All For a Few Moments

by Paradoxical Fool

When the time came for him to die on the planet Namek, Vegeta falls unwitting victim to a small hiccup in the Universe. Now, alive despite Frieza's best attempts, he has to establish just where he stands in the grand scheme of things; pre-determined pawn, or writer of his own destiny?

13. -13-

AN: Because you waited so patiently: LONGEST CHAPTER YET!

Thanks to everyone who's favorited, followed or just read this story. You all make this rockin' world go 'round!

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The silence of Kame Island was almost unsettling in the deep blue of nighttime, conveying a sense of anticipation for anyone there to feel it. Fortunately, nature provided all the background noise needed to make it into a serene spot worthy of meditational sessions: the waves lapping like curious pups on the beach created a rhythmic overtone, while the distant cawing of gulls made for accentuating notes of excitement, the sea breeze topping it all off with the curving swoosh of wind passing around and through the palm fronds on the trees about the small island.

Piccolo, the only one currently awake, allowed the natural soundtrack to wash over him while he sat with crossed legs in the living room of the pink painted house, a shadow in the darkness. He was trying not to focus on the breathing of his comrades as they slumbered in the sleeping bags arrayed across the floor, knowing that that was considered creepy, but he still took comfort in knowing that they were close by. He had recently found that isolation no longer suited him and he preferred to be around those he respected and could tolerate.

Blaming this change on Kami, the namekian attempted to focus his wandering thoughts back towards the matter at hand; only to find that he was still encumbering himself with worry. He felt responsible for the rest of the Z-Fighters, like a parent almost. They all looked up to him as a leader and always expected him to be collected in the face of certain doom, able to make waterproof observations or formulate hypothesis that could help them out of a predicament.

He was touched. And annoyed.

Snorting, the turban-wearing warrior rose from his less than cleansing private session and padded to the kitchen, his soft leather shoes dampening all sound and not disturbing the rest of the other fighters. Looking at the small room designated for cooking, he was mildly surprised to see that it was generally pretty well cleaned and maintained. From what Krillin had once told him, they ate hot dinners everyday so it was necessary that they tidy up after themselves. He suspected that the old Muten was actually a greater propagator of organization than any would have guessed.

Opening a few cupboards, he saw boxes of cereal, whole cartons of rice, widely varied spices and seasonings on a little plastic roundabout, boxes of easy make meals and stacks of bowls and plates. At last finding the one that held the cups, the twice-fused namekian filled up a tall glass from the tap and slowly drank it all the way down in one go. Filling it again, he only sipped at it this time, relaxing against the counter and looking out the widow towards the ocean.

Sustaining oneself solely on water was a very handy evolutionary characteristic of his people, and one that he often found himself relying on for long periods of time. But every now and then, Piccolo found that he craved something solid to chew on and fill his stomach; an unaccountable carryover from living on Earth for the entirety of not only his life, but that of his progenitor, King Piccolo.

So, it wasn't long before he found himself holding a package of walnuts and systematically popping them into his mouth, absently staring at the opposite wall as he did so. Strangely, it was even more therapeutic than his meditation had been; giving him a chance to lose himself in the monotonous action and think about nothing in general while his body worked on autopilot.

Maybe the saiyans were on to something after all.

His sensitive ears picked up on the sound of sand shifting from outside, indicative of footsteps on the postcard-esque beachfront. Walking over to the large, opened window in the living room, Piccolo wasn't entirely sure if he was surprised to see all three of the rouge androids standing there on the beach, illuminated only by the half moon hanging above them. Eighteen, he noticed off handedly, was wearing a completely different ensemble than last time, consisting of blue jeans with a brown belt and gold pocket chain, short sleeved white shit under a small black vest, black gloves and a necklace of small pearls. Somewhere in the far reaches of his brain, he recognized them as articles of clothing Chi-Chi had worn at some point in her life, and continued to not care.

"Hey," Seventeen started, smirking smugly like only the supremely confident can, "can Goku come out to play?"

Piccolo looked at them for a few seconds.

Another walnut went into his mouth.

"No."

Then he turned on his heel and returned to the kitchen, leaving the trio stunned in surprise. Whatever they had expected him to say, that most assuredly wasn't it. They just stood there for a few beats, unsure of how to proceed; usually the one-liner was issued, then there were looks of unrestrained fear from their opponents, then the desperate bantering, then the one sided fighting. It was a system the two twins had come to expect and weren't prepared for…this. It was unsettling, to say the least.

Sixteen just thought it was down right hilarious.

Shortly, Piccolo exited the small house, gently closing the door behind him and brushing the lingering remains of walnut crumbs from his hands. He looked nonplussed about the androids on the front lawn, only casually pointing off into the horizon, towards where a series of larger islands sat on the horizon like misshaped ticks sucking the blood from the planet and-

(You know what? Never mind. That analogy is freaking me out a bit. I don't like ticks…ehughehugh)

Taking to the air with only a slight backwards glance, Piccolo led his opponents away from where his friends slept. He hadn't gotten them involved because he needed all of them at full functionality. He could hold his own against either Seventeen or Eighteen in single combat, but to take on both he would need backup. And their only chance of taking on Sixteen rested with Trunks and his new form.

So he was going to stall, simple as that. He didn't much enjoy the prospect, but he was willing to take a beating if it meant, in the long run, the Z-Fighters could wrest an advantage from the jaws of impossibility. Unfortunately, the other looming, terrifying threat of the Bio-Android wasn't much to look forward to if they could somehow emerge victorious from this conflict.

Their only salvation lay in denying Cell its evolutions, and that meant taking the androids out of the equation.

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The thrilling jolt of siphoned energy coursed through Cell's every fiber, electrifying all of its nerves and tensing every fiber. This was the unparalleled joy of being capable of limitless expansion, to continuously grow in ways no other living creature could fathom. It was…ecstasy in and of its self.

But still, there would always be that desire, that need, for greater advancement, to fulfill the very destiny that had been set before it while still in the confines of its birthing tank. The ultimate goal:

Perfection.

The very word brought another wave of shuddering anticipation coursing through its body. Ooooohhhh, the moment could not come soon enough when the required steps were taken and Gero's intentions began to come to fruition, to reveal what a masterpiece he had made without truly comprehending it. It had waited so many years for what was now mere hours away, and only those long months of practice kept its patience in check, stopping it from just charging off without a destination.

But every drop of life essence that was garnered from these simple germs was necessary if it wanted to match these inexplicably powerful warriors. None of the projected data from its native timeline had indicated that such levels of growth was possible from even Piccolo, the strongest of the non-saiyan Z-Fighters So, now it needed to boost itself up so as to match these-these-

Something all the way across the planet pinged against its senses; clueing it in on a rising power source that was rapidly exceeding what a normal super saiyan should have been capable of. Of possible candidates, there could be only one (anyone who gets that reference automatically receives plus 10 in awesomeness)

"Well, hello there Piccolo. Are you fighting the other androids right now? That is perfectly fine by me. Just wait right there and I will be along shortly."

Leaving the pile of empty clothes that had once been an office worker, Cell grinned ferally at the one remaining survivor before diving through the floor to ceiling window and blasting off into the dawn, a cackle of unrestrained evil marking its path.

The android cometh.

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"RAAAAGGGHH!"

With a roar of exertion, Piccolo brought his fist into Seventeen's gut with as much force as he could bring to the fore, succeeding in staggering the arrogant brunette and briefly causing a fist sized lump to appear on the android's back, the excess power managing to force its way through his body and take shape on the opposite side of the blow.

His victory was short lives, however, as Seventeen recovered far too quickly and slammed his own punch into the namekian's stomach, causing an equal amount of damage. It was like when he had fought Frieza in his final form back on Namek to buy Goku time to fully summon his Spirit Bomb, and the beating he had taken had nearly destroyed him then as well.

But this time was different. This time, he was a Super Namekian, or so he guessed, and the nobility of those ancient warriors was enough to recall his scattered thoughts and bring him back to the present in time to once more pound a punch into Seventeen's midsection. The gunslinger retorted with one more identical attack before they broke apart, both not wanting to prolong the experience.

Glaring steadily into the steel grey eyes of his opponent, Piccolo rallied his energy once more and blasted himself bodily at his enemy. They rejoined in a veritable cloud of punches and kicks. All that was missing was a partially obscuring dust cloud around them and the cartoonish effect would be complete.

Well, that's probably what Sixteen and Eighteen were thinking 'bout now.

As for the two combatants, they pretty much didn't care about anything beyond beating the living crap out of each other in a steadily rising game of martial arts chess, which is not unlike performing a multiple open heart bypass while reciting Shakespearian quotation…on a flat bed truck speeding down the autobahn…

It wasn't easy.

Grabbing each other's hands, they found themselves deadlocked, pushing against each other with all of their might. Muscles bulged all across Piccolo's body while uncontrollable snakes of electricity swarmed around Seventeen like some kind of swarm of eels. They glared directly into each other's eyes, challenging each other to give in.

It was Seventeen who managed to shatter the stalemate, screaming frantically as he managed to swing himself forward and bury both feet into the tall namekian's chest with force enough to level a mountain. Watching the saliva and blood fly from his gaping jaw like gems in the hyper alertness his mind was occupying, Piccolo tried to come up with some kind of counter to the maneuver, but he was too slow.

Flipping back around and onto his feet, the male cyborg released his hold on one of Piccolo's hand in order to give himself better leverage with the other one. Grimacing, he heaved the former guardian to the side and into the ground like a stone into a lake. Expectedly, the body of the emerald warrior created a shallow crater around where he burrowed into the earth like some kid of meteorite.

What was unexpected was when he threw his arm back towards the winded android and brought him clear over the namekian to slam into the ground beside him with just as much force. With a mouth full of dirt and small rocks digging into his cheeks, Seventeen admitted to himself that it had been kind of a dick move.

Before any more sentiments could be attained, he felt himself rising from out of his earthen bed and chucked into the air. Bringing his momentum into a stabilizing flip, he looked back down towards Piccolo, who had remained on the ground and was now gathering yellow energy in either hand, snarling like a beast up at him.

