"Here we are," Lapis announced, swooping down with a graceful flip before planting his feet firmly on a soft and mossy grassland surface. Lacking the confidence and certainty about his environment and current situation, Cell landed by his companion in a much more rigid passion. Nearby, obstructing sunlight that beamed directly into the forest opening, was a tall redwood cabin resting atop of solid and high-rising platform of cement and gravel foundation.
"This is… Your home?" Cell wondered, scanning the structure that stood out from the rest of the reserve, which looked like a natural paradise, utterly untouched by the human hand in most places.
"That's right. Technically, it's my office too. Because Pirita-senpai and I are the only active Monster Island Rangers, and because we've agreed to interfere with the reserve as little as possible, we avoid changing any other areas of the reserve. That means that we both live and work in the same house together. As you can see, the house needs a solid foundation, because during the rainfall season, the ground gets soggy and starts just gobbling everything in. That's why the foundation's this massive," Lapis pointed out, showing Cell the place by leading him around it.
A middle-aged woman with long, curly hair tied into a ponytail stepped out through the thick wooden door to look around. She called out to Lapis at first, figuring that he had to have been the one to move around unannounced, yet, at the same time, rather loudly. The only other option would have been poachers. When Lapis didn't immediately respond, the tanned woman jumped into an impressive roll and aimed a double-barrel shotgun directly at Cell and Lapis. Cell's eyes widened and his survival instincts kicked in, but Lapis extended his hand with a smirk on his face.
"Lapis! How many times do I have to tell you to respond when you're being called? I could have taken a shot at you!" the woman exclaimed, picking herself up and straightening her back while swinging the shotgun over on her shoulder. She ran her hand across her tied curly hair with an aggravated look on her face, vexed by the carelessness of her subordinate.
"You wouldn't do that, Pirita-senpai, your trigger discipline is too good for that. Besides, it's not like your rounds can hurt me, even if you're using the monster-taming rounds," Lapis played it off with a smile, leaning his head to the side, acting playful as a puppy.
"Just because they don't hurt you, doesn't make shooting at you okay! What if the bullets ricochet or the shell spread hurts the trees of the moss? We're trying to leave minimum impact here and make this place an ideal reserve for all the rare and invaluable members of the Earth's ecosystem to thrive in," the woman complained, waving her hand over her head. Cell noted how this person appeared to be larger and more muscular than Lapis, likely a result of having lived on this island and tended to the needs of mythical and rare creatures and fending off poachers for a long time.
"I apologize, senpai," Lapis clapped his hands together and bowed.
"Jeez, sometimes it looks to me like you enjoy getting scolded, or something," Pirita sighed, easing up on her outrage. Impressively enough, it took her a little while to notice Cell standing by Lapis' side, just waving its tail around and looking very confused at the exchange transpiring in front of him. At that moment, Cell felt like a kid invited to a friend's home only to find out that their parents didn't allow the visit, making him a third wheel in this bit of professional drama.
"In any case, Pirita-senpai, this is Cell," Lapis introduced the curious creature he's let into the island reserve. "Cell is one of its kind. Cell is a form of artificial life that's wholly unique and unfit to live anywhere else on Earth. I figured it should stay here, where Cell can be safe and the civilians can be safe from Cell."
"Artificial life?" Pirita gasped, putting her shotgun down to rush down the wooden stairs to get a better look at Cell. It was a rare occasion that Cell didn't have to look down at someone, but Pirita was only shorter than Cell when one took its impressive horns into consideration, making Cell and Pirita peers in terms of height, with the Monster Island ranger surpassing Cell in bulk although only by a tad.
"Don't worry, Cell isn't an Artificial Human. It is neither an Android nor a cyborg. It is an entirely unique and biological artificial form of life. Like a new species that's entirely lab-bred," Lapis explained it better while Pirita gently prodded and pinched Cell to make sure what she was looking at was real. She was even bold enough to lean and inspect the tail and stinger that Cell waved behind its back with the boldness of a scientist that gave Cell chills. Fortunately for everyone, Cell contained the creeping feeling of dread inside it that brought up dark memories from his upbringing in Future Dr. Puri's lab.
"Fascinating," Pirita concluded, giving Cell its personal space at last. "I'd love to study your behavior in the wild and find out more about you, Cell."
"That's… Probably the right choice of words," Lapis scratched the back of his head, realizing that Pirita mentioning "studying" could have triggered some traumatic episodes in Cell, which could have caused the Bio-Android to lash out. "Cell is still very sensitive about its past. You must understand, Pirita-senpai, that Cell has only known life as a test subject and life on the run. I wanted to give it something more than that, to know freedom and peace of mind. To see Cell living happy and thriving."
"Hmph, I think I can relate to that," Pirita smiled heartily, leaning in to Lapis' side and nudging him in the side with her elbow. "Welcome to the Monster Island, Cell. Is there anything we need to know, any demands or needs?"
