Burning up with a strident Ki aura around her, Artificial Human No. 21 launched herself toward Cell. Tensing up, the Bio-Android thrust a flurry of stinger attacks with his tail, seeking to cause more damage to his opponent's body with each successive sting. Still, Dr. Puri vaulted sideways over Cell's response and drove both her feet into the back of Cell's head, slamming it into the metallic floor with enough force to shatter it and shove Cell inside through its surface.
A shrill snapping sound alerted Cell in time of the Ultimate Android's appearance, prompting Cell to put up its arms in a block and absorb the dropkick that was coming its way. Cell's tail whipped and wrapped around Dr. Puri's throat, keeping her thrashing and suspended in the air long enough for Cell to snag her with a collar grab, pull her in for a handful of knees to the stomach, and a point-blank Ki blast that sent the Android soaring away.
Exclaiming with battle tension, Cell charged in pursuit of its opponent, seeking to deliver a charging punt kick for some more punishment, but, in a crimson flash, Cell's right began hovering beside Cell's shocked face, detached from the Bio-Android's knee entirely. After running her hand through her hair in acknowledgment of a successful counterattack, Ultimate No. 21 pumped a stepping mid-section kick into Cell's gut and shot the Bio-Android away from her.
Crossing her arms and igniting her scarlet Ki blades, Dr. Puri rushed toward the dazed and maimed Cell, slashing with a crimson X at close range and showering unidentified goop that seemed like it came from a lava lamp all over the empty black space filled with shifting rooms. Seeing Cell's eyes roll back and its mouth spreading ajar, Dr. Puri slammed her knee against Cell and rammed the monster against a moving rectangular structure. The force of impact stopped the moving chamber in place.
"I don't blame you for being foolish enough to come here and threaten my family," Dr. Puri beamed glistening wrath from her yellow eyes as she grinned with a maniacal smile and swiped her hand to the side in a chopping motion, not even touching Cell and barely too far to even graze it with her fingernails. Cell yelled out in pain as a concussive halo split diagonally across its body, splashing more of whatever passed for blood inside the complex anatomical cocktail of universe's species Cell assimilated into itself so far. "After all, the version of me you've dealt with was cowardly and more concerned with her own well-being. You've never met a version of me that's quite like me yet."
Dr. Puri rammed her knee into Cell's wounded chest which had patched itself up almost as soon as the lacerated flesh in the wound touched back together. The forceful slam made the room that Cell's back pressed against collapse into neatly diced pieces and collapse behind Cell while the Bio-Android soared through the collapsing wreckage, riding the force of impact and answering to the beckoning of lady inertia.
With her Ki blades ignited, Dr. Puri realized her wildest dreams of an attempt to operate on a living opponent, but after each slice, Cell's wounds closed back up, which only served to drive the Ultimate Android scientist increasingly more frantic and frustrated, more ferocious with her berserker mauling and cuts that separated Cell from its arms, legs and tail and left the Bio-Android little to no hope of a response.
Extending her hand, Android 21 exclaimed with authority, expelling a point-blank burst of pink Ki blasts that detonated in perfect synchrony, forming a calamitous firestorm and lighting up the dimly lit space outside either of the shifting rooms of the Puri Star, leaving the Ultimate Android to marvel at the destruction she's caused. After a brief breather, Dr. Puri ignited her red and black Ki blades again and dashed across the converging firestorm with a spinning slasher attack, cutting the firestorm into two and snuffing it out, while Cell's remains showered in molten metal goop, plummeting into the bottomless abyss below and splashing onto bypassing chambers.
One of the thick magma-like goops formed a solid chunk resembling Cell's face, blinking with Cell's eye. The lone organ fished around for clues while separate splattered chunks of Cell's remains merged into an incomplete and battered version of the form Cell had attained earlier. Almost like Cell was still missing some important chunks and the regeneration he managed to pull off was still half-assed.
"I am… Losing! How am I losing!? Damn it!" Cell cursed, observing with bloodshot ire in its eyes as Dr. Puri descended before Cell with crossed arms and an arrogant disposition that had become a calling card of hers.
