With crossed arms and a pissed-off façade permanently fixed on his face, Vegeta landed on the top of a blue stalagmite spike sticking upward from the sandwiched planetoid. After looking around, the Saiyan king tried to determine where the challenge that Cell had left for him was, but only a howling gale brushed against his cheek and disturbed the silence. There was an eerie noise of water dripping from the colossal stalactites above.
"Enough!" Vegeta barked out, jumping off the stalagmite he had landed to rest on and waving his hand. The Saiyan monarch hurled an arcing Ki blast that rammed into the blue rock ceiling hanging above him, looking like gigantic stalactites, blasting clean through the rock and off to the other side. Upon blowing through the upper half of the planet, the resulting shrapnel of the blast merely hovered weightlessly above the rock, eventually becoming part of a trailing ring of debris that surrounded the quirky planet.
"Where's this supposed challenge that Cell has left behind for me!? Come out and face me already! Show me how Cell rates the battle power of the King of all Saiyans!" Vegeta demanded, clenching his fists with so much tension that they shook in front of him and created a visible energy ripple around them, causing the entire surrounding system of blue stalactites and stalagmites that connected the two split halves of the planet to quake and crumble from Vegeta's radiating pressure.
Vegeta turned his attention to some rustling beneath him. Then, the King of Saiyans glanced behind him, at the top of the upper floating half of the planet. Hiding behind the mountainous rocks were impish little creatures: armored from head to toe in an insectoid-like outer shell, clad in black wings that extended to chest and shoulder armor with tiny blue horns protecting a visible black core. The faces of the giggling menaces were pale but coated in a yellowish outline with purple lines on their cheeks. Vegeta moved his arms by his sides and split his legs apart, taking off the rocky mound peak and hovering in between the two levitating halves of the jagged, blue rock planet, enlightened by the scarlet glow of the gigantic, exposed planetary core hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.
"Come on!" Vegeta taunted the little creatures. "Don't be shy now, show me what you've got!" he taunted them while revealing that he was aware of their presence.
The Cell Jrs all dashed out of their hiding spots at once, revealing there to be at least four assailants who mingled in between one another and took their time circling and repositioning around Vegeta before one of them finally engaged the King of Saiyans in battle. The first Cell Jr. to become bold enough to attack charged in with a headbutt, ramming Vegeta with its small blue horns, only to slam against Vegeta's hands offering a brief power struggle.
The rushing Cell Jr. burst with a white Ki aura, putting additional gusto into his head-first rush, but Vegeta answered with a burst of his own aura at once, evening the odds. The Cell Jr. flashed with a golden aura, becoming a radiant beacon bright enough to glimmer from space and register in the power readings of the abandoned Capsule Corps spaceship that Vegeta arrived in, only for the Saiyan King to follow suit, exploding with a luminous golden aura as a sizzling wave of energy washed over the Saiyan royalty, turning his hair gold and his eyes teal as it passed across his body.
The booming aura of the Cell Jr. became reddish in hue, attaining a scarlet outline as the Cell Jr's features became a twisted distortion of its neutral expression, whereas Vegeta's aura matched the unbridled intensity of the malicious imp, developing an electrical sparkle and a potent electromagnetic field that shorted out the Capsule Corps spaceship and any vessels passing through the star system with a calamitous electromagnetic shockwave rip.
The violent, unending power struggle wrapped up in a ferocious nova of energy, blasting in the outer region of the planet, sandwiched between two gargantuan landmasses. The force of the rip flung both combatants away violently, tumbling them uncontrollably. While both Vegeta, who lost the Super Saiyan 2 glint and aura and returned to his base state, and the Cell Jr. corrected their trajectories mid-air, a pair of other Cell Jrs slammed their knees into Vegeta's sides, shocking the flinched Saiyan before they continued their vicious assault.
Evading the flurry of the two giggling maniacs, Vegeta extended his arms off to the side and ripped through their ranks with a vicious explosive wave that separated the imps. Pursuing one of them, Vegeta rapidly thrust his arms mid-flight, firing a barrage of Ki blasts at the way of the Cell Jr. that pelted it like icicles during a hailstorm. With the Cell Jr. battered and overwhelmed, Vegeta dashed in with a forceful shove of his foot into the Cell Jr's gut, shooting the cackling menace aside with a howling and tunneling airwave, like a tiny little bullet.
"Pathetic!" Vegeta snarled, frothing in rage as he sneered at the discombobulated Cell Jr. hurling away from where the Saiyan kicked it. "I should send all of you back to your daddy in pieces, to teach him a lesson in underestimating the King of Saiyans!"
"Kamehameha!" a shrill shriek from behind caught Vegeta unaware, forcing him to turn around and tackle an azure energy wave that had engulfed his entire field of vision. Spreading his arms and legs as widely as he could, Vegeta rammed the incoming energy wave, holding his own against its tide for a second, but the energy wave brushed him aside and beamed off into space, finding the nearest celestial body to obliterate and leaving a trail of dead, black space in its range.
