Ultimate No. 16 and Cell Minus vanished from their locations, colliding down the middle and entering a ground-shaking power struggle. The winner of this power struggle seemed impossible to determine. Just when Ultimate No. 16 began pushing Cell Minus back, the perfect life-form engaged a stronger version of King Kai's Fist or supercharged its flaring golden aura and equalized the power struggle.
"I hope my Cell Jrs didn't give you too much trouble, older brother," Cell Minus scoffed with mockery in its grin. "I'd very much prefer to scrap you when you're at your best."
"Right back at you," Ultimate No. 16 replied with icy frost in his tone. "I hope the others didn't give you too bad of a beating. I would feel bad if I didn't need the power of an Ultimate Artificial Human to destroy you."
"You cheeky…" Cell Minus winced on the right side of its face, showing that Ultimate No. 16's remark struck a nerve. Letting up the power struggle, the Bio-Android revealed an extra pair of arms emerging from behind its back that rammed an elbow strike to the back of Ultimate No. 16's head, stunning the gentle giant in place.
A knee strike to the head left Ultimate No. 16 stumbling while the mechanical menace slipped in and rammed a stiff elbow show to No. 16's waist before kicking its shins to trip the giant up, then entering a gliding power-slide that carried them across the devastated fighting stage before punting Ultimate No. 16 in the chin and sending him flying. Extending its hand forward and aiming it up, Cell channeled a red sphere of energy with the flaring texture of a star-like magma bomb and fired it with a heated pulse halo, propelling it toward Ultimate No. 16.
Cell Minus' rich smirk from when the Big Bang Crash connected with Ultimate No. 16 faded slowly before a rotten scoff substituted it altogether when Ultimate No. 16 stopped the devastating energy sphere with his open hand and let its power burn out before the giant crushed it in his open hand. Staring at the brewing battle as a warrior powerful enough to challenge Cell, the first one with an actual chance of defeating the menace since Son Goku, Gohan gasped when Ultimate No. 16 turned his attention to him.
"Gohan, where is Son Goku?" Ultimate No. 16 wondered. "I can sense a faint reading of his energy signature from somewhere near you, but he does not appear to be present."
"I'm sorry, No. 16… My father's… He's gone," Gohan looked down at the sashed Four-Stars Dragon Ball in a pouch hanging by his side. "But… We can all fight Cell together."
"Stay still, dumbass," Super One-Nine flashed a glare Gohan's way. "It's the whole reason I'm here–to watch it so that monster doesn't kill you all dead. Just leave it to my Big Bro to handle 'em. He's the strongest one in the universe. Now for sure, since Son Goku kicked the bucket…"
"I see," Ultimate No. 16 replied with little emotion being shown. The giant's chin tucked down almost to the point of tucking in his chest. "I'm sorry for your loss, Gohan. I understand you want revenge against Cell for what it's done, but please allow me to be the instrument of your vengeance. Not because either of our parents, or because you want it, but because I want to be that for you."
"This isn't about revenge!" Gohan lashed out. "It's about protecting the universe. It's about about stopping Cell!"
"Hmm… It appears that I've misjudged you still, Gohan," Ultimate No. 16 replied, turning its attention back to Cell Minus. "You're a much kinder soul than I've given you credit for. I've thought that I'm nothing but an emotionless machine, single-mindedly focused and driven toward its purpose of being, however…"
"What? Don't tell me it makes you jealous of little old me for actually turning off Goku's lights before you ever could…" Cell Minus scoffed before its eyes shot wide open in reaction to a lively outburst from his opponent's side as the giant's muscles swelled and it brought a shaking fist out in front of its chest.
"It makes me swell up with RAGE!" Ultimate No. 16 declared with a passionate proclamation, seething with righteous anger. "Everything you ever did since awakening was smashing people's lives and their fates, ruining their futures. If that is the purpose for being that you have chosen, Cell, I've got no other choice but to become the weapon that my father saw in me and use all of my power to destroy you!"
"Wha…!?" Cell Minus exclaimed, not expecting this emotional response from its opponent before completely losing track of the passionate giant and receiving a double ax handle ram to the chest that swatted Cell in the air like a rag doll. The beaten and bruised bystanders watched in awe as Ultimate No. 16's power swelled in white and teal ethereal tendrils, rising to unimaginable heights while the musclebound giant possessed the body necessary for channeling such power and delivering it all onto his enemies.
