A snow-white fusion between insect and human crawled forward, perfectly blending in with the snow to the point where, because of the pelting snowstorm, it was completely invisible. Cell's outer shell, his wings, and his horns changed their color, imitating the camouflage abilities of native reptiles whom Cell sampled the cells of eventually. Upon sneaking up straight to the door of the lab at the northern edge of Jingle Village, Cell straightened out to examine the building where Dr. Flappe lived and worked.
The entire laboratory was fashioned after a giant cup of coffee. Cell wasn't completely sure where the eyelet fit into all this, maybe Dr. Flappe fit a staircase into it, but the structure even had a ring of ventilation pipes on the top that let out the steam and fumes of the lab in a manner that very much resembled a steaming cup of coffee. This didn't look like any lab that Cell has been in. Then again, after escaping Dr. Puri's laboratory and all the experiments that were done on him in there, it wasn't like he sought other labs out for comparison.
After approaching the door, Cell realized he would need a different coating to camouflage indoors, closing his eyes and focusing on changing colors again. Camouflage wasn't Cell's primary concern. Getting through the door was. Dr. Puri had entire server rooms of records of historical events to the minute details as all the codes and passwords that Capsule Corps and other laboratories used. The problem was that the timeline Cell snuck into has diverged too much from the timeline he was so intimately familiar with. Even the exorbitant task of absorbing all that information and perfectly memorizing every historical event and every relevant detail about it until the point where the timelines significantly diverged wouldn't have helped Cell bypass Dr. Flappe's security.
That was why it was so surprising to hear the mechanical door sliding open just after Cell changed the colors of his horns, wings, and shell to a mix of coffee and chocolate brown look. Cell opened his eyes in surprise, but, before he could react, a tight, murky green hand shut tightly around his face and lifted him into the air. Because it obstructed Cell's face, the kicking Bio-Android couldn't determine who it was that intercepted his mission to silence Dr. Flappe before he spilled the beans to the troublesome folks of the Dragon Team about Cell.
"My radar picked up your life signature, though it doesn't emanate any energy. Even as I look at you right in front of me, I can't, for the life of me, tell who you are. I thought my sensory systems were broken after picking up your signal, but Dr. Flappe thought he knew what was happening. He was right, as always…" a low-pitched voice that could have alternated between being that of a soft bear or a terrifying monster, depending on the volume and pitch that its owner chose rumbled. "You're him, aren't you? Cell…"
Super Artificial Human No. 8 squinted and grumbled as his ocular sensors kept shifting between thousands of different statements of whose head he pressed in his large hand right now. Everything from different mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, and even some alien species that were known to his database kept frantically scrolling as his radars simply couldn't decide what he was looking at.
Being completely entrapped in Super Android 8's grip, Cell slipped his tail and stinger out from his back and swung it at the Super Class Artificial Human. Super Android 8 exclaimed in surprise when the stinger embedded into his chest, beginning to pump genetic material of the bodies that the Artificial Human was patched up from, even converting his electronic parts into liquid energy and pumping it into Cell. Stunned by the realization that this creature could drain not only the energy, but the very genetic material down to the cellular level from even someone as complex as a Super Android, Super No. 8 wound his chunky fist back and pounded Cell, sending him flying aside and dragging his feet across the snowy floor of the frozen lake and the vast surrounding tundra.
"Impressive," Cell noted, wiping his black lip with a trail of violet blood squirted on top of it. It took no time at all for the crack on his lip to close as if it had never been there, to begin with. "I've never encountered genetic material I couldn't immediately assimilate with one sting. Then again, I suppose someone like a Super Android won't go down easily. I've always been a little curious, since I possess the cells of an Artificial Human, if I absorbed the cells of another, could I too ascend to the Super Class stage?"
"You possess the cells of an Android? I suppose that explains why you don't radiate any Ki signature. You too must possess the Infinite Energy Reactor, like the rest of the Infinite Energy Models," Super No. 8 put his fist out as a threat that if Cell were to move any closer or attempt to infiltrate Dr. Flappe's laboratory again, he'd get a pound for his troubles. "What is it that you want here?"
