"I'll make you pay for everything you made me go through. I'll reenact every single experiment and every time you brought me to the brink of death just to make you a more efficient murderer," Cell pumped his arms, preparing for a fight. At the same time, Android 21 stayed straight and stared the Bio-Android down with antipathy.
"That wasn't me and you know it. You've already murdered the one that did it, from what I gather," Dr. Puri replied, tilting her glasses. They fixed to an angle that reflected the beaming artificial lighting of the mechanical hallway that Dr. Puri and Cell occupied while they stared each other down.
"You had a Cell too. You've experimented on it to kill your immediate enemies: humans, Namekians, Saiyans, Frieza's race…" Cell didn't let No. 21 get away with that excuse, however, this response only made the curly-haired woman rear a devious smile.
"Oh, are you willing to face my Cell's judgment after I send you wherever it went? I wonder, since you've doomed your own timeline if you will even get an afterlife," Dr. Puri mocked Cell openly, deserving more of the creature's ire as it clenched its fists and erupted with a vivid aura, then charged at Dr. Puri with a furious yell.
After approaching No. 21, Cell threw a jab with its upper left arm, leading to the Ultimate Artificial Human dodging out of its way. Just as Cell prepared to unleash a four-armed flurry of attacks, it felt a tender touch to its chest. Glaring down, Dr. Puri's devious counterattack became revealed as the woman had pressed her hands against Cell's armored carapace, blasting it point-blank with a Ki wave.
Cell grumbled and bounced off the ground, crashing at the back of the cybernetic hallway with enough force to snuff out half the hallway's lights. Dr. Puri hurled herself across the hallway with a spinning vertical kick. Cell put up its upper pair of arms to block the attack while its lower pair became red hot with pumping star plasma. With a vociferous howl, Cell fired twin stellar energy blitz waves from the heated-up pair of its arms, but No. 21 vaulted over them and delivered a foot stomp straight into Cell's face, shoving the Bio-Android through the floor and sending it out of the hallway and into the hectic configuration of shifting labs and hallways.
With her arms crossed, Ultimate Android No. 21 descended through the hole Cell left in the floor, putting her radar systems to good use and keeping up with her opponent's position while in complete darkness and only vaguely seeing traces of electrical lights and control panels to indicate where anything was. A quadruple lightning strike came in Dr. Puri's direction, prompting the Ultimate Android to raise her arms and reveal Ki absorption gemstones in her palms, drawing in all four thunderbolts and boosting her energy.
"The lightning discharge from the tridents of Planet Sando warriors? My intelligence must have been faulty. I thought these attacks came from the weapons of the locals, not the locals themselves," Dr. Puri shook her head with disappointment, both in her flawed intelligence and in the lackluster performance of the creature that lived only to destroy her and cause Dr. Puri as much trouble as it could.
"Hmm… You've installed the Energy Absorption gemstones, a relic from an inferior model?" Cell expressed its surprise. "You've had plenty of time to complete your husband's research, then. Dr. Gero could have never figured out how to make hybrid Artificial Human types and balance the unruly performance of the Infinite Energy types with the Energy Absorption types."
"These types are complementary. The Energy Absorption type Artificial Humans require constant energy intake so that they do not malfunction. Meanwhile, the Infinite Energy type produces infinite energy via its Infinite Energy Reactor. They were always meant to define a perfected Artificial Human design, however, because we couldn't balance and make the design work, we split the types apart," Dr. Puri elaborated while flexing her hands after just absorbing a powerful jolt of energy augmented by Cell's own incredible Ki. "I will stand by that decision. Without the assistance of millennia of research in the Four Stars' archives and the computing power of the Four Stars, it would have taken millions of years to perfect the design of the hybrid Artificial Human."
"And how many of your children did you sacrifice on experiments that you would ultimately use to augment your own body!?" Cell exclaimed, twisting its face with wrath as it flung itself at Dr. Puri. Cell's back produced metallic, semi-organic exhaust pipes made of hollowed-out bone that fired energy waves to propel the Bio-Android forward at ludicrous speeds that broke all concepts of speed measurements.