"I… I can't explain it, but… For a reason I cannot compute, a part of me is filled with rage knowing that you've hurt Goku, so you can rest assured Cell, I'll make you pay it back in spades!" Ultimate No. 16 proclaimed, pointing his finger at his enemy who was swinging uncontrollably out into space. The thrusters on the back of Ultimate No. 16's hefty black cybernetic armor lit up with red flares, propelling the Ultimate Artificial Human into space, in high-speed pursuit of his opponent.
Ultimate No. 16 raced above Cell Minus, ramming both its hammering arms down into the monster's back and smashing it back down, only to engage its thrusters once more and circle to intercept Cell Minus before it could smash into the Galactic Arena from high up and driving a flying kick into Bio-Android's gut that blanked the monster out and snuffed the lights out of its eyes. Grabbing hold of his wrist, Ultimate No. 16 fired its knuckle into Cell Minus' face before repeating the maneuver with the second knuckle and aiming his cannon arms behind him.
Firing a pulsating shockwave from the cannon-like barrels of his wrist-less arms, Ultimate No. 16 propelled himself with a slingshot, head-first tackle toward Cell Minus, but, instead of ramming his entire body into Cell Minus, Ultimate No. 16 instead spun around the menacing foe and applied a frontal headlock. "Hell's Death Drop!" the Ultimate Android cried out before plunging down with a cosmic driver of Cell Minus' head through the section of the arena that had a bundle of stupefied Cell Jrs stranded on it, smashing it to bits and leaving just weightless chunks of debris floating around.
"That oaf, he's going to kill all of us with Cell!" Lazuli exclaimed in protest when the rumbling arena debris began splitting off and drifting in space, still clinging to some kind of machinery maintaining artificial gravity in the Galactic Arena that remained intact, but forming a cluster of devastated debris chunks satelliting around the arena's core.
"There still seems to be a handful of pockets of artificial atmosphere left in these ruins," Lapis noted. "Though we'll be better off fleeing and searching for any parked ships when that snuffs out."
"Piccolo-san!" Gohan turned to his mentor with a worried look while the Ultimate Namekian warrior drifted past him on a separate chunk of debris.
"I'll live," Piccolo grumbled out through severe physical strain. "Though it's unlikely, we'll be able to help No. 16 much in our current state. I agree with Lapis that we'll have to flee soon."
"We don't need oxygen to survive, so we can pull off rescues and fight in space if need be. If the air feels rare, don't try to prove something to someone and flee," Lapis looked up to Piccolo from farther away, watching over Yamcha's barely conscious body that the Artificial Human had plucked from the air and pulled back to his drifting island of debris.
A tremendous gravitational field surrounded Ultimate No. 16 and locked the Ultimate Artificial Human in place, pulling him in for a beating as Cell Minus delivered a crushing hook that pounded the giant away into space with Cell pursuing not too far after. "Amusing, it appears that the part of you that's built out of improved Android 8 parts has canceled out your ill feelings toward Son Goku and replaced them with some sort of kinship. I suppose you've also inherited No. 8's wild mood swings swelling your power by mad heaps as well. It's becoming a rather frustrating tendency…"
Rushing in, Cell Minus stuck out a jagged handful of wrist blades from its arm before delivering a cleaving back-hand to Ultimate No. 16's face, slicing it open and spilling out sparks and cut wires, then pummeling the Ultimate Artificial Human with a flurry of blows and kicks and reaching with its arm back, producing a lime-colored Eraser Shot and ramming it against Ultimate No. 16's chest to propel him back alongside with the energy blast and brush against its detonation at the end of the blast's trajectory.
