The party of Earthlings, Saiyans, and Artificial Humans assembled with the common goal of stopping Cell's rampage across the universe all turned toward a sudden, sharp snap. Instantly, Yamcha appeared in the middle of God's Temple, supporting Bardock's weight on his right side and holding Launch close to him on his left.
"D-Dad!" Goku gasped, rushing to Yamcha and taking over the support of Bardock's body weight. Dende rushed in for help, but bloodied and bruised, Bardock stopped him and pointed him in Yamcha's direction.
"No… Take of her first," Bardock insisted.
"Y-Yamcha-kun!" a whimpering wail reached Yamcha from the side of the palace, prompting the confused martial artist to turn in its direction. Pearl's legs shook, and her knees couldn't decide if they were supposed to crumble and drop her body weight onto the floor, or throw her body to embrace her fiancée.
"Pearl-chan!" Yamcha exclaimed. At first, the dolt's voice was full of joy after seeing his beloved after what felt like forever of struggling inside of a dimension beyond space-time, where the only thing that was consistent about the laws of physics governing that place was that none of it made any sense. That was when Yamcha tracked Pearl's shaken glare at the blue-haired woman daintily fainted in Yamcha's arm. "N-No… Wait! It's not what it looks like!"
"I… I can't believe it… I thought you were… Dead, or… I'm not even sure what… And you… With another…!" Pearl fell on her knees and erupted into a loudmouthed wail that seemingly made the whole God's Temple shake, not very much unlike how Chayote's roaring power-up ruptured the infinite dimension of the Room of Spirit and Time.
"N-No, wait, just… Let me explain, Pearl-chan!" Yamcha handed Launch over to Dende.
"No… Get away from me, how do I get off this… This… Place!?" Pearl jumped on her boots and realized that she had had enough of all this. Much to the jolt of everyone present in God's Temple, the scorned young woman strutted all the way to the edge of the temple and found a ladder that extended all the way down the tower. Despite everyone's horrified demands for the ordinary Earthling woman to stop, she jumped off and grabbed hold of the ladder's step, beginning an absolutely ludicrous climb down.
"And here I thought nothing would get to me anymore…" Piccolo stammered out, staring at the scene wide-eyed and completely bedazzled.
"Huh… It's okay, Goku-san's magic stick is no longer attached to the Korin Tower, so she's just climbing down to a straight drop… Oh, God!" Yamcha exploded with horror immediately after reaching this realization and took off in a frantic rush to stop the confused woman from climbing five kilometers down to a 42-kilometer straight drop to her death.
A few seconds later, Yamcha emerged from the edge of the temple, cradling Pearl in his hands, while the squinting, a scorned woman poked his temple with ire shooting from her eyes.
"Look, Pearl-chan, I didn't run off to mess around with Launch-san. I stayed behind to fend Cell off, and… We just ended up stuck in a dimension beyond space-time. A Paradox Dimension that lays in the hyperspace, one enters when traveling at instantaneous speed!" Yamcha explained his case to the seething, shut-off woman. He must have done a better job than his ludicrous explanation implied at first, because Pearl turned around and jumped to wrap her arms around Yamcha's neck, teary-eyed.
"Wow, this… Has to be the first time that I fixed this…" Yamcha mustered out, unsure how on Earth this could have happened when usually circumstances entirely beyond his control ended up ruining his relationships forever.
"That's how you know she's got to be the real one," Krillin laughed out, greeting Yamcha with a fist bump.
"I… I guess…" Yamcha laughed out, still high as a kite, on his own success.
"We thought you were a goner for sure…" Piccolo approached the scene now that the sappy-eyed romantic nonsense was dealt with. "What on Earth happened between you and Cell and how did you get out?"
"W-Wait… We did?" Pearl turned to Piccolo, horrified. "I… I thought you were all certain that… That Yamcha-kun would be back… You all told me… That he'd be back for sure…"
"We didn't want to break things down to you and tell him he's dead for sure in your condition," Lazuli crossed her eyes with the indifferent look of an emotionless killing machine. "Whatever, you've got nothing to whine about now, Yamcha's back, against all odds."
