"For the sake of our peaceful family life, you must be terminated," Super No. 16 called out to Cell while directing a swift swing of both his arms weaved into a double ax handle, slamming them into Cell's lower section and tripping Cell over. With Cell spinning horizontally in mid-air, Super No. 16 slammed both of his hands down with brutal hammer strikes, embedding the Bio-Android into the dented floor of the cybernetic space station.
Cell's revival was instant, like a bloodthirsty animal, the Bio-Android flung itself from the pit of malleable metal, lunging at his foe. Super No. 16's leg blitzed with a green blur, cracking the Bio-Android through the mechanical wall with a deafening rip and sending the Bio-Android smashing through countless segmented hallways. Their collapse would be insignificant compared to the value of destroying Cell at last. They were but a handful of pieces in a gigantic puzzle, trillions of such pieces in size. With a block-busting shoulder tackle, Super No. 16 burst out of the metallic hallway and after his opponent.
Like a living rocket, Super Android No. 16 slammed against Cell, stunning the bio-mechanical monster and causing a blinding, explosive burst that rippled through the entire Puri Star mega-structure. Like waves rippling across the lake's surface, metal rippled and bent out of shape only for electromagnetic signals to repair it back into place.
"Stronger than I thought," Cell observed, recovering and looking around the seemingly infinite configuration of shifting hallways, chambers, and laboratories all around it. "The power of a higher percentage of Super Androids it seems," the Bio-Android smirked to itself with its ferocious, anglerfish-like smirk shortly before Super No. 16 snapped before Cell and delivered a hook to Cell's jaw, then kneed into Cell's stomach, nearly shoving the knee all the way through before throwing a handful of vicious, overpowering blows that tested the mettle of Cell's endurance.
Grabbing Cell with both hands, Super No. 16 plummeted down with a spinning piledriver drop, smashing Cell through plenty of shifting chamber structures. The various rooms, laboratories, and hallways exploded upon impact, ripped apart by the force of the slam while Super No. 16 brought his enemy deeper and deeper down. Shaking its head to snap back to its senses, Cell howled out, exploding with a Ki energy bubble that violently pushed Super No. 16 away and smashed the Super Android into a shifting box of a laboratory chamber.
"Haaaah!" Cell exclaimed, erupting with the golden aura of Super Saiyan as his greatly improved new body underwent a significant boost in power. Stepping through the hole blasted through by the Super Artificial Human's body, Cell rolled its knuckles in excitement. "No matter. I anticipated that mother wouldn't make it easy for me. That's why I made a few stops along the way here to grab some much-needed cell samples. Because I've already encountered and absorbed samples of these species in the doomed future, I knew they'd be exactly where I found them back then."
"In order to return to the peaceful family life we had before your reappearance, you must be stopped!" Super No. 16 pulled himself out from the rubble and charged at Cell. The arrogant Bio-Android merely smirked, extending its ferocious jaw all across the lower half of its face. Cell smacked Super Artificial Human No. 16 with a stiff slap, crumbling the mound of muscle and metal to the ground and bouncing Super No. 16 off the ground in a state of dizziness.
A powerful straight discombobulated Super No. 16 while a knee strike to the gut left the gentle giant hovering in mid-air completely overwhelmed. Like a great cat, Cell pounced around, swiping with its hands and delivering vicious pounds that dented Super No. 16's armored carcass before vanishing and appearing behind and above the Super Android. A flurry of foot stamps shoved Super No. 16's face into the ground and stomped the upper half of the Super Artificial Human's body through the floor, leaving him hanging by the lower body that remained stuck in the moving lab chamber.
Turning around on one arm, Cell kicked the dangling torso and feet and split the lab in two, using the Super Android's own body to destroy it and send its metallic rubble plummeting through the inconceivably complex outer infrastructure of the mega-station. Super No. 16 braced himself and stopped his uncontrollable flight in mid-air, redirecting himself and clashing with Cell in mid-air. The two monstrous forces erupted in a breakneck exchange of blows.