"Because you've made the most elementary mistake in the fighter's playbook–you believe you were the only person to train, to improve. That everyone around you is always just sitting still and waiting to be devoured by you," Dr. Puri scolded the parasite and the obsession of her recent days that's been haunting her and keeping her awake all this time. Her one terrible memory from a life she thought she'd left behind. Another past mistake that's come back to haunt her and tarnish her reputation. "Not only that, but you've also refused to acknowledge that you've inherited the weaknesses of all the same races you've assimilated, as well as their signature traits."
"Impossible!" Cell barked out with a fiendish snarl of its puffy black lips and sharp, anglerfish-like teeth. "The weaknesses of the species, the traits of which I've adopted, was something I took into consideration, I've assimilated species whose strengths cover for the weaknesses of others!"
"Really? Then why did you make such a Vegeta-like mistake as to underestimate me?" Dr. Puri teased Cell by leaning her head off to the side. "Tell me, which of your races covers for the vanity and blood-thirst of the Saiyans, exactly?"
"That's not something I need to cover for, I possess the unmatched 42nd-grade intellect of the Gudrochan race! The weakness of the Gudrochan race is their physical frailty, as well as their limited processing power that causes them horrific migraines when their limited biological brains cannot keep up with their unmatched intelligence. By assimilating dozens of powerhouse races and using an Artificial Human mental processor in tandem with the Gudrochan cells, I've effectively eliminated the inherent weaknesses of the Gudrochan race, as I did all the others!" Cell clenched the one fist of the two arms it still had.
"In your position, what do you think a Gudrochan would do?" spite glistened in the reflection off of the Ultimate Android's yellow eyes. "I think you know the answer to this, after all, I, someone with a mere 36th-grade intellect, already know."
Cell sneered, staring the alternate past version of its loathed creator right in the eyes, wishing torturous death that even Cell's peerless intellect could scarcely draft together.
"Your instincts are correctly telling you to retreat, to reevaluate your odds, and to assimilate more species. The logical part of you says to stay away from here until you're not at least as powerful as you were in your doomed timeline. It is your irrational, personal hatred, fueled solely by those pesky emotions and the history you wrongfully believe us to share, as well as that Saiyan pride you've inherited that prevents you from fleeing," Dr. Puri tore Cell down psychologically at the same time as Cell tried licking its physical wounds. The bloodshot, seething ire in the Bio-Android's disposition let up for a moment as more and more parts rushed back and merged with Cell's body, yet still, Cell couldn't complete its reassembly.
Shaking and staring blankly into nothing, Cell reflected upon its mistake. A mistake that it knew that it was making this entire time but wouldn't let itself admit it. A mistake that could have very well sealed its fate.
"That is why despite bathing in the suppression field that renders the C-Type S-Cells in your body inert and drains you of their excess energy, despite being physically overpowered and finding out about a transformation you had no understanding of when you planned this fateful encounter of ours, you still refuse to flee. You could have a 56th-grade intellect, if such a thing existed, and still, it wouldn't serve you any good if you refused to acknowledge the conclusions your unfathomably advanced mind led you to," the Ultimate Android pointed out.
"Heh heh heh…" Cell chuckled, closing its eyes and tucking its chin, making it so that Cell's body became sunken in the shade as its stumps bubbled with mercury-like goop and reassembled back together, growing out the missing limbs and repairing the extensive damage Cell had suffered. "Nice work, Mother! I had expected that I would require this ace in my sleeve now. That is why I let it ripen and delayed its activation back during the fight against Krillin and No. 18, even though it nearly cost me my life."
"Oh, you mean the transformation that you've been brewing with the help of Frieza's cells?" Ultimate No. 21 rolled her eyes, unimpressed. "Yes, I suppose that would provide you with a small increase in power, that could very well close the schism of power that exists between us now, because of your insistence to keep on fighting on my home turf, afflicted by every disadvantage and every poison and countermeasure that deals with every race you've assimilated."
