Rayo was stunned.
He had believed that he was truly going to get killed in that instant. The level of power that was charged by his enemy was enough to make his injured self lock into a fear induced paralysis. But, in the hair of a blink, he saw something put itself between himself and the explosion of light. Gold light vanished in the wake of the blast that carved its way through the outline of the Northern Capital's crater; crafting a triangular rift in the soil with rising vapor escaping the etched floor that the kikoha did reach.
Looking up at the woman who saved him, he felt himself remember. The warm touch on his shoulder invoked the memory of her -though minus the twin-tails- fighting in the Tenkaichi Budokai. She was even escorted by someone else, Capsule Corp's previous president. The fact she could actually deflect a blast like this amazed him to no end; but the sight of a nearby elevated Cell brought his relief to be short-lived.
"Thanks for the save," Rayo managed to mutter out, still wincing in pain. His torn white tunic was in relative tatters, with the sleeves worn to bleeding shoulders and part of the top revealing his bruised chest. Even the legs of his costume barely were up to his knees where they once touched his bare foot ankles.
Looking around to confirm no one else was coming, he sighed, asking out loud. "Where's your boss? I don't suppose she lent those fancy portable shields in your pocket, right?"
"I'm afraid I have no such additional devices," Qirka replied in a neutral monotone, her hand lowering from where she had once manifested the life-saving barrier. "As for Mistress Bulma, she is currently away on business and won't be available for some time. I was left here to prevent further tragedy; I apologize for the delay."
"It's fine, I wasn't expecting today either," Rayo grimaced. The onyx haired man attempted to push himself up to his feet, feeling his body produce sensations akin to fire and muscles cramped up on motion. He managed to get up into a slouching crouch only to feel her hand push him down. Growling he looked over at her, only to see her gaze was fixated on Cell.
Any comment he could've made was interrupted by the aforementioned terror incarnate himself.
"Well-Well, isn't this new?" Cell began to say, his lips turning into a smirk as his eyes narrowed at the auburn haired woman with twin-tails but mostly a sweeping mess of curls on the top of her crown. The Deja Vu was prominent in his mind, seeing telltale signs of hoop earrings -though far larger than what he's seen presented- piercing blue eyes -also framed by square glasses, curiously- and a particular stoicism he'd recognize anywhere. The outfit was a blue-red pencil-skirted dress with arm sleeves of matching black hue to her stockings, embellished by onyx nail polish and a pair of red-blue heeled boots.
"Or should I say, very old?" He changed his rhetorical question, his smile thinning as he widened his gaze, gleefully putting the together the evidence coherently into his mind. "You're an Android! Yet, I could have sworn overhearing that you mentioned a Bulma after saying mistress. Did that woman of Vegeta's actually create her own Android? That's hilarious...if not slightly contradicting," He paused, raising a hand up to cup his yellow framed chin, his eyes thinning to show him jeeringly scrutinizing Qirka's existence. "Didn't that woman's future counterpart spent her whole life making a time machine to stop, if not outright eliminate, all traces of Doctor Gero's creations? Did she give in to madness while I've been gone, or did her scientific mind find the proposition of creating machines for her to lord over far too tempting to resist?"
"It's true," Qirka admitted, her gaze falling away from Cell's as she answered him. "I am a cyborg. Though I have the makings and shape of a human I am also a machine at my core. However, it doesn't change my ability to feel."
"Ability, to feel?" Cell parsed aloud, his eyes furrowing with confusion.
"Yes," She smiled, her eyes closing as she placed her free hand over her bosom. Memories of time spent with Goten rose up within her mind. Their chance meeting after he saved her in the previous Tenkaichi Budokai left a remarkable impact on her; their interactions quaint and the presence of him very endearing. The help she gave to sustain her mistress while exchanging dialogue, proposing theories and assisting in projects brought a certain throbbing warmth within her. Even her interactions with the likes of Bulma's son, the Son Family, and those they associate with bring pleasant feelings within her head. "I have things I hold dear to me that I wish to protect, going beyond my overall original programming. I've learned to place a precedence to what I feel inside me far more than what I was told in creation. This is why I am here," She opened her eyes, looking up defiantly at him with her smile gone, replaced with a cold glare staring back up at him. "To stop you from robbing me of what I love on this world!"
Rayo felt inspired. Despite the revelation of learning the woman that fought in the Tenkaichi Budokai was a cyborg, it was clear she wasn't just a automaton that her demeanor showcased initially. She had hopes, desires and goals that went beyond the realms of an android's overall designation. The fact she could speak so passionately indicated that the motivation behind her awakening was definitely not out of sinister intent. He felt like he could truly trust in this woman's strength.
The Bio-Android's witness of it, was less than a stellar reception.
"Eugh!" He visibly retched, his face contorting with disgust. "Now I can see that woman's handiwork on you. What kind of wretched concept for an Android to believe in such weak things like love and caring?!"
"Wow, you really are an asshole," Rayo commented with a dour expression stretched across his face.
As quickly as the moment of exchange came, a sudden ping of ki could be felt barreling from the horizon. The more Rayo homed in on it, the more his eyes widened, both out of incredulity and somewhat familiarity. He had sensed such a power also at the Tenkaichi Budokai, but he didn't expect it to come straight for them.
"Thank fate that you seem to have company and stayed my hand from killing you out of principle, Android," Cell retorted derisively, his arms crossing his chest and his head tilted in the direction the ground level pair were looking. "It seems we have some peculiar guests arriving to join us."
