Vegeta began to pummel the cell without mercy. The cell desperately kept trying to defend itself, but it failed miserably every time.
The two of them fought at hypersonic speed, and kept moving further away from where Gohan floated in the sky. Soon they were out of his sight.
Gohan sighed in relief. Good, now he had a moment to rest. The amount of energy he had used up to kill one of the cells had left him exhausted. He would recover it, very soon. His stamina was the strongest out of all the z fighters. In a few moments, he would recover enough power to kill another cell.
Suddenly Gohan sensed the presence of a cell right behind him.
'Shit', Gohan thought, and turned around quickly to defend himself against the cell. But he didn't turn quickly enough. Before he could register what was about to happen, cell had already begun his attack.
Cell punched Gohan in his hip with all the energy it could gather at that moment. The power of the punch caused Gohan to cough up more blood, and the pain rendered him completely immobile in midair.
Cell didn't waste a single nanosecond before striking Gohan with several more energy charged hits. Each hit caused Gohan great pain, and brought him closer and closer to unconsciousness.
Gohan was grateful, when the force of one of cell's energy charged kicks to his stomach, sent him flying back.
Gohan finally regained his bearing, and managed to stop his body from going backwards. Gohan, now several miles away from cell, took a few seconds to regain his strength as cell came flying towards him at hypersonic speed.
'Ah shit, why are you so fast', Gohan thought to himself as he saw cell enter his vision once more.
"Die you monster!", Gohan yelled and fired a ki beam at the incoming cell.
Cell merely tanked the attack without so much of a scratch. Smiling at Gohan, the monster continued it's flight towards him.
Gohan prepared himself as cell reached him. Cell began to throw a volley of punches at Gohan, that he parried with great precision.
But Gohan was still too tired to counter attack, and he soon realized that he was also too tired to keep deflecting cell's attacks.
In a matter of a few seconds,after defending himself against a few thousand hits, Gohan finally made a mistake and missed his mark. Cell's punch struck him on his chin, and immediately it was followed by a multitude of strikes all over his body.
After about a minute of attacking Gohan, cell suddenly stopped his attacks. Gohan gasped out at the sudden stop, he wanted to scream, but he was in too much pain to do anything else but gasp.
" Hahaha! I was overestimating you it seems. You are dangerous enough to destroy one Cell, but after that it seems that you completely lose all your strength! I should have done this long ago! But to my shame, I must confess that I was afraid of the outcome, so I kept postponing the inevitable. How foolish I was. Well time to end this Sayian. After you, only the self proclaimed Prince of Sayian remains a threat, that I shall handle soon enough. So now…Die", the Cell finally ended it's rant, and all Gohan did was grin.
"Thanks for your rant moron, you gave Piccolo enough time to catch up", Gohan said.
" wha-", Gohan didn't let cell finish as he punched it in it's face with all his remaining strength.
Cell's body didn't fly away, instead it's head just exploded into a billion pieced.
Consuming all his energy, Gohan lost his super Sayian form as well as his consciousness. Depowered and exhausted, he started to fall down towards the earth.
"Dendei, take the senzu bean to Gohan immediately. I will hold back cell for a few seconds", Piccolo told Dendei.
" Ye…yes", Dendei said. He was sitting on the flying nimbus, a small golden cloud upon which only the pure hearted could sit. He immediately commanded the nimbus to go to Gohan, and the nimbus zoomed down towards the falling youth.
'You cannot defeat him', Piccolo heard a voice say, from deep within his conscience.
'I do not have to defeat him. Only survive', Piccolo thought to himself, and then flew towards the still recovering cell.
"Gohan! Hey Gohan! GOHAN! GET UP IN KAMI'S NAME! I MEAN….IN MY NAME! GET UP!"
Gohan open his eyes to see Dendei right in front of his face, yelling at him to get up.
"Yeah yeah! I am awake now! Stop yelling Dendei!", Gohan yelled back.
" Cool. Now stop falling", Dendei said.
"Falling?", Gohan realized that he was still free falling towards the residential area of Satan city.
" ah shit", Gohan muttered, and immediately regained control of his body and stopped in midair. He rotated himself so that he was once again floating upright.
Dendei also straightened himself and then held up a senzu bean in front of Gohan's eyes.
"Eat up and beat cell's ass", Dendei said.
"Beat cell's ass? Who have you been spending time with Dendei?", Gohan asked.
