ground, creating powerful explosions that shook the ground and raised smoke and dust to the air.

As he flew around, Goku tried to do many aerial maneuvers to evade as many blasts as he could while taking them away from his friends and from the defenseless human group, who were gawking with shock at the fight that was occurring. He went under natural bridges of rocks that were destroyed once several energy blasts hit them, turned around mountains that had their tops struck down by a few good dozen blasts and finally he turned around every so often and fired ki blasts of his own to destroy many of those that chased him down.

After about a minute of this, when there were only around nine remaining ki blasts, he returned to where he started and turn around once more to fire more ki blasts. However, he was interrupted when Perfect Cell snicked up on him and slammed his elbow into the Super Saiyan's cheek, sending him flying right into the energy blasts, which all zoned in and crashed into the man and made several explosions.

Perfect Cell smirked as he knew that this attack probably stunned his foe for enough time for him to charge in and continue his advantage forward to attack even more. Inside his mind he could hear the calls of his creator and programmer shouting him "Kill Son Goku!" over and over again in a repeated loop, but it was feint and was drowned by the sea of voices, all the voices of the thousands of souls that he had drank into his body while he was Imperfect, calling him "Monster!", "Murderer!", "Freak!" and most adults even shouting "Don't kill him!". However, right now, even those screams where overwhelmed by the burning sensation and desire for him to fight, brought forth by his Saiyan genes that partially composed his body. "Fight! Fight! Fight!" that was what he it felt like the sensation was telling him to do. In actuality, all of those words, all of those screams inside of him formed into one sentence in the creature's mind: "Don't kill! Fight Son Goku!".

With the desire to fight driving him, he dashed forward, charging in to the cloud of smoke that was created by his ki blasts. Much to his surprise, his adversary recovered faster than he had anticipated and slammed a fist square in the nose, breaking it and sending the bio-android flying backwards with purple blood flying out of the broken nose.

The creation of Dr. Gero and Dr. Wheelo righted himself almost immediately and charged in once more, firing energy blasts at his opponent, who easily deflected all of them. But that was only the distraction as the bio-android closed the distance between them quickly and slammed a thunderous knee strike into the Super Saiyan's gut, taking the air out of his lungs and doubling him over, which the bio-android then followed up by moving behind him and slamming a double-ax hammed on top of his foe's head, slamming him against the ground so hard that the man bounced back into the air.

Cell grabbed Goku by his torn up orange ki shirt and punched the man in the face, which sent him flying back while what remained of his orange gi top was left in Cell's hand, which he threw aside moments later, leaving Goku with his weighted shirt on. Upon correcting himself in the air, Goku then started flying in a different direction, with Cell following as he flew parallel to his opponent.

"Super Saiyan Flare!" Goku shouted as he fired his newly created technique at Cell.

"Big Bang Attack!" the perfect organism once more fired one of Vegeta's signature techniques to counter the Super Saiyan Flare that Goku fired and the two immediately disappeared using the afterimage technique.

The two attacks clashed, creating a massive explosion and a blinding light that nearly matched the famous Solar Flare technique, forcing everyone to close their eyes shut so that they wouldn't go blind. They were still amazed by Goku new technique but were frustrated that they now couldn't see anything and had to rely on their other senses to follow the fight.

Up in the sky, where the lights of Goku's technique weren't much of a bother, the two fighters clashed, creating a shockwave, then disappeared and reappeared a dozen meters away, clashing once more and creating another shockwave. After the second shockwave they then simply started to throw punches at each other, with no one managing to break though the other's guard as they once again used their perfect skill to fight in what was almost a dance for the two fighters.

"Tuesday Barrage!" Cell shouted as he supercharged his hands with green ki and started to throw punches at a massively faster rate, using Raditz's technique to break through the Mastered Super Saiyan's guard and hammer him with punches that were usually much stronger than Cell's regular punches, drawing blood and breaking something with each strike. He finished the barrage of hits with a double-axe hammer on top of his opponent's head, sending him crashing down into the ground.

The Z-Fighters watched in shock and horror as they saw Goku fly down like a meteor into the ground, crashing so hard that the entire wasteland shook and a loud "BOOOOOOMMMMM!" sound echoed across the entire rocky terrain, making small parts of hills and cliffs crumble. Dust and dirt rose to the air as a powerful shockwave sent it flying across the entire area that was destroyed by the Galick Gun.

[End Musical Cue #3]

When the dust settled, Goku got up from a rather big crater, completely bloodied up and panting heavily, all the while sporting a pained scowled on his face. He looked like he was in a really bad shape, which worried everyone in the group, especially those who had put their faith in the fact that Goku was the strongest of them all and was the only one capable of beating Cell. Those who didn't believe that fact were the full-blooded Saiyans and Katanaji.

