"Time… I need to buy as much time as possible," Gohan thought to himself before igniting his golden aura and charging right at the Ultimate Artificial Human. Gero's titanic arm shimmered, becoming just a blur, but the teenage Super Saiyan didn't need to be able to follow his opponent's moves to read them. It was a hammering strike, Gohan knew it, so his afterimages split off of him mid-rush before the Ultimate Gero even went for the smashing attack.
With the afterimages shuffling in between themselves, Gero's brutal smash dispersed a pair of them before Super Saiyan Gohan crashed in from the right with a right hook and a back-flipping kick to Dr. Gero's chin. While his blows released blunt thuds from the impact and his resonating energy resulted in golden halo shock waves upon crashing at his opponent, the Ultimate Android barely seemed to register Gohan's attacks.
Despite that, the desperation to bargain for time forced Gohan to strain himself and keep up the flaring golden aura around him. Peeved, the Ultimate Android began pursuing the teenage Super Saiyan throughout the hallway but through clever and deceitful maneuvering a skillful combination of afterimages and snap vanishing, Gohan eluded becoming the target of the Ultimate Gero's crushing hammer strikes. With each opening he sighted of the Ultimate Android's entire body being devoted to crushing him, Gohan whipped a stiff kick or a hook in Ultimate No. 20's way but despite Gohan's best effort to leave a dent, it just didn't seem like he did that.
Growling in frustration, young Gohan packed a lot of wallop into a single blow. His clenched fist bent the air around it and sent resonating, concussive shock wave bubbles around it while exuding golden rays of energy from it. After witnessing yet another moment of Dr. Gero taking the bait and smashing through an afterimage, Gohan vanished directly in front of his foe and drove his fist with all the power packed within straight into the Ultimate Gero's face. The explosive shock wave expanded, bending and waving polymer and various alien adamantine alloys like sheets of cloth being flapped in the wind, yet Gero absolutely no-sold the strike. Because of the sheer volume of the concussive force, the Ultimate Android skid back, leaving blazing trails and black grazes across the floor.
"Huh… You move in a most peculiar pattern. There is nothing in No. 13's Data Input program archives about this fighting style," the Ultimate Gero noted.
"As I've thought…" Gohan thought to himself. "He relies on reading fighting moves like one would study physics from a textbook. As long as I don't rely on a particular martial art, fighting style, or repeat move patterns that Dr. Puri or Dr. Gero had seen before, I should be able to outmaneuver No. 20…"
Yet again, Gohan dispersed in a mirage of afterimages, all of which didn't linger so that Dr. Gero didn't find a way to see through them. It took skill in Ki Sense or grand perception and experience on the battlefield to spot the real deal and, fortunately, the Ultimate Artificial Human had neither of those things. All the afterimages flashed with channeled Ki energy waves even though just a single of them had been physical and contacted the rattled and stationary Ultimate Android.
With the entire hallway drowned in smoke, Gohan flashed up right in front of the Ultimate Artificial Human with a blow to its solar plexus that by all means should've left the amped-up Dr. Gero breathless, however, the blow just resonated in a painful backlash through Gohan's entire arm and forced the teenage Super Saiyan to rush through his combination. Having failed to stun his opponent, Gohan took off with a soaring uppercut. The entirety of Gohan's wild Ki blazed on, burning through vast energy and stamina supplies. The deafening impact had been a success as the Ultimate Android's head finally rocked back from the hit. With a shimmy of vanishes, Gohan put some distance between himself and his terrifying opponent.
"Take this!" Gohan yelled out, extending his hands as a surging lightning storm converged at the end of his hands. The resulting energy wave came out with an electric hiss. The Ultimate Artificial Human lowered his head just in time to see the attack coming. Looking unimpressed, the Ultimate Android seemed dead-set on taking it head-on, as he didn't believe it'd cause him much damage. However, just as suddenly as it appeared, the attack dispersed into an uncontrollable electric field.
Crack! Gohan appeared from behind the Ultimate No. 20 with a diving kick to the back of his head with the menacing energy wave he used serving as a distraction to give him an opening to go for a universal weak spot. Not waiting to see how much damage he dealt, Gohan rolled through the air and landed further away from the Ultimate No. 20.
"You're a clever boy, Gohan," Ultimate Dr. Gero turned around with the smirk of pearly whites never fading from his confident expression. "You should know the peril of your plan. You may think that you're achieving something by attacking me with your wild, inventive and improvised strategies, however, all that you're doing is closing off these fronts from fighters actually capable of hurting me. You are teaching my ultimate processors all of your tricks, meaning that they will no longer work when employed by stronger yet less crafty warriors."
"Why are you so obsessed with this station? It will cost you everything!" Gohan yelled out with distress oozing from his desperate and serious face. "By trying to hurt Bulma-san, you'll come to blows with Vegeta-san, me, and the rest of the strongest warriors in the universe. Is this station truly worth losing everything again? All that you've been able to achieve–this titanic body, the simulated mind of Dr. Gero, a genius scientist in his time."
"Simulated?" the Ultimate No. 20 bent his head to the side with the smirk rotting away from his face. "Now, what could you mean by that?"
