Cell's wings flattened and lengthened. Additionally, the bio-mechanical menace sprouted additional appendages, forming something resembling moth's wings that soon too became flat and elongated, like rubbery bands with the texture and durability of the same alloy Cell's armor was made of. While Cell underwent its transformation, Ultimate No. 16 rushed forward, reaching in with his right hand for a hooking pull, only for the arm to become entrapped by the long black band in a snap.
With a strong yank, Cell forced the Ultimate Artificial Human to hurl toward it, throwing a handful of quick jabs to the gut, but Ultimate No. 16 caught the blows with his open free hand. Instead of letting the righteous goliath entrap it, Cell Minus spun around, throwing Ultimate No. 16 off his guard while releasing him from the band entrapment with a spin in the opposite direction, like a spinning top. At the same time, Cell's free arm whipped with a handful of bands, this time used for whipping rather than bondage.
"Hah!" Ultimate No. 16 exclaimed, engaging the thrusters in his back and sending his spinning body shooting forward for a headbutt. Seeing its lashing metallic band whips missing the unpredictable human drill, Cell Minus pulled them back, wrapping itself in them like a cocoon and absorbing the blow, which knocked the menacing Bio-Android back while Ultimate No. 16 stiffened in the shock from the recoil.
"Ugh… They're pretty much even," Krillin stated, sitting up and observing the match from a chunk of arena debris that was slowly drifting farther and farther away from the core of the devastated Galactic Arena.
"As expected, Ultimate No. 16 is a match for Cell, but… It's only because the current Cell Minus is worn out from fighting. Once it emerges in a new body and experiences a Zenkai power-up… Not even Ultimate No. 16 might stand a chance," Gohan replied. The distance between the islands was almost at the point where they'd need to communicate with telepathy, though not yet there. Lapis and Super One-Nine assisted the wounded to bundle closer together to make watching over them and protecting them in case Cell Minus decided to use them for cheap leverage easier.
"You hear that, Big Bro! You need to obliterate that bug in one big move!" Super One-Nine called out, pressing her hands to her mouth to help her cheer louder.
"I thought the old hag upgraded your processor from when she made you, brat," Lazuli sneered at the bratty fighting robot. "That's the opposite of what No. 16 needs to do. He needs to make sure Chayote's destroyed the Big Gete Star first, then finish Cell Minus off. Your brother is in a much better position stalling the fight out against a weakened Cell than continuing to smash bodies to bits."
"Hmm… Still, they're plotting something. Just a bunch of squirming ants," Cell Minus gnashed its teeth after leaning its head to the side to glare at the bunch of bystanders. The creature then glanced back and behind its shoulder at the intergalactic journalists reporting on the final stage of the Cell Games. Had Cell not wanted the universe terrified and fully aware of the name and face of their apex predator, it would have wiped those small fries out long ago.
"Why don't you go ahead and try taking them out?" Ultimate No. 16 taunted Cell Minus with a staunch fighting stance, leaving no doubt on the table that the goliath would fight to the bitter end to defend them.
"Heh, nice try. You've got my full attention at the moment, meanwhile, I'm not giving your sister any energy to leech off. While snuffing out those scraps of trash would take very little in their current state, even a single Ki blast absorbed by One-Nine would make her more relevant than her maker ever intended her to be," Cell Minus shrugged with a smug grin, revealing that it was fully aware of the fact Super One-Nine was looking for a chance to recoup some of her losses against the Cell Jrs and assist her big brother.
With a terrifying battle cry, Ultimate No. 16 rushed in, ramming its arms with a hammering smash from above. Instead of challenging the approaching giant in a power struggle directly, Cell Minus swatted him aside with a vertical high-spinning kick. Grumbling, No. 16 corrected himself and removed a rocket knuckle, revealing a Gatling gun of Ki cannon barrels. With gnashed teeth, Ultimate No. 16 fired a barrage of full-power energy waves from the cannons, firing simultaneously like from a Gatling gun.
"Hmph, your tendency to lose your cool when I insult you or your family is my favorite thing about you, Big Brother!" Cell Minus mocked its opponent, forming two additional pairs of arms, then employing its natural pair while super-sizing the forearms of all of its limbs until they resembled clubs. Using the jewels found on Energy Absorption type Artificial Humans, Cell Minus drained the energy from Ultimate No. 16's Ki Gatling rampage.