Sneering himself, Seventeen rolled his shoulders before throwing down a heated taunt. "C'mon now Piccolo, don't tell me that you really are desperate enough to try that old trick again!"

In response, Piccolo did the same old trick again, except with his own modification: as blast after blast flew from his fingers, he maintained a degree of control over them, so that instead of just flying off into the distance, they gathered in a perimeter around Seventeen and, more or less, constructed a literal interpretation of Thunderdome around him.

On his side of the matter, the android wasn't immediately aware of the impending danger, merely laughing at Piccolo's terrible accuracy. Really, if the namekian was tiring out this quickly then the fight would be over in just a few moments. Might as well humor the poor guy and let him tucker himself out with all of this wasted energy. Just another perk to having a nigh infinite source of energy was the complete disregard he could show with how much energy he-

"Seventeen! Move your ass!"

Startled from his thoughts by Eighteen's order, the male twin at last looked around and realized just how deep in it he had sunk. Dozens upon dozens of ki charges hovered patiently in the air all around him, so closely grouped together that he couldn't possibly squeeze between some of them without setting them off. The awe and fear was impossible to keep from his face as he froze in place, completely at Piccolo's mercy.

"Yeah," the namekian in question started, grinning victoriously, "bet you weren't expecting a guided scattershot, now were you?"

Seventeen's only response was to further gape, trying to come up with a plan, any plan! But he wasn't given much of a chance to do so.

"HELLZONE GRENADE!" Bringing his outstretched arms inward with quick yanks, Piccolo sent all of the blasts hurtling in on the android in one great wave. The detonation was titanic; enough to temporarily bleach everything nearby of color, leaving a monochrome landscape that gave greater depth to the sheer destruction just unleashed.

For Eighteen and Sixteen, a brief moment of concern flitted through them. If Seventeen hadn't acted fast enough, he could very well have been seriously damaged by that explosion, if not outright destroyed!

Piccolo, however, was thinking along a different track. He had seen, far too many times, one villain or another survive from what should have been certain death, and more often than not without a single hair out of place (well, Frieza hadn't had hair, but he was sure the analogy still applied, if loosely).

Not waiting for the dust to clear, he rushed into the air and zoomed in behind where he had last seen his foe. He still couldn't pick out any traces of the android, but that usually meant that their (villain's) survival was assured, waiting until the last second to reveal themselves again to strike terror in the hearts of blah blah blah.

Puzzling out the likely scenarios that were to follow, the tall namekian eventually decided on preemptive maneuvers: using his as of late underworked telekinesis, a large chunk of rock was ripped away from the surface of the island and slowly levitated until it hung just above the pillar of drifting smoke that was steadily fading away with the very early morning wind.

Just as the first rays of morning sunlight peeked over the distant horizon line, the last of the obscuring smoke at last drifted away, revealing an entirely unharmed Seventeen hiding inside the confines of a electric barrier that was only just big enough to cover his whole body. It was kind of a weak move to pull out all of a sudden, especially when Piccolo himself or one of the saiyans would have found a way out of a similar predicament without having to rely on a cheap trick that wasn't even a natural skill. Then again, none of the androids actually had natural skill. It was all just programmed in there like cooking instructions.

Actually, that gave Piccolo an idea he would need to try out later. For the time being, the situation dictated that a little less sophisticated analysis of the enemies' logistical application of martial arts was needed, and instead he should be hurling a really big rock at Seventeen's head like a caveman.

As he did exactly that, Piccolo sent a surge of his energy into the stone and made it into a really big breaching charge. As it contacted against the shimmering surface of the personal force field, the stored ki was vented straight out and into the shield, making the whole construct waver dangerously, only for the accelerated mass of the stone to finish the job and crack the barrier like a hard boiled dinosaur egg.

Taken aback by the sudden destruction of his defense, Seventeen was an easy target for Piccolo to slam his foot into and send him crashing down into the ground at a diagonal vector, gouging a sizeable trench leading towards the shoreline. Nodding in satisfaction, Piccolo relented his assault to catch some much-needed breath, still drained from his Hellzone Grenade technique. It had been mostly a speculative concept that he had been mulling over for a few weeks, but it seemed to have paid off greatly; it just needed some refinement in the energy draw department and it would be good for regular use.

SHCRRACK!

That sound was the product of Seventeen's fist impacting with not inconsiderable force into the namekian's jaw. The pain was mind numbing, but Piccolo still managed to ask the mental question "how did he move so fast?"

He hadn't even seen a forewarning blur. Could the android actually be that fast after all? If that was the case, then his chances just dropped to practically suicidal levels. They would all be…

He had pulled himself from the ground and now looked back up to where his adversary still hovered, and what he saw was illuminating: Seventeen was shaking erratically, especially in his legs. It seemed that he had put a good deal of his energy into that single rush, probably more than he could comfortably manage for longer than an instant; like the kaioken, only much more last-ditch and less repeatable.

Score one up for organics.

"That was…pretty tricky…" the black haired fighter huffed, visibly shaken and scraped up, "but I'm not about to…pack in quite yet…"

They were both damaged and not at all ready for another round, but they would do exactly that, their pride as warriors demanding nothing less.

"Stand down, Seventeen."

The sudden chill of horror swept down through Piccolo's body when he saw that the massive Sixteen was hanging in the air just a few feet away from them, staring impassively at the former Guardian. This was not good.

"Sixteen, what are you doing?! I'm going to be the one to-" Seventeen was stopped mid rant by his sister, who had likewise approached unnoticed and was now laying a hand firmly on his shoulder.

"You're in no shape to fight anymore. We don't know if you can recover from severe damage like a regular human can, so you need to play this smart." As the brunette angrily looked back towards Piccolo, Eighteen picked up on what he was about to say. "That fight is over. If Piccolo wants to keep fighting, then he'll have to deal with Sixteen."

Piccolo bared his pointed teeth in frustration. He couldn't just let them slip away again, not after he had lit himself up like a road flare and gave a very clear direction for Cell to follow right to his prey. He had thought he could take down the two androids before that happened, but even his complete fusion wasn't powerful enough to outright destroy the two would be assassins easily. Maybe if he had used the kaioken to give himself a boost; but this new level of strength was still strange to him and using the augmentation without truly knowing his body perfectly would probably only lead to him getting disintegrated as his own power raged out of control.

"Yeah," he spoke wearily, wiping away a trail of purple blood that was escaping from a corner of his mouth, "I'll still fight you, and I won't quit until one of us is dead."

Sixteen shook his head mournfully, knowing that he couldn't talk the namekian out of his resolve. He only hoped that he could simply knock Piccolo unconscious and leave him here instead of the alternative, but he would do what he had to protect his siblings.

"I am sorry it came to this."

"Yeah," Trunks interrupted, "well I'm not."

And like that, there were the four other Z-Fighters floating in between the beaten namekian and the towering android, three with the crimson tint of their own kaiokens and the last aglow with the power of a super saiyan. It was perhaps one of the greatest things Piccolo had ever seen, but he was sure to keep that to himself.

"Heh, took you long enough; didn't you see the note I left?"

To his surprise, Trunks rounded on him with a furious expression, the snarl set into his face was ghastly with the odd shadows created by his luminescent hair.

"Piccolo, what the hell were you thinking!? Rushing off to fight all three androids by yourself? That is exactly what the Piccolo from my timeline did and he was executed without a single care!" The fury in his voice hid the fear well, but the namekian was accustomed to dealing with suppressed emotion, so he realized that what he had probably brought back too many bad memories for the young saiyan.

Picking his words with care, he tried to defuse the tension between them. "I had my reasons, and you should know that I don't do anything without thinking it through." He looked past the other man towards where the androids were cautiously watching the assembled martial artists, Yamcha and the others providing defense. "I needed all of you ready for this, and a bunch of exhausted punching bags just wouldn't do for back up."

The son of Vegeta didn't look particularly appeased by the explanation, but he let it drop for the moment and turned back to face the androids. Piccolo noted then that the time traveler was surprisingly bereft of sword for once. Drifting forward until he was in the halfway point between the Z-Fighters and the cyborgs, Trunks adopted a powering up stance.

"The only one that you're going to fight is me Sixteen." He glared into the glassy eyes of his challenged opponent, daring him to back off. In response, the red headed goliath nodded towards his two companions to give them a little space. He didn't doubt his ability to subdue the half-saiyan, but he had records of fights that should have been straightforward go south in milliseconds. He aimed to minimize collateral damage.

"You should know that the outcome of any fight with me will be no different than the first. You are simply out matched."

Eighteen, holding on to her brother's shoulders so he didn't try anything stupid, was more than startled when the normally lavender haired saiyan burst into strained laughter, half snarl not quite leaving his face. She didn't know if all the blows to the head had finally taken their toll, or if the arrogant gene had been passed down in full from his father.

"Didn't Gero include anything in his data about saiyan adaptability?" The youth inquired wolfishly. The blonde android suddenly felt like the super saiyan was enjoying himself, like he had always wanted to do this. But that was absurd…wasn't it?

"Dr. Gero made several addendums about the various varieties of saiyans he observed," Sixteen responded, which was basically his way of saying 'no'.

"Well, your psychotic creator picked a real lousy section to omit from your data bank." He shucked off his Capsule Corp. jacket, revealing the black tank top he wore underneath. He tensed, body shaking under the exertion he was starting to put it through. He had only done it once before on instinct, but he found that the power came back to him easily enough. "Show me right now…if, like Nineteen…a machine like you…can experience fear!"

What happened next, Eighteen could only ever recall as a tidal wave of noise and sound, as though all of the fury and rage of hell itself had been released, and the focal point was Trunks.

Wave after wave of undeniable power swept over the meager island, forcing the surrounding water back and revealing the ocean floor around them for half a mile in either direction. The sparse grass that coated the dry parts of the area was pushed flat, great tracks of it being uprooted and blasted away entirely.

For those nearby, it was like standing next to a raging tornado that was doing its very best impression of a volcano. Heat was whipping around, heedless of those that felt the over charged energy far too close for comfort while they had to simultaneously shield themselves from the wind that had kicked up in their faces.

"Oh man! This is even worse than last time!" Krillin shouted to be heard over the cacophony.