"Dr. Flappe knows too much. I've taken notice that Piccolo has been looking for me. If Dr. Flappe somehow spilled the beans, he might find me and, right now, I am not ready to take on someone of Piccolo's caliber. Even if I were to get one over him, it would do me no good. It would only put me in the crosshairs of the rest of his gang. Statistically, the odds of survival when going up against them is a flat 0," Cell admitted.
"So, you've come here to hurt Dr. Flappe? I'm afraid I cannot allow that. Dr. Flappe has been incredibly kind to me and the people of Jingle Village. He claimed to have been a bad man before, he said he worked with an evil scientist witch and did things he regrets, but he's done nothing but good things to me and the people of Jingle Village. He's provided them with free, limitless, clean energy by repurposing the Infinite Energy Reactor technology and he's repaired and upgraded me many times over to make my life more comfortable," Super No. 8 took an aggressive wrestling stance, looming as an impassable titan in front of Cell as if to signal with his body language that if Cell was to proceed with his plan, he'd only face trouble.
"I've come here to silence Dr. Flappe. Whether he is a good man or a wicked man doesn't matter to me. I've killed good and innocent people for the sake of my survival. I do not intend to jeopardize it now," Cell also adopted a fighting stance.
"That stance…" Super Artificial Human No. 8 gasped, breaking his own stance and staggering back.
"Correct, my systems can analyze and imitate combat information. It's an early prototype of the Data Input system that the more advanced models produced by King's government, with the cooperation of Dr. Gero, possessed. My systems aren't as advanced as to employ artificial intelligence to come up with a perfect fighting style to counteract the movements it tracked. It merely copies the movements and techniques I see. It was an ability Dr. Puri installed when trying to learn Tenshinhan's weaknesses, for his third eye possesses a similar ability," Cell smirked, looking content that he caught Super No. 8 off-guard and gained an early advantage.
"I'm not afraid to move you out of my way to get to Dr. Flappe!" Cell bellowed, launching his insectoid and humanoid at the same time body at the daunted Super Android. After dashing straight up to Super Android 8's face, Cell suddenly stopped and extended his hand. "Hah!" he exclaimed, unleashing a point-blank bombardment of Ki blasts that burst with a chain reaction of detonations, shaking the ground, and raising a trail of smoke above the battlefield.
The frozen lake surface in the tundra's clearing ruptured and collapsed, slipping the chunks of snow resting on top into the still, chilling water beneath. Just as Cell rushed at the coffee-shaped building head-first, Super No. 8 flashed in from the side, stepping in the Bio-Android's way and surprising Cell by how quickly the Super Android got his bearings, realized that Cell was gunning for Dr. Flappe and moved in to intercept.
"Your deceptive behavior betrays your nature!" Super Artificial Human No. 8 cried out, swinging his arm in a backfist slam only for Cell to lash with his tail and stinger to wrap around the incoming stalwart arm and swing his entire body around to dodge the stiff strike.
"You use distractions and shoot straight for Dr. Flappe because you know you can't beat me in a fight!" Super Artificial Human No. 8 bellowed as he stayed on Cell's figurative tail with a barrage of swings with both hands. There was nothing skillful in the way he fought, just swinging and smacking stiff arms. Cell dashed back and weaved in a frantic attempt to avoid taking too much damage. While he avoided every smack from the side of the Super Android, he realized he had positioned himself a tad too far from where he could enter the coffee-shaped facility easily.
That could have been Super No. 8's intention from the beginning–to push Cell further from his target where the Bio-Android's attempts to assassinate Dr. Flappe could have been more manageable. From where Cell was pushed back, Super No. 8 could make a quick interception whenever Cell tried to slip away. What was even more disgusting about these conditions–Cell couldn't analyze and copy anything useful from this dolt. All he was doing was just swinging his arms like hammers. Cell didn't need a futuristic, state-of-the-art analytical motion sensory system to realize that would do him no good.