The adamantine charcoal alloy coating Cell Minus' body became highly malleable, as all six of the monster's arms morphed into matching Gatling canons and fired back at Ultimate No. 16 with six times the return that the monster absorbed. Taken aback by the suddenness and scale of Cell Minus' counterattack, Ultimate No. 16 vaulted upside-down in mid-air and spread its arms and legs apart, forming a black and teal Android Barrier humming around him.
While the Android Barrier withstood a handful of the battering Gatling energy waves, it was only a matter of time and inevitability until they busted through. And so the barrier shattered, catching the Ultimate Artificial Human like a rag doll, blasting and bouncing him around from one to another until the last of the energy waves converged at his location and detonated all at once in a calamitous, merged, cosmic burst.
Ultimate No. 16 emerged from the blaze and the dust covered in cracks and dents to its armored shell with a sizeable chip to the helmet obscuring its upper face. Its usually emotionless and stiff lips were now gnashed in a desperate grimace as smoke smoldered from the cracks and chips in the black armor. The flashy red hair was even wilder and more disorderly after going through that tremendous explosion.
"So you haven't lowered your guard and accepted your defeat just yet…" Ultimate No. 16 stated the obvious in a calculated tone. "Rest assured that I've only begun to fight seriously as well."
"Hmph… Even though I should, by all means, destroy you quickly and move on to obliterating the small fry drifting away into space behind you, I'm not exactly all-business either, it seems," Cell Minus smirked retreating its additional arms into its malleable metallic frame while smacking itself on the face and shaking its head in faux disappointment. "I'd love to face and destroy everything you are. I want nothing more than to defeat you when you're at your strongest. It's not because I've got Saiyan cells inside me. No. It's because you represent that which I've endured my torturous upbringing for. The only acceptable way of destroying you is by seeing your full power crashing against the insurmountable wall that is me!"
"You will find that I am something of a wall-breaker, Cell!" Ultimate No. 16 proclaimed, throwing itself toward Cell Minus with its full might and its back thrusters engaged with blazing orange energy beams, blitzing the Ultimate Android across space toward its nemesis.
The vivid scarlet aura around Cell Minus became cluttered with bronze nebulous shrouds while the Bio-Android thrust its arm forth, sending a heap of the nebula rushing toward the Ultimate Android. Ultimate No. 16 turned over to slip around the streaming nebulous wave of matter, but Cell Minus waved its other hand down, sending a crushing tuft of cosmic shroud slamming from above. Ultimate No. 16 froze stiffly in place, becoming like stone against the rapid passage of cosmic dust.
Laughing maniacally, Cell Minus called forth powerful cosmic storms by making thunderbolts thicker than planets crash down upon the stone-walling Ultimate Android. With a forceful expression on its face, Ultimate No. 16 weaved around them, bolting light-years in distance to elude the calamitous cosmic static fields before rushing right back as if cosmic heaps were mere steps to dash across.
Just as it seemed like Cell saw through Ultimate No. 16's movements, a rocket punch slammed against the back of the Bio-Android's head, rocking it forward. Then, another rocket punch came rushing in from the side, blowing Cell away from a different direction. Ultimate No. 16 rushed in with a push kick before reattaching his knuckles and preparing to do its worst to the bio-mechanical menace.
"Hell's Ripcord!" Ultimate No. 16 barked out, grabbing Cell by the forearm and spinning the transcendental apex predator around at a ludicrous speed that dragged in the nebulous shrouds of stardust, giving it a red and black color and swirling like a cosmic vortex of ionized gas. After turning Cell around trillions of times in the light-speed game of spin and release, Ultimate No. 16 released the creature without warning, but, instead of merely being content with letting Cell shoot off across the galaxy, Ultimate No. 16 rammed it with a lariat slam, outpacing his own release and dropping Cell Minus into an uncontrollable plummet into oblivion.
Not wanting to let the battle move away too far from the others and lose track of them, Ultimate No. 16 vanished and shuffled back in a flurry of hi-speed vanishes before he was once again staunchly defending those dear to him–the last member of his immediate family and the people dear to Gohan and Goku, who were important to the two fundamental parts of the Ultimate Android–No. 16 and No. 8 respectively.
Cell Minus dashed back in, broken and bruised. Its previously shiny armor of charcoal, adamantine, metallic alloy was now murky and covered in bruises. Numerous dents and chips broke the slickness and the flawless reflection of light, making the menacing Bio-Android appear unhealthy. Where the creature showed skin, it was beaten and bleeding. Even in its stance, Cell held itself awkwardly and appeared distracted.
