Gohan's True Power! Gohan the Cruel?!
"Really?" Perfect Cell asked with a chuckle that wasn't entirely convincing. "I'm supposed to be scared of you, little boy? Just 'cause you've done a little something with your hair, had a cry, and you're all angry now?" She laughed again before balling her fists and bringing them to her sides. "Let me show you some real power!" She let out a war cry as her power skyrocketed and her aura blossomed around her like a candle flame exploding into a wildfire. The wind whipped around her as if she were the eye of a hurricane, ripping up chunks of the earth and sending them flying in all directions.
"Unreal…" Trunks gasped in a quavering voice, "Just… unreal!" Was this how much power the Perfect Cell of his timeline had as well? Everyone stared in shock as Perfect Cell's power rose and rose and even Goku was, temporarily, unnerved. Perfect Cell could have killed Goku whenever she wanted, she realized. It was only Goku's reputation that had made Perfect Cell think that they were both holding back. Gohan glowered up at Perfect Cell as she finished powering up and sneered down at him smugly.
"What do you think of that, little man?" Perfect Cell asked haughtily.
"Is that all you've got?" Gohan retorted bluntly. Before Perfect Cell even had a chance to blink, Gohan hit her with a right hook that nearly took Perfect Cell off her feet. She stumbled and staggered away before she lurched back to an upright position, only for Gohan to punch her again, this time with a left, that sent a spray of blood out in a wide arc. The demisaiyan demigod battered Perfect Cell with a blistering assault of punches to the face and body, all without turning his hips or putting any of his power or body weight into the blows, his feet completely planted. That was until Gohan raised one of those feet to plant it in Perfect Cell's chest instead, sending her flying, skipping, and skidding across the ground. Everyone stared in dumbstruck astonishment as Perfect Cell struggled to drag herself onto her hands and knees, purple blood pouring from her mouth and pooling onto the ground.
"Get him!" Geki roared as he and the other Cellspawn turned their attention away from their victims. "Help mother!" The sextet gave a war cry and charged at Gohan, who looked at them with supreme disdain. Geki flew straight into Gohan's open palm, which quickly gripped around his skull. Geki let out a breathless gasp of terror as he kicked and squirmed, pulling at Gohan's wrist, before Gohan crushed his skull, the blue blood bursting onto his hand and down his arm like a fisftul of strawberries. Mei and Boy came charging toward Gohan next and Mei attacked with a flying kick. Gohan caught Mei's ankle and swung her like a baseball bat into Boy with such fury that both of them exploded in a burst of pink and yellow, his face still hauntingly impassive. Dan met his end next from an axe kick that sliced him completely in half. Goushi tried to attack Gohan from behind with a diving attack but Gohan merely raised his fist as Goushi dove down, punching through most of his sternum and the top of his head, with Goushi's jaw dangling limply from Gohan's forearm as black slime ran down Gohan's arm. Gohan let Goushi drop from his hand as Kou, the last of the Cellspawn, attacked Gohan with a battle cry, swinging both hands in an axehandle blow. Gohan effortlessly caught Kou's hands in his grip and glared at the White Cellspawn. With a single wordless kiai, the last of Cell's children exploded into ash.
All of this took less than a second. As far as the other heroes were concerned, one moment the Cellspawn had moved to attack Gohan, and in the next he was surrounded by a pile of mangled corpses and viscera, some of which was staining his clothes and hands. As Gohan dusted his hands off, the others couldn't help but feel unnerved by whatever it was that Gohan had just done. Even Goku, who had encouraged Gohan to use his power and had expected this transformation, wasn't sure that she liked the change it brought about in her son. Everyone except Vegeta, of course. He actually approved.
'About time the boy showed some real Saiyan ruthlessness,' he thought. 'I always thought that he was as soft as his mother.' Gohan turned his attention to Perfect Cell, who looked at the carnage Gohan carelessly walked through in horror.
"I guess my ten seconds are up," Gohan observed casually before breaking out into a sadistic smirk. "Tell you what, I'll give you one free hit. I won't move, I won't dodge, I won't deflect it or counterattack. I'll stand right here and take it on the chin." Perfect Cell glared at him before immediately rocketing up into the sky. Gohan watched her fly up with a smirk on his lips and his arms crossed over his chest.