If Dendei wasn't green then he would have surely been blushing. Gohan grinned and took the senzu bean.
" Thanks Dendei! And don't worry, I am going to handle this", Gohan said, and then he consumed the senzu bean.
Immediately all his weariness was sucked away from him. All his injuries stopped hurting, and his stomach was comfortably full, and would remain that way for another nine days.
"Let's end this", Gohan flew towards cell's aura. He could feel Piccolo fight against the monster, and he knew that his former master wouldn't last for more than a few seconds.
In a second, cell and Piccolo came into his vision. Piccolo had already lost an arm and a leg, and was charging up a special beam cannon attack.
Cell was merely floating in front of him, with an amused look upon it's face.
" Special beam cannon! ", Piccolo yelled and shot a spiral beam of piercing energy. As soon as the beam came near cell, the creature just swatted it away casually.
" Oh Piccolo, that's not how you do it", the monster said. And then bring up to finger's up to its forehead, it began to charge up a special beam cannon.
"Let me show you how it's done. Special beam cannon!", Cell yelled and fired a beam that looked just like Piccolo's attack, but was ten times as powerful and twice as fast.
Piccolo couldn't have dodged it, but he didn't need to. Gohan zoomed in front of him, and instantly turned back into super Sayian form.
The beam harmlessly bounced off his super Sayian body.
" Hello again Cell", Gohan said.
"Wah? How did you heal so quickly!?", Cell asked in agitation.
"…Magic…", Gohan said dramatically and then grinned at the fury on cell's face.
Gohan instantly moved right in front of cell, then he slapped the monster so hard that it was blown away towards the upper atmosphere.
" KAMEHAMEHA! ", Gohan charged up his ultimate attack once more, and then fired it at the cell.
Once the power of the beam dissipated, Gohan brought his hands down to his sides, and too a deep breath.
" Two down", Gohan said.
"Make that three down boy", Gohan heard Vegeta say from behind him.
He turned around to see the former Prince of Sayians floating besides Piccolo. And indeed, the count was three down, because Gohan couldn't feel the presence of the last cell, meaning that Vegeta had managed to destroy it.
" Can't believe it took you this long to kill one of these weakling Cell clones. You have been slacking off boy, and because of that, I am now much superior to you. And what the hell are you doing over here Namekian? Did you really think that you could stand up to cell? Even if the cell was a puny cell clone? Huh, I thought you were suppose to be wise", Vegeta said in a haughty tone.
Piccolo just growled in reply. "Uh…yeah Vegeta, I guess you really have become the strongest huh. You don't even seem winded!", Gohan said.
Vegeta scoffed," of course I am not winded! You think one of these weakling was enough to give me a challenge?!"
At that moment two more people came flying into Gohan's sight. Krillin and Android #18.
"Hey you guys! Are you also here after sensing those powers! They felt like cell didn't they? And there were three of them!", Krillin nervously rambled.
" Yeah! The hell is going on over here?! Krillin said that there are three cell's now!", #18 yelled angrily.
"Well, if you had bothered to keep your senses attuned, you would have realized that the threat has already been taken care of. Congratulations on being late again", Piccolo told Krillin.
" oh…oh wow….ah…well thank Dendei huh! Hahaha!", Krillin laughed nervously.
"Your welcome!", Dendei said, flying towards them on the flying nimbus.
" wow Dendei what are you doing here man! It's dangerous for you here", Krillin yelled.
"That is really hypocritical coming from you, considering your power level bald man", Vegeta told Krillin.
" Hey man! You don't have to be an ass about it!" , #18 yelled at Vegeta.
'Why is she defending Krillin? And in fact, why did she tag along with Krillin? What's going on here?', Gohan thought to himself.
"Huh, and what will you do to stop me from being one Android", Vegeta growled.
" Oh, I don't know…break your arm I guess", #18 said with a cruel grin.
"Ooh very funny Android", Vegeta scowled while clenching his fists.
" Hey hey! Let's all calm down here guys! I mean, a world ending event was just averted today! In less that an hour! And I didn't even have to be a part of it…hahaha…so let's just celebrate! My treat!", Krillin said nervously, flying between Vegeta and Android #18.
"I don't think the calamity has been truly averted yet", Piccolo said," I can sense a deeper evil being this. Today's war shall be continued on a later day. And I sense that it will be much more deadly. Today was just a small glimpse of what is to come".