Peculiar was an understatement.
The first of the energies that came was one he distinctly remembered in the tournament ring, one that was pitted against the gynoid that was standing in front of him.
Appearing in an arcing current of raspberry light, a figure impacted the curve of the crater's slanted earth and rolled dramatically over to the grounded pair. Popping up from a balled up shape was the teal skinned daughter of Majin Bū, Carmina, whose twin-tails whipped about her cream shaped gelatin for hair. She wore a colorful costume not unlike her father, with orange puffy shoulders that covered her arms to her wrist and overlapped her thin torso around with a line of black-&-white striped buttons just resting beneath a just-as puffy purple collar around her neck that kept a pair of violet strips of fabric that dangled orange spheres down almost to her ankles. Amethyst slacks fed into a pair of black shin guards, with slip-on sandal shoes covering her bouncing feet.
"Hiiiiiiiiiiiii!~" The blue skinned Djinn sang aloud in introduction.
"Uhhhh," Qirka drawled out with owlish blinks at her bubbly appearance.
"...wait, aren't you that kid who fought her?" Rayo attempted to affirm, looking only slightly unnerved by the ease of her violent arrival.
"Mhm!" She bobbed her head, causing her gelatin hair to wag with her face's bob. "Mama and I are here to help!"
"Mam-"
A second arc of rosy ki landed, albeit more gracefully, just behind her, cutting off what Rayo was about to say. This figure was also present, but didn't participate in the Tenkaichi Budokai. If memory served he was told -due to his more unconscious and battered state- that she and her pudgy blob of a husband both attempted to thwart the purple cat named Beerus from causing further havoc. While it didn't work, it was clear she was quite resilient for to have no signs of sustained injury from that day all those months ago.
The difference in age was just apparent in her height being over twice as Carmina's, as well as her curvaceous shape. Her own head-tail was curled back behind 'combed' flecks of her gelatin crown likened to a ponytail that reached the small of her back. Unlike her daughter's emerald-blue orbs she possessed dark eyes, though were proportionately smaller in size. Her clothes were far more exotic appearing than her almost clownish looking child, wearing yellow hooped shoulders of a sleeveless vest of accented embroidery in gold over scarlet backdrops that covered more of the flanks of her alluringly shaped teal skin than it did the front; that was left to the white tube-top. Her flat waist was exposed past her navel leaving a white knotted sash to tie at the pelvis, complemented by a jewel embedded bracelet to hang out of the sash over her left hip on top of her deep scarlet slacks. A pair of golden cuffs left her ankles bare, fitted into similar slip-on sandals as her child, though these were darker in hue with golden rims accenting them.
"Carmina," A soft, chiding tone came from the woman behind her. She proceeded to place a hand on the girl's head to rustle her gelatin locks in a doting parent way of scolding. "You shouldn't rush ahead of me when going to fight. It's much too dangerous for you to be here alone."
"But mama-"
"No but mama to me," She corrected with a wag of her finger, her daughter pouting as she looked up at her from her spot. "Don't give me that look, you should know better. What would your father say if this Cell hurt you?"
"Hit him back?" Carmina inquired with a head tilt.
Sighing, Miss Bū raised a hand to pinch the space a nose ordinarily be and grabbed a tuft of her pliable skin to rub instead.
An aerial cough was heard, causing the pair to weave their heads without turning, giving their necks an obtuse twist that was a bit unnerving to witness for all viewers.
"As much as I enjoy your banter," Cell snarked, his eyes knitting into a scowl and his mouth thinning as he looked down at them with confusion as much as disdain. "What the Hell are you two supposed to be? Walking clowns?"
"None of your business, nyeh!" Carmina replied precociously, sticking her tongue out and pulling the skin down beneath one eye.
"What my daughter is saying, we're not in the interest in telling you anything," Miss Bū eloquently proclaimed, turning her body to face him forward while pushing her child to do the same. "We're here to stop your senseless killing of innocents on this planet. We don't condone what you've done and we'll use whatever means necessary to make sure you don't continue your rampage."
"Hahahaha, that's adorable!" He laughed in response, the emerald terror regaining his levity once he heard such a cliche speech turned on him. Lowering himself to be of similar altitude to the bunch, he softened his expression and his interest renewed with their strange appearance. "So, what I have here is a bunch of sentimental fools who charged here because they couldn't handle all the evil I've wrought, is that right? But it does come from strange sources doesn't it? A parent and child with bizarre appearances, along with a warmhearted Android. Combine that with the mess I've left that boy over there and, well, you may actually entertain me; for the next ten minutes."
Qirka put herself a few steps ahead of Rayo, a scowl etched over her face as she adjusted herself for combat. Her scanners told her that the estimated ki was beyond phenomenal and only a portion of it was being used at the given moment. If she was to survive she surmised she'd have to use mind over matter to overcome the uphill task of dismantling Doctor Gero's finest creation.
"Oh, you're hurt?" Carmina zipped over with sudden realization at what Cell had said. Her face was up in the young man's, looking at him inquisitively up and down from every angle. It was like studying a wounded animal, and she was all too happy to get as intimately proximate to him as possible; regardless if he felt comfortable about it.
"Yeah, took a few mean ones from big bug fugly over there," Rayo admitted, chuckling as he raised a hand to weakly scratch his chin.
