Vegeta and Cell United?! The Terror of Perfection!
Trunks watched the conflict tensely, waiting to see his father strike Cell down with the killing blow. It was the moment that he'd been waiting for his entire life. The moments stretched out and felt like hours and Trunks started to wonder why the hell was Cell alive?! The moment changed almost immediately from joy to confusion and anger as Vegeta stopped crushing Cell's hand and helped it to its feet! Things only got more disturbing as they started looking at him. It looked like they were talking. Trunks decided that whatever the hell was going on, he didn't like it, and got ready to make his move.
"Trunks won't just let me go after her, of course," Cell told Vegeta as they looked up at the time-traveling halfbreed. "And he's probably as strong as you are."
"Almost," Vegeta corrected in a tone of begrudging respect. "But you're right. Boy's far too soft. Thinks he's some kind of hero. I imagine it's from all the time he spent with his mother and Kakarot's whelp in his timeline. Once I kill you, I'm going to take my son in this timeline and raise him as a proper Saiyan."
Cell chuckled and rolled its eyes. "Of course you will," it retorted drily. "So you distract the boy and I'll go after 18."
"And then you'll die," Vegeta reminded it. Cell rolled its eyes again.
"Yes, yes," it muttered before the pair of them started flying towards Trunks. Trunks drew his sword and flew toward them while exploding into his own Ascended form.
"I don't know what the hell is going on," Trunks admitted, "But I won't let you win!" To the surprise of both Cell and Vegeta, Trunks actually tackled Cell before Vegeta could react, slamming it down into the island again and forcing Vegeta to turn around and catch up. Meanwhile, Suno watched on in terror.
'Oh shit,' she thought as she put the pieces together. She immediately spun around and started to fly back toward Krillin and Lazuli. 'Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!' She shifted into the Shinsoku Odori, flying as fast as she possibly could while calling out to Krillin and Lazuli with her telepathy. 'Guys! You need to go, now! I don't know what happened but for some reason Cell and Vegeta are working together! Trunks just attacked Cell but he can't fight them both! Run, run!'
"You heard that, right?" Krillin asked as he turned to Lazuli. She nodded frantically and Krillin jabbed a finger toward the ocean. "Go into the water! Cell won't be able to find you. Stay down there until it's safe!"
"Got it," Lazuli muttered before flying off and diving down into the sea. Krillin flew up into the sky and waited for Cell, wondering what the fuck he was supposed to do.
OoOoOoO
This, Cell realized, was bad. Trunks was as powerful as Vegeta, as Cell had suspected. The only problem, Cell reflected as it flew frantically away from Trunks while the young man chased after it while murderously swinging its sword, was the fact that Trunks wasn't screwing around.
"I don't care what you told my father," Trunks snapped as his sword cut into Cell's shoulder, a spray of green shooting out from the wound as Cell barely managed to roll out of the way. "I won't let you reach your final form! You hear me, Cell?! You're going to die! I'm going to be the one to do it!" Cell attempted a flipping roll to evade another strike and lost a foot, crying out in pain as the severed appendage went spinning off into the sea. Just as Cell was beginning to wonder what the hell had happened to her and Vegeta's partnership, the King of all Saiyans grabbed Trunks from behind in a headlock and flew off with him, leaving Cell free to regenerate its foot and recover from its wounds before flying off towards Krillin's ki. Perfection was nearly in its grasp.
"Oh shit!" Suno exclaimed out loud as Cell flew over her head. She pushed on as fast as she could with her face screwed up in concentration. 'Krillin!' she thought frantically. 'Krillin, Cell's headed straight for you! I hope you have some kind of plan!'
"What are you doing?!" Trunks demanded as he broke out of Vegeta's grip and drove an elbow into his gut. He spun around and tried to move around Vegeta, sheathing his sword to avoid using it on his father. So instead he just went with a straight jab to try and punch Vegeta in the face.
"I could ask you the same question," Vegeta scoffed as he moved to keep himself in Trunks' flight path, bringing up a forearm to block Trunks' punch and countering with a left hook. "Why are you stopping this?" A vein of anger twitched in Trunks' forehead that he seemed to have inherited from both of his parents.
"What happened to wanting to kill Cell?!" Trunks snapped as he ducked under the hook and smashed his palm into Vegeta's chest. "Why are you letting it get stronger? Did you hear a single goddamn word I said three years ago?! Cell. Kills. Everyone! The whole point of all of this has been to stop Cell from becoming Perfect!"
