16 stepped forward, his massive boots cracking the pavement with every step. The green armor plating covering his heavy chest hummed with an intense, steady vibration as his internal sensors calculated the staggering leap in Cell's power output.
"18. 21," 16 said, his voice deep, flat, and absolute. "Leave this place immediately."
18 backed away slightly, her teeth gritted as she stared at the newly evolved monster in disbelief. "16, what are you saying?! He just swallowed 17! We can't just—"
"17 is gone," 16 interrupted, his artificial eyes locking onto Semi-Perfect Cell with cold, unwavering focus. "This creature's power has grown far beyond your parameters. If he absorbs you as well, his evolution will be complete, and no force on this planet will be capable of stopping him. Fall back. I will buy you the time to escape."
21's face paled behind her glasses. She clutched her diagnostic pad tightly to her chest, her pink eyes flickering between 16 and Cell. "16... his bio-energy density has increased three-fold! Engaging him alone carries a ninety-nine percent probability of complete structural destruction!"
"My programming is clear," 16 replied calmly. "I exist to destroy Son Goku, but I cannot allow this threat to destroy the world first. Go."
Before 18 could object further, 21 grabbed her arm, pulling her back toward the abandoned van. "He's right, 18! We have to move!" With a final, agonizing glance over her shoulder, 18 retreated alongside 21 down the boulevard.
Semi-Perfect Cell chuckled, a deep, resonant sound that shook the surrounding storefront windows. He crossed his thick arms over his broadened chest, looking down at 16 with pure disdain.
"How cute," Cell sneered, his human-like mouth twisting into a grotesque grin. "An outdated piece of junk attempting to stand between a perfect organism and his destiny. Do you really believe those metal joints can hold back power like this?"
"I am not organic," 16 said, his forearms suddenly detaching with a sharp, heavy CLACK as he aimed his hollowed wrists straight at Cell's chest. "I feel no fear, nor do I feel pain."
BOOM!
Rocket-propelled fists detached from 16's arms, accelerating with deafening speed through the air. The brutal projectile strike caught Semi-Perfect Cell dead-center in the torso, the kinetic impact blasting the newly transformed monster straight back through a row of concrete pillars!
High above the street, Escallion descended through the lingering smoke alongside Piccolo, his green Ki pulsating rhythmically around his white-and-gold armor. His yellow-and-black ringed eyes narrowed sharply as he watched 16 engage the monster alone.
Piccolo didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. Turning over his shoulder, he snapped orders to the rest of the team.
"Krillin! Tien!" Piccolo barked, his voice echoing over the roar of Cell's rising Ki. "Follow 18 and 21! If he absorbs them, there will be no hope left."
"Right!" Krillin nodded, horror giving way to urgent focus. "Stay safe, guys!"
Without another word, Krillin and Tien took off into the air, flying at top speed after the retreating androids to cover their escape route.
High above, Escallion descended from the sky, his green Ki pulsating in a dense, roaring aura around his white-and-gold battle armor. His golden Super Saiyan hair flared rigid against the wind, his yellow-and-black ringed eyes locked onto Semi-Perfect Cell with icy tactical precision.
He landed heavily beside Android 16, his arms unwrapping from his chest plate as he dropped into a low, lethal stance
Piccolo touched down on 16's opposite flank, shedding his heavy turban and cape onto the concrete, his Namekian muscles tensed to their absolute limit.
"You're not fighting this thing alone, machine," Escallion said, his voice deep and echoing with stacked primal authority. "We end this parasite here."
"Understood," 16 replied flatly, his forearm re-attaching with a loud CLACK as his power core hummed to life. "Coordinating attack parameters now."
From the cloud of dust and shattered rubble down the street, Semi-Perfect Cell stepped out, brushing crushed concrete off his broadened shoulder. His human-like jaw twisted into a wide, arrogant sneer as he took in the three fighters arrayed against him.
"Three on one?" Cell laughed, a deep, mocking sound that shook the surrounding skyscrapers. "How desperate! You think adding a broken Saiyan and a green freak to this rust bucket makes a bit of difference against my newly perfected form?"
"Talk less," Escallion growled, his green Ki exploding into a massive shockwave beneath his boots. "Die more!"
Before Cell could finish his smirk, all three moved as a single, coordinated unit.