"As uncomfortable as it is to admit, it's time to switch bodies," Cell Minus proclaimed, straightening itself up and letting go of the broken arm it was clutching by the side. Ultimate No. 16 didn't look too pleased about the fact that his opponent was refreshing itself, but it wasn't like he had plenty of options here. Even if he attacked and destroyed Cell's body quickly while the wounded monster was preparing for the switch and engaged in menacing small talk, it would only result in the Big Gete Star sending the next body here again. "Get ready, because my next body will be fresh and even stronger than the last!" Cell exclaimed, throwing its arms in the air and booming with an excited expulsion of energy from its whole body.
A few moments later, nothing happened. Cell's black eyes turned away from the cosmos looming over its head and back down to the Ultimate Android, shaking and cluttered with red branches, almost as if the cybernetic gazers were somehow bloodshot.
"What is the matter? Renew your body if you feel like you must, but do not think you can waste my time and postpone your termination," Ultimate No. 16 stated with a bold expression as Cell's look shifted in horror, realizing its predicament.
"It can't change! The Big Gete Star is no longer operational! Big Brother, smash Cell to bits now!" Super One-Nine yelled out, pressing her tiny, doll-like arms together while pleading with the gentle giant to avenge the destruction of the idyllic family life they'd built together.
"Damn it, damn it all!" Cell Minus clenched its fists and threw a fit, thrashing around with its arms and punching open space above the drifting islands of the ruined Galactic Arena debris. "Curse you, No. 16! How could everything have gone so wrong for me, I made no mistakes, I was absolutely perfect!"
"Hmph," Ultimate No. 16 swiped its hand away in dismissal of Cell Minus' notion. "Where you made mistakes was refusing to let go of your past. The violence and torment you should have left behind. On top of that, every single thing you did, you did selfishly, making enemies every step of the way. Most importantly, you have made one, most grievous miscalculation of them all–you have meddled with my family!"
Rushing at Cell, Ultimate No. 16 threw a hefty hook, bending the monster over and forcing it to spit out dark red blood in an obnoxious spray. Seeing its opponent bent over, Ultimate No. 16 picked Cell Minus up and flung it down, crashing the devious Bio-Android into one of the drifting stony continents of wreckage. Removing half of each forearm, Ultimate No. 16 tucked them under his armpits and revealed Gatling-like cannons in the remaining portion of his arms. With thick and vocal clicks, Ultimate No. 16's armor morphed and shifted, erecting a pair of metallic black spikes that branched out over on its back.
Shrieking like a desperate madman, Cell Minus attempted to lunge out from the wreckage and sneak attack No. 16, but a fiery, nova-like Super Explosive Wave ignited around the Ultimate Artificial Human, consuming the bruised, black monster. The bystanders all braced for their friends or anything solid within their reach as the raucous shockwaves emanating and shaking the very fabric of space-time around them threatened to tear a dark hole that would consume all around it in oblivion. The fiery brightness was too much, even for hardened warriors like Lapis, Lazuli, Gohan, and Piccolo, who turned away.
"Full-power, Big Brother! Go!" Super One-Nine cheered, being the only one who showed no sign of burning out her Super Artificial Human eyes while observing a calamitous supernova exploding in the middle of the Galactic Arena wreckage, consuming any islands that hadn't drifted further away into space by now. The bundle of Cell Jrs shrieked and shivered in absolute terror, fearing for their lives.
"Meteo Hell's Flash!" Ultimate No. 16 cried out, concentrating an even brighter blaze fields of static on the branches of its back spikes while No. 16's arms slowly charged up internal energy wave blasts with the light becoming more and more intense and shining vividly even through the cradle of an apocalyptic nova of flames.
Time appeared to stop, all the bystanders ceased their movements and even their hearts stopped cold, wondering what would happen next. Fearing to hope that the nightmare was truly over. The inevitable eventuality of the presence resumed with a plastic click, at which point the fiery nova drew smaller and smaller still until the flames vanished. Almost simultaneously, the bright shine inside Ultimate No. 16's cannons and the metallic spikes on its back, ready to fire, all went dark and still. Ultimate No. 16 stared at Cell Minus, laid flat and suspended, wide open and vulnerable before him, yet the Artificial Human refused to fire.
"Wh-What's going on? Why did No. 16 stop?" Piccolo hissed, losing a bit of his cool with each word uttered. "You fool, what are you waiting for, blow Cell away now!"
"N-No…" Super One-Nine uttered. "M-Mother…"
"Wait, what?" Gohan snapped out of complete befuddlement, turning to No. 16's little sister before turning back to the stalwart giant.