"Let's see you take this one on the chin, you little shit!" Perfect Cell roared as she held her hands out wide. She began to move them in a very familiar configuration, with one hand glowing white-blue and the other hand glowing… purple. "Galiiiiiiick…" Vegeta narrowed his eyes contemptuously. "Haaameee…" Goku was mildly intrigued. "Haaaa!" Perfect Cell thrust her hands down toward Gohan, firing a blue-and-purple intertwined beam of death that struck Gohan directly. As promised, Gohan hadn't moved, and he quickly vanished in the blinding light of the merged attack. Perfect Cell smirked and dropped her hands, panting from the exertion of her blast as she glared down at the cloud of smoke, waiting to see Gohan's corpse.
The smoke was launched away with a thunderclap, which everyone saw, once the smoke was cleared, was caused by Gohan snapping his fingers. He was completely unharmed with his lightning aura flaring around him. Even the ground underneath his feet remained unharmed.
"Y'know," Goku told Vegeta with a grin, "That might actually make a pretty good team-up mo–"
"Never," Vegeta replied curtly, cutting her off bluntly. "Absolutely not, at any point, in the next thousand thousand years. The sun will burn out and turn into a black husk before I ever even consider doing that." Goku laughed.
"Y'know something," Gohan called up to Perfect Cell, who gawked at him in dismay and disbelief. "I've thought of the Perfect present for you. Shall I give you despair?" he lifted one hand and raised his palm toward Perfect Cell. "Kamehameha!" he called out almost casually. The blue-white beam rocketed towards Perfect Cell before she could blink, dwarfing the size of the Galick Hameha and nailing her head-on, absorbing her in its blinding light and rocketing off into space. Gohan waited patiently for the light to dim and smirked at the horrifying sight that was revealed to him.
Perfect Cell hung in the air, her arms and legs blasted off in ragged stumps, her horns and wings torn asunder as she gaped down in horror and gasped in short, stuttering breaths with wide, bloodshot eyes.
"Hurry up and regenerate!" Gohan called up to her impatiently. "We're not done!"
"Gohan!" Goku called from the sidelines and he turned to look curiously at his mom. "What're you doing?! You have the power to finish her off. So just do it, already!"
"Why?" Gohan asked bluntly. "You said it yourself, mom. I have the power. She can't beat me. How is this any different than what you told me you did to Freeza?" He looked up at Perfect Cell with a malevolent smirk. "I'm going to make her suffer first." That gave Goku pause as she reflected on how she'd told Gohan the story of her battle with Freeza after becoming a Super Saiyan. Was that the lesson he had learned from her? To make your enemies suffer and to toy with them simply because you were more powerful? Perfect Cell tried and failed to wrap her head around the sudden shift in her reality as she regenerated her limbs. This wasn't possible. None of this made sense. She'd killed Gohan literally hundreds of times. She never lost. She was Perfect, she was invincible, she was undefeatable. So why was she losing? What the hell was this transformation of his? Why was he stronger than her?! "Are you going to come down here," Gohan asked, "Or are you going to make me come up there and slap the shit out of you?" Suno gasped at her son's language. Perfect Cell glared at Gohan before flying back down toward him with both fists and Gohan caught her by the wrists, bringing her to a dead stop. "How many people do you think you've killed, Cell?" Gohan asked her icily. "Millions? Billions? Can you even count that high?" He drove his knee up into her chest once, twice, three times before kicking her in the stomach with the point of his foot, letting go of her hands to send her stumbling back. "Give me a rough estimate. Because I'm going to hit you once for every single person you've murdered. Right now, I'm at a hundred three."
"Shut up!" Cell demanded as she brought her hand down toward Gohan in a chop down toward the top of his head. He sidestepped the attack and caught her elbow in his underarm, pinning him in place. Perfect Cell tried to pull out of his grip, only to be struck with a backhand.
"A hundred four," he struck her with a forehand slap across the face. "A hundred five," another backhand. "A hundred six," another forehand. "A hundred seven!" he let go of Perfect Cell's arm and drove his palm into her chest, cracking the black carapace and sending her flying back. Perfect Cell looked back and forth from Gohan to the crack in her chest, her mouth ever-widening in shock. "We're not even a tenth of the way to one percent," he told her. "Don't get scared now." Perfect Cell was scared. She was well on her way to having a full-blown panic attack as her entire understanding of reality collapsed in on itself.