"Thank you, Pirita-san, this place looks lovely, and I'd like for it to become my home," Cell bowed its horned head, shocking Pirita with its ability to speak and its impressive level of politeness and intelligence. "However, I must warn you that, because of my genetic composition, in order to maintain the functionality of my cells, I must energize them once every few weeks. That means that I must drain something living in order to drain the energy fueling that creature's cells and transfer it to my system. It is a lot like what people know as eating."
"Ha!" Pirita laughed out, looking rich and content with her fists pressed to her sides. "I wouldn't worry about that. On top of hosting plenty of rare and wholly unique species that have become sources of countless myths and legends, Monster Island has plenty of plain wildlife for them to have plenty of food as well. Honestly, your needs seem far more manageable than those of a behemoth or a minotaurus."
"I'm very thankful," Cell bowed again.
"Well, if it's okay, I'd like to show Cell around and see where it would like to settle down," Lapis said.
"Huh? Are you sure about that? I mean… Cell seems intelligent and civilized, are you sure he… She… Doesn't need any clothes or that Cell should live in the wild? We could probably share this house and have plenty of space. Lapis really overdid it with that thing, it's like he built it for five people," Pirita leaned in closer to Cell as if to share a secret with it except she said it out, embarrassing Lapis enough for a blush.
"That won't be necessary," Lapis cut it down. "Cell doesn't need clothes. It has Frieza's cells, meaning that it can survive even in the vacuum of space. Besides, it's used to living in the wild. And Cell doesn't have a gender. It reproduced asexually by splitting off new Cell Jr's from samples of cells it's absorbed and, if the need arises like if food is scarce or its survival is in jeopardy, it can merge with its offspring again."
"Eh, really!?" Pirita exclaimed in surprise at these alien features. "That's so impressive! Earth's never hosted someone like that! We'd be honored if you would make Monster Island your home and we'd put our lives on the line to make sure your life here is peaceful and happy. That's our duty as Monster Island rangers, after all!"
Cell looked down. The Bio-Android felt something new coming up. Something that waggled and dried out its mouth and made the creepy instinct crawl up to its nose, then tighten its eyes before it squirted out from the eyelids in the shape of tears. Shocked, Cell felt the tiny droplets of moisture with its hand and saw them get absorbed into its skin and disappear like raindrops.
"See what you did, you made the big guy cry," Lapis smirked.
"This… This is everything I've ever wanted!" Cell cried out, loud enough for an orbiting spaceship to register as tears began streaming. Dr. Puri never designed its test subject to be able to cry. It must have seemed like a useless skill to grant to her creation. However, likely after assimilating human cells, Cell must have evolved tear ducts and gained the ability to cry from them. "Everything I've done, my humanity, which I've forsaken for the sake of mere survival… I don't deserve this decency, this happiness!"
"Come on now," Lapis ran his hand across his hair. "If that's true, I don't deserve happiness and peace either, and I simply refuse to accept that. You did what you thought you had to because of the circumstances surrounding you, same as me. What matters isn't what you do when you have no choice, it's what you choose to do when you can afford to. All the people you've killed, all the plotting you've done, none of it's forgotten. It will stay with you and the best you can do to move past it is to live a life of redemption and make things better for many more people than you've hurt. That's the path I've chosen, to care for the environment and those that can't protect themselves, to love and nurture the animals and the plants of this planet and punish those that forsake and step over it to satisfy their own greed. Whatever path you choose, that's still up to you."
"I… I want to live a peaceful life! I want to understand what I am and give the chance of life to other Cells too. I don't want to absorb strength for the sake of being strong enough to kill or to fight for survival, I want to experience life and then grant that gift to as many as I can! Every single set of cells I've gathered, I'll make them into Cell Jrs, as you've called them, and make my descendants live a peaceful life on their own, free of the trauma that I live with," Cell proclaimed.
"Hmm… Don't tell me you intend to…" Lapis became more serious.
"I've heard what Piccolo said before. I may not be able to move past what I did and I don't think I'll ever feel like I deserve happiness, but… Cell Jrs can still live on after me. Free of the darkness that has corrupted me. I'm fine withering away into ash if that means that Cell Jrs can live on and enjoy the life I've always wanted," Cell argued passionately.
"Maybe you're too quick to make these kinds of calls, Cell," Pirita interjected with a kind expression where Lapis took Cell's proclamation personally and it was apparent from his expression. "Perhaps you should live here a little, meet all the inhabitants of this island, and experience what we are trying to foster and protect here before making heaps of Cell Jrs and going on a hunger strike, huh?"
"Yeah, good call, Pirita-senpai. Come, Cell, I'll show you around and you can pick the place you want to settle down in. I'll show you around to everyone so that they're not scared of you and that they don't attack you because of it. I'm sure after they see you around me, they'll take you as their best friend, just like they took me in after they saw me around Pirita-senpai," Lapis reminisced.