"No problem!~" The little Djinn sang, backing up and twirling on the tip of her feet in a pirouette. At the end of it, she tapped the tips of her forefingers forward, and out from her indexes shot a crackling wave of pink electricity towards him.
"H-Hey-!" He began to protest, suddenly enveloped by a shocking warmth that enveloped his body.
But, in an instant, the black haired youth felt instantly rejuvenated. Looking down at himself, the light that shocked him wasn't painful at all, but restorative. All sign of horrible injury was gone, even the tattered white tunic he was adorned with at the beginning of the battle was back to its original shape and pale hue. Padding himself up and down to check for any sign of bruising, he found not a scratch remained.
"How-?!"
"Magic!~" She gleefully exclaimed, sticking out her tongue and winking at him with a pair of fingers pointed at her adorable face. "I'm not as good as mama and papa, but I can fix you up real good anytime!"
"Wow," He breathed out, standing up to his feet much to Qirka's surprise and Miss Bū's notice. Throwing a few experimental punches out, he grinned, clenching his hands into fists. Looking up at a surprised Bio-Android he raised a fist towards him defiantly, igniting his cerulean aura with a popping whine that billowed the air and spread dust of the crater's soil around him. "What was that you said, Cell? That I'm a mess? Guess I'm still in the game for overtime after all!"
"Interesting," Cell intoned with equal parts caution as much as intrigue. Eyes narrowed at Carmina and then Miss Bū, outright ignoring Qirka in favor of the two unknown variables that were now presented as uniquely dangerous. "Who knew that magic such as this could be so useful and threatening to me? Perhaps this little warm-up might get a little more alluring than I first imagined?"
It was through his careless ignorance that he suddenly felt something grab him by the back. Specifically, his wings were grappled and a boot slammed in the base on his spine where his retracted tail presided. Stumbling forward, the Bio-Android felt himself feel instantly annoyed by the only thing that could move without him sensing it.
Turning around to point at his aggressor, he saw a pair of legs shoot up from the ground and scissor hold his outstretched wrist. Using her hands as platforms, Qirka spun herself around like a top, bringing the Android around in a whirlwind of motion before throwing him after the third dozenth rotation.
In his flight towards the side of the crater they were standing upon, Rayo burst into crimson, his body erupting into fervor at his opportunity to engage against him. Launching a palm-heel thrust towards his flying form he was met by Cell's carapace covered forearm, the impact making a crunch but nothing more than a spasm of dispersed kinetic force. It took all the young man had to pull back from an instantly righted Cell's snap kick towards him, leaving a fresh cut across his chin from the slice of air the yellow foot left on his face.
Forward flipping, the Bio-Android avoided a springing thrust of Carmina's arm, landing in an erect thud into the earth. There he was met with a whiplash of Miss Bū's cloth-covered leg, one he easily caught with an open hand. But to his surprise, the leg coiled around his arm like a serpent, all the way up his shoulder and around his neck.
"What in the-?!" He began to inquire, right before being thrown around in an arc, landing straight into the path of Qirka and Rayo's flying punches.
They in turn were surprised that, despite being bound and lassoed about, Cell still caught their blows: one with an open hand and the other his elbow.
"Did you really think," He began to ask, digging his heels solidly into the earth and yanking his neck hard enough to reel Miss Bū in, slamming his bound elbow straight into her face with a sickening snap into her head. "That four on one will make up the difference?"
Qirka's eyes widened noticeably, pulling back at the last possible second as his hand clenched Rayo's and almost bodied her with his own flailing form by the emerald terror's whim. She ducked, her twin-tails feeling the fiery man's aura brush against her auburn hair, but she capitalized on the situation yet again. Clenching her fingers into the earth she let loose a fissure purple light blossom beneath the Bio-Android's soles, letting it explode bare inches from her but at an upwards momentum.
"Whoa now!" Cell exclaimed playfully, letting himself be thrown up into the air by the blast from the gynoid. Twisting his crown around to avoid a twisting pair of feet from Rayo nearly catching him. Letting him go, he threw out a left hook, catching the man against his barely raised crisscrossed arms. The blow was enough that his whole body bent with the hit, flying with sound penetrating speed.
He'd see Carmina stretch physically to catch him, an elastically large palm netting him just enough to send him stumbling back onto his feet. The smaller teal Djinn gave him an ok sign before flying up into the air, engaging the Android head-on herself.
"You two have strange bodies, I'll give you that," Cell commented idly, watching the twin-tailed Djinn bounce idly in the air apart from him. "You two wouldn't happen to be Androids I don't know about, would you?"
"We're nothing like you, bug-man!" She exclaimed, pulling herself back physically till she was four times her own length by the waist.
Then, like a rubber band, she flew physically forward with breakneck speeds.
"Take this!" Carmina crowed out, launching her coiled arms with her stretching charge of her upper body into him.
The impact was dead-on. Her timing, flawless. But the power behind it didn't even budge her opponent.
"You seem confused," Cell mocked with a sinister grin, the child whipping back into place at the sight of the visibly frustrated girl. "You acted like you could actually hurt me with such an attack. You'll need far more bite than that."
"How about this?!"
The taller Bio-Android turned, almost rolling his eyes at hearing the familiar guttural snarl. With a smile armed on his face, he saw much to his surprise not the usual punch, kick or finger pointed at him. Instead it was a fist, clenched into a palm he held at his side, poised with a swelling ball of light that sprayed beams of blue between the creases of his fingers.