Super Artificial Human No. 8 crossed his arms out in front of him and brought them down while igniting a swirling whirl of light around him. Teal-colored electricity shot out in all directions as the Super Android's stare blanked out to all-white. With the swirl of light bursting away and the teal electricity settling down to a calmer electrical field, the Super Android stared at Cell with a glowing red-eye stare while Cell was forced to brace himself to weather the eruption of his opponent's aura.
"I don't like to fight, but I will fight with all my might to protect the people that are kind. People like Dr. Flappe!" Super Artificial Human No. 8 said boldly while standing tall like an impassable barrier between Cell and his target. This calmness was both challenging to test the Super Android but also frightening. Someone with so much confidence that they refused to adopt a strong fighting stance or needed to attack first had plenty to show and that terrified Cell enough to freeze in place like a tiny mammal encountering a deadly predator in nature. Never has a predator frozen in dread of a pacifistic herbivore. However, that was the exact kind of curious phenomenon one could encounter in martial arts.
Cell clenched his fists, sweating from his amphibian-like skin beneath the armored shell, wings, and horns, he adopted a fighting stance that was defined by desperation and fury. The only things that made Cell spring into movement and revitalize his fighting spirit were the memories of the experiments he had suffered at the hands of Dr. Puri. Everything he has done so far, everyone he has destroyed and sacrificed, including his present self, for the sake of a better future.
"You…" Cell hissed out. "If it's for the sake of survival… I won't hesitate to face you, or anyone else head-on!"
With his tail and stinger sticking out in the open and lashing to the sides, Cell charged at the impassable barrier, blocking his path from Dr. Flappe. Maybe if he hadn't been noticed and identified, he would have still had a path to retreat. Now, with this loathsome Super Android having seen Cell and exchanged blows with him, Dr. Flappe would know that a Cell still lives in this timeline and he'd let the other worrisome fighters know too. Cell would be hunted down and exterminated like some lowly pest.
"I won't allow that! I won't allow it!" Cell shrieked while throwing a barrage of rapid punches and kicks and thrusting his stinger. In between a flurry of blows, the deceitful Bio-Android found his chance to leech off some more of the Super Android's genetic material. With enough of it compromised, even Super No. 8 would begin to wither and decompose, just like everyone else whose genetic material Cell had sampled for a full cell sample.
In the case of Chayote and Broly, Cell only needed a handful of cells to attain the characteristics of a Legendary Super Saiyan, because he borrowed both their cells. However, when he only had one sample to assimilate their cells and simulate their tissue samples in his organ systems, Cell absorbed enough genetic material to force the sample to degrade and rot away. While Cell has seen it as a way to attain new characteristics and native abilities, now he realized that this same draining ability could be used as an offensive weapon by causing the body of a more powerful opponent to degrade after their genetic composition was compromised sufficiently by Cell's assimilation efforts.
Cell blanked out and ceased his senseless barrage of pummeling when he saw Super No. 8 merely hunker down in place, lift his arms, and shape himself as an immovable fortress. However, whenever Cell's stinger came to take another sample, the Super Android either leaned away from it or deflected it with a backhand swat. After a few successful evasions like those, Super No. 8 grabbed hold of Cell's tail and began rapidly spinning him around, then flung him flying and crashing far away into the tundra while hovering in front of Dr. Flappe's lab as its lone staunch defender.
Shrieking from the bottom of his chest and oozing desperation to catch his opponent off-guard and slip past him, Cell emerged from underground in an attempt to wrap his arms around the Super Android and embed his stinger into Super No. 8's chest. It was all in vain since Super No. 8 noticed his opponent's attack and swatted Cell back down into the ground. Grumbling, he tucked his legs in and pressed his elbows closer to his body while lighting up an emerald flame of energy from jets in his back that tore through his shirt and thick sheepskin jacket, propelling Super No. 8 forward at ludicrous speed.
"I already told you I won't let you…!" Super No. 8 bellowed while crashing through the upper floor of Dr. Flappe's laboratory and tackling Cell who gave the Super Android the slip after being knocked into an underground crater and burrowed himself under the building, where he tried ascending it to where Dr. Flappe was. With a firm hold on Cell, Super Android No. 8 tackled him through the back wall of the laboratory and then grabbed him by the shell.