Meanwhile, another Cell Jr. rammed its head against Vegeta head-on, shooting him away before vanishing and appearing behind the stunned Saiyan King and hammering its tiny arms down with a double ax handle slam, crash-landing the Saiyan royalty into the rocky wreckage below while the rest of the Cell Jrs assembled around the malicious imp that had pummeled Vegeta around with sadistic cackles.
One of them became emboldened, dashing up to Vegeta who lay stuck inside a rocky stalagmite and punching him in the gut hard enough to shatter the blue rock spike outright from the impact. The violent imp proceeded to throw a flurry of punches before head-butting Vegeta away, crashing through multiple stalagmites in his path while the sassy Cell Jr. danced around in place and mocked the overwhelmed Saiyan by sticking out its tongue and making crude gestures at him from afar.
"Make a mockery of the King of Saiyans, will you!?" Vegeta seethed, clenching his wrathful fist and bursting with a golden aura that transformed him into a Super Saiyan in a flash after he stood up and blasted away the rubble on top of him with a booming golden pillar of his Super Saiyan aura. "You'll pay for pushing me into taking this fight seriously! I'll eradicate every single one of you, Ultimate Dragon Ball be damned!"
"Eek!" the Cell Jr. in front appeared slightly peeved as its pale face expanded with cartoonish proportions and its frightened eyes slightly bulged out from their sockets.
Vanishing from place, Super Saiyan Vegeta slammed into the stupefied Cell Jr. with a right cross with the Super Saiyan's fist planting firmly inside the soft and pudgy face of the stubby little creature, indenting it and swelling it up with red bruises. Gritting his teeth with fury, Vegeta cocked his punching arm back before punching the stunned Cell Jr. in the face again, then stepping in with a backhand smash that sent the pummeled Cell Jr. flying.
The other Cell Jrs reeled back in shock at this sudden outburst of violence from Vegeta's side before throwing themselves at the Super Saiyan while they thought Vegeta was distracted. Instead, Vegeta turned at one of them and kicked them in the shins, throwing them into a rapid, uncontrollable, horizontal spin in mid-air, then kneeing the Cell Jr. into the upper floating landmass. Just when it seemed like the Cell Jr. charging at Vegeta's back would land its blow, the King of Saiyans vanished without a trace, appearing before the Cell Jr. he had knocked away and stomping into its body ruthlessly, sending a splitting shockwave throughout the entire drifting continent that ruptured it with fissures and rampant quakes.
While the sneaky Cell Jr. who tried catching Vegeta off-guard before stared off into the horizon with a hand placed over its brow, Vegeta suddenly snapped right in front of it, punching it square in the cheek and then kicking it away into an uncontrollable aerial glide. Pursuing it, Vegeta slammed a devastating punch to escalate the blast wave and the speed of the little imp's flight before pursuing it further and kicking into its gut, then rolling above the broken Cell Jr. and stomping it straight down into the lower drifting landmass.
The final Cell Jr. moved its middle and index fingers to its forehead, generating an electrical sparkle at the tips of its fingernails before thrusting its arm and firing a drilling energy beam with a spiraling wave around it toward the Super Saiyan. Bemused, Vegeta leaned his head back to glare with a look of frustration on his face before turning around and smacking the Special Beam Cannon out of his way with the back of his hand and turning his attention to the Cell Jr. that tried to attack him from behind.
Charging forward, Super Saiyan Vegeta slammed a devastating right cross straight into the Cell Jr's gut, closing the considerable distance between them in an instant. The crippled Cell Jr. gasped and frothed from the mouth, squeaking in pain with bloodshot eyes. After pulling his fist out of the innards of the busted Cell Jr., Vegeta kicked it, kneed it in the face, then spun around, building up momentum only to kick the Cell Jr. straight in the body, releasing all the pent-up momentum in a single kick and sending the Cell Jr. into a calamitous crash down below.
"It's time to make you disappear! Big Bang Attack!" Vegeta called out, extending his open hand and channeling a surge of electric energy that became a large, round blue energy sphere. A potent energy pulse from Super Saiyan Vegeta's hand sent the Big Bang Attack hurling toward the fallen Cell Jr., sinking the battlefield in a bright flash of light and overwhelming the blue rock planet with rampant, catastrophic quakes.
"Kya!" a Cell Jr. let out a shrill shriek from behind Vegeta, raising its arm above its head and channeling a buzzing, massive energy disc that it hurled at Vegeta, only to follow up with a dozen of identical energy discs, produced in an instant and lobbed at the regal Super Saiyan alongside with the rest of the attacks. With a look full of grievance, Vegeta backflipped a few times in mid-air, letting the first buzzing energy disc miss his nose by an inch as it whizzed past him, chipping a few of his golden hairs that turned black the moment they were trimmed.