"Shooting Range," He sneered, unleashing clenched pair of wrists and a pair of partially open clawed fingers, unfolding what looked like chain of light that sprang outward in a shotgun spray. "Spreadshot!"
The plasma bolts struck him with a simultaneous spread that was enough to send the Bio-Android reeling across the sky. Firing in consecutive pumps, the green menace felt himself fly for a good distance across the massive dip of the crater's airspace. Inhaling, he'd release a potent wave of power in the form of a kiai, eliminating the flow of shots thrust at him with just the force of his voice.
"That's the spirit!" Cell jeered, grinning despite the fresh scorch marks present on his otherwise untouched person. "Give me everything you have. This wouldn't be fun if you didn't try!"
A loud revving sound filled the air above his head. Light shifted from a dismal grey and black overcast to one of a purple scheme that covered the cratered land beneath his floating feet. Cell looked up, his eyes wide as he saw a peculiar ball of ki with a transparent shell that showed an oscillating orb that rotated in opposite rhythm to its exterior. Generated between the gynoid's hands it swelled in size, soon becoming as large as she was tall and far wider than she physically could be.
"What an interesting kikoha. That looks like it could pack quite a punch," Cell intoned, adding with a grin as his eyes stared up at the spinning ball of bright amethyst held before his female cousin, "if you could hit me, that is."
"I've analyzed you're current reaction speed...it's true, that you are quite capable of avoiding this strike," She declared in a certain level tone, her glasses shining with reflection of the thrumming orb she held between her arms. "But if you were slowed by an unexpected variable, it will definitely hit its mark."
"That's a bold statement to make," He jeered with a smile, placing his arms comfortably across his chest as he maintained eye contact with her. "I've already withstood most of you people's attacks. What makes you think I'd be slowed by any...thing?"
He stuttered, feeling his body lock up.
The Bio-Android's eyes widened and he shook in place, his body vibrating against what felt like an invisible vice.
"W-Who's responsible?!" He cried out, his eyes looking left and right. He'd catch a brief distant sight of Miss Bū, whose face looked unharmed from his earlier elbow strike. Her palms were stretched out and a look of pensive focus stretched across her smooth rounded visage.
His eye dilated, a glow of scarlet entering his irises and then, unleashed a narrow beam that connected between the eyes of the Djinn. A perfect head shot was made!
But, all the wife of Majin Bū did was slightly jerk in place, holding posture with her hands out while the hole remained in place.
"You've got to be kid-NGH?!"
The Bio-Android was cut-off, the man-sized spinning sphere slamming straight into his upper body. Grinding through his aura his eyes bulged and his mouth contorted with a feral cry as he was driven in a spiral downward. Guided manually by Qirka, the green menace continued to descend at a rapid pace, his body fighting against the paralyzing force of telekinesis and the cyborg's drilling technique.
Then, he sensed something appear beneath him.
Craning his neck during mid-fall, Cell saw Rayo's phantasmal shape through the crimson flash of light. There he was, coated in a reverberating red aurora, seeming to flow in conjunction with the flow of precise ki control. His body contorted in a reared stance, arms held back though palms open and flat. This was unlike most of his offensive styles of attacks he had seen; no this was, a counteroffensive posture!
"Milling Bomb Mark II!" Qirka let out an uncharacteristically loud shout, slamming him straight down towards the human shaped figure below without deviating her path.
"Counter Flowing Fist!" Rayo began to chant, his body swerving around in a blur of charged ki, his fist striking the lurching backside of Cell with precise aim; redirecting the whole of the momentum back up into the gynoid's drilling strike.
The chain reaction was a pair of extreme forces meeting Cell with his body at its center, his thorax warping with the flow of both impacts. A series of sickening snaps was heard, punctuated through the opposing forces of energy hitting him. Before either of the pair knew it, the insect-human-shaped Android was folded in half by the two's attacks-
-but it didn't stop from releasing a shrieking wave of emerald light from its very being.
Qirka witnessed it unfold and recognized its make-up. While the Milling Bomb Mark II was based on creating a barrier of ki over a spinning orb for a devastating spiraling thrust, Cell's Barrier was of a superior design and meant to repel all things with sheer might. Her glasses revealed a pair of shrunken blue eyes past the gleam refracted off its durable polymer surface, her scanners telling her that it was going to expand by a 1000% volume in less than a second.
While she could avoid it, that left the young man below completely unguarded.
"He's going to project a Barrier!" Qirka shouted over the whirring sound the translucent bubble pushing against the two's attacks. "Get out of the way!"
"I...can't...stop...now!" Rayo snarled with labored breaths, his body brimming with a shade of blood. Knuckles cracked against the pressure, the flow of ki bending and pushing his arm down with his grounded person. The earth beneath him splintered, a cataclysmic force that erupted fissures of soil up in clouds of smoke that was billowed out by the air pressure of the supernatural phenomena being invoked.
Then, it happened.
Cell's folded body released a palpable wave of rejecting energy that carved its way into the bottom of the crater and shoved the point of ground zero even deeper than before. Qirka's form retreated with a timely release of a kikoha from her feet, hastily escaping to the outermost perimeter of the deflecting rays emitted by the physically maimed Bio-Android. But, beyond that, there was no sign of the young man nor his ki within the dark crevice that the emerald terror had forged.
"He's...dead," The gynoid lamented quietly, her eyes shaking behind her glasses.