Escallion struck first, vanishing in an instantaneous green blur and reappearing directly in Cell's face. He launched a ruthless, point-blank left hook aimed at Cell's temple. Cell raised his massive forearm to block, but the raw kinetic impact forced the bio-android onto his back foot.
Simultaneously, 16 rocketed in from the left, driving a heavy, steel-clad knee straight into Cell's exposed ribs with a deafening impact.
With a casual, lightning-fast flick of his massive arms, Cell caught 16 across the chest with a back-fist that shattered his green armor plating, sending the heavy android skidding hundreds of feet through the concrete storefronts. In the very same motion, Cell's heavy palm caught Escallion flush across the jaw, the immense force of Semi-Perfect Cell's newly acquired power snapping the Saiyan's head back and hurling him like a meteor through the wreckage of the boulevard.
Piccolo, coming down from above with his double-axe handle, hit a brick wall of absolute, impenetrable Ki. Cell didn't even bother looking up; he simply raised one hand upward and caught Piccolo's combined fists in a crushing, single-handed vice grip.
"Is that really the best the three of you can manage?" Cell chuckled, his human-like jaw expanding into a grotesque, mocking grin as he lifted Piccolo off the ground by his wrists. "You're fighting a masterpiece now. Your strikes feel like nothing more than a slight breeze."
With a callous flick of his wrist, Cell slammed Piccolo violently into the asphalt, digging a deep trench into the street before kicking the Namekian's body straight into the air and blasting him away with a casual wave of dark purple energy.
Cell wiped a speck of dust from his widened shoulder, his pink eyes gleaming with dark arrogance as he looked down the long, ruined avenue.
"Now," Cell purred, his chitinous tail lashing behind him as he turned toward the direction Krillin, Tien, 18, and 21 had fled. "Where did my bride run off to?"
Out of the smoking rubble at the end of the block, Escallion forced himself back to his feet.
His golden hair flickered wildly as his green Ki flared back to life around his white-and-gold armor, his yellow-and-black ringed eyes burning with absolute, unrelenting defiance as he wiped a line of blood from his lip.
"We're not... finished with you yet, parasite," Escallion growled as he dropped back into his Yardratian stance.
The raw power gap of Semi-Perfect Cell was staggering, but retreat was not an option.
"I will not let you take another step down this road," Escallion growled, his voice echoing with a double-layered primal resonance.
He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, drawing a deep, deliberate breath to center his spirit. Mastering the Yardratian principle of Ki control, he stopped trying to suppress the volatile storm of his primal Ikari state within the Super Saiyan shell. Instead, he opened the floodgates completely, forcing his green Ki far past its normal threshold!
BOOM!
The sky above West City turned a violent shade of dark emerald as a towering, catastrophic pillar of green energy erupted from Escallion's body, tearing through the clouds and shattering every remaining glass facade within a three-mile radius. The immense gravitational pressure of his aura split the concrete beneath his boots into deep, jagged ravines, causing crushed boulders and debris to levitate in the glowing green atmosphere.
His golden hair flared higher, infused with an intense emerald sheen. The luminous green aura surrounding his white-and-gold armor expanded into a roaring, jagged storm of raw power, crackling with static energy. His yellow-and-black-ringed, blue-teal eyes burned with an icy, terrifying intensity.
Cell turned back, his pink eyes widening slightly as the intense wind pressure of Escallion's rising power blasted across the boulevard.
"What's this?" Cell sneered, though his tail twitched with subtle annoyance. "Straining your weak Saiyan body beyond its breaking point? You're only accelerating your own death!"
"I'm buying time!" Escallion roared.
In a fraction of a microsecond, Escallion vanished into thin air.
He materialized directly in front of Cell, his bare, scar-marked right fist shrouded in a dense, hyper-compressed ball of green Ki. Before Cell could raise a full guard, Escallion drove the strike straight into Cell's chest plate with apocalyptic force.
BANG!
The explosive impact generated a kinetic shockwave that leveled the surrounding street blocks. Cell gasped as his feet were ripped from the ground, his heavy frame hurled backward through four consecutive concrete skyscrapers before tumbling into an open plaza.
Escallion was already there waiting for him as Cell broke through the final wall. Pivoting on his heel, Escallion slammed a violent roundhouse kick into Cell's neck, forcing the bio-android into the dirt, and immediately followed up by mounting his back and driving a heavy, Ki-infused sledgehammer blow straight onto Cell's spine.