"As expected of you, Mother," Cell smiled with a twisted stretch of its black lips across the pale face. "Always so far ahead of everything…"
"Hmph… It's only elementary, it's the one time our facilities were infiltrated back in the day, except the time that Bardock and Piccolo destroyed them. It made me worried that Bulma and her goons caught up to me way back when, a few years before, my plans were ready. It's only around a year later, after reflecting that nothing of any significance was stolen or destroyed, that the precious thing taken was something smaller than the scope of the human eye–a few cell samples. Granted, I only put the entire picture together after I already had my hands on the completed Puri Star," Dr. Puri elaborated. "Well, go on then. That snob Frieza had no clue about the full potential of his cells. Only when I accessed the information motherlode of the Big Gete Star and came across Cooler's genetic data that I realized the full potential of Frieza's race."
"Don't lump me in with the likes of Frieza!" Cell spread its legs and clenched all four of its fists while raising its arms around the position of its shoulders. The Bio-Android struck a pose resembling that of a wise, many-armed deity. "That imbecile used the infinite potential for evolution to create weaker transformations that suppressed his power, as opposed to becoming stronger. That being said, if I wasn't gifted with the Infinite Energy Reactor, perhaps I too would see the value of such energy suppression."
The overwhelming Ki pressure burst free all at once, snuffing out all the semblance of artificial light that illuminated the space between the shifting room, hallway, and lab configurations. The absolute darkness didn't last very long, as Cell's outline released a flashing luster that beamed with beckoning rays of white light. The beaming light rotated and shifted around as the tension emanating from Cell's evolving body crushed the surrounding shifting chambers to bits, making them hover in defiance of the artificial gravity that reigned supreme in the cosmic mega-structure.
The extraordinary luster exuded from Cell's form and its unstable, enlightened and ephemeral form cast light so peering that it delved into the deepest parts of the abyssal station, cranking the lamination up to where even Ultimate Android No. 21 found it bothersome to stare directly at her transforming opponent, and yet she couldn't look away either. Cell's Ki turned pitch-black, surrounding the creature in a solid energy bubble. Despite disappearing inside the black Ki orb, Cell's lustrous outline shone through from inside the heart of the blackness.
This allowed Dr. Puri to survey Cell's evolution from outside its ethereal cocoon. It was only fair, after all, she would have been the one to create this creature in the alternate future and let it grow too smart and too strong for containment. While Cell's very presence paraded the banner of Dr. Puri's failure in front of her like a matador taunting a raging bull with flashy cloth, it would have been a lie to say that the Ultimate Android was not intrigued by the absolute end. The creature that destroyed her alternate self in the future and ruined her plans. This curiosity was as perilous as it was sweet to satisfy.
Cell's form began to morph. Luminous cracks formed on the outer chitin shell covering the creature. At the same time, Cell's horns split even wider apart in a U-like shape while Cell's entire body pumped up in bulk and volume. A hefty salad-green chitin outline coated Cell's chest while obsidian plates with cracks that glowed with infernal emissions of plasma from underneath decorated the areas around Cell's joints. The Bio-Android's arms became coated with black liquid metal while Cell's fly-like wing membranes became solid and cottony, also turning colorful. The four hefty metallic wings spread to all four directions diagonally, showing off complicated, kaleidoscope-like inner patterns. Cell's tail grew thick and segmented between jagged obsidian plating and neon green plasma insides with the bone-like stinger becoming enveloped with an octagonal obsidian battering ram before a couple of dozens of additional stingers burst from each of the heavily bolstered angle, making Cell's tail resemble a morning star of bone stingers. Cell's black lips grew even thicker, however, instead of having an entire line of razor-sharp anglerfish teeth, just a pair of canine fangs pointed upward from the corners of Cell's lips before a black segmented layer of plating shut over Cell's mouth and nose by rolling over it one segment at a time.