"Good riddance, I say!" Cell barked, his body forcefully snapping back into place with a loud pop. Twisting his abdomen back and forth, he rolled his hips around with noisy cracks being heard in the air. Releasing the Barrier, he looked over at the distantly floating Qirka with a bemusing grin. "You'd have to know the consequences of combating me. There's always going to be some poor sap who didn't know better than to get out of the way still. If its any consolation that's the most damage anyone has done to me this far."
A sudden rosy beam of light shot from the hole, causing the Bio-Android to lurch back in reflex.
Looking down, he'd see someone down below that wasn't whom he had piledrived into the deep dark pit. Instead it was the shapely figure of Miss Bū, appearing to have inflated a midge around the middle than he had expected. Then, it dissipated, her abdomen returning to its normal shape as her form rose up to appear beside him in altitude.
"You move quickly," The Bio-Android noted, his eyes narrowing at her person. "Did you just eat him?"
"Hardly," Miss Bū dismissed with a pair of hands placed on her shapely hips. "I merely stowed him away inside of me. Our bodies are very malleable; I just never tried it with another living being until this point."
"You bizarre creature," Cell glared, his body emitting a golden aura of considerable proportion as its scream tore through the air. "You're the most dangerous one here, aren't you?"
The older Djinn narrowed her rounded eyes into a scowl. She knew that the Bio-Android's powers were considerably more vast than anyone put together. Despite actually suffering injury the artificial life form was still able to react despite being unable to move nor push physically back. It simply had a much larger well of available power that can go much higher than even her husband could dredge up.
Now she really wished Gohan was here...
"You big meanie!"
Her eyes widened as much as Cell's, and even the distantly observing Qirka watched with bewilderment. The child of Majin Bū was standing at an opposite side at the top of the crater. She was visibly steaming, her cheeks puffed out and vapor releasing with high pitch squeals from various parts of her colorful thin body.
"You hurt that nice man! You tried to kill him!"
"I'm the bad guy, kiddo!" Cell yelled back, looking around towards her in the same way a neighbor looked with annoyance at someone's child throwing a tantrum. "If you haven't noticed from the cities I wiped out and the crater below you, it's kind of my thing."
"Carmina, you should go home," Miss Bū advised, carefully keeping her sights both on her angry child and the dangerous artificial nightmare. "This Cell is too strong for you. Leave it to mama-"
"Yes, leave it to the grown-ups!" The emerald terror jeered, laughing aloud as he provoked the distantly fuming Djinn with an upraised middle finger aimed at her. "Piss off so I can get back to fighting some competent fighters."
That's when something astounding happened.
A massive dome of light was released Carmina, a ki of fantastic make was unleashed and unraveling so broadly that it was overtaking the western half of the Northern Capital's blast site. The faintly dark shape within that made up the Djinn presided with a stretched posture, venting the light as a silent scream was ripping from her throat.
"Go on, get angry. Nothing you can do about it, you brat!" Cell continued to mock, his body still facing a worried looking Miss Bū.
Qirka on the other hand was left in awe as she saw the true nature of what the smaller fighter was doing.
The massive venting of scarlet light was all just for show. In reality it was an intuitive way of controlling a mass amount of power. They couldn't see it, but her scanners were analyzing the flow of life force that was projected from her pores and then funneled straight into the opposing nodules of energy receptors. The more this was done, the smaller the dome of light became and the brightness of it shrank further until it was enveloped back completely inside of her body.
"Wait," The green menace narrowed his eyes, suddenly feeling something off from the whole phenomena. "Her ki. It's like it shrank. What is she plotting?"
The teal skinned Djinn's body was a dark blue, and her eyes looked like they had gone blank. Bouncing from her feet, she repeated the action, each time her shape flattening and stretching. Seconds ticked by and she was now a vibrating elastic blur, standing still but always in motion. The ringing of the balls behind her were rotating circles of orange and her head-tails were spiraling like helicopter blades.
Boom!
Qirka's widened as Carmina visibly disappeared from her vision, streaking in a near teleportation action straight to a raised arm of Cell's. Ricocheting from his appendage, he'd suddenly find her bouncing across the sky and reappearing to his left. Narrowly ducking he'd swing up to uppercut her cleanly in the abdomen-
-only to find himself thrown back by the force of his own punch.
"Ok! That's new!" He shouted, righting himself after a few dozen meters of back-flight. Consequently he saw the blurring shape of Carmina bounce straight back into his guard, reverberating across the air at intense speeds that overwhelmed his hearing and made pinpointing with ki sense next to impossible.
"Her contraction and retraction...is less than a second!" Qirka confirmed under her breath, watching the scene unfold as her scanners worked furiously to adapt to what she was witnessing unfold before her. "0.001...no, 0.000001! She's getting faster and faster! Is she generating elastic friction from all the ki she vented earlier and pulled it back into her malleable body?"
"Not bad," Cell spoke lowly, his eyes darting to and fro to catch the barest sight of blue streak that Carmina had become. "Not bad at all. That's some intuitive finesse to use your body in such a way."
Turning himself he'd forcibly collide against her, his aura raging a blinding yellow with every connection he made against her. Loud booms of impact were made with every motion the Bio-Android incurred in anticipated deflection of the hyper-pacing of this super-elastic opponent of his. Each time he countered he raised his power in increments, slowly working his way up to move in a blur of his own design.
