The long wait between their first encounter with the monster, it obtaining the perfect state it was after, and the actual Cell Games had taken a toll on everyone's stress levels. Thankfully, for the earthlings to go to the mock tournament, it had also solidified their resolve. Yamcha, Krillin and Tenshinhan knew they were outmatched by the monster, but with Piccolo, they decided to come should teamwork be required. The four had concluded on their own that they were placing their hopes, yet again, in their rival-turned-friend Son Goku. The man could move mountains.
Krillin knew his friend doubted, and while he had dismissed Goku's expressed worries as excitement, inquiring about Goku's feelings about 'fighting a bunch of people stronger than Freeza that showed up all at once' had his best friend say he was both scared and excited. Which is why the day prior, he went to Korin to gather as many senzu beans as possible to add to the ones he had gotten a couple of weeks prior; surely they would be needed for the upcoming fights. He kept Goku's confidence about his doubts to himself, even if he had dismissed them prior, now he, too, doubted his friend would handle it.
Piccolo had his hopes on either Gohan or Trunks; Gohan had potential and his leaps with Goku in under a year in the Chamber were mind-blowing, and he knew the child had so much more within him, and the flaws that cost Trunks the victory, twice already, had been addressed. Neither liked fighting, but Trunks was ruthless and would certainly go for the kill if given an opportunity, and Gohan always came through when enraged enough. Had strengths unique to them, but also inherent flaws, if only there was a way to combine the best of both... Would their individual power suffice?
Tenshinhan trusted Goku and an eventual team effort, which is why playing by Cell's rules was a problem. Trunks had been right when he chastised them for trying to 'fight fairly', but Tenshinhan would rather die fighting than live and take the coward's way out, and he realized that because of that, the whole planet was in danger. He truly was no better than Vegeta (or was it that Vegeta had redeeming qualities?). Chaozu was to stay safe in the mountains, he couldn't bear to see his small friend die again.
Yamcha had faith in Goku, the man could do the impossible, and he was confident, as he himself was way over his head.
The world had faith in Mr Satan, who had successfully reassured the population. Those who knew better prayed to all deities that all would be well.
Cell had prepared a nice fighting arena for its Cell Games, and an hour before ten, the time at which the fights were set to start, the journalist and cameraman from ZTV were already in place. They were there to comment on the upcoming combat, waiting for Mr Satan's arrival, the world's last hope, the only capable fighter who would come and face this monster. Jimmy Firecracker, the journalist, noted and announced Mr Satan's car arrival, and the two TV men were beckoned over to the arena. The Martial Arts Champion had announced his victory on live TV with a telling pointing-then-thumb-down gesture, and Cell was looking at the whole ordeal in utter disbelief.
Soon after, Vegeta landed by the arena, and promptly told Jimmy to pound sand when he tried to interview the strange man with flame-like hair. Cell raised an eyebrow hoping the Saiyan Prince had become stronger and more entertaining than last time.
Trunks and Sixteen arrived as well, but Jimmy didn't try to approach them: Sixteen looked intimidating beyond reason and Trunks had stared daggers when they even hinted at approaching. She took an instant to acknowledge Vegeta, with tension and even a certain hostility between parent and child from another era. Vegeta was satisfied, his heir hadn't returned to the chains. Cell even addressed the three of with a mocking 'Ready for utter defeat, bis repetita?', which made Trunks' blood boil even more.
Krillin, Yamcha, Piccolo, Tenshinhan, Goku and Gohan, all in their respective fighting gear, after meeting at the Lookout (and Krillin confirming he had indeed asked Korin for Senzu beans and had the pouch right there with him) arrived just a little before the starting time of the mock Tournament. Sixteen approached them to thank Krillin for his help, exchange nice words with Gohan, and assess Goku. Trunks kept a close eye on the Android, but while he was cold towards his main target, his priority target was Cell and he didn't act on his 'Kill Son Goku' orders. She still didn't trust the Artificial Human even if she acknowledged his usefulness and good will, now he was mostly harmless; at least to the Saiyans. Her eyes landed a moment on Gohan, who returned the look eagerly and smiling. She gave him a faint smile back.