The sudden burst of speed caught Dr. Puri off-guard, she next registered her most regrettable creation when it had closed the gap between them and slammed its lower left arm into Puri's gut, bending the Ultimate Android over from the overwhelming force of impact. "Just like you've used me to make plans how to hold people who might threaten your plans hostage!?" Cell growled, throwing up its feet in the air as it rode the jet stream of energy pumping from the hollowed-out cone spikes on its back. The Bio-Android's legs vanished without a trace, becoming a stamping flurry that battered Dr. Puri and sent her flying off.
Ultimate Artificial Human No. 21 hit a hallway shifting the opposite way to where she was going, bouncing off of it and hitting another laboratory platform while the electromagnetic pathway leading the hallway discarded its malfunctioning cargo and dropped it into the horrific abyss of the gigantic cybernetic mega-station. A beam of violet left cross-shaped slashes in the side of the laboratory platform Dr. Puri burst in with the emerging Android ripping the cut-up walls open and flying through them to confront her opponent.
"They were shapeless drones, produced by the billions by the technology of the Big Gete Star. They were more numerous than there are words to call things, their purpose was to serve and therefore they lacked the ambition to ever be truly alive," Dr. Puri replied while running her hand through her auburn hair. Her skin that the Artificial Human kept preserved in pristine condition, just pale enough to look regal but not enough to make her look like she didn't see enough sunlight, silky smooth on top, and had a handful of ruinous bruises. The doctor's lab coat hung awkwardly over her forearms, having torn and slipped off her shoulders after Cell's last attack.
"YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO DECIDE THAT!" Cell's jaw stretched to terrifying degrees to produce a howl vocal enough to send vibrations through Dr. Puri's body. "Just like you saw me as a helpless embryo, emotionless, a chunk of meat that would never amount to much. That is what life is–it finds a way to impress you."
"I fail to see the difference in this "apex predator" caprice you're putting us through and me sacrificing faceless Androids for my own improvement," Ultimate Artificial Human No. 21 crossed her arms with a ruthless denial of Cell's plight. "A predator has no right to whine about what their prey could have become if they hadn't gobbled them up. It's a bit of a pot calling the kettle black, don't you think?"
"You've never been a predator, Mother," Cell sent a piercing gaze Dr. Puri's way, but the immortal scientist completely no-sold it, looking no more impressed than if she were being gazed at by a sloth. "A predator devours to better themselves or to survive. They act upon their nature to consume. They don't kill out of curiosity or for fun!"
"I'm no mother of yours, you pest. I'm not even your maker. I plan to be your destroyer, though," Dr. Puri's glasses glistened with reflected light, showcasing the sharp look in her Caribbean-blue eyes. Producing twin Ki blades, one in each hand, Ultimate Android No. 21 slashed at Cell, sending crescent-shaped Ki projectiles its way.
Cell curled up into a ball, becoming a green and black orb with glowing fiery plasma patterns to give its look some flare. When the incoming slashes hit Cell, they splattered the orb's surface as if it had hit a blob of mercury and sliced clean through it. Just as Cell unwrapped itself and solidified again, having showcased the shapeshifting abilities of another alien species, the cells of which Cell had absorbed on its way to the merged Four-Star, Cell received a diving kick from Dr. Puri.
"My Cell still had potential for life, just like you did. Despite all that, even knowing that the fate of your doomed timeline would not come to pass on this one because of Trunks' interference, you didn't wait to see if I would adopt it as I did Androids No. 16 and One-Nine. You killed it to fake your own death and mask your footprints on this timeline. You killed yourself in cold blood. You're no righteous and honorable warrior hunter, you're no predator. Even the future version of myself wouldn't have killed me, nor would I have killed it. You call either of us mother, yet you're more twisted and cold-blooded than either of us," Android 21 lectured Cell as she delivered a dashing high kick to Cell's face and sent the Bio-Android flying.
Enveloped in a scarlet aura with a black outline, Dr. Puri dashed straight at Cell with the two colliding mid-air with their respective Ki blades and firing flocks of sparks in all directions. Out-fencing the Bio-Android, Ultimate No. 21 thrust her knee into Cell's central core gemstone and swiped her arm, producing an invisible air slash that didn't just stun Cell in place, it made the very fabric of reality tilt slightly and threaten to split into two like two halves of sliced fruit.