"I don't want to kill you, but I'll fight with all my might to protect Dr. Flappe!" Super Artificial Human No. 8 cried out, smacking Cell's head with a backhand, then a front smack, then a backhand smack, switching back and forth and alternating between different strikes as he desperately tried to beat some sense into the Bio-Android. "Unlike the Rainbow Brigade or Dr. Puri, Dr. Flappe saw me for who I was! He accepted that I hated violence, so he removed all of my weapons and helped me meet all the wonderful people in Jingle Village! I won't let you harm that kind man!"
"Kind…?" Cell stared in defiance back at the Super Android with a swollen and bruised look. "Where was that kindness when the good doctor left me to Dr. Puri to do as she pleased? A torturous cycle of getting upgraded with new cells only to get murdered then brought back and upgraded over and over again… All to learn of new ways to kill. That is what my existence has always been–just a test subject to help devise new plans and weapons for more efficient killing. No one showed me any mercy…"
Cell spread his arms and legs, expelling a vicious concussive Kiai bubble from around his body and repelling Super Artificial Human No. 8 to slam against the back wall of Dr. Flappe's laboratory. "And when the kind doctor found out about my existence, what did he do? He shook his head, washed his hands off, and switched workplaces! No one showed me any mercy! I had to escape myself, I had to kill, plot, steal, and doom an entire timeline just for a chance to live!"
Seeing Super Artificial Human No. 8's kind heart making his escalating battle power falter when confronted with the hard truth of the life that Cell had to live and that abominable pity he felt for all living things in suffering, Cell found his opening to launch himself forward with blazing jets of Ki expelled from his feet and back.
Forming a Ki blast in one hand, Cell dashed up to Super Artificial Human No. 8 and, instead of attacking him with it, he smashed it with his other hand, creating a vicious and deafening burst that overwhelmed the Super Android's senses. Flipping over onto his back, Cell aimed his stinger down. The Bio-Android's tail pulsed as massive quantities of water moved through it and shot in a drilling water spout from above, emulating the water spouts of whales, except bolstered with Ki and adapted to Cell's body.
The stunned and dazed Super Android grunted in pain as an unrelenting jet of water slammed into his back and drilled through the fleshy outer layer and into the cybernetics below while forcing the Super Android to crash down into the snowy patch of land. Closing the distance again, Cell thrust his fist into Super No. 8's gut and bent him up. Wrapping his tail around Super No. 8's neck, Cell flung his opponent into the air before skewering him with rapid stinger thrusts all across Super Android No. 8's body, sipping out a bit of tissue and sabotaging the genetic structure all across the Super Android's body at once.
After he finished sampling Super No. 8's cells, Cell let the devastated giant flop back down only to be meted with an uppercut from Cell and an elbow thrust that sent Super No. 8 smashing through and skidding across the thin layer of ice above the frozen lake to the south of the laboratory. After he finished his flight, the Super Android ended up splashing into the lake and sinking to the bottom while Cell looked up at the top floor of the laboratory, where he thought Dr. Flappe would have been.
"You're mine!" Cell exclaimed, dashing with a speedy blitz all the way to the top floor and busting through the wall. "Where are you…" the Bio-Android wondered to himself, knowing that he most likely failed to finish off his opponent for good and that he had limited time to hunt down Dr. Flappe.
A deafening explosion utterly obliterated the coffee-shaped laboratory. The top floor was the first one to go, with each chain blast destroying the floor below the last one to be leveled. Burrowing himself out and punching through the ice, Super No. 8 pushed himself out to the tundra shore while looking at the burning heap of scrap that was left of Dr. Flappe's cute laboratory.
"Dr. Flappe!" the giant bellowed, uncertain if the kind man who was the person to do the most for him throughout the Android's entire life and one of few to treat him as a human being instead of a monster was still alive.
Only the tongues of flames answered.