"Well now he's at full power, so what'd you expect?" Yamcha shouted right back, turning his back to try and combat the whirlwind, for all the good that did him.

The noise from the rising energy slowly gave way to the roar that had been buried beneath, a sound of pure animal ferocity that seemed to be growing even stronger as the seconds wore on. It was alarming, not only for the androids, but for the other Z-Fighters as well; realizing just how much of an untamed force they had helped loose.

But it was out of their hands and they could only hope, as the funnel of golden power slowly died down, that their comrade would still be able to keep a handle on the inexplicable metamorphis. It was like waiting for a bomb to detonate.

And boy oh boy, was it a detonation to remember.

Before his aura had completely shrunk back down to normal size, Trunks shot forwards and punched Sixteen in the upper chest, creating a sonic boom a split second before the titan android went flipping up into the air. For everyone else, all they saw was the buffed up Trunks suddenly standing where Sixteen had been a second before and a strong wind was blowing against them.

Snarling, the Ascended Saiyan took up pursuit after his adversary, burning the air as he tore through it like vengeance itself. The rocketing roar was terrible and threatened to burst the eardrums of those that had them. He closed the distance in a split second, hands already poised above his head – ready to slam down onto Sixteen with an excess of force.

Moving with far more agility than a mechanical being should ever be capable of, the red head twisted his whole body around and brought his booted foot around in a huge, sweeping arc that impacted with Trunks' face – ripples of kinetic energy jolting through the saiyan for a few beats before he was blasted backwards, head over heels.

But, like the android himself, Trunks managed to correct his trajectory far too quickly than what was normal and was immediately charging back toward the formerly invincible giant, fist pulled back and ready to deliver the next blow in their back and forth. The intensity was burning clearly in his face, and quite frankly unnerved their audience.

Sixteen blocked the punch with his forearm, letting the fist slide along the limb so he efficiently maneuvered himself within Trunks' defenses and brought his knee up into the opposite arm as had attacked him. Pushing past the dull ache of new pain, the saiyan slammed the heel of his boot against Sixteen's face - succeeding in him back slightly, but the distance between them was still far too close for safety.

They both tried to take advantage of that fact, arms almost simultaneously rocketing forward to collide into the other's cheek. Reeling, Trunks missed the retaliatory axe kick until it was already in his back. Involuntarily spitting out his saliva, the half-saiyan grabbed onto the foot and twisted both it and himself. He spun in an impressive curvature under and around the android as the latter tried to bring an open handed strike around to deter the warrior, missing by only a scant inch.

Rearing up behind the mammoth being, Trunks initiated a short series of jabs and hooks that connected solidly with the inner workings of the machine's chassis. Not feeling the satisfactory yield of flesh and bones, but rather indomitable resilience of alloys and synthetics, he opted for a different path: tackling the android around the middle, the saiyan propelled both of them into the rocky hill on the island, demolishing it like linkin' logs in the process, before allowing a single wave of his golden energy to surge forward and effectively act as a self-detonating jet engine.

Watching as the speeding android was engulfed by the resulting explosion, the Ascended Super Saiyan let himself breath for a moment, knowing that he had bought himself a reprieve.

He was proven horribly, horribly wrong when a pale lance of energy shot out from the new smoke cloud and caught him in the shoulder, half spinning him away from the force of the impact. From the obscuring fog emerged the unscathed android, reattaching his hand and rushing full speed in a collision course with his opponent. But as he brought his blow down unto the head of the young man, it simply passed through his figure like mist.

The afterimage parted with a fizzle a second before Trunks dove his knees into Sixteen's back with the full might of gravity on his side. As before, the saiyan propelled them onward like a motor, but the constructed man had already learned what he could from the last instance and was already working his body around to both counter the dive bomb, and to break free.

He accomplished this with a precisely aimed Hard Punch, catching Trunks in the neck and sending the half-breed into a storm of ragged coughing. It was a low tactic that the mohawked giant didn't relish using, but he had seen the wild ferocity in this saiyan with the unknown but very powerful new form, and he had calculated that his greatest chance at subduing this threat was to employ underhanded techniques that were detrimental to organic physiology.

So, he followed up by grabbing a handful of the spiky, golden hair and swung the attached man around in three, ever increasingly fast rotations before letting go and sending him shooting away. A click once more separated one of Sixteen's arms and he sent it rocketing after Trunks like a missile, simultaneously accumulating a dark crimson pool of artificial ki inside his cannon, waiting for the right moment to fire.

Seeing what he was getting ready to do, the Z-Fighters and the androids both blasted away as fast as they could towards a neighboring island, remembering all too well what happened last time Sixteen had used the same technique, and even if he was only using one of his arm-cannons it was still a viable reason to beat feet.

Trunks had halted his flight and raced back at his opponent, batting the speeding rocket arm out of his path and heading straight at the giant, fully aware of the building energy that he was about to face. Instead of veering away, a look of grim determination set upon his features and he held his fists by his sides, ready to react at a moments notice.

With a blast that made the whole world appear bloody, the concentrated wave of energy sheared through the air like death, ready to claim its toll. The recoil was enough that Sixteen needed to clasp his other hand on his shoulder for stability, unwilling to let the beam endanger the planet.

Meeting the attack head on, Trunks loosed a wordless shout as he caught the head of the wave with outstretched arms. Every muscle in his body practically burst into flame from the extreme exertion they were finding themselves in, and that was more than alright with the saiyan. This pain, this exulting rush of battle, was something he had rarely experienced in his lifetime – either fighting against far greater powers than himself or far lower.

But now, he was presented with the pleasure of cutting loose and holding nothing back in what was a true battle, not a massacre or a diversion.

Grunting, he pushed with all of his physical might against the beam, determined to win out through the sheer power that he had attained in this new form. This was, however, quickly looking to be a tall order as he felt himself loosing ground against the relentless assault, pushed farther and farther back through the ruby tinted sky.

'He's a machine, idiot,' Trunks mentally reprimanded himself. 'Pit a machine against a man in a contest of endurance and the machine will almost always win. If I try to take everything he throws at me head on, I'll just exhaust myself quickly and be an easy target for him later. I need to think smart, and to start I'll need to use this energy beam against him. How about…'

Putting his gamble into action, Trunks shrank his protective ki aura to near skin level and snapped his arms back in close. Like he thought it would, the red energy swept over and around him, like being inside of an observation bubble suspended under a raging river. The prime difference, though, was that he could feel his and Sixteen's conflicting energies clash, setting a degrading burn all over his aura and steadily eating it away like a swarm of piranhas.

Not wishing to linger, the half-saiyan angled himself forward and flew – hard - straight into the onrushing energy, spearing through it with surprising ease. What he was doing wasn't exactly a recommended course of action for the very legitimate reason that you would have to be either crazy or ridiculously confident pull it off. But if it were, then it would found that the inside of a ki wave is actually much less stable that the outside, meaning that the ki will prefer to simply slide around anything in its path, as opposed concentrated 'skin', which was what would impact and keep all of the energy formed together until the inevitable explosion.

With that lovely, and oh so necessary (theoretical) explanation on giant death lasers that went boom, there wasn't much else to say about that situation except that the look of completely open shock on Sixteen's face was just about priceless.

Then he got punched in that face.

Real, real hard.

His overlarge body plummeted earthward, skipping once off of the surface of the planet rather that crashing through it. On the rebound, Trunks met him again with two interlocked fists, ready to smash some delicate circuitry. Reacting with all the haste his servos and joints could manage, the towering android lifted a hand and caught a forearm, jerkily halting the saiyans attack.

Trunks' reaction was a admirable use of momentum and leverage: with his arms effectively locked in place, he swung his legs back, comparable to what is used on a swing, and then swung them forward again, twisting his whole body with the action to increase mass. Sixteen let go of the arm to block the kick with an 'X' block, absorbing the full brunt of the blow with his own arms.

Grunting from the exertion, the flame-headed android released a spurt of power that put a few between him and the excitable half-saiyan, enough space for him to devise some kind of plan. Obviously, he had never been programmed to even expect another being with a similar level of strength as his own, much less on how to handle on. He needed to review everything he knew about Trunks and the saiyans in general to glean some kind of exploitable weakness in this new form.

The only thing he came up with: 'it increases strength, speed, resilience and musculature, all without immediately noticeable flaws. But for everything that takes up more space, there must also be something that loses mass. If he has bulked up like this, then something inside of him is now functioning at a much lower quality than normal. Perhaps some internal organs, or simply his energy pool. He is either vulnerable to body blows, or else doesn't have the endurance to last for long, especially considering the inexperience he has in this form.'

All of that crossed his mind in the time it took Trunks to turn back towards him and pursue him through the air.

Quantum computing was a lovely thing indeed.

DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ

In the sky above the loose chain of islands, the two titans of might clashed over and over again, creating destruction in their wake without any conscious thought or effort. They both held power enough to destroy the Earth a dozen times over between them, but were focusing those planet shattering blasts and punches at each other, and likewise were shaking them off after receiving only minimal damage.

It was like watching pure forces of nature in conflict.

"Alright, so, three androids and a namekian fly to a tropical island-"

That was as far as Yamcha managed to get the joke before he was silenced by (in this sequence) a glare from Eighteen, an over the shoulder scowl from Piccolo, a smack on the arm from a half mortified Krillin, a derisive snort from Seventeen, and an exasperated eye roll from Tien; this last one was the most distinguished, because if you ever get the chance to see a man with three eyes roll all of them at once, its truly a sight to behold.

"I'm glad you can be so cavalier about all of this when we are basically at a standstill while the most powerful of us are duking it out," Eighteen drawled, anxiously tapping her foot without tempo.

Not wanting any additional ire directed at him by the supposedly Armageddon inducing androids, Yamcha smiled nervously and frantically waved his hands.

"No no! Just tryin' to lighten the mood. We don't have Goku to do it and Krillin here is a lot less talkative than usual."

Unfortunately for the former monk, this shifted everyone's attention to him. He had been lost in thought as soon as he had seen the blond knockout after arriving to relive Piccolo, only just managing to keep up the façade of seriousness to avoid detection. But now here he was, being scrutinized by all of his friends, the woman of his dreams and the brother of the woman of his dreams.

