"Hey, mom! Look at what we got!" Trunks squeezed his chubby childish cheeks in and occupied the screen while showcasing a pair of black-starred Dragon Balls. The excited goofball tried picking up another, but he kept dropping one or the other, making it impossible for all three Ultimate Dragon Balls to make it onto the screen.
"That's amazing, Trunks-kun. As expected, you and your father collected the most Dragon Balls out of everyone. Can you please let me and your father finish talking now?" Bulma smiled with a faint sniffle. Trunks' eyes opened and his mouth came lightly ajar. Before he could ask if something was wrong, however, Vegeta slowly shoved Trunks' head out of the screen before sneering back at his wife himself.
"Listen to your mother, Trunks!" Vegeta gave his son a mean look, a look of a Saiyan King who would not accept being trifled with. Rolling his eyes and juggling the Ultimate Dragon Balls, Trunks strutted further away to where he couldn't hear his parents talk to each other.
"Whatever… They're probably just gonna talk about icky adult stuff anyway…" Trunks muttered to himself, very much embodying that fox and the grapes mentality.
"You were bawling your eyes out. What happened, did someone die?" Vegeta asked straight with a sullen stare, peering into the depths of Bulma's distressed soul.
"Cell's been attacking everyone! You should have turned back when I first warned you about it! It's been climbing up a gauntlet of martial artists and it's been beating every single one," Bulma said with lightly swollen eyes, undulating with an unbroken layer of tears.
"Hmph, as if the King of Saiyans would tuck his tail and run away from some experimental freak of nature!" Vegeta crossed his arms and looked away, grumbling about the type of man his own significant other took him for. "Besides, whatever second-rate losers that animated science fair project faced, they haven't prepared it for the Super-Elite King of Saiyans. Trunks wasn't exactly slacking off either, not that he'd have much left to scoop up and finish off."
"Vegeta…!" Bulma scolded her husband, raising her voice to where the communicator bounced off the platform Vegeta left it resting on. "Can it with the ego already! Don't you understand yet!? Cell's beaten Krillin, Yamcha, Lazuli, and even forced Bardock to run, despite Bardock becoming a Super Saiyan 2!"
"What!?" Vegeta gnashed his teeth, flipping out at the concept that his coveted Super Saiyan evolution he once believed to be exclusive to the royal Saiyan bloodline becoming available to just around any low-class Super Saiyan runt. "Even Kakarot's noisy father became Super Saiyan 2!? Make a mockery of the royal Super Saiyan evolution, will you!? Now just as many dead-ends are using that form as there are members of the royal bloodline… Next thing we know, that barbaric woman will awaken it too…"
"I feel like you're missing the point here, as always…" Bulma crossed her arms, tapping her index finger nervously against her forearm while chewing on her lower lip in frustration at her numb-skulled husband's boundless ego. "Frieza's already killed you, that means that you can't die anymore–the Dragon Balls won't be able to bring you back. Obviously, I would insist on using the Ultimate Dragon Balls instead, but Kami Upa is becoming resistant to the idea of using any set of Dragon Balls for a while. Not to mention, I don't believe I need to tell you that our little Trunks coming anywhere near-death experience is completely out of the question!"
"Please," Vegeta rolled his eyes. "That's why he'll always lag behind me. At his age, I've already nearly gotten myself killed four times. Narrowly escaping death builds character!"
"Just… Please…" Bulma covered her face. Vegeta's look shifted from a scornful sneer to a softened, disgruntled peer as he recognized his wife's shoulders tilting up and down while she concealed her weeping. "Let nothing bad happen to Trunks-kun, and… Please… Come back home… Both of you… Cell's after the Dragon Balls too, so… It will definitely target you two next. Come back home so we can all face him together, please…"
"Don't worry, Bulma," Vegeta replied in a softened tone. "The boy has to inherit my throne and represent the interests of the Saiyan race amongst the Earthling population. If that bottom-shelf miscreation wants to take its shot at him, it will have to answer to me first. Now, go and have some rest and indulge in your fuzzy, rotten Earthling fruit drinks or something. I'll handle what the Earthlings and Kakarot's family have fumbled like I always have to."