"First of all," Vegeta told Trunks harshly as he absorbed the hit, "Do not assume that I will not kill Cell because we have formed an alliance. I killed my last partner before you were born. Second of all," he then kicked Trunks in the stomach, "That has been your goal. My goal is, and has always been, to prove that I am the strongest! To prove that my strength is the pinnacle of the Saiyan race and the supremacy throughout the univ–"
"Oh my God, shut up!" Trunks barked as he grabbed Vegeta's leg which actually startled Vegeta. "Who cares about the Saiyan race?! Who cares about being the strongest?! Right now, you're stronger than Cell. If you kill it right now you will still be the strongest!" Well that wasn't entirely true but they were wasting time and Trunks didn't want to make things even worse. Trunks shoved Vegeta's leg away and started to fly off. "Now get out of my way so I can clean up your m–"
"We are not done!" Vegeta told Trunks harshly as he grabbed his ankle and yanked him back, punching him in the back of the head. Trunks spun around and the two exploded into a furious exchange of punches, each blocking and dodging the other's attack. All the while, Vegeta continued to rant."There cannot be any caveats! There cannot be any doubt that I am superior! Once Cell reaches its full power then I will still kill it! There is no challenge in killing it now! No glory!"
"I don't care about glory!" Trunks shot back as he struggled frantically against Vegeta, wanting to get him out of the way so he could go back after Cell. "I don't care about strength or good fights! The only thing that matters to me is stopping Cell! I don't care about 'pride' or 'honor'! All I care about is saving the world!"
"You are a disgrace to our race!" Vegeta snapped as he kneed Trunks low and punched him in the face while his guard was broken. He smashed Trunks in the back with an axehandle blow that sent him crashing down into the island and buried him under the rubble. "It must have been Gohan training you. He has always been soft. Small wonder that he die–"
"Shut up!" Trunks bellowed as he rocketed out of the rubble, eyes wide in a bloodshot fury as he smashed Vegeta in the face with both fists as hard as he could. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" he screamed, following with a left hook, a right hook, and an uppercut, each blow snapping Vegeta's head and sending out a spray of blood. Vegeta brought his head down from the uppercut with his bottom lip busted and blood flowing from his mouth and nose. He glowered at Trunks in a murderous rage for a moment before smirking and wiping away the blood. He looked down at his bloody hand wrap and the smirk turned to an expression that was almost pride.
"Not bad," Vegeta chuckled as he looked back up at Trunks. "What else have you–"
"Masenko!" Trunks cried out, blasting Vegeta by surprise and sending him rocketing over the horizon. He quickly spun around and drew his sword again as he flew after Cell. 'Just don't let me be too late,' he prayed to whoever might have been listening. 'Please, please, please! Don't let me be too late!'
OoOoOoO
Krillin blinked and Cell was in front of him, looming over him and casting a shadow. He swallowed nervously and tried to ignore his heart beating in his chest like a hummingbird's wings.
"Sooo," Cell mused while its eyes swept the area, "Where is she?" Krillin shrugged. Maybe he could stall long enough for Trunks to catch up, wherever he was now. He honestly wasn't all that surprised that Vegeta stabbed them in the back. Leopards and spots and all that crap.
"Dunno," Krillin said as casually as he could manage. "She just left. Said she was gonna go hang out with her friend. Some guy named Jablomi, first name Haywood." To Krillin's surprise, Cell actually chuckled.
"Funny," Cell remarked as it smiled at Krillin. It made him uncomfortable. "You're always the funny one, Krillin. Always cracking jokes." Krillin wasn't entirely sure what that meant but it definitely didn't make him feel any better. "Y'know, I like to make jokes, too. Stop me if you've heard this one." Then Cell's hand was around his throat and Cell yanked Krillin high overhead. Krillin felt Cell's fingers curl around his throat and start to constrict. His eyes bugged out and he sputtered and kicked while he felt Cell crushing him. Getting his head popped off, Krillin decided while he turned purple, was officially going to be the shittiest way he'd died yet.
OoOoOoO
Vegeta laid in the ocean with his face turned up to the sky while the waves rocked his motionless form. He blinked a few times and groaned as held a hand up to his head. Had he blacked out for a moment? He slowly lifted himself out of the ocean with a groan and shook water off like a dog. He chuckled as he spat out blood into the sea.