"Wow….thanks for the optimism Piccolo", Krillin mumbled.
Gohan nodded," Yeah, piccolo is right. These cell's liked to talk in between fighting, almost as much as the original cell. And from whatever they said, I deduced that they had a combined conscience, a shared mind in-between them. Also, I think that someone was just using their bodies for their power. Someone was controlling these cells. And whoever can control such powerful monsters, and use them as tools, is a threat on a whole different level".
"What an unforseen change of events", Gero muttered to herself. The second Namekian, the youngling, had the power to heal injury, and also to replenish ones stamina. That is why the elder Namekian, Piccolo sent him after Son Gohan.
That ability would have been a great asset to her, but on her enemies side it was nothing more than a grave danger. The young Namekian had to die before anyone else.
Another fascinating point was that her power calculations were off the mark. Of course she had only made the calculations out of old, and out dated data, most of which was collected by her father. But she was certain that Gohan was the strongest among the aliens that had infested her world. She was wrong. Gohan was a threat, but it was the Sayian Prince who truly took the spot for the strongest warrior.
Suprisingly Piccolo was also slightly stronger than what she had foreseen, and had survived one of her bio weapons for almost a minute!
The rest of the so called z warriors were definitely non factors though. She knew that all z warriors could sense the ki of her cell bio weapons. But only the fastest could arrive and respond to their presence. The rest were too slow to even be considered in her threat assessment.
She had learned much from this test. Sure, she had lost three highly expensive Cell weapons, but she still had four more of them. And besides, the cells weren't her most powerful weapons anyways.
"Lab, prepare reconstruction of cell matrix two, three and four. Also, began scanning for the location of Namekian genome on planet earth", Gero commanded her lab.
'I will find that Namekian boy first, and put an end to him. Then, I will end the rest of these self proclaimed guardians of Earth', Gero growled, how dare these aliens claim to be the guardians of Earth. They were nothing more than invaders. She would end them, and then create her own guardians once she was the ruler of Earth.
She was thankful to them though. Their genome was rather useful…useful for creating stronger weapons for herself.
Only a week after the terrorist takeover, and Satan city was already back to normal. Well…almost back to normal.
The media and the police blamed the terrorists for the destruction of the commercial plaza and the deaths of hundreds of people. Only Videl knew the truth. But there really wasn't any point in telling anyone what it was. Nobody seemed to have noticed the golden fighter or the three dark auras. In fact Videl herself must have only seen them because of their tremendous aura and her ability.
She must have not even seen their body, but only a glimpse of their immense aura. Three black shadows of despair and one golden light of hope. That is what she felt when she saw their auras. During the clash of the immense powers, Videl had sensed another golden light come in, but this one was more violent, as if it's light would have set the whole world on fire at any moment.
She couldn't feel those powers anymore, and she was thankful for that. They really messed with her head.
The police force of the city was seriously understaffed after the attack, but surprisingly crime was at an all time low. Perhaps even the criminal element had respect for the city as a whole. When the city was in distress, even they had the decency to stay low.
The ox kingdom, capsule corporation and her father himself had supplied major funds to the government of the city, for the purpose of rebuilding the destroyed property and to support the police and the victims of the attack.
Her father had returned to Satan city four hours after the commercial plaza exploded, along with the military of the Alliance of cities. Though by then all remnants of the so called red ribbon army had been either killed or captured.
The leader of the crew sure was mad when he got arrested. He tried to break free, but even he wasn't stupid enough to try and fight against an entire squad of armed soldiers. All the captured members of the red ribbon army were taken away by the military for questioning, and Videl did not pity their fate.
She had been happy to see her father when he had come back. But to Videl's surprise, she now felt as if his power level was even below hers. She initially thought that she was imagining it, after all, how could she so easily surpass her father, the strongest man on earth. But her senses were never wrong. In fact her father was even weaker than the ox King! And the Ox Prince's mother! And after feeling the auras of the monsters that destroyed Satan city, Videl was certain that her father must be lying about being the strongest.
'Of course power isn't everything for a fighter, experience and skills matter too', Videl thought to herself. Perhaps that was what made her father the strongest. But till what point did skills come into play? It didn't matter how skilled her father was, she was certain than he could never beat those demons that she sensed a week ago. His skills would be useless against their vast aura, that destroyed an entire plaza instantly.