Just like that, with a flick, Vegeta shut down communications and stood up, staring off somewhere in the distance. It was almost like the Saiyan King could whiff the gloomy foreboding and hear the lamentations of the universe struggling to bear the weight of a supreme creature, unlike any other. A foe more powerful than any that has ever existed or will ever exist. Someone so unnatural and aberrant, that it could not be conceived through circumstances of natural birth and training and could not even originate in this timeline. A monster created in a future timeline, sampling genes and absorbing the energy of different, much more powerful creatures, for it sought the power that lay beyond the mere world of training.
"What was that about, what did mom want?" Trunks wondered, looking up at his father, a bit taken aback. The boy was still cradling the three Ultimate Dragon Balls in his hands.
"She wanted you to come back to Earth. It seems like a tough fight is ahead of us and it's one that Kakarot and his inept Earthling friends have messed up to the point where I must get involved," Vegeta pressed his arms to his sides while staring off into a blank point in the sky of the alien world he and his son were visiting.
"Heh, awesome! Now we'll get to show off all our training! Who knows… Maybe, if I get pushed hard enough, I'll awaken Super Saiyan 2 as well!" Trunks jumped up in the air, cheering with his right arm, pumping a fist into the sky while his left cradled the three wish-granting orbs.
"Sorry, Trunks. I think you'll be sitting this one out," Vegeta glanced back at his son with a smirk. Before Trunks could register anything, his father's punch dug deep into the boy's gut, lifting him off the ground and knocking him out in an instant. Had the boy expected to be attacked by his own father, such an outcome might have been impossible, but his greatest flaw was his naivety and lack of experience.
As the three Ultimate Dragon Balls rolled on the floor where the collapsing Trunks had dropped them, Vegeta scooped his son up and brought him back to the ship. The King of Saiyans placed his son down in his bed before approaching the control panel and inputting the take-off command, directing the ship's AI to bring Trunks back to Earth. Vegeta delayed the take-off for a few seconds and slipped out from the ship before it shot off into the sky, seeing his unconscious son off with longing eyes.
"Don't let Kakarot mess everything up too bad if I don't come back, Trunks. And keep your mother out of trouble. Don't let her worry too much, either. I'm doing Cell a favor by keeping it out of your sights, Trunks…" Vegeta muttered before turning back to glance at the Ultimate Dragon Balls that were bundled together as if bound by some force of fate to stay together once collected and taken into someone's possession.
Bulma said that Cell's been on a rampage. Among the people she listed, Vegeta identified those who were off-planet looking for the Ultimate Dragon Balls. The woman even went out of her way and confirmed that Cell's looking for them. So, the chimera is looking to make a wish?
"Malformed miscreation, deluding itself that it has a right to dream… Give me a break!" Vegeta scoffed, walking off and resting his royal hiney on some rocks while he waited in place. Bulma and the loser brigade back on Earth believed Cell would target Vegeta next and Vegeta agreed with that assessment. Vegeta had everything Cell wanted–an incomparable battle power and a set of Ultimate Dragon Balls. If it was strong enough to tangle with Bardock, there was no chance it could resist the temptation of challenging Vegeta now.
With Trunks decisively knocked out to where he'd be sleeping for ten days straight, the boy would have no chance of powering up and being noticed by Cell. Thankfully, Capsule Corps was the most prolific and dominant space tourism corporation in the universe, thanks to the support of the Saiyans and the New Tsufurians as well. If Cell wanted the Dragon Balls, it likely had a means of tracking them, most likely a Dragon Radar taken from someone's ship. That meant that the Ultimate Dragon Balls had to stay with Vegeta, lest the abomination track them to Trunks' ship.
Sure, it might take them this way, but only if it wins!
A schism of cerulean pixels attracted Vegeta's attention. It was a different transportation method compared to the Instant Transmission. It wasn't exactly the Big Gete Star's transporter beam, either. It appeared as if Cell had learned to combine the technology necessary to teleport with the Instant Transmission technique, simultaneously overcoming the flaws of both these techniques.