Fists, knees, and feet were everywhere with thunderous cracks signaling a pitch-perfect exchange of blows. Then, in a snap of the moment, both combatants became reckless and stopped defending themselves, allowing their natural toughness to protect them from crushing defeat instead of their skill. It was almost as if at the same time the two brutes had staked everything they had into their offensive output and went all-out.
Cell took a horizontal double ax handle slam and reeled in pain, whiting out for just a millisecond before snapping back and returning the favor by shoving its fist almost through Super No. 16's body. Super No. 16 halted to estimate the approximate damage to its body before lashing out with hammering fists into the back of Cell's shoulders. The beastly parasite exclaimed in torment and buckled, but preserved its balance and maintained its participation in the violent dance.
A flying knee strike rocked Super Android No. 16's head, cracking its visor and dimming the eye-raking red light gleaming around the area of impact. Without hesitation, Super No. 16 returned the favor with a dashing push kick. His back erupted with energy jets propelled from black openings in the hefty armor that Super No. 16 donned over his bulky body. Cell blocked the strike and reeled in pain, riding out the uncompromising force of impact before swiping its blocking arms aside while they still twinged in pain and punted Super No. 16 aside with both combatants staggering back and clutching their direst sores, wiping the slobber knocked out of them during the brutish exchange of attacks.
"You're your mother's son, through and through…" Cell panted while wiping the traces of blood off its black lip. "So eager to throw yourself in harm's way and make the ultimate sacrifice for this illusion of family you've created. And yet you never considered that perhaps I too have a right to be a part of that family. Just like you, I am your mother's creation, and just like you, I have higher aspirations than to be her weapon and her lab rat."
"You… My brother? That does not compute," Super No. 16 fixed its cumbersome metallic wristband, preparing to collide with this otherworldly bio-mechanical menace again. "My family is not one of blood relations, nor one purely associated through the bond of creator and creation. It is a family of choice. A family based on familial bonds forged through trust. I do not choose you as my brother. I choose you as my target."
Super No. 16 dashed off toward Cell, only for the amped-up Bio-Android to clench its fists and beam white light from the patterns where molten metal leaked inside its body. Cell's armor became super-heated, tiger-orange and blood-red as the same white light beamed through Cell's eyes and an infernal blaze of temperatures exceeding the hottest natural phenomenon burst forth from its cores, igniting them like heated meteors soaring through space. The pulsating heatwave left Super No. 16 bracing and stumbling in the air, unable to approach Cell.
"The Amaterans are a plasma-based life form that finds its ideal natural habitat on the surface of the stars!" Cell yelled out, beaming with intense white light from its mouth as the Bio-Android spoke. The Bio-Android cupped its hands together and drew them back. "Ka… Me… Ha… Me…"
Super No. 16 found itself unable to break through the immense energy pressure of the Kamehameha wave Cell was channeling, nor was it able to contend with the irregular heat that Cell radiated from its body. Instead, the Super Artificial Human extended its arms and legs to the side, forming an Android Barrier while Cell thrust its arms out and brought all the channeled and super-heated Ki out to the forefront.
"Stellar Kamehameha!" Cell exclaimed, firing a sparkling white Kamehameha wave that radiated with a fiery aura surrounding it and danced with jets of rampant flames. The sparkling, starlit energy wave collided with the Android Barrier like a torrential wave washing against a solid stone. Super No. 16 grunted in pain and wear when he saw fractures emitting blinding light breaking through the Android Barrier that was meant to be unbreakable. With an ear-raking shattering clamor, the Android Barrier shattered, and the concentrated hypernova beam busted through, enveloping Super No. 16 and forcing the Super Artificial Human through a handful more chambers and hallways before beaming through the shell of the Puri Star and blitzing off to a different cluster of solar systems, vanishing them away in a blink.
Super No. 16 panted, smoldering, and wearing signs of damage to its hefty armored carapace. The visor on Super No. 16's face seemed to have turned to charcoal and began crumbling away, revealing strict blue eyes underneath and a chiseled, masculine jaw underneath all those cybernetic enhancements. Cell took a brief blink of time before the sparkling aftereffects of its attack settled down to marvel at its own newfound power. No longer was he restrained to salvaging and using techniques that lesser life forms sprinkled in its way, hoping to stop Cell. Now Cell was both skilled and powerful enough to use its vast array of alien cells in tandem with Ki manipulation to forge its own immaculate and unmatched martial arts techniques.