Observing Cell's evolution from the outside, Dr. Puri leaned her head to the side to avoid a pink thunderbolt from the electrical outline sparkling around the black energy shield. The jolt enveloped a stray shifting chamber and blew it up with enough ferocity to tear a hole in the outer shell and blow out through the Puri Star's surface. A pillar of absurdly powerful bubble gum pink aura with fuchsia-colored halos pulsating upward and dissolving in electrical discharges at its peak blew out from the black energy wave, shattering it like a glass cage while Cell shouted with a lower-pitch and more grumbly voice, having emerged from the ethereal cocoon of its evolution and letting its rowdy energy unfurl in all its glory.
After a handful of stretches to cast away the numbness of its newly formed limbs, Cell sneered back at Dr. Puri with a cocky glare. Although Cell's beastly mouth was covered up in this form, just seeing the glistening vanity in Cell's eyes relayed the fact that Cell was more than content with this new form. The Ultimate Android didn't need to see all of Cell's face to know that the Bio-Android was smiling.
"Are you quite done?" Dr. Puri asked with a silky tone. "If you can keep going and ascend further, please do."
"I wouldn't dare to keep you waiting any longer after you've shown me such kindness by waiting until I completed my transformation," Cell replied. "Besides, this form is more than I'll need to crush you to bits!"
"You've said that about your previous form," Dr. Puri made a faked motherly and worried expression, almost like she was cheering for the nightmarish creation to succeed in all of its twisted ventures it set out to achieve. "Besides, it's hardly about kindness. I was merely curious to observe the realized full potential of the Frieza race mutation at work. It's so difficult to fathom the full potential of this genetic trait of forced momentary evolution. I'm so giddy about exploring these implications and how it all comes together. Let us test the limits of your perpetual evolution and imagination together. Both of us, let's do our best."
Dr. Puri vanished, dissolving into an electric azure flicker. Cell thrust its upper pair of arms into the air while spreading its legs off to the side and stressing the plating covering up its mouth while the entirety of Cell's upper layer of armor churned and grumbled with tension. Cell emitted a vocal roar, expelling a strident violet energy barrier around it at the same time as Dr. Puri's shin kick would have hit the Bio-Android.
The collision of the uncompromising kick and the impenetrable shield emitted black thunderbolts in all directions as the Ultimate Android winced in tension, doing her best to win this exchange. Sadly, Cell came out on top as Dr. Puri danced around the monstrous goliath of plasma, metal, and adamantine chitin shell.
With an elegant pirouette, Dr. Puri ascended to the upper layers of Cell's erected violet Ki barrier and tried breaking through with a high kick, then a combination of stiff smacks that sent thunderous reverberations across the surface of the impenetrable barrier. Soaring across the Perfect Barrier, the Ultimate Android delivered kicks, jabs, and straights and finished the attack with a thrust of her Ki blade, then an overhead kick for good measure. Despite all this, Cell's barrier held firm until Cell let it fade away by gradually losing its thickness and disappearing like it was never there to begin with.
"Well… That's bound to get old soon," Dr. Puri ran her hand across her spiky red hair.
"I'm afraid you're giving these Frieza race cells too much credit, Mother. It takes a lot of imagination, training, and some time to develop a new form, but the more time one spends both training their body and reflecting on what one requires from that form, the more powerful that form becomes and the better it can do to accommodate for all those needs of its user," Cell explained while observing its titanic new body that, unlike a more slick previous form that incorporated most traits of all the different races the cells of which Cell has sampled, instead showcased only the toughest and most physically daunting features of Cell's roster of genetic traits. "I suppose that the terrified little Cell that began working on this form needed the power to crush its enemies and the toughness to survive at any cost, which is why this form excels in those two areas especially."
"Talk is cheap," Dr. Puri ignited a Ki blade around her forearm. "I prefer to learn by dissecting things that interest me."
"It will be refreshing," Cell chortled, cracking its neck while turning and mashing its head to both sides as if toughening up for a good scrap. "To fight at full power without the reservations of needing to assimilate my opponent's cells or absorb their energy afterward, that is. I'll enjoy crushing and obliterating you to the fullest!"
And thus the battle between a potential version of one's creator and a creation that surpassed the expectations of their true creator and the purpose for which it has been created continued with no end in sight.