Cell appreciated his main target finally showing up, the whole reason why he'd put out this whole event to begin with: Son Goku, the strongest under the heavens.
Goku announced he'd fight first, but Mr Satan, already standing on the arena, and having removed his cape and decorative belt, protested vainly as nobody cared to listen. Trunks eyed over Vegeta who stated he didn't care as long as he got the finishing blow, then she stated if Goku didn't mind, she had a score to settle first. It wasn't a request and the older Saiyan agreed, seeing the younger fighter's resolve.
A little back and forth after, Goku told Mr Satan to not try his luck as he'd get himself killed, but the Champion and Jimmy scolded the group of strange people for treating it as a game. Goku didn't insist after Krillin judged the man too stupid for his own survival. Finally uninterrupted and the camera back on him, Mr Satan started throwing one liners at Cell and preparing himself for the upcoming combat, while Cell blinked at the annoying fly that was about to charge him.
Goku simply told Trunks, who had approached him about Hercule Satan, that he'd be revived with the Dragon Balls anyway and there was no use arguing with such people. That didn't sit well with the time traveler who glanced back at the ring and Mr Satan's attempts at intimidation, including a strength demonstration. Yes, he was strong.. for a normal human without ki control. She glanced back at the camera, and she knew the slaughter that was about to come would be bad news.
At home and in city squares, the general population booed Goku's attempts at saving Mr Satan's life, but a few households knew better. Roshi shook his head at the misplaced confidence, the King recognized Piccolo Daimao in one of the wide-shots and wondered whether the blonde man with round eyes was the boy who had killed him, almost fifteen years prior. Bulma, the baby and her parents held on, after having complained Trunks and Sixteen left without saying goodbye. Bulma noted the time traveler had even left without his sword and his watch, the latter of which he always kept on, but she had no idea where all of those belongings were; the room had been cleaned, the bed made, and no trace of personal items left. Mika and Syowa recognized their two-time guest Tora, but they also recognized Yamcha and Tenshinhan. Yamcha because of their love for baseball and knowing he was one of Tora's allies, and Tenshinhan because he was the one who fetched Tora on the roof, as Mika told his daughter (after all, the man had three eyes!). Yamcha's fame as a baseball player wasn't lost on a few select people who knew him well enough to recognize him in such different circumstances, especially now he had a much shorter haircut.
As expected, Mr Satan's defeat was quick, after a few futile kicks and punches, the monster just slapped the man out of the arena, but Trunks actually rushed after him before the Champion could hit the cliff. She'd promised herself she would do her best to not let anyone else die, and surely that would have killed Hercule Satan. She soaked the incoming muscle mass at high velocity easily, slowing him down and letting her back hit the cliff as she broke the fall, then flew down to let Mr Satan go free and relatively unharmed (that slap looked painful though).
"You have a daughter waiting for you, don't be reckless," she warned, her blue eyes matching his shocked ones a brief instant, and disappeared just as quickly as she'd caught him, unwilling to linger any longer in his company.
By the time the Champion had walked back to the arena, Trunks was already on the stage, hair free from the tie, and Cell had uncrossed his arms in anticipation for an actual legitimate challenge.
"Ah, an appetizer before the main course? How nice of you, I wanted to save the best for last." Cell played and Trunks eyes narrowed as she slowly guarded, doing her best to ignore the bait.
"I tripped," Hercule Satan explained to the microphone, and a further discussion about trying again once this 'young one who wouldn't last a second against him, let alone Cell' was thrown out of the ring.
The Champion had to keep up appearances no matter what. He doubted people had seen the lavender-haired youth save him. Or had it just been a hallucination? Jimmy Firecracker probed Hercule about his thoughts on the new fighter, stating he was certainly an amateur due to his stance, and Cell snickered quietly. Trunks kept her eyes on her target, her prey, ignoring all distractions and her allies' eyes on her. She loathed having an audience, but it was necessary. Gohan and Goku hadn't seen the creature fight, and observation was Goku's forte; she knew it.