'No,' she told herself, 'You can do this. You can figure this out. You're smarter. You have decades of experience. You have all of their techniques. You can't beat him in brute force but you can certainly beat him in skill. He's a baby for Perfection's sake!' She raised her hands toward Gohan who waited with his arms outstretched, making himself a perfect target. "Let's see how you like this, you little bastard!" she snapped as she raised her hands into the sky. She created a hundred glowing balls of ki, then a thousand, then ten thousand, filling the bright midday sky like stars. "Sokidan Overload!" She swung her hands down toward Gohan and the thousands of ki balls flew straight toward him. Gohan, seemingly more out of curiosity than of any actual fear of harm, flew up into the sky to avoid the attack. Perfect Cell had the balls chase after him, in completely Perfect control of her movements. She was constantly attempting to swarm Gohan or capture him yet he always evaded the grasp of her Sokidan Overload, effortlessly slipping in and out. At one point, he closed his eyes. Despite Perfect Cell's Perfect planning, she seemed oblivious to the fact that she was sending Gohan directly toward her. Then, as Gohan was right on top of her, she grabbed him in a death grip before he could escape. "Gotcha!" she cried. In the instant before the Sokidan Overload enveloped them, Gohan looked over her shoulder and saw another Perfect Cell burst out of the ground. While everyone had been distracted by the light show, Perfect Cell had used Tenshinhan's multiform technique to create a second one of herself and burrow underground without anyone's notice.
Perfect Cell and Gohan were completely enveloped in the explosion as every single Sokidan hit them dead on, yet the remaining Perfect Cell did not relent in her attack. She raised both her fists, each one glowing with pink malevolence like Freeza's Death Beam, and fired both into the cloud. Since they didn't come out the other side of the cloud, she had to assume that she'd hit Gohan dead on and laughed triumphantly, positive that she'd done some kind of damage.
"Makankousappou!" A yellow-purple spiral barreled out of the cloud of smoke and hit Perfect Cell in the left shoulder, causing her to cry out in pain. Piccolo laughed proudly and clapped like a father who had just seen his son hit a homerun. As Perfect Cell winced and whimpered while regenerating from the injury, Gohan walked out of the cloud almost completely unharmed. His gi was torn and he had a few superficial scratches on his forearms, like he'd been petting an unfriendly cat or playing with an overly-friendly dog whose owner didn't trim its nails properly. "Just so you know," Gohan told her, "I could have hit you between the eyes. I'm not going to, though. Because we're still only up to a hundred eight."
"Goku," Suno whispered to her wife as they watched the startling change that had come over their son, "Did you know this would happen?" Goku shook her head. "Do… do you think it's because of this transformation or…?" She couldn't actually say what she was thinking, mostly because it was too unpleasant to truly think about. Was this new attitude just because of his new power, was it because of Perfect Cell, or had this malevolence always been buried deep below the surface? When the battle was over, would they get their son back?
"Taiyoken!" Perfect Cell roared, flashing Gohan with a blinding light. Then she held one hand high overhead and created an enormous, familiar buzzing disc of death. "Kienzan!" she shrieked furiously as she swung it with all her might. The Kienzan flew straight and true toward Gohan… right into his outstretched hand. There was a high-pitched whine that caused Piccolo and Perfect Cell no shortage of discomfort as the disc met with Gohan's crackling aura, therefore never actually making contact with Gohan. He took the disc in both hands and bent it, the attack snapping almost immediately in half and showering onto the ground like shattered glass. Gohan took one step and was right on top of Perfect Cell in a flash, battering her with a rapid-fire series of punches to the stomach before grabbing her by the horns and headbutting her right in the face, five times in a row. He let go of Perfect Cell's face and she sagged to the ground onto her knees, so he roundhouse kicked her in the head to knock her into the dirt.
"That brings us up to two hundred ten," Gohan observed as Perfect Cell struggled to her feet once again. "Have you got anything else to throw at me? My knuckles are starting to get sore and they could use a break. Can you do the Genki Dama?" Perfect Cell spat blood into Gohan's face and flew into the sky while he was distracted.
"Shin Kikouhou!" she roared as Gohan sneered up at her. The shock wave from the blast sent everyone flying as a mile-wide, mile-deep square was blasted into the dirt. She was about to fire another one when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She spun around and felt Gohan's finger pressing against her cheek to see him standing behind her, smirking smugly and giving her a wave. Then he drove his fist into the small of her back and Perfect Cell heard something crack. Gohan drove the point of his elbow down into Cell's head and something crunched. She went shooting down toward the Earth, dropping straight into the hole she'd just made with the Shin Kikouhou while Gohan floated lazily back down to wait for her. Gohan waited for a few seconds and was about to make some snide remark when he felt the earth shaking under his feet. He wondered what stupid trick Perfect Cell was going to try next. Maybe blow up the Earth from down there? He'd see the glow of whatever attack she was planning and stop her with plenty of time. He was starting to think that he should skip the counting game and just hurry up and kill her. The thought was barely out of Gohan's head before something rose ominously out of the crater. It was Perfect Cell and not only had she healed herself but she had also increased her power dramatically.