"Come on now, you know as well as I do that the Dr. Gero that died trying to take Chayote-san's life is still burning in hell!" Gohan lashed out, rattled by the oversight of the creature calling itself the Ultimate Artificial Human and bragging about its ultimate mind. "You're just a sack of surviving, frozen brain matter, right? Yours is a case of restoration. You are a product of a simulation, not a revival."
"Is that what you think?" Dr. Gero's lips pressed together as his face wrinkled, though not of old age, but of souring like a prune. "In that case, my mission is more needed now than ever. To answer your cowardly question, yes, putting my hands on this superb extraterrestrial cybernetic station is absolutely worth breaking all of your backs and snapping all of your spines for. After all, none of you can measure up to the might of an Ultimate Artificial Human."
"I won't let you come any further! Ka…! Me…!" Gohan drew his hands back while turning to the right with his whole body. "Ha…! Me…!"
"Is this how you intend to stop me?" Dr. Gero shined a simper of delight in Gohan's direction. "A technique older than I am and more redundant than the speck of brain matter those hicks restored me from?"
"Ha!" Gohan bellowed out, thrusting his hands forward and expelling a rushing, azure energy wave that drowned the entire hallway in white light with shades of cerulean reflecting as its shadow.
The Ultimate No. 20 grumbled when the energy wave hit him dead-on in the chest and then expanded to engulf the entire hallway in an all-encompassing mass of fluxing energy tunnel. A speck of golden sparks sprinkled off of his peck that twitched in the resistance of the mighty Kamehameha wave. A bold step, then another. The washing Kamehameha spewed golden sparks where Dr. Gero effortlessly resisted its advance and began walking through it as if it was just a meek gust of wind resisting his walk.
"Fell for it!" Gohan exclaimed as the young man had skidded from underneath with a slide attack. The young man thrust his feet into the Ultimate Artificial Human's shins before propelling himself off the ground just as the Super Kamehameha subsided with a back flipping kick and then a wild rush of strikes directly into the Ultimate Android's face. One punch replaced the other while Gohan's golden Ki burnt as bright as it still could and burned away the vast majority of his stamina reserves but the teenage Super Saiyan felt like the moment he'd stop punching, he'd receive an immeasurably powerful blow in return and so he could never stop attacking.
Time… More time…
The Ultimate Android growled and grunted in pain, staggering back as a steel plate had popped off of his forehead and spewed out wild sparks from it. The resonating golden impact of Gohan's Ki coated energy punches spread through his entire face and lit up from underneath his vizor, spreading across it with cracks spewing minute shards of black tempered glass.
"I guess even an ultimate body can bleed," Gohan dragged the back of his fist across his face with heavy panting. "I may fail to stop you now, but I'll instill the fear of the undying human spirit that not even the Ultimate Android can snuff out. I'll hurt you and then pass the baton off to someone else, someone that'll definitely finish you off!"
"So that is what you've been working so hard for? A few sparks and bent plates?" the Ultimate No. 20 asked, though there was more volume in his voice. His body language of reeling and staggering back, twitching in disbelief hands was more betraying of his overall condition than anything else. "You've got spirit, young Saiyan, I'll admit that. Your energy output appears to be the least stable out of the combatants in my records. This lucky shot was just a signifier of an elevated emotional state, nothing more. I must extinguish any hopes of comeback you may have so that this false feat of a courageous spike in power never manifests again."
The plan changed. Seeing his fists actually leave a dent, Gohan became obsessed with the idea of throwing away his safety and dealing as much damage to the Ultimate Android's allegedly supreme body before he went down. Betting on Vegeta was always a gamble. It was unclear if Vegeta would come back with a Zenkai boost notable enough to rival Dr. Gero's current strength, but if Gohan could create this chance for victory with his own two fists, everything could have been different. The Ultimate Android was right–Gohan could feel the spirit pumping through his entire body even though he's been more fatigued than he could remember himself being ever before. Hope for victory gave him the second, the third, and as many winds as he'd need to stop this man here.
"Not gonna back down!" the teenage Super Saiyan bawled out while rushing at Dr. Gero with his fist wound back. A resonating electromagnetic field sent the Super Saiyan smacking against the back of the hallway. Gohan felt the taste of blood in his mouth and his teeth rattling in his gums from the resonating force impact, but he bounced off, pushing through the pain. He rushed into another concussive forcefield, but Gohan scrambled off the ground and charged on.
Gohan crashed his elbow into the Ultimate Gero's jaw, finally pushing through the battery and the bullying. The young man pressed his open hand to the bottom of his opponent's chin while extending his other hand down and expelling a flashing energy wave that propelled both of them to the ceiling where the Ultimate No. 20 crashed with his head and bounced off of it. Seeing his opponent floating weightless and dazed, the young man released a wicked battle cry while expelling a scarlet aura of pure wrath from his entire body.
"I won't let you hurt Bulma-san, I won't let you create any more Artificial Humans!" Gohan proclaimed while unleashing a barrage of kicks at the Ultimate Android from all angles and directions. "Just barely we've managed to restore peace and win by giving Dr. Puri and No. 16 a chance for a peaceful life they wanted! I won't let you ruin everything again!"