Not exactly an ideal time for starry eyes and visions of romantic rendezvous'.

"Ehem…" he coughed, trying on a disarming smile, but even he felt how weak it was. "Just…um…worried about Trunks…and, y'know, us if things go bad." He rubbed the back of his head for a second before realizing that it was an entirely Goku thing to do and stopped; didn't need the target of his affections to liken him to the guy she was supposed to kill.

But she was more interested in his words rather than his mannerisms.

"What do you mean 'if things go bad'? We aren't likely to just go on a wholesale slaughter of all you anytime soon." At the unanimous blanch that spread across the faces of the Z-Fighters like scurvy, she and her twin looked among them with more than a little confusion. "What? I was kidding." This didn't do anything. "Seriously, we only have to kill Goku and then we're done. We had this whole debate about it during that ten hour drive," this last was directed toward the bemused Seventeen. He shrugged.

"Well, we are inclined to believing you-" Tien started hesitantly.

"Especially since you spared us last time-" Yamcha added.

"But the whole reason that we're fighting you in the first place-" Piccolo chipped in.

"Was because the two of you, sorta, murdered an entire timeline," Krillin finished the bizarre game of musical chairs they had been playing, ending up the loser.

This revelation was met with stony silence from the two adult androids and the fever pitched sounds of combat raging in the sky.

"Now, when you say 'murdered an entire timeline'," Seventeen managed to begin, unknowingly mimicking Vegeta's reaction to Bulma's pregnancy right down to the expression on his face, "you're being absolutely serious aren't you?" He would have laughed in their faces any other time, but Piccolo had been part of the reveal, and he wasn't exactly known for being the source of comedic material (*cough All OF THEM?! cough*).

"Trunks comes from a future where the two of you have pretty much killed all of us and have made the Earth into your own playground of destruction." Yamcha was straight faced for once, but that was to be expected from the guy who had come closest to death in the last two days and only narrowly survived.

"He warned us three years in advance to prepare for your arrival, in hopes that this world doesn't turn into the hell that he's lived in all his life," Tien extrapolated dourly. The stormy look on his face didn't encourage doubt.

Seventeen and Eighteen were similarly floored by this news. It wasn't everyday that you were told that you were basically genocide in a double package, just waiting to happen.

"Aha!" Seventeen unexpectedly rounded on his heel and pointed triumphantly at his sister. "You were all 'oh, don't take the van, we can fly their!'" His voice turned into an exaggerated high-pitched staccato version of Eighteen's, much to her glowering wrath. "But if we hadn't driven, we'd already have a body count in the millions. Score one up for team 'teen!" He exuberantly held his hand out for a high-five, but no one stepped forward and he was left hanging like an idiot.

"You guys are a lot more human than we thought you'd be," Tien admitted, looking from the frustrated Seventeen to the skeeved Eighteen.

"Blame Gero's paranoia, yet again," was all Eighteen had to say on the matter, dismissing the train of thought with a rueful wave.

Krillin, though admittedly having spent the last several minutes of the discussion on nothing more than noticing all of Eighteen's quirks and tics, managed to find his tongue and picked up where he had been derailed.

"While I'm really glad that neither of you are going to 'Murder-Death-Kill' us-" Seventeen grinned appreciatively and gave the bald warrior a thumbs up, "I wasn't actually talking about you earlier when I said things could go bad."

"Oh?" Eighteen raised an eyebrow with the syllable, clearly getting across her message.

"Yeah, mighta' slipped our minds, what with the whole 'androids on the front lawn' thing, but there's this other really big problem that sorta needs to be addressed soon and oh crap I just realized that its probably heading this way right now…"

The look of horrified realization slowly dawned on all of the Z-Fighters' faces. The two siblings didn't think much of being excluded from whatever it was that had all of them so scared.

"Seriously? When we ask you what you mean, you clam up like this?" Seventeen testily inquired, vaguely waving his hands at them. "What could have all your knickers in a twist?"

It was Piccolo that answered his one time opponent, saying the one word that mattered right then.

"Cell."

DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ

"BUSTER CANNON!"

With that summoning name, the geyser of golden energy spewed forth toward Sixteen, intent on atomizing him without remorse. The giant of a mechanical man brought both hands around and successfully swatted the head of the beam away from him, diverting it on another track into the ocean. The resulting explosion sent an actual geyser of water and steam shooting into the air, momentarily obscuring each other from sight.

Growling, Trunks looked around wearily, trying to anticipate a sneak attack. He was right to do so, but he failed to scan below him, and that meant Sixteen easily took hold of his ankles and swung him downward and straight into an ascending knee.

A gurgling gasp of pain, escaped the saiyan, his face frozen in a wide mouthed expression to match. He appeared to be stunned, but when Sixteen tried to bring his elbow home and doubly crush him, he once more passed through an afterimage. Not half a second later, a snap kick took him under the chin, arching him backward. Trunks brought an open hand around, a ball of ki flying from between his fingers and…

…straight through the first afterimage Sixteen had created during the whole fight. Taken by surprise, the son of Vegeta only half blocked the left hook that came a beat later, staggered by the force of the strike and his unbalanced state. He received another chop to the arm before he could regain his guard and narrowly avoided a following uppercut.

They furiously exchanged blows in a tumultuous melee that resounded like thunder all around them. Any that landed were either ignored or, in the case of the saiyan, used to fuel the anger that drove them. The animal ferocity matched the cold calculations point for point, and they found themselves at an impasse; neither one was able to sufficiently damage the other the way Seventeen and Piccolo had been doing not long before.

"You know, I'm glad that I got to fight you again." Trunks spat, literally as blood was pooling into his mouth from several splits on his lips. "I wanted to get back at you for trashing us earlier, and testing out my new transformation was a perfect chance to do just that."

"Your focus on only fighting is not something I can admire. You want only to destroy me as you would any other enemy, not to live in peace."

These were the wrong words.

"I only want to destroy? I came to this time to save the world from destruction, destruction that was caused by those two androids down there! I will gladly lay down my life if it means seeing all of you monsters demolished and unable to hurt another soul!"

Sixteen's instinctive gasp of surprise was drowned out by the rapidly rising sound of Trunks' aura growing exponentially in savagery, going from a dark yellow to nearly solid and brilliantly bright gold in several seconds; the time it took for another screaming roar of pure effort to claw its way fro Trunks' throat and beset the world like an actual threat.

Whatever had happened in the young saiyan, it was most definitely not the loss of anger. He was now glaring straight into the metallic grey eyes of his mechanized opponent, clenching and unclenching his fists, tension visible in the taut muscles running up his exposed arms and in his neck. He didn't strike, but he was waiting impatiently for Sixteen to make a move, something the android wasn't too keen on doing.

So they waited, in near silence save for the rushing of the Ascended Super Saiyan's pulsing aura and the unsettled lapping of the antagonized ocean below, protesting against the two superpowers futilely. The two combatants looked each other in the eye, daring the other to look away first. Between them, the orange-red of the sun peeked over the crest of the Earth as dawn arrived, though it didn't bring any solace to those below.

They waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Trunks' eyes darted downwards, to where the other two androids were watching. Ever the logical machine, Sixteen made the jump in logic that the saiyan had decided to turn his sights on the androids he hated and knew to be weaker than himself. Panic filled his supposedly emotion free senses and he was already half way between his enemy and his siblings before he quite knew what he was doing.

And like that, a man out bluffed a computer into giving itself away. Trunks' grin was feral as he gave chase, ignoring the twins and heading straight at the exposed back of the redhead. Predictably, he met no opposition as he drove his fists over and over into the rigid metal skeleton and the thick, composite 'flesh' that offered a semblance of humanity. He was faintly aware that he was screaming as he let loose with his fury, but he no longer cared.

They crashed into the island, now little more than a giant crater, and further blasted it apart without a care. The saiyan was hammering away for all he was worth, raining down devastating punches in tempo with the erratic beating of his heart. Froth and blood were pooling at the corner of his clenched mouth, a vivid reminder that he was an animal, instinctual and territorial.

On the other end of the deluge, Sixteen was losing track of all the warning messages that were popping up in his CPU, all of them telling him the same thing: imminent critical damage to system, complete shut down increasing in likelihood by the second. He tried to turn to face the threat, but he was being straddled, and his arms were pinned beneath his torso, completely useless for anything but blowing another hole in the island. He desperately ran through all of the databases included in his software, searching for any method at all that could free him from this death sentence, but Gero had damned him yet another time.

The harsh retort of cracking metal suddenly met everyone's ears, the first sign that Sixteen was not going to outlast his opponent. He was going to die.

DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ

On the sidelines, the spectators were stupefied by the unnerving onslaught by the half-saiyan, shrinking away from the spectacle. Except or one.

Eighteen, urged on by the newfound instincts to protect her family, tried to lunge forward and pull Trunks off of her brother, but Seventeen intervened, surprising and enraging her equally.

"Let go! He needs our help!" She shouted as she attempted to worm out of the firm grip on her arms. But Seventeen persevered, redoubling his efforts and enveloping the blond in a bear/comforting hug.

"We can't! If we get involved now, then we'll all be killed. There's…there's nothing we can do against that kind of power." Feeling his twin continue to struggle, he tried again, this time unable to keep the grief from his voice. "We knew that this was a possibility, Eighteen. We knew that something might come up, something that could actually kill us. But do you remember what we – the three of us – promised each other on the way to Kame Island."

She was silent for a few seconds, but she had also stopped pushing away, now just letting herself be held up in his embrace. Being spoken into his shirt muffled her words, when they did come,, but he could still hear the unbearable sadness.

"'If we die, it won't be because of Gero'."

Seventeen was aware that the other Z-Fighters were listening to the exchange, but he didn't have the heart to threaten them away. "Yeah. And that's just what Red is doing; he chose to spare all of them in their first fight, and that was his own free will. Now-" He stopped, unable to bring the words up from where they had lodged themselves in his throat.

The reason for this was that a sharp and sudden burst of light had expanded from the crater where the two combatants had been. The unmistakable sound of shearing metal shrieked through the air, and the coppery tang of scorched metal settled on all of their tongues like ash. No one said a word, already knowing what had happened, and who had won.