As well as her size.
Perfect Cell was more than three times the size she had been before, with Gohan now barely coming up to her kneecap. She was also four times as broad, her body covered in bulging muscles and her head large and blockish. She seethed down at Gohan and flashed a malevolent, mad-eyed grin with teeth like tombstones.
"What do you think of me now, huh?" she boomed in a distorted voice. "Think you can still talk a big game?" Gohan… laughed. "What the hell's so funny?!" she demanded.
"If you want me to kill you that badly," Gohan said as he kept laughing, "All you had to do was ask. You didn't need to literally make yourself an easier target." Perfect Cell roared and swung down a fist the size of a small car at Gohan. Gohan sidestepped the blow effortlessly, barely pivoting his body to the side. He could have dodged the attack in his sleep.
"She's so much slower now," Tenshinhan observed as they watched Perfect Cell attempt to attack Gohan in her monstrous new form. She had pumped up her ki so much that it was possible that any blow to Gohan might actually cause him serious damage. It was an irrelevant observation, of course, because she had absolutely no chance of hitting him.
"She sacrificed speed for strength and power," Trunks noted as Gohan ducked under a ki blast from Perfect Cell's mouth and shut her up with an uppercut. "Just like I would have been in my Ultra Trunks form."
"Ultra Trunks?" Vegeta asked incredulously and with no small hint of disapproval. Trunks rolled his eyes.
"Oh, forgive me," he quipped dryly. "I forgot I was talking to the King of Modesty, Super Vegeta." Vegeta scoffed defensively.
Clearly having gotten bored of watching Perfect Cell break her own spirit as her mind-numbingly slow strikes grew more and more frantic, Gohan went back on the offensive. He rammed a spear strike into Perfect Cell's enormous shoulder, popping it out of the socket and making her bellow in pain. He smashed his foot down into her kneecap, snapping her knee and making her cry out in agony. Perfect Cell dropped to a knee and Gohan leaped up to drive his own knee into her jaw, dislocating it. Perfect Cell crumpled in the dirt and shriveled back to her normal size and lay there in agony as she regenerated from her wounds. While Gohan was deciding if it was time to end this or not, Perfect Cell was trapped in a logic loop.
'I can't beat him,' she thought hopelessly. 'He's too strong, too fast. I can't outfight him, I can't overpower him. I can't beat him. But I can't let him win. But I can't beat him. But I can't let him win. I can't. But I can't. I can't… I can't…' she was nearly catatonic as she spiraled further and further into madness when inspiration finally struck her. 'Yeees. It's the only way.'
"Kaaameee…" Gohan had started to say when Perfect Cell stood up. Despite all logical evidence to the contrary, Perfect Cell was… smiling. Even laughing. A deranged, maniacal giggle as she looked at Gohan with a psychotic strength of purpose in her eyes.
"I guess there's no point in denying it," she told him with purple blood foam flecking her lips, "I can't beat you, Gohan." Then she cocked her head to one side and her smile turned positively nightmarish. "So I guess we'll have to call it a draw!" Without warning, she ballooned to titanic proportions. Not figuratively as she had just been when she increased her power but literally, inflating herself rapidly into a nearly-perfect orb, with her limbs wiggling like little nubs. "In fifteen seconds, my self-destruct will go off and I'll blow up this entire planet!" Gohan glared up at her and brought his hands back to his side.
"Haaaameee…"
"Not so fast!" Perfect Cell interrupted in a sing-song voice with manic glee. "If you touch me, I'll blow up now!" She threw her head back and laughed as the realization hit Gohan and he slumped to his knees. This was his fault. He'd been a stupid, spoiled, selfish child and gotten everyone on Earth killed. It was all. His. Fault. "Looks like we all lose!" Perfect Cell gloated as he threw back his head and laughed. The weight of their own demise hit everyone, causing their arms to go slack and their knees to buckle. Nearly all of them had been dead before but, if the Earth was destroyed, that meant the Dragon Balls would be lost as well and none of them would be coming back.
'I'll never get home,' Trunks thought despondently. 'I'll never see my mother! I'll never defeat Cell! Never save my world!'