Gohan's eyes widened as his Demon's Super Violent Rending combination only achieved transparent ripples across the Ultimate Android's body instead of touching it. It was those electromagnetic fields again. The Ultimate No. 20 used them to absorb the damage from Gohan's blow and spare himself any traces of scrapes and bruises from his relentless counterattack.
"And what exactly can you do about it with your puny, ordinary body?" Dr. Gero mocked Gohan as his arm blurred away into nothingness. Everything went black. Flashes of white light flickered in Gohan's consciousness as the young man remained completely oblivious of the fact that the Ultimate Android's hammering strike sent him crashing into the ground so hard that he bounced off of the floor, then the ceiling, then the floor again, leaving traces of blood all across it.
Even if Gohan surpassed his own wildest expectations for the time of recovery and began working on peeling his bloody face off the floor immediately after stopping his gritty bouncing tirade, the Ultimate Android was there with a straight to his face that sent Gohan crashing through countless walls and chambers and lab equipment. The Super Saiyan could only stay conscious for about half of them. With a snapping vanish, the Ultimate Android appeared in front of Gohan and grabbed the young man's body off of thin air, pushing him onto a crushing body blow and making the young man white out.
"Your boundless potential only makes its waste more offensive, insufferable whelp!" Dr. Gero barked with frustration as he socked and bounced Gohan's weightless body around the station, bashing and driving him through walls, massive laboratory equipment, test tubes, wiring, and all sorts of gear before flattening Gohan against the station's core module with a knee strike to the chest.
Blood poured down Gohan's nose, and he lacked at least half his teeth. The Super Saiyan shimmer had vanished somewhere halfway through the last dozen of chambers that the Ultimate Artificial Human rag-dolled Gohan through. Gohan let out a pitiful, high pitch scream when Dr. Gero's foot dug into his gut and the Saiyan flopped and hung over the foot that nearly impaled him on it by punting right through his abdomen.
The Ultimate Android clenched both of his fists together and hammered from both sides, seeking to smash Gohan's head in between them like a watermelon but by the time he smashed them together and released a concussive shock wave of flickering electricity, there was no longer anyone there to smash. With a frustrated exhalation, the Ultimate No. 20 turned to witness Krillin clutching Gohan's battered body in his arms further away.
"I suppose I should have lasered through your skull last time…" the powerhouse clenched his fists together with a rubbery grunge to them. Crackles ran up and down the titan's body as the electromagnetic fields around him ran wild with magnetic fluctuations, bending air and space itself around him. The more the Ultimate Android became aware of his own immense might, the harder it was for the Capsule Corps Star to provide the necessary magnetic charge to restrain his movements and hamper his terrible power and speed.
"K-Krillin-san… Get out of here…" Gohan wheezed out while barely holding himself together and resume levitating over the endless opening of the core chamber. "This Artificial Human is in a whole different class…"
"When has that ever stopped us?" Krillin snickered, even when his desperate eyes exuded fright. The bald martial artist had always faced off against baffling odds and struggled against crashing tidal waves of terror in battle. He's fought otherworldly demons and aliens from across the universe, then faced the pinnacle of human warfare ingenuity. Even if the current enemy surpassed everything he had seen before a dozen fold, the same could've been said about every other enemy he came up against. "To be a martial artist means to challenge yourself more and more every day. Every enemy you face needs to be stronger than the last. It's not just a Saiyan trait, it's the trait all of us as martial artists share."
"You're in my way, pimple," The Ultimate Android's cybernetically augmented voice resonated from right up in Krillin's face with the terrifying foe delivering a rising double ax handle slam that smashed Krillin into outer space in a tunnel of tailing gas, like a living shooting star. Grabbing Gohan's face with his open hand, the Ultimate Android ignited crimson flares from the six openings in his back and blasted forward on a jet ride, smashing Gohan's limp and weightless body through countless walls and obstructions before flinging him aside and cracking his knuckles.
The Ultimate Artificial Human looked up through the porthole over his head to see a teal energy beam fire off into space to return Krillin back to the Capsule Corps Star. An energy reading counted up in the Ultimate No. 20's cracked vizor as he realized that another powerful warrior had woken up within the cybernetic planetoid's premises. Frustrated and snarling at the fruitlessness of his venture, the artificial giant scooped Gohan up and flew across the engine room he found himself in and flung the limp young man into the pumping piston engine construction that instantly smashed its pumping mechanical hammer against all across the young man's beaten body, further breaking and mangling it before the whole engine went bust and went off in flames and smoke.
A chain effect of cascading system failures and blasts resonated through the station as the entire section suffered a critical engine failure thanks to a beaten to a pulp young Saiyan teen ending up in the skyscraper-sized engine pistons and causing it to blow up. As the entire engine room began going up in blazes and resonant blasts, the Ultimate Android walked off through a nearby wall and looked around to try to pick up the direction where the energy beam that scooped Krillin back into the station was. It may have been a longshot but that may have been where he'd find that insufferable mastermind behind this living cybernetic marvel.