Android No. 21 repeated her knee shot, this time hitting Cell in the lower jaw and splitting the two cut-apart halves, however, burrowing fleshy strands quickly re-connected the diced Bio-Android together. After turning around, the Ultimate Android swept her arm up, producing dozens of invisible air slashes that fractured the fabric of time-space like a panel of glass that went through a stone-cutter back and forth a hundred times. Grabbing hold of her wrist with her other hand, Dr. Puri unleashed a hailstorm of Ki blasts, aiming to obliterate the severed pieces of the Bio-Android, only for them to turn to mercury-like splatter and litter the void of the inside space of the merged Four-Star.
"How frustrating…" Dr. Puri fixed her spectacles, reflecting on the readings provided by her radar systems that heavily implied Cell as a whole was very much alive, despite the severance of its body and obliteration of each separate body chunk into mush.
Not allowing this revelation to get to her, the Ultimate Artificial Human closed her eyes and kept her chin tucked, patiently awaiting Cell's revival and impending assault. However, all would not be as it seemed, as Dr. Puri's eyes snapped wide open in shock after hearing a click that was wholly unfamiliar to her inside her very own family home. Even tougher to believe were the colorful streams of light, many stretching across the entire mega-structure, making the impression of Cell setting up the field of an unforgettable disco night.
"What farcical buffoonery is this?" Dr. Puri called out to empty space, knowing full well that in all of this there could have been only one architect for this cyberpunk discotheque. Instead of an answer, the Ultimate Artificial Human received the high-pitched, rhythmical beats of a creepy techno theme. A repetitive yet uncanny melody that made one equally as enthralled as they were paralyzed by the pumping chills up and down their spine.
Multiple cybernetic rectangles focused on a single space, combining their blinking lights and intensifying their beckoning to turn them into a sort of spotlight. Constantly casting some shape or color of light, however, ever-blinking in an irregular rhythm which made the revelation of Cell's reassembled and revived body in the center of the spotlight look even more hypnotic and trance-like. Cell's shoulder twitched.
At first, Dr. Puri didn't realize that her shoulder twitched not because of some supernatural power compelling it to do so, but because she was on edge and trying to avoid Cell's incoming attack. It was only when Cell broke down into a staticky, almost possessed form of dance and Dr. Puri's movements followed in perfect synchrony despite seeing this dance for the first time in her life that the Ultimate Android realized what was going on.
"The Para Para Boogie…" Artificial Human No. 21 hissed.
"It's ironic, isn't it? After all the people you've abused, squeezed for all they're worth, and thrown aside, for you to be done in by a move made famous by a band of clowns you rescued…" Cell smiled, enjoying the twisted sight of his tormentor being forced to dance to the beat of his figurative drums. "In the end, what will get you killed will not be your ruthlessness, but your kindness."
"Don't… Count your chickens before they hatch. As if I'll get killed by a move like this…" Dr. Puri sneered in discomfort, completely under Cell's control. She wasn't entirely wrong, the Para Para Boogie had a glaring weakness of both combatants being locked into a dance together with neither being able to make a move. Not to mention, even if Cell managed to land a hit on her from the Para Para Boogie, it didn't seem possible that this one critical strike could outright destroy someone as powerful as an Ultimate Class Android.
"Oh, mother… Underestimating me as usual. You are so very different from your future self, however. That one immediately realized she was screwed. In retrospect, I should have kept her alive for a bit longer. Maybe she'd have begged me for her life… Then again, I was on a short-timer. Time traveling schedule, destruction of the universe and all that…" Cell reflected, having found a comfortable time pocket for a little banter.
To show its hand to its underestimating foe, Cell made its tail emerge from behind and flicked it forward. Because Dr. Puri lacked a tail, she could not mirror this dance move, leading to a phantom move and a sure-hit plunge of Cell's stinger straight into Dr. Puri's chest. The terrified artificial woman exclaimed in pain, spacing out as Cell's stinger began rotting her from inside out. Canceling its deadly boogie routine, Cell wrapped the past reflection of its creator in like a python, all the while keeping the pumping stinger inside of Dr. Puri.