"Ngh... damn you!" Cell snarled from the crater, his purple aura exploding to force Escallion off him.
Escallion flipped backward, landing lightly on his white-and-gold boots, his expression getting more and more angry and feral.
Cell erupted from the crater in a cloud of shattered concrete, his yellow aura surging with violent, unbridled rage. His human-like jaw twisted in fury as he glared at the Saiyan standing before him.
"You miserable, persistent parasite!" Cell roared, his voice booming across the ruined plaza. "I am the pinnacle of evolution, and you dare touch me like a common thug?!"
Escallion didn't answer with words,
His breathing came in heavy, jagged rasps as white steam hissed continuously off his bare, scar-marked arms. The golden hair framing his face vibrated violently, the subtle green sheen in his aura deepening into a darker, more volatile emerald storm. His yellow-and-black-ringed, blue-teal eyes shrank, the black pupil rims dilating as his expression hardened into an unhinged, feral snarl.
Cell lunged forward, throwing a ruthless, high-speed combination of blows aimed at Escallion's skull.
Instead of executing clean parries or fluid evasions, Escallion abandoned all defensive form. With a feral, guttural roar, he charged straight through Cell's attack, taking a crushing right hook directly to his cheekplate just to get inside the bio-android's guard.
The impact cracked Escallion's lip, but he didn't even flinch. Snapping his head back around, his eyes burning with pure, wild aggression, Escallion grabbed Cell by the throat with a vice-like grip, his sharp nails digging directly into the chitin.
"WHAT?!" Cell gasped, his eyes wide with sudden shock.
Escallion pulled Cell in close and slammed a brutal, point-blank headbutt directly onto the bridge of Cell's nose, the bone-shattering collision sending a shockwave tearing through the air. Before Cell could recoil from the shock, Escallion drove his knee repeatedly into Cell's ribs, each strike delivering an explosive burst of green Ki that rattled the monster's internal frame.
From the edge of the shattered plaza, a sudden burst of concrete debris exploded into the air as Piccolo forced himself up, clutching his bruised ribs. Blood trickled down the Namekian's arm, but his dark eyes instantly locked onto the chaotic storm of green aura tearing through Cell down the boulevard.
"He's completely lost control..." Piccolo muttered, his breath coming in heavy grunts. "And somehow he is actually holding Cell back."
"The Saiyan's power output is declining rapidly due to internal physical trauma," 16 stated in his flat, mechanical monotone. "However, his current physical pressure is holding the biological threat in place. We must optimize this window."
"Right!" Piccolo roared, shedding the last torn remnants of his heavy wrist weights.
Piccolo bounded forward, his speed exploding into a green blur across the ruined plaza. Coming in from Cell's blind side, he extended his Namekian left arm, stretching it out like a thick, muscular whip. The arm wrapped tightly around Cell's waist, pinning the bio-android's arms against his torso and locking him in place!
"What?! Let go of me, green worm!" Cell shrieked, struggling violently against the Namekian's binding grip.
"Not a chance!" Piccolo yelled, digging his boots deep into the concrete and straining every muscle in his body to hold the evolved monster firm.
Before Cell could flex his aura to break the stretch-arm hold, Android 16 was already in position. The massive android dropped into a low, iron stance directly behind Cell, extending both arms forward. With a heavy CLACK, his forearms detached, revealing the high-caliber internal barrels beneath his wrist joints.
"Hell's Flash!" 16 boomed.
Two massive, incinerated heat-energy beams erupted from 16's hollow arms, blasting point-blank into Cell's lower back! The fiery explosion consumed the bio-android in a roaring column of bright yellow plasma, scorching his chitinous shell and sending a screech of pain tearing from his jaw.
With Cell pinned from behind by 16's heavy barrage and bound by Piccolo's extended arm, Escallion didn't hesitate. Driven by his feral, unhinged state, he let out a terrifying, dual-layered roar. Stacking every last drop of his green Ki into his fist, he lunged forward to smash through Cell's remaining guard.
"Dammit! Get OFF me, you insufferable bugs!" Cell shrieked, his face twisting into a grotesque mask of fury.
With a deafening roar, Semi-Perfect Cell unleashed a massive, omnidirectional explosive wave. A violent purple sphere of raw kinetic force detonated outward from his core, shattering the remaining plaza into a crater of floating dust and pulverized stone.