"Now perhaps you will reconsider adopting me as your brother?" Cell mocked Super No. 16's convictions with a peal of laughter. "Not that I would care about such a thing. You're just a tin can, doomed to pursue technological advancements with perpetual upgrades, always one step behind and never ahead of the curve. You represent the delusion of grandeur of the so-called intelligent life forms. Believing that their trinkets elevate them beyond the simplicity of the natural order in which the strong devours the weak!"
"Strength is not grounds for my respect," Super No. 16 shook its head with its human face showing a reflection of what the man once known as Gebo would have shown as the face of his somberness. "Kindness and the capacity to love are what I treasure in my family the most. My brother would respect life and strive to protect it, as opposed to trying to validate his existence in stepping over what he perceives as lesser things."
"You know nothing about how worthless your love and appreciation for life is. To love is to see what you hold dear wither away and disappear before your eyes. To treasure something is to one day be robbed of it, bleed, and long for it, writhing on the ground. Only the strongest, the apex of all things, is the one that is truly free to live and love the way they see fit. Only they are safe from loss and pain," Cell clenched its fist and glared at it as it shook, seeing reflections of the life it had abandoned back on Monster Island and all the faces of the different creatures that Cell once thought it loved and strived to help protect.
"Loss…" the Super Android smiled kindly as if he was looking not at his mortal enemy, but his best friend. "Is what makes your love and appreciation worthwhile. It's because you can and will one day lose the things you hold dear in a heartbeat that they are so valuable. If your family will never grow old, wither, and pass away, there is little meaning in expressing how much you love them every minute of your day."
A lone tear ran down the cheek of the man formerly known as Gebo. Little, if anything, now remained of that kind young man in the Artificial Human who had gone through so many upgrades and enhancements since the Artificial Human he had chosen to see as his mother had begun working on him, that the question of whether No. 16 was still No. 16 was just as relevant as the question of whether No. 16 was still Gebo. It was unclear where that single tear drop came from since no more joined it in dropping into the bottomless, shifting, metallic abyss below.
"As sweet as your words are, that is exactly what they are–just words," Cell replied, becoming more sullen itself and ceasing its self-fatuous adoration. "In this world we know, there is only one proof of the worth of one's convictions. It doesn't matter whose ideas sound more convincing and whose beliefs you subscribe to. The ideals of a fly become irrelevant when the spider's fangs rip it apart. Much in the same way, conflict of conviction can only be solved through fists. That way, mine is the ultimate, self-proving philosophy, whereas yours is just another theory you must defend every day of your life."
"Whether it be a theory or even just a delusion," Super No. 16 put its dukes up with its once cold and deadpan face becoming full of hope for the future. "I'd much rather strive to prove this theory every day, or remain deluded for as long as I am operational, as opposed to coming to terms with a truth such as yours."
"Haaah, King Kai Fist X10!" Cell exclaimed, bursting with a scarlet outline to its golden aura and elevating its power ever higher. A flurry of violent fists delivered with four striking arms translated Cell's ideas for how the natural order worked and posed their own quandary for Super Artificial Human No. 16, prompting the gentle giant to cross its arms and hunker down, weather the storm of fists until Cell's single heartbeat of unparalleled power came to pass.
And so Cell's heart beat once, and the Bio-Android kicked Super No. 16 aside to slam against the wall of a passing hallway, denting it whole like a tin can smashed by a pneumatic hammer. The Super Artificial Human lowered its sparking and damaged arms, calculating extensive damage across its entire body and running simultaneous rerouting processes while approximating means of staying competitive in this bout for time.
"Mother… Why aren't you leaving?" Super No. 16 wondered to itself before an ion storm converged high above Cell. The Super Artificial Human gasped in shock as a cerulean beam of ionic overflow engulfed Cell, seeking to transport the creature elsewhere, despite the irrelevance of such an action.
"Useless," Cell barked out, emerging from the ionic storm surrounded by a humming electromagnetic field. "You may have thought to be able to teleport me away and then scatter each other across the universe to run away, but Dr. Gero's electromagnetic quantal matter beam shielding technology is well known to me."