"I'm not entirely certain what happened myself," Yamcha looked down and did his best to recall the events that led up to the eternity he thought he spent racing across an infinite dimension in which concepts like speed, space, and time were all non-existent. A realm of sheer paradox in which there was an infinite void between every separate thing that existed and didn't exist at the same time, and yet they were all one and the same at the same time. "Cell mimicked my Instant Transmission, and we ended up trapped there. Cell defeated me and slipped away, managing to return to the Instant Movement hyperspace through a rift, while I remained trapped there forever. It was meant to be a fate worse than death, and… It was, but only for forever. Even knowing that distance as a concept didn't exist in there, that speed was irrelevant and an aberration of the Paradox Dimension, I did my best to race across the infinite dimensional gap between me and the countless rifts where the paradoxes bleed out into our space. It was a fruitless endeavor as, even when I moved at instantaneous speed, I remained in place and not an inch closer to the rift that would break me free."
"Whoa… I'm not sure what you're talking about, but… You got better eventually, right?" Goku said while resting his head he felt like it had bloated from all the high concepts Yamcha was throwing around. "I mean, you're here, aren't you?"
"He… He slipped out after I pushed Cell's Supernova back at him," Bardock grunted out through pain while Dende finished healing Launch and moved on to treating the Saiyan's wounds. "That Earthling appeared out of nowhere and whisked us away here… Thank you for that."
"Uh… Yeah, heh heh heh!" Yamcha waved it off before bursting into goofy laughter. "Don't mention it."
"Whoa, you pushed back Cell's attack!? Cell's gotta be like crazy-strong right now! How's that possible!" Goku flipped out, grabbing his head as if to keep it from bursting.
"I… I'm not entirely sure, but… I became Super Saiyan 2, I could feel it at that moment. I was sick of being the guy who stumbled and swung his fists into mistakes and made everyone's life difficult for it, I wanted it to be different, but to do that, I had to have the strength to protect her, to protect Launch…" Bardock turned to the blue-haired woman who was peacefully sleeping near where Dende had finished treating her wounds. "It didn't seem like Cell took that much damage from it, so he must have half-assed that attack. After what I've seen, I'm not even sure he can be destroyed."
"You said Cell used Supernova, didn't you?" Chayote walked up to Bardock, holding Navy's hand before gently encouraging him to go play with Goten for a bit while his mother spoke to the other adults. "How's that possible? Everyone in Frieza's clan is dead. There's no one to show it that attack."
"If Cell has vanquished Mother, it has full access to the Four-Star and its information archives. That means that Cell has access to the information that Dr. Lychee, Dr. Myuu, and Dolltaki have gathered through the millennia the stars have been operational, whatever information the Big Gete Star has accumulated while drifting in dark space, and the data that Mother has collected throughout the years on everyone," Ultimate Android No. 16 pointed out, freaking Yamcha out with his sheer size and a form that was unfamiliar to him beside a few general features that helped him identify the Ultimate Artificial Human.
"Why aren't any of you trying to stop Cell? That pest's become too powerful already, and it's only bound to become more troublesome," Super Artificial Human One-Nine approached the scene with a solemn stare that scanned the other warriors who drastically surpassed the doll-like Android in size.
"We should wait until we're all assembled," Piccolo insisted. "Right now, Vegeta is still out there in space and Gohan is still training with King Kai."
"Eh, did someone mention my name?" Gohan's voice echoed through the God Temple palace as Gohan walked out alongside Kami Upa from its premises and stepped into the light with a confident smile.
"Gohan-kun!" Videl exclaimed, parting herself from the training session alongside Sharpner and Muten Roshi and throwing herself at Gohan, hugging the boy and rubbing their cheeks together like she hadn't seen him in centuries. This warm welcome surprised Gohan, but he felt something warm and cozy in this girl's feelings, so he just wrapped his hands around Videl and held her close.
"Incredible, Videl-san's feelings are so powerful! I feel like I could beat ten thousand Cells right now!" Gohan smiled back at Videl, making the girl blush and jump off of him.
"Wh-What are you talking about!?" she exclaimed in return. "D-Don't be saying silly things like that! I'm just happy to see you after a while, that's all!"
"I see, maybe I'm still getting used to this new power of mine then," Gohan scanned his body while his friends surrounded him. Even Bardock, halfway through his healing, despite Dende's objections, stood up and limped off to greet his grandson.
"Hmm? So, did you learn something up at King Kai's, Gohan?" Goku wondered, looking excited to find out about King Kai's wild new techniques that Gohan might have mastered.