"Don't think you've eluded my wrath, Big Brother," Cell Minus brushed off the dust and the dirt off its slick cybernetic shell and adopted a fighting position, showing few signs of fatigue or injury. "After all, if it weren't for Dr. Puri's and Dr. Gero's obsession with bringing their precious Gebo back to life, they'd have never created me or subjected me to their revolting experiments either. In a way, you're to blame for the torment I've gone through as well. For the sin of being weak enough to perish in battle, for the sin of driving your parents to such extremes just to spit in the face of life and death to have you back…"
"CELL!" Ultimate No. 16 cried out, emerging from a cluster of space dust and debris with a portion of its mask grazed off and a flash of Gebo's face exposed, dashing in from afar with a vicious hook that stretched Cell Minus' neck to its limit and knocked the sense out of him. "Such an accursed, vile monster you turned out to be! Instead of treasuring the opportunity to move past the torment of your past and your unfortunate upbringing, you're instead blaming everyone else and dragging all of them down to the pit of misery you've chosen to dwell in!"
After delivering another heavy left hook, Ultimate No. 16 slammed a flying roundhouse kick into Cell Minus' chest, then slipped its meaty fingers underneath a ventilation opening in Cell's armor, pulling the monster in for a pounding. The Ultimate Android's forearm pummeled Cell's face with hydraulic precision and complete refusal to relent in its quest for violent battery. After a thorough beating, Ultimate No. 16 round-housed Cell once more, while transitioning into a downward dropkick that slammed Cell Minus through another island of debris, shattering it into minute pebbles.
"It was you who awakened Artificial Human No. 16 way back, wasn't it, Gohan?" Piccolo sat up and turned to Gohan, who observed the rowdy clash between the two of Dr. Puri's finest creations who've since then built a life of their own.
"Yes," Gohan nodded, glancing back at Piccolo. "I hadn't considered it then, but… Perhaps Artificial Human No. 16 is more deserving of being the one to destroy Cell. After all, that's the reason why he is fighting so hard. Part of it is the need for revenge for how this monster destroyed No. 16's peaceful family life, another one is a much more complicated thing…"
"Yeah, I think I understand that too," Piccolo nodded, becoming more somber in this common ground Piccolo found with the rampaging Ultimate-Class Artificial Human. "He doesn't want Dr. Puri's legacy to be defined by the terror that Cell will put the universe through, as opposed to the good that No. 16 and One-Nine can do in her name. His fists are the ultimate proclamation of love for his mother and how she took a chance on him, an imperfect replica of her son."
"Yes, I think so too…" Gohan agreed, putting up his fists and smiling as he cheered his friend on. "Go on, Ultimate No. 16, destroy Cell, and save the universe!"
"Let your destruction give you some form of absolution, Cell…" Ultimate No. 16 exclaimed while pinching his detachable wrists underneath his armpits and aiming down. "Hell's…!"
The cannon barrels revealed behind the Ultimate Android's detached wrists lit up with golden light, launching a hailstorm of energy waves curling toward Cell Minus and prompting the battered menace to clutch, only for them to bypass Cell Minus altogether and curve around the monster. By the time the hunkered-down menace realized something was wrong and moved its cross-shaped block down to look behind it, it was too late. Ultimate No. 16's energy wave barrage had converged behind Cell Minus in the form of a gargantuan energy bomb.
"Power-Bomb!" Ultimate No. 16 barked out, reattaching his wrists and blitzing up to Cell Minus to drive a low blow to the monster's gut and bend it over. Lifting Cell Minus over and sitting it up on Ultimate No. 16 broad shoulders, the Ultimate Android plunged toward the massive energy bomb while power-bombing Cell right into it and letting the golden star explode in both their faces, bathing both combatants in their radiance, even though Cell clearly took the most of the golden energy nova.
"This is an unbelievable brawl!" Piccolo hissed in disdain. "There's little defense or skill involved in this battle. They're just throwing their most earnest attempts at delivering death to each other and taking them head-on, waiting until one of them will get gone for good."
"Amazing, isn't it? Don't doubt for a second that Big Bro's gonna win!" Super One-Nine cheered for her brother with a pumping fist until being forced back down to reality by Lapis' disapproving sneer.
"Hmph…" Lapis crossed his hands. "If all there was to destroying Cell was to destroy its body, Goku would've gotten it done a long time ago. A fight like this will only make Cell much more powerful in the end. Chayote's really taking double-time with that Big Gete Star…"
"HAAAAGH!" deafening battle cries interrupted the banter between bystanders as the shimmering golden flash subsided, revealing Cell Minus, having turned to malleable liquid form, weaving and freely flowing around Ultimate No. 16's attempts at pinning it down and bashing it to bits, before solidifying and entering a heated exchange of blows with the brawling brute.