"The Empire dies with me after all," Vegeta muttered numbly in defeat. Tenshinhan, Launch, and Chaozu held one another in solemnity as Yamcha realized that he'd never get to see Chi-Chi again. He would never see his children grow up. Krillin despaired that he would never get to take up the Turtle School like Master Roshi wanted him to and Piccolo felt guilt wash over him. Even though he was no longer Earth's guardian, he still felt Kami's love for this planet and the old man's despair at his failure. Suno held onto Goku tightly and looked up at her wife with fearful eyes. Was there anything they could do? To her surprise… Goku smiled at her.
For Goku, everything moved in slow motion. She looked down and kissed Suno on the lips before slipping out of her arms. She patted Vegeta supportively on the shoulder with a smile on her face, sad that she'd never get to see him come around to be one of the good guys like she knew he could be. She gave Krillin a hug, hoping that they'd get to spar again someday. She hugged Yamcha, Tenshinhan, Launch, and Chaozu as well and gave Piccolo an appreciative nod for all that her old rival had done to help her in her battles and to make Gohan into the warrior he'd become today. None of them would be able to see what she'd done but she knew that they would feel it. She wished that there were time to visit Master Roshi one last time. To tell him how much he'd meant to her, how grateful she was for all the lessons he had taught her and for the first great battle of her life when he'd been disguised as Jackie Chun. To ask him why he'd disguised himself as Jackie Chun. But most of all, she'd wanted to tell Roshi that she loved him. For a second Grandpa, he was pretty great. There was no time, though. She put her fingertips to her forehead and, in a blink, she was in front of Gohan, her palm on Perfect Cell's stomach.
'All my fault,' Gohan thought to himself as he focused on Kaiou's ki. 'I have to fix–' but before he could move, Goku was standing in front of him. Gohan looked up at his mom, with her fingers still at her forehead and her other hand touching Cell and realized that she'd had the same idea. "M-mom," he whimpered as tears ran down his cheeks. "Mom, no!" he shook his head furiously and looked at her pleadingly. She smiled down at him, glowing with pride in her son.
"Gohan," she said softly as Perfect Cell struggled to look down over her inflated stomach and see what the hell was going on, "I'm so proud of you. I've been so happy for these years I got to spend watching you grow up." Gohan started to say something and she shook her head. "Listen to me, Gohan, and don't ever forget this: believe in yourself. Not the Gohan that I believe in and not in the me that believes in you. Have faith in the Son Gohan that believes in you." Then she looked up again, looking right at Suno. "Suno!" she called out. "I love you! Take care of each other!" Then she was gone. It was… quiet.
OoOoOoO
Kaiou was mowing his lawn and having a nice, normal, perfectly relaxing day. Then Goku showed up in the middle of his driveway with a giant green woman who was literally the size and shape of his own planet.
"Goku!" Kaiou screamed in shock. "What the hell?!" Goku smiled and shrugged bashfully.
"Sorry, Kaiou," she told him. "This was the only place I could think to take her!"
"Well you could have called first, you inconsiderate baboon!" Perfect Cell's eyes bugged out in her head as she looked around frantically. Where was she?! Why was the sky pink?! Who was Goku talking to?! What the hell was g–
OoOoOoO
"M-m-m–" Gohan stammered out as he tried to process what had just happened. Goku had taken Perfect Cell… somewhere. And she hadn't come back. So she was… she was… 'It's all my fault.' "MAMAAAAA!" Gohan howled with grief and despair, falling forward and burying his face in the dirt. He slammed his fists into the ground as he cried "Mama" over and over, his body wracked with sobs as tears streamed down his face. What was the point of all this power if he couldn't save anyone?! As the others came to the same realization, they gave way to their grief. Yamcha, Tenshinhan, Launch, and Chaozu wept openly. Piccolo lowered his head as a single tear rolled down his green cheek. Trunks bowed his head respectfully for Goku's sacrifice while Vegeta huffed and looked away in scorned rebuke.
'Damn you, Kakarot,' Vegeta thought miserably. 'Who am I supposed to fight now?' What was he supposed to do now? What was the point to his life without Kakarot? Fighting the boy?
"G-Goku…" Suno whimpered as she brought her hands up to her mouth. Her wife, her love, her whole world… she was just gone. Suno never thought she'd have to go through this again. She curled her hands into fists as tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes. She nearly gave into her despair before her eyes locked on Gohan and she put it away. She could grieve later. Her son needed her now. She started to walk toward Gohan and noticed Krillin out of the corner of her eye walking to her son as well. It was obvious by the moisture in his eyes and how tightly his fists were clenched that he'd just gone through the same emotional rigors. Even after all the years, he had still loved Goku.