"Very well, come at me, Princess!" Cell taunted with a laugh, and Trunks frowned. She'd have to guard her mind too. She summoned the super Saiyan power clawing for blood between the moment the last sound left the monster's mouth and the moment she threw the first punch.
Cell predictably blocked the first attack easily, and the spectators could see the time traveler's now loose golden hair flying, aura swirling, and a deeper desire for murder behind the teal eyes.
"Fire! Those flames! They're the same- !" The journalist exclaimed seeing the aura erupt. Trunks ticked, she knew exactly where that was going, she remembered the footage from ten days prior, and wanted none of that attention.
The two combatants exchanged a few blows up close, Trunks keeping in mind her improved technique and making sure every surprise hit she could put in with her left hand was as strongly reinforced to do as much damage as possible. Cell threw in a couple of 'compliments' every now and then with a taunting smirk, he enjoyed the warm up for what it was.
"Pretty good move there," he laughed in her face when they locked hands. "You truly got better! Marvelous."
Trunks growled at the compliment, dropped to the ground forcing her hands free, put them on the tiles, and pushed herself up, foot first to kick Cell upwards, then went after him, ki in hands ready to blast him point blank. She'd been used to Seventeen and Eighteen's snarky remarks, so she wouldn't let herself be distracted; not anymore. She hated it, she hated fighting, she hated the idiocy that put the whole planet in this situation, and she intended to harness all that hatred to claim the monster's life. She went for the kill, or at least to show the others how the monster fought, so they could take over should her own strength be not enough.
Vegeta kept a close eye on his heir, judging the progress he didn't have the means to fully test because the Gravity Room hadn't been resilient enough. The brat was still an amateur in terms of tactics, but there were solid improvements. Feeling their full power, however, Vegeta seethed. No matter how he trained, he just hadn't managed to gain enough raw power and speed to have a chance at winning. And what was worse, he saw in that fight what he felt with Eighteen: Cell wasn't losing energy, but Trunks was tiring slowly, but surely. Energy management was still a weak point, which the brat compensated by having much more stamina and spite than all of these blind idiots together. Including himself.
"They're pretty fast," Goku noted with an appreciative nod. Gohan stayed silent and observed easily, all while hearing Krillin mention he had a hard time following them.
Piccolo noted how by going first, Trunks was making sure to give them the most determining element for a fight: intel. And while the Namekian doubted Goku had understood Trunks did it deliberately, calculating and pragmatic as he was, they were all observant.
Cell was about as tall as Piccolo, so Trunks' training with the Namekian and his natural reach had come in extremely handy in her current fight. She wanted to do as much as possible, should she lose the others could take over and perhaps secure the win. Her hits all went for the kill, which she learned from Vegeta, which was also why she found simple spars hard. The hits were reinforced with a more conscious ki control, thanks to Tenshinhan's teachings, and she also used ki control so the limbs she used to block were able to soak without harm. Her focus on endurance and speed above raw strength was something she owed to her version of Gohan, only enhanced by Piccolo's merciless month of almost constant strain in the Time Chamber. From this world's Gohan, Bulma and Trunks, from Syowa and Mika, she reaffirmed why she fought: not for glory, for herself, but for others. And for the planet itself, as the Briefs' menagerie and Sixteen reminded her. And she thought of the mother she missed dearly, as her ability to use her left hand as well as she could was thanks to her insistence about the piano. All in all, she used all she discovered during the year and change in this world, to give everyone else a better chance at peace.
A solid half an hour passed of the two fighting, one far more invested in trying to kill the other. Cell was getting bored of this child who just wanted him dead and didn't enjoy the thrill of a good fight, and whatever tugged inside kept him from actually ending it.