But a burst of impassioned love and sorrow swelled within Eighteen. Twisting at the hip to face the battlefield, only one word managed to fly from her lips and into the air:

"SIXTEEN!"

DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ

The tall android was doing his best to endure the torture that he was being put under, to overcome the tremendous strain that was threatening to break him in half and irreparably damage his central processor.

It wasn't enough.

The downpour of blows was seemingly endless, just continuing on and on without even one hint of fatigue or weariness threatening to impede the speed or strength behind them. The young saiyan was filled with the incomprehensible rage that had defined his ancestors fighting methods for millennia, giving him an almost inexhaustible pool to draw from. It was terrifying to behold, and Sixteen had realized that it would be enough for Trunks to overwhelm him.

But still he tried to escape, for all the good that it did him. His tertiary operations began to involuntarily cease functioning, far too damaged to continue. He tried to redirect power from almost every unneeded function to the main ki reactor that fueled his movements, but that too proved useless as his impeded hardware got in the way of proper distribution and he was left with even less energy.

Another burst of panic lanced through his mechanical core: he was going to die. It was a concept that no machine should ever apply to itself, but Sixteen had discovered his own self, and he had wanted to live, not just compute. To be terminated now would render his journey at an end, leaving him with no way to witness the beauty and miracle that was life.

SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM

Trunks kept punching away, now pulverizing the back of the supporting skeleton frame into an uneven mess. The internal damage from the concussive force was just as severe, and that was going to be what finished Sixteen off for good. Now surging with the robotic equivalent of adrenaline, the giant wrenched for all he was worth and finally managed to extricate one of his arms.

But instead of trying to attack Trunks, Sixteen instead reached forward as far as he could, his only thought was 'live'.

SLAM!

An intensely punishing blow broke the stream if uniform punching, and he realized that Trunks was now using both fists for maximum effect.

SLAM!

He felt his entire being shake with that one. His fingers trembled as they groped towards the clear sky above.

CRASH!

He knew that, if he wanted, there was one last action he could pull that would irrevocably turn the battle, but it would mean killing everyone on the island, and that was far too steep a price for him, no matter the situation.

CRASH! SLAM! CRASH!

Then, he felt a single palm press against his mangled back, deceptively gentle compared to the preceding-

BVVSSHH!

A solid beam of golden energy erupted from the palm and tore through his chest, melting the pseudo skin and immolating the metalwork beneath. It wasn't a large beam, only the circumference of Trunks' palm, but it went clear through Sixteen and deep into the ground below.

The damage was done.

Frozen, with his arm still reaching upwards, Sixteen's CPU deactivated, and the world flashed in the androids eyes before shrinking into a thin white line which was quick to vanish as well, taking the noble machines life away with it.

Trunks finally relented, falling on his haunches beside the inert body, breathing spastically and holding his shaking arms close to his chest. He had poured himself entirely into that rampage, and now there wasn't much left in his tank. But he knew that his work wasn't done yet; the other two androids were still waiting, and the world would only be free from their clutches when every single one of them was scrapped permanently.

Mustering himself, the half-breed rose to his feet and prepared to ascend from the shallow pit that he was in. It was then that the scream of unbridled pain and grief, the likes of which he had only heard in his own timeline from soon-to-be victims, filled the air:

"SIXTEEN!"

'Eighteen?' Trunks thought, pausing for a moment. 'Was she actually…?'

But he cut that train of thought off short. He knew better than to view the two twins as anything close to human, and any emotion besides bloodlust and hatred were impossible for them to grasp. He had seen it countless times, the two of them playing with the people they intended to kill, making them think that they were safe, only to plunge their hands through the person's chest and laugh in their face as they did it.

Stepping out of the dirt bowl, Trunks faced the very same androids that had made his life a living hell and taken away almost everything he loved and held dear. His own fury resurfaced upon seeing their faces, and his resolve took hold, making him advance towards them with very clear intent.

"Trunks! Trunks wait!" Krillin tried to get in his path, to slow him down, but the saiyan pushed the diminutive monk away, not intending to give the two monsters a second more in the life they did not deserve.

"Kid, hang on a minute!" Yamcha appeared in front of him, worried face met with uncaring stone. He was batted away as well, but he resisted, trying to push against the arm that was at the same time trying to force him away and refrain from harming him in the process. Trunks saw Tien moving in to help, Piccolo close behind, and made his decision.

With a shout, an ASSJ sized kiai blew down all of his bizarrely reluctant allies, as well as stagger the two shell-shocked androids, who were just staring at him with wide, fearful eyes.

Unmoved, he lifted both hands and charged a good sized orb of energy in each, ready to disintegrate his mortal enemies once and for all. He was ready to do what needed to be done. Nothing was going to stop him from saving this planet from the horrors he had suffered for a lifetime.

DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ-DBZ

"SIXTEEN!"

…

…

…

…

…

ALTERNATE POWER ROUTE; SEEKING

… … …

ALTERNATE POWER ROUTE; LOCATED

TRANSFERING NECESSARY POWER FOR MANUEL REBOOT

CENTRAL PROCESSION UNIT REINITION

… … … …

… … … …

SUCCESSFUL REINITION PROCESS

SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE REINTEGRATION IN 3…2…1…

Sixteen jerked to alertness, eyes flicking about in a frenzy. An instant later, he remembered what had happened, and what had called him back. Closing his extended hand and bringing it down, he pushed himself up and freed his other arm before standing. He was unsteady, and his back was in terrible condition, but he ignored everything that said he should just stay down, vehemently shoving all such notions away and taking one painful step after another out of the crater.

He staggered more than once, and when an invisible burst of wind exploded from above he lost the battle of balance and fell flat on his front. But he remained resolved and crawled over the lip of the basin by the power of his hand alone. When he saw the situation, with the Z-Fighters all knocked back and Trunks stalking towards a petrified Seventeen and Eighteen, he acted instantly.

Popping off his right forearm, he directed the exposed blaster at the saiyan, determination providing steadiness where faulty components threatened to waver his aim. He saw his two siblings look past their would be executioner as he lifted up both arms, and their eyes met with his.

"Get down." He ordered; then opened fire.

The beam wasn't nearly as devastating as the one handed Hell's Blast from earlier had been, but it was just enough to catch Trunks off guard and pulverize him from behind, propelling him forward and upward, past the heads of the still petrified twins, and off for half a mile before slamming him face first into one of the neighboring islands that was really nothing more than a medium sized mountain. The entire monolith was demolished and sent dozens of truck-sized boulders shooting in every direction.

One such chunk of rock was speeding along straight towards a stooped Sixteen. The android was utterly drained and could barely lift his eyes to view the potentially destructive projectile.

He blinked.

The boulder was shorn neatly in half by a brilliantly glowing serrated disk of energy, the two pieces falling to either side of the defenseless artificial human. The destructo disc carried on and carved a swathe through the rest of the airborne debris, certifying that Sixteen wasn't about to be crushed like a pop can.

Krillin released his mental control over the saw blade and allowed it to disperse into little sparks of yellow energy, dancing to the ground like a miniature lightshow before winking out in rapid succession. Barely half a second later in real time, the rest of the debris sailed harmlessly into the ocean with only a blanket of dust to follow after. Silence eventually reigned yet again, and it wasn't any more comfortable than the last one. The androids collectively looked at the remaining Z-Fighters with owlish expressions, confused beyond the point of pithy one-liners or sarcastic remarks.

"Sooooo…" Piccolo murmured, uncharacteristically drawing the single syllable out long past the point of normality, "I guess it goes without saying that we aren't…a hundred percent sure about destroying any of you at the moment."

A few silent nods from his compatriots confirmed this. Even Sixteen bowed his head slightly, though the grinding grumble of bent metal on metal discouraged further such actions.

Tien chipped in. "We are not just going to let you all go scot-free, but neither are we going to treat you like time bombs just waiting to detonate. You…you showed signs of caring for others, and that is hardly the impression we got from hearing about you. We could continue to treat you like high level threats, but we sorta have some experience in 'uneasy' alliances."

He was recalling the three years in preparation, when none of them knew if Vegeta was just going to cut his losses and disintegrate the whole planet at a moments notice. But they had listened to Goku and given him a chance (very, very reluctantly in the case of himself and Yamcha), and what they had gotten in return had been a very powerful ally and a strong leader, when the situation had demanded it. Just goes to show that Goku's bizarre knack for turning his enemies into friends was still going strong.

Yamcha too was recollecting on previous examples of second chances that turned out for the best, such as his own. If Goku had never forgiven him and subsequently befriended him, it was very likely that he might still have been in that desert to this day, looting passing capsule cars and searching for a girlfriend.

…

…

(Yamcha then realized that his life had been a very unfortunate reflection of those guys who live in their parents' basement at 30 and do nothing but play online video games and complained in online chatrooms about anything and everything that annoyed them)

(Bullet: officially dodged.)

Piccolo had his back to them, looking out far across the ocean to who knows where, but they all heard him just fine when he spoke. "So we are going to play this as we imagine Goku would, and give you three the benefit of the doubt. We would definitely appreciate having such powerful allies, especially if it means we no longer have to fight. So what do you say?" He turned now to face the trio, his expression frozen in a neutral glower, fairly friendly for the stoic namekian.

During the latest exposition from the Z-Fighters, Seventeen and Eighteen had hauled Sixteen up and were now supporting his arms around their shoulders; but the giant was so tall that his knees were still touching the ground. His back had been warped from the barrage of punches and was twisted in such a way that it would have meant paralysis or even death for any human with a similar injury.

Despite this, the normally peaceful goliath was beaming softly, whether at his adopted siblings or at the Z-Fighters, none of them could tell. He didn't seem to be experiencing the pain from earlier, and his systems had slowly been rebooting in the time since firing on Trunks, so he was running at about twenty five percent charge now. He had, like the blonde and brunette twins, remained silent through the exchange, listening intently and trying to perceive the goals of the Earth's defenders.