The first thing Vegeta laid eyes on upon turning around was a slick, platinum-colored leg with each muscle of the limb comprising a different mechanical compartment while weaves of metallic wires acted as the circulatory system of the entire creature. It didn't take long for Cell to step forth through its dimensional tear, appearing before Vegeta in all its glory, smiling like a billion bucks despite the fact its true worth was beyond the concept of currency altogether.
"Took you long enough, poser!" Vegeta sneered in disdain.
"I apologize, King Vegeta. After my less-than-fortuitous run-in with Bardock, I was forced to re-evaluate my form. With a little help from the merged Four-Star and the materials of the Machine God Luud, I've become something else entirely. One thing is for certain, however, I am beyond any single species or any sum of them. I am beyond all life forms. I have become him–the apex predator, at long last," Meta-Cell struck a cocky pose, permitting Vegeta to feast his eyes upon the perfectly ultimate creature. An entity surpassing the very understanding of a life form.
"A Wildsaurus is considered an apex predator back on Planet Earth. My son used to bully them around when he was three years old. Your Machine God form better not lose its chrome paint or dent easily…" Vegeta dismissed Meta-Cell's bragging altogether.
"Come now, Vegeta… We both realize I didn't mean an apex predator. I meant THE apex predator," Meta-Cell had a delightful chuckle before lowering its arms and bringing them to its sides. In its Bio-Android God state, Cell had become fully humanoid, ditching all its cumbersome extra limbs and tail. Meta-Cell's body was tall and slick, coated with reflective chrome plating, though entirely metallic, and, Vegeta had no doubt, made of the sternest stuff inventable by science. Cell's face also became more humanoid, with gray stripes running down each side of Cell's face and the creature's horns perpetually pointing upward.
"If you've come here for the Ultimate Dragon Balls, they're right here. Why don't you come and take them, if you're such a tough bastard," Vegeta clenched a fist in front of his chest and burst with a golden gleam, becoming a Super Saiyan in a split instant.
"That is only half the reason I'm here," Meta-Cell admitted, still examining its slick and shiny new form. "The one thing I was the most excited about was to test this new body of mine. Before I have the real show, I need to make sure that this body can be muzzled enough to still make the hunt thrilling for me."
"What was that?" Vegeta scoffed with a hateful show of teeth, almost frothing at the Bio-Machine God.
"Oh? I'm sorry, I thought you'd already accepted that. Tenshinhan told me that to become a Super Saiyan, one had to go through a significant episode of maturity. I just thought that… Well… For you to have matured twice, surely one of those realizations would be that you'll never be good enough to be No. 1," Meta-Cell appeared taken aback by this, revealing himself to be an incredible thespian on top of excelling at every other skill in existence.
Bellowing with the whited-out eyes of a rabid dog, Vegeta took off, swelling up with an influx of muscles and spiking his golden hair to a ludicrous degree. It was as if the Super Saiyan royalty had become a mockery of everything the Super Saiyan brilliance stood for, all for the sake of power to deliver a punishing blow. Crying out for justice, Vegeta delivered a haymaker right to Cell's chest, where a black core was pounding in place of a heart.
"I'd shut the hell up if I were you…" Vegeta hissed, still struggling to stay lucid and in control of his body.
"Oh, Vegeta… We both know that's just not true, don't we? You never shut up. Yap, yap, yap… That's all you do. Maybe that's why you're always the second-rate bench warmer?" Meta-Cell shrugged, despite Vegeta's energized fist being embedded right inside Cell's beating metallic core. With a barbaric roar, Vegeta opened his hand and unleashed a point-blank energy burst, seeking to obliterate Cell from the inside out.
When the smoke cleared, Vegeta's consciousness returned to him. It was only to observe in awe the destruction that his unresolved issues had helped him cause upon his opponent. Meta-Cell had been utterly obliterated from the waist up. Before Vegeta could speak some sly remark, wires emerged from the twitching bio-mechanical legs and weaved together something resembling an internal system framework for a beating life-form while a shining laser grid panned out Meta-Cell's vague shape, only for the form to materialize in an instant.
"Ah… I see this body's regenerative capabilities render Namekian regeneration obsolete, not to mention all those pesky density control abilities. Though… I think I should still be able to do all those things if needed…" Meta-Cell said to itself immediately after its body repaired itself, having suffered no energy expenditure or accumulative damage.