"Well, well, well," he remarked. "Would you look at that. Boy has some rage in him after all." The boy was as strong as him. For half a heartbeat, Vegeta was actually proud of his son. That pride quickly succumbed to a blood-boiling rage and Vegeta rocketed off after the brat. He had presumed far too much if he thought that the King of All Saiyans could be defeated so easily. It was clear that he had never had the opportunity to properly discipline the boy in that alternate timeline. He'd rectify that soon enough.
OoOoOoO
Just before Cell's hand could crush Krillin's throat, however, Lazuli came bursting out of the sea below. She flew right up to Cell's face and put two fingers into her mouth, whistling as hard as she could in Cell's ear. Cell let go of Krillin and cried in pain as Lazuli continued to whistle, staying in Cell's face as she put her near-infinite lung capacity to work. Krillin gasped and gulped for breath as he massaged his throat, which was covered with an angry red handprint from Cell's grip.
"Man," Krillin croaked as he watched Lazuli continue her auditory assault, "She's got some pipes." Cell covered its ears but its hands did next to nothing to muffle Lazuli's whistles with the combined genetics of a Saiyan, a Namekian, and an Arcosian giving it even more powerful hearing than any of them. This meant that not only was Lazuli's attack especially debilitating but because Cell's ears were internal, it couldn't rip them off to drown her out. Suno finally caught up to them and was startled to find that Lazuli was the source of the sound she'd been hearing for half a mile. She swung around to stand beside Krillin and tapped him on the shoulder.
"H-hey," she panted, sweating and gasping as she recovered from her breakneck sprint. "D-don't ya think you should try the whole…" she held one hand over her head and flicked it forward with a "Bzz bzz" sound, pantomiming the Kienzan.
"Gimme a sec," Krillin croaked out, still recovering. "C-Cell's got a weird sense of humor." Then, to their horror, Cell rammed its thumbs into its ears. "Lazuli, move!" Krillin cried out in a strained voice. She jumped to the side and barely managed to avoid a wild grasp from Cell before Krillin brought his hands up to his face. "Taiyoken!"
"Ahhhh, Perfection damnit!" Cell cried in pain and clutched at its eyes, once again damned by its genetically-acute senses, now blind and deaf. "Kienzan!" Krillin screamed as he held both hands overhead and flung death discs from them both as hard as he could, over and over, launching dozens of them.
"Kamehame Senbonhari!" Suno added as she raised both hands over her head in a clenched double fist and threw out a seemingly-endless wave of thin blue ki needles, giving it everything she had. Lazuli didn't have any fancy attacks so she just screamed and poured on a constant stream of pink energy beams.
Trunks could see all the explosions erupting like fireworks, acting like a beacon for him. He was so close! He was going to make it! He raised the sword high overhead and prepared to strike. Just as he was putting on a burst of speed, however, he felt an arm wrap around his throat as Vegeta grabbed him from behind, his legs squeezing around Trunks' middle and drove the wind out of him with a bodyscissors. Trunks roared and struggled in protest as Vegeta slammed the pair of them into the ground. Trunks flipped over onto his back and tore up the island as he dragged Vegeta along, trying to force him to break his grip.
"Let go!" Trunks gasped out as Vegeta continued to choke him. Vegeta's grip only tightened as he held on like a vice, his teeth clenched in concentration as Trunks kept slamming him into the ground and started to smash his head backwards into Vegeta's face. Trunks let out a final roar and exploded with power, sending Vegeta hurtling off of him and leaving Vegeta dumbstruck before flying off again.
"Is he…?" Vegeta wondered as he sat in the rubble. No, he decided, it wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. How could some milksop mongrel halfbreed be more powerful than…
Krillin and Suno finally stopped their attacks and dropped their arms due to exhaustion and Lazuli followed suit, actually feeling a little lightheaded. The light died down and the smoke began to clear to give them a chance to survey whatever damage they might have done to–
"Over here," Cell's voice came from behind them. Suno and Krillin spun quickly around and were immediately both slapped down by Cell, crashing painfully into the ground down below.
"No!" Lazuli cried out as she watched Suno and Krillin fall. She looked up again and Cell was right in front of her. She gasped in fear and her whole body froze up as Cell's tail reached up high to strike.
Trunks was between them in the blink of an eye, shoving Lazuli away with his aura as he rammed his sword straight through Cell's chest, the point of the blade punching out the other side as he lifted Cell high and screamed with fury, his eyes wide and bloodshot, flecks of foam at the corners of his mouth.