The pressure blasted Piccolo's stretched arm backward, forcing the Namekian to release his grip as he was hurled across the asphalt. Escallion, mid-strike, took the brunt of the kinetic explosion point-blank; his green aura flickered violently as he was blown through a concrete pillar, crashing heavily onto his back.
Through the thick, burning cloud of plasma and smoke, Cell didn't even pause. His pink eyes locked onto Android 16, who was still recovering from the recoil of his Hell's Flash.
"You piece of scrap iron... DIE!"
Cell brought a finger up and snapped it forward, firing a lethal, concentrated Death Beam straight through the air. The ray of Ki cut through the smoke like a laser, drilling directly into Android 16's chest armor with a brutal, sparking CRACK!
The beam blasted clean through 16's internal energy reactor, sending torrents of blue sparks and hydraulic fluid spraying out across the street. The heavy android staggered back, his mechanical eyes flickering erratically as his system warnings flared red, before his massive frame collapsed onto the scorched earth with a heavy metallic crash.
Escallion forced himself back up onto his white-and-gold boots, his golden hair trembling as white steam hissed off his bloodied arms. His yellow-and-black ringed eyes locked onto Cell through the clearing smoke, his feral snarl deepening as he felt the energy signatures shift across West City.
Escallion locked his boots into the shattered concrete, his stance completely rigid despite the white steam hissing from his skin. He raised a single open palm toward Cell, his hand completely steady, refusing to tremble under the extreme physical toll of his stacked transformation.
Power pooled instantly into his palm, glowing with an intense, blinding white-hot center framed by heavy golden-green aura sparks. The surrounding air pressure warped violently around his hand, the ground fracturing further beneath the sheer concentration of compressed Ki.
Fixing Cell with an icy, unhinged glare, Escallion placed his other hand firmly onto his forearm to lock the trajectory into place.
"DIE!" Escallion roared.
A devastating, high-velocity beam of golden-green energy erupted from his palm with a deafening roar, tearing through the air and incinerating the shattered asphalt directly beneath its path as it streaked straight toward Semi-Perfect Cell.
The roaring golden-green blast tore straight through the city, annihilating entire blocks of concrete and soaring high up into the sky, carving a massive trench through the cloud line that lit up the entire atmosphere.
Semi-Perfect Cell was caught dead-center in the monstrous torrent. The bio-android shrieked in outrage as the white-hot core of the blast incinerated his outer shell, dragging his massive frame straight up into the stratosphere along the beam's trajectory.
Below, the recoil of the attack split the earth wide open around Escallion's boots, a massive sonic boom shattering every piece of glass for miles as the beam receded into the upper atmosphere, leaving behind a glowing, superheated vacuum in the sky.
The violent golden-green aura surrounding Escallion flickered, cracked like glass, and vanished completely. His flared golden hair subsided, reverting to its natural dark state, and his yellow-and-black ringed, blue-teal eyes closed as his body finally gave out under the extreme toll of stacking his forms.
Escallion collapsed onto his knees, dropping forward onto the scorched earth, unconscious. White steam hissed continuously off his skin, his breathing shallow and ragged.
Piccolo rushed over, landing heavily beside the fallen Saiyan. He dropped to one knee and checked Escallion's neck, feeling a steady, albeit faint, pulse.
"Damn it... he pushed himself way too far," Piccolo growled, turning Escallion onto his back to clear his airway. "His Ki is practically bone-dry, but he's still breathing."
Without wasting a second, Piccolo turned his attention toward Android 16. The massive machine lay completely motionless a few feet away, blue fluid and sparks still leaking out from the jagged hole in his chest plate where Cell's Death Beam had drilled through his energy core.
Piccolo knelt over 16's quiet frame, inspecting the damage. 16's artificial eyes were dark, his core whirring with a low, dying hum.
"Hey! Can you hear me?" Piccolo demanded, placing a hand on 16's shoulder.
"System... core... critical..." 16's voice rasped in a broken, static-laced metallic pulse, his eyes flickering dim red for a brief moment. "Emergency power... active... mobility... offline..."
"Hang on," Piccolo said grimly, looking back up into the superheated trench left in the sky by Escallion's massive blast. The atmosphere above still glowed with lingering green sparks. But the Super-Namek knew better. "Cell's not dead. We have to get out of here right now."