But now that the figurative olive branch had been extended, he was beginning to feel like there might actually be hope after all. With more people helping them out, it may very well be possible for either the androids bombs to be disarmed or the prime
'Kill Goku' directive to be overridden for good. Light was beginning to shine on their once bleak futures, and it was all thanks to just a little empathy-

"YYYYAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!"

The island that had formerly been a mountain was now utterly demolished as the super saiyan aura once more burst to life and expanded outward like a tsunami. Left suspended in mid air with his arms and legs thrown out, Trunks leveled his gaze on the three androids, now clustered together and susceptible to a single finishing attack.

In his anger he didn't even perceive the frantic shouting from his teammates, just filtering it out of focus and into the background of his mind. Bringing the palm of his hand to once again face his targets, he quickly charged an orb of a deep cerulean hue that was a fitting contrast to the crimson blasts that Sixteen had been using earlier. But the color scheme was hardly important, as the orb was rapidly rising to a level higher than the twin androids could safely match and then…

It would all be over. Two decades of the nightmarish hell that he had lived in would be avenged for the first time, soon to be followed by the actual perpetrators themselves when he returned to his native time.

"Finally, we can awaken from this nightmare!" the youthful saiyan declared, grimacing as he fought to control the stability of the primed ki blast, which had suddenly become squirrelly without apparent cause. He was on an irrevocable course, a one-way shot to the destiny that had always been denied him throughout his life. "Now, perish!"

Rather than perishing under the monumental force of an explosion, the three androids were pleasantly surprised to continue living as the pent up energy of the devastating attack simply flickered out rather than shoot forwards. Trunks was equally taken aback by this development, but he had less time to dwell on it as he unexpectedly dropped like a weight from the sky and crashed into the ground.

In a wave, all the fatigue and pain that had been accumulated over his entire bout with Sixteen managed to cut through the blinding anger and completely fill him, leaving him barely able to stay on his hands and knees as he gasped for breath, trembling under the sensory onrush. In a word or two: it sucked.

"Trunks!" Piccolo landed by the time traveler and knelt down to check on him. He was mildly annoyed at yet another saiyan outburst of stubbornness, but also greatly worried about the condition that he could be in after taking such a beating. Whatever healing powers he had were definitely not suited for anything more than taking away bruises and making sure that bones were pointing in the right direction.

"Piccolo…" Trunks grimaced as the violent urge to vomit rose up inside of him and settled back down for a moment before rising again, this time nearly making it to his lips. Breathing shallowly, he managed to gain control over his body again and resumed speaking. "Piccolo, you need to…finish them off while…while we have the chance…"

"Trunks, it's over; we're not fighting anymore." At his words, the half saiyan turned his head to look the namekian in the eye, sheer confusion clear as day on his face. "The androids have agreed to stop fighting us. They didn't want to fight either, and all they needed was a reason to stop."

Anger swelled up like the vomit had before, though this time Trunks allowed it to fill him. Finding strength in this familiar emotion, the super saiyan swatted his hand out and pushed Piccolo away from him, causing him to stumble backwards and only just catch himself before falling. Gritting his teeth, the time displaced warrior jerkily rose to his feet, unsteady and ready to fall, but standing nonetheless.

"Can't you see? They're just toying with you!" This last was shouted, so all of the assembled could hear him. "They would do that: lure you in with false promises before slowly killing you so they could laugh at the look in your eyes as they did it! I won't let these monsters do it ever again!"

Despite his seriously depleted strength and exhausted body, Trunks managed to straighten up and bring his fists up in front of him as the barely contained power of his form swelled once more, fueled by determination and pain. Piccolo was blown back several feet, his shoes carving shallow furrows in the dirt, and was forced to bring his arms up to cover his face from the bellowing gusts of wind and energy. The other Z-Fighters were likewise hampered, unable to recover soon enough to try and stop their friend from doing anything rash.

The twin androids were panicking. After what seemed like an accord too good to be true, the world just had to go and prove them right by throwing them right back into the fire. Supporting Sixteen as they were, they couldn't offer up much resistance, and even if they could, it's not like they were any match for this extreme level of super saiyan. But neither could they just abandon their sibling to certain death; that was simply unthinkable after everything he had done.

The choice, when it came, was ultimately decided by the very one that they had thought to protect.

"Seventeen, Eighteen, I need for you to realign my vertebrae." Sixteen was looking straight at Trunks with cold eyes of determination. Anticipating their arguments and refusals, he spoke again. "We don't have any time to debate this. I am the only one that can fight him. As we are, I might even have the advantage in stamina, but I cannot fight with an impairment like the one I have sustained. The two of you need to realign it so that I can move freely again. Please, don't argue."

It was madness, pure and simple. On that, the twins could readily agree on and never change their mind on: going against any level of super saiyan while damaged was nothing short of protracted suicide. And for Sixteen to just ask them to help him with this death sentence was absolutely a no-no in their books.

But the look in his eyes, the ones that really should never have been able to display emotion of any sorts, were brimming with sadness that neither man nor machine should ever feel. He was hurting as deeply as they were, and he knew full well what facing the Ascended Saiyan might spell for him; but he was still willing to jump into that threat in order to save them. He was the one right now that was recognizing, embracing and outright surpassing his fear to face a threat to those he loved. Him, the completely mechanical being that had not a scrap of living tissue in his body, was proving to be the better human right now, by showing them all just how large his heart was.

To ignore his wishes right now would be betraying him and his resolve. Could they really live with themselves if they knew that they had deprived their big brother of his chance at justification in a world that had not welcomed him?

"Eighteen, on my count push," Seventeen directed, putting the flat of his palm along the twisted shape of Sixteen's backbone. With a quick one-two-three, they simultaneously slammed their hands into their target and managed, with a muffled shriek of metal on metal, to reset the column of titanium-carbon blend back into its rightful place.

Sixteen spasmed at this, his receptors and CPU suddenly getting a revitalized stream of data and logistical analysis, sending his whole body into momentary reboot. This only lasted two fifths of a second, fortunately, and he managed to get his feet underneath him before he fell flat on his face. Taking a couple seconds to check that all systems were operational, Sixteen at last managed to stand back up to his impressive height, the full extent of his damages now clearly visible as the morning sun came into its own and shone with its usual vibrancy. The hole in his shoulder looked deceptively small, with the fused metal shrinking the openings somewhat.

Testing out this same arm, Sixteen nodded in silent satisfaction, never once taking his eyes off of the fear crazed saiyan in front of him. Z-Fighter and android alike all backed away from the two monstrous warriors, recognizing the eye of the storm for what it was. This wasn't going to be another back and forth, or even a game of deceit; they would be going all out now, and the one to yet live after everything was said and done would be the victor. It was brutal, it was animalistic, it was saiyan.

"You may not heed my words," Sixteen spoke, voice as taut as he felt, "but I must try one last time to appeal to your better reason: Seventeen, Eighteen and I have no desire to kill any of you, or even to fight. We are not going to double cross any of you."

Trunks spat on the ground to show his faith in that remark. "I lived through a prolonged genocide as everyone I ever loved died around me while those two-" He pointed dangerously at the blond and brunette, now situated at the edge of the island, just a few meters away from the Earth's defenders, "laughed and laughed. I won't ever let that happen again! Do you hear me?! I won't watch THIS ANYMORE!"

With that, the golden aura once again burst to life in response to his pain and anguish, giving him the power to see an end to a cycle of bloodshed and terror.

Sixteen brought up his fists in a defensive stance, ready for whatever the Ascended Super Saiyan had to dish out. He couldn't match him pound for pound in strength, but if he held out long enough, then there might just be a chance that his siblings at least could make it out of this alive. That was his one, driving desire, and he would go to any lengths to see it through.

The air died down, it seemed, and a deathly stillness set over the world, as everyone watching tensed, waiting for that first, thunderous clash of limbs as these titans of power met for the very last time in combat.

Nobody breathed in that infinitesimal span of time that slipped right between the seconds, and yet lasted hours.

The light from above shone clear and true.

The waves jostled over each other and across the bank.

"YAAAAGH!" Trunks leapt forward, the rocks beneath him being propelled away like a bomb had gone off.

"HHRRRGGHHH!" Sixteen returned his own growl of defiance as he prepared to absorb the force behind the incoming punch.

They neared and, just as Trunks began to bring his fist down towards his opponent-

They both were kicked, hard, into the ground, skidding side by side over the dirt and rock until coming to a rest a few feet apart, with Trunks farther along thanks to his lesser mass.

Stunned confusion reigned supreme, until the mysterious assailant revealed itself, floating lazily to the ground with arms crossed and a malicious smirk crinkling the edges of a beak-mouth.

"Well, well," Cell chortled, enjoying the looks of abject terror that it was receiving from everyone, even the three androids who hadn't the faintest inkling as to who it was, lust feeling the pure evil now present, "it seems like I missed quite the party. I guess that I'll just have to throw one of my own now. Perhaps you would care to join me, Seventeen and Eighteen?"

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Tien marveled at how his day had developed before they even had breakfast: they had awoken to the resounding echoes of an intense battle close by, rushed to come to the aid of Piccolo, arrived to find the namekian and android Seventeen at the tail end of a mutual beat down, witnessed Trunks ascend to his new form for the second time and engage the previously invincible Sixteen in even combat, watched the whole fight and yet managed to miss most of it thanks to the speeds the two were moving at, saw Trunks become unhinged and ignore their attempts to calm him down while on a single minded rampage, both titans manage to get back to their feet after suffering serious wounds and exhaustion, and then it just all went to HFIL with the cicada person showing up.

With its ominous opening, Cell was now giving them a few seconds to steep in the realization that they had lost after all. Piccolo and Trunks' incredible fights had not only been in vain, but they had ultimately damned them all, having led the vile biodroid to their location.

The revelation from the day before, when Cell had described its origin and its purpose, had been haunting the Z-Fighters since, leading them to play their best gambit to save the Earth, and it had failed.

"I must confess," the slimy rasp of a voice slithered into their ears like poison, setting their skin crawling, "I hadn't hoped to find the two of you so soon. But that is just good fortune, I suppose."

"What the hell is that thing?" Seventeen demanded, actually reeling back from the revolting figure leering down at him and his sister.