"Mother, save yourselves!" Super No. 16 exclaimed, knowing that from her command station Ultimate No. 21 should have been able to hear him. "I'll hold Cell here for as long as I have to!"
Before Super No. 16 could even finish its sentence, however, the Super Artificial Human heard its voice become staticky and dragging out. It was almost like his voice was a shapeless gas that failed to extend its vaporous trail long enough to reach anyone. As if there was infinite space occupying the distance between Super No. 16 and any other biological or cybernetic auditory device capable of hearing his plight. Everything turned cerulean blue and, before Super No. 16 knew it, he was standing in a damp and dark lab on Planet Earth.
"M-Mother… What's happening, where are we?" Super One-Nine looked at her pale hands, then back at the blue sky on a planet that her family was forbidden to enter. Super One-Nine stood on a mountain road by a little blue creek and a forest bordering a mountain range. The doll-like Super Artificial Human hovered in the air, narrowly missing a collision with an oncoming truck that signaled her non-stop and scanned her surroundings. Super One-Nine's radar system relayed that there was a hidden laboratory that once must have been used by Dr. Gero and Dr. Puri while they were still working to restore Gebo as an Android long ago.
Another signature from an Infinite Energy Reactor registered from a destination westward. Likely Ultimate No. 21 scattered her children across different shut-down hidden laboratories she had while still working back on Earth to make her children harder to track. In that case, she must have sent Krillin and Android 18 somewhere else. Somewhere far away from either of her two children, because Krillin's body was the unconscious beacon relaying its location.
"Mother…" Super One-Nine looked up at the sky, worried about what her mother's desperate move might have meant.
Kami Upa looked up, sensing a powerful energy incoming, homed straight at God's Temple. However, it was no one's life signature. It was a wave of pure energy. It was neither a destructive weaponized beam of some technological transmission, nor a Ki attack. Thus, the inhabitants of the God's Temple all looked up, witnessing the darkening of the sky before the cerulean sky beam cracked at the tile set of the God's Temple and disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.
Behind it, it only left Krillin and Lazuli, with Krillin seeming in a dire state, covered in half-healed, horrible lacerations and grievous wounds that were in the process of being coated with fresh new, pale skin. Scrambling, Dende rushed to Krillin's aid. Lazuli didn't let go of her husband easily, but seeing Dende being the one to struggle to take him from her, hesitantly, she let go.
"Krillin, Lazuli…" Goku muttered, staring at the pair that suddenly appeared in disbelief.
"Can you help him?" Lazuli pleaded with Dende, looking at the Namekian youth with tearful eyes.
"Yes, I believe I can heal him," Dende nodded. Had he not absorbed the entirety of what remained of the Namekian Dragon Clan and not embodied the sum of what was left of the Namekian mystic powers of life recovery, this would have been a challenging task. However, with Kami Upa's help, Dende had begun truly breaking through the outermost layer of what the sum of his healing abilities was capable of. To one such as him, this task was just a matter of time and labor. Not chance.
"Hoh…" Cell exclaimed in shock after seeing a lab-coat-wearing woman with curly auburn hair appearing before him by materializing from a cerulean ionized quantal matter energy beam. "I thought surely that you would have fled with your bothersome pet projects."
"There is nowhere in this universe one can flee to evade you. If I'd have left you alone, you would have merely moved on and terrorized someone else. The longer I allow you to exist, the more of a bother you turn out to be. Make no mistake, Cell. The reason I have tolerated your existence thus far is not out of fear or trust in Bulma's group to take care of you, the reason is that I simply didn't have a chance to get my hands on you," Dr. Puri scolded her most troublesome creation with a deadly glare.
"Well, mother… Here I am. I'll be so fortunate, I'll get to kill you in both timelines!" Cell smiled with a wicked anglerfish smirk before positioning its arms by its sides and letting its Ki run wild.
"I've made you, it's time I destroy you, Cell," Dr. Puri ignited a fuchsia-colored Ki blade around her right arm as if preparing to cut the rot that was Cell from the very fabric of existence.