The monster charged the alternative version of his first victim, who blocked the charge with both arms crossed, feet scratching the tiles and leaving a deeper and deeper trail as the force was too much for the arena to resist. Trunks broke the hold before coming to a halt by ducking and getting into Cell's guard. With her left hand's fingers curled, charged with as much ki as she could, and with a roar, she punched through and through Cell's torso, where the spleen would be if it were human. She pushed her arm in its body up until her elbow, and promptly removed it with prejudice, her fingers grabbing entrails on the way out. At the same time, her right hand charged an orb and blasted the creature, and she jumped away before it retaliated, dropping whatever pieces of purple-ish organs in her grip on the off-white tiles.
Mr Satan, Jimmy and the cameraman were speechless, eyes wide open and in shock. Very little of what transpired could be filmed or observed, but what was filmed, especially at the beginning, had the ZTV control room go berserk. By the time the fight was mid-way through, the analysts confirmed the similarities between this lavender-turned-gold-haired youth with strange flames and the person they dubbed the Golden Defender of Central City. The colors and flames were a dead giveaway, but the control room also told Jimmy that as far as the physiognomists could tell from the footage, that it was indeed probably the same person (at least the height and morphology matched). Just what kind of tricks were those?!
At home, Syowa and Mika screamed for victory, with the few images of Tora's hand piercing through the monster, with commentators apologizing for the grotesque display as they were truly airing everything live. 'Clearly this teen has been living in a brutal war-like world, the sword was only a sign,' Mika was used to knowing teenagers live in harsh conditions that had numbed them to certain acts of violence, but Tora was capable of horrors without flinching, and the first stare he'd received when in the changing room wasn't bluff. He was now certain the youth had actually killed previously.
Bulma cheered for her would-be son and his ability to 'get shit done', but her heart ached to imagine what kind of life he had lived to be able to display such brutality without even blinking. That year in the Room of Spirit and Time with Vegeta had certainly not helped, as she remembered the deadly stare the teenager had when she met him.
Everyone on site knew better than to declare victory, as Cell stood up with a gaping, bloody hole on the left side of his body and a dark glare.
"I humored you enough," Cell declared as a warning, straightening up and looking completely uncaring and unbothered.
Trunks guarded again, ignoring the purple liquid on her arm, she didn't lose focus, and if tearing the monster limb by limb until it had no more energy to regenerate was how to do it, then that was going to be her modus operandi. Cell regenerated and spat some more purple blood, but he lost the smile. Playtime was over. He flared his own aura and charged, sent her flying when she blocked his uppercut, and while she guarded well and could return some of the hits, she was nowhere near as good as Cell. Trunks could only keep up for a little while before the monster overwhelmed her with raw technique and a speed similar to hers. A choke-hold higher up in the sky later, Cell taunted her some more.
"I know I told you to come, but truth is I had changed my mind. Didn't you hear the announcement? I invited all men to test their strength," the bio-android played some more with her nerves, and Trunks hissed, focusing on how to get free instead of the monster trying to get a rise out of her. Between her version of the Cyborgs and a year of Vegeta, she had strong mental barriers, but it wasn't a pleasant experience and everything boiled.
Cell pulled the choke higher on her neck, and Trunks suddenly relaxed before blasting through the monster's forearm and set herself free with a snarl. This wasn't enough to deter the cicada giant, who phased and, taking the fight seriously, double-hammered down to send her away. She crashed a little further away into a hillside.
"And that's a ring out! Daddy better be proud of you, Princess, good job!" The monster's loud declaration carried over with its crystal laugh, it regenerated the tears on his forearms, and landed back in the arena for the next contender.
Trunks came back charging after bursting through the terrain, she heard the taunt and that infuriated her enough, but Goku stopped her, appearing in front of her midway through and catching her shoulders to force her to land and drop super Saiyan.
"That's enough, Trunks," he caught her enraged teal eyes, which had remained even if the blonde hair hadn't, with his own, and tried calming her down. "It's my turn," he added with a wide grin.
"Don't!" Trunks protested, but there was no arguing. Goku had already teleported to Cell, ready to take him on. Stupid Saiyan genes had him all excited after the observation period.