Grabbing Cell Minus by its wrist, Ultimate No. 16 flipped Cell over its shoulder before engaging his thrusters and tackling Cell with all its body weight, blasting the monster away. Unfortunately, Cell Minus quickly bounced back and answered with a punishing flurry of fists, leaving Ultimate No. 16 no other choice but to block it. With an elegant dance of arm movements and impeccable footwork, Cell Minus weaved around the giant, revealing a triplet of identical copies behind it.
"Masenko!" Cell exclaimed, firing a point-blank fiery energy wave and blowing the brawling giant away from one of the Fist of Four duplicates while another shuffled in with a spinning backfist, then another spun in from the opposite direction with an opposing spinning backfist, while the fourth body unleashed a hail of blows aimed at Ultimate No. 16's waist, opening the Ultimate Android up.
Swatting one of the pestering clones away, then smashing another to paste with hammering fists, and shooting the other two with rocket knuckles, Ultimate No. 16 forced Cell Minus to cancel the Fist of Four Bodies and retreat the clones. Just as Cell recalled them, Ultimate No. 16 slammed into the mechanized menace with a full-body charge, knocking Cell Minus away. Securing a lock around Cell Minus' waist and legs, upside-down, Ultimate No. 16 attempted to pile-drive the monster through another drifting island of wreckage, but Cell Minus snapped away with Instant Transmission.
The two combatants ended up facing each other on opposite sides, panting and flashing their shiners and bleeders proudly while glaring each other down with looks that came the closest to achieving the power of being able to kill one's opponent outright.
"It's impressive how far you've pushed this impeccable body. It's even more infuriating how you've managed it by incorporating the parts of such a useless reject like No. 8," Cell Minus complimented its older brother from another timeline. "Truly makes you wonder if perhaps all that rubbish Son Goku was spouting about the virtues of martial arts had some merit, after all. Perhaps there truly always is someone stronger, someone worth keeping up with your training and growing stronger for. And here I thought that just Meta-Cell would be beyond overkill for chaff, like the rest of the universe's life-form trash heap."
"What's the matter, Cell? Your life flashing through your eyes? Memories of your first hard time against No. 8 coming back?" No. 16 teased his opponent while securing the tight lock of his wrists around the arms and adopting a wrestling-style fighting stance. "All this time, all those stolen genes and techniques, all those bodies you've cycled through, and, in the end, you're still struggling with the same wall you've started off against."
"Or perhaps I was wrong to underestimate the closest any modern Artificial Human has come to God-Class? Did you know that the only way to achieve it is to absorb the battle data, computer chips, and reactors of another Ultimate Class Artificial Human?" Cell Minus smiled while breaking its fighting stance for a flashy, teasing pose. "As much as I've come to adore this body and its unfathomable power, what better way to perfect my immortality than to become a bona fide Machine God?"
"As much as you loathe our mother, Cell, in the end, you've become far more twisted than her," Ultimate Artificial Human No. 16 observed after hearing Cell's follow-up goal in this bout. "Dr. Lychee's data on God-Class machines was available to her, yet she chose not to ascend to God Class because that'd have required her to merge with one of our parts and effectively consume our data. Not even our mother would've cannibalized her own children like that, which is why she was building a drone army of Artificial Humans to slowly upgrade, ascend, and assimilate from scratch."
"Hmph… If she had that killer instinct of her future counterpart, she'd have ascended to God Class and stopped me when we fought. What's the point of your vomit-inducing morality and bonds if you get killed because of them and fail to protect that which you care about the most?" Cell Minus mocked Dr. Puri's legacy with a dismissive wave of its hand.
"CELL!" Ultimate Android No. 16 cried out in swelling fury. "Our mother sacrificed her life to protect that which was most precious to her–me and my sister! In that, she succeeded, and she sacrificed her dreams and ambitions in a heartbeat to protect us! I won't allow you to discredit and mock her legacy! Come and face your termination!"
The feuding brothers were about to get back at trying to tear each other apart. One because of its divine aspirations, another–out of the need to preserve the legacy of its maker and to avenge her demise. There was little the rest of the bystanders could do at this point but watch and hope that the Artificial Human some of them once saw as their enemy would be successful in vanquishing Cell and saving the universe now.