Allowing him to now blitz into her before she could bounce across the air under her own volition. Punting her across the back he'd swiftly maneuver around in a twirling spin and chop her across the neck, speeding away before she could reflect his new form of attack. It was inevitable that he'd lance around, avoiding a hit of hers and stretch his own arm elastically to catch her by the neck.
Holding her aloft from a distance, he charged a kikoha in his other hand he flung it straight into her lower half, tearing it easily asunder in a blast of yellow fire.
"I have to say, that was a nice brief distraction," He insincerely applauded, a wicked grin on his face as he held the now disembodied head of the teal skinned Djinn. Looking over at Miss Bū's angry glare, he chuckled darkly with amusement.
"What's wrong? Didn't think I could actually kill her?"
She didn't respond.
A sudden tingling spark sprang from the palm of his hand, causing Cell to feel a chill wash down his spine. Looking around he'd catch the look of a mischievous twinkle between the spaces of his fingers holding the face; one that was producing a familiar current of mystical light.
"W-W-W-W-Waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"
Cell tried to stammer out in stark terror, protesting in futility as the whole of his body was throbbing in a flashing coat of sparking energy. The shape of his whole body morphed in place, hands locking into place, mouth hanging open and eyes bulging out. The color of himself shifted to a lime coat, shrinking down until he was nothing but the size of an adult's thumb. Fully transmuted, the fierce terror of Earth was now turned into a floating gummy snack!
Qirka's glasses slanted with a look of abject bafflement and Miss Bū's face turned from anger into alarm.
A palpable series of pops later Carmina returned back to her clothed, full-bodied self and snatched the treat she formed out of her own Djinn magic.
"Haha, I got 'em!" He said with glee, her teeth broadly stretched across her cheeks and her inverted eyes squinting with pride. "Meanie Cell is now a gummy snack!"
"Carmina, give me the snack," Miss Bū urged with a raise of her hand, her look of alarm still present on her face. "Please, sweetie. It isn't safe."
"Nu-uh!" She shook her head in refusal, holding the candy tight to her chest. "It's mine now! I get to eat him for being a jerk!"
"Seriously, give it to me," She ordered, her face showing greater fear than before, as memories of something that happened ten months ago was still ringing true in her mind. "That isn't something you should play with-!"
"Noooooooooope," The younger Djinn pursed her lips, raising the gummy Cell over her head and let it go to fall into her open mouth.
A sudden crack! filled the sky as the chew candy slammed into Carmina's face, warping her head and catapulting her straight into the earth with a massive fracturing landing.
I tried to warn you, The mother thought with a visible grimace, the candy effigy bouncing in the air before her gaze.
"Now this is strange. My body feels so small and squishy. Yet, this is a trivial encumbrance," Candy-Cell echoed his voice from seemingly the ether as his hilariously small shape maneuvered in the air before the female Djinn's eyes. It grew still, however, as it hovered closer to her in a slow gait. "I'm surprised by how natural I've taken to this form. Perhaps my own evolution has enabled me to adapt instantly to new shapes? Or maybe I'm simply too powerful to be paralyzed by this shape? No, the bigger question is why aren't you more shocked by this?"
She didn't feel the need to explain how Beerus was able to overcome the tactic her husband used against the Hakaishin. However, unlike the divine destroyer Majin Bū had cursed with this spell, there was something otherworldly resonating from Cell's new being. Was this the power that she was sensing lying dormant this entire ordeal they've had? Was this a godly power beyond mortal comprehension that defied her family's magic?
"It seems I am not the first your kind has trapped in this shape," The Gummy Droid intoned, his voice growing more sinister despite having no physical way to emulate it beyond the tone of his words. "I'll take my time torturing your child for this insult against perfection."
As if hearing her name, Carmina's arm lanced up from the small Djinn shape crater she made from the vicious strike by the candified Android. Evading it, the appendage snaked around to catch it, gripping at it through every turn he made. Corkscrewing downward in a streak of lime, the green candy slammed into the earth, punching the child out of her cemented position. Dented, the teal skinned magic girl continued to surging her appendages at swift speeds, each one missing the miniature effigy of the emerald terror.
Then, in sequential order, the shrunken Bio-Android slammed itself like a weaponized pong ball into her lower body straight up to her head dozens of times. Pelting her skin, warping it in disfigurement, the daughter of Majin Bū was being beaten mercilessly by the antagonist.
"This will teach you a lesson for using such cheap parlor tricks, insufferable wretch!" Cell howled with audible rage, grinding himself into her body and dragging it across the stretch of the Northern Capital crater.
At the last second, Qirka's boot came down with a drop kick, unleashing an amethyst wave of light that stopped his brutalization of the youth any further. Caught by the scruff of her torn collar, the pile of cloth and goo was practically melted in the gynoid's grasp. Even as the bespectacled twintailed cyborg turned towards Candy Cell, she was already revving a rotating sphere in her upraised left palm.
Without a second delay, the candied Bio-Android launched itself towards his current prey, aiming to pass straight through Qirka. Seeing this he was met with fierce resistance as his reddish-brunette locked opponent launched the smaller Milling Bomb through a twist of her arm and clashed against his gummy shape.
Violet lightning sprang between a palpable golden flame that flew off the emerald mite of bewitched candy. The earth parted, erupting the already deep crater of the Northern Capital into more fractured slabs of dirt and rock. Flotsam and debris flew outward with the scream of two opposing forces of similar mass and energy output. Though that soon changed as the halo of ki produced in waves off the hexed Android swelled and soon became a massive typhoon of light that shined a damning yellow overcast over all other things within the darkened atmosphere.