"Well, it's not a conventional technique in the way you'd understand it, but… Yeah, I feel like I can't be beat right now," Gohan nodded. While Chayote wanted to roll her eyes at such a ludicrous statement, sensing no exponential increase in Gohan's Ki, but in Gohan's eyes, she saw that, at the very least, the boy himself believed in what he was saying.
"Really!? That's incredible! I can't wait to see your progress!" Goku pumped his fists.
"So, now that Yamcha's here, we've got our chance to teleport my husband and son back from space, right? If we don't, Cell will reach them and…" Bulma's voice began shaking after she followed this train of thought to its natural conclusion.
"Yeah, in Cell's mind, Vegeta is an important step, one of the ultimate challengers to its status as the apex predator," Bardock confirmed with a nod before settling down and letting Dende get his healing hands back on him. "I don't think Cell will care too much about Trunks, but… I'm also not entirely sure that's a good thing. Cell looked disappointed at my level of strength at the time of our encounter, so he resorted to just obliterating me and Launch on the spot."
"Hmph, so the guy's completely snapped…" Piccolo hissed in disgust at how far the horrified artificial life form he'd encountered and handed over to Lapis had fallen.
"Sorry, Bulma," Yamcha shrugged with a sad look on his face. "I can't really pull Vegeta out."
"What!? Why not!?" Bulma gasped before leaning all over Yamcha's personal space as if she were demanding an explanation she deemed proper or else she'd have beaten Yamcha to a pulp herself.
"Well, Cell knows Instant Transmission itself. It could easily intercept any attempts to meddle with his plans. Not to mention, Cell's a lot faster than someone we could escape at instantaneous speed from. The only reason I slipped Bardock and Launch from there was because Cell was still struggling under the infinite mass of the singularity rift that ripped open after Bardock's and Cell's clash. The rift that disturbed the Paradox Dimension and leaked enough ordinary matter into it for me to slip out of my permanent imprisonment in the paradox," Yamcha explained himself, hoping Bulma would understand. He should have known better, honestly.
"Y-You… How petty can you be, you asshole!?" Bulma clenched her fists while tears squirted out at the corners of her eyes. "Even all those years later, after I dumped you, you're still holding a grudge and can't stand seeing me happy, is that it? You monster, my husband, and my son are out there! Even if you still hate Vegeta for the crimes he's done against Earth, my son is innocent of it!"
"B-Bulma…" Yamcha pleaded with the weeping scientist to see a modicum of reason.
"Calm down, Bulma, even I can see you're making no sense," Goku patted Bulma on the back with a cheerful smile.
"NO!" Bulma snapped, stuffing her finger up Goku's face and making even the indomitable Saiyan warrior stagger back, worried by Bulma's potential comeback. "You don't get to talk here, you nitwit! You… You had a thousand chances to stop Cell before… Before it came to this before my husband and my son were left cornered at the edge of the universe with the Ultimate Dragon Balls and Cell was after them, the most ludicrously powerful it's ever been!"
"Bulma, I know you're nowhere near as smart as you are when matters concern your family, but surely you can't believe Yamcha would leave your husband and child to die at Cell's hands if he could help it?" Chayote looked Bulma in the eyes, cornering her and pressing the scientist to the wall. It was easy to imply such monstrous things, but it was another thing entirely to accuse someone of it out in the open and not even waver.
"I… I don't even know, I don't even care, to be honest…" Bulma would have collapsed if Goku hadn't grabbed her and held her up. "Vegeta… Trunks… Please…"
"We could probably all jump to whatever planet Vegeta and Trunks are on and make our last stand against Cell there…" Yamcha shrugged. "If we all touched, I could bring everyone over to Vegeta and Trunks' planet."
"Cell wouldn't accept those terms," Ultimate No. 16 shook his head. "Moreover, we must ensure that the Ultimate Dragon Balls are gathered within two weeks, or else the Earth will be destroyed. Cell has no scruples leaving Earth to such a fate. It's sampled every creature on Earth by now that it considers worth preserving, and Cell's got an entire universe as its hunting grounds."
"Why do we have to fight that thing on its terms?" Chayote gnashed her teeth. She wouldn't let Cell destroy the entire Earth. Not after everything Chayote went through to acknowledge it as her home and everything she's built there. Even if the planet would eventually be restored, somehow, Chayote would not allow it.