Gnashing his teeth and bidding his time, the Super Saiyan weaved and vaulted around the incoming barrage of Kienzan, moving out of the way, whether by slipping them, rolling over or under them, or weaving in between two discs. By the time the last pair of discs whizzed past the Super Saiyan, a shallow gash opened up and spilled a few droplets of blood on Vegeta's cheek and a rip suddenly opened on his spacesuit while the discs whizzed off into the distance, reaching one of several of the planet's glowing blood moons and slicing it up to pieces with a thunderous rumble, leaving dead and chipped rocky debris floating in the planet's atmosphere.
Before Vegeta could launch a counter-attack, another Cell Jr. slammed into his side with a bullet-like headbutt, pursuing the loopy Super Saiyan through the air and throwing a barrage of punches and kicks mid-air while Vegeta blocked or deflected the incoming flurry of blows. With a psychotic smirk, the malevolent imp moved its hands to its face, exclaiming "Solar Fist!" and blinding Vegeta from a point-blank position before driving a dive kick into the Saiyan king's gut, planting Vegeta into the sharp stalagmite with enough force to wreck it into rocky pebbles with a forceful shatter.
Crying out in sheer wrath and unbridled aggression, Vegeta let out a booming pillar of energy that caused a massive explosion in the spot of his crash-landing, busting him out of the hole by super-sizing the resulting crater. The Super Saiyan emerged from the hole with the top of his space suit completely ripped to pieces and his Saiyan battle armor exposed on his chest, ready to lash back at the Cell Jr. who knocked him down, but the little critter was just cackling high in the air. Before Vegeta could blow it to bits, it vanished in a snap, revealing another Cell Jr. with its little hands placed in a triangle-like shape.
"Kikoho!" it shrieked out, firing a massive, ripping energy field that enveloped both the Cell Jr. firing the Spirit Cultivation technique and Vegeta. The blast was shaking the lower drifting landmass so hard that it was shooting pebbles in the air as fast as bullets and crumbling into larger, continental chunks, throwing the structure of this entire unusual planet out of balance. When the blinding light thinned out and the smoke cleared, Vegeta revealed himself with shaking and crossed arms, wearing dirt on his battle armor bodysuit and minor scrapes all over, but no serious damage.
"As if I'd get done in by the likes of you!" Vegeta sneered, taking off and dashing straight at the terrified Cell Jr. The other three put their hands out and fired an intense Ki blast barrage, forming an impenetrable field of energy hail in between the raging Super Saiyan and his foe, but Vegeta, vanishing in a rapid, high-speed flurry, closed the distance.
The wrathful Super Saiyan punched the Cell Jr. in the face, then attacked the helpless imp with a rapid barrage of punches and kicks before punching them in the stomach, plunging half of his arm into the Cell Jr's guts. With a confident smirk that effortlessly contrasted the Cell Jr's horrified gasp, Super Saiyan Vegeta launched a one-handed version of his Galick Gun, blasting through the tiny Cell Jr. and reducing it to a downpour of gore and body parts that detonated mid-fall.
"Hmph… Another one bit the dust!" Vegeta exclaimed in disdain, looking at the splattered remains of his foe for perhaps a little too long.
Another Cell Jr. came crashing down from Vegeta's backside, opening up its combination of blows with a soaring punch, then unleashing a rapid flurry of punches and kicks, using the time between his attack and Vegeta's recovery to stiffen its stubby little leg and lash Vegeta with a strong, vertical up kick that sent the Super Saiyan smacking against the upper drifting blue rock mass and bouncing off of it. Vegeta halted in place, gnashing his fists and sneering through a bloody grimace of gnashed teeth, only to be blindsided again by a crashing Cell Jr. who planted its curled knees into the back of Vegeta's head and sent him plummeting.
"Big Bang Crash!" another Cell Jr. exclaimed, pointing his arm down at his plummeting foe in an open palm position. Blood-red electricity surged and discharged in all directions from the body of the snickering rascal, converging into a single sparkling energy sphere, resembling a scarlet nova contained inside the little creature's hand. With a forceful thrust, the Cell Jr. sent it hurling at the stunned and still-falling Vegeta, seeking to blast the Saiyan royalty with a well-timed shot on his way down.
Vegeta flexed his body, flashing with a breakthrough slip into the Super Saiyan 2 state for just a second, only to break his fall and punt the incoming spin-off of his Big Bang Attack away with a vertical soccer kick. The sight of his technique being blown away like that appeared to leave the Cell Jr. stunned in place. Seething with pure hatred, Vegeta stayed in the Super Saiyan 2 state, despite the greater strain it put on his body.