"Not this time!" Trunks screamed as he held the sword in a deathgrip. "This time you don't get to win! No one else dies, do you hear me?! No one else but you!" Despite being impaled, Cell still managed to smirk with blood seeping out of the corners of its mouth. It lifted its hands up as if to grab the sword and try to pull it out. Then its hands were up at the sides of its head in a flash.
"Taiyoken!" The light blinded Trunks and Lazuli, giving Cell an opening to drive its feet into Trunks' chest and shove him away, yanking the sword out with him. While Trunks was still vulnerable, Cell flew after him and drove an elbow into his back, driving him toward the ground below. "This one's for you, Trunks!" Cell called out as it brought it hands to its side. "Kamehameha!" It thrust its hands forward and the blue-white beam of light shot forward, hitting Trunks in the back and sending him crashing into the ground. Finally, Cell turned its attention back to Lazuli, more than slightly annoyed by its bleeding chest wound and wanting to get to the part it had been waiting for. "No more distractions," Cell purred as it got closer and closer, "No more interruptions. No third wheels. Just you and me, 18." Lazuli grit her teeth, still blinded. Cell was right. There was no one left to help her. No one to save her. She was all alone.
Krillin groaned as he tried to push himself up and almost immediately fell back to the ground with a cry of pain when he tried to put weight on his right arm. His shoulder, he realized, had been dislocated from the impact. But he couldn't give up. Lazuli needed him!
"Come on," Krillin muttered desperately through gritted teeth as he launched himself into the air with a kiai. "Come on!" Suno followed after him even though she was in similarly rough shape. She was pretty sure she had broken some of her ribs on the impact.
Trunks scrabbled through the dirt for his sword, finally finding it and grabbing it in one hand before taking off into the sky, still blind and disoriented but ready to go back into the fight. "Come on, come on!" He couldn't fail. Not again!
Vegeta watched irritably, his arms folded over his chest. "Come on, come on," he groused impatiently. What was taking Cell so long?!
Lazuli could hear Cell approaching and her heart was pounding in her chest. The bastard wanted her to whimper. He wanted her to scream or cry or beg. No chance. If this was how she died, she decided that she was going to die a fighter. She was going to give it one last shot. She got into a fighting stance as her vision finally began to clear and brought her hands down to her side.
"Kaaaa meee…" Suno and Krillin were getting closer. "Haaaa meee…" Trunks was almost there and Vegeta was starting to move after him. "Ha–" Lazuli brought her hands forward and Cell's tail enveloped her in a flash.
The change was immediate as a wave of power sent Trunks, Krillin, and Suno flying back, knocking them end over end like leaves in a hurricane. Cell was surrounded by a sphere of green energy that grew larger and larger with each passing moment, glowing brighter until it was like a tiny green sun before them. Trunks stared at it in horror, immediately recalling the green light he remembered from the nightmares he'd had when he was small. And all the while, Cell's booming laugh echoed across the land as it distorted and changed again. Its power grew and grew with no sign of stopping, with every passing second it grew more and more nightmarish.
"No…" Trunks whispered. Not again. Not again! How could he let this happen?!
"No," Suno and Krillin whispered in shock as they stared in abject terror. It was like nothing they had ever seen before. Even Freeza's transformation hadn't been this terrible!
"Yes," Vegeta sighed pleasurably as he clenched his fists in anticipation. At last. The glory he had been waiting for! A challenge worthy of his ultimate power! He flashed a wolfish grin and licked his lips hungrily as his bloodlust was riled up.
OoOoOoO
Piccolo, Tenshinhan, Launch, and Bulma stared at the green glow on the horizon and heard the laughter that chilled them to their bones.
"So," Bulma asked nervously as she started trembling, "This is really bad, right?" Ten nodded as Launch held onto him tightly.
"This is the end," Piccolo replied numbly. He could feel Kami's despair in his mind and it made him crumble to his knees. "I've never felt power like this before…"
OoOoOoO
Far away on New Namek, the Namekians were all brought to a halt in their normal daily activities as they all felt a tremendous power coming from far away.
"What is it?" Cargo asked Elder Moori, tugging nervously at the Grand Elder's sleeve. Moori could only shake his head worriedly and look toward the sky.
"I do not know," Moori admitted. "I only know that something terrible is happening on Earth." Dende wrang his hands fretfully and looked up at the suns.
"Gohan," he whispered fearfully. He screwed his eyes shut and prayed to Porunga to protect his friend.