"Because that's the only way to get our hands on the Ultimate Dragon Balls," Piccolo admitted. "We know that Cell's collecting them for itself, but there's nothing that it could possibly want because it's already putting its dream into motion. The only reason Cell would gather them is for bargaining power. When it has them all, Cell's going to issue us a challenge on its own terms, with the Ultimate Dragon Balls, and Earth's fate put at stake."
"I… I need to contact Vegeta, and… Tell him… Tell him everything… Tell him I love him… And to protect Trunks," Bulma sighed, bobbing her way in a daydream-like state to the communications station in her jet.
"Giru-Giru! Ultimate Dragon Ball detected!" Giru propped up from behind Videl, exclaiming with a joyous proclamation.
"Ultimate Dragon Ball!?" Piccolo gasped.
"Here!?" Krillin exclaimed.
"On Earth!?" Yamcha dropped his jaw.
The entire party of Dragon Team martial artists snapped in an oriental little mountain village. Still rumbling and warm, nestled inside of a crater of a less than a soft landing was a Capsule Corps spaceship that opened up and lowered its drawbridge to release sullen and still grieving martial artists of the Ten-Shin-Ryu school of martial arts. The bald-headed martial artists jumped up, startled by the sudden appearance of these incredible powerhouses who matched and even surpassed their late master Tenshinhan in power, but they knew these warriors were their master's comrades.
"Master sacrificed himself so that we could all escape Planet Dorakiya, and so that we could return this to Earth," Laung stepped out from the group and bowed while handing over a shiny orange marble with a bundle of black stars on it.
"Tenshinhan… Damn it!" Krillin cried out in frustration. "We… We can't bring him back anymore!"
"Even if we could, I wonder if he'd want to come back," Piccolo looked up at the sky. "After all, I have a feeling he'll run into an old friend of his up there, wherever he is, and that his quest for being reunited with Chiaotzu would soon be over. Not to mention, the fact he's actually pulled off something none of us could–pull a fast one on Cell."
"Yeah, if he saw the wild martial artists he'd raised, he'd be proud of them," Yamcha nodded while giving the bunch of bald-headed martial artists his enthusiastic thumb-up of approval. "You were everything Tenshinhan lived for, so he couldn't be more proud and he couldn't be happier that you guys would succeed him."
"M-Master…" the bald martial artists sniffled and dragged the sleeves of their uniforms across their drooly and weepy faces.
Still, despite the sacrifice he's made for Planet Earth and his students, Tenshinhan managed to score Earth something–hope. Now the Dragon Team had at least one Dragon Ball, not to mention the three in Vegeta and Trunks' possession. Even if Cell had a wish to make on the Ultimate Dragon Balls, he'd still need to fight the Dragon Team for them.
Far across the void of deep space, incalculable light years bordering an ever-expanding infinity away, Cell snapped into a hi-tech laboratory office, banged up, bloodied, and bruised, but finally having managed to rip asunder the heavyweight rift between dimensions and hyperspaces that his clash with Bardock caused. The rift through which Yamcha escaped and made a mockery of Cell.
"D-Damn it… Damn it all!" Cell bellowed, almost stressing out of its body with black eyes ravaged by red, bloodshot networks of veins while frothing blood and slobber from its black lips. "H-How… Even with this Ultimate body, even with this insurmountable power, these boundless talents and all the techniques of all the strongest martial artists, still… Still, I am short of being the apex predator! Still, weaklings like Yamcha, Krillin, and Tenshinhan are making a mockery of me!"
"Enough!" Cell seethed, stumbling over to the control panel and putting all four of its injured arms to work, activating a stage of his plan that he had never thought this would come to. An idea Cell merely flirted about but ultimately resorted to accomplishing his plan using his own strength. But no longer… The mold of Cell's perfectly ultimate body, a true apex of technological evolution that only the Four Stars could create and only Cell's peerless mind could operate, was placed into the forge of its creation. The die was cast!
Cell waited until an experimental tube opened up and dragged its exhausted and injured body inside, seeing the limp and divine body of Machine God Luud being stripped for parts that would make Cell's new body. Cell would make for the apex of biological life, meanwhile, the Four-Stars' creation would make for the peak of cybernetics, scientific advancements that were millennia ahead of anything any species could come up with.
Shedding the limitations of evolution, the stunted imperfection of biological life, and stealing its best features like a parasite, Cell would ascend to the stage of a Machine God as the ultimate Bio-Artificial lifeform. The universe will tremble yet when it witnesses the emergence of Meta-Cell…