"I'd like to make friends with everybody very much," Cell bowed in agreement. "I don't wish to harm another living being as long as I stay here."
Lapis and Cell took off, leaving Pirita to follow them with her eyes until they blinked off into the distance and became mere specks, then completely vanished without a trace. Only heavy gusts left in their wake rustled the ranger's hair, prompting her to press it down with her hand to keep it in place. She was worried a bit. She's come to trust Lapis' instincts and almost an obsessive love of nature and animals, but she also saw how personal Cell's redemption felt to Lapis.
It was almost as if, to Lapis, Cell's ability to experience happiness vindicated him of his past as well. It was as if Cell had never truly stopped being a test subject. All that's changed was the scientists and the methods that were being used. Had it been someone less stubborn and more willing to commit some time to self-reflection than Lapis, Pirita wouldn't have been nearly as worried about their ability to realize what was happening and move past it.
"Hmm… There are seagulls coming in from outside," Cell pointed out, pointing at a handful of sizeable white birds coming in from unknown remote islands looking for cheap food.
"Not much to be done about that," Lapis shrugged. He pointed down at a cement-grey feathered, flightless, and chunky bird with a goofy look and a powerful beak that expanded over the entire front of the skull. "Those are dodos. They're extinct everywhere but here because they hail from an island in the remote archipelago. Once before, Monster Island and many of the remote surrounding islands used to be a single island, after the continental drift caused them to drift apart, dodos splintered off, living both here and in those remote islands. Because those islands lack our protection and have people settling down, they've gone wholly extinct everywhere centuries ago."
"They look much larger than seagulls," Cell observed. "It doesn't seem like the seagulls will bother the dodos very much."
"Don't overestimate those guys," Lapis sighed in frustration. "They're total goofballs. The seagulls will just steal the fruit right from under the dodos' feet, they can also snag the dodos' chicks whole. You'd think that a hefty bird like this could crush a seagull or punish it, but dodos are too sluggish to do much about it. Most of the time, it doesn't even seem like they understand their chicks have been snagged. I haven't seen them grieving or being that upset about it at all."
"I begin to understand why your friend was so surprised by my intelligence," Cell noted.
"You've no idea," Lapis replied. "If the poachers were to ever find this island, I bet the dodos would just walk up to them and start rubbing themselves against them, asking for food or pets."
"Hmm… You mean poachers still haven't found this island?" Cell wondered. "It's hard to imagine in this day and age. Then again, you were acting extremely secretive about it. I was getting the feeling that, after you've shown it to me, you wouldn't let me or Cell Jrs leave it even if we wanted to."
"I haven't left any poacher who's seen it alive," Lapis replied ominously. "I'm doing everything that's necessary to protect this island and its precious ecosystem. Plenty of poacher groups know of an abstract location on the map where this island is rumored to be. However, most of them bump into one of hundreds of remote islands. Because of how noisy they are, I always find and fend them off. Unless they've seen this island or landed on its shores, somehow, I don't need to take lethal measures."
Cell cried out in terror after a winged creature swooped down from above in a bombing dive toward a palm tree that looked so tiny from so high above. The winged, furry mammal seemed to be a species of fruit bat, however, it was much larger than the ordinary bat, easily measuring up to Cell's head-to-waist in height and the distance between the tips of each hand of each of Cell's arms spread to the sides in width. It almost looked like a shaggy monkey with wings.
"You needn't worry about those, they're not vampire bats. That being said, vampire bats exist on this island. They mostly feed on the dinosaurs, though, so their fangs have adapted to become thicker. They're an interesting case of an animal that's originally not from around here, but that's grown to change so much because of their presence here that it can now be considered a regular monster and a denizen of the Monster Island. Vampire bats we have here didn't use to differ too much from ordinary vampire bats, however, now they've become a wholly unique species, uniquely adapted to the conditions of this island," Lapis pointed out.
"I hadn't exactly considered something like this being possible–an outsider becoming an integral part of the ecosystem. I hope I too can become like that one day," Cell noted.
"The funny thing is, Pirita-senpai is brutal with seagulls and other invasive visitors. She'll chase them down with a jeep or a jet and shoot them down without a compromise. I could never hurt another animal or plant, even if it's invasive. Sometimes it worries me I might cause something like the local vampire bat adaptation case in the far-off future because of it. Still, in my eyes, as long as it makes a diverse and wholly unique denizen of the island, that's fine with me," Lapis explained.
A black and white predatory dinosaur standing taller than most surrounding trees looked up at the sky with curiosity, scanning and sizing up the two swooping comets that blitzed side by side. Ultimately, the red-striped dinosaur realized that those two were too fast and far too high to snag with its jaws, even if it jumped as high up as it could. Then the striped raptor identified the Monster Island ranger ribbon wrapped around Lapis' arm and turned its attention elsewhere, beginning to sniff the air in utter disinterest.
Thus began the first day of the rest of Cell's life.