Ultimate No. 16 called back his attack, as Cell Minus' tail had unraveled and dangled in front. Hooked on the very tip of its stinger was a cutesy little doll with a lab coat and a checkered dress, glasses, and curly auburn hair. At long last, the Bio-Android revealed what it had done to Dr. Puri, stunning her adopted children who had thought she was surely dead, and holding the dollified Dr. Puri hostage for No. 16 to call off his attack to preserve her life.
"Cell… Where did you get this?" Ultimate No. 16 muttered as analyzes counted up in its vizor, determining that the energy signature sealed inside this doll was indeed that of the real Dr. Puri. Given how the Puri Family had dealings with Dolltaki and his cult, and how they incorporated Dolltaki's technology and abilities into Super One-Nine's arsenal, they had the research on this effect.
"Hmph… Such a momma's boy… Your guard's down!" Cell Minus squinted with a sadistic smirk as the monster extended its hand, placing it right in front of Ultimate No. 16's chest, charging up a yellow energy sphere at the end of the palm and firing it all at once with a point-blank, one-armed version of God Breaker. The energy beam ravaged Ultimate No. 16's body armor, shattering the Android's body parts and scattering the disembodied limbs and pieces drifting in space in a gigantic blotch of gooey, glistening orange fuel.
"BROTHER!" Super One-Nine cried out with a crushed, high-pitched tone. With a careless wave of its arm and a bemused expression on its face, Cell Minus formed a quintet of psychic energy crescents, slashing across Super One-Nine's body and nearly ripping the doll-like Artificial Human to bits with a single attack before turning its attention to the disembodied No. 16's body parts, seeking to absorb them for itself and become the God-Class Artificial Human.
Before it could do so, the Bio-Android instinctively stretched its arms and legs out, enveloping itself in an Android Barrier that blocked the incoming Doll Beam from Super One-Nine and protected him from becoming a helpless doll like Dr. Puri.
"Well, well… It appears the little shrimp has more fight in her than I originally thought. Sorry, but you're of no interest to me. I don't even see you as my sister. More like… A little dolly my sister plays with whose head I rip off its shoulders and melt with a torch to piss her off," Cell Minus shrugged while Super One-Nine screamed out in utter madness. The despair streamed down the little Android's cheeks with oily tears that smeared all across her reinforced porcelain-like skin.
Sobbing, crying, and thrashing, the grieving Artificial Human smashed into Cell despite grievous injuries, engaging the monster in a pointless battle that she was sure to lose. Even if this be her end, Super One-Nine had settled on leaving her mark on the vicious monster that's ruined her life so soon after she got a second chance at being something more than some robot watchdog. Super One-Nine fully wanted to die in battle, to disappear without a trace like her brother, because without her family, she was just a hunk of scrap again. Worse than even when she was turned into one of Dolltaki's dolls… Dolls had purpose, to look pretty and to entertain, Super One-Nine had nothing now.
She was all alone.
"We need to flee," Krillin turned to the others. "We've got no hope of stopping Cell now. We need to return to Earth and…"
"And what?" Lapis turned to him with a scolding glare. "Live in fear of Cell's retribution for the rest of our lives, wondering when our almighty Machine God will cast an energy bomb that will devour our entire galaxy with no hope of anything surviving it? I'd rather fight to the end!"
"Sorry, Krillin," Lazuli ran her hand across her hair. "There's no point in having a family in a universe that has no future. It's outright cruel to even dream for it."
"Tsk…" Piccolo sneered, picking itself up, still on wobbly legs. "Run, if you want. Or fight, it's up to you."
"P-Piccolo, you too?" Krillin gasped in disbelief, staring at his long-time comrade through a busted and swollen eye.
"What did you expect? I'm the last Warrior-Clan Namekian. Fighting is my life's purpose. Protecting the Earth is the purpose which I have chosen for myself," Piccolo replied with a serious look, fostering no hopes and certainly no regrets. "Fighting is the only life I've ever known."
"G-Gohan…" Krillin turned to the young teen, who stood there stupefied at the flash of violence and sudden loss he'd just experienced. No. 16 wasn't Gebo, he wasn't anyone. Just a machine, an Artificial Human who was built from parts and wasn't a cyborg like Lapis or Lazuli. He had no soul, which meant there was no afterlife it would go to. Just like a panel of glass, No. 16 was gone, not dead, not passed away, just broken and gone. Forever.