Cell licked its fishy black lips, sticking out a long and predatory neon blue tongue that splattered and sprayed froth. "Hmph… After all the effort you've gone through to deprive me of my infinite energy meal, it's only apt that you're the one who compensates me for the damage, don't you think?" Cell mocked the whimpering Android trapped somewhere in the fleshy cocoon of its wrapped tail. "I was wondering how I'd make the rest of your days the worst kind of torture ever, and I can't think of a better way than to keep you around as my food source. Obviously, not forever… You're too smart for that. I won't repeat your mistake of underestimating an enemy. Eventually, you'd figure something out… However… Maybe just long enough for you to witness me exterminating your precious family and capturing No. 18? Yes! That'll do…"
Before Cell could go too deep into its victorious monologue, a firm feminine shout interrupted the creature. Cell grunted in pain as indomitable pressure began ripping its tail apart. No matter how much Cell tried to squish this resistance, Ultimate Android No. 21 bellowed, encasing herself in an Android Barrier and erupting with so much power inside her defensive bubble that she ripped Cell's tail apart into chunks, splattering thick mercury-like goop all over while escaping Cell's clutches. Frothing gooey silver from the mouth, Cell stumbled back from the immense energy pressure of its opponent and howled out, regrowing the lost tail with a burst of regenerative properties.
"I can stomach the attempted murder and disdain toward me and my work, however, I'll have you know I draw the line at threats against my family," Ultimate Android No. 21 declared, ripping her damaged lab coat and sending it away while she stood in her checkered red and black dress before the most terrifying and invincible threat that the universe has ever seen. One that served as a dark reflection of the woman she might have become in the future.
"Feeble woman, you're just an antelope pointing its horns and dragging its hoof at the sand, hoping that the bloodthirsty monster will fall for your bluff," Cell hissed, full of scorn toward the Artificial Human that ruined its perfect plan to contain and punish her.
"It's not something that's happened in the dark future you come from, so I wonder if you're aware why I am classified as an Ultimate Class Android, as opposed to the bargain sale of Super Class Androids?" Dr. Puri removed her glasses and smashed them in one hand, staring Cell down with a death-inducing stare.
"What do I care? From where I'm standing, you're no different from the likes of Vegeta, just pointlessly hurling empty titles at yourself. Call yourself Turbo Ultra Android for all I care, you're just prey to me," Cell dismissed the ire of its strongest opponent yet. One that perhaps took Cell's threat the most seriously and spent the most time hunting Cell and planning out the Bio-Android's destruction.
"I see that your knowledge of advances in Artificial Human technology is stunted. Let me educate you in that case. Whether they be Energy Absorption types or Infinite Energy types, Artificial Humans start as just that–Artificial Humans. However, Artificial Humans that are compatible, ones that have been built with compatibility in mind or ones that share their creator, can assemble a grander class of Artificial Humans when their parts coalesce–it's called a Super Class Android," Artificial Human No. 21 pointed out while spreading her arms to the side and lighting up with a radiant scarlet aura with inky black outlines.
"If that's the case, then I can only wonder which class I'd be in, given the vast number of specimens I've sampled," Cell humored its opponent, but only because it made it come out in a better light, politely chuckling at its own comment.
"You'd be classified as a failed abortion that you are. A bankruptcy of creative push and ideas that should have been dissolved in acid from the moment of its inception. That's because you're as garbage as the things you've been devouring, Cell. When multiple Super Class Androids converge, they form a being that is in a world of power far surpassing anything that ordinary science can produce. The absolute peak of scientific advancement. The pinnacle of technology and where intelligence and engineering can take a being–an Ultimate Class Android," Dr. Puri elaborated with a pink halo splitting her radiant scarlet aura apart, leaving the spitting image of Cell's creator standing as a blue-skinned, freckled creature with bright yellow eyes and long, curly, tiger-colored hair.
"A transformation?" Cell's eyes widened. "Damn it, it's because Bulma was so insistent on keeping you as far away from Earth as possible after your defeat that I couldn't gather all the intel I needed!"
"I am a Super Artificial Human that's already on the cusp of surpassing her class, that's merged with an Ultimate Class Android and thoroughly assimilated it. There is only one tier of technology that surpasses this–science, the powers of which are indistinguishable from flat-out magic. The God Class Android. Remnants of such an Android are still on this fortification, being studied. However, Ultimate Class is more than enough to dispatch of the likes of you," the transformed Dr. Puri posed before the distressed Cell, looking eager to answer the challenge of how to destroy the invincible Bio-Android.