As the Milling Bomb warped and distended with the velocity of the impending green menace, Qirka's eyes widened with swelling alarm.
"No-!" She choked out, watching the emerald candy flinging straight through the Milling Bomb's popping form and lurching straight towards the child she was holding in her hand.
Another teal-shaped tendril lassoed him before he'd have the chance to hit its mark.
Qirka blinked, her glasses nearly fallen off her face as the unstoppable candy was scooped up into a tethered ball of goo. Swinging around, the suddenly appearing form of Miss Bū landed next to the puddle that was her child. Enveloping Cell into her head-tail, she grimaced at the sight of her offspring in such a sorry state.
"Poor thing," She cooed, placing a hand over the slowly reforming shape of her daughter. "I told you to not do it. I hope you've learned your lesson."
"Huuuuuuuuuuuuuurtsssssss," Carmina's inflating head slurred out, her eyes rolling across her face in a dizzied daze. "Everythiiiiiiiiiiing huuuuuuuuuuurtssss!"
"Just lie back and mama will take care of everything."
"Are you sure about that?"
Just as Miss Bū was about to respond, her whole body inflated, as if she was a balloon. A look of incredulity crossed her face before the whole of her chest cavity exploded in a flame of yellow, separating her arms and head from her lower body. Floating in the middle of the space was the lime colored candy, hovering with a rare feel of menace normally not attributed to chew snacks.
"Certainly you see futility in angering me further?" Cell's voice radiated from the space that glowed a tainted gold, its shape turning towards Miss Bū's face and the now shaking Carmina. "Change me back and I'll spare your lives. I won't promise a better deal than that."
The mother began to stretch her lower body to her upper half, attempting to repair the damage quickly. She couldn't let this being return to its full body. It was a hunch but she had a feeling that it was definitely limited on how much power it could generate in that small shape. Even at the risk of incurring more damage on herself, she felt this was the best handicap to inhibit this monster.
Unfortunately, her daughter wasn't as strong willed as her mother.
"S-Stop hurting u-us," She stammered, raising a pair of fingers out towards Cell, firing off a crackling beam of scarlet light. "T-This isn't f-fun anymore!"
The transmuting ray reverted him back to his normal shape in a puff of smoke. Once again at his daunting six plus feet in height, the insectoid themed enemy now stood on the ground with a look of surprise as much as relief. His power relaxed and his ki relaxed enough that the feeling of imminent death had left the air between them.
"Since you complied so readily, I'm feeling generous," Cell turned to regard Carmina, smirking at the weary looking girl. "I won't lay another finger on you and your mother."
"R-Really?" She asked, a light brimming up within her bluish-green eyes.
"Of course!" He laughed aloud, his eyes turning to look at Qirka. "But not her."
A swift whip of his arm connected across her face, her eyes practically rolling back as the force and speed was far greater than she had prepared for. Barely able to regain her footing, the emerald terror blitzed a kick into her chest, sending her body bowing back. Instantly appearing behind her he'd drive up a snapping kick that'd send her flying straight into the sky right before he'd manage to appear above her ascending form and drive a vicious downward elbow straight into her face once more.
The earth cracked, her body bouncing and she'd roll over a dozen meters away from the haggard Djinn two.
Lowering himself to her side he began to walk forward, his feet squeaking as they normally did when walking across flat earth. She was on all fours, her hands sweeping the soil, as if she was searching for something. He wondered what she could be looking for; then wondered no longer, as his feet crunched a pair of spectacles on the ground.
"Seriously," He raised his foot off the shattered glasses, looking to the gynoid with amusement. "What was the intent of creating an Android with glasses? Was your eyes defective before you turned into Bulma's pet toy, or did she do it because she thought it looked fancy?"
Her fingers began to dig wordlessly into the earth. Qirka's sullied form began to shake in place, as if imitating a riled emotion that was catalyzed through the act of losing something intimately a part of her appearance. But it was more than that. Something part of pain sensors that cascaded wildly within her artificial nervous system, and all of the acts of cruelty displayed before her disturbed something deep within her.
Echoes that were beginning to become louder and more poignant inside her head.
"What's the matter? Got nothing witty to say?" Cell inquired, strutting over over to her till he was standing directly over her.
His gaze from above could see the makings of something brimming about her. An invisible current that was being emitted by her shell that resembled human flesh. Her braided reddish-brown hair began to stir, the knots holding them back snapping off and now moving across her back like wind across the surface of water. Messy bangs hid her upper features but the Bio-Android could see something...off about her face, now that he could get a good look at it.
"Wait," He began to say, his brows knitted into a frown, his mouth trying to parse what feeling of nostalgia he was trying to grasp. "Do I...know you?"
"Haaaaaaah," Qirka exhaled, vapor leaving her mouth as her ordinarily blue eyes had shifted in shade to a deep red, the whites of her sclera sinking into a deep black. Fangs became pronounced, the whole of her body began to conduct rivulets of dancing energy that came from deep within her core. A faint humming could be detected by the Bio-Android's acute hearing, pulsing straight from the whole of her blue-red dirtied dress.
A feral snarl was the only warning he got before the heel of a dirtied palm slammed into his jaw.