OoOoOoO
Even further out in space, Cooler was watching a battle between his forces and the Galactic Patrolmen with interest from the bridge of his Flagship Dark Matter when he felt the power as a pressure on the back of his mind. It was patently ridiculous, whatever he was sensing. It felt as though he was sensing his father, his brother, Prince Vegeta and a whole lot of other nonsense. Still, whatever it was was extremely powerful. More powerful than him.
"Salza," he ordered as he stood up from his seat at the bridge and turned to his right hand man, "Take command of the fleet."
"But Seigneur Cooler," Salza protested as he watched his emperor leave, "Ze battle is not yet won! Wherever are you going?!"
"I am returning to Cooler Planet One," Cooler explained as he made his way off the bridge and toward his personal luxury Space Pod. "I must train."
OoOoOoO
In a completely different realm, the Kaioushin stopped drinking tea, the power feeling like a faint tickling at the back of the neck. "Well, that's interesting."
OoOoOoO
A madness seized upon Trunks and he flew at the energy sphere, hacking it with his sword in a manic frenzy, trying to break through. "No!" he screamed. "No, no, no, no!" Then the sphere burst and sent Trunks flying away again, launching him into Krillin and Suno, nearly knocking all three out of the air. They managed to stay airborne as the light slowly faded and stared agape. At her.
"Yeees," Cell crowed triumphantly, "At last!" Her arms stretched toward the sky and she linked her fingers together as she bent backwards, arching her back and pushing her chest out. "Ohhhh," she purred happily, "How I've missed this!" Her chest and shoulders were like smooth and flawless slabs of obsidian. Her perfect face was alabaster white with streaks of purple under her pink eyes and down her cheeks. Her jaw and chin was framed with a bright yellow, the biogem between the green horns as black and as absolutely impeccable as her chest and shoulders, as well as her shins. Her feet had turned yellow and her wings had returned, smooth, perfectly straight, and jet black. The flesh between her joints as well as her waistline were all a dark purple. She laced her white hands together again and cracked her knuckles, her black fingernails shining in the sunlight. Her tail had almost completely retracted and was hidden under her wings. She was tall, although not as tall as Piccolo. In fact, she seemed to have gotten a bit shorter with this transformation. She was lean but clearly powerful, all muscle and crackling with energy, ready to strike. She was a predator. "Much better," she sighed wistfully as she stretched and flexed, running her hands all over herself as if she were exploring her body, or as if she had put on a favorite winter coat for the first time in years. "Perfection, yes, this is so much better."
Trunks stared at her in horror. No, he told himself, this wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. He couldn't have come all this way, fought for so long, trained and grown so powerful… just to fail! He couldn't believe it! This… this…
"Gohan," he whispered with tears in the corners of his eyes, "Gohan I'm so sorry…" He had died for nothing.
"Out of my way," Vegeta barked as he shoved past the trio and got in close to look at Cell suspiciously. "So the Ultimate Lifeform is a woman?" he scoffed. "I highly doubt that." If Suno wasn't so numbed by terror she probably would have had a smart remark.
"Gero would probably have agreed with you," Cell replied as she closed and opened her hands, watching the way her skin stretched and contracted with each movement. "Based on his preliminary sketches of what he assumed my Perfect Form would be, he thought I was going to have a more masculine final form." She shrugged and chuckled. "I guess he didn't factor for how Goku, Suno, Launch, and Lazuli would affect my biochemistry."
"I do not truly care," Vegeta told her curtly. "The deal is done and so is our partnership. Now we shall see how powerful you truly are!" He drew a fist back and slugged Cell in the face as hard as he possibly could. Pain shot up through his arm as he felt his middle knuckle burst and he let out a silent scream as blood almost immediately began to seep through his white hand wraps.
"Ah, yes," Cell mused, completely unaffected by the blow. "I suppose I did promise you the fight of your life." Then Vegeta was suddenly hurtling down toward the ground, Cell's outstretched arm the only indication that she had struck him. It had been a backhanded slap. She was there the moment Vegeta hit the ground, catching him when he bounced up and driving the point of her toe into his chest. "By which I meant," she clarified as Vegeta was sent flying off as though she'd kicked him like a ball, "The last fight of your life," she finished from behind Vegeta, grabbing the back of his head and smashing him hard into the dirt. She smirked arrogantly and pressed a foot to the back of Vegeta's head, shoving him further down. "Was that what you were looking for?" she asked innocently.