Videl sighed to herself, and then turned in her chair to see her friend Ersa. She was happily texting on her phone. Nothing could ever get this bubbly blond in a bad mood…was what most people thought when they saw Ersa's over optimistic personality. But Videl knew that it was just a brave face that her friend put on. Ersa's mother had incurred heavy losses due to the destruction of the plaza, after all she owned most of it. But neither Ersa nor her mother showed any of their dispair publicly. Of course Ersa didn't mind sharing her fears with Videl. But Videl had still not told her friend about her powers. She feared that Ersa would think she was either making all this up, or that she was just crazy.
They were sitting in a cafe called Hercule's latte, that had just reopened today after the red ribbon army's incursion. Videl had been called by Tristan, her contact in the police. Apparently he had found out about some deep underworld conspiracy that the new police chief(the old one had been killed in the attack. Videl didn't like him, but he didn't deserve to die) simply refused to believe. So now he wanted Videl to help him, and to prove his point, he wanted her to see some evidence he had gathered.
And that's why Videl had brought Ersa along with her. The blond girl had the superpower to make everyone underestimate her, but in truth she was much more intelligent than people gave her credit for. The only reason Ersa underperformed in school was that she simply did what was required to pass. She was rather lazy in that regard. But the one thing she was a genius at, was computer software. The things she could do with a laptop, even though she was just fourteen, were just insanely awesome.
Videl finally saw Tristan walking towards their table. He was a buff and attractive 21 year old man. In fact he was one of the youngest members of the police force of Satan city. Tristan was off duty, but he was still wearing his uniform, and his brown hair was combed neatly as always. He was a member of her father's dojo till last year, that how she knew him. And he was in fact the best student at that time. But he could never even come close to beating her father. Now that Videl could sense his power, she knew that he wouldn't last a single minute against her in a fight.
"Man! You are nearly fifteen minutes late!", Videl yelled.
"Sorry Videl, traffic…I hate the goddamn traffic", Tristan scowled.
" Then just buy a copter silly", Ersa said jokingly.
"Yeah let me afford an apartment for myself, then I will dream about copter", Tristan muttered.
" Anyways, this is the reason I called you here", Tristan said while pulling out a memory chip,"is this", he placed the chip on the table in front of Ersa. Ersa immediately grabbed the chip and inserted it into her watch.
"As you know, crime in the city is at an all time low, because even low lifes have a shred of decency and respect in their soul. But unfortunately, some assholes never let up. You must have obviously heard about this. Just three days ago, the Journalist Gary Hogheart was shot dead in his own house!", Tristan said.
" Actually, we don't know about this. Never heard of this Gary Hogheart either. Which site did he blog at?", Videl asked.
"Wow wow wow….you don't know Gray Hogheart! He was the best Journalist of the Orange star times!", Tristan yelled.
" Which site is Orange star times? Never heard of it", Videl said, trying to remember if she ever heard of such a thing.
"It's not a news website Videl! It's a news paper", Tristan shouted in annoyance.
" Dude….the hell's a news paper?", Videl asked.
"It's a physical piece of paper that is published daily with the previous days news. Waste of paper really", Ersa told Videl, " Tristan, aren't you from our generation? Tell me dear…why would you ever read a new paper, when you have a net pad…seriously why. I mean no offense to the dead guy, but him being a popular news paper Journalist, means that he had a very…very limited fan following. And me and Videl ain't a part of it".
Tristan just rubbed his eyebrows in frustration. "Well he was a warrior for truth, and that chip, was hidden inside his body. That's why it wasn't stolen when his house was ransacked".
Ersa's eyes widened when she realized that the chip inside her watch was once inside a human body. Gory details always made Ersa queasy. That's why she truly sucked at biology, because for Ersa, anything related to the internals of a human body was gory…except for the reproductive system of course. She immediately removed it and then flung it away.
" Ugh..fuck", Ersa muttered while wiping her hands on her shorts.
"What did you do woman! You threw the-", Tristan yelling immediately ceased when Ersa sharply raised her hand, " Do. Not. Yell", Ersa said in a dangerously low tone. That shut Tristan up completely.
"I copied all the data anyways", Ersa said, now back to her bubbly happiness.
" Oh…uh good ", Tristan mumbled," Uh…Well. Anyways once you go home and see the images that Gary Hogheart had collected, you will see why he was killed. I think the man whose pictures were saved in that chip is the one who ordered the kill".