"It can't be helped, huh?" Vegeta muttered to himself, counting down all three of the Cell Jr. in front of him with disdain, making sure that none of them were out of view and looking to sneak attack him again. "Even for the likes of you, I have to go at it full power, it seems!"
Vegeta flashed in front of a Cell Jr., freaking it out so much that the psyched-out imp broke its guard. With little regard for style or substance, Vegeta punted in the side of the little imp's head, kicking it aside while waving his hand in its direction. The heated aura around the Saiyan king's body lit aflame in his hand with the Ki blast turning into an arcing fireball that slammed at the Cell Jr's back side and charred it to ash that the stormy wind of the hurting planet scattered.
Desperate, both Cell Jrs dashed aside, shooting their hands down and generating orange energy waves between their cupped hands that they both fired at the Super Saiyan 2 simultaneously. Vegeta's body became surrounded by a radiant golden energy dome with both energy waves ramming its surface but eventually flowing into it and disappearing entirely. With a forceful shout, Vegeta raised his hands over his head and fired the energy dome by forcing it to implode in one direction and expel all its energy with enough destructive force to envelop both Cell Jrs and disintegrate their bodies without a speck of a trace.
"Hmph…" Vegeta crossed his arms with a spiteful sneer. "Maybe my full power is overdoing it after all..."
Hearing an irritating, mechanical whizzing somewhere nearby, Vegeta opened his eyes and turned his head toward the sound. A wingless, round Capsule Corps drone, adapting the Machine Mutant drone's looks and technology, shot and pivoted around to position itself by Vegeta's head. The sudden appearance and gall of this drone to come this close to his face frustrated Vegeta, but the fact that the drone's body slid back, revealing a screen on the front of its body, that then flashed with static and revealed Bulma's worried face spared the drone of the violent fate which would have befallen it.
"Vegeta, have you found the Ultimate Dragon Ball yet?" Bulma asked with her voice with slight mechanical distortion to it because of the vast distance through which it was being broadcasted.
"Get out of my face, Bulma! I've got the situation under control. I've crushed the Cell Jrs already!" Vegeta barked back at his wife, who dared to check up on his progress as if he were some kid who needed babysitting.
"I'm not picking up Chayote's vitals anywhere, what happened?" Bulma asked again.
"Cell teleported into our spaceship and kidnapped her," Vegeta crossed his arms and turned away like it wasn't a part of his problems.
"He WHAT!?" Bulma flipped out, grabbing her head and sifting through her hair with her fingers and a stretched face full of panic. "Where is she!?"
"I already told you, Bulma, Cell kidnapped her. How am I supposed to know?" Vegeta bit into his lip, restraining his impulse to blow this drone up and pretend like the connection was severed.
"Vegeta, if Chayote dies–the entire universe is going to end! I don't care what Cell thinks, we've got no reason to believe that Cell's uniqueness will counteract Chayote's importance on the universal scale!" Bulma yelled back at her husband.
"Tsk… Again with that old thing… Can't seem to hear the end of it!" Vegeta's left eye twitched with frustration. "She's the Legendary Super Saiyan, Bulma, I'm sure that fighting Cell one-on-one is exactly what she wants the most!"
"In any case, it doesn't seem like you can help it from your end of the universe either way. I've gotten new intelligence that Son-kun is fighting Cell, and, since the universe isn't over yet, I presume that means that Chayote must be alive. Cell must have found a way to entrap her or leave her stranded somewhere so that he doesn't have to deal with her right now…" Bulma pondered.
"What!? Kakarot… Is fighting Cell one-on-one!?" Vegeta gnashed his teeth, shaking with a confusing cocktail of emotions. It was impossible to tell whether he was jealous of Goku's peerless challenge and the perilous situation his team was in, or fearful of it. Perhaps the truth lay somewhere in between the two extremes. "That low-class dirtbag plans to one-up me again? Me! The King of Saiyans!?"
"Vegeta, just focus on finding the Ultimate Dragon Ball for now! Maybe it's for the better that you didn't lose that gamble and didn't end up running into Cell yourself…" Bulma sighed in relief.
"Wh-What!? What is THAT supposed to mean!? Are insinuating…!?" Vegeta lashed out only for the drone to amplify Bulma's voice enough to overpower his for once.
"I'm only reminding you of your mission objective because you seem to have forgotten! You've left the Dragon Radar behind, and you just took off and started picking fights for no reason! Stop fighting those little Cells and find the Ultimate Dragon Ball already!" Bulma said before switching the screen to show the flashing signal, relaying the location of the Ultimate Dragon Ball. "It seems like the signal's moving, so it might be possible that one of those Cell Jrs has it."
"Hmph… That works even better for me!" Vegeta grumbled, shoving the drone out of his way and taking off where the drone showed him the location of the Ultimate Dragon Ball being. The panicking Capsule Corps drone shot to chase after the Super Saiyan 2, in a pointless attempt to keep up with him.