Meta-Cell's body became liquified like mercury, flinging itself at Vegeta, who only gasped and surrounded himself with Super Saiyan aura, dashing out of harm's way while adopting a defensive martial arts stance. Because of how unexpected Cell's sudden recovery and attack were, Vegeta's breathing became irregular after just one impromptu evasive move. Meanwhile, the mercury-like blob solidified into Meta-Cell's previous Bio-Machine God form.
"Excellent, even if these abilities should be obsolete in this form, I'd have missed them somewhat if they were lost in translation, sculpting a chimera into something otherworldly," Meta-Cell clapped its hands with a delighted tease.
"Don't you dare mess around with me, punk!" Super Vegeta barked out with a spiteful sneer at the metallic creature. "I'm the Super-Elite King of all Saiyans, if you just test and flex your new abilities instead of fighting seriously, I'll blow you away!"
"Such a limited way of thinking," Meta-Cell yawned demonstratively. So suddenly that it even caught Vegeta off-guard, Meta-Cell flexed its arms by its sides and exclaimed a battle cry while becoming nothing more than a raging whirl of fiery destruction. The rocky mountain formations and the burgundy-colored grass fields all became ash and crumbled away, leaving Super Vegeta surrounded in a protective golden energy bubble in the middle of a desolate wasteland.
There was not a single sign left of Meta-Cell. It was as if the monster completely self-destructed, erasing every smallest atom of its being, eliminating itself on the most fundamental level while compressing the raw power of its destruction in that wild energy storm. Vegeta stared down at his shaking hands and panted for a while. This wasn't a destructive attack, just a show. Just another flex from his opponent.
Flickering before him, the grid-shaped projection of Meta-Cell provided an outline for metallic wires to weave together the creature's internal circulatory system and wrap around in cocoons that soon solidified in the form of black metal cores, representing Meta-Cell's organs, while the flickering grid outline solidified into a solid projection of Meta-Cell's physical form.
"I've blown myself away. It's not the threat you think it is to a perfect life form," Meta-Cell mocked Vegeta's earlier threat while posing before the Saiyan. "Damage, injury, life or death… These concepts have entirely lost their meaning to me after my ascension. I either am, or I am not, and it is entirely up to me whether I am or am not. I can be, and then decide to not be. I can not be and then be. This power is not something you could master by scrounging mere genes of inferior life forms! This is power over existence itself!"
"Heh, cocky bastard…" Vegeta laughed out to himself. It was at times like these that he loved being a Saiyan. Someone like Bulma would've snapped her neck trying to think of a way to destroy someone like whatever Cell had become. The Earthlings would have shaken and quivered, whined, and run away to wherever vermin like them could have scurried away to. "I guess I'll just have to keep beating you until you decide to delete yourself for good!"
"That's the spirit," Meta-Cell smirked with a malicious smile. "I was trying to push you into going all-out and a little extra spice on top before, just because I was worried you'd end up disappointing me in the end. Show me what Your Highness can truly do and help me warm up for the greatest hunt!"
"I'll make you eat those words, asshole!" Vegeta clenched his fists and crossed his arms in front of him. The King of Saiyans let out a deafening roar as blinding light erupted from his body. Vegeta's lustrous aura had drowned the entire planet he was settling things with Cell on in radiance, removing all trace of shade and darkness and turning the insignificant planet into a blinking star for a few seconds. When the incredible radiance spread too far and thin, Vegeta stood in the middle of it, having ascended to the sparkly state of Super Saiyan 2. "Those Earthlings made you think you're something you're not–it's time I bully you back to your place, you leftover scrape of an aborted science project!"
"Oh, this is going to be so much fun," Meta-Cell smiled, becoming all jittery inside. In its current form, Meta-Cell had transcended such things, as Saiyan genetics. Though it was the sheer, unbridled potential of what power such as its was capable of and the majestic things, a perfect life form that had ascended to the state of something beyond mere life or death could accomplish that excited the perfect one.
In Cell's eyes, this was the lick of the grand, sweet, and creamy cake it was about to have all to itself.