"Hey," Krillin whispered as he knelt beside Gohan and rubbed his back gently in slow circles. "Hey, buddy. It's okay. I know you're gonna miss your mom. I will, too. Don't beat yourself up, okay? Your mom wouldn't want that. She did this because she loved you."
"That's right," Suno added, her voice choked with emotion as she put a hand on Gohan's shoulder. "It's going to be okay, sweety. I promise. We'll get through this together. Let's go home." Gohan sniffled and nodded, letting Krillin and Suno help him to his feet.
Tears were still trailing down Gohan's cheek, however, when a yellow beam of light flew over his shoulder and passed by everyone to hit Trunks square in the heart and come bursting out of his back. He fell to the ground with wide, empty eyes. Everyone stared at Trunks in shock before looking up… to see Perfect Cell looking smugly back at them. Her aura flared around her and crackled with lightning, just like Gohan's.
She threw her head back and laughed. She laughed in their faces. Relieved, astonished, hysterical laughter. She laughed as if she had heard the funniest joke in the history of creation. She laughed so hard that there were tears in her eyes.
"Ohhh… ohhh… oh man!" she wheezed out, still laughing as everyone gawked in horror. "That… oh, I did not know that was gonna happen!" Perfect Cell wiped a tear from her eye and shook her head. "I guess I owe Goku a thanks for letting me experience something new." She turned to them all and grinned. "So! Turns out, I can't be killed! As long as even one cell remains, I can fully regenerate. Oh, and I picked up Instant Transmission, too! Not… not quite sure how I pulled that one off but I'm not complaining. I'm better than Perfect now. From now on, you can call me Super Perfect Cell!" All the while, Vegeta looked down at Trunks' body in dismay as his son coughed up blood and went into his death throes.
"My son…" Vegeta muttered, "My son." His hands balled into fists and his body quivered with rage. 'How could I let this happen?!' He demanded himself furiously. 'He is my son! My blood! My heir! He has been taken from me! He sacrificed everything to come to this time! He actually believed in me, even when I treated him with nothing but scorn!' Black waves of shame washed over Vegeta and mixed self-loathing into his rage. 'Kakarot gave her life for her son while I did nothing for mine! I just stood here and watched him die!' Then he turned and looked at Super Perfect Cell murderously as the first few flickers of electricity crackled around him. 'Cell has deceived me, she has mocked my Saiyan ancestry and my royal bloodline, and made a fool of me in battle. But this! This ultimate insult will not go unpunished! She will die a thousand deaths for what she has done to my son!' Then Vegeta let out a wordless roar of rage, a blood curdling bellow of almighty fury and rocketed past everyone to attack Super Perfect Cell. He swung his hands forward and blasted her dead on with an enormous beam of yellow ki before he swung his hands furiously, lobbing Big Bang Attack after Big Bang Attack, destroying the landscape, all while screaming bloody murder. He screamed himself hoarse and attacked to exhaustion, firing blasts until he was a panting, lathering mess and his arms hung limply at his sides. When the smoke cleared, Super Perfect Cell was still standing there, smirking infuriatingly. She raised a finger and pointed it at Vegeta, her smirk broadening into a grin as her fingertip glowed.
"Vegeta, get back!" Gohan cried as he grabbed Vegeta by the back of his gi and tried to yank him away. Before he could get Vegeta completely clear of the blast, however, Perfect Cell's beam still caught Vegeta in the right arm, leaving it a bloody ruin that hung dead by his side. Gohan had been… too slow. Perfect Cell had actually gotten the drop on him. Was she as powerful as he was now? Gohan buried that fear and tossed Vegeta to Piccolo before stomping towards Super Perfect Cell in a cold rage. "You killed my mother," Gohan spat at her. Super Perfect Cell only chuckled, much more calm and confident than the first time they'd squared up like this.
"Hardly," she retorted as she strode towards him. "You could have killed me any time you wanted. Mommy's death is on your spiky little head, not mine. Besides, with the power boost I got from mommy's noble sacrifice, I'm more than a match for you now. I'm more powerful than I've ever been!"
"We'll see about that," Gohan shot back as he picked up the pace, running to Super Perfect Cell now. "If you can regenerate from anything then I'll utterly annihilate you! Down to the very last scrap of DNA!"
"Ha!" Super Perfect Cell let out a derisive bark of laughter as they barreled toward one another like runaway freight trains on a collision course. "Come on, Son Gohan! Show me what you've got!"