"NGH!" He grunted, his expression blanching from an explosion of pain he felt. A successive strike pelted him in the abdomen, thrashing him across the earth and forcing him to dig his heels into the ruined ground beneath his yellow feet. Righting himself upward, he'd look on incredulously as the taste of copper filled his mouth. Clutching his chest, he looked on as the ominously powered gynoid lurched from one foot to the other, an instability present in her overall stance as much as her expression. "You...just who the Hell are you?"
Snarling, Qirka's features paled in complexion as the arcing bolts of energy became a more pronounced reddish-purple. Her black nails extended out, like claws, and her face gained a more fearsome expression; savage, like an angered beast.
"I feel like I should know you, but you don't appear anywhere in the memories Doctor Gero grafted into my DNA," The emerald terror sneered, visibly frustrated as he spat the wad of blood formed from the first to his bruised jaw. "What's your designation? Your purpose? Why do you exist?!"
Qirka didn't respond; she reacted.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The gynoid screamed, her body lunging forward in a blur of crimson-purple. Sweeping out a clawed hand it sought purchase to slash through the whole of his head.
Cell reflexively maneuvered in time, the whole of his energy letting loose a faint pulse that warped the visual spectrum of the world around himself. A twisted golden hue colored everything, overlapping the clawed fingers that were coming in to rake his face. Instead, they only cut through his right cheek. But this evasive move allowed him to thrust a straight right punch, slamming her so hard that there was a painful sounding crack that penetrated the air.
A blast of concussive force later and Qirka was sent sprawling backwards, her body corkscrewing back till she thudded against the earth and rolled into an inert pile. She was very still and appeared to not move at all.
"N-No," Carmina croaked, her eyes wide with horror at the act of cruelty that was committed.
"I must have overreacted," Cell admitted aloud, standing upright as he noticed that she was deathly quiet after that last strike. Wiping away the blood off his face, he could feel his cheek already healing thanks to his Nameccian genes given to him through Piccolo's cells. "She had gave off the presence of someone that was both mysterious and familiar, not to mention formidable. I think I released a little bit too much power to deal with her; must have snapped her neck, haha!"
Scurrying over to Miss Bū's side on all fours, the older of the two Djinn clutched her daughter protectively as the two looked with fear and caution of equal measure at the Bio-Android.
"That's the look I like to see," The Bio-Android said, pointing to the pair with a pleased smile. "Fear. True terror at the sight of something you can't amount to, nor fight against. I am inevitable."
"E-Everyone's g-gonna die?" Carmina began to question, suddenly putting everything into perspective of their culminated loss.
"It's fine," Miss Bū shushed, stroking her gelatin locks as she tried to smile bravely down at her. "We still have the Dragon Balls. We can still undo all the damage that's being done."
Clearing his throat, the two looked over and Cell placed his hands on his hips with a dark look of glee on his visage.
"About that. I'm going to get rid of the Dragon Balls now that I'm done playing with you."
"What?!" The daughter of Bū shrieked, while her mother looked on with widened eyes of horror.
"You think I'm going to let some friend of Gohan's waiting in the wings to swoop down and ruin all that I have done? No, I'm going to destroy those wretched artifacts. And thanks to my...let's call it, my benefactor," He hinted with a slight twisted expression that morphed into a dark snarl as he imagined the attempts that could be made by outside forces. "I know of the location of New Namek. Once I am done with this planet's wish granting devices, I'll make sure to wipe out those as well. There will be no loose ends when I'm done exacting my revenge!"
The two could only gape helplessly. They were, at the end of it all, unable to stop Cell like they had planned. Neither was the unconscious Rayo, left inert within Miss Bū's body nor the seemingly dead gynoid. Formidable as they might have been, this creature resurrected was far more dangerous and skilled than any of them could manage.
Watching him rise up into the sky, they'd only remember his promise of destroying their second chance before shooting off across the darkened heavens.
"Gohan," Miss Bū prayed quietly, looking upwards with a morose expression she never displayed before in her short life. "Please, someone. Anyone. Come save this world before it's too late!"
A/N:
Demod20: Wow! I never thought I'd be given the chance to write an entire chapter for Erased! Talk about an honor! I've always been a big fan and a contributor to this series from the past (you may recognize my handiwork from the Kuririn vs Tenshinhan and Mr. Satan fights) but this is probably the biggest throwdown I've written for this story. Cell has always been a fan favorite and I was always a little salty that Freeza was revived instead of him; twice for Super. This helps make up for it given I like this timeline a lot more than some events that transpired in Canon. I can only wonder how much more damage this fearsome counterpart of the Perfect Being will enact on Earth before the gang finally catches wind that crap is going down?! Oh well, I'm sure Gohan will show up...eventually...
LastationLover5000: So this is a new one for me. I usually don't have Demod20 write important chapters such as these. He's written other chapters before, but they weren't usually integral to the story, or, in the case of the last chapter, he helped me out when I was having a block and wrote a quarter of it. For this chapter, however, because I wanted to get another chapter out to you all much quicker than usual — firstly as an apology and secondly because, as any of my longtime fans know, November is coming and I tend to vanish when a Pokémon game drops for the final half of November until the start of December — so I wanted to make sure you all had something. Secondly, I've never done a four-on-one before, and I don't even think I'm too good at writing battle chapters to start with. Since it was a bit out of my depth, I asked Demod20 if he'd lend his skills to bringing this chapter to life, and here we are! I honestly loved it, so I hope you all do too! I'll see you in the next exciting chapter of the Erased Chronicles!