"So, are there any gory pics in here",Ersa asked. " Nope. Don't worry, nothing gory", Tristan told her.
"Is it a sexual picture or something?", Ersa asked again. " Uh, no Ersa. Nothing sexual ", Tristan replied with a little red in the cheeks.
" Cool then", Ersa immediately switched onn her holo-imager in her watch, causing the pictures to appear right in front of her and Videl.
"What are you doing! I said to see them when you are in private!", Tristan yelled.
" Dude, chill. This is Satan city. Nobody cares about what other people watch, not even if they are watching porn in the middle of a crowded Street. They have more important things to do. And you are the one attracting all the attention anyways big boy. Not only are you yelling loud enough for everyone to hear you, but you are also wearing your uniform, which isn't really the most common thing to wear in a bustling cafe", Ersa said coolly while shifting through the images.
"Uh, sorry", Tristan mumbled, his cheeks were completely red now. Tristan was a good fighter and a brave man, but winning an argument, with anyone, especially with Ersa, was way beyond his abilities. He knew that, so he just sat down and let Ersa and Videl shift through the images.
They were all pictures of different places and with different people in them. One of them didn't even have colour in it.
" Hey why is this image all black and white?", Videl asked.
"Oh that's because it's really really really really…really to the times ten thousand…old. Like seriously, that image is ancient. Probably before the time of your great great grandfather's great great grandfather. Hell, it's probably older than that", Ersa said.
Videl finally realized what was so special about these pictures. All of these pictures had one similar thing in them, and that was the face of a middle aged man. The man was probably in his forties, with silver hair and a slightly receding hairline, he seemed to have aged well. He also had a small scar under his lower lip. All the pictures had the man. He was in different places, with different clothes on, and laughing and standing with different people, but he was the same man in all of them.
" Do you recognize this man?", Tristan asked.
"Yeah. Count Vaccula. A Noble from the world Empire. Videl isn't he the guy who holds an auction of rare and ancient artifacts every year in Satan city?", Ersa asked her.
Videl remember the name, Count Vaccula. She had never seen him, but she did remember his name, because dad always got an invitation from him. Dad only went to his auction once, and never again, because apparently everything was so expensive, that it would have punched a deep hole even in his pocket if he bought anything.
" Yeah he is the guy. Super rich. Probably one of the richest guys in the world",Videl said.
"Yeah, one of the richest, most powerful members of the world Empire's nobility", Tristan added, " and two years ago, he was suspected of actually attaining all these artifacts by stealing them from independent tribes and small countries that weren't a part of any of the world's major powers. It was said that he stole these artifacts, or took them by coercion, then came to Satan city to sell them to the rich citizens of the world's superpowers. And worse still, he was suspected for the genocide of many innocent tribes in his quest to attain these objects! This case was brought up and spearheaded by a woman name Alesia Hogheart, Gary Hogheart's sister! She was a member of the human rights section of the world union. Guess what happened to her, she died in a car crash, but it is still debated whether it was an accident or not. The case was thrown away. I guess Gary began his research into Count Vaccula after his sister's death".
"Well big boy, sorry to break your heart, but your chief is right. This doesn't really prove anything. These images could be fake. And if they aren't, it's still impossible for Count Vaccula to be this old. The reason for that is simple, nobody's immortality", Ersa said," Unless he really is a vampire. I mean, what's up with this count gimmick", Ersa added and then chuckled.
"The pictures were tested! They were all authentic!", Tristan said.
" Dude they could just be people who look alike", Videl added.
"With the same scar on their face!"
Ersa shrugged, "Well Ok, he is immortal. But immortality isn't illegal now, is it? It's just impossible".
Tristan nodded," Well this is only what led me to investigate this case further. Before calling you today morning, I met someone who has been claiming that the count stole something from his tribe. He came to the city to sue count Vaccula one months ago. Instead his son was killed by a mugger, that too only a few days before the terrorists takeover of the city. He is still here, but is about to leave, because he doesn't believe in justice anymore. Even I was just curious about this case first, but after meeting that man, I can tell you guys that he isn't lying. His name is Nam, and he comes from a tribe in the western desert. Half his people were slaughtered, and he really isn't lying about that. I want you to meet him Videl, then convince your dad to help us, because only he can bring down someone like count Vaccula ".