Gohan approached her as she flew back to see if everything was alright, and her eyes finally returned to their natural blue. Hopefully what she did was somewhat useful. She was overall fine, Cell hadn't hit her at full force, and it verified that something forced the monster to hold back. Which is why she wanted to continue fighting, but Goku was stubborn and far too hyped to listen to reason. Even if continuing fighting was far from reasonable, as she had to rely on her enemies' words concerning Seventeen's feelings for that theory to hold true. The other option, that she had become that much tougher, was still on the table, but she could only verify that in her world.
"Tora-san, are you ok?" Gohan kept his eyes moving back and forth between his friend and his father when they landed close enough, and they walked back towards the group.
"I am unharmed," Trunks put her right (clean) hand in his hair an instant, the contact grounding her and reassuring him. "I do not think Cell went all out on me."
"You didn't, either," Gohan remarked, but Trunks raised an eyebrow. She did, didn't she? The thought was interrupted by movement in her field of vision.
"Oh hell no," she whispered, seeing the journalist rush over with the cameraman.
"What- are those- tricks you used?! Are you- really- the Golden Defender- of Central- City?!" Jimmy asked while running, words punctuated by his stride and broken breathing, holding the microphone, closely followed by the cameraman who seemingly had an easier time with the physical strain (years of field reporting, without a doubt).
Gohan giggled quietly and ran off to avoid being caught in that upcoming situation, and went to observe his dad and Cell hash it off. Trunks cursed silently, abandoned by her one trusted ally to her misery.
"If you approach me with that or that," she stared with cold eyes, indicating both the microphone and camera with her bloody left hand, "I will use your entrails to strangle you both."
Jimmy Firecracker was a brave man, but a direct threat spoken by someone who just punched a hole through someone else and who clearly meant every word spoken was enough to stop him in his tracks. Even Vegeta had been less threatening about telling them to fuck off, and that made the Prince raise a curious eyebrow. The earthlings scurried back to Mr Satan who explained to them that the blonde clown (Goku) wanted to try his luck and he was happy to rest a little longer before jumping in again and actually finishing the job. 'No use arguing with amateurs,' he declared under Jimmy's praise. As for Cell not dying from the Golden Defender's hit? Mirrors, certainly, and (amateur, after all the color was wrong!) blood capsules.
Trunks soon rejoined the others, handkerchief in hand wiping off the deep purple blood of her left arm with a certain disgust, then pulled the elastic out of her pocket and tied her hair back at the nape of her neck properly, while some front parts still refused to cooperate, she was more at ease. Her clothes were fine, if only a little dusty, she thanked the robust synthetic fibers and her ability to have either avoided or matched Cell's blasts.
"Princess Trunks," Yamcha half-joked, then gulped when Trunks' pupils landed on him. "Hey, take it easy." The bandit had a tendency to joke when nervous, and the stare had him regret that habit. The younger fighter thankfully let it slide.
Krillin started approaching too, pouch in hand, but Trunks wordlessly refused before the offer was even made. Despite everything, she sustained relatively little damage. The fight hadn't been serious enough… or she'd grown that much tougher. The binder did split under Cell's punch, but the damage was minimal and it didn't bother her.
As she walked back to stand by Vegeta, who briefly glanced to acknowledge her presence, she observed how Goku and Cell fought, 'warming up' as it seemed, they weren't serious about it… Until the two of them powered up, traded ki beams until Goku almost had the monster when he disintegrated a solid half of its body.
I've been trying to insert more breaks, as my original formatting had a double carriage returns, but ffnet doesn't allow it, it seems. I will probably use centered *** or something to put some breathers in, instead of just the horizontal lines thinf.
Let me know if this makes it more readable for you, in which case I'll edit the first two arcs the same way.
Broke 100k for this arc with this chapter, actually, huzzah me! And this story will be five arcs long ;)
Side note: Future Trunks cameo in DBSSH gave me life and "get shit done" validation. Magnificent. Grab me on Twitter, discord or tumblr and if you want I'll show you the clip ^_^