"Its name is Cell, and it came to absorb you and Eighteen!" Piccolo shouted his warning, but it seemed to be too late:

With a shrieking cackle, Cell blasted off from its perch of rock and flew towards its prey, mouth wide open and revealing the four needle like teeth situated in the saliva-lined maw.

WA-CRACK!

Cell was stopped mid-flight, almost comically so, when Trunks threw his arm out in its path and clotheslined it. Flipping backwards but still moving forward, the lime green fiend sailed onward for a second before Sixteen stepped in, literally, and stomped down onto the rigid carapace of their attacker, driving it into the ground with enough force to crack the rock.

Yelping in surprise, Cell was nonetheless quick to scrabble away from the unexpected resistance. Glaring at the two warriors from a little ways off, the final creation of Gero straightened up and attempted to regain its calm and threatening air, analyzing.

"That was quite rude. This is between myself and the two-" It trailed off, really acknowledging Sixteen for the first time since arriving. "Ah, I don't seem to recognize you from my inherited memories."

"I am designated 'Android Sixteen'."

"I see. You must have been one of his early failures of an inferior design."

Sixteen didn't verbally reply, though an eyebrow did rise a notch. He didn't quite know what to think about this bizarre creature, but the other way around was not so hesitant.

"That is not the issue. You just tried to attack Seventeen and Eighteen. I cannot allow this." Determinedly, he squared his shoulders and readied himself. However, the intimidating effect was ruined by the hole through his shoulder, the black scorches up and down his body, and the overall evidence of being in the middle of a very, very bad day.

Cell chuckled, the sound resonating from deep within the recesses of its chest, and settled an amused but skeptical eye on the mechanical progenitor. In its mind, the 'poor' machine had broken something inside and was unable to grasp the concept of such a pure being with unlimited potential standing right in front of him. Whether or not this obsolete failure came to realize his transgression was immaterial, so long as nothing interfered with its own destiny.

"You will find that your blessing is about the very last thing I need. I take what is mine and there isn't anything that is going to stand in my way, least of all a rundown junker like yourself. Look at you!" The insectoid gestured dismissively. "You can barely remain standing, let alone continue to fight. My recommendation is that you just find somewhere nice to lie down and wait for the end like a good little servant-bot."

"Aren't you forgetting about me?"

Cell turned its head lazily to look at the speaker; a bedraggled but still fiery Trunks, standing in front of the rest of the Z-Fighters, most of whom were still trying to get over the terror of the biodroid's appearance. The half-saiyan wasn't looking his best, what with multiple burn marks across his body and several gashes that wept blood along his arms and dotted across his chest where the black tank top had been likewise cut.

"Ah yes, Trunks. I must say, you have managed to surprise me since last we met. This new look seems to be the basis of your newfound power, if I am correct, and it was you that I felt yesterday evening when you all met my wonderful little protégés." This time, the chuckle was less defined, more of a 'chuff-chuff' of hot breath. "If only your dear old dad was alive to see this."

Trunks stiffened at the taunt, rage bellowing up in him and very nearly making him charge right then and there at the abomination of science. But a firm grip on his shoulder anchored him to the here and now, shaking him from what would have been his next blind rush that day. He didn't look away from Cell, but he could feel from the ki energy that it was Tien that had restrained him. He gave a short nod to attest to his clear-headedness and the hand was withdrawn, but the owner was ready to act again if need be.

This little display wasn't lost on any of the others, least of all Cell itself. Again licking its beak, the freakish creature began formulating its plan in tantalizing detail:

It was more than obvious at this point that neither the androids nor the Z-Fighters were on the same side, as shown by the fight it had just interrupted. This meant that there were three parties on the field, and that meant a division of interests, firepower and numbers. Add onto that that the two strongest of the those assembled had already taken the opportunity to beat themselves into exhausted weakness, leaving only those below its current power level, and it was child's play to crush all opposition and claim the spoils; Seventeen and Eighteen. It had al the time in the world to act, and it decided that another round of terror inducing was well deserved.

"Your strength is remarkable, I will admit freely, and if Sixteen was able to match it then I he must have incredible power as well. The two of you are at a level higher than anyone else on the planet, to be sure. But," the ever-present grin grew into a full smile filled with nightmares and pain, "I am on a whole 'nother realm entirely!"

To demonstrate this, the bug like monster flared its aura, allowing all those with energy sensing capabilities to feel the hellish power that it now possessed. It seemed that countless millions of siphoned souls screamed all at once in agony, trapped in a never-ending limbo, nowhere near heaven of hell and cursed to be trapped forever more.

The Z-Fighters, all recoiled, some even blanched as though about to be sick. Sixteen, stammered, able to measure the energy readings right in front of him, but finding it nearly impossible to keep track of the number of all those who had lost their lives to this inexplicable evil. The twins, while unable to actually sense ki, could still tell that something was elementally wrong with this thing and they shouldn't be anywhere near it.

"All those people…" Piccolo whispered, trying to refuse but knowing all too well that it could only be the truth. Internally, Nail was left stunned and a feeling of pure anguish surrounded the spirit of Kami as he beheld the fate of so many of his beloved earthlings.

"I have been busy, after all," Cell cooed, lithely coiling and uncoiling its tail, subtly loosening the muscles inside of it for what was to come. "Not only in this time, but also in my native one. There, I absorbed the souls of every human left on Earth after the two androids were killed by that Trunks, and from there I have been savoring a veritable banquet on all of the souls here, becoming even stronger than I had though possible for this form."

"Now, there is nothing that can stand before me, or deny me. The two might have stood a chance, but that was before you decided to kill each other. Too bad, so sad."

Deciding that the preamble had run its course, Cell, momentarily taking a stance reminiscent of Frieza and Cooler's 'jazz-hands' pose, looked between the two groups and tried to decide on whom to kill first. The choices were all appealing, but the memory of being tricked by Piccolo in the remains of Nicky Town was still sore, so the choice was made.

Shrieking like an animal, Cell wheeled about and blasted off the ground towards the lone namekian, reaching forward with full intent on ripping that arm off for itself this time and not giving any chance for it to grow back before ripping everything else off as well. Piccolo froze, eyes wide and mouth half open as he just barely perceived the mutant's movement, but completely incapable of saving himself.

At the last second, Trunks lunged forward, seemingly receiving another wind under the imminent threat. Cell was looking for an attack this time and easily zipped over the arms of the half-saiyan, leaving the youth staggering and unable to follow up in time to save his friend. Landing in a skid that closed the distance, Cell then performed a pirouette, a rather clumsy one that held no grace, but it was more than sufficient in its intended task.

With a 'shick' of high-speed movement, the cable like tail of the villainous android extended in a clean arc severed Piccolo's head from his shoulders, shocked look frozen on his face.

A strangled shout of rage and grief sounded from behind, and Cell had to duck and leap away as it was beset upon by both Trunks and Tien at the same time. Grinning to itself, Cell bobbed around a few more punches before head butting the triclops and grabbing the half-saiyan's arm, yanking him overhead and slamming him bodily into the ground.

A whistling sound was all the warning that it needed in order to avoid the Destructo Disc that zoomed towards it, neatly jumping over the attack, firing off a single finger beam through the center of the saw blade to destabilize it, land in the exact same spot, and turn to leer maliciously at the now quaking Krillin.

Leaving an afterimage in its wake, Cell crossed the distance and punted the dwarf under the chin, sending the unfortunate man backward through the air and landing at the shore of the island, incoming wake soaking his head and chest. He immediately jerked up, sputtering out an accidental inhalation of seawater, but Cell's foot on his chest forced him back under the waves and no amount of scrabbling hands would relinquish the force pushing down him.

An impact on the biodroid's back made it jostle slightly, though that was only due to being unprepared. Turning ever so slightly, it beheld a very nervous looking Yamcha with his clawed hand still in the final position of Wolf Fang Fist and realizing that his old signature technique might not have been the best idea ever right then. Growling, Cell stepped off of Krillin and turned fully toward the ex-bandit, ready to shred some flesh.

Not for the first time, a mistake was made in that Cell forgot that there were other fighters around, one of them being 1.2 metric tons of lethal red mohawked fury with canon arms. This was soon rectified when said monolith of destruction simply dropped down from above and landed hard on Cell's shoulders, flooring it quite neatly. Sixteen's right arm detached and rocketed into the back of Cell's head, burying its face deeper into the sand and dirt so the crest was poking out like some kind of weird sculpture.

"Canons Fire!" The enraged ginger shouted, catching his loose hand with the other so that he was free to fire his devastating attack point blank at the creature. The dazzlingly bright eruption of synthetic ki was enough to pin Cell where it lay, feeling the full pressure of the attack insistently burning away at its outer chitin. Matters weren't made all that much better when Sixteen shucked both of his arms to the sideline and brought his second canon about to join the first, creating his first real Hells Blast in quite awhile.

The effect was such that Cell was blasted deep into the ground, carving a deep…hmm…hole down into the much abused island. Letting up only when he felt like he was about to breach the planets crust, Sixteen allowed the red energy to dissipate, his two arms being recalled remotely and snapping back into place.

There was an uncomfortable silence as everyone still conscious looked at the darkened maw that Cell had disappeared into, nobody quite sure what to say on the matter. As Seventeen's face started to lighten into a triumphant grin, Eighteen elbowed him squarely in his side, shaking her head pointedly when he looked at her questioningly. Rubbing at his minutely sore ribs, the dark haired twin made a face at her, as soon as she turned her head anyway, but kept silent all the same. He looked over to where Trunks was leaning heavily on Yamcha, face slick with sweat and breathing shallowly as his extended use of the Ascended Super Saiyan transformation continued to drain him. Yeah, probably better not to remind the guy that he was still pining for their immediate deaths while he was distracted by the creepy bug thing.

Ironically, it was because of his observing the last royal saiyan that Seventeen caught the deliberate movement behind him in his peripherals. Acting on instinct, he latched an arm around his sister's waist and dove away, narrowly avoiding the attempted sneak attack from the reemerged Cell, tail whipping by overhead.