As Goku was busy huffing and puffing, Perfect Cell descended back from the sky and slowly floated towards the ground, giving time for his enemy to recover. He took his time, but Goku didn't move at all and just panted while he cleaned his face from as much blood and sweat as he could.

When the bio-android landed on the ground with his feet making a mechanical "TAP!" sound, he folded his arms together and panted only lightly as he looked sternly at his foe. "Is that all you've got, Goku? I was hoping for more than you." he said as he tried to fake disappointment to push the man forward.

Much to everyone's surprise, Goku suddenly started to chuckle as he raised his head and shook his head. "Naw, I've got one more technique to beat you The one I used to defeat Freeza. I only perfected it in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, but I still haven't fully made it combat efficient, so it will take time to charge. But you don't mind waiting, do you?" he asked as he smirked at his opponent.

This made the so-called ultimate life form smirk with anticipation as he spread his arms wide. "Not at all. By all means, take as much time as you need to charge your attack, Goku. Show me this one big trump card of yours." he said with confidence and anticipation in his voice as he felt the urge coming from his Saiyan instincts to test out that technique.

Goku then chuckled. "Trust me Cell, you won't be disappointed." he said as he entered a new stance, taking his right leg backwards and putting a lot of his body weight on it, while he cocked back his right hand and clenching it into a fist and putting his left hand's open palm in front of it, as if to contain it.

{To Be Continued]


[Musical Cue #4: Ending- Creeping in My Sould (by Cryoshell) (chorus only!)]


With Goku pressed and wounded, he plans to use one last technique. What is that great technique which he speaks of? Is it enough to defeat Cell and save the planet from his terror? If not, was it all part his plan to begin with? Will one of the other Z-Fighters take his place in case he is defeated? Find out on the next chapter of Changed Path...

Fuck... this took way too long to write. Well, I have other projects to do, long days of work in general and I'm addicted to The Banner Saga right now, so I'm never really in the mood to write thousands of words a day, much to my displeasure. Still, I'm very glad to know that many of you are still reading this story and are hopeful to see more of it. May by September of 2021 I will finally finish the very long Artificial Humans Saga.

Also, thanks for the reviews. I would much prefer you guys to tell me what you thought about the content of the chapter itself, be it the fighting or my nasty habit of putting too many curse words in characters' mouth because I'm such a potty mouth etc. But I'm still happy that there are reviews in general, so let us get to them, shall we?

R and A:

R: Please give goku super kaioken

A: Okay, no. I'm not doing that and I explained why not through both Goku and Katanji in an earlier chapter. It works with pre-retcon SSJ Blue in Super (not manga Blue, which the anime then used the logic of for the ToP), but it doesn't work with SSJ.

R: Gohan was weaker than Goku in mastered super Saiyan form
Only when he transformed to ssj 2 he surpassed Goku
Gohan could follow Goku's fight easily because the difference in their ssj forms was not much, hell cell told Gohan that Goku was a way better fight and much stronger opponent
Also it seemed really dumb in canon that Goku himself did not try to get ssj 2 considering that it required rage. Maybe his heart did not fully heal from the virus or something, then that's understandable

A: No, in the original manga I believe that it was hinted by both Vegeta and Cell that Gohan was stronger and particularly faster than Goku, as Cell admitted that he needed to use the speed of his full power to fight Gohan, which he didn't against Goku. Cell was constantly holding back massively against Goku and Goku only managed to fight "on par" with Cell because he was masterfully skilled, a level of skill that Gohan was not on par with and that's why he was beaten so easily by Cell. Not because Goku was stronger, but because Goku was a lot more skilled and had a lot more experience. So you were right about the skill part.

When Gohan turned SSJ2 he also had an amp from a rage boost, it wasn't just the x2 times multiplier of the SSJ2, he was also drawing from his hidden potential. When Cell used his full power, Goku was fathomed by it and couldn't believe how powerful it was. Goku tried to get above SSJ but couldn't at the time and did not want to destroy his body from going into the HTC once more. Instead he made a very flimsy plan which barely worked.

I'm done arguing over this for now. Thank you for the review and I appreciate your opinion on the matter.

R: Whatever you do, DO FUCKING NOT give Mr. Satan the credit for beating Cell!

A: Sorry, but I can't do that. For a certain fight that will take place in the Buu Arc, Mister Satan must take the glory and steal his way to fame and fortune. However, I will be adding one scene to add something to it, even if it's not much.

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Until next time, I hope you all stay healthy and be happy doing what you love. Whether it is playing sport games, reading Dragon Ball fanfiction or One Piece (One Piece rules! 1,000 chapters!) or just sleeping in bed, I hope you all have a great time.