Gohan's chin fell down, stopping only when it hit the boy's chest as his wild black hair weighed down over his face too. Not even when flashes of fruitless, violent combat cast some light on the broken teen, were there any signs of life in his eyes. Just a gapping, open mouth, a shaking jaw, and rolled-back, whited-out eyes.
The realization that the kind and gentle Artificial Human had been obliterated without a trace with no hope of ever coming back, that the noble and good-willed giant he had always known as a friend was gone without a chance of saying farewell or even speaking any final words, not even realizing it was about to die at all, made Gohan's jaw snap shut and his teeth grind, stiffly gnashing together.
"Do you want to know the best part?" Cell Minus smirked while pulling its arm out from Piccolo's chest cavity and tossing the limp and lifeless Namekian aside, turning around to the rest of the battered and broken crew foolishly challenging it to battle. "I never needed the Big Gete Star to rejuvenate, did you forget that?"
As a testament to this, Cell became a bubbling hodgepodge of liquid charcoal metal, before reforming into a renewed solid form, striking a flashy pose and grinning ear-to-ear. "I was just luring that buffoon into certain doom. I wanted him to rush in and he played perfectly into my hand. Shouldn't be anything new to you, Artificial Humans. All of you were built to serve that infernal woman, after all!"
Turning around like a gunman of the old West, Cell Minus fired successive energy blasts, hitting each Artificial Human around him square in the chest and sending them crashing down, smoldering and defeated while it turned around and extended its arm to catch the hovering parts of Ultimate No. 16 in an orb of psychic energy and slowly levitated them closer toward himself, amusing himself with the asphyxiating anticipation before it, at long last, became the one and only Machine God, on top of already having become the apex predator of the entire universe, of course.
As friends and allies crashed all around him, broken and defeated, a single-minded will swelled inside Gohan's mind. A desperate desire to protect them. Not because his father believed he could, not because those were the expectations placed upon him as Son Goku's son. No! Gohan wanted to protect them, to become strong enough to protect them, because he wanted to. Because, at that moment, there was nothing he wanted more in his entire life. All of his other feelings, all of his other dreams and desires… Did he ever want anything else throughout his entire life? Gohan couldn't remember anymore.
Something snapped inside.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Gohan cried out, stretching out and booming with a lively pillar of sparkling golden aura that cast a veil of light upon Cell Minus, luminous enough to distract the apex predator from realizing its dream of becoming a Machine God and reaching a stage of evolution insurmountable to any living being. Confused, the rejuvenated Cell Minus turned toward Gohan, accompanied by the stupefied glares of dozens of Cell Jrs.
The warm light emanating from Gohan awakened Piccolo, Krillin, Lapis, Lazuli, and One-Nine. Seeing her chance, Super One-Nine plunged into the sky and enveloped the psychic energy orb with a remote Android Barrier, snagging away the cluster of Ultimate No. 16's parts and carrying them away, to a remote drifting continent of the destroyed arena and as far away from Cell as possible. One-Nine wouldn't let her brother's killer devour everything that was left of him. She'd die before letting that happen!
"Gohan…" Krillin gasped.
"Hey, kid…" Lapis tried intervening before realizing that he couldn't take one step closer toward Gohan because of how thick the air around the Saiyan was.
"Gohan…!" Piccolo hissed, coughing up purple blood from his penetrated lungs, but still clinging to life.
The rampant pillar of universe-shaking golden light settled into a raging, transparent aura, surrounded by lightning crackles. Inside it stood Gohan. His spiky Super Saiyan hair had become even taller and wilder, standing up to an extreme extent to where most of his bangs spiked up with the rest of the hair. The skyrocketed energy radiation turned Gohan's aura into a jagged and fierce golden brilliance with intermittent and rapid energy pulses.
The desperate desire to become the strongest protector of everything he cherished, having cast aside the expectations and examples set by everyone else, and single-mindedly delving deep into his own inner desire for power for the sake of becoming someone dependable, someone trustworthy and powerful beyond compare, the outrage and wild cry for cosmic justice for his perished friend that made Gohan's mind clear and focused on all these things. All of it made the beastly power within Gohan awaken.
With a flash, teal eyes appeared inside the wild whites and focused on Cell Minus with the newly awakened Super Saiyan 2 glaring at the sky-bound superpower, eager to beat the monster within an inch of its life for all the terrible things it had put everyone through. Even with all its arrogance and bravado, Cell Minus adopted a more reserved and defensive stance and wouldn't drop his look of bewilderment when glaring back at the lone beckoning light in the devastated galaxy, shining bright enough to illuminate and spark hope all across the universe.