A shout of alarm from one of the Z-Fighters made sure that all attention was once more on the abomination, defenses snapping back up and auras erupting with new life. The green fiend made a sound that was somewhere between a hiss and a bugle, obviously meant to convey serious displeasure at having been evaded yet again. This was fast becoming a tedious chore and whatever enjoyment it had hoped to extract from the situation had withered away when Sixteen had effectively turned it into a geological probe.

"No more of this silly, inconsequential, juvenile attempt at stalling me from attaining my true purpose!" Cell was practically frothing as it shot death glares at everyone present. "You two will be joining with me and doing your part in creating perfection!"

To show just how serious it was, Cell hunched over and allowed his power to crawl upwards until reaching its zenith. Admittedly, it wasn't as high or as potent as what Trunks had sustained as an ASSJ, but right then it was the strongest of anyone there, so it mattered little.

The sensation of feeling thousands of agonized souls within the monster once more gripped the Z-Fighters, turning their stomachs at the horrible reality. For the time traveling saiyan, it was just yet another reminder of the kind of hell that he had left behind, and would eventually have to return to. He had vowed, with as much pride and honor as his heritage allowed, that this world would be spared such a fate, and he was willing to do whatever it took to defeat these devils.

Even if it meant working with one of them.

"Sixteen!" He called out, surprising the android in question. Looking at the youthful warrior, the giant so no end of anger in the teal eyes that were fixed on him; but there were also traces of sadness there, and it was this that encouraged him to nod in acknowledgment when the ascended saiyan jerked his head towards Cell, just the slightest of prompt.

Hitting on the already settled pattern of attacking without bantering or second-guessing, the two titans launched themselves at their mutual enemy, great spurts of rocks being blown away in their wake. Cell turned to deflect Sixteen's straight punch, grabbing the arm and twisting away to deliver its own counterstrike. Unfortunately for it, this left it wide open for Trunks to careen in and jam his braced elbow into the side of the bio-droids face.

Bouncing once as it flew away, Cell dug a hand into the ground to slow itself, carving yet another trench into the thoroughly abused islands surface. Scowling as best as any being with a mouth that looked exactly like its ass/crotch could, Cell tensed both legs while prepping an energy blast in each hand. Springing forward, it fired off both at the same time towards the unexpected partners, trying to distract them as it closed in to make decisive hits.

The emerald green bursts of energy flew out as planned, and they did indeed strike their separate targets dead on. Except that in the saiyan's case, he had caught the beam with his hands, thus detonating it away from his face and leaving himself focused on the incoming bio-droid. This proved to be of little use when he charged forward and became Cell's soul target.

Dodging under the first few punches and one high kick, Cell grabbed Trunks' wrist when he tried to land a lightning quick jab. Grinning to itself, Cell jerked he attached arm ruthlessly at a near snapping angle, summoning up a surprised scream of pain from his target. Lifting the appendage up high, Cell took aim at the exposed elbow (the same that had marked him earlier, by no coincidence at all) and fired off a kick intending to pop the joint out the other side.

Thankfully for the saiyan, Sixteen intervened, grappling his distant cousin around the middle from behind and turn-slamming it into the ground at full force. The Z-Fighters that had been standing nearby all scrambled back to avoid the shower of stone that erupted from the contact point, all them still just trying to keep up with the level of power being exhibited between these three herculean fighters.

Trunks, though rattled from his near miss, crammed the feelings of panic deep down where his anger and resolve burnt them up like kindling, leaving him room only for the fight at hand. Springing backwards, the half-saiyan drove both of his feet into Cell's gut, really pushing down for all he was worth before jumping away, further embedding his foe into its little dirt bed.

He hadn't made it very far before a hand snapped out and grabbed him by the ankle. Barely able to look back in surprise, Trunks was swung around and used as a cudgel against the approaching Sixteen, who had hoped to maximize their opening. Both top-class warriors were knocked into the air, momentarily stunned and unable to escape the bio-droid in time before it followed up its counter attack by slamming both of their heads together.

Trunks probably came out of that one a little worse, what with having only bone instead of armor plating, but Sixteen was not spared from the jarring pain that resulted. A snap kick connected with the saiyan's chest, sending him crashing away while a long fingered hand took a firm grip at the base on Sixteen's neck and brought his face into position for an ascending knee strike, sounding like it crunched something.

Vanishing from sight for an instant, Cell reappeared above where Trunks had just landed, a palm full of green ki already flying free to impact against the time traveler. The resulting explosion sent Trunks hurtling away, painfully grinding against the ground and only stopping when both of his feet were in the warming, early morning water.

Pushing himself up slightly, he collapsed quickly, head groggy and ringing from the skull bashing. Without the necessary concentration, his transformation at last subsided, leaving his body to assume its natural size. Coughing brought a spattering of blood onto the sand beneath his hands, the red almost immediately wiped away by the incoming tide.

Seeing one of his opponents down for the count, and the other in terrible condition as it was, Cell grinned once more, relishing the sudden reversal in roles like a savory delicacy. The loss of the super saiyan also meant that its attention was no longer split and could quite easily perceive the onrushing Sixteen. Ducking below the attempted tackle, Cell brought both fists up and buried them into the other androids arm sockets, receiving twin 'cratchet's as rewards. An almost lazy tail swipe was enough to ground the towering fighter for the time being, leaving no more opposition to stand in its path.

Of course, the Z-Fighters tried to stand between it and its prey, but they were but flies to Cell, and no further thought was wasted upon them. Seventeen and Eighteen had, much to its delight, refused to abandon their 'brother' and thus remained on the battle-scarred island despite the desperate pleas of the Earth warriors.

"Now, let us experience destiny!"

Without any further preamble, the needle at the end of its tail spread apart to create a disgusting vacuum large enough to engulf a full grown adult easily. Swishing it experimentally, Cell assured itself that all was in order, and only one last piece of business remained.

Now towering over the twins, the time traveling terror creased its beak in a carnal grin for what would be the last time, and shot its tail out towards its targets.

Seventeen was stricken by an unexpected sense of loss. He hadn't though that his newly reclaimed life would come to a close so soon after he had made his decision. In that instant, every choice he had ever made seemed insignificant and petty compared to the grand cosmic scheme, of which he was barely a flicker of interest. He had, in the end, accomplished nothing that he could be proud of or stake his name to so that he would be remembered for decades to come. He would pass on as a nameless figure to any who-

"SEVENTEEN!"

A painful shove sent him tumbling out of the path of the engorged tail as it swept past him and intercepted with his sister, still off balance from her intervention. Within a blink of the eye, Cell's tail had already encompassed half of the blond in one motion, and it was steadily continuing despite the panicked resistance. The muffled screams from the female android jolted Seventeen from his shock, prompting him to launch forward and slam his fist into the bio-droid's face as hard as he could, but this elicited absolutely no response.

Before he could try again, Eighteen lost her doomed struggle and was pulled into the tail, making a revolting bulge that traveled the length of the appendage before disappearing into its back, followed only by a sick gurgling sound, like a starving stomach finally being appeased.

Not a second later, Cell's aura ignited by itself, flaring exceedingly more powerfully than ever and fluctuating wildly, but unmistakably increasing. The green demon howled with delight, and then exertion as the promised transformation took effect, morphing its body in every way.

"EEERRRRAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

All of the warriors on the island were buffeted by the violent upsurge, forced to avert their eyes from what was quickly becoming a blinding display. Wind whipped around them in gale force, adding its own moans and screams to the cacophony to create a spine-chilling choir of the damned.

Seventeen, blown back a good two dozen feet by the initial shock, was gritting his teeth as he tried to brace himself and remain upright. Besides the external storm, his own emotions were raging inside of him, but he tried to quash them in favor of dealing with the current disaster; succeeding not even the slightest bit, as evidenced by the bright tears that were escaping his eyes and being promptly whisked off into the vortex.

They all endured the crushing hurricane as best they could, and slowly it started to ebb off. But this meant that they could now hear the roaring of Cell at the epicenter. The creature seemed to be emptying its entire being into that single, sustained scream, pouring more and more of itself as the changes took hold. The shrill, shrieky voice was slowly replaced by a heavier one, and the energy level that they had all become used to had grown and expanded exponentially, finally becoming its own distinct signature that was enough to terrify those feeling it right then.

What seemed like an indescribable amount of time later saw the uncontrollable cyclone finally dying off, dispersing with slightly less speed than it had appeared. The island had been scoured and cleared, now devoid of loose dirt and rocks altogether, even in the multiple craters dotting the small landmass. The bedraggled warriors were standing scattered, having only barely managed to stay grounded. Krillin had a firm grip on Trunks, the only reason that the near dead man hadn't been blown away.

All eyes went to where they Cell had previously stood. Or, to be more accurate, where the previous Cell had stood.

What had come into existence was a being both completely different from the insectoid killer, and yet so very similar at the same time. Standing slightly taller than before on feet now resembling moccasins, the bio-droid's body had filled out somewhat; gaining a much more human like shape while maintaining that deceptive slenderness. Spindly limbs had reshaped themselves to offer a more streamlined physique that hinted at the tensed power ready to erupt at a moments notice. The crest-like horns protruding from Cell's skull had become a sperate black color, shining dully and now angled down and backwards, almost like swept back hair.

The skin had also taken on a less sickly hue, now resembling a more natural forest green than ever, and the random splotches of black had lessened, leaving much more of the viridian flesh visible. The two wings on its back were now folded closer to the body, apparently not as imperative as before and given a backseat overall.

Last, though impossible to be least, was the change that had come over the face: where once there was the visage of a monster, hate-filled slitted eyes hanging over a fearsome beak, there was now the unmistakable profile of a person, even applicable to a gender. There still wasn't a nose present, and the bone structure was spread noticeably wider than was customary in a human or saiyan, but it was unmistakable: that slope of the cheekbones, the angling of the eyes, the shape of the lips that were perched above a natural, orange chin guard…

"Well," she cooed, voice softer and far more human, but no less nerve rattling, "I suppose that with my current level of development, you can call me-" She tilted her head to the side, analyzing all of them with a ferocious glint in her beady eyes, "Nearly Perfect Cell."

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AN: AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! DAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Tune in next time to WIaM, 'cuz you ain't seen nothing yet!

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